by Jaye Wells
“I know,” he said in his best defensive-teenager tone.
“And I know I’ve been a pain in the ass about a lot of stuff. Right?”
His lip twitched. “Sort of, yeah.”
“I promise I’ll try to listen to you more. But you’ve got to meet me halfway and be honest. Okay?”
He thought about it a second before nodding. “Yeah, all right.”
I pushed my chair back and went around. “Stand up.”
He glared up at me. “No hugging.”
I held my arms open. “You’re not getting out of it. Might as well give in.”
He sighed the sigh of the put-upon. “Gawd, Katie.”
“Hug or no deal.”
He rolled his eyes like a pro before pushing out of his seat. The hug was probably the fastest ever recorded, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Now, you want to help me send the email to Dr. Hidalgo?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah.”
I threw my arm around his neck and pulled him toward the living room so we could use the laptop. “I have to give you credit, though. That speech was pretty good.”
He ducked his head. “Pen helped me.”
I pulled my arm away and felt some of my victorious feeling fade. “Yeah, I figured.”
“She was kind of intense about it, honestly.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I knew the topic wasn’t done with Pen, but I’d give her a couple of days before I called to hash it out. Pushing that aside, I prepared to take the next step in helping my brother move toward his future—whatever that held.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning on my way into work, I swung by City Hall to check on Sweet Ray and Peewee. Like before, I found them on the top step. Well, I found Sweet Ray. There was a pigeon at his feet, but it was gray, not white like the one had been a few days earlier.
“Morning,” I said. “Do you remember me?”
He looked offended. “Of course. You’re Joan of Arc, right?”
“Very funny.”
He shrugged, which made the gold braid on the shoulders of his crushed velvet housecoat sway. “I gotta get my kicks where I can, because Peewee isn’t speaking to me.” He tipped the stained turban toward the gray pigeon.
“Um, I thought Peewee was white.”
“You racist?” he said sharply. “Because I won’t work for an intolerant person.”
“No,” I said, dragging out the syllable. “I just thought Peewee had white feathers.”
Sweet Ray spread his arms wide. “All of them are Peewee.”
I looked out over the dozens of pigeons strutting around on the shit-spackled steps. “All of those are Peewee?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He shook his head. “Every pigeon on earth is Peewee. They share a consciousness. Pigeons are very enlightened, you know.”
As far as conversations went, that one really felt like a dead end, so I let it go. “All right, so it’s been a few days. You got anything good for me?”
He shrugged and tossed a couple of imaginary crumbs toward the confused gray bird. “People come, people go.”
“Any particular people?”
“Mostly cheap assholes.”
“Fair enough. Did you see anyone from any of the covens come through?”
He tilted his head at the sky, thinking it over. The move was so birdlike, I had to smile. “Peewee says he saw one lady.”
“Adept or Mundane?”
He shrugged. “Peewee didn’t like her.”
Thinking of the lady that had Morales worried, I said, “Did she by chance have a horn?”
Sweet Ray looked at me as if I were the birdbrain. “You sure you’re not using, girl?”
“No horn, then?”
He leaned down to confer with the pigeon. “Peewee says no. She had brown skin.”
“Asian? Latina? Black?” I paused. “Wait, can pigeons even see color?”
“Duh. Of course they can. Their eyesight is excellent.” He flicked a feather off his hem. “And Peewee just said ‘brown.’ If he’d want you to know more, he would have told you.”
I crossed my arms. “You know, if Peewee is just fucking with me, I’m not going to be happy.”
He shrugged. “I’m just the medium here.”
“You’re also the guy who won’t get paid.”
He sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you want from me. A lady came by two days ago to see the mayor. She didn’t look like nothing special to me, but Peewee got all excited and told me to tell you about her.”
“All right, all right,” I said, “I got it. Anything else?”
“Yeah, actually, last night the mayor left about six o’clock like normal. But then he came back at like ten.”
“Sweet Ray, do you really sit here that long every day? Where do you sleep?”
He nodded and rocked a little bit, as if my question made him uncomfortable. “I got a place nearby,” he said defensively. “But I like to be here in case Peewee has to tell me something.”
“Okay,” I said. Judging from the deeper green hue of his skin, he managed to slip away to use, too. “What happened when the mayor came back at ten?”
“He had a man with him. Asian.” He peeked from under his lashes at me. “And a pretty lady with red hair.”
The lady was Volos’s lawyer and girlfriend, Jade. But I was obviously curious to learn who the mysterious Asian dude might be. “Did you manage to hear them talking about anything when they went by?”
“The redhead was saying that she wanted them to meet somewhere else, but the non-mayor man said there was no time.”
“Hmm,” I said. “Did they mention his name or anything?”
He shook his head. “Peewee says he’s tired now.”
I pulled a twenty from my pocket and handed it to it. He slipped it under the turban.
“Listen, next time the mayor comes back late at night like that, you give me a call, okay?” Clearly, the reports after the fact weren’t going to help me much. I’d need to see what was happening with my own eyes despite Sweet Ray’s claims about the superiority of Peewee’s vision.
“You said only call if something is strange,” he said.
“Well, now I’m asking you to call if you see the mayor with anyone who looks Chinese or who you know works for the covens.”
He sighed. “I don’t know. This sounds a lot like of work.”
“How do you figure?”
“If I want to call, I gotta go find a phone. They won’t let me inside the building, so that means I gotta go three blocks to the bodega. Plus, I gotta find change.”
“You don’t have a phone?”
He shot me a very lucid bitch-please look. “You think I’d spend my days on this step talking to pigeons if I could afford a cell-a-phone?”
Thus far, my new CI was turning out to be a huge pain in the ass, but he was the perfect person to keep an eye on Volos for me without the mayor knowing he was being watched. “Tell you what. If you actually ever manage to bring me something useful, I’ll buy you a burner phone.”
His brows disappeared behind the turban. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
He sat up straighter. “Girl, I’m gonna bring you the best shit. Just you wait.”
“I can’t wait,” I said, trying to sound optimistic. “Take care of yourself, Sweet Ray. I’ll look forward to that call.”
With that, I left the man to brag to the pigeons that he’d have his very own “cell-a-phone” soon.
Chapter Sixteen
I rolled into the gym around ten a.m. I expected the workday to be in full swing, but when I walked in, I only found Shadi, Dixon and McGinty sitting in the boxing ring.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Mez is in the john,” Shadi said, “and Gardner’s in her office. She wants a team meeting once she’s off her call.”
I frowned because no one told me we were having a meeting. “Morales checked in?”
“Just called him about the meeting. Why aren’t y’all together?”
“I had an errand to run first thing. He on his way?”
She shrugged. “Left a message.”
“Now that you’re here,” McGinty called, “maybe you can settle something for us.”
“Settle what?”
“Dixon here has a theory. He says cops fall into two categories.”
“Oh, yeah? Which ones?”
Dixon leaned forward in his chair. “Supermen and Batmen.”
I just stared at him.
He shifted in his seat, warming up to having a bigger audience as Shadi climbed into the ring to listen as well. “On one hand, you got the Superman. He’s a real hero, right? Plays by the rules. Got into the game because he wants to help people. Really good guy.”
Shadi pressed her lips together and shook her head. I caught her eye and smirked. “And the other?” I said, egging him on.
“The Batman cop is a hero, too, but a reluctant one. He went into the business because he wants to make bad guys pay. He isn’t afraid to dirty his hands to get the work done.”
I rolled my eyes. “Let me guess—you’re a Superman.”
His face fell. “No, I’m a Batman.”
Shadi laughed out loud. “Please. You’re a Boy Scout, Dixon.”
“I got darkness in me,” he protested.
I met McGinty’s eyes. He was grinning like he was enjoying fucking with the new guy. “Dixon was just educating me on which category each of us fell into based on his astute observations.”
I climbed into the ring. “And?”
“Morales is a straight-up Batman.”
He clearly loved the idea of being in the same column as Morales.
“Mez, too, although technically he’s more like Alfred,” he said. “Seeing how he makes all the cool toys for the team.”
“I’m sure Mez would love to know you think of him as a stuffy old white guy,” Shadi said.
“What about McGinty?” I tipped my chin toward the veteran cop.
“He used to be a Superman before the job made him all jaded.”
McGinty just shook his head and took a pull from his coffee mug, which I’d bet cash money was ninety-proof.
“What do you think, Shadi?” I asked. “What are we?”
She shook her head. “I think that patriarchal bullshit don’t apply to us.”
“Huh?” This from Dixon.
“Listen, white boy, it might get you off to imagine that you’re Batman, but girls like us? We didn’t have superheroes to look up to when we was girls. We were given Barbies and told to pretend to be someone’s mama.”
I laughed out loud. “Speak for yourself. We couldn’t afford Barbies, so I played Wiz and the Fuzz with the rest of the Cauldron boys.”
“Are you saying you looked up to superheroes?”
“Nah,” I said. “You’re partly right. I knew even back then those weren’t supposed to be role models for me.”
“Who’d you look up to, then?” Dixon asked with breathtaking cluelessness.
I didn’t bother to admit I looked up to my Uncle Abe. Instead, I searched my memory banks for some version of a female role model I could remember. Finally, I said, “Xena.”
“The motherfucking Warrior Princess?” Shadi said, laughing. “Hell, yeah.”
“Right? She kicked all sorts of ass.”
“Got her some ass, too,” Shadi said, waggling her eyebrows, “from that cute little blonde.”
“Shut up,” I said, “Xena and Gabrielle didn’t have sex.”
“Bitch, please.” Shadi gave me a pitying look. “They totally scissored by the campfire at night.”
“I don’t remember any indication they were a couple.”
“That’s your hetero bias showing, girl. If you had been a little lesbian girl, you would have seen it all over that show.”
“Well, either way,” I said, “we can agree she was a badass.”
Shadi high-fived me. “Amen, sister.”
I looked over to see Dixon and McGinty furiously typing into their phones.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Checking to see where I can find this Xena show.”
“When you do, let me know,” McGinty said.
“Perverts,” Shadi said without heat.
“Who’s a pervert?” Mez asked, coming out of the locker room.
“These two,” Shadi said, hooking her thumb at them.
“I knew I liked them,” he said. “What’s shaking, Prospero? Where’s your partner?”
I opened my mouth to say I didn’t know, but the sound of the door downstairs opening interrupted. I listened for a second. Once I heard the telltale strike of boots on wood, I said, “Speak of the devil.”
A moment later, he appeared at the top of the steps. We hadn’t spoken since the previous afternoon when he dropped me off at my car. I studied his face for signs of trouble or hope, but his poker face wasn’t giving anything away. But he did search me out of the group with his eyes and nod. That was something I guess.
“Am I late for the party?” he said.
Gardner’s door opened and she rushed out. “Good, you’re all here. I want an update on the Valentine case. Morales, go.”
She climbed into the ring like a fighter preparing for a bout. Morales followed more slowly, like a man who didn’t expect to win this round.
“Evidence is pointing to a deal gone bad between the Votaries and the Fangshi,” he said.
Gardner’s expression brightened. “That’s interesting.”
Morales propped a boot on the lower rope of the ring. “A few separate sources fingered Krystal LeMay as Valentine’s girlfriend. She’s also reported to be the new head of the Votary coven.”
“Two nights ago,” I added, “Shadi and I witnessed a woman who works for Krystal handing a payoff to a suspected Fangshi operative.”
“What’s the motive for offing Valentine?” Gardner said.
“Mez?” I said.
The wizard came forward. He wore a lab coat over his embroidered vest and slacks. The gentleman-wizard look was rounded out by the pair of goggles perched on his dreadlocks. “We believe that the Chinese supplied the potion and Valentine was supposed to distribute it. But he got greedy and cut the potion with yohimbe, which doubled his supply and, thus, his take, but also made the batch extremely unstable and dangerous.”
“That’s where the Kostorov case comes in,” I said. “We talked to the widow, who pointed us to an apothecary that was distributing the potion for Valentine. According to them, two days after Valentine died, Krystal showed up with some Chinese people and warned him to stop selling the bad potion.”
“Fangshi Chinese?” she asked.
Morales said, “We believe so, yes.”
“Anyone you know?” she said.
My stomach tightened in sympathy.
“No, sir.” He kept his expression schooled and refused to look my direction. “Dixon tracked down a connection to a suspected Fangshi hitman named Alexander Hung, who works out of Seattle and California. We believe that, in addition to being in contact with Krystal, he might also have met with Charm Parsons prior to his death.”
Gravity suddenly doubled. He made no mention of Yü Nü, who he knew very well. I knew he wanted to keep his past from catching up with him, but I didn’t expect him to lie to Gardner’s face.
Gardner jumped on the mention of Charm. “Explain the Charm connection.”
“We met with Puck Simmons. He said that before Charm died, word came down from Abe that he wanted corner boys to start running Fangshi product. He said that he witnessed Charm meeting with a man who matched Hung’s description as much as six weeks ago.”
“You got anyone watching Hung now?” she looked around the room.
“Not yet, sir,” Morales said. “That was our next step.”
“Why don’t you give a rundown on the Fangshi for the team?” she said.
He cleared hi
s throat and appeared to be gathering his thoughts. I leaned back against the ropes and prayed he didn’t dig us into a hole we’d not be able to climb out of.
“First thing to know is that the Fangshi aren’t like the covens here.”
“How so?” She folded her arms across her chest, putting her faith in his knowledge and experience.
“The covens here are basically street gangs, but the Fangshi are more organized. Almost corporate.” He rose and went to the board where we’d pasted pictures of the suspects in the case. “My guess is Alexander Hung is probably like a middle manager. Someone else is pulling the strings from L.A. It’s probably someone high up in one of the Tongs.”
Shadi piped up. “What the fuck is a Tong?”
“Benevolent societies,” he said. “Many are legit and offer protection and support for Chinese communities. But some are associated with the Fangshi. Those Tongs are wrapped up in murder for hire, prostitution, potion trafficking, gambling, you name it. Many infiltrate legit businesses to give them deep cover and money-laundering capabilities.”
“Like dry cleaners?” Dixon asked.
“Yeah,” Morales said, “a lot of the business owners who belong to the Tongs are law-abiding, but they don’t have a choice in helping the Fangshi if they want the Tongs’ protection.
“So, what the hell are they doing in Babylon?” Shadi asked. “There ain’t many Chinese here.”
Morales shrugged. “Potions are the most lucrative part of the Fangshi’s interests, and if there’s one thing Babylon has plenty of, it’s hexheads.”
Gardner walked up to the board. “All right, Shadi, your team is on Hung. I want to know where he’s staying and who he’s meeting.” She turned to look at Morales and me. “You two I want on the girlfriend. Even if she didn’t pull the trigger, if she’s running the Votaries now, she’s our main target. Bring her in. Today if possible.”
Morales started to argue, but I interrupted him. “We’re on it, sir.”
That earned me a glare from my partner. We’d be having a conversation once we left the gym, but I didn’t care. The truth was, we did need to bring in Krystal. If she was the head of the Votaries, she was a prime catch, and her testimony might also bring us the Fangshi—especially if she was paying them off because they had something on her. Shadi and her team weren’t going to find out about Morales’s past by checking in on Alexander Hung, anyway.
