Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  45

  I woke to the smell of coffee.

  Carissa was sitting at my desk, in my chair, with my trousers on her lap. The bed creaked as I sat up.

  “This isn’t your only pair, is it?”

  She put a hand down the leg and waved at me through the hole in the knees.

  “I have others. Somewhere.”

  “Good. I’ll take these home to stitch them up.” She came over to the bed. “I’ve left you coffee and a paper. I’m sure you can’t sleep the entire day away.”

  “I’ve been known to try.”

  She kissed me on my forehead.

  “Thank you, Mr Phillips.”

  I put a hand around her body, rekindling the memories of the night before.

  “You are beautiful,” I said. “Right now, and every time I’ve ever seen you.”

  That got me a kiss on the lips.

  I waited till she was gone before I slid out of the sheets and wrapped my coat around me. On my desk there was a steaming cup of Georgio’s coffee and the morning edition of the Sunder Star. I never bought my own, just flipped through the stained and torn copy downstairs. I sat back in my chair, sipped the brew, and wondered why it had never become part of my routine.

  My answer came quickly. The front page alone irritated me so much I had to stand up and pace around the room.

  There had been a retrial of Rick Tippity’s case. Somehow, he’d been convicted. Everything I’d said during the trial had been scratched from the record. The theory of him using Faery bodies to fry Lance Niles had been sold a second time and the judge had ordered him to stay in the Gullet forever.

  That wasn’t even the worst part.

  The article went on to say that the Mayor was already putting new laws in place: placing restrictions on unstable magical practices and any old-world craft that had become unpredictable. You could smell the bullshit of bureaucracy coming off the page. Somebody was using this case to turn the gears of Sunder in the wrong direction and I’d helped grease the wheels.

  I called the Police Department.

  “Detective Simms please.”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Her neighbor. The cat’s looking really bad this time. It’s coming out both ends.”

  The receptionist relayed the information and I heard Simms scream out, “Hang it up!”

  “Tell her I want my coat back too!”

  The line went dead. I threw back the rest of the coffee, swearing at myself and Simms and the whole stinking city. I was so caught up kicking the furniture that I didn’t notice two tons of Half-Orc stuffed into a police uniform come through the door.

  “Just because we stopped beating you up, doesn’t mean you’ve gotta do it to yourself.”

  Richie came in without waiting for an invitation and sat down in the clients’ chair. I threw the newspaper in his lap.

  “What kind of game are you and Simms playing?”

  He glanced at the front page and didn’t seem to like it any more than I did.

  “You want to change the story, Fetch? Tell us who really did it.”

  “I would if I knew.”

  He chewed his bottom lip.

  “Would you?”

  “Of course.”

  He chewed some more, squinting, like some answer was written across my face but he couldn’t make it out.

  “Did you do it?” he asked.

  My eyes went so wide, my lashes scraped the cobwebs off the ceiling.

  “I’m the only person left who cares that you convicted the wrong guy!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly? What kind of plan is that? Commit a murder, frame someone else, then single-handedly fuck up the case when they try to convict him? What kind of criminal mastermind do you take me for?”

  Richie shrugged, like he wasn’t being completely absurd.

  “I’d never pretend to understand how your mind works,” he said, “but I wouldn’t put it past you to frame someone, then get all guilty so you sabotage the whole thing. It’s not like you haven’t switched sides before.”

  That part I couldn’t argue with, but the rest was still nonsense.

  “No, Richie, I didn’t kill Lance Niles.”

  He nodded. Maybe he just needed to hear it. He was about to say something when his eyes caught a little scrap of cardboard in front of him. He flipped it over.

  A gift, from a friend.

  He raised an eyebrow.

  I pointed to the rabbit hat hanging on the hat-stand.

  “A gift from a client.”

  “A friend?”

  I shrugged.

  “They’re nervous about anyone knowing that we work together. I’d say they were overly paranoid but as I have cops coming by unannounced, going through scraps of paper on my desk, I suppose they were right.”

  Now Richie shrugged. I’d batted away his suspicion for the moment.

  “Fine. You didn’t kill Lance Niles. But there is something strange about this whole thing. We’re looking for a man with scars on his face,” he pointed a thick finger, indicating the lines left by Linda Rosemary, “in a suit and hat,” he gestured to the rabbit hide on my head. “A Human who might have been a Shepherd,” point, point, “that commits an unheard of crime that nobody seems to understand except for,” point, “you.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I could understand his suspicions. If he knew that I had the one-of-a-kind weapon responsible for the murder in my bottom drawer, he’d have no choice but to throw me in the Gullet and let Tippity go. Still, I can’t say I wasn’t hurt by the accusation.“Really, Rich? You think I did this?”

  “No. But I’m worried that other people might. What if someone is trying to set you up?”

  I went over it all in my head but it didn’t seem right. Surely Deamar would have worn his Opus outfit when he committed the murder if that was the goal.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “Well, either it was you or someone trying to frame you, or…”

  “Or it’s a coincidence.”

  Richie leaned back in his chair, and I swear I heard it give a muffled scream.

  “No,” he said, “this is no coincidence. There’s something weird about this one, and I’m worried that you’re gonna do that thing you do and get yourself in trouble.”

  “What thing do I do?”

  “That thing where you half-ass a case until it’s too late. You get all messed up in it, piss everyone off, but don’t follow it through and the rest of us end up picking up the pieces. This city is changing, Fetch. You’re not gonna get away with making your old mistakes anymore.”

  I felt myself getting shitty with him. That often happens when someone sees more of you than you want them to.

  “Thanks for the warning, Rich, but I’m not scared of Niles or Simms or whoever else is getting sick of me. But thanks for coming down here to threaten me personally. That’s a nice touch.”

  “You’re not listening!” he snarled. “I’m not threatening you. I’m scared that someone is trying to hurt you and you’re too stupid to see it. So either put your whole ass on this case and sort it out or step away. Tippity didn’t do it? Fine. But if you’re gonna go up against all this,” he threw the newspaper back in my face, “then you’d better start acting a lot smarter than you have been. You’re a Shepherd, Fetch. We both were. So either act like one and do the job properly or put your head down before someone cuts it off.”

  He stood up and the chair breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t thank him. I should have. He was right. There was something strange about this case. Something off about the whole goddam thing.

  I flicked the scrap of cardboard in my fingers, looking at that fine handwriting.

  I needed to find Lance Niles’s killer. The real one. Then I could give some closure to his grieving brother, free the wrongly convicted (but still annoying) prisoner, and push back against whatever screwball plan somebody was pushing in the papers.

  It was
time to find Mr Deamar.

  46

  As I got dressed, a little voice reminded me that I needed to destroy the machine. But what about Tippity? If I got rid of the real murder weapon, finding Deamar wouldn’t do much of anything. I had to hold onto it for just a little longer.

  But I wasn’t going to carry it around anymore. Too many close calls. So I left it wrapped up in my bottom drawer and tried to ignore the empty space under my left arm where it had become so accustomed to sitting.

  The Hotel Larone was the obvious place to start. That’s where Deamar was staying when he sent the letter to Lance Niles. I went over there and buttered up the staff with bronze but I didn’t discover anything new. The room had been rented out several times since Deamar had stayed there. He’d left no belongings behind and the staff had already mentioned everything they knew to Thurston Niles: he was Human, well spoken, well dressed and left the night of the murder.

  The busboy told me he thought there was something not-quite-right about his face, like he had an injury and it hadn’t healed properly. Everything I was being told I’d already seen myself. I’d heard his cane against the cobblestones and seen his crooked smile wrapped around his pipe. I’d seen his round ears, short fingers and black suit. I’d seen his bowler hat and the wide-brimmed one he’d swapped it for.

  Well, I suppose that was something.

  I went over to East Ninth Street, back to the hatters where I’d bought my over-priced bonnet. The old man looked worried when he first saw me, dreading that I’d come to ask for a refund. He was relieved when I brought up Mr Deamar, and delighted that he remembered him.

  “Yes. He’s been in here twice now. Strange fellow. Couldn’t quite place the accent but he was very well spoken. Or, what’s the word? Worldly. Especially for a Human. No offense.”

  “Did he tell you anything about himself? Where he’d come from or where he was staying?”

  “I don’t think so. He just enjoyed marveling at my wares. He was full of flattery and he bought two pieces. The good stuff. Told me that he enjoyed indulging in the finer things.”

  I handed him a card.

  “If he comes back again, make sure you give me a call.”

  I was chasing a ghost around a dead city with nothing to go on but a name. As the cold wind blew hard between the buildings, I decided to go back to where it all began.

  The Bluebird Lounge was quieter than last time, no crowded cops hanging around, hoping to steal a look at the gory miracle. It was weird thinking back to that first day, and how excited we’d all been. We’d thought something incredible had happened. But it wasn’t incredible. It was an ordinary kind of awful. Mundane in its brutality. Predictable in its cruelty. The machine was just like everything else in this new world: cold, lifeless and made with death in mind.

  I pulled out a stool at the main bar. The only soul around was the short, middle-aged bartender.

  “Are you a member?” he asked.

  “No. But it’s blowing pure ice out there and I need something to warm my blood. Can you bend the rules for few minutes?”

  The words wouldn’t have worked on their own but a couple of coins won him over.

  “Sure. What are you having?”

  “Burnt milkwood. Plenty sweet.”

  He went to work. I waited long enough to make the conversation sound spontaneous.

  “Good thing they caught that killer, right? Didn’t it happen in here?”

  He gave me a look I’d seen before: when someone has a lot to say but they’ve been told to keep it to themselves. If I’d been in a nice suit or looked like I’d come from out of town, he never would have opened up to me. But I was average. Unthreatening. Unintelligent. An everyman. The kind of person you think you can talk to because it will all be washed away by beer before the end of the night.

  “That’s not the guy,” he said, like he’d already told me a hundred times. “I was here. I saw the killer. Hell, I even served him. He was a Human. Well, he looked like one. Didn’t have long fingers like a Warlock, that’s for sure. We’re supposed to keep an eye out for things like that. And the guy looked completely different. Different to anyone, actually. I told the cops. I told them twice. But here we are with some poor chemist getting thrown in the Gullet for eternity.”

  I let him stew on his frustration for a few seconds while he mixed up my drink.

  “What do you mean, he looked different?”

  “Just, unnatural. Like he was… like he was wearing a mask that didn’t quite fit. But it wasn’t a mask. It was his skin but it… it wasn’t. Sorry, that doesn’t really make sense.”

  But it did make sense. Maybe not to him, but to someone who’d seen Mr and Mrs Steeme up close after their recent transformations.

  Of course, with Deamar, the effect was completely different. Carissa Steeme had been buffed and polished like a gold statue. Deamar was… broken. Twisted. And yet there was something about them that fitted together.

  The barman dropped the drink in front of me but he didn’t let go. His hand stayed on the glass and he bit his lip like he was searching for some vital memory in his head.

  “Funny,” he muttered finally.

  “What is?”

  He stepped back and looked at the cocktail like he was wondering where it had come from.

  “We don’t make many of these. It’s not a popular drink with our kind of clientele. The last time I mixed one up was a couple of weeks ago.” He chuckled, but it was in confusion, not humor. “It was that night. With the Niles guy. This is what the killer was drinking.”

  It took every bit of my strength to force a bemused, relaxed smile.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That is funny.”

  I used the phone at the Bluebird Lounge to call Carissa. When she realized who it was, reluctance slid into her voice. She was worried that her little one-night stand was already getting too attached.

  “Is there a problem, Mr Phillips?”

  “Not at all. I was just wondering if you could give me the contact for this… this doctor?”

  A long pause. I was bringing up all kinds of things she didn’t want to talk about. Some things are fine in bed, at night, but you’re supposed to keep them tucked away during daylight hours.

  “What are you trying to do, Fetch?”

  “Nothing that will come back to you, I promise. It’s for a friend. He needs help and I just want to make some inquiries. I’m sorry to ask.”

  Another long break of silence. Then a sigh.

  “All right. The surgeons’ names are Dr Exina and Dr Loq. Their clinic is down on West Fifth near the corner of Titus. Way past Swestum and the Rose but… you shouldn’t go down there.”

  “I only want to ask them some questions.”

  “I know. Just be careful.”

  “Of a couple of doctors?”

  “Yes, Fetch. They’re Succubae.”

  47

  Everything on the far west of the city was hushed. Behind every curtained window in every unmaintained building on every potholed street, the folks inside were living lives that they wanted to keep secret. The eyes that peeked through windows or out from under hoods were equal parts fear and aggression, ready to lean all the way in one direction depending on who they saw outside.

  The surgery was in a cellar underneath one of those stores that sold whatever goods they’d managed to “acquire” that month: handbags, scarves, gardening tools. No cohesion to the products other than the fact that they were going cheap.

  The stairs led down to a red door with three different locks and a small plaque that read “Dr E and Dr L” above a little silver buzzer. In a part of town this full of crime, the fact that nobody had pried off the buzzer or plaque to fleece the metal was a sign that the owners were either well-respected members of the neighborhood or far too dangerous to screw with. I pressed the buzzer and waited. I hadn’t called ahead. Sometimes it’s best to go in cold. Most folks find it easier to hang up a phone than slam a door in your face.

  A
panel slid open in the door. I looked into it and a bright light shone right in my eyes. I pulled down the brim of my hat but I’d already been blinded.

  “What’s your business?” came a male voice from the other side of the door. It was deadpan. Almost bored. Not a voice you try to sweet-talk and not a voice you tell the truth.

  “I’d like to talk to the doctors. Somebody recommended them to me and… well, it’s kind of personal but I’d really like their help.”

  I let his imagination fill in the rest with whatever condition came to mind. He undid the locks, one after the other, and opened the door.

  When I saw him, I worked very, very hard not to let my face explode in surprise.

  He was a Dwarf. I think. You don’t usually see Dwarves completely shaved from head to toe. Or with fangs. Or wearing silk. He even had little white horns stuck above his eyebrows. The skin around them was still red. They must have been new.

  “Come this way,” he said.

  The hall was full of scented candles but they couldn’t hide the sharp chemical sting underneath. It didn’t feel like a surgery: it sat somewhere between a brothel and a morgue. The concrete walls were painted red and the floors were tile, but there was velvet furniture, mica lampshades, and strips of soft fabric draped over any surface that would hold them. The attempt was admirable but like all of the doctors’ work, the effect was imperfect.

  We passed a dainty little waiting area and the Dwarf directed me into a dark room with nothing in it but a mattress on the floor. I couldn’t picture Carissa going along with this journey but, as I’d already found out, a woman scorned is liable to act a little recklessly.

  “Wait here,” said the Dwarf.

  “For what? Someone to take my clothes off?”

  He shrugged.

  “Probably.”

  He walked away and I thought there must be nothing in the world that would surprise that guy. He should have my job. Someone could come in claiming that the last piece of magic was trapped under their right tooth and he’d just shrug, say probably, and go and get the pliers.