The Album of Dr. Moreau

by Daryl Gregory

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  T. S. Eliot’s Five Rules of Detective Fiction

  The story must not rely upon elaborate and incredible disguises.

  The character and motives of the criminal should be normal . . . if the criminal is highly abnormal an irrational element is introduced which offends us.

  The story must not rely either upon occult phenomena, or, what comes to the same thing, upon mysterious and preposterous discoveries made by lonely scientists. . . . Writers of this sort of hocus-pocus may think that they are fortified by the prestige of H. G. Wells. But observe that Wells triumphs with his scientific fiction just because he keeps within the limits of a genre which is different from the detective genre. The reality is on another plane. In detective fiction there is no place for this sort of thing.

  Elaborate and bizarre machinery is an irrelevance.

  The detective should be highly intelligent but not superhuman. We should be able to follow his inferences and almost, but not quite, make them with him.

  —From “Homage to Wilkie Collins: An Omnibus Review of Nine Mystery Novels” by T. S. Eliot, writing in New Criterion, January 1927

  Intro

  May 18, 2021

  5°03'43.2"S 101°31'19.7"W

  Dear Melanie,

  I hope this letter finds you well. In fact, I hope it finds you at all. I’ve sent it to your manager, and I fear it might get lost in the volumes of fan mail you must receive. Back in the WyldBoyZ heyday we needed a small team of assistants to sort the mail into Ignore, Reply, and Report to Police. These days, I suppose, your fan mail comes by email or Twitter or whatever social media platform is the hot new thing. (Forgive me, that makes me sound as old as I am.)

  I’ve followed your career as closely as I followed your mother’s—closer, if I’m honest. I suppose that’s understandable—professional interest and all that. Your songs are beautiful, Melanie. I can hardly believe that you’re not yet thirty and yet you’ve accomplished so much. But I shouldn’t be surprised. We only met that one night, but you were a lovely, talented girl then, and you grew up with a lovely, fierce mother as a role model. (Every pop star needs a fierce mother to either lean on or rebel against.)

  Speaking of your mother, please pass on my congratulations on her well-deserved retirement. So many bad guys put behind bars! I hope that her reputation was not too damaged by the fact that the killer in her most famous case was never apprehended. She should take this opportunity to travel. Or do some reading. Or both. . . .

  Which brings us to my retirement gift. It’s nothing, really—a harmless bit of science fiction from a bygone era, like the H. G. Wells novel Dr. M stole his name from, or O. J. Simpson’s If I Did It. I hope she enjoys it.

  I’ve enclosed a gift for you, as well. Though your own work ranges across the musical spectrum—I can hear traces of everything from Édith Piaf to Prince to Konono Nº1—I hope that deep down (deep down, deep down) you keep a place in your heart for the WyldBoyZ. I also hope you have a CD player.

  —A Fan

  Track 1: “Wakin’ Up (Next to U)”

  Featuring Bobby O

  The penthouse rooms were decorated in a midwestern car salesman’s idea of how rich people live: glass, chrome, mirrors, enough marble to bury a small village, track lights bouncing off every surface. Call it Modern American Lens Flare.

  Of course, by the time the Director of Housekeeping—her name was Ana Gomez, if I recall correctly (and I do)—keyed in that morning, the suite had been trashed. The party had left in its wake a miniature forest of champagne glasses and Zima bottles, trays of warm salami, savaged cheese wheels, a gigantic glass bowl where headless, desultory shrimp soaked in a dirty pink bath. White drapes billowed in front of an open balcony door, the lace speckled with what looked at first glance to be drops of Cabernet.

  Gomez surveyed the damage. She was a twenty-year veteran of the hospitality industry—Las Vegas hospitality, a special circle of hell—and had seen worse. She walked slowly down the long hallway, singing out the traditional warning cry of her guild: “Housekeeping!” The Jacuzzi sat empty, surrounded by a scattering of damp underwear as thin and transparent as dying jellyfish. The first guest bedroom was ransacked but empty, as was the second. In the theater room, the screen displayed a brilliant, dead blue.

  Then Gomez reached the master bedroom. “Housekeeping,” she said again.

  A tawny arm protruded from the silken sheets. A long, clawed hand twitched. Ms. Gomez of course knew who had rented the penthouse, as well as all of the rooms on this floor. The WyldBoyZ had performed the previous night at the Matador Grand Arena. The band’s fans—the ones old enough to own a credit card, anyway—had bought up the hotel’s rooms and filled the bars and restaurants. You could tell them by their animal costumes: furry tails, cat ears, prosthetic tusks, bat wings. An alarming number wore head-to-toe outfits like sports mascots.

  But this arm, this was no costume. Gomez hadn’t seen one of these “hybrids” up close, and her first thought—this is in the trial transcripts—was the same thought everyone had, when they first met one of the boyz: “He looked so realistic.”

  Then she realized the arm was covered in realistic blood.

  Gomez didn’t scream. She was a pro.

  The owner of the arm sat up. Blinked. Rubbed his whiskers, which smeared a little blood across his cheeks. Yawned (adorably).

  That’s when Gomez screamed.

  Bobby O, the youngest and most feline member of the band, was covered in blood from his neck to the waistband of his tighty-whities. The rest of his body remained under the covers.

  Bobby raised a hand/paw. As with many of the boyz’ anatomical features, the definition of the category was blurry: Each hand possessed a humanlike thumb, but his fingers were short, and furred. His claws weren’t extended at that moment, but when they were out they added another three inches to each finger.

  “Hi,” he said. Smiled bashfully. Ana Gomez, Director of Housekeeping, ran from the room.

  * * *

  Bobby stood up, feeling wobbly and hungover. Whose room was he in? What city was this? They’d been on the road so long he wasn’t worried when answers didn’t immediately come to mind. Though he did wonder why that woman had freaked out.

  Then he caught a glimpse of himself in a wall of mirrors. Looked down at his chest. And said, “Oh. Shit.”

  Blood had smeared not only his chest and underwear but also his legs and feet. He looked like he’d rolled in it. He swiped his chest and sniffed his hand.

  Was he dying? He wasn’t sure. It was true that he didn’t feel great. He’d remembered drinking the usual amount of Red Bull and Smirnoff last night and snorting perhaps a smidge more than the usual amount of cocaine, because . . . that’s right! It was the last night of the tour. But this, this was the worst hangover of his life. His entire body ached, as if he’d been steamrollered flat and partially re-inflated, Tom and Jerry style. Which was a terrible feeling, but not, like, hemorrhaging - from - multiple - gunshot - wounds bad. In fact, there didn’t seem to be a wound vi
sible. Also, the blood didn’t smell like his.

  He touched his tongue to his hand. Nope, didn’t taste like his, either.

  He twisted to look at his back in the mirror and saw the mound under the sheets. He’d been sleeping beside that lump since, well, sometime during his blackout. He crept toward the California king bed and reached toward the bedcover. “Please don’t be a dead hooker,” he murmured. “Please don’t be a dead hooker. . . .”

  He peeled back the sheet. Leapt back with a yowl. “Why couldn’t it be a dead hooker?!”

  He bolted from the bedroom. It was slowly coming back to him where he was and, more important, where he should be, which was: Not Here.

  The corridor was empty, thank God. Gomez and the maids had fled, leaving behind their carts. Bobby’s room was to the . . . left? Yes. And Tusk’s room was across from Bobby’s.

  He banged on Tusk’s door and kept banging until it opened.

  Tusk filled the doorway. He was six years older than Bobby O and four times his size: six-foot-seven, 450 pounds (give or take), arms and legs as thick as you’d expect from a person whose DNA contained a significant amount of pachyderm. He was sensitive about his size, perhaps a side effect of being under constant scrutiny by the Teen Idol Industrial Complex. He wore his favorite Aloha-print pajamas, green silk kimono, and reinforced pink bunny slippers, all custom-made.

  “Oh my goodness, Bobby,” Tusk said. His voice was surprisingly high for such a big boy. “What did you do?”

  Bobby pointed back the way he’d come. “Dr. M!”

  Tusk leaned out into the hallway. Bloody paw prints led down the carpet, ending at Bobby’s furry feet. The trouble had been brought straight to Tusk’s door.

  “You gotta come!” Bobby said.

  “Do I?” Tusk asked.

  A door opened in the opposite direction, twenty feet away. Matt stepped out. As usual, he was wearing one of his fringed ponchos, pretty much the only fashion option available to a giant bat. “Would you guys keep it down? It’s not even noon.” With one hand he lifted the headphones from his triangle ears and let them drop around his neck.

  “Bobby wants us to go to Dr. M’s room,” Tusk said.

  “He’s dead!” Bobby exclaimed.

  “What? Are you sure?” Tusk asked.

  “Literally!” Bobby had recently learned what the word literally meant.

  “That is a lot of blood he’s wearing,” Matt said.

  The three of them hurried to the suite, avoiding stepping on the bloody prints, and stopped in front of the door, which was still ajar. Tusk nodded to the supply carts. “Are there maids in there?”

  Bobby told them about waking up in Dr. M’s bed, the woman in the suite screaming at him, and then seeing the body for himself. “Come on, I’ll show you.” He reached for the doorknob and Tusk stopped him, handed him a towel from the cart.

  “You’d better wipe off,” Tusk said.

  “And stop touching things,” Matt said.

  “You stop touching things,” Bobby said.

  “Guys!” Tusk pushed the door open with his elbow and walked to the master bedroom.

  Dr. M, born Maurice Bendix, filled much of the bed. He was a big man, a size Matt referred to as Late Stage Brando.

  The body had been gouged apart. Deep, raking wounds parted the flesh from neck to groin. Blood had soaked into the bed, forming a dark red paste.

  “Doc?” Tusk asked quietly.

  “Really?” Matt said. “You think he’ll answer?”

  Dr. M’s mouth was agape, and his eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling. They all looked up. The ceiling was mirrored, of course. Somehow this more than doubled the gruesomeness of the scene.

  “I didn’t do it,” Bobby said.

  Matt said, “You better hope you don’t have any deep tissue under your nails.”

  “I didn’t touch him!”

  “No, you just crawled in bed with him. And then somehow slept through the part where he got carved into chunks beside you.”

  “No! I mean, I don’t . . .” Bobby’s ears were pinned back in fear. “I don’t remember.”

  “How did you even get in here?” Tusk asked. “I locked you in your room last night. I sat in the hallway, blocking the doorway, because you were in Maximum Bob Mode.”

  Bobby had the decency to look embarrassed. “That checks out.”

  “So?” Tusk asked. “Any guesses?”

  “I think I climbed.”

  “What?”

  “I kinda remember climbing out on the balcony and then . . . jumping?”

  Matt shook his head. “Dude, we’re fifty-seven stories up.”

  Tusk’s big hand rubbed his gray temple. “Why couldn’t you stay in your room, Bobby?” But he knew why; they all did. When Bobby was in Maximum Bob Mode, too much was never enough. Dr. M’s suite contained all the drink and all the drugs, and of course he’d try to get back there, even blackout drunk. Tusk hadn’t imagined, however, that Bobby would be maximized enough to leap from balcony to balcony.

  “Did you see anybody else here?” Tusk asked.

  Bobby shook his head.

  “Are you sure? I saw a zoomie leave Dr. M’s last night,” Tusk said. “I don’t know if it was a girl or a boy—they were dressed as a squirrel or something.”

  Bobby slowly nodded. “Maaaaybe?” Then: “It’s all a blank.”

  Tusk sighed. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “Oh thank God,” Bobby said. His admiration for Tusk’s brain was boundless.

  “Matt, go tell the others,” Tusk said, thinking out loud now. “Devin and Tim should still be in their rooms. No, wait—Mrs. M is with Devin. I’m not sure we should say anything yet.”

  “Why is Mrs. M in Devin’s room?” Bobby asked.

  “Dude,” Matt said. “It’s Devin.”

  “Ohhhh.”

  “I don’t want to be the one to tell her,” Matt said to Tusk. “Maybe we could send a card. ‘Condolences on the Murder of Your Scumbag Husband.’”

  Tusk’s ears fanned in annoyance. “Matt, please. Skip Devin’s for now. Let Tim know what’s happened, and tell him to stay in his room.”

  “That won’t be hard.”

  “Kat may still be in there with him. She was babysitting him last night.”

  “Got it,” Matt said. To Bobby he said, “Don’t try to tongue-bath that shit. Take a shower.”

  “I don’t lick myself!”

  “Uh-huh.” Matt loped out of the room.

  “Look at me, Bobby,” Tusk said. “The hotel’s going to call the police, if they haven’t already. One of the staff’s already seen you, next to the body, covered in blood, which means they’re going to question you first.”

  Bobby moaned.

  “Don’t panic,” Tusk said. “Don’t say anything until we get you some representation. When you do get to talk, you’re going to tell the truth. You’re just not going to tell all the truth.”

  “Like what?”

  Tusk put his hands on Bobby’s shoulders. “You know the things we don’t talk about, right? Never ever talk about?”

  Bobby nodded.

  “That’s still in effect. Now more than ever. But don’t worry, I know you didn’t kill Dr. M. We’re going to get through this. As long as you listen to what I say.”

  “But what about the fans? What will they think? Will they still like me?”

  Tusk draped his trunk around the back of Bobby’s neck and pulled him close. It wasn’t much of a trunk, less than a foot long, but it had its uses, and a comforting snuffle was one of them. “This is serious, Bobby. If we’re not careful, you could end up going to jail.”

  “Oh man,” Bobby said. “I’m going to need a really good publicist.”

  Track 2: “Catastrophe”

  Featuring Detective Delgado

  Detective Lucia Delgado wasn’t happy to hear her phone ring. She’d finished her shift at 6:30 AM and was still in bed, still exhausted. She reached blindly for her Nokia, pulled it to her ea
r. Loud music played from the next room.

  “Delgado,” the voice said. “You should really answer your beeper.”

  Her beeper lay on the floor muffled in clothes. “This is my family number, Banks.”

  “I figured this was important enough.”

  “What is it?”

  “Matador Grand. A bloody one.”

  It was her partner, Detective Mickey Banks. There’d been a homicide in the penthouse suite, and their captain wanted Delgado and Banks to lead the investigation team. She put two and two together (because that was her job) and said, “Let me guess. It’s somebody famous.”

  Several years ago a teenage girl had overdosed in the car of a Beloved Film Icon, who then decided it would be really clever to make it appear as if the girl were alive several hours after he’d buried her in the desert. Luce not only solved the case but also got the actor to confess. Did they praise her for her ingenuity and tenaciousness? No. What really impressed her captain, the sheriff, and the mayor was that she knew how to talk to famous people and was good on television—neither of which should have been a surprise to anyone who knew how she grew up. Ever since that case she’d been designated the department’s Celebrity Whisperer.

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  Banks said, “You’re never going to believe it.”

  Luce called her sister and asked for an emergency babysit—the third such emergency in a month. “You don’t even have to ask,” Maria said. Which was a lie, but sweet.

  Then Luce walked down the hall, past the rows of framed show posters, into her daughter’s room—and into a wall of music. The boombox was blasting and Melanie was dancing furiously, singing along at the top of her voice.

  When Luce was pregnant she told her husband that she didn’t want to be like her parents. Melanie would get to choose her own likes and dislikes, follow her own passions, and she wouldn’t be forced into the family business. Luce wasn’t prepared for Melanie’s first passion to be bubblegum pop. (She also wasn’t prepared for her husband to leave her a year after Melanie was born, but fuck that lying piece of shit.)