Stefan Petrucha - Dead Mann Walking

Our fingers remain crossed.

She strutted toward me, modeling her dress. It was something new from the thrift store, cleaned so carefully you could see only the outlines of the stains. Aside from the fact that she could stand to lose the stockings, she should’ve known flirting with me was a waste. When I said she moved me, I didn’t mean she moved my groin. Hell, I’m afraid to look down there since they brought me back. Officially, chakz don’t have a sex drive.

She meant well, wanted to keep me engaged with my environment so I didn’t get too morose over, oh, I don’t know, my entire fucking existence. I appreciated the effort, and she was sort of fun to look at.

Trying to play my part, I attempted a wolf whistle. It came out more like a spastic steam kettle. Chakz are bone-dry. I should’ve taken a drink first, but the effect doesn’t last long, and the liquids slosh around inside so much you can never be sure when or where they’ll come out.

Misty got the idea, though. She winked. Then she flashed a business card.

I leaned forward for a closer look. Nice paper, maybe even linen. William Turgeon, Esq . No address, just the name and a cell phone number, like he was a place all by himself.

“You find that in the street?”

She blew a raspberry. “No, stupid, he’s outside. Wants to see you.”

“Me? Really? He’s not lost?”

“Nope. Asked for you by name. Says, ‘Is Hessius Mann here’?”

That’s my name. The hand-painted sign on the door says I’m a detective. I don’t particularly agree with the title, but I keep that to myself. And I do get clients, sometimes among the living. Unfortunately, your average liveblood is about as knowledgeable about chakz as they are about how evolution works, so when one shows up, they usually want me to kill and eat someone they don’t like. Then they get all incensed when I say no. Most likely, this was more of the same.

On the other hand, it could be a blackmail case, especially with that fancy card. Those’re good, but few and far between. See, it’s best to tell your hired dick what you’re being blackmailed for . Livebloods don’t like chakz, but they don’t seem to mind telling us everything. Not only are we dead, our memories are so wonky our testimony’s not admissible in court. A plus for someone with a secret, a minus for me.

When I was alive, my recall was photographic. It was half the reason I had my job. These days, I remember the weirdest crap. The Beatles’ last album? Abbey Road . They recorded it after Let It Be . My middle name? Your guess is as good as mine. Oh, I can still have a decent conversation. It’s the transition from short- to long-term memory that’s AWOL.

Misty adjusted my jacket and straightened my tie. I felt like a rotting, life-size Ken doll.

“So, should I send him in?” she asked.

I held up a gray finger. “Keep him busy a minute. Say I’m on the phone. There’s something I want to do first.”

Soon as she left, I forgot what it was. The television? I clicked it off. No, something else.

Talking head? No. Oh, yeah. The head.

After I was ripped, one of the first things I realized I had to do was buy a little handheld digital recorder to store all those details I used to have at my fingertips. Took a week to remember to buy the damn thing. Now I was always losing it. I felt around on the desk, then my body, and finally found it in my pants pocket. With a press of the red dot I rattled off what I was thinking about Colin Wilson, for future reference.

If I ever remembered that I made the recording, that is.

I was finished when the door swung open. Misty held on to the knob, stretching her thin arm across our guest, putting herself in the doorframe along with him. She knew he’d have to rub against her to come in. Poor Misty, she wasn’t very subtle. I understood why she was interested. His suit cost more than the building. It wasn’t his looks. He was big, though not exactly fat. The word I’d use is puffy.

Unlike Misty, William Turgeon was not a lot of fun to look at, but it was unavoidable because he took up so much space. He was a six-footer, rounded, not obese, but his proportions were off. Largish head, squat arms, oversize hands. The clothes helped. The lines of the suit matched his body snug as puzzle pieces, but overall he looked kind of like an overdressed, overly large baby.

As he squeezed past her, she tried to make eye contact, but either he wasn’t interested or he was real good at hiding it. She gave me a no-playing –Pretty Woman– today shrug and made herself scarce.

It was late and my office didn’t get much light to begin with. The room was dark enough for his Stetson to keep most of his features in shadow. I could see the whites of his eyes, but that was about it. What I could see of those pupils were all over me. He was checking me out for something. What, I didn’t know.

“Hessius Mann?” he said. It was an even voice, not unfriendly, but high-pitched. On the phone I might think he was a woman.

I stood and caught a glimpse of my bony self reflected in the window. The suit was decent, but something stuck up from the top of my head. Hoping it was hair and not a piece of scalp, I nodded a greeting. I didn’t bother putting out my hand. Livebloods don’t like to touch us.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Turgeon?”

He took off his hat and planted himself in the smaller chair in front of my desk. The old wood creaked loudly, but it didn’t collapse. A good look at his face did nothing to deter my impression of him as a giant baby. His head was a series of puffy ovals, fat little egg shapes. As for his hair, well, he should have kept the hat on. It was braided in tight cornrows. Not the fashion choice I’d have made.

“You used to work for the police?” he asked.

He’d done his homework. I didn’t like talking about my past, but Turgeon looked like he had money, and I wanted some. “Yeah. It’s no secret.”

“Until you were accused of beating your wife to death after discovering she’d had an affair with the chief detective, Thomas Booth?”

Nobody likes a show-off. Some things have emotional resonance even with a chak. That, for instance. Really strong feelings are physically uncomfortable for us, like forcing too much water through a thin, cracked tube. We don’t like it.

“What’s this about, Mr. Turgeon?”

He narrowed his egg eyes. “You can be offended. You’re higher-functioning than most.”

“You’re pretty high-functioning yourself, for a liveblood.”

“I’m sorry. I need to be sure who I’m working with.”

The apology surprised me. We don’t usually get that. It made me relax, but just a little. “Let me clear something up for you right now. I don’t kill and eat people.”

The puffy lines under his chin wobbled as he shook his head. “It’s nothing like that. I have a touchy situation to resolve. I have to trust you first, though. May I ask another personal question?”

“Try it and see how it goes.”

The chair creaked again as he shifted. “At work one day you received an e-mail with a photo showing your wife, Lenore, engaged in coitus with your boss.”

He looked as if he were going to giggle when he said coitus . This time, I wasn’t aware of having an emotional reaction, but my body disagreed. My knee started twitching.

“You put your fist through the wall,” he went on, “then raced home. Your boss, concerned, followed with some men. They found you hovering over your dead wife. She’d been beaten with your baseball bat. You claimed you found her that way, but no one believed you; you were known for having a temper. You were found guilty and executed.”

Point of pride, desire for the job, whatever, I struggled not to react, but my knee just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. Fucking memory. It never rains but it pours. Fractured images, burning pricks, stabbed my brain: the color photo of Lenore and Booth together, the side of her enraptured face making a shadow on the nape of his neck, the feel of plasterboard buckling against my knuckles, the twisted, almost clownish look of surprise on Booth’s face as he burst into our kitchen and saw all the blood. Then a blur.