Slimy Underbelly

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The audience applauded. Werewolves in the bleachers howled their appreciation; some ghouls and less-well-preserved zombies let out long, low moans that sounded upbeat, considering. I shot a glance at Sheyenne, and judging by her delighted expression, she seemed to be enjoying herself.

  Bela swung back, hanging on with one hand as he gave a dismissive wave to the audience. Vampires usually have fluid movements. I remembered that one vamp had tried out for the Olympic gymnastics team four years ago—and was promptly disqualified, though the Olympic judges could not articulate a valid reason. The vampire sued, and the matter was tied up in the courts until long past the conclusion of the Olympics. The vampire gymnast took the long view, however, as she would be just as spry and healthy in the next four-year cycle, and the next, and the next.

  A big drumroll signaled Bela’s finale. He swung back and forth one more time, pumping with his legs, increasing speed, and the bar soared up to the highest point yet. The vampire released his hold, flung himself into the air for another somersault, then a second, then a third as the empty trapeze swung in its clockwork arc, gliding back toward him, all perfectly choreographed.

  As he dropped, Bela reached out. His fingertips brushed the bar—and missed. He flailed his hands in the air, trying to grab the trapeze, but the bar swung past out of reach, and gravity did its work. Bela tumbled toward the hundred sharp wooden stakes below.

  Someone screamed. Even with my rigor-mortis-stiff knees, I lurched to my feet.

  But at the last possible moment, the vampire’s plummeting form transformed in the air. Mere inches above the deadly points, Bela turned into a bat, stretching and flapping his leathery wings. He flew away, the medallion still dangling from his little furry rodent neck. He alighted on the opposite trapeze platform, then transformed back into a vampire just in time to catch the returning trapeze. He held on, showing his pointed fangs in a superior grin, and took a deep bow. On cue, the band played a loud “Ta-da!”

  After a stunned moment, the audience erupted in wild applause. Sheyenne was beaming enough to make her ectoplasm glow. Even I was smiling. “That was worth the price of admission,” I said.

  Sheyenne looked at me. “We didn’t pay anything—we got free tickets.”

  “Then it’s worth twice as much.”

  With the show over, the audience rose from the bleachers and filed toward the exit. “The cases don’t solve themselves,” I said to Sheyenne. “Let’s go find that fortune-teller.”

  CHAPTER 2

  As Sheyenne and I walked along the midway in search of the fortune-teller’s booth, we suddenly heard screams—not the joyful yelling of riders on a rickety roller coaster, but loud, terrified cries. Bona fide bloodcurdling shrieks. The screams of children.

  I was moving before I even knew it, and Sheyenne flitted along beside me. Five children came running toward us, eyes wide enough to qualify the kids as anime cartoon characters. They yelled wordlessly, pelting past us.

  They were running from a circus clown.

  I had seen him on the circus posters: Fazio the Clown, grinning with a painted smile so wide he could have swallowed a bloody feast and not even left stains on his chin. His very appearance was supposed to be joyful and comforting, but I thought it looked diabolical—as did the kids, apparently.

  Fazio implored, “Wait! I just want to make people laugh!”

  Pursuing panicked children was not how I would have tried to make them laugh.

  Panting, the clown stumbled up to us in his big floppy shoes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with kids today.” His face was covered with white greasepaint, and he wore a bright red nose the size of a tennis ball. His bald cap was wrinkled over the top of his head, and shocks of pink hair stuck out in all directions. His teeth could have used whitening (a lot of it) and orthodontia (a lot of it). He held out a bicycle horn and honked it in my face. “Does that make you laugh?” Then he giggled, an edgy Renfeld-catching-a-whole-handful-of-flies laugh.

  “Sorry, not today,” I said.

  Glum, Fazio hung his head and shuffled off with his floppy shoes.

  We found the booth of Zelda the fortune-teller, a rickety affair made of plywood and two-by-fours painted bright blue, festooned with crepe paper and a stenciled sign that said, FORTUNES TOLD: $5. But the price had been crossed out and reduced three successive times to the bargain rate of $1.

  At the booth, a customer forked over a dollar bill, so we kept our distance, watching the fortune-teller in action. Zelda had told me to be discreet.

  The customer was a potbellied man in plaid shorts and black socks. (And they say unnaturals look odd?) Zelda wore a curly wig of platinum-blond hair, eye shadow and blush that must have been purchased in bulk and applied with a trowel; the five o’clock shadow had come in a few hours early on the fortune-teller’s cheeks. Gold hoop earrings, gold necklaces, and gold bangles accessorized a dress with a high neckline, but still showed planetary-sized bosomic curves, which were obviously just stuffing.

  Zelda shuffled a well-worn deck of regular playing cards, then laid five cards face-up on the wooden tabletop in front of the customer. “The eight of clubs is a good sign—it shows you have worthy goals and are determined to achieve them.” The supposedly female voice was falsetto and unconvincing.

  He laid down another card. “The king of hearts indicates that you will be happy in romance, lucky in love.”

  “But when?” the man asked, plaintive.

  “Unfortunately, the cards have no time stamp,” Zelda said. “Now, the third one . . . ah, the three of spades! A very significant card. You are destined to have great financial success, but it may take a while, so be patient.”

  The man took hope from that. He looked at the last card. “And the jack of diamonds?”

  Zelda shook her head. “That, unfortunately, is a minor card. It merely signifies that your breakfast won’t satisfy you for long and you should seek refreshment from one of our fine food booths.” The fortune-teller gathered the cards and restacked them in the deck as the customer bent down to pull up his black socks, which had slid lower on his ankles, then he walked off.

  Taking our cue, Sheyenne and I stepped up to the fortune-teller. Zelda shuffled the deck, gave me a skeptical look. “I charge extra to determine the fate of the undead.”

  “We’re not here for a reading, uh, ma’am. You hired us—I’m Dan Chambeaux, private investigator, and this is my associate Sheyenne.”

  Her voice dropped at least two octaves, and she lit a cigarette. “Of course, Mr. Chambeaux—thanks for stopping by.” Zelda eyed my gaunt form, looked at my complexion, frowned at the bullet hole in my forehead. “Your business card didn’t say you weren’t alive.”

  “Those are old cards. I need to get them reprinted.”

  Sheyenne joined in. “We have references available upon request.”

  I got down to business. “I understand your magic fortune-telling deck has been misplaced? You need us to find it?”

  “Not misplaced—stolen. I’m sure of it this time.”

  Some questions beg to be asked. “This time?”

  “It’s my second deck gone in six months! I thought I must have misplaced the first one—it happens in the circus, packing up, tearing down, day after day. But real magic fortune-telling decks are hard to come by, so I kept careful watch on the replacement cards. It was the last deck the supplier had in stock, and I couldn’t afford another. But it’s gone, too. Somebody stole it . . . somebody who’s out to get me.” He lowered his voice. “I predicted that, even without the cards!”

  The customer is always right, as the saying goes; and also, the customer is sometimes paranoid. “We’ll look into it, Mr., uh, Ms. Zelda.”

  “Aldo. My real name is Aldo Firkin. Zelda’s just a stage name.” He dabbed at the layers of peacock-colored eye shadow. “It’s all an act.”

  “You don’t say,” I said. Sheyenne pretended to jab me with her spectral elbow, though I couldn’t feel her touch. She sometimes has to remind m
e to show a proper professional attitude in front of the clients.

  The fortune-teller frowned, plucking at the absurd dress. “You think I want to dress up like this? I’m not a natural-born transvestite, but I can’t make a living otherwise. It’s a stereotype we can’t shake—nobody wants male fortune-tellers. What a sham! All these decades of fighting for equal rights, and I have to do this.” He adjusted the ridiculous wig. “Now, about my stolen cards? I really need them back. I’ve been doing my best.” With a burring rattle of laminated paper, Aldo/Zelda shuffled the regular playing cards. “But there’s nothing magical about these. I’m just making it up. My other deck—now, those cards were real, the magic just barely starting to wear off.”

  His brow furrowed as he looked down at the old playing cards. “Oddly enough, my fortunes seem to be just as accurate with this ordinary deck. I must be really good at this.” He tapped the deck, drew a card, looked at it, and smiled. “Ah, correctly predicted that one. Maybe there’s real magic here!”

  “Or maybe you’re just telling people what they want to hear,” I suggested.

  Aldo grinned. “Ah, and that’s the real magic, isn’t it? Give cryptic fortunes and let the customer figure out the true meaning. ‘You will lose something very valuable to you, but you will gain something unexpected.’ That’s one I told the fat lady a few months ago.”

  “Sounds like a bad horoscope,” I said.

  “Actually, it sounds like a good horoscope,” Sheyenne said.

  The gaunt vampire ringmaster walked by, still wearing his equestrian jacket; he kept to the awnings, shading his head with his black top hat to avoid the direct sunlight. Aldo waved. “Oscar! Come here—this is the private detective I was telling you about. Dan Chambeaux, meet Oscar Kowalski, ringmaster and circus owner.”

  The ringmaster gave a formal nod, and we exchanged a cold grip. “Dan Shamble?”

  “Chambeaux,” I corrected. “People always mispronounce my name. And I wouldn’t expect a vampire to be named Oscar Kowalski. I’d think something more like . . . Bela.”

  Kowalski let out an annoyed snort. “Bela is a drama queen and a pain in the ass, but he does draw a crowd, and that’s what it’s all about.” He lowered his voice. “I’m glad Aldo called you to look into the thefts. We’ve had a rash of them over the past two weeks.” He shot a narrow-eyed glare at the transvestite fortune-teller. “But we need to be discreet.”

  Aldo sounded indignant. “He’s a private detective, not a public one. And I couldn’t wait any longer—I need my magic cards back.”

  “What other thefts?” Sheyenne pressed.

  “Mostly minor items, low value,” Kowalski said.

  “My fortune-telling cards are extremely valuable!” Aldo insisted.

  The ringmaster continued, “But it causes a lot of nuisance and unease. We like to think we’re family here at the circus.”

  “I miss the Bearded Lady,” Aldo muttered. “Harriet was like a mother to us all, really kept the circus tight-knit, like a family. Things were so much nicer before she went off to lead a semi-normal life of her own.”

  Kowalski shook his head. “We all miss Harriet, but there’s not much call for everyday freaks after the Big Uneasy. People can see weirder creatures on any walk through the Quarter.”

  I got back to business. “We need to know what the other items are. All the clues should lead to the same suspect.”

  “I can get you a list—a long one,” Aldo said, then considered. “But if you’re investigating all of the thefts in the circus, then Oscar should pay your bill.”

  The ringmaster’s shoulders drooped. “I’ll pay half . . . provided Mr. Shamble—uh, Chambeaux—can help us all out. Most of the other items aren’t worth much.”

  “If there’s a thief running loose, maybe we should report it to Officer McGoohan?” Sheyenne suggested.

  I explained, “I have a good friend on the police force. He’ll take your problems seriously.”

  Kowalski cleared his throat. “That won’t be necessary. We must count on your discretion, Mr. Chambeaux. People don’t trust circus folk as it is, even here in the Unnatural Quarter, and I don’t want to do anything to reinforce that stereotype. You probably don’t like it when people consider all zombies to be brain-eating clods with speech impediments.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I work hard to stay well preserved.”

  Kowalski tipped his hat. “I hope you can resolve this quickly and quietly. The circus is your client.”

  “But find my magic cards first,” Aldo insisted as he jotted down the list on a scrap of paper.

  “If we find the thief, we should find all of the stolen items,” I said.

  Sheyenne and I read the list as we walked away. In addition to the magic fortune-telling cards (two sets, but I doubted we’d find the one he’d lost six months earlier), Aldo had listed a hammer (standard hardware store issue), glass milk bottle from one of the game booths, dagger from the knife thrower’s act, three costume-jewelry necklaces from Annie the fat lady (hence a rope-length of jewelry), and a cold Reuben sandwich from a refrigerator in the Flag. I figured we could discount that last item.

  We had no trouble finding the fat lady, mainly because she wasn’t very mobile, but also because she was so large. In her open tent, Annie reclined on—and covered most of—a queen-sized bed. Plates mounded with chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and Danishes sat within reach of one hand; by the other side of the bed sat a tray of chicken wings and ribs. She had apparently been through several plates already, but despite the aftermath of her obviously enormous appetite, her face looked saggy. I didn’t think the fat lady looked healthy at all, but since I’m undead, I’m not one to point fingers.

  Annie’s wide throat was round and somewhat tubular, like a pelican with a particular lucky catch of fish. She had permed gray hair and wire-rim glasses that made her look like the world’s kindest, and largest, grandmother. An enormous floral muumuu extended all the way down to her ankles; sleeves covered the wrists where they met the gloves. Under her gigantic tent of a dress, her mounded belly stirred and squirmed in a disturbing way, as if her intestines were rearranging themselves before our eyes.

  Annie gave us a twinkling smile. “Hello, dears! Come in and stare—that’s what I’m here for. Would you like a cookie? I’ve got plenty.” She extended the tray to us.

  “No thanks, ma’am,” Sheyenne said. “I’m ectoplasmic.”

  “And I’m on a low-carb diet,” I added, even though it was just an excuse. My undead taste buds were no longer very discriminating, and Annie needed a constant stream of calories just to maintain her bulk. She consumed the rest of the cookies with methodical swiftness, as if it were her mission.

  “We’re from Chambeaux and Deyer Investigations, and we’re here on a case.” I set one of our business cards on the bedside table next to the chicken wings. “We’ve been hired to investigate certain items that have gone missing. If there’s a circus thief, we’ll catch him.”

  “A thief? Oh, my!” Annie held her hands to her face, licked a few crumbs from her fingers. “I refuse to believe members of my dear circus family are thieves.” Her mounded stomach shifted and churned, and Annie let out an embarrassed giggle, placing her hands flat on her belly. “Just a bit of indigestion—it tends to get extreme in my case.”

  I held up Aldo’s handwritten list. “According to this, you’ve lost several items of jewelry?”

  “Oh, dear me, I may have misplaced a few cheap necklaces—I’m always doing that. When I manage to walk around, I can’t see the ground, and if something falls . . . well, I just give it up for lost. I wouldn’t call them stolen. The circus people are my family. I’m like a mother to them since Harriet’s gone. Someone has to watch out for everyone.”

  I tipped my fedora. “If you think of anything, please let us know, ma’am. Any clue would help.”

  Leaving the fat lady’s tent, we strolled along the midway, and soon Fazio the Clown buttonholed us again. “I saw you two
talking with that fraud fortune-teller! He’s a fake—a complete fake. I doubt he could predict yesterday if he had a newspaper in front of him.”

  If you had asked me before the Big Uneasy, I would have said that all fortune-telling was fake. Now, though, I’d seen plenty of evidence of functional spells. “He’s at a disadvantage if he lost his magic cards.”

  “Not the cards—the sham costume. Him in his stupid wig and his clumsy makeup! It’s an embarrassment. Makeup is no joke. I work hard on my appearance, greasepaint over every inch of exposed skin.” He tugged at his shocks of pink hair, straightened the bald cap, then tweaked the bright red nose. “It’s a beautiful design, the perfect clown face—I’ve even got it trademarked. But Zelda, or Aldo, or whoever or whatever the name is, does it just to make a buck. It cheapens the art of face painting.”

  “And why do you paint your face?” Sheyenne asked.

  “For a greater purpose, of course—to get a laugh.”

  Or a scream, I thought, remembering the terrified children.

  “We’re investigating a rash of burglaries, not makeup techniques,” I said. “Any comments about his missing deck of fortune-telling cards?”

  “I don’t know anything about the first one he lost, and not the second one either.” He snorted, then stormed off. “You should be investigating Aldo. His eye shadow is a crime!”

  CHAPTER 3

  After gathering as much information as we could, Sheyenne and I returned to the Chambeaux & Deyer offices in the seedy, run-down section of the Unnatural Quarter (I realize that’s not very specific).

  Sheyenne began compiling a list of circus suspects and digging up dirt on them. She’s good at uncovering details, whether they be sordid details, suspicious details, or just plain bookkeeping details.

  A large part of my job is time management. Real life as an undead private investigator isn’t like a TV detective show, where the PI works on one mystery at a time and solves it without other clients getting in the way. In addition to investigating stolen items at the vampire circus, I had several active cases.