The Sleeping and the Dead by Jeff Crook Page B

you from?”
    â€œArizona,” he said. “But my parents are from Guatemala.”
    Walter returned from the back with a quart of Miller Genuine High-Life tucked under his scarecrow arm. “By God, you do clean up nice, Miss Jackie,” he said, sucking his diamond tooth and looking me up and down. He edged up beside me and breathed some gin fumes my way. “I honest to God thought sure enough you was a junkie.” He touched my arm just above the elbow. “But God damn if you ain’t looking fine today.”
    â€œYou rent to junkies, Mr. Pinch?”
    â€œWhen they pay cash money,” he said. “Beggars can’t be choosers, I always say. What you say, Nachos?”
    â€œShe is very pretty,” Mynor said without looking at me. He bagged each quart of Tecate in its own brown paper sack, as though I were going to drink them outside on the curb. “A little skinny.” He shrugged apologetically.
    â€œShit, I like skinny women. You could’ve pushed my ex-wife through a keyhole, God rest her soul.” Walter screwed off the top of his quart bottle and took a swig, looking at me with one eye closed, then sat heavily in an old split-cane chair in the corner by the door. It looked like it had been placed there just for his use. “I like your hat. What’s GMPI? Is that the police?”
    I gave Mynor two of my tens. “You’ve been here seven years?” He nodded and handed me my change. “You ever see any ghosts?”
    â€œNo, but we get a lot of shoplifters.”
    â€œYou seen a ghost, Miss Jackie?” Walter asked.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe.”
    â€œI lived in that apartment near eight years, I never saw nothing,” he said. He looked like he was scared I might ask for my money back.
    â€œYou ever have trouble with that bedroom door coming open by itself, Mr. Pinch?”
    â€œNo, but I kept it open most times. Living all by myself, you know,” he said. His rheumy yellow eyes narrowed and he leaned forward in his chair. “But this ain’t the first time. You seen one before, ain’t you?” He leaned the chair back against the wall and put his hand on the pocket where he kept that bottle of gin. “Was you born with a caul over your face?”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA caul. A veil over your head. My granny always said a child born with a veil can see the dead.”
    â€œIt’s true,” Mynor said. “My mother says it’s also a sign of good luck, and that you won’t die from drowning. She was born with a veil.” He slid my bags across the counter but I didn’t pick them up. What Mynor said had given me a chill. Back in my rescue training days in the Coast Guard, the instructors used to call me “unsinkable.” I wasn’t the biggest or the strongest, and I sure as hell wasn’t the best swimmer, but every time it looked like I was about to go under for the last time, I’d pop back up and keep going. That’s the only reason I graduated from that course.
    â€œThat’s just crazy, Nachos. A woman with a caul ain’t got no good luck. It just means she haunted,” Walter said. He took another swig of Miller like he needed it in the worst way, then wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. “I had an auntie born with a veil—dead folk coming round drove her so crazy she hung herself in a closet. Left three babies my mama had to take care of.”
    â€œMy mother never said anything about a caul,” I said. I took my bags. I didn’t want to talk about it. It had been my experience that talking about my special friends sometimes made them appear. I hadn’t said my grandfather’s name aloud in twenty years.
    â€œMe, I got no truck with the dead,” Walter said to the air above his head. He downed another slug of beer and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his pinstriped suit. “I knowed a down-low man was staying in a