by Mark Henry
“It’s impossible not to notice your man,” the girl said, brushing her greasy black bangs from her sleepy eyes. “We all think you’re pretty lucky.”
“Well, you’d be wrong, because he’s not mine.”
“Oh!” The girl brightened significantly—significant for her proved to be the exact expression that comes before a sneeze and it was fleeting. “So he’s single?”
“Just him and his demons.”
“Mmm. Demons. Dreamy.”
“I’m pretty sure no one says ‘dreamy’ any more.”
“Oh yes. We all say it here.”
“Great. Well, you’re welcome to him. He’s all wrong for me anyway. Too uptight. Too rash and grumpy. Plus it would ruin everything.”
“Are those your only reasons? Because…” The word stretched out into a whine.
“Because?”
“Because you’ve considered it or you wouldn’t have had an answer. Plus, you merely quantified all of those things as though there were acceptable levels of uptight, rash, and grumpy. You’ve scaled him. You’ve probably had a sex dream about him.”
Luce’s mouth fell open. “Shut up! How did you know that?”
The girl looked around in the air as though following a fluttering moth. “I don’t know. It just popped into my mind. Are you through with your mug?”
Her eyes returned to a marijuana-glazed heavy-liddedness and she took the half-full cup before Luce without hearing a response, dumped it and pushed her cart down the aisle.
Luce narrowed her eyes, looking for Hitch.
He’d popped a squat in the back of the shop and kicked his legs up on a table, and saluted her when he noticed her watching. It wasn’t often—she tried not to think that it was possible, in fact—but Luce suspected that Hitch could talk to other people, too. Thrust images and words into their heads as easily as he did to her. It didn’t seem possible because that meant something else.
It meant she was doing it.
Imaginary friends didn’t have those kind of abilities, did they? They couldn’t act separate from what the imagination that spawned them wanted. No. She’d made a mistake and the girl had just guessed it. That’s all.
A momentary spark of insight in her normally vacant busgirl day.
She glanced back at the girl, but she was gone.
Luce pinched her thigh to clear the memory of a girl who probably had never been there to begin with—Goddamn hallucinations, don’t they have jobs?—and directed her attention to the files in front of her. Grabbing a blank note pad and a pen, she scrawled: Getting Grant DeFevre’s Shit Back. Underneath that she began a list: no. 1, list of transplant recipients (two eyeballs, one liver). no. 2, investigate the—
Shuffling through the files she zeroed in on the name of the strip club where Grant had performed the infamous Peepee Teepee—shudder.
She went back to her list.
—Tiger Lounge. no. 3, repo!
A shadow fell over the notepad and when Luce looked up, she found Wade nodding in agreement. “Yep,” he said. “That’s as good a plan as any.”
…
Like the rotten meat in a moldy sandwich left out to cook on the concrete, the Tiger Lounge was crammed between a condemned discount grocer and a particularly shady swap meet in a parking lot full of weedy patches. Kids, faces hidden behind hoods, crept up to slow-moving cars and passed off packets or worse slipped in beside unseen drivers. Fearing the empty parking lot would give them away instantly, Wade kept the Porsche at an even pace and drove right past the place, turning quickly down the next street to get a view of the rear of the building.
“Smooth.” Luce narrowed her eyes and nodded confidentially. “Real smooth.”
“Thanks.”
The back of the building told them even less than the front. There were two cars parked bumper to bumper by a receiving dock, but otherwise all was quiet. No empty nesters, no male strippers, no demons to speak of.
Luce perked up as they reached the far end of the building, proclaiming, “I have an idea!” As Wade stopped at the corner, she threw the door open and bolted, pulling up the collar on her jacket like a Cold War spy and disappearing toward the front of the sketchy locale.
Wade, momentarily stunned, stared at the spot where he’d last seen her, as though she’d vanished into thin air rather than running off into the arms of drug dealers and hustlers with knives. A wave of panic rushed over him. He gunned the engine, leaving the car in a weedy field to give chase.
He couldn’t lose another one, not so quickly and not this one. Especially after being such a dick to her.
Not Luce.
As he rounded the corner, expecting the worst, Luce ran square into his chest, stumbling. He threw his arms around her to right her and ended up holding her head to his chest tightly.
“I campbreif.” He heard her mumble.
“Huh?” Wade rubbed his chin against the crown of her head.
“I said.” Luce pushed away. “I can’t breathe.”
Wade released her abruptly and looked her up and down, scanning her for wounds, rising welts, hypodermic needles. He turned her around to get a look at her back before relaxing and spinning her back to face him. “Don’t you ever do that again! I can’t. I just can’t have you making those kinds of choices without us agreeing to them together. We’re partners and I can’t do this without you, Luce. I just can’t.”
When Wade started his speech, Luce had intended to hush him, tell him he was being silly, but something in his tone told her this wasn’t about her. Wade was speaking from the cloud of memory again.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally and in her most serious voice. “It won’t happen again. Partner.”
Wade reached out for her then, drawing her back into his strong embrace, cradling her head in his hands. Luce felt the quickness of his heart, the swift rise and fall of his breathing. He’d been terrified. She wrapped her arms around him, tentatively at first and then clutching him close wanting more than anything to soothe his frayed nerves. She thought of Grace’s comments about the losses Wade had suffered. Horrible experiences. She understood that without Wade saying a word.
He didn’t have to.
“Partners,” she said again and felt him nodding, chin nuzzling against her hair.
…
Luce waited until they were back in the car to reveal her masterstroke of evidence retrieval. “Bam!” she shouted, dropping the wad of paper into Wade’s lap.
He straightened the crumpled page slowly, trying very hard not to tear through the night-air-dampened flyer.
“That’s really something huh?”
Wade held the advertisement between his fingers like one might a dirty diaper. The Tiger Lounge was hosting an open call for strippers for the Mommy Party, which was disgusting enough, but the qualifications section really turned his stomach.
“Did you see what they want?” he asked, appalled.
“Um yeah.” Luce shrugged like it was no big deal. “We can pick up some depends for your audition tomorrow.”
Wade choked on Luce’s words. “Excuse me?”
“How else are you going to infiltrate the demon’s lair?”
Wade blinked, in lieu of a response.
“Don’t be like that.” Luce looked him up and down. “If anyone has the frame for this particular undercover assignment, it’s you.” She ducked out her lips in assessment. “Yep. The old ladies are gonna fill your diaper with dollaz.”
Wade shook his head. “Absolutely not. We haven’t even seen the inside of this place. I’m not walking in there in just a diaper. I’ll be completely unprotected.”
“You’ll have that massive endowment you bragged about to fight away the bad guys.”
“Now you’re just being dirty.”
“Am I?” In truth, it wasn’t just her, as soon as she’d snatched the flyer she’d heard Hitch’s voice suggesting Wade dance. And he’d been dead on with that one. Super right.
“You are.”
“And yet, I
felt it against my hip.” She thought back to the alley and quickly added, brushing her hand up the side of her abdomen. “Also here, on my stomach. And, frankly, it’s the only plan I hear being bandied about.”
“That’s because you’re doing all the bandying. I haven’t even had a chance to bandy.”
“So you’ll think about it, then?”
Wade laughed, shaking his head, a voracious no.
Chapter Ten
“So we got some time to kill,” Wade said, head rolled against his shoulder and eyes dry from staring at her.
Luce felt a thrill rush in. She’d never been to Portland, but it seemed like the kind of place that had a ton of shops that may or may not have weird crap that she could load into her apartment and never look at again. “Shopping montage!”
Wade winced, as though she’d exposed a horrible weeping sore. “We don’t have any money.”
“That’s not going to stop us from looking…or bartering.”
His attempt to suppress a chuckle was halfhearted. “Barter with what?”
“Duh. Your ass,” she joked. “I’m gonna turn you out for tchotchkes.”
Wade stopped dead and turned to her, a devilish arch to his brow. “Wait a minute. That’s not a bad idea, actually.”
“No?” Now it was Luce’s turn to laugh. “So you’re okay with the whole sex-for-cash thing?”
He shook his head. “No. But I do have some store credit at someplace quite unusual. I think you’re going to like it, being twisted and all.”
“I prefer sicko.”
“Whatever. Come on.”
He reached out for her hand, and Luce found she didn’t even question accepting it, walking along beside him, their fingers threaded together casually, naturally. He’d done it without thinking, she thought, just like after their greasy meal from the food truck. And yet, Luce wondered if it even dawned on him that he’d forgotten their vow to be professional or if it didn’t matter in selective circumstances. She glanced up at him and noted that he was smiling, the expression softening the angle of his jaw.
She decided to shut up for once and just let it happen. The benefit was that it felt good to be by his side. Comfortable.
They turned a corner into a seedy area of strip clubs and Chinese food hidden behind frosted glass. The buildings were brick in this part of town and the sidewalks cracked as though an earthquake had struck, though the city was never prone to even the slightest tremor as far as she knew.
Coming to a stop in front of a very ordinary and unmarked door, Wade pressed a button hidden in the mortar between two bricks, and then he looked down at her and winked. “We’re here.”
Footfalls echoed, followed by several clicks and scrapes as the door was unlocked and crept inward with a grating squeal of the hinges. The shopkeeper, a mammoth, bald man, tattooed in a mélange of strange antiquities, a cloche covering a raven, a funerary photo from the turn of the century, dead eyes staring. Creepiness captured in a beautiful inky hand. He glowered out at Luce, a growl of disapproval escaping beneath a thick bristly mustache drawn to two sinister points, which he, clearly, twisted and toyed with in a dastardly way. It was only when he turned and saw that it was Wade interrupting his day, that he broke into a smile.
“Wade, darling!” The man bounded from the alcove of the door and embraced Wade, kissing either cheek in a pseudo-European way and even cupping his ass a little.
Wade took the moment in good-natured stride, not that she’d have expected any less. “Broderick, this is Luce. She’s in on the joke.”
Luce shook her head, glancing from Wade and then to the other man. “Joke?”
Broderick snickered, drawing her into a likewise effusive hug. “The secret. The transplant angle. Come on in. I’ve had something special waiting for you forever.”
They followed him across the dusty wood floors of the old building, past cases full of skulls and black feathered frames, crosses and Mexican Day of the Dead paraphernalia, to a table in the center of the room lined with polished chrome blades and tools that Luce vaguely recognized as being surgical. But they were too big, speculum the size of ice-block pincers.
“This isn’t at all creepy,” she said.
“I’ve told Luce you carry some pretty weird stuff, man.”
“Only the weirdest, honey. If you want fake-o strange, go see those savages down at Hot Topic. Are you looking for something in particular? Perhaps a cursed monkey’s paw.”
Luce choked, “What?”
Broderick shook his head and turned to Wade, tittering with laughter. “Where’d you get this one, Wade. She’s a hoot.”
He crossed the room in a single stride and tore at a drawer in a black bombe chest. He withdrew a box and set it before her. “There.”
“Here,” Luce said, wincing.
“No.” Broderick tapped the box with a sharpened fingernail, painted black. A row of studded cuffs twirled on his wrist. “There. Inside you will find a certified organic, free-range monkey’s paw. None of those blood monkeys from South Africa. These were all treated to a spa-existence and cursed following a death from old age. So, if you’re caught afflicting someone by a gaggle of animal activists, you know the truth. I’ll even supply the certification.”
Luce wasn’t sure she even wanted to open the box, let alone own a cursed monkey’s paw, but Wade nodded toward it as though it were a fantastic idea. She leaned over it and lifted the lid. What lay against the crimson satin pillow was smaller than she’d expected, the tiny fingers curled and desiccated. The little arm ended in an ebony handle.
“The better to reach further to tap your victims,” Broderick said, a twinkle of evil in his eye.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe something else?”
Broderick snapped the lid closed with a sneer. “Well since you’ll be harvesting organs.” He mumbled to himself as he fluttered around the room. Stopping at one case and shouting, “No, of course not.” Moving on to the next and merely glowering.
Wade slid up next to her and rubbed his elbow against her. Luce glanced down at it and then up at Wade. His face was flush with devilish delight. He was enjoying her discomfort far too much.
“Dick,” she whispered.
Across the room, Broderick cried out, “Aha!” having found something that was apparently perfect. “Here we are.”
He placed a thin rectangular box in her palm and stood back, beaming.
“What’s this?” she asked. “A pen?”
“Open it and see,” he urged.
Luce glanced at Wade and decided she needed to draw courage from somewhere else, as he was clearly in on the prank. She opened the little box and found a scalpel with an ivory handle. Retrieving it, she held it by her fingertips as though were fragile.
“Give it a grip,” Broderick said. “See how the weight feels. Just because you’ll assist Wade, doesn’t mean you won’t ever wield the blade. It happens, right?”
Wade nodded. Luce blinked as the light caught on the razor-sharp tip. The longer she handled it, the more comfortable the knife felt in her hand. She smiled. “I love it.”
Broderick gasped. “I knew it! Perfect. The blade belonged to Lucretia Borgia, of course. Can you imagine the depravities she exorcised with that?”
Luce’s mouth fell open. “Wasn’t Lucretia Borgia a notorious murderess?”
Wade shook his head. “On the surface, certainly, but she was a precursor to our work. She had an eye for the possessed and dealt with them in her own way. Times were different.”
“No kidding,” Broderick said, whistling. “Borgia had to work alone. She didn’t know whether she was even making a dent in the demon population. It was all guesswork. Luckily, she enjoyed what she did.”
“Okay, you two aren’t doing anything for her image. Regardless of whether some of her victims were possessed, it doesn’t acquit her of psychosis or bathing in blood and all that.”
Wade shrugged. “There’s no proof of that.”
“Hardly a
ny,” Broderick shrugged, mouth scrunched up in disgust.
Wade and Broderick settled their affairs as Luce wandered the shop, wondering for a moment why Hitch hadn’t popped up. He’d have certainly loved the place, its reliquary, its symbols and wards against evil. Maybe next time, she thought. But then grizzled. She had to stop thinking that way. It was a good thing that Hitch wasn’t around—the more she thought about it, the less he had been. It meant she was getting better.
It meant that she was managing.
Later, as they were walking back to the car, Luce looked at the blade once more before finding a place for it in her purse. “This is your first gift to me. A scalpel of my very own.”
“It’s the gift of safety. It’s pretty swoon-worthy.”
Luce nodded. “You really have this dating thing down.”
“Is that what we’re doing? I don’t think that’s what we’re doing.”
“Let’s not quantify it.”
Wade’s hand found her elbow and turned her to him. His smile belied the worry in his eye, the unsteady tone in his voice. “You’re sure you’re ready for this? It’s a lot to take, Luce. A bloody mess at times.”
Luce thought about it for a second and nodded. She was no stranger to craziness. At the very least, what they were committed to doing was an attempt to tamp down the insanity of the world. To make it better.
“I am.”
“Then there’s nothing stopping us from getting a drink,” Wade said.
“Uh. It’s two in the afternoon? We’re not alcoholics. Unless you are, we haven’t gotten to that portion of the assessment.”
“No. But, if I know anything about demons and clean livers it’s that they like to pollute those bodies pretty quickly. Grab the file behind my seat and let’s find this guy. I bet he’s at a bar right now.”
Luce dug behind the seat and pulled up one of the folders, but when she dropped it into her lap realized her error. Across the tab was her name, followed by a red “Confidential” stamp. Thorwald’s assessment. She debated opening it and giving it a read. What good would it do her? There wasn’t likely to be anything nice in there. In fact, she knew what it’d say. So she tossed that buzzkill back and grappled for the case file.