I’d considered the Hunchback of Notre Dame a grotesque figure at first, but Cicereau, although totally human in his nonwerewolf form, was a sort of human toad whose broad, rapacious face lacked half the intelligence I’d seen glimmering in the mostly mute Hunchback’s one eye.
“Street. So you’re really here,” Cicereau crowed. “And so is the screeching siren I want you to eliminate. About now the sound of your scream after my men hurl you through the window would be worth the momentary overriding of the screaming Mimi in my hotel.”
“Wronged women do seem to have it in for you,” I commented. “I need some information before I wrap up this case.”
“Really? You plan to wrap up something besides your own life and career?”
“You recently invested in some new CinSims, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, but none who sang. My accountants say I need to up the main-floor attractions. I’m old-school. I think a couple thousand rooms, a big theatrical show, a shopping mall, a bunch of bare boobs here and there, and a casino crammed with gaming tables and machines should do for the stupid tourists.
“And do you know what those CinSim things cost? They’re leased, like freaking vending machines. What a racket. Worse than that freaking supernatural soprano. You pay over and over for the product, like any sucker who visits Vegas. Not Cesar Cicereau. I figured out how to beat the Immortality Mob at its own game.”
“Let me guess. You leased the Man of a Thousand Faces.”
“Well, that’s exaggerating what the dead dude has to offer, but yeah, that particular deal was attractive. The CinSim people assured me that this Lon Chaney actor would be a freaking chameleon. At least ten for the price of one.”
“I’ve never heard of a CinSim being leased to play multiple roles. It could turn the actor underneath the characters schizophrenic.”
“Stop the schmancy-fancy words. ‘CinSim’ is hard enough for my electronic dictionary. I’m experimenting with the Gehenna’s tourist attractions, okay? I happen to think this CinSim craze isn’t here to stay, but I’ll try something now and then if it seems to fit my theme. I mean, this guy is the whole freak show put together: the Hunchback, the Phantom, Dracula, the Mummy, the Wolf Man, whatever. He’s got the monster chops down, and I like that.
“What I don’t like,” Cicereau said—leaning forward and pointing at me with the kind of big, dark, stinky cigar familiarly called “a wolf turd”—“is that girly high-pitched yammering whining like a bitch in heat all through my hotel. Her you get rid of, and I don’t care how. Right?”
*
“Cicereau seems a bit confused about his CinSims,” I pointed out after I’d washed off the cigar stink in the entry-area powder room and joined Sansouci in the hall outside the kingpin’s suite.
“Cicereau hires people to know about things that confuse him.”
“Do you smoke?” I asked.
“Only after sex,” he joked. “Listen. Just do the job and don’t overthink ole Cesar. He doesn’t.”
“Listen,” I answered, leaning my hands on a brass railing related to the one I’d almost been tossed off earlier. “That woman has the purest, clearest vocal tone I’ve ever heard and is on perfect key. You can’t say it doesn’t move you. If I could sing like that—”
“If you could sing like that you’d be on Cicereau’s death list.” Sansouci looked up. “Besides, your job is to send her back where she came from. She’ll still be singing somewhere.”
I sighed. “I probably can do that, but something’s wrong about Cicereau’s SinCims purchases. Can you get me some info off Groggle?”
“Me? Look up something for you on a computer? Do I look like a male secretary?”
“I’ll write it down for you. If you can read.”
“I can read you. You’re pretty desperate.” He handed me a pencil stub and a Gehenna matchbook from the Hell’s Kitschen Lounge.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I need a full report—pronto, puppy—from you on these two names, just like you were a private dick.”
“I sort of am,” he said with a gigolo gleam.