Hellbent (3 page)

“And naturally, they call you.” I used present tense because that’s what Horace uses when he’s telling stories about himself. Always the hero of his own ongoing show, that guy.

“The weird stuff
is
my specialty.”

“Wait. What’s the ‘exotics’ table?”

“It’s where they sort out all the tricky stuff. Ivory, pelts from endangered species—or pelts that
might be
from an endangered species—anything an appraiser suspects is stolen, human remains, or the like.”

“Human remains? Does that really happen?”

“All the fucking time. Usually teeth and shit, but sometimes you get Great-Great-Uncle Casper’s scalp, and then we all get to have a good freak-out about it. But we never put those on the show,” he said with sudden earnestness. “We don’t want to encourage the freaks.”

“Gotcha.”

“Anyway. Over at the exotics table, Gary hands me over to Phil, who’s holding a cigar box about this big.” He made the motions for an object the size of a big dictionary. “And I’m getting all excited, because—”

“Because you’re one of the freaks,” I interjected.

“Precisely,” he agreed. “I mean, you just never know with those events—they’re like war. Long periods of boredom punctuated by high excitement, nay
terror
.”

“You were afraid of the cigar box?”

“I was
not
afraid of the cigar box,” he responded crossly. “I was
excited
about it. Now you’ve thrown me off. Let’s see, okay—”

“What was in the cigar box?” I cued him. “I think that’s probably where the point of this story lies.”

“Goddamn, you’re a bitch. Yes, fine. All right—so I take a look in this cigar box and it’s filled with …” He reached for an interior jacket pocket and produced an old-fashioned Polaroid. He slid it across the slightly damp tabletop, and I picked it up.

The square picture showed the box’s interior, illuminated by an overenthusiastic flash. The contents were oblong, more or less—and very white, or maybe that was just an effect of the lighting. It looked like perhaps a dozen of the objects were scattered therein, dropped like Pixy Stix.

“Definitely not cigars,” I observed.

Which prompted him to muse, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar …” very softly. And then he concluded, “But sometimes it’s a big fat cock.”

“I’m aware,” I said.

“No, no. I’m being funny. You don’t get it? Don’t you see what these are?”

I squinted at the photo and gave it the ol’ college try. “I … 
hmm. I don’t know. There’s not enough zoom. Not enough detail for me to guess. You’re going to have to tell me.”

He scrunched his hands into fists, and his whole body began that low-frequency hum of outrageous, joyful greed. “They’re
bacula
!”

“Bacula? Like … Count Bacula?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, you ignorant cunt
—bacula
,” he pronounced carefully. “Plural of
baculum.
”

“Well, that clears it right up.”

With a sigh that almost ruffled the curtains, he said, “Raylene, they’re
penis bones.
”

Aaaaand … he’d finally done it. The little bastard had rendered me completely speechless. I sat there with my hand on my wineglass and my mouth hanging ever-so-slightly open, waiting for the rest of it.

He waved his hands in circles, like he was trying to diffuse a fart. “Don’t you get it?”

“Apparently not,” I all but stuttered.

“Honey, these aren’t
ordinary
penis bones.”

“Not the kind you pick up at Walgreens, with a bottle of aspirin and a scented candle?”

“Oh for the love of …” But he couldn’t find anything holy enough to insert, so he said, “You
do
realize that some creatures have penis bones, yes?”

“Sure,” I said, even though it would’ve been more honest of me to admit that I’d never once, in any level of seriousness, even considered the interior workings of animal sexual plumbing.

He could tell I was lying. If we’d been on the phone, I might’ve been able to fool him, which is why my usual preferred method of communication with Horace is phone. He said, “Okay, Biology 101: Lots of mammals have penis bones, because they lack the advanced hydraulics that keep human boners bone-free.”

“Okay …”

“These penis bones are called bacula, or baculum in the singular.”

I then asked what I thought was the most obvious question ever. “But why would anybody want them? Much less collect a whole cigar box full of them?”

He raised one finger. “Ah. The reasons are many and varied,” he said, which I found extremely hard to believe. “Biological supply houses sell them for classrooms and whatnot, but only ordinary bacula—from dogs, raccoons, you know—and they aren’t worth much.”

“So we’re talking about a box full of them because …?”

“These aren’t dog bones. Or raccoon bones. Or any other bones that any catalog would carry for the giggling satisfaction of high school science students. They’re …” He lowered his voice. “From
other
creatures.”

Now he had my attention. “Other creatures? Like what, like … like …?”

He whispered, “At least one from a gryphon, and one from—I shit thee not—a unicorn. At least two werewolf bones—and I
don’t even want to know
what went into acquiring
those
!”

“Bullshit,” I argued. “Even if you knew what the schlongs of those creatures looked like … I mean … Let me try that again. Even if those were
real things
and not mostly
fictional things
, I am unprepared to believe that you knew, magically, what they once belonged to! For all you know they came from a horse and a wolf, and a … a …” I tried to figure out the nearest corollary to a gryphon and settled on “lion.”

His pointy finger of “but wait, there’s more!” was aloft again, so I knew I’d accidentally said something useful. He told me, “But that’s exactly how I knew. Magic!”

“Get out of here. You don’t know any
magic.
”

Horace recoiled very slightly, feigning offense. “No, but I know
about
magic. And I know how to
read
. Someone had been so kind as to tag them with those—” He took the picture out of my hand and pointed at something I could barely see. “Those little tags, tied onto them like toe-tags.”

“Except they’re dick-tags.”

“Are you finished?” he asked, sitting back and folding his arms. “Are we done with the dick jokes, just for now? Can we move along to what’s important, here?”

“Most guys think their—”

“Stop it,”
he ordered.

“Fine, fine. No more dick jokes. For the next, I don’t know. Five minutes. That’s all I can promise.”

“You didn’t check your watch,” he pointed out. He knows me well. I really
am
that precise and punctual, pretty much always.

“Let me ask you this—and in order to humor you, I will ask this in all seriousness, I swear to God. Even if they are … accurately labeled,” I said, settling on a descriptor. “Who cares? Biologists, maybe; cryptozoologists, certainly; but it’s my understanding you can’t yank DNA from bones.” I’ve heard you can get it from teeth, but I had a feeling that erection scaffolding fell outside the appropriate parameters. “Even if it’s true, no one would ever believe it. Hell, I’m undead with a werewolf ex-boyfriend and
I
don’t believe it.” The wine must’ve been making me chatty; I said it loudly, and with a gesture of the glass. I made a mental note to cut myself off before I did anything truly embarrassing. My system doesn’t process alcohol very well, so a little goes a long way, dammit.

“Most people wouldn’t believe it,” Horace agreed. “But that’s fine. I’m not interested in reselling them to most people.”

“Then who?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Rich weirdos. The kind who are ‘in’ to ceremonial
magic. Penis bones have their own ritual uses and whatnot, but, oh boy howdy—you give somebody one of
these
penis bones? I’m not saying the sky’s the limit, but you’d be talking about some serious spell-slinging.”

I said, “Huh,” because he’d answered my question, but I still couldn’t picture it. “People will pay money … lots of money? For these things?”

He leaned across the table as far as he dared, and flashed me one of his most avaricious, toothy smiles. “
Millions
. Millions
each
,” he amended. “The werewolf ones alone—and they’re probably the bottom end of the cost spectrum—I could probably unload for eight or nine hundred thousand.”

“Why are werewolf bones so cheap? Relatively speaking?”

“Because werewolves aren’t quite so hard to come by as unicorns or gryphons. I’m not saying they’re a dime a dozen, but if I desperately needed to track one down, I could probably do it in a few hours. Only because I have connections, though,” he said with a lift of one golden eyebrow. “And I don’t just mean
you.
”

“I would assume so,” I retorted, even though I suspected he was lying. He didn’t
need
any underworld contacts other than me, and he probably didn’t want any. Vampires are very quietly very well organized, and very dangerous that way. They don’t tend to pay for the things they want; they tend to take them. I’m only so easy to deal with because I don’t have any House or family affiliates, but that’s a story for another time.

I continued, “But if you honestly believed you could get me to steal you a werewolf’s penis bone, it’d cost you more than eight or nine hundred. Those guys are seriously hardcore, and they are seriously attached to their body parts. Especially that one, I bet.”

“Unless—” He tapped thoughtfully at the edge of his glass. “Unless you can find out where some are buried. Talk about your profitable grave robbing!”

“Maybe that’s why they don’t bury their dead,” I mused.

“What do you mean they don’t bury their dead? Everyone buries their dead!”

“Incorrect, dude. Lots of people cremate, via big stoves or pyres or whatever. Weres are big on cremation. And now, I suppose, I know why. I mean, if
my
penis bone was worth almost seven figures, and I wanted to keep it in my personal possession—even after I’m too far gone to use it—I suppose I’d put in a request for a little fire and brimstone, too.”

“If you had a penis bone, I would be very confused,” he said, chugging the last of his Manhattan and glancing around for the waitress, who failed to appear at his second finger-snapping summons. “Oh,” he said with a sudden frown. “Well then. I was going to be a big tipper, but fuck her if—oh
hi there
!” He changed his tune as she swanned up to the table. “One more of these, please.”

She nodded and took off. “You’re so quick to judge,” I teased.

“She’d better not spit in that,” he complained.

“I doubt she heard you,” I tried to assure him. We weren’t listening to the tortured strains of “Yellow” anymore, but so help me God the bastard had moved on to Creed.

“That changes nothing. People spit into drinks for spite,” he assured me, eyeing the glass she’d given him the first time, because she hadn’t whisked it away when she’d done her drive-by.

“Stick to wine. It’s easier to see gobs. I’m just sayin’.”

“You’re revolting.”

“You have no idea. Now, let me ask you something else.”

“Fire away.”

“Why didn’t you just buy the bones off the owner on the spot, if they’re so goddamn valuable?”

“An excellent question,” he said. “I picked a number out of my ass. I picked a thousand dollars because I thought it would sound like a lot of money to a poor person.”

“The guy who owned them was poor?”

“Compared with me. Anyway, because I’m
so
fucking clever”—he rolled his eyes a little, at himself, which kind of surprised me—“I told the guy they were worth a little money, yeah—but that he’d never be able to sell them on the open market because they were remains of endangered species. And that’s practically true!” he pointed out, almost poking the incoming waitress in the tit. She gave him his new drink, swiped the empty glass, and vanished. And I tell you what, that’s the kind of service I like to see. I don’t know how Horace inspires it, but he’s got a gift.

“More true than you could’ve possibly conveyed without looking like a maniac.”

“Right. So I can tell he’s wishy-washy about it, and I can tell that he doesn’t have the faintest idea what these things really are. So I add that they were probably used in Native American ceremonial … you know,
whatevers
 … and that made them an even trickier pitch. They might be artifacts. He might need eighty different kinds of licenses to auction the things, but oh, hey—my auction house was imminently qualified and certified to manage that kind of sticky situation.”

“It was his lucky day!” I suggested with sarcasm.

“Damn straight! But he wasn’t having it. He decided he wanted a second opinion, because he’d inherited them from Grandpa Somebody-Or-Another and he wasn’t willing to part with them on my word alone. I told him he was welcome to the opinion of anyone in the auditorium—nobody knew what they were but me, and no one else would want them—but he got all stubborn, boxed them up, and took them home.”

“And you didn’t follow him into the parking lot and jump him? You must be losing your edge.”

He sighed. “He was a big fucker. Corn-fed redneck of the large and slow variety.”

“Isn’t that what you took the coastal tours to avoid?”

“Yes, but my cunning plan was not one hundred percent successful. It turns out there are rednecks in every corner of this continent, to my excessive chagrin.” He took a long draft of the new Manhattan, as if the very thought was so onerous that it caused him to require a drink.

“So you couldn’t have taken him.”

“Not without a firearm. And there were cameras in the parking lot. Believe me, I considered my options. And this is where you come in.”

It was my turn to sigh, imagining the sheer embarrassment if I were to finally be caught by the feds, the feebs, or anybody else who’s been following my thieving career with intense interest over a box full of penis bones. Christ, I’d never live it down. “I don’t know, man.”

“Look, I have the guy’s address and everything! He’s a mechanic, owns his own shop specializing in British cars, or something like that. Lives alone in the ’burbs. Name’s Joseph Harvey. I’ve got everything you need, right here. It’ll be the easiest case you’ve ever had.”