save time and tears later, assuming this wasn’t break point in itself.
“If you’ve ever thought about the act of exorcism at all,” I said, “you’ve probably thought of it as something that goes down in sort of the same way that weddings do. The priest, or the vicar, or whoever, says, ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ and there you go; it’s done. By saying it, he makes it happen.”
“I’m not naive, Mr. Castor,” Peele interjected, in my opinion a little over-optimistically. “I’m sure that what you do is a very exacting discipline.”
“Well, it can be. But that’s really not the point I’m making. Sometimes I
can
just walk into a place, do the job, and walk out again. Mostly, though, it’s not that straightforward—or at least, it’s not that fast. I have to get a fix on the ghost—a sense of it. That comes first. Then, when I’ve got that sense really nailed down hard in my mind, I can call the ghost to me, and I can get rid of it. But there’s no telling how long that process will take. Exorcism isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. And if I’m going to do this job for you, I’m going to need to know right now that you won’t be drumming your fingers and looking for things to happen within an hour or a day. It will take as long as it takes.”
I waited for Peele to mull this over, but he changed the subject—I suppose as a delaying tactic while he weighed up what I’d just said. “And how much—”
“I charge a fixed price. Whether it takes me a day or a week or a month, you pay me a thousand pounds. Three hundred of that is up front.”
That “fixed price” stuff was outrageous crap, of course. I take the same approach to the prices I charge as I do to most other things, which is to say that I make it up as I go along. This time around, the main thing on my mind was the down payment; I needed some cash in hand, and three hundred was more or less the amount I needed to clear myself with Pen—plus a little danger money, since this ghost had shown that she liked to play rough.
But the opposition was stiffening. Peele didn’t like what he was hearing one bit.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Castor,” he said, his gaze making it as far as my lapels as he darted a quick glance at me, “but I’m not prepared to pay anything in advance for what seems to be such a precarious and ill-defined service. If you’re really saying that you could be here for—for as long as a
month
, disrupting our work, and that for all that time we’d still have to contend with the haunting, too . . . well, it’s just not acceptable. Not acceptable at all. I think I’d prefer you to work on the basis of payment by results. I think that’s the only kind of contract I’m prepared to enter into here.”
I blew out a loud breath, shook my head.
“Then I think we’re back to where we started,” I said, standing up and pushing my chair away from the desk. “I’ll let the professor know that you need a job done here, and she’ll get in touch with you at her convenience. Sorry I wasted your time.”
I headed for the door. It was only half bluff. What I’d told Peele about how I do the business was true enough, and it was also true that I needed the money now. If I’d set the bar too high, well, then that was too bad for me; but either way, he didn’t get to buy me on credit.
I got the door open, but he called out to me before I could walk through it. I turned on the threshold and looked back at him—indecisive, sullen, glaring at his desktop with bitter distaste, but obviously thinking that starting again with someone else would mean all the time he’d wasted already would just be sunk costs.
“Could it really take as long as a month?” he demanded.
“If it did, it would be a new world record. Most likely, I’ll run your ghost to ground inside of a couple of days and be out of your hair before you’ve had time to notice that I’m around. I’m not saying I’m slow, Mr.
“If you’ve ever thought about the act of exorcism at all,” I said, “you’ve probably thought of it as something that goes down in sort of the same way that weddings do. The priest, or the vicar, or whoever, says, ‘I now pronounce you husband and wife,’ and there you go; it’s done. By saying it, he makes it happen.”
“I’m not naive, Mr. Castor,” Peele interjected, in my opinion a little over-optimistically. “I’m sure that what you do is a very exacting discipline.”
“Well, it can be. But that’s really not the point I’m making. Sometimes I
can
just walk into a place, do the job, and walk out again. Mostly, though, it’s not that straightforward—or at least, it’s not that fast. I have to get a fix on the ghost—a sense of it. That comes first. Then, when I’ve got that sense really nailed down hard in my mind, I can call the ghost to me, and I can get rid of it. But there’s no telling how long that process will take. Exorcism isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. And if I’m going to do this job for you, I’m going to need to know right now that you won’t be drumming your fingers and looking for things to happen within an hour or a day. It will take as long as it takes.”
I waited for Peele to mull this over, but he changed the subject—I suppose as a delaying tactic while he weighed up what I’d just said. “And how much—”
“I charge a fixed price. Whether it takes me a day or a week or a month, you pay me a thousand pounds. Three hundred of that is up front.”
That “fixed price” stuff was outrageous crap, of course. I take the same approach to the prices I charge as I do to most other things, which is to say that I make it up as I go along. This time around, the main thing on my mind was the down payment; I needed some cash in hand, and three hundred was more or less the amount I needed to clear myself with Pen—plus a little danger money, since this ghost had shown that she liked to play rough.
But the opposition was stiffening. Peele didn’t like what he was hearing one bit.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Castor,” he said, his gaze making it as far as my lapels as he darted a quick glance at me, “but I’m not prepared to pay anything in advance for what seems to be such a precarious and ill-defined service. If you’re really saying that you could be here for—for as long as a
month
, disrupting our work, and that for all that time we’d still have to contend with the haunting, too . . . well, it’s just not acceptable. Not acceptable at all. I think I’d prefer you to work on the basis of payment by results. I think that’s the only kind of contract I’m prepared to enter into here.”
I blew out a loud breath, shook my head.
“Then I think we’re back to where we started,” I said, standing up and pushing my chair away from the desk. “I’ll let the professor know that you need a job done here, and she’ll get in touch with you at her convenience. Sorry I wasted your time.”
I headed for the door. It was only half bluff. What I’d told Peele about how I do the business was true enough, and it was also true that I needed the money now. If I’d set the bar too high, well, then that was too bad for me; but either way, he didn’t get to buy me on credit.
I got the door open, but he called out to me before I could walk through it. I turned on the threshold and looked back at him—indecisive, sullen, glaring at his desktop with bitter distaste, but obviously thinking that starting again with someone else would mean all the time he’d wasted already would just be sunk costs.
“Could it really take as long as a month?” he demanded.
“If it did, it would be a new world record. Most likely, I’ll run your ghost to ground inside of a couple of days and be out of your hair before you’ve had time to notice that I’m around. I’m not saying I’m slow, Mr.
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