Downtown

Jordan Grant stirred his drink with a toothpick, his face as sour as the flavor of the liquid itself. Three dollars for less than eight ounces of fluid was outrageous, but necessary.

“Damned two drink minimums.”

“I’ll handle the other one if you want.”

“Wha?!” Jordan spun around to see an old man lean awkwardly on a cane. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Now, is that any way to talk to a distinguished getleman like myself?” The man cackled in a cracked voice, then hopped onto the bar stool next to Jordan with an agility that was totally unexpected. In a different voice entirely, he whispered out the side of his mouth.

“My finest work, don’t you think? I should get nominated for an Emmy at least.”

“Tim!”

“In the flesh, behind the makeup.”

“Damnit, you gotta stop sneaking up on me like that. It makes me nervous. How did the boys in blue take to you?”

“My performance was flawless. Tim is the proverbial slacker roommate behind on the rent, while the deceased Josh was the ultra-organized neat freak.”

“Figures. Rest in Peace. What about… damnit whasisname, the third guy?”

“Cecil doesn’t live with Tim and Josh, he just has his mail and phone calls directed there until he can find a new apartment. Don’t you remember?”

“Well, I do NOW.”

There was a long pause, during which the old man ordered a shot of whiskey.

“You know how I feel about ad-libbing, Jordan. We need a script. A plan. What do we do?”

“Keep our heads down is first on the list. Who or whatever was found in the Auditorium looked exactly like you. I was fooled completely. I had to call your number to be sure though.”

“What do you think it is?”

“No freaking idea. I was hoping you could tell me more. You’re the actor.”

“I’m totally clueless. And that’s not fun. Can we examine the corpse itself?”

“They should have it at the police station, maybe in the pathology lab or morgue.”

“Right, matching gunshot statistics.”

“Ballistics.”

“Same difference.”

“No it isn’t! And even if they were the same thing, how are we going to get in there?”

The old man reached into his pocket and pulled out a social security card. “With a little help from the one-eyed defender of justice.”

“I fail to see how your dick could help us in any way.”

***

“Sgt. Peppard?”

An overworked policeman looked up from the report on his screen into the face of a man that, at first glance, looked like a potential serial killer. His instinct to grab his sidearm was suppressed when he saw the man’s sharp business suit and attache case.

“Can I help you, sir?”

“You are the officer in charge of the investigation of the murder of one Mr. Joshua Scott, is that correct?”

“What if I am?”

The man’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “My name is Horace Trask of the Internal Revenue Service. There have been… inaccuracies in his filed returns. I will have to see the deceased to verify his legal state of affairs.”

‘The IRS. I should have blown him away,’ Peppard thought to himself. “What kind of inaccuracies?”

The eyebrows furrowed again. “His recorded income does not correspond with his observed standard of living. You know how it is.”

Trask’s strange emphasis on the last sentence made Peppard nervous. He’d never cheated on anything in his life, with the exception of a math test in third grade, but like many Americans, he didn’t fully comprehend the tax system used by the IRS, and the agency certainly had a reputation as the type of group that would treat ignorant mistakes like deliberate fraud. “Right. Well, I guess you’ll be wanting to see the corpse then.”

“That is what requested, yes.”

“Okay then. If you’ll follow me.”

***

Peppard peered through the door’s reinforced glass, then opened the morgue. “He’s righ there on the slab. Sherry, this is Mr. Trask, from the IRS. He wants to see the Scott corpse.”

The pathologist looked up at the two newcomers, vaguely irritated at being interrupted in the middle of the autopsy. “Why would a taxman be interested in dead people?”

As soon as Stark enterred the lab, he felt something snap in the universe around him. A rope connecting a beam gave way, a lens in the camera slid into place. Some sort of deception had cracked open. He could feel it, and before he even registered the sight of the body, the answer was blindingly obvious.

“…If you’re trying to be funny, then you are not succeeding. Which of these drawers holds Mr. Scott’s remains?”

“Whaddaya mean? He’s right the…” Peppard looked back towards the body Sherry Morris had been examining. So did Sherry, who jumped back three feet and shreiked as though the body had just sat up and tried to grab her wist. Her hips caught a tray of tools and instruments, scattering them on the floor at her feet.

The body on the table was a young woman, her face covered with a paper mache mask. ‘That looks like the Scott guy,’ Peppard thought deliriously as his mind tried to handle the input. ‘I didn’t look away for more than a second, did I? If that. How did that body get here?’

Trask walked over and pointed at the mask without touching it. “I find it very hard to beleive that multiple police officials can be fooled by such an obvious deception. This is the real world, not a Saturday Morning Cartoon Show.”

“It… that wasn’t there, not when I looked in. It was Josh Scott. I swear it on my grandmother’s grave.”

“A profound insight into how you feel about your grandmother. Will one of you please direct me to Mr. Scott’s corpse, if indeed you have it available?”

Sherry Morris just stared at the body, her mouth opening and closing, but not producing any words.

***

Jordan Grant pulled a cigarette out and lit it, inhaling just as the door opened. Surprised, he began to cough, and the lit cigarette landed lit-end down on his pant legs. He started slapping the source of heat to put it out before his clothing caught fire.

“What’s wrong? There a bee in the car?”

“Stop scaring me like that Tim! What the hell took you so long?”

“No time. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“Way to where?”

“The auditorium. The body that was supposed to be me is a young girl on the missing person’s list.”

“Don’t follow.”

“There’s another somebody like me going around. Another Personamancer. Would you hurry up and drive, already?”

“Cut me some fucking slack! I’m trying to keep from burning to death!”

“Serves you right for stealing one of my cigarettes.”

“It’s not one of yours! Look!”

“Oh. Sorry man.”