The Night Beat

Cindy’s eyes narrowed. I realized they were narrowing in thought. “No,” she said slowly. “There were two more, really.”
    “Who?” Freddy asked, rather huffily.
    Sexy Cindy gulped, then pointed. At me and Jack. “Them.”

Chapter 25
     
    We all let that settle for a moment. “Okay, that’s eighteen.” There was another option, though, at least according to the base of my tail. “How many of the dead have family still living in Prosaic City?”
    Amazingly, Jerry and Bobby both raised their hands. I figured they were just smart enough to have figured out we already knew. The hookers looked uncertain and looked at each other. “They got no family here,” Sexy Cindy said. “But, I dunno…does your pimp count? ‘Cause if he does, they got a real possessive one.”
    “He counts. You sure there’s no one else? Trust me when I say it’s important.”
    One of the hookers looked at me. “I got family I don’t talk about.” I could see everyone’s expressions -- she really hadn’t talked about them, no one else knew.
    “Who, where, how many?”
    “ My parents, my two younger sisters and my little brother. They live in Prosaic Country Club and Estates.” She said it defensively. It was an easy guess why she’d never told anyone. It was a sad statement, though, that, unlike Jerry and Bobby, no one in her family had tried to help her.
    “What about the others?” I asked Freddy.
    “My family’s gone,” Freddy said. “All dead. However, the others might have someone close still living.” He spoke to the bums. “Fellas, really, you need to answer. You have any family here still?”
    One shook his head but the other two raised their hands. “Got a daughter,” the one who’d mentioned Bobby had kids said. “She’s married. May have kids now, too.” He looked down. “Don’t know. She and I didn’t…talk.” And now they’d never get the chance. I didn’t let it affect me -- cops have to keep the emotional side protected, otherwise we’d spend our days and nights crying or falling for sob stories.
    “What about you?” I asked the last one.
    “Got two sisters, younger than me. Not married.”
    “How old are they?”
    He shrugged. “Guess they’re about seventy now.”
    I managed not to react. It was hard to tell how old a street person might really be, for a variety of reasons, but this was older than I’d been expecting.
    “How’d you survive so well?” Jack asked.
    The bum shrugged. “Don’t see how you call it ‘well’. Come from hearty stock. Still, dead now, right?”
    “Right.” I could see they weren’t going to stay resurrected for much longer. “Did all of you say the words Tomio gave you?” They all nodded. “What about the ones in the hospital, the ones who aren’t dead -- did they say them?” More nods. I heard Martin speaking softly, into his wrist-com, I presumed.
    “Did the cops on beat say them, too?” Jack asked. To my stomach’s horror and my tail’s expectations, their heads nodded again.
    “They were trying to humor them,” Freddy said quietly. “You know how it is, they worked our area, knew all us regulars. They didn’t see no harm in it, and some bum telling them otherwise? Well, it was read the words and appease the majority or not read them and appease me and Cindy.”
    I noted Freddy’s speech was starting to go back to what I figured it had been before he’d become a bum. The undead lifestyle was good for a great number of those who’d failed at being successful humans.
    “Does an ex-husband count?” Sexy Cindy asked.
    “I’m sure.”
    She grimaced. “Then I got one of those. Well, had, I guess. No other family, Jerk Face moved us here, used up all our money, then dumped me for some gal who grew her own pot.”
    “I’m going to guess she counts, too. Why didn’t you go back where you were from?”
    She shrugged. “He’d put me onto the streets to make money already. Not like I wanted to go back to my grandmamma’s house like that.” She glared at me. “They’d have taken me back, sure. But I can survive on my own.”
    I refrained from mentioning that she hadn’t survived and wasn’t on her own. I had nothing against moxie, and a new succubus with drive was always a helpful addition to any team. “So, that’s seventeen. If we guess that there’s at least one child or other family member not accounted for, we get to eighteen easily.”
    “So, that’s three options, right?” Sexy Cindy’s brain appeared to