The Love-Haight Case Files (20 page)

Thomas moved on. Had he not needed to get to the San Francisco General to check on Evelyn, he would have approached the woman in the long skirt or the Santa ghost and chatted. Maybe he could find a famous ghost in the mix. He pushed aside the notion of discovering a dead Elvis.

He noticed other OTs as the blocks melted, though there were not many out tonight. A green-skinned hag in a pea coat and high boots was burdened with shopping bags. Something that looked vaguely trollish sat on a flattened piece of cardboard outside a drug store. He had a large tin cup in front of him and a sign that read: PLEASE HELP. A man in a long coat dropped some change in.

The majority of the pedestrians were humans, and most of them were young to middle-aged. Some had been Christmas shopping, others were coming from or going to restaurants and bars and were gesturing as they talked or were engrossed in texting. A trio of nuns in full habits passed out pamphlets. From farther down the street he heard a lone saxophone wailing the strains of: “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” a busker catering to a handful of tourists who’d emerged from a bistro.

It was cold tonight. He noticed the breath of the passersby puff away from their faces like little lace doilies. The mist hung in the air for a heartbeat before disappearing. He’d never cared for winter, even though San Francisco’s was actually mild. Still, he wished he could feel the chill and wished his breath would make the lacy patterns.

Thomas continued on, trying to pick up speed and discovering that he had one: slow. No matter how much he focused, he couldn’t go any faster, and so he gave up on using the sidewalk and instead started cutting through buildings, stopping only occasionally to look at a wall clock or someone’s wristwatch.

It had taken him well more than an hour to reach San Francisco General, which stretched across Potrero Avenue between the Mission District and Potrero Hill. The building was huge, boasting six hundred beds between its acute care, psychiatric unit, and surgical section. And it was going to get bigger; construction on an acute care building was underway and expected to open sometime next year.

Thomas had been taken to this hospital during his first year of law school. He’d brutally torn his rotator cuff when he whacked the high board during a diving mishap. His father had been furious—not so much worried about Thomas’s condition as he was upset that his son had been carted here. About eighty percent of San Francisco General’s patients were uninsured or on publicly funded health insurance; and it never turned away the homeless. Thomas’s father had him transferred immediately to Saint Francis Memorial. Thomas had been too out of it at the time to object.

It didn’t take him long to find the surgery department. A ghost stood in front of the double doors, back to Thomas, head partway through the glass. The ghost was the portliest Thomas had spotted, guessing the man must have weighed at least three hundred and sixty or seventy pounds in life. His wispy image suggested he’d died in a trench coat. But when Thomas edged closer, he could tell it was a lab coat.

What was ghostly etiquette? Would it seem untoward to pass right by?

“Excuse me,” Thomas said.

The face pulled out of the window, and the ghost turned. The head was wide, the ears large, and a shock of hair that looked like steam rising floated up from the top of his head.

“And you are—”

“I’m Thomas Brock. Errr … the ghost of him anyway. I’m here to—”

“Dr. Harold Schwartz,” the specter cut in. “This is my wing of San Fran—”

“Nice to meet you. I need to—”

The ghost scowled. Thomas guessed he’d committed a
faux pas
regarding spirit etiquette. It would be easy to sink down through the floor and emerge on the other side, but he didn’t want to be rude.

“I have stood watch in this wing since 1910,” Dr. Schwartz continued. “And I’ve certainly not seen you here before. You weren’t one of my patients.”

Through the window behind the ghost, Thomas saw a pair of nurses consulting a clipboard.

“No. Uh, I wasn’t one of your patients. I only recently died,” Thomas explained.

“And clearly didn’t pass along.”

Pass along to where?
Thomas wondered. “Neither did you.”

“Obviously, young man.”

“Uh, so … you stand watch here?”

The ghost crossed his arms, and Thomas got a better look. The clothes under the lab coat, which apparently in life was snug and unable to be buttoned, were old-style, the shirt collar high with rounded corners, the necktie thin. The trousers were creased and cuffed above the ankle. He’d died in his work clothes.

“I do indeed. To see if they make any mistakes. And they do.” Dr. Schwartz tapped a non-corporeal toe. “Not many. But they’re not perfect, these doctors. I give them advice when they’re willing to listen. And so many of them are foreign. What’s wrong with American doctors? Don’t the universities churn enough of them out? There are Indians here, and I mean the ones from India. And there is a—”

“I’m here to see someone.” Thomas decided to go ahead and be a little rude. “Evelyn Love. She came in here—”

“—some hours ago. Nasty. Nasty. Lost a lot of blood. I watched them give her four units. Or maybe it was five. Yes, five now that I think about it,” Dr. Schwartz said. “You know, the human body only holds twelve.”

“Is she … did she …”

“Make it? Yes. They wheeled her out of here a little while ago. They didn’t make any mistakes. Good that you missed the messy part, the surgery. You don’t have the look of a physician about you. Wouldn’t want you to get all squeamish in my wing, and—”

“Do you know where they took her?”

The ghost made a harrumphing sound. “Certainly. To recovery.” He gestured with an insubstantial arm. “I’d escort you, but I’m busy. Shift change is coming up, and I need to see who comes on duty tonight.”

“Uh, thank you, Dr. Schwartz.”

“Anytime.” The ghost turned and stuck his head back through the door.

Thomas never cared for hospitals. Outside of his surgery at Memorial, he’d ventured into hospitals only to see people die: namely his mother, struck in a hit-and-run that forever colored his father’s view of all OTs. He brushed the memory away and followed the arrow.

Evelyn was still in recovery.

He floated next to her bed, glancing between her and the green and blue lines and numbers that moved and changed on the monitor. She looked peaceful, like she was sleeping, her chest rising and falling regularly. But she had an ugly bruise on the side of her face and her arm was in some sort of padded contraption. Still, she looked lovely.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research,” Thomas said, coming out of his “invisible man” mode and raising his voice so that she could hear him … on the chance that in her unconscious state she really could. “I know how to save Pete. It won’t work for all the gargoyles Arnold is out to get, but we can save Pete, and then we’ll go to work on the other buildings case-by-case. You see, Arnold is stymied by zoning restrictions. They’re strict in Haight-Ashbury, probably because so much of the area is original, didn’t come down with the big quake. Buildings can only be so big, and Arnold can’t come in and tear something down to put up something taller that doesn’t fit with the rest of the block. So his notion of bright and shiny condos isn’t going to fly.”

Thomas floated to the other side of the bed, not wanting to watch the lines and numbers anymore. He wanted to focus solely on Evelyn. “I read all the reports. Arnold has been trying to get around the restrictions, and he can’t. He tried petitioning other building owners in the block, in the blocks all around us, trying to get them to support a change in the restrictions. He hasn’t gotten a single signature. So between the restrictions and getting us on the National Register, we’ll be all right. Pete will be safe.” He paused, listening to the steady beep of the machine. “Of course, we still have to pay enough rent so Zaxil won’t fall into bankruptcy. But I have good news there, too. I can go to court, Evelyn.” He said the last bit again.

He leaned close to her face. “But you’ll have to be there with me. I don’t know if they’ll let me legally try a case. You’ll have to do that … at least for the time being. I’ll help you study for the bar. You’ll get your license, and—”

“Sir? I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t be here.”

Thomas hadn’t heard the doctor come in. She was short, with a dark complexion and an accent that suggested she was one of the Indians Dr. Schwartz had spoken about. Her smile was warm, and her eyes kind. He read her nametag: Dr. Ojal Anajali.

“I—I—I—” Thomas was at an uncustomary loss for words.

“Are you … were you … a relative?” She stuck the end of her stethoscope in her pocket.

“No.” Thomas was surprised that the doctor took his appearance in stride, not a hint of shock on her face. “Employer, actually. She works at my law firm, and I—”

The doctor dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’m not worried that you’ll contaminate her. However, I am concerned that you will disturb her. Ms. Love needs rest. She’ll be moved to ICU in the morning, probably for a day, then to acute care.”

Thomas looked between Evelyn and the doctor. “Dr. Anajali, I have to know if she—”

“Even ghosts need to obey the visiting hour protocol. Why don’t you stop by later in the day tomorrow? Sometime after noon would be best.”

Thomas nodded and drifted toward the door.

“But, yes, Ms. Love will be fine.”

He thanked her and dropped through the floor, passing Dr. Schwartz on his way out. The portly ghost was deep in conversation with a young physician, who appeared to be taking copious notes.

Chapter 2.13

Dagger thought the old furniture store looked creepy.… beyond the trio of undead that hopped inside. Most of the light fixtures were gone. There’d been wainscoting, and it had been carted somewhere, a stripe showing the original plaster marked its passing. The walls to his left and right had been ripped open and some of the pipes removed. Spools of copper wire were in a corner near the front. The “good stuff” had or was being salvaged. On a beam overhead, he saw a charge of explosives, farther back another one, wired but not primed. He knew that to demolish a building you didn’t have to blow it all to hell; you just had to take down the parts that had been holding it upright.

“Thank you for accompanying my
jiang shi,”
the backlit woman said. Her voice was a purr, silky like a proficient voice actor. “I understand that you have been inquiring about me. Is it because I asked some of my friends to kill Evelyn Love? I had no choice. She was getting close to my business dealings, and I could not allow that. And now, you know too much about me.”

Dagger stopped midway into the store. She was about twenty feet ahead. The undead were between her and him.
“Jiang shi
, that what you call these things? They some sort of zombie, Mei-li?”

He heard the pout in her reply. “My loyal friends, these
jiang shi,”
she said. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know who I am. Who are you?”

Dagger thought about replying: “A tourist,” but being snide wouldn’t get him anywhere. He sniffed the air, still finding the strong scent of rotting flesh, but picking up the faintest hit of perfume: jasmine.

“I’m Dagger McKenzie, a private investigator.” Dagger took another step forward. The
jiang shi
turned to face him; the most recent dead man hopped a little closer. “I started out investigating your husband. Seems he doesn’t like OTs, particularly gargoyles. And he turned one of my friends into an OT, a ghost. Had him killed.”

“Franklin is not here.” Her silky voice had developed a brittle edge.

“I gather that.” Dagger had been trying to keep her talking, letting his eyes better adjust to the gloomy interior so he could pick out more details, separate the shadows. He saw two more figures, one in each of the far corners, more
jiang shi
judging by how their arms stuck out.

The most recent dead man took another few hops, closing the distance to Dagger. The undead stench grew stronger.

“I also gather that your husband doesn’t know you’re an OT.”

He’d triggered her. She stepped out of the shadows. Beautiful was the first word that came to Dagger’s mind. She was slight without being skinny; all the features of her face perfect like a Barbie doll, hair long and silky-looking, her eyes inquisitive and angry at the same time. Her makeup was flawless, but perhaps it wasn’t makeup … maybe she naturally looked that way. She raised her arms and pointed at him, and the five dead men hopped, faster than he’d seen them move out on the street. “Drink his
qi,
my children,” she purred in Mandarin. “Feast on his flesh and grow stronger. Take his life and make him suffer.”

Dagger understood every word.

She reached behind and turned off the light, plunging the immense room into darkness.

“Wonderful,” Dagger said. “They’re friggin’ hopping vampires.”

Dagger couldn’t see in utter darkness, but a little light was shining through the front windows from the lampposts out on the street. It was enough. He swung his helmet bag at the closet
jiang shi,
aiming high and striking the side of its head. The neck snapped, the head lolling to one side and bouncing on its shoulder, but the thing kept coming.

He slipped past it, giving a vicious side kick as he went that set the undead off balance. It fell, arms outstretched and catching itself in a pushup pose. Dagger pressed on to the next target, reaching under his jacket and pulling out a knife he kept in a concealed sheath. He sliced at one
jiang shi
while kicking at another. Then he spun and delivered a roundhouse kick to the one he’d just slashed. Though the creatures were rotting, he could tell they’d been embalmed; the wizened organs that spilled out had that scent to them.

The competing awful odors made his stomach twist, but he kept going. The one he’d disemboweled flailed on the floor; he considered it out of the combat. That left four. The one in the pushup pose had managed to regain his feet, head still lolled to the side and eyes looking crazy and unfocused.

“You all are seriously disgusting,” Dagger said as he whirled and alternately slashed with the knife and kicked. “I know Evey and Tom champion OTs, undead rights. But you undead … there is nothing right about you.” He spat and jumped at the shortest one, swinging with as much strength as he could muster and slicing deep into its neck. The head flopped backward, held only by the spine. He cut it again and the head dropped to the floor, a moment later the body joining it.