Death & the City Book Two (12 page)

"Mummy, if you were a fat Zombie, and you had a choice of old boot, fish brain, foot stew or skipping rope, which would you eat to lose weight?" she asks me, leading the way back outside.

I ponder. Perhaps if people knew that skipping ropes were meant to be taken internally, the diet world would seem a bit different. More challenging, mostly.

Chapter 25:
Under The Influence

Elaine rings while we're eating Chinese, and is in a very happy mood.

"I never knew a biker could be so nice!" she confides. "Especially one who's a doorman! I always thought he was a bit scary, with all the tattoos on, and piercings, and that long chain thing he keeps his wallet on, which always made me think of dungeons and stuff jangling and clanking everywhere. When he was polite to me at work I thought he was just being cheeky charming, and I bet he was just as dirty as the rest of them any other time."

"We are still talking about Ben Trovato, yes?" I confirm, aware that with Elaine I could easily have missed some other scoop since.

"Yes, Ben. Sorry. Oh. I'm still in shock, I think! I'd had these guest tickets for NME on the back of the desk at work for ages, and he asked me a few times was I going, and I never decided. Two nights ago when he asked I just said no, I hadn't thought about it really, and needed to stop by The Zone and say hello to Manager Stacie anyway, and he asked if he could have them for a friend. So I said, of course. Then he turned up last night, with his sister's leathers for me to wear, told me to get changed - he was taking me to the gig as I deserved a break, and we could say hello to Stacie on the way. Which is when you saw me."

"Yeah, I thought you looked really cool," I encourage her, chasing a noodle around my plate with chopsticks, while Junior spears chicken in batter on her fork and whispers 'Deep-fried brains!' into her DS console, probably to tease poor dieting Zombie Norman.

"Well, the gig was brilliant, we met SO many nice people, and I've rounded up a few more acts to do guest appearances for us as well. Ben was teasing the band that they'll have to do our wedding, and I'm afraid I got a little bit tipsy and was playing along with him as well. Is that very naughty?"

"Not if it was just for fun," I reassure her. By the sound of it, she's keeping herself in check. If it had been a date with any of the Fire Service, she'd have had their pants down before the end of the first song, never mind bothering to meet people and think about future gigs for work. But that's only because she's allowed herself to get so worked up about the Fire Service already - from a distance, at least.

"Then he took me for dinner afterwards to this place called The Grand Hotel, and I thought, he's joking, we'll never get in here wearing leathers. But he'd actually booked a table and they were expecting him, knew his first name, shook hands, even! We had a special table to ourselves, in a nice corner by the grand piano with this Liberace impersonator playing some special anniversary dinner concert - it turned out Ben had renovated all their original cornicing, and restored the ceiling paintings, which were amazing, like Michaelangelo. He's so talented, and such a dark horse. I was so impressed and shocked I forgot to ask him in for a cup of tea when he dropped me home, but he's already called to say he had fun and would I like to go out again. I said yes. Is that too keen? Do you think I'm sending out mixed messages not asking him in?"

"No, I think you're being sensible," I grin to myself. At least on the one real date Connor and I have been on so far, he didn't expect anything more than a goodnight kiss either. "What was it that made you so easily persuaded, once he turned up with gig tickets saying 'Right, get your kit off, we're going out'?"

"I was talking to Martha about when she met Aaron the Artist, and she said, one day she just decided to have a day off from the man she'd pictured in her head for years, and not to look for him or use her telepathy to try and find him, or do any spells or anything. She just wanted a break, to go to the beach, and be friendly to the first random person she met after that, with no agenda or attachment to the outcome," Elaine tells me. "And it was like, there he was, in the pub when she popped in with her beach pebbles. Both of them regulars, neither had ever crossed paths before. It was like magic, she said. But bigger magic and better magic and stronger magic than the magic she was always trying to control herself."

It's odd being out with Connor in public as a couple, both as civilians for the first time. In a way I guess having to use it as our cover for work helps allay some of the weirdness, but not all of it. I remember we're putting on an act, but I'd feel more comfortable alone with him being myself, where at least we can talk openly.

Connor had picked me up on time, and head office had told me to wear something nondescript and 'Bluesy' so I'd grabbed Junior's old black, white and silver skull badge cowboy boots, a denim skirt and white Soul Cal t-shirt, going for the casual line-dance class look, and a leather jacket. Connor had also picked a white Nascar t-shirt and leather jacket with his jeans, and smirked and said at least the synchronicity looked like we got dressed together. I'm just bothered that the dress code makes us look a bit too Hollywood. Plus we were off to hang out in a bar, in public. Talk about stereotyping.

"Head office mentioned the work projection you gave them earlier," he had said, as he started the car. "Sounds like it could be useful. Will keep me busy if it does, but that's the way things go, I guess."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You never asked me about Pest Control," he remarked, as we set off. "It wasn't like I woke up one day and decided I wanted to shoot animals for fun. It started with a tribal land rights issue, and a claim by Tribe A that another tribe, call them Tribe B, had left the ground cursed, that crops would disappear, babies would be stolen in the night, and it was all the work of hereditary witch doctors. So a tribal contract came up for the latest in the generations of these witch doctors.

"I was working for the police at the time, and went over to investigate why this so-called witch doctor farmer had a price on his head. It turned out there was an old land ownership rights issue, and if the farmer in Tribe B was found guilty of witch doctoring, his land would be given to Tribe A as compensation. What Tribe A was predicting was happening, but I had to prove to them that the culprits were vermin and natural predators - not spirits, controlled by the farmer in the other tribe, or his ancestors.

"We took the landowners out at night and showed them rats and wild dogs and donkeys raiding their stores, then took them out the next day, and they witnessed us shooting the pests. Built some new more secure storage for them, put new doors on the farmhouses, installed some electric fencing, did the job. There's still stories of curses, but no revenge action being taken. The tribes send each other seasonal curses like Christmas greetings now.
Happy new harvest, may the sands take you and all you grow become as dust, by the way, thank you for the help you gave us digging a new well, it's still working fine
. That sort of thing. Pest Control visit twice a year and take care of maintenance. My job in that case was to disprove human cause when the concern came up, and as other cases came in that were similar, I got those too as my way of dealing with it got the message across in those territories. And I ended up with Pest Control full-time, instead of boring day-to-day police paperwork. So coming over here, joining the force again, and dealing with hit-men was a step backwards for me. Like blackmail would be for you."

"You de-bunked targets?" I remarked. "I looked on your computer earlier. I thought you seemed to be interested in researching a lot of stuff that wasn't what I thought you dealt with."

He shrugged.

"It worked in more basic fundamental societies, and some religious ones," he admitted. "Westernized culture is more complicated, and less moral. And where there's money being offered, there's always a taker. Just cause or none. I've done case studies on it from recent files and it's probably the hardest scenario to crack. Hit-man sees money, hit-man wants money, hit-man seeks target. But we have to look into every one in fine detail to the exclusion of all prejudices, otherwise it'd just be at risk of turning into a witch-doctoring-hunt to get our hands on their property if we fancied it, same as the tribes were doing - like Warren and Yuri stripping cars afterwards. Your profile that head office are looking into now has possibilities though. It's like the farmer thinking a pest is a person, or an evil spirit controlled by a person. If a former soldier, looking for a zombie to kill, could be persuaded to identify a target alternatively as a drunk person or a sick one, empathise with them as neutral, you've got a chance of reversing his psychosis."

"I think that's why doormen have always been on the To Do List," I told him. "In our everyday job, there is no such thing as neutral. Civilians, soldiers, police - if it's off-duty and drinking in our venue, it's all a legitimate enemy at some point."

"Not a job you want someone in who's likely to abuse it," Connor agreed.

"Is that why you were spending a lot of time analysing surveillance data in your overtime?" I asked him. "Do you still look for the underlying vermin as a cause, metaphorically speaking?"

He shook his head.

"Can only hope to get the facts straight doing that," he sighed. "Today's society is every man and hit-man for himself. Making up his own justifications for doing it. If only it was that easy, as finding the big boss in a video game and shooting him down, or the head vampire or whatever in a movie. In the West, we're not at the mercy of super-pests or predators, except each other in little everyday and not-so-everyday ways. And the risks to our own sanity THAT brings."

So while we stand at the bar, in public, not talking freely once we arrive, I have time to think over what's already been said, while his hand resting idly on the back of my waist reassures me that the connection hasn't gone away entirely, just because we're in work mode - although I'd rather the reason for it wasn't just that we're MEANT to appear loved-up as part of our cover.

I notice that I'm sounding insecure and demanding and possessive in my head, and how annoying it is to feel like that. Like my brain is a method actor, trying to get into a new character that's unfamiliar to me. It's as if my brain was also an easier place for me to occupy while I didn't trust him. Keeping the two of us defined as separate.

"That's for you," he says, pushing a glass towards me. "Bet you can't down it."

"Bet I don't want to," I reply. I look around the bar, judging the other customers. Not the kind of crowd you see out clubbing. More hair and beards. More lumberjack shirts. More Dolly Parton than Barbie Doll.

"Hey," Connor nudges me with his elbow, making me turn back to the bar. "Stop being a doorman, staring at people. Drink your Pimm's and lemonade."

"My what?" I ask, staring at the glass.

"How many customers in the bar so far, without looking behind you again?" he asks me quietly.

"Twenty-three of them, one of me," I reply at once, still looking at the drink, thinking it sounds like a really gay thing to order in a Blues bar.

"Pimm's o'clock," he nods, and grins. "Cheers."

He clinks glasses with mine and drinks, and I pick mine up and take a sip. Actually it tastes kind of nice. I don't have much of a taste for alcohol. I think it's all mostly nasty, unless it's with Elaine, who I trust to get tipsy with once in a while as she won't make me try anything new or yucky, or more than 5% proof.

"What's in yours?" I ask.

"Vod cola," he says. "Don't worry, I'm not driving us back. We're getting a designated driver. One of the perks."

"Good," I say, and take another sip, getting used to the taste.

"No - I didn't put anything in it," he groans.

"I wasn't going to say that," I tell him. "I just haven't tried it before. I'm getting used to it. It's nice, by the way."

He grins at me.

"Want to go and sit down?" he says, picking up his glass and nodding towards a small circular table with two free chairs. A bit belatedly, part of me hesitates, because it's away from the main lights of the bar in a darker corner. But I take my drink anyway and follow, to sit opposite him in the more secluded spot.

I admire his logic immediately, because the darker vantage point gives him the opportunity to watch the bar's activity more surreptitiously, than my doorman-style open ogling people.

While he glances round the bar casually, he puts his drink down, and then reaches under the table to rub my knee.

"I know what we can talk about," he says. "You still want to go out this Sunday?"

"Sure," I reply, dropping my hand to cover his, awkwardly worried how far he might let it stray, in front of people I don't even know. But he's not pushing it, and seems to be half preoccupied with the pool table some way behind me. I start to look over my shoulder, but he warns me with a barely perceptible shake of his head.