The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 2)

"We were both in wheelchairs. He was rich. It was great." She rolled her lips under, like she was smoothing lipstick, then out, and swallowed.

"When did it stop being great?" I asked.

"I moved in with him. Dropped out of college. It was . . . easier than college. Easier than anything. He couldn't get enough of me." She stared down at her lap again. "He started wanting variety in the bedroom. See, his legs are crippled, but he can feel. I can't feel." Wanda's voice had dropped almost to a whisper. I had to lean against her knees to hear. "He liked to do things to my legs, but I couldn't feel it. So at first I thought that was okay, but . . . but he got really sick." She looked at me suddenly, her face only inches from mine. Her eyes were huge, swimming with unshed tears. "He cut me up. I couldn't feel it, but that's not the point, is it?"

"No," I said.

The first tear trailed down her face. I touched her hand. Her fingers wrapped around mine and held on.

"It's alright," I said, "it's alright."

She cried. I held her hand and lied. "It's alright now, Wanda. He can't hurt you anymore."

"Everyone hurts you," she said. "You were going to hurt me." There was accusation in her eyes.

It was a little late to explain good cop, bad cop to her. She wouldn't have believed it anyway.

"Tell me about Gaynor."

"He replaced me with a deaf girl."

"Cicely," I said.

She looked up, surprised. "You've met her?"

"Briefly."

Wanda shook her head. "Cicely is one sick chickie. She likes torturing people. It gets her off." Wanda looked at me as if trying to gauge my reaction. Was I shocked? No.

"Harold slept with both of us at the same time, sometimes. At the end it was always a threesome. It got real rough." Her voice dropped lower and lower, a hoarse whisper. "Cicely likes knives. She's real good at skinning things." She rolled her lips under again in that lipstick-smoothing gesture. "Gaynor would kill me just for telling you his bedroom secrets."

"Do you know any business secrets?"

She shook her head. "No, I swear. He was always very careful to keep me out of that. I thought at first it was so if the police came, I wouldn't be arrested." She looked down at her lap. "Later, I realized it was because he knew I would be replaced. He didn't want me to know anything that could hurt him when he threw me away."

There was no bitterness now, no anger, only a hollow sadness. I wanted her to rant and rave. This quiet despair was aching. A hurt that would never heal. Gaynor had done worse than kill her. He'd left her alive. Alive and as crippled inside as out.

"I can't tell you anything but bedroom talk. It won't help you hurt him."

"Is there any bedroom talk that isn't about sex?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Personal secrets, but not sex. You. were his sweetie for nearly two years. He must have talked about something other than sex."

She frowned, thinking. "I . . . I guess he talked about his family."

"What about his family?"

"He was illegitimate. He was obsessed with his real father's family."

"He knew who they were?"

Wanda nodded. "They were rich, old money. His mother was a hooker turned mistress: When she got pregnant, they threw her out."

Like Gaynor did to his women, I thought. Freud is so often at work in our lives. Out loud I said, "What family?"

"He never said. I think he thought I'd blackmail them or go to them with his dirty little secrets. He desperately wants them to regret not welcoming him into the family. I think he only made his money so he could be as rich as they were."

"If he never gave you a name, how do you know he wasn't lying?"

"You wouldn't ask if you could hear him. His voice was so intense. He hates them. And he wants his birthright. Their money is his birthright."

"How does he plan to get their money?" I asked.

"Just before I left him, Harold had found where some of his ancestors were buried. He talked about treasure. Buried treasure, can you believe it?"

"In the graves?"

"No, his father's people got their first fortune from being river pirates. They sailed the Mississippi and robbed people. Gaynor was proud of that and angry about it. He said that the whole bunch of them were descended from thieves and whores. Where did they get off being so high and mighty to him?" She was watching my face as she spoke the last. Maybe she saw the beginnings of an idea.

"How would knowing the graves of his ancestors help him get their treasure?"

"He said he'd find some voodoo priest to raise them. He'd force them to give him their treasure that had been lost for centuries."

"Ah," I said.

"What? Did that help?"

I nodded. My role in Gaynor's little scheme had become clear. Painfully clear. The only question left was why me? Why didn't he go to someone thoroughly disreputable like Dominga Salvador? Someone who would take his money and kill his hornless goat and not lose any sleep over it. Why me, with my reputation for morality?

"Did he ever mention any names of voodoo priests?"

Wanda shook her head. "No, no names. He was always careful about names. There's a look on your face. How could what I have told you just now help you?"

"I think the less you know about that, the better, don't you?"

She stared at me for a long time but finally nodded. "I guess so."

"Is there any place . . ." I let it trail off. I was going to offer her a plane ticket or a bus ticket to anywhere. Anywhere where she wouldn't have to sell herself. Anywhere where she could heal.

Maybe she read it in my face or my silence. She laughed, and it was a rich sound. Shouldn't whores have cynical cackles?

"You are a social worker type after all. You want to save me, don't you?"

"Is it terribly naive to offer you a ticket home or somewhere?"

She nodded. "Terribly. And why should you want to help me? You're not a man. You don't like women. Why should you offer to send me home?"

"Stupidity," I said and stood.

"It's not stupid." She took my hand and squeezed it. "But it wouldn't do any good. I'm a whore. Here at least I know the town, the people. I have regulars." She released my hand and shrugged. "I get by."

"With a little help from your friends," I said.

She smiled, and it wasn't happy. "Whores don't have friends."

"You don't have to be a whore. Gaynor made you a whore, but you don't have to stay one."

There were tears trembling in her eyes for the third time that night. Hell, she wasn't tough enough for the streets. No one was.

"Just call a taxi, okay. I don't want to talk anymore."

What could I do? I called a taxi. I told the driver the fare was in a wheelchair like Wanda told me to. She let Jean-Claude carry her back downstairs because I couldn't do it. But she was very tight and still in his arms. We left her in her chair on the curb.

I watched until the taxi came and took her away. Jean-Claude stood beside me in the golden circle of light just in front of my apartment building. The warm light seemed to leech color from his skin.

"I must leave you now, ma petite. It has been very educational, but time grows short."

"You're going to go feed, aren't you?"

"Does it show?"

"A little."

"I should call you ma v¨¦rit¨¦, Anita. You always tell me the truth about myself."

"Is that what v¨¦rit¨¦ means? Truth?" I asked.

He nodded.

I felt bad. Itchy, grumpy, restless. I was mad at Harold Gaynor for victimizing Wanda. Mad of Wanda for allowing it. Angry with myself for not being able to do anything about it. I was pissed at the whole world tonight. I'd learned what Gaynor wanted me to do. And it didn't help a damn bit.

"There will always be victims, Anita. Predators and prey, it is the way of the world."

I glared up at him. "I thought you couldn't read me anymore."

"I cannot read your mind or your thoughts, only your face and what I know of you."

I didn't want to know that Jean-Claude knew me that well. That intimately. "Go away, Jean-Claude, just go away."

"As you like, ma petite." And just like that he was gone. A rush of wind, then nothing.

"Show-off," I murmured. I was left standing in the dark, tasting the first edge of tears. Why did I want to cry over a whore whom I'd just met? Over the unfairness of the world in general?

Jean-Claude was right. There would always be prey and predator. And I had worked very hard to be one of the predators. I was the Executioner. So why were my sympathies always with the victims? And why did the despair in Wanda's eyes make me hate Gaynor more than anything he'd ever done to me?

Why indeed?