I didn’t say anything, but I took the glass.
He settled back down into his seat. “Ours is a funny little city. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the reason that Ganesh is still dry is you and me.” He took a sip.
“Our kind,” I said.
He nodded. “The rich, they don’t care. They can get anything they want. A gin and tonic is no bigger deal than a day’s tuition for the kids at boarding school. Cops will turn a blind eye if your wallet’s big enough. Half the time they don’t even need to bribe. It’s an understanding.”
“Selectively enforced Prohibition,” I said.
He pointed his finger at me. On the nose. “So the barrels keep flowing into town, no problem. It’s not even as hard as it was before. We don’t even have to go to Canada anymore. All I have to do is step outside the city limits. Bootlegging is like taking a nice walk. Only…”
As if to prove a point, he turned his glass upside down and poured his expensive liquor all over the rug. It started to evaporate immediately. I could’ve lapped it up, but I didn’t want to look like his dog any more than I already did. That, and I still had my own glass.
“When it comes to the Welcome Mat, it all dries up. That slum is the great Kalahari of the U.S. of A. Draw a circle around it on a map, and you’ll have a good idea where all the police checkpoints are. You ever notice there are almost no automobiles in the Mat? And the trolley doesn’t even run anymore? They’ve got us cordoned off. Quarantined, you might even say.”
“They’re trying to smoke us out,” I said.
He shrugged. “More like they’re hoping the problem will work itself out. This city’s leadership is beyond corrupt. Officially, there’s no position on the walking dead, and rumors are just that—rumors. Urban legends. Unofficially, cut off the booze and the stinky deadheads collapse.”
“Except we don’t collapse. We turn all braineater and we rip into them.”
“Personally, I’d prefer not to see the city turn into the Somme. So I do what I do.”
“So that’s it?” I said. “You’re our little Robin Hood?”
He shrugged, but I could tell he liked it. “I wouldn’t go that far. The Old Man does more…” He broke off that thought before it even began. “I’m in the business of—to torture an already stretched metaphor—building watering holes. A little oasis like Hallowed Grounds keeps our people alive. They can’t stray too far, but I do my damnedest to keep the hooch flowing and keep prices down.”
“You just can’t stand the sight of us,” I said.
He smiled. “I live here for more pragmatic reasons. Believe me or not, I don’t care. It’s easier to bribe the chamber of commerce when you’re seen with the commissioners. The Altstadt is where things happen. I simply can’t do as much from the Mat as I can from here. Now, would you care to spend the night?”
I put the glass down on one of his potted plants. It was empty. The glass, not the plant pot. I figured he had a bullet for my brain, or failing that, a screwdriver. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but damn, did I ever not trust that son of a bitch.
“Thanks,” I said, “but I’d better get back. Wouldn’t want any of your real friends to see you with the likes of me.”
“At least let me pay for a cab, Jones.” He stood and walked toward the door.
I stepped out into the hallway. I scratched the back of my neck. A little chunk of it came off under my fingernail. Damn. I turned back around to face him. “No, I’m good. The walk’ll help me clear my head. Oh, just one last question, Lazar. Or maybe I should say Bethany.”
“It hardly matters,” he said flatly.
“Yeah,” I said. “What was in that suitcase you made me deliver? Bribe money?”
“Now, now, Jones,” he said, “a man could get killed asking questions like that. Twice.”
He slammed the door in my face.
November 18, 1934
I woke up to a flurry of knocks at the door. God damn it.
“Jones!” Alcibé yelled. “Get the door.”
“Get it yourself, head,” I moaned.
Another flutter of knocking. God damn it.
“God damn it,” I said, and I pulled myself up. I wouldn’t say we get hungover. That doesn’t make much sense. More like we get sleep deprived and the closest thing I can compare it to is being hungover. I was out most of the night walking home from Lazar’s penthouse. Still not clear why we need sleep. Or why we can have sex. I went to the glass door. “Gnaghi?”
“Thank you for answering,” the old gravedigger said, near breathless. “Please let me in.”
“The door was unlocked,” I said, pulling it open. “The door’s always unlocked. This is a place of business.”
The big blue goon hurried in, and I sat him down in front of my desk. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Occupational hazard, I guess. I noticed my desk drawer that contained the gun I had… er… “liberated” from him was open. I shut it, real nonchalant-like.
“I don’t have much to offer you,” I said. “Drink?”
He waved his hands in front of his face, as though he couldn’t be bothered to think about drinking right now, or indeed, ever. He looked as though he was going to fall over.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” the head asked.
It’s a testament to Gnaghi’s capacity to stomach the bizarre that he saw a talking head on the desk and didn’t think anything of it. He pointed his shaking finger at me. “The two graverobbers you asked me about?”
“Ed and Joey,” I muttered.
He stared at me blankly. Obviously he didn’t know the hoods’ names.
“Go on,” Alcibé said.
“They attacked me,” he said. “Said you came poking around. They beat me up. You took my gun!”
I rubbed my chin. Alcibé gave me one of those looks. Gnaghi didn’t look like he had anything else to say.
“Fair enough,” I said. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“I want you to fix this,” he said.
“How?” Alcibé asked.
“Talk to them, kill them, I don’t care.” He shook his head with his hands.
I lit up a smoke and offered the pack to the one-and-a-half others. No takers. I leaned forward on my desk and gave Gnaghi my all-business voice. “Listen, Gnaghi, I’d love to help, but I don’t really take on living clients.”
He was quivering again, but that time it looked like it was with rage. I briefly did the mental calculus to see if I could take the big blue ogre one-on-one. Even if I couldn’t, the gun was in the desk drawer. His gun.
“This is your fault!” he screamed. “Your fault, Braineater Jones! You took my protection. You brought those two down on me. I had to ask a hundred corpsies to find you, but I found you. Now you make this right!” He slammed his hand on the desk. It nearly sent poor Alcibé flying.
I leaned back in my chair. “I suppose this will be pro boner, then.”
Gnaghi stared at me as if I had just killed his kitten.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be paying me,” I said.
“Me?” the old gravedigger said, thumping his chest. “You should be paying me. But take care of this, and I call it even.”
Alcibé, back in his traveling cage, said, “Did you really take that poor sucker’s piece?”
I jammed my hands into my pockets as though I was digging around for something. “What of it?”
“You never take a man’s piece,” Alcibé said. I could feel himself shaking his head, or rather, shaking himself. “That’s dirty pool, old chap.”
“Yeah, well, that was before I met you, so you could be the annoying good angel on my shoulder.”
He peeked through the cover. I guess he grabbed it with his teeth.
Note to self: ask him how he does that.
“Hold on,” he said. “We’re on Infected turf here.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “That’s where the graverobbers live.”
“This is crazy. W
e’re not taking on that gang by ourselves and for free. Turn back. Just tell the cryptkeeper you took care of it.”
“I thought I took care of it last time,” I said. “They promised they wouldn’t come back.”
He really laid on the sarcasm with a trowel. “Oh really? You mean two street hoods lied to you? How difficult to believe.”
Actually, looking back in my notebook, I realized that Joey had only promised they wouldn’t go back to the boneyard. That didn’t mean the groundskeeper was off limits. He must leave sometimes, at least to get shack spackle and tiny wind bells. Maybe they jumped him then. Or maybe, like the head said, they just didn’t keep their word. That would break my unbeating heart.
“Hey, I’m trying to figure this job out as I go along!”
“I can tell. You’re making a terrible muck of it.”
We pounded the few blocks to Infected territory. To my not-at-all surprise, ass-eating pink snakes littered the walls the closer we got. It took me a minute to remember the place, but when I spotted the garret where I had found Miss Claudia’s locket, I knew.
“This is the place,” I said.
“Be cautious,” the head warned.
“Let’s be bold. We have nothing to lose but our brains.” I pulled the boomstick out of my pocket and flicked it open. Six rounds. Good enough. I flipped the mask down and raised my leg to kick in the door.
“Stop!” Alcibé fairly yelled. “Perhaps a little stealth is in order? At least sneak in and get the drop on them.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Nah.” I kicked in the door.
I guess that frightened them because they started shooting at me almost immediately. The place looked like an opium den, littered with gangsters, pillows, and garbage. I assumed the one guy was Ed. A few of the others scrambled behind couches and overturned furniture.
The hail of gunfire was withering. A few rounds dinked off the birdcage. It must’ve given the head quite a fright. Somewhere his ass was shitting itself.
“Jones!” Alcibé shrieked in my ear.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ve got my precaution on.” A few bullets whanged off the welder’s mask. The rest punched through me. The gangsters must’ve thought I was a maniac on narcotics or something. I could hardly blame them. I did have a birdcage on my shoulder in the middle of a firefight.
“What about me?” the head yelled after a third and then a fourth near miss.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. I put the birdcage on the ground and kicked it behind a couch. That seemed to shut the little shit up, anyway. Then I simply waited until they ran out of bullets. It seemed like the best way to take advantage of my situation. I took my mask off. “Any man who doesn’t want to die better clear on out the back.” I waved in that general direction with Gnaghi’s piece.
Joey and another trouble boy who must’ve been Ed were the first two on their feet. A couple of real fearless heroes, those two.
I pointed at the two Infected. “Not you two. Ed and Joey stay.”
The two gangsters looked like I had cancelled Christmas. The rest of their brethren abandoned them lickety-split. There were a couple of girls with them too, prosties apparently. They all took off out the back door.
“And you’d better not go back around front!” I yelled after them. “I expect to leave unmolested.”
I fired a shot at the last guy’s ass to put the point across. It probably didn’t hit him. I didn’t pay much attention. For the first time, I looked down at my chest. I was pretty well ventilated. I might have to go see the scratcher again. Or buy a can of spackle.
Ed and Joey, heads hung like bichon frises, turned around and walked toward me.
“Hands up,” I said, “Don’t look at me.”
They turned around and reached for the sky.
“It doesn’t matter,” Joey said. “We already know who you are.”
“Shut up, Joe!” Ed poked his partner sharply in the ribs.
I recognized that voice. “Say that again.”
Ed was wary, his voice halting. “Shut up, Joe?”
I narrowed my eyes. It was like something stuck in my head, like a skipping record. I told him, “Say, ‘If he’s got it anywhere, he’s got it in the safe.’”
Ed obliged.
“Mr. Y,” I said.
“What?” Ed said.
Alcibé and Joey repeated the sentiment, but I fired a round to get everyone’s attention. That left me with four.
“I came here to help the gravedigger,” I said, “but I’ve had a revelation instead.”
“What’s going on, Jones?” the head asked.
I put the birdcage up on a couch cushion and whipped off his cover. I poked Joey with my pistol. Gnaghi’s pistol, I mean. “Say something.”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked.
X. Definitely. How did I not notice it before? Because I wasn’t looking for it before.
3. Who is X? Who is Y? Those two Infected gangsters Ed and Joey, same as answer to the second number one, Who stole Miss Claudia’s locket.
“That’s enough,” I said. “You two have been to Rothering’s house.”
They exchanged a tortured glance. A lot must’ve crossed between their eyes because they took off running for the back door. I burned powder. I meant for it to be a warning shot, but naturally it hit Joey in the back of the leg. You know how those things happen.
“Ah, you son of a bitch!” Joey roared as he crumpled to the floor.
That left me with three rounds. I waved the gun in Ed’s general direction. Luckily, seeing his partner in crime in pain was enough to root him to the spot.
“Look, we don’t want any trouble, deadhead,” Ed said.
“Why don’t you have a seat,” I said.
“On the floor?”
I nodded. I got down on the floor Indian-style with them, like we were kids at a party playing Spin the Bottle. Except that one was a head, and one was grabbing his blood-spurting knee.
“So,” I said, “let’s talk. Let’s get the easiest thing out of the way first. You went back to hassle the gravedigger. Even after I went to the trouble to warn you off.”
“Eddie,” Joey moaned.
“Listen, man,” Ed said, “please let me bandage him up. It won’t take a minute.”
I cold-cocked Ed in the chin. He didn’t really deserve it, but I didn’t feel like those druggies were getting the point. “The gravekeeper!”
“Look, man,” Ed said, “that guy sold us out. I don’t know him. And I don’t know you.”
“Well you know me now,” I said. “Whatever that means. And you know that whole cemetery is off-limits, as is the gravedigger. Only thing is, now I’m starting to think that the only way to keep you two off his back is…” I waved the pistol at them. Message received, loud and clear.
“No, no,” Ed said. “Look, we won’t bother him, I swear.”
“You can bother him if you have to. Just tug on the bellstring.”
“I swear!” Ed shrieked.
“I wish I could believe you, Ed, I really do, but your lives kind of depend on the answers you give to the next few questions.”
Alcibé didn’t say anything, but I felt his glance. “For the love of God, Jones.”
Stupid good cop. Ruining my routine. I grabbed a somewhat clean towel and tossed it to Ed. “Clean up your friend. Then we can all have a nice chat.”
It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to stop the bleeding and apply a tourniquet. I watched, standing as uncomfortably close as I could. When he was done, he held up his arms as though he was surrendering all over again. Putty in my hands. Good.
“So,” I said, “the day I was killed, you two idiots were at a certain mansion.”
“Look, we didn’t mean to shoot at you, man,” Ed said. “We were just supposed to rob the joint. We didn’t mean to kill you. We saw you running, and we, well, you know.”
I stared at him. He was telling the truth. “You didn’t kill me.
I was dead before I went out the window.”
Ed seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Well, no harm done, then.”
That deserved another pistol-whipping. What can I say, I’m a good bad cop. Or a bad good cop. Either way.
“So, when you were casing the joint, you didn’t hear a shot?” I asked. “Didn’t see anyone running away? Maybe catch a glimpse of their face?”
“We didn’t case the joint that day!” Joey said, and he sounded as though he was in a good bit of pain.
“Dammit,” I said, “what did you steal?”
They exchanged another one of those knowing glances.
“Go ahead. Kiss each other. You know you want to.”
“We didn’t steal anything,” Ed said finally. “It wasn’t there.”
“What was it?”
“A money clip,” Ed said. “Engraved with initials.”
I didn’t even wait for him to say them. “WH.”
He nodded.
“You were hired,” Alcibé broke in at long last. “By who?”
“One of you deadheads,” Joey hissed. “A bird. Good-looking one, too.”
I dropped my hand on Alcibé’s mop of hair to keep him quiet. “Don’t suppose you got a name.”
“It wasn’t that kind of job,” Ed said.
“Where’d you meet her?” Alcibé asked through clenched teeth.
“The docks.”
November 19, 1934
After getting fired up like that, I really needed some electroshock. I felt worse than I did the first night after I was brought across. I felt like I could barely move. I used the trick Lazar had taught me about ripping out a lamp cord.
Alcibé chastised me for ruining a perfectly good lamp. He nagged me like every good wife should. “And by the way, you could’ve given me some protection before we went in there.”
“You wanted a rubber, you dirty old sailor?” I said. “What would you have done with it? Stuck it on your ear?”
“You had a welder’s mask!” he said. “I could’ve been put down.”
“Put down,” I said. “That’s such a nasty term. Sounds like you’re euthanizing a dog. I wish we could come up with a better word for it.”
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