by Ari Marmell
“Uh…” He took one last swallow and shoved the flask back in his coat. “We going somewhere?”
“Yep. One of the only places I’m sure there’ve gotta be some answers to all of this. I’ve dug around there once already, but I think it’s worth a second trip. Especially with an extra pair of eyes.”
Not sure what he saw in my smile or my own peepers, but he actually wilted.
“I ain’t gonna like whatever you got in mind, am I?”
“Well, you’re a cop.” I grinned even wider. “So you damn well better not.”
* * *
“You were right, Mick. I don’t like this at all.”
“C’mon, Pete. What’s a little B&E between friends?”
“On a first offense? Probably not more’n two or three years.”
“See there? Nothin’ to worry about.”
Pete grumbled something rude I pretended not to hear, and stepped back to fidget and watch the hallway. Me, I was down on one knee, poking at the lock for the second time this week. No way for me to tell if Ramona’d been back here since my last visit, not from out here, but the wards on the lock were still down. If she had been back, she either hadn’t taken—or couldn’t take—the time’n effort to reset them.
Took just a few seconds to get that musical click, and then I pushed the door open and stood.
“You comin’?”
“I’d say I should stay and guard the hallway,” Pete muttered, “but that still makes me an accomplice.”
“Exactly. So come be a good accomplice, at least.”
“I’d feel better if we had a warrant.”
“Me, too, if it’d stop your constant bitching.”
Not sure if it was his shoulder or his scowl that shoved me aside as he pushed past me into Ramona’s apartment.
Everything stood more or less as I’d left it, including the piles of papers and scribblings and different envelopes addressed to different names on the nightstand. If Ramona had come back here after our encounter at the carnival, she hadn’t left any obvious signs of it.
Which also meant there was no new evidence jumping into view, wavin’ its hands at us and screamin’ for attention. I took another look-see around the place while Pete sifted through those papers, and then I waited while he poked around some. All of which led us to nothing much. Still no sign of who Ramona’s mystery boss was, or where we might find him.
Probably goes without saying that we didn’t come across any stolen mummies, either. I’da mentioned something like that.
“What about this?” I jabbed one of the envelopes with a fingernail. “You recognize the handwriting, by any chance?”
“Sorry, Mick.”
Guess I didn’t expect anything else. It still nagged at me, though. I could swear I’d seen it before. Cursing softly—in Old Gaelic, ’cause why not?—I scooped up the whole pile and started cramming half-crumpled pieces into various pockets.
“Uh, Mick? What’re you doing?”
“Taking these to study more closely later.”
“You mean stealing them.”
I almost missed a pocket due to shrugging at him.
“Book me.”
“She’s gonna know you were here!”
“She’ll get wise to that—if she ain’t already—soon as she sees the lock, Pete.”
He rolled his hands and threw up his eyes, or maybe it was the other way around.
“Whatever. Do what you want.”
“I was gonna. It’s nice to have your support, though.”
That task complete, I wandered across the apartment to stare at the blower.
“Hey, Pete?”
He grunted.
“You mind making a call or two?”
“Oh, now I’m useful?”
“I dunno, let’s see.”
Thankfully, it was just enough past dawn at this point that I figured there’d be people already at work in the various offices he’d need to speak to. I left him dialing around while I did yet more fruitless searching.
“Sorry, Mick,” he said eventually, joining me in the dining room. “Everything about the place is in one of her fake names.” He sorta gestured at me while he said that—or rather, I realized, at the papers I’d taken, where we’d first found those aliases. “Nothin’ that leads to an employer.”
Well, it’d been worth a try. But damn, I was gettin’ frustrated! I’d known she was good, that she hadda be good, but if she turned out to be too good for me to track down or outsmart, I was gonna start takin’ it personal.
“Could you get on the horn one more time?” I asked. “Find out if those two idiots who tried to jump me have been booked yet, and if we can grill ’em for a few?”
Yeah, I know. I said it’d be safer to wait a couple days, and it’d only been a few hours. Whaddaya want from me? I was gettin’ desperate for a lead.
And oh, I got one.
“Uh, Mick?” Pete lowered the blower, puttin’ one hand over the mouthpiece. “They ain’t there.”
Felt as if the air in the apartment got real thick all of a sudden.
“Define ‘ain’t there.’”
“I mean they’re not at the station. Got diverted to the state pen en route. They’re bein’ processed and kept there.”
Which meant a whole different set of procedures, under a whole different system. Different hoops to jump through in order to see ’em or question ’em, too. Sure, they’da gotten there eventually, but this quick? Totally bypassing county and city officials, a few days in the city slammer? On a simple assault charge? No way. Either somebody thought they needed protection—or somebody didn’t want anyone to have easy access to ’em.
“Anyone” meaning us.
“Who gave the word to transfer ’em?” I demanded.
Pete raised the receiver again and repeated my question.
“Dunno,” he told me. “Paperwork came down with all the proper seals through all the proper channels, is all guys at the front desk can tell me.”
Hinkier and hinkier, as the man almost said.
“Pete… Who dropped the earlier charges on these two? Who arranged their release in the first place?”
Again Pete spoke and cajoled and commanded for another few minutes, sometimes stopping to wait while the desk sergeant on the other end picked up a different line to make more calls. When he finally put down the phone, his face was red from shouting and wrinkled in thought.
“You look like a shriveled apple,” I told him.
“Nobody can answer the question, Mick. He said the secretary at the courthouse told him that the records ain’t complete. They know the order has to have come from someone legitimate, or the ginks wouldn’t have been released in the first place, but whoever it was never got around to signing the damn paperwork.”
“Gee, what a coincidence.”
“Ain’t it, though? What now?”
What now, indeed. Wheels in my noggin’ were finally turning again. Guess they’d slipped back into place from where the bullet’d jarred them loose, because I felt like I was thinkin’ clearly for the first time in days.
I’d already known that Ramona’s boss was somebody important, somebody powerful, somebody with access to police and banking records. What I hadn’t known until just now was that he actually had strings he could pull in the legal system, could make decisions affectin’ prisoners and trials and the judiciary.
That by itself didn’t prove much, didn’t tell me much. But now that I knew, now that I was already thinking in that direction? That was the push I’d needed. I finally knew where I’d seen that handwriting before.
And a whole lot finally fell into place.
It wasn’t enough to just suspect, of course, no matter how sure I was. I hadda know. You don’t move against a guy with that sorta clout without knowing.
Which made our next stop City Hall.
I ain’t gonna bore you with the specifics. Another train ride. Wanderin’ from office to office, sometimes just askin’ directions
, sometimes throwing down a little mojo to get the answers I needed.
Then a lot more magic, even risking another backlash of bad luck (which, thankfully, didn’t happen this time). Enough magic to get me’n Pete into rooms we shouldn’t have been in, making sure to get the truth outta people we shouldn’t have been talking to. Until I finally found and mind-whammied a secretary who’d been ordered to keep her mouth shut, but was able to tell me who’d given the order to drop the charges against my two recent unwanted visitors.
And yeah, it was exactly who I’d thought it would be. Exactly whose handwriting I’d thought I’d recognized.
My old client, whose case I’d wrapped up right before I’d first been hired to find Celia Ottati by her frightened mother, before I’d first met Bianca and Fino and poor, slumbering Adalina.
Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Baskin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I lost a big chunk of the day waitin’ around climbing my thumb, since I wasn’t about to grill Baskin about any of this in City Hall. Nah, this was gonna take privacy, and that meant doing squat until he got himself home. Well, it gave me time to check in with some folks elsewhere in the building who were kind enough to provide me the man’s home address—whether they meant to or not. (I’m sure it’ll shock you to learn that most of the lawyers workin’ for the city in a place like Chicago don’t publicize their addresses.)
Pete pointed out, correctly, that I had no way of guessin’ how the chat with Baskin was goin’ to go, if we’d be in any immediate danger afterward or if we’d have to go dashing off after some lead or other. I wasn’t real thrilled with the idea of takin’ my buddy’s car—a beatup old Ford—instead of the train, but I hadda admit it was the wise thing to do. I just spent the whole trip tryin’ to squeeze my head until it squished like a melon.
He, on the other hand, was even less thrilled about the notion of waiting in the car, down the block, when I went to confront Baskin. But he couldn’t exactly argue that he should go with me, not when the man could end his career with a word in the wrong ear. Better he stay back, outta sight, and ready to come bustin’ in if I yelled for help.
And yeah, I assured him I could yell so he’d hear me. He made some stupid joke about Fae sirens vs. police sirens. I said he was damn lucky I couldn’t drive myself outta here in a hurry if I accidentally tripped and beat him senseless with his own shoes.
Then, that important bit of wisdom exchanged, I ankled on over to Baskin’s doorstep.
The place was, uh… Well, it certainly consisted of a lot of bricks.
Yeah, Baskin had learned that much from the trouble boys he’d faced across the courtroom over the years. His place was big, real big, but not quite too big. Redbrick walls, white trim and shutters, neatly manicured lawn on a street where everyone else boasted the same. Nice enough to make you say, “Pretty fancy for a guy in his position,” not so nice that you’d start to wonder if he was supplementing his income.
Unless you were suspicious as me, in which case you damn well were wondering if he was supplementing his income.
And also wondering what the hell kinda magical dinguses he might have locked up in there. How potent where they? Did he know how to use ’em? What sorta trouble was I potentially walkin’ into?
Oh, and where in the house would I hide a millennia-old mummified body if I were an assistant state’s attorney?
I rapped a couple knuckles on the door. Gave it a minute. Rapped again.
Baskin was no bunny. He wasn’t just gonna throw the door open to any sap who came along. Your average Joe wouldn’t have been sure he was even home. Wouldn’t have heard the faint scuff of him sneaking up to glance out the peephole, or the soft choke when he saw who it was.
“C’mon, Baskin. I know you’re in there. You make me break in, I’m gonna make damn sure the cops who come to arrest me see things you don’t want ’em to. I just wanna talk a while. I ain’t here to hurt you.”
Probably.
Maybe.
Certainly not too bad, at least.
Took him a minute to decide whether or not to answer. I was gettin’ ready to yell again—or maybe just do something scientifically impossible to the lock—when he finally shouted back.
“What do you want here, Oberon?”
“Uh, didn’t I just say? You ain’t hearing me too well. Must be all this door between us. How’s about you open up and invite me in, and there’ll be less door between us?”
“What if I don’t want you in my home?”
“I’d be surprised if you did, frankly. I don’t much wanna be here, either. We all got our crosses to bear. You gonna let me in now, or does your pride need you to protest a while longer?”
The door swung open, revealing a middle-aged mug with a five-dollar haircut, wearing a burgundy housecoat that probably cost more’n Pete’s car, and carrying a double-barreled shotgun almost massive enough to qualify as artillery.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re an ass?” he asked me.
“That a trick question, counselor? What’s with the hardware? You go whale-hunting on the weekends?”
“I have a lot of enemies, Mr. Oberon.”
“Seems like you’d want many gats, then, insteada one big one. Or do you expect ’em to line up for you? Because I’d pay to see that.”
“Just come inside and close the damn door, would you?”
I went inside and closed the damn door. Learned a few different things the moment I did, too.
First, the house was warded. Not enough to keep me out, not near as painful as Orsola’s protections had been. Just sort of a low-grade discomfort. Definitely woulda distracted me for a second or two if I’d come through the door fighting, maybe enough to have given Baskin a leg-up on whatever he woulda been doing in defense. Mostly, though, I figured it for an alarm; I’m sure somewhere in the house, a crystal was glowing or a taxidermied coyote was shouting a warning, or something similar. “Fae in the house! Fae in the house! Call an exterminator!”
Second, there was magic in the house beyond the wards. I mean, sure, I’d guessed there would be—“collector” and all, as Ramona’d told me—but it was good to confirm. Thing is, it didn’t feel as strong as I’d expected. Either Baskin’s collection was a lot smaller’n I thought, or he had enough occult knowledge to muffle some of it. Given the wards, probably the latter. Best I could tell from what emanations I could feel, the goods were upstairs.
And third, as a home decorator, Baskin made a good lawyer.
His sense of style focused on “inoffensive,” fancy without the least trace of personality. Furniture mostly in whites and creams and grays, except where it was varnished hardwood; bog-standard china patterns; a few painted landscapes. About the only things that stood out were some newspaper articles, carefully clipped and framed, hanging in groups on this wall or that. I didn’t even have to look to know they’d be stories about big court cases he’d won.
“Christ, Baskin. Couldya be any more of a stuffed shirt?”
Not that I was really payin’ the slightest attention to the clippings, or much else in the house right then. Naw, I just didn’t want him noticing what I was focused on. Woulda been too obvious and too threatening for me to make a grab for the L&G, and I hadda work slow and steady to make sure a stroke of bad luck didn’t gum up the works, so I needed time…
His cheeks tightened around his teeth.
“Did you come all the way out here just to insult me?”
“Well, that ain’t the only reason.”
Shaking his head, he opened a glass cabinet and poured himself a lead crystal glassful of something vaguely golden.
“It’s legal to own,” he said defensively after a large sip. “Just not to buy.”
“Yeah, I’m actually aware of how the law works.”
“That remains to be seen.” He finished off the drink in a quick gulp and went back to idly fingering the shotgun. “Quit stalling, Oberon. Why are you here?”
“Why don’tcha ask Ramona? I�
�m sure she can guess, if you can’t.”
“Who?”
And you know what? I couldn’t taste the lie in his words. Don’t get me wrong, I knew he was lyin’, but it was weird not to be able to confirm it. Ain’t unheard of for a human to be a good enough liar that I can’t tell, but it ain’t somethin’ I run into every day, either.
Guess he’d pulled himself together a little with that drink.
“C’mon, Baskin. We really gotta go through the whole song and dance? I felt the wards when I walked in. I know the kinda stuff you’re involved in. I can feel your collection from down here, even through all the efforts you’ve taken to veil it. I know you sent Ramona to try to snag the Spear of Lugh a while back, and to case Rounser’s carnival so you could steal his mummy.”
“You… You’re mad! Certifiably insane!”
“You weren’t surprised when I heard you through the front door. And you knew better’n to think threatening me with that hand-cannon was gonna stop me comin’ in if I really wanted to.”
“Maybe I just don’t like the idea of violence if I can avoid it. Or I just don’t want to have to clean up the mess and fill out the paperwork if I kill you.”
Had it been long enough? Had I been focused enough? Time to find out.
“All right. Since I can sense everything anyway, let’s just mosey on upstairs to your collection and I’ll show you what I’m talkin’ about.”
That suggestion got twin shotgun barrels aimed my way real quick. It was almost disappointing how predictable that reaction was.
“No. I think this is about as much of my home as you’re going to see tonight, Oberon.”
“C’mon, bo. There’s more’n just you and me riding on this.” A young girl’s life and whole friggin’ identity, for one, though obviously I didn’t say that. “Can we just skip over this part and go upst—?”
“No! It’s time for you to leave, before—”
I mentally tugged on the mystical threads I’d been weavin’ for the past few minutes, draining the luck outta the bean shooter Baskin was holdin’ on me. A couple of unhealthy clacks echoed through the room, and the breach broke open on its own, the barrels swinging loose from the handle like a broken carrot.
