I could feel the tug, and my shoulders rocked back and forth, but Lujean Eccles needed to make sure the stitches were tight. With my intact left hand, I gripped the side of her floral-print sofa for stability. Sheyenne passed surgical and taxidermy implements to Miss Eccles as she requested them. The sawbones pulled hard on the artificial sinew, then put her weight behind the effort, pressing on my right humerus until I felt the bone pop back into its shoulder socket.
“There you are, Mr. Chambeaux—as good as new.”
I concentrated on the fingers of my until-recently-detached arm and was relieved to see them curl down to the palm and straighten again. Next, I tried the hand, turning the wrist from side to side. I bent the elbow and finally raised the arm. “Excellent work, Miss Eccles.”
“It’s nice to have a repeat customer.” She began packing up her sewing kit.
“I’m not exactly glad to be a repeat customer.”
Sheyenne hovered above the repaired arm, concerned. “Can you feel your fingers?”
“What can I do to help?” Robin asked. “Does it hurt?”
“Doesn’t hurt … much. We’re back in business.” I held up my hand in a high-five gesture. Robin smiled and slapped my palm. Sheyenne did the same, although her spectral hand passed through mine. “I have good people to take care of me.”
Wendy the Patchwork Princess tottered into the sitting room, carrying my old jacket, which was amazingly clean and patched up again. It still looked tattered with the bullet holes sewn up in clumsy stitches, but it smelled fresh, and there was no sign of mud or blue fizziness.
“Sorry it’s not better,” she said.
“It’s just great, Wendy.” I ran my fingers over the black stitches that held the bullet holes together. “It has character, and I plan to wear it every day. From now on, this is my lucky jacket.”
“Lucky?” Robin said. “What kind of luck are you talking about?”
With her help, I shrugged my arms into the sleeves, straightened the collar, smoothed the lapels, and assessed my appearance in Miss Eccles’s parlor mirror. “I may look like I came off the discount rack in the used-body store, but this is who I am.”
“That’s the way we like you, Beaux,” Sheyenne said.
Maybe some flesh-colored upholstery tape would mask the stitches holding my arm back on, and makeup could cover the neatly sutured bullet holes across my torso. I resolved to remain well preserved, keep my regular appointments at Bruno & Heinrich’s Embalming Parlor for a touch-up, and spend more time at the All-Day/All-Nite Fitness Center.
Lujean Eccles placed her hands on her ample hips, pleased with her work. “Don’t feel bad about it, Mr. Chambeaux. Our scars tell stories of who we are and what we did. A person without marks hasn’t done anything.”
It was a good sentiment. “I’ll remember that.” I brushed off the front of my jacket and placed the fedora back on my head.
* * *
After Jekyll’s crimes were exposed, the uproar among unnaturals was so great that all hell was about to break loose. The warning against JLPN’s new line of Compound Z–saturated necroceuticals went out wide. All product stockpiles were impounded, every bottle taken from the shelves; every tube of toothpaste, jar of hair cream, pack of emBalm, or bottle of skin softener was recalled and incinerated, just in case.
Even so, because of accidental glitches or just plain obstinate stupidity, seventeen more unnaturals dissolved into puddles of goo. But it could have been much worse….
The Dorset family returned to our offices, more desperate than ever. The medium, Millicent Sanchez, looked frazzled, her hair in disarray, her eyes bloodshot. The family looked defeated, the children so skittish they could barely concentrate on their video games.
“Breakfast, lunch, and dinner—it’s constant aggravation,” Jackie Dorset said. “Uncle Stan wakes us up at all hours of the night. He heckles the children while they’re doing homework. He chases away any guests we have over. There’s got to be a law against spectral stalking!”
“And law enforcement to go along with it,” Brad said. “Nobody will do anything to remove the nuisance.”
“Changes in the legal system take forever to implement,” Robin said with genuine sympathy.
“I’m just here as a courtesy,” Millicent Sanchez announced, sounding miffed. “This is the first time I have ever abandoned a client, but I can’t take any more.” She handed her notes and records to Robin. “I’ve never endured such persistent harassment from a ghost. It’s completely unprofessional. I have my other clients to worry about.”
Brad Dorset gave a resigned sigh. “Uncle Stan’s been vindictively haunting all of Millicent’s customers, trying to ruin her business.”
The medium pushed herself away from the conference room table. “Best of luck to you. No charge—just don’t ever call me again.”
As she reached the door, the needy ghost of inebriated Uncle Stan appeared with a gush of cold wind that blew the medium’s skirt up past her waist in a very unsatisfactory Marilyn Monroe steam-grate parody. Millicent Sanchez squealed, swatted at the air. Even though the ghost couldn’t touch her, she tripped and fell face-first to the floor in the reception area, much to Uncle Stan’s glee. She scrambled out of our offices on hands and knees.
Robin lurched to her feet and barked like a drill sergeant. “I will not stand for this! There will be standards of decorum in these offices!”
Uncle Stan’s puffy cheeks swelled out so he could let rip a very loud raspberry.
Just then Sheyenne appeared in front of the drunken ghost, cocked back her balled right fist, and punched Uncle Stan squarely in the nose. He reeled in shock, and Sheyenne drew herself up. “There’s more where that came from. If you try to terrorize our clients, you’ll have to come through me.” She raised both fists now. “You’ve done enough harm. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Uncle Stan started blubbering. “They’re my family, my only family. You can’t keep me away from them! It’s cruel and unusual.”
“You’re the one who’s cruel and unusual,” muttered the boy Joshua, then tried to concentrate on his game. Uncle Stan disrupted the game’s circuits, and the unit died with an electronic sigh of doom.
But Sheyenne was on a tear of her own. “Ghosts like you give apparitions everywhere a bad name! I’ve had to accept my situation—now do the same. Just because you don’t have a life anymore, it doesn’t give you the right to ruin somebody else’s life.”
“We loved you when you were alive, Uncle Stan,” Jackie said with a sniffle. “But you’re dead now. Please move on.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the ghost said, then his expression fell. “I’ve got no place to go. I just wanted to be noticed and not forgotten.”
“Well, this isn’t the way to go about it,” Sheyenne scolded. “It’s tough enough for unnaturals to be accepted in this world. We’re fighting for our right to be treated as regular citizens, so we try to get along, be good neighbors, and not eat or attack one another. But you know what you are, with your spectral terrorism? A roadblock for all unnaturals trying to gain acceptance!”
Tears welled up in the ghost’s red-rimmed eyes, and he grew maudlin in the way only a long-term drunk can. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
Jackie Dorset was emotional as well. “It’s not that we don’t love you, Uncle Stan, but we need our own space.”
Brad added, “After all, how can we miss you when you’re always there?”
“But I’m lonely!”
Robin pulled her chair closer to the table, put her elbows on the surface, and assumed her professional mediating-lawyer position. “Now that we’ve finally opened a genuine dialogue, maybe we can find a middle ground? You don’t need to be at opposite ends of the spectrum.”
“We’ve always been willing to talk,” Brad said. “If Uncle Stan would agree to a cease-fire.”
Sheyenne hovered by Uncle Stan like a tough enforcer, ready to punch him in the nose again. She had knocked some sense into him already.
“Maybe … we can pick one night a week when we’ll be glad to see you, and we can all be good company to one another,” Jackie said.
“You mean, like Sundays used to be?” Uncle Stan brightened. “And Wednesdays, and—”
“One day a week,” Brad said sternly.
Stan looked crestfallen, then lifted his eyes. “And holidays. How about holidays? Those should be family times.”
“Christmas and Thanksgiving only,” Brad conceded.
“And Easter. We have to get together for Easter.”
Jackie looked at her husband and grudgingly said, “Okay, Easter too.”
“And Arbor Day was always my favorite—”
“No,” Brad said.
Robin added, “Perhaps you’re going too far, sir.”
Uncle Stan let out a long sigh. “All right. Every Sunday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.”
“But you have to agree to leave them in peace for the rest of the year,” Robin said.
The ghost blinked mournfully at the Dorsets. “You could still invite me over at other times, if you like. I mean … if we get along.”
“Your own behavior will dictate that,” Robin said. “This is a trial period.”
“I’ll change. I promise.”
“I have resources for you,” Robin added. “We can even line up some ghostly counseling services.”
* * *
The office was quiet for a few days, which gave us time to wrap up the cases we’d been working on. Sheyenne was happy to close several files: the emancipation of Ramen Ho-Tep, the Wannovich sisters’ lawsuit, the case of poor Sheldon Fennerman, and Miranda Jekyll’s divorce.
Miranda paid us a hefty bonus. In addition, the Chambeaux & Deyer share of the proceeds from the Alvin Ricketts art auction arrived, and Ramen Ho-Tep paid his bill with a golden scarab brooch from his private collection. With the welcome influx of cash, we were able to clear all of our overdue bills and pay off the remainder of my funeral expenses. (They had been weighing on me like a bunch of old student loans.)
We also had more than enough to buy a new company car, though Robin spent the money on getting the Pro Bono Mobile fixed instead. I could have bought a whole wardrobe of expensive tailored suits, but I had already decided to keep my old bullet-scarred one. Instead, we put the extra money into the operating expenses account, saving for a rainy day. The Unnatural Quarter had a lot of rainy days.
Sheyenne packed up the finished paperwork and closed case files in a bankers’ box and headed off to our storage unit. When Sheyenne was gone, Robin came in and sat on the corner of my desk. She had that concerned look on her face. “I worry about the risks you take, Dan. I tried to warn you, but you didn’t listen.”
“Oh, I listened. I just wasn’t careful enough.”
She sighed. “You’re dead, and I still worry about you.”
“Even these bullets can’t stop me from getting back up and going to work. But I won’t let it happen again—I promise I learned my lesson.”
“Or maybe you should take up a safer profession?”
I laughed. “Like being a zombie accountant? I’m a private investigator—that’s what I do. I can’t change that any more than you could close your law books and walk away from the legal profession.”
She smiled. “You’re right. You know me, and I know you.”
“That’s why we’re such a good team,” I said. “I’m here for you, no matter what.”
Robin came around the desk and threw her arms around my shoulders in a fierce hug. Fortunately, her fierceness didn’t knock lose any of the stitches Lujean Eccles had used to reattach my arm. She felt warm and smelled good, and I let her just stay there for as long as she wanted.