Last Call (Last Call 1)

Crane put it down on the bedside table. "I don't want any." The smell of coffee hung in the air like smoke, and he couldn't get out of his mind the image of a coffee cup on a stove set on low.

And paramedics, and an ambulance, and after that a bottle to keep him from remembering his dreams.

"That was a line from a joke," he said irritably. " 'Wood eye, wood eye.' " Diana stared at him blankly, apparently never having heard the joke herself. How could she not ever have heard it? " 'Hunchback, hunchback' is the last line," he snapped. "I've also heard it as 'Harelip, harelip.' "

Mavranos had walked in from the next room, and Crane saw him exchange a look with Dinh. That's right, Arky, he thought, I'm going crazy—talking about hunchbacks and harelips. Damn my soul, I would move heaven and earth for a—

The telephone rang on the bedside table, and everyone except Crane jumped. Dinh started toward it, but Crane was closer and snatched it up.

"Hello?" he said.

" 'Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,' " crooned the voice on the telephone, " 'Save Me, save only Me?' "

Crane recognized the lines. They were from Susan's favorite poem, Thompson's "The Hound of Heaven."

And of course he recognized the voice.

It's my wife, he thought.

I shouldn't talk to her.

Why not?

Because it's not my wife, he told himself. Remember? It's drink, or Death, or something that's both of those things. So I can't even talk to her. But what if it's her, a bit of the real Susan, too! Maybe it really is her ghost, and the bad stuff has been laminated onto her.

And even if it's not her at all, what if drink can do a convincing imitation of her? I'm probably going to die tomorrow, after I've failed to do this stupid card trick for the third time, after my father kicks me out of my body. Can't I at least talk to this thing for a couple of minutes, over the phone? What's the harm of just listening to what it has to say? And it might have some information we need. And it sounds so much like Susan, and I'm so tired, that I know I can make myself believe that it is Susan. If everyone would just leave me alone.

Finally he spoke. "Just a sec," he said into the phone, then put his palm over the mouthpiece. "This is private," he told the other three, "do you mind?"

"Jesus, Scott," said Mavranos, "that's not—"

"Do you mind?" Crane repeated.

"I mind," said Diana, her voice breaking. "Scott, for God's sake—"

"Well, if I can't even—all I'm—" He shook his head as if to clear it. "Damn it, go mind in the other room, would you?"

For several seconds Mavranos and Diana and Dinh stared at him; then Mavranos jerked his head toward the connecting doorway, and the three of them silently filed through it and closed the door.

"We're alone," Crane said into the mouthpiece.

"What do they say," Susan's voice asked, "in a bar, at ten to two, when it's your last chance to get a drink?"

"They say 'last call.' " Crane was trying to be calm, but his voice was shaky.

"This is last call," said Susan. "This is the last time I'll call you. After you hang up, I'm either gone forever or with you forever."

"You're—um, you're a ghost," said Crane. He wished he could think clearly. His false eye stung—he hadn't washed it or irrigated the cavity since Wednesday; he knew he was just asking for meningitis—and his leg ached and he could feel blood leaking out of the bandage below his right ribs. A wave of exhaustion made him close his eyes.

"So would you be, a ghost, if you'd come with me. Forever, whole again. Go to the card game, why not? Pretend you turned me down—go ahead and stack the deck again, if you want, but leave it in your purse. Who cares what hands go where? And have a drink …"

" 'And when you're mine,' " he said, quoting another poem Susan had liked, " 'I'll kiss you in my glass, fair goddess Wine.' "

"I'll kiss you back. 'It's even better when you help.' " Now she was quoting Lauren Bacall from To Have and Have Not. " 'Oh, whistle and I'll come to you, my lad.' " That was from a ghost story. Well, this was a ghost story.

"I know how to whistle," he said dreamily. "Just put your lips to the bottle and suck." It warmed him to know that all this was making sense to her, as it would not to anyone outside the once-cozy bounds of their marriage. This had to be Susan's genuine ghost.