Working Stiff

by Kevin J. Anderson

  A loud, harsh, female voice burst out of the speaker. “Go away!”

  “We’re here to see Angina. We have a request—I hope you can help us out.”

  No answer—only dead silence.

  My turn to push the button. “Is anyone there?”

  “I want to be left alone!”

  Robin’s turn. She pushed the button. “We were hoping for an autograph, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trespassing!”

  Robin and I looked at each other, and she seemed very disappointed. “A person has a right to privacy. We can’t intrude if Angina doesn’t want us.”

  Robin was always a stickler for the rules, which had worked much to our disadvantage many times. I’ve often found it more effective to apologize afterward than to ask her permission before I did any questionable activity.

  I didn’t give up so easily, though. “The cases don’t solve themselves, and we have an obligation to our client to try everything possible. We’ve got to figure out a way.”

  Back at the offices of Chambeaux & Deyer, clients normally just walk through the door, whether it be a golem seeking justice for his comrades caught in an illegal sweatshop, or an opera-singing ogre who had lost his voice, or even human clients whose interactions with unnaturals hadn’t gone well. (That happens more often than you might think.)

  This time, though, we received our engagement letter via the mail. Jackson B. Hayes introduced himself to us as an avid collector, insisting that he was Angina’s “number one fan!” Then he went on to reassure us that there was nothing obsessive about it, like Annie Wilkes of Misery fame, but that he really, really, really loved Angina. He had grown up captivated by her, watched every episode of Nightmares in the Daytime cinema, collected a Standee figure of her, posters on the walls. He had DVDs of her movies, VHS copies of her older ones, even Betamax copies of older ones still.

  Jackson had sent us a black-and-white glossy photo, one of the beautiful head shots that showed Angina in her prime: alabaster skin and eyes with enough mascara and shadow to make an Egyptian sarcophagus jealous. The canyon of cleavage between her breasts was large enough and prominent enough that it could have been a national park, or at least a national monument.

  “I desperately want to get this photo autographed,” wrote Jackson. “It would mean so much to me.”

  So, he engaged Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations to break Angina’s legendary reclusive barrier just long enough to get a signature. “And make certain it’s an authentic signature. I’ve been duped before.”

  He described how he had purchased a signed photo from a collector on the internet, but because Jackson B. Hayes was an Angina expert, he recognized the forgery immediately.

  “Angina always signed her autographed photos to her fans with a special exclamation point drawing the dot in the shape of a heart. She said it symbolized a stake going right into the fan’s heart. So endearing! Since the photo I purchased had a normal exclamation point, I know it was fake.”

  Sheyenne brought the package to Robin and me. “Here’s a new case.”

  “Sounds like an easy job,” I said. “Everyone knows where the Angina house is.”

  Robin’s eyes were sparkling as she began to gather our information, gazing at the beautiful black-and-white photo. “I’d really love to meet her myself.”

  I’d never seen my partner turn into a fangirl before. It was charming.

  Sheyenne had used her poltergeist powers to dial the phone and let Jackson B. Hayes know that we would start work right away. All we had to do was get a minute of Angina’s time.

  Now, as we stood outside the imposing brick wall and padlocked gate, Robin clutched the black-and-white photo in its protective envelope. She wasn’t sure what to do.

  I pushed the intercom button again. “We won’t go away until we see you, Angina.”

  The response came back loud and gritty. “Keep out! No trespassing!”

  Robin pushed the button. “Please, we don’t mean to be a bother, but—”

  “I want to be left alone! Go away!”

  This was starting to sound redundant. I pushed the button again. “Is this just a recording? Is there anybody in there?”

  “No trespassing! Keep out!”

  Robin looked at me, worried. “Maybe we could try again later. Perhaps a phone call? Send a package in the mail?”

  “Zombies can be persistent,” I told her.

  “Not as persistent as lawyers,” Robin said.

  3

  The Unnatural Quarter really got hopping after dark, when all the nightbreeds, vampires, and shadowy creatures felt their metabolisms rise. But it was after official business hours for Chambeaux & Deyer. I decided to relax with Sheyenne and watch a movie. Considering our Angina case, though, it was a work-related date.

  Since my girlfriend is a ghost, she can’t touch any living, or formerly living, thing, which makes it difficult to hold hands. She passes right through my flesh. But when she really gets into that spectrally romantic mood, she can don a polyester glove and make her grip feel almost lifelike. Since at times I can be almost lifelike, too, we make a good couple.

  Sheyenne has been with me longer after death than we were a couple when we were both alive. Of course, our relationship and some unsavory acquaintances was what led to our respective murders in the first place, but neither of us let that dampen the post-mortem romance.

  We sat in the conference room with a portable TV set and the lights turned down so we could watch a DVD of Angina, Mistress of Fright’s Nightmares in the Daytime. The movie itself was an old stinker, Revenge of the Grinning Skull, whose effects were so bad the director must have gone home every night hanging his head in shame; the acting was so bad, the cast must have done the same; and the writing was even worse, so the screenwriter probably didn’t bother to go home at all, for fear of facing his family once they’d seen the film.

  But when Angina came on screen during the breaks, she was really something. The Mistress of Fright had a sparkle in her dark eyes, and she laughed so boisterously that sometimes her artificial fangs fell out—which she played for laughs, as well.

  She groaned at a particularly awful point in Revenge of the Grinning Skull. “Angina must have gone out of her way to pick movies so bad that they would make her look good.”

  Her polyester glove levitated and I reached up to hold her hand. A fresh-popped bowl of popcorn sat on the conference room table in front of us, mainly for ambience, because a ghost can’t eat and I usually don’t have much appetite.

  Normally, I would have gone to the Goblin Tavern to share an after-hours beer with McGoo, but that night I told him I had a date. “Must be nice, Shamble,” McGoo had said. “You’re dead, and you still get more girls than I do.”

  “Yes, that’s me, McGoo. Always been a babe magnet.”

  “Me too. But I think my polarity is the opposite of yours. I just repel them.”

  McGoo was probably still walking the beat even this late at night; he didn’t have much to go home for.

  A few hours after Robin and I came back from our unwelcome reception at the Angina house, McGoo called to tell me that he had found more incomplete zombie graffiti scrawled on a wall in the Quarter. Another young zombie with the same intellectual capacity as Eddie had spray painted “LLEN AND I” before running out of steam.

  McGoo had caught the deadbeat as he stood there looking at the can of spray paint in his hands. When McGoo demanded to know “Who’s LLEN?” the zombie didn’t seem to know. No surprise there.

  Now, while Sheyenne and I watched the movie, Robin was burning the midnight oil in her office, poring over cases, studying legal precedents, writing up briefs. She’s still alive but she doesn’t have much of a life—except with us. I didn’t want this talented young woman to work herself to death, but I knew that working on cases and hammering out briefs was how Robin chose to relax. She was more stressed when not working.

  Robin came to stand at the door of the conferenc
e room, peeping in so she could watch the movie, too. “You’re welcome to join us,” I said.

  She looked at Sheyenne and me holding hands. “I don’t want to interrupt your date.”

  “You’re not,” Sheyenne said. “This is about as far as Beaux and I were going to get tonight.”

  “Always stuck on second base,” I said.

  Robin snagged the bowl of popcorn. “I will take this if you’re not going to eat it. It smells delicious, fills the whole office.”

  She stood munching on a handful of popcorn, captivated by The Revenge of the Grinning Skull. “I remember this one!” When Angina came on, we all laughed aloud as a man in a rubber Creature from the Black Lagoon mask did pratfalls and fell into a half-full bathtub.

  “Angina certainly has stage presence,” Robin said. “With those looks, that body, she used to be quite a dish.”

  “And now she’s just leftovers,” I said. “No wonder she’s a recluse.”

  Sheyenne said, “Maybe she just wants people to remember the way she was on screen. You never age there.”

  “Right,” I said. “Like the Blu-Ray of Dorian Gray.”

  The phone rang. Even though it was after office hours, everyone knew that zombies and ghosts—and dedicated lawyers—worked all hours anyway.

  Sheyenne flitted out of the conference room while I paused the movie. She didn’t bother to use the door, simply passed right through the walls to get to her desk. Robin munched popcorn while we both listened to the phone conversation in the reception area.

  “All right, McGoo, I’ll send her right over. I’m sure Dan will want to come, too.” After hanging up, Sheyenne flitted back to the conference room. “More trouble at Stakes ’n Spades. Goch, the hubcap artist, has been arrested, and he’s demanding to see Robin as his lawyer.

  I groaned. “What did he do?”

  “Defacing private property, but he denies it. Said he’s got to have Robin right away.”

  Robin set down the popcorn. “Sorry about your date and movie.”

  But Sheyenne understood. She always did.

  4

  It was the dead of night, but that’s when the dead really got lively. At the hardware store, the streetlights were bright, and McGoo stood there flustered, disappointed, and at his wits’ end.

  Goch was in handcuffs, his long legs shaking so badly that his knobby knees knocked together. His colorfully painted hubcaps were strewn around, like a going-out-of-business sale for bad artwork. Several spray paint cans lay tipped over on the sidewalk.

  Outside the hardware store, Howard Snark wrung his hands and shook his head. “I barely got the other graffiti cleaned off!” He shook his fist at Goch, who cringed. “Why can’t you get a life?”

  “Because …” said the zombie artist.

  But Howard wasn’t listening. “I am pressing charges this time, Officer McGoohan.”

  “I thought you might,” McGoo said.

  Scrawled in gigantic letters across the front of the hardware store, were the words “CAN’T GET.”

  It didn’t make any sense to me. “CAN’T GET what?”

  Robin stepped up to the artist, using her most understanding voice. “You’ve got us all confused, here, Goch. What does it mean?”

  The zombie heaved a long sigh. “You don’t ask what art means.” He looked pleadingly at Robin. “It was the Muse—it must have been. I couldn’t control myself. You have to defend me, Ms. Deyer. It’s about artistic expression.”

  “I’d like to express myself all over your face!” Howard slapped his forehead. “I sold you that paint. I even bought four of your hubcap creations for my store—and this is how you thank me?”

  When Goch trembled, his handcuffs rattled like the chains on a restless spirit.

  Other unnatural spectators had gathered around—two vampires who had just come back from a nightcap at a Talbot & Knowles blood bar, a partially unwrapped mummy who was still in stitches from a show at a comedy club, and several slack-faced and curious-looking young zombies.

  As Howard Snark and Goch continued to argue and McGoo wrote up the citation, one of the young zombie spectators shuffled forward, picked up a discarded can of pink paint, and walked over to the door of the hardware store. As we stared in disbelief, he started painting—right in front of us.

  I lurched forward. “Hey! Stop that.”

  McGoo and I seized the arms of the disoriented young zombie who was moving listlessly like a … zombie. I grabbed the spray paint out of his hands.

  He’d had time to paint the word “UP!” Oddly enough, the dot of the exclamation point was a cute little heart.

  Howard groaned, exasperated. “What is wrong with you undead people?”

  “UP with what?” Robin said to the dazed zombie. “You knew you’d be caught!”

  “UP yours,” Howard said. “You’re going to pay to clean my building.”

  I paused and stared, though, looking at the words.

  CAN’T GET and UP!

  Then, I remembered the afternoon’s new graffiti—LLEN AND I—and the incident that had called us here early in the day, FA.

  The first graffiti McGoo had reported to me was just the word HE, but I recalled what else we’d seen. I’VE and LP. I was sure I was putting them in the correct order of how the graffiti had actually been written.

  HE

  LP.

  “McGoo, it’s a message. It all goes together. The graffiti is telling us something—and we’d better listen.”

  I felt a chill rush through my embalming fluid as I realized that the spray-painted letters spelled out that terrifying mantra so dreaded by senior citizens everywhere:

  HELP, I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!

  “Who?” McGoo said, “Where? How do we respond to this? Shamble, you’re onto something.”

  I pointed to the stylized exclamation point with the little heart. “It’s Angina. And she’s in trouble.”

  5

  As we raced to the Angina house, I placed a phone call to Sheyenne. “Spooky, we might need you.” She’s always happy to help, and I seem to solve cases better when she’s around. At least, that’s what she says.

  An emergency with a person potentially in peril took precedence over arresting a zombie vandal with a side career in hubcap painting. Besides, we knew we could always find Goch again, since he was a well-known street artist, not a particular flight risk.

  Howard said, “I’ll hold Goch for you in the meantime. Stakes ’n Spades has a full line of chains, padlocks, and rope.”

  Robin, McGoo, and I arrived at the Angina house, which looked even more corny and stereotypical under the full moonlight. Sheyenne joined us just as we arrived; she’s a powerful poltergeist who is not bound by the restrictions of physical travel as are human cops, determined lawyers, or shambling zombies.

  Remembering the imposing padlock that held the main gate shut, I had planned ahead and asked Howard for a sturdy set of bolt cutters. He showed me the options from his store, gave me a sales pitch about the craftsmanship and the warranties of each. I just took the biggest one.

  McGoo punched the gate’s intercom button. “Ms. Angina, we’re here to help. Are you in trouble?”

  “Keep out! Go away! No trespassing!”

  “Sounds like she’s fine.” McGoo lifted his eyebrows. “Though not very friendly.”

  “It’s a recording,” I said. “Same words every time.”

  “She’s definitely in trouble,” Robin said. “We’ve got to do something.”

  I grasped the bars to rattle the gate, and I was shocked, literally, when sparks crackled through my body. I yanked my hands away. Fortunately, zombies don’t have to worry about being electrocuted.

  “She means business,” I said.

  Robin sounded desperate. “Given the evidence, there’s a reasonable expectation that this person is in danger. If it’s to do a wellness check on a person who hasn’t been seen in a long time, we have sufficient cause to break in. We’re on sound legal ground he
re.”

  I lifted the tool. “And I’ve got a big bolt cutter.”

  “There’s an easier way.” Sheyenne took a shortcut by flitting right through the gates. “At least let me switch off the current.”

  Once through the wall, she deactivated the electrified fence, and I used the bolt cutters to snap the chain. We pushed open the gate and raced up the flagstone walk that was artfully surrounded with scraggly weeds.

  Sheyenne vanished directly through the front door of the vintage haunted house. And, since my ghost girlfriend had just gone inside, it was now, quite literally, a haunted house—but in the best possible way.

  McGoo, Robin, and I ran up the rickety wooden porch steps, and we heard a loud series of thunks as multiple deadbolts were turned. Sheyenne pulled the door open with a loud nerve-jarring groan and hovered in front of us, pale and glowing, but her expression was distraught.

  “We’re too late,” she said.

  I went inside first, with my hand on my .38 in its holster. McGoo had already drawn his service revolver, though there was nothing threatening inside the haunted house.

  Just a dead body.

  The foyer of the Angina house was a large receiving hall, with two towering grandfather clocks, ostentatious furniture, marble tiles, a dramatic curving staircase. And Angina, Mistress of Fright sprawled at the bottom of the stairs on the marble tiles. Obviously dead. And for several days from the looks of her.

  Even though we had just watched The Revenge of the Grinning Skull on Angina’s Nightmares in the Daytime, I barely recognized the famous horror film hostess. Angina had retired from the public eye and gone into hiding years ago. I suppose the kindest way to describe it was that she “had not aged as well as a fine wine.” Angina had gained another film hostess’s worth of weight, and her lush, black hair had gone gray and fallen out in clumps. Her skin showed numerous age spots (other than the normal discoloration of having been dead for several days).

  “I guess we didn’t have to run so fast.”

  Then the air above Angina’s body shimmered, and a figure appeared—an indistinct and barely visible image of Angina, like the ghost of a ghost, a watermark in the air. She was just a flickering afterimage, compared to Sheyenne’s bright and intense ectoplasmic form.