Johnny Black, Soul Chaser: The Complete Series (Johnny Black, Soul Chaser Series)

by JJ Zep

  vingt-quatre

  Much as I would have liked to help the Cordays out with their little problem, I respectfully declined. This case had already gotten way out of control and the last thing I needed was another complication. I was still no closer to finding Commodus, and despite Jitterbug’s insistence, I was not convinced that Commodus and Duval were one and the same.

  I was, of course, upset about the death of Marie Antoinette, even though I knew from my high school history classes that she was executed during the Revolution. Let’s just say that it’s a lot easier to accept the death of someone you know only from a tenth grade textbook, than it is to accept the death of someone who had been your lover and friend.

  Despite my refusal to help them, the Cordays were good enough to offer me a place to hide from the Jacobins, a small garret in the Rue Cordonnier, on the other side of the river. They also provided me with a change of clothes, something less conspicuous than the fine suit Robespierre had given me.

  I set off for my new apartment on foot, with Claude Duval as my guide. We crossed the Seine at Pont Neuf, with Notre Dame cathedral rising majestically to our left. Then we navigated a maze of back alleys, arriving eventually at the Rue Cordonnier, a street occupied mainly by shoe-making establishments. We located the apartment building and climbed three flights of stairs to a single room under the eaves.

  The apartment had no plumbing or furnishings other than a single iron bedstead, and a cracked old chamber pot. Still I was grateful to have a place to rest up, to think things through and to plan my next move. I sent Duval on his way with my thanks, and lay down on the lumpy mattress. Any plans I may have had for a bit of peace and quiet though, were soon extinguished.

  “Is that putz gone yet?” Jitterbug said stepping out of the wall.

  “Yeah, he’s gone,” I said. “But shouldn’t you be getting after him? I thought you were convinced he was Commodus.”

  “I’m not so sure anymore, Dexter. I mean, Commie’s a muttonhead alright, but this Duval’s a couple of croissants short of a continental breakfast, if you ask me.”

  “That leaves us in a bit of a bind,” I said. “If Duval isn’t Commie, then who the hell is? And where the hell is he?”

  “The million euro question,” Jitterbug said, lighting up one of his cigars. “I would have thought Commie would look for a royal host, or at least a noble, him being such a pompous twerp and all. But these Frenchies have been chopping up their royals faster than a sushi chef, so ol’ Commie’s fresh outa luck on that score.”

  “You think he may have left, maybe found his way to another portal or even to the turnstile?”

  “No chance of that,” Jitterbug said. “No he’s here in Paris, alright.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Call it an impish instinct.”

  He took a deep pull on his cigar and blew out a couple of heart-shaped smoke rings. “One thing you have got going for you though,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “At least you’re safe here. No one’s going to find you in this dump.”

  Jitterbug had hardly spoken the words when the door creaked open and a female voice called out, “Hello, anyone home?”

  A woman stepped into the room wearing an elaborate blue and gold ball gown. “Hello?” she said again, “Anyone here?”

  “Hello Pandora,” I said. “Don’t they teach you to knock in Purgatory?”

  “Well, the door was closed, so I thought I might…”

  “…open it and walk in,” I finished for her.

  “Where’ve you been? Pandora said, flashing me a dazzling smile. “I’ve missed you. You haven’t been avoiding me have you?”

  “Only when I can,” I said.

  “Oh, Johnny,” she said, giving me a little punch on the arm. “Such a kidder.”

  “How’d you get up three flights of stairs in that get-up?” I said.

  “A little levitation trick I learned from the monks of Patagonia Minor. You like?” she said, doing a little spin so I could admire her outfit.

  I did like, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “Not bad,” I said.

  “Why so glum, Johnny? The case not going as you’d hoped?”

  “The case is going just fine,” I said.

  “You’ve found Commodus, then?”

  “I’m close.”

  “Me too,” she said. “In fact, I’m pretty certain that Commodus is Citizen Robespierre.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Oh, I have my reasons, I’ve been doing this for a long time you know and I didn’t get where I am without learning a thing or two.”

  “Well, this is all very interesting, but…”

  “Oh okay, you’ve twisted my arm, you sly fox you,” Pandora said.

  “I have?”

  “ I have a date with him tonight,” she blurted. “There I said it.”

  “A date with who, exactly?”

  “Maximillien Robespierre, don’t judge my Johnny, I’m just doing my job.”

  “Hey, you can date whoever you like, none of my concern.”

  “Really? I thought you were kind of sweet on me. Anyway, it’s not a date date. The last time I went out with Max, he took me to meet Jean-Paul Marat. You ever met him? God, what a bore. He spends all of his time in the bath you know, apparently has some disgusting skin disease. He refused to meet us face-to-face, and spent the whole evening behind a curtain. All we could see was flickering candlelight. Quite bizarre.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “C’est la vie, Johnny Black, just sharing information with a colleague. Spreading the love around. Paris has been good to me, I’ve just recently bagged the executioner Charles Sanson, the murderer Marcel Petoit, and a couple of Nazis, for good measure.”

  “I’m happy for you.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss. You’re in Paris, live a little. Speaking of which, I’ve got a few minutes, fancy a quickie?”

  “No, I do not fancy a quickie, Pandora, but thanks for the offer.” Actually, I fancied a quickie with Pandora Jain very, very much, just not with Jitterbug in the wall looking out.

  “So he is here,” Pandora said, a sly smile appearing on her face.

  “Who?”

  “Jitterbug, I just made you think about him.”

  “I did not think about Jitterbug.”

  “Yes, you did. You thought you’d love a quickie with me but not with Jitterbug watching. And anyway, I know he’s here because I can smell those god-awful cigars of his. So, where is he?”

  “I’ll have you know that these are Cuban,” Jitterbug growled stepping out of the wall.

  “Jit!” Pandora said, “This is a pleasant surprise. My, this is turning into quite the reunion.”

  “Cut the crap, you snake-hipped hussy? Where’s my bobbit?”

  “Now Jit, you gave that to me, remember?”

  “And you gave it to that deadbeat Ringo, which means that in terms of the Jabberwocky Convention I can claim it back. So where is that scum-sucking Beatles freak?”

  “Oh, he’s gone to some or other tedious old college reunion dinner. Mandrake was it?

  “Mandragora?”

  “That’s it, Mandragora.”

  “I’ll kill him!” Jitterbug screamed.

  vingt-cinq

  I’d seen tantrums from Jitterbug before, but even for him this one was a doozy. “You wait till I get my hands on that gator-faced gnome, I’ll twist him like a slinky! I’ll use his nose for crazy putty! I’ll tie him to a chair and make him listen to P Diddy! The cheek of it, attending my reunion dinner!”

  “Right, I’ll be off then,” Pandora said. “Wouldn’t want to be late for my date with Max.”

  “Well don’t let us keep you,” Jitterbug scoffed, “Try not to trip on your dress and plunge to one of your deaths on your way out.”

  “Oh Jit, you know you don’t mean that,” Pandora giggled. “Johnny, a pleasure as always.” She drifted from the room a
s though walking on air.

  “And that dress you’re wearing looks like an ogre’s underwear!” Jitterbug shouted after her.

  The minute she’d gone though, the little imp calmed down immediately. “Got you now, Miss Chicken Tikka Masala with extra pickles,” he hissed. He jumped in the air and did a little impish jig then let out a sigh and said. “I’m so very, very good.” Even by Jitterbug’s standards this was pretty bizarre behavior.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Just enjoying the moment,” he said. “Any day I can kick Pandora Jain’s ass is a day to be savored.”

  “How exactly did you kick her ass?” I said. “Her imp is at your reunion dinner, wearing your bobbit.”

  “Ooh, stop me slitting my wrists,” Jitterbug said. “Believe me, Dexter, those reunion dinners are about as exciting as the Carter-administration. And by the way, nobody owns an imp. Technically, we own you.”

  “So that whole tantrum was a hoax?”

  “Yeah,” he said proudly, “A duplicitous imp. Who’d a thunk it?”

  “I still don’t see how you kicked Pandora’s butt?”

  “Don’t you see? She’s as good as told us where to find Commie.”

  “She has?”

  “I wish you’d pay attention, Dexter,” he growled. “Remember her story about this Marat screwball? How she said he was sitting in the bath, behind a curtain, and all they could see was candlelight?”

  “Ah come on Jitterbug, you’re not going to fall for that, are you? It’s so obvious that she told me that story to send us off on a wild goose chase. I mean, why share that with me in the first place? And that whole flickering candlelight thing, I mean can you get any more hokey?”

  ‘Exactly,” Jitterbug said, looking very pleased with himself.

  “What do you mean exactly?”

  “That is exactly what Pandora wants you to think. Classic bluff and double bluff, isn’t it?”

  “Now you’ve really lost me.”

  “Oh bother,” Jitterbug said, and then continued, talking slowly and deliberately as though explaining rocket science to a toddler. “Why do you think Pandora came here tonight?”

  “I don’t know, to keep tabs on us?”

  “No, she came here to see what we’ve got.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “For someone who doesn’t understand a simple double bluff, you’ve sure got a lot to say for yourself,” Jitterbug growled, before continuing. “Pandora thinks she’s tracked down Commie. She’s waiting to make her move, but she needs to find out if we’re close or not, that way she knows how urgent her situation is.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that.”

  “So she comes in here all dolled up, shakes her tushy at you to find out what you know. When she figures you know nothing, she decides to divert you from her target, Jean-Paul Marat.”

  “By telling me who her target is?”

  “By feeding you a line that seems so obvious, you’re bound to ignore it. Bluff and double bluff. It’s almost brilliant.”

  “I still think it’s a bit of a stretch,” I said.

  “Trust me on this Dexter, I know this broad and there’s more twists to her than a pretzel. The question is, how do we get to this Marat before she does?”

  “Well, the Cordays did ask me for my help in some plot to assassinate him.”

  “And you said?”

  “I said no.”

  “No offence Dexter, but you really are a dimwit sometimes.”

  vingt-six

  “You’ll help us?” Corday said, “That’s wonderful news, wonderful! Marie, did you hear this, le Comte Le Noir has had a change of heart and is now prepared to help us with the murder of the rat, Marat.”

  “That’s wonderful news,” Marie agreed, shuffling over from the stove.

  “This calls for a celebration. Bring some wine for our guest.”

  “I won’t, thank you, monsieur. I was rather hoping to press on with the matter at hand.”

  “Oh course, oh course,” Corday said. “We were thinking next week Wednesday, perhaps Thursday.”

  “I was hoping for a sooner resolution than that.”

  “Quite, quite. Well, we could push things forward to Tuesday, although that is a tad awkward, a busy day in the shop you see.”

  “I was thinking of doing it today.”

  “Today! Quite impossible monsieur, there are things to be done you see, preparations to be made.”

  “What preparations?”

  “Well, the knife needs to be sharpened for a start.”

  “And?”

  “And…well, that’s it really.”

  “So what do we say you fire up the old grindstone, get that blade nice and keen, and we take care of Monsieur Marat, toot suite.”

  “Well, I suppose we could hasten things along,” Corday said. “But we’ll have to check with Charlotte, she’ll be the one wielding the blade after all.”

  “Let’s speak to her then.”

  “What now?”

  “Can you think of a better time?”

  “This sudden haste, monsieur, is unseemly. It makes me nervous.”

  “You would prefer to leave Jean-Paul Marat in his bathtub for another week, writing his poisoned edicts, stirring up the masses, baying for blood?”

  “Of course not monsieur, but we had rather hoped…oh, very well. Marie, fetch Charlotte down here, would you?”

  Marie shuffled off and after a while returned with a pretty, frail-looking girl of about twenty.

  “This is Charlotte,” Corday said. “Charlotte, this is Count Jacques Le Noir, who has agreed to help us in our undertaking.”

  “Charmed, monsieur,” Charlotte said, making a little curtsey with her eyes downcast.

  “Le Comte Le Noir feels it appropriate to proceed with some haste,” Corday said. “I know we had spoken of some time next week, or perhaps even the week after, but the Count is quite insistent on an earlier date. I’m not saying I agree mind, but…”

  “Let’s do it,” Charlotte said.

  “You’re sure, child?”

  “With this one death, we save one hundred thousand lives. Let’s do it.”

  vingt-sept

  Jean-Paul Marat had once been a Paris deputy and editor of the popular, radical newspaper ‘Friend of the People’. These days however, a debilitating skin disease had seen him confined to his bathtub most of the time. That didn’t stop him from writing poisonous essays calling for the execution of anyone he considered ‘an enemy of the republic’ though.

  Not that this was any of my business, if the French wanted to slice and dice each other, with knives and guillotines and the like, that was their concern. My concern was to capture Commodus, and if Commodus was posing as Marat, then I didn’t care what the Cordays planned to do with his body, as long as I could jar his soul, and transport it back to hell.

  Still, there was the timing of the thing, and in going over the planning with Jitterbug, I broke the operation down into three parts. First, we had to scare off the two guards who Gilles Corday told us protected Marat’s front door, day and night. With an accomplice like Jitterbug to call on, that was the easy part.

  Second, we needed to get in the room with Marat. If he really was Commodus, we simply needed to scoop up his soul in the SPAA apprehension jar, as he was already, conveniently, immersed in water (You will remember, I’m sure, that souls submerged in water become liquid, and somewhat resemble a firefly).

  The third part of the operation was a bit more tricky, we had to get Charlotte Corday into the room to carry out the assassination of Marat. An easy enough task, but with a ‘wrinkle’, as Special Agent Doppelganger, would have put it. If Commie was indeed using Marat as a host, that meant Marat was already dead, and had likely been so for some time. The minute we scooped up Commie, Jean-Paul Marat would be nothing more than a slab of meat. Charlotte Corday would, in effect, be murdering a corpse. We just had to hope she wouldn’t notice.

  With
these thoughts still not entirely resolved in my mind, we set off for Marat’s apartments, on a fashionable Paris street that was once home to many of the nobles he so despised.

  We took a carriage, with Gilles Corday driving, Claude Duval in the box seat, and Charlotte and myself riding in the cab. Jitterbug was wherever Jitterbug got to, more than likely concealed in the ceiling of the cab, looking down Mademoiselle Corday’s blouse.

  Gilles let us off a block from the Marat residence and we walked the rest of the way with me and Claude in the lead and Charlotte trailing us at a discreet distance.

  As we approached Marat’s apartment I could see the two guards, burly Parisian thugs, looking somewhat ridiculous in their peaked liberty caps. The musket with fixed bayonet that each man carried was less comical though.

  “Let me do the talking,” I whispered to Claude, hoping he wouldn’t go into one of his tirades about being the scourge of the this and the blight of that.

  One of the guards noticed our approach and nudged the other.

  “Citizens,” I said giving them the brightest smile I could muster, “My friend and I were wondering…”

  “Move along, feller,” one of the guards growled, “Nothing to see here.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “Still I was wondering if I might have a word…”

  “You deaf as well us dumb, friend. We told you to move your ass along. We don’t take kindly to your sort bothering decent citizens.”

  “But…”

  A panel slid back in the front door, “Who is it, Alphonse?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Just some vagrants, Madame. I’ll soon send them on their way.”

  “Vagrants?” Duval said. “I’ll have you know that I am Claude Duval, the French Dick Turpin.”

  “Turnip dick, more likely,” one of the guards laughed.

  “Right, that’s it,” Duval said. He started to unbutton his coat.

  The door panel slid open a second time, “Look, can you keep it down out there!” Madame Marat said. “My husband is unwell, you know. My goodness, what’s that? Oh dear lord, it’s... it’s… a devil!” The door suddenly flew open and Madame Marat sprinted from the apartment.