A Profitable Deal*

***

The woman’s voice was trembling. She was nervous, fidgeting with her handbag. Every now and then she broke off into explanations that she didn’t really believe in any of this. She was just scared.

I always let that part of the conversation go in one ear and out the other. Sometimes all my clients want is to talk it out. If they notice that someone is listening to them, sympathizing, treating them with understanding, the sheer surrealism of the situation and the absurdity of their stories will dawn on them. They’ll thank me for my attention, say they’ll call again very soon, and leave. They can repeat this algorithm for years. If you listen to them.

So when the conversation reaches the point where I’m told, “I don’t really believe in this, but something strange is happening in my apartment and I can’t explain it…”—I start thinking about eternal things. The client gets worked up, tries to interest me, vividly describes exactly what creaks they hear at night and what, precisely, they thought they saw in the mirror.

“…and that’s when I realized it was scratching on the other side of the window, you understand? The other side! And I live on the fifth floor,” the woman looks at me expressively and meaningfully, waiting for a reaction. I have none. I’m simply waiting for the moment when I can name my price and agree on a house call.

“You’ll come to me, right? I’ll pay. How much do you charge?”

I name the amount and write down her address.

“I’ll come tomorrow. You’ll let me into the apartment and leave. That’s how it has to be.”

My partner used to think all of this needed to be said in a mysterious, portentous tone. I use an everyday, cold one. It works better.

The woman nods frequently, mumbles her “goodbye-thank-you-see-you-tomorrow,” and I leave.

Of course, I’m not going to prepare for anything. I used to, back when I worked with a partner. My colleague took all of this almost as seriously as the clients did. He drew protective symbols on himself, meditated, collected various stupid items in his bag. He even had a will that specified exactly how his body should be destroyed if he died under strange and unexplained circumstances. It weighed on me, and we stopped working together.

I didn’t like the woman’s apartment right away. All people who use my services have strange ideas of what a home should look like. It’s always piles of objects. Or awkwardly chosen interior colors. There’s always something wrong and elusive. My main task is to understand exactly what creates the sense of danger and not let bad design control my fears.

The woman hesitates on the threshold, asks if I’m sure I want to stay completely alone, reluctantly pulls my advance payment out of her battered handbag, and finally leaves.

Actually, it’s strange that with all these creaking floorboards, bulky wardrobes, and other delights of haunted houses, the client is afraid specifically of the scraping on the window.

I turn off the light and wait. A vile giggle jerks me out of a half-doze. It sounds very close, from behind the window. As if someone had pressed their lips to the crack between the frames, deliberately to wake me with laughter.

I almost convinced myself that I’d imagined it when I heard that very scraping sound. I stared at the empty window and heard someone slowly dragging claws from one corner of the glass to the other, diagonally. And then, finger by finger, tapping them against the glass.

Overcoming my fear, I approached the window. I won’t lie—it took effort to make myself open it and look outside.

There was no branch there. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a shadow slipping inside. The disgusting laughter was already coming from inside the room. Cold sweat broke out all over me.

And then I forced myself to close the window.

I shed the human I had worn like a costume for several years now, since the very beginning of my successful career as a ghost hunter. Human ways of thinking and human fears slid off me together with the body.

That woman invited me into her home and left. Now I am the master here. And whatever crawled into this house will not leave without my permission.

Thin, clawed little paws twitched in agony, curling on the darkened parquet floor even after I had bitten them off from the body. Tasty little paws.

A profitable deal.