The Undead Kama Sutra by Mario Acevedo Page A

nondescript, rectangular buildings on Big Pine Key. An American flag snapped from a pole erected on a lawn between the pier and the buildings. The Bayliner’s engine slowed to a putter.
    We berthed alongside an assortment of boats representing the agencies working the Keys: Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, DEA, Department of Fisheries, and the Coast Guard.
    We docked next to Johnson’s boat and, after I tossed the bowline to an attendant, Carmen and I disembarked and left the Bayliner in the care of her chalice.
    Johnson saw that I followed him and he halted. “It won’t take two of you to make an ID.”
    “I want Felix to keep me company,” Carmen said. “Or do the corpses complain about too many visitors?”
    Johnson relented with a brisk wave of his hand. He led us around the largest building, past a parking lot, and through the entrance of the Medical Examiner’s Office.
    Government buildings always gave me the willies. Everything seemed stamped with “official business” as the worker cogs turned on their petty duties and counted the days to retirement. It was like a treadmill in a mausoleum.
    Johnson had us wait at a counter while he went ahead. The clerk behind the counter was a sad-faced, middle-aged woman. She did a double take at Carmen.
    The clerk’s pale scalp showed from under wispy strands dyed henna-red, with silver roots. Ignoring us, she perked up and clicked a remote toward a television sitting beside a water cooler.
    She increased the volume for a commercial of a product called NuGrumatex. Photos showed a man with a monk’s crown surrounding a bald pate smooth as a balloon. More photos and a video clip had the same man running and playing tennis—activities that demonstrated how his youthful vigor had been restored by the growth of new, thick hair. The next photos showed a woman suffering with bald patches where her head had been gnawed at by alopecia areata. She looked as miserable as a cold, wet dog, and wore a school-marmish blouse cinched tight against her throat. In her “after” photos, she had the luxurious curls of a forties cheesecake pinup with bare shoulders, inviting cleavage, and come-do-me-now smile.
    The clerk nodded self-consciously and touched her thinning hair. The commercial segued into the usual rapid-fire disclaimers, which I tuned out, except for increased salivation and heightened libido. How wonderful. Thanks to modern pharmaceuticals, America could now be a nation of hairy, drooling, horny nimrods.
    As the ad faded, it mentioned the Swiss conglomerate Rizè-Blu Pharmaceutique, Making Your Life Better Than Ever ™ . I’d seen a rash of Rizè-Blu’s ads lately, as if their marketing department had gotten the hives.
    Deputy Johnson returned. Maybe that pompadour of his was courtesy of NuGrumatex. But the only thing that made him drool now was Carmen.
    Johnson had the desk clerk sign us in and issue visitors’ badges. He led us past one door, a turn, then to a steel door,where we stopped beside a cart piled with paper face masks and disposable booties.
    “Put these on,” he said. “For your protection.”
    Carmen turned her back to Johnson and rolled her eyes.
    Once we all put on masks and booties, Johnson swiped his ID badge through a reader on the wall. The lock on the steel door retracted with a snap.
    We entered a morgue. The chilled air smelled of antibacterial cleaner and decaying human flesh. The door made another snap when it closed behind us.
    At our end, with its collection of bottles and jars and the white decor, the room looked like a science lab.
    Johnson introduced us to the medical examiner, a woman in her thirties, dressed in green scrubs, matching head cover, and a paper face mask. Because of the silver piercings in her ears and her trendy glasses, I would have expected to find her serving lattes instead of sawing through cadavers.
    The morgue extended into an open examination area with a steel table in the center of a linoleum floor. A white sheet