The New Dead by John Connolly, Various Read Free Book Online

no one much cared about Maisie Harper any more. The hurricane missed us, but it hit about two hundred miles north of here, and that generated enough media attention to keep Maisie’s name, if not her body, pretty well buried.
     
    Of course, the cops kept working it, and the story made the paper, though only small stories in the back. At first they had no clue who would kill the twenty-one-year-old college student, home for the summer, out for a late- night stroll because she could not sleep. Then the police began to suspect it was her boyfriend. They arrested him, and it looked like I’d caught a break and this guy would take the fall. I cheered the cops on. I didn’t bother to think that he hadn’t done it, that he was mourning for this girl he possibly loved and very probably liked. All I could think about was that if they nailed him, I could exhale. But they didn’t nail him. They let him go, and they made some noise about pursuing more leads. Every day I would look out the window expecting to see cop cars pulling up, waiting to cart me off in shame. The cars never came. They never suspected me, never came to talk to me. There were no witnesses. No one had seen or heard a thing, and eventually the story blew over. In the process, I learned a very important thing about myself. I could do something terrible and live with it, and when the going got tough, I could keep my cool.
     
     
    When I was done with my hour, I went to see Yiorgio in his office behind the stages.
     
    ‘You had good time, my friend?’
     
    ‘I’d like to buy her,’ I said.
     
    He laughed. ‘You did have good time. Ryan, he tells me you have never before been with reanimate girl, yes? Maybe you should try some others before you are so sure.’
     
    ‘I don’t want to try others. I like that one. How much?’
     
    ‘You’ve been good customer, so I don’t want trick you. Maisie is difficult girl. She does not always listen. She becomes maybe a problem for you, and I do not want that you come back and tell me you no longer like so difficult a girl. You maybe tell me you want your money back.’
     
    ‘It won’t happen,’ I said. ‘No returns. I understand the rules going in.’
     
    He shrugged. ‘So long as you understand. Let me tell you something, though. The reanimates, we give them whatever name we want. This one come, she tell us her name. Would not listen to any other name. Very willful.’
     
    I nodded. All of this was making me even more convinced I had to get her out of circulation. She knew who she was. She knew who I was. I didn’t know if a reanimate’s testimony had any legal standing, but I didn’t want to find out.
     
    ‘I want to buy her,’ I said.
     
    ‘Okay, my friend. You are very determined, yes? You may buy her for eight thousand dollars. I hope you know, this is cash, and all up front. But it includes lifetime servicing.’
     
    Eight thousand dollars was a good price. An economy reanimate from one of the Big Three would cost at least fifteen thousand dollars. Even so, I did not know how I was going to get that kind of money. We had no real savings, no more than a fifteen-hundred-dollar cushion at any given time. But I had some ideas.
     
    ‘I’ll get you the money,’ I said. ‘Soon. Don’t sell her to anyone else until I do.’
     
    ‘Who am I to break up true love?’ Yiorgio asked.
     
     
    I blundered my way back to my chair. I hardly noticed Ryan was still sitting there until he started to punch my arm and ask me how I’d liked it.
     
    He was joined by another guy now, a regular named Charlie - older and almost entirely bald but for a strip of white hair and a very white goatee. He was well dressed and spoke very deliberately. He spoke like a rich man.
     
    ‘This is Walter,’ Ryan told Charlie. ‘He and Maisie have that thing.’
     
    I was not about to ask what he meant. Better to just be cool, be one of the guys.
     
    We sat around and talked and drank, and then finally, Charlie