Now that we’re on his turf, Teddy seems more relaxed. He takes out a black Sobranie cigarette, puts it in his mouth, then takes it out again without lighting it.

“I spent my summers here or with my father or grandfather scouting new haunted places in need of protecting. I’m polite to Amanda and her crowd but I haven’t been to one of their meetings in years. No one in the family has taken them all that seriously since Grandfather.”

Teddy gestures toward graveyards in the distance, using the cigarette like a pointer.

“He collected our first cemeteries around the same time he struck it rich in silver mining. He believed these two events were inextricably linked, so he saw it as his duty to create a haven for ghosts. He joined Lucifer’s temple because the political connections made it easier for him to shave the taxes on the silver income and to bring in foreign graves.”

“A lot of ghosts seem to stay here. You don’t try to keep them earthbound?”

Teddy shakes his head.

“My charges stay or go as they please. Perhaps if God presented Himself more readily, they wouldn’t be so afraid of what awaited them when they finally crossed over.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

Teddy’s unlit cigarette is driving me crazy. I still don’t have any Maledictions.

“Mind if I have one of those?”

“Not at all.”

He holds out the pack to me. I take one, break off the filter, and toss it on his lawn. Teddy doesn’t flinch but he saw the butt fall and knows exactly where it is. He’ll be out here with tweezers and bleach later to clean up my mess.

I light the cigarette with Mason’s lighter. Without the filter, the smoke is rough and rich, like a three-hundred-pound nurse giving me CPR.

There are acres of land below us carved up and divided between several graveyards. It’s a whole housing development for the dead.

“Speak of the Devil, to your right is a foreign sanctuary. A small one from the Cannes region of France.”

It’s a pretty collection of stone monuments and phone-booth-size tombs filled with cats. Cats seem to love dead Frenchmen. I’ll have to ask Vidocq about that sometime.

“Over here is our first import from Asia.”

Miniature candy-colored pagodas and ornate stone barges fill a very old, very crowded Thai graveyard. Beyond it is a re-creation of an improvised Civil War graveyard, complete with crumbling wooden markers.

“How the hell do you do all this?”

Teddy beams, delighted that I’m impressed.

“We keep a group of necromantic engineers on retainer. They survey the cemetery proper, caskets, tombs, and bodies. Whatever’s appropriate. Then chart the exact depth and position of each burial against the stars. The cemetery is then dismantled and rebuilt here, reproducing the original alignments down to the millimeter.”

Teddy bats away a fly, the first I’ve seen here. Maybe an ungrateful jabber left a hole open nearby like an oversize groundhog.

“If need be, we can transport native soil back with the disinterred remains.”

What’s funny is that Teddy is as unimpressive as the estate is impressive. I’m even forgetting to treat him like shit. For all his eccentricity, Teddy is one of the beige people. They want to fade into the woodwork and disappear. It’s not depression. It’s more like a desperate desire to become invisible. He’s only tolerating me because he doesn’t want to piss off the other Devil freaks enough to shun him. Plus, it’s a chance to show off. If I sat next to him at the synod, I guarantee he wouldn’t have said a word to me all night. He’s cold oatmeal in thousand-dollar loafers. Dad and Granddad must have done some serious damage before leaving him alone on a hill with nothing but dead playmates.

“Have you heard about the little girl?”

He finally lights the damn cigarette and takes a puff.

“Everyone’s heard about her. If you’re implying that she’s one of mine, she’s not. Like most ghosts, mine are completely nonaggressive.”

“You’ve never had any trouble with any ghosts?”

He shrugs. Turns the wheel and runs alongside a long stone burial mound.

“They have their moods just like anyone but they don’t go around stabbing people.”

I keep thinking about Amanda’s story about the Imp of Madrid. She’d be right at home here.

“Pull over.”

Teddy stops the cart under a towering stone angel.

“I don’t buy any of what you’re selling, Teddy. This funfair for ghosts and they’re all tame little bunnies? I don’t believe it. You’re connected to the girl. I don’t know how but you are. And, you see, she went after Saint James.”

“Who?”

“Shut up. Coming after him means she came after me.”

I take out the .45 and push it into his ribs.

“Do you know what happens to people who try to kill me or mine?”

Teddy has gone as white as his Rolls. He tries to swallow but chokes on his spit.

“Please. I don’t know what you want. The girl isn’t one of mine.”

I say, “Liar,” to double-check, but the moment has passed. I can read it in his heartbeat and his breath. The microtremors in his voice. The fucker is telling the truth. I keep the gun out anyway.

“Who could do that? Summon and control a spirit that powerful?”

“I don’t know. Maybe someone from the temple. For all I know, it could be Amanda.”

“Please. She can’t even keep her kid in line. What’s she going to do with a little Lizzie Borden?”

“Please don’t shoot me.”

“Are you sure? You can stay here forever with your drinking buddies.”

“What can I say to make you believe me?”

I lower the gun, resting it in my lap.

“Nothing. You already have.”

There’s no way the girl is one of his. At least if she is, he doesn’t know.

If she isn’t connected to Osterberg, then I’m back to nothing and this whole trip has been pointless. Traven ought to appreciate that. At least one of us will be happy. I should shoot Teddy just for getting in the way of me getting King Cairo.

“Let’s head back to the homestead, Teddy. All this fresh air is giving me hives.”

On the way back, we pass what looks like a pretty ordinary cemetery. There’s only one thing wrong.

“What’s the story with that patch of graves?”

“What do you mean?”

“American tombstones point east at the rising sun. Those face west. I think your necro-Teamsters blew the gig.”

He shakes his head.

“You have a good eye for someone so . . . excitable.”

“I’m an asshole. I’m not blind.”

“To answer your question, it’s an English Gnostic plot. They were contrarians to their very core, rejecting the reality of this world. When they died they were buried and marked in the wrong direction to display their disdain for this world for all time.”

“You’d make a billion dollars on Jeopardy! if all the categories were ‘creepy facts about the dead.’ ”

“Would you mind putting your gun away, Mr. Macheath? I think you can see that I’m no threat.”

“Yeah, but I’m a nervous passenger and it’s kind of like my security blanket.”

Teddy brings us back to the front of the house. He parks the cart back in the shade. Gets out and waits for me like an obedient kid.

“I hope there’s no hard feelings, Ted. After the ghost went after Saint James, you understand I had to check you out.”

“Of course. May I go now?”

“Sure. Run along, you scamp.”

He doesn’t move until I put the gun back in my waistband.

“Thank you for stopping by.”

“My pleasure. See you around the afterlife.”

Teddy heads for the house fast. He doesn’t run even though he wants to. Yeah, someone did a real number on him if he thanked me after what I put him through.

I take it all back, everything I’ve ever said about the rich. I love the loud rich. I want the rich to be coked up, ugly, flashy, and decked in blood diamonds. Teddy’s kind of mousy Emily Dickinson rich is so much worse. Trying to hate Teddy is like trying to hate wallpaper paste. When I get home, I’m going to write a love letter to the loathsome rich letting them know how much I appreciate them. Their glorious excess gives me something substantial to despise and I love them for it.