Secret Dead Men

by Duane Swierczynski

  Not surprisingly, the first thing I found was a dead body. It was Leah Farrell, chest soaked with blood. Her own, I assumed. The words BRING A DATE were still on her forehead, but faded a bit, as if she’d tried to scrub them away. I crept down to feel what was left of her neck for a pulse, but found none. Instead, I found a close-range bullet wound to the throat. Just like Alison Larsen’s. So far, quite an amazing reproduction, I had to admit.

  I walked down a narrow hallway, next to a staircase, which led back to what I took to be the living room. Living was a strange word to be associated with what I saw going on in there.

  A man was affixed to an antique sofa with what looked like barbecue skewers and coarse rope—the ever-mysterious Ray Loogan. He wasn’t a terribly tough-looking guy, to be honest. I guess I’d built him up in my mind to be so much more that seeing him now disappointed me. Then again, anybody tied to a couch and poked with sharp pieces of metal will look kind of pathetic. Next to him was Susannah, who was bound in a similar manner, only without the skewers. In front of them stood Alison Larsen, holding a pistol. She heard me and spun around. I could still see the bullet hole through the top of her evening dress.

  “Hi, Alison,” I said. “I see you have a few guests over for the evening.”

  “Thank God!” Susannah cried, giving me her most alluring-yet-pitying look.

  “Shut up,” I said. “I’m not here to save you. In fact, I’ve got half a mind to finish the job myself.” I turned my attention back to Alison. “Care to step outside?”

  The corners of Alison’s robot mouth curled up. But it wasn’t her soul talking. “It’s you, isn’t it?” she asked. “God, you’re a resilient bastard when you want to be.”

  “One of my more charming qualities.”

  “Agent Fieldman, do you want to take care of this?” she asked.

  “Officer, please!” Susannah cried. “Help us?”

  Alison was still talking to herself. “Oh … Of course. You’re right.”

  My vision went black.

  When I could see again, the first thing my eyes focused on was a balled fist. It collided with my face.

  My head snapped to the right. I regained focus for a second, and realized I was back in the rebuilt Brain Hotel lobby inside my own head. I saw a bunch of the souls, gawking at me. Goddamnit, how did Brad keep doing this to me? When I looked back up I found my answer. Brad had Fieldman’s soul-gizmo.

  Being no dummy, I went for it. But Brad was no dummy, either. He swiped it away at the last second, then used his free hand to sock me in the face again. All I saw was a yellow flash. By the time I tuned my eyes back in, Brad was gone.

  Doug came to my side. “You okay, chief? Brad wailed on your face pretty hard.”

  “I’m fine,” I said, standing. “Just fine. And thanks, all of you.” I was raising my voice. “Thanks a whole friggin’ lot.” Everybody in the room, of course, started hemming and hawing.

  “It was too damn fast, boss.”

  “He had that soul-zapper thing.”

  “Hey, I’m only here for the drinks.”

  Abruptly, somebody changed his tune. “Wait! Look!”

  We all looked at the lobby screen. Brad was in control, and had our body looking in a mirror, which was situated in the hallway next to the stairs. It was Officer Bill Madia’s face, of course, looking back. “That’s me,” said a voice from the back of the room. “What in hell am I doing up there?”

  Up on the screen, Brad/Officer Madia turned his head. Alison was standing in the hallway with him.

  So how do I do this? Brad/Officer Madia asked.

  The transducer modifiers need an image to work from, said Alison. Close your eyes, and picture yourself in your mind to the closest detail possible. Then click the OK icon in your peripheral vision and the muscles will start to work on themselves.

  That didn’t sound like Alison at all. Jesus—that sounded just like Buddha Fieldman. After a couple of weeks in electronics school.

  On screen, Brad/Officer Madia turned back to the mirror. Then, blackness. Slowly, a dim image of Brad’s real face started to appear, like a photographic negative burning itself into vivid color. Skin stretched and settled into new forms; the skull itself seemed to grow and shrink in different places.

  Of course, he was pulling the old change-your-face-trick. A trick I was intimately familiar with. But Brad didn’t seem to have as much trouble with the process as I did. He didn’t even flinch.

  Brad closed his eyes, and our viewing screen in the Brain Hotel lobby went blank. When he opened his eyes again, Brad was looking at his own, real face in the mirror. At last, he said, beaming. They’ll see the face of vengeance!

  And the wife of vengeance, said Alison/Fieldman’s robot body, off-screen.

  There was a despairing cry from the back of the lobby: “Holy shit! What happened to my face!?” Officer John Madia. Poor guy. This was a lot to see in one night.

  “Hope you had a picture somewhere,” I told him.

  Brad started down the hallway, taking Alison/Fieldman by the hand. After a few steps, she stopped. Wait—we should do something about our mental luggage, she said. We don’t want any further interference at this stage, do we?

  Brad looked around the house, then spied Leah’s dead body. In there, for now?

  Capital idea.

  Alison/Fieldman took Brad by the shoulders and stared straight into his eyes, as if she could see right through the screen, down into the Brain Hotel lobby.

  Sorry to do this to you again, Collective.

  Before I had a chance to hurl a retort at the screen, we were all gone.

  By now, this kind of thing was becoming familiar to me: the cold, the rigor mortis, fighting the strong tides of the decomposition process. But the rest of the souls were scared to death. All they saw was their new haven start to rot before their eyes. Amazing how closely linked physicality is with human creativity. With all this mind power in the room, we should have had no problem maintaining a clean, safe environment in which to live for any period of time. After all, I was living (sort of) proof that a human soul can exist in whatever physical form it inhabits. In other words, if a guy can survive in a toilet, he can certainly survive in a dead woman’s body. Maybe not as dead as I’d thought.

  Standing before me was a confused Leah Farrell. I hadn’t had to absorb her soul; she was still here, in her own mind. Which meant there must be some brain activity left in her body. “Don’t tell me this is the afterlife,” Leah said, frowning. “A bunch of hungry-eyed chumps, sitting around a fleabag hotel?”

  “Leah,” I said. “Relax. I can explain. But I need you to help me first.

  “Who are you? Do I know you?”

  “We’ve had a few drinks together,” I said. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Look, buddy. I have a lot of drinks with a lot of guys. You can stop the happy talk and tell me how to get the hell out of this place.”

  I touched her shoulder. “First, tell me how you got here.”

  She slapped my hand away. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  “Tell me the last thing you remember.”

  It took quite a bit of coaxing (and even more sarcastic banter) but Leah finally told me enough to help me piece together what had happened before I arrived at the house. Right after Susannah had flipped and shot us at the Art Museum, Leah hauled ass to retrieve Ray. (They’d both rented a cheap room in Fairmount—oddly enough, not one mile from where Susannah had set up camp. Philly can be a small city that way.) She showed Ray the address Brad had stuffed down her shirt, and they decided to check it out. They hopped in a cab and high-tailed it over to Merion, then split up: Ray took the back entrance, Leah the front. Leah picked wrong. She opened the door and got a bullet in her throat for her trouble. The last thing she heard was glass shattering somewhere in the house. Then she ended up here.

  “Your turn,” she said. “Start explaining.”

  “I’m going to borrow your body for a moment.”

 
; “What?”

  “I’ll be right back.” I created a pair of doors with my mind and walked through them. My eyes—actually, Leah’s eyes—fluttered open back in reality.

  All I can say is, thank the sweet Lord the bullet had severed Leah’s vocal cords, because I would have screamed to heaven and awoken all the angels. This body hurt. I could barely suck down air, let alone stand up. But I was determined to go back to the living room. I threw out a hand, experimentally, and let it drop onto the rug. My newly borrowed fingers gathered up every fiber I could, then used it to turn the body over.

  Then I started to crawl, hand over hand, down the length of the hallway. The rug created an almost insurmountable degree of friction; it was slow going. I could only imagine the electric shock I was building up. One touch from this body oughta kill the entire room. Halfway there I paused to cough. I was surprised to see blood jet from my mouth. No time to pause for lost fluids. I kept crawling toward the living room.

  Finally, I reached an acceptable vantage point. I guess I’d missed a lot of pre-revenge chit-chat, because not much had changed in the living room. Ray was still skewered and tied to the couch. Susannah was still next to him, but now untied. Brad held a gun to her head. Alison was standing with her back to me. I wondered if the real Alison was in control again, or if Fieldman was still running the robot?

  She removed a wrapped present from her purse, then tossed it to Susannah. “I believe this belongs to you, Ms. Winston.”

  Well that answered my question.

  Susannah, to her credit, caught it mid-air. Most people aren’t terribly agile with guns to their heads. She hesitated, then ripped the paper off. A stiletto.

  I’m guessing it was the same one she’d used on Brad—although I can’t fathom how they could have fished it out of the creek without me knowing. Maybe it was just the same make and model? I couldn’t help but be impressed. Brad had this planned down the last sticking detail.

  “Now use it,” Brad said.

  “What?” Susannah asked.

  Brad raised his pistol and pulled back the hammer. “You heard me. Use the knife on your boyfriend. I’m thinking fourteen or fifteen stabs ought to do the trick. That is, if you pick non-vital parts first.”

  “You’re insane,” she said.

  “C’mon, Lana—I fished it out of the creek for you and everything!”

  Ray Loogan, for his part, didn’t look like he was enjoying this part of the discussion. He started to panic and tried to crawl up the back of the couch, even if it meant pulling skewers through his skin. I almost felt bad for him. I couldn’t help it. All this time I’d thought of him as this suave, genius killer who managed to elude me for the better part of a year. But now, all I saw was a kid who’d been overly trusting of the women in his life, and now he was scared out of his mind. He was going to die.

  “Do it,” Brad said. He thrust the gun in her face.

  “Sorry, Ray.”

  Ray started to cry. Susannah lifted the stiletto into the air and paused, as if trying to delay the inevitable. Then she struck down—hard. The blade slid into one of Ray’s thighs. He howled. Susannah jerked it out, aimed, and plunged it again, inches higher. And again. Each stroke was more frenzied than the last. I couldn’t see everything, because Alison partially blocked my view. But it was enough. And I could hear everything—every grunt, cry and thud.

  Soon enough, Ray stopped crying. Susannah was covered in droplets of her ex-boyfriend’s blood. She had the strangest expression on her face—part rage, part fear, part confusion.

  “Good show, Susannah,” Brad said. “Wouldn’t you say, sweetheart?”

  Alison didn’t say anything. She took a step back. Her heel dug into my outstretched hand. I shrieked, but it came out as a series of gurgles.

  By way of pure reflex, Brad spun around and shot me in the shoulder.

  “Owww shit,” I said, and rolled over. To be perfectly honest, my hand hurt a lot more than the bullet wound. I managed to spit out the words, “It’s Del.” As if it would matter to Brad.

  “Christ,” he said. “Don’t you know when to play dead?”

  I would have shot a pithy remark back at him, but I was too busy trying to line my eyes up with Ray Loogan’s. He was a dead man, of course. But luckily for me, he’d chosen to expire with his eyelids rolled up in his head.

  “Looks like I’ll have to teach you.” Brad took careful aim at my head and squeezed the trigger.

  Or should I say, took careful aim at my ex-head. Because as the bullet was flying through the air, my soul was flinging across the space of the room, right into Ray’s body. I was getting better and better at this. I jerked up my head in time to see Leah Farrell’s head do a J.F.K.

  And I’ll be damned if Ray’s body didn’t hurt a hundred time’s worse than Leah’s abused corpse. I didn’t know where to register pain first. I turned my new head to the left, experimentally, and saw Susannah staring at me in mute horror.

  “Hi sweetie,” I said.

  That broke her stunned silence. She screamed and slid down to the floor, and started to crawl backwards until she bumped into Alison.

  Brad, once again, spun around to face me. “You … !”

  I realized I had to do some fast talking. I was running out of bodies. And at the rate at which Brad was blowing their heads off…

  “Hold it, tough guy,” I said. “I have something important to say. To Agent Fieldman.”

  “I doubt it,” Fieldman said, from within Alison’s robot body.

  “This exercise in revenge isn’t going to solve anything. You’re treating the symptom, not the disease. This is an entirely wasted effort.” It must have seemed too funny to watch a dead guy wax philosophical about the uses of revenge.

  “Ah,” Fieldman said. “This is where I’m supposed to have an epiphany about violence begetting violence? Spare me the philosophy, Collective. This store isn’t buying. The ‘exercise’ you see before you is going to solve everything. I’ve been trying to explain this to your tiny mind, but will you listen? No. This is much, much bigger than you or I, or anybody in this world.”

  “Okay, Buddha. Maybe everything you’re saying is true. If it is, fine. You want some kind of higher justice served? Bully for you. But it still doesn’t address my earlier point: What are we going to do about the killer?”

  “We have the killer. Killers, to be precise.”

  “No, not this pathetic errand boy, or the dizzy wench. I mean the real killer.” I looked at Brad. The face of the killer, accusing the victim.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You don’t see it, do you Brad? You killed your wife, and yourself!”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “It was you. You hired these two pathetic people to do it.”

  “I did not!”

  “Perhaps not the personality known as Brad Larsen,” I said. “But the name on the dotted line was John Paul Bafoures. And you were, in fact, John Paul Bafoures.”

  I could see a dim bulb lighting in Brad’s mind. “No…” he said weakly, but he was finally getting it.

  Alison’s face wrinkled up in confusion. “What are you saying … he hired them?”

  “Sorry, Fieldman. I suppose you would have had no way of knowing, looking at the situation from the outside. But Brad and Paul are one and the same. A split personality—do they still use that term in your dimension? Brad wanted out of his professional rackets, and decided to bury the murderous side of him. Only problem, the murderous side resented it. So he decided to cash in everybody’s chips, all at once.”

  “You…” Fieldman said. It sure looked weird coming out of Alison’s mouth. “All this … for nothing!”

  I saw the fire die in Alison’s eyes, and something invisible pound in Brad’s body, flinging him back against the wall. Alison took two wobbly steps backwards, found her back against the wall, then slid down. She started to cry. At last, the real Alison Larsen, the woman I knew as Amy Langtree, finally regained control of her artif
icial body. Had she been watching the whole time? I had no way of knowing. She simply lowered her head into her folded arms and sobbed.

  Brad, on the other hand, was on the floor convulsing. Clearly, the Ghost of Fieldman had jumped in there, and there was some kind of battle royale going on in that skull. I probably shouldn’t have waited this long to play my trump card, but hell, hindsight is 20/20. And to be honest, I had no idea Fieldman would be this upset. To think that would have meant believing his crazy stories and schemes. And now—after seeing how this damned thing was turning out—maybe I was. Maybe this case was bigger than all of us.

  Finally, a victor emerged. Brad stopped shaking. He rolled over on his side, then scrambled to his feet. He paused to straighten out his police uniform and looked at me. “I owe you an apology, Collective,” he said, smirking. “Brad Larsen is under arrest.”

  I was about to accept Fieldman’s apology when I saw Susannah pick the cop’s revolver from the floor and shove it in his face.

  “Cool your tool, fool,” she said.

  As if on cue, a siren screamed outside.

  “Talk about timing,” I said.

  Fieldman nodded. “Yes. Brad had arranged for that. He figured the FBI was here at the beginning, might as well call them in at the end. I can’t believe how clouded my judgement has been.”

  “Hello!” Susannah yelled. “Can’t you see I have a fucking gun to your head?”

  “Sorry,” Fieldman said.

  I was growing tired of the interruptions. Part of me wished I had shown up after Brad had deep-sixed both of them. “Lady, listen to me,” I said from Ray’s bleeding body. “Do you still think can control this situation? After all you’ve seen tonight?”

  Susannah didn’t bother to give me a rational answer. Instead, she whipped the pistol around and fired, screaming, “AND YOU!”

  The shot was amazing. It planted directly beneath my right eye, dug a few inches into my skull, then exploded back and out. All in all, a much more professional shot than the one she’d delivered to my other head mere hours ago. Talk about a learning curve.