Secret Dead Men

by Duane Swierczynski

  Up on the screen, I watched Paul answer the phone. Smug, arrogant prick. I’d given him too much power as of late, and he was taking it for granted, getting too comfortable flipping in and out of the real world as he pleased. I was going to have to crack down hard on that guy, let me tell you. But for the time being, I just watched.

  Hello?

  There was a pause. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but three guesses.

  I’ll be right over. Paul hung up, and put a jacket on our body.

  I slammed the lobby mike button with my palm. “You’re not going over there, are you?” I asked.

  It’s my job, remember?

  “Not anymore. We’re off the case.”

  As of when?

  “Right now. Call her and tell her you quit.”

  Paul didn’t say anything. He kept combing our hair.

  “Look—you knew this day would come. Your time with our favorite oral gymnast is coming to an end. The case is over. We’re only two quick soul collections away from leaving this damned city.”

  And I think Susannah can help us do that.

  “How? With more lies? It’s not as if she’s going to suddenly say, ‘Whoops, I’m sorry, I’ve been lying to you all this time. Here’s the real scoop!’”

  She’s of more use to us alive than dead, Paul said.

  “Who said anything about killing her? I want you to quit.”

  Paul didn’t answer. He walked over to the phone, picked it up, and spun out seven familiar numbers. She answered on the first ring.

  It’s me, Paul said. I need to ask you a favor.

  Favor? I thought.

  There was a short pause. Just some time off tomorrow evening, for a few hours. A short pause. Nothing to do with you. A longish pause. I need this, Susannah. An even longer pause. Of course I do. A short, staccato pause. I’ll be with you all day Friday. And all night. Through the whole Best of Philly party. An amazingly long pause. Flowers wilted, generations passed, time flowed like a river of maple syrup … Don’t worry—I’ll protect you, Paul said, and finally hung up the phone.

  He walked into the bathroom, splashed some cold water on his face, then looked into the mirror. How’s that for a Solomon-like compromise? You happy now?

  “You get Gard to pay us,” I said. “Then I’ll be impressed.”

  Nineteen

  Macho Cheese

  I spent two hours preparing for my first date in over six years. Of course, that last date didn’t count. It’d been before I was absorbed from the dead. I was interviewing a female source for a personal finance article I’d been writing. My suggestion was to go out for drinks to talk—I knew this place in the center of town with a cheap drink special: a double shot of whatever liquor for the price of one. At the time, I’d been fond of gin and tonic. Unfortunately, the place got away with their rock-bottom prices by serving rotgut liquor. Two glasses had me ready to crawl under the table and eat crumbs.

  And my source? A short-haired, bee-stung-lipped, four-eyed cutie. She was ready to crawl under with me. I remember stumbling out of the bar, not one important question asked, and heading to a restaurant I knew, hoping some food would sober us up. It didn’t, of course, because we ordered drinks first and forgot about the food. We left, but not before my little Deep Throat grabbed a basket of peppermints and flung them into the air. They flew all over the bar area and rained on the ground. I apologized like mad, and she laughed and tugged my arm and pulled me out of there.

  We ran into a colleague of mine on the street—a cub reporter out double-checking a few facts for a Henderson nightlife roundup—at which point my source wrapped her legs around me, and started kissing my neck, all in the interest of embarrassing me. Of course, it worked. We ended up in the community park, watching people and sharing a bottle of red wine I’d bought from a grocery shop on the way over. This was when she confessed to still being married and vomited on my lap. “Sweet Pea” was playing on some radio in the background. Within seconds, I felt sobered up and utterly convinced this sick woman was not my “Sweet Pea,” and that she was still somewhere out there, waiting to be found, and I helped her up and cleaned her face the best I could in a public bathroom and brought her back to my apartment and laid her to rest on my couch. In the morning, I felt how cheap the gin had been. Damn cheap. You shouldn’t have been allowed to give that swill away. My brain was split in half. And then her husband showed up to pick her up, because she had called him in the middle of the night. It was an uncomfortable morning, to say the least.

  Did that qualify as my last date? I don’t think so. Needless to say, I was woefully out of practice.

  I showered once and tried on a few different variations of the pieces of clothing I owned. Nothing seemed suitable, all of a sudden. Had I gone through life this long with such a shabby wardrobe? God, why didn’t Paul pull me aside sooner? I got so sweated up I had to shower again.

  Finally, I decided on the most conservative outfit I could have put together: a pair of black slacks and a blue button-down shirt. If only I could have taken Amy Langtree on a date in the Brain Hotel, I could have invented any suit to wear, taken her to any fancy restaurant I dreamed of … But no. This had to be real. Times like these, I didn’t envy Paul one bit.

  In the real world, I needed money to spend on a date. Since Paul had left me with a little under twenty bucks—and Gard’s check had failed to cash, as of panicked phone call to Girard Bank first thing this morning—I’d been forced to bring a bunch of my beloved records and a watch I didn’t wear to a pawn shop, which earned me $24. Grand total: 40 bucks. An amount I prayed was enough for a night out on the town. Again, it had been quite a while since I’ve done this sort of thing. Last time, the drinks were amazingly cheap.

  Amy and I sat down at a table in a ridiculously ornate Mexican restaurant, both are wearing hats. She’d picked the place—only a few blocks walk from our apartment building. Two oversized margaritas sat in front of us. A salsa version of “I Fought the Law” was playing in the background. My collector, Robert, would have been mortified. It had been one of his favorite songs.

  “I came here last year for my birthday,” Amy said. “I should say, my friends dragged me here for my birthday. Or maybe it wasn’t this place. It looks different. There are a million of these places all over, I guess. By the way, when’s yours?”

  “My what?”

  “Birthday, silly.”

  “Are you asking me my sign?” I asked, with faux suspicion.

  Amy laughed. “Yeah, I guess I am. And in the interest of full disclosure, I believe in horoscopes, astral projection, ghosts and fate. Don’t worry. I won’t ask the year.”

  “I’m a Gemini” I said. “Sign of the twin.” I wasn’t lying—merely understating.

  “I’m a Pisces,” Amy said. “A pair of fish. That’s a kind of twin, isn’t it?

  “Kind of.” I looked around, then touched the brim of my sombrero. “You know, I feel kind of stupid in this hat—”

  “C’mon, Del. You look muy cute-o.”

  “I don’t feel muy anything.”

  “Trust me. You’re essential cuteness.”

  We both took a sip of our margaritas. I knew I had to take it easy, lest I hear about it from the boys in the Brain Hotel later. But the damned thing tasted so alive, like biting into a fresh, ripe lime followed by a river of tequila. Old Tom’s margaritas couldn’t hold a candle to these.

  I stole a glance at Amy. She was “essential cuteness.” Her smile had this sweet, slow way about it—the kind of smile only a few lucky men see every day of their lives. I’ve always considered marriage to be a sort of lottery, and considered myself not to be the gambling type. There was too much to lose. And the odds were too staggering to overcome. Yet, here I was, sitting with the female equivalent of a thousand dollars a day for life. For a few moments, with the combination of her smile and the tequila, I forgot about the Brain Hotel and everything. It was easy.

  “What are you thinking?”

&nbs
p; Whoops. She’d caught me staring. “Nothing,” I told her. But I meant: “Everything.”

  Amy looked to the side and nodded to a small man in a chef’s uniform standing in the kitchenway.

  “Amy?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Something caught my eye.”

  I stretched my head around as an army of restaurant staffers came marching out of the kitchen with a lit birthday cake, clapping their hands as they chanted: “Happy, happy birthday! Happy happy birthday! Happy happy Day, Del Winter!” They stretched the word “Winter” to eighteen full syllables.

  My jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “I wasn’t around to celebrate your last birthday, so here,” Amy said. “We’ll celebrate it now.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Amy…”

  “Actually, it’s a big scam. They never check I.D.s or anything. I just like to get the free dessert.”

  The Casa Tequila staff surrounded the table, smiling and clapping and singing in manic Spanish gibberish. Finally, the flaming cake was lowered to the table and it was revealed to be not a cake, but a plate of blazing nachos. A staffer in the middle whipped out one of those new, instant-printing cameras. Amy saw her chance, grabbed me by the shirt collar and pulled me into camera range.

  “Say nacho cheese!” she shouted.

  I was aghast. “Amy!”

  The flash popped and I was temporarily blinded. I lowered my head. In fact, I kept my head lowered until the staff dissipated. Amy placed a finger beneath my chin and raised my head.

  “Honestly, you looked cute.”

  I finally looked up, smiled grimly, then took a long, thoughtful sip of my margarita. A sip or two had brought me into this fugue state; it took another to snap me out of it. What was I getting myself into? Where the hell was the investigation headed? Was this what I considering “doing my job?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You look annoyed.”

  “No, no. It was sweet. But I’m not big on pictures.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t show up well in them.”

  Amy smiled. “Are you a vampire, Del?”

  “What?” Then I got it. “Oh, no, no. I’m not photogenic.”

  “I think you are. I would love to see some pictures from your childhood.”

  I looked down at the table. “My family wasn’t big on pictures.”

  “Oh, what a shame,” Amy said. “Well … Del. We’ll always have the Casa Tequila.”

  I smiled again. Again, in spite of myself. Our food arrived. We ate, had some pleasant, meaningless conversation. I promised myself not to be that stupid ever again.

  That promise was forgotten after the second margarita.

  We arrived back at 1530 Spruce a bit more intoxicated that when we’d left. I pushed the elevator button, she pushed it again, and then I pushed it, and she bolted up the stairs, and I followed suit, laughing all the way.

  Amy ran to my door, then turned around and braced herself against it. “If you want to go home, you’re going to have to get through me first,” she said.

  “I can be a pretty rough customer. You might not survive the encounter.”

  “I can handle more than you think, mister.”

  I was tempted—hell, my insides were practically burning up. This was everything I shouldn’t be doing with my time on Earth, which was probably why I wanted to do it. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the need to grab Amy and smother her lips and press her body back against the door, fumbling blind with the key as I probed deeper….

  No. Wait. Horrible idea. No telling when Susannah would call, asking for her babysitter to run over to Rittenhouse Square. What if Amy was inside when that call came? What would I tell her then?

  Then I had a better idea: we would go to her apartment.

  I touched her cheek with my palm. She smirked, but quickly melted her lips into a fake grimace and bared her teeth. “Come on, soldier. Let’s see what you’re made of.”

  My index finger brushed her lower lip. I leaned in close. “Not here,” I whispered. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  Amy jerked her head back. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much room to work with, and her skull bumped against hard wood. “Ouch. What did you say?”

  “I want to see where you live,” I said, as casually as possible. “I want to see what you’re made of.”

  “No, no, no,” she said, sliding away. “We can’t. My apartment is a mess. I couldn’t have you up there now. Besides, we’re right here at your apartment. Only a few feet away from your couch.”

  She had a logical point, but something seemed odd—why couldn’t we go up to her place? Was she hiding something?

  “I feel as if you have an unfair advantage,” I said. “You can tell a lot about someone from their personal belongings.”

  “Del, you don’t have much stuff.”

  “True, but … but I haven’t seen anything of yours.”

  “You can see all you want,” she said, and raised her hand to unfasten a button on her blouse.

  It was certainly not the reaction I’d been expecting. Amy was definitely trying to change the subject. Whenever a woman starts to unbutton herself in a public hallway, you know a subject is about to be changed. But as much as I wanted to abandon myself to the moment, I couldn’t. Nagging suspicion had freaked me out. No matter that I had something to hide—I couldn’t get past the fact that Amy did, too.

  “Amy, it would mean a lot to me.”

  She froze at the sound of her name. Then she rebuttoned, and took a few steps away. “I’m sorry, Del. I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d better go now.”

  “Wait…”

  What now? Keep her talking. Keep it light.

  “I want to know more about you. You’re not storing dead bodies in your apartment, are you? Heck, so what if you are. I’ve seen ‘em before.”

  Amy was silent. She wouldn’t look at me.

  “I know they decompose awfully fast, and there can be quite a stench, but it’s not a problem. We can buy a few of those room air-fresheners, and…”

  She interrupted me. “Del, if you’re not going to invite me in, I have to go.”

  Now I felt like a bigger jerk for even joking. But I couldn’t cave in, either.

  “I guess you’d better go, then,” I said.

  Amy locked eyes with me, and I thought I saw a teary glimmer of hurt in them. She turned and walked down the hallway, then up the countless flights of stairs to her mystery apartment.

  This was for the better, I told myself. I was merely avoiding something that would eventually cause me pain.

  Then I felt a sharp, hard jab to my right temple.

  Twenty

  Shot Contest

  “Don’t move. I can squeeze this trigger before your piss hits cloth.

  A female voice. A bit coarse, but syrupy beneath. A seductive combination. However, I was in no mood to be seduced. Again.

  I swung my fist around to where I guessed her nose would be. I was a few inches off. My knuckles slammed into her temple. She yelped. I spun around and launched a fist into her face, and another one to chase it down. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but for me, that old rule about “never hitting a woman” goes right out the window when the woman is packing heat. Sure, maybe she was holding the stem of a toilet brush to my forehead, but I didn’t want the benefit of the doubt to earn me a trip to the city icebox.

  As it turned out, there was no need for me to be worried about offending her delicate sensibilities. The polecat whipped her pistol right across my nose, snapping it out of place. She followed up with another crack, this time to my temples, then jabbed her knee into my gut. She knew how to put her weight behind it, too. I collapsed to the floor, not knowing what to start complaining about first. I felt gunmetal slip between my teeth and push against the back of my tongue.

  This was not good.

  Trying to form words around the business end of her pistol,
I managed to say: “Before you blow my brains out, can I ask who you are?” It came out with less clarity then I’d hoped for.

  “Shhh,” she said. “Not a word.”

  “Sowwy,” I said, before I could catch myself. Whatever this was about, I sincerely hoped Amy was long out of earshot. There was still a chance I could explain away my odd behavior from a few moments ago. It would be a bit tougher to explain this.

  “Where are your keys?”

  “Ugh-ufh,” I mumbled.

  She took the pistol out of my mouth and point it at my Adam’s apple. I took the opportunity to swish my tongue around. Uck. The taste of gunmetal was hard to lose.

  “I’m not going to die in my own apartment. I pay too much rent for something like that.” If my assailant came here to kill me, it would have happened already. Whoever this was clearly wanted to talk.

  “You can feel this gun in your neck, right?”

  “Yes, I can. Look, spit it out. I haven’t got all night.”

  I heard her sigh. Not to sound sexist or anything—I know women today have this whole “libber” thing happening, but the fact remains I know how to diffuse a hostile female. It was the affectionate ones I had trouble with.

  “Alright, Paul. I came here to talk.”

  Did I call this one, or what?

  “Okay. Talk.”

  “Not here.” She nudged the gun into my head. “Over there. On the fire escape.”

  I walked over and through the door like a compliant puppy. Then I turned to face the woman. Of course. The murderess, Leah Farrell. I hadn’t had the chance to fully study her during our recent encounter in the middle of Market Street. She was a handsome woman, despite beady eyes and lips that were a shade too thin.

  “You know why I’m here. I want to know the new score. If you can satisfy me, I’ll let you continue breathing for a while.”

  “Ooh, let me satisfy you,” I said.

  Leah didn’t seem to enjoy the crack. “Who’s the bimbo?”