Secret Dead Men (5 page)

I took a look at my new face in the rear view mirror, then compared it with the picture of Larsen taped to the visor. Not bad. I looked exactly like Larsen, if Larsen had gained a couple of pounds. My hair was still dark, and too short, but nothing Miss Clairol and a few hours couldn't fix.

Or course, the biggest difference would be my height and build--basically, everything from the neck down. The body was the one constant, no matter how many souls I collected, or how many times I switched faces. It wasn't even my original body (it'd burned in the car fire) or Robert's. Maybe it belonged to the guy who had collected Robert's soul. Robert only mentioned him twice by name--"Ralph"--and never talked about where he'd ended up. I figured original ownership couldn't have gone too far back; the body was still in decent physical condition. Sure, a few sagging lines here and there, and I wasn't pitching a tent every morning, but that was to be expected. Maybe it was 40 years old? 45, tops? I wished this thing had come with insurance papers and a title.

What this all boiled down to, of course, was that this job wasn't going to go on forever. At some point, like a car, this body was going to hit a certain mileage and fizzle out. I hoped I wasn't in the driver's seat when it happened.

Six

The Face They Feared

The next morning I woke up and brushed my teeth--carefully--combed my hair, and tried to substitute my coffee with a piss-warm Fresca. It didn't work.

It was time for a talk with Brad. No excuses now. Yeah, he'd been through a brutal murder. Sure, he'd watched his wife die. But enough was enough. It was time for him to start blabbing.

Besides, it was something to distract me from the raw, throbbing pain in my newly-crafted face.

I lay down on the bed, closed my eyes and transported myself to the new Brain Hotel room where I'd been keeping Brad. I didn't bother to knock.

There wasn't much to it. Just your college dorm room basics: single bed, wooden desk, metal chair, sink, mirror, wastebasket, couch, mounted shelf. (In fact, I had modeled most new rooms after my own college dorm room, from Nevada State, circa 1963.) Brad was sitting on the couch, fully awake, reading a newspaper. Or at least the pieces I'd absorbed last night. I wonder how it looked--random sentences and images, interrupted by white space?

"Good morning," I said.

Brad looked at me for a moment, then nodded and looked back down at the paper.

"We have some business to discuss."

"Yes, we do," he replied, his voice quaking.

"Do you have any questions?"

"Only one," Brad said.

"Go ahead."

"What year is this?"

I hadn't expected that. Usually, a newly-collected soul will spit out something like, "Are you Jesus?" or "Where's my momma?" or "Where are the gates and the clouds?"

I frowned at him. "Why do you ask?"

Brad folded the newspaper and tucked it between the cushions. "Well, the last thing I remember, it was Sunday, August 31st, 1975, and I was being stabbed to death on my back porch. But today I wake up, and I appear to be fully healed. A rational mind would assume quite a few years--not to mention, extensive plastic surgery--were to have passed for this to happen."

"I saw you reading the paper," I said. "Check at the date."

"Yeah, I know. It says September 5th, 1975. But if it's September 5th, then how can my body be completely healed?"

I smiled. "Because that isn't your body."

Brad's eyes narrowed. "Oh no?"

"Nope."

"Okay. I'll bite. Whose is it?"

"Nobody's. When you look down at yourself, you're seeing your own mental projection."

"Oh," Brad said.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Aren't you going to ask
where
you are?" I said, finally.

"Well there's no need, is there?" he said. "It's clear than I'm dead, and have gone to Hell. To be honest, I had considered the option. But it all felt so real to the touch--my face, the feel of air in my lungs..."

"The brain is a powerful tool," I said. "Even back when you were alive, everything you think you 'felt' came to you through your brain."

"Ah-hah!" Brad exclaimed. "I still have a brain, thus I am still alive."

"No," I said. "You aren't alive, and you don't have a brain. You're inside mine."

* * * *

It took him a while to wrap his brain--er, his
mind
--around the concept. It had taken me a while, too, when Robert had collected me. This was not something they taught in Sunday school. When you got down to it, most people thought death resulted in one of several options: (1.) Absolutely nothing. (2.) An afterlife of eternal bliss. (3.) An afterlife of eternal suffering. Maybe even (4.) Reincarnation, or (5.) Entrance into a higher plane of spiritual being, or something.

No one ever considered (6.) An afterlife in someone else's brain. But I'm here to tell you, brother and sisters,
believe
. Amen and Alleluia.

Once Brad was relatively at ease with the concept, the questions poured out of him." If I don't have a brain, how can I think? Or speak?"

"Because you still have your mind, which is connected to your soul. The brain is nothing more than a muscle. Your mind and soul power it."

"So Plato was correct in the
Phaedo
in that the body is evil and impedes our search for the greater truth?"

"Huh?" I asked. "I'm only trying to explain what's happened to you."

"Yes, I know."

"Okay then." I remembered Brad had been a college teacher. Jesus, did I hate academics. Always thinking too damn hard about things, trying to describe the world in the most inaccessible, complex ways possible. I preferred journalism: the pursuit of easily-understood fact. Man steals money. Fire destroys building. Mob kills naive reporter. That sort of thing.

"Okay," he said, running his hands through his hair. "Here's an easier one. Say I walk out of this room, down the steps, through the lobby and out the front doors of this 'Brain Hotel.' What then? Do I float away and go toward the proverbial 'Light?'"

"No," I said. "You'd hit a brick wall. The only way out of here is if I allow you take over my physical body. Or if this physical body dies."

"Who gave
you
the car keys to this joint?"

"Funny you should use that analogy," I said. "It's how I think of it, sometimes. Anyway, my collector, Robert, entrusted me with the keys. I am behind the wheel, and the sooner you accept it, the better." I thought maybe I was being too harsh. "Don't worry. I'm a careful driver."

"Oh joy," Brad said. "What if I kill myself?"

"You can't. You're already dead."

"Fine. What if I kill my 'mental projection'? Imagine myself to be absolute nothingness?"

"It won't work."

"How do you know?" Brad asked. "You ever want it bad enough to try it?"

This was all going in the wrong direction. Why wasn't Brad looking at the bright side of this whole thing, like I did when
I
was collected?

"Why are you so intent on killing yourself?" I asked.

"Because I'm looking around here, around this Brain Hotel, and you know what? I notice there's somebody missing. My wife, Alison. Unless you're keeping her hidden away for some reason."

"No," I said quietly. "She's not here."

"I thought so."

I didn't want to go down this particular path yet. I needed him to feel safe, and maybe even enthusiastic about being here. Then we would discuss his wife. And how he was going to help me avenge her.

"Look, let me show you around," I said. "I think you're going to find this place interesting."

Brad sighed. "If you don't mind, I think I'll stay here and try to think myself into absolute nonbeing."

"If you like, you can do both at the same time," I said, trying hard not to sound like a used car salesman. "Our tour begins right here, in this room. At your request, we can craft it into whatever you like--a frontier log cabin, a modern luxury apartment, a country getaway..."

"Maybe later."

"Okay, okay. You want to see the lobby?"

"Anything important there?"

"Of course. There's a movie screen that allows you to look out into the real world through the eyes of my physical body."

Brad narrowed his eyes. "What's there to see now, if you're here talking to me?"

"Nothing, I guess. My real body is taking a nap."

"Sounds exciting."

I ignored that. "There's also a microphone on the lobby desk, in case you need to reach me while I'm in the real world."

"It connects to a telephone, or something?"

"No. You speak into the microphone, and I can hear it in my head."

Brad thought about this for a moment. "Doesn't it get confusing? Hearing all those voices?"

"Ah. Which is why there's only one microphone. Want to check it out?"

"Not particularly."

"Alright--then how about the restaurant? One of the souls here used to be a gourmet chef for one of the best casino restaurants in..."

"I'm not hungry. Which shouldn't surprise you, seeing that I don't have a stomach anymore."

Christ. This was going nowhere. I took a seat next to him on the couch. For a while, we both sat there, looking at the pale green walls, scratching our noses, readjusting ourselves on the couch--the usual timewasters. Finally I said: "Brad, I know this is all a rude shock to you, but time is a factor here. I need to know a few things. Things I'm sure you'll want to tell me. Things that will help make things right."

Brad turned to me. "What things?"

Was this partial amnesia, or was he being difficult? "You know. Things about our mutual friends. The Association."

"The who?"

"The organized crime syndicate that operates out of Las Vegas."

"That's what you call it? I guess it's a good enough name. The Association. Why, sure. I kind of like it."

"I'm glad."

Pause.

"Well?" I asked.

"Sure, I could tell you ...
things
. In fact, I could tell you quite a bit about that particular crime organization."

I set my jaw, waiting for him to fill the silence. Finally, after years of fruitless searching, I would know the truth.

"But first," he continued, "I need you to do something for
me
."

This caught me off-guard. "What?"

"I want you to find the bastards who killed Alison."

"That's what I want, too. Once we nail the organization..."

"No," Brad interrupted. "Not the
organization
. The two individuals. The assassins. The prick who shot Alison in the throat, and the cunt who sliced me up."

In other words, Brad Larsen wanted me to solve his murder.

* * * *

Brad insisted on telling me his version of events first. It was fine with me--I'm sure whatever Dean Nevins had pieced together left much to be desired. I poured Brad a glass of Brain scotch--an approximation of Chivas Regal--I'd brought for the occasion. It was a lesson I'd learned from my reporting days: keep your sources well-fed and well-lubed.

"Sure you're not hungry?" I asked.

He gave me a funny look. "Not much point eating, is there? I'm dead."

"Not true. Life inside the Brain hotel can be exactly like the real thing, if you work at it. Do things as you normally would. This includes eating, drinking, sleeping, shaving, showering, shitting ... the whole thing. Take it from a man who's been here a long time. It helps." Another reporter's tip: build some "we're on the same team" camaraderie.

In this case, however, it didn't work.

"Do things as I normally would?" Brad repeated. "Let's see. Normally, I'd wake up in the morning and kiss my wife Alison on the forehead. Normally, I'd ask her if she wanted cereal, or something else, like eggs or French toast. She'd have to help me, of course, because I always end up burning the pieces on the stove."

I could see where this was heading, but I though it best to let him get it out of his system.

"Normally, we would plan our day together--maybe go for a walk, or pack a lunch and walk up the creek bed to read and talk and hang out. Normally I would kiss my wife, maybe even make love to her, and normally we'd spend the rest of the day doing simple chores or listening to music or any number of things I can't do right now because you see, my wife Alison,
she's dead!"

I watched his chest heave and his face disappear into his hands. Somehow, through all of this, I'd forgotten the crime at hand. A man and his wife had been murdered in cold blood. Why couldn't I be a wee bit more sympathetic? Come to think of it, this was the root of all of my problems with the residents of this hotel. I scooped them up, expecting them to be so full of fire and spit that they'd heap stacks of evidence on my desk and wait patiently as I brought my years-long quest to an end. How arrogant of me.

But I couldn't find a way to articulate this without sounding full of it. Instead, I walked over to the table and freshened up his Brain scotch, even though he hadn't touched it yet. I freshened my own drink and sat back down. "Tell me what happened, and let's see if we can't piece this together."

This seemed to rouse him from whatever fugue state he'd entered. I thought I heard him mumble, "okay," but he might have just been clearing his throat.

"The day of the murder," he started, then corrected himself: "...murders, I was working on a paper."

"Ledger books?"

"No, a
paper
. A thesis on the love poetry of John Donne. I'm sure you've heard of him."

Only a few days ago, to be honest. Donne was the author of the blood-drenched poetry book I'd found in the Wit Protec house.

"I always worked in the morning hours. It was when my thinking was clearest. I'd read the texts the night before, let them absorb overnight, then wake up and start fresh. I loved our reading time in bed the most. Of course, Alison wasn't much into Donne. I think the book she'd been reading was something by Jacqueline Susann."

Now this Susann woman, at least, I'd heard of. She'd died about a year ago. She was most famous for a novel that became a movie about actresses and housewives taking a lot of drugs.