Slimy Underbelly

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Thunder Dick’s continued laughter had an edge of embarrassment. “Oh, Morris, you’re so silly!”

  Disturbed, Sheyenne bent down to the cat. “But if you’re his familiar, why do you dislike him so much?”

  The cat answered, “Because familiarity breeds contempt.”

  We all nodded in sudden understanding. “Aah,” I said.

  The weathermancer commanded our attention again. “Now, now, we don’t have to worry about my personal squabbles. Morris is on my side, no matter what he says. I need you to investigate the nefarious shenanigans being perpetrated by Alastair Cumulus. It’s not fair!”

  With the competing snow, fog, rain, and wind—not to mention the nonstop and tedious coverage that filled all of the competing weather networks, twenty-four hours a day—I was more than a little jaded about the election so far. I had to ask, “And what about your own campaign tactics, Mr. Dick? Would your opponent make the same charges against you? Each side seems to have its share of mudslinging.”

  Robin added, “ ‘He did it, too’ is not a valid defense—it’s been challenged in court.”

  Thunder Dick lifted his chin and sniffed. “I assure you I’ve done nothing untoward whatsoever.”

  “He’s done nothing noteworthy whatsoever,” snorted the cat.

  I said, “We’ll look into your case, Mr. Dick. Is that what we should call you?” I couldn’t imagine it was his real name.

  “It’s a long story.”

  The cat impressed us with an extravagant yawn. “And if his name is a long story, you can see the challenge he has getting his message across.”

  Robin had retrieved her special legal pad, and the magic pencil was poised to take notes. She said, “As a client, you benefit from our full nondisclosure agreement. Whatever you say to us will be kept in strictest confidence. Your identity will remain a secret.”

  “Oh, I didn’t say it was secret. Just that it’s a long story. My real name is Richard Thudner, and when I became interested in weathermancy I needed an impressive stage name. All the good ones were taken, though, like Stormin’ Norman and Misty Weathers. At first I tried Lightning Dick.”

  The cat interrupted, “I told him that was a bad idea.”

  The wizard grinned. “I even had a catchphrase about the speed of my weathermancy, ‘Nobody comes faster than Lightning Dick!’ ”

  I winced. “Not a good slogan.”

  The weather wizard sounded defensive. “It’s supposed to mean when you need a weather wizard to come to the rescue—you know, drought, tornadoes, what have you—nobody comes faster than—”

  I shook my head. “Still not good.”

  “That’s what I said,” the cat repeated, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Thunder Dick is better anyway. A play on my own name. Thudner—Thunder. Get it?”

  “Right away,” I said.

  “Would you like to sign up for my newsletter?” he asked, sounding too hopeful. “The Dick Insider.”

  Robin cleared her throat and somehow maintained her professionalism. “If we’re going to work on your case, Mr. Thudner, maybe we need more general information about the entire election.”

  I agreed. “As in . . . what is the election all about? What are the two of you even running for? Most of us don’t have a clue.”

  Thunder Dick looked dismayed. “People are so disinterested in politics these days. Surely you’ve seen the campaign? Aren’t you aware of the issues?”

  “We know that you and Alastair Cumulus are running against each other, but I don’t think we’re even allowed to vote in the election.”

  Thunder Dick blinked. “Of course not—it’s for members only. You aren’t weather wizards.”

  Sheyenne said, “That’s why we haven’t paid much attention. It’s not relevant to us.”

  “Not relevant? But weather affects everyone’s daily life.”

  “Especially lately,” I added. “Thanks to your campaign.”

  Thunder Dick explained, “Every four years there’s an election to pick who will be the next leader of Wuwufo.”

  “Sounds like a head cold,” I said.

  “It’s a very respectable organization. The WWFO—the Weather Wizards Fraternal Order. Very influential. Meteorologists and weather forecasters all over the world look to our guidance, but only active members of Wuwufo are allowed to vote. And choosing the most powerful weather wizard is a heavy responsibility. I’m the right candidate to lead Wuwufo, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” said the cat, then yawned.

  “I suppose Alastair Cumulus the Third has a different opinion?” Robin asked.

  “My opponent lies! That’s why he has to resort to nefarious shenanigans. Once you prove that he’s cheating, I’ll have the election all sewn up.”

  Robin’s magic pencil, apparently bored, began to doodle on the yellow paper of the legal pad. “We agree that elections should be untainted and that a campaign should be run cleanly. Fair and square. We’ll take your case, Mr. Thudner, and look into the purported shenanigans.”

  The client is the client, and I don’t make judgments. I had surreptitiously tailed Harvey Jekyll to get evidence for his wife Miranda’s divorce settlement, I had exposed a Shakespeare ghost as an arsonist, and even solved a case of accidental embezzlement in an illegal cockatrice-fighting ring.

  Exposing dirty campaign tricks shouldn’t be too hard.

  CHAPTER 11

  At the end of a long day, even zombies like to sit down, relax, and put their feet up. I particularly liked to put my feet up on the rungs of a barstool—and particularly at the Goblin Tavern. It was my favorite watering hole, a place I’d frequented even back in my human days. McGoo and I met there almost every night. It was a habit, not because we didn’t have anyplace else to go, but because we genuinely enjoyed the atmosphere and the camaraderie.

  At the Goblin Tavern everybody knew your name, as well as your species and your beverage of choice. McGoo and I had our regular barstools; on the rare occasions when we left them empty, Francine, the tough-as-nails human bartender, did her best to keep them available, just in case we came in.

  McGoo was already there when I arrived and had settled back to contemplate the remaining half of his first tall beer. The fact that he had ordered one for me—and paid for it, despite his earlier teasing—told me he was preoccupied. We had always been able to tell each other anything. I hoped I could help him out with whatever was bothering him.

  “Hey, Shamble,” he said as I approached my usual stool.

  I worked my stiff muscles to climb aboard. “Hey, McGoo. Thanks for the beer.”

  “So, Robin tells me you’ve got a mad scientist kid as a new client. Reminds me of a joke—what did Dr. Frankenstein get when he put his goldfish’s brain in the body of his dog?”

  Seeing he was troubled, I promised myself I would laugh, just to make him feel better. “I don’t know, McGoo—what did Dr. Frankenstein get when he put his goldfish’s brain in the body of his dog?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s great at chasing submarines.”

  I managed a dutiful chuckle, then got down to business. “I’m concerned, McGoo—so out with it. What’s eating you?”

  He looked at his hands, turned them over. “No bite marks that I can tell.”

  I just waited. He had called me here with a problem, and now he was avoiding talking about it. No one had ever accused Officer Toby McGoohan of being too sensitive or too eager to share his feelings—not that I was prone to oversharing either.

  “It’s Rhonda,” he finally said.

  The name conjured up many feelings and memories, as well as blotted-out memories, in my mind. “Which Rhonda?”

  “Mine,” he said. “I mean the one I was married to.”

  That clarified things. I took a sip of beer to give me time to process.

  Back in our younger and more foolish days, we had each married a woman named Rhonda (different women, just to be clear about it); I chose a strawberry blonde, and he
chose a brunette. In those days, the future was bright, and romance was in the air. McGoo and I were ambitious, optimistic—and utterly naïve. The Rhondas made us both miserable, and we each realized we had made a terrible mistake. They say good friends do everything together, and McGoo and I both divorced our wives named Rhonda.

  For a time I thought my mistake was that I had simply picked the wrong Rhonda, but after a very brief fling, I realized that McGoo’s Rhonda did have precisely all the bad qualities that had driven him nuts. I half-suspected that McGoo might also have dated my Rhonda after our breakup—if I was too dense to learn my lesson, then he was just as dense.

  There are some things guys avoid talking about.

  When we were both single again, living the decidedly mundane and unglamorous bachelor life, we each eventually made a fresh start in the Quarter. After I got killed on a case years later, my start didn’t turn out to be so fresh after all. But the two of us were still at it.

  “So, what’s up with Rhonda?” I didn’t really want to know how she was doing, but I would be as supportive as necessary.

  “How is she doing?” McGoo asked. “When people from the past turn up like that, it’s not usually because they want to share their lottery winnings.” He finished his beer in one long succession of swallows and set the glass down. He seemed to be bracing himself.

  I signaled Francine. “I’ve got the next one.”

  The bartender came over, looking as young and fresh as a preserved meal from World War II. “Boys, you’re gloomy tonight,” she said as she poured McGoo a new beer. I was still nursing mine.

  “Don’t we always look that way?” I asked.

  “It’s part of your special charm,” she said.

  Francine was human, in her late fifties, and a lifetime of cigarette smoking and heavy drinking had added a decade to her appearance. But she was as sturdy as a statue and drew upon plentiful experiences to offer her special brand of counseling to any natural or unnatural customers who came into the Goblin Tavern. She had worked in biker bars, broken up knife fights, shouted down drunken werewolves, and memorized fifty different froufrou martini recipes. (In the Goblin Tavern, though, she had more opportunities to break up snarling fights than to mix fancy martinis.)

  After she served us, Francine went back down the bar, where she was paying a great deal of attention to an old balding vampire who was missing his left fang. She seemed engrossed in his conversation and laughed too often, and I noticed that she had on more makeup than usual. I sniffed the air and realized she was wearing heavy perfume, too. Francine seemed to be actively appreciating the attentions of old One Fang. Good for her.

  “Child support,” McGoo said.

  I was startled and turned my attention back to him.

  He said, “Rhonda’s asking me for child support.”

  Now that was a surprise. “I thought we told each other everything, McGoo? I didn’t even know you had kids.”

  “One kid,” he said, “apparently. A daughter. I didn’t know about it either.”

  “But you’ve been divorced for ten years.”

  “Almost eleven,” said McGoo. “Not that I was counting. In fact, I’d put the whole thing out of my mind. But our little girl is ten years old; apparently it happened right around the time of the breakup. How’s that for a gotcha? There was a time when we actually tried to have kids but couldn’t. I realize now that would have been a bad idea, but it might have changed the whole marriage picture.”

  I was troubled. I had set aside all my thoughts of Rhonda—both Rhondas—for a long time as well. I tried to think of how I would react if my own ex-wife showed up with a surprise like that after so many years. I think I’d have preferred almost any other kind of surprise—even a serial-killer-popping-out-of-a-closet-with-a-butcher-knife kind of surprise.

  “And she didn’t think to mention it before now? A daughter . . .”

  Down the bar, Francine laughed very appreciatively at a joke made by the old vampire. She laid her fingers on his arm in a casual gesture.

  McGoo shook his head. “I agree. It’s not like her. Maybe she didn’t want me involved in the girl’s life. Maybe she’s embarrassed?” He shrugged. “How do I know? I could never figure out what she was thinking back when we were married.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m not going to duck my responsibility. I’ve gotten off scot-free for almost eleven years, but I’d at least like to meet my own kid. So I told Rhonda to come here to the Quarter, and I’d pay her in cash every month if she wanted it. She never called back.”

  He slurped his beer. I had to hurry to catch up with him.

  “So now I wonder about everything,” he continued. “What if there isn’t even a daughter, and Rhonda was just after money but thought better of it? She knows I wouldn’t fall for a scam.”

  “Rhonda wouldn’t try something like that,” I said. In fact, some of my memories of her, very brief ones, were sweet. But what do I know? I’m obviously not a good judge of character.

  The Tavern doors opened and a mummy shuffled in, all stiff-legged, entirely wrapped in bandages, peering through a thin slit in his face wrappings. With the ponderous, determined gait that mummies often exhibit (partly due to supernatural determination and partly due to being hindered by so many bandages), the mummy lumbered past the pool tables, walked right in front of the dartboards where two zombies were playing a round, hurling projectiles with bad aim, most of which didn’t even manage to hit the wall. One dart struck the mummy, but with the wrong end, so it bounced off and clattered on the floor.

  Although the bar was mostly empty, the mummy shuffled directly toward us. He reached the stool next to mine, contemplated its height, then worked his way up onto the seat, adjusting his legs, then his bandages, then his arms.

  Seeing the customer, Francine touched old One Fang’s arm one more time, then came over to serve the mummy. In a voice muffled by bandages, he gestured clumsily toward our beers. “I’ll have what they’re having.”

  “Coming right up, hon,” Francine said.

  The mummy leaned closer to me. “Nothing like a good cold beer at the end of a day. I always seem to have a dry throat.”

  I wondered how he intended to drink the beer. Maybe let it soak the facial bandages and then slurp it through?

  Francine stood at the tap and looked over at the vampire. “And how about you, hon. Can I freshen your drink?”

  One Fang lifted his nearly empty glass and swirled the ice cubes with a rattle. “Absolutely, my dear. Another B positive on the rocks. And make it a double. I plan to stay here for a while.”

  She giggled and picked up a pint glass, ready to pour the mummy’s beer, but he started laughing so hard he almost fell off the stool. “Hold that, bartender. I was just kidding!”

  He began laughing harder and I thought I recognized the muffled voice. With clumsy fingers he loosened the gauze wrappings and began to unwind them until a shock of red hair poked up. “I so fooled you guys!”

  As soon as I saw the freckles on the forehead I knew it was Jody.

  “Told you I was a master of disguise,” he said, “not just an evil genius in training. That lady was about to pour me a beer without even carding me.”

  Francine frowned, not knowing what to do. “Mummies are usually thousands of years old. They get offended when I ask for ID.”

  I lifted a hand. “It’s all right, Francine. This kid is a client of mine. He’s a very bright young man.” I added a stern edge to my voice. “In fact, he’s smart enough to know better.”

  “I was just testing you,” Jody said as he finished unwrapping the bandages. His grin was infectious. “Have you made any progress on my case? I don’t have much time left at Junior Mad Scientist Camp, and I want to get my certificate.”

  After I introduced Jody to McGoo, I told the young man that we had checked out his story at the patent office and that I’d gotten some information about his landlord. “Is Ah’Chulhu as bad as
I’ve heard?”

  “He’ll be no match for you, Mr. Chambeaux,” Jody said. “You’ll wipe those tentacles right off his face.”

  I wasn’t sure that was exactly the tactic I would use.

  McGoo said, “A demon and a real-estate agent. Sounds nasty. Nastier than a surprise message from Rhonda, I guess.”

  “Let’s wait and see what she does, McGoo,” I said. “I’m here for you.” Then I turned to the kid. “Tomorrow, I’m planning to go down into the sewers and meet your landlord face to, uh, face.”

  Disasters, however, can disrupt the best-laid plans.

  CHAPTER 12

  I don’t know what I’d call the heart of the Unnatural Quarter, but the sewer tunnels were definitely its intestines. And, continuing the anatomical metaphor, the sewers occasionally exhibited symptoms of intestinal distress—possibly caused by a subterranean storm from either Thunder Dick or Alastair Cumulus III. The tunnels beneath the streets of the Quarter roiled and gurgled and resulted in citywide incontinence.

  Thankfully, the Chambeaux & Deyer offices were on the second floor, but even so our plumbing went into conflict mode. Pipes thumped, gurgled, and regurgitated smelly brown effluent in runny staccato spurts.

  Sheyenne was in our kitchenette preparing to brew a pot of coffee when the nasty liquid spewed out of the faucet. She drew back in disgust, looked at the sludge in the carafe. “No coffee today, Beaux.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the brown liquid in the pot. “I’ve had worse at the Ghoul’s Diner.”

  Police sirens wailed through the streets. Outside, manhole covers popped up like tossed coins as the underlevels flooded. A fire hydrant exploded, spraying a geyser of brownish water. Three ghoul children ran out into the streets laughing, playing, and splashing in the unexpected downpour.