“The Marquis? Is that Ambrose? Is he old like you?”
“He’s old,” I said, “but he’s nothing like me.”
“Well, everything was going fine as far as wills and paperwork went. Calvin Watkins got the insurance payout, plus the money from TGN and the ticket sales. All told, he was set to make about three and a half million.”
“The Marquis didn’t take a cut of that?”
“No,” she said. “Gave it all to Calvin. Just said he owed him one.”
That sounded like the Marquis I knew, but what was his game? What did he get out of it?
“So, what are these legal troubles?”
“Oh, Dan or Calvin or whatever would have been set, but he got greedy. There was a contract out on you, and he collected. Figured he would get paid twice. It was only ten grand. Ten thousand dollars is nothing compared to what he was going to make. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“Did he get caught?”
“Yeah,” she said. “The feds found out about this whole murder ring on the net. It got traced back to the mob, but it’s a loose connection that won’t stand up in court without a really good lawyer. They busted the Fist, but he said he was framed and he may be right. The guy’s a technological moron, so Dan is taking the brunt of the charges. Didn’t look good that this guy Calvin Watkins came out of nowhere and was suddenly Dan Germany’s beneficiary and apparent leak in the Danger Man stunt team. Dan’s trying to plea to get out of it, but it isn’t looking good on account of him not knowing anything, plus rumor has it he tried to convince a cop he couldn’t be arrested for murdering Dan Germany because he was Dan Germany. Tested positive for heroin in his system.”
“Wow,” I said. “Some people are just self-destructive, I guess. Yeah, a hundred grand is fine.”
I let Dan Germany’s fate sink in. What did I even save his life for if he was just going to throw it away again? Was his legacy really worth all that? And what did the Marquis get out of this? Did he know Dan would do this? Was it part of his plan or had something actually not worked out how he wanted it to? The hot chocolate helped settle the nerves a little, but it was still so strange. As strange as hot chocolate in July, assuming it still was July.
“What month is it?” I asked suddenly.
“August,” Olivia said. “The seventeenth.”
“Oh no,” I said. “Oh shit, no no no no no!”
“What is it?” she asked.
“My blood,” I said. “It’s no good. I’ve been dead too long. It’s all gone bad.”
“So?”
“So I can’t turn back into myself,” I said. “I’m stuck as a drugged out old man. A famous drugged out old man that everyone will recognize. A famous, drugged out, dead old man! I can’t go out and get fresh blood to become someone else because I’ll get spotted, and even if I could, I still have to start all over again. New identity, new everything.”
“I can take care of that,” she said.
“Living blood,” I said. “It can’t be from a dead guy.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “There’s a phlebotomist owes me a favor.”
“Did you…?” I drag my finger across my throat.
“No, I didn’t kill anyone. Just made her deadbeat brother think someone wanted me to. It was a scared straight sort of thing. I was saving that favor for an emergency, no-hospitals transfusion, but I can swing it for you. Man or woman?”
“As in…?”
“The blood I get for you,” she said. “Do you want to be a man or a woman?”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said.
“Woman, then,” she said. “Fewer uncomfortable questions if my dad ever comes to visit.”
“Whatever you say. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Heck, if you’d like, I can probably get some papers for you too. Fake identities are kind of an old trick in my line of work.”
“Thanks,” I said, genuinely taken aback by her hospitality. “Mind if I crash here until you get all that squared away?”
“Funny you should ask,” she said. “How would you feel about moving in?”
I spit my hot chocolate all over her. “Beg pardon?”
“Rent free. Just get groceries or something. We’ll work out the details,” she looked at me expectantly. “So, will you?”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because I need you,” she said. “I need someone to keep me grounded and help me stay straight. And you need me. You said you needed the money, that that’s why you were helping Dan Germany. Everyone’s got bills, right? Even heroes? Maybe if I can keep the roof over your head, you could afford to give some deserving client a discount. I’ve seen more than a few contracts go out on decent people with no money. And if you live here, I can always find you when work comes your way. I can stop paying a bill on a phone you never use.”
“You’re serious,” I said. “You’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “The truth is, I could use a friend, and I suspect you probably could too. That Ambrose fellow kept talking like he was all you had in the world. I was checking phone records, and I’m pretty sure he was working with the guys who put out the hit on Dan Germany in the first place. He’s a real asshole.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I let out a laugh. “Are you sure you want to do this? What if I snore? What if I’m the worst roommate in the history of the world?”
“Then I’ll kill you in your sleep every night and when you wake up in the morning, you won’t have to shave because you’ll have reverted back to your baby-faced natural state.”
It was hard to argue with logic like that.
“What do you say?” she said and offered me her hand.
I stared for a long moment. This may be just the support I need to break free from the Marquis once and for all, I thought. I take her hand and give it a warm shake.
“I say get me a key.”
“Great,” she said and surprised me with a big hug. It was nice. I hadn’t been hugged in a very long time.
“So, roomie,” I said, trying on the word, “what shall we do this weekend?”
“My dad just got me a new gun. Gave it to me on Independence Day. I thought it might be fun to maybe go shooting Saturday morning. Care to come along?”
“Sure,” I said. “That could be fun.”
Maybe. I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t been shooting in ages. Just having company though would make it a dream. Having someone to talk to.
“Some people are squeamish about this sort of thing, but do you mind if we go hunting? It’s better practice than paper targets.”
“Just as long as we’re hunting wolves,” I said with a laugh.
“That sounds like a joke, but I don’t get it,” she said. “Why is it funny?”
“It’s an old story,” I said. “I’ll tell you on Saturday.”
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my wife, as always, who is not only supportive, but also helps wrangle the kids so I can get in a little writing time without the middle child running up and deleting chapters with a well-placed slap to the keyboard.
Thanks to my job, which is not always my favorite, but at least ensures I don’t have to worry about money or health insurance.
Thanks to Nate, Karen, Jessica, Joshua, and Houston for looking at early drafts and providing feedback on the story and cover art.
Speaking of cover art, thanks to LV Book Design for another great cover. This is SOOO much better than my hand-drawn scribbles.
Thanks as always to my gaming friends who keep my creative storytelling muscles fit when I’m not writing (even if sometimes it’s planning for gaming that keeps me from writing. I’m looking at you, overly-elaborate escape-room RPG mystery parties).
Thanks to my family, teachers, and theater friends for making me the person I am today, filling me up with the ideas that fill these stories and the know-how to tell them.
Thanks to all the movies,
books, art, and music that inspire me, especially fiction about immortals that have always made me say, “That doesn’t seem realistic. I bet if there were really immortals they’d have all these problems no one mentions.”
And as always, thanks to you for reading it. Thanks for seeing my book and taking a chance on it. I didn’t write it for you. I wrote it because I had a story I needed to tell. But without you, dear reader, writing is just me shouting into the wind. Thank you for indulging me with a listen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Arthur Cox doesn’t normally wear hats like this one. He is the author of the self-published book The Professional Corpse, the first story in this book series. He has already written drafts for the next book in the Corpse/Departed series, which he hopes to clean up and push out in the next few years. He also wrote New Tricks, which is a self-published tongue-in-cheek fantasy novel that is rated better than any first novel without an editor has a right to be. Self-publishing aside, he has made some choices in his life that have led him down roads he would never have expected. He’s worked jobs he didn’t even realize existed. He’s worked jobs he never in ten thousand years would have thought he’d do. He spends what little free time he has not working at home with his family and friends playing board games, card games, and games where his kid stands in the middle of the kitchen and claims she’s hiding and he’ll never find her. When he’s not doing any of the above, he’s probably making props or world-building for RPGs and future novels. When he’s not doing that, he’s waking up before five a.m. in hopes of getting half an hour’s writing in before the work day starts. In his perfect world, his work day would start when he sat down to write.
The Gamer Corpse
Coming 2019.
(…or… you know… whenever I can find the time to edit it…)
The Daredevil Corpse (The Departed Book 2) Page 19
