Known Devil (24 page)

He lay on his back, arms spread wide, as if he’d been held down while he died. His eyes were bulging and red – it looked like every blood vessel in them had burst, which is probably just what happened. A thin stream of blood had trickled down from his nose to stain Gillespe’s lower face as well as the torn blue “AC/DC” T-shirt that he wore.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, or a werewolf by his fur. And just because Nathan Eisinger looks like he could’ve been a poster boy for the Waffen-SS, with his crew-cut blond hair, square jaw, and blue eyes the color of Delft china, doesn’t automatically make him a racist, fascist, low-rent asshole. In Eisinger’s case, I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.

He finished what he’d been writing, looked up, and saw Karl and me for the first time. His pale eyebrows went up theatrically. “Well, if it isn’t the Supe Squad! Welcome to our little crime scene,” he said with the exaggerated courtesy that’s always intended as an insult.

I said, “Eisinger,” and Karl just nodded.

“So what brings you two… detectives over here this evening? One of the neighbors thinks she saw a ghost?”

I just shook my head, and Eisinger went on. “Because I sure didn’t call for you – no reason to. The
corpus delicti
here” – he nodded toward the body on the floor – “ain’t one of your supes, far as I can tell.”

Corpus delicti
has nothing to do with a corpse, even though it sounds like it should. The term refers to the legal doctrine that you have to be able to prove a crime’s been committed before you can charge somebody with it. Eisinger knew that as well as I did. He was misusing the term deliberately, for the same reason he threw in “ain’t” despite being a college grad. He thinks it makes him sound like a real street cop, somebody not to be messed with.

I’ve never heard Scanlon say stuff like that, but then he doesn’t have to. He already
knows
he’s tough.

“No, we already made sure,” Eisinger said, and took a couple of steps toward the corpse. “Ain’t no skinner – we checked that with a moonlight test.” “Skinner” is a term some people use for “werewolf” – although if you say it in front of one, you’re going to have a fight on your hands, whether the moon’s out or not.

Looking down at the body, Eisinger said, “You can sniff his breath without needing to puke, so I’d say that rules out him bein’ a baby-muncher.”

There some urban legend that says ghouls like to hang around outside abortion clinics so that they can feast on the undeveloped tissue that’s discarded every day. Except that clinics don’t throw that material out with the trash – and even if they did, most ghouls wouldn’t have any interest. They’ve got too much class – which is more than I could say for Eisinger.

Then he slipped on a thin white evidence glove and dropped to one knee next to Roger Gillespe’s still form. Peeling back the upper lip, Eisinger said, “And this shows he wasn’t no leech, either.”

He looked up at Karl as he finished saying that, and his face had the kind of smirk you want to wipe off with a blunt instrument. “That’s enough,” I said, and my voice might’ve had a bit more snap to it than I’d intended.

“Oh, gosh, that’s right,” Eisinger said, playing all naive. I thought he sounded about as innocent as Adolf Eichmann. “I completely forgot that one of the bloodsucking undead was among us.” He looked at Karl. “No offense intended, Renfer.”

I felt Karl tense up next to me, but his voice was calm and businesslike as he said, “None taken – and it’s
Detective
Renfer.”

“Then I sure am sorry,” Eisinger said, “
Detective
.”

Before this got out of hand, I asked the question that had prompted me to come in here in the first place. “Gillespe here – how did he die?”

“Coroner’s report isn’t out yet,” Eisinger said. “Hell, they ain’t even done the autopsy, which you should know, since the dude is still lying here on the floor.”

I looked at him. “What, in your professional opinion, was the deceased’s cause of death?”

He gave me an exaggerated shrug. “Well, I’m no pathologist, but I’d say those plastic baggies that are jammed down his throat had something to do with it. Looks like there’s at least a dozen of ’em stuck down there. You want, I’ll send you one as a souvenir, once the post is done.”

“Don’t bother,” I said.

“What’s your interest in this dude, anyway?” Eisinger asked. “Him being human and all.”

“He was one of our CIs,” I said, which I guess was technically true. Roger Gillespe had given us information, and we had kept his name to ourselves, even if it wasn’t for the usual reasons of confidentiality. “Well, thanks for the info,” I continued, keeping most of what I felt out of my voice. I turned to go, but then noticed that Karl hadn’t moved. He was looking intently at Eisinger.

“Detective,” Karl said softly.

“What?” Eisinger looked at Karl, and I saw their eyes lock. The two of them stood, in what someone else would have taken to be a stare-down, for at least half a minute.

Then Karl said, in that same quiet voice, “We’ve all done things that we’re ashamed of, things we hope nobody ever finds out.”

“Yeah,” Eisinger said dully.

“Why don’t you tell us,” Karl said, “about the one thing you’ve done in your life that you’re most ashamed of. Say it nice and loud.”

Another few seconds went by before Eisinger said, in a monotone that was still loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “When I was fourteen, I started fucking my sister, Kathy. She was twelve. I said I’d kill her if she ever told anybody. It went on for over a year, two, three times a week – whenever our parents left us alone together. I made her do everything – oral, anal, the whole nine yards. And then one day she got one of my Dad’s guns and shot herself. Right in the heart. But she never told on me. Not even in the note she left.”

“Thanks, Detective,” Karl said, and broke off eye contact. “Thank you for sharing.” Then we got the hell out of there.

As we went down the stairs, I said quietly to Karl, “What the fuck was
that
?”

“Two things,” Karl said. He kept his voice down, too. “One of them was payback – and don’t tell me the bastard didn’t have it coming.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “But what was the other thing?”

“Practice.”

 

We didn’t say anything as we walked back to where we’d parked the car. Once he was behind the wheel, Karl clicked the button that would unlock the door on my side. I got in as he was buckling his safety belt. I got my own seatbelt on and waited, but Karl didn’t start the engine. Instead, he sat there, staring straight ahead.

I didn’t ask what was bothering him – I knew it was the same damn thing that was bothering
me
. After a couple of seconds, Karl said, “He wasn’t supposed to
be
there!” As he said “be,” Karl slammed the steering wheel with the butt of his palm.

“I know,” I said.

“He was supposed to be halfway to fucking
California
by now, not dead on the floor of his fucking
living room
!” He slammed the wheel twice more for emphasis as he said that.

“Karl.”

“
What?
”

“You’re gonna break the steering wheel, you keep that up.” Vampires are a lot stronger than humans, but Karl sometimes forgets that – especially when he’s pissed off.

“Oh, right. Sorry. But
dammit
, Stan…”

“Yeah, I know. I know.”

After a couple of seconds went by, I said, “Is it possible your Influence didn’t work?”

“Didn’t
work
? Shit, you heard the kid, Stan. He spilled his guts to us that night, and he didn’t do it cause we offered him a candy bar. It worked, alright.”

“I was thinking more of what you told him to do later,” I said. “The post-hypnotic suggestion, or whatever the hell vampires call what you did. Maybe it… wore off after a couple of hours or something. Can that happen?”

Karl looked away. “Fuck, I don’t know. Anything’s possible, I guess. I never said I was an expert at this stuff.”

“You did pretty well back there with Eisinger – which was pretty fucking ingenious, by the way. How’d you know he was going to say something like that?”

“I didn’t,” Karl said. “But everybody’s got some kind of dark secret they carry around with them. A guy like Eisinger, I figured it would be particularly nasty – and I was right, too.”

“Good work,” I said. “But you’ve earned yourself an enemy for life. You know that, right?”

“Fuck it – I don’t figure he was all that fond of me before, anyway,” Karl said. “What with me being one of the bloodsucking undead and all.”

“You’ve got a point.”

“Anyway, what I did back there was short-term. I don’t know if I’ve got that other stuff down, yet – what you called ‘post-hypnotic suggestion’.”

“Is there anybody you can ask about it?”

“Maybe, but what’s that matter now?” Karl said. “It’s not gonna do Roger any fucking good.”

“I was thinking for future reference,” I said. “In case you need to do it again sometime.”

“You mean with Slattery?”

“Maybe – assuming we get a crack at him.”

Karl sighed, which is a good trick for somebody who doesn’t need to breathe. “Yeah, alright. There’s some older vamps I could talk to about it. Hell, I could even ask Christine, I guess. She’s been undead a while, haina?”

“Seven years,” I said. “No – closer to eight.” I tried to keep what I was feeling out of my voice, and I think I succeeded. On the other hand, with a vampire, you never know for sure.

It had been almost eight years since I had convinced a vampire to bring Christine across to the world of the undead. It was either that or watch her die of leukemia. Selfish of me, maybe – especially since Christine had been unconscious from the painkillers and couldn’t give her consent. But after losing her mother, I just couldn’t stand the idea of being without the one person in my life who still loved me. After the change, Christine and I both had some issues to deal with, but we’d resolved them pretty well by now. I hope.

“I’ll ask her about it next time I see her,” Karl said.

Yeah, when the two of you aren’t busy fucking
.

I didn’t say that out loud, of course. And as soon as the thought entered my head, I tried to push it out again. Guess I still had a few issues of my own.

Karl started up the car. “I suppose we oughta tell McGuire about what happened to Roger.”

“Yeah, along with the news that there’s a hit man in town with access to Claymore mines.”

“Yeah,” Karl said. “He’s especially gonna love
that
part.”

 

Back at the squad room, we brought McGuire up to speed. As Karl had predicted, nothing we had to say made the boss very happy.

“I was in the Air Force, not the Army,” McGuire said. “But even
I
know what a Claymore mine is. Never heard of one being modified to kill supes, though.”

“Word is that John Wesley Harding’s got himself quite a reputation,” I said. “Guess it had to come from somewhere.”

“Guys like that, their rep usually comes from the body count they rack up,” McGuire said. “Not ingenuity.”

“Maybe in Harding’s case, the one leads to the other,” Karl said.

McGuire took a swig from his coffee and put the mug aside. “And speaking of ingenuity, I guess you could apply that term to what happened to that informant of yours, Gillespe.”

We’d never told McGuire about the vampiric Q-and-A session we had with Roger Gillespe the other night, since it probably violated five or six department regulations. So in discussing Gillespe’s death just now, we’d explained our interest by saying that the guy had been one of our regular street sources of information. Which was true, really – except for the “regular” part.

“You mean the way they killed him?” Karl asked.

“Uh-huh,” McGuire said. “That thing with the baggies must’ve taken some time and trouble, even if they did have a couple of guys to hold Gillespe down. Shit, they could’ve just shot him in the head and been done in about two seconds. I’d say somebody’s trying to send a message.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Karl said. “But what message? And who’s it intended for?”

“The use of the baggies to kill him suggests that Gillespe was dealing,” McGuire said. “If that was the case, could be the stupid bastard tried to stiff his supplier. Or maybe he found his own source and decided to go into business for himself. In the drug trade, either of those things can get a guy killed.”

“So you think the message was intended for the other dealers?” I said. “
Here’s what happens when you fuck with us
.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing’s been done,” McGuire said. “You ever hear of a Colombian necktie?”

Karl and I both shook our heads, although I thought the term seemed vaguely familiar, like something I’d read about, years ago.

“The Colombian cartels,” McGuire said, “who control the wholesale end of the cocaine trade, have a way of dealing with people who piss them off. Been using it since the Sixties, I think. They slash the guy’s throat, and once he’s dead they take his tongue and yank it out through the wound so that it’s lying against his throat. Hence the term ‘Columbian necktie.’”

Karl made a face. “I wonder if somebody’s gonna come up with a cutesy term for the way Roger Gillespe was killed.”

“If it happens often enough, somebody probably will,” McGuire said. He shook his head. “They’ll probably start calling it the ‘Scranton Appetizer’ or something. Not the kind of fame the city needs.”

“There’s another possibility,” I said. “Could be that his supplier found out he’d been talking to us.” Roger Gillespe had only done so once, and involuntarily, but I thought it best not to mention that. “So maybe the message to the other dealers is
Here’s what happens when you open your mouth to the wrong
people
.”