Jack Daniels Stories

Jack Daniels Stories

Chapter 3

This chapter is even shorter than the last one.

Chapter 4

George Drawbridge worked as a teller for Oak Tree Bank. At a branch office. It was only three o'clock, and his wife told me he normally stayed until five, so I had plenty of time to grab a few beers first. Chicago is famous for its stuffed crust pizza, and I indulged in a small pie at a nearby joint and entertained myself by asking everyone who worked there if they made a lot of dough.

An hour later, after they asked me to leave, I sat on the sidewalk across the street from the bank, hiding in plain sight by pretending I was homeless. This involved untucking my shirt and pockets, messing up my hair, and holding up a sign that said “I'm homeless” written on the back of the pizza box.

Other possibilities had been, “Will do your taxes for food” and “I'm just plain lazy” and my favorite “this is a piece of cardboard.” But I went with brevity because I still didn't have a pencil and had to write it in sauce.

I sat there for a little over and hour before George Drawbridge appeared.

He looked like the picture his wife gave me, which wasn't a surprise because it was a picture of him. Balding, thin, pinkish complexion, with a nose so big it probably caused back problems. After exiting the bank he immediately went right, moving like he was in a huge hurry. I almost lost him, because it took over a minute to pick up the eighty-nine cents people had thrown onto the sidewalk next to me. But I managed to catch up just as he boarded a northbound bus to Wrigleyville.

Unfortunately, the only seat left on the bus was next to George. So that's where I parked my butt, because I sure as hell wasn't going to stand if I didn't have to.

I gave him a small nod as I sat down.

“I'm not following you,” I told him.

George didn't answer. He didn't even look at me. His eyes were distant, out there. And up close I noticed his rosy skin tone wasn't natural—he was sunburned. Only on the left side of his face too, like Richard Dreyfuss in that Spielberg movie about aliens. The one where he got sunburned on only the left side of his face. I think it was Star Wars.

Unlike his wife, George didn't smell like sweaty feet. He smelled more like ham. Honey baked ham. So much so that I wondered if he had any ham on him. I've been known to stuff my pockets with ham whenever I visited an all-you-can-eat buffet. After all, ham is pricey.

I restrained myself from asking if he indeed had any pocket ham, but couldn't help humming the Elton John song “Rocketman” and changing the lyrics in my head.

“Pocket ham... And I think I'm gonna eat a long, long time...”

I didn't know the rest of the song, so I kept think-singing that line over and over. After a few stops George stood up and left the bus. I followed him, keeping my distance so I didn't make him nervous. But after walking for a block I realized I could stand on the guy's shoulders and piss on his head and he still wouldn't notice me. George Drawbridge was seriously preoccupied.

We went into an Ace Hardware Store, and George bought twenty feet of nylon clothesline He also bought something called a magnetron. I knew that there was something I needed to buy, but I couldn't remember what it was, and I hadn't written it down because I needed to buy a pencil. So I got one of those super large cans of mega energy drink. It contained three times the recommended daily allowance of taurine, whatever the hell taurine was.

After the hardware store it was back to the bus stop. We were the only two people there. George didn't pay any attention to me, but I was worried all of this close contact might get him a little suspicious. So I made sure I stood behind him, where he couldn't see me. Then I popped open my mega can and took a sip.

The flavor on the can said “Super Berry Mix.” The berries must have been mixed with battery acid and diarrhea juice, but with a slightly worse taste. It burned my nose drinking it, to the point where I may have lost some nostril hair. Plus it was a shade of blue only found in nature as part of neon beer signs. I could barely choke down the last forty-six ounces.

The bus came. Again, the only seat available was next to George. I took it, and pulled my shirt up over my mouth and nose to disguise myself.

“Goddamn germs on public transportation,” I said, loud enough for most of the bus to hear. This provided a clever reason for my conspicuous face-hiding behavior. I said it seven more times, just to be sure.

We took the bus to Jefferson Park, a northwest side neighborhood named after that famous politico, Thomas Park. George exited on Foster. I followed, tailing him up Pulaski and into the Montrose Cemetery, my mind racing like a race car on a race track, driven by a race car driver, named Race.

I never liked cemeteries. Not because I'm afraid of ghosts, even though when I was a child all the kids used to tease me because they thought I was. They would dress up like ghosts and try to scare me by visiting my house at night and threatening to hang us all because my family didn't go to church. They usually left after burning a cross on our lawn. Damn ghosts.

No, I hated graveyards for much more realistic reasons. When a person died they shouldn't be kept around, like leftovers. People had a freshness date. Death meant discard, not preserve in a box. What ghoul thought that one up? Fifty thousand years ago, did some caveman plant Grandma in the ground hoping to grow a Grandma Tree? What fruit did that bear? Saggy wrinkly breasts that hung to the ground and smelled like Ben Gay and pee-pee? And what's with neckties? Why are men forced to wear a strip of cloth around their necks good for absolutely nothing except getting caught in things like doors and soup?

As my computer-like mind pondered these imponderables, George cleverly gave me the slip by walking someplace I could no longer see him. That left me with three options.

1. Wait at the entrance for him to come out.

2. Search for him.

3. Drain the lizard. Those eighty ounces of Super Berry Taurine had expanded my bladder to the size of a morbidly obese child, named Race.

I opted for number 3, and chose Mary Agnes Morrison, Loving Wife and Mother, to sprinkle. Maybe the taurine would liven up her eternity.

I soaked her pretty good, and had enough left over for the rest of the Morrison family, including the Loving Husband and Father, the Beloved Uncle, and the Slutty Skank Daughter.

I made that last tombstone up, but it would sure be cool if it was real, wouldn't it? And wouldn't it be cool if someone made a flying car? One that gave you head while you drove? I'd buy one.

I shook twice, corralled the one-eyed stallion, and began to look for George. An autumn breeze cooled the sweat on my face, neck, ears, hair, armpits, back, legs, and hands, which made me aware that I was sweating. I put a hand to my heart and discovered it was beating faster than Joe Pesci in a Scorsese flick. Because he beats people in those flicks. Beats them fast.

Why was I so edgy? Had my subconscious tapped into some sort of collective, primal fear? Did my distant ancestors, with their reptile brains and their bronze weapons made of stone, leave some sort of genetic marker in my DNA that made me sensitive to lurking danger?

I did a 360, looking for pointy-headed ghosts with gas cans. All I saw were tombstones, stretching on for as far as I could see. Hundreds. Thousands. Maybe even billions.

“Easy, McGlade. Nothing to be afraid of. It's not like you desecrated their graves or anything.”

Noise, to my left. I had my Magnum in my hand so fast that it probably looked like it magically appeared there to anyone watching, even though I didn't think anyone was watching.

Anyone alive.

My eyes drifted up an old, scary-looking tree, which had branches that looked like scary branch-shaped fingers, but with six fingers instead of the usual five, which made it even scarier. The sun was going down behind the tree, silhouetting some sort of nest-shaped mass on an extended limb that I guessed was a nest.

“Chirp,” went the nest.

My first shot blew the nest in half, and two more severed the branch from the tree.

“Dammit, McGlade. Stay cool. You just assassinated a bird.”

Which saddened me greatly. Magnum rounds were a buck-fifty each. Plus, I didn't have any extras on me. I needed to stay cool.

“Chirp,” went the nest.

BLAM! BLAM!

By heroic effort I didn't shoot the nest a sixth time, instead walking briskly in the opposite direction. I was in a state that might be called “hyper-awareness,” which was a lot like being the lone antelope at the watering hole. I could feel the stares of flying insects, and hear the grass growing. It was freaking me out a little bit, so I began to run, tripping over something on the ground, skidding face-first against a tombstone. A damp tombstone.

Mary Agnes Morrison.

I scurried away, palms and knees wet, and saw the bright red object that caused me to fall.

The empty can of Super Berry Mix energy drink.

So my paranoia wasn't really paranoia after all. It was just an unhealthy amount of caffeine in my veins. Which would have been kind of funny if I wasn't soaked with my own piss. Along with the taurine, the drink apparently contained a full day's supply of irony.

I stood up and shook out my pants legs.

“Get a grip, McGlade. And stop talking to yourself. You always know what you're going to say anyway.”

I took three or ten deep breaths, holstered my weapon, and then set out looking for George.

I had no idea that in just two minutes I was going to die.

Chapter 5

I didn't actually die. I'm lying to make the story more exciting, because this part is sort of slow.

It starts to pick up in Chapter 8. Trust me, it's worth the wait. There's sodomy.

Chapter 6

It was a fruitless search, but that didn't matter—I wasn't looking for fruit. After a few minutes, I'd found him. He'd given me the slip by cleverly disguising himself as a group of three bawling women. Closer inspection, and some grab ass, revealed they really were women after all. I did my “pretend to be blind and deaf” act and stumbled away before any of them called the police or their lawyers.

Luckily, I caught sight of an undisguised George heading into the mausoleum. I never liked mausoleums. Burying the dead was bad enough. Putting them in the walls was just begging for mice to move in. And not the kind of mice who wear red pants and open up amusement parks. I'm talking about dirty, vicious, baby-face-eating mice, the size of rats.

Actually, I'm talking about rats.

Speaking of non-sequiturs, I really needed to take another leak. The mausoleum was decent-sized, with a few hundred vaults stacked four high. Well lit, temperature controlled, silk plants next to marble benches every twenty feet. It was the kind of place that would have a bathroom, I thought, while pissing on one of the silk plants. The pot it was in wasn't any realer than the plant, because all of my piss leaked out the bottom. I stepped over the puddle and commenced the search.

One of the techniques they teach you in private eye school is how to conduct a search, I bet. I have no idea, because I didn't go to private eye school. I wasn't even sure that private eye school actually existed. But it did in my fantasies. All the teachers were naked women, and wrong answers were punished with spankings. And the water fountains were actually beer fountains. If they had a school like that, I'd go for sure.

George wasn't down the first aisle. He wasn't down the second aisle either. Or the first aisle, which I checked again because I got confused.

“You do this?”

I spun around, wondering who spoke. It was some little old caretaker guy, clutching a mop. He pointed at the puddle on the floor.

“It was that other guy,” I said, thinking fast. “You see him anywhere?”

“I only seen you, buddy. Did you go to the bathroom on my floor? There's a bathroom right there behind you. What kind of man does a thing like this?”

“That's what happens when you don't go to college.”

“You piss on the floor?”

“You get a job cleaning up piss on the floor.”

I left the guy to his menial labor and peeked down the second aisle again. Still no George. That led me down the third aisle, and I caught a glimpse of George crawling into a hole in the wall.

Closer inspection revealed it wasn't a hole. It was a vault. He'd crawled into someone's open tomb. I didn't even want to think why he'd do that, but my mind thought of it anyway, and then started thinking of it in enough detail that made me nauseous, yet oddly disgusted. Maybe a necromancer was someone who got his freak on with corpses. It was certainly a cheap date—only a few bucks for Lysol and Vaseline—and unless your game was really weak you'd pretty much always score. Still, I liked my women partially awake, and aware enough to be able to fight me off and tell me no. Because no means try harder.

I crouched down, peering into the blackness, and saw nothing but the aforementioned blackness. I fished out my keys, which had a mini flashlight attached to the ring, and illuminated the situation.

This wasn't a grave after all. In the hole was a slide, like you'd find in a children's playground, if the playground was in a mausoleum, and the children were all dead. Probably wouldn't be a lot of kids begging to go to a park like that. Not the dead ones, anyway.

I gritted my teeth. There was only one way to find out where this slide went.

“Hey, old caretaker guy!” I yelled. “Where does this slide go?”

“Go to hell!”

“I told you, it wasn't me. I had asparagus on my pizza. Does it smell like asparagus?”

“Go to hell!”

I rubbed my chin. Maybe old caretaker guy was trying to tell me that this slide went straight to hell. I didn't really believe him. First of all, I didn't see any flames, and there wasn't any smoke or brimstone or screams of the damned. Second, hell doesn't really exist. It's a fairy tale taught by parents to make their kids behave. Like Santa Claus. And the death penalty.

Still, going down a pitch black slide in a mausoleum wasn't on my list of things to do before I died. My list was mostly centered around Angelina Jolie.

“This does smell like asparagus, you bastard!”

A glanced over my shoulder. Old caretaker guy was hobbling toward me, his drippy asparagus mop raised back like a baseball bat—a stinky, wet baseball bat that you wouldn't want to use in a baseball game, because you wouldn't get any hits, and because it was soaked with urine and stinked.

I decided, then and there, I wasn't going to play ball with old caretaker guy. Which left me no choice. I took a deep breath and dove face-first down the slide.

Chapter 7

When I was ten years old, my strange uncle who lived in the country took me into his barn and showed me a strange game called milk the cow. The game involved a strong grip, and used a combination of squeezing and stroking until the milk came. I remember it was weird, and hurt my arm, but kind of fun nonetheless.

Afterward, we fed the cow some hay and used the fresh milk to make pancakes. When we finished breakfast, we watched a little television. It was a portable, with a tiny ten-inch screen.

Many years later, my strange uncle got arrested, for tax evasion. So I have no idea why I'm bringing any of this up.

The slide was a straight-shot down, no twists or curve. The dive jostled my grip and my key light winked out, shrouding me in darkness, like a shroud. I had no idea how fast I was going or how far I traveled. Time lost all meaning, but time really didn't matter much anyway since I'd bought a TiVo. Minutes blurred into weeks, which blurred into seconds, which blurred into more seconds. When I finally reached the bottom, I tucked and rolled and athletically sprang to my butt, one hand somewhere near my holster, the other cupped around my boys to protect them, not to fondle them, even though that's what it might have looked like.

I listened, my highly attuned sense of hearing sensing a whimpering sound very near, which I will die before admitting came from me, even though it did.

I'd landed on my keys. Hard.

When I stood, they remained stuck in me, hanging from my inner left cheek like I'd been stabbed by some ass-stabbing key maniac. I bit my lower lip, reached back, and tugged them out, which made the whimpering sound get louder. It hurt so bad I didn't even find it amusing that I now had a second hole in my ass, and perhaps could even perform carnival tricks, like pooping the letter X. That's a carnival I'd pay extra to see.

I found the key light and flashed the beam around, reorienting my orientation. I was in some sort of secret lower level beneath the mausoleum. Dirt walls, with wooden beams holding up the ceiling, coal mine style. To my left, a large wooden crate with the cryptic words TAKE ONE painted on the side. I refused. Why did I need a large wooden crate?

Noise, from behind. I spun around, reaching for my gun, and a dark shape tumbled off the slide, ramming into me and causing my keys to go flying, blanketing me in a blanket of darkness.

The ensuing struggle was viscous and deadly, but my years of mastering Drunken Jeet Kune Do Fu from watching old Chinese karate movies paid off. Just as I was about to deliver the Mad Crazy Hamster Fist killing blow, my attacker got some sort of weapon between us and smacked me in the face. The blow staggered me, and I reached up and felt the extensive damage, my whole head bathed in warm, sticky liquid that smelled a lot like asparagus.

Then a light blinded me. A real flashlight, not the dinky one I had on my keys. I squinted against the glare, and saw him. Old caretaker guy. A light in one hand. His mop in the other.

I spat, then spat again. My mouth had been open when he hit me.

“I'm a private detective. My name is McGlade. I'm on a case.”

“Does your case involve pissing on my floor?”

I spat again. I could taste the asparagus. And the piss. It tasted like I always guessed piss would taste like. Pissy.

“Listen, buddy, you're violating federal marshal law by interfering with my investigation. Climb back up the slide and go call 911. Tell them there's a 10-69 in progress, with, uh, malice aforethought and misdemeanor prejudicial something, rampart.”

My knowledge of cop lingo didn't galvanize him into action.

“Climb up the slide? How?”

“Hands and knees, old man.”

“I'll get all dirty.”

“You're a janitor.”

“I'm a caretaker.”

“You clean up in a cemetery. Dirt shouldn't bother you.”

The flashlight moved off of my face and swept the area.

“What is this place? Some sort of secret lower level under the mausoleum?”

I spat again. “No duh.”

“Look, there's a crate.”

Old caretaker guy waddled over to the wooden TAKE ONE box, opened the top, and pulled out a brown robe.

“I guess we're supposed to take the robes.”

“Obviously.”

I walked over, grabbing a robe for myself. It was made out of felt, and had a large hood. A monk's robe. Or rather, a store-bought Halloween monk's costume.

Old caretaker guy put his on, and as he was tugging it over his head I gave him a Crazy Hamster Elbow to the chin. He went down, hopefully in need of some facial reconstructive surgery. I scooped up his flashlight, located my keys, and limped down the tunnel.

I followed the path a few dozen yards into the darkness, ducking overhead beams when they appeared overhead, keeping an eye peeled for rats, and giant spiders, and that guy I was supposed to be following, I think his name was Fred or George or something common and only one syllable. Maybe Tom. Yeah, Tom.

No, it was Fred.

The air down here was cool and heavy and smelled like asparagus piss, but for the most part it was clean. That meant ventilation, either in the form of an exit, or an air osmosis recirculator, and I'm pretty sure that osmosis thing didn't exist because I just made it up.

The tunnel ended at a large metal door, the kind with a slot at eye-level that opened up so some moron could ask you for a password. Which is exactly what happened. The slot opened, and a pair of eyes stared out at me, and whoever belonged to those eyes asked for a password.

“Tom sent me,” I said.

“That's not the password.”

“Tom didn't say there was a password.”

“Tom who?”

“Tom,” I improvised, “from Accounting.”

“How is Tom?”

“Good. Just got over a cold, still kind of congested.”

“It's great you know Tom, but I'm not supposed to let you in without a password.”

I was tempted to give him a Three Stooges eye poke through the slot.

“Look,” I reasoned, “why else would I be down here?”

“I have no idea. Maybe you got lost.”

“I'm wearing the robe.” I did a little sashay to emphasize the fact.

“Maybe you're a cop.”

“I'm not a cop.”

“How do I know that?”

“Because I don't have a badge. You want to frisk me to check?”

“No. You smell like pee-pee.”

I set my jaw. “Doesn't anyone ever forget the password?”

The eyes shrugged. “Sure. Happens all the time.”

“So what happens then?”

“I ask them for the back-up password.”

I drew my Magnum, jammed it in the slot.

“Is the back-up password open the fucking door or I'll blow your head off?”

“Yep that's the password.”

He opened the door. I considered smacking password boy in the head, and it seemed like a good idea, so I gave him a little love tap with the butt of my pistol. When he fell over, I gave him another little love tap in the stomach, with my foot. This made my ass hurt even more, so I kicked him again, which hurt even more, so I kicked him again for causing me pain, and again, and again until the pain got so bad I had to stop, but I didn't, I kicked him once more.

Then I wandered through a short hallway and into a large open area, roughly the size of a woman's basketball court, which is the same size as a men's basketball court, but a woman's court has bouncing boobs. I noticed little details like that. Unfortunately, this room didn't have bouncing boobs. It had a dozen-plus boneheads in robes, all carrying flashlights, standing around and chanting something monkish.

I wormed my way into the group and considered the camera in my pocket. Mrs. Drawbridge had hired me to take pictures of her husband acting nutty. This qualified, but it was too dark to make out any details, and a flash might cause attention. Plus, these jamokes all had their hoods on, making positive ID pretty impossible.

I scanned the room, seeing if I could find Tom. I spotted him through my clever detective technique of looking around, and noticed his bag from the hardware store, still clenched in his hand. Maybe I could get up close, shove the camera in his face, get a quick snapshot, then run away.

“Attention, everyone!”

The chanting stopped. One of the wannabe monks had his hands up over his head, his knuckles brushing the dirt ceiling. Everyone stared at him.

“Let us form the sacred pentagon, and pray to Anubis, god of the dead, to bless the ceremony this evening. All hail, Anubis!”

“All hail, Anubis!” the monks chanted in reply.

Then we all arranged ourselves in a five-sided square around something in the center of the room. As I probably should have guessed—but didn't because I was too busy rubbing my painful throbbing ass—in the center of the room was a coffin.

The head monk shouted, “Who shall be the first to partake in the carnal pleasures of beyond the grave?”

I looked around, wondering what idiot would be stupid enough to bone a corpse, then found myself shoved into the center of the circle.

“My friend will go!”

I spun around, aiming the flashlight. It was old caretaker guy, a big grin creasing his face.

“This first has been chosen!” head monk bellowed. Two other monks—big ones—grabbed my arms and escorted me to the coffin.

“Guys, I'm new here. I'd sort of prefer to wait until next time before violating any dead people.”

I tried to pull away, but these monks had supernatural strength. The weight of the situation began to weigh on me. Sex with a cadaver wasn't on the list of things I wanted to do before I died, unless the cadaver was Angelina Jolie.

Then I stopped struggling, because I realized this had to be some kind of joke. Like a hazing prank, and when the coffin opened a stripper would pop out and blow me. That made a lot more sense than a society of necrophiliacs meeting secretly under one of Chicago's largest cemeteries. Right?

I smiled, hoping the stripper had big tits, not even protesting when I was depantsed by one of the hulky monk guys. They also took my gun. I figured that was okay—I only needed one type of gun to handle a hot stripper. You know what I mean.

My penis. I'm talking about my penis.

“Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “Let's do this.”

Another monk opened the coffin, and I stared in grinning expectation at a naked dead man.

“That's a guy,” I said.

Head monk came in close and whispered. “Couldn't find girl this time. It doesn't matter. Death is death. It's all a turn-on. You're here to get laid, right?”

I eyed the body. A chubby bald white guy, late fifties. The Y cut across his chest indicated he was autopsied. Death was probably a heart attack, based on the size of his gut.

“I'm actually not really feeling it right now,” I said.

“We can flip him over, if that helps.”

“I don't think it will help.”

“How fresh is it?” someone in the crowd yelled.

“Planted eight days ago,” head monk answered.

The crowd cheered.

“I got sloppy seconds!”

“I got thirds!”

“I want to go last, when he's so full he's leaking out of his nose!”

I tried to step away, but the inhumanly muscular monks held me firm.

“I'm really not horny right now,” I insisted. “In fact, I may never be horny again.”

“My friend is shy!” That damn old caretaker guy again. “He doesn't like to pitch! He prefers catching!”

“No problem. Fetch the bicycle pump!”

Someone brought over a bike pump, complete with needle tip. The head monk fussed around with the poor dead guy's junk, then pushed the needle into the pee hole at the shriveled tip. I had an anti-erection, my dick actually retreating into my body as I watched.

He began to pump. And, incredibly, the corpse's johnson responded by filling out in length and width, until it stuck up like a tent pole. The monk kept pumping, and then the scrotum inflated. First apple-sized. Then grapefruit. Then soccer ball. I winced, waiting for the POP, but he quit before it got to medicine ball proportions. Which is a good thing, because balls that big would be bad medicine indeed.

“This is wrong on so many levels,” I said.

Someone stuck a tube of KY into my hand, the head monk said, “Have fun,” and then I was tossed onto the corpse, the coffin lid slamming closed above me with devastating finality.

Chapter 8

I lied. There isn't any sodomy in this chapter. Instead, there was a good minute of mindless screaming panic, followed by a minute of mindless yelling terror, and another two minutes of unmanly begging.

“We're not opening up until you finish,” head monk spoke through the coffin lid.

“I'm finished.” I hoped I sounded sincere. “It was fantastic. Best dead sex I ever had.”

He wasn't buying. “The only way you're getting out of there is by embracing your necrophilia. That's why you came, isn't it? That's why we're all here. To make our fantasies come true. To taste the forbidden.”

“I tasted it. It's like rotten meat, and disappointingly unresponsive.”

“We can stay here all night if we have to.”

I collected my thoughts, the sum total of which were Get me the fuck out of here. Then I calmed down a little. Then I started screaming again. Then calm. Then more screaming. Then even more screaming.

Finally, I took a deep breath, and really started screaming.

Being hysterical is pretty exhausting, so I took a time-out and tried to rationalize what to do next, other than scream.

Unfortunately, clearing my head made me even more aware of my current situation, and how disgustingly horrible it was. I was trapped in a coffin, lying on top of a naked dead guy with nuts the size of a basketball. A curly-haired basketball with a bratwurst glued onto the top. It pressed against my pelvis in a way that could only be described as awful.

My upper half wasn't any happier, with my face inches away from a dead man's. He didn't really smell like rotting meat. Not exactly. It was more like meat that was about to go bad, but dunked in formaldehyde first. His flesh was waxy, sort of stiff, and cold in a way that only dead people get. I moved my hands up across his nude, hairy chest, fighting the urge to vomit, and then pressed my elbows into his gut to force some distance between us.

It was a mistake. His autopsy meant his ribs had been cut away, and no ribs meant no internal support. My elbows ripped through the stitches and my arms disappeared into his still-moist body cavity.

I felt things. Horrible things. Squishy things. To prevent the organs from leaking, the clever embalmer had placed them in plastic bags, like some sort of lunch snacks from hell. I thanked the darkness that it was dark and I couldn't see anything, because I had no light. But I screamed anyway.

When the screaming finally stopped, I screamed a little more, and then realized the only way I was going to get out of here is to do what women have been probably doing with me ever since I'd been sexually active.

I'd have to fake it.

Unfortunately, the only way to fake a sexual movement is to perform a sexual movement. So I locked my knees on either side of his hips, his giant scrotum tucked beneath my legs like a fleshy bicycle seat, and began the humping motion. I also began to cry.

The coffin went with the rhythm, back and forth and back and forth, and it was a high end model which meant springs in the cushion which meant this felt even more like the real thing. Even though I couldn't see I squeezed my eyes shut and invented gods in my imagination so I could pray to them to make this end. I tried to think back on happy times, but too many of my happy times involved sex and that didn't help me block out the unhappy fact that I was fake dry-humping a corpse. I tried thinking about happy times when I was a kid, and unwillingly focused on the time I was six years old and my mother bought me a Hoppity Horse for my birthday, and how I used to love bouncing up and down the neighborhood and, oh goddamn it...

I threw up in my mouth. Energy drink and pizza mixed with stomach acid. I swallowed it because adding puke to this situation was possibly the only thing that could make it worse.

Scratch that last thought. My pelvic gyrations had loosened up some trapped air in the nether regions of the cadaver, prompting extreme flatulence. He ripped one so loud it sounded like a trumpet. But is sure as hell didn't smell like one. You think you know stink? Dead guy farts are number one on the stinkmeter. It was so bad, I'm sure if I could see I would have seen green gas.

“Do it! Give it to him!”

I wasn't sure who the head monk was cheering on, me or the dead guy. But I knew in order to properly fake it, I had to add some vocals to the rhythm.

“Oh, daddy!” I moaned, trying not to breathe. “Oh, yes, daddy!”

Someone slapped on the top of the coffin, urging me on. There was more corpse farting, more crying, more humping, and finally I couldn't handle this anymore without a complete nervous breakdown and I cried out “Oh, god!” and then went still.

Eventually, miraculously, the coffin lid opened. I made it. I was alive. Amazingly, wonderfully alive. Now I needed to find my gun and eat a bullet.

The strongarm monks pulled me out of the coffin, my arms slupping from the dead man's chest cavity, glistening with guck.

“Congrats!” head monk said, giving me an attaboy slap on the back. “You really rocked his dead world!”

I wiped my hands on his fake robe.

The rest of the perverts queued up for their shot at playing Megaball, and I managed to stumble into my pants. I even got my gun back. I cocked the hammer and stared deep into the blessed release promised by the inside of the barrel, and then remembered I only had one bullet left, and if anyone should die, it was old caretaker guy.

I looked around for the bike pump, flitting with the idea of filling his nads up with air before sending him to hell. Or maybe I would just pump him up and let him live. Live out the remainder of his pathetic life with unusually large testicles. The humiliation he'd suffer. The stares. The laughter. Plus, it would be impossible to find pants.

Regrettably, the bike pump was nowhere to be found. Neither was old caretaker guy. And I'd apparently won the loser trifecta, because Bill, the man I'd been hired to follow, was also MIA.

Some pinhead hopped into the coffin with Frankengroin, and I picked up the flashlight and made my way to the exit before the groaning began. I needed some fresh air. I also needed a hatchet and some steel wool, so I could access and scour the last half an hour from my brain.

Conveniently, the exit was a large door marked EXIT, which opened up to some concrete steps. I took them up, and they ended in a maintenance closet, which opened up into the mausoleum. It was an easier—and faster—entrance than the nightmare slide, but lacked the dramatic effect.

I pulled out my gun, did a quick search for old caretaker guy, scared the hell out of some grieving old man, mourning his dead wife or some similar maudlin bullshit, and then made my way through the cemetery, across the street, and into the first place that sold liquor.

Three shots and two beers later, I called the police.

Chapter 9

The cop I called was a somewhat tasty little morsel named Lieutenant Jackie “Jack” Daniels. So-so face, great legs, nice rack, especially for an older broad. I knew her back in the day, when we were partners in blue, and she continued to have a crush on me almost two decades later.

“I don't owe you shit, McGlade. And if you bother me again I'm going to send some uniforms over to trash your apartment and beat you with phone books for so long you'll have area codes embedded in your skin.”

“Pay attention, Jackie. I'm offering you a prime bust here. As we speak, there's a group of perverts running a train on a dead guy with gonads the size of a Thanksgiving turkey.”

“Let me guess. Is it a Butterball?”

“They have to be stopped. Would you want some loonies digging you up and poking your cooter after you've been laid to eternal rest?”

“Sex with a corpse, disgusting as it is, isn't a crime, Harry. Didn't you read Bloody Mary by JA Konrath? There was a character in there, did the same thing.”

“I listened to part of the audiobook. The author thinks he's funny, but he's not.”

“It's a he? I thought a woman wrote those books.”

I tried to make my voice sound soothing, a tough trick because I had screamed myself raw.

“Jackie, partner, be a good cop and send a team over to the cemetery. You'll get brownie points from the Captain, a little TV spotlight, and the satisfaction knowing that you got a bunch of lunatic perverts off the street.”

“What do I charge them with, McGlade? Public indecency? You want me to waste manpower on a minor misdemeanor?”

“Aggravated sexual assault. Trust me. It was aggravating.”

“Who's going to press charges? The cadaver? You want to bring a corpse to trial? The cross examination would be riveting, I bet.”

I clenched my fist. “Dammit, Jackie! I was violated in ways you can't even begin to understand. I'll never be the same. My sex life might very well be ruined, and I won't be able to ever watch basketball on TV again. And I love basketball. If you don't arrest these assholes I'm going to go on a killing spree and when they bring me in I'll tell them you could have stopped it just by doing your job.”

She sighed big, but I knew I'd won. “Cut the melodrama, McGlade. I'll send a few uniforms over to check it out.”

“If you arrest a creepy old caretaker guy, call me. I'm going to impale him on his mop and make him clean all the floors in Union Station.”

“I got extra tickets to the Bulls game tomorrow. Want them?”

“You can really be a mean bitch sometimes, Jackie.”

I hung up, ordered another tequila, drank it, ordered another, drank it, then called a taxi to take me back to my condo to really start drinking.

Chapter 10

My plan had been to drink so much I didn't dream. And when I peeled my eyes open, I thought it worked. I couldn't remember a single nocturnal image, let alone any nightmares.

Then I realized I was lying naked on the kitchen floor, straddling a head of lettuce.

“Oh hell no.”

Like any freaked-out person, I needed answers. So I searched Google, using the terms “post dramatic stress disorder sex with corpses and giant testicles” which linked me to a bunch of unhelpful porn sites. I dutifully surfed them anyway, but there were no answers there.

Then I went to eBay, and I was still the top bidder on everything. Lousy eBastards. I decided I just wouldn't pay if I won, but then I'd get negative feedback, and negative feedback was permanent. I'm proud of my 99.4% positive score. My only bad mark came from some jerk who didn't read the whole product description, only the header. I sold him a mint Babe Ruth baseball card for $260. The card had some tears and a few bends, but I'd stapled some mint leaves to it. Which I mentioned, in two point font, at the bottom of the listing. Some guys can't take a joke.

Next I checked my email, where I discovered I'd won the Irish lottery, inherited eighty million dollars from an unknown relative, and was asked to shuffle funds into my bank account from the President of Rwanda. They all got my standard response: enthusiastic replies with an attachment supposedly containing my routing number. The attachment really contained an email bomb, which once opened would bombard their computers with tens of thousands of naked pictures of actress Bea Arthur. I called it the Maude Virus.

I had a bit of a hangover, my ass still hurt from where I'd fallen on my keys, and I was hungry. But the only food I had in the condo was that head of lettuce, which I wasn't going to eat even if I were starving to death, so I changed into a slightly less dirty suit and hit the corner convenience store for an overpriced cup of joe, a dose of Advil, and a prepackaged cheese Danish.

It was a gorgeous Chicago day, the sun shining, the lakeshore breeze blowing, the pigeons singing their lovely song. I leaned against the storefront window and called my client.

“Hello?”

“Is this Maxine Drawbridge?”

“It's Norma Cauldridge.”

I rubbed my nose. “Hi, Maxine. It's Harry McGlade. I need more money.”

“Did you find something out, Mr. McGlade?”

“I did. And it's ugly. Real ugly. Plus, I was gravely injured during my surveillance.” I smiled at my unintentional pun, which was actually intentional. “I'm not going near him again without more cash.”

“I've already paid you twelve hundred dollars.”

My nose still itched, so I scratched it. On the inside.

“I want double that. Think of it as an investment. When the lawyers see the dirt I've got on old Roy, you'll take the freak for every dime he has.”

I removed my finger, noted something gray and waxy stuck to the end. I'd been picking my nose for years, and this was the strangest booger I'd ever seen.

“Who's Roy?”

“Whatever the hell his name is.”

I took a closer look. Sniffed. It smelled familiar.

“Do you have pictures?”

“I will. Send the money to my PayPal account. My email is... oh god...”

The odor was rotten meat and formaldehyde. Somehow, while I was in the coffin, I'd gotten a hunk of dead flesh up my nose. Dead flesh covered in boogers. And a nose hair.

I leaned over and puked up the coffee, Danish, and Advil. Eighteen bucks and change, shot to hell.

“Mr. McGlade? Are you there?”

I wiped a toe through the puke, looking for the Advil. They were probably still good. Instead, I saw something that made me want to quit eating forever.

Part of a human ear.

I got closer, sure it had to be some coincidentally-shaped chunk of chewed Danish.

No, it was an ear. The upper, cartilagey part. I often nibbled women's ears when we were fooling around. I must have got caught up in the role-playing and bitten off a hunk.

“Mr. McGlade?”

“Scratch that. I want triple.”

“That's outrageous.”

“Lady, I went to third base with a dead guy last night, all because of your husband. Pay me, or find some other schmuck to do your dirty work.”

“You did what with a dead guy?”

“Don't believe me? You want to talk to him?”

I held my cell phone over the ear. Then I realized I was acting a bit hysterical. Maybe I was still asleep, and this was just a dream.

I felt my backside, wondering if the pain in my ass was truly from sitting on my keys, or from something that was still up there...

I stuck my hand inside my pants, reaching down the plumber's crack...

It's a dream, it has to be a dream...

A pigeon waddled over, pecked up the ear, and ran off. My fingers crept closer...

“Mr. McGlade?”

A dream, all a dream, just a harmless dream...

And then I touched the severed end of something that shouldn't be there. Something that felt like a Pepperidge Farm County Style Breakfast Sausage Link.

“Please!” I cried out. “If there's any decency left in this cruel world, let this be a dream!”

Chapter 11

It was a dream. I woke up in bed next to an empty bottle of tequila. Blessedly, there was no head of lettuce between my legs. And the puddle of puke on my pillow didn't contain anything resembling human flesh. I did a nose check and an ass check, and they were both free and clear.

So much for drinking away the nightmares.

I rolled out of bed, padded to the can, showered, dressed in a slightly less dirty suit than yesterday, and visited the local convenience store for a coffee, Danish, and some Advil. That should have been my tip off I'd been dreaming—paying eighteen bucks for those three items. I forked over the real-life money—twenty-six bucks—then called Mrs. Drawbridge and demanded quadruple my rate. She reluctantly agreed, and mentioned her husband was in bed, still asleep. I decided to stakeout her house and tail him. And this time, I'd be taking some sophisticated equipment.

I returned to the condo and entered my Crime Lab. It was actually an extra bedroom that I converted into a crime lab by stocking it with spy stuff and writing Crime Lab on the door. The modern private detective had to stay current with modern gadgetry, so I bought all of the latest high-tech stuff. Phone tappers. Listening devices. Infra red things. A remote control tank with a miniature video camera hooked up to the turret. Cell phone jammers. A set of brass knuckles with a microchip inside that played Pat Benatar when I socked somebody. All the essentials.

I popped the SanDisk memory card out of the tank and plugged it into my computer, to check the footage I'd recorded during my practice run. The video was a little choppy, but more than acceptable.

The first scene was of a dog in Grant Park, urinating.

Cut to the same dog, pooping.

Cut to another dog, pooping.

Cut to the first dog, eating the second dog's poop.

Cut to a third dog, trying to hump the first dog, who was still munching on the poop.

Cut to the poop, which didn't look like it warranted being eaten.

Cut to some gangbanger punk, running off with my tank.

Cut to me explaining to the cop why I fired my gun in a populated area, and then me getting arrested.

With some editing, and the right soundtrack, the footage could be the backbone of a really good documentary about urban crime, and the amusing social lives of dogs.

I opened up a fresh SanDisk card, put that in the tank, and loaded everything into in a gym bag, along with a digital camera that could shoot night-vision, a Bionic Ear listening cannon, and a little wind-up nun that shot sparks out of her eyes. Thusly equipped, I high-tailed it over to the long term garage, jumped in my stakeout car—an inconspicuous green Chevy El Camino with yellow racing stripes on the hood—and drove to Jim Drawbridge's house.

The key to any successful stakeout is three-fold: Food, tunes, and a pot to piss in. The food should consist of chips and snack cakes. Sugar and carbohydrates jack up the insulin level, which leads to a heighten sense of awareness, probably. The music should be high energy, like heavy metal, but don't include the power ballads. The piss pot can be an old milk jug or thermos. Try to avoid cellophane potato chip bags, as I've learned from experience they tend to leak.

Since I never knew when I'd have to go on a stakeout, I kept my car stocked with everything I needed. But once I found a suitable vantage point—on the street directly in front of Jim's house—I realized I was less stocked than I should have been. I was way low on sugary snacks, but had a surplus of urine in an old apple juice bottle. Unless it was, perhaps, actually apple juice. A quick sniff would tell me.

It was urine. And I needed to stop eating asparagus.

I took a moment to muse about the gratuitous amount of bodily fluids that seem to have come up in this case, and cracked open the door and dumped the piss onto the street, where it made a foamy little river down the curb and to the sewer drain.

Then I cranked up the Led Zeppelin, licked the crust out of some old Twinkie wrappers, and waited for Jim to show up.

After half an hour, the coffee needed to be set free, so I filled up half the apple juice bottle. The secret to zero splatter is aiming for the inside edge, and then squeezing dry rather than shaking.

After an hour, Mrs. Drawbridge came out of the house and knocked on my window.

“George left before you got here.”

“Do you have any snacks?”

“No.”

I noticed she had some orange powder in the corner of her unattractive mouth.

“You have cheese curls,” I said.

“No I don't.”

“Bring me the cheese curls.”

She folded her arms. “I don't have any.”

“You have Cheetos dust on your lips.”

“I was eating carrots.”

“Were they powdered carrots?”

“Maybe.”

“Bring me the goddamn Cheetos, or I'm off the case.”

She frowned and waddled off. I called after her, “And anything Hostess or Dolly Madison!”

I air guitared in perfect synchronization with Jimmy Page until the ugly wife returned with my treats. The Cheetos bag only had a few left in the bottom, and Mrs. Drawbridge's cheeks were puffed out chipmunk-style. She also brought me half a raspberry Zinger.

“You ate them,” I said, stating the obvious.

She shook her head. “Mmphmtmummuffff.”

“Don't lie. You did. You're still chewing.”

“Ummurrfumamamm.”

“Are too.”

She swallowed, and I watched the large lump slide down her throat.

“I think my husband went to his parent's house,” she said after smacking her lips.

“What am I supposed to do with half a Zinger? It's like the size of my thumb.”

“I said I think my husband went to his parent's house.”

“Who?”

“My husband. After his parents died, he refused to sell it. I'm not allowed to go over there. He's got all kinds of locks and security devices. I think he may be hiding something.”

I scarfed down the rest of the cheese curls, then washed them down with the remaining half a Zinger. It wasn't even half. Maybe a third, at best.

“I'm the detective, lady. I'll decide if he's hiding anything. Gimme the address.”

She gave it to me. It was in the neighborhood of Streeterville, less than a mile away.

“I'll call you in exactly two hours. If you don't hear from me, I want you to call Lt. Jacqueline Daniels in District 26 and tell her where I am. Tell her it's an emergency. Did you get that?”

“Yeah. Is that apple juice?”

I glanced at my pee bottle.

“Yeah. But it's warm.”

“I have ice in the house.”

“Help yourself.”

She took the piss, and I started the car and drove off. Little did I know I was about to face the darkest moment of my entire career. A moment so dark, that had I known it was coming, I would have done something else instead, like see a movie, or go to the zoo and bang on the windows in the monkey house. But I didn't know what was going to happen, because I couldn't predict the future, because if I could I would have predicted the lottery numbers and been super-rich and never would have needed the money that caused me to go to that house in Streeterville, which was the darkest moment of my entire career. So that's where I went. Unbeknownst to me.

In hindsight, I really shouldn't have gone.

Chapter 12 aka The Darkest Moment Of My Career

So I had no idea I was heading into the darkest moment of my career, but I went anyway.

Before going there, however, I stopped for red hots at Fat Louie's Red Hots on Clark and got a dog with the works. It was terrible, and I have really low standards. In my humble opinion, hot dogs shouldn't have veins. Or anything resembling a foreskin. I could barely choke the third one down.

Uncomfortably sated, I pressed onward to Phil's parent's house. The house was unassuming enough. Split-level, single family, red brick exterior. There was an oak tree out front, and a chainlink fence partitioning off the tiny backyard. I parked on the street, then took out my remote control surveillance tank. After double-checking the batteries, servos, memory card, remote sensor, camera focus, tread alignment, and wireless frequency, I gingerly set the tank down in the street and a taxi ran it over.

Damn taxi jerks. I decided to charge it to Mrs. Drawbridge's bill.

My next course of action was to figure out my next course of action. I played a little more air guitar, broke an air string, put on a new one and spent a minute air tuning it, and then decided on my approach.

I could put on my ghillie suit—a mesh shirt and pants with real and fake grass and shubbery sewn into it that I ordered from PsychoSniper.com—and then slowly belly-crawl across the lawn, traverse the fence using a carbide steel bolt cutter, inch my way into the backyard, creep up the porch in slow increments stopping often to pretend to be a potted plant, trick his surveillance system by recording a loop from his outdoor camera and feeding the playback into the main line, drill into his door frame using a cordless screwdriver to disable the burglary alarm sensor, pick the pick-proof Schlage deadbolt, and sneak inside his house using my Invisible Voyeur NightVision Goggles, which I bought at CautiousStalker.org.

Or I could knock on the front door and ask what's up.

“What's up?” I asked when the front door opened.

Since I'd seen him yesterday, Ken had gone from half a sunburned face to a full sunburned face. The smell coming from his house was real bacon, which sure beat the smell of fake bacon, which my mother used to make out of soy and library paste and brown Crayons.

“Who are you?”

“Housing inspector.” I flashed him my PI badge, too fast for him to read it. “I'm here to check for gas leaks. Are you leaking any gases?”

“No. Can I see that badge again?”

“I smell something. Are you cooking in there?”

“No, I'm not.”

“Is it bacon?” I smacked my lips. “I love bacon. I read somewhere that you could shave with bacon. Rub it on your face raw, and it lubricates better than shaving cream. Have you ever heard of that?”

“No.”

“I tried it once. Closest shave I ever had. But I got an E. Coli infection and they had to remove eight yards of my large intestine. Can I come in?”

“No. Hey, you look kind of familiar.”

I flashed an aw shucks grin. “I get that a lot. I've made a few videos. You might know my screen name, Sir Dix-A-Lot.”

“I don't think that's it.”

“Ever see Snow White and the Seven Blowjobs?”

“No.”

“Robin Hood, Prince of Anal?”

“I don't think so.”

“The Empire Strikes Scat?”

“Maybe you should come in. I may have some gases for you to check on.”

I nodded, stepping into his humble abode. It was no surprise he let me in. Fast talking is one of my special skills. That and being able to swallow pills. If I had a super power, it would be the ability to swallow a whole handful of pills at once. Big pills too. None of that baby aspirin crap for babies. I secretly hoped that one day I'd get cancer, and the doctor would prescribe me a lot of pills, and he'd tell me to space them out throughout the day because there were so many, but I'd tell him no need to and grab the whole handful and swallow them up right there while he watched, amazed.

That's what I was thinking about when Phil hit me in the head with the hammer.

Chapter 13

I awoke from a terrible dream that I was trapped in a coffin with an inhumanly large-testicled man, to the terrible reality of being tied to a chair in some freak's basement.

Said freak was standing over me, staring.

“You're awake,” he said.

“No I'm not.”

I shook my head, which caused a spike of pain. My left eye stung, and I looked down my nose and saw some dried blood on my cheek. The freak still held the hammer. He waved it in front of my face in a way I'm sure he thought was menacing, which actually was pretty menacing.

“Yes you are! And I know what you want! That whore hired you!”

“Which whore? I know a lot of whores.”

He poked me in the chest with the hammer. “She hired you to spy on me! To find out what secrets I had hidden in my parent's house! Well, now you'll be privy to those secrets, Mr. Private Eye! Because I'm going to show them to you!”

I checked my bonds, noted he had used the same clothesline he'd purchased at the hardware store. The knots were tight, expert. My legs were bound as well, tied to the steel chair legs of the steel chair, which was made of steel. The basement was unfurnished, concrete floor, I-beams and joists exposed in the ceiling, menacing curtains sectioning off the area we were in.

“Got any aspirin?” I asked. “Some asshole hit me with a hammer.”

“Silence!”

“And can you please stop shouting? I'm right here. It's not like I'm in another part of the house and you're calling me for dinner.”

The freak chuckled, the nostrils on his large nose flaring out.

“Oh, funny you should mention dinner. Because the main course...” He cackled.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“The main course...” More cackling.

“What's the main course, Emeril?”

“The... main course... is...” Hysterical laughter now.

I interrupted him. “I got it. The main course is me. You're going to eat me. Scary. What a scary guy you are.”

“Not me, Mr. McGlade. You're going to be a snack,” cackle cackle, “for my... zombie wife!”

I waited for the giggles to die down before I said, “Dude, your wife isn't a zombie.”

“Yes she is.”

“She's not even dead. I just saw her like an hour ago.”

“Not that hag. I mean my first wife. The love of my life, tragically taken from me after only one year of marriage.”

“So what about that ugly chick back at your house?”

“Her? I married her for the money.”

I smiled. “Thank god. I thought you were totally nuts there for a minute.”

“No kidding. She's a real heifer, isn't she?”

“I said in the first chapter that it was like God took a dare to make the most unattractive woman possible.”

“Yes, that's Norma.”

“Who?”

“My second wife! But now it's time for you to meet my first wife! And to feed her! Do you know what a necromancer is, Mr. McGlade?”

I shrugged. Not an easy task when tied up. “I meant to look it up.”

“It's someone who has the power to raise the dead. Since Roberta died...”

“Who?”

“My first wife.”

“This is a lot of names to keep straight. Can you write them down on a sticky pad for me?”

He didn't take the bait. I'd hoped he would have gone off in search of a sticky pad, which would have given my time to scoot my chair over to the menacing curtains hanging from the ceiling and hide behind them. He'd never think to look for me there, and would probably go watch TV or something.

But he was too smart to be tricked.

“Since Roberta died, I've been searching for a way to bring her back. Now, through a combination of magic and science—something I call sci-magic—I have finally gained mastery over death! Behold, Mr. McGlade, the living dead!”

He cast aside the menacing curtain. Hanging from the ceiling was a dead body.

“Is that her?” I asked.

“That, indeed, is Roberta, my Zombie Wife!”

He spread out his hands, as if waiting for applause. Even if I wasn't tied up, I wouldn't have applauded.

“That's not a zombie,” I said. “That's a dead chick hanging on a rope.”

“Really, Mr. McGlade? Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“Well, watch this then.” He turned to face the corpse. “Roberta, my love, come to me!”

Phil grabbed an overhead rope, and Roberta swung forward using a system of weights and pulleys. He made her wave at me.

“You're butt nuts,” I said.

“She lives, Mr. McGlade! And she thirsts for your flesh! For nothing else can quell the hunger of the living dead! Isn't that right, Roberta?”

He tugged another rope, and she nodded. Actually, it was more of a sideways flop then a nod.

“Look, buddy, this has all been tremendously entertaining, but what do you say we untie me, I go to the cops, and you get put in a nice room with soft rubber walls so you don't hurt yourself?”

“I'm not crazy! Roberta is one of the walking dead!”

“More like the swaying dead.”

He got in my face. “Admit she's undead!”

“No.”

“But she moves! See!”

He made her do a little dance.

“You're making her move using pulleys and ropes, like some strange sad puppet.”

He raised the hammer, aiming for the same spot where he hit me before. “Say she's a zombie!”

“She a zombie,” I said quickly. “You're a genius who has conquered death. I'm in awe of your brilliance.”

He stared at me hard, and then spun and yanked the dead chick closer. I realized she was naked, and her boobs were missing. I always notice little things like that. Her skin had become dark brown and wrinkly, like a giant raisin. Whack job had also cut some blue eyes from a magazine or poster, and stapled them over her eye sockets. Her teeth were bared, the corners of her mouth turned up. Twist ties, to make it look like she was smiling.

It was kind of endearing, in a raving psychotic way.

“Roberta does seem sort of tired today.” He caressed what was left of her cheek. “Perhaps she needs another treatment. I shall fetch the Rejuvenation Ray!”

He scuttled insanely off, and I wondered what time it was, and if his butt ugly whore of a second wife had remembered to call Lieutenant Jackie when I failed to check in. Then I remembered I'd given her a bottle full of piss and told her it was apple juice, so I probably couldn't count on that particular horse to come in.

Like it had happened so many times before, the burden of saving my own skin rested on my own skin. I needed to figure out some sort of ingenious plan to escape. If I could only do that, then I'd be free.

Freak boy returned, pushing a wheeled wine cart stacked with electronic equipment. He shoved it in front of his living undead zombie wife who was really just a putrefying corpse.

“Behold the Rejuvenation Ray, Mr. McGlade!”

“How do you know my name, anyway?”

“Your wallet.”

“I had eight bucks in there. It better still be in there.”

“I didn't take your money.”

“And a Blockbuster Video card. They charge you five bucks if you lose that.”

“Silence! Through magnetron technology, I have harnessed the life-giving properties of ordinary microwaves, coaxing the spirit back into the body!”

“That's a big microwave?”

“Behold!”

He hit a switch, and the stack of electronics hummed and whirred, throwing off an huge amount of heat. Most of it was directed at Roberta, the undead living zombie wife. Some of it came my way, and it hurt like a bad sunburn.

Then the smell hit me. Honey baked ham and bacon strips. I watched through squinty eyes as Roberta sizzled and popped and exuded a scent that was downright mouth-watering.

Now it all made sense. Phil's sunburn. Why he smelled like ham. Why his first wife's skin was so brown and wrinkly. Why his second wife smelled like sweaty feet.

Actually, this didn't explain why his second wife smelled like sweaty feet. But I guessed that to be a hygiene thing.

Blofeld finally turned off the microwave stack, then embraced his hanging wife. The embrace became a kiss. The kiss became a nibble. The nibble became a corn-on-the-cob chow-down, and I realized what had happened to the zombie's breasts.

“And now!” He wiped the grease off his mouth with his sleeve. “Now it is time for Roberta to feast!”

Fred reached under the cart, pulled out a meat cleaver. Didn't see too many meat cleavers, outside of a butcher shop.

“What shall we start with, Roberta? The leg? Yes, I agree. The leg looks delicious. Do you prefer the left on or the right one, dear? Yes, the left one.”

He raised the cleaver. There are few things more terrifying than being tied to a chair about to be hacked up by a lunatic so he could feed the pieces to his dead wife who he thinks is actually a zombie and is hanging from the ceiling using an admittedly clever series of weights and pulleys.

“Stop!” I yelled.

Incredibly, he stopped.

“What?”

“Your parents!” I said, speaking quickly. “What would your parents think?”

“Why don't we... ask them!”

He stepped over to the menacing curtain, and with a flourish drew it back. Mom and Dad were hanging there, roped together so it looked like Dad was giving it to Mom, doggy-style.

“Oops!” Fred said, tugging on ropes and making his parents bump uglies. “Daddy! Why are you hurting Mommy?”

He pulled the cord again and again, Dad's hips rising and falling. A shrink would have a field day with this guy. Field days were fun. I liked dodge ball best.

“Say that again, Daddy? You're wrestling? What wrestling move is that?”

It looked, to my untrained eye, like a sodomyplex. I tore my eyes away and pointed at something with my chin. “What's that hanging next to them?”

“Fluffy. My cat.”

“And those tiny things?”

“My goldfish, BA and Hannibal. Fluffy loves to chase them around. Don't you, Fluffy?”

More manic pulling of ropes, and the three dead animals knocked into each other. While he was preoccupied, I called out in my best falsetto, “Honey, it's Roberta!”

John turned his attention back to Roberta the zombie living bacon wife.

“Dearest? Did you say something?”

“I said,” I said, “We should let Mr. McGlade go. I'm not hungry right now.”

Nut job was buying it. He wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling against her tasty ribs.

“But you need to eat, honey. You're getting thinner and thinner.”

“Tack a couple of tomatoes to my chest. I'll look a lot better.”

Bert began to laugh. A chilling laugh that chilled me. He spun, pointing the cleaver at my nose.

“You idiot! Do you think I'm that stupid?”

“Yes.”

“What good husband doesn't know the sound of my wife's own voice?”

“You, I was hoping.”

“Enough of this tomfoolery! This ends now!”

He launched himself at me, screaming and drooling insanely, his probably very sharp cleaver raised for the killing blow.

Then Lieutenant Jackie Daniels shot him in the head.

Chapter 14

“You're an idiot, McGlade,” Jackie said, using the cleaver to cut away the ropes.

Carl was dead on the floor. He was finally with his wife. Because she was dead on the floor too. Jack had made me sit there until the Crime Scene Unit arrived, taking pictures and gathering evidence. They cut the bodies down before they freed me.

“So how did you know I was here?” I asked.

Jack wore a short skirt and heels that probably cost a fortune but still looked kind of slutty, just how I liked them.

“Norma Cauldridge,” she said.

“Who?”

“George Cauldridge's wife.”

“Who?”

“She called me, wanted me to arrest you for trying to poison her. I asked where you were, and she said probably here. After we nabbed those necrophiliacs at the cemetery last night, I needed to find you anyway to get your statement. Lucky I heard your girlish screams which gave me probable cause to bust in here without a warrant.”

I wasn't listening, because it sounded like a boring infodump.

“Can I give you my statement tomorrow?” I asked. “I gotta take a monster dump. I had some hot dogs earlier that are going to look better coming out than going in.”

Jackie leaned in close. I braced myself for the kiss. It didn't come.

“Did you give Norma a bottle full of your urine and tell her it was apple juice?”

“Maybe. Did she drink any?”

“She said the second glass went down rough. She's going to sue you, McGlade.”

“She can take a number. Seriously. I've got one of those number things. I swiped it from the deli.” I grinned. “You can come over later, and watch me cut the cheese. You know you want to.”

“I'd rather gouge out my own eyes with forks.”

“Don't be coy. This could be a way to pay back what you owe me.”

She cocked her hips, hot and sexy. “Excuse me? I just saved your ass, McGlade.”

“Are you kidding? This is front page news. You'll probably get a promotion. There's no need to thank me. It's all part of the service I perform.”

“I really think I hate you.”

“Really, Jackie?” I raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah, really. Be in my office tomorrow morning for your statement. And try to stay of trouble until then.”

I stood up, stretched, and gave her one of my famous Harry McGlade smiles.

“I'll try. But trouble is my business.” I winked. “And business is good.”

Read the Jack Daniels series by JA Konrath: ?Whiskey Sour?Bloody Mary?Rusty Nail?Dirty Martini?Fuzzy Navel?Cherry Bomb

Shaken

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Excerpt from SUCKERS by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand

- 1 -

Andrew

It all started with mushrooms.

Of course, lots of bad things start with mushrooms, but these were the non-hallucinogenic variety. My wife Helen despises mushrooms. I mean, she loathes them with every ounce of her being, and while she's admittedly a rather petite woman, she's able to cram a lot of loathing into those ounces.

I myself am no big fan of mushrooms or other fungi products, although in college we had a lot of fun with fungus when my best friend Roger got Athlete's Foot. We called him “Itchy Roger” over and over and over and over again. I have to admit that it seems a lot less funny now than it was at the time, almost a bit pathetic in fact, but trust me, it was hysterical and kept us entertained for hours on end. The next semester, we entertained ourselves by playing darts with slices of pizza.

Anyway, I was thirty-three and long out of college (well, not that long, but that's another story) and I'd spent the evening out drinking with Roger. Of course, we were drinking coffee, and only one cup each because that stuff was expensive as hell. I'd been given two tasks to complete before I returned home:

a) Purchase a jar of spaghetti sauce.

b) Ensure that the jar of spaghetti sauce did not include mushrooms.

When I got to the grocery store, I selected a jar of sauce. It had fancy calligraphy on it and a drawing of a smiling man in a chef's hat. The part of my brain that should have been saying “Hey, dumb-ass, don't forget about the no-mushrooms rule!” instead said “Gee, I wonder if this place has any sour gummi bears?” I bought the sauce and the gummi bears and left the store.

As it turns out, the drawing was not a smiling man in a chef's hat. It was a giant mushroom. Damn those poofy chef's hats.

Now, I don't want you to think that my wife is the kind of person who would throw a screaming temper tantrum over me purchasing the wrong variety of spaghetti sauce. Instead, she's the kind of person who would bottle up rage over my lack of a job, my questionable babysitting habits, the incident where I accidentally didn't shut the freezer door securely and ruined hundreds of dollars' worth of frozen meat, and a few dozen other infractions, and let it all come exploding out of her petite frame in the form of extremely strong disapproval over my choice of spaghetti sauce.

I shouted back at her (though an onlooker might have mistaken it for shameful cowering and groveling) and headed out to do a sauce exchange. As I walked into the driveway, I realized that I'd left my car keys on the kitchen table. Having just been lectured for my lack of responsibility, I didn't think it was a good idea to walk back into the house and sheepishly say “Uh, forgot my keys.” The store was only ten blocks away. I'd walk.

To keep the walking time to a minimum, I cut through several backyards. I didn't notice the man breaking into an unfamiliar house until I practically bumped into him. I'm not very observant.

He had wavy brown hair and a two-day beard that looked like dirt on his cheeks in the semi-darkness. Clenched in his teeth was a penlight, aimed down at the doorjamb where he wiggled a pry bar. Upon hearing me he dropped the tool and dug into his trenchcoat, removing a handgun the size of a loaf of handgun-shaped French bread.

“Beeb, brubbubber!” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

He removed the penlight from his mouth. “Freeze, bloodsucker!”

“I beg your pardon?”

I'd been called a lot of things in my life, many of them only a few minutes ago, but “bloodsucker” was a new one.

The man pointed the gun at me and glanced down at the jar in my hand. “What's that? A jar of Type O positive?”

“It's Momma Helga's Spaghetti Sauce.”

“Why does it have a penis on the label?”

“That's a mushroom.”

“It looks like a penis.”

“No, it looks like a chef's hat. But it's a mushroom.”

“Drop the penis sauce and get down on your knees. Then open your mouth.”

I didn't want to do that for an infinite number of reasons. “I'd rather not.”

The man smacked me in the head with the gun, hard enough to make me see mushroom-shaped stars (which was odd). I got down on my knees as instructed.

“Open wide,” the man said, pressing the barrel against my lips.

I opened my mouth.

“Wider.”

I opened my mouth wider.

He tilted his head and peered inside, flashing the pen light along my gum line. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied with what he saw. “You can close it now. No fangs. You're cool.” He lowered the gun.

I should have made the comment, “Yeah, I lost my baby fangs when I was eight,” but I never think of clever stuff like that until a few minutes after the moment has passed. Instead I said, “What the hell are you talking about? And why did you hit me in the head?”

“Pires.”

“Pires?”

“Vampires.”

Oh, goody. A whacko.

“Vampires don't exist,” I helpfully pointed out.

The man sneered at me. “They exist, sauce-boy.” He tapped the door he'd been prying at with his penlight. “And they're in this house.”

- 2 -

Harry

They call me Harry McGlade. Probably because that's my name. I'm a private eye.

My office is in Chicago, and five days ago a desperate woman named Phoebe Mertz retained me to find her daughter, Tanya. Little Tanya was sixteen, into the Goth scene big-time. You know the type: dresses in all black, collects piercings, wears way too much mascara, scowls all the time. Most parents dream their child will go to medical school. Very few dream their child will get a tattoo on their forehead that says, “Life's a toilet.”

According to Mom, Tanya had never run away before.

“I know she looks different,” Phoebe had said, showing me a picture of a frowning brunette with five nose rings, three eyebrow rings, and too many earrings to count.

“I hope she stays out of lightning storms.”

“She's really a good girl. Straight A's. Doesn't do drugs or have a boyfriend.”

“She hangs around with other Goths?”

“Yes. All of her friends are into that.”

I figured that Tanya was probably in an alley somewhere, stoned out of her mind, while a bike gang ran a train on her.

I shared these thoughts with Phoebe, but it didn't seem to ease her worries.

“I want you to find her and bring her home, Mr. McGlade.”

“I get five hundred a day.”

“That's a lot of money.”

“I'm expensive, but I'm worth it. You're not just paying for the job. You're paying for peace of mind. Once the check clears, I'll find her. Even if she turns up dead and dismembered in an alley.”

She burst into tears, obviously relieved I was on the job.

I spent the rest of Day 1 working on the case, subconsciously while I slept.

Day 2 involved me interviewing one of Tanya's school friends, a guy named Steve who'd recently bisected his own tongue down the middle in an effort to look more like a lizard. Steve wasn't talking—his mouth was too swollen. But he had some killer skunk bud and we lit one up.

Day 3 wasn't very productive. I spent most of it at the ballgame, watching the Red Sox kick the hell out of the Cubs. I kept an eye out for Tanya, but she didn't show up.

Day 4 I spent drinking, and can't remember much.

On Day 5 I caught a break. A phone call to a guy I know who works for a credit card company informed me that Tanya's Mastercard was getting a workout down south. Phoebe provided me with plane fare, and I followed the paper trail to a leather bar in the suburbs of Chamber, Florida. Flashing around Phoebe's picture was met with the usual blank stares, until President Grant helped one punk regain his memory.

“Oh yeah, she was here yesterday. Hanging out with some Pires.”

Further interrogation revealed that the Pires were a gang of Goths who only came out at night and liked to wear fake fangs and drink each other's blood. I could relate; there wasn't much good on TV anymore, and kids can get bored in the 'burbs.

After spreading around a lot of Phoebe's cash, I managed to track down the Pires' main hangout, owned by a guy who called himself Vlad. Word on the street, Vlad was thirty-something, balding and overweight, and wore contact lenses that made his eyes look bloodshot. Just the kind of daddy-figure teenage girls found irresistible.

I was in the middle of breaking into Casa de Vlad when sauce-boy wandered over, witnessing my felony-in-progress.

“Look.” He tried to smile, but it looked funny with my gun on his cheek. “This is really none of my business, and I really have to get home while the pasta is still al dente or I'll be sleeping on the sofa for a week. And our sofa has these big, pointy springs that stick out of the cushions that feel like fish hooks.”

“You think I'm an idiot?”

“Actually—”

I gave him another love tap with the butt of my Magnum.

“Here's the deal, sofa-man. I have to get into this house and grab someone. This someone may not want to go with me, and she may have some friends who don't want to see her go. So this is going to be complicated enough without having to worry about the police showing up in three minutes because your pansy sofa-ass went whining to them.”

“I won't call the police. The police and I don't have a very good relationship. I kind of annoy them. I—”

I tapped him on the head again. “I wasn't finished.”

“Can you please stop—”

Tap. “You're still talking.”

He looked at me and opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it.

I hit him anyway.

“But I didn't—”

“You just did.” Tap.

I may have tapped him too hard, because he went from his knees onto his ass.

“The thing is, Saucey, much as I'm just dying inside to trust you, it's probably better if I don't. Do you have ten feet of clothesline on you?”

He didn't say anything, which I took to be a no.

“Neither do I. So my only alternative is to knock you out. Now stand up so I can hit you on the head again.”

He didn't move.

“Would you prefer me shooting you?”

Slowly, molasses slowly, he got to his knees. I might have felt sorry for the guy, but the sympathy gene skipped a generation.

I reared back and cracked him a good one on the noggin, which made a sound like a belt being snapped. He teetered over and ate the lawn.

I watched him for a full minute. No movement. But he may have been faking unconsciousness to discourage me from smacking him again. Some people are savvy like that.

“You awake?” I asked.

No answer.

“Look, I have to know for sure, so right now I'm going to stomp as hard as I can on your gonads. I'm sure you understand.”

I raised a foot and watched him shift slightly.

“Aspirin...” he groaned. “Plentiful aspirin...”

I sighed. Hitting him again might kill him. Plus, my arm was getting tired.

“Get your ass up. We're switching to Plan B.”

The guy took his time getting to his feet, wobbling a little in the process.

“Okay, Saucy. Use the pry bar to break into the house.”

“Me?”

“You see anyone else out here?”

He blinked. Then he blinked again. “Why don't you do the manual labor on your own felony?”

“I've got to hold the gun.”

“No problem. You can let me hold the gun.”

I faked another strike at his head, and when he flinched I stomped on his foot, heel first.

“Put down the goddamn sauce and grab the crowbar. You're pissing me off.”

He obeyed.

“Make sure it's in the jamb really good, then put some weight on it.”

The door moaned in protest, then popped open. I shined the penlight inside, but it wasn't strong enough to breach the dark room. I held my breath and listened. No sound came from within.

While I was preoccupied, Sauce-boy took the opportunity to swing the crowbar at me. Luckily, my catlike reflexes switched on and I ducked before he took my head off. I shoved the gun in his face and he froze.

“Sorry. Crowbar slipped.”

“Drop it.”

He complied.

“Into the house. Stay quiet or the last sound you'll hear is your brain exiting through your eye sockets. It's sort of a bang/slurp sound. Trust me, you wouldn't like it.”

“This probably isn't new information, but you're kind of a prick.”

“You caught me on a bad day. Now move it. Nice and slow.”

I marched him three steps into the dark house, unable to see a damn thing. There wasn't a single light on, and all the curtains were drawn. I smelled incense, and something under it. Something funky.

My partner took another step, made an uumph! sound, and pitched forward.

I flashed on the penlight to see what he tripped over, and saw it was a naked dead guy with his throat ripped out.

While sauce-boy flailed around like a fish, I played the penlight around the floor, noticing something distinctly odd. The throat wound was so deep the neck vertebrae were exposed.

But there was surprisingly little blood.

Excerpt from FLOATERS by J.A. Konrath and Henry Perez

-1-

CHAPA

I was merging from Harlem Avenue into mid-afternoon traffic on the Kennedy when word came in that another floater had turned up in the Chicago River.

“I phoned you first, Mr. Chapa.” Zach Bridges, an intern at the news desk, had taken the call. “Just like you always tell me to.”

I steered with my knee for a moment, one hand on my cell and the other fiddling with the air conditioning. There was a snowflake symbol on the dial, meant to indicate frigid. It was lying to me, blowing tepid breaths in my face that did little to combat the sticky summer air. I settled for lowering the window enough to get a breeze but not so much that it disrupted my conversation.

“That was good of you, Zach. Remind me to talk to Sully about getting you a regular news beat.”

The kid got all excited but there was no reason for him to. It was an empty hope, he just hadn't figured that out yet. The newspaper industry was dying, slowly, painfully. The Suburban Herald, my employer for the past fifteen years, was just like all the other rags that had gone terminal before anyone realized what was happening.

Reporters have always fought over stories with front page potential, but at least there was usually enough space to go around. These days, we often spend our time wrestling over every precious column inch.

“Is Sully around?”

“No, Mr. Chapa, he's in another meeting with the accountants, all the editors are.”

I thanked Zach for the tip, then called Matt Sullivan's line and left him a voicemail. I took the next off-ramp, crossed over the expressway, and headed back toward the Loop. I'd be on the story before my editor had a chance to wonder whether someone else should be instead.

My office is located in the western suburbs, but I was in the city that day following a lead from Nina Constentino, a pint-sized woman in her late sixties who offered me a cup of green tea and a well-used chair to sit in while I drank it. I passed on the tea, and standing would've been the wise choice.

“You're my last hope, Mr. Chapa.”

“Please call me Alex.”

From the looks of it, Nina was wearing the same makeup she put on the day her husband went missing.

“Emil would never disappear like this. Not without telling me. It's been two days now, and I know something bad has happened.”

Truth is I normally would've given her a gentle brush-off. People do sometimes get lost for a day or two. These stories pop up all the time.

“You've tried the police?”

“They came by, took my information. But they didn't seem to be in a hurry to do anything. Said he hadn't been gone long enough.”

“I don't want to cause you any more worry, but have you tried the hospitals? Maybe he got in some sort of accident.”

She raised her voice, probably as much as her frail frame would allow. “I've called every hospital and clinic in Chicago asking for Emil or anyone unknown fitting his description. I'm not a fool, Mr. Chapa.”

“Alex,” I said gently.

She nodded, sniffled, then I lost her face to a yellowed, embroidered handkerchief that I would have bet was older than I was.

“I'm sorry, Alex. Didn't mean to snap at you. I haven't been able to sleep, and I'm a wreck. But I've tried the hospitals, and everyone we know, and the police, and I don't know what I'm going to do next.”

The handkerchief returned to her face, but she continued.

“This isn't the sort of big story you like to be involved with, I know that. But even after forty years of marriage Emil still makes my heart jump. He's all I have.”

I leaned in to comfort her, but thought better of it when the chair crackled and squealed.

“There are private detectives.”

“I called one, but he wanted to be paid much more than I can afford. Our finances lately, because of the business—well, I just don't have it, Mr. Chapa.”

I felt for her, but didn't see what I could do. Sadly, this wasn't really news. Maybe if I spun it, took the human interest angle, something about how no one cares for the senior citizens in our society.

“I can write a story, print his picture. Maybe someone will recognize him.”

“That's not enough. I need to go looking for him. Do you have a car?”

“Yes, but Mrs. Constentino—”

“Please. I'd go myself, but Emil has our car. I don't have anyone else to turn to.”

I let myself entertain the notion, cruising around Chicago with an elderly woman. For a moment I pictured something resembling All the President's Men meets Driving Miss Daisy, and I wanted no part of it. But lately it had been kind of slow in the suburbs, and I'd grown tired of writing about the wife beaters, gang bangers, and sexual predators that crowd the police blotter. This would certainly be something different.

“Mrs. Constentino, you need to stay here in case he calls or shows up.”

“Does that mean you will you do it?”

I'd already decided to write the story. What could it hurt if I checked out some of Emil's haunts and talked to a few people? It would be a way of getting background information.

“I can try.”

That brought a cautious smile to her face, the kind that reminds you why you became a reporter.

The Constentinos had been antique dealers for more than a quarter century. They made a decent living through the eighties and nineties, until the collectibles bubble burst near the end of the last decade.

“At first we thought the internet would be a godsend for us dealers. But it didn't work out that way.”

She explained that quality items had become hard to find as amateurs flooded the business, and that's why Emil drove to the city.

“He goes once a month to check in with some people who buy stuff at garage sales and thrift stores. We used to do that too, but it's hard to find the energy anymore.”

“Do you sell these things online?”

“No, too much competition. We stick to mostly flea markets, and collectibles shows.”

“Can you tell me who he was planning to visit on this last trip?”

“Sure. But I already tried to call them.”

“I should double check.”

She handed me a small piece of lavender paper with three names and addresses written on it in textbook perfect longhand, and a photo of her husband.

“The first one is a man he's dealt with for a while, the other two are new, I think,” she said, then waited for me to respond with a word of hope.

I wasn't going to lie to her.

“I'll call you as soon as I know anything,” I said, then walked to my car and drove away without looking back.

As soon as I pulled onto the expressway I put a call in to the Chicago branch of the FBI and asked for Special Agent Joseph Andrews.

“I'm telling you right up front, Al, I do not have the time to be doing you any favors right now.”

“Busy, huh?”

“Very.”

“I understand, and you know I would never waste your time.”

“I appreciate that.”

“I just need access to some IPASS records from two days ago,” I said as casually as I could, referring to Illinois' automatic toll system which can make it easy to track a car's movement, as long as the driver is registered for the program, which Emil Constentino was.

“Al, that's a favor.”

“Not really. The driver of the car in question has been missing for two days. His wife believes he was driving into the city from Batavia, which means he would've passed through at least two toll booths.”

I heard him sigh, then silence. I'd been friends with Joe Andrews for more than twenty years, been best man at his wedding, a pallbearer at his father's funeral, so I knew what was coming next.

“Goddamnit, Al,” another sigh, “what's the plate number?”

Half an hour later, I was driving through the tunnel beneath the old Chicago post office when Andrews called me back and confirmed that the Constentino's ten-year-old Chevy Impala had indeed passed through two eastbound toll booths along I-88.

“But that's it, there's no record of a return trip,” he added.

I thanked him, promised to check in later that day, then drove to the first address on the list. It turned out to be a small curio shop on Clark, situated in a corner of an eighty-year-old building, just north of the river.

It had once been a drugstore, complete with a lunch counter and regular customers. The business space next door looked like it had originally been part of a larger whole, and the two still shared a display window. Now one half was a coffee shop catering to twenty-somethings and poseurs, and the other was the store, crammed with a mish-mash of old junk, some of it valuable, most of it not.

I walked past collections of movie memorabilia, baseball pennants, and a dozen stacks of men's magazines, to the middle of the store. A tan, very muscular man in a St. Louis Cardinals cap and faded blue t-shirt was kneeling next to a box of old comics, flipping through them. The guy I needed to talk to was manning the counter.

“Yeah, sure, I'm Sam Preston, who are you?”

Preston was tall and narrow, and he might've been an athlete, but I got the sense he didn't come from that kind of family. Long, thin black hair draped his pale face.

“My name is Alex Chapa, I'm a reporter, and I'm looking for Emil Constentino.”

He reached out to shake my hand, revealing a roughly inked tattoo of a lightning bolt on the inside of his forearm. I filled him in on the details, and he confirmed that Emil had been there two days before.

“Emil's a hell of a guy, comes in every once in a while. He buys shit I'd never be able to sell. I give it to him below cost a lot of the time on account of I like the guy, and he's a good customer.”

“What kind of things does he buy?”

“Junk. But then, it's all junk, isn't it? One person's trash, another man's treasure. Buy a box of cereal, keep it unopened for thirty years, someone will pay five hundred bucks for the toy inside. Crazy world, right?”

He leaned back against a door behind the counter on the common wall between the two businesses. It was covered with Garbage Pail Kids stickers, most of which were faded and pealing.

“Is that the kind of junk he normally buys from you?” I said, pointing to the awful stickers that I vaguely remembered from my youth.

“No, not this shit, exactly, but sort of. Emil never liked the antiquey stuff. He's into collectibles. You know, baseball cards, records, movie posters. Most of those things hold their value, but Emil sometimes buys up stuff no one seems to want any more. You know, like Pokemon cards. Some of those used to go for a few hundred bucks a piece. Now you'd be lucky to get ten bucks for a trunk full. Just couldn't hold their value.”

“Emil bought Pokemon cards?”

Preston shook his head. I waited, unwilling to ask again. He stayed quiet, folding his arms, his lips pressed firmly together. I got the hint and fished out my wallet. All I had was a twenty and a five, and I didn't think he'd make change. I handed him the larger bill.

“Emil accumulated stuff like collections of National Geographic magazine, Michael Jackson memorabilia, and pogs,” he said, his face splitting into a wide grin. “He thought they would become valuable again someday.”

“Pogs?”

“He bought pogs. A whole shitload of them.”

The guy who was hunched over the comic books looked up for a moment. A big pog collector, no doubt.

“And what, exactly, is a pog?”

Preston spent the longest three minutes of my life explaining everything I ever wanted to know about pogs, including the details of their quick rise in popularity, and their even quicker fall. He told me about the many variations, and the important difference between a regular pog and a slammer, even pulled a few out from behind the counter and spread them across the glass top.

When he was finished, I took him down a different track, asking questions about Emil, fleshing out his personality. Old man, forgotten by society, trying to eek out a living by selling items from the past. It was heavy on the schmaltz, and wouldn't get me a Pulitzer, but some readers love that sort of thing.

I gave him my business card and as I turned to leave I saw a large doll in a glass case. Preston noted my interest and launched into his spiel.

“It's a limited edition American Girl piece. It's in mint condition in its original, unopened box.”

He made it sound expensive and more valuable than it probably was, but the doll reminded me of my daughter Nikki, and I knew she'd love it.

“How much?”

“It books at seventy-five, but since you're a friend of Emil's it's yours for forty.”

“Do you take credit cards?”

He pulled out one of those old credit card gadgets, the kind that makes an imprint of the card on a carbon copy, and I handed him my Visa.

After he'd bagged the doll, I thanked him and headed to the next place on the list, a warehouse and factory just west of Old Town. A name had once been painted on the building's brick façade, Jorgensen's, maybe, but that was decades ago. The street that ran along the front of the building was narrow and empty, except for one truly eye-catching set of wheels.

I parked next to a mint new Corvette, spent three seconds admiring the lines, then walked to a door that had one of those cheap tin entrance signs stuck in the middle. The old knob was scuffed, and badly dented, and it complained loudly when I gave it a quick twist. The room on the other side of the metal door was a cramped office that smelled of dried sweat and recycled grease. The paint on the walls may have been beige once, but years of cigarette smoke and stale air had left a mud brown patina.

A small man with spiked hair sat behind a metal desk that was built long before computer monitors were common. He looked up at me as though he'd been waiting for someone, and I wasn't that guy.

“What do you want?” he asked as though that was his default greeting.

I looked beyond him to a partially open door and noticed the shadow of someone on the other side.

“Is that how you greet all your customers?”

“We're closed.”

He tucked something into his hip pocket as he stood. This wasn't a guy you showed your back to. He was short but solid, even his eyebrows had muscles, and his legs could've passed for fire hydrants in blue jeans.

“Are you Marty Cleven?” I asked in my most authoritative voice.

“What do you know about Marty?”

“Nothing, except he was supposed to meet a man named Emil Constentino here two days ago.”

“Don't know either of them. Time for you to go.”

“Is Mr. Cleven here? I just need a minute.”

“Time for you to go,” he repeated, raising his voice several decibels.

I glanced beyond him again, and saw what looked like a man moving around in the next room.

“Is he in the room behind you?”

“I warned you, buddy.”

He came out from behind the desk, reaching around his back as he closed the twenty feet of cracked grey tile between us. When his thick right hand re-emerged it was holding a tazer.

I never had military training, never formally studied the martial arts. But you pick up stuff over the years. After more than a decade of interviewing all sorts of people, experts in a wide variety of areas, not all of them legal, I've learned enough to defend myself in most circumstances. As all four feet, eleven inches of him came toward me I was certain this was one of those circumstances.

Mighty mite was just five feet away when I lunged forward and slammed my left fist down on his right wrist, sending the tazer tumbling across the floor until it came to a stop somewhere under the desk. Before he could snap out of his what-the-fuck-just-happened trance, I swung my right forearm into his chin and across the side of his neck. He dropped to the floor like someone had cut his strings, one hand rubbing his face, the other seeking the tazer.

The shadows in the other room weren't moving around anymore, they were huddled by the door. It was time to go.

I reached back for the entrance door and noticed there were dents and a lot of scuffed metal around the lock. Maybe the damage to the outside knob was recent, because maybe these guys didn't have a key to the place. I heard shorty growl something R-rated as I walked out.

Driving through busy Lincoln Park streets, I checked the rearview a dozen times on my way to the third stop, an apartment above a small business in Rogers Park. Calling the police crossed my mind more than once, but I didn't exactly have what you would call a friendly relationship with a majority of the Chicago PD. Besides, what would I say? I saw a guy who might have broken into an old warehouse with his friends, and I assaulted him because he might have tried to attack me because I wouldn't leave when he told me to? I'd been hassled by cops enough over the years, and I didn't want to add another unpleasant experience to the collection. So it was on to the third address on my short list.

The sign on the door of North Side Plastics read Closed. Between broken slats in the lowered blinds I could see someone moving around inside. I found the entrance to the apartments around the side of the building, and the name on the mail box confirmed that Angel Batara lived on the second floor. But the amount of mail filling the box also suggested what I soon confirmed, Angel wasn't home.

An hour later I was sitting at Johnny's Beef, eating a sandwich and looking over the notes I'd made, which added up to a whole lot of nothing. I finished lunch, got back in my car, and pointed it toward home.

And that's when I got the call from Zach.

Four floaters in eight weeks. An attention-getting number. One death is a human interest story. Two can sometimes be the result of some sort of a grudge, or gang activity. A third can be dismissed as fallout from the first two deaths. But when the body count reaches four, regular folks start worrying that they could be next. And that sells papers.

The scene along the North branch of the Chicago River was about what I had expected. I parked the car several blocks away so as to not draw attention to myself, and walked to the scene. The mid-summer sun that had recently baked the town to a crisp was still clinging to the late afternoon sky. Scanning the area for an anxious witness, a familiar face, or another reporter, I roamed the perimeter that the cops had staked out until I spotted Jimmy Gordon.

“Hey, Officer Gordon,” I said just above a whisper. He turned and eyed me right away.

“Chapa, I should've known you'd end up here along with the gawkers, bugs, and river rats.”

Jimmy had been my pal since back in the nineties when I wrote a series of stories that helped him and a few of his brothers in blue get off on bum corruption charges.

“What have we got here?”

“The guy hasn't been in the water for long, and it doesn't look like he drowned.”

“You got a name?”

“Don't think so, but all of this will be released to the press in due time.”

“C'mon, Jim,” I said with a smile.

He smiled back, though not as much, and appeared to consider his options.

After a moment, he said, “Have I told you about my brother?”

“Didn't know you had one.”

“I do, he's an orthodontist, very successful, knows all the latest technology and shit. And he just opened his own office in Glen Ellyn.”

“You don't say.”

“It's a tough business, Alex, very competitive and publicity can be hard to come by.”

“Sounds like he's providing a fine and necessary service to the good people of DuPage County.” I nodded. “I could probably milk a decent feature out of that.”

He returned my nod. We had an agreement.

I watched Jimmy walk down to the river and over near a woman I recognized as Homicide Lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels. As Jimmy hovered around the scene I slipped behind an oak tree to avoid being spotted by the other cops. Daniels was a tough customer and a decent enough cop, but she didn't take kindly to members of the news media. If she spotted me, Jimmy would immediately forget our deal, my name, or that he'd ever even heard of newspapers.

She was surrounded by the usual array of police officials who were poking around the scene and carefully examining the corpse. I was so locked in to the goings on that I didn't notice Jimmy had returned and was casually leaning against the tree I was standing behind.

“The stiff is a white male, about six-three, under two hundred pounds, probably in his early to mid thirties. A group of folks on a river cruise spotted him floating by.”

“That'll ruin a nice day in the big city.”

“No shit. He was found fully dressed, but without any ID on him.”

“Cause of death?”

“No word yet. I didn't get that close.”

“And he was floating, huh?”

“That's what I was told.”

“Anything distinct about him?”

Jimmy thought for a moment.

“Oh yeah, he has a tattoo on his arm.”

“What kind of tattoo?”

“It's a lightning bolt, could be prison ink.”

“That's Sam Preston.”

“You knew him, Alex?”

“Not for long.”

?-2-

DANIELS

Homicide Lieutenant Jack Daniels pushed her bangs behind her ear—seeing the streaks of gray annoyed her—and frowned at the body being lifted onto the stretcher. The man's clothes and hair had begun to dry, and aside from the dull open eyes he appeared to be sleeping.

“Tour captain said he was floating,” she said.

Her partner, Sergeant Herb Benedict, had liberated his emergency beef jerky stash and was munching on some sort of pepperoni stick.

“I don't get it either. Guy looks like he just went for a swim. Couldn't have been in the drink for more than a few hours.”

“But he was floating,” she repeated. The words didn't taste right leaving her tongue.

“Maybe he just had a buoyant meal,” Herb said. “Something light and airy. You want to grab a bite after this?”

Daniels walked over to Phil Blasky, the county Medical Examiner, who was using a probe to take the liver temperature. Unlike Herb, who was portly and sported a mustache, Blasky was thin to the point of gaunt and didn't have enough hair on his entire head to keep a mouse warm in the summer.

“Eighty degrees,” he said, noticing Jack's approach. “The water is fifty-five.”

“Rigor?”

“No. No lividity yet, no livor mortis. This man was alive a few hours ago.”

“Cause of death?”

“Can't tell from a cursory examination. No visible marks on the body. Blue pallor, slightly cyanotic, but that could be from the water temperature. A drowning?”

“When they fished him out he was floating.”

“That's odd.”

Jack's frown deepened.

“Are his lungs full of water?” she asked.

Blasky pulled a syringe out of his med kit, unwrapped it, then looked around for a place to put the wrapper. Herb took it, adding the garbage to the dozen or so jerky wrappers in his breast pocket; you always knew when Herb was around because he sounded like cellophane.

“Let's see.” Blasky pushed up the corpse's shirt and angled the needle between the damp, pale ribs. He pulled back the plunger, getting a small quantity of blood and a larger quantity of air.

“Suffocation causes cyanosis too.” Jack folded her arms. “Give his diaphragm a squeeze.”

Blasky performed a partial Heimlich, there was a wet popping sound and something shot out of the deceased's mouth and arced through the air. Jack tracked it down, squatting and peering at the asphalt between her black Ferragamo pumps.

“What is it?” Herb stood next to her. He wasn't built to squat.

“I have no idea. Some sort of disk. A poker chip?”

She looked closer. It was white, maybe three centimeters in diameter. If it hadn't been stuck in a floater's throat, Jack would have guessed it was a Communion wafer.

Without prompting, Herb handed her a plastic evidence baggie and a wrapped pepperoni stick. She used the jerky to poke it. Metal. And thick, about a centimeter.

She flipped the circular object over.

Herb said, “Holy Guacamole, Batman.”

Her partner's comment was appropriate. On the other side of the disk was a picture of Batman. A close-up of his face, the caped crusader in three-quarter profile, looking suitably heroic. Jack maneuvered Batman into the baggie.

Herb nudged her. “Should I call Gotham City, tell Commissioner Gordon that the Dark Knight has gone bad?”

Jack stood up, smoothed out her skirt with one hand while holding up the baggie with the other.

“You, my friend,” she said to Herb, “are too old to be such a big geek.”

“Batman is cool. Can I have my jerky back?”

Jack complied, then caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Two men were approaching. One, a uniform she recognized as a beat cop named Gordon. The other, a man about forty, medium build, with strong Cuban features punctuating a slightly sad face. Jack knew him as well. She shoved the baggie into the coat pocket of her blazer and put her hands on her hips.

“This scene is off limits to members of the press.” She had some steel in her voice, and though her words were to Gordon her eyes were on the reporter.

“Lieutenant, Alex, uh, Mr. Chapa here, he says he knew the floater, uh, the deceased.”

“He can pay his respects after we release the body. In the meantime, if he'd like to go for a swim himself, the Chicago Police Department would be happy to assist him.”

Alex Chapa took a step forward, something Daniels viewed as brave but not wise.

“Officer Gordon, tell the Lieutenant I just saw this man alive a few hours ago.”

Jack narrowed her eyes. “Did anyone see you two together?”

“I'll save you the trouble. He owns a collectible shop on Clark, has a closed circuit camera. You can view the tape, which will show you he was still alive when I left.”

“That doesn't prove anything,” Herb said, stepping up to meet Chapa. “You could have killed him after he left.”

“I didn't kill him, Sergeant. I want to help.”

“Do you like Batman?”

“Batman? Why?”?Jack stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with her partner.

“Officer Gordon, take Mr. Chapa down to the station and get a statement. If you make him wait for more than six hours, I'll buy you lunch.”

“Sorry, Alex,” Gordon said. “Let's go.”

Gordon placed a hand on the reporter's shoulder, pulling him backward. Chapa shrugged away.

“Lieutenant Daniels, I know in the past the Suburban Herald hasn't treated you with the respect you deserve…”

“Here's the direct quote. 'If Daniels paid as much attention to her job as she does to her wardrobe, maybe Chicago wouldn't have so many unsolved homicides.'”

“I didn't write that. But it's nice to know that someone still reads the papers.”

“Not me, Mr. Chapa. My boss. He wasn't amused, and neither am I.”

Chapa attempted a smile. “I apologize. Still, that suit you've got on is very flattering.” He looked over at Jimmy, who was studying his shoes.

Jack turned to the uniform. “Make him wait ten hours, I'll see to it you get a promotion.”

Officer Gordon again tried to lead Chapa away, and again the reporter twisted out of the hold.

“Don't you find it odd, Lieutenant, that this is the fourth reported floater in eight weeks?”

“Potentially unrelated,” Daniels said. “If you knew anything about floaters—”

Chapa interrupted. “—I'd know that bodies in water tend to sink for the first several days. They only float after bacteria begin to decompose the tissue, releasing gas. Those other bodies had been dead for weeks before they bobbed to the surface. Preston's clothes should have weighed him down, kept him on the bottom for a while. I know this because I attended a forensics lecture you gave at the U of C about five years ago. You were excellent.” Chapa added, “And your outfit was killer. Red. I think it was Armani.”

“It was Fendi,” Jack said.

Chapa glanced to his right, viewing the corpse as Blasky fussed with a black body bag.

“What is that?” Chapa asked, pointing to Preston's right foot.

Something was wedged between the victim's ten dollar loafer and his wet sock. Blasky carefully removed it with some forceps and held it up. A small key.

“Bag it,” Jack told him.

“He doesn't appear to be beaten up like the other victims,” Chapa stated. “The other three floaters had facial lacerations, indications they'd been worked over.”

“No comment.”

“And the others were men with money who turned up wearing polo shirts with country club emblems, and Italian leather shoes. This guy shopped at thrift stores.”

“Still another reason why there may not be a connection. How many ways do I have to say, 'no comment'? Officer Gordon, now, please.”

“Look, Lieutenant Daniels, I really am trying to help. Don't you want to know what Preston and I discussed? It could be relevant to the investigation.”

“Officer Gordon will take your statement, possibly sometime within the next few days.”

This time Gordon managed to get Chapa several steps away before the reporter slipped his grasp and came storming back

“Why was he floating? Lungs full of air because something was caught in his throat?”

Now Herb got so close his nose almost touched Chapa's.

“And how exactly do you know that?”

“I saw something fly out of his mouth, watched the Lieutenant pick it up. Could be a pog.”

“A what?”

“Let me see it, and I'll tell you.”

Jack thought it over, couldn't see the harm, and pulled the bag out of her pocket. Chapa held it by the edge, bringing it close.

“Well, is it a,” Herb hesitated, “pog?”

Chapa looked up at the four of them and shook his head.

“It's not a pog.” He smiled smugly. “It's a slammer, a member of the pog family.”

Jack looked down at the small round piece of metal, then back at Chapa with a gaze that was equal parts awe, bemusement, and pity.

“That's it,” Jack's voice was calm and steady. “Officer Gordon, get him out of here and keep him away from normal people until we take his statement, sometime around Labor Day.”

“Pogs were made of cardboard, this one's metal, and heavier, that's what makes it a slammer,” Chapa was talking fast, trying to get the words out before Gordon could grab his shoulders again and drag him away.

Jack snatched the bag back, returned it to her pocket. “Your turn. What, exactly, is a pog?”

Chapa folded his arms across his chest and looked like he was getting ready to hold court.

“They originally came from fruit juice in Hawaii. The treated cardboard milk cap beneath the screw-on bottle top of passion fruit-orange-guava juice. They had different designs, kids began to collect them and trade them by playing a game. You'd pile up a stack of your opponent's pogs face down, then hit them with a heavier piece called a slammer. The ones that turned face up you got to keep.”

Herb grunted. “Never heard of it.”

“Really big, back in the early 90s. Companies made millions of them. They were a fad for a while, some of the rarer ones sold for big bucks, like baseball cards. The one that popped out of Preston features a Bob Kane drawing. Classic Batman, before they turned his cowl from blue to black.”

“And you know this because…?”

“I'm a reporter,” Chapa said through a smirk. “That means I'm as close to being omniscient as any human being can possibly get.”

“If you're omnipotent you know that if you print any sort of speculation before we release an official statement I'll come down on you so hard your ears will bleed.”

Chapa smiled. “You can't repress the truth, Lieutenant. The people have a right to know.”

“They also have a right to be safe from murderers, which are a lot harder to catch if crime scene information leaks out. Now go take his statement, Gordon, and if he gets away from you again you're going to wish you didn't come to work today and instead stayed home and licked all the hair off of a monkey.”

Chapa laughed, then said, “Don't knock what you haven't tried, Lieutenant,” forcing Jack to suppress a smile of her own.

Gordon nodded, grabbed Chapa more firmly than possibly necessary, and pulled him off the scene.

“Want to get a smoothie?” Herb asked. “I've got a sudden urge for passion fruit-orange-guava juice.”

Jack didn't answer. She watched Chapa leave. While shooing away reporters was second nature to her, this one wasn't as annoying as most, and it seemed like he might have had more to offer. It didn't matter really. Gordon would do a decent interview, and if there was a follow-up needed Jack could always do it herself. Besides, real murders weren't like TV or books where the crime was solved an hour after it happened. It often took days, weeks, months, before an arrest was made.

Still, watching Chapa walk away left her with a nagging doubt that perhaps she should have pressed the man further.

Excerpt from PLANTER'S PUNCH by J.A. Konrath and Tom Schreck

Duffy

My face hurt like a toothache.

The boxer I'd just fought—a fat guy from Gary, Indiana who was supposedly slow and easy to hit—could punch. I hit him a lot, easily, but he countered well, and every time he did it felt like getting banged with a fabric-covered cinder block. Enough of those and it makes your head ring. Not a pleasant dull throb, but a crackling pain going through from your forehead to your jaw.

Incidentally, I won the fight—six rounds to two in an eight rounder that left me a thousand dollars richer. Now, my true reward; a trip to AJ's for a beer. I fought at the Armory, a two minute car ride to the bar, and got the shock of my life when I came through the front door.

The place had a crowd.

That never happened. Usually, the crowd, and I use that term loosely, consisted of the Fearsome Foursome, Kelley the cop, me and maybe, on a good night, a couple of cab drivers. Tonight other people had invaded my refuge.

Luckily, the Foursome had their usual seats at the bar and saved me one. Kelley, one away from that, was also in. Maybe not so luckily, the Foursome had already started.

“They wrapped her tits in ace bandages, you know.” TC said.

“She sprain 'em?” Jerry Number One said.

Fuck, they were arguing about the Wizard of Oz again. TC loved to talk about how Judy Garland had her breasts wrapped to look younger in her famous role.

“Jed Clampett got sick making that flick,” Rocco said. It silenced the room for a second while the others stared. I took my seat, put a hand up to my face. No swelling, yet.

“The glue on the lion outfit gave him the hives,” Rocco said with confidence.

“Bulger.” Jerry Number Two.

“It is not Bulger, it's the truth,” Rocco said.

AJ, the owner and only bartender, slid a bottle of Schlitz in front of me. I took a long pull and held the rest of it to my forehead.

“Let me get a Beam, too.” I said. AJ lifted his eyebrows but said nothing and put a sidecar of the brown elixir next to the Schlitz.

“Buddy Epson got allergic to the silver paint. Ray Bulger played the lion,” I said. “You fuckin' guys had this discussion a month ago.”

The Fearsome Foursome—Jerries One and Two, Rocco and TC—all stared at me.

“Sorry, fellas,” I said, realizing I'd snapped at them. “My head hurts.”

The unusual silence from the crew called my attention to the crowd in the bar for the first time. There were three strangers on stools on the end by the TV. They didn't look like the usual cab drivers who drifted in. Foreign, maybe eastern block, each in a suit worth more than my payday. They seemed familiar, and it dawned on me they were at the fight. I saw them in the dressing room hanging out with Wilkerson, the fight promoter. They also had front row seats.

I figured they probably followed me here for a drink, but then realized they were here before me. Unusual. Behind them, another group chatted quietly while sipping their drinks. A fat balding guy ate an AJ's cheeseburger, getting mustard, ketchup and grease on his face. He didn't bother with a napkin and instead dragged his sleeve in an upward motion across his mouth.

He talked to a forty-something woman in a very sharp suit—way too sharp for AJ's. No spring chicken, but hot enough in that self-confident, cougarish way.

I reached for the whiskey, letting it burn down my throat.

“Be cool, Duffy. Any second now, they're going to approach you, make the offer.”

I cocked an eyebrow at Kelley. “What the hell are you talking about? Did I just walk into a bad spy novel?”

“Lower your voice, dumb ass. I said stay cool.”

I was going to give Kelley more shit but his eyes made me think better. I took another pull on the Schlitz and played along.

“You wearing the wire?” I asked.

I guess I was going to give Kelley shit after all. But he surprised me by saying, “No. You are. Joint effort with the Chicago cops. Stick this in your pocket.”

He passed something into my hand. I glanced down. Looked like a pen drive.

Kelley wasn't the practical joker type. He wouldn't crack a smile on his birthday in a room full of clowns. Maybe my fat opponent had jarred something loose in my head, because I truly had no idea what was going on.

“Pocket,” Kelley said. “Here they come. Tell them yes.”

I felt movement to my right. The three well-dressed foreign-types were standing over me.

“Matching Rolexes,” Jerry Two said. The Fearsome Foursome were appraising the new arrivals. “Daytonas. Platinum bands.”

“White gold,” Rocco said.

“Platinum.”

“I thought white gold and platinum were the same thing, just different colors.” This from KC.

“Different elements,” said Jerry Two. “Platinum is heaver.”

“No it ain't, zipper-head. Gold is.”

“Platinum. That's why it's more, you know, pricier.”

The tallest of the men, the guy who stood in the middle, smiled at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, five o-clock shadow coming in strong even though he smelled like aftershave. He had something on his front tooth. A diamond.

“Mr. Dombrowski,” he said. His accent was Russian. “May we have a word with you?”

“You know how to tell a fake Rolex?” Jerry One. “If it's got a ticking second hand. The real thing sweeps, don't tick.”

“Another dead giveaway is the plastic band with Fred Flintstone on the face,” said Rocko.

Titters from the Foursome. I rubbed the pen drive recorder in my hand, and still couldn't figure out what exactly was going on here. Were these the Chicago cops Kelley mentioned?

“You guys were at the fight,” I said. Seemed like a smart thing to say. “Ringside.”

“Yes. Your performance was…” he smiled, the diamond glinting blue from the neon beer sign, “acceptable. Now can we have a word?” His eyes flitted over to the Foursome, then back to me. “In private?”

In between fights, I made my living as a counselor. Over the years I got pretty good at reading people. These three didn't look like cops, sound like cops, or act like cops. But their expensive suits had bulges under their left armpits, which meant concealed weapons, and Kelley did insist I say yes to them. So I nodded, finished my beer, and stood up.

The trip wasn't a long one. I followed them over to their table.

“Please, Mr. Dombrowski. Sit.”

“I'd rather stand.”

Bling Tooth made a dismissive gesture, but he and his buddies stayed standing too.

“You put on a pretty good show tonight,” he said. His accent seemed to get thicker. “Your opponent, however… the show he put on was much better.”

I waited, not liking where this was going, but not jumping to conclusions.

“We paid him ten thousand dollars to put on that show.”

I felt the burn coming up my neck, to my ears. I'd gone eight rounds with the fat guy, but all of my energy had suddenly returned, tenfold. It all clicked what Kelley wanted from me, but I couldn't hold back the anger and my fists clenched involuntarily, which probably wouldn't be good for the voice recorder in my palm.

“I've heard the rumors,” I said, making sure my rage wasn't in my voice. “New guys in town. Russians. Paying fighters to take falls. But the guy tonight, he hit back. Hard. I know him from the circuit. He's legit. You're telling me you owned him?”

“We can be… persuasive.”

I wondered how much his diamond tooth was worth, and where I could pawn it after I knocked it out of his mouth. But they had guns, and like an idiot I was standing between them and Kelley, my back-up. Plus, Kelley'd told me to say yes. Get it on tape, they go to jail, win-win. All I had to do was swallow my pride and agree to take a dive.

But then Bling Tooth made a big mistake. Two fingers scissored into his vest pocket and removed a photograph.

“We hope you agree to help us, Mr. Dombrowski. Or else we'd be forced to hurt someone you care very much about.”

He flashed the picture at me. It was Al, my basset hound.

These fuckers had my dog.

It didn't sink in right away. It had already been a long night of getting punched in the head. I looked up to see Bling Tooth smile at me.

“You want I send you a floppy ear for proof?” he said. He went to smile but before the corners of his mouth turned something went bad inside me and I hit him with a straight left. It caught part nose and part upper lip. He went down hard, grasping his face. Blood already spurted from between his fingers, and I guessed it was nose blood by the way it shot.

I sat on the bastard's chest and grabbed his thorax with my right. My grip remained sore from the eight rounder, so it wasn't as tight as I would have liked.

“Listen mother—” I didn't get to finish.

I heard a series of clickety-clacks and realized his two buddies held guns pointed at my head.

Then one of them bent down next to me, picking something up off the floor.

I'd dropped the pen drive recorder.

Jack

The trail led us to Crawford, about fifty miles out of New York City. When a murderer crossed state lines, the Feds had jurisdiction. At least, they were supposed to. But neither Herb nor I gave them a call. We didn't even tell our boss, Captain Bains, we were leaving Chicago.

Sometimes being a law enforcement officer meant tip-toeing around the law.

Our suspect, a Russian mobster named Vladimir Polchev, had skipped town before we could haul him in. Polchev had made two big mistakes.

First, he'd murdered a friend of mine. Dirk Wendt, a semi-pro boxer who happened to be my taekwondo instructor for the last six years.

Second, he'd done it on my turf.

The Russians scared the crap out of people, so most weren't willing to talk. But when I've got my mean on, I can be pretty damn persuasive. Herb and I shook down a pimp owned by the mob, got word that Polchev was paying off fighters to throw matches. If they didn't play along, his crew killed them. Wendt was a Chicagoan, but it didn't take much research to find two other murders that matched Polchev's signature.

A tip took us to New York. We called ahead, playing nice with the locals, and were invited to visit as part of a joint task force. It seemed Polchev was a person of interest in several recent murders. The NY fuzz put a tail on him, checked with their informants, and learned Polchev was planning to put the squeeze on a boxer named Dombrowski. We met the lead investigator, Kelley, at a dive bar, to supervise a sting operation. Kelley informed us, in no uncertain terms, that this was not our collar, and we were to maintain a hands-off policy.

Herb and I had no problem with this. I wanted Polchev, bad. It didn't matter to me which city locked him up, as long as someone did.

“This is an excellent burger,” Herb said. There was so much of it on his face, shirt, and tie, I was dubious he'd gotten any of it into his mouth.

“I'll take your word for it.”

“You should eat something, Jack. The food is good.”

My stomach was still a bit queasy from our flight. The pilot called it “a little bit of turbulence,” but it had been enough to knock the ice out of my complimentary cup of water. Besides, I had a rule never to eat in a place where the main source of lighting was neon.

I checked my watch, then glanced over at the bar. In my left side peripheral vision, Polchev and two cronies sat, drinking top shelf vodka. Polchev was the one with the diamond in his front tooth. To my right, four men argued about the merits and detriments of toothpaste.

“You know fluoride is poisonous?”

“Is not.”

“Is so, Jerry. They don't use fluoride toothpaste in space.”

“You can't brush your teeth in space, dumb ass. It's a vacuum.”

“You mean it can clean your rugs?”

“There's no air in space. You tried to brush your teeth, your brain would slurp out your nose.”

“I mean on the space shuttle. No fluoride in the toothpaste, because astronauts have to swallow it.”

“Makes sense. If they spit it out, it would float after them, following them around all mission.”

I tuned them out. Or tried to, at least. I turned back to Herb, took a sip of my club soda and lime, glancing casually at Polchev. He and his men were all armed. Kelley said nothing was going to go down here, and I hoped he was right. The bar was crowded, and shooting would be a catastrophe. I hoped that this Dombrowski guy was good at keeping his cool. Kelley said he was a social worker. Interesting combination, social work and boxing.

Herb finished licking his fingers and dug out the paperback he was reading. Afraid, by Jack Kilborn. He'd read a good portion of it on the plane, every once and a while pausing to whisper, “Jesus H. Christ.” Apparently, the book was supposed to be scary.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Herb whispered again.

I hated it when people did that, because of course I had to ask what was so upsetting.

“This girl is hanging upside down over a pile of dead bodies,” Herb said.

“Sounds like fun.”

“You gotta read this, Jack.”

“I will. Right after I order a burger.”

The four next to us segued into The Wizard of Oz.

“The horse of a different color died. The color they used on him was toxic.”

“Was not. They used gelatin. He kept licking it off.”

“You're thinking of the tin man.”

“The tin man licked off his paint?”

“No, dummy. The horse.”

“The tin man licked the horse?”

“You guys know it's impossible to lick your own elbow?”

They all tried to do just that. I shook my head and inwardly wept for the gene pool.

The front door swung open, and a guy walked in. Athletic build, not bad looking, a bit old for a boxer. But I knew it was Dombrowski by the way he walked. Economical, no movement wasted, but coiled, like he was waiting for something to happen.

Dombrowski played it cool, walking up to the four nitwits, having a drink and joining in the conversation. Then he had a few private words with Kelley that I missed in the bar chatter.

When Polchev and his goons approached him, I told Herb to put away the book and pay attention. He tucked it into his inside jacket pocket.

Dombrowski seemed confused about everything happening, and I wondered if Kelley had bothered to inform him what exactly was going down.

Then everything went to hell. The boxer hit the mobster, and the other mobsters drew their guns. If that wasn't bad enough, one of the goons picked up the recorder Dombrowski had dropped. A simple sting operation, where no one was supposed to get hurt, was moments away from turning into a bloodbath. I wanted to smack the shit out of Kelley for staging this in a public place, but before I could, instinct took over and I had my .38 in my hand, pointing it at the thugs.

“Police! Drop the weapons!”

The bar went silent. No one moved. I could hear my heart beating, and sensed Herb draw his gun next to me, and Kelley draw his as well.

“That's one damn sexy cop,” said one of the four. I think it was one of the Jerrys.

“Drop them, hands in the air,” I ordered. “Or we will shoot you.”

There was a bad moment when I thought they might be stupid enough to point their guns my way. But the moment passed, and the mobsters let their weapons fall to the floor.

“Chick cop is wearing Armani,” said one of the four.

“You sure? Could be Fendi.”

“It's Armani,” I said. “Now shut the fuck up or I'll shoot you guys, too.”

Dombrowski must have noticed he didn't have any guns aimed at his head anymore, because he resumed pounding the crap out of Polchev.

Kelley got to him before we did.

“Cool it, Duff. We got him.”

“Asshole has my dog.” Punch. “He's going to tell me where A is.” Punch. “Or he's going to spend the rest of his life eating his meals through a straw.” Punch.

Herb grabbed the recorder, zip-tied the other two mobsters hands behind their backs, and I asked everyone in the bar to kindly step outside.

“Everyone, get the fuck out, now!”

Okay, maybe it wasn't so kindly.

“Duffy, ease up, man.” Kelley was trying to hold Dombrowski's arm back, and not doing a very good job. Polchev looked like someone dropped a lasagna, extra sauce, on his face.

I pointed the gun at the boxer.

“Shit, the Fendi cop is gonna shoot Duff.”

“Armani. She said Armani.”

“That the designer guy, got shot?”

“That was Versace.”

“Think she's the one who shot Versaci?”

Apparently, the Four Stooges hadn't left when I'd ordered them to.

“Mr. Dombrowski, stop hitting the mobster and get your hands up over your head.”

Kelley stared at me. “Lieutenant, he's one of the good guys.”

“And I'm trying to save him from a murder rap. Get ahold of yourself, Mr. Dombrowski.”

The boxer looked at me. There was anger in his features, but some sadness too.

“He took my dog, Al.”

“We'll get your dog back,” I said. “I promise.”

He nodded. But before he got up, he punched Polchev one more time, in the kidneys.

Kelley slapped the cuffs on Polchev, and Mirandized all three suspects. I heard sirens in the distance. Back-up, and probably an ambulance. I looked for Dombrowski, but he was moving toward the front door, staring at something in his hands.

A wallet. Polchev's wallet.

“Duffy!” I yelled. “Don't leave the bar!”

He glanced over at me, then ran out the entrance.

Excerpt from Truck Stop by Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath

-1-

Taylor liked toes.

He wasn't a pervert. At least, not that kind of pervert. Taylor didn't derive sexual gratification from feet. Women had other parts much better suited for that type of activity. But he was a sucker for a tiny foot in open-toed high heels, especially when the toenails were painted.

Painted toes were yummy.

The truck stop whore wore sandals, the cork wedge heels so high her toes were bent. She had small feet—they looked like a size five—and her nails matched her red mini skirt. Taylor spotted her through the windshield as she walked over to his Peterbilt, wiggling her hips and wobbling a bit. Taylor guessed she was drunk or stoned. Perhaps both.

He climbed out of his cab. When his cowboy boots touched the pavement he reached his hands up over his head and stretched, his vertebrae cracking. The night air was hot and sticky with humidity, and he could smell his own sweat.

The whore blew smoke from the corner of her mouth. “Hiya, stranger. My name's Candi. With an I.”

“I'm Taylor. With a T.”

He smiled. She giggled, then hiccupped.

Even in the dim parking lot light, Candi with an I was nothing to look at. Mid-thirties. Cellulite. Twenty pounds too heavy for her skirt and halter top. She wore sloppy make-up, her lipstick smeared, making Taylor wonder how many truckers she'd already blown on this midnight shift.

But she did have very cute toes. She dropped her cigarette and crushed it into the pavement, and Taylor licked his lower lip.

“Been on the road a long time, Taylor?”

“Twelve hours in from Cinci. My ass is flatter than roadkill armadillo.”

She eyed his rig. He was hauling four bulldozers on his flatbed trailer. They were heavy, and his mileage hadn't been good, making this run much less profitable than it should have been.

But Taylor didn't become a trucker to get rich. He did it for other reasons.

“You feeling lonely, Taylor? You looking for a little company?”

Taylor knew he could use a little company right now. He could also use a meal, a hot shower, and eight hours of sleep.

It was just a question of which need he'd cater to first.

He looked around the truck stop lot. Pretty full for late night in Bumblefuck, Wisconsin. Over a dozen rigs and just as many cars. The 24 hour gas station had a line for the pumps, and Murray's Eats, the all-night diner, appeared full.

On either side of the cloverleaf there were a few other restaurants and gas stations, but Murray's was always busy because they boasted more than food and diesel. Besides the no-hassle companionship the management and local authorities tolerated, Murray's had a full-size truck wash, a mechanic on duty, and free showers.

After twelve hours of caffeine sweating in this muggy Midwestern August, Taylor needed some quality time with a bar of soap just as badly as he needed quality time with a parking lot hooker.

But it didn't make sense to shower first, when he was only going to get messy again.

“How much?” he asked.

“That depends on—”

“Half and half,” he cut her off, not needing to hear the daily menu specials.

“Twenty-five bucks.”

She didn't look worth twenty-five bucks, but he wasn't planning on paying her anyway, so he agreed.

“Great, sugar. I just need to make a quick stop at the little girls' room and I'll be right back.”

She spun on her wedges to leave, but Taylor caught her thin wrist. He knew she wasn't going to the washroom. She was going to her pimp to give him the four Ps: Price, preferences, plate number, parking location. Taylor didn't see any single men hanging around; only other whores, and none of them were paying attention. Her pimp was probably in the restaurant, unaware of this particular transaction, and Taylor wanted to keep it that way.

“I'm sorta anxious to get right to it, Candi.” He smiled wide. Women loved his smile. He'd been told, many times, that he was good-looking enough to model. “If you leave me now, I might just find some other pretty girl to spend my money on.”

Candi smiled back. “Well, we wouldn't want that. But I'm short on protection right now, honey.”

“I've got rubbers in the cab.” Taylor switched to his brooding, hurt-puppy dog look. “I need it bad, right now, Candi. So bad I'll throw in another ten spot. That's thirty-five bucks for something we both know will only take a few minutes.”

Taylor watched Candi work it out in her head. This john was hot to trot, offering more than the going rate, and he'd probably be really quick. Plus, he was cute. She could probably do him fast, and pocket the whole fee without having to share it with her pimp.

“You got yourself a date, sugar.”

Taylor took another quick look around the lot, made sure no one was watching, and hustled Candi into his cab, climbing up behind her and locking the door.

The truck's windows were lightly tinted—making it difficult for anyone on the street to see inside. Not that Candi bothered to notice, or care. As soon as Taylor faced her she was pawing at his fly.

“The bedroom is upstairs.” Taylor pointed to the stepladder in the rear of the extended cab, leading to his overhead sleeping compartment.

“Is there enough room up there? Some of those spaces are tight.”

“Plenty. I customized it myself. It's to die for.”

Taylor smiled, knowing he was being coy, knowing it didn't matter at this point. His heart rate was up, his palms itchy, and he had that excited/sick feeling that junkies got right before they jabbed the needle in. If Candi suddenly had a change of heart, there wasn't anything she could do about it. She was past the point of no return.

But Candi didn't resist. She went up first, pushing the trap door on the cab's ceiling, climbing into the darkness above. Taylor hit the light switch on his dashboard and followed her.

“What is this? Padding?”

She was on her hands and knees, running her palm across the floor of the sleeper, testing its springiness with her fingers.

“Judo mats. Extra thick. Very easy to clean up.”

“You got mats on the walls too?” She got on her knees and reached overhead, touching the spongy material on the arced ceiling, her exposed belly jiggling.

“Those are baffles. Keeps the sound out.” He smiled, closing the trap door behind him. “And in.”

The lighting was subdued, just a simple overhead fixture next to the smoke alarm. The soundproofing was black foam, the mats a deep beige, and there was no furniture in the enclosure except for an inflatable rubber mattress and a medium-sized metal trunk.

“This is kind of kinky. Are you kinky, Taylor?”

“You might say that.”

Taylor crawled over to the trunk at the far end of the enclosure. After dialing the combination lock, he opened the lid. Then he moved his Tupperware container aside and took out a fresh roll of paper towels, a disposable paper nose and mouth mask, and an aerosol spray can. He ripped off three paper towels, then slipped the mask on over his face, adjusting the rubber band so it didn't catch in his hair.

“What is that, sugar?” Candi asked. Her flirty, playful demeanor was slipping a bit.

“Starter fluid. You squirt it into your carburetor, it helps the engine turn over. Its main ingredient is diethyl ether.”

He held the paper towels at arm's length, then sprayed them until they were soaked.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Candi looked panicked now. And she had good reason to be.

“This will knock you out so I can tie you up. You're not the prettiest flower in the bouquet, Candi with an I. But you have the cutest little toes.”

He grinned again. But this wasn't one of his attractive grins. The whore shrunk away from him.

“Don't hurt me, man! Please! I got kids!”

“They must be so proud.”

Taylor approached her, on his knees, savoring her fear. She tried to crawl to the right and get around him, get to the trap door. But that was closed and now concealed by matting, and Taylor knew she had no idea where it was.

He watched her realize escape wasn't an option, and then she dug into her little purse for a weapon or a cell phone or a bribe or something else that she thought might help but wouldn't. Taylor hit her square in the nose, then tossed the purse aside. A small canister of pepper spray spilled out, along with a cell phone, make-up, Tic-Tacs, and several condoms.

“You lied to me,” Taylor said, slapping her again. “You've got rubbers.”

“Please…”

“You lying little slut. Were you going to pepper spray me?”

“No… I…”

“Liar.” Another slap. “I think you need to be taught a lesson. And I don't think you'll like it. But I will.”

Candi's hands covered her bleeding nose and she moaned something that sounded like, “Please… My kids…”

“Does your pimp offer life insurance?”

She whimpered.

“No? That's a shame. Well, I'm sure he'll take care of your children for you. He'll probably have them turning tricks by next week.”

Taylor knocked her hands away and pressed the cold, wet paper towels to her face. Not hard enough to cut off air, but hard enough that she had to breathe through them. Even though he wore a paper face mask, some of the pungent, bitter odor got into Taylor's nostrils, making his hairs curl.

It took the ether less than a minute to do its job on the whore. When she finally went limp, Taylor placed the damp towels in a plastic zip-top bag. Then he took several bungee cords out of the trunk and bound Candi's hands and arms to her torso. Unlike rope, the elastic bands didn't require knots, and were reusable. Taylor wrapped them around Candi tight enough for her to lose circulation, but that didn't matter.

Candi wouldn't be needing circulation for very much longer.

While the majority of his murder kit was readily available at any truck stop, his last piece of equipment was specially made.

It looked like a large board with two four-inch wide holes cut in the middle. Taylor flipped the catch on the side and it opened up on hinges, like one of those old-fashion jail stocks that prisoners stuck their heads and hands into. Except this one was made for something else.

Taylor grabbed Candi's left foot and gingerly removed her wedge. Then he placed her ankle in the half-circle cut into the wood. He repeated the action with her right foot, and closed the stock.

Now Candi's bare feet protruded through the boards, effectively trapped.

He locked the catch with a padlock, and then set the stock in between the floor mats, where it fit snuggly into a brace, secured by two more padlocks.

Play time.

Taylor lay on his stomach, taking Candi's right foot in his hands. He cupped her heel, running a finger up along her sole, bringing his lips up to her toes.

He licked them once, tasting sweat, grime, smelling a slight foot odor and a faint residue of nail polish. His pulse went up even higher, and time seemed to slow down.

Her little toe came off surprisingly easy, no harder than nibbling the cartilage top off a fried chicken leg.

Taylor watched the blood seep out as he chewed on the severed digit—a blood and gristle-flavored piece of gum—and then swallowed.

This little piggy went to market.

He opened up his mouth to accommodate the second little piggy, the one who stayed home, when he realized something was missing.

Where was the screaming? Where was the begging? Where was the thrashing around in agony?

He crawled around the stock, alongside Candi's head. Ether was a pain in the ass to get the dose right, and he'd lost more than one girl by giving her too big a whiff. Luckily, Candi was still breathing. But she was too deeply sedated to let some playful toe-munching wake her up.

Taylor frowned. Like sex, murder was best with two active participants. He gathered up the whore's belongings, then rolled away from her, over to the trap door.

He'd get a bite to eat, maybe enjoy one of Murray's famous free showers. Hopefully, when he got back, Sleeping Homely would be awake.

Taylor used one of the ether-soaked paper towels to wipe the blood off his chin and fingers, stuffed them back into the bag, then headed for the diner.

-2-

“Where are you?”

“I have no idea.” My cell was tucked between my shoulder and my ear as I drove. “I think I'm still in Wisconsin. Wouldn't there be some kind of sign if I entered another state?”

“Don't you have the map I gave you?” Latham asked. “The directions?”

“Yeah. But they aren't helping.”

“Are you looking at the map right now?”

“Yes.”

The map might have done me some good if I'd been able to see what was on it. But the highway was dark, and the interior light in my 1989 Nova had burned out last month.

“You can't see it, can you?”

“Define see.”

I heard my fiancée sigh. “I just bought you a replacement bulb for that overhead lamp. I saw you put it in your purse. It's still in your purse, isn't it?”

“Maybe.”

“And you can't replace the bulb now, because it's too dark.”

“That's a good deduction. You should become a cop.”

“One cop in this relationship is enough. Why didn't you take my GPS when I insisted?”

“Because I didn't want you to get lost.”

A billboard was coming up on my right. MURRAY'S - NEXT EXIT. That was nice to know, but I had no idea what Murray's was, or how far the exit was. Not a very effective advertisement.

“My interior light works, Jackie. I could have used Mapquest.”

“Mapquest lies. And don't call me Jackie. You know I hate it when people call me Jackie.”

“And I hate it when you say you'd be here three hours ago, and you're still not here. You could have left at a reasonable hour, Jack.”

He had a point. This was my first real vacation—and by that I mean one that involved actually travelling somewhere—in a few years. Latham had rented a cabin on Rice Lake, and he had driven there yesterday from Chicago to meet the rental owners and get the keys. I was supposed to go with him, and we'd been planning this for weeks, but the murder trial I'd been testifying at had gone longer than expected, and since I was the arresting officer I needed to be there. As much as I loved Latham, and as much as I needed some time away from work, my duty to put criminals away ranked slightly higher.

“Your told-you-so tone isn't going to get you laid later,” I said. “Just help me figure out where I am.”

Another sigh. I shrugged it off. My long-suffering boyfriend had suffered a lot worse than this in order to be with me. I figured he had to be incredibly desperate, or a closet masochist. Either way, he was a cutie, and I loved him.

“Do you see the mile markers alongside the road?”

I didn't see any such thing. The highway was dark, and I hadn't noticed any signs, off-ramps, exits, or mile markers since I'd left Illinois. But I hadn't exactly been paying much attention, either. I was pretty damn tired, and had been zoning out to AM radio for the last hour. FM didn't work. Sometimes I wish someone would shoot my car, put it out of my misery.

“No. There's nothing out here, Latham. Except Murray's.”

“What's Murray's?”

“I have no idea. I just saw the sign. Could be a gas station. Could be a waterpark.”

“I don't remember passing anything called Murray's. Did the sign have the exit number?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I made a face. “The defense attorney never asked me if I was sure. The defense attorney took me at my word.”

“He should have also made you take my GPS. You see those posts alongside the road with the reflectors on them?”

“Yeah.”

“Keep watching them.”

“Why should—” The next reflector had a number on top. “Oh. Okay, I'm at mile marker 231.”

“I don't have Internet access here at the cabin. I'll call you back when I find out where you are. You're okay, right? Not going to fall asleep while driving?”

I yawned. “I'm fine, hon. Just a little hungry.”

“Stop for something if it will keep you awake.”

“Sure. I'll just pull over and grab the nearest cow.”

“If you do, bring me a tenderloin.”

“Really? Is your appetite back?” Latham was still recovering from a bad case of food poisoning.

“It's getting there.”

“Aren't you tired? You should rest, honey.”

“I'm fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. I'll call soon with your location.”

My human GPS unit hung up. I yawned again, and gave my head a little shake.

On the plus side, my testimony had gone well, and all signs pointed to a conviction.

On the minus side, I'd been driving for six straight hours, and I was hungry, tired, and needed to pee. I also needed gas, according to my gauge.

Maybe Murray could take care of all my needs. Assuming I could find Murray's before falling asleep, running out of fuel, starving to death, and wetting my pants.

The road stretched onward into the never-ending darkness. I hadn't seen another car in a while. Even though this was a major highway (as far as I knew), traffic was pretty light. Who would have thought that Northern Wisconsin at two in the morning on a Wednesday night was so deserted?

I heard my cell phone ring. My hero, to the rescue.

“You're not on I-94,” he said. “You're on 39.”

“You sound annoyed.”

“You went the wrong way when the Interstate split.”

“Which means?”

“You drove three hours out of the way.”

Shit.

I yawned. “So where do I go to get to you?”

“You need some sleep, Jack. You can get here in the morning.”

“Three hours is nothing. I can be there in time for an early breakfast.”

“You sound exhausted.”

“I'll be fine. Lemme just close my eyes for a second.”

“That's not even funny.”

I smiled. The poor sap really did care about me.

“I love you, Latham.”

“I love you, too. That's why I want you to find a room somewhere and get some rest.”

“Just tell me how to get to you. I don't want to sleep alone in some cheap hotel with threadbare sheets and a mattress with questionable stains. I want to sleep next to you in that cabin with the big stone fireplace. But first I want to rip off those cute boxer-briefs you wear and… hello? Latham?”

I squinted at my cell. No signal.

Welcome to Wisconsin.

I yawned again. Another billboard appeared.

MURRAY'S FAMOUS TRUCK STOP. FOOD. DIESEL. LODGING. TRUCK WASH. SHOWERS. MECHANIC ON DUTY. TEN MILES.

Ten miles? I could make ten miles. And maybe some food and coffee would wake me up.

I pressed the accelerator, taking the Nova up to eighty.

Murray's here I come.