by Mark Henry
Must not respond, I told myself.
Ethel started speaking without further prompting. “Hairy Sue hasn’t been here for a few days. I expected her to dance tonight. She called in earlier and said she’d be coming by for her paycheck and I believe to make a little extra cash. Tips and such.”
On the word “such” my mind flashed to the back room. I imagined Sue could make a pretty penny grinding that bush on some pervert’s leg, being a unique and oddly desirable commodity and all.
“Have there ever been any scenes between her and Birch?”
“He was a client, I believe.”
“Just a client?”
“Well…no. I suspected a relationship of some sort. She was always spending time with him at his table, without getting him to order drinks and…”
“And?”
“And he didn’t tip. That’s the giveaway.”
“Do you know anything else about her, specifically?”
“She comes from a little town in the mountains. Skykomish, up near Steven’s Pass. Pretty isolated, amidst the forest and all.”
“Thank you, Mother. That’s been very helpful.”
“Well, you know I aim to pl—”
I clicked off. Woodland creatures. Could that be the real relationship between the two? Both of them nymphs?
“Hey.” I turned to Wendy. “Do you know where Birch was from? Like where he grew up?”
“Of course. I do my research.” She pulled out a little notepad and flipped through the pages, lighting on the correct one with a grin. “Skykomish.”
“Well I’ll be damned. I think Hairy Sue and Johnny Birch are kissin’ cousins.”
“Gross.”
CHANNEL 16
Wednesday
10:00–11:00 P.M.
Suck This
Contestants must drain bile and other vile fluids from their mannequins and hold them down while they race for the three pit stops. Then, the winner takes it all, in the ABBA-themed Swedish delicacies challenge. Poor vamps.
I made a couple more phone calls, the first to Scott to keep him updated—and me on his mind—and the second to Ricardo. Mama Montserrat was lucid and on her way back to the mansion in a cab. I figured it would be important to keep track of all the players, since three of them were already dead. Also, we totally forgot to ask Mama about the gris-gris bag.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about Hairy Sue just yet. Since we have no clue where she is. But we can certainly take a look around here and see if some poison turns up.”
“Good idea. But first.” Wendy pulled out her iPhone and connected to her camera. A moment later she yelled, “Whoa!”
“Jesus, what?” I ran to her side.
The image was certainly unsettling. Wendy’s apartment was the scene of a rather large gathering of vampires, fangs exposed and circling Abuelita like a bunch of pilgrims at Mecca. They tightened their proximity, brushing against her with bare arms and then sloughing away so their friends could push in and do the same. Others, the taller vamps, reached across the heads of those nearest to brush her cheek with a gentle hand.
“What the fuck?” Wendy’s mouth dropped open.
“Seriously,” I agreed.
The crowd diminished as vampires left the circle to lean dreamily against walls or simply slide down them to loll on the carpet. One particularly amorous bloodsucker took to rubbing his face in the bead stringer’s exposed cleavage. He came away dazed and stumbling, his eyes black as tar.
“Cloud.”
“What?” Wendy asked.
“I think it might be some kind of cloud party.”
“The drug? But they usually just put it on from a tube.”
“It might be something new. She was eating all that paste earlier. Remember?”
“How could I forget?”
“They pretty much look the same as a cloudhead. It just goes to reason.”
“Ugh.” Wendy clicked out of the image and tossed her phone onto the bed. “I’m pretty sure I didn’t need to see that ever.” She dropped onto the bed, face first.
“It’s not so bad. At least she’s making friends.”
Wendy held her face and kicked her feet a bit.
Speaking of controlled substances got me thinking about poison. Whether Hairy Sue was Birch’s murderer or lover or cousin, or all of the above, didn’t change the fact that someone different had killed the siren sisters. The methods were too different.
Johnny’s burnt body was the biggest clue to that fact. A body scorched down to ash and bone meal? The fire would have to have been blistering, yet nothing else in the room was charred. There wasn’t even enough smoke to set off the detectors.
There’s only one thing that can be responsible for that.
Magic.
Not that I know a ton about the dark stuff, but enough to know that there’s a big difference between someone who can pull off a trick like that and one who’ll taint a good scotch with rat poison or whatever.
Absinthe, Maiko and Angie didn’t have any real motive. I didn’t do it. For Wendy’s purposes Birch needed to have at least a little life left in him. So that left Mama Montserrat and Hairy Sue. One lover spurned, the other a secret.
“How about you stay here and figure this out, while I do a little looking around?” I picked up the camera. Wendy didn’t respond.
Hairy Sue’d stripped her room bare, the bed sheets wadded in a ball on the floor and dirty footprints all over the hard-woods. She’d wrestled the couch cushions out to a small balcony where she must have been sleeping. The assorted detritus of her slumber—she’d cut open a pillow and dumped its contents into her “bed” along with some leaves from Johnny’s redecorating—reeked of farm animal, pig trough and Pabst Blue Ribbon. In the corner, cans were stacked in a pyramid the stripper was probably proud of.
Somehow, that didn’t surprise me.
The medicine cabinet was empty as well. Despite being filthy, Hairy Sue cleaned that room out, damn well.
Mama Montserrat was less fastidious.
Her things were crammed in every drawer, cubby and cabinet. Weird things too, chicken heads, finger bones and charcoal. It was like she carried her own special voodoo pharmacy with her wherever she went. I found more of the gris-gris bags and a jar of the red powder. On the outside, written on masking tape, it read: Protection.
That made sense. Why else would the stuff border her threshold, as well as Johnny’s.
After about twenty minutes of digging, I got a little frustrated and tossed one of Mama’s suitcases at a wall—like you do—only this time, instead of just making me feel better, a loud pop sounded in the room, followed by a clanking roll like dice shaking in a cup. When I opened the case again, a false bottom had broken free and three glass bottles rolled around in the hollow. I picked up the first one.
The label read:
* * *
Fae Away
A Multipurpose Pest Killer
Good for eliminating the most frustrating flits, garden gnomes, gulley trolls, water sprites, and wood nymphs and all the yeti varieties.
Directions:
Two to eight drops in the pest’s water supply and you’ll be free of fae.
* * *
The bottle was empty. It looked like Mama Montserrat wanted to be certain to eliminate her particular pest.
At that moment, off the suite’s small balcony, I heard a loud scream followed by a thud. I crept out the door to peer into the rear garden and saw nothing at first. Just the regular twists and turns of the hedge maze, the rows of hybrid roses and a man lurking in the shadows or the willows. Oh…wait. That last one shouldn’t be there.
Could this be the guy who’d met up with Johnny the night before his death?
I rushed to the rear stair and slipped out under the arbor, hiding behind the thick wisteria-wound columns and searching the ground for some sort of weapon. The camera’s low-light lens came in handy. I found a loose brick and held it tight as I padded lightly across the gravel
toward the last spot I’d seem the man crouching.
He was quiet now. I couldn’t hear him breathing and the only scent rose earthy with manure from the sodden soil. Either whatever had caused him to scream was gone or he was simply gone. I relaxed a bit at the thought and crept around the edge of the maze, glancing back toward the house in time to see the shadow figure creeping between the roses.
I froze.
What exactly was I thinking of doing? It’s like I was in the thrall of the video camera. If the Fae Away would make good television, imagine an assault in a dark garden. I’d lost my fucking mind.
I’d just begun to back up, looking around to see how far I’d come, when the gravel nearby crunched under the sole of a heavy shoe. I darted, turning once to toss the brick, and then charged full speed toward the back door, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Wendy!”
“Jesus, Amanda.” The voice was distant, familiar.
I stalled with my hand on the doorknob and pivoted. “Gil?”
* * *
Interlude of the Bitter and Pathetic
Part Two
Gil Opens His Gifts*
* * *
“This morning, after my blind date?” Gil’s eyes were downcast, ashamed was my guess, though that could be any day of the week with Gil.
“Yes?” We both asked, glancing at each other.
“I went home and crawled into my bed and everything was all comfy and cozy and high thread countie but when I woke up, I…” his voice trailed off.
“For Christ’s sake, what?” I yelled.
“I woke up with a mouthful of balls.” Gil looked away.
“Like Whoppers?” Wendy’s eyes lit up at the thought of malted milk balls.
Gil shook his head.
“Something a little more salty is my guess,” I said.
“I made a decision to let Chad stay with me. That was my first mistake. Apparently he’s a bit needy.” Gil tightened the wind-breaker he wore, closing it around his chest like a security blanket.
I could think of another needy vampire, but it didn’t seem like a good time to bring up Gil’s sire, Rolf, nor his desperate escape from Gil’s constant attentions.
“So, I told him he could take the spare bed in the office and crash there as long as he needed until he could sort things out with his own place. Lightproof the bedroom. That kind of thing.
“‘Do you think I could stay in your room,’ he asked, sliding his hand seductively up my thigh.
“Now, at this point, I’m pretty sure I’m into Lars and while we’re by no means an item and I would have been totally fine screwing Chad—I think I’ve told you, he’s beastly hot, in a longshoreman with a metal lunchbox kind of way—there was just something not right about him.
“I couldn’t have known how not right. Couldn’t have.
“We sat around a bit and chatted about all the stuff you do when you’re recently vamped and he took notes, but when it came time for questions, he’d say, ‘Do you want me to give you a back rub?’
“I declined and got him a bottle of blood, figuring if he were vein drunk, maybe I’d feel more comfortable. I was already regretting my offer to let him stay by that point.
“‘How about we drink this together and I’ll blow your bloodhard?’
“I had to shut him down at that point. It was just getting creepy. So I told him to go to his room and settle in and not come out until dusk.
“But, when dusk rolled around, he was straddling my shoulders and dunking his testicles into my mouth.”
“Ew!” Wendy screamed.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I fucked him.” He threw his hands up. “But I got rid of him right after. He seemed to be okay with it, too. Something about thanking me for giving him what he’s always wanted.”
“Teabagging?” Wendy winced, knowing full well that wasn’t the case.
“No! To be turned. You’re so mean, make me say shit.”
“Well, he’s gone and you’ve got this Lars guy and that’s great, I’m really glad your love life is turning around. Really.”
“But…” He rung his hands.
“But what?”
“That’s not the worst part. I think Chase gave me something.” Gil dabbed the little wound on his forehead with a damp washcloth, and the blood came away nearly black.
“Like a present?” I slid the McDonald’s straw out of my mouth—there are times when a flask draws too much attention, so I carry a stack of new fast food cups/lids/straws wherever I go. Well, they get to be a habit after a while and for some reason the glass of vodka seemed to warrant one. After the help left, I figured washing the glasses wasn’t on the top of the contestants’ to-do lists.
Anyway.
The damn thing caught on my lip and flicked a fat globber of alcohol-laced spittle over the coffee table, past a derelict glass with blood curdling in its base, finally splatting against Gil’s retro aviators.
“Oops.”
Gil didn’t appreciate my modern art, sneering.
“No, not like a present!” he roared. “Like a venereal disease. Christ, you old lush—” He snatched the cup from my hand and tossed it into the room’s waste can. “Will you pay attention? I’m serious.”
“Okay. Jesus, no need to get testy.”
Wendy dropped onto the couch next to Gil. “She’s right. It’s Chase’s second gift to you. The one that keeps on giving.”
I nodded for him to follow along. “It’s true.”
He glared, jerking the lavender silk pocket square from his jacket and rubbing the spit from his glasses with the intensity of a five-year-old foot-stomping tantrum. “You’re probably right. But see how pleasant you are when you’re dribbling blood out of your snatch like a Depends model.”
I screwed my face up. “Ick. Really?”
“Yeah, really. I’ve got to pee all the time.” He accented the last word by clutching his crotch and wrestling himself into a new position; a slow deep groan accompanying the exercise. “It’s new. Something’s wrong. I haven’t taken a piss since the seventies. If that weren’t inconvenient enough, the blood is so curdled, I’ve got to flush like six times, just to clear the bowl.”
I whistled. “I’m impressed by your dedication to sanitation.” I allowed a sparse giggle to accompany my rhyme, but the vampire’s face curled up around his nose all threatening. I held up my hands. “Okay. Sorry. Have you been to a doctor?”
“What do you think?” His words were hissed, clipped.
I shrugged.
“I ran into your friendly neighborhood reapers and they are on a collections tear. Refused to see me at all until I forced you to pay them.”
“Jesus.”
Besides the reapers, there were three witch doctors in town. Achebe Ababe ran a quaint necropathy clinic out of a restored Victorian mansion on Queen Anne. Though reportedly fluent, he refused to speak English, preferring to dictate prescriptives through a series of quarrelsome tongue clicks and clucks understood only by his steadfast and towheaded nurse, Sojourn. Many suspected that the foul little albino was the actual doctor in the scenario, using Ababe as a ploy for undead cred.
Grant Coolidge was a snappily dressed aurapuncturist and noted venal-chakra surgeon, known for making house calls in his black Maserati and making time with his clients. Lawsuits plagued the man like, well…plagues, though he deflected them with a flourish of rattlesnake tail and the services of Anton Snell, esquire of the fifth borough of Hell.
The last one, Elliot Wasserstein, was known as much for his soft windblown hair—not often seen this side of the eighties—as he was for restoring humanity to werewolves and the occasional vampire (these claims have come under scrutiny by the Undead Science Monitor in no fewer than four separate articles). The doctor was in a practice with the famed voodoo priestess, Beth Liebowitz, who’d be no help curing a supernatural urinary tract infection, as her specialty was curing fashion disasters through the channeling of Erdu. Whatever that meant.
“I’m sorry. Really.” I patted his knee. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to tell Lars.” He repositioned himself with some discomfort.
“Who?” Wendy asked.
“Lars. He’s the guy your mother set me up with. Turns out he’s a pretty decent guy, though a little woody.”
“Is that a fae joke?” I asked, more than a little tired of our woodland neighbors.
“Yeah. Seriously hot. Very blue collar and kind of scruffy.”
“Yummy,” Wendy growled. “Are you totally in love with him?”
This was sounding a little familiar, a little too Vance Ventura, Repo Artist. I interjected, “Blond hair?”
“Yeah.” Gil’s brow furrowed.
“What does he do for a living, this Lars?”
“He’s in maintenance, I think. You sound like you know him.”
“No. Just sounds like the guy that repossessed my fucking car.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t know. He totally could have lied to me about his name. This could be my guy.”
“Well he was driving a Volvo SUV.”
I slammed my fist on the chair arm. “Shut the fuck up.”
“No. I’m kidding.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry. I’m just really paranoid. First all the crap with my finances, the job, and now this murder mystery business.”
“What?” He perked up.
Wendy and I traded on and off telling him the story of the deaths at the Minions Mansion, our little road race with the Psychocabbie of Mumbai and Ricardo’s new club.
“So you’ve been filming everything?” he asked.
“Yep,” Wendy added.
“That’s not all she’s filming,” I pointed to the cell phone on the bed. “Show him.”