The Case of the Singing Sword (The Billibub Baddings Mysteries)

by Tee Morris

  “In your notes, your translation read, ‘Only the nature mild and gentle shall wield this blessed weapon.’ My translation reads differently: ‘Only nature’s gentle maid shall wield this weapon.’ Your Elders were right. Only a woman could unlock the power of the Sword of Arannahs!”

  I guess that explained the lack of humming when Capone and I held it. On account of our equipment, the magic went dormant. My Elvish must have been rustier than I thought!

  The light began to outshine the fire around her, leaving Julie as a dark cutout against the power building behind and around her. “For your service to us, you will be spared. You will serve us in the new order, and now shall the women rule under the guidance and awe of this blessed talisman!”

  Now she was talking about herself in the plural. This situation just went from bad, to worse, to a day in the stables with a herd of diarrheic horses.

  I fixed the grip on my axe, hoping that I was going to time this moment of sheer insanity right. What I was counting on was Julie’s ignorance when it came to magic, charmed weapons, and where the two shall meet. When charmed weapons meet other charmed weapons in battle, magic could be shielded or deflected. It all depended on the execution and skill of those wielding said supernatural arsenal.

  I wasn’t looking for either. I just wanted to drive the Sword’s magic back to its source as hard as I could.

  Choking up on the handle once more, I emerged from my hiding place. “I got news for you, Julie and friends,” I shouted over the flames and the Singing Sword’s magic. “It’s the bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, and the Cubs need to come home!” I brought up my own weapon in challenge. “Batter up, bitch!”

  With my regiment’s guttural yell, I charged with the hopes that her defensive nature would kick in. It did. As she extended the Singing Sword, a shaft of pure destruction came barreling toward me.

  That was when the flat of my battle-axe came around in a hard swing. Without the sorcery protecting it, my axe would have shattered like a plate-glass window struck by one of The Babe’s grand slams. Instead, I made contact with the Singing Sword’s magic. For a moment, I didn’t see anything except a blinding white light. I felt myself floating in the air, and couldn’t figure out how in the hell I was pulling off this levitation act. When my eyes finally stopped burning, I realized that it was the magnitude of the magic-on-magic blow that was hurling my little Dwarven self across the warehouse.

  My “first flight” didn’t last long. After slamming against a far metal wall with a hard “clang,” both my axe and I fell to the concrete floor hard. (I don’t think the axe felt it as much as I did!)

  Now came the deafening roar of crates exploding from the heat, their contraband contents finally igniting into bombs of glass and flame. I covered myself with my arms, my only shield at that moment, as burning embers hit my skin and lightly covered parts of my back. But I was far away enough and low enough to avoid the blast’s full force. My burning coat, which was cast off pretty damn quickly, didn’t frighten me as much as the realization that there was still more alcohol in this warehouse.

  I had to get out of here, but not empty-handed.

  Going against the survival instincts, I moved toward the fire. The white mists of magic were no longer visible. Neither were Capone and his remaining royal guard. Smart guy, that Capone, unlike yours truly who was getting closer to the inferno. Regardless of how stupid it was, I crouched lower and paused. My gamble must have paid off, because the supernatural charge once lingering in the air was gone. Heat now distorted everything in front of me, and the air was quickly becoming harder to breathe.

  Then, movement just ahead of me. I lifted up my battle-axe, the quick gesture earning me a quick, ethereal hum from my own blade.

  Julie was still alive, but doubly marred by the explosion of alcohol and the magic literally turned against her. The once-pristine flesh I savored the night before was now either blackened, or torn to reveal glistening patches of crimson that caught the light of the surrounding flames. Every move, no matter how minute, caused her unconceivable anguish. But her eyes—eyes that were now normal again—were blind with determination. Her unscarred hand was not trying to remove the burning planks of wood from her body, or beat away the smoldering debris that fused the fabric of her fine Italian dress to her skin. Escape was no longer her priority.

  With that good hand, she struggled to reach the Singing Sword, which emitted a light hum as her fingertips brushed its pommel.

  She smiled as I approached, wincing slightly at the pain her expression caused. I bent down and picked up the Sword in my own hand. Apart from the ring it made when scraping lightly against the floor of the warehouse, the only music was coming from the fire around us. Its magic was not for me, and I was just fine with that.

  “Billi,” Julie grunted. The good hand now reached for my feet. Well, I think she was reaching for my feet. I was also hanging on to the Singing Sword. “Help me.”

  The front entrance was now cut off by a barrier of flame. So was the side door I originally came in. I turned back to where I landed after taking on Julie and her sword. The air was still fresh back there, sort of. If I couldn’t reach an exit, I guess I’d have to make one.

  I hadn’t made it that far when I heard her again.

  “Billi!” Julie screamed over the fire. “You can’t just leave me here!”

  I turned around to take one last look, lightly resting the flat of the Singing Sword on my shoulder.

  “Watch me.”

  The look on her face was nice. Yeah, this is the way I wanted to remember her. Just like the way she was last night. Completely and totally screwed.

  I don’t know if she spent her last precious breaths screaming for me because I was too busy slicing away a section of the warehouse wall with my battle-axe. The indulgent good-bye to Julie Lesinger had cost me precious time; the smoke was getting to me, and I was already low to the ground. Right now, every breath mattered.

  I was out of the warehouse in a blink of a sea serpent’s eye. Hot damn, that nauseating waterfront air smelled delicious.

  The sirens were announcing a strong cavalry of police and firefighters on the way. Can’t say that I was surprised by their quick response time. If they weren’t careful, especially with the volatile contents of this warehouse (and who knows what else is kept on the waterfront), they’d have a repeat of 1871 on their hands.

  My mind kept returning to Julie, still trapped in the structure now beginning to buckle and collapse. There was a good possibility that maybe some people, the Lesinger family in particular, wouldn’t mind another Chicago blaze. It might help cover up whatever was going to hit the papers tomorrow.

  Denouement

  Three Coins in a Fountain

  “And so,” proclaimed a familiar voice with some of the power and entitlement drained out of it, “in honor of my daughter, Julia Yvette Lesinger, I give this statue to the city of Chicago.”

  The likeness made me smile.

  Although it was only “life-sized,” Lady Justice would still no doubt impress visitors to Chicago’s courthouse. There were little details—especially in her face—that made her imposing, but still reassuring and accessible. Perhaps she would give hope to those searching for her, while others who had crossed her would finally feel regret or remorse. Whatever the case, this statue, just dedicated by Henry Lesinger, was destined to be another aesthetic jewel in the scepter of The Windy City.

  While the resulting applause was polite, it lacked enthusiasm, doing little to dispel of the considerable tension in the air. Many in the crowd were questioning the sincerity of Lesinger’s gesture. He had forked over a goodly number of Franklins to alter the statue at the last minute, pushing back its dedication for another month. (Didn’t seem to bother the crews working on painting and restoring the courthouse, though.) The newspapers speculated that this statue was his last act of atonement for the sins of his daughter. Instead of appearing energetic and vivacious for a man of his years, he look
ed tired. He wasn’t the same man I saw the night of the merger between his corporation and the Rothchild’s.

  A merger that never happened.

  Once the fire was finally put out, the Warehouse District was still standing, sans one warehouse. There was some mild damage to the surrounding storage units, but nothing a little honest work couldn’t fix. The cops and public eyes were hardly surprised at finding Tommy-armed thugs among the scorched debris, cooked to the consistency of extremely well-done steaks. When the clean-up crews discovered the bodies of two women, though, the flash bulbs twinkled brighter than a cauldron full of Elvish gems catching the morning sunlight. One of the female corpses, missing a hand and parts of her skull, was sensational enough. When the other charbroiled body was identified, however, respect for the dead took a flying leap off the pier as newshounds nipped at each other’s ankles to get the best angle. In the end, The Chicago Tribune got the most graphic shot, and the first run sold out within hours.

  If anyone else were exploited on the front page like that, folks in this town would have easily lost their appetites for their morning bagels, flapjacks, or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The fact it was the “wild child” of one of Chicago’s privileged changed the rules.

  After enduring more than two weeks of sensational press on his daughter’s fiery fate, Henry Lesinger re-emerged as quite the philanthropist, contributing to charitable organizations, various community projects, and—in some cases—just outright buying approval. He was determined to show that the apple that was Julie not only fell far from the Lesinger tree, but also managed to roll out of the orchard. His former enemy, the Ryerson, suddenly had more funding than it knew what to do with for staffing, guest speakers, and exhibits. Buses appeared in the slums to take kids to Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, all expenses paid by you-know-who. If a school needed new plumbing or supplies, Lesinger was making a list and buying everything twice. He also became a church’s best friend, sponsoring repair work for stained-glass windows, stuffing the poor boxes, and even clocking in face time (and photo opportunities) at soup kitchens. He tended not to care whether the congregation was Baptist, Catholic or Jewish. (I guess he was trying to cover all his bases.)

  In the frequent interviews he granted during his acts of kindness, he would comment on how important it was to “give back to the city that gave so much to him.” A real turnaround from a guy who, if he didn’t buy the little guy outright, would quash said little guy like a forest fairy under his financial thumb. He was so set on buying his way back into the good graces of high-society friends and working stiffs alike that he continued with this magnanimous behavior for a couple of months, all his gestures leading up to this: a final tribute to his daughter.

  Problem was, no one really bought into his generosity because it was clear that he was more interested in shoring up his image rather than the community’s. It was one thing for his offspring to hobnob with the Underworld, but for her to get caught running illicit business? That broke the highest of implicit commandments among the rich. As knights who dishonored their house were excommunicated in my world, so now were the Lesingers in this one. The social elite now tightened their circles, leaving the Lesingers on the outside. Then, the Rothchild merger hit the skids. Eventually, if Daddy Lesinger wanted to hang on to the house, the Rolls, and the yacht, the only choice he had was to dismantle his empire and sell it off…and I was willing to make a wizard’s wager that Rothchild would place the first bid.

  I made smiling Irish-eye contact with my boy, O’Malley, who on spotting me turned a darker shade of red than usual. He was probably wondering what the hell I was doing there and why I was grinning. The grin was for Lady Justice, a likeness of my dear Lady Trouble trapped forever in bronze.

  Gently stroking one of the braids I’d put in my beard, I couldn’t help but contemplate if the artist had somehow caught Julie’s soul as well as her face, encasing it forever within this metal homage. Perhaps, on nights when the full moon shone through the courthouse’s giant arch-window, Lady Justice’s smile would widen and her eyes would turn black as orc blood as she surged to life, a bronze harbinger of darkness and evil.

  A fun daydream, but far too close to what could have been.

  Miranda, still clapping softly in response to some more of Lesinger’s completely insincere comments, leaned toward me. “Billi, I still don’t get what Miss Moneybags was doing in getting the mob involved with this Sword thingy in the first place. Since she was already connected with the Ryerson, why didn’t she just nab it herself?”

  “Julie was smart that way,” I replied. “She knew that if she swiped it on her own, it would instantly be perceived as an inside job—and because of her volunteer status and her social association with DeMayo, she’d be right up there on the suspect list. Instead, Julie turned the mob association to her advantage by staying in the background during the heist and then looking duped afterward, thereby acquiring her cherished ‘victim’ status. Julie also relied on the mob for the dirty work because she needed time to build her own organization. Sadly, her new order started with Daphnie.”

  “You mean Julie Lesinger was building some kind of mammary mafia?” Miranda chortled. “Snobby ice-queen didn’t ask me to be part of it!”

  What a sense of humor on this girl!

  “Well, you would have been the most trustworthy of her minions, I’m sure. It happened like this: Julie cleared a primrose path for Tony DeMayo by persuading him that this score would make him the new boss of Chicago. Then Julie practiced a bit of influence over Benny, a born follower, to talk Tony into eliminating the bagman network one bagman at a time. Once it got down to just the four of them—DeMayo, Julie, Benny, and Daphnie—holding on to the Sword wouldn’t be much of a challenge. But then Benny began entertaining dreams of fencing the Singing Sword for himself. Big mistake.”

  “Double-crossing Julie, you mean?”

  “Well, that…and ratting out DeMayo to Capone.”

  Miranda finally took her eyes off of the Lesinger statue to gape at me incredulously. “Benny ratted out DeMayo?”

  “Like a true sewer-dweller! During our dinner together, Capone described this numbers guy he barely knew as a ‘good soldier.’ And when I’d caught up with Benny earlier, it was clear he knew he was sitting pretty. Think about it: This poor kid Mario had been in hiding ever since Tony’s bad morning at Sal’s, while Benny was walking around in broad daylight, calmly reading the morning paper and getting his shoes shined. Now that he had Capone off his back, Benny’s path to the Sword was short and sweet because he was one of only three people who knew where it was. Charm Daphnie. Get Sword. Pop Mario. And leave Julie in the cold to deal with the fallout. That’s why he was talking so big about taking over Chicago during what turned out to be our last chat. He really did think he was on to a sure thing.”

  I shuddered to think of a world under Benny’s rule: A world lacking style, charm, and class, but overflowing with enough hair cream and dragon-piss-scented cologne for every man, woman, and child. Thank the Fates it was a world we would never see.

  “But I still don’t get why Julie hired a detective if she was already playing the mob,” Miranda persisted. “And of all the detectives in Chicago, why us?”

  “Why us?” I scoffed. “Because we’re good, that’s ‘why us’!” I gave Miranda a wink. “But why hire a private dick? When Tony took to the Everlasting Fields, the Sword went underground, leaving Julie out in the cold. She needed a lead. I guarantee you she was probably asking every cheap-ass gumheel to take the case, but the bottom line was that no one wanted to even think about crossing Capone.”

  “So you’re crazy enough to take on Big Al, huh?”

  Back home, I stood toe-to-toe with trolls. Orcs. Giant swamp serpents. “I’ve dealt with worse.”

  With an exasperated huff, she turned her attention back to Lesinger, who now looked as if he would explode with regret over losing touch with his daughter, his precious angel who fell to earth in a blaze of glory.


  Poor dink. For a moment, I felt sorry for him. Only for a moment. He would never know how much worse he could have suffered. He would never guess how deep the corruption of his daughter reached, a dark magic that couldn’t be cleansed by any exorcism from any religion. Julie was gone. Best to let sleeping dragons lie.

  Following the appropriate closing comments, the applause rallied for one last time, and then came the brilliant flashes of camera bulbs, capturing what might very well be Henry Lesinger’s last public appearance.

  “So Julia Lesinger wanted you to find this Singing Sword, huh?” Miranda mused as we walked through the dispersing crowd toward the new statue. “But you told me that it was Daphnie who had her mitts on it all the time. Why didn’t that little flapper make her move when she had the chance?”

  “Well, it wasn’t that easy for ol’ Daphnie,” I said, looking up at Lady Justice and breathing a little easier. It worked. Didn’t think I could pull it off, but it actually worked. “You remember how I explained to you how the Sword was…unique?”

  Miranda nodded, her mouth twisting into a skeptical smirk.

  “Well,” I continued, “Daphnie unlocked the Sword’s…”

  Okay, Baddings, what’s a better word to use here besides “magic? ” Let’s try this one.

  “…potential. Problem was, she wasn’t clever enough to figure out how she pulled it off. So, she kept Julie and me on a wild fox chase while she tried to tap into that potential again. And this time, control said potential.”

  “Do you think Julie knew what…what you believe the Sword could do?”

  Thanks for that disclaimer, Miranda. You’re not making this any easier.

  “That’s why Julie kept Dr. Hammil around,” I explained. “Julie told me she liked to push the limitations of her position at the Ryerson. Translation: she had uncovered Hammil’s secret title of Antiques Dealer to the Rich. She probably guaranteed his secrecy by threatening to go to the cops, the press—or worse—the Ryerson’s Board of Trustees. From the look of the Lesinger collection, Julie was bringing home a few of the Ryerson’s prize finds before they were tagged. When she made enough off of Hammil’s racket, she could leave with her own tidy little nest egg and a note to Daddy saying his personal art collection was courtesy of the Ryerson, an establishment that he and his ego despised. He would have never seen it coming, and being surrounded by illegally obtained artifacts from a place that had proved his family was no better than country peasants might just have been enough of an embarrassment for him to let Julie live her own life.