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make themselves comfortable.  We prefer it
when they are our noisy neighbors."  He pulled a brochure out from inside
his desk.  It had scary pictures of the boat in fog and dramatic lighting. 
"This is a haunted boat.  We maintain a very exclusive clientele that
stays in our hotel strictly for the experience of having an encounter with a
ghost, and I have some very underwhelmed clients at this point.  Word is
getting out all over the message boards that things are completely ordinary
here.  This is a problem.  Someone is either scaring them away or crossing them
over and I need you to find out who and stop them.  Whatever is going on is
ruining my business."
    I suddenly realized why Mom wasn't
here.  It was her life mission to calm down cranky ghosts and here this guy
wanted us to stir up the mess.
    "Um...  I have never been
asked to do anything like this before.  Usually people want the ghosts to go
away..." I mentioned off-handedly.  Killian kicked me.  The look on his
face seemed to say 'quit scaring away the man who wants to give us money.'
    "Well, I'm sure you'll
adapt."  Julio pulled out an envelope with two room keys inside. "I
have taken it upon myself to reserve you both a stateroom."
    "Separate beds," Killian
and I said at the same time.
    "Yes, separate beds," he
continued, looking a little annoyed that we were talking when he was outlining
his master plan to us.  "I would have given you separate rooms but I can't
afford to comp two rooms in this economy.  You charge by the hour,
correct?"
    I nodded.
    "Well, work fast.  You have 48
hours and then I move on to someone who knows what they are doing.  If you
don't figure out a solution, I am only I paying you half your rate."
    I looked at my partner and he
looked at me, "Um... that's not how we operate..."
    "Well, that is how you will
need to operate if you want this job.  Think of it as a working vacation."
    I so wanted to just grab this guy
by the back of the neck and give him a hands-on demonstration of my idea of a
working vacation, but we needed the money.  Killian shrugged.  I shrugged.  I
guess we were both on board, so to speak, whether we wanted to or not.
    "Okay, but if we win, you
double our salary."
    The manager looked at me crossly. 
"That was not a part of our deal."
    "We don't have a deal, we just
have your demands.  So, if we are going to risk not getting our salary for
failure, you get to carry the risk of our success."
    He sat there for a moment, then
reached out his hand. "Deal."

Chapter Six
    W e checked into our room.  There
were two tiny twin beds on either side of the tiny space.  Little portholes
looked out onto the lights of Long Beach.  I threw my bag on my bed and Killian
perched gently on his.  This was the first time we spent a hotel stay with each
other that didn't involve imminent death.  Yet.  What a change.
    I opened up my bag and started
unwadding my clothes.  I made sure everything I owned was wad-and-wear.  Life
is too short to fold.
    Killian, on the other hand, had
every single gawddamned pair of tights folded into neat little squares inside
of his round little knapsack.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't last a minute in his
elfin forest.
    I kicked the boots off my feet and
threw myself onto the bed.  "So, nap for thirty minutes before our
adventures begin?"
    "Or, perhaps we do not sleep
on our employer’s dime and start immediately, so that we do not risk losing
half of our salary for failure."
    I fluffed the pillow.  "Oh,
come on Killian.  Do I detect a hint of doubt in your voice?  We'll have this
thing solved before the boat whistle blows midnight."
    "I am not inclined to share
your enthusiasm."
    "Nothing was ever solved with
false modesty."
    "The success ratio with false
bravado is about the same."
    Something was bugging him.  I
propped myself up on my elbow.  "What's the deal?"
    Killian sat down on the other bed
and explained it very slowly to me so that I could keep up.  "You do not
hear