“Ah, you’ve got me there,” he said with a grin.
I looked toward the still-dark stage. “My girlfriend used to perform here.”
“Ah, yes, that human singer. What was her name . . . Wyoming?”
“Sheyenne,” I said.
“Yes, a poor lost young woman. She sneaked one of my Zom-Be-Fresh samples from an undead cocktail waitress, but she broke out in a horrible rash from using it.” He laughed. “Then she got mad at me, even though I pointed out that necroceuticals are intended for unnaturals only, not for human use.” He seemed embarrassed. “I apologized profusely, and JLPN compensated for her pain and suffering. The company is very sensitive about their public image.”
“Tell that to all the bald vampires who used your shampoo.”
The comment clearly annoyed him, but he maintained his pat smile. “I see why you’re the private investigator and I’m just a salesman.” He set his case on the chair and opened it. “I really wish you’d try our products. They’re designed for undead men just like you.” He pulled out a bottle of Zom-Be-Fresh. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I keep myself clean, and I wear clean clothes.”
“Yes, but to some people you still have a—how do I say it?—a dead smell about you, the way very old people have a certain odor.”
“It’s natural,” I said, then realized the irony in my statement.
“Body odor is natural, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” I said, then gave him a hard glance. “Why are you pushing it so hard, Brondon? You’ve got plenty of customers. What do you care about one more?”
“It’s a matter of pride, Mr. Chambeaux. I started out as JLPN’s research chemist, and I helped develop the whole line of necroceuticals, but the hard part is marketing. Even a brilliant idea will sit in a garage unless the public knows about it.
“I realized I’d come up with something remarkable for all unnatural customers, and I could see the need for it, so I decided to pound the streets of the Unnatural Quarter, knock on doors, get the word out. I sniffed out new customers, if you know what I mean. Over the years it’s been my mission to see that these lifestyle products are widely distributed among all the unnaturals.”
He seemed lost in his own story. “And because I was willing to do the legwork and gamble my reputation on this, Mr. Jekyll invested in me, gave me the financial resources. I knew that unnaturals would be skeptical, but I was sure I could win them over. That’s why I provide so many free samples. My service to humanity”—he grinned again—“in all its forms.”
“Thank you for being so inclusive,” I said sarcastically.
I saw an opening and wanted to ask him more about his work with Harvey Jekyll, especially that secret meeting six weeks ago, or Harvey’s furtive nocturnal trip to the dump, but then the piano player reached his crescendo, the stage lights blazed on, and the audience members began to applaud, whistle, and cheer. “Ivory!” A group of werewolves in the back howled.
With unexpected grace, an enormous well-endowed woman glided onto the stage, swaying, jiggling. She had ebony skin, fiery red eyes. Ivory’s grin was wide enough to show her long white fangs to good effect, when she curled her pointed tongue to lick her lips, relishing the adoration of the audience. She wrapped both hands around the shaft of the microphone, grasping it and sliding her face close to it, as if it were a porn movie prop. “Evening, boys.”
The werewolves howled even louder.
Ivory was a big mama with a big voice, a vamp in both senses of the word, and quite the diva. She advertised herself and her “services” in the Unusual Singles classifieds, as a BBV, or big-breasted vampire. I suppose there’s a customer base for that sort of thing.
The words purred out of Ivory’s throat and built in volume and power until she sang in a voice big enough to shatter glass. Maybe that’s the real reason why Basilisk has no mirrors.
Back when Sheyenne had first taken the stage as a young human waitress in an unnatural nightclub, she had ruffled Ivory’s feathers: The big vamp thought she was a star, while Sheyenne was just working her way through med school. But with her sincere delivery, Sheyenne’s waifish crooning stole the show. There was no love lost between the two.
Sheyenne was convinced that Ivory was the one who had slipped toadstool poison into her drink, just to get rid of the competition. Normally, I would have considered that too extreme, but a vampire doesn’t have the same standards about taking a life. I considered her to be a suspect, but the MO didn’t make any sense. If Sheyenne had had her throat ripped out, I might have considered the vamp singer a more likely perpetrator. Surreptitious poison just didn’t seem like Ivory’s style.
I listened to the big vamp’s first two numbers, then glanced to one side, surprised to see that Brondon Morris had taken his sample case up to chat with the bartender. I looked at the two of them, thinking hard.
I was killed only two blocks from this nightclub. Several people had heard the gunshot, but the shooter managed to run away without being seen. Fletcher Knowles himself was the one who had found my body. Convenient.
Sheyenne had worked here, and she’d been poisoned.
Could be a connection. I would definitely have to dig deeper.
From the stage, Ivory fixed me with her hot-ember eyes, one of those scary and seductive glamour gazes that can turn human victims into putty. Even I found it hard to resist, and parts of me began to stir. After all, I wasn’t entirely dead.
After her first set, the vamp singer bowed to resounding applause and told the audience she would be back after her break. Customers shuffled toward the stage, wanting to talk to her but too shy to speak. Ivory glided through the crowds of admirers and stepped directly up to me; she ignored her fans, much to their disappointment. Some glowered at me, and I could sense their jealousy. Most of them couldn’t understand why I wasn’t grinning like a schoolboy from the attention.
Under other circumstances, Ivory would never have noticed me, but when she noticed my brewing relationship with Sheyenne, she decided to get me for herself. But it hadn’t worked. With Sheyenne around, how could I look at anyone else?
“Hey, sugar. I haven’t seen you around in a while.” Ivory leaned closer, and her cleavage reminded me of a Venus flytrap about to swallow my head. She inhaled deeply. “You’re less warm-blooded now than before.”
I tapped my forehead where the mortician’s putty still covered the scar. “Got shot in the head.”
“Sorry to hear that, but I’m glad you came back to hear me sing.”
“I came back for a lot of reasons.”
She frowned. “Yeah, I heard about your poor little girlfriend. Never knew what you saw in that scrawny thing, when you could have had so much more.” She traced her hands from her rib cage to her waist, then her hips.
“Sheyenne and I were happy enough while it lasted,” I said.
Again, that mock sorrowful pout. “I heard she died, poor thing. I hope she’s doing better now?”
“Sheyenne’s just fine. And we’re still seeing each other.”
“Whenever you’re ready to move on, sugar, I can meet you back in my dressing room.”
“I wouldn’t want you to disappoint all these adoring fans.” I glanced at the crowd of men hovering around.
“Who says I don’t have enough to share?” she said. “Stay for the next set—we’ll talk afterward.”
Without saying a word to the other fans, Ivory returned to the stage, and the lounge lizard played her intro. I got up and left quietly. No need to make a long night seem longer.
CHAPTER 12
Despite setback after setback, a determined person won’t stay down for long—and Hope Saldana was a determined lady.
Early next morning, I stopped by the Hope & Salvation Mission just to see how the old woman was dealing with the destruction of her place. Even though McGoo had already told me she wasn’t injured in the attack, I wanted to make sure she was all r
ight.
Over the years, some unnaturals had grumbled about Mrs. Saldana’s goody-two-shoes efforts to help down-and-out unnaturals, but she stuck to her guns and continued her missionary work. Her heart was in the right place, and she considered it her duty to help those who no longer had hearts, beating or otherwise.
When I arrived at the smashed mission, I saw Mrs. Saldana standing on the sidewalk out front, arms crossed over her pink flower-print dress. She guided the efforts of her assistant Jerry, a tall and lanky zombie, who was hanging a rectangle of plywood over one of the destroyed storefront windows.
Jerry was one of the first wayward souls that Mrs. Saldana had helped when she opened her mission. As the story went—and the old woman told the story whenever she delivered her sermons, since it made such a great example—Jerry had shambled up to her during a particularly bad jag, intent on eating her brain. But Mrs. Saldana accepted him, read him verses from her well-worn Bible, offered him hope and comfort, and talked him down from his slobbering hunger.
“God loves all His creatures,” she said.
“Even a wretch like me?” Jerry had answered.
She gave him a sincere nod. “Just like the hymn says.”
Jerry broke down and cried, and he’d been her inseparable helper ever since. His hunger hadn’t abated, but he was working his way through a twelve-step program, and there were plenty of rats in the basement for him to snack on.
Now Mrs. Saldana took a step back to inspect the patch-up job. “That’ll do, Jerry.” She gave a brisk nod. “Bless you. Now we can continue our work.”
The old woman had curly permed hair, gray but not yet old-lady blue. At first glance, she looked like everyone’s favorite schoolteacher. No one I knew had ever heard Mrs. Saldana raise her voice or speak a discouraging word. She was an optimist, a caring person—and it pissed me off that anybody would do this to her place. Was it mere vandalism, or did someone hold a specific grudge?
Seeing the smashed-out windows, I unfolded one of the Black Glass, Inc. flyers I’d taken from our office. “Maybe you should give these people a call. It’s a new company that specializes in repairing and replacing windows in the Quarter. I’m sure they deal with regular transparent glass as well as opaque windowpanes.”
She perused the advertisement. “Thank you, Mr. Chambeaux. I like to use local services if I can.”
Her zombie helper looked at me, and the hammer in his hand slipped out of his rubbery fingers. The tool fell on his foot, but he didn’t feel it.
Mrs. Saldana gave a schoolteacherly tsk. “Jerry, you just dropped a hammer. Pay attention. You wouldn’t want to hurt somebody. You could get damaged too. We wouldn’t want that, would we?” Embarrassed, the zombie bent over and picked up the tool.
“Anything else I can do to help out?” I asked.
Her smile reminded me of a grandmother’s kisses and the smell of apple pie. “It’s not me you should be worried about, Mr. Chambeaux. It’s those poor unnaturals who need my help. What a setback!” Dismay was plain on the old woman’s face. “This damage caused a delay in today’s services. I don’t know how I’ll serve breakfast to the needy . . . although I think we can manage coffee. Jerry?”
“Coffee . . .” he said, and shuffled inside through the gaping hole of the ruined door.
Mrs. Saldana smiled at me. “Come on in. Jerry is going to sweep up some of the mess.”
Inside the front room, the old woman used a thumbtack to put the Black Glass flyer on a corkboard she had mounted on the wall. The rest of the board was crowded with snapshots of unfortunate unnaturals she had helped—a toothless grinning werewolf, two ghouls who wore angelic expressions on their faces, and rotting Mel, my very first case as a PI in the Quarter. A sincere handwritten note in blocky letters, written with thick clumsy lines, as if a child had used a brownish-red crayon: Thank you, Mrs. Saldana! We love you and the Hope & Salvation Mission.
In the main room, ten beige metal folding chairs sat in front of the small lectern where Mrs. Saldana delivered her sermons. Each folding chair held a well-thumbed Bible and a stained hymnal. A rarely used piano had been pushed off to the corner. I remembered that Mrs. Saldana had tried to teach Jerry how to play, but he wasn’t dexterous enough to keep up with any fast melodies. A card table held a tray of cookies as well as a large percolating coffeemaker.
From inside, the old woman turned around and looked out the damaged front of the mission, where plywood now covered one of the two windows like an eye patch. “I’ve got to get that door fixed, or maybe I should leave it off. This is a mission, after all—we’re here to help people. We welcome everyone in need.” She made up her mind. “Yes, indeed, the door to Hope and Salvation should never be locked.”
“A locked door didn’t deter whoever vandalized the place yesterday,” I pointed out. “Do you have any idea who may be responsible?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” she said automatically, and her lips turned down in a flicker of a frown; I caught the expression before she formed an accepting smile again. “Whoever it is doesn’t know that God loves them. My life’s calling here, Mr. Chambeaux, is to give comfort and assistance to poor unnaturals. They can’t help who they are, but they can control their urges. They can be good people if they stay on the straight and narrow. If I find whoever did this, I shall have to show them love and understanding . . . although I’m inclined to give them a stern lecture as well.”
“Officer McGoohan is working on the case,” I said. I didn’t want her haring off in pursuit of whoever had done the damage. She might get hurt.
“Yes, indeed. Such a nice policeman. Always so helpful. I’ve given him all the information.”
I nodded. “He’s a good man, ma’am, but he is overburdened. He and I help each other out on cases, so maybe I can give him a lead.” I thought about the people harassing Sheldon Fennerman, wondered if they might have something to do with the vandalism here. “Have you had any dealings with a purist group called the Straight Edge, ma’am? I’m starting to wonder if they might be involved somehow.”
Mrs. Saldana’s brow furrowed. “Most unpleasant individuals. Straight Edge claims I shouldn’t think of the unnaturals as God’s children. They came here and talked to me twice, treated Jerry like dirt.”
On the other side of the room, the lanky zombie had picked up a push broom and plodded across the hardwood floor, sweeping aside glass fragments and wood splinters. He looked up when he heard his name and let out a low growling groan at the mention of the Straight Edgers.
Now my interest was piqued. “Were they trying to scare you out of the city?” I couldn’t imagine her closing the doors and giving up on helping the needy.
Her face grew pinched. “Oh, much worse than that, Mr. Chambeaux. They gave me posters to put up here in the mission—here! —proclaiming that unnaturals should just crawl back into the dirt, or wherever they came from, and decompose. How dare they treat my patrons that way!”
“It’s the way they think, ma’am.” I liked these people less and less.
“Not just that. They expected me to join Straight Edge! They assumed that we must be on the same side because I’m human. What they asked me . . .” She swallowed hard—I could see her throat clench. “It was horrible!”
“What did they want you to do?”
“They expected me to set up a trap for my own flock—for the wretches who come in here for hope and comfort, including Jerry!” She gestured to the wall of lovely photographs of her success stories. “I refused to do it, of course. They were quite angry, but I quoted Scripture right to their faces. They weren’t even familiar with the Bible!” She snorted. “No, indeed, I don’t like them—but I pray for them. I sent them back to their little clubhouse headquarters. Did you know they’ve opened a new office, just down the street? Right here in the Quarter! You should go there and talk to them, Mr. Chambeaux. I doubt they’d even deny trashing the mission.”
“A new office?” Some detective I was! “Can you give me the address
?” I wasn’t surprised the purist group had a base of operations in the Unnatural Quarter, but I’d never had any face-to-face dealings with them.
“Of course.” She wrote it down on a small notepad printed with pink flowers. “And this attack occurred the very day after I had my little tiff with them. I don’t need to be a detective to connect the dots.”
“That’s a big coincidence, Mrs. Saldana, but there’s one thing I don’t understand: Whatever caused this monster mash was definitely not human. Look at the damage! What sort of unnatural would ally itself with the Straight Edgers? No monster would want anything to do with them.”
Jerry shuffled by with his push broom, sweeping around my feet, then disposed of the dust and debris beneath the unused piano.
“The Lord works in mysterious ways, Mr. Chambeaux,” Mrs. Saldana said with a solemn nod. “And so does Satan.”
CHAPTER 13
When I arrived at the Chambeaux & Deyer offices a short while later, the pig was already there.
She was an enormous white sow the size of a riding lawn mower, with large dark brown spots on her hide. Her flat upturned nose snuffled around the worn carpeting with the sound of an asthmatic vacuum cleaner, rooting under Sheyenne’s desk, snorting the edges of the room as if we kept truffles under the baseboards. Her name was Alma Wannovich.
Fortunately, we’re accustomed to unusual clients. By now we had gotten used to the big sow, as well as her equally large but currently less noticeable sister, a heavyset black-gowned witch who wore a midnight-blue scarf spangled with gold stars and crescent moons. Her wiry black hair stuck out in all directions like a panicked steel-wool pad.
“Good morning, Mavis,” I said to the witch, then to the sow, “Good morning, Alma.”
Mavis Wannovich tangled her fingers together in a gesture of desperation, though she didn’t exactly fit the traditional damsel-in-distress mold. She turned to me without waiting for Robin to explain why the two sisters had come into the offices. “Ms. Deyer just received a letter from the publisher, and they deny everything! They refuse to help at all. They claim we don’t have a case. How can they say that? Just look at Alma!”
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