Unnatural Acts

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Now Robin shook her head at Max’s wobbly defense. “When buying merchandise from an outside vendor, retailers are not obligated to follow the supply chain, nor are they responsible for any violations in the producer’s operation. You’re on the hook for this, Mr. Grubb. Not the Smile Syndicate.”

  “But I didn’t know it was wrong to put golems to work, I really didn’t!” The necromancer turned to McGoo. “Can’t you cut me a break? Please? You’ve already taken everything from me. I’m not a bad person, just unlucky.”

  Robin continued to glare daggers at him, but I whispered to her, “Could we have a private consult with Officer McGoohan outside the room?”

  McGoo switched off the recorder and gave a stern warning to Maximus Max. “Don’t try to work any spells while you’re alone in here. We’ll be watching.” He pointed to the mirrored wall.

  “Oh, I won’t—I swear!”

  Out in the hall, with the door closed, I asked them both, “How strong is our case, really? Everybody in the Quarter knows that golems are workhorses, designed for assembly lines and menial labor. Max wasn’t exactly peddling drugs, weapons, or dangerous magical items. This is going to be a tough sell, especially if the Smile Syndicate decides to defend him with their lawyers.” I put my hand on Robin’s shoulder. “I’m not convinced the end result would be worth the time and expense of litigating this. We already got what we wanted. Max is shut down and all of Bill’s friends are freed.”

  Robin was tied up in knots. “I want that necromancer punished for abusing those poor golems. I could file a civil rights suit and take him for every penny he has!” She paced back and forth, letting her legal mind take charge over her emotional reaction. “But I doubt he has more than a penny to his name.” She lifted her chin and forced herself to look on the bright side. “The most important part is that the golems are liberated, I suppose. We saved them. They can go out and live happy lives now. I’ll be able to sleep well at night.”

  I put my arm around Robin’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

  “Oh, he’s not getting away—we’ve got him on at least ten permit violations,” McGoo said. “We’ll put him through the wringer. Scout’s honor, Grubb will not be a happy camper when this is all over.”

  We reentered the interrogation room, and Maximus Max perked up, his eyes filled with puppy-dog hope. “This is your lucky day, Grubb,” McGoo announced. “We won’t be sending you to prison—not for this. But we might squeeze your wallet dry.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you!” Max rubbed his hands, then said in a small voice, “Um, how much is this going to cost?”

  “You operated a manufacturing center without the proper permits,” Robin interjected. “Your building was not zoned for the production of souvenir trinkets. You didn’t register your business. You didn’t have regular safety inspections. I could go on, but you get the idea. Each one of those infractions carries a severe penalty and a significant fine.”

  “If you pay all the fines, you’re free to go,” McGoo said.

  “Oh, I will, even if it takes my last few cents.” He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know I needed permits for all those things, or licenses, or registrations.”

  “Sounds like you don’t know a lot of things, Mr. Grubb,” I added. Robin closed her briefcase and snapped the locks shut with a pronounced click.

  “Do your research before you open a business,” McGoo warned. “Next time, fill out a form for everything you can think of and file it with the clerk. Pay the required fees. Better safe than sorry. It’s a lot cheaper than what you’re going to pay now.”

  The necromancer groaned and swiped a hand across his forehead, smearing his third eye into oblivion.

  CHAPTER 7

  Even though McGoo and I spent a lot of time together, we weren’t sick of each other’s company—not yet. Traditionally, or some might say habitually, we met for a beer or two after work. As a private investigator, I’ve got no time clock to punch, and as a beat cop McGoo worked odd shifts. The Goblin Tavern stayed open twenty-four hours and was a ready watering hole whenever we wanted to kick back and talk. Neither of us had anyplace better to go.

  The Tavern wasn’t an upscale establishment, but rather a comfortable spot where you could just be yourself, whether natural or unnatural. It had a gleaming wooden bar polished by customer elbows, a selection of multicolored high-end and low-end liquors, potions, and other concoctions made to serve all types of patrons.

  I went in early so I’d have time to get ready for the humanitarian awards banquet later in the evening. After having a rough day of his own, McGoo was already on his usual stool, which he claimed was upwind of me, even though I gave off no whiff of decay. “Shamble, you look like death warmed over.”

  “I take that as a compliment.” I took my usual stool beside him. “And you look as sour as always.”

  We would have had the same banter even if I weren’t undead. McGoo and I had been friends since college, and it was a mark of his character that he still treated me basically the same, dead or alive.

  I called to the bartender. “Hey, Francine, how about a beer here?” She was busy at the far end of the bar refilling a large jar with pickled eyeballs.

  Even though I’m a zombie, I drink to keep up appearances, to give me a sense of normalcy. I like the feel of a cold beer in my hand, the suds in my mouth, the cool taste going down, although I no longer get a buzz regardless of how much I consume. Some zombies suffer adverse reactions when alcohol interacts with certain embalming fluid formulas. They complain of headaches, or their skin turns odd shades of green or gray. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from allergies; I just don’t feel the pleasant effects anymore.

  I looked past the bar to the back office, which was dark, the door closed. “Has there been an Ilgar sighting tonight?”

  “I haven’t seen Ilgar in two weeks,” McGoo said. “After he sold the Tavern, he couldn’t get out of this place fast enough.”

  Ilgar, the original goblin owner, was an unlikely candidate to own a bar, since he didn’t like customers, and a successful business generally requires customers. Ilgar used to sit in the back office with his adding machine, running the accounts, ordering blood and liquor supplies, working crossword puzzles—Hell, I didn’t know what he did in there all the time. He rarely came out to chat up his patrons behind the bar—a good thing, since Ilgar was a dreary fellow who complained about the business at every opportunity. It was an open secret that he’d been trying to find a buyer for the Goblin Tavern for years, though he pursued the sale only halfheartedly, as he did most things. Recently, however, an amazingly sweet deal had fallen into his lap.

  In all my years in the Quarter, I had never seen Ilgar with so much as a faint smile, but on the day he announced the sale of the business he was grinning so widely that his rubbery face stretched back to expose rows of pointed teeth. “Drinks are on the house—for a period of five minutes only. I am retiring and glad to get rid of this albatross around my neck.”

  The fifteen customers in the Goblin Tavern had applauded politely, some with more enthusiasm than others. Ilgar thought we were congratulating him; most, though, were happy at the prospect of a less dreary owner. And everyone was glad for the free drinks.

  “Some big corporation called the Smile Syndicate bought the Tavern. They plan to make it a destination place in the Quarter, a regular stop for tour buses. They might even turn it into a nationwide chain. There may be Goblin Taverns everywhere.” Ilgar managed to squash his own joy. “And good riddance to all of it!”

  He had gone back into his office and begun clacking on the adding machine keys. Exactly five minutes from the time he’d announced the free drinks, he came out and cut them off.

  Now that we’d talked with Max the necromancer that afternoon, I realized that the Smile Syndicate’s acquisition of the Goblin Tavern was perfectly in line with their chain of Kreepsakes gift shops: expanding their presence in the Quarter, mainstreaming the monster business. Robin probably saw it as celeb
rating monster diversity, but something about it didn’t sit well with me.

  Francine still had her back to me, head bowed as if she were staring at the pickled eyeballs that looked back up at her. “Don’t forget about my beer, Francine,” I called and turned back to McGoo. “I can only stay for one tonight. I have to get freshened up for a big charity banquet Robin and I are attending.”

  “Freshened up?” McGoo said with a sniff. “You need a lot of freshening.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “What’s the big occasion?”

  “Awards dinner for the Monster Legal Defense Workers. Mrs. Saldana thinks we might find benefactors for those golems we just freed. Irwyn Goodfellow himself is going to be there.”

  I looked up, furrowing my brow. Francine was usually more attentive than this, and the Tavern wasn’t even busy. She was the best and most longstanding bartender the Goblin Tavern had ever had—a hard-bitten human in her late fifties, though chain smoking and a couple of divorces had added at least ten years to her appearance. She was well liked among the regulars. She chatted with unnaturals, listened to their problems, sympathized with their sob stories, and ladled out advice from her personal store of experiences. Since Francine had made enough of her own bad choices, she liked to say, “I made a lot of mistakes, so you don’t have to.”

  McGoo had finished half of his beer by the time Francine finally turned to me. She hadn’t been filling the pickled eyeball jar at all—she was crying. “Sorry, Dan. I’ll be with you in a minute.” She wiped her eyes, picked up a mug, and went over to the tap. “The usual?”

  I had seen Francine pissed off at unruly customers, and she had no tolerance for rudeness, but I’d never imagined her to be an emotional basket case. “What’s wrong, Francine?”

  “Just not having a good day,” she said with a loud sniffle.

  McGoo was also concerned. “Francine, we’ve been coming in here for years. When was the last time you had a good day?”

  “Not like this. I should have seen it coming.” She handed me my beer, and some of it sloshed onto the coaster. “Got my pink slip today. The new owners are letting me go.”

  “What?” I said. “The Tavern won’t be the same without you.”

  “Tell that to the Smile Syndicate. They’ve decided that I don’t fit their new company profile, that I’m too old and too human to match their demographic.” She snorted. “They even had the nerve to be cutesy—they called it their ‘demongraphic.’ ”

  I thought of the conglomerate wanting to open similar “fun with monsters” taverns around the country, featuring fake cobwebs, wait staff dressed up as cartoon vampires or werewolves, cheesy items on the menu that made puns on traditional favorites. It would be nauseating.

  And one-of-a-kind Francine, with her salty sense of humor and acerbic advice, would never fit in an amusement-park version of the Goblin Tavern.

  “New management is advertising for replacements, and they quite clearly say no humans need apply.” She faced me, placed her hands on her breasts, and pushed them up. “I can pad these, if that’s what they want.”

  “I don’t think that’s what they want.”

  She sniffed again and composed herself as three more regulars plodded in. Francine had a lot of regulars, and once word got around, I doubted any of them would be happy.

  “Beer’s on the house tonight for my old friends,” she said to us. “If the new owners don’t like it, I’ve got a few unnatural suggestions for them.”

  After that, McGoo and I had little to say to each other, both disturbed by the news. The beer was free, and my taste buds were generally deadened, but even so, it tasted bitter.

  CHAPTER 8

  I’m not the sort of person who regularly attends swanky banquets or black-tie affairs. Even when I was alive I couldn’t tell the difference between wine from a $200 bottle or a $20 box. I simply don’t frequent those social circles.

  So I had good reason to be both excited and intimidated by going to such a glitzy soiree to raise money for MLDW. I wondered if I’d meet the rich philanthropist in person, and if I did, I wondered if I’d say something stupid....

  On my way back to the office, I stopped by Bruno and Heinrich’s Embalming Parlor, hoping for a quick touch-up before the gala event. Bruno immediately rose to the occasion. “Ooh, big night, Mr. Chambeaux?” He topped off my fluids, powdered my face, and added a bit of color to give the skin a more lifelike appearance; he smoothed over the putty that covered the bullet hole in my forehead and even trimmed my cuticles, buffed my nails, and did a complete executive manicure.

  “We must use heavy moisturizers to maintain external hydration. Zombie skin is delicate and damages easily,” Bruno said, rubbing lotion on my hands. I thought of Neffi and all her lotions. “Our work is never done. Would you like a foot massage tonight with a pedicure?”

  “No time, Bruno.” I doubted I would ever find time for a pedicure. On purpose.

  I arrived back at the office, as “freshened up” as I was going to get. Sheyenne had rented a tux for me, and I felt as if I were ready for my own funeral all over again (in fact, the tuxedo was much nicer than the old suit I’d been buried in). After I put the strange penguin-suit components together, Sheyenne inspected my appearance and insisted I looked damn fine. She was probably just saying that, but I felt puffed up regardless.

  Robin wore an understated pearl necklace and earrings, a sapphire chiffon cocktail dress that looked like a love spell on her, and a smile that, if she had been the one requesting charitable donations, no benefactor could have resisted.

  We took Robin’s rusty old Maverick, affectionately named the Pro Bono Mobile, and puttered along the streets until we reached the library, where the humanitarian banquet was to be served. Robin self-consciously parked four blocks away so no one would associate us with the battered car. We were, after all, dressed in our finest clothes.

  Robin slid her arm through mine and we walked up the steps, moving at my pace. Two red scaly demons stood at the door with the guest list; they wore crimson frock coats, as if they were part of a royal guard. I announced, “Dan Chambeaux and Robin Deyer, guests of Mrs. Hope Saldana.”

  The demon on the left, with pointy ears and forehead horns, flipped through pages on his clipboard and found our names. He gestured us inside and said in a voice that growled through phlegm, “Pick up your name tags and meal tickets at the reception table.”

  People and monsters milled about inside the library’s main hall, drinking blood, champagne, or sparkling water from fluted glasses. A stack of programs rested on a polished table next to rows of handwritten name tags. After Robin and I chose our meal selections from chicken, vegetarian, or unnatural, I found my name tag, fumbled with my fingers to peel off the adhesive backing, and pressed the HELLO MY NAME IS: Dan Chambeaux sticker to my jacket collar.

  Sequined gowns, enameled nails and claws, glittering diamonds—it was a heady experience. Thanks to the high bar set by Bela Lugosi, vampires were quite comfortable in evening formal wear, but I had never seen a full-furred werewolf in a tux and tails before. Despite my rented outfit, I felt woefully underdressed.

  Mrs. Saldana waved us over. She wore a flower-print church dress and a string of obviously artificial pearls around her throat. “Mr. Chambeaux, Ms. Deyer! I’m so glad you came.” We were relieved to have someone to talk to, but she was already bustling away. “Follow me—there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Even with my deadened senses I could tell she wore a lot of perfume.

  Irwyn Goodfellow was chatting politely with two well-dressed zombies and a troll. Mrs. Saldana came up to him, touched his arm. “Irwyn, sorry to interrupt, but these are the people I was telling you about.”

  Goodfellow was a big, solidly made man with broad shoulders above a broad chest above a broad but rock-hard waist. His face was square; if anything, his jaw was wider than the top of his head. Bristly light brown hair stood out in a lavish flattop that made his head look like a thistle. His smile was infectiou
s, his grip warm and dripping with sincerity as he took my hand and folded his other hand atop it, giving a firm squeeze.

  “Dan Chambeaux, private investigator! My good friend Mrs. Saldana tells me that you and Ms. Deyer have been a great help to her.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Goodfellow,” I said. “I understand you’ve been quite helpful to her yourself.”

  He gave a hearty laugh. “Mrs. Saldana said you and I would get along—we have a lot in common.” Goodfellow turned to Robin and graciously gave her a warm handshake as well. “We may have to recruit you to help with the Mildew Society, Ms. Deyer. We can always use volunteers, especially ones with legal experience.”

  “Always happy to join a good cause,” Robin said.

  “Good deeds make you feel all warm and tingly inside, don’t they?” Goodfellow touched his chest. “I’m thrilled to have a chance to use my family’s wealth for benevolent means. So many people and monsters need help. Being named the year’s greatest humanitarian—no pun intended—is gratifying, but that’s not why I do it. I’m the white sheep of a family with a, shall we say, checkered history.”

  A waiter walked by carrying a tray of drinks. Goodfellow and Mrs. Saldana chose sparkling water. I avoided the blood, considered the champagne, then decided on water myself, too. Bruno had suggested I keep myself hydrated.

  Mrs. Saldana was beaming. “I didn’t tell you my good news, Mr. Chambeaux. Irwyn has just given the Hope and Salvation Mission a very generous endowment, enough operational funding to carry us through the next five years. It changes everything for us.”

  Goodfellow looked giddy with his own sense of satisfaction. “You do good work, Mrs. Saldana, and good deeds should be rewarded—that’s always been my mantra.” When he turned to me, I felt that he was focusing his entire attention, his complete being, on me and Robin. “Now tell me about these golems who need help. The situation sounds dreadful—their plight simply must be addressed.”