Deep pink, p.1
Deep Pink, page 1
part #1 of Magis Series
Deep Pink
Sarah A. Hoyt
Deep Pink© Sarah A. Hoyt 2019
Cover art and design by Covers Girl
Cover art© Covers Girl
Published by Goldport Press
Goldport Press
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Denver, Colorado 80206
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. For information address Goldport Press – goldportpress@gmail.com.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to any persons, (living or dead), places, institutions, organizations or events is a coincidence.
To the Pink!
MANY PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME TO GO TO HELL. Happens to all PIs, I guess. And being a PI named Seamus – Seamus Magis, at your service – it was inevitable.
But I never thought I'd have to go. Certainly not for a case.
How it started was like this: My friend Rod Rando was the manager for a lot of metal bands. Well known properties, like Goat Eternity and Bestial Cadaver and Edge of Skulls.
He'd done great out of it. Like, he’d married a bunch of models, one after the other, and his alimony bills were epic, but with all that he still had his offices in the penthouse of this steel and glass high rise downtown, a place so clean you could lick the floor and probably emerge in better health and so classy that if you put Marx inside it, he’d have melted to a little puddle of goo on the floor.
Honest, I felt out of place just going in, in my jeans and T-shirt.
Oh, sure, Rando also wore jeans and T-shirts, but his were designer, carefully torn and scuffed. I mean, someone had made six figures just figuring out where to rip that denim, or where to put the stain on his shirt so it looked like someone had stepped on it.
He'd called me in because starting about two years ago he'd noticed some of his bands, the ones who had been the most serious about their satanic symbols and altars and rituals and what not ... changing style.
Look, it wasn't so much that they changed, though sure, that would be bad enough. When you're administering a multi-million dollar talent, you get a little scared by change. Who knows if the fans will like it?
And this change was really weird. Suddenly these supposedly dark, satanic artists were wearing all pink, their music sounded disturbingly like K-Pop, and instead of the horns, they made heart signs with their hands. And one of them, the Filthy Blood Whores had changed their name to Pink Fluffy Kittens and wore pink cat ear headbands.
Their fans had no idea what to make of it, but my friend did. “Someone is giving them drugs,” he said. “And it must be some good shit, because it's spreading from band to band.
“I mean, when Satan's Handmaidens sang Pretty Pink Bubbles at their concert, the fans stormed the stage in fury and put them in the hospital. It’s that bad. But they didn’t change back. And it keeps spreading. Even though the new style bands are tanking, others keep changing to imitate them. And then they also don't sell for shit. I can't afford this.”
He raked his hand backward across his unkempt, thinning but long hair. It was like the less hair he had on top, the more he let it grow, till now the stringy ends brushed the middle of his back.
“Leb, I need help.”
Sigh. Okay, okay. So my name is Seamus Lebanon Magis. Are you happy? Stop laughing. I was named after my mom. I should just be grateful they hadn’t given me her full name: Cedar of Lebanon Magis. Rod is one of the few people who even knows my full name, and… other things, so of course I said, “I’ll help if I can. I just don’t see what I can do.”
“It has to be drugs.”
“You mean they weren't on drugs before?” I asked. If I sounded skeptical, it was because I'd heard some of their acts.
“Oh, hell no. I don’t mean that. I mean, actually mostly they prefer alcohol, but sometimes, you know, some uppers, some downers, some ayahuasca… Thing is, I get those drugs first, then pass them on to the guys, after making sure they’re clean. I monitor the alcohol they get, too. I make sure it's nothing that will fry their brains.”
“I didn't just hear that.”
“Whatever. You can't let your bread and butter go to seed. But this shit ... whatever it is ... this is some crazy shit. I mean, hell, I didn't even know Choke Slave could sing falsetto.” He dropped onto his custom made ergonomic chair and put his feet on his blue glass desk big enough and probably sturdy enough to park a Mack truck on. “I want you to find the people responsible and stop this shit.”
That was obviously my cue.
Which is how I found myself in the apartment of one Albert Schneider, aka Thrall of Darkness, aka Pink Plush Sorbet, on a hungover Saturday morning.
Okay, so, just so you get the problem, his apartment looked like a Disney princess had exploded all over it. Nah, make that a set of Disney princesses. There had to have been a lot of them for all that pink, glitter, frills and lace to have gone everywhere. Like, there was glitter on the ceiling.
And then there were stuffed animals. They were piled on the ratty sofas. They were stacked in the corners. They overflowed the window sills. There were all kinds, but most were kittens and puppies with big, round glass eyes. Some were tiny. Some were almost my size. And all looked the worse for the wear, as if he’d bought them used in thrift shops.
In a corner, a figure of Hello Kitty had pink scented candles lit in front of it. If it weren't for the sheer oddity, I'd think it was an altar.
Albert was on the wrong side of thirty, and I’d bet if he hadn’t dyed his hair flat black, it would have been mostly white. He was long haired, with a chest-long braided beard, and incongruous fake glittery-pink eyelashes. There were pink beads on the beard, too. He wore a sort of pink jumpsuit thing, with a silver glitter belt, like some intergalactic federation was trying out uniforms that got in touch with its feminine side. For some reason it just made his mean, hard eyes look harder and meaner. He glared at me. “What the hell do you mean, am I gay?”
I looked around the apartment.
He made a suggestion that would require my breaking my spine, or possibly bilocating.
“Fuck, man,” he added. “I'm just what I've always been. A servant of the dark.”
“The dark ... pink?” I asked.
He shook his head. The glare was hard enough to cut but there was something else behind it, something stark and cold. Fear? “New management, man. New management.”
“What do you mean new management? Do you mean Rod Rando? I thought–”
He looked at me as though I were too stupid to live. “Not Rando. Rando is … nobody in this. Oh, sure,” he waved it all away, “he’s an okay agent, right? But this is The Management,” he said. “Down below.”
From somewhere – I’ll swear – came the sound of tut-tut and “don’t talk” uttered in a girlish voice, and Schneider shook and went pale. “I’ve already said too much, man. The new management is ruthless. They ain’t got no sense of humor. None whatsoever.”
I was about to tell him devils never had any humor, when it occurred to me this grown man wearing bright pink and lighting candles to Hello Kitty was dead serious. He really thought that something or someone would punish him for talking out of turn. Which meant he really had thought he was serving Satan or something. “Are you for real?” I asked. “Do you mean to tell me that Sat–”
“Peggy,” he said. Fear flared behind his eyes like a defective neon. “ sign. “Just call him Peggy.”
His voice had a note of hysteria. I couldn't get him to make any more sense and was starting to warm to the “weird drug hypothesis.”
But the next morning Albert Schneider, aka Thrall of Darkness, aka Pink Plush Sorbet, was found in his apartment with his throat cut and something carved on his forehead that looked suspiciously like cat ears.
And I had a voice mail from Rando.
A Call From the Past
I’D BEEN OUT MOST OF THE NIGHT, going from club to club, to listen to some of the bands Rando managed.
Satanic Death Metal has never been my thing. I guess I never believed in God enough to really hold against Him everything that’s fucked up in the world, much less to ally myself with the other side.
But I’d gone from club to club all over Cleveland, using a pass Rod gave me, trying to trace the spread of the infection.
“I don’t even know what has caused the style change,” Rando had said. “Or which bands have done it. They don’t tell me, of course. Until I hear some of their fans have fucked them up, or someone calls me to ask me why Demonic Feast is now calling itself Sparkle Love Fun.”
That’s why I’d gone from club to club, and auditorium to auditorium, looking over some of Rando’s clients, trying to figure out the scope of the infection.
So far in town, ten for ten of the bands I’d seen had gone to the pink. I had gotten a card with their original names from Rando, but now they were all wrong.
Polishing the Knob of Hell was now Light Delights, and its six surly members wore pink wigs and sang in constantly breaking falsetto.
Headless Vampire called itself Royal Bunny Hearts and– But what’s the use? You get the idea.
I found that songs sung in a falsetto by people totally unsuited to that register gave me a splitting headache, and that their bewildered fans sweated even more profusely than your average crammed-together bar or club audience and got even more aggressive w
I thought one of the fans of the former Satanic Monkeys, now Pretty Puppy Tails, was going to punch me in the face when I told him they looked funny in their pink heart necklaces. He probably thought so, he’d hit me too, but thankfully broke down crying before he punched me.
Anyway, the sound level had been so high in all those clubs that I hadn’t actually heard my phone ringing in my pocket, and it wasn’t till I took it out previous to falling on my face on the bed, I saw I had two voice mails.
The first was from Rando and he sounded as I felt, like he’d been dragged backwards through Hell, hitting all the spiky spots. “Bertie Schneider got himself killed, the dumb bastard,” he said. “Are you any closer to figuring out why they’re going crazy? Call me!”
I glared at the screen. I’d call him after I napped. Maybe. Right then I just wanted to tell him “Yeah, it’s some weird drugs,” and leave it at that. What did he expect me to do? Threaten these crazy people into singing obsessively about evil and Satan again? What would I threaten them with? I mean, when people throw their support and devotion to the master of darkness and evil, what are they afraid of, really?
Then I thought of Bertie Schneider and the look of terror in his eyes when he’d said, Just call him Peggy. And shuddered.
And with my luck Rod would want me to go and track down the supplier of the weird drugs. Which was not something I could do. Even if such a supplier existed. Not for something on this scale. It would take police.
The second voice mail was from a number I didn’t recognize. I pushed play and heard a voice that took me right back to high school. “Leb?” a woman said, “I’m in trouble and I need your help. I thought … well, never mind. I heard you might be able to help, so … oh, never mind. The whole thing is so crazy. So sorry to bother you.”
And had it been anyone else, I would have “never minded.” The problem is I recognized the voice.
When it comes to women, Heavy Metal is less accurate than Country. At least Country gets it that some women come into your life for the purpose of messing it up and that you never get over them.
Emma Marie Accorso was one of those. Or at least she was that one, for me. I’d fallen head over heels for her the moment I met her, on the very first day of kindergarten, waiting to go into Mrs. Hooey’s classroom.
Thirty years later, I still remembered as if it were yesterday: the little girl with her red hair in pigtails and the big green eyes, wearing the orange T-shirt and the scruffy jean shorts.
At recess I’d pulled her pigtails and made fun of her freckles, because that’s what kindergarten love looks like. And she’d called me four eyes and kicked me in the shins. So I guess she’d liked me too.
We’d been friends ever since, elementary, middle school and high school. Lost touch with her in college, because she’d gone out of town, and I’d been heartbroken when I heard through mutual friends that she’d married a dentist. Not that I had any right to object, because – because our relationship had never been like that.
I’d never had the courage to tell her I loved her, and I guess she only wanted me as a friend.
She’d grown up from the little pigtails and the tomboy scruffiness to a lovely, slim young woman with eyes that looked too big for her face, but we’d stayed friends – just friends – friends who told each other everything, and sometimes took long, long walks around the neighborhood, and who were the only ones who could understand what the other read or listened to or liked. We’d stayed like that, like people hesitating at the edge of the ocean, wetting their feet but never going in, because it might be cold. And then I’d heard she’d got married.
And now she was calling me.
Yeah, Rod could wait. I looked at the number Emma had called from and called back. At the last minute, I realized anyone could answer, even her husband or her kid, and then what would I say? I almost hung up, but just then, I heard Emma. “Hello?” She sounded tired.
“Emma.”
“Leb!” she said. Then stopped. “Oh, hell, Leb, I shouldn’t have called you.”
Humans are funny creatures. We don’t reason from known facts. We don’t, in fact, reason from unknown facts either. When our heart is involved, we don’t reason at all. I leapt from that sentence, that tone of voice, and imagined her needing a detective to help research mitigating circumstances because she had stabbed the dentist through the heart with a sharpened toothbrush. In my mind, I saw her led away in shackles, and—
“What’s wrong?” I asked, afraid my voice betrayed my fears. “What happened?”
“It’s one of my children,” she said. “She’s missing.”
Oh. That was a horrible thing, and I didn’t know what to say, but why shouldn’t she have called? “I find missing children,” I said. Granted, not often. Most of the time what I did was more along the lines of finding who the father of the child really was. It’s a dirty world out there, and my business just means I sometimes walk in all the crap up to my knees.
“Yes, but… Emma sniffled. “She’s been missing for two weeks. It’s just that her parents say I killed her and … and the police are going to dig up my backyard.”
She sounded like she was about to cry and the whole thing made no sense. I focused on the weirdest part, “Her parents? I thought she was your daughter?”
There was an intake of breath, something that might have been suppressed laughter. “No. Lilly isn’t my daughter. Oh, I see, because I said she was one of my children. They’re not my children, exactly. I mean, I don’t have any children of my own. But I’m at home all the time. It’s not normal in the neighborhood. So a lot of the kids around here come to me after school. Because there’s no one at their home. And I’m always here. Because of Mom.”
“Mom? Your mom?” And then proving my wonderful deductive capabilities. “You’re in town.” Because, yeah, that was the really important part.
“Yeah. When I finished college, Mom was having … episodes. The doctor said it was early onset Alzheimer’s, and I came back to look after her, only I can’t– Never mind that. Lilly Michal Jones came here all the time after school. Her parents knew that. They didn’t–” She paused, then said, in a rush as if the words were very important to get out in case I wanted to stop her or something. “They didn’t care. But then she disappeared. She didn’t disappear from here. I haven’t seen her in two weeks, but they say I kidnapped her or killed her. The police have been all over the house, and now they … they’re digging up the yard. Today. Oh, Leb. I’m worried sick about her, and I don’t know what happened, or why they’re going after me.”
“Okay,” I said. Being hit at once with the idea that there had never been a dentist and that someone thought that Emma could have hurt a child, my brain short circuited, I went into automatic. “Okay. Not a problem. I’ll come by, okay? Would this afternoon be okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “This afternoon. They’ll probably be digging up my roses. I don’t know what to do. It’s going to upset Mom so much.”
“I’ll be by soon. I promise.”
“Thank you, Leb. Thank you so much.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can. It’s just I haven’t gone to bed– I haven’t slept yet.”
“Ah,” she said. “I don’t think there’s any rush. She’s been missing two weeks and the police–”
“I never know what I can do till I try. Don’t worry, Emma, I’ll be by.” Which I supposed is what love looked like at thirty five, when you were a bottom-feeding PI living in a tiny apartment at the edge of the barely-safe area of town, surrounded by fourth hand furniture bought at garage sales. Look, you do what you can. I felt like my life had taken a wrong turn somewhere, sure, but how do you fix that? No one made turn-arounds for lives. “Give me your address?”
She did. While I talked on the phone, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, black T-shirt stained and pulled askew, hair that really could use a cut. Maybe there were still eyes in the middle of the dark circles that took up most of my face. It was hard to tell. The dark circles were so big.
I looked like I’d been out all night, in dens of iniquity. Which in fact, I’d been, but for money. Of course that didn’t sound good at all, now that I thought about it. I hung up on Emma with more reassurances, most of them probably lies and called Rod.
