Lunchtime. I’ve never been, nor do I intend to become, one of those disgusting ambulatory corpses with a sweet-tooth for brains. Even though I don’t need to eat as often as before—undead metabolism is all out of whack—lunch isn’t something a man should give up. I liked to do things out of habit just to pretend that my life was normal.
The big sign in the front window of Ghoul’s Diner, my favorite lunch counter, said in bright orange letters: Yes, We Serve Humans! The diner was a warm and cheery place, crowded with unnaturals who liked to sit in the booths or take a stool up at the counter with elbows propped on the speckled countertop.
At the grill in back stood a sweaty grayish creature who looked decidedly unwell. Albert Gould, the proprietor, had skin with the sheen and consistency of sliced ham left too long in the sun. I had talked with him face-to-face a few times. Albert could be an unsettling fellow for anyone with a queasy stomach. Cockroaches scuttled around in his spiky hair, and thin whitish things dripped in and out of his nostrils as he inhaled and exhaled. At first I thought they were boogers; then I realized they were maggots.
Albert concocted variations of the daily special, catering to different types of clientele. Zombie special, vampire special, werewolf special, human special (although the humans who dared to eat there rarely became repeat customers). He served platters of sliced, discolored mystery meat, sometimes on a bun with all the condiments, other times spread out on a blue plate pooled in gelatinous gravy made from a mucus roux.
The smells inside Ghoul’s Diner were rich and ripe. Conversation buzzed among the booths; a cash register rang up sales. From the back, a gush of steam and spray of water rose from where a reptile-skinned dishwasher blasted globs of food off the plates, then stacked them back on the shelves.
Esther, the diner’s lone waitress—a harpy who never provided good service, but always received excellent tips because the customers were afraid to annoy her—chatted with two necromancers in a corner booth. She seemed to have no interest in her other customers.
I took a seat at the counter beside a bespectacled hunchback who was poring over stock listings in the newspaper. The folded front page had a headline story, Elvis Found!
I’d heard the story on the radio: A zombie came back to life, insisting he was Elvis Presley. Over the years, there had been many Elvis sightings, people who claimed the King had never died. This one was different, because the guy was unquestionably dead, and he had submitted flesh scrapings for DNA testing to verify his identity.
“Can I borrow the front section?” I asked.
The hunchback shrugged, a languorous rolling movement that made me a bit seasick. “Help yourself.”
I turned to page two, found a story about the previous night’s art auction, in which the Ricketts zombie puppies painting sold to a private collector for two hundred thousand dollars. Sheyenne had received the call that morning while I was at the Hope & Salvation mission; she calculated that Chambeaux & Deyer’s one-third commission would be enough to pay off my outstanding funeral expenses and also provide ample operating cash for the business.
Below the story, a quarter-page ad gushed about the imminent release of JLPN’s new Fresh Loam product line, posting a toll-free number for a full range of free samples.
Seeing me at the counter, Albert shuffled around the kitchen wall and stepped up to me, swaying on his feet. I could smell the aroma around him, but I wasn’t one to complain.
“What’s the lunch special today, Albert?” I asked.
“Lunch special,” was all he said.
“Different from yesterday’s?”
“Lunch special.”
“Sounds good. I’ll have that—the zombie special. And a cup of black coffee.”
Next to me, without a word, the hunchback turned the page of his newspaper and studied the classified ads.
Albert shuffled off without acknowledging me, but I knew my order had lodged somewhere in what was left of his brain. He returned a few minutes later with a mug of coffee that sloshed on the counter when he set it down. Ghouls weren’t known for their social graces or their dexterity. Neither were zombies, but I was glad to be on the high-functioning end of the spectrum. I lifted the cup and took a sip of coffee. It tasted flat and bitter at the same time; maybe it was me, maybe it was the coffee.
Now that Sheyenne had compiled my old cases, I took the time to ponder them while I waited for the food, mulling over what person, event, or bit of data might be connected to my own murder.
Back at the corner booth with the necromancers, Esther the waitress let out a howl of laughter loud enough that two werewolves at another table perked up before returning to their conversation. I glanced over, and one of the bald, sallow wizards looked at me. He could move one eye independently of the other, but when I met his gaze and didn’t flinch, the eyeball drifted back to the harpy waitress.
The necromancers’ guild didn’t like me either. About five years ago, an ambitious rabbi had brought a clay golem to life by placing an Amulet of Animation (where do they get these names?) on the golem’s chest. When a necromancer stole the amulet—thereby rendering the golem lifeless—the rabbi hired me to get it back. Pure detective work.
Robin, meanwhile, got on her legal high horse over the crime and as soon as I identified the perpetrator, she demanded that the DA file murder charges against the necromancer, because by stealing the Amulet of Animation, he had robbed the golem of life. The rabbi added his two cents to the case, insisting that the Amulet itself was an extremely valuable object, and he wanted grand theft added to the charges against the necromancer.
It seemed an open-and-shut case. Everything was going fine until I succeeded in stealing back the Amulet. (Definitely not an evening I would like to repeat; necromancers are abysmal housekeepers.) I retrieved the Amulet, and Robin presented the evidence to Judge Gemma Hawkins, who took one look at the mystical artifact and determined that it was mere cheap costume jewelry made of plastic and tin with gold paint. Worth about ten bucks. Grand theft charges dismissed.
Also, once the Amulet of Animation was restored to the golem’s chest, he came back to life again, good as new. So the judge dropped the murder charge as well: no victim.
But Robin refused to let the case go—Justice had to be served. She submitted a succession of post-trial motions. She filed a suit on behalf of the golem for personal injury and negligent infliction of emotional distress, which the judge dismissed because she could not rule that the golem was a “person.” Next, Robin demanded monetary damages to reimburse the rabbi for the lost value of the golem’s services during the days when he was no longer animated. In exasperation, Judge Hawkins relented; she reprimanded the necromancer and made him pay a small fine, which Robin then appealed for a higher amount.
I had the easy part. All I did was break into a necromancer’s lair in the middle of the night and steal a sacred object….
My blue plate special arrived. Sliced grayish meat swimming in an unappetizing sauce that had already congealed enough to form scabs. When Albert set down the plate, one of the maggots dropped out of his nose and into the gravy.
Not what I had ordered. “I think you gave me the ghoul special, Albert.”
He looked down, focused on the food. “Sorry.” He took it away.
Next to me, the hunchback was reading the sports scores.
“How did Notre Dame do?” I asked.
He slowly turned and looked at me through his round spectacles. “Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that joke?”
“Sorry, I’m a detective, not a comedian.”
When Albert brought back the correct plate, I concentrated on my lunch, cutting a chunk of meat and popping it into my mouth, chewing as I considered the cases again. Somehow I couldn’t believe that the rabbi or even the necromancer had any motive to shoot me. One down. Only about ninety-nine more cases to go through.
I finished my lunch in a hurry, paid the tab at the cash register, and returned to the counter to leave a two-dollar tip for Esther, even though she hadn’t spoken a word to me. Maybe that was why I did leave her a tip.
I left the diner and headed out into the streets. I had work to do that afternoon.