I crouched beside Patty, clasped her hands and wished her all the best. Then I returned to the catwalk. "Uncle Mort has left us now."
Mort jumped in front of me, waving his arms. I walked through him.
"She's ignoring you," another voice said.
"I'm waiting for a new spirit to make contact," I continued. "I can sense them just beyond the veil." I pretended to scan the room, to get a look at the new arrival without letting on I'd heard him. More secrets of the successful spiritualist.
A young man had climbed onto the catwalk. Dressed in a striped Henley shirt and cargo shorts, he was about twenty, stocky, with manicured beard stubble. A frat boy, I guessed. A ghost, I knew. The fact that no one noticed him sauntering down the catwalk gave it away.
I continued to survey the room. "A spirit is trying to break through the veil..."
"Don't bother, buddy," Mort said to the other ghost. "She may be a necromancer, but she needs some serious remedial training."
"Actually, I hear she's very good. Comes from a long line of powerful necros."
"Yeah? Well, it skipped a generation."
"I have a name," I intoned, eyes half-closed. "Is there a Belinda in the audience?" In seat L15, if my sources were correct.
"See?" Mort said. "She doesn't even know we're here."
"Oh, she knows." The frat boy's voice carried a burr of condescension. "Don't you, Red?"
"Do I have a Belinda in the audience? Hoping to contact her father?"
A bingo-hall shriek as an elderly woman—in L15— leapt up. I made my way over to her. Mort stomped back to his afterlife. The frat boy stayed.
After the show, I strode down the backstage hall, an icy water bottle pressed to my cheek.
My assistant, Tara, scampered along beside me. "We have a ten a.m. tomorrow with the Post Intelligencer, then a two o'clock pretape with KCPQ. Friday's show is totally sold-out, but you can plug the October one in Portland."