by DAVID B. COE
There weren’t that many Hesslans in Phoenix, and with the name hyphenated, I assumed that this passenger was a woman. Could that have been Patty Hesslan?
I forced myself to read on, but I saw no other names that rang a bell, and I kept going back to that single line. “P. Hesslan-Fine, party of one.”
There wasn’t always a lot of overlap between the attributes I associated with being a cop and those that were rooted in my being a weremyste. But one big one was a healthy skepticism about coincidence. My father was suffering, Namid was worried, a guy who tried to blow up a plane was killed by magic, and the daughter of my mother’s boyfriend was on the plane in question. That was a lot to dismiss as happenstance.
I sat down at the computer again and punched “Patricia Hesslan” into a search engine. I didn’t get a lot of relevant hits: a few old news stories that related back to the deaths of her father and my mother, a site that listed her as a licensed real estate agent for Sonoran Winds Realty, and a wedding announcement with the headline, “Hesslan weds Fine.”
The accompanying photo was grainy, but I recognized her as soon as I saw it. We’d met one time—an unfortunate chance meeting at the funeral home mere days after the bodies were found—but hers wasn’t a face I was likely to forget. She and Gerald Fine were married several years ago. He was a partner at a law firm here in town. A search of his name didn’t dredge up much else. It seemed they both kept low profiles.
I typed in “Dara Fearsson” to see what a search of my mother’s name would produce, but wisely deleted it rather than hit “enter.” The sense of dread that had returned when I read Patty’s name hadn’t left me; if anything it had gotten worse the deeper I’d delved into her life. But for months after my mother’s death, I had been both repulsed and fascinated by every new newspaper article about her and Elliott. I couldn’t get enough of them, and yet each time I read one I wound up nauseous and in tears. Twenty years later, I wasn’t as overwrought—not by a long shot. But that perverse fascination remained.
I forced myself to switch off the computer. Then I left the office, intending to go back to my house, change out of my sweaty clothes, and track down a few of my weremyste friends to find out what they knew about new sorcerers in the Phoenix area.
My office wasn’t far from my home, and I was able to take back streets, thus avoiding the worst of the late afternoon traffic. As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a strange car parked across the street from my house. Strange as in unfamiliar, but also strange as in out of place in my quiet neighborhood. It was a black vintage Chevy Impala lowrider, probably from around the mid-1960s. It was in great shape: a gleaming new paint job, white-wall tires, polished chrome. There was something familiar about it, but I couldn’t place it right away.
I retrieved the mail, walked to my door, and let myself in, my attention on the bills I’d pulled from the mailbox. Which was why I about jumped out of my skin when a voice said, “Fearsson.”
I dropped the envelopes, reached for my shoulder holster.
“I wouldn’t do that,” the same voice warned.
I froze.
CHAPTER 7
All three of the men in my living room were Latino. They were very well dressed; two of them—the ones standing—were NFL huge, dark-haired, dark-eyed. I probably should have checked more closely for distinguishing marks—scars, tattoos, that sort of thing. But my eyes were drawn to the black SIG Sauer P220s they both had aimed at my chest.
The third man sat on the couch, his legs crossed, his arms draped casually over the back cushions. Him I recognized.
Luis Paredes was a weremyste whom I had known for years. He was short, barrel-chested, with a beard and mustache that he had trimmed since the last time I saw him, and black eyes that always made me think of the flat, disk-like eyes of a shark. Once, when I was still a cop working in narcotics, I had busted Luis for possession of pot with intent to sell. Later, after I lost my badge and became a PI, I helped him out with an employee who had been stealing from his bar. I never would have called us friends, but neither would I have expected him to show up in my house with a couple of armed goons.
He was an accomplished weremyste, powerful enough that his features were blurred. All weremystes appeared that way when I first met them—smeared, so that it seemed someone had rubbed an eraser across their faces. The effect lessened with time, or maybe the more time I spent with a runecrafter, the easier it was for me to compensate. But that initial impression was unmistakable; whenever I met another runemyste, particularly a powerful one, I knew it right away. Looking more closely, I realized that his friends were sorcerers, too, though the blurring effect wasn’t as strong with them. In a battle of spells, Luis would be the most dangerous of the three. Of course the other two guys could simply shoot me.
One of them stepped around my coffee table, his .45 still leveled at my heart. He didn’t say anything, but he reached into my bomber, pulled my Glock from the shoulder holster, and handed it back to the other goon. I heard the metallic ring of the round being unchambered and then the slide and click of the magazine clearing the grip. I didn’t figure I’d be getting that mag back. The guy in front of me grabbed my shoulder, spun me around, pushed me against the wall, and frisked me. When he was done, he turned me back the way I’d been, flashed a smile that could have frozen the tap water in my pipes, and crossed back to where he’d been standing.
“Why don’t you have a seat, Jay?” Luis said, his tone too smug by half for my taste.
“Why don’t you get the hell out of my house, Luis? And you can take your attack dogs with you.”
He frowned. I’m not sure his goons even blinked. They were well-trained.
“I think maybe we should try that again. Why don’t you sit down, Jay?” His eyes had the flat, sharky quality again, and his tone was more pointed this time. “Be smart, mi amigo. We’re three weremystes, you’re one.” He gave a little shrug. “We’ve got three guns now, you’ve got none. And Rolon and Paco here have biceps that are about as big around as your thigh. So how do you intend to make us leave?”
It was a fair question. I walked to the armchair that sat across from the sofa and dropped myself into it, my eyes never leaving Luis’s face.
He opened his hands and grinned. “There, isn’t that better?”
“What are you doing here, Luis? Why would you break into my place?”
“A friend wants to talk to you,” he said, leaning forward. “You know that I run the Moon, but I have another job. Something I do on the side.”
The New Moon was a bar in Gilbert that catered to weremystes and myste-wannabes—people who had no magical abilities but, for whatever reason, liked to act as though they did. I often went there when I needed information about Phoenix’s weremystes; in fact, that was one of the places I’d been planning to go to ask about the murder at the airport. I’ll admit as well that sometimes I went to the Moon for no reason other than to be with other mystes, to know that I could talk about the next phasing, or the one I’d just been through, with people who understood and put up with the same crap I did month to month. Sure, it was a dive, but it was a comfortable dive.
Luis had been running the place for as long as I could remember, and I always assumed that he owned it. But if he was working a second job, I might have been wrong, which left me wondering who the owner might be.
“Is this second job legal?” I asked.
“You a cop again?” There was no hint of humor in the question.
I laughed, high and harsh. “What do you want from me? You break into my house with a couple of guys who look like they’re itching to shoot me, or kick the crap out of me, or set my hair on fire, and you start telling me your employment history. Why the hell are you here? Who’s this friend of yours?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
I started to object, but he continued, talking over me. “And before you start another fucking speech, keep in mind that I could have grabbed you, let my boys knock you around a bit
, and thrown you in the back of my car.” He paused, rubbed a hand over his face. “But the fact is, you were right about the Blind Angel Killer being a myste, and I was wrong. I feel I owe you one.”
“Thanks,” I said, and meant it. Killing Cahors was pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of my resume these days, but it was a big deal, and no one understood that better than another weremyste.
Luis stood. “Come on.”
“Can I change? I’ve been . . . working out.”
I didn’t have it in mind to run, or to call the police; I really did want to change. But Luis wasn’t ready to trust me that much.
“I’m not taking you out on a date. Now, get up.”
I stood, and let the three men escort me out of the house. Luis paused to let me lock the door, and then led me over to the lowrider.
“Yours?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I drive an Audi. This is Paco’s.”
The behemoth who had taken my pistol grinned again.
I sat in back with Rolon, who still had his weapon in hand. I had no idea where we were going, of course, but I had assumed that we would be headed into Gilbert. Instead we got on the 101 northbound. We sped through Tempe and crossed over the Salt River.
“You going to tell me where we’re going?” I said, breaking a lengthy silence.
“To see my friend,” Luis answered.
“That’s helpful.”
Nothing.
We exited the freeway in North Scottsdale and followed the side streets into one of the wealthier neighborhoods of a town known for its wealth. Before long, Paco steered us into a gated subdivision called Ocotillo Winds Estates. The uniformed old man in the guardhouse waved the car through on sight, although he didn’t appear to be too happy about it. Beyond the guardhouse was a round lawn that probably demanded more water in a week than the entire state got in rainfall each year. And to make the display that much more ostentatious, a huge fountain danced in the middle of the expanse, its waters misting in the wind.
“You’re moving up in the world, Luis.”
“You ever heard of Jacinto Amaya?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then closed it again. I’d been on edge from the moment Luis said my name and made me drop the mail. But for the first time this evening, I felt truly afraid.
“Jason Amaya? Are you screwing with me?”
“Jason is a name he uses to make Anglos feel at ease. If you want to get on his good side you’ll refer to him as Jacinto. And you’ll call him Mister Amaya.”
“That’s who we’re going to see? That’s the guy you’re working for?”
Luis stared back at me, his silence all the confirmation I needed.
“I thought we were friends.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything! I worked in Narcotics for eighteen months, and then I was in Homicide for over five years. And I spent a significant part of that time trying to nail Amaya for one crime or another. This man hates me; I’m pretty sure he wants me dead!”
Luis rolled his eyes. “Do I need to remind you again that you’re not a cop?”
I stared out the window, watching mansion after mansion slip by as we crawled through the lanes of the subdivision. All of them were vaguely similar: manicured lawns, acacia trees in the front yards, sprawling Spanish mission-style houses behind faux-adobe walls and wrought-iron gates.
“It’s not my memory I’m worried about,” I muttered.
“Believe it or not, I am your friend, Jay. Jacinto doesn’t want to kill you. Not today. If he did, do you really think he’d have me bring you to his home?”
I exhaled, not realizing until then that I’d been holding my breath. Luis was right, though that did little to improve my mood. Jacinto Amaya was one of the Phoenix area’s most prominent crime lords. He ran a drug trade that distributed to much of the American Southwest, and he was reputed to traffic in people as well. Some said that he helped undocumented workers reach the States and then set them up with employers, taking a finder’s fee as well as a cut of the pay the laborers received. He also had a stake in Phoenix’s prostitution industry, from street-level hookers to thousand-dollar-per-night call girls. And, naturally, he controlled several legitimate businesses as well, most prominently the Chofi Luxury Hotels, which, as I understood, he had named for his eldest daughter and which had strong ties to Arizona’s growing tribal casino business.
I’m sure there were other components to his criminal empire that I was forgetting. But the drug trade was the most important by far; it brought in the lion’s share of his cash, and it accounted for the most brutal of his crimes. He had been implicated in more killings than I cared to count, most of them so clean, so professional, that we’d never been able to prove a thing, and most of them so brutal that no one was likely to come forward with evidence against him.
Paco steered us onto a cul-de-sac and followed it to the end, stopping before a broad pair of gates and another guard house. Amaya’s guards were a lot younger and a lot bigger than the guy who’d let us into the subdivision. They wore ballistic vests over their uniforms, which must have been stifling, even with the sun down, and they carried modified MP5s with laser sights.
One of the men came to the car and peered inside.
“Hola,” he said, grinning at Luis. “Quien es el gringo?”
“Fearsson,” Luis said. “Jacinto nos espera.”
“Sí.”
The guard straightened and waved to the uniformed man. A moment later the gates began to swing open.
“Hasta luego,” the guard called as he tapped a hand on the roof of the car.
Paco eased the car forward into the brick courtyard that served as Amaya’s driveway. We parked, and my three friends walked me into the house, passing another pair of armed and armored guards.
We passed through a foyer—tile floors, exposed beams, and a stylized crucifix that appeared to be made of ivory—into an enormous room with polished wood floors, more exposed beams, and some of the most beautiful Oaxacan folk art I’d ever seen.
A man stood at a bank of windows, which faced back toward downtown Scottsdale and encompassed a twilight sky that glowed with yellows, oranges, and pinks.
He turned at the sound of our footsteps, and I halted midstride. He was dressed in suit pants and a matching vest, a blue dress shirt and a silk tie. His hair was shot through with silver and perfectly groomed, his skin was a soft olive. I thought his eyes were brown, and I had the sense that he was smiling at me, but I couldn’t be certain.
The magical blur of his features was too strong.
“Justis Fearsson,” said Jacinto Amaya, his voice a deep baritone, his words untinged by any hint of an accent. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”
He strode across the room, a hand extended. I gripped it, not yet trusting myself to speak. He put his other arm around my shoulders, leading me farther into the room. I could make out his grin now. It was unrestrained, and utterly sincere. I’d been in Amaya’s presence for no more than a few seconds, and already I could see what I never would have known from a police file or a newspaper article: This was a man whom others would follow, regardless of where he led.
“Would you like a drink, Jay? It’s all right if I call you Jay, isn’t it?”
“Yes, thank you,” I said, finding my voice and adding “Mister Amaya” as an afterthought. “Club soda, please. And Jay is fine.”
He nodded and began to fix my drink, but I noticed he didn’t offer to let me call him Jacinto.
“I’m sorry to have sent Luis and his friends for you, but I wasn’t sure you would come if I merely requested that you do so. And I’ve been eager to speak with you.”
“There was a time, I believe, when you were eager to kill me.”
Amaya laughed, stepping away from the bar to hand me my drink. “Not really, no. You were never important enough to kill. Forgive me; I mean no offense. But I have far more dangerous enemies than detectives in the Ph
oenix Police Department. And once you left the force—forgive me again—but you were not someone to whom I paid much attention.”
I raised my glass in salute and sipped the soda water. “You and everyone else.”
“But that’s changed, hasn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
“You suppose,” he repeated with a chuckle. He put an arm around my shoulder again and steered me to a plush leather chair near the window. I sat, and he took the chair next to mine. Luis, Paco, and Rolon were still in the room, but Amaya seemed content to ignore them, and so I did the same.
“Killing Etienne de Cahors was no small thing,” he said.
I looked his way, raising an eyebrow. Cahors’s name had been in the papers as Stephen D. Cahors, and I’d only spoken of him by his true name to a handful of people.
My obvious surprise seemed to please him. “My resources within the magical world are as extensive as those outside of it.”
“Did you know who he was before he died?” I asked.
“No,” he said, without any hesitation or hint of pretense.
“What would you have done if you had?”
The smile sharpened. “An interesting question. I’m not in the habit of giving aid to the PPD. On the other hand, he was killing Latina women, and he was using dark magic to do it.” He fell silent, perhaps still weighing my question. “But you have me getting ahead of myself.”
“I didn’t know that you were a weremyste,” I said, placing my glass on the small side table next to me and meeting his gaze. “That would have been handy knowledge back when I was on the force.”
He laughed again, showing perfect teeth. “Yes, I’m sure it would have been. That’s not something we tend to share with the general public, though, is it?”
