Evil Dark

  The ghoul left without a word, but he still didn't look happy. "You ever wonder why all ghouls have such fancyass names?" I asked Milo.

  "No, I haven't actually," he said. "But, tell me – what would your reaction be if you met one who called himself Rex, or maybe Spike?"

  "I'd probably laugh out loud," I said.

  "That may be the reason, then." Milo, who was back on the sofa, leaned forward. "Let me get to the reason I wished to have a conversation with you officers, which is the same reason that brought me to your… charming little town."

  Snotty little prick. "Brought you here from where?" I asked him.

  "I live in Los Angeles," he said, as if it meant something. Maybe to him it did.

  "What was it you wanted to talk about?" Karl asked him.

  "These DVDs that have been circulating that show a demonically possessed man torturing and murdering another man."

  "What's that got to do with you?" I asked. "I don't suppose you're here to confess that you're responsible."

  Mister Milo gave me a tight little smile. "No, not hardly." The smile disappeared as if it had never been there at all. "I represent certain interests in the Los Angeles area who are very concerned about these videos. It is feared that eventually knowledge of them will become public, causing an outcry against an industry that is utterly i

  It took me a moment to figure out what he was saying. "You represent the porn business."

  "We prefer to call it the adult entertainment industry," he said.

  "You can call it the fucking Girl Scouts, for all I care," I said. "I still don't think the term 'utterly i

  "I meant i

  Getting this scumbag to admit that he was a scumbag was a waste of time, and we had bigger fish to fry.

  "So, if your 'industry' has nothing to do with these snuff videos, what are you doing in Scranton – protesting your i

  The smile made another brief appearance. "But then I would have been denied the pleasure of making your acquaintance, Sergeant," he said, and I wondered if I could just shoot him and get away with it. Maybe if I called it "pest extermination".

  "I'm here to act as a go-between, Milo said. "A liaison, if you will, between the local authorities and my employers."

  Karl snorted. "And what fucking good do you figure that's go

  Milo spread his hands and shrugged at the same time. I wondered if he practiced it in front of a mirror. "I hope to serve as a conduit for information, Detective. I could pass on to you anything relevant that might be discovered back on the West Coast, and I hope you officers would reciprocate by sharing with me developments in the case as they arise."

  I was about to get all hard-ass and tell this creep that the police didn't share confidential information with scumbag civilians, when my brain finally got out of first gear. So I asked him, just to see what he'd say, "And suppose we did share information about the case with you, what purpose would it serve? What would you use it for?"

  Another elegant shrug. "Well, that's impossible to say at this point, of course. But I find that all information proves useful, sooner or later – don't you?"

  He was good, I'll give him that. I figured that Milo had been lying from the cradle and only got better at it with each passing year. The fact that some porno king had sent him out here was probably a testament to his skill as a bullshit artist. He was lying like the pro he was, and I knew it.

  He was looking at Karl when he finished speaking, but for what I was about to do, I wanted him looking at me. "Milo," I said quietly.

  When he turned his i

  He didn't blink or turn a hair. But the pupils of those brown eyes instantly dilated, and that was all I needed to see.

  I once spent some time reading a book called Deception Detection. About ninety percent of it was stuff any experienced cop knows, but the chapter on pupil dilation movement caught my interest. Pupil dilation movement (or PDM) was what the author, some PhD from Berkeley, called an "autonomic response". That means it operates outside the conscious control of the will. It's like blushing when you're embarrassed, or breaking out in a sweat when you're nervous about something.

  Not everybody blushes from shame, or sweats due to tension, but every human's pupils dilate or contract in response to sudden, strong emotion. Every damn one. That's what the guy said in his book, anyway – and he's a PhD, so I figure he knows his shit.

  As soon as I said "Sharkey", Milo's pupils had gone from the size of a dried pea to something more like a dime.

  From the corner of my eye I could see that Karl had turned his head to stare at me, but I kept looking at Mister Milo. His raised eyebrows were a study in mild surprise, and the smile made a guest appearance on his lips before he spoke.

  "Sharkey?" he said. "Don't believe I recognize the name. It sounds like the title of yet another rip-off of Jaws."

  I shook my head. "Nice try, Milo. You're a credit to whatever law school taught you how to lie, cheat, and steal. You are a lawyer, aren't you?"

  He sounded irritated for the first time since we'd arrived. "Yes, I'm a member of the bar. So what?"

  "So nothing," I said. "Just confirming a suspicion. But what I said about Sharkey – that wasn't a suspicion. That's a fact, you stupid son of a bitch."

  No smiles this time. His lips were a pencil-thin line. "I repeat, I have no idea what – or whom – you're talking about. But, just for the sake of discussion, if I had hired this Sharkey, why would doing so make me, in your words, 'a stupid son of a bitch'?"