“No thanks.”
Disappointed, Brondon tugged on the collar of his plaid sport jacket. “Is this just sour grapes for the . . . unpleasantness with JLPN a few years ago? Water under the bridge! We’re a different company now—resurrected, if you will. Our new specialty products are designed to help unnaturals with all their hygiene needs.”
“No sour grapes on my part, Mr. Morris. I stand by my investigative work, and the courts upheld it.”
I had history with Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals. Case history. Personal history.
Four years into our partnership, Robin and I had worked on a class-action lawsuit against JLPN. The parent company had been a successful cosmetics and toiletries manufacturer for decades, but after the Big Uneasy, when much of the public shivered under the bedsheets in fear of monsters, the company’s CEO—Harvard Stanford Jekyll—realized there was an entirely new pool of customers for a line of specialized creams, shampoos, toothpaste, deodorants, perfumes, everything an unnatural needed for a happy and productive unlife.
In a rather embarrassing incident, some customers experienced problems with a conditioning shampoo developed for vampires. Specifically, it made their hair fall out. Vampire Pattern Baldness. And once undead hair fell out, it didn’t grow back. Vampires tend to be vain, banking on their sexual magnetism, imagining careers as cover models for bodice-ripping, jugular-puncturing romance novels. The shampoo users were distraught to watch their suaveness reduced with every stroke of a comb or brush.
So a group of newly bald vampires engaged the services of Chambeaux & Deyer. While Robin filed lawsuits, I did my detective work and discovered that two lots of the JLPN shampoo had “accidentally” been contaminated with garlic oil. After further investigation (impersonating a factory employee and surreptitiously copying confidential records, long after business hours), I found proof that the garlic oil was intentionally added by a disgruntled employee, who was later reprimanded and let go. The company pulled the vampire shampoo from the shelves, paid an undisclosed amount in damages—our cut of the settlement paid the rent for six months—and spent years recovering from the public-relations disaster.
Needless to say, I was persona non grata over there.
Brondon gave me an awkward smile now. “So let’s bury the hatchet. How about trying some of our products? Free samples—in the spirit of goodwill?”
Even though most unnaturals used the stuff, I really had no desire to. “I appreciate the offer, but sometimes I do undercover surveillance. I don’t want people to smell my cologne from a block away.”
Brondon brushed off the insult and turned his attention back to the three zombie cougars, who basked in his presence. Because of his daily sales routine, I could think of few humans who were so entirely at ease among unnaturals. Brondon bent close and said in a stage whisper, as if he imagined that none of us men could overhear him, “I’ll be at the Goblin Tavern later on tonight, ladies, if any of you care to join me for a drink. . . .”
Victoria, Cindy, and Sharon fervently promised that they would see Brondon there, come Hell or high water—and nowadays, floods and the underworld were well within the realm of possibility. Brondon packed up his sample case, gave a flirtatious wave to the cadaverous women, and sauntered out of the embalming parlor.
Bruno unhooked the needle and tube from my arm. “There you are, sir. All topped off. Good as new.”
“A reasonable facsimile, at least,” I said, and I did feel refreshed. I took a quick glance at the mirror, touched a fingertip to the mortician’s putty in my forehead. No sign of a bullet hole. Bruno had done a good job.
I paid him, gathered my hat and jacket, and headed back to the office.
Chapter 7
As I walked through the door, Sheyenne was arranging a stack of advertising flyers on the corner of her desk. I glanced down, trying to figure out what they were. “Another client?”
“A very dapper gentleman dropped these off, asking us to pass them out to our clientele. New business start-up in the Quarter. I figured we’d earn some goodwill by supporting our fellow entrepreneurs.”
I picked up one of the flyers. It was for a glassmaker’s shop that specialized in dark window tinting. Black Glass, Inc. Opacity Guaranteed. Blocks out all harmful purifying rays of the sun—UV, infrared, and visible. We also repair mirrors.
“Sure, go ahead and hand them out. I wonder if they install normal windows too.” I thought of the damage that had been done to the Hope & Salvation Mission. “I might have a customer for them.”
A few minutes later, Miranda Jekyll entered the office, cloaked in an aura of pomp and circumstance as if her very presence generated all the fanfare a person could need. She was dressed to the nines (or the tens, or however much she could afford), and she wasn’t afraid to show it. Miranda’s husband Harvey—Harvard Stanford Jekyll—paid for it all and resented every penny, especially now that he had filed for divorce, which only made her spend more extravagantly.
Her smile was as wide and dazzling as a great white shark’s; her red lipstick made blood look pallid by comparison. Her cinnamon-dyed hair was intricately coiffed and cemented into place by more hair spray and styling product than a salon used in a week. A lawn gnome could have jumped through her enormous hoop earrings.
Harvey Jekyll insisted that their prenuptial agreement was null and void because now that she had become a werewolf, Miranda was no longer the same person who had signed the document. Therefore, she was not entitled to half of Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals. Robin had been fighting on Miranda’s behalf for months, and I’d been working behind the scenes to gather leverage to use against Jekyll. After the vampire shampoo incident, Jekyll hadn’t been on my Favorite Persons list to begin with.
Now Miranda swished forward with lupine grace, her back straight, head erect, hands slightly outstretched as if she meant either to embrace or claw whoever came within her grasp. “Sweethearts!” she announced, pronouncing it “sweet-hots,” as if we were some kind of startlingly potent candy. “I’ve been dying to see you. I simply must have an update on my case.”