It was after hours and we were with Sylvester. Jones T. Jones was chain smoking. Wet rings circled his armpits. For the ninth time, I told him to breathe and not to get his hopes up.
“This feels right,” he said for the tenth time.
If I had told him that I suspected Sly was really a woman and I had proof that her name was Bertha, Jones would have said the same thing: this feels right.
“Well, don’t get your hopes up,” I said.
“Too late, they’re up. Way up. Besides, I’ve lived my whole life with my hopes up. I’m not afraid to get them dashed every now and then. Getting your hopes dashed builds character.”
“Then this might be a character-building exercise.”
“So be it,” he said. “I enjoy living life with my hopes up. Keeps me out of therapy and off of the mood-enhancers.”
It was after eight p.m. The store was closed for the night, and most of the lights were out. I was keenly aware that I was currently being watched by about two dozen shrunken heads. Rubber, granted. But shrunken nonetheless. And I was keenly aware that I was standing in front of a very dead man. One of the deadest men I had ever seen. Hell, if I wasn’t so tough, I might have been nervous.
“This store gets creepy at night, huh?” said Jones. Perhaps he was a mind reader. Or perhaps he saw me look nervously over my shoulder.
“Hadn’t noticed,” I said.
“We hear voices at night, you know. And sometimes we show up in the morning and the displays are knocked over.”
“Maybe it’s mice.”
Jones wasn’t listening. “Say, do you investigate the paranormal as well?”
“No.”
“Too bad, I could have thrown some more work your way.”
“More publicity for the store?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said. Jones was shameless. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get more customers in through those doors.”
“Even make up ghost stories.”
“If I have to,” he said. “But these are real.”
“Sure,” I said. “Now help me move this.”
And so we spent the next few minutes turning the display case away from the back wall. Soon, Jones was gasping for air, which was funny since I was the one doing all the work.
“That’s good,” I said.
Jones’s skinny body was crowding me. I glanced at him over my shoulder.
“Sorry.” He took a step back, but I could still feel his hot breath on my neck, which smelled a little like chicken wings and tobacco.
For some reason, my stomach growled.
Jones jumped. “You hear that?”
“That was my stomach,” I said.
“Oh,” he said, but inched closer to me anyway.
We had already moved the heavy Plexiglas case away from the wall. Ignoring Jones, I stepped around the case and examined Sly with a handy pen flashlight I kept on my key chain.
Before me, the dead man’s back looked like the surface of some bizarre, distant world, complete with gullies and basins and arroyos. The splotchy skin, which looked shrink-wrapped to his bones, rippled in corrugated waves, giving the impression of perpetual motion, which was kind of ironic for a man frozen in place for all eternity.
I stepped closer, raised the flashlight up to Sly’s shoulder.
My breath fogged on the glass before me. Next to me, Jones’s own breath came quicker and faster. He was either going to climax or have a heart attack. I wasn’t sure which would be worse.
Exposure to the elements had caused many irregularities in Sly’s skin. One such irregularity was near his left shoulder blade. It was about an inch long. A tear in his mummified flesh.
No, not a tear. It was a clean cut.
An unhealed knife wound.
I stepped carefully around the display case and looked the dead man in the eyes, or what was left of his eyes.
“Howdy, Boonie,” I whispered. “It’s been a long time.”