Dead Mann Walking

2

When Turgeon said now, I didn’t realize how much he meant it. I offered to do some digging and call him in twenty-four hours, but he crossed his arms over his belly.

“I need results tonight. Frank Boyle may be in immediate danger, Mr. Mann,” he said. After a beat, he lowered his head and tried to suppress a giggle. “Mr. Mann . . . Sorry . . .”

Yeah, the name Dad left me gets big yuks sometimes. I got into so many fights when I was a kid, they mistook me for the neighborhood bully. At least, I like to think they did. Part of the reason I joined the force was because Officer Mann or Detective Mann sounded better. Didn’t always help. Once during a bust, a dealer, all buff and full of tattoos, saw my badge and said, “Jeepers, Mr. Mann!” He and his buddies had a real laugh riot until I coldcocked him with my nine-millimeter. He nearly lost an eye.

Police brutality? Nah. Mr. Mann brutality. Maybe I was the neighborhood bully.

These days, no pride to hurt. Hell, I had a hard enough time thinking of myself as a real detective. I sat there until Turgeon composed himself. I figure if he pays me enough, he can call me whatever he wants.

“I’ve got a couple of sources I can check out,” I told him. “Misty can make you some coffee. I’ll be back soon.” That seemed to satisfy him.

Maybe the big rush should’ve set some bells off, but between wincing about my name and thinking about the dead presidents crammed in my desk, I was distracted. I snatched the head shot and left Misty to babysit. I kind of wished she had some car keys to jangle in front of him.

I trudged down three flights of interior squalor to get to the squalor on the street. The sun had pretty much said screw this and was headed home. A yellow Hummer was parked right in front of my building, a piece of gold in a toilet bowl. I figured it belonged to Turgeon. The only working streetlamp crackled like it was spitting the light on the sidewalk.

This was the Bones, the kind of place even crack heads see as a step down, six blocks of half walls, barbed wire left over from WWI, and vacant lots. Since we generally don’t have jobs, homes, or most of our faculties, any Fort Hammer chak who doesn’t hole up in a shantytown stays here. It’s the better choice, but not by much. We’re a city park away from a gated liveblood neighborhood, so the cops keep things relatively quiet. Not at the shanties, though. Hakkers, bored, disaffected livebloods, pick one every Friday and go play whack-a-chak, beating, cutting, and otherwise not letting the dead rest in peace. It’s like a live-action role-playing game, only you can’t tell who the monsters are.

Turgeon hired me probably thinking all chakz know one another. Truth is, he may have been better off on his own. Finding a particular chak was no easy trick. Yellowed finger bone in a haystack. There were four shantytowns everyone knew about: two in the desert, one near an old iron mine, and the biggest, Bedland, in an abandoned mattress factory. When I first came back, I stayed there a while, until a bad raid wised me up.

Since I barely remembered anyone from yesterday, my best play, my only play, was to find Jonesey. I’d known him long enough for the name and face to stick. Before he was wrongly convicted of childnapping, he was a motivational speaker. If you want it bad enough, you can have it; just act as if; that sort of horseshit. Had some books published. Somehow I don’t think he was found guilty because he didn’t want his freedom bad enough. Ha. When it turned out a year later that the kid was living with his aunt in another state, they brought him back. Oops. So sorry, Mr. Jones. Now he’s a small-time dealer, and he knows not to call me Mr. Mann.

The dead make okay street dealers. They can’t get hooked, and in a pinch they can take a bullet or three. Sure, eventually the damage gets too severe to patch with thread and Krazy Glue, but who cares? So what if pieces dangle, rot sets in, things fall off? Eventually they go feral, but by then there’s not enough left to do much damage. It’s a win-win.

A couple of cars trolled the field of potholes that passed for a street—most likely liveblood druggies hoping to score. If you’re not an addict, alive, and here at night, then you’re a whole new breed of pervert, into chakking up: a quick one with an animated corpse in the alley, or a drive back home, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase dry humping. And they know what they want. Back when Misty tried passing as a chak, it earned her a beating or two from disappointed johns. She showed me the bruises.

My dad once said to me, “There ain’t a single thing in all creation someone hasn’t tried to fuck.” I was five or six at the time. Had no idea what he meant. Now I wish I didn’t.

Then again, I’ve never heard of a chak, male or female, going feral from what pervs do to them. I guess there are some things we really just don’t care about anymore.

Jonesey usually hung at the third lamppost down Cruger Avenue. Just my luck, tonight he wasn’t there. That was a little weird. He was a regular guy, for a chak.

In his place, a real Romero type was leaning against a building like he was holding it up. The left side of his skull looked like it’d been caved in by an anvil.

Hoping his remaining ear still worked, I sauntered up. “Jonesey around?”

I got some grunts. He twisted his shoulder to the right, the arm dangling, useless. At the end of his hand, bones poked through blackened skin. I knew what it was, but a whiff of something putrid told me how bad.

“Hey, pal, watch the rot. Soak that in some bleach before you lose the muscle.”

He gave me another grunt. I hoped I wasn’t talking to myself.

“Bleach? You know? Kill the rot? Keep the fingers?”

Nothing. At least I tried. There’s not much you can do for the low-level types.

I hoped Jonesey was all right, but I was starting to worry. The feral thing’s hard to predict. I knew a chest, arm, and head that had its act together for years. Others go with a finger snap. The fastest was under thirty seconds, Tanya Felding. Funny story. She was a cover girl who died in a car accident. It was the early days of the process, so her agent figured he’d have his cash cow ripped. A little makeup, some plastic surgery, and he’d have the first living-dead model. The look was in. But the stupid docs, typically arrogant, thought they’d done such a great job, that right after she woke up, they shoved a mirror in her hands. It wound up embedded in one of their skulls. After tearing off another doc’s face and swallowing it, sweet little Tanya was subdued and humanely D-capped. Her agent sued. Dunno if he won or not.

Jonesey was always a bit on edge, but I never took him for someone who’d go wild. That’d be bad news. If he’d picked tonight to fall off, I’d never find Boyle. Aside from which, I kind of liked Jonesey, insofar as I liked anyone. When I first moved to the Bones, he taught me some of his memory tricks, using weird images to remember people, like that baby-Eggman thing for what’s-his-face.

Oh, yeah, Turgeon. See? Works sometimes.

If anyone could find Frank Boyle, it was him. The problem was finding Jonesey.

I tried turning my back on Anvil Head, but he grunted again, real loud, and kept it up. It was like Lassie trying to tell Mom that Timmy was trapped in a cave. I thought he wanted money, so against my better judgment I pulled out a buck and pressed it into his good hand.

He didn’t want it. He pulled away quick. The loose arm fluttered like a bird wing.

All of a sudden I realized what he was trying to say. He was answering my question about Jonesey, pointing as best he could toward the alley.

“Much obliged.”

He nodded.

I pulled out the recorder and made a note to have Misty come out with the bleach. Could’ve called her, but I forgot my damn phone.

The alley was a car-wide slot between half-standing walls. Stepping in meant leaving even the sickly yellow streetlight behind. It’d been a hot day and I still felt it on the sidewalk, but as things went from dark to darker, it got noticeably cooler.

Takes longer for chak-eyes to adjust to lighting changes. I could make out a Dumpster, and the fact that there was more garbage outside it than in. I kept going, farther back, toward what looked like a fire escape.

I stepped on something. It was big, slightly soft, and when my foot hit it, it moaned.

Not a sound you want to hear in this neighborhood. Better to hear a snake rattle. Moaning is what chakz do right before, and after, they go feral.

This one obviously wasn’t feral yet, or it’d be chewing on me. It looked like he was under some cardboard. Poor bastard probably felt it coming on and crawled in here to be alone when it happened. We have an instinct for that sort of thing, like dogs.

I didn’t think it was Jonesey, but I had to be sure. Jonesey had a red flannel piece of crap he called his lucky shirt. They buried him in it. When they rip you, they give you a cheap new set of clothes, generally prison gray, but Jonesey turned it down and kept his lucky shirt. It was the only shirt he ever wore. I think over time it melded with his skin, and he couldn’t get it off anymore.

Not that I’m one to judge. Besides, it made him easy to spot.

I lit a match and knelt for a better look. The moaner wasn’t him. I snapped the match out before it reached my finger. Odds are I’d feel the burn, but no sense in taking chances.

My big plan was heading nowhere. I put an elbow against the Dumpster and tried to gather the few thoughts I had. This is often a bad move. I never know what I’ll get. This time, a picture of Wilson’s head popped into my mind. I’d only seen the guy on TV, and here he was eyeballing me like I was supposed to do something about his unfortunate situation. Like what? Buy him a hat?

It wasn’t ESP, more like my brain was a cave about to crumble. Strong picture, though, colors vivid enough to make you puke. I’d been thinking about the head too damn much, the way I used to close my eyes and see cards if I stayed up all night playing poker.

It was starting to get to me. And I never knew which freaky obsession would be my last. If I wasn’t careful about my mood, I’d wind up sharing a cardboard quilt with the moaner at my feet. If I had a happy place I’d try to go there, but I don’t.

What was wrong with me, other than the usual? Maybe it was all that talk with Turgeon about Lenore. Lenore. There’s a famous poem about someone named Lenore, real famous, but I can never remember it. I wonder if the guy who wrote it knew whether he’d killed his Lenore or not.

Damn it, Lenore!

I may have started moaning right then and there. I’ll never know, because a big distraction showed up. A shadow flew down from the fire escape, right at me, looking like a dark sheet hurled out of a window. One second there was building and sky, the next, just black.

It wasn’t a sheet. It was heavier, and it caught me at just the right angle. I went down. My back slapped the asphalt. I didn’t quite feel it, but I heard the crunch, so I knew it was bad. Praying I hadn’t broken my ribs, I brought my hands up and grabbed what felt like an empty leather wineskin.

It was a neck. I heard teeth gnashing, dried lungs wheezing. Then I caught a flash of red flannel.

“Geez, Jonesey!”

Like I said, any of us can go, and it’s hard to predict when. Once you’re feral, the cops do get involved, especially in the Bones, since we’re so close to that gated neighborhood. They’ll hunt you down, shoot you until you can’t move, then cart you off for a quick D-cap. So they say. More likely they’d need fire or a meat grinder. None of it sounds pleasant.

Feral chakz aren’t much of a threat unless they come at you in numbers. Sort of like a poodle with rabies. You can kick it away, but you really don’t want it to get ahold of you, with its teeth or anything else. They do get all animal, as the name implies, like the body suddenly remembers it has instincts.

I tossed him off—I still have some muscle left. He rolled into a crouch. As I lumbered to my feet, he came at me, mouth open, teeth like rotting bits of a yellow moon.

The reason you don’t want them to get ahold of you isn’t that they’ll infect you. Once a chak grabs onto something, feral or not, he doesn’t let go unless he wants to. If Jonesey grabbed me, I’d have to break his hand off to get free, and unfortunately, I liked him.

I stuck one hand out, open palmed, and planted it in his chest. It stopped him in his tracks long enough for me to give him a good hard slap. His eyes rolled in their sockets. Good sign. He felt it. There was still a light on in the attic.

I slapped him again, harder. “Jonesey! Jonesey! You in there?”

Third time I whacked him so hard I was afraid I’d pulled off some cheek skin.

“Come on out of there, Jonesey!”

Maybe the shirt really was lucky, or maybe it was just another random act of the universe, but he closed his mouth and shivered. I stepped back to put some distance between us, but his head bobbed like I was still slapping him. He brought his hands up to steady his skull. He blinked six or seven times and then aimed his pupils in my direction. They were still vibrating, but after a second they settled down.

“Mann, that you? I am so sorry. . . .”

“You and me both.”

Low-level chakz tend to go feral and stay that way. The “lucky” or smart ones drift in and out first. It’s never a good sign. If a gun would work on him, and I had one, I’d be tempted to put him out of his misery.

I didn’t tell him that. “Christ, Jonesey, if I’d been a liveblood you’d be . . .”

He twisted his lips into a familiar shit-eating smile. “What? Dead?”

“Well, in a lot worse shape than you are now.”

“Worse? Oh, Mann, I know, I know. Funny, I used to tell people that death was just another form of consciousness. I had no idea. No fucking idea. What day is it?”

He had big eyes, the kind that looked soulful back when they had some meat around them. Now they popped like the googlies on a cheap doll. You could still see it, though, the whole charismatic-motivational-speaker thing. Once that grin was exactly the sort a lost soul would trust enough to hand over his hard-earned cash on the chance Jonesey really might teach him the secrets of the universe.

I hate con men. I’d have hated Jonesey when he was alive. Not a problem now.

I checked my watch. “Tuesday. You need the date?”

He nodded, so I checked my watch again. “August twelfth.”

He looked up and groaned. Groaning is better than moaning. It’s intentional. “Six fucking days, Mann, that’s how long I’ve been out.”

I took a step closer. “What happened? You’re usually Mr. Positive Thinking. Someone forget your birthday?”

I was half kidding. Jonesey thought in extremes. He was either a self-styled superhero or a bug lying against the wall too worthless to crush. I don’t know if that was a result of being ripped or if he was bipolar beforehand, too.

“My birthday? Hah. I don’t even remember that! I had a . . . uh, professional setback. One that interfaced negatively with my life plan.”

I gave him a look. His grin widened, his roller coaster on a definite climb.

“Fine, my afterlife plan. Two livebloods in a blue SUV stole my stash. I lost a half gram of meth. I tried to picture a positive outcome, focused, meditated, tried to make it real, y’know? But when it came down to it, I couldn’t face my supplier. He says I’m the only chak in the world he can count on, and I just couldn’t go there, not with him. I crawled in here to meditate and . . . zoned out.”

“Six days ago. Ever happen before? The feral thing, I mean.”

His brow crunched. “What feral thing?”

I gave him another look. My memory wasn’t that bad yet.

The grin faded a bit. “No. That was the first time. I swear.”

He was lying, but I let it go. Making him think about it too much could send him off again.

“Anything I can do? I’ve got some cash these days.”

“Really? Good for you! I knew you could do it. Were you putting the vibes out there? Acting as if? Faking it until you make it?”

“Sure. Something like that.”

He pushed his head around like he was trying to snap it back into place. “Spot me five for a double espresso? Helps me focus. I know those two addicts. I know where they live. If I really bring the right attitude toward it I can talk them into giving me the stash back, or at least paying something for it. If not, at least I can go feral on someone who deserves it, right?”

“Right. Espresso, huh? That . . . you know, work?”

He shrugged. “Seems to. Maybe it just reminds me.” He tapped his temple. “Head game. But it’s all head games, right?”

Head was the wrong word to use around me at the moment. I pulled out the photo, if only to change the subject. “This is why I was trying to find you. Know him?”

He took it between his fingers, moved it around in the scant light.

“Hair’s a little different, and he doesn’t have all that flesh anymore, but . . . of course I do. What was it? Pimple. Boyle. Frank Boyle. Lives in Bedland. Last I heard, anyway. You got that five?”

I pulled out a crumpled bill, the last I had on me, and stuffed it in his pocket.

“I thought the doubles were only four bucks.”

“I like to tip the barista,” he said. “Keep a good thought, Mann!”

I watched him shamble off, hoping he didn’t go feral in Starbucks.

Then again, he wouldn’t be the first.