xxXXXxx..x.
The office chair squeaked as Hanna twisted in his seat, eyebrows up, question floating through the crisp rustle of paper grocery bags.
"I honestly hadn't noticed!" Conrad snapped over the jutt of his shoulder, regretting it immediately. He turned from one of the lopsided kitchen cabinets to find Hanna's curiosity dimmed by disappointment. Conrad chewed the inside of his cheek, stomach twisting. He actually had noticed. Doc Worth. Missing. Lamont Toucey working the yellow-lit midnight shift at the clinic, found snoozing at the cheap plyboard desk.
Hanna's mouth pulled back in consternation, and Conrad felt his chest pull with it. "Well dang. I guess what I'm saying here is, if Doc Worth doesn't really matter to you, he matters a whole lot, and in a big way, to me. On like. Terms of my health and stuff? Besides being a bro!"
Connrad wilts. "Well," he grumbles, folding one arm over the other. "What am I supposed to do about it? I can't just drop everything to help solve mysteries whenever you snap your fingers."
"No," Hanna allows, mood brightening. "No, dude, heh, of course not. I already know where he is!"
Conrad rolls his eyes Hanna's way, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I sent GrantIsaacHieronymous already. Couldn't go myself, it's too far away and I had to, you know. I've got that thing."
Conrad smirks. "Your dayjob. Glad to see you paying bills, by the way." He kicks over to the armchair and sits, folding a paper bag into a tight square for the recycle bin that Hanna didn't have. "Zombie went missing, too?"
"Nope! He actually just called to remind me it's Wednesday. Heh. Dudebro's knee-deep in nightmare muck and he still makes sure the place is square for guests."
"Nightmare muck you think he might need help with."
"Nightmare muck I know he can't possibly flippin' surpass, Conrad." Hanna leaves the chair to pace to a stack of papers and books shuffled into a milk crate.
Conrad, alerted by the lack of creative nickname in Hanna's address, sits forward, concern falling heavy on his brow. "Well. Of course I'll help you get your partner back. Do we know why your doctor took his leave of town, even?"
"Yeah," Hanna grunts from under the weight of the papers, spilling an armful to the top of the new folding table that had appeared sometime last month in the middle of the room. "I guess he called it a 'Walkabout'? Common spiritual journey, usually done by young - youngerrr, uh. Australian people. Eheh. He's in Florida."
"So you've spoken." Conrad watches Hanna, heart in throat, suddenly and viciously aware that they were alone together - a thing that had never before happened in all the time as Conrad had known the man. His fingers curl in over the scratchy fabric of the recliner's arms. "What's the zombie's problem, exactly?"
Hanna scratches an elbow, studying the splay of papers, runes, articles, pages torn from books. "Well, I asked for his help in the first place because he's part of both worlds, yeah? The living, and the dead, I mean. Sooo he found the Doc in the place I couldn't really get to, handed the phone over, and I got the 411 on the sitch - which is kind of a long story? But, you know, it's wet, in the wetlands. I'll have to fix Brisbane's legs when we get him back, because the jungle rot up and set itself in." Hanna snaps his fingers, pulling a leaf free and holding it up delicately in front of Conrad. "Things we don't really think to think about ahead of time, yeah? Like I forget that he's dead dead. This is for you, when you make the crossing."
Conrad wrinkles his nose at the yellowing book page. "It's not in English."
"RightIknowthat. Swallow it for me, will ya? Just in case you can get the boot-rot or swampfoot or whatever, too."
"Sw-" Conrad chokes on his next breath, then composes himself as Hanna totters off to the kitchen. "I think I've had enough creepy magical rubbish inside of me lately, thanks. Shouldn't I just give this to your rotting friend?" He starts to fold the paper, fishing his wallet out of his vest pocket.
Hanna chimes from the kitchen, "Yeah, sure. Couldn't hurt. Might stop the decay. Heh, good thinking!" He emerges with an apple, taking a large bite.
Conrad is perched forward in the chair, fingers half stuffed in his wallet trying to align the bulky piece of book paper beside a few cash bills and an overlong grocery receipt. He is staring at Hanna, though, thoughtful and silent, watching the white meat of the apple exposed past the dark red of its skin.
Hanna doesn't finish chewing to explain, "I'm gonna ask a friend to drive you, because, you know, your ah, allergy? I know you got things going on, so if you could tell me the weekend you'd be free, I can call and ask-"
"I'll go immediately and I'll buy a plane ticket."
"Oh, hey dude, no need to put yourself out there like that. You're doing me a favor, here, so -"
Conrad stands, and walks forward as if to hand Hanna something, but holds both hands firmly at his sides. "No. I'm helping a green man I've come to consider a friend; and by extension I might be doing Worth a favor - which is fine, I'm not saying it's not fine - but you know I would travel anywhere, at any time, for a friend's health, right? If you were sick right now and Hitler's manic ghost was the only one who knew how to cure you, I'd be in Europe yesterday." He sounds nearly angry, eyebrows drawn low over the flat mirror-blue reflection of his glasses. "And I'd never, so you know - I would never say Doc Worth doesn't mean anything to me. He's a murderous asshole, but he's done me quite enough help this past year, so. I'd appreciate it if you remember I'm human, Hanna."
Hanna has stopped chewing by now, and swallows audibly. "Yeah but, you're not human anymore?" he counters softly, gesturing with the apple. "You just didn't notice he was even gone, is all."
Conrad closes his eyes, stuffing his wallet back into his pocket. "I did notice."
"Wull," Hanna huffs, looking lost. "Why didn't you say that when I asked? Jeeze."
Conrad turns, eyes opening in their glare. "Why did you feel the need to ask, if it was so damn obvious? Why didn't you just say, hello, hi, yes, my garbage medical doctor has been absent from his skeevy back-alley building for near-on a month now - and then gone on to ask your favor in fetching him back? Where exactly am I going, anyway?"
Hanna's jaw is pushed forward, arms crossed, apple balanced in three fingers like a baseball. "Gimme your phone and I'll type the coordinates in Maps." He stuffs the apple between his teeth and holds his hand out, fingers curling.
Conrad is reminded of a hand held out in similar fashion, of a cigarette butt extinguished against clammy skin. He pulls his phone free of his back pocket, wiping at the screen with the hem of his button-down before handing it over. "If I was. Reluctant, Hanna, if I was reluctant, to um. Bring myself anywhere near Lucian Worth? He killed someone. I saw him kill someone, shortly before he might have sto/pped showing at the clinic. Does that mean anything?"
Hanna pauses in his task, taking in a careful breath. "The Doc's got his own agenda. I try to stay pretty far away from his shenanigans, but, eh. I still get worried, you know? And he still needs my help every now again... Who'd he kill?"
"Man's name turned out to be Joseph Marino," Conrad recites from the news article he'd read on the found body, accepting his phone back and glancing at the saved map. "Hired body guard for some thug patroning the clinic for, er, I think dialysis? Worth could have just let the guy walk away, but - but he didn't!" Conrad clings to his phone, eyes flashing. "So you can understand, can't you, that I'd be reluctant to acknowledge anything regarding your doctor? Hm? He's done fine enough by me, but - but I don't know if I want that kind of friend, all right?"
Hanna remains quiet, eyes tired under a pulling hand. "Okay," he croaks, replacing his glasses, snuffling. "Okay, uh," he scratches the back of his head, looking behind himself for errant search, finding nothing else to focus on. Hanna slaps his fists together, eyes squeezed shut and sigh rasped out through puffy cheeks. "That's bad. Thanks for telling me." He rakes fingers through his short ginger hair, bending at the waist then standing up straight. "Fwoo, that's bad. That's really really bad. Did you know why he mighta - ? And what did he do exactly -? You weren't there, were you? What'd he say?"
Conrad purples under the memory of bearing Worth against the dingy kitchen wall, teeth sinking past fabric into skin, hands furiously scrabbling at Worth's to keep them off him as he - and then of course the horrified exclamation of the guard, the open pop of bullet through air - "Well," Conrad starts, hesitant. "Long story short, I was being shot 'dead' for witnessing King Kidney Disease's appearance at the clinic itself - so I'm to believe. After the, um," Conrad stalls, throat warmed with the memory of bright new blood sinking its way to his stomach, "Gun. Was empty. Worth cut...? Something. The neck. Of the man. Joseph Marino."
Hanna is very still, eyes narrowed. "Yeah? Seems fair; dude sounds like a murderer himself. And guy!"
Conrad startles.
"Why didn't you tell me you'd been shot at! I ask you about your friggin' day and you don't tell me this?"
Conrad bites the inside of his cheek, newly offended. "You don't ask, actually."
Hanna sputters, "It's implied!" Stabbing the air with a fist full of apple core, "You're my friend, Doc's my friend, nobody tells me anything!"
"You're busy," Conrad argues placantly, thumbing through a list of flight sales on his phone, "You have a job now between cases. Hardly have an afternoon for tea, much less a midnight. It's fine -"
"Not fine!" Hanna growls, teeth flashing, arms out. "I said I didn't want things to be weird between us - and now you and Doc are having secret murders that I'm the last to know about and hey, hey, I don't want shit getting weird between you two, either!" Hanna wags a finger in Conrad's face, a billows of emotion.
Conrad laughs weakly, incapable of summoning the usual indignation. "You can't control how your friends perceive each other, Hanna. There's no weirdness, I promise." Emphatically, "I found a flight for tomorrow night. Do you have work in the morning?"
Hanna drops his arms, exhaling. "Nooooobut I think I have to tackle the laundry."
"Then you'll come over tonight for tea. Veser's bringing a friend around for the evening and I don't want to be alone anywhere near that."
"Heh." Hanna drops the apple core into an open waste bin. "No thanks, man. But I'll see ya? Oh, and call me when you leave."
Conrad was not prepared for the upheaval of loss within himself, knees turned to stone. Was it something he said? Or did Hanna not even realize that the invite was to mend the rift of non-communication that seemed to have sprung up between them? Conrad wasn't one to argue a rejection, even one so stark and unexplained, and stood a little straighter before tucking his phone away. "Of course. Get some sleep, maybe."
"Huh? Oh, me. Heh. Yeah, I will. Thanks pal." Hanna followed Conrad to the door, slapping him on the shoulder.
Conrad resented the gesture and the nickname with a venom that surprised him, stopping halfway down the small cold hallway to look back, blinking free of his anger. Hanna was leaning in the doorway, watching the linoleum at his doorstep, smile fading, eyes tired. Conrad nearly called out in goodbye, but Hanna turned and closed the door before he could form the words.
xxXXxx.x.x..XxxX..
"Did you raid my closet?" Conrad asked flatly, knowing the answer was no, but making it a point to ask since Veser was dressed a little more primly than usual.
Veser tugged at the gray vest and started to roll up the sleeves of the dark blue button-down, sharp teeth flashing. "It's good, right?" He turned in place, admittedly trim and looking more the adult to suit the sideburns.
Conrad averts his gaze as he passes, nostrils flaring at the waft of cedar-base cologne. "Uh. Yeah. It's fine. Thought you said this wasn't a date." He eyed the kitchen's breakfast island, which had a stir-fry meal steaming from two plates.
"It's an interview," Veser reminded, eyebrow lifting haughtily. "I'm trying ta look professional."
Conrad turned to hide his crooked smirk. Mimicry was the highest form of flattery, after all. "Not too professional if you're trying to get her drunk," Conrad swiped the bottle of wine from the counter. "Who sold this to you, even?"
"Got a buddy works register," Veser explained with a shrug. "That ain't for partying, man, put it back."
"You're underage in this country," Conrad reminded airily, holding the bottle free of Veser's swipe.
A struggle (and argument) was derailed by the apartment's door buzzer, Veser tugging his clothes straight while Conrad swiftly strode to his room to hide the wine.
Once past his bedroom door, anxiety sank its claws deep into Conrad's skin and he resolved to leave the commons of the apartment to Veser and his guest and never suffer introductions. Besides, he was guarding the wine. Closing his door firmly, he turned to the laptop left charging on the bed, loosening his vest so he could belly-flop onto the mattress, toeing his boots off and looping the headphones over his head.
Hours passed before Conrad resurfaced in pyjamas, drifting through the carnage that was the kitchen - the high tang of booze in the air. "Can't keep a good punk down," he muttered, running the sink tap to start in on the dirty dishes. When Veser's bedroom door creaked open, a movie soundtrack drifted through and Conrad peered down the hall, hands dripping, to watch the warm square of bathroom light close off and leave the blue square of television light. Conrad listened closer, unable to place his unease. If Veser had his guest in for the night, it was none of his business - right?
But there was something in the air that didn't settle right, a dull undertone of motor oil, a background noise Conrad couldn't quite place. He intercepted Veser's leave from the bathroom with a quiet beckon from the kitchen end of the hall. "Who exactly did you interview tonight?"
"Oh, I don't know if you met him. That guy that gave my mom her skin back."
Chills ran up Conrad's spine. "Tibenoch?"
"Yes?" A quiet voice hailed from the doorway, the sound - what could now be detected as a clattering of a typewriter, paused as Tibenoch heard his name. He appeared shortly after, glancing from Veser to Conrad and back. "Oh. Are we here to answer the mystery of Mrs. Hatch, too?"
"I live here." Conrad dead-panned, but regretted parting with that information. "You got over shooting yourself, I see."
"Still hurts when it rains," Tibenoch chuckled, slapping the side of his leg. "I'm glad to see you in health, Mr. Achenleck."
"Hah," Conrad took Veser by the crook of his elbow and tugged him toward the kitchen. "Excuse us."
Tibenoch holds a hand up, sliding back into the room. The clatter of the typewriter resumes.
"He's writing up what happened to my mom," Veser argues hotly, green eyes flashing. "And Lee." It's the waver in Veser's voice, close to tears, that stills Conrad's lecture.
"And you trust him here?"
"Safer than me going to that museum he lives in. Yeesh."
"How long have you been in contact with this guy?" Conrad has yet to let Veser's arm loose, a brace more than a grapple. "He's not stable. You can't trust him to tell the truth."
"My dad didn't kill anybody," Veser hisses, voice just as low, just as scared and angry. "He's a drunk and an asshole but he's too lazy and too fuckin' stupid to kill anybody then make it look like a suicide. Ples over there was being blackmailed to find the pelt, something, I think, like my ma had something of his? So he had ta leave her notes ta follow that they could make the trade-off, but Lee was following too. We think my ma thought, well, maybe Lee was dad or Ples - or just - she didn't know. He would have given it back." Veser wipes his face, composing himself. "Lee woulda given the pelt back. And Selkies are pretty damn chill with killing folks, so." A one-shoulder shrug. "Motive, opportunity, and Hanna helped me find the autopsy reports on the blow at the back of Lee's head. Made by a shorter person than my dad is." Lower, conspiratorial, "Tibenoch's just giving me his half of the story. Guy can't navigate a computer. He brought a travel typewriter, no joke, like Hunter S. Fucking Thompson or something. Said he'd document whatever questions I had."
Conrad felt gutted. "And you found this all out tonight?"
"Oh, naw," Veser shrugged again, pulling Conrad's hand from his elbow to squeeze his fingers before dropping them. "I'm just telling you what's what, now that I got all the answers. Ples has been answerin' my questions since Hanna helped stabilize his condition. He got the original copy of Lee's autopsy report just the other day, and wanted to show it to me personally. Ya know." Another shrug, more a twitch. "Reasons. Authentication. I needed ta see it, not just read it from some archive."
Conrad didn't know what to say. Had he been so self-absorbed to have missed all of this going on right in his own home, with the closest thing to a best friend he had?
You don't ask, actually.
Conrad made a struggling effort to pat Veser's shoulder, but remembered the bitter hollowness when Hanna did the same to him earlier, and half-hugged Veser instead. "Good that you're getting closure, I suppose."
Veser shoved at Conrad's stomach, laughing. "Dude, I don't need your pity. But thanks."
Conrad threw his hands up, idly wondering why this rejection didn't sting nearly as much as Hanna's had. "Can't get you to stop hugging me every other day, but now I get a shove. All right. I get it. You're a grown man, you don't need a nanny." he returns to the full sink of dishes, sighing, but then asks, "What are your plans for the weekend?"
Veser has leaned against the breakfast island, arms crossed, silent with thought. "I got nothin'," he answered, glancing Conrad up and down. "Why? Need the place empty?"
"Pff." Conrad ran the tap, then turned it off to respond. "I'm rescuing Hanna's dead man, and I'll need a Renfield to help with travel."
"Where to?"
"Florida." Conrad shakes suds from a hand.
"What! Hey! Yeah! Can I bring friends?"
