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didn’t do any of this. Things are happening all over our house. Scary things. The bedclothes took off like a flying carpet and flew around the room. Then the bed took me for a ride. Now things are jumping on their own all over the kitchen. Mr. Bannister, I can’t shut off the TV and I hate rap music.”
    “We don’t even get cable,” Ray said. “Ask if he can lose MTV but keep the Sports Channel.”
    “Shut up, Ray,” Lucy said.
    Bannister said, “Hmmm, this sounds familiar, especially the rap music. Yes, I think I can help you.”
    “Would you come right over?” Lucy pleaded.
    “I’m on my way, Dr. Lynskey,” Bannister replied, and stopped talking as Lucy’s phone hung itself up.
    Lucy sighed. Off in the dining room, the doors to the breakfront in which she kept the good dishes were flapping like a butterfly, trying to take off.
    Ray said, “You’re making me mad, Lucy. I don’t want that con man in my house.”
    Ray now stood in the middle of the kitchen, where cupboards opened and shut wildly, chairs floated in the air, and knives and forks continued their dance on the counter. Fortunately, the TV had switched from rap to a show on computer technology.
    “There’s a rational explanation for this,” he said. “We don’t need a goddamn spoon bender telling us what to do.”
    “Ray, we’ve got a poltergeist,” Lucy said. “Although it’s more like he’s got us.”
    “There’s no such things as poltergeists, Lucy. That’s all nonsense from the movies. There’s a rational explanation for all this.”
    “Such as what?” she asked angrily, watching as a cup and a spoon took turns jumping over one another.
    He thought for a second, then said, “It’s nothing the police can’t handle.”
    With the mention of the word police, a crazily whirling saucepan spun through the air, whacking Ray on the back of the head with a metallic dong. His eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

Four
    I t seemed like only ten minutes later that Lucy was tending to her husband’s injury when she heard the roar of an engine, the squeal of tires, and a sickening crunch as another section of hedge was turned into mulch for her expensive, but increasingly plowed, lawn. Two new furrows appeared in the grass as Frank Bannister shut off the engine and ran to the front door, black bag in hand.
    He pounded on the door, and soon heard Lucy cry out, “Come in.”
    Bannister followed her voice into the kitchen, where she was applying ice to the back of her husband’s head. Ray winced, holding a wet facecloth against his forehead. All was quiet, save for the sound of water from Ray’s cloth dripping onto the floor.
    “Dr. Lynskey?” Bannister asked.
    She nodded.
    “I’m Frank Bannister.”
    “We’re the Addams Family,” Ray moaned.
    “Shut up, darling,” Lucy snapped. “Everything you say hurts.”
    “You’re right, it does. I can feel it here.” He pointed at the back of his head.
    “So can I,” Lucy said. “Mr. Bannister, it stopped about five minutes ago. The whole house went quiet.”
    Bannister walked around, surveying the scene and making notes in a black pad he pulled from his equally black bag. “Unsystematic displacement,” he announced.
    “Is it over?” Lucy asked.
    Bannister shook his head. “What you experienced are persisting residues of the departed, always a problem at this time of year. You appear to have a bad case of recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.”
    “Is there anything we can do?”
    “I can do a clearance,” Bannister said. “It’s not cheap, but I do offer a six-month guarantee.”
    “How much?” Ray asked.
    “Two forty-nine ninety-five,” Bannister replied. “That’s including a thirty-percent penalty for a call after midnight—oh, what the hell, let’s just call it quits over the hedge.”
    “What about the lawn?” Ray asked.
    “Plus a hundred bucks for materials,” Bannister added. “I can’t afford to do it out of my pocket.”
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