“How’s Shirley?” Vern asks conversationally.
“Fine.”
“I should pay her a visit one of these days.”
“Don’t.”
He leaves Vern chuckling to himself and enters Em City.
---
The first thing Keller notices – the first thing he always notices – is Ryan O’Reily. More accurately, he notices where O’Reily is, since the guy himself isn’t too easy to make out behind the crowd of corpses that surround him at any given moment.
He doesn’t recognize most of them – before his time, or just people he never gave a shit about; O’Reily’s feuds had only occasionally overlapped with his own. He clocks Stanislofsky, though, seated as he always is at O’Reily’s right hand, concentrating his spectral energy on fucking up whatever game he was playing at the time. Today it was blackjack with Pancamo, so the Russian’s focus seemed to be on flipping over the cards. One of the more entertaining hauntings in the joint.
O’Reily also had the distinction of attracting one of the more unsettling hauntings in the joint, as well – an unrecognizably burnt corpse that loomed over him, its hands constantly gripping O’Reily’s throat. Doesn’t seem to have much of an effect, though O’Reily occasionally swallows hard and rubs near his Adam’s apple as if it does.
“That little bastard needs to hurry up and die,” Vern says from behind him. His face is so close that Keller would have felt hot breath on his neck if they had any left to spare.
“What do you care?” As far as Keller is concerned, O’Reily’s suffered more than his share. Since Cyril’s execution and Gloria’s transfer, the mick walks around with a hollow look in his eyes, more lifeless than some of the ghosts.
Vern shrugs. He steps forward to join the game’s audience, concentrates on O’Reily’s hand along with Stanislofsky. Together they make him drop his cards on the floor. O’Reily curses. Stanislofsky smiles up at Vern appreciatively.
“Спасибо.”
“Don’t talk to me, kike.”
O’Reily isn’t the only one at the table with onlookers – Pancamo has a couple over his shoulder, too. A man whose body is riddled with stab wounds, another with a grotesque steam burn where his face should be. In between them stands Peter Schibetta, his remaining eye flitting back and forth to watch both of his enemies as they shuffle and deal. Pancamo’s ghosts don’t fuck with him much, now that he’s hooked on Destiny and spends his days in a haze – but still, they linger.
One of the usual rubberneckers is conspicuously absent, and for a brief moment Keller wonders if he passed on. It happens, from time to time – usually when the offender that caused the individual’s death gets whacked themselves, but all sorts of things can be reason enough. He mulls over what it could be this time before spotting the ghost in question, slouching in one of the chairs by the TVs.
He wanders over and takes a seat himself. “How’s it going, Cyril?”
“Fuck off.”
“Jericho, sorry.”
Something had happened during the execution – as far as anyone could tell, in the seconds before Cyril fried, his mind had broken entirely, and the persona of the puppet he’d had while on death row had taken over. Or, another theory – the electric chair had reversed the brain-damage he’d suffered prior to coming to Oz, and this is just what he had spent most of his life being like.
Whatever the reason, he was a real dick now.
“Anything good?” Keller asks, gesturing to the TV.
“Nah. It’s all shit. Why did we even use to bother with this garbage?”
Keller shrugs. “Fuck all else to do.”
“I hate it. I hate everything in this shithole.”
“Wow. Even Miss Sally? You used to love Miss Sally.”
“Fuck you. Fuck that cunt too.”
“You know, I think I liked you better when you were retarded.”
“Eat shit.”
Keller doesn’t bother asking why he isn’t over by his brother. One of the side-effects of becoming lucid (if you could call it that) was that the scales had fallen from Cyril’s eyes regarding Ryan, and the puppy-dog love that had once defined their relationship had alchemized into raging hate. Mentioning the elder O’Reily was a great way to get Cyril to lunge at him, and noncorporeality or not, Keller isn’t in the mood to deal with that right now.
Got more important shit to do.
“Well, you have fun,” Keller says dryly, getting up from his seat. Cyril doesn’t dignify this with a response, just continues glaring at the tube.
He drifts back to the table. O’Reily’s pushed his cards away, giving up for the day. As he gets up to return to his pod, most of the ghosts disperse, satisfied with their work for the time being. The only one that follows him is the charred man, still choking him fruitlessly.
“What are you mooks doing here? Same shit?”
Keller turns to face Peter Schibetta. “Same shit,” he confirms.
“You want help?”
“Help?” Keller laughs. “The fuck do you wanna help for?”
Schibetta’s face is stone. “Yes or no.” Being untouchable here has done wonders for his confidence, but it doesn’t matter – he’s got no gang anymore, since most of the Italians don’t seem to stick around, for whatever reason. Even if they had, it probably still wouldn’t matter. Once a prag, always a prag. Dying don’t change that.
Keller shrugs. “Could always use a hand.”
Schibetta nods. “See you around, then,” he says, and returns his attention to Pancamo, effectively dimissing Keller. Prick.
Keller scans the rest of the room. Vern’s wandered off, god knows where. Sometimes Keller suspects the man is here less because of unfinished business and more because of the sheer pleasure he gets from being able to fuck with people as a poltergeist.
Well, let him, he thinks, and heads deeper into Em City.