Miller noticed my hand trembling as I lifted the coffee cup to my mouth and then, remembering my lip, I placed it back on its saucer. I was about to start weeping at the pointlessness of this meeting.
“You seem very defensive. You seem angry.” Miller said this without any emotion. “I feel your fear, but I also sense anger and an antagonizing personality.”
“Jesus, you sound like my f**king shrink.”
“Mr. Ellis”—and now Miller leaned in and shattered everything by saying, “I have seen a person turn to ash because of their antagonism.”
My heart stopped, and then resumed beating faster than it had previously when Miller said this. I started crying softly. I put my sunglasses back on. I kept trying to stay calm, but if I believed what he just said I would get sick. The crying was magnified by the silence in the diner. Shame suddenly caused the crying to stop.
“Ash? You’ve seen this?” I grabbed a napkin from a dispenser and blew my nose. “What are you talking about?”
“One was a farmer. One was a lawyer.” Miller paused. “Did you read the journal on the site where I recounted these two incidents?”
“No.” I swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t.”
I had to get out of the diner. I had to force myself to stand up and steadily make my way toward the Range Rover. I would drive back to the Four Seasons. I would climb under the covers of the bed. I would wait for whatever it was that wanted me and let it take hold. I would become unafraid of madness and death.
I could not understand why the Klonopin was not working this morning.
Every few seconds a semi would rumble past; the only hint that there was a reality outside of where I was sitting.
“These people just burst into flames.” Miller was not lowering his voice, and I glanced worriedly at the lone waitress sharing a conversation with the cook. Sometime during this conversation, the old man had disappeared from the counter and I thought that maybe he was a ghost too.
“How long have you been doing this?” I was asking him. “I mean, I don’t understand what you’re telling me. I mean, you say something like that and I think I’m cracking up and—”
“This information is all available on my Web site, Mr. Ellis—”
But I was lost in the anxiety of the moment. “I mean do you have a résumé or, like, recommendations because when you tell me that you’ve seen people burst into flame I feel like I’m going crazy—”
“Mr. Ellis, I was not handed a diploma. I did not go to ‘ghost college.’ I have only my experience. I have investigated over six thousand supernatural phenomena.”
I lost it again. I was crying and trying not to breathe too loudly. “What am I going to do?” I kept asking.
Miller began to console me. “If you want to hire me my job is to come to your home and invoke the physical manifestations of whatever is haunting your residence.”
“How . . . bad does that get? I mean, do I have to be there?” I forced myself to stop crying and was surprised that I had the power to accomplish this and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose with another napkin. I realized there were nearly a dozen of them crumpled and strewn in front of me.
“How bad does it get?” Miller actually said the following: “I once dealt with an accountant who said he was possessed. On the afternoon of the exorcism in his condominium, he began speaking backwards in Latin and then bled from his eyes and his head started to split open.”
The only way my shock dealt with this was to mumble, “Hey, I’ve been audited. I’ve been through worse.”
Such a tough guy, the writer muttered. So cool.
Miller didn’t understand that this was the normal response.
There was a stony silence during which Miller glared at me.
“I’m just kidding,” I whispered. “It was just a little joke. I was—”
“That incident, Mr. Ellis, gave me a heart attack. I was hospitalized. It was not a joke. I have this incident on tape.”
My exhaustion suddenly was forcing me to concentrate intently on Miller, and I was curious enough to ask, “What . . . do you do with that tape?”
“I show it at lectures.”
I was reflecting on the information. “What . . . was this person possessed by?”
“It was the spirit of what he told me was an animal that had scratched him.”
I wanted Miller to repeat this.
“He had been attacked by this animal, and after the attack he believed he was now the thing that had attacked him.”