Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel)

by Laura Resnick

  I tried to picture chatting about this with a demonic being that reanimated corpses. It didn’t seem like something I wanted to do.

  “How did it know Lopez would interfere?” I asked.

  “By virtue of being attached to Quinn, it has been in his company for weeks. Detective Lopez is not aware of the entity, but it is aware of him and has learned things about him.”

  That made me shiver again. Then I thought of something else.

  “Max, when Susan was running around Doyers Street with a gun in her hand, at one point she turned that thing on me. I think she really intended to pull the trigger. Lopez was there, and he saw. I could hear him shouting to me. And then projectile flames suddenly burst out of the mouth of John’s lion costume and shot across the street. It scared Susan and startled her into the dropping the gun.” Then Lucky had tackled her, followed by some cops. “Those flames probably saved my life, Max.”

  He nodded, having listened with intent interest. “And there was, of course, no evident explanation for what had happened.”

  “Everyone who examined the lion costume afterward was perplexed. Including Lopez.”

  “He had reacted instinctively, unconsciously calling on power he doesn’t realize he possesses,” Max mused, “at a moment of supreme stress when he saw a madwoman pointing a loaded gun at you.”

  “Quinn was there,” I said.

  “Ah.” Max realized where I was going with this. “That means the entity was present and witnessed the incident, too. And you’re wondering . . .”

  “Does it know about Lopez? Does it know what we know? Well, I mean . . . what we strongly suspect.”

  Although I couldn’t have explained why, it struck me as threatening for a mysterious demonic entity to realize there was something special about Lopez—in a mystical sense, I mean.

  “That probably depends,” said Max, “on what the entity can sense.” He thought it over for a few moments. “But I am skeptical that a single isolated event would be revelatory. As I understand it, there were many people on the street at the time, and quite a few of them were emotional, alarmed, and shouting. There was also a mystical familiar present.”

  “Yes.” I looked over my shoulder, to where Nelli lay in the back of the vehicle, making a halfhearted attempt to clean her front paws. She had been at the scene, of course—it was where she had subsequently tried to attack Quinn.

  “So it would be unlikely, I think, for the entity to pinpoint the catalyst of those flames, even if it recognized a frisson of mystical power at that moment.” Max added, “If it is any comfort to you, I think the demon’s effort to get your young man out of the way for this evening indicates, if anything, that it prefers to avoid confrontation with him.”

  “It is a comfort. But I don’t think he’d go to the wake, anyhow,” I said. “Given the garbage that Alan Goldman is spreading in the media, showing up at Ning’s visitation would just bring more pointless trouble down on Lopez’s head.”

  On the phone, Lopez had indicated that he intended to go back to his squad and stay there for a while. So it seemed to me that he and his partner, who was unknown to the media or the Ning family, had agreed that if there was anything more to be learned about Ning’s controversial death at the wake, it would be up to Quinn to observe it.

  “Oh, the demon probably doesn’t understand any of that,” said Max. “They’re clever, but they’re not human, not part of society, and often didn’t originate in this dimension. The demon is no more likely to understand why Detective Lopez will avoid this wake than you would be likely to understand the intricacies of court etiquette if you were suddenly transported to medieval Japan. So it took steps to distract him.”

  I nodded and sat pensively for a few moments.

  The SUV entered Chinatown, maintaining a steady pace and a smooth ride on the increasingly treacherous streets. We’d be at the funeral home within minutes, so I asked what our plan was.

  “I propose that we find Detective Quinn and remove him from the premises with all due haste. I believe the Chens’ reputation in the community is such that it can probably withstand an alarming incident, but I assume they would nonetheless much rather that Uncle Six does not become reanimated at his own wake.”

  “That’s what we’re expecting then?” I asked, trying to get my head around this. “Quinn and his demon arrive at the wake and . . . what? There’s a little mystical mojo and—abracadaver!—another corpse reanimates?”

  “Yes, I believe that is the likely scenario.” He paused before adding, “More or less.”

  “I still don’t understand why. It is doing this just to generate fear? Is this another escalation of pranks designed to feed its appetite for negative emotion?”

  “I suspect there is more to it than that,” Max said. “This entity attached itself to a police officer, someone who presumably comes into contact with many fresh corpses . . . Well, many compared to the average citizen, that is.”

  “Nolan said that Quinn investigated a lot of murders in his previous post,” I recalled. “And he’s bound to investigate homicides as an OCCB detective.” It wasn’t as if people in organized crime shied away from committing murder, after all.

  “I hypothesize that the entity chose Quinn for that reason. The detective could be counted on to bring the demon into contact with the dead,” said Max. “The recently dead.”

  “So that it can animate them.”

  “Yes.” He frowned in thought. “Rather than being another prank, I suspect that reanimation may be the entity’s goal—or a significant step on the path to its goal.”

  “Well, the Chens are not going to like that.” I doubted the Ning family would like it, either. I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “Quinn must already be there. I’ll tell Lucky what’s going on.”

  Max nodded his approval. Unfortunately, though, Lucky didn’t answer his phone. I left a message, then put my phone back into my pocket. I didn’t even bother trying John, who would also be there. The Chens didn’t carry cell phones when hosting a wake. Nathan felt it was disrespectful to the departed and insensitive to the bereaved to chat on a phone while standing five feet away from a newly filled casket.

  As was Max’s custom, he tipped the driver generously when we reached our destination. I didn’t know if the Magnum Collegium paid well or if he had simply invested wisely over the centuries, but Max seemed to have a healthy income. (I just knew that the bookstore couldn’t be the source of his funds, since it did very modest business.)

  Uncle Six was such a big man that the wake was heavily attended despite the daunting weather and slippery streets. The funeral home was so crowded I wondered if it had been a bad idea to bring our pony-sized dog. But then I remembered there was probably a demonic entity hovering somewhere on the premises, and I was glad to have her at my side—though she was by now very damp and a bit odorous. Her feet were tracking dirt through the funeral home, but then so were everyone else’s. I didn’t envy the Chens their cleaning bills at this time of year.

  I had been here a few weeks ago for the wake of a well-to-do local citizen—Benny Yee, Susan’s first murder victim (though his death was attributed to natural causes). This occasion was even grander, Joe Ning being a more prominent man, but very similar. There were tables of offerings and traditional floral arrangements, and there were Christian symbols alongside incense burners, statues of the Buddha, and banners with graceful Chinese calligraphy. I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck to see the coffin, which was on the other side of the main reception hall, beyond this throng of people. The closed casket looked expensive, dignified, and undisturbed.

  “Well, nothing’s happened yet,” I said.

  Max and I had been just about the only non-Asians at Benny’s wake, but Uncle Six’s business interests had been more extensive, and apparently so had his social contacts. Although most of the people here this evening seemed to be Chinese, c
ertainly not all of them were. But I didn’t see Quinn’s distinctive head of red hair in the crowd.

  And searching for him would take time because the place was so crowded. Max and I could scarcely push our way through the wall of people, and having Nelli with us made it that much more difficult.

  “Wait,” I said, “there’s an easier way to do this.”

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Max said, brushing a total stranger’s hair out of his mouth.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket again and called Nolan, intending to ask exactly where he and Quinn were. The place was so noisy I was afraid he wouldn’t hear his own phone ringing, but he answered the call quickly.

  “Esther?” It sounded like he was whispering.

  “Yes,” I shouted. “I’m here at the wake and looking for you.”

  I couldn’t hear whatever he said next. He was whispering.

  “Speak up!” I shouted. “I can’t hear you!”

  Instead of doing so, he ended the call. I stared at my phone in bemusement, wondering what to do now.

  A moment later, I received a text message from him:

  Can’t talk louder. Tailing Danny Teng on foot.

  “He’s doing what?” Max exclaimed. “That sounds most unwise.”

  I agreed. If a violent street thug like Danny Teng noticed he was being followed and felt threatened, I had a feeling the best outcome would put Nolan in a hospital bed.

  In response to my texted query about what was going on, Nolan replied:

  Teng arrived. Made scene. Claims Ning’s death is murder. Says he knows who did it.

  Tailing him to learn more.

  “If Danny knows Susan did it, well, she’s in custody. But we’ve got to warn Ted,” I said to Max, afraid that Danny would retaliate against Susan’s brother for her crime.

  “Isn’t that Ted over there?” Max pointed off to our left.

  Sure enough, it was. He looked glum, which was understandable. I didn’t see his mother with him, which was a relief. I supposed he had come here to pay his last respects to the man who had intended to finance ABC.

  “Thank God he’s here and safe while Danny is out prowling the streets,” I said. “But Nolan is not safe. What he’s doing could get him killed!”

  “Agreed. I shall speak to Ted while you use your device to communicate with Mr. Nolan and convince him to halt his ill-advised pursuit before he comes to grief.”

  “Right,” I said with a nod.

  Taking Nelli with him, both of them still very damp, Max started pushing through the crowd, moving slowly and apologizing often, heading in Ted’s direction. Fortunately, the ex-filmmaker was not far away from this spot, and Max had nearly reached him by the time I finished my next text to Nolan:

  Stop now. VERY DANGEROUS. Danny Teng is a killer!

  I was kind of guessing on that last one, but it seemed likely.

  Nolan wrote back:

  Getting great material!

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  For a moment, I hoped Danny would shoot him. Then I banished the thought, which felt like it invited bad luck. I texted again.

  Leave this to Quinn. SERIOUSLY.

  The reply came back shortly, telling me that Quinn was sick and lying down inside Chen’s. In answer to my follow-up question, Nolan replied that Quinn had gotten dizzy and queasy soon after arriving here.

  Was the illness a deliberate ruse of Quinn’s? Or was the entity making him ill? Well, either way, he was in the building, and so was the demon that was attached to him. So we needed to find him.

  I texted again, asking exactly where Quinn was. I waited a few minutes, but there was no reply. I hoped Nolan was all right and was just absorbed in his pursuit of Danny Teng.

  I couldn’t just stand around all night hoping Nolan would eventually reply. Besides, he might not even know the answer to my question. We had to search the building. If Quinn was still lying down somewhere, I thought it must be in the Chens’ office or one of the other workaday rooms behind the door marked “Private.” We should look there.

  I had no intention of confronting a cadaver-animating demonic entity by myself, so I turned to look in Ted’s direction, intending to go grab Max and Nelli—and was relieved to see them coming back toward me, pushing their way through the crowd.

  “Whatever Danny Teng thinks about Uncle Six’s death,” Max informed me, “he evidently doesn’t suspect Susan.”

  “What did Ted tell you?”

  “Danny showed up here briefly this evening, drunk and emotional. He is angry about Uncle Six’s death, but shows no sign of blaming the Yee family. He was, in his fashion, cordial to Ted and expressed condolences over Susan’s arrest.”

  I wished the police would arrest Danny for providing Susan with that gun, but since they had not, I supposed he had covered his tracks too well for charges to stick. He was an impulsive idiot, but nonetheless an experienced criminal.

  “So Ted’s not in danger from him?” I said. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  But based on what Max said next, it sounded as if someone who was not involved in the murder probably was in danger.

  “In keeping with what Mr. Nolan has conveyed to you, Ted says that Danny soon got noisy and made a scene. Upon paying his respects to the family, he told Mrs. Ning that he knows who killed Uncle Six and he vowed to extract vengeance—though his language, one supposes, was far more colorful than that.”

  “Indeed.”

  In the Chinatown underworld, Danny’s wagon had been firmly hitched to Uncle Six’s star. I had previously seen how the gangster fawned on the tong boss, and I thought he had probably felt an emotional attachment to him. Mostly, though, I assumed Danny’s grief and rage now were caused by his career prospects spiraling due to his patron’s death. Ambitious members of the Red Daggers were probably eager to challenge Danny’s position as leader now that he wasn’t protected by Uncle Six, and other powerful underworld bosses presumably already had their own trusted right-hand thugs and didn’t want Uncle Six’s leftovers.

  Danny’s performance at the wake sounded like he was mostly acting out . . . But just because he was an idiot didn’t mean he wasn’t a survivor. So I thought he might also have his eye on the ball. If he could reinvent himself as the avenger of Uncle Six’s murderer, he might turn his fate back in the direction he wanted it to go.

  Max asked, “Have you convinced your friend to cease following Danny?”

  “Nolan’s not a friend, he’s a colleague,” I said automatically. “And, no, he won’t listen.”

  “Based on what we know of that lad, I am very concerned for Mr. Nolan’s safety.”

  “So am I, but he’s ignoring me now,” I said. “And it sounds like Quinn is probably still here.” I relayed the information I had gotten from Nolan.

  “Sudden illness, such as Detective Quinn apparently experienced after arriving here, is a common reaction of the oppressed to increased demonic energy,” said Max. “I think it likely the demon is gathering its strength and focusing its energy on a goal.”

  We both looked in the direction of Uncle Six’s closed casket. If the old man rose and tried to get out of the coffin, I had a feeling that things would get revoltingly messy, given that his body had fallen six floors last week before being scraped up off a city street.

  “Yuck,” I blurted, shying away from the images in my head.

  “Let’s make our way to the back rooms,” Max said. “If Detective Quinn is there, we should extract him immediately.”

  With Nelli right behind us and occasionally stepping on our heels, we pushed our way through the crowd, apologizing as we went and ignoring the censorious looks we got from mourners who clearly thought a wake was no place for a large, wet dog.

  I kept looking around, hoping to see John, Nathan, or Lucky, but the whole funeral home was so crowded this evening th
at I couldn’t spot any of them. I had no idea if they knew Quinn was here, and I wanted to warn them that we feared Uncle Six might stop resting in peace at any moment. But in the current circumstances, I was unable to communicate with them.

  After prolonged pushing, sidling, and squeezing through the press of bodies, we reached the door to the back rooms and went through it. Once on the other side of it, it was such a relief not to be in that densely crowded hall anymore, we paused for a moment to take a few steadying breaths and compose ourselves.

  Then I said to Max, “Let’s just start opening doors. If he’s here, we should find him quickly.”

  He nodded, handed me Nelli’s leash, and stepped in front of me to open the door to the office.

  A man inside the room shrieked.

  Max gave a startled cry and staggered backward into me. When his skull crashed into my nose, I cried out and staggered back, too—and stepped on Nelli. Nelli wailed and jumped sideways, then gave me a reproachful look.

  “Dio mio!” Lucky’s voice sounded breathless. “Don’t creep around like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

  “My dear fellow, I’m so sorry! We didn’t expect to find you in here.”

  I put a hand gingerly on my throbbing nose while my eyes watered.

  As we entered the office, I saw that a telephone receiver was in Lucky’s hand. He put it back in its cradle on the desk and said to Max, “Well, now I know why you’re not answering the phone at the bookstore.”

  “I left you a message,” I said to him, sniffing a little.

  He shook his head. “My phone’s dead.”

  A wave of cold passed through my chest. “Since when?”

  “Since Detective Doom-To-Devices got here,” Lucky said grimly.

  “Is he still here?” Max asked urgently.

  “Yep. But how did you know? I been trying to call and tell you.” He gestured to the phone on the desk.

  “You should have called me,” I said, waving my cell phone in the air. Still no reply from Nolan, I noticed.

  “When I say my phone is dead, kid, I mean dead. I can’t even look up the numbers.” He added, “But the bookstore is listed in the phonebook, so I’ve been calling there.”