by Jackie May
Question: what’s worse? Being ten minutes late because you fell asleep in a tree, or being thirty minutes late because you were pulled over by a cop for speeding through red lights back when you were only ten minutes late?
Answer: being an hour late because you mouthed off to the cop and now he wants to put you through a field sobriety test.
Even better answer: texting your predicament to Nick Gorgeous and having him text, Stay put, we’re coming to you, and when I ask if we means him and the Director, he only responds with: Worse.
The cop is watching me count out nine steps heel-to-toe in a straight line when Gorgeous’s Porsche flips an illegal U-turn across three lanes to park behind the police car.
“Friends of yours?” the officer drones.
“It must be my sponsor,” I drone back, “since I’m obviously late for an AA meeting.”
“He your pimp?”
“Or my pimp, yes. What?”
“It’s five in the morning, your shoes are untied, pants unzipped, all those clothes in your backseat.”
“I’ll tell you what, I would just love for you to ask this guy if he’s my pimp. See what happens.”
Since the Federal Underworld Agency is overseen (secretly) by the Department of Justice, I know that Nick Gorgeous is authorized to reveal himself as FBI in case of emergencies involving humans, and he even has a badge and legit agent number that will check out if run through the system. I’ve never seen him pull that ace from his sleeve, but how else does he plan to bail me out right now? I can’t wait to see the look on the cop’s face.
Gorgeous steps out, and then his passenger, a slender Latina woman with blondish hair. My guess is early thirties. Her face is pretty but solemn, all business. She shows FBI identification to the cop and says, “They’re with me. She’s a hooker.”
“I’m her pimp,” Gorgeous adds.
After raising smug eyebrows at me, the cop says to the woman, “All yours.” He drops into his car and pulls away with lights flashing.
The woman is wearing a striped blue sweatshirt and jeans—not the white collar shirt and suit jacket you see on all FBI women in the movies. Plus, she’s short and wears heavy black-framed glasses. She looks ready to curl up with a book, not kick down a door. So she’s worse? Gorgeous should have said way worse. She’s a human from Washington, and not the state.
Gorgeous puts on his big boy voice. “Shayne, this is Special Agent Hillerman, UTF.” That would be Underworld Task Force. “She’s come out to handle our little demon problem. Agent Hillerman, this is Shayne Davies, our point on the case. Been working it for weeks now.”
I’m so shocked by my sudden recruitment that I don’t even think to be offended that I’m only getting the job as punishment. Nobody else at Detroit Division—least of all Nick Gorgeous—wants to be stuck babysitting a human, so…I’m hired. Like I care. Babysitter or not, I’m Double D now, so a big middle finger to all those a-holes who didn’t believe me when I only lied about being Double D. Don’t give up on your dreams, kids—you might just have them handed to you when they’ve been smothered in shit and nobody else will touch them with a ten-foot pole.
“Yes, uh…” I stammer, “Yeah, the get-me guy, Dario, over on Roosevelt—”
“We know,” Gorgeous says. He backpedals toward his car. “We’ve been briefed by the Director, Shayne. Agent Hillerman will debrief your side of the story on the way to the scene.”
I flash urgent eyes at him. “You’re leaving?”
“Gotta get back. Director put me on that thing.”
Liar. “What thing?”
“The thing. The Huron River wolves thing.”
A liar and a thief! “Oh, so you followed that lead I gave you?”
He winks. “Good work. That’s why you get the big bucks.”
I’m worried that Special Agent Hillerman will read the obvious sarcasm between us, but she has already let herself into the passenger seat of my car. Gee, make yourself at home, lady. I turn my palms up at Nick—what the hell, dude? In response, he grimaces and makes a gesture like zipping up his pants. I suddenly remember that my pants are still undone from getting dressed so fast back in Newport Woods. Shoes untied, bra unclasped.
As Gorgeous speeds away, I put myself together, straighten my Tigers jacket, and slide in behind the wheel of my Crap-pile. To my surprise, a slight prickle spreads across the back of my neck, and I resist a faint urge to scan my proximity for threats. It’s dominance I feel, as though a predator is near. But the only person in sight is Agent Hillerman, and she’s definitely not underworld. She is my boss now, though, so maybe I’m just feeling jitters.
“Sorry, my car’s a mess right now.” I talk fast while fishing keys from my pocket and starting the car. “I was helping a friend move, and she gave me all these clothes because they don’t fit her anymore. She found out about this new diet supplement company that will pay for before and after photos to use in their advertising, so she took a bunch of pics when she was skinny, and now she eats nothing but glazed donuts filled with pork chile verde so she can gain weight for the before pictures.”
My bogus explanation is a little overdone, I admit. Improvised lying is sort of a special talent of mine, and when I get nervous I tend to go a little crazy. Also, pork-filled donuts sound amazing.
Agent Hillerman is not impressed. With a sideways glance back at the clothes, she says, “How far is the scene from here?”
“The scene?”
“The crime scene.”
“Dario’s place?”
“The victim’s apartment.”
“Five minutes. You want me to take you there?”
She gives me a blank look. Her face is stone.
“Right, that’s why you got in my car. Got it. Sorry, I…” Oh my gosh, it’s been thirty seconds and I’ve already apologized twice. Somebody please choke me out. I decide it’s best to cut the crap. “Look, I’m just not used to having a babysitter, and especially not a human babysitter. We kind of hate you guys.”
“I guess you wouldn’t be used to it yet, since you weren’t a real agent until thirty seconds ago.”
“So obvious, right?”
“Less obvious than your relationship with the victim.”
“Not a relationship, but we did hook up.”
“And you went back last night for round two?”
“No. I was trying to steal back some gold rims he stole from my friend.”
Her voice drips with contempt. “You mean the coyote who did prison time?”
“That’s him,” I chirp with a smile.
“See? We kind of hate you guys, too.” Agent Hillerman reclines her seat back and puts one foot up on the dash, as though she’s been riding shotgun in my car for years. “So maybe we just keep it real from now on.”
“Okay. I like your shoes,” I admit.
“I like your hair,” she admits back. “Can we go now?”
“We’re gone.” I flip a U-turn, during which, under the guise of checking my blind spot, I steal a few more glances at the FBI agent. Her black eyebrows sit low and flat over dark, moody eyes—the kind of eyes that make me wonder when was the last time she smiled, if ever? Most interesting is her left hand. Her ring finger is home to a wedding band, but right next to it her pinkie finger is missing half its length, ending in a scarred stub. When she curls her hand into a fist, I know she’s caught me staring. I cover by asking, “Did you just fly in?”
“Chopper from Pittsburgh.”
“No stuff? No luggage?”
“Already at the hotel.”
“Downtown? Marriott?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re married?”
No response.
“What happened to your pinkie finger?”
“A dog bite. My turn now?”
“Ask me anything. Only the truth, nothing but the truth.”
“What were the names of the chemicals you saw in the victim’s apartment?”
“I already told
Gorgeous, I don’t know.”
“How did the victim acquire those chemicals? When? Where? Who from?”
“No idea, times four.”
“Who were the two shooters?”
“Don’t know.”
“Demons?”
“Maybe.”
“To recap what we don’t have: no known family or friends, no roommate, no significant other, no job, no coworkers, no known enemies, no motives. What we do have are two underworld shooters with automatic weapons and bomb materials, and only two days.”
“Two days?”
“For me to evaluate the Agency’s competency in this case, and then decide if it should be sent up the ladder to Homeland Security.”
“Homeland Security knows about the underworld?”
“No.”
“This is strictly underworld business,” I remind her.
“Which is why you’re getting two days. So let me ask, do you have any leads? Any answers at all?”
“No, but I know who might.”
“The human detective.”
“That’s right.”
“Whose name is…?”
“I don’t know,” I say, and before Agent Hillerman can finish her frustrated sigh, I add, “but it wouldn’t matter anyway, because the vamps gave him a brain freeze.”
“Meaning they compelled him to forget.”
“Right.”
“But forget what?” she asks. When I open my mouth to respond, Hillerman steals the words from my mouth. “You don’t know, I get it,” she says. “But clear something up for me. These vamps used their power to force their way into a defenseless but objecting person’s mind and violate his memory, just take whatever they want from him, basically rape him, and you’ve got a name for that, and the name is a brain freeze?”
Wow, so, a little high-strung, this lady. Just to be a pain in the ass, I play dumb. “Yeah, like when you eat too much ice cream all at once. Except what the vamps do doesn’t hurt.”
“And you know this because you’ve been compelled before?”
“Me? No. They’re not allowed to do it on underworlders.”
Her voice turns sour with sarcasm. “Right, right, I almost forgot. Only humans. You know humans, all those little helpless beings who you all just see as food?”
“Oh, totally! Every time I see a human it’s like in the cartoons—I just picture a T-bone steak with legs running away from me. Hey, this might come as a shock to you, but I’m on your side when it comes to vamps. I can’t stand ’em, either.”
She simmers for a bit. We drive in silence.
“What did the vamps say to Director West?” I ask. “About the detective?”
“Same as you’ve told me. Nothing. No name. No explanation about how he might have learned that vampires exist. Just that he had come to their casino asking questions.”
“About a dead hooker,” I say, and she looks at me. Guess she hadn’t heard about that. “Yeah, he’d made some sort of connection between a dead hooker, the vampires, and Dario.”
“The detective told you that?”
“When he jumped into the backseat of my car and stuck a gun in my neck? Yeah.”
Up ahead, several flashing lights indicate that we’re approaching Dario’s apartment building. Two police cars and an ambulance are parked outside.
“Don’t park too close,” Hillerman says. “Bobbleheads are against FBI policy.”
With such a deadpan delivery, I can’t tell if she’s joking. Again, I feel that faint prickle of dominance. This time I wonder if I simply don’t like her. She obviously doesn’t think much of me.
I park and turn off the car. Hillerman doesn’t budge. Foot still up on the dash. When she speaks, her voice is quiet. “Why do you want to work for the Agency?”
“Why?”
“Nick Gorgeous obviously knew you’d take the job when nobody else at the Agency would touch it because of me. Probably means you’re desperate. But for what?”
Pretty good read. “For a job, what else?”
“Lots of easier jobs than this. Way easier.”
I sigh. This lady is starting to sound like Mom. “I dunno. This is something I can be good at.”
“That’s it? Because you think you can be good at it?”
“Sure. Why else does anybody do what they do? People don’t just take any old job. They do something they’re good at.”
“But we’re not talking about being an accountant or a lawyer. We’re talking about standing up to dangerous things and dangerous people who might as soon kill you as smile at you, and when it comes down to that—when it’s literally do or die—your reason won’t hold up. You’ll cut and run.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Then give me something. Tell me what’ll keep you going? Why risk everything?”
“Are we risking everything? We’re just going to check out a crime scene.”
“When those guys came through and shot up the place, what did you do? Hide?”
“Yeah, because I was helping somebody who was hurt.”
“So, you’re doing this for your friend?”
“Hell no. The dumbass got himself shot by being a dumbass.”
“Then you’re doing it for the victim? This guy, Dario, you liked him?”
“No.”
“It’s revenge? Because I’ll accept revenge. It’s something.”
“No. I liked Dario, yeah—”
“And you feel it was your fault?”
“No, it wasn’t my fault.”
“It doesn’t bother you that those guys would have killed you, too?”
“Only because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“So it was just business, huh? That’s just how it goes sometimes?”
“Maybe it is. It’s a dangerous world.”
“What world?”
“Underworld.” I can’t help reminding her again: “My world.”
“You’re damn right it is. Which is why I do this job. You want to ask, don’t you?”
“Sure, why don’t you tell me your amazing reason for choosing this job?”
Her voice turns venomous. “I did not choose it. I do it because I have to, because I’m the only one who can do what I do, and somebody has to protect my people from your people.”
Wow. “So this is your reverse psychology bit? You try to get me to quit so I’ll try to prove you wrong?” This lady really gets me.
“I’m not wrong. I’m telling you for a fact that there is another reason why you want to work with the Agency, even if you don’t know it yourself yet.”
I hadn’t planned on giving her anything truthful, because truth has to be earned. She doesn’t deserve it, and she won’t care anyway. But spite gives me the push I need, which is ironic, considering the answer I’m about to give. “What do you want me to say? Yeah, I’m just a little fox, I get tired of being at the bottom of the underworld food chain? Maybe sometimes I want to push back? Sure, let’s go with that.
“Because I see it all the time at the poker table. Big man with all the chips, gets smug, gets cocky, starts bullying the table, going all in with a shit hand, and you know he’s bluffing, because he can afford it, and who’s actually going to call him on it? Not little old me, right? People are folding left and right—here, sir; yes, sir, just take my chips. Let me tell you, there’s nothing better in the whole world than raising the sucker’s bluff and taking all those chips away.
“So there you go—pure, old-fashioned spite. Is that a good enough reason? I just want to see the looks on their faces when I win. And I’m telling you right now, I can win.” By the time I finish, my voice is trembling with emotion. It feels good to finally say some of those things, even if they are wasted on a stranger.
After a long, reflective pause, Hillerman nods slowly. “You sound like somebody I knew once.”
“Is it you?”
“Yes,” she admits.
“Because usually when s
omebody says that, they’re talking about themselves.”
“Right.” Hillerman pulls her foot down from the dash and opens her door. When I join her on the sidewalk, she says, “Just one thing. That big jerk at the table with all the chips. What if he’s not bluffing?”
“Then I’m screwed.”
“And that’s the flaw in your reason—you can’t win every time.”
She’s absolutely right, but I’ll be damned if she’s going to have the last word, so I spin some fortune cookie nonsense. “Yeah, well, sometimes you have to lose to win.” Pow! I walk toward the apartment building.
Keeping pace with me, Agent Hillerman stares at the ground, pensive, then finally decides: “That’s some bullshit.”
“But you had to think about it first.”
With a nod, she concedes.
Dario’s apartment is quiet, despite the work going on inside. Evidence technicians take notes on clipboards, snap photos, and occasionally turn the volume up on their walkies to listen to a dispatcher. One homicide detective is on the scene—an older guy, balding, wearing a polo shirt and tactical police khakis. He breathes loudly, as though he is perpetually winded as he picks among the stolen items on Dario’s shelves. The first thing I point out is the large, empty space where the buckets of chemicals used to be.
“Chemicals?” the loud-breathing detective asks. “What kind of chemicals?”
“The only kind,” Hillerman responds coolly. She stares at the blood sigil on the wall behind the shelves.
“Gang sign,” the investigator explains.
Hoping to impress, I add, “East Side.”
“Probably,” he says with a labored huff.
“Arael Moaz,” Hillerman states with conviction. “Painted in blood, a circle with two chevrons, one pointed up, overlapped by another pointed down, with a dot in the middle of the diamond shape. Symbol of loyalty to Arael Moaz, Grandy district, East Side.”
The detective shoots a sidelong glance between us. “Right. Arael. The boss.”
“He’s a warmonger.”
I flinch at her use of the underworld demon title in front of a human. The detective only grunts. “He’s also off-limits,” he says. “Grandy district is no-go for police. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us. Which means my work here is trashed. That symbol guarantees this case will go nowhere.”
