by C. L. Bevill
“Dark places,” Tavie repeated.
“You know,” Tony said, and then his face creased into minute confusion. “Oh, you don’t know.”
“A dark place is a place in Deadsville that doesn’t hold light very well. It kind of gives you the chill willies. Folks tend to avoid it.” Enoch pulled out his notepad and a well-chewed pencil.
“You used your lantern there,” Tavie said.
“It works but not for long. Them places suck the juice out of everything and everyone. I should have recollected about that alley. I dint put two and two together.”
“So most people avoid that alley,” Tavie said.
Tony nodded.
“But you went there.”
“Shortcut and it don’t hurt any,” Tony said. “I tripped over Darren. Surprised me. I thought someone had done something to him and that he would pop back at any minute. I went along my way but at the end of the alley I looked back and thought it was funny he wasn’t moving. It didn’t look like he’d had anything special done to him. He didn’t smell like ecto juice, either.”
“They usually add something to the ectoplasm around here,” Enoch interjected. “Whatever they can. It smells right particular.”
“So I went back and checked his pulse, to see how strong it was. Sometimes a person’s pulse gets stronger and stronger as they come back to themselves.” Tony made a face. “But imagine what I thought when he didn’t have nothing there.”
“Imagine that,” Tavie said. “Bet you thought you were mistaken.”
“I did,” Tony said emphatically. “So I checked at his wrist and then at his neck. I mean, that guy was dead. I didn’t know it was Darren at the time because he didn’t look like how Darren usually looks, but he was deh-diddly-ead.”
Chapter 8
No death without cause. – Maltese Proverb
~
“Imagine that.” – Octavia Stone.
~
They got all of Walleyed Tony’s information without major ado. He listed several deadies he’d seen in the vicinity of Darren’s body. When he was done Tony winked at Tavie and went back to his game.
“Say I go talk to some of these folks,” Enoch said, examining Tavie with a discerning eye. “You’re looking a little peaked.”
Tavie wouldn’t have admitted it out loud. She knew her body wasn’t exactly tired, but her brain was struggling to catch up. Psychologically she was supposed to do all the things she did in the living world. She had an urge for a burger from Delux on East Camelback Road. It was the only place she knew she could get both a lip-smacking burger and mouthwatering sushi.
She would have sworn that her stomach growled in response. But the cold harsh truth was that there was little to no chance someone was going to die with a to-go bag from Delux containing a Delux burger and a Las Vegas roll. (Oh, she might as well just throw in a black and white shake.)
But Tavie could think about it.
Her mind was fighting with itself. It was mentally exhausting her.
“Just go on down this street until you hit the house that has one side that looks like a wrangled wad of metal. That’s a Mercedes Benz that was in a big ol’ to do with a Hummer. I ain’t never seen a Hummer before but folks have tole me about them. You can see the big H mixed in with the three pointed star. It landed there a while back and the deadie gave it up because he dint want to be permanently attached to it.” Enoch smiled at Tavie’s disconcerted expression. “His choice, of course. Who wants to be connected to a couple of tons of scrap metal? I think he stayed there for months before he figured it out. Anyhow, take that right and you’ll go straight to the Deadsville Jail. Then you can take a nap. I’ll fill ya’ll in when I get back.”
“Enoch,” Tavie said. “Why are you so determined? You seem like a good person. Don’t you feel like you’ve been damned here?” She didn’t know where the questions came from. Enoch stood out like a beam of light. It was true that Tavie understood why the deadies did what they did, for the most part, setting up something that was true and dependable not only made sense, but it felt worthy, too. But Enoch just kept trucking.
“Ain’t a hard life,” Enoch said. “I get to do the job I like. Sometimes I get beat up, but once you get used to the idea that you come back, it’s all good. Plus I feel like I’m doin’ good here. If I face Him tomorrow I’ll be able to say I tried my best. Ain’t nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve paid my penance. Or at least, I feel like I’ve paid my penance.”
“Did you do something that you needed to pay penance for?”
Enoch studied Tavie. “Ain’t we all done something like that?”
Tavie couldn’t refute the question. She had done something. Furthermore, something had been done to her in the living world. She suspected that she wouldn’t be able to rest until that had come to a reckoning. “A few hours and I’ll be back at it.”
Enoch nodded and turned to walk away.
For the first time in what felt like hours, Tavie was alone. She looked around the corner. Walleyed Tony had joined his fellow poker aficionados and was arguing with the other men. “Five kings, my blue tick heeler’s broad butt!” he yelled. “There isn’t that many wild cards!” Then another man presented his cards and shrieked, “Five aces!” Their game dissolved into a war of only slightly angry words, as if cheating was an acceptable part of the end game.
Deciding they weren’t going to systematically pull out various edged weapons and cut each other to pieces, she turned and walked in the direction of the jail.
As she walked, she let her mind drift along with her. It wasn’t completely unpleasant in Deadsville, as places where the dead went to wait. The world wasn’t cold here and it wasn’t overly warm. The blue lights along the way made it dimly acceptable and the occasional shout of laughter or amusement made it seem almost normal.
Almost.
After walking three blocks and passing a man who was carrying a severed arm under the other one which was still connected, Tavie came to the conclusion that someone was following her. There were people about, but they were involved in games and keeping busy with their deaths. However, the skin between her shoulder blades itched with tremulous knowledge. A woman didn’t spend years as a cop without developing a sixth sense for precarious situations.
Someone was watching her. Someone was trailing her.
Tavie brushed her long hair over a shoulder and sneaked a peak. The street wasn’t empty. Deadies did what they did best. They chatted and played games. None of them seemed interested in what she was doing and not one was staring at her in an intent manner. She reached the lump of metal that had once been two expensive vehicles and turned in the proper direction.
A block later she passed a group of people playing quarters with two mismatched drinking glasses. Every time someone missed they had to drink a shot of glowing ecto juice. It appeared to Tavie as if some of them were missing on purpose. She very nearly stopped to play with the Liberty Head double eagle in her pocket. It probably wouldn’t bounce as well as a quarter, but it would work for her.
Later, Tavie told herself. Another block after that and there was a little alley. She vanished into the deepest shadows and concealed herself from view. A few moments later she heard footsteps approaching. They were cautious footsteps of a tentative individual.
Was it someone who wanted to cut off the new sheriff’s head? Tavie was open to new experiences but that one didn’t sound particularly appealing.
No. Tavie nearly drooped. It was the strangled teenager, Coco, who peered into the shadows, looking for where the older woman had gone. Tavie reached out and snatched the girl into the shadows, efficiently turning her body into hers, and wrapping a choking arm around her throat. Her other arm blocked Coco’s panicked movements.
“Why are you following me?” Tavie demanded into Coco’s ear.
Coco tensed up and then eased as she realized who it was that was holding her. “You saved my life,” she said. “Thought I could help you.”
; “By following me?”
“People need eyes in the backs of their heads here,” Coco said, pushing at Tavie’s forearm. “Relax for a moment and you’ve got three deadies on you like stink on a pig for something that doesn’t really matter.” Coco rattled the diamond tennis bracelet. “I should just give it away before someone else takes a liking to it. It’s not like it’s really worth anything here, but people still think like they did when they were alive. Diamonds were valuable there, so they’re valuable here. Which is completely bogus. What are you going to do with a diamond here? Scratch some glass? Let it sparkle in the sun? Ask someone to marry you?”
Tavie abruptly let the girl go. Coco had summed it up in a few bitter rhetorical questions. Nothing was the same.
“So trade it for something you want,” Tavie said.
“My mother gave it to me,” Coco said mutinously. “She loved me even when I was a wild child. Sometimes I can see her in my head, she’s wondering where I am, what I’m doing, what happened to me—”
“—crying, or thinking about you,” Tavie finished. “Does that happen a lot?”
“Sometimes, especially when I start thinking about it hard,” Coco said as she stepped away. She adjusted her dress. The dress matched the scarf, a shade of blue that coincided with the color of her eyes. She seemed like a very mature sixteen.
“You haven’t been here very long?”
“It’s a little hard to tell,” Coco said. “Longer than you but not by much. I don’t know about the years. In case you haven’t noticed, time is messed up here. I think it was 1982 but it was New Year’s Eve, so it could have been 1983, when I bit the big one. I remember I came home from Taos— they had me in a boarding school there— and there was this car accident, well, it was my fault, but anyway I got home eventually, and Mom went out to a New Year’s Eve party and left me alone with him, that jerk, because he said he wasn’t feeling well. Right. But hey, I was grounded on account of the fact that I ‘borrowed’ the car I was driving when the accident happened.”
Tavie blinked. This girl was technically old enough to be her mother. Time was very much messed up in this place. “You feel obligated to me?”
“I need help here,” Coco said. “I don’t want to be a target.” She looked around. “Girls are always targets. There’s a group of them down near Eastland who were all murdered by the same serial killer. They stay together because they’ve got that in common. It’s weirdsville if you ask me, but no one asked me. They did say I could stay with them on account of the fact that I was murdered by my step-father and he’s kind of a serial killer, but they pray nonstop and it gives me such a headache.”
“So I’m it,” Tavie said. It was moments like this that she wanted to pray herself for someone to give her an extra ration of patience. She sighed. “Okay, but if I say something, you do it. You don’t, then don’t hang out around me. Get it?”
Coco nodded. She held up her hand and made the Girl Scout hand gesture. “On my honor.”
“You know anything about the guy who died?”
“Darren?”
“You know anyone else who died mysteriously while in Deadsville?”
Coco shrugged. “Dead is dead in Deadsville. Only Darren is deader than most.”
“Well?”
“Trader type,” Coco said. “Asked me if I wanted something for the bracelet. It’s real, or it was real in the living world. I do not understand why people are so fixated on this bracelet. Really. It’s not like it’s really major or something. This one dude wanted to trade me for his grody pants. Gross me out the door, all the way to the curb.”
“You know where Darren’s office was,” Tavie asked. She was tired, but she didn’t really want to let it go.
“Sure.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“To Darren’s place?”
“Yes,” Tavie said slowly. “Who else did your step-father kill?”
“My steppie?”
“Yes, you said he was like a serial killer.” Keeping herself from doing her best Valley Girl accent was difficult, but Tavie managed.
“Oh, yeah, well, he did me.” Coco pointed at the scarf around her neck. “I shouldn’t have worn the scarf that day. He was a pervo supreme. He wanted to have a thing with me while he was married to my mother, and I said, like, you’re disgusting, which made him mad. My mother divorced him because she thought he killed me, but no one could prove it. So steppie married another rich widow with three young children. It was his shtick, you know. He wanted a little something with the nanny, and she didn’t. I saw her about a week ago. I think it was like a week. In fact, she came looking for me. Thought it might make me feel better, but it didn’t really. I wished I could have clawed steppie’s eyes out. That would have made me feel better.”
Tavie stepped out of the shadows and looked around. Why was it that she always found the ones who loved to talk? Luvved it. Luuuvvvv. I mean, gag me with a spoon to the max.
“Anyone else?”
“No, they caught him then. Too much of a coincidence. His step-daughter disappears, then his wife’s nanny disappears. Steppie liked to hide the bodies.” Coco followed Tavie with all the eagerness of a hyperactive Chihuahua on crystal meth. “So he confessed and led the police to the nanny’s body, but he couldn’t remember exactly where he’d put mine.”
“The nanny told you all this?”
“No, it was another guy who remembered the story. There’s this place in Deadsville where stories are written on walls, like questions. ‘Does anyone remember what happened to Judge Crater?’ Like anyone knows what happened to Judge Crater. I mean, who’s Judge Crater? Like, he was a judge but who was he? Was he like sleeping with Princess Di or something?”
Tavie sighed and motioned at Coco to lead the way. Coco appeared confused for a moment and remembered where they were going.
“Anyway, so I wrote a question there and someone answered me. It turned out that it was in the news for a few weeks. Steppie murders innocent nanny and step-daughter. Very lurid. And very, very flash. Apparently I looked very cute in the photos they used. They called my step-father the Steppie Killer.” She giggled.
“They didn’t find your body.”
“Nope. Maybe they’ll find it later. Steppie thought that maybe they built a strip mall over me. It was years before he confessed, although I don’t get how that could be, since it doesn’t seem like it’s been years.”
“I thought it was considered rude to ask about people’s deaths here,” Tavie commented.
“Yes, but deadies do it all the time. I mean, they’ve got nothing else to talk about. By the way, how did you die?”
“I don’t know.”
“Radical! You don’t know? You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t know,” Tavie said.
“That’s bitchin’.”
Tavie agreed. That was bitchin’ or maybe that was bitchin’. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the burning eyes in the shadows. Perhaps Coco had been following her, but so had someone else.
* * *
Darren’s place of business was a regular sized building in Deadsville. It looked like a great many of the other buildings, constructed of odd sized boards, and mismatched supplies, culminating in a hodgepodge shack that was little more than a few rooms meshed together with barbed wire and duct tape. It made Tavie wonder how many people who died with their hand on a door or a wall had to come through Deadsville in order to build a house.
Tavie stood in front of the building Coco had indicated and looked it over. The windows were holes with plastic covering them. The sign on the door was a broken board that had, “Got SOMETHING to Barter?” written with a marker and colored in with crayons.
Three deadies sat on one side of the door and looked at Tavie and Coco in between playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. One of the men added a ray gun to the play for effect.
“This is it,” Tavie said. She wasn’t asking a question. She was mildly surprised that the place wasn’t more e
laborate, like a high end pawn shop. Nothing matched. The door was hung crookedly. The front step was made out of an automobile grill. The place wasn’t even as nice as a low end pawn shop.
Coco nodded. “We don’t have a Lowes here. But hey, we don’t have to sleep or eat, so what the heck? But these guys look like major noobs.”
One man lifted his head. He was a large man in his fifties who might have been comfortable in any of the blue collar trades. His cover was traditional church goer circa 1990s. The black suit looked tailored. The white shirt was pressed. The wide striped tie had a tie tack on it with the emblem of the Knights of Columbus. Underneath the persona was the man who had choked to death on something. No one had bothered to give him the Heimlich maneuver. “What do you want, dolls?”
A man who had watched too many episodes of The Sopranos.
“Who are you?” Tavie asked politely.
“Name’s Herman,” he said. Tavie put it together with what Nightshade had told her. Hungry Hippo Herman from Granger Street hadn’t wasted any time taking over from Darren. “You got something to barter?” His eyes settled on Coco’s tennis bracelet and she immediately put her wrist behind her back to hide it. “Relax, Sweetie,” he added. “We can’t take it from you. But I’m sure I know of something you might want. We’ve got clothes of all kinds.” Based on his expression he was adding Coco’s net worth up on the calculator in his head. His first salvo was, “I got a bustier that belonged to Madonna’s cousin twice removed.”
“Really?” Coco said and then shook her head.
Tavie studied Herman in turn. She could go two ways here. There was friendly cop who just wanted information or there was hard-ass bitch cop who would do things with a nightstick that would make Mistress Nightshade jealous. The problem was that Tavie didn’t have a nightstick. Of course, the lack of which only inspired her creativity.
“So where’s Darren?” Tavie started the game.
“Darren’s gone,” Herman said promptly. “If you had a deal with him, then you’ve got a deal with me.”