CHAPTER
NINE
The next day,
early in the morning, Wally and Mimi dressed up in their finest and left for
their son’s funeral. Nightbeat waited until he heard their car leave the
driveway. He looked to Angel. “Still gun-shy about helping me?”
“I wouldn’t know
how to,” Angel said. “Not anymore.”
“I have a lot of
ground to cover, and it would be nice if you could help me out. I don’t know
how long they’re going to be gone.”
“Do it, you old
poof,” Spike said.
“Shut up, Spike.”
“What else you got
going on? Still brooding over Buffy? Aw, boo-fuckin’-hoo, you wanker. Get over
it. You’re not even the real Angel. You’re a bleedin’ puppet made from him.”
“You take that
back right now,” Angel said.
“Shan’t!”
“Guys!” Nightbeat yelled. “Stop! We need
to work together! We need to know if Joey’s parents murdered their only son!”
Cat slithered up
out of nowhere. “Ooh! And if they did? What do we get to do to them? I want
Wally’s mustache. It would make an excellent trophy, don’t you think so?”
Nightbeat hadn’t
considered that. The punishment for this kind of thing was unstuffing, or if
the toy was more like Nightbeat, it would be irreparably broken. They couldn’t
exactly do that to humans, could they? They certainly shouldn’t, at least. He
remembered a movie from when he’d belonged to a young Wally about dolls that
killed people. The stuff of fantasy, to be sure, but they couldn’t do anything
like that, could they?
“No,” he said.
“We’ll figure something else out.”
“Such a brave
heart,” Cat said. “Admirable, young Nightbeat. But there is one thing the rest
of us have been wondering.”
“And that is?”
“What if you murdered Joey?” Cat uttered a smug
laugh that grated on Nightbeat’s soul.
“Yo!” Don Snowy
said. “Cat’s got a . . . got a point! What if Nightbeat did it? Who interviewed
him?”
“I did,” Ratchet
said. “And—”
“Nightbeat would
never do that,” Bunny said. “He’s a nice toy.”
“All serial
killers seem like nice guys,” Don Snowy said.
Nightbeat rubbed
his forehead. “Why are we even discussing this? You all had eyes on me when
Joey died. The very second that he was pushed down the stairs, you all saw me.
Except Felix, I guess.”
“I was passed the
fuck out,” Felix said.
“Yo! What if you
set it up before? Like a trap?”
“Yo! Yo! Yo! Yo!”
This from the goombas.
“That’s nonsense,”
Ratchet said. “It’s Nightbeat we’re talking about, here. No one is more
straight and narrow than he is. Felix, you know everyone’s vices, right?”
“The better to
blackmail for booze with,” Felix said. He looked more than just a little drunk
right now. One of his eyes was noticeably larger than the other.
“Does Nightbeat do
anything unusual?”
“I don’t have any
dirt on him,” Felix said.
“There you go. If
anyone would know, it would be Felix.”
“Except young ‘Lix
doesn’t know who the killer is, does he?” Cat asked.
“Well . . . no,”
Felix said. Although his chest plumped up a bit at being called young.
Cat grinned like
the Grinch. “There you go.”
Don Draper let out
perhaps the phoniest laugh Nightbeat had ever heard. “Shut up!” he said to Cat.
Cat purred. “I
hope you drown in bourbon.”
“I said shut up!”
And the horrible drunken laugh happened again.
“This is getting
us nowhere fast,” Nightbeat said. “If you all want to do some investigating of
your own, you have my blessing. If I’m the killer, I should be brought to
justice. But right now I need to search the rest of this house. You can help or
not, but I’m going now.” He headed for the bedroom door.
“Fuck,” Angel
muttered. “I’ll come with.”
“I’ll ‘ave a
butcher’s at it,” Spike said.
No one else said a
word. Nightbeat said, “Thanks, guys. I’m going to take the parents’ bedroom.
You guys want to check the bathroom before we head downstairs?”
“Sure thing,”
Spike said.
The three of them
left and closed the door behind them. They looked down the corridor, already
making their way. Nightbeat could have changed into his mod-form, but he didn’t
want to race ahead of the puppets now that he finally had them on his side.
“You have an idea
of who did it?” Angel asked.
“I was actually
going to ask you two that question,” Nightbeat said. “Do either of you have any
inkling? Any suspicion? I’m all ears.”
“Cat,” the puppets
said at the same time.
“Jinx,” Spike
said.
“Fuck you,” Angel
said. He turned to Nightbeat. “That’s kind of an easy guess, though. Maybe too
obvious.”
“Sometimes obvious
is obvious,” Spike said. “I can’t think of anyone else who might do it.”
“That’s what it
all comes back to,” Nightbeat said. “But my gut doesn’t agree. I would love to
unstuff Cat, but I really don’t think he did it. It doesn’t feel right.”
They reached Wally
and Mimi’s bedroom and went their separate ways. The door was open just a
crack, and Nightbeat pushed through and glanced around. It was dark in here,
but not so much he couldn’t see anything. Gray light edged in through the
curtains. Though he knew no one was home, he walked carefully and slowly,
making sure not to make sound.
There was a desk
in the corner, so Nightbeat climbed up the chair and managed to pull himself up
to the surface. There were some papers and bills and a check book. He looked at
Wally and Mimi’s finances and decided that they were not in desperate need of
money. No big deposits, either. No life insurance payouts, for example.
He also found
Wally’s personal journal, which he opened up and scanned. He had difficulty in
turning the pages, but he managed to flip to the last couple of weeks. Nothing
out of the ordinary, at least not until he got to the day of Joey’s death.
These pages were wet, probably from Wally’s tears. He read:
“The unthinkable
has happened. My boy—my Joey—died today. It was a stupid accident. Nothing anyone
could have done. I heard him thump down the stairs, and I thought I’d hear him
start to cry. I’d then go to cheer him up and get him some ice cream and . . .
and then I heard Mimi screaming and crying. I rushed over and saw Joey at the
bottom of the stairs.
“God, it was the
worst thing I’ve ever seen. It crushed my heart to nothing. I would never see
my little boy grow up to be a man. I would never watch him become a dad. I
would never play with his kids.
“Why did this have
to happen? I know God has a plan, but what fucking good does this do Him? The
murderous bastard! I’ll fucking kill Him when I see Him.
“Or is this just
luck-of-the-draw free will? Dammit, God can do anything! I want him to bring
back Joey. I prayed for that before I started drinking and writing this. Did I
get an answer? Hell no. God must be a hard man to hear prayers like mine and to
then ignore them.
“This is so
fucking senseless! This isn’t supposed to happen! Parents aren’t supposed to
bury their children! I’m supposed to get old and die and he would have to set
up my funeral arrangements with Mimi, because God knows I’ll go before her. My
old man had a bad ticker, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a heart attack when I’m
sixty or so. By then, Joey would be in his twenties. He would mourn, but he
would already have his own life. Maybe he would even have his own family by
then.
“But none of this
is going to happen. The world is fucked up, and there is no way to fix it. I’m
starting to suspect that God isn’t even there. I know it’s a sin to think it,
but I can’t help it. How long do you talk into a phone before you realize that
no one is on the other line?
“I don’t know what
I can do about this. I don’t want to think about it. I guess that’s why I’m
drinking so much tonight. Maybe it will wipe my mind of this horror.”
The passage ended,
and Nightbeat closed the journal. It was hard to believe that a man who would
write this was capable of killing his own son.
He looked through
a few more papers and checked out the drawers, but he didn’t find anything
suspicious. He wanted to get a look at their night table, so he transformed
into his vehicle mode, backed up a bit, and went full throttle for the edge of
the desk. He zoomed off and fell a bit, but he landed perfectly on the bed. He
transformed as he made contact and rolled with the momentum until he stopped.
The night table
itself offered nothing but an empty water glass and a pair of reading glasses.
Also, a phone charger. The drawer was a bit harder to deal with, as it was made
from heavier wood. He finally managed and was shocked when he looked inside and
saw a toy of a different sort. It was silver and long with a rounded end. There
was a switch at the bottom.
“Who are you?”
Nightbeat asked.
“Please,” it said.
“Don’t look at me.”
Nightbeat backed
away from the edge. “Is that fine?”
“Just ignore me.”
“I’ve never seen a
toy like you before. Hasbro? Kenner?
Disney?”
“Call me
Intensity.” It sounded on the verge of tears.
“Are you okay?”
Nightbeat asked.
“I’ll never be
okay,” Intensity said. “You have no idea. The sights I’ve seen.”
Nightbeat’s heart
raced. “Did you kill Joey?”
Intensity sniffed.
“No. I would never. Joey didn’t even know I existed. Mimi made sure of that.”
This baffled
Nightbeat. A toy that could not be shown to a child? It defeated the purpose,
didn’t it? “Why? What are you talking about?”
“You really have
no idea what I am?” Intensity asked.
“No.”
Intensity offered
a wet, teary sigh, but its voice didn’t sound depressed anymore. “I’m a
vibrator. Do you know what that is?”
“You vibrate?”
Nightbeat asked. “That sounds . . .” He was about to say stupid, but he didn’t
want to offend his new friend. “. . . different. Why?”
“For Mimi’s
pleasure. And sometimes Wally’s.”
“You bring them
pleasure? I’m still not understanding.”
“They put me
inside them,” Intensity said. Sounding on the verge of tears again. “Over and
over again.”
“What? How?”
“They shove me up
Mimi’s pussy!” Intensity screamed. “And her butthole! And Wally’s butthole!
Sometimes.”
Nightbeat felt all
the soul in him get crushed like a can of Coke under a boot heel. He didn’t
understand much of human anatomy, but he had some idea. The thought of them
shoving Intensity in . . . those places
. . . was ugly. An image of Wally doing the same to Nightbeat tried to sneak up
his brainstem, but he violently shook it from his head, refusing it any
purchase.
“I’m sorry,” he
said. “I didn’t know.”
“It’s all right,”
Intensity said. “How could you? What I would give to be one of Joey’s toys,
never having to be . . . inserted anywhere.”
“I’ll . . . I’ll
leave you alone now.” Nightbeat moved to close the drawer.
“Thank you.”
When the drawer
was closed, Nightbeat jumped down to the carpet and moved to the closet. He
didn’t find much. A lot of boxes of past paperwork and tax returns. Lots of
clothes. He couldn’t reach the top shelf, but he didn’t think he’d find
anything. He gave the room one final pass before stepping out.
Angel and Spike
were waiting for him. “Find anything?” he asked.
“Not a bloody
thing,” Spike said.
“We looked
everywhere,” Angel said. “I hope you had better luck.”
Nightbeat
considered telling them about Intensity, but he decided that the less people
who knew about it, the better. “Nothing. I guess we’ll try downstairs.”
Spike shrugged as
they walked to the steps. Both he and Angel were able to navigate them well,
but Nightbeat was smaller than them. He bent down so he could sit and then push
himself down to the first step, but something sparked up in his mind. A sudden
feeling that something wasn’t right.
Someone pushed on
his back, and he tumbled down the stairs. He choked down a scream and gritted
his teeth as he bounced off the steps. Pain wracked his body as he finally hit
the floor at the bottom. He thought one of his legs might be broken, but it was
only scuffed a little.
Angel rushed down
the rest of the stairs. “You okay?”
“Who pushed me?”
Nightbeat yelled. “Spike, you see anyone?”
Spike bounded up
the stairs, but he didn’t see anyone there. He turned back to Nightbeat and
shook his head. “No one’s up here. They must’ve gotten back to the room without
anyone seeing them.”
“Fuck,” Nightbeat
said.
