Free Evil Dark by Justin Gustainis

much of anything else," I said. "We'll have a word with them, anyway. Shake their tree a little, and see if anything falls off."
      "Besides," Karl said, "it's fun."
      We'd learned what we came for, and it was time for us to go. As I stood up, I said to Doc, "I guess you've come into some money recently."
      He looked at me with narrowed eyes. "It's true – my dad died a couple of months ago and left me a good-sized share of his estate. How did you know, Stan?"
      One of the guys at the station house had told me about Doc's good fortune, but I decided to play Sherlock Holmes.
      "That painting on your wall over there is new, and it looks like an original oil, not a copy," I said. "I haven't seen that sports coat on you before, but it's made of pricey fabric and looks tailored. Instead of getting your hair cut, like usual, you've had it styled. I can only see the edge of the watch under the sleeve, but it looks like an Omega, and the cheapest one they make goes for about fifteen hundred bucks." I gave him a casual-looking shrug. "You're too smart to live beyond your means, so I figured you'd had a windfall of some kind."
      "I thought cops only did stuff like that in the movies," Doc said. "That's fucking amazing, Stan."
      Since I knew that Doc had inherited some big bucks, it wasn't hard to work backwards and look for signs of affluence. But I had no intention of telling him that.
      I followed Karl to the door, then turned back. Looking at Doc with what I hoped was a straight face, I said, "It was quite elementary, my dear Watson."
     
    Doc's building isn't in a high crime area, and I wasn't worried about the police-issue Buick we drove getting stolen or stripped. As we came outside and turned the corner, I saw that I'd been right – the car was still there, and wasn't missing anything. But something had been added, in the form of the ghoul who was leaning against the driver's door.
      I can recognize a ghoul on sight. I don't even need to smell his breath, although you can usually do that from several feet away, and it isn't pleasant. Their diet has what you might call a distinctive odor. They're all short, too. Not dwarf short, but I've never seen a ghoul who topped five foot six, and this one was no exception. He had a goatee like Doc Watson's, but where Doc looked suave and a little sinister, this flesh-muncher came across like a beatnik that had wandered through a 1950s time warp. I half expected to hear him call me "Daddy-o."
      Karl and I braced him from about six feet away, where his breath wasn't too bad. "You leaning on our ride because you got no place else to be?" I asked him. "Or do you want something?"
      He took his time straightening up, as if it was his own idea and not a strong suggestion from a representative of law and order. He stared at Karl for a couple of seconds, then turned to me.
      "You'd be Sergeant Markowski," he said.
      "Tell me something I don't know," I said. "Like who you are, and what's on your mind."
      "You may call me Nikolai, if you wish," the ghoul said. "As to my purpose, it is to tell you that an important man would like to see you."
      "If the president sent you, tell him I'm busy," I said. "I didn't vote for him, anyway."
      He gave me a tight little smile. "Not someone quite that important, perhaps. But he is – or rather he represents – a man of substance, who has an interest in your current case."
      "We usually have several cases going at once," Karl told him. "Which one does your 'man of substance' have in mind?"
      The ghoul looked at Karl again, his eyes narrowed. After a moment he said, "Interesting. I was not told that the police employed nosferatu ."
      "My name's not nosferatu , it's Renfer. Detective Renfer. And I asked you a question , punk."
      Karl's a James Bond nut, but now it sounded like he'd been watching one of Clint Eastwood's old "Dirty Harry, Monster Slayer" movies.
      He didn't seem to scare Nikolai. The