Sort of Dead

by Rob Rosen

  “In any case, above you, in the light fixture.”

  He stood. He reached. He was short. His arms didn’t even come close. “Um,” he said. “Clark,” he added.

  Clark jumped up. Clark was tall. Thank God. And if I ever got the chance to see Him, that’s what I’d be sure to do. “Why are we standing here?” he asked. “Now doesn’t seem to be the best time to play bouncy-house.”

  Voltan shrugged. “Search the light fixture.”

  “No!” shouted Chaz, struggling with the cuffs, suddenly looking more scared than angry. Like John Hamm caught with his pants down. Or caught red-handed, which, thanks to the cuffs, that’s exactly what they were.

  The light fixture was a round number, all sleek and chrome, five bulbs behind a glass pane, a hole in the center. But it was that hole that had caught my attention. Because why would there need to be a hole in the glass?

  Clark seemed to catch on to the same and deftly removed the outer casing. He then grinned as he stared down at the chained man below. “Oh, Chaz,” he said, “a camera above the bed? Are you also saving memories?” He removed the small camera, then the even smaller flash-drive attached.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with!” shouted Chaz, though less than convincingly.

  Voltan crouched down, until he and my boss were face to face. “Why, Chaz, you’re the CEO who’s filming his sexual encounters with any number of people who are probably not his wife, or at least not only his wife, though I tend to doubt she wants to be filmed having sex either. But who am I to judge?” He smiled, cooed, lightly slapped the CEO’s cheek. “Oh, yeah, right. I’m the man with photos of his boss naked and chained to his bed.” He kissed Chaz on the nose. “You should be more careful of who you pick up in men’s bathrooms, by the way; there are lots of crazy people out there these days.” The grin widened. “Also, I see dead people.” He again winked my way as he and Clark hopped off the bed. “And they can see you, too.”

  Clark placed the key to the handcuffs on the corner of the bed. I wondered how Chaz would explain all this to his wife. Suffice it to say, I didn’t wonder all that much. Or care.

  Voltan nodded one final time toward the captive. “See you in the morning, boss.”

  It was then that Max and Bruce popped through the wall, took one look at the chained, naked man, and asked, in unison, “What did we miss?”

  I pointed at Chaz. I pointed toward the ceiling. I pointed at the camera now in Clark’s rather large hand, then to the phone in Voltan’s. “No gun. Hidden camera.”

  “What’s he filming?” asked Bruce.

  I shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  * * * *

  Thirty minutes later, we were back at Voltan’s. That is to say, I was back at Voltan’s, inside Voltan, and the spirits were charging up at Arby’s. Voltan did not go quietly into the night, but after a few dozen pokes at his soul, he agreed. Reluctantly. And not without a certain amount of whining, that amount being far more than enough.

  Clark slid the camera’s flash-drive into his computer, then looked over at me. “You realize that your boss knows where Voltan lives, right? Where I live. As our new employer, he has access to all that.”

  I nodded. I knew only too well. “Yep. And Voltan knows that, too, which is why, I’m guessing, he snapped those photos of Chaz naked, hard, and cuffed. We have those.” I pointed to the drive. “And we have this. It does give us a certain amount of leverage.”

  “Against a man who potentially killed you in broad daylight,” added Clark.

  I squinted his way. “You know, you were smiling while you said that. Some sort of nervous tendency you have there? Like tapping your foot, biting your nails, watching Fox News?”

  He sighed. The smile remained. “Today was exciting, Nord. Last time I felt this excited was the season finale of Game of Thrones. I potentially have a boyfriend who, right at this moment, is mixing and mingling up in heaven.”

  “Sort of heaven.”

  “Still. And, in any case, I’m smiling because you died far too young and I’m starting to live far too late, but better late than never.” He reached up and put his hand over my hand. “Sorry about you dying far too young. Seriously, so, so, sorry.”

  I nodded and pointed at his face. “You’re still smiling, Clark.”

  He pointed at my face. “And you still look like that potential boyfriend.”

  “Touché.” My point went rightward. “Now then, if we’re done having this odd and oh-so morbid conversation, what’s on the drive?”

  He cleared his throat and turned his face back to the computer. “Right, right. Sorry.” It was a small drive, but big things, little packages, blah, blah, blah. Meaning, six hours later, we’d watched the entire thing, all of us, as my friends had returned from Arby’s to catch the majority of it all. FYI, I’d say I could’ve lived without seeing said all, but I think that would’ve been redundant.

  “Ugh,” said Clark when it was all over.

  It was a gross understatement. Emphasis on the gross. Mainly because the camera seemed to operate only when there was movement right beneath it. The setting must’ve been set on high because it seemed to take quite a bit of movement to flick it on. The camera was over the bed. A lot of movement in bed generally means a bad nightmare or sex. And, just to be clear, watching Chaz have sex over the course of six hours with three women, plus a guy with a prosthetic limb, was a nightmare. And, of course, that aforementioned gross. Mainly because the prosthesis could be detached and used elsewhere.

  I switched places with Voltan halfway through because I was getting queasy, and being sort of dead does have its blessings, namely a lack of a stomach. Which isn’t to say I don’t love women, but let’s just say, I prefer them from above the vagina. Um, ugh, yet again.

  Max looked over at me and then at Bruce as we hovered there. “Think any of those women were his wife?”

  “The second one,” I said. “I saw her around the office a few times. Never would’ve guessed she fucks her husband with a strap-on, but to each their own, I suppose.”

  “And the others?” he asked.

  I nodded. “The first woman, that was Paula, the account manager, the one who stole my flash-drive.”

  Voltan stared our way. I knew he couldn’t see us, couldn’t hear us, but he could feel us, could sense what we were sensing. “Your coworker is having an affair with her boss in his own home,” he said. “Ten to one, she knows something about him by now that he doesn’t want others to know, or perhaps vice-versa. Maybe that something is what got you killed. Maybe that something was in that financial document.”

  My nod returned. All that was possible. But what was that something? I again looked at Max. “Or maybe they’re both just two horny people having an affair and none of that has anything to do with any of this.” I pointed around, to the room, to the computer, to myself, A.K.A. the this.

  “They were talking,” said Bruce.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Paula, Chaz,” he replied. “During sex, they were talking.”

  We’d lowered the sound. It was bad enough to watch people you sort of knew having sex, especially straight sex—which, for a gay man, was about as delightful as that aforementioned watching of Fox News—but hearing them do so was like watching Fox News while also conducting a nails-across-a-chalkboard symphony. In other words, disquieting. And so, we had quieted the video. Our bad?

  I swooped back to Voltan and stuck my head inside. Which was also disquieting. For Voltan. Seems it never got any easier. Again, for Voltan. And so, I made it brief. “Replay the Paula scene. Turn up the sound.” And out popped my head.

  Voltan put his hand to his noggin. “Um, ow.” And then he found the Paula scene again, this time turning up the volume.

  The living were glued to the screen. The mostly dead hovered on either side. The inadvertent porn stars were heavily going at it. Which is to say, he was pounding at her between-me-down-there and she was moaning in that way that made me wis
h we were watching that certain horrible news station. Had I any teeth to grate, they would’ve been worn to nubs in no time flat. I was sort of dead wishing I was sort of deaf. Anyway, I squinted sideways at the monitor and listened for a clue.

  It came just as he did. She somehow held him at the edge, gripping him, blocking the thrust, holding off the inevitable. “The wire,” she panted. “Did you send it?”

  He nodded. She let go of something, something deep inside, allowing the final thrust. His eyes rolled like Vegas dice as his head jerked back and he howled, “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!” And then I guess he came. Sure as hell sounded like it. I think she came, too, but it looked a bit robotic by then. Painted by the numbers, sort of speak.

  Bruce looked my way. “She’s faking it.”

  Max looked my way. “What wire?”

  I nodded at Bruce. I shrugged at Max. “Maybe that’s what straight people do during sex: discuss accounting.” Seemed a reasonable guess. But what did I know? I was a gold-star gay: all dicks, no chicks. Heck, even watching straight sex on the screen made me nauseous, spiritually speaking.

  Voltan looked our way. “You guys get the feeling that that was a fiduciary transaction? A little quid for the pro?”

  Didn’t make sense. She worked for him. She earned a good salary. Why would she need to get paid for sex? And why from him? “That wire she mentioned could have been for anything,” I said. “They work together. Maybe she was referring to a payment to a vendor.”

  Max shook his head. “Just before they came?”

  I shrugged. “Again, straight people; not exactly my bailiwick.”

  Clark flicked off the computer. “I can’t hear what any of you are saying, but I’m guessing I already know.” He was grinning. It seemed to be his thing now. It was as if my switch got flicked off, his on. One window closes, an innocent man gets shot to death at work. Still, I wasn’t complaining. Okay, I was, but talk about having good reason to. “I have access to all their computers at work. They don’t know I have access. Maybe I can find emails, bank statements, payments made from him to her, something, anything that leads from that wire she mentioned to your…” He pointed in my general direction. I understood the point of his point all too well.

  Voltan put his hand over Clark’s. “You sure they won’t know?”

  He nodded. “They won’t know.”

  Voltan sighed. “Chaz knows where we live. Even with Nord inside me living here with you, is there really safety in numbers against a rich, perhaps desperate guy with untold resources? Someone who might’ve already killed?”

  And yet, Clark was still grinning. “We have the drive from his camera. If those videos got out, he’d be ruined. All we have to do is act normal at work, and all will be okay.”

  Max glanced my way. “Act normal? This he tells to the medium who wears a turban as a fashion choice, on purpose.”

  I put my hand over Max’s. Since we technically had no hands, it didn’t have the same visual effect as when Voltan did it with Clark. Still, there was comfort in it. “Hence the word act in act normal.” I hoped I was that good an actor, since it would be me playing the role of Voltan. I hoped the same for Clark.

  Though perhaps I should’ve been praying instead of hoping.

  Chapter 6

  I again switched places with Voltan. Clark and I went to work together the next day. We acted normal, though tinged with terrified. Well, maybe a bit more than tinged. Especially when we were called into the boss’s office just about five minutes after we’d arrived.

  “Think Meryl Streep,” he said as we stood in front of Chaz’s office door.

  “Did Meryl ever get shot to death just down the hall?”

  He nodded. He itched his chin. He nodded some more. “Uh huh. Just let me do all the talking.”

  I touched fingertip to nose. His and mine. “Good idea.”

  We knocked. We entered. Chaz was at his desk. Chaz was not smiling.

  “Have a seat,” he said. We sat. “Delete the photos. Give me back my flash-drive.”

  Clark reached into his front pocket, produced said drive, and placed it on the desk in front of us. It sat there, and we stared at the device as if it were a hand grenade missing its pin. Boom, I expected it to go at any moment. I held up Voltan’s phone. I deleted the photos. I then pointed at my head. “At least we’ll always have the memories.”

  Chaz smiled. It didn’t look like a happy smile. “How did you know where to look for the camera? Did my wife put you up to this? You some sort of private dicks or just regular ones?” He stood. He was an imposing man. Even when his dick wasn’t out and hard. “You fellows don’t know who you’re fucking with.” He pocketed the drive. We didn’t need it or the photos, anyway. We had copies. We had copies of copies. We filled whole cloudbanks with copies.

  Clark shrugged. Clark, thank God, was not grinning, for a change. “I saw the camera hole. It was a lucky guess, sir.” The sir was a good idea, all things considered. “Last night was just an unfortunate series of circumstances. Things got out of hand. We wish you no harm.”

  The smile on my boss’s face went horizontal. “You’re fucking lying.”

  I moved my head from side to side. Clark did the same. “No, sir,” we said in unison. Meryl, we were not. And then I added, “We just want to get back to work and forget about all this.” To which I also added, “Sir.” Which sounded somewhat like Meryl in Mamma Mia! Meaning, not at my best, but passable.

  He dismissed us with a leer and said, “The cuffs were a nice touch, though.”

  I cringed. I hoped he didn’t see it. I’d also be going to the bathroom on any floor but ours from there on out. Why tempt fate? I mean, any more than I already had?

  And so we left. Quickly.

  “Now what?” I asked Clark as we headed for our desks.

  He smiled. Crest commercials were made from such smiles. Four out of five sort of dead people preferred smiles like those. “You go work. I’ll go snoop. Stay away from…” He pointed behind us.

  I nodded. He didn’t need to state the obvious.

  I returned to my desk. I was still in training, and so I had meetings most of the day. Training, of course, consisted of being told things I already knew. I was bored, but at least I was being kept busy. And away from Chaz the Azz. Sadly, I couldn’t be kept away from either Paula or the CFO, Glenn. In fact, I had private meetings with each of them. Alone. Alone in a conference room. Where no one could hear you scream if you were shot to death by a gun with a silencer. A second time, I mean.

  Paula was nice. Paula had always been nice. She was one of the coworkers you considered a friend. Perhaps only on Facebook, but still. She told me about my job, how my role meshed with hers. I nodded throughout, asked insightful questions, showed off my astute knowledge base, and then went for the jugular.

  “I have access to my predecessor’s files,” I told her. “I can see his emails. You two seemed very friendly. His death must’ve been quite a blow.” It was something of a poor choice of words, considering how I died. That was my intent.

  I watched her reaction. I waited for a clue: a sideways glance, a jump from her seat, a twitch, anything that said, fuck, I’ve been clocked! Instead, she surprised me by sighing and replying, “I miss him. He was a good guy. Funny. Handsome.”

  All true, of course. And not what you’d expect from the person who killed you. Then again, what was she supposed to say? The fuckwad got exactly what he deserved? In any case, she didn’t look or sound guilty, much as that would’ve made life easy. Or death. Namely mine.

  In any case, I didn’t push it. If she didn’t kill me, why rub salt in the wound? And if she did, karma was an even bigger bitch than she was.

  We finished the meeting. At the end of the day, I met with the CFO. I had little contact with him the first go around, but my job did have financial consequences, so it made sense for us to meet in round two. He was an affable older man when he wanted to be, a curmudgeon the rest of the time. The rest of the time was this
time, by the way. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked him if he was married, nor mentioned my boyfriend. I wondered how many buttons the man had, though I was fairly certain I’d pushed all of them. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but figured I’d know it when I saw it. FYI, I didn’t see it. Anger in his eyes, yeah, that I saw. But did that mean he was capable of murder? I mean, he might have hated gay people, but I wasn’t the one who stole his wife from him, so murdering me seemed a stretch. And yet, I knew people did worse for less than that.

  “Well?” asked Clark once we eventually headed home. “Did you find out anything?”

  I nodded. “I was funny and handsome.”

  He chuckled. “Sounds like a productive day.”

  My nod turned shrug. “It was hard, Clark. I had big shoes to fill, and it’s weird that I’m the one now filling them. No one talked about me unless I asked. It was uncomfortable for everyone, all the way around. And as to Glenn and Paula, they either could or could not have killed me. Meaning, square one slammed me in the face.” I looked his way. The smile, of course, was wonderfully ever-present. “I take it you had better luck?”

  He pulled into an Arby’s. The real one, not the afterlife one. “Not being ironic,” he said. “I don’t cook, and this was the closest thing to a healthy dinner.”

  “In what way?”

  “The jamocha shake has eight whole grams of protein.”

  We exited the car. He held my hand. “You miss him?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I miss him. You are him.” He stared down at the entangled digits. “This okay?”

  It was okay. I liked Clark. In life, I’d been somewhat standoffish. I kept people at a distance. Fine, I was funny and handsome, but overly friendly hadn’t made Paula’s short list. Meaning, it was never too late to learn—or try. I was an old dog learning new tricks.

  We sat down and pigged out. It wasn’t my body, so there was no guilt there. I’d always liked Arby’s, but immediately had buyer’s remorse once I was done eating. Voltan was young and skinny. I was dead. There were more important things to worry about.