Part 14 (2/2)
”It's a he? I thought a woman wrote those books.”
I tried to make my voice sound soothing, a tough trick because I had screamed myself raw.
”Jackie, partner, be a good cop and send a team over to the cemetery. You'll get brownie points from the Captain, a little TV spotlight, and the satisfaction knowing that you got a bunch of lunatic perverts off the street.”
”What do I charge them with, McGlade? Public indecency? You want me to waste manpower on a minor misdemeanor?”
”Aggravated s.e.xual a.s.sault. Trust me. It was aggravating.”
”Who's going to press charges? The cadaver? You want to bring a corpse to trial? The cross examination would be riveting, I bet.”
I clenched my fist. ”Dammit, Jackie! I was violated in ways you can't even begin to understand. I'll never be the same. My s.e.x life might very well be ruined, and I won't be able to ever watch basketball on TV again. And I love basketball. If you don't arrest these a.s.sholes I'm going to go on a killing spree and when they bring me in I'll tell them you could have stopped it just by doing your job.”
She sighed big, but I knew I'd won. ”Cut the melodrama, McGlade. I'll send a few uniforms over to check it out.”
”If you arrest a creepy old caretaker guy, call me. I'm going to impale him on his mop and make him clean all the floors in Union Station.”
”I got extra tickets to the Bulls game tomorrow. Want them?”
”You can really be a mean b.i.t.c.h sometimes, Jackie.”
I hung up, ordered another tequila, drank it, ordered another, drank it, then called a taxi to take me back to my condo to really start drinking.
My plan had been to drink so much I didn't dream. And when I peeled my eyes open, I thought it worked. I couldn't remember a single nocturnal image, let alone any nightmares.
Then I realized I was lying naked on the kitchen floor, straddling a head of lettuce.
”Oh h.e.l.l no.”
Like any freaked-out person, I needed answers. So I searched Google, using the terms ”post dramatic stress disorder s.e.x with corpses and giant t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es” which linked me to a bunch of unhelpful p.o.r.n sites. I dutifully surfed them anyway, but there were no answers there.
Then I went to eBay, and I was still the top bidder on everything. Lousy eb.a.s.t.a.r.ds. I decided I just wouldn't pay if I won, but then I'd get negative feedback, and negative feedback was permanent. I'm proud of my 99.4% positive score. My only bad mark came from some jerk who didn't read the whole product description, only the header. I sold him a mint Babe Ruth baseball card for $260. The card had some tears and a few bends, but I'd stapled some mint leaves to it. Which I mentioned, in two point font, at the bottom of the listing. Some guys can't take a joke.
Next I checked my email, where I discovered I'd won the Irish lottery, inherited eighty million dollars from an unknown relative, and was asked to shuffle funds into my bank account from the President of Rwanda. They all got my standard response: enthusiastic replies with an attachment supposedly containing my routing number. The attachment really contained an email bomb, which once opened would bombard their computers with tens of thousands of naked pictures of actress Bea Arthur. I called it the Maude Virus.
I had a bit of a hangover, my a.s.s still hurt from where I'd fallen on my keys, and I was hungry. But the only food I had in the condo was that head of lettuce, which I wasn't going to eat even if I were starving to death, so I changed into a slightly less dirty suit and hit the corner convenience store for an overpriced cup of joe, a dose of Advil, and a prepackaged cheese Danish.
It was a gorgeous Chicago day, the sun s.h.i.+ning, the lakesh.o.r.e breeze blowing, the pigeons singing their lovely song. I leaned against the storefront window and called my client.
”h.e.l.lo?”
”Is this Maxine Drawbridge?”
”It's Norma Cauldridge.”
I rubbed my nose. ”Hi, Maxine. It's Harry McGlade. I need more money.”
”Did you find something out, Mr. McGlade?”
”I did. And it's ugly. Real ugly. Plus, I was gravely injured during my surveillance.” I smiled at my unintentional pun, which was actually intentional. ”I'm not going near him again without more cash.”
”I've already paid you twelve hundred dollars.”
My nose still itched, so I scratched it. On the inside.
”I want double that. Think of it as an investment. When the lawyers see the dirt I've got on old Roy, you'll take the freak for every dime he has.”
I removed my finger, noted something gray and waxy stuck to the end. I'd been picking my nose for years, and this was the strangest booger I'd ever seen.
”Who's Roy?”
”Whatever the h.e.l.l his name is.”
I took a closer look. Sniffed. It smelled familiar.
”Do you have pictures?”
”I will. Send the money to my PayPal account. My email is... oh G.o.d...”
The odor was rotten meat and formaldehyde. Somehow, while I was in the coffin, I'd gotten a hunk of dead flesh up my nose. Dead flesh covered in boogers. And a nose hair.
I leaned over and puked up the coffee, Danish, and Advil. Eighteen bucks and change, shot to h.e.l.l.
”Mr. McGlade? Are you there?”
I wiped a toe through the puke, looking for the Advil. They were probably still good. Instead, I saw something that made me want to quit eating forever.
Part of a human ear.
I got closer, sure it had to be some coincidentally-shaped chunk of chewed Danish.
No, it was an ear. The upper, cartilagey part. I often nibbled women's ears when we were fooling around. I must have got caught up in the role-playing and bitten off a hunk.
”Mr. McGlade?”
”Scratch that. I want triple.”
”That's outrageous.”
”Lady, I went to third base with a dead guy last night, all because of your husband. Pay me, or find some other schmuck to do your dirty work.”
”You did what with a dead guy?”
”Don't believe me? You want to talk to him?”
I held my cell phone over the ear. Then I realized I was acting a bit hysterical. Maybe I was still asleep, and this was just a dream.
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