Vertigo Effect: The Eighth Jonathan Shade Novel Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  One-Way Ticket to Midnight

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  About the Author

  VERTIGO EFFECT

  The Eighth Jonathan Shade Novel

  Gary Jonas

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  This one is for Luke Seven, who loves movies as much as I do, and for his late brother Rob Cabrera, who was the first to put something I wrote on the silver screen.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The helicopter angled in for another pass as I raced the red 1966 Alfa Romeo Spider across the Seven-Mile Bridge heading toward the Florida Keys. I know what you’re thinking. You saw this in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies. On the positive side, the bridge wasn’t being blown up around me, nor were Tia Carrere and Jamie Lee Curtis having a catfight in the backseat. On the negative side, the pilot of the helicopter was bat-shit crazy.

  “Keep your eyes on the road,” Kelly said, raising her voice to be heard above the wind. Kelly Chan, my friend and magically engineered protector sat in the passenger seat. She wore a skin-tight black leotard and held a katana in her right hand laying along the door of the convertible sports car.

  “He’s closing,” Esther said and pointed through my head, which was a bit distracting. Esther is a ghost from the 1920s flapper era. Yes, she’s a friend too. Without Esther and Kelly, I’d have been killed dozens of times.

  I glanced over again to check the position of the helicopter as I stomped on the accelerator, taking us to a hundred twenty-five miles per hour. I whipped around other cars like they were in park. Horns blared.

  “Shouldn’t we be cranking out Sammy Hagar’s ‘I Can’t Drive 55’?” I asked.

  “Shut up and drive,” Kelly said.

  The chopper dropped down on us and smashed the windshield with the right landing skid, then it bounced off and did a lazy turn to angle around and come back again.

  “That guy is off his rocker,” I said. “He could get us killed.”

  “Is it time for me to take him out?” Kelly asked.

  “Is he your type?” I asked.

  She glared at me.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s definitely time to take him out. My heart can only take so many close calls. The landing skid damn near smacked me in the head that time.”

  “Your cheek is bleeding,” Esther said.

  I reached up and touched my face. My fingers came away bloody. “Goddamn it,” I said.

  “Here he comes again,” Esther said, her translucent hand beside my head this time.

  “I see him.”

  “Adjust your speed,” Kelly said and stood on her seat.

  The wind whipped her hair back, and for a moment I thought it might tear the sword from her hand. Her grip was true, and she stepped over the broken windshield onto the hood of the car. She balanced there without even bracing against the cracked and broken glass. She leaned forward, and I felt the drag on the car as she cut down on our aerodynamics.

  “I hope that sword is strong enough,” I said, though there was no way she could hear me from where she stood. I worked to hold the car steady. We had a clear road ahead for a good ways.

  The helicopter lowered itself in front of us a quarter mile ahead. The pilot flew straight at us in a game of Chicken, keeping his altitude at four feet above the road. Ocean stretched out on one side, while the bridge heading back to the mainland stood on the other. Kelly would get only one shot at this, and if the pilot angled forward, the rotor blades would slice her to ribbons, and magically engineered or not, she would be splattered all over the car and the road.

  “We should scram,” Esther said. “I can’t watch this.”

  The helicopter pulled up at the last second, whipping over the car. As it passed, Kelly launched herself into the air, slammed her sword through the glass door on the passenger side of the helicopter, and held on for dear life.

  I stood on the brakes. Tires screeched. Smoke billowed around us, and I spun the car around to a stop at the side of the bridge. I bolted from the Spider and shaded my eyes with my hands as I watched Kelly get a foot onto the landing skid. She yanked open the helicopter door and climbed inside.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. She was all right.

  The helicopter did a lazy turn to head back toward us.

  Oncoming cars slowed and stopped, blocking the bridge.

  I grabbed a radio from the backseat. The director’s voice shouted, “Cut!” The pace helicopter landed on the road between the Spider and the stopped traffic.

  A cameraman ran to the Spider and checked the cameras mounted on the side, front, and in the backseat.

  “Was Kelly on her mark?” Esther asked.

  “Of course,” I said. We had a small piece of black tape on the hood so Kelly would be properly framed in the two car cameras, assuming the wind or the jarring from the helicopter impacts hadn’t knocked them out of whack.

  “That was the cat’s meow,” Esther said with a big smile.

  We were shooting the master shot, meaning we’d have to go back and film close-ups and medium shots later, though they’d want the actors for that so we might have the rest of the day off. The effects crew could digitally erase the camera from the side of the car, should it show up in frame.

  “You’re fucking up my movie,” Jean Fournier, the second unit director, said to the assistant director.

  “I’m fucking your wife,” Tim, the AD, said with a grin.

  They talked like that all the time, and most of the crew thought they were kidding, but I sensed a bit of animosity under the surface. Having seen the director’s wife, if the AD was doing her, he was earning his money. That said, I didn’t peg either of them as the murderer, but I couldn’t cross them off the list just yet.

  Yes, I said murderer.

  I wasn’t working as a stuntman on a movie for my health. Kelly, Esther, and I were on a case.

  Why didn’t I lead with that?

  Here’s how it started. I was kicking back in the Bahamas working on my tan when my cellphone buzzed. I saw it was my friend, Brenda Slaughter. She’s a wizard who works for DGI—that’s Dragon Gate Industries to the uninitiated—and as we sometimes slept together, I took the call thinking she might have the weekend off.

  “Hey, hot stuff,” I said.

  “Hey sexy man,” she said.

  “Should I book a flight to the Big Apple?”

  “I wish this was a pleasure call, though it is nice to hear your voice.”

  “If Monica needs something, tell her I’m swamped.” Monica was my older sister, and she ran the New York office.

  “I’m actually calling on behalf of my cousin, Angela.”

  “I’m listening.”
r />   “Her fiancé was murdered, and the cops aren’t helping because it was listed as an accident. A stunt gone bad. Terrell was working as a stuntman on an action movie being shot on location in Florida. Angela is doing some of the special effects. She thinks Terrell was murdered, and I was hoping maybe you could look into it.”

  “They won’t want a private investigator poking around on a movie set.”

  “I lined up jobs for you and Kelly. Didn’t you ever want to be in pictures?”

  We flirted a bit, and she promised to do a few things to me that I won’t share here because it’s private, but I was definitely looking forward to my next trip to Manhattan.

  So now we were in Florida. You tell me. Open with a phone call or open with a helicopter stunt?

  Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Four days before our little helicopter stunt, Kelly, Esther, and I arrived at the Miami International Airport. We walked down the concourse to the main terminal and took the escalator to the first floor. Esther kept herself invisible. As an unattached ghost, she could choose whether or not to make herself seen by regular people. I could see her because I’d died and come back to life, so ghosts could never hide from me. You’d think I’d see ghosts everywhere, but truth be told, most deceased people don’t stick around. If someone died a quiet, natural death, they never remained. In the case of a violent death with unfinished business they sometimes stuck around, but even then, it’s uncommon. Spirits had to choose to remain on the earthly plane. In Esther’s case, though she died in 1929, she stuck around because of me. Long story, doesn’t matter right now, beyond the fact that she loved me and still wore her flapper dress. Yes, when you die, you’re stuck with what you were wearing. Think about that next time you’re picking out clothes. Let’s move on.

  As we took the escalator to the baggage claim, Angela Washington waited for us holding a sign that read, Jonathan Easton. Yes, my name is Jonathan Shade, but due to some complications, I wasn’t supposed to exist anymore, so to avoid catching the attention of some supernatural douchebags known as the Men of Anubis, I used the last name Easton. I considered changing it because the name reminded me of an asshole who betrayed me, but I’d grown used to it, and most of my bank accounts were under that name.

  Angela was a lovely, but sad woman who reminded me a bit of the rapper/actress Queen Latifa before her weight loss program. I knew from Brenda that Angela was a low-level wizard, but chose to ply her trade in the film industry using magic to create practical effects.

  “You must be Ms. Washington,” I said as we approached her. I shook her hand and motioned toward Kelly. “This is Kelly Chan.” I didn’t mention Esther, of course. Invisible, remember?

  “Jonathan, Kelly. You can call me Angela but not Angie. I hate that. Thanks for coming on such short notice. Brenda speaks highly of you. Do you have any bags to pick up?”

  We each held up a small carry-on bag. “Just these,” I said. “I’ll buy anything else we might need.”

  “Starting with toothpaste and shampoo,” Kelly said.

  “I haven’t brushed my teeth or washed my hair since 1929,” Esther said.

  I was the only one who heard her. I gave her a smile and she beamed.

  “The studio has drivers to take you to and from the set,” Angela said. “I’ll take you to your hotel. I’m parked in the Flamingo Garage.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “We can talk on the way.”

  She led us to her car, a white Chevy Cruze. We tossed our bags in the trunk. Kelly and Esther sat in the back, while I rode shotgun and Angela drove. She expertly maneuvered her way through traffic.

  “So tell me what happened,” I said.

  “Better if I show you. My tablet is under your seat.”

  I reached under the seat and found her iPad. I opened it up and she had an app open with the clip already loaded. I tapped the arrow to play the video. Kelly and Esther leaned forward to gaze at the screen over the back seat.

  The sound sucked, but it was a stunt, so it wasn’t important. Dramatic music and sound effects would be added in post should this take be used in the final film. The stuntman, Terrell Williams, stood on a rooftop. He readied himself. A time code counted off seconds as the camera rolled.

  “I’m gonna live forever, baby,” Terrell said with a grin as he leaned toward the camera. He backed up, stretched, and prepared for his stunt.

  “Speed,” someone said off camera. Sound guy.

  “Action!” someone else said from off screen—probably the second unit director.

  Terrell took off at a dead run. The camera dollied alongside him right to the edge of the roof, then followed him over the edge as he jumped across an alley without anything below him to break his fall. If he missed, he would go splat on the pavement twenty stories down. I held my breath, worried that maybe he died falling. He slammed against the balcony across the way with a loud clang. The impact was solid and probably hurt like hell. He slipped down, grabbing the metal rail at the last moment. His legs dangled, and the camera pulled a Matrix-style one-eighty around him to focus on his fingers gripping the rail. The camera sailed up and over to get the perspective of looking down at him with the zoom focused on him as the camera shot into the sky. The ground seemed to race away while holding Terrell in the foreground of the shot as if the camera wasn’t moving at all. It created what’s known in the industry as a Vertigo Effect, so-named because Hitchcock used the technique with excellent results in Vertigo to drive home Jimmy Stewart’s acrophobia. Terrell clambered over the rail, fell on his face, and the camera raced back to him. But now Terrell was sprawled on the balcony unmoving. The camera drifted over and the screen went black. So much for living forever.

  “Cool stunt, nice effect, and a tragic end, but what did I miss here?”

  “Terrell’s murder captured in HD digital,” Angela said. “When he climbed over onto the balcony, that was following the script, but he was supposed to step through the door into the apartment to go after the heroine of the film.”

  “Okay, but I didn’t see anything.”

  “It’s right there on screen.”

  “And?”

  “You’re just like the cops. They ruled his death an accident.”

  “Did you see evidence of foul play?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. Didn’t you?”

  “No,” I said. “He crawled over, fell to the balcony and stopped moving.”

  “Doctor called it a ruptured brain aneurysm. Said the impact of hitting the balcony might have set it off, and it finally hit him as he crawled over the railing.”

  “Makes sense. Why do you think it’s murder?”

  “Replay the shot, and pause it at the zero point two-seven mark.”

  “Okay.”

  We watched the stunt again, and I hit pause at 0.27 on the time code. “He’s crawling over the rail. So?”

  “Zoom in on him.”

  I used two fingers to expand the image. I still didn’t see anything. “What am I looking for?”

  “Hold on,” she said and wheeled over to the curb. She parked and took the tablet from me. After moving the focus to the edge, she pointed to a blur. “Now watch,” she said. She advanced the video frame by frame and the blur raced toward Terrell’s head.

  “What is it?” Kelly asked.

  “I don’t know,” Angela said, “but it impacted him. Probably through the left pupil, as his eye was all bloody when we turned him over.”

  “Bunch of hooey,” Esther said. “There’s nothing there. This bird is bent.”

  Esther never believed much anyone said, but I tended to agree with her in this instance. It certainly didn’t look like anything supernatural. “The damage to the eye could have been from the aneurysm or the drop to the metal balcony,” I said.

  “That’s what the police said. But let me play it back again. Watch closely.” She backed it up and advanced it again. “See how the blur glows?”

  “I don’t thin
k it’s anything,” I said. “That could be a reflection off the balcony for all I know. My real question looking at the stunt is, how the hell did you film that?”

  “I controlled the camera,” she said. “Had it fly right behind him using a levitation and guidance spell. Simple magic. I could operate the focus and the motion and everything myself. We wanted a cool shot.”

  “It’s a way cool shot,” I said. “It’s tragic that Terrell died, but I don’t see foul play.”

  “Neither do I,” Kelly said.

  “Atta girl, Kelly,” Esther said even though I was the only one who could see or hear.

  Angela pointed to the backseat. “I have a shoebox on the floorboard,” she said. “Can you hand it to me?”

  Kelly reached down and grabbed the box. It was orange with the big Nike swoosh on the sides. She passed it to Angela, who gave me a look as she lifted the lid. She reached inside, pulled out a small black silk bag tied at the top with gold string.

  “Do you know what this is?” she asked.

  “A bag,” I said, accepting it from her. I opened it and glanced inside at the twigs, spices, leaves, and dried blood. “More specifically, a hex bag.”

  “I found it in the apartment where Terrell died.”

  “Correlation is not causation,” I said.

  “What do you know about witchcraft?” she asked.

  “More than the average bear,” I said, and didn’t add that the average bear was unlikely to come across witches in the forest except on the solstice, and sadly too few of them performed their ceremonies in the nude, and most of those who did go sky-clad, you’d rather have clothed. I didn’t say any of that because she’d just lost her fiancé and was looking for answers beyond a fatal aneurysm. My heart went out to her. I’d seen more than my share of death, so I knew how she felt.

  I stuck a finger into the hex bag, stirred the contents. Not something I’d recommend to anyone dealing with witchcraft, but direct magic doesn’t affect me, and more importantly, due to the burnt aroma of the spices and leaves, I knew it no longer held any power. I met Angela’s eyes and gave her the answer she wanted. “It’s been used.”