Dead Boys Read Online Free Page B

City’s preeminent preservationist should be suitably natty, don’t you agree?”
    “Nope,” said Remington amiably as the crow hopped from his shoulder into his head. “Thanks and everything, but I don’t really get the point.”
    “The point is that you’ve already begun to decay. In a few days, your flesh will be irreparably damaged and begin its slow slide off the bone.”
    “Oh, sure. But bone is the engine, right? I mean, all you’re doing is pulling out guts and muscles, then covering the bone up again. So I’m thinking, skip the middleman, you know?”
    “Lower your voice, please,” Jacob whispered.
    “I don’t get what’s so bad about skeletons, anyway,” said Remington, his voice defiantly loud. “I think it’ll be fun. You’ll be a skeleton, too, Jake, sooner or later! We’ll have xylophone ribs. Right, crow?” The crow poked its beak through the back of Remington’s throat and squawked, sending the boy into a giggling fit that Jacob’s admonitions only intensified.
    “Ja-cob Camp-bell!” came a voice from the street, interrupting his lecture. The voice’s owner waddled past the headless duo, waving a dog-headed cane overhead in greeting. His three-piece suit was patched together from two dozen fabrics, though his skin was of a piece and hard as a shell; his face, however, had been improperly cured and was several sizes too large for his skull. Though he flattered himself that the matte surface of his skin was too lovely for anyone to notice the error, this preservationist, whose name was John Tanner, was known throughout the District as the Man in the Moon.
    “Ja-cob Camp-bell!” he burbled again, pronouncing the name as if it were an off-color joke. Drawing near, he tapped Jacob on the shoulder with the head of his cane. “Old boy, did you polish your hide today? You look rather less like a muddy quilt than usual.”
    “Ah, is that the mighty head of John Tanner?” said Jacob, gracing his competitor with a condescending bow. “My eyes must be failing me: I thought a low-flying zeppelin was attacking the District.”
    Tanner hissed, for though he began every conversation with such an insult, Jacob knew he couldn’t bear to receive them. “Perhaps it’s the sharpness of your tongue that’s been sending clients in droves to my side of the street.”
    “Lord knows it isn’t your technique, unless drying one’s face on a beach ball has suddenly come into vogue.”
    “Hahaha! Yes, quite!” Tanner brightened suddenly as a woman passed behind them who looked like she had centuries banked. “All jokes aside, Campbell, I’ve been searching high and low for you,” he said, rocking on his heels and clacking his hardened fingertips together. “I have a proposition that I’m positive you’ll find irresistible.”
    “Spare me your machinations, Tanner; I’m in a hurry.”
    “Now, hold on, don’t be so damnably paranoid! Dear boy, why must you always assume that I’m out to get you?”
    “Your frequent threats to hire thugs to disassemble me and throw the bits in separate bogs do not inspire fraternal feeling.”
    “Bah! Mere joshing. Don’t be such a stuffed shirt!”
    This stung, for Jacob, in the early months of his death, had been unable to afford the same treatment he offered his wealthiest clients. His own preservation ended at the collar and sleeves of his night-black shirt, beneath which he was as shamefully decomposed as any alley-dwelling bone-bag.
    “Let’s speak as colleagues rather than rivals for once,” Tanner went on. “But tell no one what I’m about to tell you. Do you swear? Do you promise?”
    “Tanner, I simply haven’t time.”
    “Oh, shush, it won’t take a moment.” John Tanner tapped his lips with a finger, causing his hollow face to echo like a drumhead. “Now, I have it on good authority that the Magnate’s river-rats have just dredged up two intact barrels of chemicals: one of acetone, one of epoxy resin.” When Jacob failed to react,