Dan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because you’re a useless great gobshoite,” Artur pointed out. He picked up another funpling, and tore a chunk off. “Where was ye, anyhow, peaches? Who was the toe rag what took ye?”
“Kalaechai,” said Dan.
Artur almost choked on his funpling.
“Ye’re not serious?”
“You’ve heard of him, then,” said Dan.
“Heard of him? I’ve met the guy, and let me tell ye, it’s not an experience I’d care to repeat,” Artur said. He looked at the chunk of funpling in his hand, sighed, then dropped it back into the bag. “See, now I’ve lost me feckin’ appetite.”
He smiled warmly at Ollie, before turning to Dan and lowering his voice. “No offence to the girl nor nothin’, but we should shoot her in the face, hack her to pieces, then burn whatever’s left before Kalaechai finds out she’s here. Then we should probably do the same to each other, just to be on the safe side. I’ll do you first.”
“Uh, I’d prefer if you didn’t,” Ollie said.
“We can’t always get what we want, peaches,” Artur said. He turned to her, frowned deeply, then spun on his heels back to Dan. “Wait a moment now. Wait just one moment.”
His face lit up in delight. He pointed to the end of Dan’s shirt sleeve, and Dan braced himself for what was coming next.
“Ye’ve a girl’s hand!”
“Yes,” said Dan.
“Ye’ve an actual girl’s actual hand!”
“I know,” said Dan.
“On the end of your arm!” cried Artur. “With the nail polish and everything!”
“Thanks,” said Dan. “I’d noticed.”
Artur’s grin threatened to separate the top part of his head from the rest of his body.
“A girl’s hand!” he squeaked, erupting into laughter. “Aw, that’s deadly. Aw, man. A girl’s hand. What a feckin’ gas! With the nail polish and everything.”
He continued to laugh for a full two minutes or so, bent double, tears streaming down his face as he tried to fight back the giggles.
Finally, he wiped his eyes on the back of his arm, exhaled slowly, and had a go at composing himself. “Aw. Holy Father. That’s funny. How’d ye end up with a girl’s hand?”
“It’s not just the hand. It’s the whole arm,” Ollie pointed out.
That set Artur off again. “It’s the whole feckin’ arm!”
By the time he’d finished laughing, Artur’s blue-green skin had a distinct red hue around the cheeks, and breathing seemed to require a lot of concentration. “Aw, man. Too funny. Too feckin’ funny,” he said. He strolled towards the edge of the table, announcing, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the jacks before I wet meself.”
He jabbed a thumb in Ollie’s direction. “We’ll figure out what to do with peaches here when I get back.”
He waited until she wasn’t looking, then mimed shooting her and chopping her up. He was midway through the ‘burning whatever’s left’ mime when he realized she was watching him. He stopped, straightened up, and cleared his throat. “Ye alright?” he said, then he walked to the edge of the table and turned so he was facing away from the drop.
He pointed a tiny finger at Dan and Ollie in turn. “Anyone touches my funplings, and I’ll swing for them,” he said, then he raised his arms straight up above his head, leaned backwards, and toppled over the edge.
Ollie leaned over, expecting to see Artur lying mangled on the floor. Instead, he was half-walking, half-skipping towards the inner office door, humming quietly to himself, and occasionally mumbling, “A girl’s arm,” before laughing under his breath.
With a shove, Artur creaked the door open just enough for him to squeeze through. His humming stopped once he’d vanished inside.
“Do ye know ye’ve a great big hole in yer wall?” he called.
“I know,” said Dan.
“And that yer desk is no longer worth shoite. Not that it ever was, mind you.”
“Aware of that also.”
There was a pregnant pause, as if Artur was about to say something else, but then the humming resumed. It faded as he made his way across the room, then was lost behind the bathroom door.
Ollie waited until she was sure he wasn’t going to come back out, then leaned across the table. “He is little, right?” she whispered. “I’m not imagining that?”
“No. You’re not imagining it,” said Dan. “He’s just sensitive about it.”
“Why?”
Dan shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him.”
Ollie glanced in the direction Artur had gone. “You won’t really do that stuff, will you?”
“What stuff?” asked Dan, raising an eyebrow. “Cut you up and set you on fire?”
“Yeah. That,” confirmed Ollie, nibbling on a fingernail.
“We’re brainstorming,” said Dan. “The thing about brainstorming is you don’t dismiss any ideas. All suggestions need to be properly explored.”
Ollie’s eyes widened in panic, and Dan felt a fleeting moment of guilt. Just a fleeting one, though.
“But no, we’re not going to cut you up and set you on fire,” he assured her.
Her relief was palpable. Her hand dropped from her mouth and was replaced by one of the broadest smiles Dan had ever seen. “Phew! You had me worried there.”
“Although, if you see him with anything sharp, I’d probably run,” Dan said, only half-joking.
Before Ollie could reply, Dan’s gaze went past her to the outer door. A shape loomed on the other side of the frosted glass. It didn’t knock, and something about it told Dan it wasn’t going to. He pointed to Ollie, then towards the inner office door.
“Go. There. Now,” he whispered.
Something about the tone of it cut through her instinct to question him. She quickly stood up, and had barely vanished into the office when the door flew open.
Ollie let out a barely audible cheep of fear when she peered around the corner and saw the thing standing there in the doorway. Dan couldn’t blame her. He’d seen some pretty horrifying things in his time – including every time he passed a reflective surface – but this thing was easily top twenty material.
Its mouth was a puckered anus that took up sixty per cent of the real estate on its face. Its eyes were bulbous and fish-like, and had been pasted haphazardly onto the sides of its head at slightly different heights. A misshapen bump in the middle of the thing’s forehead might have been a nose, but might equally have been a cancerous growth. Probably a terminal one, at that.
Physically, it looked mostly humanoid, but one that had been bent and twisted by years of abuse. It crawled in on four limbs, but the front two resembled arms more than legs. Its hands were gnarled into painful-looking claws, and there was a hunch the size of its head protruding from its upper back.
It wore nothing but scars, a collar, and an adult diaper (extra-large) that was secured tightly around its swollen gut with silver tape. The chain attached to its collar rattled as the thing shambled into the room, ejecting a gush of saliva down over its chins in a series of low, mournful moans.
At the other end of the chain was a tall woman in an immaculate white high-necked robe. She didn’t produce a badge, or any other kind of identification. She didn’t need to. Dan knew a Tribunal officer when he saw one.
The woman’s skin was a stark, midnight black. Her eyes were a near-identical shade, and it was only their glossier sheen that told Dan where the eyeballs ended and the rest of her face began. She was thin – unsettlingly so, in fact – and her stick like fingers seemed to be constantly in motion, crawling through the air like spider legs.
The chain was clipped to a white belt around her waist, and although she looked as if a strong breeze wouldn’t just blow her over, but likely cut her in half, her footsteps didn’t falter, even when the thing on the chain tried lurching forwards.
“Down,” she said, and her pet, or partner, or wha
tever the fonk that thing was, squatted down onto its haunches. It gurgled with satisfaction when she rested a hand on its scarred head for a moment, before turning her dark gaze on Dan.
“Dantus Deadman?” she asked. Her voice was light. Friendly, even. It was not a voice that fit with the visuals. “Of Deadman Investigations?”
“Yeah,” said Dan, standing. “That’s me.”
Ollie ducked fully out of sight behind the door, worried the glowing of her necklace was going to give her away. She had no idea who the newcomers were, but she had a feeling she didn’t want to find out.
The monstrous thing in the diaper was terrifying enough, but there was something perhaps even more unsettling about the woman. She didn’t look quite real, somehow, and while the tone of her voice was friendly, there was something about her that screamed at Ollie to run, and never stop running.
“We had reports of a disturbance, the officer said, her fingers moving like they were plucking at an invisible stringed instrument suspended in the air in front of her. “An explosion. A vehicle outside was damaged.”
Her eyes, already black, somehow found the energy to darken. “The Tribunal does not approve of such things. You should be aware of this.”
“I am,” Dan confirmed. “But it couldn’t be helped. A client of mine was attacked. Luckily, no one was hurt.”
Blown to tiny pieces, yes, he considered adding. Hurt, no.
The Tribunal officer’s gaze flitted around the room, sweeping over the place in one judgmental glance. “Your client?” the woman said, then the beast on the chain gave another lurch towards Dan.
“Fuud,” it snarled. Then, more questioningly. “Fuud?”
“Trust me. I’ll only give you indigestion,” he warned. He tried to remember what type of round he’d left Mindy set to, just in case. Had he switched to explosive rounds, or left it on stun? If the latter, he was in trouble. A stun shot would barely even tickle something like this, and he suspected he wouldn’t have time to select a new ammo type before it was on him.
Dan resisted the urge to glance look back at the inner office door. He just had to hope Ollie had the sense to keep out of sight. She had no chip, which meant she definitely had no ID, either. Having no ID was a capital offence Down Here, and it took more money than he had to make the Tribunal look the other way.
“Yeah. My client. She left, obviously. Last night.”
The thing on the leash let out a short, sharp shriek, then slapped and scratched at its scarred head with both hands. Dan noticed there were only three fingers on each, none of which appeared to be a thumb.
Still, he’d probably have taken one of those over the woman’s arm he was currently stuck with, he reckoned.
The officer jerked the chain and the thing fell silent again. It cocked its head to one side, watching Dan through one bulbous eye. Its pointed tongue flicked across its dry, shriveled lips, painting them with silvery trails of moisture.
“And where did she go when she left?” the woman asked. In the space of those five words, her tone went from friendly to friendly enough. It wasn’t a seismic change, by any means, but it was noticeable.
“I don’t know.”
The warmth in the officer’s voice dropped another degree. The movements of her fingers became slower and more deliberate.
“Then I suggest you have a think, Mr Deadman.”
“Already thought,” said Dan. “And I don’t know.”
The thing on the chain squealed again. This time, she didn’t reprimand it.
“If she is a client, you must have her details,” the officer said.
“Technically, she was a potential client. We hadn’t got to the paperwork stage,” Dan said.
The woman nodded, slowly. “I see. And what did she want? What did you discuss?”
“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” said Dan.
The jolliness was completely gone from the officer’s voice now. “Nothing is confidential from the Tribunal, Mr Deadman,” she said, but she waved a hand, dismissively. “No matter.”
She unclipped the chain from her belt. The creature in the diaper began bouncing excitedly on its haunches.
“The slorg will find her scent. We’ll get to the bottom of it. One way or another.”
“Sure,” said Dan. “No problem. Just show me your TS-17, and you can go right ahead.”
The officer’s dark eyed widened, just for a moment.
“It is still a TS-17, isn’t it? The private business premises search warrant? They’re always changing names and numbers, it’s hard to keep track. I don’t know how you people cope with it all. All that red tape,” Dan said. “Ever think about going freelance? Happy to give you some pointers, if you’d like?”
He shrugged. “I mean, they basically come down to, ‘don’t do anything I do,’ but it all helps, right?”
“I don’t need a TS-17,” the woman said. There wasn’t so much as a hint of her earlier friendliness now. “I can conduct the search now, then get—”
“A C3-D2?” said Dan. “I mean, yeah, you could try, but what’s the backlog on those things? Eight weeks?”
The officer didn’t answer.
“More? Wow,” said Dan. He whistled through his teeth. “And that’s if you find anything. Which you won’t, and then you’re back to the original problem, only I can now file a M8-F private business harassment document, and… well, round and round we go.”
Dan gestured to the slorg. “And then there’s that thing. Bringing an unauthorized animal into a private residence or place of business without prior written permission - that’s what? A level two misdemeanor? I’m not familiar with it, but that thing is an animal, right?”
“The slorg is a recognized officer of the Tribunal,” the woman said, drawing herself up to her full impressive height.
“Not by me it isn’t,” Dan continued. “It isn’t wearing a uniform.” He held up a finger before she could answer. “And I’d think very hard about trying to tell me it’s undercover. It’s literally connected to you by a length of chain, which would mean you were actively compromising an on-duty undercover Tribunal officer, and that’s going to make a level two misdemeanor look like a level one infraction. You know what I’m saying?”
Dan fixed the officer with a cold, dead-eyed stare. It was a look he had perfected with very little effort. “Also, on a more personal note, if you let that thing loose in my office, you’ll be taking it out of here in a number of small buckets.”
The woman regarded him for a long time, saying nothing. The slorg whined gently as she clipped the chain to her belt again.
Her gaze went past Dan, to the inner office door. He hoped Ollie didn’t choose that moment to peek around the corner.
“I’ll be back, Mr Deadman,” the officer said, forcing the words out through her teeth.
“I’m sure you will be,” said Dan. He gestured to the door behind her. “Just like I’m sure you can see yourself out.”
He turned his back to her and waited for the sounds of her exit to fade. Ollie leaned around the door frame and opened her mouth to speak, but Dan shot her a look that shut her straight down. He counted quietly below his breath for what seemed like some arbitrary length of time, then nodded.
“OK,” he said. “I think they’re gone.”
“Who was that? And what was that creepy thing? And how did you know all that stuff?” Ollie asked, the words tumbling over themselves in their rush to be the first out.
Before Dan could answer, the door opened behind him again. His hand went to his holster and he spun, whipping Mindy out as he turned to face the door.
“I warned you,” he growled, then he stopped when he realized neither the officer nor her pet monster had come back. Instead, a small, meek-looking blond-haired woman stood in the doorway, her hands raised above her head in a gesture of surrender.
Her clothes were expensive, but mismatched and lined with creases. Her hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days, and her eyes were ringed wi
th red. “D-don’t shoot,” she said, although there was a note to her voice that suggested being shot would be preferable to whatever else she was currently going through.
“Deadman Investigations?” she asked in a hushed croak.
Dan replaced the gun in its holster. “That’s right,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The woman swallowed and chewed on her lip, as if wrestling the words into submission. “It’s my daughter,” she said, her voice cracking. “Someone… Someone… They took my little girl.”
Her resolve slipped all the way, and tears rolled simultaneously down both cheeks. Dan shifted his weight from foot to foot, not quite sure how to deal with the awkward silence that followed. Fortunately, he didn’t have to.
“Alright, now,” said Artur, his envelope crinkling as he strode into the room. He looked around at the three occupants, before finally settling on Dan. “What’s with all the long faces?”
CHAPTER TEN
Dan stood in the school yard, the wind swirling discarded snack wrappers around his feet. He’d had to wait until the school day was over before coming, for a number of reasons. His face was arguably the main one, although the fact he didn’t like being around kids was high on the list, too.
It was a rough school in a rough neighborhood, and the single entrance gate had been heavily secured when he’d arrived. Not heavily secured enough to keep him out, but enough to tell him what sort of area he was in.
The woman, Solina, hadn’t been overly useful. He supposed, given the circumstances, he could forgive a certain amount of sobbing, but when he’d pointed out that the clock was ticking on her daughter’s life – assuming the girl wasn’t already dead – Solina still hadn’t focused properly. If anything, it had only made her even more hysterical.
He’d never understand women.
After a lot of probing, Dan had ruled out the obvious suspects. The woman had no enemies she was aware of, and the missing girl’s father – always suspect number one – had died before she was a year old.
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