Penny Dreadful by Will Christopher Baer

touched his hair. It was very confusing, this relationship. She didn’t know if she liked him at all. But when she was Goo, she loved him. She wanted his children. It was a game, okay. She was playing a character. Eve stroked his fine black hair and her fingers caught in a funny tangle. His hair was matted with something. She worked her fingers through it and they came away sticky and brown. This was dried blood.
    Eve closed her eyes.
    Griffin appeared through wide sliding doors that literally purred open, cool and silent. It wasn’t bad but a really sinister whooshing noise would have been much more effective. He wore a glossy Italian suit the color of bloodwine and it seemed he had begun shaving his head since I last saw him as his skull was now the same pale creamy pink as my own bare ass.
    Are you going bald? I said.
    I am bald.
    Yes. I can see that.
    Griffin extended his hand. There was a small tattoo on the inside of his wrist, like a black coin.
    Was your hair falling out, though?
    Yes, he said. It was like plucking feathers from a dead chicken. He shrugged. I decided to shave it instead. The girls seem to like it.
    I’m sure.
    Griffin stood there, unbending. His hand still hanging between us like a knife and a knife given as a gift will always bring bad luck. I stood up and shook his hand and the contact was cold but weirdly lacking pressure. Griffin’s eyes drifted to focus on my eyebrows and I wondered if that was just a lawyer thing. Or did he truly want to avoid the eyes. I stared back at him, smiling with some reluctance.
    Griffin bowed his head slightly and I hesitated, then touched the man’s scalp. Oily and hot, almost feverish.
    What do you want? said Griffin.
    Oh, well. I’m back in town. Thought I would say hello.
    Griffin smiled the smile of a gorilla, a chimp. He showed way too many teeth and a ridge of pale gray gums. That’s funny, he said. That’s a killer.
    I shrugged, uneasy. Why is it funny?
    Because you don’t like me, said Griffin.
    No. Not at all.
    The receptionist was staring at us throughout this exchange, her lips parted. A bright glow of sweat in the thin blond fuzz along her cheekbones. Eyes glazed and blue, she chewed on her tongue and she looked mesmerized, as if she was home alone, watching a little soft porn on cable. Griffin flicked a finger at her and she abruptly began to type.
    Nice, I said.
    Let’s go in my office, Griffin said. I have champagne, of a kind.
    Moon:
    Moon was parked on a swiveling stool at Lulu’s Dough-nut Shoppe. His throat was killing him, literally. It felt like he had swallowed a mouthful of glass and what the hell happened back there.
    He had provoked McDaniel, apparently. The motherfucker had a tight little ass, an irritating accent. Bad teeth. And very fast hands. Moon sighed and shifted his own ass around, trying to get comfortable. His hefty buttocks fairly melted over the sides of his stool. Moon knew what his father would say. Old man Moon would suck on his false teeth and swear that McDaniel would be speaking German right about now if it wasn’t for us. And learning to like it. Maybe so, but that does me no good. He wondered if McDaniel was up to something nefarious or just fucking with him. Moon realized he was an easy target these days, what with his poor work habits and his body odor problems. Anyway. Jimmy Sky was nobody’s favorite cop, but he didn’t kill people. He especially didn’t kill other cops.
    Moon had a headache. He would worry about it later. And he would watch and wait for a chance to pay McDaniel back for this sore throat. He would wait years, if he had to. One day the motherfucker would fall asleep in the wrong place and wake up with his hat on fire and his hands cuffed to his feet.
    Okay, then. He wanted to get drunk and concentrate on his breakfast. He had been coming to Lulu’s every morning without fail for years. Lulu was long dead, or never existed. Wiley, a man who claimed to be her husband or stepbrother, ran the