Secret Dead Men (26 page)

Finally, Old Tom came to my rescue. He seemed to recall something about Lynda, the Brain hooker who had given me the Ray Loogan info in the first place. She had grown up in the Philly suburbs before running away and into a life of ill repute.

Lynda stepped forward in the lobby, looking all bashful. "Yeah, I know the way to Merion."

"God bless you," I told her.

"Can I drive?"

About three or four of the souls said "No" simultaneously. I guess they'd already seen her drive, in a manner of speaking.

So, it was up to me. Of course, I'd wrecked the suspension on the police cruiser when I assaulted Mount Art Museum, but no matter. I didn't plan to take that car anyway--too easy for Slatkowski to find. I made one of the forensic geeks offer up his car keys. "Keep my spot open," I'd told him.

I drove while Lynda directed.

* * * *

The house on Winding Way was meant to be unlike every other house on the block, but that was the problem: they were all different in the same exact way. All colonial-looking mini-mansions. Palatial, but oh-so tasteful. It didn't seem like Susannah Winston's style. Or Lana Lewalski's, for that matter.

I approached the front yard of 473. The mailbox read J. GARD in metal-embossed letters. A relative of Richard's--most likely his parents. I opened the box and saw that it was stuffed with letters and bills: Philadelphia Gas and Electric. American Express. Something thick from Republicans for Ford/Dole '76. It was all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Jasper Gard. Yep, parents for sure.

A scenario painted itself in my mind: Middle of June, parents away at a summer cottage, mostly likely the South Jersey Shore. They give trustworthy, lawyer son keys to the pad to check up on it every once in a while. Lawyer son gives a copy of keys to his mistress, for out of town rendezvous. Mistress treats it as her retreat from reality.

But how did Brad and Fieldman know all this? Hey, I never claimed to be the world's greatest detective. I suppose it had something to do with Fieldman being "out of time." The enlightenment I had enjoyed earlier, while speaking to Fieldman, had long faded away. Maybe that's because I'd died again. Did Christ rise on the third day feeling dumber than ever? I'd almost bet on it.

I crept up to the front door, which I saw was ajar. I could hear voices from deep within the house.
Do it. Come on, do it.
I couldn't place the voice, though. I withdrew Officer Madia's pistol from his holster and stepped inside.

* * * *

Not surprisingly, the first thing I found was a dead body. It was Leah Farrell, chest soaked with blood. Her own, I assumed. The words BRING A DATE were still on her forehead, but faded a bit, as if she'd tried to scrub them away. I crept down to feel what was left of her neck for a pulse, but found none. Instead, I found a close-range bullet wound to the throat. Just like Alison Larsen's. So far, quite an amazing reproduction, I had to admit.

I walked down a narrow hallway, next to a staircase, which led back to what I took to be the living room. Living was a strange word to be associated with what I saw going on in there.

A man was affixed to an antique sofa with what looked like barbecue skewers and coarse rope--the ever-mysterious Ray Loogan. He wasn't a terribly tough-looking guy, to be honest. I guess I'd built him up in my mind to be so much more that seeing him now disappointed me. Then again,
anybody
tied to a couch and poked with sharp pieces of metal will look kind of pathetic. Next to him was Susannah, who was bound in a similar manner, only without the skewers. In front of them stood Alison Larsen, holding a pistol. She heard me and spun around. I could still see the bullet hole through the top of her evening dress.

"Hi, Alison," I said. "I see you have a few guests over for the evening."

"Thank God!" Susannah cried, giving me her most alluring-yet-pitying look.

"Shut up," I said. "I'm not here to save you. In fact, I've got half a mind to finish the job myself." I turned my attention back to Alison. "Care to step outside?"

The corners of Alison's robot mouth curled up. But it wasn't her soul talking. "It's
you
, isn't it?" she asked. "God, you're a resilient bastard when you want to be."

"One of my more charming qualities."

"Agent Fieldman, do you want to take care of this?" she asked.

"Officer, please!" Susannah cried. "Help us?"

Alison was still talking to herself. "Oh ... Of course. You're right."

My vision went black.

* * * *

When I could see again, the first thing my eyes focused on was a balled fist. It collided with my face.

My head snapped to the right. I regained focus for a second, and realized I was back in the rebuilt Brain Hotel lobby inside my own head. I saw a bunch of the souls, gawking at me. Goddamnit, how did Brad keep doing this to me? When I looked back up I found my answer. Brad had Fieldman's soul-gizmo.

Being no dummy, I went for it. But Brad was no dummy, either. He swiped it away at the last second, then used his free hand to sock me in the face again. All I saw was a yellow flash. By the time I tuned my eyes back in, Brad was gone.

Doug came to my side. "You okay, chief? Brad wailed on your face pretty hard."

"I'm fine," I said, standing. "Just fine. And thanks, all of you." I was raising my voice. "Thanks a whole friggin' lot." Everybody in the room, of course, started hemming and hawing.

"It was too damn fast, boss."

"He had that soul-zapper thing."

"Hey, I'm only here for the drinks."

Abruptly, somebody changed his tune. "Wait! Look!"

We all looked at the lobby screen. Brad was in control, and had our body looking in a mirror, which was situated in the hallway next to the stairs. It was Officer Bill Madia's face, of course, looking back. "That's me," said a voice from the back of the room. "What in hell am I doing up there?"

Up on the screen, Brad/Officer Madia turned his head. Alison was standing in the hallway with him.

So how do I do this?
Brad/Officer Madia asked.

The transducer modifiers need an image to work from,
said Alison.
Close your eyes, and picture yourself in your mind to the closest detail possible. Then click the OK icon in your peripheral vision and the muscles will start to work on themselves.

That didn't sound like Alison at all. Jesus--that sounded just like Buddha Fieldman. After a couple of weeks in electronics school.

On screen, Brad/Officer Madia turned back to the mirror. Then, blackness. Slowly, a dim image of Brad's real face started to appear, like a photographic negative burning itself into vivid color. Skin stretched and settled into new forms; the skull itself seemed to grow and shrink in different places.

Of course, he was pulling the old change-your-face-trick. A trick I was intimately familiar with. But Brad didn't seem to have as much trouble with the process as I did. He didn't even flinch.

Brad closed his eyes, and our viewing screen in the Brain Hotel lobby went blank. When he opened his eyes again, Brad was looking at his own, real face in the mirror.
At last,
he said, beaming.
They'll see the face of vengeance!

And the wife of vengeance
, said Alison/Fieldman's robot body, off-screen.

There was a despairing cry from the back of the lobby: "Holy shit! What happened to my face!?" Officer John Madia. Poor guy. This was a lot to see in one night.

"Hope you had a picture somewhere," I told him.

Brad started down the hallway, taking Alison/Fieldman by the hand. After a few steps, she stopped.
Wait--we should do something about our mental luggage,
she said
. We don't want any further interference at this stage, do we?

Brad looked around the house, then spied Leah's dead body.
In there, for now?

Capital idea.

Alison/Fieldman took Brad by the shoulders and stared straight into his eyes, as if she could see right through the screen, down into the Brain Hotel lobby.

Sorry to do this to you again, Collective.

Before I had a chance to hurl a retort at the screen, we were all gone.

* * * *

By now, this kind of thing was becoming familiar to me: the cold, the rigor mortis, fighting the strong tides of the decomposition process. But the rest of the souls were scared to death. All they saw was their new haven start to rot before their eyes. Amazing how closely linked physicality is with human creativity. With all this mind power in the room, we should have had no problem maintaining a clean, safe environment in which to live for any period of time. After all, I was living (sort of) proof that a human soul can exist in whatever physical form it inhabits. In other words, if a guy can survive in a toilet, he can certainly survive in a dead woman's body. Maybe not as dead as I'd thought.

Standing before me was a confused Leah Farrell. I hadn't had to absorb her soul; she was still here, in her own mind. Which meant there must be some brain activity left in her body. "Don't tell me this is the afterlife," Leah said, frowning. "A bunch of hungry-eyed chumps, sitting around a fleabag hotel?"

"Leah," I said. "Relax. I can explain. But I need you to help me first.

"Who are you? Do I know you?"

"We've had a few drinks together," I said. "Don't you remember?"

"Look, buddy. I have a lot of drinks with a lot of guys. You can stop the happy talk and tell me how to get the hell out of this place."

I touched her shoulder. "First, tell me how you got here."

She slapped my hand away. "Don't fucking touch me."

"Tell me the last thing you remember."

It took quite a bit of coaxing (and even more sarcastic banter) but Leah finally told me enough to help me piece together what had happened before I arrived at the house. Right after Susannah had flipped and shot us at the Art Museum, Leah hauled ass to retrieve Ray. (They'd both rented a cheap room in Fairmount--oddly enough, not one mile from where Susannah had set up camp. Philly can be a small city that way.) She showed Ray the address Brad had stuffed down her shirt, and they decided to check it out. They hopped in a cab and high-tailed it over to Merion, then split up: Ray took the back entrance, Leah the front. Leah picked wrong. She opened the door and got a bullet in her throat for her trouble. The last thing she heard was glass shattering somewhere in the house. Then she ended up here.

"Your turn," she said. "Start explaining."

"I'm going to borrow your body for a moment."

"What?"

"I'll be right back." I created a pair of doors with my mind and walked through them. My eyes--actually, Leah's eyes--fluttered open back in reality.

* * * *

All I can say is, thank the sweet Lord the bullet had severed Leah's vocal cords, because I would have screamed to heaven and awoken all the angels. This body
hurt
. I could barely suck down air, let alone stand up. But I was determined to go back to the living room. I threw out a hand, experimentally, and let it drop onto the rug. My newly borrowed fingers gathered up every fiber I could, then used it to turn the body over.

Then I started to crawl, hand over hand, down the length of the hallway. The rug created an almost insurmountable degree of friction; it was slow going. I could only imagine the electric shock I was building up. One touch from this body oughta kill the entire room. Halfway there I paused to cough. I was surprised to see blood jet from my mouth. No time to pause for lost fluids. I kept crawling toward the living room.

* * * *

Finally, I reached an acceptable vantage point. I guess I'd missed a lot of pre-revenge chit-chat, because not much had changed in the living room. Ray was still skewered and tied to the couch. Susannah was still next to him, but now untied. Brad held a gun to her head. Alison was standing with her back to me. I wondered if the real Alison was in control again, or if Fieldman was still running the robot?

She removed a wrapped present from her purse, then tossed it to Susannah. "I believe this belongs to you, Ms. Winston."

Well
that
answered my question.

Susannah, to her credit, caught it mid-air. Most people aren't terribly agile with guns to their heads. She hesitated, then ripped the paper off. A stiletto.

I'm guessing it was the same one she'd used on Brad--although I can't fathom how they could have fished it out of the creek without me knowing. Maybe it was just the same make and model? I couldn't help but be impressed. Brad had this planned down the last sticking detail.

"Now use it," Brad said.

"What?" Susannah asked.

Brad raised his pistol and pulled back the hammer. "You heard me. Use the knife on your boyfriend. I'm thinking fourteen or fifteen stabs ought to do the trick. That is, if you pick non-vital parts first."

"You're insane," she said.

"C'mon, Lana--I fished it out of the creek for you and everything!"

Ray Loogan, for his part, didn't look like he was enjoying this part of the discussion. He started to panic and tried to crawl up the back of the couch, even if it meant pulling skewers through his skin. I almost felt bad for him. I couldn't help it. All this time I'd thought of him as this suave, genius killer who managed to elude me for the better part of a year. But now, all I saw was a kid who'd been overly trusting of the women in his life, and now he was scared out of his mind. He was going to
die.

"Do it," Brad said. He thrust the gun in her face.

"Sorry, Ray."

Ray started to cry. Susannah lifted the stiletto into the air and paused, as if trying to delay the inevitable. Then she struck down--hard. The blade slid into one of Ray's thighs. He howled. Susannah jerked it out, aimed, and plunged it again, inches higher. And again. Each stroke was more frenzied than the last. I couldn't see everything, because Alison partially blocked my view. But it was enough. And I could hear everything--every grunt, cry and thud.

Soon enough, Ray stopped crying. Susannah was covered in droplets of her ex-boyfriend's blood. She had the strangest expression on her face--part rage, part fear, part confusion.