The Laughing Corpse (11 page)

“You seem to be getting along well with all our suspects,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I'll find out what I can from homicide. Do you know what jurisdiction he was found in?”

I shook my head. “I could find out. It would give me an excuse to talk to Burke again.”

“You say he's suspected of murder in New Orleans.”

“Mm-huh,” I said.

“And he may have done this.” He motioned at the sheet.

“Yep.”

“You watch your back, Anita.”

“I always do,” I said.

“You call me as early tonight as you can. I don't want all my people sitting around twiddling their thumbs on overtime.”

“As soon as I can. I've got to cancel three clients just to make it.” Bert was not going to be pleased. The day was looking up.

“Why didn't it eat more of the boy?” Dolph asked.

“I don't know,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay, I'll see you tonight then.”

“Say hello to Lucille for me. How's she coming with her master's degree?”

“Almost done. She'll have it before our youngest gets his engineering degree.”

“Great.”

The sheet flapped in the hot wind. A trickle of sweat trailed down my forehead. I was out of small talk. “See you later,” I said, and started down the hill. I stopped and turned back. “Dolph?”

“Yes?” he said.

“I've never heard of a zombie exactly like this one. Maybe it does rise from its grave more like a vampire. If you kept that exterminator team and backup hanging around until after dark, you might catch it rising from the grave and be able to bag it.”

“Is that likely?”

“No, but it's possible,” I said.

“I don't know how I'll explain the overtime, but I'll do it.”

“I'll be here as soon as I can.”

“What else could be more important than this?” he asked.

I smiled. “Nothing you'd like to hear about.”

“Try me,” he said.

I shook my head.

He nodded. “Tonight, early as you can.”

“Early as I can,” I said.

Detective Perry escorted me back. Maybe politeness, maybe he just wanted to get away from the corpus delicti. I didn't blame him. “How's your wife, Detective?”

“We're expecting our first baby in a month.”

I smiled up at him. “I didn't know. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” His face clouded over, a frown puckering between his dark eyes. “Do you think we can find this creature before it kills again?”

“I hope so,” I said.

“What are our chances?”

Did he want reassurance or the truth. Truth. “I haven't the faintest idea.”

“I was hoping you wouldn't say that,” he said.

“So was I, Detective. So was I.”

W
HAT WAS MORE
important than bagging the critter that had eviscerated an entire family? Nothing, absolutely nothing. But it was a while until full dark, and I had other problems. Would Tommy go back to Gaynor and tell him what I said? Yes. Would Gaynor let it go? Probably not. I needed information. I needed to know how far he would go. A reporter, I needed a reporter. Irving Griswold to the rescue.

Irving had one of those pastel cubicles that passes for an office. No roof, no door, but you got walls. Irving is five-three. I'd like him for that reason if nothing else. You don't meet many men exactly my height. Frizzy brown hair framed his bald spot like petals on a flower. He wore a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, tie at half-mast. His face was round, pink-cheeked. He looked like a bald cherub. He did not look like a werewolf, but he was one. Even lycanthropy can't cure baldness.

No one on the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch
knew Irving was a shapeshifter. It is a disease, and it's illegal to discriminate against lycanthropes, just like people with AIDS, but people do it anyway. Maybe the paper's management would have been broad-minded, liberal, but I was with Irving. Caution was better.

Irving sat in his desk chair. I leaned in the doorway of his cubicle. “How's tricks?” Irving said.

“Do you really think you're funny, or is this just an annoying habit?” I asked.

He grinned. “I'm hilarious. Ask my girlfriend.”

“I'll bet,” I said.

“What's up, Blake? And please tell me whatever it is is on the record, not off.”

“How would you like to do an article on the new zombie legislation that's being cooked up?”

“Maybe,” he said. His eyes narrowed, suspicion gleamed forth. “What do you want in return?”

“This part is off the record, Irving, for now.”

“It figures.” He frowned at me. “Go on.”

“I need all the information you have on Harold Gaynor.”

“Name doesn't ring any bells,” he said. “Should it?” His eyes had gone from cheerful to steady. His concentration was nearly perfect when he smelled a story.

“Not necessarily,” I said. Cautious. “Can you get the information for me?”

“In exchange for the zombie story?”

“I'll take you to all the businesses that use zombies. You can bring a photographer and snap pictures of corpses.”

His eyes lit up. “A series of articles with lots of semigruesome pictures. You center stage in a suit. Beauty and the Beast. My editor would probably go for it.”

“I thought he might, but I don't know about the center stage stuff.”

“Hey, your boss will love it. Publicity means more business.”

“And sells more papers,” I said.

“Sure,” Irving said. He looked at me for maybe a minute. The room was almost silent. Most had gone home. Irving's little pool of light was one of just a few. He'd been waiting on me. So much for the press never sleeps. The quiet breath of the air conditioner filled the early evening stillness.

“I'll see if Harold Gaynor's in the computer,” Irving said at last.

I smiled at him. “Remembered the name after me mentioning it just once, pretty good.”

“I am, after all, a trained reporter,” he said. He swiveled his chair
back to his computer keyboard with exaggerated movements. He pulled imaginary gloves on and adjusted the long tails of a tux.

“Oh, get on with it.” I smiled a little wider.

“Do not rush the maestro.” He typed a few words and the screen came to life. “He's on file,” Irving said. “A big file. It'd take forever to print it all up.” He swiveled the chair back to look at me. It was a bad sign.

“I'll tell you what,” he said. “I'll get the file together, complete with pictures if we have any. I'll deliver it to your sweet hands.”

“What's the catch?”

He put his fingers to his chest. “
Moi
, no catch. The goodness of my heart.”

“All right, bring it by my apartment.”

“Why don't we meet at Dead Dave's, instead?” he said.

“Dead Dave's is down in the vampire district. What are you doing hanging around out there?”

His sweet cherubic face was watching me very steadily. “Rumor has it that there's a new Master Vampire of the City. I want the story.”

I just shook my head. “So you're hanging around Dead Dave's to get information?”

“Exactly.”

“The vamps won't talk to you. You look human.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” he said. “The vamps do talk to you, Anita. Do you know who the new Master is? Can I meet him, or her? Can I do an interview?”

“Jesus, Irving, don't you have enough troubles without messing with the king vampire?”

“It's a him then,” he said.

“It's a figure of speech,” I said.

“You know something. I know you do.”

“What I know is that you don't want to come to the attention of a master vampire. They're mean, Irving.”

“The vampires are trying to mainstream themselves. They want positive attention. An interview about what he wants to do with the vampire community. His vision of the future. It would be very up-and-coming. No corpse jokes. No sensationalism. Straight journalism.”

“Yeah, right. On page one a tasteful little headline:
THE MASTER VAMPIRE OF ST
.
LOUIS SPEAKS OUT
.”

“Yeah, it'll be great.”

“You've been sniffing newsprint again, Irving.”

“I'll give you everything we have on Gaynor. Pictures.”

“How do you know you have pictures?” I said.

He stared up at me, his round, pleasant face cheerfully blank.

“You recognized the name, you little son of . . .”

“Tsk, tsk, Anita. Help me get an interview with the Master of the City. I'll give you anything you want.”

“I'll give you a series of articles about zombies. Full-color pictures of rotting corpses, Irving. It'll sell papers.”

“No interview with the Master?” he said.

“If you're lucky, no,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Can I have the file on Gaynor?”

He nodded. “I'll get it together.” He looked up at me. “I still want you to meet me at Dead Dave's. Maybe a vamp will talk to me with you around.”

“Irving, being seen with a legal executioner of vampires is not going to endear you to the vamps.”

“They still call you the Executioner?”

“Among other things.”

“Okay, the Gaynor file for going along on your next vampire execution?”

“No,” I said.

“Ah, Anita . . .”

“No.”

He spread his hands wide. “Okay, just an idea. It'd be a great article.”

“I don't need the publicity, Irving, not that kind anyway.”

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I'll meet you at Dead Dave's in about two hours.”

“Make it an hour. I'd like to be out of the District before full dark.”

“Is anybody gunning for you down there? I mean I don't want to endanger you, Blake.” He grinned. “You've given me too many lead stories. I wouldn't want to lose you.”

“Thanks for the concern. No, no one's after me. Far as I know.”

“You don't sound real certain.”

I stared at him. I thought about telling him that the new Master of the City had sent me a dozen white roses and an invitation to go dancing. I had turned him down. There had been a message on my machine and an invitation to a black tie affair. I ignored it all. So far the Master was behaving like the courtly gentleman he had been a few centuries back. It couldn't last. Jean-Claude was not a person who took defeat easily.

I didn't tell Irving. He didn't need to know. “I'll see you at Dead Dave's in an hour. I'm gonna run home and change.”

“Now that you mention it, I've never seen you in a dress before.”

“I had a funeral today.”

“Business or personal?”

“Personal,” I said.

“Then I'm sorry.”

I shrugged. “I've got to go if I'm going to have time to change and then meet you. Thanks, Irving.”

“It's not a favor, Blake. I'll make you pay for those zombie articles.”

I sighed. I had images of him making me embrace the poor corpse. But the new legislation needed attention. The more people who understood the horror of it, the better chance it had to pass. In truth, Irving was still doing me a favor. No need to let him know that, though.

I walked away into the dimness of the darkened office. I waved over my shoulder without looking back. I wanted to get out of this dress and into something I could hide a gun on. If I was going into Blood Square, I might need it.

D
EAD
D
AVE
'
S IS
in the part of St. Louis that has two names. Polite: the Riverfront. Rude: the Blood Quarter. It is our town's hottest vampire commercial district. Big tourist attraction. Vampires have really put St. Louis on the vacation maps. You'd think that the Ozark Mountains, some of the best fishing in the country, the symphony, Broadway level musicals, or maybe the Botanical Gardens would be enough, but no. I guess it's hard to compete with the undead. I know I find it difficult.

Dead Dave's is all dark glass and beer signs in the windows. The afternoon sunlight was fading into twilight. Vamps wouldn't be out until full dark. I had a little under two hours. Get in, look over the file, get out. Easy. Ri-ight.

I had changed into black shorts, royal-blue polo shirt, black Nikes with a matching blue swish, black and white jogging socks, and a black leather belt. The belt was there so the shoulder holster had something to hang on. My Browning Hi-Power was secure under my left arm. I had thrown on a short-sleeved dress shirt to hide the gun. The dress shirt was in a modest black and royal-blue print. The outfit looked great. Sweat trickled down my spine. Too hot for the shirt, but the Browning gave me thirteen bullets. Fourteen if you're animal enough to shove the magazine full and carry one in the chamber.

I didn't think things were that bad, yet. I did have an extra magazine
shoved into the pocket of my shorts. I know it picks up pocket lint, but where else was I going to carry it? One of these days I promise to get a deluxe holster with spaces for extra magazines. But all the models I'd seen had to be cut down to my size and made me feel like the Frito Bandito.

I almost never carry an extra clip when I've got the Browning. Let's face it, if you need more than thirteen bullets, it's over. The really sad part was the extra ammo wasn't for Tommy, or Gaynor. It was for Jean-Claude. The Master Vampire of the City. Not that silver-plated bullets would kill him. But they would hurt him, make him heal almost human slow.

I wanted out of the District before dark. I did not want to run into Jean-Claude. He wouldn't attack me. In fact, his intentions were good, if not exactly honorable. He had offered me immortality without the messy part of becoming a vampire. There was some implication that I got him along with eternity. He was tall, pale, and handsome. Sexier than a silk teddy.

He wanted me to be his human servant. I wasn't anyone's servant. Not even for eternal life, eternal youth, and a little compromise of the soul. The price was too steep. Jean-Claude didn't believe that. The Browning was in case I had to make him believe it.

I stepped into the bar and was momentarily blind, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. Like one of those old westerns where the good guy hesitates at the front of the bar and views the crowd. I suspected he wasn't looking for the bad guy at all. He had just come out of the sun and couldn't see shit. No one ever shoots you while you're waiting for your eyes to adjust. I wonder why?

It was after five on a Thursday. Most of the bar stools and all the tables were taken. The place was cheek to jowl with business suits, male and female. A spattering of work boots and tans that ended at the elbow, but mostly upwardly mobile types. Dead Dave's had become trendy despite efforts to keep it at bay.

It looked like happy hour was in high gear. Shit. All the yuppies were here to catch a nice safe glimpse of a vampire. They would be slightly sloshed when it happened. Increase the thrill I guess.

Irving was sitting at the rounded corner of the bar. He saw me and waved. I waved back and started pushing my way towards him.

I squeezed between two gentlemen in suits. It took some maneuvering, and a very uncool-looking hop to mount the bar stool.

Irving grinned broadly at me. There was a nearly solid hum of conversation in the air. Words translated into pure noise like the ocean. Irving had to lean into me to be heard over the murmuring sound.

“I hope you appreciate how many dragons I had to slay to save that seat for you,” he said. The faint smell of whiskey breathed along my cheek as he spoke.

“Dragons are easy, try vampires sometimes,” I said.

His eyes widened. Before his mouth could form the question, I said, “I'm kidding, Irving.” Sheesh, some people just don't have a sense of humor. “Besides, dragons were never native to North America,” I said.

“I knew that.”

“Sure,” I said.

He sipped whiskey from a faceted glass. The amber liquid shimmered in the subdued light.

Luther, daytime manager and bartender, was down at the far end of the bar dealing with a group of very happy people. If they had been any happier they'd have been passed out on the floor.

Luther is large, not tall, fat. But it is solid fat, almost a kind of muscle. His skin is so black, it has purple highlights. The cigarette between his lips flared orange as he took a breath. He could talk around a cig better than anyone I'd ever met.

Irving picked up a scuffed leather briefcase from off the floor near his feet. He fished out a file over three inches thick. A large rubber band wrapped it together.

“Jesus, Irving. Can I take it home with me?”

He shook his head. “A sister reporter is doing a feature on local upstanding businessmen who are not what they seem. I had to promise her dibs on my firstborn to borrow it for the night.”

I looked at the stack of papers. I sighed. The man on my right nearly rammed an elbow in my face. He turned. “Sorry, little lady, sorry. No harm done.” Little came out liddle, and sorry slushed around the edges.

“No harm,” I said.

He smiled and turned back to his friend. Another business type who laughed uproariously at something. Get drunk enough and everything is funny.

“I can't possibly read the file here,” I said.

He grinned. “I'll follow you anywhere.”

Luther stood in front of me. He pulled a cigarette from the pack he always carried with him. He put the tip of his still burning stub against the fresh cigarette. The end flared red like a live coal. Smoke trickled up his nose and out his mouth. Like a dragon.

He crushed the old cig in the clear glass ashtray he carried with him from place to place like a teddy bear. He chain smokes, is grossly overweight, and his grey hair puts him over fifty. He's never sick. He should be the national poster child for the Tobacco Institute.

“A refill?” he asked Irving.

“Yeah, thanks.”

Luther took the glass, refilled it from a bottle under the bar, and set it back down on a fresh napkin.

“What can I get for ya, Anita?” he asked.

“The usual, Luther.”

He poured me a glass of orange juice. We pretend it is a screwdriver. I'm a teetotaler, but why would I come to a bar if I didn't drink?

He wiped the bar with a spotless white towel. “Gotta message for you from the Master.”

“The Master Vampire of the City?” Irving asked. His voice had that excited lilt to it. He smelled news.

“What?” There was no excited lilt to my voice.

“He wants to see you, bad.”

I glanced at Irving, then back at Luther. I tried to telepathically send the message, not in front of the reporter. It didn't work.

“The Master's put the word out. Anybody who sees you gives you the message.”

Irving was looking back and forth between us like an eager puppy. “What does the Master of the City want with you, Anita?”

“Consider it given,” I said.

Luther shook his head. “You ain't going to talk to him, are you?”

“No,” I said.

“Why not?” Irving asked.

“None of your business.”

“Off the record,” he said.

“No.”

Luther stared at me. “Listen to me, girl, you talk to the Master. Right now all the vamps and freaks are just supposed to tell you the Master wants a powwow. The next order will be to detain you and take ya to him.”

Detain, it was a nice word for kidnap. “I don't have anything to say to the Master.”

“Don't let this get outta hand, Anita,” Luther said. “Just talk to him, no harm.”

That's what he thought. “Maybe I will.” Luther was right. It was talk to him now or later. Later would probably be a lot less friendly.

“Why does the Master want to talk to you?” Irving asked. He was like some curious, bright-eyed bird that had spied a worm.

I ignored the question, and thought up a new one. “Did your sister reporter give you any highlights from this file? I don't really have time to read
War and Peace
before morning.”

“Tell me what you know about the Master, and I'll give you the highlights.”

“Thanks a lot, Luther.”

“I didn't mean to sic him on you,” he said. His cig bobbed up and down as he spoke. I never understood how he did that. Lip dexterity. Years of practice.

“Would everybody stop treating me like the bubonic fucking plague,” Irving said. “I'm just trying to do my job.”

I sipped my orange juice and looked at him. “Irving, you're messing with things you don't understand. I cannot give you info on the Master. I can't.”

“Won't,” he said.

I shrugged. “Won't, but the reason I won't is because I can't.”

“That's a circular argument,” he said.

“Sue me.” I finished the juice. I didn't want it anyway. “Listen, Irving, we had a deal. The file info for the zombie articles. If you're going to
break your word, deal's off. But tell me it's off. I don't have time to sit here and play twenty damn questions.”

“I won't go back on the deal. My word is my bond,” he said in as stagy a voice as he could manage in the murmurous noise of the bar.

“Then give me the highlights and let me get the hell out of the District before the Master hunts me up.”

His face was suddenly solemn. “You're in trouble, aren't you?”

“Maybe. Help me out, Irving. Please.”

“Help her out,” Luther said.

Maybe it was the please. Maybe it was Luther's looming presence. Whatever, Irving nodded. “According to my sister reporter, he's crippled in a wheelchair.”

I nodded. Nondirective, that's me.

“He likes his women crippled.”

“What do you mean?” I remembered Cicely of the empty eyes.

“Blind, wheelchair, amputee, whatever, old Harry'll go for it.”

“Deaf,” I said.

“Up his alley.”

“Why?” I asked. Clever questions are us.

Irving shrugged. “Maybe it makes him feel better since he's trapped in a chair himself. My fellow reporter didn't know why he was a deviant, just that he was.”

“What else did she tell you?”

“He's never even been charged with a crime, but the rumors are real ugly. Suspected mob connections, but no proof. Just rumors.”

“Tell me,” I said.

“An old girlfriend tried to sue him for palimony. She disappeared.”

“Disappeared as in probably dead,” I said.

“Bingo.”

I believed it. So he'd used Tommy and Bruno to kill before. Meant it would be easier to give the order a second time. Or maybe Gaynor's given the order lots of times, and just never gotten caught.

“What does he do for the mob that earns him his two bodyguards?”

“Oh, so you've met his security specialist.”

I nodded.

“My fellow reporter would love to talk to you.”

“You didn't tell her about me, did you?”

“Do I look like a stoolie?” He grinned at me.

I let that go. “What's he do for the mob?”

“Helps them clean money, or that's what we suspect.”

“No evidence?” I said.

“None.” He didn't look happy about it.

Luther shook his head, tapping his cig into the ashtray. Some ash spilled onto the bar. He wiped it with his spotless towel. “He sounds like bad news, Anita. Free advice, leave him the hell alone.”

Good advice. Unfortunately. “I don't think he'll leave me alone.”

“I won't ask, I don't want to know.” Someone else was frantically signaling for a refill. Luther drifted over to them. I could watch the entire bar in the full-length mirror that took up the wall behind the bar. I could even see the door without turning around. It was convenient and comforting.

“I will ask,” Irving said, “I do want to know.”

I just shook my head.

“I know something you don't know,” he said.

“And I want to know it?”

He nodded vigorously enough to make his frizzy hair bob.

I sighed. “Tell me.”

“You first.”

I had about enough. “I have shared all I am going to tonight, Irving. I've got the file. I'll look through it. You're just saving me a little time. Right now, a little time could be very important to me.”

“Oh, shucks, you take all the fun out of being a hard-core reporter.” He looked like he was going to pout.

“Just tell me, Irving, or I'm going to do something violent.”

He half laughed. I don't think he believed me. He should have. “Alright, alright.” He brought out a picture from behind his back with a flourish like a magician.

It was a black and white photo of a woman. She was in her twenties, long brown hair down in a modern style, just enough mousse to make it look spiky. She was pretty. I didn't recognize her. The photo was
obviously not posed. It was too casual and there was a look to the face of someone who didn't know she was being photographed.

“Who is she?”

“She was his girlfriend until about five months ago,” Irving said.

“So she's . . . handicapped?” I stared down at the pretty, candid face. You couldn't tell by the picture.

“Wheelchair Wanda.”

I stared at him. I could feel my eyes going wide. “You can't be serious.”