So Much Bull, page 8
part #1 of Penny Post Myth Agent Series
She made a face. “Some turn to goop. Others leave a body, so we send in a cleanup crew. They’re meticulous.”
“We have a cleanup crew?”
“Given that we’re privately funded, we have a lot of cool things.”
I filed that away. “So is it here? The Minotaur, I mean. Or is it goop, waiting to be reborn?”
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say.”
There was a big sigh from the boss. “I suppose it’s time you got to see the guts of this place. Come on back. Through the same door and down the steps. This time take the first left.”
“You heard the boss,” Nikki said brightly. She kissed me on both cheeks before returning to her snack: a chunk of bread and a lump of feta.
The boss’s instructions involved entering the labyrinth again, which I really didn’t fancy. There’s no way to make an ancient stone maze not creepy. But this time there was no sign of old stones; today I descended into a library, where the stacks ran forever in every direction, including upwards. Everywhere I looked, a forest of shelves and books blocked my view.
“My Virgin Mary, what the heck is going on here?”
“The labyrinth has a mind of its own at times,” the boss explained.
I got my adamantine letter opener sword ready, just in case. In case of what, I wasn’t sure. A falling pile of books? I added an angry expression and hoped that would be enough of a defense.
“Oh, put that down. You’re perfectly safe down here. Well, not perfectly safe. There’s always a chance of death or random acts of mutilation. But the odds are quite good that you’ll be fine, I must say. Did Syne give you that sword? It looks like her doing. Fond of swords, that one. I’m more of a fan of adamantine bullets.”
“Now I’m even more determined to not put the sword away.”
“Can you even call that a sword? It’s quite small. Practically a dagger.”
“The Salem Police tend to frown on swords. I’m happier with something I can keep in my handbag.”
He quit blabbing.
I took a right where I’d turned left last time, walked a short way past the art history section, and wondered where I was supposed to go next.
“Through the door,” the boss said, reading my mind. One minute there wasn’t a door, then there was. That should have been enough to send me scampering back upstairs, but I was committed to the insanity now. The door was a heavy bookshelf—Danielle Steel’s entire catalog—that wheezed when I shoved it open.
I gawped. Glanced behind me. Peered into the room again and performed some more gawping. What had Nikki said? They were privately funded? Well, it certainly showed. Down in what should have been a sewer, someone had set up a state-of-the-art lab. Lots of cool science doodads. Weapons you couldn’t buy from a shady figure lurking in the shadows of an overpass. Disinfectant hovering in the air. In the center of the room sat a cylindrical fish tank—except this tank was devoid of marine life.
It was a habitat for a head. A male human head, the approximate size of the average male human head. The noggin had a neat, short beard and a nest of curls.
I bit my tongue and definitely didn’t make any jokes about getting head. Inappropriate jokes and laughter were frequently my way of dealing with sudden stress.
“Um … hello?”
The head swiveled around. “Took your time,” it said in what was definitely the boss’s voice.
My eyelids fluttered frantically as my brain struggled to make sense of the nonsensical.
“Got something in your eye?” he asked dryly.
For several long seconds, my brain tried to reconcile the weirdness. Once it managed to file everything in a way that made sense, I gestured at everything. “All of this.”
“Yes, well. I’ve had centuries—millennia, actually—to accumulate belongings. But I really love modern times. You can buy anything on the internet if you know where to look.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “but who the heck are you?”
“The boss.”
“And you’re a brain in a vat?”
“How very simplistic.”
“So you’re not a brain in a vat?”
“Well, yes. But that’s not all I am.”
He was snooty for a no-body.
“Where are your” —I tried to be tactful in case his missing body was a sore subject— “other parts?”
“Long gone. But lucky for me, I’ve got everything I need right here.”
“In your fish tank?”
“It’s not a fish tank!”
“Yeah, okay. If you say so.”
Now that I was relatively sure that nothing was going to leap out and attack me, I moved around the room, inspecting gadgets while keeping my hands to myself.
“What you are looking for is in the fridge,” he said.
Refrigerator … refrigerator …
Ah. There it was. In the corner. Not exactly the ideal positon for a good kitchen triangle. But then this wasn’t a kitchen. Wow, the Minotaur must be tiny. This was a standard refrigerator with the freezer on top. The kind you see in apartments. Maybe they’d put the Minotaur in a blender first. Or he was a miniature. Sometimes that happened in nature. Miniature horses came to mind. I pictured a teeny, tiny man-bull, small enough to fit in a teacup.
“Not that one,” he said. “That one.”
“Which one?”
“That one.”
“Can you point to it?”
Ten long seconds crawled by.
“No.”
For a moment I felt bad. Mocking the body-less was completely uncalled for. But I had a sneaky suspicion the boss wasn’t disabled as such, and that if he wanted to he could produce a body fairly quickly.
“Okay, so can you describe the direction?”
“Follow my eyes.”
His eyes flicked to the end of the room, which I realized was a wall full of lockers, exactly like a morgue. What were they doing down here?
“Have you been a bad, bad head?”
“You’ll find the Minotaur in the bottom right,” he said, his tone chilled and sprinkled with salt.
Okay, I’d play along. I made my way across the room and tugged on one of the jumbo lockers on the lowest row.
I steeled myself for the potential horrors contained within. How bad would it be?
A drawer slid out easily.
Human feet. Human legs. Not so bad. I dared to exhale and kept pulling. Yikes. Huge penis. Horrifying, actually.
“Yes, I know it’s big,” the boss said with an exasperated sigh. “And despite what that overblown egotist Minos would tell you, the Minotaur gets it from its mother’s side.”
I kept on pulling.
Yup. There it was. From the waist on up, the man was a bull with a football field of chest and a set of horns only a poacher could love.
My brain hit its weird-o-rama limit. I pushed the drawer in and went back to the boss’s tank.
“How did it die?”
“Multiple gunshot wounds.”
“And you think Luke Remis is responsible.”
“He was the myth agent in charge of apprehending the creature.”
“So someone else could have shot the Minotaur.”
“Possibly, but probably not. Occam’s Razor, girlie.”
“It’s Penny Post. Do you have a name?”
“Of course I have a name!” he spluttered. “Okay, I had a name once, but it’s irrelevant to this conversation!”
“What will happen to Luke when I bring him in?”
“If you bring him in.”
“Oh, I will.” My confidence was in the toilet, but my tongue was making it look like I was staying afloat and rowing a boat. The truth was I was in so far over my head that I couldn’t see the light above. Although there were vague shadows that I suspected were floating turds.
“We have treaties to uphold!”
“Still not answering my question.”
“Minos is vindictive and cruel, as kings often are. It’s the bowing and scraping, it goes to their heads. But he’s not very imaginative. Minos has always relied upon the brilliance and genius of others, turning on them when things soured.”
“You mean like when Daedalus trapped the Minotaur in the labyrinth on Minos’s orders and then he revealed the secrets of the labyrinth to Minos’s daughter, and she turned around and helped Theseus kill the Minotaur?”
“You make it sound like a silly story! But yes. Daedalus was trapped in the labyrinth for a long time after that incident.”
“This labyrinth?”
“Yes.”
“Is he still here?”
“Sometimes I hear him scream.”
Yikes. “How is the labyrinth here and not in Greece?”
“Of course it’s in Greece! It’s all over the place. It’s just got a bit of a mind of its own and does all kinds of things for fun. It was built to be ever-changing and evolving, you know.”
“It’s made of stone—and apparently books.”
“So? What’s that got to do with the price of olives? The point is that I don’t know what Minos will do with Remis when we hand him over, but it won’t be good. Boring, yes. Good, no. But I don’t have a choice. Like I said, there are treaties between our worlds.”
“If you ask me, that’s stupid.”
“Did I ask?”
“So that’s it. You’re going to just hand Luke over to be tortured and killed?”
“Oh come on, it’s not the first time an agent’s been tortured!”
I stormed out and left the head to whatever business heads had. Haircuts. Thinking. That sort of thing.
“Did you get what you needed?” Nikki asked.
I leaned on her desk with both hands. “Who else besides your cousin would want to kill a Minotaur? Besides possibly the beef industry.”
“From what I understand, Minotaur meat is tough. It’s not even good enough for a long, slow pot roast, so burgers are absolutely out of the question.” She tapped on her computer. “Everyone hates King Minos, even his own family, so the list is long. That’s not including the trophy hunters and the thrill seekers. What’s going on?”
“Trying to figure this out. Why would Luke kill the Minotaur?”
“He wouldn’t. Not unless he was doing it to save an innocent life.”
“Are you sure he killed it? Because I’m not a hundred percent on this, and I’m not bringing him in unless he really slayed the thing.”
Nikki crossed herself. “My Virgin Mary, it’s a miracle. I didn’t think Luke was guilty, either. Murder isn’t really his style. Okay, if I were you, I’d work the case like you were looking for the Minotaur.”
Nikki and I were on the same page.
“Where did the Labyrinth Agency’s cleanup crew find the Minotaur’s body?”
“Downtown at Waterfront Park, by the giant globe.”
I thanked her for her help, made promises I hoped I could keep, then set off for Waterfront Park.
CHAPTER 7
People frequently assume Portland is Oregon’s capital city. It’s an easy mistake to make. Portland is the only Oregon city that ever makes it onto the national news or TV shows. Case in point: Portlandia. Nobody would ever think to create a TV show based on people living in Salem. We’re too not-Portland. An excess of pickup trucks. A whole lot of livestock. Farmland. We’ve got more than our fair share of coffee shops, but hipsters are thin on the ground.
Downtown isn’t much more than a handful of city blocks shoved up against the Willamette River. Sandwiched in between, on a narrow strip of land, is Riverside Park, featuring a children’s museum, an old-timey carousel, and—further down—a giant sculpture of our planet. On a warm day, you can see people flicking garbage into the river or dumping the critter they just used as a speed bump.
Given that it was a summer morning, the park was filled with children, most of them leaping and shrieking at the splash pad while their parents hid inside their phones and tried to remember the BC—Before Children—days. I went the other way: toward the humungous Earth, where Riverside Park blurred into Waterfront Park.
Walkers marched past me, swinging their arms to kill a few more calories. We smiled our good mornings and went back to ignoring each other.
When I reached the planet, I slowed down and did my best to inspect the area without looking like I was cruising for drugs or someone to spank me for cash. There was no sign that a Minotaur had been shot here. The paths appeared to be clean—as clean as paths in a public park can be. A cup of sticky soda was drying by a bush. Not exactly a murder weapon. Further down, I discovered a faint blue stain. Paint, probably. Or an ice cream that died by suicide in the hands of a preschooler.
No signs. No addresses. Definitely no casual note, giving me the name and location of the Minotaur’s real killer.
I walked back to the blue stain. Something rattled around in my memory banks. Probably a loose screw. I performed a quick search on my phone. According to competing sources, the ichor—blood—of gods, monsters, and other assorted creatures in Greek mythology was either blue or gold. Regarding the color, there was no consensus because it was all stories. Except, you know, not.
Was this Minotaur blood?
I took stock of the area and found nothing else useful.
Were there any electronic eyes on the park? The other side of the street was home to a number of businesses and apartments.
Time to find out.
Despite my divorce and the fact that I’m not a physician, my stitching is close to one hundred percent Good Greek Girl. I don’t do crimes. I have a healthy distrust of the government. I itch when it comes to paying taxes but I do it anyway because tax evasion is the bailiwick of Greeks who live in the homeland. Because of all this, and because I score low on the anarchy scale, I pressed the button and waited patiently for the traffic lights to turn red and the little walking figure to flick to a watery green. After I crossed over, I spent the next few minutes, strolling up and down the street, trying to figure out if anyone had security cameras aimed at the park.
“Hey!”
I focused on the canopies and overhangs and avoided eye contact with the person going “Hey.” Salem’s city sidewalks are cluttered with small camps, where the homeless dwell until they’re occasionally swept off the pavements and into a different pile.
“Hey you.”
The hey-ing was moving closer. Fear grabbed me by the throat. I didn’t want to get mugged or caught up in a conversation with the voices in someone’s head. My own inner voices were already pushy enough.
I walked faster.
“Hey lady.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said.
“Don’t want your money. Got a whole inheritance of my own, don’t I? My dad’s a king.”
Burger King, maybe. The USA was fresh out of other royalty. But she had me, damn it. There was a hint of humor in her voice that spoke to me. Also there was an oddball hissing sound close by that I hoped wasn’t someone urinating against a wall.
I pivoted.
Huh. Not what I expected. The woman had the requisite youthful indigent uniform of hoodie—hood up—torn jeans, and battered Converse Chucks in what was originally a cheerful shade of yellow. That part I totally expected. But the designer sunglasses? Unexpected. Probably a gift from her dad, the king. That or someone lost them at the park across the street.
“What’s up?”
She shrugged. “Saw you prowling around the park, and now you’re sniffing around over here. I should ask you what’s up.”
“I wasn’t prowling!”
“Creeping, then.”
“I wasn’t creeping, either.” I hoisted my bag further up onto my shoulder and tried to look like a professional. A professional what, I wasn’t sure. “I’m working.”
“Oh yeah? Well, this corner is taken.”
“I’m not a woman whose services can be purchased with a menu! Also, sex work is valid work and I totally respect your choice, although I have to question your wardrobe. Not very skimpy, is it? Mind you, I’m way behind on what’s trendy in sex work, so maybe” —I gestured at her outfit— “that’s all the rage.”
“Sheesh. Is that what you think? That I’m a streetwalker?”
“You’re the one who said this was your corner. Wait—is it drugs? I don’t want to sell or buy any of those either.”
“Shut her up,” someone else called out. Another member of her pack. They were clustered around a dead critter—mouse? rat?—further down the sidewalk. The woman in yellow Chucks sighed. She reached up and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were a luminous sea green.
I froze.
Time passed.
Passersby gawked at me.
My phone rang.
A bird crapped on my head and I couldn’t shoo it away.
Finally, I managed to shake loose.
“Did I have some kind of weird seizure?”
Yellow Chucks shrugged. Her glasses were back on her face. “Dunno what you’re talking about. Just FYI, you have bird shit in your hair.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Yeah, right. She was lying through her teeth, but I let it go. Arguing with people downtown was never a smart idea.
“Wait,” I said. “This is your street corner?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Not at all. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m glad someone, uh, owns this corner. You see anything weird at the park lately?”
The woman and her compadres—all women, I noticed—laughed up a lung apiece.
“Weird is all we see over there,” Yellow Chucks told me. “Every freak in town winds up in that park sooner or later. People are attracted to open spaces with trees and water to do their weird shit. Crazies doing nasty deeds where anyone can get a good look.”
“That’s what gets them off,” one of the other women called out. Probably she was right.
“I’m talking about something specific,” I said. “Weirder than your usual weird. Maybe someone in a costume?”
Yellow Chucks thought about it. “Like a cosplayer?”
I snapped my fingers. “Exactly. This guy was dressed up like a Minotaur. Dude on the bottom half, bull on the top.
“Huge junk?”
