Stefan Petrucha - Dead Mann Walking

“She’s hooked up with Colby Green. Colby Green . You don’t want to go down that route. Forget it.”

I made a face at him. “Geez, you run hot and cold. I thought you wanted me to act as if.”

“Yeah, but you should act as if you’ve still got a brain. I mean . . . Colby Green? I home-delivered some ketamine to his estate once. He has these special bug zappers set up out front. Bug gets fried, falls into a small reanimator at the bottom, then comes back, only to get fried again. And that’s what he does to bugs .”

I knew the stories. “So I take it you don’t buy the press about how he fights for chak rights?”

“Sure, he fights for our rights, but that’s just to keep his access , Mann. He runs the biggest chak-up palace in the country, as a hobby. In his basement, he’s got chakz in pens, like cattle. Some of his friends are into dead kids , you know what I’m saying? Cancer victims or whatnot whose parents brought them back in the early days, then abandoned them when they decided they were freaks. Anyone tries to press child-rape charges, Green’s lawyers argue that since they died six years ago, even though they were ten at the time, now they’re sixteen, the age of consent, so it’s legal . It doesn’t get more perverted. And Nell Parker? She’s his favorite stripper.”

“That’s a long walk. Her file said she used to be a women’s advocate.”

“Yeah, well, she walked the walk. Right now she’d be better off if your psycho got her.”

“That’s sort of what Misty said about Ashby, but I don’t see it. It’s not as though she can quit when she’s a head.”

“Funny. Stay away. You need someone to help? Fuck, help me . I’ve got maybe thirty chakz lined up for the rally, but, honestly, most can’t march in a straight line, let alone hold up a sign. I could use you. What do you say?”

He pulled out one of his flyers and handed it to me.

“Come on, at least read it.”

Crazy as life was, the rally struck me as crazier. I crumpled the flyer and stuffed it in my pocket. “Sorry, Jonesey, wrong as if . I liked your first speech better.”

Two blocks north there was a train station on a line that’d take me north to the Colby estate. It practically had its own stop. I’d missed the last one for the day, but there’d be another in the morning.

“Hess, you do this and I’ll . . . I’ll tell Misty.”

With a bit of effort, I managed to glower. “Tell her or not, I’m going. But do us all a favor and don’t. She’s got her own problems. After I’m gone, I’m sure she’ll be happy to help you paint some signs, though.” I pulled some bills out of my pocket. “For supplies, and a couple of hot meals for Misty. She likes breakfast, home fries, but make sure she eats the eggs, too.”

By the time he stopped looking at the money, I was half a block away.

“You’re nuts!” he called out.

Depends on how you kept score. Colby Green was the shit you find on the bottom of a shit pile. I could easily, real easily, wind up stuck there as one of his playthings. But I had this weird idea that someone as fascinated with chakz as he was might believe what I had to say about Turgeon. Whatever his reasons, he might even help try to stop him.

And that was worth the risk.

Back at the office, Misty looked like she was asleep, so I stepped over her. She wasn’t.

“You find Ashby?” she said in a half mumble.

“Yeah, it’s all fine now.”

Her eyes popped open. She propped herself up. “Meaning you put him down.”

“Had to, Misty. You know that.”

She slumped. “I do. You’ve got to pull yourself together and get the guy who did this, Hess; you have to.”

As if. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

She went on. “No more lying around watching the inside of your eyeballs.”

“Did you hear what I just said?”

I headed for my office, but she grabbed my arm. “Don’t act like we both don’t know how close you were. You were into that, that . . . torpor shit. And then I’m supposed to smash your head in? I can barely lift that sledgehammer. You scared me, you son of a bitch; you really scared me.”

I looked at her. “I’m back now, okay? I’m back and I’m going to try to find Turgeon, at least warn his victims.”

She let go.

It was only when I stepped into my office that I realized how tired I was. I didn’t want to sleep, but my brain insisted. I threw myself down and closed my eyes. It was the real deal. If I dreamed anything, I didn’t remember.

Judging from the shadows through the blinds, I slept the morning away. It looked like noon. If I was going to do this thing, I’d better be on my way. I took a few hundred for expenses and thought about how nice it was for Turgeon to provide the funds for his own investigation. Then I had a funny feeling.

I decided to check all the bills. I’d looked over the first wad when he handed it to me—that was legit, but not the other two. At least half were phonies, unless they elected Dumbledore president of the United States and nobody told me. Shit. By the time I finished counting, I had about a third of what I thought. So much for redecorating.

Cursing, I grabbed it all and headed out.

Misty was still lying down. “Where you going now?” she said, still half-asleep.

“To deposit the cash at an ATM, so the debit card will be good. Then I’ve got to catch a train.”

“To where?”

“A lead. For real. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Go find Jonesey. He’s got some work for you, and some money for food.”

“You couldn’t tell me that last night? I’m starving,” she said drowsily. “You sound better, like . . .”

Her eyelids fluttered. She mumbled something I couldn’t make out. Poor thing had probably been awake the whole time I was losing it. Now she was catching up. A little bit of drool slid from her half-open mouth, down to the rumpled pillowcase.

I pressed my dry tongue to the roof of my dry mouth and tried to remember what it was like to drool.

21

Turned out I’d slept through more than just morning. By the time I was on my way, it was late afternoon. The ride was nothing to speak of. My car was empty. There were flashes through the filthy windows whenever the power lines sparked. The train passed ticky-tack suburbs, trash-strewn woods where teens ran wild, before it squeaked and shuddered into Cherry’s End.

The only thing visible from the station was the forest. I got off the platform and still didn’t see much of anything. Why? Because that’s how Colby Green planned it. A few years ago, there was a court case over whether or not Cherry’s End was even part of Fort Hammer. Green was rich enough to muddy the jurisdiction. Even got his own area code.

The huge stone wall surrounding his property sneaked up on me. That’s hard to manage with something so big, but this was no Collin Hills, protected by cinder block made pretty with a trowel swish. Consumerism is a superficial sin for superficial people. Ninety-nine percent of the folks living at Collin Hills couldn’t tell you what cinder block was made of. Green knew exactly where his Italian marble came from, the city, the quarry, the name of the foreman. Not that he cared about architecture. From what I understood, he was like that with everything. He knew the world inside and out and now wanted to play with it the way a cat likes to toy with a mouse, amused at the way it hovers between life and death.

Which is probably why he likes chakz so much.

I followed the wall maybe ten minutes until I spotted the front gates, iron monsters buttressed by Italian marble columns. Sneaking around a lion’s den seems disrespectful as well as pointless, so I figured I might as well walk up and knock. It is, after all, one of the few places open to chakz.