The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [79]
Charles murmured something that I couldn’t hear. The bespelled audience was oblivious. We could have shot off a twenty-one-gun salute, and they wouldn’t have flinched. Until the vampire comic was finished, they would hear nothing else.
“What are you, the damn health department?” the smaller man asked. He was dressed in a traditional chef’s outfit. He had the big floppy hat wadded up in his hands. His dark uptilted eyes were sparkling with anger.
Charles is only six-one, but he seems bigger. His body is one wide piece from broad shoulders to feet. He seems to have no waist. He is like a moving mountain. Huge. His perfectly brown eyes are the same color as his skin. Wonderfully dark. His hand is big enough to cover my face.
The Asian chef looked like an angry puppy beside Charles. He grabbed Charles’s arm. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do, but Charles stopped moving. He stared down at the offending hand and said very carefully, voice almost painfully deep, “Do not touch me.”
The chef dropped his arm like he’d been burned. He took a step back. Charles was only giving him part of the “look.” The full treatment had been known to send would-be muggers screaming for help. Part of the look was enough for one irate chef.
His voice was calm, reasonable when he spoke again, “I run a clean kitchen.”
Charles shook his head. “You can’t have zombies near the food preparation. It’s illegal. The health codes forbid corpses near food.”
“My assistant is a vampire. He’s dead.”
Charles rolled his eyes at me. I sympathized. I’d had the same discussion with a chef or two. “Vampires are not considered legally dead anymore, Mr. Kim. Zombies are.”
“I don’t understand why.”
“Zombies rot and carry disease just like any dead body. Just because they move around doesn’t mean they aren’t a depository for disease.”
“I don’t . . .”
“Either keep the zombies away from the kitchen or we will close you down. Do you understand that?”
“And you’d have to explain to the owner why his business was not making money,” I said, smiling up at both of them.
The chef looked a bit pale. Fancy that. “I . . . I understand. It will be taken care of.”
“Good,” Charles said.
The chef darted one frightened look at me, then began to thread his way back to the kitchen. It was funny how Jean-Claude was beginning to scare so many people. He’d been one of the more civilized vampires before he became head bloodsucker. Power corrupts.
Charles sat down across from me. He seemed too big for the table. “I got your message. What’s going on?”
“I need an escort to the Tenderloin.”
It’s hard to tell when Charles blushes, but he squirmed in his chair. “Why in the world do you want to go down there?”
“I need to find someone who works down there.”
“Who?”
“A prostitute,” I said.
He squirmed again. It was like watching an uncomfortable mountain. “Caroline is not going to like this.”
“Don’t tell her,” I said.
“You know Caroline and I don’t lie to each other, about anything.”
I fought to keep my face neutral. If Charles had to explain his every move to his wife, that was his choice. He didn’t have to let Caroline control him. He chose to do it. But it grated on me like having your teeth cleaned.
“Just tell her that you had extra animator business. She won’t ask details.” Caroline thought that our job was gross. Beheading chickens, raising zombies, how uncouth.
“Why do you need to find this prostitute?”
I ignored the question and answered another one. The less Charles knew about Harold Gaynor, the safer he’d be. “I just need someone to look menacing. I don’t want to have to shoot some poor slob because he made a pass at me. Okay?”
Charles nodded. “I’ll come. I’m flattered you asked.”
I smiled encouragingly at him. Truth was that Manny was more dangerous and much better backup. But Manny was like me. He didn’t look dangerous. Charles did. I needed a good bluff tonight, not firepower.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost midnight. Jean-Claude had kept me waiting an hour. I looked behind me and