The Mustache Man

Chapter Five

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CHAPTER FIVE ON LINE MUSTACHE MAN

            “Two ten and eleven year old boys disappeared during a choir rehearsal one day. They were never found. My ex partner, Detective Robert Schulman (he calls himself Shul) lost his career because he believed the choirmaster, Marlston, who told him an incredible tale.”

            “Does this case have a name?”

            “Godbaby.”

            Pete Vargas had had enough of Carlton’s strange, cryptic answers. He wanted to go home.

            “You don’t have a home, Mustache Man.”

            “Would you stop doing that?”

            “What?”

            “Breaking into my thoughts.”

            “Old habit. I didn’t think you’d mind.”

            “Why?”

            “Because you have the same ability.”

            Pete looked at Carlton. If she was an angel she had been gone too long from a place she yearned to return to but somehow knew wouldn’t take her back, not just yet. Actually Pete didn’t care any longer whether Carlton was an angel working in a place called The Vault monitoring data for odd gaps. He’d seen stranger things and met stranger people.

            “See?”’ said Carlton. “You can do that. I don’t even have to speak to you, do I?”

            Pete shook his head.

            “How long?”

            “Long, long time.”

            “Why not just strip my mind for my story?”

            “Because I’m recording your voice Pete Vargas and sending every word as you speak. Skype.”

            “For who?”

            “For Chance. She knows you won’t let her see you. She wants to get as close to you as she can.”

            Pete got up and leaned over Carlton’s screen. He saw a woman with long red hair and a little girl with large black eyes and a dog who was a throwback to bulldogs in the nineteenth century, solid, massive without the drooping jaws of the artificial breed that passed for bull dogs. They sat there staring at him.