Dead Man Running (25 page)

The Mayor led the hosannas for his "lifetime friend" Benjamin Wiley.  It was his lifetime friend if his life began in 199
2
, but no one bothered to correct the Mayor
.  T
onight was the night for praise, although exaggerated.
 
They spoke in a defined order – the politicians, then the
liberal
activists followed by the money men.  There was no podium and each man rose from his chair to
salute
Wiley.  Finally after the CEO of Facebook spoke to praise Wiley's support for homeless black puppies
,
or something equally heartbreaking
,
they were done and Wiley rose from his seat
, lifted by
a wave of applause.  The remnants of dinner had been removed – there was no silverware to make noise, nothing to interrupt the great and now exalted man's words. 

Mira
watched as the doors to the room were closed and sturdy members of the wait staff
blocked the doors
.
 

Did
I
convert the general manager of the Plaza?
  She tried to remember as Wiley began his speech.

"No stiff dicks tonight, Wiley!" the Mayor blurted out, reminding the audience of their last joint appearance.  It would be the last words of his real life. 
The
remaining
human
utterances
from his well formed Irish mouth
would be
incoherent
screams.

"I am so grateful, my friends
,
for all your kind words this evening.  I will remember this evening fondly if, as some of you tell me, the president gives me the honor of serving his administration."

"Remember us with cash," someone blurted out.  Wiley smiled, pointed at the man and the audience cheered.

As things quieted again he spoke.  "As many of you know I am not known as a man of big ideas.  I am a so called street corner politician, getting the hard work done and leaving the vision thing for others."  Members of the audience laugh
ed
, shout
ed
their encouragement.

"Tonight I want to tell you that I am a new man.  I have been transformed."  Here he looked at
Mira
, winked one of his dead but lively eyes.

"I am a new man
, one
who stands before you with a vision.  This may sound presumptuous but I have a dream."  Some in the audience gasped.  "I dream of one mankind, united in purpose
.  There is nothing to divide us – not politics, not religion, nor the manufactured strife of abortion or gay rights.  Governments, that of this nation and throughout the world, w
ould
serve men, doing so with efficiency that would make our Tea Party friends proud."  Some in the audience hiss
ed
and hoot
ed
.
  Wiley ignored them.

"Yes,
if given the opportunity,
I will lead HUD.  I will transform it into a model of how the government and the world should be run – low cost, efficient but highly effective and meaningful to the life of the nation."  The audience st
ood and cheered
.  The Mayor slapped Wiley on the back with his meaty paw.

When everyone was seated Wiley spoke again.  His voice was lower now and he spoke in a slow rhythm.

"I have a confession, one that will not leave this room."  All noise ceased.

"I am a new man.  In fact, I
am
not a man at all – I am a zombie."  Stone silence followed by a nervous spasm of laughter.

Is our boy
back on
the drugs?  Does he need to hit r
ehab
again before he heads to DC?

The room quieted again.  "Think about it – we
'll
need no farms or factories geared to producing food.  We
'll
need to have no concerns about pollution or global warming because we're already dead.  All the billions spent o
n
medical research and health care – untold billions alone fighting cancer – could all be redirected to higher purposes."  The audience sat in a stunned, depressed silence.  It was worse than they imagined.  Some thought of leaving to keep from being tainted by the man's insanity.

"The problem of space travel to distant worlds – how do we survive years in space with limited food and water – is solved. 
A z
ombie can
travel
years with a handful of propagating human companions."
  A few hardy souls laughed.

"Yes, I plan to serve mankind.  I will serve him for breakfast, lunch and dinner."  With that, he walked over to the Mayor's lead security man and separated his head from his body.  The blood was awful and the audience was silent as the man's body twitched on the floor before finally stilling.

Wiley held the head
up as a trophy
.  His jaws expanded and he swallowed the object as easily as his witnesses have swallowed
succulent
grapes.  The audience, as one, stood and surged toward the doors.  It was too late – the door
s
were blocked by huge zombies, armed with tasers which they used to great effect.

In minutes the rich and powerful of
America
's largest city were quiet.  One by one they were suffocated.  Once they were all dead
Mira
began her work.  By the early morning hours Wiley had given his new army of zombies their
marching
orders
–
in brief, to continue business as usual until called upon
,
while being
as
discrete as possible with their new desire for human flesh
.  He
unleashed the group onto an unsuspecting city.

He watched them toddle back to their limos and into the breaking dawn. 

Wiley felt good – today was the first day of a new world order and it felt excellent.

Imelda Jimenez-Gordon sat in the same chair in the same interview room she had occupied less than a week prior.  Her appearance - for she was a former supermodel and still a very striking woman – had caused the same commotion as it had the first time.   To the detectives interviewing her – the lucky pair who caught this 'case' being Sondra Bracey and Renaldo Alvarez – her demeanor was vastly different.  Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon was logical, calm, happy, and pleasantly jovial.  After thirty minutes she kept insisting that her initial allegation – that her husband Robbie had been transformed into some type of monster – was the result of a marital rift.

Bracey had the woman's initial report laid open.  She and her partner had agreed to take one more run at this woman.  During a slow stroll to the soda machine to secure the ex-model a diet Coke, they both agreed that the woman had undergone a dramatic change, her wide, brilliant smile notwithstanding. 

She and Alvarez had been forced by their supervisor to take th
e original
report – the justification being that, legally, if the NYPD failed to at least pantomime taking this seriously, if something happened to either the Mr. or Mrs., the NYPD may be liable for negligence. 

Rob
ert Lewiston Gordon III
, a jet job at Goldman Sachs who reached vice chair before turning thirty, certainly had deep enough pockets to cause the department serious legal and financial damage.

Part of the domestic violence unit, they ha
d
interviewed enough victims to sense that perhaps the performance they were witnessing was coerced in some way. 
Given her dramatic change of tune, the partners were highly suspicious. 
"Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon, you stated that the man who came home from the Wiley election celebration was not your husband."

Bracey read from the report: "My husband has changed.  We had a Pomeranian named Uncle Albert.  My Robbie loved that dog and Uncle Albert loved him.  After the Wiley party Uncle Albert wouldn't come near Robbie.  He actually shook when he was in Robbie's presence.  A little bit later I found Uncle Albert dead.  I picked him up and his neck flopped around like it was broken.  I confronted Robbie and he claimed not to know anything about it."

Alvarez interrupted.  "I wanted to say again how sorry we are about Uncle Albert's death.  You had indicated a week ago how fond you were of the dog.  We're so very sorry."

The woman shrugged
, smiled vacantly
.

"Yes, we're so sorry about Uncle Albert," Bracey added in a vain attempt to touch this jovial robot's emotions. 

When the woman didn't respond, Bracey continued to read the woman's comments in the report.  "I made arrangements with the pet funeral home to have Uncle Albert's body taken care of.  When they came to gather the body I couldn't locate his remains.  I asked Robbie and he said he threw Uncle Albert in the building incinerator."

"I asked you what you thought happened to the dog, Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon.  Do you remember what you replied?"

The woman smiled, shook her head.  "My memory is not the best," she said with her heavy Brazilian accent.

Bracey read again: "I think he ate the dog.  I thought and thought about it.  He never left the apartment.  The funeral home took ninety minutes to get here.  He didn't leave the apartment and I searched everywhere for Uncle Albert.  The only explanation is that this monster who replaced my husband ate Uncle Albert whole."

Alvarez leaned forward.  "Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon, if your husband has threatened you because you have made this report rest assured that the NYPD can protect you."

The woman smiled at them both, a smile that had graced several million magazine covers.  The detectives fought the instinct to shade their eyes, the sight was so brilliant.  "I was simply mistaken.  I recall now that Robbie did leave the apartment while I was on the phone making funeral arrangements.  He wasn't aware of what I was doing and he was simply trying to protect my feelings by getting the body out of the house as soon as possible.  He was looking out for me."

"Okay, Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon.  Has your sex life improved any?  You said that the new Robbie came close to raping you several times, he was hyper aggressive for sex," Alvarez asked.

The smile remained plastered on the beautiful face.  "He simply shocked me, is all.  I thought he was no longer attracted to me.  His desire was shocking at first but now I find it very pleasant and invigorating.  I am wet once he walks in the door and I cum several times each night and once in the morning before he goes to work."

Bracey continued as Alvarez flushed.  "You said before that you thought your life was in danger.  Do you still feel that way, Mrs. Jimenez-Gordon?"

"I do not.  May I go now detectives?  My husband is meeting me for lunch.  He has a Chinese man that we plan to share."

Bracey and Alvarez looked at each other.  "Say that again, ma'am," said Alvarez.

The woman giggled.  "Sorry, my English is no the best, right?"  She pounded her head with a tiny fist and let forth some expletives in Portuguese. 

She spoke slowly while maintaining eye contact with the detectives.  "I meant to say that I am meeting my husband for lunch.  He knows a Chinese man whose restaurant has the best food.  We will share a meal at that man's restaurant."

Bracey and Alvarez nodded.  Bracey captured the interview, including the woman's faux pas at the end, and sent the report up the chain.  Hours later it would hit the commissioner's desk
to be filed
along with several other similar cases.

In the early morning Air Force One sat on the president's personal runway at Andrews.  The CIA Director had just left the president's private office after delivering the daily national security briefing.  Now, unexpectedly, the FBI Director occupied the seat facing Barack Obama.  The president was sensitive about any delays – no CP time for this black man – and he gave Robert Mueller five minutes to tell his story and get the hell off his airplane.

"We intercepted some chatter from the NYPD."

"Why wasn't this part of
Leon
's briefing?"

"This has nothing to do with terrorism, Mr. President.  This is political in nature, hence the off the radar discussion."

Obama nodded.  "Continue," he said.

"Police chief Kelly was made aware of some unusual reports associated with an event that celebrated Ben Wiley's re-election last fall."

"You have intercepts on the police commissioner of
New York
?"

"Yes, sir.  It was determined during the last administration that any high ranking official in
New York City
is too important to the security of the city and this nation to have any privacy whatsoever.  We record and monitor real time any conversations from mid level department heads to the mayor."

"You're not telling me this."