Though it might not seem a manly sort of place for a private detective to frequent, beauty salons and spas are great places to pick up information. I’m not obsessed with fashion. I’ve never had a manicure, certainly not a pedicure. I don’t buy my clothes because of photos I see in Vogue: Undead. I’m not too hard on the eyes, and Sheyenne still gives me that look now and then; I hope she does for a long time to come.
But a lot of basic things change after death, and there’s a difference between looking pretty and simply maintaining yourself. Being “well preserved” takes on a whole new meaning, and it’s a constant battle to stop the onset of decay.
In the month since coming back to life, I’d been getting weekly treatments at Bruno & Heinrich’s Embalming Parlor, the zombie equivalent of a beauty salon. The proprietors—emaciated identical twins—were obsessive stylists who realized they had no talent whatsoever for interacting with warm-blooded human beings, so they became morticians by trade. After the Big Uneasy, Bruno and Heinrich found their true calling in life.
When I arrived for my 3:00 appointment, Bruno—or maybe it was Heinrich—greeted me with a ghastly smile. “Felicitations, Mr. Chambeaux. I’ll be handling you today.” He rubbed his fingertips together; he wore a fresh coat of matte-black nail polish. “The usual, sir? Or do you have special plans this week? We could do something more radical, more edgy.”
“Just the usual,” I said.
Bruno—yes, it was Bruno, I decided—looked disappointed. “Someday we’ll get you out of your rut, sir. We could all do with a bit more flamboyance.”
“Not all of us,” I said. “Just top off the embalming fluid, check the hair and makeup, cover any discolorations.”
“As you wish, sir.”
When the physical body doesn’t regenerate very well, little bits of daily damage begin to add up. Once you start to slide down that slippery slope, there’s no getting back up again.
I had seen far too many people, both naturals and unnaturals, who let themselves go downhill, and I had no intention of turning into one of those decrepit necrotic shamblers who stagger around like drunken sleepwalkers with bad hemorrhoids and can’t carry on an intelligent conversation. I wouldn’t be effective at solving cases if I had pieces falling off me here and there.
Bruno gestured me toward a side room. “We’ve reserved your private chair, sir. I know you don’t like to be disturbed during the process.”
It’s true that I like the private embalming chair, where I can mull over my cases while the embalmer does his work. But because I had just reviewed the files that Sheyenne had dumped on my desk, not to mention Sheldon Fennerman’s predicament, I wanted more interaction. No telling what I might pick up if somebody happened to drop a juicy tidbit. “I’ll be more sociable today, Bruno. Why not put me among the ladies?”
Bruno’s artificially darkened eyebrows rose like ravens taking wing. “I’m sure they’d love that, sir. They talk about you after you’re gone, you know.”
Apparently, zombies can blush when the situation calls for it, because I felt a definite warmth in my cheeks. “Well, why make them wait? Now they can talk about me to my face.”
In the brightly lit main salon, three makeup-plastered undead women reclined in their chairs while Heinrich flitted from one to the next, chatting and smiling while his clients gossiped in raspy cackling voices. The trio had been in their early sixties in human years, after which they’d added a few hard undead years. All three had the sinewy, rough look of heavy smokers, heavy drinkers, and heavy flirters. Heinrich did his very best, though the women still looked as if they had graduated from the Bride of Frankenstein School of Cosmetology.
“Well, look who’s decided to join us today, honey,” said the first, whose name was Victoria (“want to be my Vic-tim?” she had once said in a creaky attempt to be sexy). Zombie cougars on the prowl.
“He looks delicious,” said the next, Cindy. (“Rhymes with sin, heh, heh.” Well, not really.) “It’ll be wonderful to have some masculine company here, instead of just us girls.” She looked up quickly at Heinrich. “No offense, of course.”
“None taken, love. My masculinity’s not in question.”
I eased myself into the chair while Bruno began to gather the tubes and tanks of fluid.
The third woman leaned over in her chair: Sharon (“I don’t need clever wordplay to get a man”). “Got any plans, Dan? I’ll be finished here long before these other ladies are ready for a public viewing. They need a lot more work done than I do.” The other two looked at her with glares like wooden stakes, but Sharon ignored them. “You and I could go out for lunch or cocktails … or just someplace for an afternoon delight.”
“Sounds tempting,” I said, feeling no interest whatsoever, “but my caseload is killing me. Mysteries to solve, bad guys to catch.”
“Oh, you’re not still obsessed with your dreary murder, are you?” Cindy-rhymes-with-sin gave a flippant toss of her head.
I wanted to get the bastard who had killed me, but more importantly I needed enough answers to be sure Robin wasn’t in any continuing danger. What if the murderer had other targets on his list? And who had poisoned Sheyenne?
“Tragic,” Victoria said. “I think about you every time the girls and I go to the Basilisk nightclub.”
“My body was found in an alley a block away,” I said. “Not at Basilisk.”
Still, my death might have had some connection with the nightclub and the under-the-table blood-bank sales I had exposed. I’d been avoiding the place … because of Sheyenne. “Anyway, I do work on more than one case at a time, ladies. Many clients to satisfy. Have you heard about threats being made against vampires? Wooden stakes left on doorsteps, anything like that?”
Cindy said, “Vampires … not my sort of undead.”
“I’ll try anything,” Sharon said. “I may be dead, but I’m not that dead.”
“Any thing is right,” Victoria cackled. “We’ve seen some of the creatures you’ve gone home with.”
Heinrich gave a worried frown. “Vampires are some of our best clients during the night shift. They’re so particular about their hair. And we do a brisk business in fang whitening.”
“Not much for the tanning beds, though,” Bruno said as he hooked up the heavy-gauge trocar to the cannula and started the pump to fill my vessels with fresh embalming fluid. He used a makeup brush to fuss over my face. He flipped my hair back and forth while he tsk-tsked at the entrance and exit wounds in my skull. “This really needs to be repaired, sir. If you will allow me? I can do wonders, both for your appearance and your self-esteem. That bullet hole is a distraction.”
Previously, I had resisted doing much to cover it up other than wearing my hat lower. “Every time I look in the mirror, it reminds me that I still have to find the person who killed me.”
“You don’t need a hole in the head for that, sir. Tell the truth—how often do you look in the mirror?”
“Hardly ever.”
“That settles it, then. Let me do my work. I am a professional.”
Bruno opened jars of makeup and mortician’s putty, then packed the front of my forehead, reconstructing the damage to my skull. I could feel the flow of fresh embalming fluid invigorating me.
“I could help you with your caseload, Dan,” said Cindy, then added in a sultry, rasping voice, “as long as it’s a hard case.” The zombie cougars tittered.
Now, I don’t mind flirting, especially when it helps people relax and answer my questions in an investigation, but that’s where I draw the line. Ghost or not, Sheyenne is my girlfriend, so I smiled and said, “Thanks for the offer, ladies, but my caseload is already spoken for.”
Taking my comment as a rebuff, Sharon said, “I don’t think he can do anything, girls. Talk about dead wood!” They all laughed at that.
This time I didn’t bother blushing. It didn’t matter what they assumed. I was capable enough in the sexual department, but I wasn’t in the market for a ZILF—especially those three.
Heinrich chatted about Alvin Ricketts and the art auction that night, which did interest me, but the ladies were unimpressed. They turned their predatory interest as the parlor door jangled open.
A boisterous man in a loud plaid sports jacket entered with his dark hair brushed back, a fine gold chain hanging at his neck just above a line of conspicuously woolly chest hair. “Ah, what beautiful ladies!” he said. “Could there be any better job than this?”
Brondon Morris was the representative of Jekyll Lifestyle Pro-ducts and Necroceuticals, a profuse and avuncular snake-oil salesman who seemed to believe that everyone adored him, though no one did. He circulated among Unnatural Quarter businesses, supermarkets, parlors, and clubs, hawking JLPN products and distributing the toiletries that no unnatural should be without.
The zombie cougars cooed and fawned over the visitor. “Did you bring us any samples this time, Brondon?”
“Of course I did, ladies.” He glanced up, recognized me in the embalming chair, and froze for an uncomfortable fraction of a second. I knew who he was, and he knew me; there was no love lost between us. He pointedly ignored me.
Humming loudly to emphasize how much he enjoyed his work, Brondon opened his case and pulled out tubes, bottles, and spritzers, handing them to the three zombie women. “Now, these samples are just for your personal use, ladies—skin creams, face masks, wrinkle reducers. I can’t make a living if I give away all our products, and Bruno and Heinrich wouldn’t be too pleased with me! I hope you’ll tell all your friends about the quality of our line.”
“We’re dedicated customers,” said Sharon. “You know we are.”
Meanwhile, Bruno continued working on me, and Heinrich came back with a clipboard and a JLPN order form. Brondon continued, “We have a lovely new perfume that we’re test-marketing right now.”
“Is it from the new Zom-Be-Fresh line?” Victoria asked. “Fresh Loam?”
“Those products aren’t ready for market just yet, I’m afraid. Two more weeks until the wide release. They’re still undergoing laboratory testing.”
“I’ll help you test it,” Cindy offered. “In fact, I’ll help test any of your … equipment.”
Brondon gave her a wide, sincere smile. “What a beautiful offer! I may take you up on that someday.” He handed out shiny packets of nail cleaner, held up a small curved brush. “This is a useful new item, specially designed to scrub dirt from the fingernails of anyone who’s just clawed her way out of the grave.”
“Brondon, sweetie, do we look like we’re fresh out of the grave?”
Wisely leaving the question unanswered, Brondon put the brush back into his satchel. Heinrich saved him by handing over the completed order form. “We’re all very satisfied with JLPN products, Mr. Morris. And when your new Fresh Loam line comes out, we’ll add it to our order. Your ads are generating a lot of customer interest.”
“We’re very proud of Fresh Loam, a whole new spin on our entire product line. One of the largest marketing campaigns in our company history.”
So far, Brondon had kept his back to me, but now he looked in my direction, bent down to his sample case, and withdrew a small spray can. “It’s a fact of life, Mr. Chambeaux, that zombies need deodorant more than the usual person. You’re relatively new to the condition, but you’ll realize it sooner or later. Our line ranks very high in customer satisfaction.”
He came close and spritzed it in the air, but I flinched back. “No, thank you—I am who I am, and I prefer to smell that way.”
“It’s not about you, my friend. Because of my work among the unnaturals, I’ve gotten used to the smell, but you should be considerate to others who may be standing downwind.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m not interested.”
“He’s not interested in anything,” Sharon said.
“How about this? You’re going to love emBalm!” He tried to hand me a small tube of lip balm. “No zombie wants chapped lips.”
“No thanks.”
Disappointed, Brondon tugged on the collar of his plaid sport jacket. “Is this just sour grapes for the … unpleasantness with JLPN a few years ago? Water under the bridge! We’re a different company now—resurrected, if you will. Our new specialty products are designed to help unnaturals with all their hygiene needs.”
“No sour grapes on my part, Mr. Morris. I stand by my investigative work, and the courts upheld it.”
I had history with Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals. Case history. Personal history.
Four years into our partnership, Robin and I had worked on a class-action lawsuit against JLPN. The parent company had been a successful cosmetics and toiletries manufacturer for decades, but after the Big Uneasy, when much of the public shivered under the bedsheets in fear of monsters, the company’s CEO—Harvard Stanford Jekyll—realized there was an entirely new pool of customers for a line of specialized creams, shampoos, toothpaste, deodorants, perfumes, everything an unnatural needed for a happy and productive unlife.
In a rather embarrassing incident, some customers experienced problems with a conditioning shampoo developed for vampires. Specifically, it made their hair fall out. Vampire Pattern Baldness. And once undead hair fell out, it didn’t grow back. Vampires tend to be vain, banking on their sexual magnetism, imagining careers as cover models for bodice-ripping, jugular-puncturing romance novels. The shampoo users were distraught to watch their suaveness reduced with every stroke of a comb or brush.
So a group of newly bald vampires engaged the services of Chambeaux & Deyer. While Robin filed lawsuits, I did my detective work and discovered that two lots of the JLPN shampoo had “accidentally” been contaminated with garlic oil. After further investigation (impersonating a factory employee and surreptitiously copying confidential records, long after business hours), I found proof that the garlic oil was intentionally added by a disgruntled employee, who was later reprimanded and let go. The company pulled the vampire shampoo from the shelves, paid an undisclosed amount in damages—our cut of the settlement paid the rent for six months—and spent years recovering from the public-relations disaster.
Needless to say, I was persona non grata over there.
Brondon gave me an awkward smile now. “So let’s bury the hatchet. How about trying some of our products? Free samples—in the spirit of goodwill?”
Even though most unnaturals used the stuff, I really had no desire to. “I appreciate the offer, but sometimes I do undercover surveillance. I don’t want people to smell my cologne from a block away.”
Brondon brushed off the insult and turned his attention back to the three zombie cougars, who basked in his presence. Because of his daily sales routine, I could think of few humans who were so entirely at ease among unnaturals. Brondon bent close and said in a stage whisper, as if he imagined that none of us men could overhear him, “I’ll be at the Goblin Tavern later on tonight, ladies, if any of you care to join me for a drink….”
Victoria, Cindy, and Sharon fervently promised that they would see Brondon there, come Hell or high water—and nowadays, floods and the underworld were well within the realm of possibility. Brondon packed up his sample case, gave a flirtatious wave to the cadaverous women, and sauntered out of the embalming parlor.
Bruno unhooked the needle and tube from my arm. “There you are, sir. All topped off. Good as new.”
“A reasonable facsimile, at least,” I said, and I did feel refreshed. I took a quick glance at the mirror, touched a fingertip to the mortician’s putty in my forehead. No sign of a bullet hole. Bruno had done a good job.
I paid him, gathered my hat and jacket, and headed back to the office.