The fat, naked man suddenly fell face down into the filthy mud, bellowing like he was on fire. He began to thrash, sending gouts of stinking slime everywhere. I stepped back to the front door to protect my coat, which wasn’t all that expensive but was a favorite. The noise went on as the huddled figure in the muddy pen writhed and changed, grew darker and misshapen, until it had taken on an entirely new form, that of an immense, black, bristle-skinned boar hog.
The hog finally stopped squealing. It rolled over and sat up on its haunches, then turned its beady eyes in my direction.
“That hurts like an unholy bitch,” he said. “Every time.”
“Nice to see you, George.”
He wrinkled his snout. “Oh, I’m sure, Bobby. A treat for all ages.” He saw something floating in the muck before him and sucked it up, then began to chew. “Corn cob,” he explained when he saw my horrified look. “Fiber. And oh my sweet and precious God do I need it…!”
I was getting more information than I wanted, and it would only get worse. George was garrulous in this form-pig’s body, man’s mind-and usually had no one to talk to but Javier or one of the old man’s sons, the only other people who still lived on this shrunken remnant of what had once been a grand seigneurial property. Of course, when he was in his other form, his dawn-to-midnight form of a pig’s mind in a man’s body, he wasn’t much for conversation.
They reversed the curse, you see. Just like they promised. Who do you think invented lawyers in the first place?
“So what brings you up to my neck of the woods, Mr. D?” George asked. “What can I do for you?”
“I need information on a citizen named Edward Lynes Walker and also on Grasswax, infernal prosecutor.” Fatback was the only outsider I could safely approach in the current climate. The Opposition had hosed him in a completely legitimate way, but George had never forgiven them, and he made it his life’s work to keep a close eye on their dealings. That was why a large portion of what remained of his family’s once vast fortune went toward funding a small research agency of which George was the only client. The only other thing in the room beside George’s pen was the projection monitor screen he used to view what they sent him, and to troll the net for what he could find himself.
All voice-controlled, of course. He’s a pig.
“Sure, I’ll see what I can find for you, Mr. D.” He cleared his throat and said, “
I did what he asked, holding my breath. George isn’t a bad guy, and it’s not his fault he smells like Death’s diaper.
“I doubt it.” I didn’t want to tell him anything he didn’t need to know, not because I didn’t trust him-his hatred of the Opposition was genuine-but because I didn’t know exactly what I was dealing with. “I don’t know, maybe.”
“Well, there’s a ton of stuff about both of them flying around. It’ll take me a while to pull it together and make sense of it. How do you want it, electronic or hard copy?”
“Electronic. And use my private email address, will you?” I didn’t want it going through Alice, who didn’t even know what the word “private” meant. “Oh, and there’s one other thing. I need to get in touch with someone from the Opposition.”
Fatback turned sour little piggy eyes on me. “Forget it. I’m not doing that for you or anyone else, Mr. D. We’ve always got along well, you and I, but if you want a go-between, find someone else.”
“I’m not asking you to set up a meeting, George, just to tell me where I can find a particular member of the other side. I’ll do the rest.” Now that I was about to say it, the whole thing seemed ludicrous-suicidal, even-but I plunged ahead anyway. “I need to track down a fixer called ‘Countess’, a big shot. I don’t know the rest of her name.” I gave him a quick description of her appearance, at least the time I’d seen her, and told him what little I knew, including that she’d been brought in to clean up after the Walker mess.
“So you
Javier was putting the remains of his own dinner into the kitchen garbage can. When I told him what his boss wanted he lifted out the liner bag and trundled the whole mess out to the pig barn. I decided I didn’t need to watch Fatback getting fed, so I stayed in the kitchen listening idly to Spanish chatter on the television for a while, then when that got boring, I stepped out onto the back porch and was serenaded by the other pigs snorting sleepily in their own barn a short distance down the slope.
Javier finally came back. “He ready for you now, Mr. Dollar.”
“I think I’ve got what you need,” George told me when I approached his pen. He was looking up at the screen on the wall and a whole column of addresses, ears twitching. “I can’t find an address or any hint of home turf for her. The bad guys move around more than you guys do. But I’ve got something that might work just as well. Try a place called The Water Hole on the Camino Real by the university’s north gates.”
“Really? The Water Hole?” I knew of the place and to be honest it seemed a little lightweight for a heavy hitter like the Countess.
“Yeah, really-at least if it’s the Countess of Cold Hands you’re talking about.” He showed me a blurry image that looked like it had been shot from concealment without a sufficient lens, but even so it was impossible to mistake that small, pale, extremely alluring form.
“Yep. That’s her. But The Water Hole? I thought it was a student place.”
“Whatever. It’s the only spot I’ve managed to find a sighting of her that you also might have a chance of getting out of.”
“Don’t you mean ‘into’”?
“Oh, I doubt you’ll have any problems getting
“Cute.”
“That’s me. I’ll send you the rest of the stuff when it’s ready.”
“Thanks, George. Don’t forget to bill me.”
“No worries there.” He grunted and settled down into the mud. “On your way out will you ask Javier to bring me Meredith? I’m feeling the need of a little company.”
“Meredith?” I didn’t get it. “Who’s Meredith?”
“A very, very nice young lady. Of the four-footed variety.”
I was glad to hear he’d finally found someone. “A were-hog like you?”
He was silent for a moment, but then he laughed. There are few things odder than hearing a pig laugh in the middle of the night. “No, no, just an ordinary American Landrace sow, but she has a sweet disposition-a certain tenderness-and a lovely shape.” His look became stern. “Don’t judge me, sir. Don’t you dare judge me.”
Not judging, I thanked him, and made my way quickly back to my car. I had my windows open all the way down Alpine but didn’t get rid of the smell until I reached the bottom of the hills.
six
It was still dark outside when my bladder woke me. That’s pretty much how it works: use a body, become slave to various unpleasant internal systems. By the way, there are no bathrooms in Heaven, although angels eat and drink there, after a fashion. Which, now that I think of it, is pretty weird.
Generally my earthly bodies are in reasonable working order, thirtyish in appearance but a good bit stronger and more durable than your average human of that age. So the fact that I was trying to find my way to the john in
