Then I saw her outside of work, and we had dinner. One thing led to another, and after two weeks she invited me back to her apartment.
She was poisoned shortly thereafter, so we never really had a chance, although I like to imagine that our relationship could have grown into a lot more. After she came back as a ghost, she saw no point in continuing medical school—nobody wanted a ghost for a doctor. And not being able to touch her patients would definitely have been a drawback. I was damned glad to have her working for Chambeaux & Deyer. . . .
Brondon Morris took me by surprise when he pulled up a chair and sat next to me at the table in front of the stage. “You’re following me, Mr. Chambeaux.”
I kept my composure, which is easy for a zombie to do. “I enjoy nightclub singing.”
“You were at the Goblin Tavern too.” He sounded more teasing than accusing.
“I believe I was on my second drink before you arrived. If I’m following you, then I’m going about it backward.”
“Ah, you’ve got me there,” he said with a grin.
I looked toward the still-dark stage. “My girlfriend used to perform here.”
“Ah, yes, that human singer. What was her name . . . Wyoming?”
“Sheyenne,” I said.
“Yes, a poor lost young woman. She sneaked one of my Zom-Be-Fresh samples from an undead cocktail waitress, but she broke out in a horrible rash from using it.” He laughed. “Then she got mad at me, even though I pointed out that necroceuticals are intended for unnaturals only, not for human use.” He seemed embarrassed. “I apologized profusely, and JLPN compensated for her pain and suffering. The company is very sensitive about their public image.”
“Tell that to all the bald vampires who used your shampoo.”
The comment clearly annoyed him, but he maintained his pat smile. “I see why you’re the private investigator and I’m just a salesman.” He set his case on the chair and opened it. “I really wish you’d try our products. They’re designed for undead men just like you.” He pulled out a bottle of Zom-Be-Fresh. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”
“I keep myself clean, and I wear clean clothes.”
“Yes, but to some people you still have a—how do I say it?—a dead smell about you, the way very old people have a certain odor.”
“It’s natural,” I said, then realized the irony in my statement.
“Body odor is natural, but that doesn’t mean we have to put up with it.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” I said, then gave him a hard glance. “Why are you pushing it so hard, Brondon? You’ve got plenty of customers. What do you care about one more?”
“It’s a matter of pride, Mr. Chambeaux. I started out as JLPN’s research chemist, and I helped develop the whole line of necroceuticals, but the hard part is marketing. Even a brilliant idea will sit in a garage unless the public knows about it.
“I realized I’d come up with something remarkable for all unnatural customers, and I could see the need for it, so I decided to pound the streets of the Unnatural Quarter, knock on doors, get the word out. I sniffed out new customers, if you know what I mean. Over the years it’s been my mission to see that these lifestyle products are widely distributed among all the unnaturals.”
He seemed lost in his own story. “And because I was willing to do the legwork and gamble my reputation on this, Mr. Jekyll invested in me, gave me the financial resources. I knew that unnaturals would be skeptical, but I was sure I could win them over. That’s why I provide so many free samples. My service to humanity”—he grinned again—“in all its forms.”
“Thank you for being so inclusive,” I said sarcastically.
I saw an opening and wanted to ask him more about his work with Harvey Jekyll, especially that secret meeting six weeks ago, or Harvey’s furtive nocturnal trip to the dump, but then the piano player reached his crescendo, the stage lights blazed on, and the audience members began to applaud, whistle, and cheer. “Ivory!” A group of werewolves in the back howled.
With unexpected grace, an enormous well-endowed woman glided onto the stage, swaying, jiggling. She had ebony skin, fiery red eyes. Ivory’s grin was wide enough to show her long white fangs to good effect, when she curled her pointed tongue to lick her lips, relishing the adoration of the audience. She wrapped both hands around the shaft of the microphone, grasping it and sliding her face close to it, as if it were a porn movie prop. “Evening, boys.”
The werewolves howled even louder.
Ivory was a big mama with a big voice, a vamp in both senses of the word, and quite the diva. She advertised herself and her “services” in the Unusual Singles classifieds, as a BBV, or big-breasted vampire. I suppose there’s a customer base for that sort of thing.
The words purred out of Ivory’s throat and built in volume and power until she sang in a voice big enough to shatter glass. Maybe that’s the real reason why Basilisk has no mirrors.
Back when Sheyenne had first taken the stage as a young human waitress in an unnatural nightclub, she had ruffled Ivory’s feathers: The big vamp thought she was a star, while Sheyenne was just working her way through med school. But with her sincere delivery, Sheyenne’s waifish crooning stole the show. There was no love lost between the two.
Sheyenne was convinced that Ivory was the one who had slipped toadstool poison into her drink, just to get rid of the competition. Normally, I would have considered that too extreme, but a vampire doesn’t have the same standards about taking a life. I considered her to be a suspect, but the MO didn’t make any sense. If Sheyenne had had her throat ripped out, I might have considered the vamp singer a more likely perpetrator. Surreptitious poison just didn’t seem like Ivory’s style.
I listened to the big vamp’s first two numbers, then glanced to one side, surprised to see that Brondon Morris had taken his sample case up to chat with the bartender. I looked at the two of them, thinking hard.
I was killed only two blocks from this nightclub. Several people had heard the gunshot, but the shooter managed to run away without being seen. Fletcher Knowles himself was the one who had found my body. Convenient.
Sheyenne had worked here, and she’d been poisoned.
Could be a connection. I would definitely have to dig deeper.
From the stage, Ivory fixed me with her hot-ember eyes, one of those scary and seductive glamour gazes that can turn human victims into putty. Even I found it hard to resist, and parts of me began to stir. After all, I wasn’t entirely dead.