by Lumen Reese
“His name is Elliot. He’s eight.”
“What happens when he grows up?” I asked.
It was a rude questio n , but she didn’t seem to hold it against me. “I don’t expect the Four Quarters to be open for another ten years, but if it is, then we’ll decide when the time comes. Maybe the outside world will be a little better by then. Or maybe staying will be what’s best for both of us.”
Rain started beating down on the windows. The taxi went around a curve and pulled up to the clock tower, its headlights falling on the elegant stone steps leading to a red door. They all stepped out and stretched in the clearing.
“Anybody got a flash light?”
I fished a small one out of my satchel. We approached the tower with care. It was made of gray stone, with a clock face sitting, grand and still, at the top. Its turrets raised up beyond the tree tops. Inside it was mostly dry but with a few leaks, the stone of the floor was covered with dust. A flutter of movement made me glance up. The ceiling was four stories above, with twisted gears and other machinery that once moved the clock occupying the whole tower’s worth of space. A bird flew up through the rafters and out of a hole.
Hatley crossed the room and stopped alongside a wooden door, slowly pushing it open. Stairs of stone led down. She started to move, but I tapped her shoulder, handed her the flashlight and took out my gun.
Pointing it at the ground, she started down the steps. A glow came from the room at the bottom.
“Is someone down there?”
“Yeah. Someone up there, or are those mushrooms kicking in?”
Hatley pushed her way to the front, rolling her eyes. “Wayne. Aren’t you on the job?”
“Hey, we’re in Wonderland. Alice ate mushrooms.”
The others crowded into the little basement. A few candles were lit on a plain table and a little bed was in the corner. Steady drops of water were leaking down from a crack in the stone ceiling above.
“What’s with the gun?”
I blinked. It seemed impossible for a minute that I was in fact holding a gun. I tucked it away. “We came to make sure you weren’t harboring criminals.”
They looked around and it was clear nobody else was in the room. Wayne stood and shuffled over to the leak, letting the water dribble down on his old skin. “Baptized. All my sins washed away.” He hummed as he shuffled over to sit at the table. “Air’s got a good frequency today. I’m buzzing. Humming.” He hummed some more. “If you’ve got questions to ask, you’d better hurry. I’m about to get very strange.”
“Too late,” Clark said.
*
After a ride back out of the forest on the same winding road we had entered on, we grabbed a bite to eat at a food truck in Hearts. Then, walking on crowded streets to scope out the first of the clubs we would invade that night, Hatley got a call.
She said only a succinct, “Yes. Yes. Please do. Goodbye.” She hung up. “Vincent Zucholi is out of town, I’ve got someone tracking him down.”
“Fantastic.”
“Across the way, there,” she nodded to a building which looked like a warehouse across the street. “That’s one of the clubs Lance Flynn is supplying. And he’s known to hang out here, himself.”
“What are you thinking?” I asked her.
“Well, we could leave Clark here to watch this place, and go poke our heads in some of Vincent’s warehouses.”
I turned to Clark. “Are you alright with that?”
He seemed nervous. “I should stay with you.”
“I’ll be fine, I’ll be with Hatley. Watching this place is really important, and we’ll meet up again tonight.”
“Probably before nightfall,” Hatley added.
Clark finally nodded.
“Have you ever done any kind of surveillance before?”
Of course he had not.
She instructed, “Watch this entrance from a safe distance, do a lap around the perimeter once or twice an hour. Send us a message if anything funny happens. Don’t call, we might be sneaking around, ourselves.”
I clapped him on the arm. “Alright. See you in a while.”
Hatley hailed another cab and once I had slid in, she surprised me by climbing into the back with me. “He’ll be fine,” she said, showing the driver an address on her phone.
“I understand, we don’t have time to waste, sticking together.”
“Plus, I wanted you all to myself,” she said, winking.
The warehouses were clustered around a few blocks in the south of the business district, where there were less lights. We drove by open loading bay doors and saw workers in some of the buildings stacking crates with fork lifts. We passed them by fairly quickly. It was the ones which were closed up that we stopped nearby, approached and peered in low windows. One had a pair of men inside walking between rows with clipboards. At the next closed up building, Hatley grabbed the ledge of the only window on the first floor and pulled herself up, making me realize she actually had very toned arms for how skinny the rest of her was. It was in that moment that my phone buzzed, and panic seized me for Clark. But it wasn’t Clark on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
“Miss Grady, this is Officer Frances, out of Clubs. I’m calling to let you know that we’ve identified a patient at St. Christopher’s Hospital as Father Marcus Carolli.”
“A patient.”
“He’s in the operating room right now. He was left here in the early morning, unconscious, and taken into surgery as a John Doe. His DNA tests just came back, and that’s how he was identified.”
“I don’t understand. Why couldn’t he be identified before now?”
“His face was badly disfigured. He was severely beaten, there’s internal bleeding. They think he’ll make it but he won’t be any use to us for a couple of days.”
“Thank you.”
Hatley had dropped down and was waiting.
“The priest from the cathedral turned up in a hospital in Clubs.”
“Heading for the coast, maybe?” she guessed.
“Maybe he was, but not anymore.”
“How bad?”
“Disfigured. Internal bleeding.”
Her thoughts seemed to be heading the same way mine were. “But not dead… if it were his own people who did this, they would have killed him.”
“It was the fugitive,” I said. It was Corso. He had said he would go after the priest and he had done it. I thought again of how he executed the man in the prison camp, and the man who had been sent to kill me in the Third Quarter. It wasn’t news to me that he had that capacity for violence, and so why was I suddenly gripped with apprehension for his character? Maybe it had to do with my direct involvement in the other situations. Maybe I had been in shock or my life being saved had covered up all the rest. Maybe it was because of how fast it had all happened, that I had never really processed it. Father Carolli had to have been beaten mercilessly, and efficiently, and from what I knew about Corso there had to have been a degree of artistry, too. Part of him would have enjoyed it. That was the hardness in him; the part that he made me forget about when we were alone together.
It was that part of him which made me feel scared of a part of myself. That I could ignore what he was capable of. That I had some kind of darkness in me, too. But at least I was not so far gone that I didn’t realize it.
“So should we go to Clubs?” Hatley asked.
“No. We should keep doing what we’re doing. If he found out anything from the priest, maybe he’ll be in contact again, soon.” If the priest had been dropped off at the hospital early in the morning, had Corso already known what he knew when he told me to come to Hearts? I thought he must have. Maybe he was on his way.
The warehouse we had been looking into was full of crates but as long as we looked, we saw nobody moving around.
“We should look inside,” Hatley said. “There’s no one inside, it’s strange.”
She was standing on tippy-toes and using a rock
to break one of the panes on the window before I could agree, reaching in to turn the lock and then popping it open.
“I’ll boost you up,” she said, making a cradle with her hands.
I was nervous but reached up to grab the ledge, gave her my foot and then pushed off, managing to get my forearms perched on the inside.
Hatley called, “Watch the glass!”
“Yup,” I wheezed, wriggling over the sill that was pressing into my stomach. I flopped inside the empty warehouse.
Hatley pulled herself up and over, but the window was too small to swing yourself around. I had found my feet already and as she struggled to turn onto her back, meaning to sit on the ledge, she lost her grip and fell back, letting out an, “Ack!”
I reached out even as she went barreling into me, and we both ended up sprawled out on the concrete floor, laughing. Only when she turned over and faced me, propping herself on her arms with our legs all tangled, did I realize she was in my space and I didn’t mind.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem.”
She was climbing to her feet though, and I rushed after her. Crates were stacked in long rows, and we walked among them, tapping occasionally, listening for any sound. But the place was empty.
“Dead end,” Hatley said.
We had hours before night would fall and the clubs would begin to fill. “Got any other ideas?”
“Fresh out.”
“Me too.”
“Let’s recap. Vincent Zucholi is the main mover in Hearts. He’s out of town. Lance Flynn, fake name, has been moving things and doesn’t have the guise of a storyline like Vincent does. We’re going to check out the clubs he supplies tonight and try to track him down. And we’re here in Hearts because of the fugitive you’re supposed to be chasing, on a tip that he got from beating a man nearly to death.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else?”
She knew that I wasn’t telling her everything, and I knew that if she kept prying, I would end up spilling it all. Hoping to satiate her for the moment, I found myself admitting, “I’m an amateur PI. Jericho and the others know I’m an amateur but they don’t know I’ve been doing this for a month and I got really lucky the one local case I cracked.”
“Well it can’t have all been luck. You’ve gotten this far.”
All I could think of, though, was whether I had followed Corso’s clue to the right conclusion. Whether he was on his way and whether he would be disappointed with the work I had done.
“I don’t know,” I finally admitted. “I’m going to call Bruce Spicer, the other PI and see if he has anything.”
I hated to do it, but I found him in my phone and dialed while Hatley folded her arms and waited.
“Hello, Bruce Spicer,” his voice rang out clearly.
“It’s Stella Grady. Have you heard about the priest?”
“I have. Nice catch with the graveyard under the cathedral,” he said.
I felt pride swell in my chest. “Thanks.”
“So you’re one up on me, now, I’ve gotta step up my game.”
“Where are you?”
He said, “Diamonds. You went south, I figured I’d go north, we’d cover more ground in the two days we had left.”
“Yeah. Are you heading to Clubs now that we know the fugitive was there?”
“I am. I’ve left some cameras behind in the spots he might check, so I’ll know if he comes up here.”
“Good idea,” I said, feeling a tentative camaraderie with him. I knew I had to say it, and so I plunged right in. “I’m waiting for the clubs to open down here, and until then I’m out of ideas. Do you have any leads?”
He was silent for a moment on the other end. “Yeah, there is one thing I came across that was pretty strange. I know Vincent Zucholi does shipping in Hearts, and so I thought it was strange when I heard he was up here. I went to this bed and breakfast he was supposed to be at with his girlfriend, and he wasn’t there. And that’s all I know.”
I felt a bit guilty that I wasn’t going to tell him Corso had likely left Clubs and might be on his way to me. “Thank you. Good luck in Clubs.” I wasn’t worried about him catching Corso, even if Corso was still around to be caught.
“Adios,” he said, and the line went dead.
I said to Hatley, “Spicer’s heading to Clubs. He hit the best spots in Diamonds and left cameras behind. And apparently Vincent Zucholi was supposed to be up there, in Diamonds, at some bed and breakfast spot. So Spicer checked it out, but he wasn’t there.”
“So we were leaning toward Lance Flynn, but now we might be looking at both of them again for moving these girls around.”
“Doesn’t help us in the immediate future, unless one of your people can find Vincent.”
“I’ve got one of my best guys on it,” she said. “Let’s just head back to Clark.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Clark was right where we had left him, outside the first of the three clubs Lance Flynn was supplying with drugs and alcohol. The sky overhead was rolling with angry grey clouds, making it seem later in the afternoon that it was. Clark looked relieved to see us, and whipped out his phone before we were even within shouting distance. He advanced, stammering nervously over his words.
“I did like you said, I walked the perimeter twice an hour. A couple of guys went in the front, I took pictures of them, then a couple of guys went in the back, and I took pictures of them, but I didn’t think that was weird enough to call you guys.”
He showed us the photos, three men going in the front, two white and one black, all around thirty, with the club’s name large over the door but the sign unlit. ‘Stilettos’ it was called. Then he showed us the second picture of two men going in the back door, one blonde and Nordic looking, the other tan and dark-haired.
Hatley looked at that photo, then rolled her eyes skyward, then said, “Come on,” and began marching across the street. She was banging on the club’s locked door before I could even ask her what she was doing.
“What-?”
“That’s Vincent’s little brother Dominic, and we don’t have time for investigating this shit.” She pounded on the door again. “Dominic Zucholi! Open this door, immediately!”
It was the Nordic looking man who opened the door, though. “Who are you?” His voice was surprisingly deep for how skinny and fair he was.
“I’m Hatley and I’m coming in, so you had better get out of my way.” She pushed past him and he let her.
The room inside was brightly lit and very long, with a bar on the side just after the entrance stocked with at least a hundred bottles all lit different colors from behind. There were some cushioned seats on the other side, stretching the length of the place, and between them a long, hardwood dance floor, and overall the place was very shabby.
It was at the end of the place that on a separate level, Dominic Zucholi was sitting with two of the three men who had earlier entered, playing cards at a round table.
“Hatley,” he called, “It’s nice to finally meet you, no matter how rudely. What can I do for you?”
She was advancing and all I could do was follow, and Clark behind me keeping a wary eye on the blonde guy. “You can tell me where that little rat of a brother of yours is at.”
“He’s out of town.”
“Don’t bullshit me, Dominic, we know he’s not in Clubs. Our relationship ends tonight and the Federals come knocking if you don’t tell me, now.”
She had his full attention, but he hesitated. “Let me call him for you.”
“I’m willing to bet he’ll be at either Rumors or The Captain ’ s tonight, and I’ve got someone tracking him, too. Save us the time, because we’ve only got a day left to get to the bottom of what we’re looking at or the entire Four Quarters closes.”
He looked between his men, then said, “Vincent’s at Rumors tonight. But I wouldn’t think he’d be in for another couple of hours.”
“Give him a call right now and
tell him to meet us over there, now.” She turned on her heel and we rushed after.
Outside it had begun to sprinkle. Hatley hailed a cab and we piled in. I didn’t ask, I only waited until she had told the driver where to go and we had started rolling.
“Okay,” she sighed. “So, Vincent Zucholi and his guys are running these clubs Lance Flynn has supposedly been supplying. There is no Lance Flynn, there’s just Vincent, looking to expand his business and jack up prices with a fake turf war.”
“So we’re just going to confront him, now?” I asked.
“Yes we are. I have pull over Vincent, and I have people all around his business, so I will know if he moves anything or alerts anyone in the aftermath of our visit.”
It was a few minutes before we pulled up to a club with the sign saying ‘Rumors’ over the red door. It was a building which looked to have been a warehouse at some point, with the windows boarded up. The sidewalks were less crowded out this way and we only had to dodge one car as we crossed the street to stand under the place’s awning. Then, with rain drizzling around us as if we three were crowded in a bubble, Hatley tried the door. It was locked. And so we waited another few minutes.
Her phone rang and she had it answered before the first ring was completed. “Hello? Thanks very much but I beat you to it, this time. No, it’s alright. We got lucky. Listen, this is very important. Keep a close watch tonight and keep in contact with everybody else. I need to know if anything changes after I meet with him. Yeah, thank you V.”
A very slick black car pulled right up to the curb by where we stood, and both the passenger side doors popped open at once. An Italian man who had to be Vincent Zucholi, mouse-eared and nicely dressed, emerged from the front. A meat-head who fell into step behind him emerged from the back.
“I’m sorry I kept you waiting, Hatley.” But his words were clipped. “Let’s head inside so I can help you with whatever you need.”
He unlocked the front door and led the way inside a room so dimly lit that I felt all my hackles rise. It smelled of booze and sweat, and I banged my shin on something the second I stepped to Hatley’s side. We paused where the form of Vincent moved fearlessly through the dark to the far wall, where he found a fuse box and flipped a few, lighting the place from above. He flipped one too many and the disco ball started throwing sparkling lights on the walls. He flipped it off again.
