Since it wasn’t yet full dark, the Goblin Tavern remained fairly empty: a transition time, like changing shifts in a factory. The night crew began to rise up while the day lovers slunk back to their well-lit homes; others, not caring whether it was night or day, remained up for twenty-four hours.
Francine brought the beer. After only a cursory glance at my face, she said, “Looks like you had some work done.”
“Just a touch-up.” I self-consciously put a finger to the mortician’s putty that filled the hole in my forehead.
“Looks good.”
“I’d feel better if I knew who did it to me.”
Here at the tavern I hoped I might bump into someone or something useful for one or more of my open cases, the Jekyll divorce, the mummy emancipation case, Sheldon Fennerman’s missing vampire neighbors, the Straight Edge hate group, a black-market blood ring I had uncovered over at Basilisk . . . not to mention Sheyenne’s murder, or my own. It was like herding caffeinated cats to move all my active cases toward a resolution.
My mind liked to juggle the various puzzles at the same time. One piece might lead to another clue in a different case, then to another. Running a private investigation agency poses a mental-organization and time-management problem that’s rarely discussed in detective fiction. Life isn’t like a TV show, where the private eye works on one crime exclusively from start to finish, beat after beat after beat, until the whole case is neatly solved by the end of the episode. I have a lot of things going at once, at different paces.
Officer McGoohan came in and swung up onto the stool on my right. “Hey, Shamble.”
“Hey, McGoo. Fancy meeting you here.”
He looked around the tavern. “Nothing fancy about it.”
“Tough day?”
“Isn’t it always?”
Francine pulled McGoo his own beer and set it in front of him. He returned a quick nod of thanks and slurped the foam off the top. He and I have been meeting here regularly for years. The comfortable place is a vortex of normalcy in the chaotic Quarter, so long as you can ignore the more bizarre patrons.
McGoo sniffed, frowned at me, then got up and moved to the stool on my left—his other usual stool. “I love you, man, but I don’t love the aroma. I’m going to sit upwind.”
“Yeah, you’re a breath of fresh air yourself,” I said. He knew I didn’t smell any different from most people. It’s part of his schtick.
“Hey, Francine,” McGoo called across the bar, “how can you tell when you get a letter from a zombie?”
Francine rolled her eyes at him. “I don’t want to know.”
“It has a tongue attached to the stamp!”
We were supposed to groan. I fought back a smile. “Sorry, I’ve been having trouble moving my facial muscles lately.”
“Well, you are a dead guy, and you’re a private detective.” He elbowed me. “So I guess that makes you a stiff dick!”
I know he doesn’t mean anything by his off-color comments. McGoo wants to be the life of the party, but has no idea how to do it. To an outsider, especially a sensitive and politically correct outsider, he comes across as abrasive and insensitive. But even though his jokes are in poor taste, I’ve never seen McGoo treat anybody with less respect because of their gender, ethnicity, or unnatural type. He knows it goes both ways and would have been perfectly open to dumb cop jokes or stupid Irishman jokes. Not many people tell those anymore; to be honest, I think Officer McGoohan misses it.
He and I met in college. We both got degrees in criminal justice. Afterward, I decided to go into private investigating, while McGoo went into the police force. I thought I was going to have it made with a big-ticket freelance job—the potential for lots of money, be my own boss, have all the freedom in the world.
McGoo wanted the prestige of the uniform, the respect of the public, being an important guy who stopped criminals and kept the streets safe. The satisfaction of a job well done was all he needed. Unfortunately, both of us were wrong, but by then we were stuck.
Early on, we each married a woman named Rhonda. We were too young, and both of us still considered the marriage to be one of the worst mistakes of our lives (although there was always room for us to make even bigger mistakes). One Rhonda was a strawberry blonde—mine—and the other a brunette—McGoo’s; both were beautiful, both were bitchy. He and I spent a lot of time commiserating with each other, wondering if we had picked the wrong Rhonda. But either way, we would have ended up just as miserable. Both marriages broke up after less than three years, but our friendship had lasted for decades. Through life and death, you might say.
The door opened, and three cadaverous women shuffled in, dressed in gaudy clothes, their faces painted, their hair done up. I recognized Cindy, Victoria, and Sharon from the embalming parlor. Their body movements did not have the seductive grace they imagined; in fact, they looked like a trio of skeletal marionettes with tangled strings and an inept puppeteer.
“Oh, God, let’s hope I’m never that desperate.” McGoo took a long swallow of his beer. The three women regarded, then dismissed us as prospective prey and took seats at the far end of the bar. Francine went to take their orders.
“Any word on who smashed up the Hope and Salvation Mission?” I asked. “You sure Mrs. Saldana’s all right?”
“She’ll start patching up the place in the morning. No clues. We got some skin scrapings from the broken glass, but there were so many shamblers around—including a couple of ripe ones that dripped all over the crime scene—I doubt any of the tissue samples are uncontaminated.” He looked over at me. “How about you? Your vampire client still afraid for his life?”
“I’m working up a supplemental security plan for him, but I think he may be overreacting. I’ll talk with the landlord about the missing neighbors.”
McGoo grew more serious. “Made any progress on your own case, or Sheyenne’s? I really feel sorry for you, man. Scout’s honor. If I can do anything to help, I will.”
“I’ll take you up on that, as soon as I figure out what to ask. I just gotta poke around. In the meantime, I’m turning up the heat on Harvey Jekyll for the divorce case. His wife is convinced he’s up to something, and if I can find a little leverage . . .”
Back in my younger years, I didn’t think of myself as a nosy person, but I fit in with lots of different people. I kept quiet, but within earshot of gossipy types who dished out juicy stories like rumor-mongering Typhoid Marys. I collected these details, thinking of them as tools for future use, rather than hand grenades to lob indiscriminately. If the information doesn’t help me solve a case, then I do nothing with it. People—whether natural or unnatural—are entitled to their privacy, so long as they don’t hurt anybody.
Being a detective isn’t a fantasy profession like astronaut or pro football player or movie star, not something I had dreamed of doing since I was a kid. But I’m good at investigating, and the only way I can stay good is to maintain my personal social network of contacts, friends, even a few paid informants.
In order to have someone owe you a favor, you have to do them a favor first—earn the goodwill before you can spend it. I pay for McGoo’s drinks most of the time, but that’s just a minor gesture. After all, he’s my Best Human Friend, and it gives him the opportunity to grouse about his minuscule cop’s salary, although my earnings as a private detective, dead or undead, are just as minuscule.
As Francine delivered our second round, the door opened, and I saw the plaid suit jacket coming first, with Brondon Morris arriving half a second later.
The trio of zombie ladies at the bar perked up. “Brondon! We hoped you would come,” cooed Sharon.
“I can help him come more than once,” cackled Victoria.
Cindy patted the empty bar stool at her side.
Without the least bit of embarrassment, Brondon sauntered up to the bar and stood behind the women so he didn’t have to choose one over the others. “Oh, barkeep!” He raised his hand. “I’d like a Scotch and soda, ple
ase.”
He acted as if he didn’t know Francine’s name and she didn’t know damn well that he drank Scotch and soda. I’d seen the sales rep in the Goblin Tavern several times, and I found it odd that he treated the human bartender with less respect than he gave the undead clientele. “And another round of drinks for these lovely ladies.” He leaned closer to the cackling cadavers. “What’s your poison? Lemon drops?”
“Margaritas tonight.” Cindy lowered her voice to a raspy whisper that everyone in the bar could hear anyway. “Tequila makes me horny.”
Based on that, I thought it might be best if she steered clear of the tequila, but that wasn’t my call.
“You three look ravishing tonight.” Brondon set his sample case up on the bar and opened it, removing tiny sachets. “I’d like you to try this. A towelette for just a sniff, not enough to give it away, but these are the first samples of our Fresh Loam scent.”
The three women fawned over him. Over the course of the conversation, I watched Brondon “accidentally” trace his fingers over Sharon’s shoulders and give Victoria’s arm a playful touch. He flirtatiously brushed against Cindy’s back.
Next to me, McGoo shuddered and concentrated deeply on his second beer. “Guess the guy likes cold fish. I don’t even want to think about what they might do together.”
“You’re being prejudiced, McGoo. Even unnaturals want love.”
“Well, that guy’s looking for love in all the wrong places, as the song goes. Hey, Shamble, do ghouls eat popcorn with their fingers?”
I was distracted by the interplay at the other side of the bar. “What?”
“No, they eat the fingers separately!”
I doubted Brondon had ever actually slept with any of the ladies, but he treated them as something special. It was all a game, which they seemed to enjoy as much as he did. They went home with perfume and toiletry samples, and he inspired goodwill with the core customers of Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals.
In my earlier surveillance, I’d seen Brondon tagging along with Harvey Jekyll, no doubt feeling special because the boss had invited him to party with the big boys, though I’d never figured out what sort of party Jekyll was attending. Brondon might be an opportunity for me to track down Jekyll tonight.
After he sipped one drink with the zombie cougars and saw no new customers around the bar, Brondon bade them good-bye to a chorus of disappointed pleas. He just laughed and waved, promised he would see them all again soon, then slipped out of the Goblin Tavern.
I decided to follow him. He might be nothing more than a JLPN lapdog, but you never know where things might lead. I finished my beer, put some money on the bar, and said, “Gotta go to work, McGoo.”
“If you say so. I’m going to take my time here. Thanks for the beer.” I left the tavern, turned right, and quietly shadowed the perfume salesman.
CHAPTER 11
For a zombie, it’s hard to move quickly until the dead joints and muscles warm up. Still, it’s not difficult to follow a human through the streets of the Unnatural Quarter, especially when he’s wearing a loud sport jacket and trailing nose-curling fumes from a case full of clashing deodorants, colognes, and body washes.
By the time I left the Goblin Tavern, the city’s night life was hopping. Neon signs glowed, and traditional shops opened up for unnatural clientele. Streetlights flickered ominously in an electric rhythm sure to trigger epileptic seizures; on side streets, many lights were burned out or smashed.
Brondon Morris walked with a jaunty stride, swinging his case, whistling a tune that only he could interpret. Going about his rounds, he certainly didn’t look like a man engaged in nefarious activities. He dropped by an exclusive zombies-only bar, then a gentleman vampires’ club, but when he stopped at a place just outside of Little Transylvania, I had to ponder my next move.
Basilisk: A Place Without Mirrors.
The nightclub had powerful memories for me. I needed to go inside, even if following Brondon was just a pretext. I whispered a personal reminder, “The cases don’t solve themselves.” Whether or not I got any leads in the Jekyll divorce case by following Brondon, maybe I’d learn something about an even more important mystery.
Basilisk was where I had met Sheyenne.
After Brondon entered the nightclub, I waited a few minutes outside so he wouldn’t suspect I’d been following him, then I pulled open the door.
Even my dulled senses were assaulted by the curling fog of cigarette smoke, incense, and scented black candles. Red lights filled the main room with a crimson glow, and the cocktail bar was brushed nickel, cold and unwelcoming, completely unlike the cozy Goblin Tavern. As advertised, there was no mirror behind the bar, no mirrors on the ceilings; even the brushed nickel appointments cast no reflections.
I heard an inane melody played on the piano by, appropriately, a lounge lizard. The microphone on the stage stood ready, but the spotlights were dark. Ivory would be performing tonight—she had no competition now that Sheyenne was gone. (I kept telling Sheyenne that even as a ghost she had a nice set of lungs—and that wasn’t a euphemism for “nice pair of breasts,” although that was true too.) Sheyenne couldn’t get over her bad feelings about Basilisk, sure that she’d been poisoned in this place, though she had no proof.
I walked to one of the tables near the stage. The place was filling up, and the entertainment would start soon. I folded myself down into a chair as the lounge lizard plinked out a peppy tune.
I’d never gone inside Basilisk until a case brought me there. I remembered the night I first heard Sheyenne sing here, when she captivated the audience with a sultry rendition of “Spooky.” I was still alive then, and so was Sheyenne.
I’d been investigating illegal blood-bank sales at the nightclub, fresh packets that had “fallen off the refrigerated truck” on the way to the hospital. I was hired to get to the bottom of it by Harry Talbot, the disgruntled owner of a licensed blood bar, who believed the competing black-market sales were cutting into his business. When I caught Fletcher Knowles, Basilisk’s human bartender and manager, red-handed (so to speak), he was more annoyed than guilty. “Why get your panties in a wad about it, Chambeaux? I sell my stuff for almost the same price as Talbot does, but some customers prefer to be discreet. Would you rather they get back to basics and start feeding on people in dark alleys?”
Fletcher was balding, in his late thirties, with round John Lennon eyeglasses and a full goatee that he bleached very blond. He looked as if he should have been a barista rather than a nightclub manager. Fletcher got along perfectly well with unnaturals; he didn’t care about their species or the color of their skin (white, brown, or gray) or their fur—it was all business to him. Basilisk was one of the more successful nightlife spots in the Quarter, and he lined his pockets with extra income from under-the-table blood sales.
Through word on the street, Fletcher already knew that Talbot had hired me, but he didn’t see the situation as a problem. “Be reasonable. Nobody’s getting hurt.” He bought me a beer and told me to ponder long and hard about what I wanted to do, then made a halfhearted threat to have his goons beat me up if I didn’t cooperate. Since I was still alive back then, the threat was enough to give me pause.
And then, as I was sitting at the table in front of the stage, trying to figure out how to keep both sides of the feud happy and me undamaged, Sheyenne came out to sing.
She was riveting: her eyes, her beautiful face, her gorgeous figure, and her bravery. I couldn’t think of any other human who’d be willing to stand up and sing in front of a room full of stomach-turning, hungry, and potentially murderous unnaturals.
From the stage she hooked her eyes on me, clearly interested (maybe just because I was the only human customer in Basilisk that night). I bought her a drink during break. She sat down and talked with me.
Sheyenne was her stage name, she told me, derived from “shy Anne,” because she’d been nervous when she first auditioned. She started out as a cocktail waitress, t
hen did a short stint as an exotic dancer, but decided that wasn’t for her. After working a few years in business and management, she had changed her mind and become a medical student, working her way through school, and she needed to earn money. I don’t know what compelled her to fill out an application at Basilisk, but she told me the pay was twice what she could earn in any normal nightclub, though the tips were generally awful.
I told her I admired her, and that wasn’t just a pickup line. I told her she was beautiful, and I meant that too. I came back to see her the next night, and the next. After hearing her sing, it seemed only right that I started calling her Spooky, and she asked if it was all right to call me Beaux.
Then I saw her outside of work, and we had dinner. One thing led to another, and after two weeks she invited me back to her apartment.
She was poisoned shortly thereafter, so we never really had a chance, although I like to imagine that our relationship could have grown into a lot more. After she came back as a ghost, she saw no point in continuing medical school—nobody wanted a ghost for a doctor. And not being able to touch her patients would definitely have been a drawback. I was damned glad to have her working for Chambeaux & Deyer. . . .
Brondon Morris took me by surprise when he pulled up a chair and sat next to me at the table in front of the stage. “You’re following me, Mr. Chambeaux.”
I kept my composure, which is easy for a zombie to do. “I enjoy nightclub singing.”
“You were at the Goblin Tavern too.” He sounded more teasing than accusing.
“I believe I was on my second drink before you arrived. If I’m following you, then I’m going about it backward.”
Death Warmed Over Page 7
