Inherit the Dead

the politician, finding Angel’s car, the shifty mechanic part-time boyfriend—oh yeah, different ball game this time. Okay, not exactly ammo, but info. And information was power, isn’t that what they said? Whoever they were. He needed to feed it all back to Loki, see and hear how the man reacted.
    Before he rang the bell, he tried to smooth the wrinkles of his slacks, his beat-up trench, get that tough no-shit vibe going. He looked down at his old dress shoes, damp and scuffed. Not so dressy anymore.
    Physically shook himself, muttered, “Christo, goddamn it, get a grip. This isn’t about you.”
    Pushed the bell and was once again treated to a few bars of “The Impossible Dream.”
    Fuck on a pretentious bike.
    He heard footsteps, slow, no hurry there then, the door eased open.
    Norman, drink in hand, in shorts, garish maroon number, bare feet, and, worse, a bare chest. He said, “Salesmen to the back door.”
    Perry said, “There have been some developments.”
    Norman continued to look at him, like, Who the fuck are you, dude? And nervously glanced toward the back of the house. Something was off, Perry felt it.
    He asked, “May I come in, sir?” Managing to leak a bit of edge on the sir .
    Norman waved him in, peering closely at him, then said, “Got it, you’re the private dick.”
    “How soon we forget.” Perry sighed, asked, “If you could maybe put a shirt on?”
    “Whoa, Shamus, take a chill pill, life’s a beach, man.” Loki laughed.
    The guy was even more stoned than last time. Perry wanted to slug him, hard and often, bring him back to reality. He knew he was taking something out on Loki that he wanted to take out on Randy Hyde or Cyrus Tweed or maybe even himself. But still.
    Norman ambled off to grab a shirt, said, “Grab a pew, pilgrim.”
    He’d affected some sort of stoner accent that slipped among, maybe, six different tones.
    Perry sank into a leather sofa, and as it creaked and groaned, got up, moved to a hard wicker job. He could hear muted voices from the back and an angry buzz building. He took out his notebook, the police-issue one, a futile link to his glory days, if glory meant a job you relished.
    Then Norman was back, a T-shirt with a faded logo of Jerry Garcia and the words BE GRATEFUL, DEAD.
    He moved to a bar in the corner, asked, “What’s your poison?”
    Jesus. Perry said, “Some water would be good.”
    Norman turned, a highball glass in his hand, pushed. “No Long Island Tea? Rock your mundane world—you ain’t lived until you’ve got on the other side of ol’ Norm’s LIT . . . get it, LIT?”
    Not just stoned, bombed. On booze.
    Julia Drusilla’s words played again: He drinks. Or did. And when he does . . . you’ve never seen such a personality change.
    “Put the glass down,” Perry said.
    Norman gave him an inebriated stare.
    Time to rein him in. Perry said, “We found Angel’s car.”
    Norman didn’t seem to hear him, fixed a lethal amount of some colored mess, drank deep, shuddered, said, “ We? Or Five–O did, and you’re, like, grabbing the headline?”
    Perry said, “The normal response would be to ask if she was in it.”
    “What?” Norman gulped more booze, barked off a short laugh, said, “And where the be-jaysus would be the mystery in that?” This said in a very bad Irish lilt. He drained the glass. Then said, “You accusing me of something?” but didn’t wait for an answer, already adding more alcohol to his drink.
    Perry really needed to get this schmuck’s attention and snapped, “Do I have to say it again? In a few days, Angel will come into a sizable inheritance; it’s vital she’s around to sign the document. You forget that, or you too stoned to remember?”
    He let that simmer, hoping he’d shot a nice barb into Mr. Unruffleable, see him wiggle out of that.
    Norman sucked on an ice cube noisily. “You think you’ve scored some sort of points with that revelation. Hey, news flash, I wrote the fucking document, drew up the whole gig.”
    “I see,” Perry said. It looked like the booze was working in his favor. Last time Loki had denied any knowledge of the trust. “So, uh, you wrote Angel’s trust.”
    “Just said, didn’t I?”
    “So you did.” Loki really was out of control. Right now, a good thing, thought Perry.
    Loki took another gulp of his drink. He shook his head. “Julia, my ex, she must have loved you, just flat out fucking loved you. She flashes her boobs, which I paid for during my stint