I peel off my work blazer and let it hang over the back of the chair, really wanting to put my feet up on the desk, having been standing for five hours at work. But I don’t know Connor’s house rules about that sort of thing, especially considering technically it’s not his house. Anyway, if it all goes pear-shaped, it’s just more prints and evidence to clean up, I think, resting one foot up on the other knee instead, and inspecting the tread of my boot for glass. I lever out any fragments I find with my car key while watching the screen idly. The first chip of glass is small and green, and I deposit it on the desk, while the second shard, firmly wedged in, emerges like a mature shark tooth. I look at it in mild dread, before measuring it against the edge of my boot. Would have been through to the lining. I hope that doesn’t mean soggy socks next time it rains.
A resident, or visitor, emerges from the rear of the house on one of the CCTV images in front of me. He goes to one of the cars in the main car-park, opening the boot, and rummaging inside.
I touch the screen to zoom in briefly, and press the icon for Print Screen Capture when the man pulls something out, before slamming the boot again. Connor’s printer starts up as I restore the screen size, watching the subject head back indoors, unawares. Within a few seconds I’ve got a nice colour snapshot under the parking lot security lighting, of a bottle of antifreeze.
“Is it a dinner or cocktail party?” I ask Connor, holding it up to show him, as he returns from the kitchen with coffee. “Someone just took that out of the boot of the green Jag. Not sure if they were playing Borgia Roulette in there or not.”
Connor puts the coffee down, and opens another window on the monitor to replay the micro-event.
“Yeah, this is why you and I still have jobs,” he sighs, sending the sequence as an email to head office before closing the additional window again. “To spot the stuff people are playing with that doesn’t have an arms signature that a scanner can detect. Wonder why he’s resorted to using that. Maybe the cheap Spanish Fly he ordered over the net isn’t convincing him, or he’s made a dirty punchbowl and thinks he diluted it too much.”
“What’s he up to?” I query.
“Trying to make zombies to play with.” Connor sips his coffee. “Playing Mad Scientist with alcohol.”
“If he wants pissed-up zombies, he should just get himself a bus and wait outside The Plaza at kick-out time,” I remark. “It’s like Sean Of The Dead in the car-park every night.”
“Yeah, but those are temporary, they sober up. I think he’s going for the permanent brain damage effect. Trying to create a special party piece for a different kind of party he’s been planning.”
“Is anyone else on his case at the moment?” I put my keys down, and pick up my coffee.
“Yeah, there are two guys on the inside, and they’re doing their best drinking game sabotage.” Connor picks up the glass fragments I’ve levered out of my boots so far, and drops them into the wastepaper basket under the desk. “Private rewards for proof of undeads, or Necromorphs, are way above the old school hit-man contracts you deal with. Specially by those with an interest in living forever and not ageing, in which to enjoy their money. But of course guys like this one, trying to fake a few zombies to collect a reward, don’t know that side of it. He just knows about the money he’ll come into if he succeeds in his con. He doesn’t know that he’ll be found out as a fraud soon as the buyers run a few medical and scientific exams, looking to distil the secret of eternal life. As far as he knows, they’re fetish collectors, or Great White Man-Hunters with an Undead Game Reserve somewhere. I’ve met a few of those in Pest Control. Guy with his vampire donkeys. Bought them off a farmer in Mongolia. Turned out they’d just been fed a carnivorous diet of milk, blood and their deceased dried siblings because of lack of vegetation in their home territory - soon as he got them back to his ranch in South America, they were munching on grass and shrubs, happy as Larry, getting fat and breeding like rabbits.”
“What did he do?”
“Called us lot. Said they were cursed. I sold them on for him as working stock, to places he wouldn’t be scared they’d find him again once they got their taste for blood back.” Connor grins to himself in recollection. “Obsession with the dark side of fairytales is all good while they think they’re in control of it, but not when they think it’s hiding under their bed, or crawling up the U-bend to bite them on the butt.”
“Wow,” I agree, taking a sip of my drink. “They really are like kids believing in stories. And I thought I was bad for that.”
“The difference is, you know yours are a psychosis because you made them up in your own head out of your own personalities,” he points out. “The others out there believe stuff from folklore, that’s printed in history or handed down in legends, or found on the Net or popularized in fiction. Anything with a common self-reinforcing illusion can lay claim to be a qualified account in the mind of people like that.”
“They’ve only got each other’s word for it,” I observe. Recalling some similar feeling myself recently. Starting to work alongside Connor, and his free admissions to finding my buttons to push in his favour.
“Yeah, but then guys like this comedian here try to manufacture other proof for them, because there’s money in it,” says Connor. “Round up a few tramps, get them hammered, turn them into live mummies, that kind of thing.”
“No wonder the tramps in town all seem to be carrying a grudge at the moment,” I remark. “Like the one I caught out back of 21 Black’s with an iron bar, hoping to clonk a doorman or customer, by the look of things.”
Connor leans back in his chair and rests his feet up on the desk.
“Who was on the door that night?” he asks, and it sounds a bit too casual, like his deliberate change of posture. I don’t imitate it, wary of showing myself up either way by being too cautious, or showing too much effort in mirroring. I realise I’m also using both hands to hide behind my coffee mug self-consciously, in the short pause, and lower it again slightly.
“Er…” I hesitate, giving myself time to see if I’ve misjudged it, but he just sips his coffee and acts idle with what could be convincing continuity. “Salem Du Boise and Tony Blackman, I seem to recall. I could be wrong.”
“Not all homeless folks are on the lookout for each other,” Connor grunts. “Some are only looking out for themselves. Playing for the other team to make a fast buck. Hollywood homeless hit-men.”
“Are they the ones Warren uses for target practice?” I query.
“Sounds like the kind of thing he’d do,” Connor smirks, putting his mug back down. “Put your feet up if you want. Take your boots off first.”
I do as he suggests, glad of the invitation. He moves the wastepaper basket out from under the desk, puts it next to his seat, and picks up one of my boots, turning it over to look for more glass. He pulls out a drawer in the desk and finds a penknife, opening the screwdriver attachment.
“You’re going to need new ones soon,” he mutters, prising out yet another piece of beer-bottle the size of a shark’s tooth.
“Oh, good - another excuse to buy shoes,” I joke, and he grins. I start to feel more comfortable.
“Speaking of shoes, have you packed for Vegas yet?” he asks, one eye on the CCTV still. “Just wondering if I’m keeping you from the usual girly tradition of being late getting ready for everything.”
“Guess I’m not that traditional, then.” I twirl my coffee mug.
“Shocking, coming from you.” He switches boots. “Have to say, though, I’m the same. Got suitcases I never unpack. My short notice cases, you could say.”
I nod. He’s definitely pinned the tail on that particular donkey.
“Anything similar on the radar at the minute for you?” I ask, uncertain whether I’ve missed a hint.
“Maybe.” He drops another chunk of glass into the basket. “Head office might have mentioned something. I get calls from Pest Control sometimes, that they want to piggy-back jobs onto the back of.”
“Population control?” I ask, thinking about him shooting goats out of a helicopter.
“Some culling, some re-location, some disease migration issues.” He picks up his mug for a mouthful of coffee, and puts it back down again. “Poachers can be a problem too. Different kind of pests.”
The resident on screen emerges again, to replace the antifreeze bottle back in the boot of the Jag.
“Think he had anything to do with the holes dug in the woods?” I suggest.
“Drinking game losers gotta end up somewhere,” Connor agrees, putting the boot back on the floor and the penknife away again. “Looks like I might be doing a bit of travelling as well this week, anyway. Means I’ll come back and find my fridge full of Yuri’s weird salami, and pickled God knows what, that he likes to stock up on while he’s on stakeout here. I’ll bring you back a present.”
“Cool, thank you,” I nod, finishing my drink and putting the empty mug down. “Just as long as it’s not a tropical disease.”
“Might discover a new one. You could name it.”
My brain finds the entertainment value of this idea a bit too diverting, as I wonder how many variations I can think up on the theme of ‘Door Lurgy.’
“Ah - you didn’t find this on the computer the other day when you were here, did you?” he says suddenly, opening a new window on the screen. “The Director’s Cut of Grayson’s fake snuff movie. Forensics had it.”
I watch the replay on the screen. It’s a bit longer, typically self-indulgent from an artistic perspective. But it’s the alternate ending that’s of particular note.
“If you want a job done properly, call a licensed professional…” I echo.
“Not the local cowboy,” Connor adds, completing the quote. “It was his contract killer advertising commercial. Still kind of tongue-in-cheek. A bit Monty Python sketch, when you think about it. It ended up cut out and circulated as snuff film fodder by Facebuddy users. When head office finally found this version, that was when they called him and said: Buddy, who do you think ‘the professionals’ are, exactly? And found out he’d been stalking you looking for evidence. He was dropping hints all right that something was going on, but he wanted in on it too. They reckoned it was only a matter of time otherwise, if they hadn’t caught him, that he ended up taking cash jobs in his ambulance and ending up on the To Do List. The only reason he hadn’t so far, was his commercial had been edited by viral pirates as soon as it went live on ViewTube.”
I’m not thinking about that exactly. I’m thinking how weird it would be if the Monopolies Commission got onto head office’s case, and they were forced to allow a bit of healthy competition into the business, making their own marketing commercials. Musical ones, featuring dancing hit-men, lovable animated ninjas, and comparative hockey-mask ratings showing body-count productivity against other Deathrunner companies. I’m trying to picture how many more advertisements are already out there, posted online by other individuals, edited or otherwise. Makes a change from the old Hollywood hit-man image, sitting alone at the bar, trying to attract work his way by body-language, image and charisma.
“The only problem with advertising that you’re a wolf-killer when you’re not, promoting the idea that there’s a wolf problem around, is it attracts a whole other bunch of wolf-fans,” he mutters. “Next thing you know you’ve got wolf-huggers, and wolf trophy-hunters, and people who want to employ or collect wolves, or stick them under a microscope, or breed them, or distil them, or start a wolf religion, or buy into the brand. Then I get called up to fix whatever the original problem is, and end up with Wolf Rights activists on my case claiming I’m persecuting them. And the occasional actual wolf, which turns out to be a sick puppy. And it’s usually just some guy trying to impress a girl by howling at every full Moon, loud enough for everyone to hear.”
Sums it up, I think to myself. I wonder how literally he meant it. Sounds like Scarecrow Dorothy and her Wolf Boyfriend. Everyone I’ve dealt with recently seems to be less than five degrees separation from an undead werewolf-tale right now.
It also makes me think about whether Connor’s ambivalence towards relationships has more to it, than just an issue with women who behave like stalkers. Maybe romance to him has too many other people’s agendas waiting to latch onto it, turning a private matter into some twisted and complex set of missions. It all gets confused in my thoughts of Deathrunner commercial advertising. Crazy undead stalker fan advertising…
“That other grave we found in the woods,” he continues, scattering my imaginary singing Shao-Lin monks with baseball bats, dancing with women in wolf-hair extensions. “Had an embalmed corpse in it. You’d think if something’s been buried, the last thing you’d want is for it to be preserved. I think someone was hoping to prove something by it. Possibly by its ‘accidental’ discovery on one of these theme parties.”
“That’s a new one on me.” I admit. “Was the body modified in any way? I’ve heard of fake alien corpses and dinosaur fossils turning up. Scientific analysis usually picks up on the joins fairly quickly.”
He shakes his head.
“Not so much as a false canine,” he says. “Just bog standard human. Female, between twenty and thirty, blood drained, organs removed, some minor surface butchery – as if to remove distinguishing marks or tattoos, but can’t be sure yet.”
“Jack the Ripper,” I comment.
“Nah, she was put back together a bit too neatly. Like someone used her to practise cosmetic stuff on, as well as the mummification.” He picks up the wooden stake again from the vet’s, turning it between his hands thoughtfully. “Anyway, you should know better than to call me Jack. It’s Connor, remember?”
“Yeah, how come you haven’t slipped up and used my real name yet?” I joke in turn.
“Because I’m smarter,” he teases. “Or maybe because it doesn’t mean anything to you. Not this version of you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t identify with intimacy yet, it’s not sentimental to you. There’s no response value in using your real name. You’d just correctly assume it was an attempt at a macho-brained short cut to empathy.”
I shrug and slide down in the chair a little, not entirely involuntarily. I adjust my feet’s prop position on the desk, in order to get more comfortable.
“Good point,” I agree. “So when I say the name Jack, what happens, you hear other echoes of it, or it reminds you of things?”
“Something like that.” His arm goes around the back of my chair and he twists my ponytail through his fingers thoughtfully. “Better you don’t say it.”
I try to figure out if this means it triggers memories that are mostly negative or mostly positive, but positive in a way than he and I aren’t on full terms with yet. However, my own thoughts are sliding away too easily themselves, due to tiredness, and him playing idly with my hair.
“Wake me up if anything good happens,” I murmur, wondering if the distraction is intentional, now it seems to be working.
“I do sometimes think about what takes up all that space in your head, that other people fill up with memories of relationships and pattern-matching stuff,” he says.
I smirk a little wryly to myself.
“I rent it out to other people as spare storage,” I tell him.
“What’s that like?”
“Annoying, when they change their minds about their memories over who did what to who, and still expect me to agree or sympathize.” I stretch my arms around the back of the chair, and clasp my hands, loosening my shoulder-blades in the process. “Takes quite complicated processing and cross-referencing, when it didn’t happen to me. I usually just default the explanation for it as ‘hidden agenda’ meaning they want to influence their public image for some other reason, like affect a new romantic prospect, or increase someone’s attachment, or emphasize a retrospective connection, or a synchronicity that wasn’t evident before. A couple of my friends change their minds about men, and relationships, a
nd what’s meaningful by the hour. There’s a guy or two at work like that as well. Every time a new barmaid shows up, suddenly they’re rewriting their whole romantic history, to make room for the latest instalment.”
“What, they change their memories as well?” he asks.
“Depends who they want to make an impression on,” I say. “It’s usually the emotional context of the memory that changes, more than the facts. You probably see that a lot in police statements. I know it happens a lot quicker around alcohol and adrenaline in fights. One minute they’re instigating the fight and egging on everyone in it, the next they’re crying saying he doesn’t love them. Depends on who’s listening, and what the punishment or reward value is likely to be.”
“Or the sympathy level,” he agrees. “Histrionics. There’s a bit of that going on with the Taylor incident with his girlfriend, but it’s not clear which way around it is yet. Whether she exaggerated in the first place because of the humiliation of finding he’d put photos of it on the internet, or she’s playing it down now withdrawing the issue from police attention, to avoid being labelled a squealer, and regain trust from men as serious relationship potential. Unless Taylor’s promised her some other incentive to shut up about it, like a big flashy wedding her friends can’t match, or paid her off some other way.”
“The only thing I know about her is she’s a big SATC fan,” I tell him. “So if he was buying her silence, it’s going to be way out of his normal doorman’s price range. It’s going to be designer label price tags and private jet fares all the way. How do you think he’s going to come into that sort of money?”
“You could have a point,” Connor muses. “It’d be one good reason to keep an eye on him, seeing whether the notion of contract hit-man was just a passing fantasy he was indulging or not. If his girlfriend’s blackmailing him with a police statement she’s already given and put on hold, it could be quite an expensive commitment for him to fulfil.”
Death & the City Book Two Page 38
