Free The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) by Mark Schweizer Page B

pipe-organ bar with all the class that the piano bars in the city forgot. The dirndl-clad beer-fräuleins were the best looking dishes this side of Blue Danube, New Jersey, and they served up the suds with gusto and sing-alongs. We could hear the patrons inside whooping it up to a bawdy three-part canon having something to do with a broom and an unfortunate couple named John and Mary who were trying to assemble it.
    Pedro LaFleur was working the velvet rope when we walked up and pushed our way to the front of the line.
    "C'mon in," said Pedro, unhooking the rope for us and holding back a couple of black-clad Goth waifs with one meaty paw. "Always room for the beautiful people. You guys look like you could use a Stinksteifel. We've got it on tap."
    "I'll give it a try," I said. "Can you bust loose of the fashion parade? I might have a job for us."
    Pedro was my right hand man, mean as a snapping turtle with a face to match. He eyed Tessie with a look that said, "Listen, toots, you may be stacked like a fat man's plate in a one-time through smorgasbord, but I like my women stringy and tough, like hard working bird-dogs, trained to the gun and loving it."
    "Does it pay anything?" he snided with a sneer.
    "The usual," I said.
    "Yeah, I figured," he grumbled. "Great, just great." Pedro was a countertenor with a gig at the Presbyterian cathedral on the corner, but since the recession hit he'd been relegated to the eight o'clock Victorian service singing the alto line in Dudley Buck anthems, that and bouncing undesirables at Buxtehooters. It made him mean, but then, Dudley Buck would make anyone mean.
    "We could shoot the works," I said. "I hear vampires have some loot."
    "Vampires, eh?" He grubbed a mitt across his grizzled gills and grinned grimly. "I could afford to cash out."
    "Yeah?"
    "My countertenor days are numbered," he said, waving us in. "I'm losing my high Ds. Let me see what I can do. I might know a guy."

    ***

    Meg caught up with me after her meeting and the two of us weren't long in joining the kids at the Plague Faire. Brother Hog was enrapturing the children with a demonstration of the Plagues of Egypt while D'Artagnan Fabergé was busy applying make-believe boils and flies to the faces of the children with some kind of theatrical cement. In addition, there were plenty of plastic frogs and grasshoppers to go around, and cups of red Kool-Aid over hail-shaped ice cubes. With D'Artagnan's trademark mullet a good bet to be housing head-lice, Hog didn't have all the plagues covered, but with seven out of ten, he was doing pretty well.
    "Eew," said Meg, giving an involuntary shudder as Moosey sauntered up sporting a couple of inflamed abscesses with several large bluebottles sipping at the edges. He was dressed as a ragtag pirate, but now he was some sort of bubonically infected castaway that would be expiring within the next hour or two. However, as disturbing as Moosey's transformation was, it was nothing compared to the sight of Bernadette. One never expects to see a ten-year-old Barbie princess with flies crawling out of the wounds on her face. In addition, she had a bulging, dripping, droopy, rubber eyeball that she'd winked into place.
    "I think I'm going to be sick," said Meg.
    "Cool!" said Bernadette, obviously happy with the effect.
    "Bernadette got all the fly-boils," said Moosey disgustedly. "She found them in the bottom of the jar. I wanted one but they were gone so I got D'Artagnan to glue a couple of regular flies around the edges." He pointed to one of his disgusting add-ons.
    "There were only two of them fly-boils," argued Bernadette, "and I needed them to complete my look."
    "It's a look," I agreed.
    "I already had the eyeball," she said excitedly, popping it out and holding it up for us to inspect. "I got it from a costume shop in Asheville last summer. I've been saving it." She turned to Moosey. "Besides," she said, "you got the big flies. You and Dewey. All that are left are the little black