Chapter 1
"True art is immune to the
viewer," she said. Her name was WhiteFeather. Just WhiteFeather. She was
an artist, a fiber artist to be precise, who used an unusual combination of
fibers in her art - bones, animal skulls, human hair, menstrual blood, souls of
found objects, unusual stuff. The three hundred pound corpse nailed to the wall
was also an artist. He painted beer cans, but that wasn't
his real art. WhiteFeather looked disgustedly at the big man hanging on the
wall. "He'd get drunk and go on and on about his life itself being a work
of art in progress." She shook her head. "Well, thank God he finally
finished it."
She walked back to her studio,
ducking under a snakeskin chandelier, real snakeskin. Boston couldn't
help noticing that she had a nice ass. After all, it was his job to notice
things. She also had a wide mouth lit up with the brightest red lipstick he'd ever seen, but it suited her dark hair and eyes. He was
tempted to tell her that she was a fine work of art, but he was here on
business. He had a referral to make, and it looked like he was going to be up
to his neck in shit again, but that was his choice.
This was just the kind of referral he loved - weird, like him. Like, how often
did you get a referral for a three hundred pound work of human art hanging on
the wall of the most notorious art studio in the city, infamous for wild
parties and wilder artists. Juicy.
"More like somebody finished
it for him," said Boston. The dead guy's name was Art Cranbury. He owned
the century and half old building that housed Studio4Ward, a former dance hall,
now broken into four open studios shared by three hot stuff comers in the art
world and one cold stiff that was soon to be hot stuff in the webloids.
Apparently, the stiff had been a pain in the ass. "How long has he owned
the building?"
WhiteFeather looked up from a
leather moccasin from which she was extracting metal staples with a pair of
pliers. "For the last six months. We thought it would be cool at first,
having the building owner in here as one of us." She tugged a particularly
stubborn staple. It came out with a small tearing sound. "As one of us,
maybe he'd lower the rent, put in air conditioning." She pointed up to the
ceiling at a circular opening about eight feet in diameter with ornate wooden
struts radiating from the center. There was one in each corner of the studio.
"Those fans just push the hot air around. On a hot day, this place is a
furnace." She pulled out another stubborn piece of metal with a loud chunk
sound. "Who the hell makes moccasins with staples?" she asked herself
angrily.
"But having him here didn't
work out?"
"The opposite." She
rested the pliers and moccasin in her lap and looked up at Boston. "He
lied about being an artist. That's his studio over there." She pointed to
a corner with a heavy duty beach chair surrounded by beer cans, empty pizza
boxes, and stains that looked like dried barf. An easel holding a child-like
painting of a beer can faced out from his studio. All of
Studio4Ward was cluttered, but Cranbury's corner was filthy. "He was here
almost every night, getting drunk, belching, farting, leering. The other two
artists are women. We made a point of never being alone when he was here, and
he was here most of the time. He passed out in his chair a lot, and stayed the
night. He did that for over a week once. Went downstairs once or twice a day
for beer and pizza deliveries. We had to plant air fresheners all over the
place because the smell of him was sickening."
"Karma," said Boston.
"Beg your pardon?" She
looked puzzled. After thinking a moment, she looked at Boson irritably.
"Even if we'd told him he couldn't move in... he owned the building. He
could have moved in without our permission, or raised the rent, or just make
life miserable for us in other ways." She went back to pulling staples,
but now with strong, angry tugs.
Boston turned back to the man on
the wall. Art Cranbury was massive. He was nailed up Christ-like, hands open
and nailed pretty much where Boston assumed the nails in Christ's hands would
have been. His head was propped by another nail, more accurately, a spike. Same
for his feet - crossed at the ankles and spiked together. The only difference
between Cranbury and Christ - besides size and sainthood - was that Art
Cranbury had been nailed up backwards. And he was naked. Two enormous mounds of
ass fat drooped from the center of his body, which had been painted with red
and white stripes, barber pole style.
It was time to get into the vibes
of this place. Boston had a theory about vibrations. They were at the core of
all being, the building blocks of Creation. Come into contact
with the vibrations of a place and your imprint would be left on them
like aftershave in a breezeless hall, which meant that Art Cranbury's last
minutes on Earth lurked in the vibrations in this room. Boston closed his eyes
and slowed his breathing, taking the air deep into his tan dien - the area
behind his belly button that served as a powerhouse of spiritual and psychic
energy - expelling it slowly, evenly. He dropped his shoulders and let his
awareness sink into his belly button. He cleared his mind of clutter and
entered the void. A deep low hum originating in his throat moved up into his
sinus cavity, emanated from his nostrils. He stood by the body, ignoring its
stench, and searched the stuff of Creation for clues.
As usual, nothing happened.
WhiteFeather watched him, still
tugging staples. Her expression said it all: she'd
rather be extracting wisdom teeth from his jaws.
He had that effect on people.
After all, he was Boston Jonson, Creme de la Crop of the CI fold - a Consultative
Investigator, society's filter between crime and the cops. His job was to be
first in, check it out, and make a referral for anything from a full scale
murder investigation to no further action required, or somewhere in between,
like bring in the social workers and shamans or let the media handle this one.
They sent him to snoop and refer - something he rarely did, being notorious for
outstaying his welcome and acting the proverbial shit
stirrer. But the webloids loved him - with eye-catching shoulder length
tangerine hair, aqua eyes, square movie star jaw and a penchant for colorful
Hawaiian hula-hula shirts, he looked just offbeat enough to capture the
public's imagination.
He stood on his toes and craned
his neck around the dead man's head. Having never met anyone weirder than
himself, Boston was seldom shaken by anything he saw on the job, but what he
saw now raised his eyebrows. The dead man's eyes were wide open, but not with
horror. The zany smile on his face suggested joy, happiness, bliss - like he'd died getting his jollies off. This was getting weirder
by the minute. He loved it.
Boston's wallet buzzed. It was
Laurel from Central CI. He snapped his wallet open and saw the familiar woman's
head on the tiny screen. "Boston," she said. "They want quick
and dirtless on this one. The skinny is, Arthur Cranbury was an asshole, but a very rich asshole. Old money. Old family. He was the black
sheep. The family would like his memory to just pass away with him. These
people are powerful, Boston."
"They're always
powerful," said Boston into his wallet.
The face in the wallet looked
annoyed. "Who's always powerful, Boston?"
"Old moneyed families."