Hector passed Jack on the way out of the
building. The once disgraced cop gave the mortician a gaze that made Hector
feel the other man was looking into his soul.
"Where are you off to in the middle
of your shift, Hector?"
That look, the growling way the
detective spoke. The fact that Jack could have been a private eye straight out
of one of the pulp novels Hector's father used to read, second hand, in Mexico.
It all led to Hector almost admitting to the letter in his pocket. Then a
shadow passed over his heart. The shiver that ran through his body kept him
moving.
"Going to lunch."
He kept moving to avoid the look. He
felt it but he gave it no power over him. Jack knew the mortician was lying,
but it was none of his business.
"Don't get too drunk to cut up the
perps I bring in," the detective joked.
Hector paid it no mind. He kept walking,
his hand slipping into his pocket. He caressed the letter like a lover to ensure
it was still there. Assured that the cop had not picked his pocket, the
mortician sighed in relief.
The note was simple, written in a
child's hand. Though, it could have been someone who never learned to write
very well. It invited him to a cadaver concert and gave an address and time. A
time Hector could just meet if he left now. Hector was too much the mortician
to pass it up.
Arriving at the house he knocked on the
door and waited. Until a little girl opened up and took his hand. Without a
word she led him through the house.
He wanted to pull back. A man his age
should not be drawn through a house by a child he did not know. There was a
power to the girl though, it coursed off of her. He could not resist.
"Where's your mother?" He
whispered.
"She's out. She does not like me
showing him to strangers," the girl chittered merrily and skipped along.
"What about all of these young
women?"
"Oh, they answer to mommy for now.
But they are mine and they know their place."
She giggled. Hector looked over the
women, dressed in leather and lace that looked more like armor than sex appeal.
Yet he found them appealing. When she spoke of them knowing their place he saw
one, almost surely dead and rotting from the smell coming off of her, bleeding
and bruised in a corner.
Yet he still followed.
Into a room with a man in a coma. A man
Hector felt he knew from somewhere. He had little time to think about it
though. Instruments in the corner, children's toys, started to play as the eyes
of the man moved rapidly behind his lids. A miniature piano, a drum set, and a
my first guitar all sounded out. They played something by Brahms that Hector
couldn't quite place.
He stood transfixed, staring down at the
instruments playing on their own. He was so enthralled that when the knife
pierced his back and through his heart he barely felt the pain. He had a moment
to wonder where the little boy had come from. The one his blood was raining
down to anoint. Then he thought no more.
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