A gruesome murder scene doesn’t usually whet my appetite, but it was lunchtime when I left the Motel Six Feet Under, and I decided it would be best to visit Cralo’s body-parts warehouse with a full stomach and plenty of caution. After seeing the state of the vampire’s corpse, it occurred to me that Tony Cralo might be involved in something far more sinister than shipping substandard organs to collectors like Archibald Victor.
Also on the day’s to-do list, wrapping up a case: I had to tell Rusty what I’d learned about his missing gambling money during the cockatrice fights. Sheyenne let me know that he had already been released from the hospital and was recovering at home; werewolves are tough creatures, and Rusty, a gang leader of the Hairballs, was tougher than most. Given the assault he had suffered last night, I doubted a few missing dollars were his highest priority.
I stopped at the Ghoul’s Diner for a cup of miserably bad coffee and some semblance of lunch. The sign in the window said “Sorry, We’re Open.” I also noticed a flyer taped to the glass door that said “Welcome Worldwide Horror Convention! Yes, We Serve Humans!”
The diner bustled and burbled with the lunch trade, and I settled for a solo stool at the counter, not wanting to hog one of the booths, which would have drawn the wrath of Esther, the harpy waitress. (Just being a customer was usually enough to annoy Esther.)
I cast a cursory glance at the menu and the chalkboard special without much interest—it would all taste the same to me. Albert Gould, the owner, had posted a sign on the coffeemaker, “These grounds are cursed!”
I pulled out a piece of scrap paper and began jotting random thoughts while I waited for somebody to take my order. In the back, Albert—a well-ripened ghoul—cooked, sweated, and oozed tendrils of runny slime into the customers’ orders.
I heard the chatter of one-sided conversation as a delivery-truck driver brought in the day’s load of canned goods straight from the rendering plant. The driver was a zombie in fairly good condition; he wore a green uniform and green trucker’s cap. When he dropped a load of cardboard boxes on the counter, rats and cockroaches scurried out of the way. Albert turned with amazing swiftness for such a sluggish guy, using his forearm in a quick matter-of-fact gesture to sweep the bugs and rodents into a large stewpot. He stirred, then covered it with a big metal lid.
Esther came behind the counter and glared at me. Before I could say a word to her, the harpy waitress grabbed a ceramic mug and dropped it in front of me with a clatter. She splashed it half-full with the foul-smelling coffee, while also pouring a puddle across the flecked countertop.
Black and oily-green feathers stuck out from her arms like machete blades. Her hands terminated in obsidian talons, which she could use to hook several coffee mugs at a time, or snag the collars of customers who tried to depart without leaving a sufficient tip. Esther had a pointed, angular face with sharp teeth and an even sharper temper. When she skewered you with her bird-of-prey eyes, you wondered why you had come to the diner in the first place. Even so, her pale blue waitress uniform and white apron hid voluptuous and intriguing feminine curves. Unwittingly, she made you think about sex, and then made you shudder because you thought of it.
In a voice that sounded like a screech, she said, “I bet you think you’re special.”
In the kitchen, Albert perked up. “Special!” he slurred, and plopped a plate on the counter. “Last one.”
“Just mix up some other slop,” Esther called back, then she sneered at me. “Mister Famous Private Eye probably wants something that smells French.”
I felt a cold dread in my stomach. “What makes you think I’m famous?”
Esther squawked again. “I saw the piece in the paper. Albert’s going to want an autographed black-and-white photograph to hang on the wall.” She flounced to the chalkboard listing the lunch specials and used one of her curved talons to scrape off the words with a flesh-cringing shriek of nails on slate.
I sipped my coffee while Esther bothered other customers. Maybe this wasn’t such a good place to gather my thoughts after all. Investigating a suspicious body-parts emporium was sounding more and more like fun compared to lunch.
The zombie delivery-truck driver turned his cap around and came out of the back, pouring a mug of coffee for himself, demonstrating long familiarity with the diner. Esther glared daggers at him, but he paid no attention to her. Instead, he spotted me, saw the empty stool to my left, and came over. “Dan? Dan Chambeaux?”
I looked up from my piece of scrap paper that was still absent of insightful case notes. He was a blond-haired, gray-skinned blue-collar zombie. “Don’t you remember me, Dan? It’s Steve. We were dirt brothers. You helped me out of a tight spot—literally.” When he grinned, I saw his teeth were still in relatively good condition.
Then I did remember. “Steve! Steve … Halsted, right?”
“Sure thing!” He clapped me on the back. “You look different out of your funeral suit, buddy. If I hadn’t seen your picture on that book cover, I would never have recognized you.”
Steve Halsted and I had risen from the grave on the same night. I’d emerged, dirt-encrusted and disoriented, not long before the guy in a nearby plot also crawled out. Reanimation is a tough time for everybody, and we had told each other our respective stories, exchanged contact information, and promised to stick together.
Over the months since, I had lost touch with him, though. I knew Steve left behind an ex-wife (no love lost there) and a young son, but we really didn’t have much in common, so we drifted apart. I had my cases and a succession of personal emergencies, and I assumed Steve got on with his own unlife.
He said, “I was going to call you—I still have your card.” I never could figure out why anyone had buried me with business cards in my pocket.
I ran my eyes over his uniform. “I see you got a job working as a delivery driver.” It’s always best to state the obvious.
“How did you know that?” he said, then laughed and brushed at his uniform. “Oh, I forgot, you’re the detective. Yeah, that’s me, delivering goods all around the Quarter. But it’s about the only pleasant thing that’s happened to me since coming back. I meant to give you a call to see if you or your lawyer friend could offer some advice. It’s a sticky situation—and a stinky one—but I never got up the nerve to find you until I saw the piece in the newspaper talking about how you and your partner always stick up for unnaturals and never turn down a case.”
“I haven’t seen the article myself, but I’m pretty sure it was referring to the fictional adventures of a fictional zombie P.I.”
Steve chuckled. “Oh, you don’t fool me, buddy!”
Albert staggered out of the back with a bowl of something that looked like a mix between magma and vomit. He opened his left hand to spill out a sprinkle of still-squirming cockroaches as garnish on top of the unappealing substance.
“New special,” he said in his low, slurred voice.
Steve glanced down, took a deep sniff. “That looks good, Albert. I’ll have one of those, too.”
The ghoul proprietor shuffled back into the kitchen.
Talking about Steve’s case seemed more appetizing than the food. “So what’s the problem? Tell me about it, and I’ll let you know if we can help.”
Steve had a sad look as he got up and refilled both his coffee cup and mine without spilling a drop. “It’s my ex, Rova. I just got this job, and I’m barely scraping by, but now she’s filed a motion to garnish my wages, claiming past-due child support. I didn’t even know I was supposed to keep paying, now that I’m dead. I thought that’s what the life insurance money was for.”
“I’ve never heard of postmortem wage garnishing,” I said. “That’s cold!” Robin might indeed have something to say about that. “I have to warn you, it’ll be an uphill battle. Courts don’t look kindly on deadbeat dads.”
“I want to be sure that Jordan’s taken care of,” Steve said. “I’m not trying to get out of my responsibilities, but I don’t trust Rova to use the money for our son’s benefit. My insurance was supposed to cover all of his expenses, even put him through college, but Rova says that money’s gone now, and she wants more from me. Worse, she’s denying me visitation rights. I can’t even see my own son.”
I took a bite of the stewlike concoction and crunched down on something squirming and juicy.
“How does it taste?” Steve asked.
“We’d better just talk about your case.”
Esther came by just as Albert served up another bowl of the new special; she swooped it from under the heat lamps and dropped it with a clatter in front of Steve. “We don’t do separate checks.” She tore off a ticket for both meals and set it next to my place. “Gratuity already added for parties of one or more.”
I focused on Steve. “What’s the problem with a zombie having visitation rights with his kid? That you might give the boy nightmares?”
“Hmm, he did scream the first time I tried to see him.”
Steve seemed nearly as well-preserved as I was. “That’s surprising. You don’t look that scary.” I meant it as a compliment, although not all monsters would have taken it as one.
“Oh, he didn’t scream because I’m a zombie—it’s because I’m me. I made a policy of not bad-mouthing my ex, for Jordan’s sake, but Rova doesn’t have the same attitude. She’s poisoned my own son against me.”
“And you say she spent all the insurance money?”
“Fifty thousand dollars! I thought it would be enough, but Rova took the money for herself, invested it in some beauty parlor she opened in the Quarter, said it was a surefire deal, the next best thing to printing your own money.”
“She might have been a tad optimistic,” I said.
Steve ate his stew, preoccupied. “I just want to make sure my kid is taken care of, you know? Could you look into it for me, buddy? See if I have any legal options?”
I glanced at my still-empty sheet of paper that should have been covered with brilliant deductions by now. “I’ve got appointments this afternoon, but why don’t you stop by our offices later? I’ll introduce you to Robin Deyer, my lawyer partner. Do you need the address?”
He pulled out the rumpled Chambeaux & Deyer Investigations card I had given him on the night we both came out of the grave. It looked as if he never took it out of his pocket, even when he laundered his uniform. He grabbed the check. “Let me get this, buddy. It’s good to have a friend who understands your problems.”
“We’re dirt brothers, Steve. What are friends for?”