Poisoned Pearls

by Leah Cutter

  He’d been found slumped in the alley, next to the entrance to Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck Parlor, the sex & toy shop where I worked. Kyle would have been mortified to learn of his final resting spot. Homeless bums worked the dumpsters just up the alley, digging for thrown-out noodles and rice from Mihn Ho Takeout next door. They frequently used our doorway to shelter themselves from the wind while they peed.

  Two yellow cop “Do Not Cross” tape lines had been strung across the alley on either side of Kyle, just like on all the TV shows. A white ambulance sat at one end of the alley, blocking off traffic. The blue strobe cast weird shadows on the remaining snow, as if it were thick enough for snow weasels to be skittering underneath.

  The grin Kyle wore freaked me out. He’d never been the happy-go-lucky kind: he’d preferred Sartre to Kant, Bergman films to anything modern and understandable and fun.

  The only reason the cops let me near the crime scene was because the bastard had followed through on his threat and listed me as his emergency contact. They’d found his wallet still in his pocket.

  That I happened to be working in the building that he’d been found dead outside of was just the kind of coincidence cops loved. They were already looking at me for the murder, I knew. Particularly if his death had been caused by someone choking him or stabbing him or something else physical. I was tall, particularly for a woman, almost six foot with my short, bleached-white hair spiked up as it was. I’d always been zaftig, taking after my Russian grandmother rather than my skinny, uptight Swedish mother. The black leather biker jacket I wore probably didn’t help, or the solid, fourteen-hole Dr. Martens that I’d tucked my leggings into.

  But I couldn’t tell what had killed Kyle. His hair still seemed artfully mussed, he wasn’t bleeding anywhere, and I didn’t see any bruises on his neck or face. He could have OD’ed on something, maybe tried some new street drug. However, Kyle generally wasn’t that stupid.

  The only thing that appeared wrong, besides the fact that he wasn’t moving, was that his pants were undone and his dick was hanging out.

  I looked at it critically. I knew they got bigger and I shouldn’t judge Kyle based on what I was seeing now. I’d seen dicks before—I worked in a sex & toy shop and had reviewed an awful lot of videos—but I’d never been up close and personal with one.

  I was a gold star lesbian, never been with a man. And proud of it.

  “That’s him,” I told the detective—Ferguson, I think his name was—identifying the body for him. The cop had a face made of slopped-together concrete, all hard planes and bulging brow. Tiny black eyes stared out at me from his pudgy face. He wore a dark blue down jacket. It was too short for him. Someone his size and shape should always wear longer coats—hell, even a parka—or too many references could be made to the Michelin Man.

  The detective indicated I should follow him further down the alley, out of the light, closer to the street. He even held up the tape for me to duck under, like some kind of modern gentleman. When we stopped and I glanced back, I saw that the emergency workers were already swooping in.

  Going to carry away the body and brush the snow clean. Nothing happening here, folks, nothing to see.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Ferguson told me, his voice gruff. Or maybe that was just the arctic wind, coming direct from the North Pole into Minnesota. From what I’d seen on the news earlier, it wasn’t going to be ending anytime soon, not pausing for Christmas next week.

  I shrugged, opened my mouth to comment, then closed it again. Kyle and I had been really good friends. Maybe even besties. I was kind of in shock. I remembered one drunken night when he’d tried to teach me dirty dancing, failing spectacularly, both of us laughing our asses off. My hips just didn’t move like that. Plus, though I was just smidge shorter than he was, I had at least fifty pounds on him. Maybe more.

  I dug out a cigarette pack from inside my leather jacket, shook one up and offered it to Ferguson.

  He pressed his fat lips together and shook his head. I think he would have spat in disgust if he’d been able.

  I lit it with a cheap blue Bic and took a deep, calming drag. Cooling smoke filled my mouth and trickled down my lungs. Stupid bastard. Both Kyle and the detective. Finally, I nodded at the cop, letting him know I was ready.

  “So what can you tell us about Mr. Magnusson?” Ferguson held up a pen in one fat-fingered gloved hand for me to speak into. Damn thing probably took biometrics as well, could tell if I was lying.

  “He worked down at Richard’s place,” I told the officer. No sense in lying about that kind of thing. It was easy enough to find out.

  Not like his parents would have known. I doubted they’d even seen their son for the last six months.

  Probably one of the reasons why he’d listed me as his emergency contact.

  “Bartender?” Ferguson asked.

  I held back my snort. Ferguson must have been new to the area not to know what type of place Richard’s was.

  “Stripper. Though he preferred the term ‘exotic dancer.’”

  Richard’s specialized in male strippers, catering to a female clientele, unlike Kitty’s, right next door, that had female strippers.

  “Was he also a prostitute?” Ferguson asked, his face carefully blank, trying hard not to show his judgment.

  “Not professionally,” I said. Kyle didn’t need the money that badly. “He plowed his way through guys regularly enough, and I’m sure he always accepted whatever they gave him, but he made enough in tips at Richard’s that he didn’t have to be hardcore about it. He just tricked a little.”

  “I see,” the detective said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he tugged off one of his gloves and pulled out an actual notebook.

  Must have been important—he was risking frostbite by exposing his flesh that way.

  After glancing through a few pages, Ferguson paused and pressed his fat lips together again.

  “What?” I asked after a few moments. He obviously wanted to ask me something.

  “Do you know a Helen Eaton?” Ferguson asked.

  The name sounded familiar. “Nope,” I told the cop easily. Was he asking about Helen of Troy? That had been her street name. She’d been a working girl, coming in for “free” samples of condoms every once in a while.

  Tough broad. Had to be, to work the streets of Minneapolis in December. I remember overhearing her and a couple of the other girls laughing about how the cold froze even their lube.

  But I didn’t want to be involved. Didn’t want to give the cops a reason to bring me into the station. Would have meant closing the shop for the night. Chinaman Joe would have docked my wages, and I couldn’t afford to miss a night of pay.

  Ferguson seemed to take my word as he quickly put away the notebook and covered his fingers again. “Did Mr. Magnusson take drugs?”

  I gave him a noncommittal shrug. “Nothing serious.” Like most of my friends, Kyle smoked pot and took the occasional hit of speed or E or such. He was too pretty to dirty up his body with needle holes, too broke to afford anything else.

  I knew the cop would be contacting the local dealers. I wasn’t about to warn Csaba or any of the others. They could just figure that out on their own. But my friends—I was going to have to let a bunch of people know to keep their heads down for a while, watch who they were buying their shit from. Narcs were going to be everywhere, looking for some kind of drug connection to Kyle’s murder.

  “What else can you tell me about Mr. Magnusson?” Ferguson asked.

  I gave the detective Kyle’s address, ’cause I didn’t think it was accurate on his driver’s license. Kyle had moved a lot. I also told Ferguson that Kyle was generally well liked, if a little depressing sometimes. He didn’t have any paranormal abilities, either. He’d tested negative on the PADT—Psychic Ability and Distribution Test—like ninety-five percent of the population. Kyle also swore he had an aunt who merely had to look at you to know your whole past, present, and future. Didn’t think the cops needed
to know about her, though.

  I’d never taken the PADT, even though Mom had sent me through a bunch of pre-testing. All of which showed I had no abilities. I had the genes, but something else was missing: whether it was the personality, or environmental stimulus, or that I hadn’t been born on a Tuesday. Frustrated the hell out of all the scientists that they couldn’t accurately predict psychic ability based on DNA.

  More memories came up while I talked. Kyle wearing a ridiculous red bowtie and white suspenders holding up his gold lamé underwear that one Valentine’s Day party. The morning we’d all decided to have chips, salsa, and margaritas on muscle beach at Lake Calhoun, despite the fucking rain. How I’d never bothered to learn any of Kyle’s boyfriends’ names: they never lasted more than a few months at most.

  After Ferguson took my information, he assured me they’d get back in contact with me if they had any news.

  “Why’d you ask me about that other person?” I asked after I stubbed out my second cigarette. “Helen?”

  Ferguson shook his meaty head. “No reason.”

  He was a terrible liar. You’d think a cop would be better at that sort of thing.

  Didn’t matter. Even if he’d told me the truth, I would have started asking around myself, looking for a connection.

  What could I say? I was a nosy bitch. And Kyle had been my friend.

  ***

  Before the cops finally let me go, one of the post-cogs who worked with the police came to the site. She wore a long mink coat and an air of superiority that only the blessed have, that sense that they’re better than us plebeians.

  She was blissfully unaware that we plebeians referred to her kind as the PA—not for paranormal ability but for pain-in-the-ass.

  Her skin was as pale as Kyle’s, though I’d bet hers came at the cost of surgery as well as a daily regime of rejuvenation creams and makeup slapped on with a stick. She wore her dark hair soft and loose around her face and was pretty enough, with a pert nose and wide lips, though not really my type. At least she had sensible brown leather boots on underneath that coat.

  I’d never seen a post-cog at work—not in real life, just on TV cop shows. She didn’t stalk dramatically around the site, flaring her coat around her, nor did she drop to her knees and spread her hands out over where Kyle’s body had been, shaking and muttering to herself. She simply walked over to the spot, stood there with her eyes closed for a moment, arms crossed over her chest.

  I wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing, exactly. Post-cogs worked on different frequencies—some read people, others read places or things. Was she getting a read on the alley? Or a sense of the last people who’d been there? Was she able to figure out the weapon that had been used? Or maybe she was good enough to focus in on the killer, though I doubted she’d be working for the Minneapolis cops if she was that good.

  When she opened her eyes, they connected immediately with mine. It wasn’t a shock, not like how the magazines claimed. A bolt of electricity didn’t pass through my soul.

  But something happened. More like a chill. Like a ghost walking over my grave. She also seemed to recognize me, though I didn’t know her from Eve.

  Then she stalked toward where Ferguson and I were standing. Shit. Ferguson’s face had gone carefully blank again.

  I knew that thinking about the multiplication tables was bullshit—there wasn’t anything that could keep a really strong telepath out of your thoughts. And she was probably just a post-cog, not a telepath. Though the government (and the rich) had tried for years, people almost always only had a single ability: Telepathy, telekinesis, pre-cognition, or post-cognition.

  Still, I automatically started going through my numbers as she approached. Three times two is six. Three times three is nine.

  “How do you know the deceased?” she demanded when she got close.

  Ferguson gave a loud sigh. “Ms. Monroe, this is Ms. Lewis. She isn’t a suspect at this time. She’s listed as the deceased’s emergency contact.”

  Maybe Ms. Monroe’s skin really was that pale, because even in the dim light of the alley I would have sworn she blushed. Three times five is fifteen.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Ms. Monroe said, sounding mostly sincere. “So the deceased was a friend of yours, then?” she continued, giving me the once-over that in another time and place would have had me offering to buy her next glass of champagne. Didn’t matter if she wasn’t my type. There was something about her that set my pulse pounding.

  “Yes,” I said shortly. No sense in giving her more material to work with, worm her way inside my skull. Especially since she seemed to already be there. Three times six is eighteen.

  “She’s involved,” Ms. Monroe said flatly, turning to Detective Ferguson.

  “What?” I asked. I was not involved in Kyle’s death.

  Ms. Monroe waved her hand at me, dismissing my objections. “Not now. But she will be.”

  Ferguson turned his cold stare at me. “We don’t need any sort of vigilante going off half-cocked on this case. We still don’t even know the cause of death, if it was even accidental.”

  His tone implied that he doubted this was anything other than an OD, just another stupid street kid who’d found a new creative way to off himself.

  “I’ll stay out of it,” I lied. Particularly if the cops had that kind of attitude.

  Ms. Monroe glared at me. “Be careful what you seek. Or you’ll see things you don’t want to.”

  My mom had named me Cassandra in the hopes that maybe I’d turn out to have some sort of powers. She hadn’t appreciated it when I’d pointed out that Cassandra hadn’t come to a good end.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her dryly. “Look, can I go?” I asked Ferguson. “I need to get back to work. And you know where to find me.”

  “You work here?” Ms. Monroe said, indicating the building next to us.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I told her proudly. “Chinaman Joe’s Good Luck Parlor. We have all the toys you want—even the ones you didn’t know you needed.” I winked at her.

  Surprisingly, Ms. Monroe wasn’t insulted; instead, she laughed, a clear tinkling sound through that dark alley that caused all the cops to look up. It had that joyous sound that you rarely heard these days, that promised warmth and safety and a really good time in bed.

  It sent a warm jolt through my middle that the thought of going inside couldn’t match.

  Not my type, I told myself again, though I knew I was well and truly screwed, particularly when Ms. Monroe told me, “I’ll come see you sometime.”

  ***

  I wasn’t about to tell Chinaman Joe that I’d had to close the store for more than an hour. Normally, we had one person in the afternoons, with two people running the place at night. But the schedule had gotten screwed up: Travis had needed the night off, and Amy, the other worker, hadn’t been available. Plus, it was a weeknight. I knew the place wouldn’t be hard to manage on my own.

  Knowing my luck, Chinaman Joe would probably find out anyway.

  Cheap bastard had better not dock my wages.

  I was living close enough to the edge as it was. A couple hours’ pay meant the difference between being in nicotine withdrawal and bumming smokes and alienating all my friends until the New Year or coasting in a happy smoky haze.

  I knew better than to hope for some kind of Christmas bonus. Not like Chinaman Joe celebrated the season, despite the cheery red and silver garlands strung up on the wall, the candy-cane vibrators proudly on display as you walked in the door, or the “elf” costumes that were merely green and red corsets.

  The store was in west downtown, in one of the many warehouses that had been converted into more livable space. Though the conversion had been recent, the store had that groovy ’70s feel. The shelves were cheap metal and plastic; the gray linoleum floor always looked dingy, no matter how much time I spent cleaning it; and the lights were all fluorescent and buzzed annoyingly.

  Still, it was kind of home f
or me. Chinaman Joe had given me a job when I was still “in between” residences, living at a halfway house. Plus, even all through the winter, it was blessedly warm. Chinaman Joe might have been a cheap bastard, but he hated the cold more than most.

  I’d been born in Minnesota, so while I could claim I was used to it, no one really got used to forty below. I peeled out of my jacket and scarf, then held my hands over my ears so they might have a chance to warm up.

  I refused to play any damned Christmas music while I was running the store. I argued with Chinaman Joe that our customers were looking for a different kind of home cheer. But I had to play something in the background, otherwise the hum of the lights would drive even the most sane to vodka. I spun up my favorite ’70s rock mix.

  I figured if I could keep moving, I wouldn’t get morose over Kyle’s death.

  Before I could grab my phone and start calling people, soft chimes let me know that someone had just come in the door.

  I braced myself. It wasn’t Ms. Monroe, was it?

  No, it was Angela, one of the hookers who worked Hennepin Avenue, who I’d let crash at my place a couple of times that summer, when she’d been in a bind. She’d never brought a john up, and hadn’t minded sharing a bed, though neither of us took it further than that.

  I didn’t see how she or the other girls could work a street corner in Minneapolis during the winter, particularly not in that getup—short, fake leopard-fur coat, black hot pants that rode all the way up to her crotch, gold fishnets, and matching gold ankle boots.

  I was cold just looking at her.

  Angela’s wig that night curled tightly around her ears, streaked in blonde and black. I wouldn’t have called her makeup subtle, but there was still a beauty to her exaggerated red lips, the dark brown skin growing darker in the warmth, the extra-long lashes and sparkling blue eye-shadow.