Chuck Palahniuk - Lullaby: a novel

Another house, the New England saltbox on Eton Court, six bedrooms, four baths, pine-paneled entryway, and blood running down the kitchen walls, she's sold that house eight times in the past four years. To the new owner, she says, "Got to put you on hold for a minute," and she hits the red button. Helen, she's wearing a white suit and shoes, but not snow white. It's more the white of downhill skiing in Banff with a private car and driver on call, fourteen pieces of matched luggage, and a suite at the Hotel Lake Louise. To the doorway, our hero says, "Mona? Moonbeam?" Louder, she says, "Spirit-Girl?"

She drums her pen against the folded newspaper page on her desk and says, "What's a three-letter word for 'rodent'?"

The police scanner gargles words, mumbles and barks, repeating "Copy?" after every line. Repeating "Copy?"

Helen Boyle shouts, "This coffee is not going to cut it."

In another hour, she needs to be showing a Queen Anne, five bedrooms, with a mother-in-law apartment, two gas fireplaces, and the face of a barbiturate suicide that appears late at night in the powder room mirror. After that, there's a split-level ranch with FAG heat, a sunken conversation pit, and the reoccurring phantom gunshots of a double homicide that happened over a decade ago. This is all in her thick daily planner, thick and bound in what looks like red leather. This is her record of everything. She takes another sip of coffee and says, "What do you call this? Swiss Army mocha? Coffee is supposed to taste like coffee."

Mona comes to the doorway with her arms folded across her front and says, "What?"

And Helen says, "I need you to swing by"she shuffles some fact sheets on her blotter"swing by 4673 Willmont Place. It's a Dutch Colonial with a sunroom, four bedrooms, two baths, and an aggravated homicide."

The police scanner says, "Copy?"

"Just do the usual," Helen says, and she writes the address on a note card and holds it out. "Don't resolve anything. Don't burn any sage. Don't exorcise shit." Mona takes the note card and says, "Just check it for vibes?"

Helen slashes the air with her hand and says, "I don't want anybody going down any tunnels toward any bright light. I want these freaks staying right here, on this astral plane, thank you." She looks at her newspaper and says, "They have all eternity to be dead. They can hang around in that house another fifty years and rattle some chains."

Helen Hoover Boyle looks at the blinking hold light and says, "What did you pick up at the six-bedroom Spanish yesterday?"

And Mona rolls her eyes at the ceiling. She pushes out her jaw and blows a big sigh, straight up to flop the hair on her forehead, and says, "There's a definite energy there. A subtle presence. But the floor plan is wonderful." A black silk cord loops around her neck and disappears into the corner of her mouth. And our hero says, "Screw the floor plan."

Forget those dream houses you only sell once every fifty years. Forget those happy homes. And screw subtle: cold spots, strange vapors, irritable pets. What she needed was blood running down the walls. She needed ice-cold invisible hands that pull children out of bed at night. She needed blazing red eyes in the dark at the foot of the basement stairs. That and decent curb appeal. The bungalow at 521 Elm Street, it has four bedrooms, original hardware, and screams in the attic. The French Normandy at 7645 Weston Heights has arched windows, a butler's pantry, leaded-glass pocket doors, and a body that appears in the upstairs hallway with multiple stab wounds. The ranch-style at 248 Levee Placefive bedrooms, four and a half baths with a brick patioit has the reappearing blood coughed up on the master bathroom walls after a drain cleaner poisoning. Distressed houses, Realtors call them. These houses that never sold because no one liked to show them. No Realtor wanted to host an open house there, risk spending any time there alone. Or these were the houses that sold and sold again every six months because no one could live there. A good string of these houses, twenty or thirty exclusives, and Helen could turn off the police scanner. She could quit searching the obituaries and the crime pages for suicides and homicides. She could stop sending Mona out to check on every possible lead. She could just kick back and find a five-letter word for "equine."

"Plus I need you to pick up my cleaning," she says. "And get some decent coffee." She points her pen at Mona and says, "And out of respect for professionalism, leave the little Rasta doohickeys at home."

Mona pulls the black silk cord until a quartz crystal pops out of her mouth, shining and wet. She blows on it, saying, "It's a crystal. My boyfriend, Oyster, gave it to me."

And Helen says, "You're dating a boy named Oyster?"

And Mona drops the crystal so it hangs against her chest and says, "He says it's for my own protection." The crystal soaks a darker wet spot on her orange blouse.

"Oh, and before you go," Helen says, "get me Bill or Emily Burrows on the phone."