Inherit the Dead

there was, he hoped he could at least fill up the gas tank.
    The turnoff arrived—as always, a hair sooner than Perry anticipated—and he skidded a bit before hitting his mark. And there it was, the Memory Motel, the joint where Mick Jagger sang about hanging with Hannah baby, of curved nose and teeth. Then Perry’s mind drifted to a very different memory, of his ex-wife’s nose curvingabove her laughing mouth. He shook his head to make the image disappear. Not the time, not the place.
    This place, though, didn’t live up to the song. It was trying too hard to be respectable. The old gaudy sign was gone, replaced by some upscale piece of crap that pretended toward upward mobility. Two statues stood on either side of the door, and when Perry went up close he won the bet with himself: they were gargoyles, the ugliest kind. He’d heard the Memory had been sold a couple of years ago to one of those tech billionaires who claimed he was going to do something “major” with it. But those plans had been cut off at some point. The outside was in dire need of a paint job, and the lobby walls were covered in a greenish tinge that couldn’t be anything else but moss.
    Perry was alone in the lobby. He sniffed at the air, a stale mix of booze and cigarettes. As he did so a voice from behind him said, “What are you, a health inspector?”
    Perry turned. The man’s voice was “Long-Guyland,” but the face was a generation and a half younger, at least, than he’d expected. Tattoos covered both of the man’s arms, and while Perry hoped to hell never to see underneath the all-black garb, he was sure there was more ink on the guy’s torso and legs.
    “Nope. Just a visitor. You responsible for the smell?”
    The man folded his arms and glowered. It would have been pitiful because of the other man’s babyish, fine-boned face framed by wispy blond hair, but Perry knew better. He’d been young once, too, with a few bar fights under his belt. He’d made sure not to get his ass kicked much, but the one time he hadn’t been able to avoid it was because of a guy like this one, barely suppressed rage ready to boil over at the next possible customer.
    “You could say that. So what can I do for you?” he asked with undisguised hostility.
    Perry took a long breath. There was no sense in being anythingother than calm. “I’m going to take something out of my pocket. Are you the kind of guy who flinches when someone does that, or will you stay quiet?”
    As he’d expected, the tattooed man flinched at the question. How much time he’d done and where, Perry wasn’t about to ask.
    “I’ll stay quiet,” the other man said, the hostility ebbing a little.
    “Good.” Perry took out his PI license. On this guy, using expired NYPD credentials, like he had for other cases in the past, wouldn’t work. He let the other man take his time examining the laminated card. “I’m tracking the movements of a girl named Angelina Loki. Know her?”
    “It’s my business to know,” the tattooed man said. “I manage the place.” The man extended his hand and let out a hearty chuckle. “Elisha Hook. Man, I never thought I’d meet a guy with a more ridiculous first name than mine. Pericles? ”
    “Yeah, and that was reserved for only one person: my mother. Everyone else calls me Perry. Anyway, how long have you been the manager here?”
    “Three years. Took over from my dad, who took it over from his dad. Otherwise, the new owners would have tossed me out with the trash, like they did with so much shit around here.”
    “The sign?”
    “The sign. The chandeliers. The railings. You name it. They said they wanted to make it a classier joint. Instead, a week doesn’t go by before some asshole declares himself cock of the walk in the bar and we have to boot him out. Last Saturday was terrible. This one spic fills himself up with Jägermeister and throws a roundhouse on the black guy sitting next to him. For no reason. We never used to need bouncers around here. Now the economy’s made everybody more crazy.” For extra emphasis, Hook circled his temple with his left index finger.
    Perry didn’t tune out Elisha Hook, but his little speech was useless. Now Perry knew Hook would ramble on unchecked if he didn’t steer the conversation in the direction he wanted. When Hook took a breath, Perry found his opening.
    “But back to Angel Loki.”
    “Yeah, what about her?” Hook’s face changed, pupils widening with