Slimy Underbelly

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “You’ve done a good thing with Recompose,” I said. “I’m glad to see that your efforts are being recognized.”

  At first Lurrm was delighted, and he spun around in his chair like a kid on a playground. C.H. leaned to one side on his pinky so he could give an approving thumbs-up.

  Then Lurrm began to dither. “Well, I really don’t deserve it. Perhaps the attention should go to someone else. I, um . . .” His tongue flicked in and out of his wide mouth. “I don’t really like the attention. I prefer to keep a low profile. Ayup.”

  “With success comes exposure,” I said. “Don’t you want to expose yourself?”

  His eyes flicked from side to side, as if to follow a zigzagging fly. “I, um, hadn’t thought it through. Can I send someone else to accept the award?”

  Robin tried to sound reassuring. “No need to be shy. Dan and I would be happy to accept for you if you insist . . . but think about it.”

  We were interrupted when the attendant bounded down the stairs to Lurrm’s office. Carrl sprang forward in great leaps, still clutching the fishing magazine in one soft hand. In a terrified voice, he belched out the name over and over again. “Lurrm! Lurrm! Lurrm! Lurrm! Lurrm! Lurrm! Lurrm!” He sounded like an annoying digital clock with a broken snooze button.

  I put my hand on the holster of my .38. Lurrm sprang out of his desk chair. C.H. scuttled to hide behind a stack of papers.

  “We’ve got company, Lurrm,” Carrl cried. “Gator-guys!” We emerged from the office, ready to face the threatening alligator lieutenants/associates/escorts, but I didn’t see them. “Where are they?” I asked.

  The attendant swiveled his round head to look at me. “Still trying to figure out the turnstile upstairs. We don’t have much time!”

  I wondered how long the turnstile would confound the dim reptilian brains. Soon enough we heard a loud crashing sound, and three gator-guys lumbered down the stairs. They stood in the steamy expanse of the bathhouse, either looking around for their intended victim or just taking in the sights.

  Lurrm clutched his moist fingers together. “Bad news, ayup.”

  I couldn’t understand what Ah’Chulhu would have to do with the former Zombie Bathhouse. “Have these guys been bothering you?”

  “No, but they’re going to. I knew they’d come after me, apply pressure.” His throat bellowed out, then shrank back in. “But this is my battle.” He licked his wide lips, then extended his tongue to lick his nose, his forehead, and the top of his head. It was an odd nervous habit, but I couldn’t blame him.

  “We can be of assistance,” Robin said. “You’re still our client.”

  In the spawning pool, the two flirting amphibious creatures plunged under the surface to hide. The older zombies and the Aztec mummy were in such ecstasy soaking in the hot tub that they didn’t move a single stiff muscle.

  Spotting Lurrm, the gator-guys stalked forward. All reptilians look alike to me, but I was pretty sure the three gator-guys were Larry, Moe, and Curly.

  “Lurrm, Lurrm, Lurrm,” said the one I thought was Moe. “We’re disappointed in you.”

  The frog demon was nervous. His nictitating membranes flickered shut, then open. “I don’t want any trouble.”

  “Too bad, because we do want trouble,” said Curly.

  Larry said, “No, we don’t. That’s not what the boss told us. We want a . . . a . . . satisfactory resolution to the matter.”

  I had to step in. “You memorized that, did you?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the boss told us to say.”

  “But can you spell it?” I asked.

  The gator-guys looked confused. “Why would we have to spell it?”

  “Because nothing’s legal unless it’s written down,” I said, glancing at Robin.

  She picked up on my idea. “Indeed, a legally binding contract has to be written down, notarized, and ratified. Can you boys even sign your names?”

  “My name is . . . X,” said Moe.

  “So is mine,” echoed the other two.

  “If Lurrm doesn’t wish to engage your services, then he is not required to do so,” Robin said.

  “Our boss says that he’s required to accept,” said Curly. “We have to offer him protection.”

  “Protection against what?” I asked. “I’m Lurrm’s detective. I can offer better protection.” I tried to loom as tall as I could, and zombies are generally good at looming. I kept my hand meaningfully on the butt of the pistol in its holster. “We don’t need you around here.”

  Now Lurrm grew more bold. “You guys don’t frighten me. I’m free of all those underworld dealings, ayup. I’ve gone straight. Legitimate!”

  “That’s not what the boss says,” Moe said.

  “We’ve got you cornered,” I said to the gator-guys, taking a step closer to them. “You’d better get out while you still can.”

  “Cornered.” The gator-guys looked at one another. “How do you have us cornered?”

  “Can you find your way back to the front door by yourselves?” I was betting that their sense of direction was as good as it had been in the tunnels, and that I could count on the reduced intellectual capacity of their brains. “Or are you trapped and lost down here?”

  More confused than before, Moe, Larry, and Curly looked panicked, and they drew together. “It’s a trap,” Larry said.

  Curly clutched at his scaly throat. “Gotta get out of here. Can’t breathe. Claustrophobic.”

  “Can you spell claustrophobic?” I asked.

  This panicked them even more.

  “You won’t get away with this!” Moe hissed.

  “Carrl will show you out.” Lurrm nudged the frightened attendant closer to the gator-guys. “And tell Ah’Chulhu I’ve already got my security, ayup. I don’t need to pay for protection.”

  Clutching his fishing magazine, Carrl bounded across the floor as the gator-guys hurried after him. They looked around in confusion, totally lost.

  When the threatening reptiles were gone, Lurrm let out a long, shaky sigh and huddled on the damp bathhouse floor. C.H. scurried up, sprang onto Lurrm’s shoulder, and patted him consolingly.

  “I was so scared I almost milted myself!” Lurrm shook his head from side to side. “See why I didn’t want to draw attention? I’m aboveboard now and aboveground. I want nothing to do with that life.”

  “Ah’Chulhu seems to have his tentacles in a lot of different businesses,” I said.

  “If Ah’Chulhu is harassing our clients, we’re going to take him down, Dan.” The anger was clear in Robin’s voice. “If we can prove he did anything illegal.”

  “Nothing you can prove,” Lurrm said. “Believe me, you don’t want to go up against him, ayup.”

  “We’re already on his radar,” I said. “I know about Ah’Chulhu’s past, but I don’t know about all of his present dealings. I’m inclined to do more digging.”

  Despite C.H.’s consoling, Lurrm still trembled. “I’ve got to protect myself. I’m going to install a turnstile at every door—for extra security.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The lawn gnome gang struck again—as we knew they would. But this time, we had a secret weapon.

  The waiting, though, was maddening.

  Stentor the ogre was as anxious to help as he was eager to get his voice back. He had asked to stay at the opera house, on a provisional basis, even if only to sweep out the hall, but the Phantom had sneered at the idea. He claimed he couldn’t tolerate having such a failure around, because it would sour the notes of his other singers, particularly the promising young women he taught in his underground grotto.

  So, while Stentor waited for a call to come in about Mr. Bignome, he hovered in the Chambeaux & Deyer offices. For hours. We like to welcome our clients, but we’re not a recreational center, especially not for enormous, hulking, clumsy, and depressed ogres. He had nothing else to do.

  Sheyenne worked at her desk, waiting for the phone to ring. The clock ticked. I tried to concentrate on other cases i
nside my office, which was a refuge because Stentor couldn’t easily fit through the door.

  The ogre paced in the main lobby. He bumped into our potted artificial plants. He jostled Sheyenne’s desk. He lumbered into and through her ghostly form, which he found more unsettling than Sheyenne did. He apologized profusely. He even offered to help do the dishes in our kitchenette, but his large hands had a tendency to crush the coffee cups. Sheyenne barely managed to rescue my sentimental mug that said, “World’s Greatest Detective.”

  It was a relief when the lawn gnome gang robbed another store.

  When McGoo called, Sheyenne thrust the phone toward me, and I had to dodge Stentor, who turned around, bumped the wall with his big shoulder, and knocked my fedora off the hat rack. I caught it as it fell, knowing I was going to need it.

  McGoo said, “Showtime, Shamble! Alarm just went off at the Wilted Blossom. Squad cars are on their way, but it’s only blocks from your offices.”

  “We’ll beat you there.” I tossed the phone back to Sheyenne, who caught it in her ectoplasmic hands as I beat Stentor to the door. Racing out, the ogre crashed into the jamb, damaged the frame, and hurried after me.

  The Wilted Blossom was an ecologically conscious specialty shop that had made a business out of recycling and refurbishing used floral arrangements from funerals, sprucing up bouquets to be repurposed “for all occasions.”

  Since Mr. Bignome and his gang targeted only specific categories of businesses, McGoo and I had put an alert on all likely shops. Living in fear, every one of the business owners had the police station on speed dial.

  As we ran down the sidewalk, I knew that today Mr. Bignome’s reign of terror would end.

  Distant wailing sirens grew louder, howling like frustrated werewolves on the day before a full moon. Ahead, I heard the rat-a-tat-tat of small-caliber machine-gun fire. Stentor bounded ahead of me on his long, muscular legs, yelling in his incongruous mousy voice, “Stop, thief! Stop!”

  Farther down the block, I heard a much louder echo of the same words coming from the Wilted Blossom. The getaway jalopy was parked halfway up on the curb, and a lawn gnome sat gripping the steering wheel, racing the engine, ready to zoom away. The black-painted gnome leader and his fellow gang members backed out of the shop carrying bags of cash, firing their Timmy guns in the air.

  Stentor whispered at the top of his lungs, “Stop—surrender!”

  Unable to help himself, Bignome bellowed, “Stop—surrender!”

  His gang members were confused. “What do you mean, boss?” asked a gnome in a jaunty red cap and red vest. “Why should we surrender?”

  “Drop the loot!” Stentor cried in a little squeak.

  Again, Bignome couldn’t help himself. “Drop the loot!”

  The lawn gnomes dropped their bags. “I don’t like this new plan, boss,” said a grinning gnome in emerald green with a special St. Patrick’s Day shamrock on his lapel.

  Struggling to control his voice, Bignome yelled, “I didn’t mean that—pick up the cash. Let’s get out of here.”

  Stentor yelled, “No, we should surrender.”

  Bignome repeated in a thunderous operatic voice, “No, we should surrender.”

  As the squad cars came closer, the lawn gnomes were frightened of their leader’s peculiar behavior, but they knew what to do. They all piled into the jalopy as Bignome hopped up and down, gesticulating.

  “We gotta escape, boss,” cried the shamrock gnome.

  The getaway driver revved the puttering engine. Bignome tried to grab a sack of the stolen cash discarded on the sidewalk, but the jalopy had already started moving. Finally, the leader tottered forward to hop headfirst into the back of the jalopy. “Go, go! The cops are coming.”

  Stentor squeaked, and Bignome echoed, “No, change of plans—shut off the engine. Put it in park. We have to wait to be arrested.”

  “Boss, you’re scaring me,” said the driver, and accelerated out into the street, heading toward us.

  Even with all the excitement, I noticed dark clouds gathering overhead like gray water balloons pregnant with a downpour. Several streets up, rain began streaming down.

  The ogre shouted, and Bignome was mortified when his mouth yelled for all to hear, “I like to wear pink underwear! Especially lacy underwear.”

  Stentor bounded in front of the getaway jalopy, but the panicked gnome driver swerved around him, just as I was trying to stop the car. The jalopy slammed into me, right at knee level, and knocked me flat before it squealed away.

  Finally, two squad cars arrived at the Wilted Blossom and raced down the street in hot pursuit.

  As the lawn gnomes fled down the block, Stentor yelled in his displaced ventriloquist-like voice, “Turn left. No, turn right! Stop right here. Look out for that pedestrian! We really should surrender. Turn around.”

  The gnomes’ jalopy wheeled and spun away on a wild course, ricocheting from one direction to another. They accelerated toward the heavy rainstorm a few blocks away. As Bignome flailed and tried to reassert control of his voice, he yelled, “I pick my nose and eat my boogers!”

  The squad cars tore past as I picked myself up from the street, and I saw McGoo in the front seat of the first one. He waved at me but didn’t stop. They were in hot pursuit.

  The gnomes’ jalopy screeched through an intersection and careened forward into the rain, slipping down an alley, despite the contradictory directions being shouted from their leader in the backseat. The squad cars were half a block away and closing.

  Then I heard a rumble and a hiss, a rushing sound . . . and displeased yelps and shouts from many unnaturals on the cross street as they scrambled up front steps to get out of the way.

  The sudden torrential rain had created a roiling gray flash flood, far too much for the gutters to handle. The stampede of water scoured the street, surged through the intersection, and swamped the squad cars, picking them up like little toys. The sirens wailed and warbled, then died, sounding like a banshee with a sudden-onset head cold.

  The flood continued to stream down the street, carrying debris, trash cans, sodden teddy bears with appliqued fangs, a special discounted shoe display of models designed for cloven feet. A forlorn mummy—who was naturally lightweight because of his extreme dehydration, hollow bones, and fluffy bandages—rode cross-legged on an upside-down trash-can lid, as if it were a lifeboat.

  Furious that the lawn gnomes had gotten away, Stentor balled his toaster-sized fists and growled, although the sound that emerged was more like a “meep.”

  As the sudden flood waters subsided, McGoo and the pursuing cops fought their way out of the scattered squad cars and stood soggy and disgusted. The storm front rolled through the Quarter, and the police resigned themselves to the fact that the evil gang had gotten away again.

  A grinning weather wizard strolled along the sidewalks, unbothered by the fresh puddles he sloshed through. Thunder Dick’s drenched tie-dyed robes clung alarmingly close to his body, revealing more about his undergarments, or lack of undergarments, than he intended to show. His hair and beard were plastered to his skin, but he seemed to be in an extremely chipper mood.

  “How did you like that? Just another example of my services to the Quarter,” he said. “I can outdo my opponent’s puny attempts at rain showers. Look how much grime and dirty residue I just rinsed away.”

  Behind him, the tuxedo cat tiptoed along, looking for dry patches on the sidewalk but finding few of them. The floating mummy climbed off of his garbage-can lid, gingerly touching a bandaged toe to a solid curb.

  Bedraggled people of all species emerged from doorways, everyone annoyed, some actively growling.

  Oblivious to the mood, Thunder Dick cheerfully waved. “If you vote for me, I’ll keep all the streets clean.”

  Sputtering and angry, McGoo came up to him. “You just let a bunch of criminals escape! I should arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

  Thunder Dick was puzzled. “But I have my permit, which specifically ex
plains that I am not responsible for delays caused by the weather.”

  The other monsters were closing in. Since I could do nothing for Stentor at the moment, I went to save my other client before he got lynched.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was time to get serious about lawn gnomes.

  Since conventional, and first-order unconventional, means hadn’t resulted in the capture of Bignome’s gang, Robin tried a different tactic.

  Now that we knew we had to find that evil specimen of kitsch landscaping before we could return Stentor’s voice, she worked at tracking down Mr. Bignome’s real identity. She pored through public records, business reports, licenses and certification numbers, birth dates, and manufacturing dates.

  Her eyes were flashing as she came to me with an address written on a yellow sheet of legal paper torn from her self-replenishing pad. “Take this to Officer McGoohan—it’s a lead you both need to check out.”

  “And what is this?” I saw that the address was in the Garden District, an old residential section of the Quarter.

  “It’s where Mr. Bignome’s mother lives.”

  Bignome’s father had been killed in an unfortunate landscaping incident. His mother had remarried, changed her name, then gotten a divorce. Now she lived alone in a house paid off with a combination of alimony and life-insurance money.

  When I showed him the address, McGoo’s eyes went wide. “We’ve been trying to track down anything about Bignome! How did you get this?”

  “Robin found it.”

  That was all the answer McGoo needed. “All right, then. Let’s go find out if Mama Bignome knows where her son’s hideout is.”

  Mama Bignome lived in a quaint miniature Victorian. When she answered the bell, the stout matronly lawn gnome was wearing a housedress, accessorized with an apron, gardening gloves, and a blue pointed hat.