Nightwine was silent. So I spoke again.
"So her name was Lilith. Wasn’t Lilith the uppity woman Adam banished from Eden so Eve could get down with the snake and queer the whole deal? And then they both blamed Lilith?"
"That's ancient legend. I deal in the present and the future. The fact is, as I now see, you are a stranger to Vegas and to my production company. You must understand. We're talking copyrights here. I bought all rights to Lilith's likeness and its reproduction. I have the same deal with all my corpses, living or dead. Lilith was unexpectedly…unique. Superb. A horror director's dream. Alas, I've been given to understand she requested a genuine dissection."
"Genuine? You mean you actually kill people onscreen?"
"Certainly not, that would be murder! But some are freshly dead, yes. If they wish. We don't kill them, we don't assist them in any way, they do it themselves. In order for our agreement to be valid, they must use some means that doesn’t leave disfiguring marks on the body."
"Suicides still have to be investigated, just like murders. And autopsies performed and…"
" Miss Street, as we have established, you are new to Las Vegas. You are also ignorant of its laws. Let us just say that certain statutes have been passed that allow for our use of such "talent," as we call performers in the entertainment industry, and that all investigatory and legal procedures are followed. The order of those procedures may simply differ from the order elsewhere. Las Vegas has always accommodated the entertainment industry, Miss Street. It is one reason Nightwine Productions are located here rather than Los Angeles."
Had I mentioned I wasn’t in Kansas anymore? I wasn’t even in Southern California's LaLa Land – and I thought that was as weird as a place could get.
"I think I understand, Mr. Nightwine. If your corpse is a real corpse, it is…ah…fresh and free of the…um…imperfections of death?"
"We prefer to 'dress' our own corpses."
"So the maggot in the nose was a director's touch?"
"Lilith made such a beautiful corpse that the director went light on the maggots, bloating, and rot. Etcetera. Do sit down. I realize our modus operandi is a shock. I'm sorry. Some people are dying for a taste of fame, even if it's posthumous."
I sat. "But…she wore my blue-topaz nose stud."
"And a dainty, poignant touch it was. Er, is, in your case. Like a tiny bejeweled tear. Exquisite." His beady black eyes actually weltered in some fluid as he eyed my nose and its little glint of bling.
"Well, Hector, I'm not dainty and bejeweled or crying, not to mention dead. I'm from Kansas and I'm somebody else than this Lilith entirely. I am not a posthumous person. Get it? I live, breathe, want answers."
"It just can't be. Not two of you in the world. So…telegenic. If you're not a sham, reneging on our deal, maybe you're Lilith herself. Maybe she made arrangements with a cheap reanimator."
"Cheap! I'm getting the impression that cheap is your style."
"You can't be real."
I'd felt that notion often enough in my dreams to feel my legs quiver a little. The reporter's credo: When in doubt, ask a hard question.
"Why not?"
"Well, we don't make mistakes. We offer untold opportunities to our non-extra performers. We are in high demand as a corpse factory. Our players are either alive mimicking death, or truly dead, and we keep scrupulous books on that, as the deceased often bequeath their royalties to loved ones. Lilith had no one to leave anything to."
"Right. Your corpses. Tell me about them-us, Hector."
"Ah, merely that we've found that the hyper-reality of modern media often requires real people for corpses. It saves dough and camera time to dissect them…dead. It's a last, spectacular way to make an impact as you, er, go."
"Nope. Dream on, Hector. I'm not reanimated."
"Ah. So. Then I would guess that you're an obsessed fan of the show. Perhaps you've undergone massive plastic surgery to become my Maggie."
"No scalpel has ever touched my lily-white skin."
Bad choice of image. I watched a soupcon of drool decorate his plump red lips.
"What can I say?" Hector tried next. "The corpse in question said her name was Lilith Quince and she swore she had no family."
"I don't either," I said. "That's why I want to find her."
"If she's really still alive, I do as well."
He'd knocked me speechless at last. What a coldblooded-
"Her…and your Black Dahlia beauty," he went on, "has made Lilith the most beloved corpse on the series. The popularity spike is already awesome after only a couple weeks. DVDs are selling like crazy. I'm even licensing 'Maggie' dolls and other tie-in merchandise via China."
"Maggie wasn’t her name," I said, confused.
Oh. I got it with a sinking stomach. The name memorialized the maggot emerging from poor Lilith's topaz-studded nostril. Hector Nightwine was one money-sucking ghoul! Oops. He might actually be one.
"I am so sorry, my dear. None of us anticipated her popularity. Please. You look even paler than usual. Have some wine, a bit of food, perhaps during an unreeling of a vintage film? I am quite the cinéaste, you know."
Maybe I know. Maybe I don't want to know. The plate of scones he passed over his desk looked…half-baked.
"No, thanks." Who knew where that stuff had been? "Cinéaste? That's a perversion I haven't heard of."
Hector sighed, a gesture that shook his brocade vest like a bowlful of eels.
"It's not a perversion. It means I am a gourmet of cinema. A devoted aficionado. One who appreciates the art of film on a deep and knowledgeable level."
I appreciated the art of film; my vintage mania meant spending way too much on classic film DVDs. His "appreciation" meant he produced a global television series that gloried in women's corpses literally littering the cutting room floor? I contemplated Lilith's likely fate-though Nightwine's initial suspicions about me being a reanimated version of a deal-breaker hinted she might not necessarily be dead-and mine. Funny, if I was so damn beautiful, why didn't anybody ever offer me a home? I picture me at age ten: pale, skinny, and mop-haired. You don't feel beautiful if nobody ever wants you. And then, all of a sudden, it looks like everybody wants you…dead. Vamps. TV producers. Nutso fans with a necrophiliac streak as wide as the Styx, the river that runs through Hell.
Nightwine still frowned into his scones, which made crunching sounds like bones as he nibbled away on them.
"Twin is out?" he asked.
"Possible but unlikely."
"I know! Clone?"
"In Kansas? We still use rainmakers. Besides, it would need to have been done in the twentieth century."
"Not too far back. Lilith wasn’t a day over twenty-five." He blotted crumbs from his over-colored lips with a crochet-bordered linen handkerchief. His currant-black eyes twinkled with a sudden thought.
"I do, of course, have samples of Lilith's DNA. We don't want any hanky-panky as to the identity of our corpses," Hector conceded. "If yours matches hers, I suppose you'd be entitled to a small royalty."
"I don't want money."
"But you admit you're an orphan. She could have been lost kin."
"I don't want money from her…death."
He licked his tongue against his teeth. It was over-colored too, and moved like a sea slug.
"Don't be foolish, my pearl. You wouldn’t believe the crazies in this town who would snatch you and dissect you on camera and then sell a tape of it, Maggie is that popular. I must protect my investment. And you might be of some use. You were an investigative reporter, I believe."
"You've been checking up on me."
"Yeth," he admitted with a lisp as he bit into a dark purple plum from his desktop bowl. Nightwine was always eating or drinking something. Ewww.