Nightside 08 - The Unnatural Inquirer

phone call and one important message. Which would you like to hear first?”
    “The call,” I said determinedly.
    “I’m sorry,” said the voice. “I’m afraid I have been paid to insist you listen to the important message first. Have you ever considered the importance of good Afterlife insurance?”
    I sighed, hit the exorcism function on the phone, and was gratified to hear the voice howl in pain as it was forced out of my phone. Admail…You’ll never convince me it isn’t a plot by demons from Hell to make life not worth living. With the admail banished, my call came through clearly. It was my teenage secretary, Cathy, calling from my office. (I’d rescued her from a house that ate people, and she adopted me. I didn’t get a say in the matter. I let her run my office to keep her out of my hair. Worryingly, she’s far better at it than I ever was.)
    “Got a case for you, boss,” she said cheerfully.
    “I’ve just completed two in a row,” I said plaintively. “I was looking forward to some serious quality time, with a nice hot bath and my rubber ducky. Rubber ducky is my friend.”
    “Oh, you’ll want to take this one,” said Cathy. “The offices of the one and only Unnatural Inquirer called. They need your services desperately, not to mention very urgently.”
    “What on earth does that appalling rag want with me? Or have they finally decided to hire someone to try to find their long-missing ethics and good taste?”
    “Rather doubt it, boss. They wouldn’t go into details over an open line, but they sounded pretty upset. And the money offered really is very good.”
    “How good?” I said immediately.
    “Really quite staggeringly good,” said Cathy. “Which means that not only are they pants-wettingly desperate, but there has to be one hell of a catch hidden away in it somewhere. Go on, boss, take the case. I’d love to hear what goes on in that place. They have all the best stories; I never miss an issue.”
    “The Unnatural Inquirer is a squalid, scabrous, tabloid disgrace,” I said sternly. “And the truth is not in it.”
    “Who cares about truth, as long as they have all the latest gossip and embarrassing celebrity photos? Oh please please please…”
    I looked at Suzie. “Do you need me to…?”
    “Go,” she said. “I have to claim my bounty money.”
    She strode off, not looking back. Suzie’s never been big on good-byes.
    “All right,” I said into the phone. “Give me the details.”
    “There aren’t many. They want you to visit their editorial offices to discuss the matter.”
    “Why can’t they come to my office?”
    “Because you’re never here. You have to come in soon, boss; I have a pile of paper-work that needs your signature.”
    “Go ahead and forge it for me,” I said. “Like you did when you acquired those seven extra credit cards in my name.”
    “I said I was sorry!”
    “Where do they want to meet?”
    “They’ll send someone to bring you to them. Employees of the Unnatural Inquirer don’t like to be caught out in public. People throw things.”
    “Understandable,” I said. “Where am I supposed to go, to be met?”
    Cathy gave me directions to a particular street corner, in a not-too-sleazy area of the Nightside. I knew it: a busy place, with lots of people always passing through. A casual meeting stood a good chance of going unnoticed, lost in the crowd. I said good-bye to Cathy and shut down the phone before she could nag me about the paper-work again. If I’d wanted to shuffle papers for a living, I’d have shot myself in the head repeatedly.

    Didn’t take me long to get to the corner of Cheyne Walk and Wine Street, and I lurked as unobtrusively as possible in front of a trepanation franchise—Let Some Light In, Inc. Personally, I’ve always felt I needed trepanation like a hole in the head. Still, it made more sense than smart drinks ever did. People and others came and went, carefully minding their own business. Some stood out; a knight in shining armour with a miniature dragon perched on his steel shoulder, hissing at the passers-by; a fluorescent Muse, with Catherine-wheel eyes; and a sulky-looking Suicide Girl with a noose round her neck. But most were just people, familiar faces you wouldn’t look twice at, come to the Nightside for the forbidden pleasures, secret knowledge, and terrible satisfactions they couldn’t find anywhere else. The Nightside has always been something of a tourist trap.
    I don’t like