I perked up, leaned closer, not sure the rickety lawn chair would support me. “What does he drop off? Can you show me where it is?”
Mel looked very sad. “You know I love you, bud, but he pays me to hide ’em, not share ’em.”
I reached in my pocket, felt around for my wallet. “Maybe I could pay you more.”
“I doubt it, but that wouldn’t be fair or honest anyway. It upsets karma. If I break a trust like that, then who else can trust me?”
I decided to use the guilt card, embalming-fluid brothers and all. “Come on, Mel—who found you sleeping in an alley and brought you back to your family? Who put you in touch with Mrs. Saldana?”
His shoulders slumped. “You did, bud. And I guess I owe you.”
“I can’t even say for sure if this is important,” I said. “But I’ve got to know. I’ll leave your name out of it.”
Mel gazed off into the garbage ridges around the trailer. “Okay, every once in a while Mr. Jekyll delivers a drum or two of toxic chemicals, experimental mixtures from his factory. Needs to get rid of the junk, but doesn’t want to fill out all the paperwork. It all smells like perfume to me.” He sniffed under his arms. “I put on JLPN deodorant every day. He gave me a lifetime supply. Want some?”
“Never use the stuff.” Now I understood why Jekyll would come all the way out here, by himself, late at night. “Thanks for the conversation, Mel. You’ve helped me fill in a few blanks.”
“Anytime, bud. Care to come inside for a non-drink?”
“Not this time. Other things to do.” I wanted to go back to Sheldon Fennerman’s apartment, talk to the landlord about the missing vampires, keep an eye on his place. “I’ve got a stakeout to set up before sunset.”
“Suit yourself. You know where to find me.” He shook my hand, then settled back into the folding chair.
I climbed into the rusty Pro Bono Mobile and started the engine (after two tries). The tires crunched as I executed a perfect three-point Y-turn—the DMV test instructor would have been impressed—and drove away from the dump.
CHAPTER 17
Here in the Unnatural Quarter, the best time for a stakeout (and suspicious human activity) is the lazy middle of an afternoon, in the hours before sunset—when the night dwellers haven’t yet begun to stir and when daytimers are still at their jobs. If Straight Edge was going to do something stupid at Sheldon Fennerman’s place, this was the likeliest time of day for it.
I arrived at the brownstone, knowing the skittish vampire should have been sound asleep inside. I made sure his front door was locked, checked the bars in place over the windows. As I guessed, the place was plugged up tighter than a constipated yak. Safe enough.
I walked around the block with a slow shuffling gait. In this neighborhood, an aimless zombie was by no means unusual, and I wasn’t going to attract any attention. I passed through the garbage-strewn side alley, saw the clumsy spray-painted letters—Eat Wood and Feel My Shaft. I still wasn’t convinced they were meant as threats against vampires.
I exited the alley, turned left on a connecting street, and went back up the block until I came back around to Sheldon’s front door again. Still quiet, nothing happening. Time to talk to the landlord.
I knocked on the door of the adjacent brownstone. A lumpy, troll-like man answered the door, or maybe he was actually a troll; he lived in a shadowy apartment, the closest thing to an underground lair that a one-bedroom flat could be. When I flashed my PI credentials and asked about his previous vampire tenants, he shrugged his knobby shoulders. “Gone. No notice, no forwarding address.”
“Did they actually move away, or did they just disappear?”
“Don’t know.” His yellow eyes shone like flashlights with weak batteries. “The tenants left a few things, not worth much. Nothing I could sell, nothing I could eat.”
“Fly-by-nights? Did they owe you any back rent?”
“No. Vampires are good tenants, always pay on time. They left me their security deposits. Just moved out, I think.”
In the back room of the flat, behind a closed door, I could hear a whimper, muffled screams, the sounds of a struggle. The troll shot an annoyed look over his shoulder. “Gotta go now. I’m fixing dinner.” He tried to close the door in my face, but I got my shoe in the crack first.
I pushed with enough force to knock the troll backward and barged into the apartment. He yelped, “Hey, you can’t come in here unless you’ve got a warrant!”
I swiveled my head down. “Do I look like I’m official law enforcement?” Seeing my expression, the troll scuttled away from me. He looked like a reject from a gargoyle-figurine factory.
The struggles and garbled whimpering came from behind a closed bathroom door. I popped the door open and saw a redheaded beanpole kid, no older than twenty, with duct tape over his mouth and his wrists tied, shoved into the corner. The bathtub was a large, deep whirlpool model, outfitted with extra heaters. It burbled, filled not with bubble bath, but with hot deep-frying oil.
The beanpole kid tried to yell through the duct tape, straining so hard I thought he might burst a blood vessel. He wore a bright red T-shirt with a straight white line down the middle, like a guide mark for a chainsaw murderer to cut him in half. I’d seen the stupid logo before: It meant he was a member of Straight Edge.
“You can’t just go grabbing people for snacks,” I said to the troll.
He stood just outside the bathroom door, sheepish. “A guy’s gotta eat.”
“This one wouldn’t taste good anyway—too bitter.”
I untied the kid’s wrists. Even while I was rescuing him, the redhead seemed terrified of me; he looked as if he’d rather insult me than thank me for saving his life. I decided to keep the duct tape over his mouth for now.
The troll sagged his warty shoulders, sullen. “That processed-chicken stuff doesn’t taste like human, no matter what the ads say.”
“Consider it a restricted diet.” I yanked the duct tape off the redheaded kid’s mouth in one big tear, and he howled in pain; on the bright side, he wouldn’t have to shave for a while.
“I hate you disgusting things!” the kid wailed at both of us and bolted out of the apartment in a gangly gallop of long arms and legs.
The sullen troll made his way to the small kitchen. “I guess I’ll just get something out of the freezer.”
Back on patrol, I shuffled around the block two more times, still not convinced that Sheldon Fennerman had anything to worry about.
In the month since returning from the grave, I had easily fallen back into my regular routine. Nothing much had changed from when I was a living, breathing private investigator—a sad commentary on how bright my life had been before....
After my death, the difficult transition period was probably tougher on Robin than it was on me. Poor kid, she’d been miserable.
I had completely missed the drama of my funeral, being dead at the time. I didn’t have to listen to the graveside service. I didn’t have to deal with undertakers, select the casket or flower arrangements—Robin took care of all that. Later, she told me that just getting through those few days was a harder battle than any legal case she’d ever fought.
My BHF McGoo helped her out, offered her a shoulder to cry on, and by then Sheyenne’s ghost was also there. Without me in the office, Robin threw herself back into her cases, filing more briefs and appeals, appearing in court, speaking with a fiery vehemence on behalf of her clients. I would have loved to see that.
But I slept through it all.
When I finally woke up and clawed my way up through the soft dirt, I pushed aside the newly laid sod and stood there in the graveyard trying to figure out what the hell had happened. I felt like a fraternity pledge who had been given a roofie and been forced to endure some sort of bizarre hazing ritual.
I heard a stirring nearby and saw a grasping hand thrust out from another fresh grave, like in a scene from a classic horror movie. I bent down and started to dig, helping my new friend out o
f the ground. Together, reanimated and disoriented, we figured out what had happened, brushed each other off, exchanged names in an awkward sort of camaraderie. (I found that I had actually been buried with business cards in the pocket of my funeral suit, so I gave him one.) Then we headed back toward the city and tried to rejoin what we remembered of our former lives.
When I shambled back into the office, Sheyenne’s ghost let out a little squeal of delight. I was a bit surprised to find her still working her job, since she’d come there to be with me. Robin burst out of her office, still puffy-eyed and haggard-looking; one glance at me and, I swear, she fainted dead away. Nobody was expecting me to return from the grave. At one in seventy-five, statistics weren’t in my favor. Then again, as a murder victim, I had a better-than-average chance of getting back on my feet.
Robin recovered herself and shook her head in disbelief. Tears streamed down her face. “I can’t believe you’re back!” She ran toward me, ignored my mud-encrusted suit jacket, clumpy hair, and pale skin, and threw her arms around me anyway in a big enthusiastic hug. She was sniffling.
I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m back, don’t worry. There’s still so much to do, and I couldn’t break up the team, could I?”
“We’re too good together, Beaux,” Sheyenne added. “And now there’s more than one ticked-off unnatural trying to solve a murder case.”
Even though I was disoriented, I wanted to reassure Robin, so I lurched toward my office, leaving a trail of dirt clods on the floor. “How long have I been gone? Any leads? I want to get right back in the saddle.”
Robin kept crying for half an hour. It was only later that I learned she hadn’t really shed any tears before that, too worried about holding it together.
They had buried me in my best formal suit—okay, my only formal suit—and after clawing my way out of the dirt I needed to get it cleaned in order to look respectable. (In fact, it still hung in the closet in its protective plastic bag from the dry cleaner; my sport jacket was all I needed for daily use.) Robin had hired only the very best undertaker for me, and the embalming job was top-notch. Sure, my skin had a waxy tone, and shadows hung under my eyes, but I looked good for the most part, and I intended to stay that way.
Using official company stationery, we sent out a formal notice to all our clients, explaining that “despite my recent setback” I was back on the job and intended to devote the same attention to each one of my prior cases. Even though I was fundamentally different now, I belonged in the Unnatural Quarter. If anything, now that I was one of them, unnaturals would be less reticent to engage the services of Chambeaux & Deyer. I got back to work—business as unusual, you might say....
It was late afternoon now, and Sheldon would soon be stirring from his coffin, if he wasn’t already awake with his off-kilter sleep schedule. On my fourth circuit of the block, I came around the corner and startled two young human men in front of Sheldon’s brownstone. Both wore the same red T-shirts as the troll’s hostage. One kid had descended the steps to the vampire’s barred front door, while the other stood at the front wall wielding a can of black spray paint. He had managed to write Bloodsucker, Suck My when I called out, “Hey, stop!”
The two turned, startled, and I recognized the type. They weren’t burly, muscle-bound skinheads who would bash in your head for so much as thinking a liberal sentiment. No, these were sneering misfits, big heroes when they discussed grand plans in their mothers’ basements, but they rarely had the guts for face-to-face confrontation.
I lurched forward. “That vampire’s under my protection!”
The two young men bolted, and one of them gave me the finger. Hooting like nervous hyenas, they dashed around the corner. I could have run after them, but my main priority was to make sure Sheldon was all right.
I went down the steps to the front door and saw that the would-be bullies had left two fresh oak stakes thrust between the bars. Sure that Sheldon must be awake from the ruckus and probably cowering inside his apartment, I knocked on the door. “Sheldon! It’s Dan Chambeaux. You’re safe now.”
I knew it would take at least an hour to talk him down again.
CHAPTER 18
The red fondue pot was still on the table, and this time I didn’t feel right about declining Sheldon’s invitation. He was a nervous wreck, although vindicated now that I’d caught the vandals in the act, which proved he hadn’t been imagining his peril. (I still wasn’t convinced, however, that the Straight Edgers were capable of true violence, such as successive vampire slayings—and vampires weren’t easy to kill.)
With frenetic movements, Sheldon went through the ritual of making melted cheese for fondue. At first, I thought he was still jittery from the threats, then I realized he was just excited to have company. After he had grated and heated three different cheeses, added kirschwasser and nutmeg to the fondue pot (I wasn’t surprised that he skipped the tradition of rubbing the pot with garlic), he sliced chunks of stale bread and green apples, then sat across from me.
We set about committing fondue.
Sheldon chattered about his life, both before and after becoming a vamp. He talked about books he’d read, Broadway shows he’d seen. Ever the polite host, he asked about my life and hobbies—subjects I rarely discussed with clients. I didn’t have much to say. While Sheldon talked about himself at novel length, my answers were more like short stories or vignettes.
By the time we used up the chunks of bread and wiped clean every smear of melted cheese in the pot, Sheldon had relaxed again. I realized that this was the best meal I’d had since I’d died. I tried to take my leave, but the vampire insisted we play a game of cribbage first. I fidgeted. “I haven’t played since I was a boy, don’t even remember the rules.”
“Don’t worry, I’m a good teacher.” Though I tried to refuse again, he remained persistent, and I did feel sorry for the guy, after all.
One game turned into two, and he kept talking all the while. I thought of his vampire neighbors whom he had coerced into coming over for a dinner party, or to play cards, or to have a book club discussion, just to be polite; then they’d receive another invitation from Sheldon, and another, and another. I was pretty sure I had solved the case of the disappearing neighbors, though I didn’t have the heart to explain it to Sheldon.
After the second game of cribbage, I finally convinced him that I had another appointment. “Remember, Sheldon—I’m an undead private investigator, and I have more people to help, just like you.”
He looked forlorn as he stood at the front door. “You could always send them over here for a game or . . .”
“You’ll be all right, Sheldon,” I assured him. “It’s full dark outside, and the Straight Edgers don’t dare go out in the city at night. Too many unnaturals abroad who don’t appreciate their opinions. You have nothing to worry about.”
Mrs. Saldana had given me the address of the new Straight Edge headquarters here in town, and now that I had seen them harassing Sheldon (not to mention rescued one of them from the troll’s hot-tub deep fryer), I intended to pay them a visit first thing in the morning. But I needed to get something from Robin ahead of time.
I may be undead, but I do try to take care of myself and keep my body in shape. Three times a week I work out at the All-Day /All-Nite Fitness Center, a gym designed for unnaturals of all circadian rhythms. I have a membership and a locker there with worn sweats that smell mustier than my normal clothes.
In the locker room I changed quickly. I’ve never been one for exhibitionism among other naked guys in a gym, the sidelong glances to see whose is bigger and taking smug reassurance that at least yours is average or better.
In the showers behind the lockers, I heard the water running, and steam wafted up like fog on an old English moor. Long strips of cloth had been draped over several of the clothes hooks on the wall, a few frayed ends trailing on the floor. Over the spray, I could hear a cackling old Mayan mummy soaping himself up and singing in the shower. Mummies enjoy the tempor
ary rehydration they get from the water. This one’s name was Ralph, and I’d seen him before sans wrappings—not a sight I wanted to repeat. Many unnaturals are shriveled up and desiccated in plenty of unappetizing ways.
In the bathroom in front of a mirror, a fully transformed werewolf stood with a white towel wrapped around his waist; he was using a blow dryer the size of an aircraft engine to blast the fur all over his body. We nodded to each other in a brusque guy greeting, then I exited into the workout room.
One section of the gym has free weights, resistance machines, pec presses, leg presses, and racks with every possible workout attachment. Treadmills and recumbent bikes line a mirrored wall, with an equal number on the opposite side of the room facing a blank black wall for the vamps, who have no use for mirrors. Though it was still two hours before midnight, I counted fifteen patrons using the equipment, getting in a workout before the night life got into full swing.
In a gym, you become accustomed to the regulars and recognize one another. Sometimes you know names, while other times you just think of the other patrons as “the guy who always hogs the bench press,” or “the one who doesn’t wipe down the recumbent bike after he’s done with it,” or “the chick in pink Spandex,” or, worse, “the chick who should never be seen wearing pink Spandex.”
I intended to work out alone, since Sheldon had given me a week’s worth of conversation, but when I saw an acquaintance using a treadmill on the mirrorless side of the room, I decided to be sociable after all. She might actually have some information I could use.
She was big, buff, and athletic, and would have been intimidating even if she weren’t a vampire. As usual, she had the treadmill set to its maximum incline and speed. If you had to bet, you might have guessed her name was Butch, but you’d be wrong. Her honest-to-goodness birth name was Tiffany, and she was damned proud of it.
I got on the treadmill beside hers, powered it up, and began at warm-up speed to loosen the stiffness in my knees. Tiffany gave me a businesslike nod. “Chambeaux.” She wasn’t even panting. The treadmill’s maximum setting seemed a stroll in the park for her. “Healthy body, healthy mind.”
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