When she walked through that door I knew I was in trouble. She had legs longer than the continental divide, and I wanted to do the math. Her ruby lips breathed out a long sigh of velvet roses.
“You gotta help me, you just gotta!" she said, and I slipped on her voice it was that smooth.
“Now hold on there dame, I don’t take kindly to being told what I gotta do.” I went back to polishing my pistol, my feet propped up on the table.
“I also don’t take kindly to dames walking through the door, ya hear? I like the kind that can turn a knob.”
She eyed me suspiciously. Her eyes were blue as the ocean and so deep I could drown. There was a rip tide too. Her eyes kept moving around the room, always coming back to me.
“So it’s true, you can see me, you gotta help!”
I always laugh at the presumptuousness of lost spirits. Just ‘cause I see them doesn’t mean I have to do one damn thing.
“Tell me the story but make it quick, you’re dripping on my floor. It was just waxed the other day.” There’s nothing harder to get out of wooden floors than ectoplasm.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, her face crimson from spectral embarrassment. She looked like she was once a stand-up gal. Maybe it was something easy, like telling her mom she loved her. Maybe I wouldn’t mind this case.
“The problem?” I reminded her. Too bad spirits have no odor; she would have smelled like honey on a fresh summer’s day.
“My Johnny, he- he was attacked!” she cried.
So that’s how it was gonna be, I had to save her man?
“Where does he live miss?”
A sly grin crossed her face; her floral lips showed a beauty I would have given my right arm for, had the Zombies not eaten it last June. Worst. Neighbors. Ever.
“He doesn’t live, that’s the problem. After the crash we’ve been searching for our daughter. We can’t find her alive or dead, we just wanted to tell her we love her, to help her. Then, this thing – it attacked my Johnny! Now I can’t find him either. It just ate him or something!”
I wondered if the Big Bad Wolf was at it again. Human belief created him and keeps him alive, but every so often he believes that a feast of souls will bring him the corporality he so desires. God help us all if that happens.
“You got a better description than ‘thing’ miss?” I asked looking though her eyes and at my door. Smudges. There were finger smudges on the glass. Only thing worse than ectoplasm on the floor is fingerprints on the glass.
She talked fast; her lips moving like a locomotive, one that I wanted to pull into my station. I had to keep reminding myself she was dead to me.
It was the wolf all right. Some stories said he was the last of the werewolves, banished into fairy tales forever. But stories are written to soothe our fears. I knew the Weres still existed; there were a couple clans deep in the mountains. And the Amish. That’s why they keep to themselves. It’s a little-known fact that the Amish are really the oldest clan of Weres. But don’t go spreading that around. They’re good people and make a mean biscuit.
“Show me,” I said standing up, and smoothing out my suit. But first, I made a call to my contact at the PD. Last crash recorded left two victims – the kid survived, she was at Grandma’s. I told the dame and she wept, soon as we figured out her husband she could move on.
It was a back alley, when is it not? Dark tenement buildings with fire escapes to heaven lined both sides. The wolf was there, devouring another soul. He sniffed and turned around. We’d met before, we’re like old friends.
“You can’t come out of the stories” I said all full of authority.
“You can and I can’t?” he asked.
Yeah, I am the Private d**k. The one you all created. Just took me a few souls to crawl out of the shadows. It’s harder when only kids want to believe, adult faith is stronger because they have faith in so little. Kids, they believe everything. You need real focus to become real.
“That’s right,” I said. Then I recited the story of The Three Little Pigs, the real story, the one that’s a spell by three strong Magis seeking to contain what Red Riding Hood unleashed.
He screamed and I grinned. I looked over at the Dame. She looked mighty tasty, and I had an arm to regrow.