Dead Man's Hand

by Richard Levesque

  And I couldn’t blame her, the thought of Clancy Grommet making me feel jumpy even though it wasn’t my old man who owed him.

  Clancy Grommet was not a good man to owe. The same was true of his twin brother Yancy. Together, the Grommets ran vice in the city—drugs, prostitution, gambling, smuggling, extortion. It didn’t matter to them if their clients or victims were normals like me and Pixel or children of the night like the werewolf who’d almost done me in twenty minutes before. The thing about the Grommets, though, was that they hated each other. Each employed bodyguards to keep his brother from unpleasant behavior. And their mutual hatred was compounded by the fact that they were conjoined twins, connected at their skulls. They faced opposite directions, the left side of one’s bulbous, bald head fused with the right side of the other’s, and they stood with their left and right shoulders touching. For all anyone knew, their brains were fused as well, but nobody asked. Nobody dared.

  You’d see the Grommets leaving their office building downtown, first Clancy fighting to walk forwards and then Yancy. Sometimes the power struggle ended up with them walking in circles, cursing each other, and looking like something out of a Bosch painting—if Bosch had painted people square dancing in hell. If they’d gotten along, it would have been easy enough for each to wrap an arm around his brother’s front and coordinate their efforts. As it was, though, the position of their heads forced each to angle himself just enough to give the other an opening, and they’d poke and kick at each other until their bodyguards figured it was enough and would step in to calm them down. Then they’d move on until it started all over again.

  It made for a rough administration of their competing criminal enterprises. At some point in the past, they’d agreed to split the city with Clancy taking the north and east, Yancy taking the south and west. Rumor was that they couldn’t talk to their operatives since each brother’s rival was always in the room, so they let their will be known through texts or paper notes that they shredded the second their minions knew what the Grommets wanted of them.

  “Sorry to hear that,” I said. “But I don’t see how I can…”

  “It’s not that,” she said. The light turned, and she stepped on it. “My dad’s safe, gone into hiding. I think I’ve figured out a way to get him clear with Clancy, but there’s one little sticky part I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “And that would be?”

  “It’s better if I show you.”

  The thought made me nervous. The way things were in this city at night, you didn’t want to know what people were saving up to show you in the dark.

  “You sure your old man’s safe?” I asked to change the subject.

  “Yes. He messages me constantly. It’s like his tablet’s melded to his fingers or something.”

  “Got to have access to those bets.”

  She nodded. “Anyway, I haven’t heard from him since yesterday morning. And then he said he was getting nervous about how hot things were getting for him. He said he was going to lay low for a week or so and see what he could scratch together to get himself into a better situation.”

  I immediately thought there might be something more sinister to Max’s sudden absence, but I thought it best to keep that to myself and said, “Sounds to me like he was going towards another source of money.”

  “Could be. Or he could really just be hiding out. If he was off gambling somewhere else, he’d be messaging me still. I haven’t heard a word.”

  She slowed the car and swung the wheel, taking us into an underground garage. It was well lit, and several other cars filled most of the spaces. “But you’re worried about him anyway,” I said as Pixel pulled her car expertly into a spot between a wall and a green concrete pillar.

  “Well, concerned is maybe the better word.” She killed the engine and unbuckled, getting out of the car without looking to make sure I followed. I let her lead the way to the garage’s elevator. I kind of liked being a bit behind her.

  “You know Neat Pete, don’t you?” she said, half turning to look at me as we walked.

  “Clancy’s muscle, right?” It surprised me that she’d mention a guy like Pete. He seemed about as far away from her hacker circle as one could get. A dapper SOB, Neat Pete got his nickname not just from being fastidious, but also from the sharpness of his blade and the speed with which he used it. Word was that Pete could slice you so fast you’d be bleeding out while thinking only that you’d felt a breeze blow past your throat. Pete also had a weakness for the ladies; the rumor of late was that his predilections had gotten him into some hot water with Clancy Grommet. Pete hadn’t been able to resist a dancer who Clancy had declared off limits, so now he was doing penance running one of Clancy’s drug labs, work that was far from the cleanliness Pete preferred.

  “He saved my life last night,” she said, pressing the call button for the elevator.

  “And tonight you saved mine. I hope that doesn’t mean I have to save someone tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “You might. Maybe it’s an exaggeration to say Pete saved my life. More figuratively, I guess.”

  “What happened?” I asked as the elevator doors slid open. There was no one else inside, which I was glad for. I didn’t want Pixel to get shy all of a sudden around her neighbors.

  “I went to check on my dad,” she said. “He’s in an apartment house on Neville Place. I had to park down the block and walk up. It’s not a great neighborhood, you know?”

  I did. I’d had several clients who lived in the vicinity. “I’ve heard,” was all I said.

  I waited for her to go on, but she’d grown silent. Her eyes looked teary.

  “You were attacked?” I asked quietly. Reading people’s silences is one of my necessary talents. It helps with clients who don’t want you knowing certain things—especially when you need to know anyway.

  She nodded. “Satyrs,” she said quietly. “Four of them.”

  “Ahh,” I said with a nod.

  The elevator doors opened, and we stepped out onto the seventh floor corridor. I could see immediately that the place wasn’t high rent—fading paint on the walls and the same sort of fraying carpet that met me each morning outside my own door.

  “Your crucifix wasn’t much good then, I suppose.”

  “Maybe to take out one of their eyes,” she said. With a nod to the left, she led the way toward her door, keeping quiet now as we went. I supposed the walls might be thin and she didn’t want her neighbors hearing the rest of the story.

  When we got to number twelve, she stopped, took her keys out of the little wrist bag, and opened up. I let her go in first and closed the door behind me. When she flipped on the lights, my first thought was that Pixel’s line of work wasn’t any more lucrative than mine. The carpeting and paint here, too, looked like it hadn’t had a freshening up since several tenants ago. The furniture fit the rest of the room—worn and mismatched, a saggy looking sofa and two wooden chairs around a table made of milk crates and unfinished pine boards. Across the room, two dirty windows afforded Pixel an unbroken view of the building next door.

  The only thing high-end in this room was a computer desk with an impressive array of drives and monitors on it. This was Pixel’s bread and butter, and she clearly pumped as much money as she could into her hardware. Like me, she had found a way to make a living that kept her from being beholden to Clancy Grommet and his ilk, which was luxury enough, making up for the rest of the room’s sparse décor.

  A curtained door to the left likely led to a bedroom, and to the right the room opened onto a small kitchen. I glimpsed a little fridge and a very old looking oven. I noticed right away that the apartment had an odd smell, a strange mixture of brown rice and bananas. I didn’t want to ask, but figured Pixel had eccentric taste in food and left it at that.

  “Please,” said Pixel, waving an arm toward the sofa, indicating that I should sit.

  Pixel planted herself at the far end, half turned toward me. If I’d been thinking there was going t
o be some intimacy here, the thought had left me when she’d mentioned satyrs and I’d seen that look on her face. She was all business, and it was likely to stay that way between us. Which was all right, and only a little disappointing. I’d had enough complications lately.

  “It’s funny, you know?” she began. And then went on before I’d had a chance to respond. “I heard the click of their hooves before they came out of the dark, and I just knew I was in trouble, knew there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to make it not happen. They had me surrounded in a second, just looking at me with those leers and those grunts. And that smell.” She shuddered. “God. They stink, you know?”

  I nodded.

  She hesitated for a second, and her eyes went glassy. When she spoke again, it was quieter, like she really had to draw the words up and out of her throat and they were barely making it. “I knew that once they charged, they’d have me down and I’d be dragged into the bushes.” A little exhale and a resigned shrug followed. “So…I got ready to do as much damage as I could. But before they could make their move, I heard a car skid to a stop and a door slam. It was Pete. He was driving past and saw what was happening.”

  “A lot of people would have kept going.”

  “I think a lot of people actually did. I kind of remember taillights going away from me before Pete got there. It’s shitty.”

  “It is.”

  We let the thought hang there for a second, and then I said, “So Pete saved you.”

  “He did,” she said with a contemplative nod. “He already had his knife out before he was up the curb, and one of the satyrs lost an ear before they even knew what was happening. They scattered.” She shrugged, a bit forced. “And that was that.”

  I shook my head. “You were lucky. About as lucky as I was tonight.”

  “I know it.”

  I was intrigued by her story but still wondered what any of it had to do with her father or me or how I could do anything to help him out of his bind. So I kept the interview going. “And then?” I asked.

  “And then Pete hustled me into his car, just about threw me inside and took off before the satyrs could regroup. Not that they would, but Pete said there was a chance. He drove me a few blocks away and then just circled around a bit before he took me back to my car, just to give the satyrs time to move on so they wouldn’t see me driving away and be tempted to come after me somehow.”

  She stopped talking again, and I had to remind myself that she’d been the one who’d wanted to talk, that she’d brought me here to get help of one kind or another. It wasn’t entirely odd that she needed to have the questions dragged out of her. Given the trauma she was talking about, I could see she was still on shaky ground.

  “So where do I come in?” I asked after giving her a few seconds to start on her own.

  She crossed her legs, a deft little move that drew my eye to her calves and those spiked heels for just a moment. When I met her eyes again, they gave no indication that she’d caught me looking. She just started talking again.

  “Pete drives one of those little red Getabouts. You know where they’re so small you’re practically driving from the back seat? So before we headed back to my car, I noticed he had an ice chest on the seat behind us. And I asked him if he was just coming from a picnic. Trying to joke, you know? And he gets real nervous. Which gets me curious, of course. So I let it drop for a minute and then I say, ‘So really, Pete, what’s in the chest?’ And he looks at me for a second and says, ‘A hand.’”

  Pixel looked at me a bit challengingly when she said it, as though she expected me not to believe it. “A hand,” I said, obligingly.

  She nodded. “A dead man’s hand.”

  I raised an eyebrow, inviting her to continue.

  “Like I said, he sounded nervous as hell, but after a few seconds, he started talking.”

  That sounded like Neat Pete. Get a beautiful woman in front of him and he’d start doing exactly what he wasn’t supposed to if it meant there was a chance it would make an impression on her, even the wrong kind. Anything to make her think of him as different from all the other apes who thought she was gorgeous.

  “You know who Lester Rincon is?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Big time hacker on the south side. Yancy Grommet’s number one. Pete said Clancy’d been out to find Rincon for a while just to mess with his brother’s operation. But Rincon knew it, laid low, had walls within walls of security. Real and virtual. So Clancy couldn’t get at him.”

  “But he screwed up.”

  Pixel nodded, a little smile on her lips that told me she thought Lester Rincon had gotten what he deserved for getting into bed with one or the other of the Grommets. “He screwed up,” she echoed.

  “And now?”

  “And now,” she said, sounding a little mischievous. She got up and went to the kitchen, opening her refrigerator. I knew what she’d have before she came back.

  She carried a clear plastic bag, the kind that zips shut. In it was the dead man’s hand, cleanly severed. I had no doubt that this was Neat Pete’s work.

  “Pete brought it to me after he satisfied Clancy that the job was done. He’s funny, Pete. So eager to please.”

  I could easily imagine Pete’s nervous excitement at finding that he’d not only been Pixel’s knight in shining armor but that he could also give her something she wanted, something only he could supply.

  She set the bag down on the plain pine table before me, her own hand lingering above it for a second before she reached down to poke at the pinky finger; it let her push it down, still quite pliable. It looked well preserved.

  The thing was repulsive, but I’d seen worse. Looking at it, though, I was glad Pixel hadn’t offered me a snack from her fridge when we’d first come in.

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea how much money you could get for tracing Lester Rincon’s keystrokes?”

  I shook my head. “Kind of hard to trace now, though, aren’t they?”

  “Not necessarily.” She sat down again, a little closer to me this time, and caressed the edge of the bag. “Muscle memory. You know? When I’ve been doing almost nothing but programming, I’ve been told I punch code in my sleep.”

  By whom? I wanted to ask, but kept my mouth shut.

  “Lester Rincon wouldn’t have been any different,” she went on.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said, and I didn’t mind sounding like an idiot now.

  “Or where you fit in.”

  “Right.”

  She shrugged casually. “It’s simple, really. I need a re-animator. If I can wake that hand up and put it on my keyboard, it’ll start punching code that I can retrace.”

  “To trade with Clancy Grommet in exchange for your father’s debt.”

  “Exactly.”

  “You think he’ll bite?”

  “He’ll bite. If for no other reason than to find out what Yancy had Rincon working on before Pete got to him.”

  I looked at the hand for a moment. I wasn’t an expert on such things, but it did still look viable. I’d seen things far more decayed brought into use by skilled re-animators.

  “But you’ll only have half,” I said. “One hand, half the code. Where’d Pete put the rest of the body?”

  “He just said it was gone. I didn’t want to know. Just having one hand’s not a problem, though. I’ll run a program that can detect the gaps, the split seconds that this right hand waits for the left to do its part. Once I get enough fragments and see where the gaps are, it won’t be much of a problem to fill in what’s missing. There’ll only be so many possibilities, after all. I can run all the possibles, discard what’s not viable code.”

  “Brilliant,” I said. “You’ve got two more problems, though.”

  I could tell she didn’t like the sound of that, so I let her sit with it for a second before saying anything.

  “One, you don’t know for sure it’s Lester Rincon’s hand. It didn’t strike you as odd that Clancy Grommet wo
uld let a trophy like that walk back out the door with Pete? He’d want to rub Yancy’s nose in it, don’t you think?”

  “Pete said Clancy never keeps the trophies he brings. Squeamish, if you can believe it. Plus, he said it’ll mess with Yancy more if he doesn’t know what happened to Rincon. He may find a way to make him think Rincon’s gone over to the other side. Tough to do if Yancy knows Rincon’s dead.”

  “Or only has one hand.”

  She nodded, a satisfied smile on her lips. She’d thought that one through all right, but how about the rest?

  So I went on. “Two, I don’t see why you need me to get a re-animator. Once they know what you’re doing, there’s plenty that would take the job even if you don’t have the money up front.”

  “Yes, but not any of the good ones,” she said. “Anybody with a decent reputation is bound to pass on this unless I can offer them a hell of a lot more cash than I’ve got right now. And the idea isn’t to get money out of this deal but to buy back my dad’s debt. I don’t need a cut-rate re-animator for this. It’s top shelf or it won’t work. I’ve got no pull with people like that, but you do.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know a lot, Ace. That shouldn’t surprise you.”

  It didn’t. Still, I needed to make sure she wasn’t bluffing.

  “Okay, I’ll bite. Just what is it you think you know?”

  Her smile turned sly now, like a cat’s would be if cats could smile. “You pulled Bascom Quibble’s ass out of the fire not two months ago. He’s who I want.”

  I nodded. It made sense. Bascom Quibble was the best re-animator in the city, the most in demand. He could name his price. Most of his product went to his uncle’s toy factory. A lot of people would be bothered to know that all the Quibble brand dolls and puzzles and race cars they bought for their kids were produced by zombie labor, but that was the elder Quibble’s problem. The word was that most of Bascom’s money came from re-animating recently deceased pets. The bereaved, it seemed, were willing to hand over baskets of cash just to have Fluffy back for a week or two until the decay set in and made the whole thing ghoulish. Bascom had needed me about six weeks ago when he’d done a bad job on a Great Dane that had done some serious damage at a dog park. The settlement had cost him a fortune, but at least I’d kept him out of jail for criminal negligence.