Death & Stilettos

by Jason Krumbine

  “No argument.”

  “And stop sleeping with him.”

  Brooke shrugs. “That’s harder to do.”

  Avery shakes her head, heading for the front door. “You are such a slut.”

  twenty-two

  Brooke and Avery are sitting in the car, making their way down Stearns. Neither has spoken in the last thirty minutes.

  Brooke’s absently rubbing her cheek. Avery’s focusing intently on the red light, waiting for it to turn green.

  “I think you really need to start reevaluating your life choices,” Avery says.

  “Please.”

  “You’re borrowing money from your ex-boyfriend to buy shoes.”

  “In fairness,” Brooke says. “Loaning money is what he does for a living.”

  “That’s not really an argument in your favor,” Avery replies. “You have a problem.”

  “Or you could look at it as an amusing character trait,” Brooke suggests.

  “No, it’s definitely a problem,” Avery says. “Is that why he was there last night?”

  “Who?”

  “Stanley. Who else are we talking about?”

  Brooke sighs. “Yes, Stanley might have been there for some money.”

  “And you slept with him instead.”

  “That’s pretty much how it went down,” Brooke says. “I was drunk and horny. Neither Mr. Hard Ass or Steven the bartender were available.”

  “Did he knock anything off your debt?” Avery asks her.

  “What?”

  “For sleeping with him.”

  “Come on,” Brooke says. “What are you doing?”

  “Hey, it’s something he would do,” Avery replies. “It’s something you would do.”

  “I’m not a prostitute.”

  “No, you just like to sleep your way out of problems.”

  Brooke shrugs. “I have a method and it works.”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “You just don’t like Stanley,” Brooke says.

  “Here’s a newsflash,” Avery says. “Neither do you.”

  “I like sometimes,” Brooke says. “He has his moments.”

  “They’re tiny moments,” Avery mutters. “Tiny insignificant moments, bookended with larger annoying periods that bring you down as a human being.”

  “We’re not talking about his penis, are we?” Brooke asks.

  Avery sighs. “No, we’re not talking about his penis.”

  Avery stops the car at a red light at 49th and Stearns. There’s an outdoor café on the corner. Brooke happens to look out her window, her gaze drifting towards the café.

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispers.

  “What?” Avery asks, turning her head. She follows Brooke’s gaze. “Son of a bitch,” she echoes.

  Sitting there, at the outdoor café, is Larry Faraco, enjoying a sandwich and a drink.

  The light turns green and Avery guns it, cutting off a tiny red convertible. The car squeals to a stop in front of the café. The sisters get out.

  Larry looks up, wondering what the commotion is. He sees the Graves sisters hop the fence around the café. He swears, his mouth full of food and flips over the table.

  “Larry!” Brooke snaps. “If you run, I swear, I’ll rip off your dick and beat you with it!”

  Faraco runs anyway.

  He’s dodging between tables. He spares a look over his shoulder. The Graves sister’s are right behind him. Faraco’s paying too much attention to where he’s been and not where he’s going.

  He crashes into the waitress with a full drink order. They fall to the ground and drinks follow suit. The alcohol stings his eyes and when he opens them, Avery and Brooke are already standing over him.

  twenty-three

  Brooke can’t help herself, she keeps staring at the back of Faraco’s head. “I don’t believe this,” she says.

  They’re seated at the same café. Avery’s smoothed things over with the management. They’re off to the side, trying not to attract any more attention, but the other patrons are still casting sideways glances at them.

  Faraco’s seated with his back to the wall. He’s pulled his hoodie down for a second and the sisters get a good look at the back of his head. Or lack thereof.

  “Can I touch it?” Brooke starts to reach for the exposed brain.

  Avery smacks her hand down. “Stop that.”

  “He’s missing the back of his head,” Brooke says. “I can see his brain.”

  Up close Faraco’s an older man, probably in his late forties. His skin’s pale and he keeps dark circles beneath his eyes. There’s a discreet Band-Aid over a spot on the left side of his forehead.

  Faraco pulls his hoodie back up and folds his arms. “I’m not supposed to talk to you guys. I’m not even supposed to be near you guys.”

  “And who told you that?” Avery asks.

  “My lawyer,” Faraco says.

  “You’re lawyer?” Avery looks at her sister. “His lawyer.”

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” Brooke says.

  “Everything,” Avery agrees. She turns back to Faraco, “Newsflash: you’re a dead man. Dead men don’t get lawyers.”

  “Oh yeah?” Faraco says. “If I’m a dead man, what am I doing here talking to you two?”

  Brooke leans over to her sister. “He raises a valid point.”

  “You’re already on thin ice,” Avery says to her. To Faraco, she says, “There’s a system. There’s a way things are done. And then there’s you.”

  “You’re what we might call an ‘abomination’,” Brooke chimes in with air quotes.

  “Geez, Brooke,” Avery says.

  “What?” Brooke asks. “I used air quotes.”

  “I have seen beyond the veil,” Faraco says with a touch of fanaticism. “I know that this isn’t end for us. I was brought back for a reason.”

  Avery chews her lower lip for a second. She looks around briefly.

  “Okay, I want you to know, I don’t enjoy what I’m about to do,” she says to Faraco.

  “What?” Faraco asks.

  Then Avery’s hand shoots out. She grabs Faraco’s hoodie and yanks it down, smashing his face into the table.

  “Ow!”

  Brooke nods her head approvingly.

  Faraco lifts his head, holding his nose. “Are you crazy?”

  “It’s been a long day,” Avery says. “I don’t want to hear about your stupid revelation. I just want some answers. There were two other men killed with you, Burton Gentry and Jim Hollway. We need to know what happened to them.”

  Faraco looks back and forth between the sisters, his hands covering his face. “That’s what this is about?”

  “For starters,” Avery says.

  “Then we really want to know why you’re walking around,” Brooke adds.

  Faraco drops his hands from his face. He pinches his nose and wiggles it around. “Hey, in my condition, I’m not really sure when body parts are going to start falling off,” he takes a drink before he starts. “Your accountants were handling a bunch of retirement accounts for several different clients. By pure happenstance they discovered that retirement accounts were completely empty, through no fault of their own. They were all folded into several high interest investment funds. The accountants did some more digging and discovered that the investment funds were empty, too. All of this money, from all these different and unrelated clients, was getting funneled down a dark hole that they traced back to Raymond Stevens,” he notes the expressions on their faces. “So, you’re already familiar with Mr. Stevens.”

  “Only in that he employs large men that like to beat us up,” Brooke says.

  “And he seems to have some deceased soul activity around his offices,” Avery adds.

  Faraco nods and continues. “Your accountants aren’t too bright. Instead of going to the law, they approach Stevens about what they found, figuring it was some kind of clerical error. It wasn’t and Stevens’ decides the easiest way to deal with the
m is to buy them. He purchases their entire firm and has them dump all of their pesky clients. He figures that employing them will take care of two problems: this kind of mistake won’t happen again and the accountant’s will keep their mouths shut. It works for about all of one week. Then they decide to tell the authorities,” he shakes his head. “Idiots.”

  “Please tell me this is getting to the interesting part because I’m about six miles beyond bored,” Brooke says.

  Faraco continues. “Stevens’ decides the next reasonable course of action is to kill them, which is where I come in. I take them down to that motel. I shoot the first one and that’s the last thing I remember. I black out and when I come to both accountants are dead and I’m missing the back of my head,” he points to the band-aid on his forehead. “Near as I can tell something went wrong and a stray bullet did me in.”

  “Except you’re not dead,” Avery says.

  “Except that, yeah.”

  “And why is that?”

  He shrugs. “Search me. I came to and went to the nearest hospital. I thought it was just a bullet wound until everyone starting freaking out.”

  “And then you realized you saw the light?” Brooke says.

  “You don’t die and come back for no reason,” Faraco starts.

  Avery cuts him. “Who’s your lawyer?”

  “What?”

  “Your lawyer, you said you have a lawyer,” Avery says. “Not five minutes ago.”

  “Marcus Ibanez,” Faraco answered. “He said that my situation is very unique and that he and his firm are uniquely equipped to handle it.”

  Avery frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Brooke pulls out Faraco’s cuffs from her jacket pocket. “I think it means this.” She shows her sister the handcuffs. Faraco’s name is gone, as through it was never there to begin with.

  “Son of a...” Avery mutters. “Why aren’t you through the Red Door?”

  Faraco shrugs. “I have no idea what that is?”

  Avery fumes for a second. “Where are the accountants now?”

  Faraco shrugs again. “I assumed that they moved on,” he wiggles his fingers upwards.

  “They didn’t,” Avery corrects him.

  “Not really my area of expertise,” he says. “All I can tell you is Stevens is a paranoid little bastard who likes his money. So don’t get between him and his cash, if you follow my drift,” Faraco gets to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I think our business here is finished. If you’ve got any further questions, I suggest you go through my lawyer, Ibanez.”

  He starts walking hesitantly at first, afraid that the sisters might chase after him again.

  They don’t.

  “This is messed up six ways till Sunday,” Brooke says.

  “Worse,” Avery says.

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  “Why not?” Avery says. “He’s already dead. He’s got nothing to lose.”

  “We need to find those accountants before Suity-McSuity finds them and cuts a deal with them, too.”

  Avery shakes her head. “No, this isn’t just cutting a deal,” she gets up.

  “Where are we going?” Brooke asks.

  “To look at those bodies Jackson has,” Avery says, dropping some money on the table.

  “Jackson’s not going to let that happen.”

  “Then we’ll be real careful not to tell him that we did it,” Avery says.

  twenty-four

  “Frank,” Brooke says, giving his arm a little squeeze, “have you been working out?”

  Frank’s twenty-four and has a tall and lanky form hidden beneath a white lab coat. He works the night shift at the city morgue. His normally pale face blushes bright red.

  “Brooke,” he stutters, staring at the floor. “I can’t.”

  Brooke leans across his desk. Her jacket’s off and the way she’s bending over, Frank has a clear view straight down her shirt. A few sprays from a bottle of lavender perfume covers up the smell of the garbage. Nature takes care of the rest. “You can.”

  He blushes some more, turning an even darker shade of red. He tries to look everywhere except where she wants him to look, but he can’t. “I shouldn’t.”

  Brooke straightens up. “Well, I guess I can’t argue with that.” She folds her arms beneath her breasts, pushing them up further and gives him a pouty face.

  Frank keeps his resolve up for all of ten seconds.

  “Okay,” he gives in. Frank practically pops out of his chair, grabbing his keys off the desk. “But don’t mess anything up.”

  Brooke grabs him by the collar as he passes her and pulls his lips to her. She gives the poor man the best French kiss of his life. Brooke let’s him go, giving him a pat on the cheek. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Brooke and Avery stand in the morgue, staring at the wall of body drawers.

  “That was disgusting,” Avery says.

  “Okay.” Brooke cheeks for smeared lipstick in her reflection on the brushed stainless steel. “You can’t ask me to do something and then chastise me for doing it. That’s not fair.”

  “It is what it is,” Avery says.

  Brooke grumbles under her breath.

  “Which drawers are we looking for?” Avery asks.

  Brooke checks the paper Frank gave her. “Forty-eight and forty-nine.”

  Avery walks down the room, checking the labels. “You could have just flirted with him.”

  “I did.”

  “Raping his mouth with your tongue is not flirting,” Avery says.

  Brooke makes a face. “Okay, don’t ever call it that again.”

  Avery stops and pulls open two drawers.

  “Besides,” Brooke continues. “It’s things like that that help us out later.”

  Avery looks at the dead bodies of Gentry and Hollway. They match their photos perfectly. “Things like what? You making out with morgue attendant?”

  “Yes.”

  “How does that even work?”

  Brooke looks at her sister from across the two dead bodies. She waves a hand across her body. “You do know how this works, right?”

  “You pretty much offer it up to anyone that’s got a penis,” Avery says.

  “Not that,” Brooke says. “We’re women. Basically that means we have superpowers that we can use on men. Kissing Fred-”

  “His name was Frank,” Avery cuts in.

  “Kissing Frank,” Brooke continues without missing a beat. “Helps secure our relationship with him. Now, every time we come down here, he’ll get all sorts of tingly feelings and he’ll want to help us so that he can get more of those tingly feelings.”

  Avery stops what she’s doing and stares at her sister.

  “What?”

  “I can’t believe you’ve actually given thought to this,” Avery says.

  Brooke shrugs. “It works.”

  “It does?”

  “Yeah, why do you think I’m always getting free lattes at that coffee place,” Brooke says. “I totally made out with the manager.”

  “If only you used your superpowers for good.” Avery turns her attention back to the bodies. She peeks behind the left ear of Hollway. She pulls out an octagon of small twigs, tied together. At the center there’s a X. She places it on Hollway’s forehead. “Besides, I heard you did a lot more than make out with him.”

  “Well, they make some really good lattes there,” Brooke offers.

  Avery pauses. “Do you have any self respect left or have you just given up on that altogether.”

  Brooke does a palms up. “I am what I am.”

  The octagon glows and a series of images appear in the air above Hollway.

  “Huh,” Avery says, studying the images.

  “What is that?” Brooke points to the glowing imagery.

  Avery picks up the octagon from Hollway’s forehead and the images disappear. “Hollway’s soul was removed from his body before he was killed.”

  Brooke’s eyebr
ows rise. “Whoa, seriously? Is that even possible?”

  Avery places the octagon on Gentry’s forehead and the same imagery appears.

  “Same thing?” Brooke asks.

  “Same thing,” Avery pockets the octagon and pushes the two bodies back into the wall.

  “Can you do that?” Brooke asks. “Pull someone’s soul out before they die?”

  “Considering we were talking to an undead man thirty minutes ago, I’m willing to broaden my definition of what’s possible,” Avery says. “It’s got to be somebody who’s familiar with reaper techniques, though,” She paces the length of the morgue.

  “Reapers can’t do that,” Brooke says. “We can’t just randomly take souls.”

  “No, we’re not allowed to,” Avery corrects her. “There’s a difference.”

  “That sort of thing would definitely have caught the attention of the Council,” Brooke says. “What you’re talking about, basically, is a rogue reaper. Which, in case you were wondering, sounds ridiculous.”

  “So then we have to wonder why the Council of Reapers hasn’t stepped in yet,” Avery says.

  “Would we know if they already had?” Brooke asks. “We’re not exactly high on the totem pole around here.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Avery asks her.

  Brooke holds up her hands. “Hey, that happened long before Russell’s nephew. You can’t blame everything on me. What do you want to do?”

  “Well, we still need those two souls,” Avery says. “Even if Faraco’s soul is covered by Messor & Decessus, Gentry and Hollway are up for grabs.”

  “Assuming Messor & Decessus hasn’t poached them, too,” Brooke points out.

  “What did Faraco say about Stevens?”

  “That he was a paranoid bastard and to never come between him and his money,” Brooke says. “You think there’s something there?”

  “How paranoid is too paranoid?”

  Brooke shrugs. “Is it really paranoia if someone’s actually out to get you?”

  “Well, obviously there’s at least one or more dead souls somewhere in Stevens’ building,” Avery says. “And someone definitely snatched Gentry and Hollway’s souls out before they killed them.”