Braineater Jones

by Stephen Kozeniewski

  I waited for a suitably clever response. None came, of course. I couldn’t even have thought of what he would say in that situation. I wiped my nose with my shirtsleeve. “You always knew exactly what to say, didn’t you? To be honest, I’m kind of lost without you. Shit. I’m glad you’re not here to hear me say that.”

  I took a look at him. Dead as a doornail, but he had one of those looks, a cross between a smile and an “I told you so.” I shook my head. Only crazy people talk to the dead. Crazy people and psychics. Which are just a different breed of crazy people.

  “I’ve been thinking about the case. There’s one clue we never looked into. I don’t know if I ever even told you about it. My first case. Claudia Baumer was the name on the grave. Claudia Winston was the name she used to introduce herself. What do you make of that?” I glanced at the head corpse. Damned if I wanted to admit it, but I really did miss his counsel.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said, too. A hired actress. Only she had to be a deadhead, so there wasn’t much competition. She didn’t just forget her lines; she forgot what her damn name was supposed to be.”

  With the unlit Lucky in one hand, I patted myself down for my flask. I took a sip. “Lazar hires a ringer to hire me to find a locket. Only he knows where the locket is the whole time because he’s in bed with Kumaree, and Kumaree hired the Infected who stole it. So all he wanted was to get me in the game. Why would anyone want that?”

  I took another drink of the supposedly clean liquor. I lifted the flask toward what was left of him and let a tiny, infinitesimal trickle hit the ground in his honor.

  “Insurance against Kumaree maybe. Make sure someone was sniffing under her rocks in case he disappeared. I did kill her, after all. Then again, maybe he wanted to groom me as an enforcer. Like the bartender is for the Old Man. He did set it up so I would owe him everything. Or hell, maybe he just wanted a wild card.”

  I actually waited for the head to answer for a few moments before I remembered.

  “I read a book at the library,” I continued. “Not the whole way through. When I was researching the case where you and I met. It was about burial rites around the world. You know there are people in India who put you on a tower and let the buzzards peck at you? That’s considered respectful.”

  Unsurprisingly, he did not respond.

  “I thought you’d like this one, though,” I said. “Vikings put their fallen warriors out to sea on flaming longboats. Don’t know the significance. I’m not much of a bookworm. But it seemed like something you’d like.”

  I tossed some petrol and pitch on the garbage. I checked to make sure there was a lifeboat and life preservers for the crew. They probably didn’t much deserve to have their barge burnt down, but screw them. I’ve gotten a lot of things I didn’t deserve either lately.

  I lit up the Lucky.

  “Goodnight, sweet prince,” I said. Almost immediately, I thought better of it. “That’s sappy, isn’t it? That’s disgusting. How about this? Be seeing you.” I made a ring around my eye with my thumb and forefinger, then tipped it forward. I tossed the butt into the garbage. What a way to go. Truth is, you can pretend a garbage barge is a Viking longboat all you want, but that doesn’t make it so.

  I took a sheaf of plastic, tore it in half, and wrapped up my boomstick and my journal. I stayed long enough to make sure the flame wouldn’t go out anytime soon. Then I took a step off the side.

  During the long walk back to the docks along the bottom of the bay, I pondered my next move. For one thing, I regretted not wrapping up my shoes, too. They made walking through the silt take twice as long, and I lost one about halfway through. For another thing, I had to fight off some fish and even one rather nasty-looking shark.

  Time to put an end to this whole thing.

  November 27, 1934

  I was already sitting in his pit when he came home. He flipped the light switch, but I had disconnected it. I struck a match. Took it from his pot near the door. Took the smokes, too. Not Luckies, but then, beggars can’t be choosy.

  I think the flame was probably not much more than enough to light up my face. He stared at me. I guess we were past all the playing around. Brass tacks and all that business.

  “You don’t get ideas through your skull much, do you?” he said.

  “You telling me all that was nothing but a warning?”

  “Huh?” he said, like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “No, I really kicked you out of the community. That means you’re not supposed to come around.”

  I was talking about the head. He was either pretending he didn’t know, or he genuinely didn’t know. Who knew with his type. I decided to play along. Why not, right? You always get more out of somebody when they think they know more than you, anyway.

  “You said to stay away from Hallowed Grounds,” I said. “You never said anything about your penthouse.”

  He laughed morosely and shook his head. “You really are an obtuse son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what obtuse means.” Guess my English professor training let me down. Or maybe I just wanted him to think he was smarter than me.

  He was carrying groceries—I guess I should have mentioned that already. He walked into his kitchen and put them down. He knew his way around enough in the dark. Everyone does in their own place.

  “I don’t usually smoke in the house,” he said.

  “I bet I know someone who did,” I said, checking the purloined pack before crushing it. “And she smoked Chesterfields, it seems.”

  “Yeah, well, she doesn’t come around here much anymore being as she’s dead.”

  I jumped in between him and the counter. He should’ve dropped his bags. A smart guy would’ve dropped his bags. He didn’t. Defiant. He held onto them. I didn’t have my gun out, though. It was still a little seasick. But then, he didn’t know that. He had to know I was wearing iron.

  “Enough to make somebody angry, ain’t it?” I said. “Enough to make him want to kill.”

  He stared at me. Absolutely blank. Expressionless. I reached out and touched his chin. He pulled away, but it was too late. I looked at my fingers. Face paint.

  “Makeup,” I said.

  He put down the groceries, went to the sink, and washed his face. His cheeks were rosy and pink. His eyes weren’t sunken in or swollen. Hardly any creases other than normal age and wear and tear.

  “You’re alive,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?” Why what? It wasn’t a very descriptive question. Just a general “why.” I couldn’t think of all the things I wanted to know the reason for. Why the deception? Why help our kind?

  “Because of her,” he said. “I cared for her.”

  “That’s perverse,” I said.

  “Why?” He turned to me. “What’s so different between you and me? A heartbeat? Body heat?”

  “A squirrel can quack, but it’s still a squirrel.”

  “Can you fix my lights?” he asked.

  “Oh, yeah.”

  It was a simple wire I had disconnected. I plugged it back in. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. I’d seen the bastard crying. I’d never seen one of us cry. And he never used his real name, only pseudonyms, and bad ones at that. He was welcome in the Altstadt. Everything seemed to click in place. The lights turned on.

  “Is that my shoe?”

  I looked down at the mismatched pair and wriggled my toe in his. “Yeah.”

  He sighed, grabbed the orphan from the closet, and tossed it at me. “Just take the other one. You look like a hobo.”

  “What’s your real name?” I said.

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “No, I guess not.”

  “She came to me, you know. Gorgeous like she was. I didn’t care that what was between her legs was cold. You can warm that up with enough friction. She took care of herself, you know, not like a lot of you deadheads. An
d she had an idea for me. The Old Man doesn’t trust women, still hates his mother, but she was sure she could get the booze. The Old Man was desperate for any supply when he was trying to set up his bar.”

  “So you put on some circus paint and played the part of the hip urban sophisticate. She got the booze, you delivered it.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It was easy enough. Free money, practically, for an acting job. Then things got… complicated.”

  “Complicated how?” I said.

  “The Old Man,” he said. “He’s using the bar as a front. He’s keeping money flowing in, but really what he wants is some half-cocked mechanical solution to your kind’s fally-aparty problems.”

  “This I know,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, did you know he gets his parts from the Germans?” Lazar said.

  “That I did not know,” I admitted.

  “So in addition to booze, she was getting machinery from the docks and I had to deliver it. All because the Old Man hates women. He’s positively medieval. Probably because he never grew a dick. Resents the rest of us for having something to do with dames other than play patty-cake.”

  “So you never actually touched the booze or the parts or anything else. You were nothing but a mouthpiece. She spiked my punch, and she told you to send the suitcase full of jumbee powder to the docks.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t ask questions. I just moved shipments. Sometimes I hunted down new customers. Backfired in your case.”

  “I think you were looking for a little more than a customer in me,” I said.

  He smiled. “Well, I wanted to keep an eye on you. And it’s true, I thought you had potential. Imagine being a blank slate.”

  “I don’t have to imagine.”

  “Too bad how it turned out.”

  “So you didn’t kill the head?” I asked.

  “What head?” he asked. “Oh, I remember. Your pet. No. Why would I?”

  “I seem to recall you fighting once,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I hardly even remember. I posture a lot.”

  “More importantly, though, it seemed like a nice way to get revenge for your girlfriend. Or whatever you want to call her. Mausoleum mama.”

  He sighed and sat down. He slipped one of her ruined Chesterfields out of the pack I had squished and smelled it. He didn’t smoke it, just moved it along his nose like he was smelling it. The aroma left him with a funny little half smile. “The police came. They don’t even consider it a crime, do you know that?”

  I walked into the pit, thought better of it, and kept walking to his camouflaged liquor cabinet. I was pleased to see the snubnose was no longer there. Of course, it might’ve been in his pocket. Or it might’ve been in a police evidence locker. I supposed he was about to tell me.

  “Killing our kind?” I said.

  “How do you kill that which is already dead?” he asked.

  “I’ve heard that somewhere before,” I muttered.

  I poured two glasses of Old Crow. I walked over and handed one to him. He waved it off.

  “I don’t need it,” he said. “You know that.”

  “You need it,” I said firmly.

  He laughed and took a sip. I suppose a few tears spiked the glass. “Maybe my nerves do, but my liver doesn’t. This stuff is killing me. Had to keep up the charade.”

  “You were saying about the flatfeet,” I said.

  “Oh, them.” He seemed to sag down in his chair. “Yeah, they came. You probably saw them on your way out. They already knew what she was. She didn’t look like a fresh corpse. I thought they were going to lock me away and throw away the key. They didn’t, of course.”

  “They know about us,” I said. “They pretend not to, but they do.”

  “Of course,” he said. “They rang up the station, made sure her names were already on the books. Didn’t even take me downtown. Just gave me one of those looks, you know. Like you gave me a moment ago. About being a pervert.”

  “It is a little perverted,” I said.

  “To each his own,” Lazar said.

  10. Who is Lazar? What is his real name? Some shmuck in over his head.

  “If you didn’t kill Alcibé,” I said after a while, “who did?”

  He stared at me. Instead of answering, he said, “That girl? She had a lot of enemies, but not many friends. Only a few people would care if she was gone. Most would thank you for doing it.”

  “Which camp do you fall in?” I asked.

  He bit down on his knuckles. It was weird to see someone feeling emotions so profoundly. Our kind don’t feel them or else they’re dulled. He was a mess. “I don’t know. On the one hand, I could kill you. On the other hand, maybe it’s for the best. It means I can finally leave this life. I am just a quacking squirrel, after all.”

  I nodded. “Well, you helped me out once,” I said. “Anything I can do, let me know.”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll be coming back to the Mat anymore. And let me specifically say this time that I would prefer it if you would not come back here ever again.”

  I stood up. “Fair enough.”

  “Who did kill your friend, by the way?” he said.

  “Well, if it wasn’t you, I guess that leaves one other suspect.”

  November 28, 1934

  He must’ve heard me carving into his door. He opened it when I was only halfway finished. He looked at it. “You spelled ‘race traitor’ wrong,” he commented with aplomb.

  I shrugged. “I sort of thought I was an intellectual in pre-unlife, but maybe not.”

  “Maybe a pseudo-intellectual,” Skaron said.

  I waited. It would’ve been two—maybe three—heartbeats. I couldn’t really count things that way anymore. But it would’ve been. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  “You’re not a vampire,” he said. “You can come in if you like.”

  I stared at him. Must’ve been some obscure scholastic bit he had dug up. He gestured expansively with his hand, so I entered his apartment.

  “You, ah, left this at my office,” I said, holding out the penknife.

  He took it. “Yes, I didn’t think it would take you this long to find me. You really are a terrible detective.”

  “Absolutely the worst,” I said, flopping down in one of his chairs.

  He stared at me as though my actions were totally inexplicable. To be fair, they pretty much were. Who acts like that? Someone crazy, or someone who wants something, or someone too far gone to care anymore.

  “Got any squares?” I asked.

  He fished around in an empty flower pot and tossed me a packet of stale Players. I lit one with relish.

  “I’m starting to piece it all together,” I said, making little “piecing it together” motions. “So let’s see if you go with me on this one.”

  He sat down. “I’ll bite.”

  “So this girl dies,” I said. “Whether she remembers herself or not hardly matters. What she does know is that as a deadhead, she’s a looker. Even kind of ginchy for a fleshy bloody livey type. And that, well that’s power.”

  He stared at me, face of marble, eyes of glass. “Go on.” His voice was haunted.

  “So a living woman, as you know, might throw her affection around, but for a dead one there’s no consequence. No fear of child, no fear of the clap, or if there is, who cares? I’m squirming with a hundred thousand diseases right now, not least of which is gangrene and rigor mortis.”

  “Rigor is not a disease,” he stated simply.

  “Fine,” I said. “So our girl, the hero of our story—”

  “Heroine,” he said.

  “No, I haven’t got any,” I said. “Anyway, moving on, the first one she sleeps with, well, that’s a nobody to her. A convenience. To get on his good side, she cuts him open while he’s sleeping, then sews him back up while he’s awake.”

  “That’s what you think?” he asked.

  “I’m just playing boy detective here. I’m not exactly Her
cules Parrot, as you’ve pointed out. But let’s say the first lover never quite gets over her. Even when her uses for him are limited. Because he’s a nobody. A scholar. He protected her in the morgue, but outside of that…” I shrugged.

  His eyes were narrowed to slits.

  I fingered the trigger of my boomstick in my pocket to make sure it was still there. “She comes up with a plan to get the hooch into our community, which otherwise was floundering. Halfway dead, thanks to the government’s mandatory but not really mandatory Prohibition. Only thing is, there was one person she couldn’t seduce, and that threw a big old monkey wrench into her plans.”

  “She couldn’t seduce him,” Skaron said, “because he was a baby. Not even a baby. Probably not even aware of his microscopic dick.”

  “Not only that,” I said, “but a woman-hater. Misogynist, is that the word?”

  “It is,” he said.

  “So she spurns her first lover, who’s about as useless to her as dirt at that point, only the spurning never quite takes in his brain. She finds… get this… a live one. Perfect patsy. He can bribe all the living mayors and commissioners and what have you. She pumps the lifeblood into the community and profits nicely off of it. Only here’s where I get a little hazy.”

  He folded his arms. Stupid move, if he was planning to get the drop on me. But, then again, no one ever claimed Ivan Skaron was streetwise.

  “I’m thinking—and like I said already, I’m just spitballing here—but I’m thinking that when a deadhead gets his memory back, he’s a lot less dependent on the community. In fact, he might even remember where he used to get booze. Especially if he had a direct source, like say, the same source as our heroine. Yeah, I got the word before. I was just messing with you.”

  “Like, for instance,” Skaron said, “someone directly connected to the Germans. Assuming, of course, it is the Germans that our heroine—or shall I just start calling her Kumaree Tong?—gets her alcohol from.”

  “Bingo, bango. So the question of memories comes into play. Which I assume she talked to you about.”

  “At length,” Skaron said.

  “And you told her?”

  “I told her about the bokor, of course. Really the only reasonable source of information about our kind. Or what they call jumbees, anyway.”