The Laughing Corpse (19 page)

“Give me the address,” I said.

Seymour did. I think he would have told me the secret ingredient in the magic sauce if I had asked.

“If you go down there, Bruno will know we told ya,” Pete said.

“Ronnie,” I said.

“Shoot me now, chickie, it don't matter. You go down there or send the police down there, we are dead.”

I glanced at Pete. He seemed very sincere. They were bad guys but . . . “Okay, we won't bust in on him.”

“We aren't going to the police,” Ronnie asked.

“No, if we did that, we might as well kill them now. But we don't have to do that, do we, Seymour?”

“No, man, no.”

“How much ol' Bruno pay you?”

“Four hundred apiece.”

“It wasn't enough,” I said.

“You're telling me.”

“I'm going to get up now, Seymour, and leave your balls where they are. Don't come near me or Ronnie again, or I'll tell Bruno you sold him out.”

“He'd kill us, man. He'd kill us slow.”

“That's right, Seymour. We'll just all pretend this never happened, right?” He was nodding vigorously.

“That okay with you, Pete?” I asked.

“I ain't stupid. Bruno'd rip out our hearts and feed them to us. We won't talk.” He sounded disgusted.

I got up and stepped carefully away from Seymour. Ronnie covered
Pete nice and steady with the Beretta. The .22 was tucked into the waistband of her jogging shorts. “Get out of here,” I said.

Seymour's skin was pasty, and a sick sweat beaded his face. “Can I have my gun?” He wasn't very bright.

“Don't get cute,” I said.

Pete stood. The blood under his nose had started to dry. “Come on, Seymour. We gotta go now.”

They moved on down the street side by side. Seymour looked hunched in upon himself as if he were fighting an urge to clutch his equipment.

Ronnie let out a great whoosh of air and leaned back against the wall. The gun was still clutched in her right hand. “My God,” she said.

“Yeah,” I said.

She touched my face where Seymour had hit me. It hurt. I winced. “Are you all right?” Ronnie asked.

“Sure,” I said. Actually, it felt like the side of my face was one great big ache, but it wouldn't make it hurt any less to say it out loud.

“Are we going down to the building where they were to drop us?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I know who Bruno is and who gives him orders. I know why they tried to kidnap me. What could I possibly learn that would be worth two lives?”

Ronnie thought about that for a moment. “You're right, I guess. But you aren't going to report the attack to the police?”

“Why should I? I'm okay, you're okay. Seymour and Pete won't be back.”

She shrugged. “You didn't really want me to shoot his kneecap off, did you? I mean we were playing good cop, bad cop, right?” She looked at me very steadily as she asked, her solid grey eyes earnest and true.

I looked away. “Let's walk back home. I don't feel much like jogging.”

“Me either.”

We set off walking down the street. Ronnie untucked her T-shirt and stuck the Beretta in the waistband. The .22 she sort of cupped in her hand. It wasn't very noticeable that way.

“We were pretending, right? Being tough, right?”

Truth. “I don't know.”

“Anita!”

“I don't know, that's the truth.”

“I couldn't have shot him to pieces just to keep him from talking.”

“Good thing you didn't have to then,” I said.

“Would you really have pulled the trigger on that man?”

There was a cardinal singing somewhere off in the distance. The song filled the stale heat and made it seem cooler.

“Answer me, Anita. Would you really have pulled the trigger?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” There was a lilt of surprise in her voice.

“Yes.”

“Shit.” We walked on in silence for a minute or two, then she asked, “What ammo is in the gun today?”

“Thirty-eights.”

“It would have killed him.”

“Probably,” I said.

I saw her look at me sideways as we walked back. There was a look I'd seen before. A mixture of horror and admiration. I'd just never seen it on a friend's face before. That part hurt. But we went out to dinner that night at The Miller's Daughter in Old St. Charles. The atmosphere was pleasant. The food wonderful. As always.

We talked and laughed and had a very good time. Neither of us mentioned what had happened this afternoon. Pretend hard enough and maybe it will go away.

A
T 10:30 THAT
night I was down in the vampire district. Dark blue polo shirt, jeans, red windbreaker. The windbreaker hid the shoulder holster and the Browning Hi-Power. Sweat was pooling in the bends of my arms but it beat the hell out of not having it.

The afternoon fun and games had turned out all right, but that was partly luck. And Seymour losing his temper. And me being able to take a beating and keep on ticking. Ice had kept the swelling down, but the left side of my face was puffy and red, as if some sort of fruit was about to burst out of it. No bruise—yet.

The Laughing Corpse was one of the newest clubs in the District. Vampires are sexy. I'll admit that. But funny? I don't think so. Apparently, I was in the minority. A line stretched away from the club, curling round the block.

It hadn't occurred to me that I'd need a ticket or reservations or whatever just to get in. But, hey, I knew the boss. I walked along the line of people towards the ticket booth. The people were mostly young. The women in dresses, the men in dressy sports wear, with an occasional suit. They were chatting together in excited voices, a lot of casual hand and arm touching. Dates. I remember dates. It's just been a while. Maybe if I wasn't always ass deep in alligators, I'd date more. Maybe.

I cut ahead of a double-date foursome. “Hey,” one man said.

“Sorry,” I said.

The woman in the ticket booth frowned at me. “You can't just cut in line like that, ma'am.”

Ma'am? “I don't want a ticket. I don't want to see the show. I am supposed to meet Jean-Claude here. That's it.”

“Well, I don't know. How do I know you're not some reporter?”

Reporter? I took a deep breath. “Just call Jean-Claude and tell him Anita is here. Okay?”

She was still frowning at me.

“Look, just call Jean-Claude. If I'm a nosy reporter, he'll deal with me. If I'm who I say I am, he'll be happy that you called him. You can't lose.”

“I don't know.”

I fought an urge to scream at her. It probably wouldn't help. Probably. “Just call Jean-Claude, pretty please,” I said.

Maybe it was the pretty please. She swiveled on her stool and opened the upper half of a door in the back of the booth. Small booth. I couldn't hear what she said, but she swiveled back around. “Okay, manager says you can go in.”

“Great, thanks.” I walked up the steps. The entire line of waiting people glared at me. I could feel their hot stares on my back. But I've been stared at by experts, so I was careful not to flinch. No one likes a line jumper.

The club was dim inside, as most clubs are. A guy just inside the door said, “Ticket, please?”

I stared up at him. He wore a white T-shirt that said, “The Laughing Corpse, it's a scream.” A caricature of an open-mouthed vampire was drawn very large across his chest. He was large and muscled and had bouncer tattooed across his forehead. “Ticket, please,” he repeated.

First the ticket lady, now the ticket man? “The manager said I could come through to see Jean-Claude,” I said.

“Willie,” the ticket man said, “you send her through?”

I turned around, and there was Willie McCoy. I smiled when I saw him. I was glad to see him. That surprised me. I'm not usually happy to see dead men.

Willie is short, thin, with black hair slicked back from his forehead.
I couldn't tell the exact color of his suit in the dimness, but it looked like a dull tomato-red. White button-up shirt, large shiny green tie. I had to look twice before I was sure, but yes, there was a glow-in-the-dark hula girl on his tie. It was the most tasteful outfit I'd ever seen Willie wear.

He grinned, flashing a lot of fang. “Anita, good to see ya.”

I nodded. “You, too, Willie.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

He grinned even wider. His canines glistened in the dim light. He hadn't been dead a year yet.

“How long have you been manager here?” I asked.

“ 'Bout two weeks.”

“Congratulations.”

He stepped closer to me. I stepped back. Instinctive. Nothing personal, but a vampire is a vampire. Don't get too close. Willie was new dead, but he was still capable of hypnotizing with his eyes. Okay, maybe no vampire as new as Willie could actually catch me with his eyes, but old habits die hard.

Willie's face fell. A flicker of something in his eyes—hurt? He dropped his voice but didn't try to step next to me. He was a faster study dead than he ever had been alive. “Thanks to me helping you last time, I'm in real good with the boss.”

He sounded like an old gangster movie, but that was Willie. “I'm glad Jean-Claude's doing right by you.”

“Oh, yeah,” Willie said, “this is the best job I ever had. And the boss isn't . . .” He waggled his hands back and forth. “Ya know, mean.”

I nodded. I did know. I could bitch and complain about Jean-Claude all I wanted, but compared to most Masters of the City, he was a pussycat. A big, dangerous, carnivorous pussycat, but still, it was an improvement.

“The boss's busy right this minute,” Willie said. “He said if you was to come early, to give ya a table near the stage.”

Great. Aloud I said, “How long will Jean-Claude be?”

Willie shrugged. “Don't know for sure.”

I nodded. “Okay, I'll wait, for a little while.”

Willie grinned, fangs flashing. “Ya want me to tell Jean-Claude to hurry it up?”

“Would you?”

He grimaced like he'd swallowed a bug. “Hell no.”

“Don't sweat it. If I get tired of waiting, I'll tell him myself.”

Willie looked at me sorta sideways. “You'd do it, wouldn't you?”

“Yeah.”

He just shook his head and started leading me between the small round tables. Every table was thick with people. Laughing, gasping, drinking, holding hands. The sensation of being surrounded by thick, sweaty life was nearly overwhelming.

I glanced at Willie. Did he feel it? Did the warm press of humanity make his stomach knot with hunger? Did he go home at night and dream of ripping into the loud, roaring crowd? I almost asked him, but I liked Willie as much as I could like a vampire. I did not want to know if the answer was yes.

A table just one row back from the stage was empty. There was a big white cardboard foldy thing that said “Reserved.” Willie tried to hold my chair for me, I waved him back. It wasn't women's liberation. I simply never understood what I was supposed to do while the guy shoved my chair in under me. Did I sit there and watch him strain to scoot the chair with me in it? Embarrassing. I usually hovered just above the chair and got it shoved into the backs of my knees. Hell with it.

“Would you like a drink while ya wait?” Willie asked.

“Could I have a Coke?”

“Nuthin' stronger?”

I shook my head.

Willie walked away through the tables and the people. On the stage was a slender man with short, dark hair. He was thin all over, his face almost cadaverous, but he was definitely human. His appearance was more comical than anything, like a long-limbed clown. Beside him, staring blank-faced out at the crowd, was a zombie.

Its pale eyes were still clear, human-looking, but he didn't blink. That familiar frozen stare gazed out at the audience. They were only half listening to the jokes. Most eyes were on the standing deadman. He was
just decayed enough around the edges to look scary, but even one row away there was no hint of odor. Nice trick if you could manage it.

“Ernie here is the best roommate I ever had,” the comedian said. “He doesn't eat much, doesn't talk my ear off, doesn't bring cute chicks home and lock me out while they have a good time.” Nervous laughter from the audience. Eyes glued on ol' Ernie.

“Though there was that pork chop in the fridge that went bad. Ernie seemed to like that a lot.”

The zombie turned slowly, almost painfully, to stare at the comedian. The man's eyes flickered to the zombie, then back to the audience, smile in place. The zombie kept staring at him. The man didn't seem to like it much. I didn't blame him. Even the dead don't like to be the butt of jokes.

The jokes weren't that funny anyway. It was a novelty act. The zombie was the act. Pretty inventive, and pretty sick.

Willie came back with my Coke. The manager waiting on my table, la-de-da. Of course, the reserved table was pretty good, too. Willie set the drink down on one of those useless paper lace dollies. “Enjoy,” he said. He turned to leave, but I touched his arm. I wish I hadn't.

The arm was solid enough, real enough. But it was like touching wood. It was dead. I don't know what else to call it. There was no feeling of movement. Nothing.

I dropped his arm, slowly, and looked up at him. Meeting his eyes, thanks to Jean-Claude's marks. Those brown eyes held something like sorrow.

I could suddenly hear my heartbeat in my ears, and I had to swallow to calm my own pulse. Shit. I wanted Willie to go away now. I turned away from him and looked very hard at my drink. He left. Maybe it was just the sound of all the laughing, but I couldn't hear Willie walk away.

Willie McCoy was the only vampire I had ever known before he died. I remembered him alive. He had been a small-time hood. An errand boy for bigger fish. Maybe Willie thought being a vampire would make him a big fish. He'd been wrong there. He was just a little undead fish now. Jean-Claude or someone like him would run Willie's “life” for eternity. Poor Willie.

I rubbed the hand that had touched him on my leg. I wanted to forget the feel of his body under the new tomato-red suit, but I couldn't. Jean-Claude's body didn't feel that way. Of course, Jean-Claude could damn near pass for human. Some of the old ones could do that. Willie would learn. God help him.

“Zombies are better than dogs. They'll fetch your slippers and don't need to be walked. Ernie'll even sit at my feet and beg if I tell him to.”

The audience laughed. I wasn't sure why. It wasn't that genuine ha-ha laughter. It was that outrageous shocked sound. The I-can't-believe-he-said-that laughter.

The zombie was moving toward the comedian in a sort of slow-motion jerk. Crumbling hands reached outward and my stomach squeezed tight. It was a flashback to last night. Zombies almost always attack by just reaching out. Just like in the movies.

The comedian didn't realize that Ernie had decided he'd had enough. If a zombie is simply raised without any particular orders, he usually reverts to what is normal for him. A good person is a good person until his brain decays, stripping him of personality. Most zombies won't kill without orders, but every once in a while you get lucky and raise one that has homicidal tendencies. The comedian was about to get lucky.

The zombie walked towards him like a bad Frankenstein monster. The comedian finally realized something was wrong. He stopped in mid-joke, turning eyes wide. “Ernie,” he said. It was as far as he got. The decaying hands wrapped around his throat and started to squeeze.

For one pleasant second I almost let the zombie do him in. Exploiting the dead is one thing I feel strongly about, but . . . stupidity isn't punishable by death. If it was, there would be a hell of a population drop.

I stood up, glancing around the club to see if they had planned for this eventuality. Willie came running to the stage. He wrapped his arms around the zombie's waist and pulled, lifted the much taller body off its feet, but the hands kept squeezing.

The comedian slipped to his knees, making little argh sounds. His face was going from red to purple. The audience was laughing. They thought it was part of the show. It was a heck of a lot funnier than the act.

I stepped up to the stage and said softly to Willie, “Need some help?”

He stared at me, still clinging to the zombie's waist. With his extraordinary strength Willie could have ripped a finger at a time off the man's neck and probably saved him. But super-vampire strength doesn't help you if you don't think how to use it. Willie never thought. Of course, the zombie might crush the man's windpipe before even a vampire could peel its fingers away. Maybe. Best not to find out.

I thought the comedian was a putz. But I couldn't stand there and watch him die. Really, I couldn't.

“Stop,” I said. Low and for the zombie's ears. He stopped squeezing, but his hands were still tight. The comedian was going limp. “Release him.”

The zombie let go. The man fell in a near faint on the stage. Willie straightened up from his frantic tugging at the deadman. He smoothed his tomato-red suit back into place. His hair was still perfectly slick. Too much hair goop for a mere zombie wrestling to displace his hairdo.

“Thanks,” he whispered. Then he stood to his full five feet four and said, “The Amazing Albert and his pet zombie, ladies and gentlemen.” The audience had been a bit uncertain, but the applause began. When the Amazing Albert staggered to his feet, the applause exploded. He croaked into the microphone. “Ernie thinks it's time to go home now. You've been a great audience.” The applause was loud and genuine.

The comedian left the stage. The zombie stayed and stared at me. Waiting, waiting for another order. I don't know why everyone can't speak and have zombies obey them. It doesn't even feel like magic to me. There is no tingle of the skin, no breath of power. I speak and the zombies listen. Me and E. F. Hutton.

“Follow Albert and obey his orders until I tell you otherwise.” The zombie looked down at me for a second, then turned slowly and shuffled after the man. The zombie wouldn't kill him now. I wouldn't tell the comedian that, though. Let him think his life was in danger. Let him think he had to let me lay the zombie to rest. It was what I wanted. It was probably what the zombie wanted.

Ernie certainly didn't seem to like being the straight man in a comedy routine. Hecklers are one thing. Choking the comic to death is a little extreme.