Secret Dead Men (22 page)

"I remember," she said.

I know you do.

"I remember everything."

Yes, I understand.

"I want my husband back."

Okay, Alison. Let's go get him.

Twenty-Three

The Spirits of '76

Finding the party wasn't tough. The Philadelphia Art Museum is one of the most obvious landmarks in the world. Somebody had decided to put it right at the end of a parkway that cut a diagonal right across the ordinarily precise grid that was Center City. (Just to shake things up, one presumes.) And that night, in case you were confused, helpful folks in tuxedoes were only too glad to point you in the right direction. A year later, a movie about a scrappy boxer from the slums would seal the Museum's fate, and countless tourists would be compelled to run up this marble torture mountain.

The hardest part was walking in two-inch heels. It was the dressiest thing Alison had in her closet, and they made those damned Museum steps an absolute horror. It was the goddamned Mount Everest of Culture. Do people love art this much? At the top of the 42 million steps, another kid in a tux told us the entrance for the party was around back. I asked Alison if she was okay with taking over her body for a while--after all, she had more experience with these things. She agreed.

We walked around the huge piece of land, and up a sloped driveway to the back, which was littered with Cadillacs dropping people off. At the door, a pimply kid in an ruffled tux shirt three sizes too big asked us for our ticket. Alison started to stammer, so I offered to take over again. We were a spiritual tag team.

"We're on the list," I said.

"We?" he repeated.

Whoops. "I mean, I'm on the list. With my guest."

The kid nodded and checked his list--a tattered mimeograph. Then he frowned and looked back at us. "Uh, what's your name?"

"Guest of Richard Gard."

It took him a full five minutes to find the Gs. "Right. Gard. He's already inside. With a guest."

"I'm his mistress," I said, and pushed my way past him.

"Wait!" he called after me. "You forgot your sticker!"

"Stick it up your ass," I shouted back, which earned me strange looks from some well-dressed bystanders. I smiled coquettishly and kept walking. It was fun being a woman.

I walked down a hallway and into the main hall, the heart of the party. This wasn't your usual swanky affair. The room looked more like a carnival, with booths and tables set along the perimeter of the hall, stocked with beef and booze and deserts and whatever else the editors of the city magazine had deemed "the best." Smelled like a scam to me. Taste was a highly subjective thing. Frankly, this seemed like a lame excuse to stock a room full of advertisers and have them cater the thing for free. Including, no doubt, the mini Big Band wailing a jazzed-up version of "Turn the Beat Around" over in the corner of the museum.

I nabbed a cup of beer and a cracker full of some kind of seafood and started the search for my body.

* * * *

Before long, I found it. Brad and our client were standing near a booth sponsored by Wyborowa Vodka, which was giving away free samples in tiny cups. It looked as if Brad had told a joke, because Susannah was laughing and brushing her brown hair back over her ears. Clearly, he hadn't told her yet. I doubt her reaction to "By the way, you're the bitch who knifed me" would be laughter. What was he waiting for?

I passed a silver punch bowl and caught my reflection, which answered my own question. Of course. He's waiting for me. The Alison me.

No, Brad wasn't expecting his bride-in-a-robot to show up here, now. He'd intended her to show up much later in the evening, around 9:30, say, at 473 Winding Way in Merion. For whatever reason.

It was time to liven this party up.

"Hi there, Pauly boy," I said. Because in this context, it was his name. Paul After. Protector of innocents. Killer of men. "Long time, no see. Who's the tramp?"

I watched Susannah's eyebrows lift in confusion, then suddenly plummet in contempt. "Paul...?" she asked.

The color drained from Brad/Paul's face. I could practically smell the smoke burning in his fevered brain. Was he trying to figure out how his dead wife showed up here, ahead of schedule? Or was he trying to calculate a way out of this without ruining his master plan?

Either way, it didn't matter. I used the opportunity to launch myself out of Amy/Alison's body, right into his eyes, and back into my own body.

* * * *

To be honest, I wasn't sure I could do something like that. It'd always been the opposite: sucking somebody else in--absorption, not active possession. The thing seemed to work both ways, however. I saw the world in front of me enlarge, as if I were moving my head closer and closer to a photograph. Paul's eyes grew as immense as national monuments, and I dove right in.

It's hard to describe what happened next in physical terms. Kind of like tackling somebody to the ground, only using your head. In other words, it hurt like the dickens.

Next thing I knew, Brad and I were rolling around on the Brain Hotel lobby floor. I was back. Yes, praise the Lord, I was home. I lifted myself up to my knees. It was time to reassume command of this vessel, damn it.

Brad threw a fist into my gut.

Or, to be technical about it, he threw a fist into the part of my soul that equated with the human stomach. I buckled over for a moment, then tossed a fist back into the part of him equated with the human nose.

It snapped, and spurted out the soul equivalent of blood.

I jumped to my feet. Brad was snarling like an angry dog. "Bastard! You don't know when you're finished, do you?"

"Nope," I said, then dove through the lobby doors.

I woke up in the real world.

* * * *

Unfortunately, in the real world I was lying on a collapsed table, soaked in Stoli vodka. Susannah and Amy/Alison were both holding one of my hands, rubbing and tapping as if to snap me out of it.

A couple of confused-looking men in black tie--presumably, representatives of the Stoli company--stood behind them, no doubt checking the damage to their booth.

"I'm sorry," I said, struggling to my feet. Both women helped me up. "Very, very sorry. Susannah, will you pardon me for a moment?"

"What's happening, Paul?" she asked, touching my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine. Just need a second to myself." I stumbled forward and took Amy/Alison's arm. "Follow me," I whispered. I felt like I was in some absurd sitcom double-date scenario. Torn between two lovers.

We walked to the back of the hall--the only clear space I could find. On the way, however, I took care of some urgent business. For the first time, I ejected a human soul out into an inanimate object in the real world.

I sent Brad Larsen's soul into the spinning corpse of a roasted pig mounted on a metal spit. I'm not sure what company had sponsored that.

* * * *

"Alison, there are many things I need to tell you." I was trying like hell to sound like Brad. I figured this was no time to tell Alison her husband's soul was stuck inside a roasted pig.

"Brad, I'm confused. All I hear are voices..."

"Shhh. I know." I grabbed her and held her close to me.

"You gotta hang on for me. I have to go and do something, then I'll be right back to take you away from here."

"What do you have to do?"

I wasn't about to tell her the truth: I had to take my ex-client outside, kill her, then absorb her soul for later interrogation. Instead I told her, "Nothing important."

Alison looked like a cat trapped in a corner. "I don't know any of these people. What am I supposed to do?"

"Here." I reached around to the table behind her and snatched up a tiny portion of a cheesteak, skewered on a plastic toothpick. "Have something to eat. There's plenty of free food here." I wondered: Did robots eat? Then I remembered her attacking her burritos with gusto on our date at Casa Tequila a couple of nights ago. God, how long ago that seemed.

"Okay," she said, taking the sandwich and sinking her teeth into it. I was disturbed how different she seemed now--like a compliant child. I promised myself I would sort everything out for her when this was over. I owed her that.

* * * *

I needed a moment to think about the best way to kill Susannah. This party was not the ideal place, but enough was enough. I had to do it
now
. Absorb her soul, get whatever info I could out of her, then head west. If I could pick up a beat on the ever-elusive Ray Loogan, great. I'd kill him, too. Either way, I was certainly going to force Brad Larsen to spill whatever beans he had left. The gig was over.

The best way to think straight, if you're a guy, is to take a piss. Following a few taped paper signs with black arrows, I stumbled into an ornate men's room with too many stalls to count. I walked along a long mirror above the row of sinks. I told myself the key was to keep it simple, basic. Maybe invite her outside for a breath of fresh air, then slit her throat? No, no, too much mess. Strangulation? Always an iffy proposition. Although I was steeped up to my eyeballs in death, I had amazingly little experience with murder. This, technically, would be my first.

I chose a urinal near the end. I started into my eyes in the steel piping. This wasn't murder, though. Susannah Winston--or Lana Lewalski, or Lulu Lakawana, or whatever the hell her real name was--would live on in the Brain Hotel. I could give her a better life than any adulterous lawyer could. Hell, if I could find Paul's soul, the two of them would make a happy couple.

My self-justifications were interrupted when the stall door opened behind me. Before I could stop the stream of piss a hunk of metal was pressed to the back of my head.

"Hello, Paul."

"Uh, hello," I said. "Leah, isn't it?"

"Very funny. You and the slut are going to die tonight."

"I see."

"You had to fuck with your only lifeline, didn't you? With me, you had a chance. Ray wanted to kill you both from the word go."

"Oddly enough, Leah, I wish you'd listened to Ray."

That did it. Leah threw up an arm and smashed it into my face, pinning my head against the clammy tile wall. The pistol pressed into the back of my neck.

"Stop fucking around with me," she hissed.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

Big mistake.

* * * *

Without warning, I found myself standing in the Brain Hotel lobby. The Ghost of Fieldman was standing there, holding his metal gizmos. "It is imperative you leave this situation to me, Collective."

"Sorry," I said. "No raving psychotics allowed." I stormed off toward the lobby doors and walked through them. I walked smack into a brick wall. My brick wall.

"Do keep trying," Fieldman said. "Try until you crack your spectral head."

"What's going on?"

"You've lost control," Fieldman said. He was suddenly standing right behind me. "Stop fighting it."

To accent the "it," Fieldman shoved the metal gizmo deep into my spectral body. I felt a white heat wash over me. My Brain limbs turned to jelly, and I fell to the carpet, at which point the gizmo tunneled through my chest and locked into the carpet. I tried to sit up, but it hurt so bad I didn't try again. I could barely breathe--or at least, perform the soul-equivalent of breathing--without spasms of pain.

The Ghost of Fieldman smiled at me, waved, then faded back into reality. As usual, without going through the lobby doors. Or saying what a goose he was.

But this time Fieldman did something new.

* * * *

I watched, impaled to the lobby floor, as Fieldman resumed control of my body. Leah was looking down at my body on the bathroom floor, directly in front of the urinals. I must have collapsed when Fieldman yanked me back inside.

Get up,
she commanded, nudging Fieldman's/our chest with her gun.
C'mon, I didn't hit you that hard.

My pleasure,
Fieldman said.
Could you give me a hand?

To my surprise, she did. She kept the gun trained on him the entire time, though.

Fieldman brushed the wrinkles out of his/our suit, and adjusted the tie.
I understand you and Mr. Loogan wish to kill us? Excellent. In fact, I'll even supply you with the address where we'll be staying this evening. The only thing I ask is that you wait a couple of hours, which will give me time to call my insurance company and put a few things in order. Then I'm all yours. Please do stop over. Shoot me in the head. Shoot Ms. Winston in the head. Shoot everyone in the head, if you please.

You,
Leah said,
are still fucking with me?

No,
Fieldman said, then whipped out his fist and smashed Leah in the jaw. She stumbled back. Fieldman punched her again, then smacked the gun out of her hand and used his forearm to bulldoze her back into the stall she'd originally popped out of. I watched as her head connected with porcelain. She was out.

I gave that up long, long ago, Ms. Farrell.

Fieldman took a Magic Marker out of his suit pocket. He scratched out an address on a paper towel--the infamous 473 Winding Way--then balled it and gently tucked it down the front of Leah's dress.

He seemed to paused for a moment, then applied the marker to Leah's forehead. On it he wrote: BRING A DATE.

* * * *

On the lobby screen, I watched Fieldman walk back out into the party, squeezing past hundreds of people shoveling food into their faces. No matter that they were all rich enough to sit at home and have a hundred Philly cheeseteaks delivered via limo without a second thought. The idea of hogging free food was too good to pass up.

Fieldman walked past the roasted pig, then paused. Nuts, I thought. He was collecting Brad again. True enough, within seconds, Brad appeared back in lobby. He scowled at me, then started to laugh.

"You're lucky a large percentage of guests at the party don't eat swine."

"I should have dumped your soul in a keg of beer," I said.

"Don't go giving me any ideas, toilet-face." Brad walked over to the lobby doors, then paused to turn. "Let me send a friend of yours back to keep you company."