Dead Men Scare Me Stupid Read Online Free PDF Page A

gagged and
ready to hire me, all apparently kidnapped from other detectives’ offices.
    I started to
rethink my position on all this. What exactly is wrong with people helping you?
When did that become a bad thing? What am I, nuts?
    The capper was
when my girl came to visit later that day.
    “Are these your
friends, Franklin?” she asked when she saw Ed and Fred bringing in the next
bound and gagged client for me to interview.
    “No.”
    The ghosts looked
hurt. “We’re not?” asked Fred.
    “Well...” I
thought of all the great new stuff they’d just gotten me, “…in a way, maybe,
but…”
    She looked at
them and sniffed. She plainly didn’t think much of my new friends.
    I haven’t told
you about my girl, Myrna, because… well… I’m kind of embarrassed about her. She
looks awful. And her language would embarrass a sailor. And I don’t mean a
regular sailor. I mean one of those sailors who don’t embarrass easily. But,
beggars can’t be choosers, the Good Book says. That’s how I ended up with
Myrna.
    Anyway, by the
end of the day the two ghosts had managed to inadvertently insult her more than
I had in my entire life. They called her a “broad”, engaged in playful
wrestling matches with her, poked her in the ass with the wrong fork during
dinner, yelled obscenities up her dress, and kept advising her, as one friend
to another, to take the mask off because Halloween was over.
    Finally she had
had enough. She stormed out, throwing her engagement ring back at me and saying
she would never darken my door again. Hey, I thought, these ghosts are all
right. I’d been trying to get her to do that for a year. Not only that, but it
was a previous boyfriend who had bought that ring for her, not me. So I was up
one ring on the deal.
    I decided right
then and there that I had been a fool to resist. A couple of ghosts were
probably just what I had needed all along.
    “From now on,
we’re partners,” I said, shaking their clammy hands. “Welcome to the firm.”
    They looked at me
with surprise, and, unless I imagined it, a little dismay.
    I got on the
phone to order some little desks for them.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    I don’t know how
I lived all those years without slaves. I honestly don’t. It’s a little thing,
but it makes all the difference if you want to live the good life.
    From the moment I
got the Spirit World working for me, my life became a breeze. Anything I wanted
just floated into my hands. Things I didn’t want anymore were quickly taken
away. And if anything got in my path, it was violently hurled aside by an
unseen force.
    “Scare that guy,”
I would say regally as I walked down Main Street with the fellas. “Bring me a
beer. Knock those children out of my way.” And all my wishes instantly came
true. It was wonderful. I was finally living the kind of life Frank Burly
deserved. Finally life was fair.
    I had Ed and Fred
doing everything for me: doing all the legwork on my cases, making sure my clients
paid their bills on time, painting my house the “Color of the Week”, preparing
my meals and snacks, even bathing and dressing me and my clients. You name
something a slave can do for his beloved master and they were doing it for me.
    “No,” I would say,
“I think the couch would look better over there. No, second thoughts, back
where it was is better. Tell you what, why don’t you keep moving it back and
forth like that. I like that. The constant movement appeals to my aesthetic
sense.”
    And they had to do
it, because it was helping me, see? Of course, they did their share of griping.
All slaves do that, I’m told. But every time they complained, all I had to do
was remind them of why they were here.
    “Hey, listen,
Burly…” Ed would begin, after I had told him to put in a new lawn, for example
– the one he had put in last week wasn’t new anymore. It had birds on it now -
but before he could get any farther I would stifle his complaints with a wave
of my hand.
    “You want