Secret Dead Men E-Book

Duane Swierczynski

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 373

Beschreibung

A smart-talking supernatural noir, full of twists and turns, delivered at a whipalong pace about a dead investigative-journalist-turned-soul-collector on the trail of his nemesis – and murderer. Perfect for fans of Ben Aaranovitch and Richard Kadrey. Del Farmer isn't your ordinary hardboiled private eye. Instead of collecting fingerprints or clues, he collects souls of the recently dead. His latest dead guy, Brad Larsen, might just be the key to destroying Farmer's long-time nemesis, The Association. Of course, Farmer is sadly mistaken. An FBI agent unstuck in time is toying with him. A mysterious couple keeps trying to kill him. Another job―a mundane babysitting gig that pays the bills―is threatening to steer him way off course into a violent hell of sexual deceit, fractured identities, and cheap apartment toilets. With only a head packed full of nagging ghosts, Farmer realises this case might just drive him out of his mind, literally.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

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Copyright

Dedication

Woody Creek, Illinois

1One and A Half Dead Bodies

2A Confession

3Brain Hotel

4Fieldman’s Trip

5Pepperoni and Cheese

6The Face They Feared

7A New Case

Henderson, Nevada

8Soul Patrol

9Sherman Oaks Gold

10The Thing in the Trunk

11Supernatural Disaster

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

12Love City

13Portraits of the Artists as Young Men

14Drinks at Tom’s Holiday

15First Days on the Job

16Déjà Rendezvous

17Christmas Mistress

18Case Solved

19Macho Cheese

20Shot Contest

21Toilet, Cat

22Electric Amy

23The Spirits of ’76

24H-Bomb in Vegas

25Soul Gun

26Gallantly Screaming

27Four and A Half Dead Bodies

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise for Secret Dead Men

“Secret Dead Men is the most inventive, uplifting, hilarious, moving novel since The Catcher in the Rye.”

Ken Bruen, author of Galway Girl

“A profoundly psychotic hilarious whodunit fantasy . . . It’s as if [Swierczynski] simultaneously channeled Philip K. Dick, Eugene Ionesco, Richard Matheson, Raymond Chandler, and Charles Willeford.”

Ed Gorman, author of the Sam McCain mysteries

“Filled with fascinating creations and memorable scenes. [Secret Dead Men] takes the traditional forms and puts a unique spin on them, reflecting the mind of an author with both new ideas and an idiosyncratic personality.”

Philadelphia Inquirer

“Fresh and idiosyncratic . . . Offbeat, quirky and confident, revealing Swierczynski as a talented newcomer.”

Chicago Sun-Times

“One of the most surreal, amusing crime thrillers in recent memory. A masterpiece of weirdness and humor.”

January Magazine

Praise for Duane Swierczynski

“Duane Swierczynski is a much-needed breath of fresh air in the book world . . . This guy is a great storyteller. I never know what he is going to come up with or where he is going to take me. I just know I won’t be complaining about a thing once I get there.”

Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author

“Fresh, exciting, and brilliantly unpredictable.”

James Patterson, New York Times bestselling author on California Bear

“Duane Swierczynski knows how to slam it down on the table. His tales are up there with the best of them.”

John Carpenter, director of Halloween, Escape from New York, and The Thing

“Swierczynski keeps the action pulsating along [with] an array of compelling characters, crisp dialogue, and pop culture references.”

The Boston Globe on Canary

“What a fantastic storyteller! Duane Swierczynski is the oh-so-talented face of the new noir.”

Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The House Guest

“Duane Swierczynski is one of the best thriller writers in America.”

James Frey, New York Times bestselling author of Bright Shiny Morning and A Million Little Pieces

“Duane Swierczynski writes the ‘new noir’, full of bad choices, courage, and sudden disaster, all delivered at a break-neck pace.”

Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author on Canary

“Duane Swierczynski puts the rest of the crime-writing world on notice. So learn to spell the last name. He’s going to be around for a while.”

Laura Lippman, Edgar Award-winning author of Every Secret Thing on The Wheelman

“Swierczynski is brilliant at fooling even savvy readers, and his jaw-dropping twists never compromise his exceptional character development.”

Publishers Weekly on California Bear

SECRETDEAD MEN

DUANESWIERCZYNSKI

TITAN BOOKS

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Secret Dead Men

Print edition ISBN: 9781835410486

E-book edition ISBN: 9781835410578

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2024

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organisations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 and 2024 Duane Swierczynski.

Duane Swierczynski asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

For Meredith, who wasn’t afraid of the bloody axe.

WOODY CREEK, ILLINOIS

Labor Day 1975

1

ONE AND A HALF DEAD BODIES

Alison Larsen’s body went undiscovered for about six hours. Local children found her first. The paper never reported this, but a couple of the kids organized an impromptu club with a mandate to “experiment” on her corpse. What will happen if we put rocks in her mouth? Can her eyes still see? If we cut her, will she still bleed?

Twisted bastards. Did they think to call an ambulance? Scream for a neighbor? No. The first thing they did was grab a rock the size of a softball and shove it into Mrs. Larsen’s mouth. According to the report, her teeth were chipped where the rock made contact. Alison was a petite woman. They had to push hard to shove that hunk of granite into her face.

There was no official effort to prosecute the children. Big mistake, in my book. This kind of behavior, left unchecked, often results in severely disturbed adults.

Then again, what do I know? At the time, I was a dead man impersonating an FBI agent.

*   *   *

Ten hours after the discovery, top brass—in other words, me and a bunch of agents from the Chicago office who I’d just met—sped through the weedy flatland somebody once decided to call “Woody Creek” and arrived at the Witness Protection house. The “safe” house. What a joke. If we cut her, will she still bleed?

After we pulled up, somebody handed me a doughnut and a Styrofoam cup. I thanked him and peeled off the lid. The coffee was lukewarm and milky. I prefer my coffee hot and black. But it’d been a long day—flying from Vegas to Chicago, and then this drive. I was grateful for any kind of stimulant. We all started up the front driveway.

The local clean-up crew had arrived a few hours before us, so I didn’t see any of the corpse mutilation firsthand—I only read the report. The crew had checked Alison Larsen’s body for vitals (as if there were any to be found), made the requisite notations, zipped her up in a plastic bag, and loaded her into the van.

Mrs. Larsen’s body may have no longer been here, but her blood certainly was. It was splattered on the tan shag carpet at least three feet in every direction. “Shit,” somebody said. I stepped over the soiled area and walked into the living room. There was a cluttered desk with its chair tipped over, one leg broken. A fat book was split open on the floor. I walked into the kitchen. Glass cupboard doors were shattered; broken pieces littered the hardwood floor. I noticed a smear of dried blood along one wall. The radio was playing “The Air That I Breathe,” a Hollies tune from a couple of years ago.

“Who turned this on?” I asked.

“Nobody,” replied an agent. “It was on when we got here. We left it.”

“You think it might cough up some evidence?” I joked.

“Possibly,” the agent said, all poker-faced.

A dark-haired man with a thick neck and clothes that were supposed to be stylish approached me. “Agent Kennedy?”

“Yes,” I replied. I flashed the temporary photo id I’d received upon arriving at the Chicago office. I’d told them I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it, but I’d been in such a hurry to make the plane I must have . . . blah, blah, blah. They’d bought it.

“I’m Agent Nevins. Welcome to Illinois.”

Dean Nevins, sac—Special Agent in Charge. I’d heard a bit about him from the boys on the two-hour drive down from Chicago. One-word descriptions flowed freely: territorial, obtuse, egotistical. Only hears what he wants to and beats the piss out of anyone who says different. When you’re on a Dean Nevins case, they told me, you’re in Dean Nevins’ world. Keep your head down and your questions to yourself. He loved murders, too. Couldn’t get enough of them.

“You have the name of a great man,” Nevins told me.

“Yes, I know.”

I told Nevins I wished I was here under better circumstances, it was a beautiful state, and all that. I wanted him to point me to Brad Larsen’s body right away, but I thought to do so might seem weird. Instead, I asked him to walk me through what had happened.

Nevins gave me a funny look, as if I’d ask him what brand of underwear he wore.

“Well, this all went down yesterday,” he said. “Early Sunday afternoon. We assume the gunman took her by surprise, at the door.” He led me deeper into the living room. “The guy knocked, and Mrs. Larsen went over to answer it.”

I shook my head to indicate my disgust.

“Next thing you know,” Nevins said, punctuating his words with a thumb-and-index-finger pistol, “blammo. Hubby stands up, and somewhere in here”—he paused to point to the middle of the room, in front of the desk—“hubby makes a break for it. It’s typical. These WP guys are almost always Grade-A, USDA-approved pussies.”

I nodded as if I agreed. “The body was out back?”

“No.” Nevins continued into the next room—a small kitchen, done over in way too many earth tones. He pointed at a puke-green wall. “The perp nailed hubby here and smacked his head into a glass cabinet.” I saw the blood. “They must have scuffled and backed into this table.” Or what was left of it. “Then hubby runs for it again and skips out to the back door. The perp follows.”

We walked past a bedroom to a flimsy aluminum door through which I could see outside. The porch overlooked a thin stretch of Woody Creek. Agent Nevins led me out onto the back porch deck, but a nervous-looking member of local law enforcement interrupted the agent’s compassionate, insightful description of the Larsens’ double murder.

The man’s face lit up. “Was it the Mafia?” he cried. “One of dem Manson cults? C’mon, you gotta tell me!”

“I’m sorry, Sheriff . . .” Nevins started, then paused to look down at his notebook. “. . . Alford. This thing is ours now. Nothing to worry you.”

“Hey! I found the body! I knew she weren’t creek folk, I called you guys . . .”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” Nevins said, “but it’s better you leave it to us now. We’ll take care of her. I promise you.”

The sheriff shuffled off to another part of the house. I looked at the water for a few moments, waiting for Nevins to continue his story. But then a junior agent—Fieldman, I think his name was—approached with a clipboard. “You were right,” he told Nevins. “Blood type matches Larsen. Wit Protec number two-three-three-oh. How did we let this happen?”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You haven’t found Larsen’s body yet?”

“His blood’s all over the deck,” said Fieldman. “We think he’s in the drink, but nobody’s spotted him yet. We found another blood type, too—probably our suspect.”

“Aw, fuck a duck,” Nevins said. “Okay. Call in the cleaners, take our samples, then strip the house. Leave nothing but a shell. And have some guys out to check the creek already. I know they don’t like getting their Thom McAn specials all wet, but it’s part of the job.”

Fieldman nodded.

“And another thing,” Nevins said. “We’re not going to file a report today.”

“What? Agent Nevins, you can’t be serious . . .”

I asked myself a similar question: what the hell was going on?

Nevins enunciated each word: “We. Don’t. File. Which part of that did you fail to comprehend?”

Fieldman didn’t breathe for a moment. This clearly boggled his mind, and/or sense of how the world should work. Then he cautiously ventured: “Don’t you want to—”

“You want to be the one to tell the world this program can’t be trusted?” Nevins said. “That some of our esteemed colleagues sell addresses to hired guns? That the fabric of our judicial system is routinely ripped open like the panties of a whore?”

Fieldman looked around to see if anyone else was hearing this. When he saw we were alone, he turned to me. I kept my face blank. This was not something I wanted to be in the middle of—at least, not right now. Finally, Fieldman turned back to his boss. “No, sir,” he said.

“Fine, then. Raze the house. And take care of the sheriff. His name is . . .” Nevins glanced at his notebook. “Daniel Alford.”

“Daniel Alford,” Fieldman repeated.

I looked over the creek again. It looked like the water in a backed-up bar toilet.

As Fieldman was walking away, Nevins called out to him, “Shoot the bastard if you have to.”

Now that was gratuitous. But so what? Everything was gratuitous this morning.

I turned to follow Nevins back into the house, and my foot bumped against something. A book. John Donne, the spine read. Standard Edition. I picked it up, flipped through a few pages. Daubs of dried blood speckled the orderly lines of verse.

Damn. Nobody should read poetry right before they die.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, when nobody else was looking, I walked back outside and climbed over the porch railing. Hanging on the framework below, I swung hand over hand until my legs dangled over the choppy, muddy ground. I let go and miraculously landed on both feet.

I took the time to breathe, then listened to make sure nobody had stepped out onto the deck. I started along the shit-mud bank as quietly as possible. It wasn’t much of a creek—not much to feed it except freak storms and floods. When I got further out, I craned my head up to look back at the house. The deck was still empty. I turned around and headed downstream.

Why bury this thing? According to the FBI’s own files, Brad Larsen was the “key to exposing organized crime in the greater Las Vegas area.” Unless . . . well, unless, of course, The Association’s influence had pushed its way upstairs, all the way to Special Agents in Charge. But it didn’t make sense; not from what I’d heard about Nevins. He was too much of a Boy Scout to be in somebody’s pocket.

Finally, after a quarter mile of wading, I found Larsen’s body, tucked behind a small pale bush and half-submerged in an eddy. The poor bastard looked like he’d been dead for no more than half a day.

Perfect.

2

A CONFESSION

My name is not actually Special Agent Kevin Kennedy. My name is Del Farmer and I’m a soul collector.

Not that this is a bad thing. I don’t collect souls to torture them, or to steal their essence of life or something depraved like that. I’m no vampire. I use the souls for informational purposes only, to perform acts of mercy and justice. Or at least, acts my moral compass tells me are merciful and just. The souls I collect are damned anyway. Like Brad Larsen’s.

His body lay twisted in the muddy water. Clearly, he’d been trying to fight his way down the creek. Going to call for help? Probably. Trying to pull it together so he could march back up and kick the shit out of whoever had killed his wife? Maybe. There wasn’t much to help him along in either direction. At least he was safe from the neighborhood kids back here.

I scooped him under his arms and dragged his body to semi-dry ground. I touched his neck. It felt like a slab of ribeye right out of the refrigerator. “It’s going to be all right, buddy,” I told the corpse.

The meat couldn’t hear me, but I knew Larsen could. His soul was still nearby.

*   *   *

Collecting a soul is a fairly simple procedure. If the soul is still somewhere near its body, that is. If you wait too long, the link between body and soul is severed and it’s tough to locate the soul. It is possible, depending on the circumstances and a bit of afterlife detective work—which I would have been forced to do, had Larsen expired more than a day ago. (After twenty-four hours or so, souls start to figure out they should get going into the next plane of existence.) And sometimes, if you go poking around in the afterlife too much, it can suck you right in. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was perfectly on-target about that “looking into the abyss, the abyss looking into you” thing.

But I would have gladly done it. Brad Larsen was extremely important to me. I had tracked him down this far and wasn’t about to give up now. I knew he was a hot-dog witness, important enough to The Association to warrant a hit, important enough to the government to keep him protected. Larsen knew something.

But what? And why hadn’t he coughed it up yet? That’s what troubled me. Usually, spilling your guts was the requirement for receiving a new name and house in the middle of suburban nowhere, courtesy of the US government. If he had, I would have heard about it. After all, I am a Special Agent with the Las Vegas branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Okay, not exactly. I collected the soul of the real Kevin Kennedy—and glommed his credentials—seven months ago, and I’ve been playing the part ever since. Before that, I kept an office as a private investigator in Henderson; before that, I was a county clerk in Reno. The jobs had to change. After a while, even the best cover story will fall apart. You will be found out. It will be time to move on, to adopt a new identity. The point remains: I would have heard.

The first step was to lure Larsen’s soul back into his body. I knew he was still around, hanging on to this earthly plane by his astral fingernails. The vibe was strong; stronger still when I moved close to his corpse. The link hadn’t been severed yet.

*   *   *

I won’t go into the specific details of luring a soul; let’s just say it’s no more difficult than a birdcall or a sleight of hand card trick. Besides, if I told you, you might be tempted to try it. God forbid you do this in an old house or graveyard. You never know what’s gonna answer your call.

I made my move, and after a moment or two Larsen’s eyes opened. I’m not sure what he was looking at—there wasn’t much. His shirt was ripped and covered in dark maroon blood. Or maybe it was mud. It was unclear where the creek stopped and the man began. “Mr. Larsen?” I said.

His eyes turned in my general direction.

“Hi there,” I said.

Brad stared at me.

Now came the next step: soul collection. I had to work fast—a soul can’t animate a corpse for long. It’s a trick, really. The meat thinks it’s back on the job, and it takes a while to realize, Hey, waitasecond . . . I don’t think I’m alive anymore . . .

I knelt down next to Brad and scooped some water onto his face. I needed a better look at him. “Listen to me,” I continued. “You’ve been murdered. I’m here to investigate. Your full cooperation will help bring your killer to justice.”

His eyes rolled down at his body; his eyelids fluttered. Typical reaction. The victims are always curious, even after being pulled back from the dark wonderland of discorporation. A few check to see what they are wearing. Some even try to fix their hair. Brad tried to say something, but his throat was apparently blocked. I scooped another handful of water and poured it into his open mouth. He choked, then coughed up a dollop of mud and insects. I scooped more water onto his face, wiping the mud away. He was a handsome guy.

“We’re in this together,” I told him. “All you have to do is look at me.”

“Sh-Sh-She . . .” he sputtered.

“Who?” I asked, but instantly regretted it. Clearly, he was talking about his dead wife, Alison. Shit. I had to switch gears. No sense having him freak out now.

I said, “I need to ask your permission for this.” Not true, but I always made it a point to make this soul-collection thing sound like a matter of free will. “Will you join me to avenge your murder?”

“Sh-Sh-She’s . . . c-c-cut . . .” Brad said, shaking.

Good enough. I snapped my fingers, which caught his attention, and then I collected his soul.

*   *   *

How, exactly? An excellent question. And I’ll admit that I don’t know.

Maybe this analogy will be useful. You probably drive a car, right? And you know how to use the gas pedal, and the brakes, shift into reverse and neutral, and operate the air-conditioning and the radio and windshield wipers and window crank?

Of course you do. But I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts you wouldn’t be able to explain the mechanical functions behind those operations. You probably don’t even know how an internal combustion engine works. Which is fine. Neither do I. Nor do I understand the technical details of my soul-collection abilities. But rest assured, I know how to drive a soul, just as well as you know how to drive your Datsun.

I’ve been driving souls for five years, and I’ve gotten good at it.

In an instant, Brad Larsen became part of me. We were now Farmer-Larsen. I allowed Brad momentary control of my body so he could get whatever he needed to get out of his system. Kick at the mud, punch the air, curse God, whatever. Better to have his psychic anger dispelled on the banks of Woody Creek than inside my head.

Surprisingly, Brad didn’t do a thing. I couldn’t even guess what he might have been thinking. The connection was too new. All he did was use my eyes to stare down at his own dead body.

Me? Back when I was first soul-collected—after the initial exhilarating rush of being absorbed had passed—I cried. I was faced with a voyage into dark, terrifying turf. My collector, Robert, spent hours calming me down, explaining things to me.

But Brad only looked at his corpse as if he were looking at an interesting piece of modern art. I felt my head cock. He didn’t ask a single question or voice a single complaint. Which was fine with me, as I didn’t have time to explain it all to him.

“Relax, Brad,” I told him, unnecessarily. “You’re gone, but not forgotten.” Then I regained control of my body.

*   *   *

Usually, next came the tricky part: stealing the victim’s face. Thank God I didn’t have to take Brad’s right then and there.

A soul has its own momentum; it can propel itself anywhere, given the push or shown the right image. After all, a soul is built for travel. You can trick it back into its body, you can collect it and stick it in your own mind, no problem. A face, on the other hand, was dumb meat, stretched and burned and replenished and readjusted over a period of many, many years. Which meant, to steal Brad’s face, I had to stretch and burn and replenish and readjust my own face.

I knew it would be worth the effort, however. Whatever priceless information Brad Larsen had locked away in his mind would become a more powerful weapon if I became Brad Larsen. On the day I confront The Association, I want to wear a face they fear. The fact they had sent somebody 1,200 miles to smash Larsen’s face meant I’d found one.

But there was no time to do a full reconstruction here in the creek—plus, my FBI friends would be sure to hear my hellish screams—so I whipped out my trusty Kodak Instamatic and used an entire roll of 110 film on Larsen’s corpse, for later reference. I also tried to memorize the features (just in case): the stiff, bony forehead and the high cheekbones and short, upturned nose. He had a strong jawline, but not so strong as to detract from his boyish good looks. This was definitely going to be an improvement over Special Agent Kevin Kennedy. No offense to the dead.

3

BRAIN HOTEL

I placed Brad Larsen’s soul in one of the rooms inside my head, then thought up a mild brain sedative. He took it without complaint. In fact, he didn’t even seem to be aware I gave it to him. These “rooms” are simply mental constructs, built to house the souls I collect. Consider it a Holiday Inn of the brain. How would you like to be plucked from death, only to find yourself floating around some ethereal space inside somebody else’s skull? For souls to retain a sane, working version of their earthly memories—and not be corrupted by the strange limbo of my brain—they had to retain a semblance of earthly surroundings. So, I had a hotel in there.

From the soul’s point of view, it’s a sweet deal. Each soul receives a two-bedroom apartment, and is allowed to furnish it as desired. After all, it’s their own mental power doing the creating; I merely supply the guise of walls, floors, water, gas, and electric. They are free to pursue any kind of art or hobby they wish, or consort with the soul of a prostitute named Genevieve I’d absorbed a few years back. If they want a professional oak pool table, it’s theirs. A wet bar, a color television set—not to mention whatever programming they desire—presto, bingo, there it is. Not a bad afterlife at all.

I do my business on the first couple of floors of the Brain Hotel. There’s the lobby, reserved for social functions and meetings. I have my office to retreat to when the need arises. I’ve resisted the urge to absorb the soul of a secretary . . . though it is tempting. There is a series of interrogation rooms—ranging from a clean, comfortable lounge to a shithole dungeon with a scratchy, houndstooth couch—depending on the suspect. It helps with the acclimation process.

I had five souls in residence in my Brain Hotel. Brad Larsen made it six. I suppose I made seven, since I also lived in the hotel—that is, whenever I wasn’t busy controlling my real, physical body.

I don’t keep the souls locked up in the Brain Hotel all the time. Once in a while, as a reward, I’ll allow one of them to take control of my physical body, so long as it doesn’t interfere with my investigations. Most times, the soul will merely want to experience the taste of real food again.

Unfortunately, I’m the one who pays the gastrointestinal tab. Once, I allowed a tub-of-lard ex-bookie named Harlan to take control of my body. He promptly stuffed it with three Gino Giants, two cans of Campbell’s baked beans (with bacon strips), six large Grade-A scrambled eggs, half a loaf of Stroehmann’s bread, two cans of B&M chili con carne, and an entire New York-style cheesecake. I had been resting in my Brain Hotel office and hadn’t noticed until it was too late. I spent nearly three hours in the men’s room of the nearest motel, rotating my rear end and head into the business end of a white porcelain toilet.

As punishment, I made that fat bastard move into the dungeon with the houndstooth couch.

It is necessary to stress that the entire Brain Hotel—from the interrogation rooms to the restaurant to the Olympic-sized swimming pool to the Irish-themed pub—exists for a single purpose: to destroy The Association. It had been my mission for quite some time, and it even predates my current occupation of this body and management of the Brain Hotel.

*   *   *

The details aren’t too important, but regarding my previous life: I was an investigative reporter in Las Vegas during the late 1960s. It was a great time to be a reporter; people still took you for an authority figure. My most prized possessions were my Underwood portable typewriter and General Electric tape recorder with detachable interview microphone. Pens and paper you could find anywhere, but a reporter without his typewriter and recorder was truly lost.

I had been checking into a case of election fraud, which I was sure was linked to earlier incidences of bribery, extortion, drug dealing, and DJ payola. A single name kept popping up—a mysterious “JP Bafoures”—as well as the same methods. Even to a wet-behind-the-ears kid like me, it sounded like a crime syndicate. I nicknamed it “The Association,” and I was sure one of these days I’d find the link that tied it all together. It would be my way out of the desert and into a real newspaper.

But before I had a chance to break the election story in the Henderson Bulletin, I had a run-in with members of what I could only assume was The Association, sent by this “JP Bafoures.” Even though I’d been writing about their activities for more than two years, it was my first physical encounter with any bona fide member of the organization. And my last.

They had picked me up as I was leaving a bar. Three of them. “Farmer?”

“Yeah?”

A quick punch to the gut; they grabbed my car keys. A few more shots to my kidneys and head. I was shoved into my own backseat. One of them started driving. Another went to his own car and followed us.

“Wh-Where we headed, guys?” I was trying to sound nonchalant, but it’s awfully hard to sound nonchalant when you’re sniffing blood up your nose.

The one to my left said, “For a drink.”

Which, for some reason, terrified the shit out of me. My imagination started running away with me. Were they going to drown me? Force booze on me and send me driving off a cliff? Cut my wrists and make me drink my own blood?

Not quite.

When we reached a seemingly random destination in the desert, they threw me out of the car and served me my cocktail in a rusty gasoline canister. “Bottoms up, college boy,” someone said, forcing the plastic siphon to my lips.

A shot of fuel rushed past my mouth and down my throat. I vomited it back up two seconds later. While I was on my knees, retching, they poured gasoline over my head and back. I reached out to steady myself; one of them snapped two of my fingers back, breaking them. I bawled like a baby and was force-fed more gas. Again, I fell to my knees, puking. I received another shower and a few kicks to my ribs. I hadn’t had that much fun drinking since my freshman year of college.

Soon, I was back in my car, behind the wheel. I couldn’t see anything—my eyes were burning too much to register images—but I knew what they were going to do. I imagined them fumbling for the matches and pouring a thin trail of gasoline far enough away to be safe. I remembered hoping my dentist kept good records. I didn’t want to be forgotten, my work to go unnoticed forever.

Mercifully, before I could feel myself burn alive, I vomited one final time—blood, I think—and my head hit the steering wheel and I died. Possibly from the beating, maybe from gasoline poisoning, but most likely from sheer terror.

*   *   *

Not long after, my soul was collected.

One moment, I was trapped in a useless, burned pile of flesh. The next, I was looking back down at it, full of pity. Was that me? That broken, pathetic skeleton-man at the wheel of a baked Chevy Nova? It’s quite amazing what a change of perspective can do for you. You feel it in tiny ways. When you look at a photograph of yourself, for instance. Distance gives you power. Or at least it allows you to place yourself in the past, where you didn’t know any better.

I heard a voice in my head, and that’s when I realized I was in someone else’s body. Relax, Del Farmer, the voice said. You’re gone, but not forgotten.

An odd thing to say, don’t you think? But to this day, I can’t think of anything more appropriate. So that’s what I say whenever I collect a new soul.

Later, after I’d had a chance to settle down, my collector introduced himself. His name was Robert. He too was interested in the criminal organization I called The Association, and had collected my soul (after trying in vain to save my life, of course) to see if I would be willing to help him.

Are you kidding? Me, a kid raised on Shock SuspenStories and The Vault of Horror comics, turn down a chance to avenge myself beyond the grave? Please. I was happy to tell him all I knew, even to the point of retyping some of my stories on a Brain Underwood he’d provided. In time, I came to be much more than a source; I became a vital part of Robert’s investigation. For three years, Robert showed me the ropes—how to collect a soul, how to build additional rooms in the Brain Hotel, and much more.

Eventually, before he left the hotel for the nicer neighborhood of the Great Beyond, Robert allowed me to assume control. He didn’t explain why or give me any kind of warning. All I found was a note taped to the door of my Brain room:

Del:

Took a bunch of the souls on to a better place. It was time.But not for all of us. Keep up the good work, will ya?

Yours,

Robert

I understood that Robert was leaving me with a mission: to continue soul collecting until I had enough information to stop JP Bafoures and his Association, once and for all. And after two years of dogged investigation, I thought I had finally collected the right soul for the job: Brad Larsen.

Robert would have been proud.

4

FIELDMAN’S TRIP

With Brad Larsen’s soul safely checked in to the Brain Hotel, I started back toward the deck. I figured I would thank the Feds for their Midwestern hospitality, catch a free ride back to Chicago, use the bureau files to enhance my own Association case file, enjoy a tender slab of porterhouse steak somewhere near Lakeview Drive, then catch a plane back to Vegas and drink a couple of those miniature bottles of free booze they give you.

A few steps away from the house, I heard voices above me:

“Where is he?” (I recognized it: Nevins.)

“Nobody’s seen him. He must have jumped into the creek.” (Unidentified male.)

Oh boy. I slunk back beneath the deck and wedged myself between two wooden supports.

“I don’t believe this,” Nevins said. He paced a few steps, directly above my head. I could make out his stocky shape between floor slats. “You telling me this guy just sailed through your office? Without any of the usual . . .”

“He had clearance.”

“Had being the operative word, asshole.”

Damn. They knew. A voice in my head taunted me: I told you they’d find out, jerk! The voice belonged to the real Special Agent Kevin Kennedy.

“Be quiet,” I muttered.

Take it from me—Feds don’t enjoy being dicked around. They’re gonna skin you and hang your skeleton out to drip-dry.

“Quiet,” I repeated, then heard the footsteps above me stop. A whisper I could barely make out: “He’s nearby.” Then, the snapping sound of pistols being removed from their standard-issue leather holsters. Cautious steps to all sides of the dock.

This was beautiful. I tried to put together some options. I soon realized I didn’t have any. My only chance was to sneak around the twenty-man FBI team, steal a car, then motor my ass out of here.

I stepped through the mud, using the dock supports to brace myself, trying to not make a sound. Once I reached the edge, I looked up, and saw a single leg swing over the side of the dock. Someone was coming down to have a look. My eyes scanned the ground for anything weapon-like—a stick, a rock, a chewing gum wrapper, anything. But no luck. I balled up a fist, wondering if I could hit fast and hard enough to knock the agent out before he could cry out—and without the sound of the blow reaching above. Not likely.

I shrunk back against a support, then slid myself around it. The agent hung from the rail for a moment, then dropped to the muddy ground, just as I had. He removed his pistol from its holster.

I sucked in my gut and tried to make like a pole.

The agent spun around, checking his surroundings. He missed me on first pass. Then he started walking away, down the creek, toward the recently reanimated body of Brad Larsen.

Okay, this was it. Fight or flight. In about thirty seconds this guy was going to see the body, yell for his buddies, and I would be swarmed. I wouldn’t be missed a second time. So I took a chance and started a slow jog upcreek, hoping nobody was looking. Each step felt like a week. I sensed eyes behind me, watching me dance up the mud like an idiot. Any second now I was going to hear Nevins bark, “Freeze!” and I’d turn around to see the sun glinting off nineteen shiny pistols, each one pointed my way.

I dove behind the first shrub I encountered. Looked back; nobody had spotted me. I had to run further ahead, ducking trees until I found a way to the main road. I tried to remember it from the ride down. There weren’t too many houses around, which meant not too many cars. I thought about tuning out for a second and checking the files in my office—you see, back in my Brain office, everything I see is instantaneously recorded in the form of typewritten logs, for later study. Consider it a highly organized version of the human subconscious.

But there was no time for that now. What would Robert have done?

Then it came to me.

*   *   *

I closed my eyes and pictured a phone. I dialed a nonsense number and thought about who I wanted to reach: Harlan, the gluttonous bookie. Deeper, somewhere beyond my ordinary range of hearing, I heard a phone ring.

Then a voice answered the phone in my head.

“Yeah?”

“Harlan,” I whispered. “It’s me. You’ve gotta do me a favor. But hold on first.”

“What?”

I opened my eyes, then peeked over the top of the shrub. Nobody looking. I shut my eyes again.

“Okay. You still there?”

“Whaddya want?”

“I’m going to give you a chance to earn your room back, fat boy,” I said. “Listen carefully. In a few seconds, the door to your interrogation cell will pop open. I want you to walk to my office and open the file in my cabinet marked with today’s date. Go to the stack of papers for the past hour. Within the text, you should find a detailed account of the area surrounding the safe house in Woody Creek.”

“So?”

I couldn’t believe it. The pudgy bastard was still busting my balls.

Then, I heard a sharp cry: “Nevins! Get down here!”

Uh-oh.

“Harlan, you tub of shit, go in there and study the area. Help me the hell out of here. Find a car and lead me to it.”

I heard him laugh. A deep, phlegmy chuckle. “I’m going to need more incentive than that, chief.”

“No, you’re not. Because if I don’t escape, I’m going to be caught by the FBI. And most likely, I’m going to have to make a run for it, because it’s my only chance to save the investigation. Even more likely, some sharpshooter is going to put a bullet in my head before I escape. Which means you and five other souls are going to be wandering a muddy creek in Butt-Hump, Illinois until the end of time.”

“On my way, boss,” Harlan said. He might have been a greedy bastard but he knew when to listen to common sense.

I opened my eyes to see a swarm of Feds hopping over the rail. Until Harlan found what I needed, I had to improvise. I climbed the steep, rocky hill along the side of the house, then crouched down next to the front porch. Took a peek over the rail; nobody there.

I listened for voices, and heard some fevered yelling, but couldn’t make out anything. There were about ten yards between my current position and a tree. I decided to go for it. I stood up, looked behind me—just to make sure no agent had doubled back and found my footprints in the muddy bank—and started to run.

“Freeze!” a voice yelled.

I indeed froze. Slowly, I turned my head to see Junior Agent Fieldman, clipboard-carrying Boy Scout, holding a gun larger than his hands and pointing it at my chest.

“Don’t move, Kennedy. Down on the ground. Hands behind your head.”

This was not good. Fieldman was green and twitchy on the trigger. I didn’t want to have the investigation end right here in Woody Fucking Creek. “Excuse me!” I shouted. “Did you just order a superior to drop to the ground?”

“You heard me. Down.” Fieldman scanned my body, looking for a hidden weapon. Of course, I had none. Unless you counted my eyes.

“Look at me, Fieldman,” I said.

He did.

And that’s when I grabbed his soul.

In my years of soul collecting, I’d only worked with the recently dead, or the near-dead. It was weird snatching a live one. Kind of the difference between shucking crab meat from a dead shell and ripping live, functioning tissue from a pissed-off crustacean. Fieldman fought it every inch of the way. He may not have known what was happening to him, but I’m sure he knew it wasn’t a good thing. Fieldman’s body collapsed to the ground in pieces, like a puppet with cut strings: first the gun, then his knees, torso, arms, shoulders, and, finally, his head.

I’d always wondered what would happen to a live body if its soul were to be removed suddenly. I wanted to observe how long his vitals would maintain themselves, but there was no time. Fieldman’s colleagues had surely heard him cry out and would be back in no time. I had to work fast.

I closed my eyes, lay down on the ground, and surrendered control of my physical body.

To do this, I relaxed a certain part of my brain. It’s hard to describe to someone who’s never known about it being flexed; trust me, every human being does. Until someone makes you aware of it, you have no idea you’re holding it tight, even when you sleep. If people were aware of it, suicide would be a hell of a lot easier than razor blades and unlit ovens.

Then, as usual, the blackness started to pulse with waves of deep light—like when you close your eyes and press your palms into your eyeballs.

An instant later, the lights came up. Walls, ceiling, and not-so-tasteful Oriental carpet formed around me. I was standing in the lobby of the Brain Hotel, right in front of the entrance. This was the symbolic gateway between the hotel and the real world; whenever I wanted to go back, I simply walked out the front doors. If any other soul tried it without permission, they’d run into a brick wall. Literally. (My touch. I couldn’t resist.)

Fieldman’s soul was standing in the lobby, too, holding an imaginary pistol. His soul had arrived a second or two earlier.

“Relax, Agent Fieldman,” I said.

“Wh-Wh-Where am I?” he stuttered.

The poor guy. One minute he’s having his soul removed from his body; the next, he’s standing inside the lobby of a cut-rate Holiday Inn.

“You’re having a bad LSD trip. Some jokester in the unit laced your coffee; you’re going to wake up in an extremely bad mood. In fact, you’re going to want to pummel the first agent who crosses your path.” I had no idea if a hypnotic suggestion given to a discorporated soul would work, but what the hell.

“I am?” Fieldman asked.

“Yep. And you’re not going to remember any of this, either.” I coldcocked his soul with my spectral fist—you can do that, you know—then walked through the front doors and back into the real world.