Emerald City Blues

by Smalley, Peter

  My mouth was hanging open. I closed it. Then I opened it long enough to say, "I have nothing further to say until I talk to my lawyer." Then I closed it again, and my eyes as well.

  I could hear Sneer grinding his teeth, fuming, deciding whether or not I would budge. Then footsteps. Then the door slammed shut, and I was alone with my bruises and a cell full of unanswered questions.

  I must have drowsed. The next thing I heard was keys rattling in the lock and the iron complaint of the cell door swinging open. I opened my eyes and saw Jesus. Well, close. Maybe he wasn't exactly Jesus, but the face of Gordon Buskins was basically the only kind of absolution I was likely to receive. Legal absolution, that is. Gordon is my attorney. I sort of inherited him from my father. They had worked cases together back when Gordon had been a fresh young lawyer in the District Attorney's office. For Captain Sheehan’s daughter he worked cheap and endured my cash flow issues with silent asperity. Lawyers might be irredeemable bastards as a breed, but this one was my own personal bastard, so he was all right.

  "Miss Sheehan, can you get up? Ah, look at those terrible bruises. Once a doctor sees enough of those to testify on the witness stand, we will have to increase the countersuit charges from wrongful arrest and simple excessive force to criminal assault." He leaned down and put out his hand to help me up.

  "Sweet talker." I got unsteadily to my feet, trying not to show how much moving hurt. "Now tell me we can get out of here without running into any more bullies in blue."

  Gordon guided me toward the door of the holding cell, what we flatfoots affectionately called the drunk tank. At least, that's what we called it when we weren't in it ourselves. "Miss Sheehan, as your counsel I must tell you the charges against you are both quite serious and, barring any physical evidence, completely circumstantial. I have taken the liberty of posting bail and obtaining a cab for you. We will need to discuss the case and what options are open to us.”

  I closed my eyes and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to my father for bringing this prince among attorneys into my professional life. “Okay, Gordon, whenever you have time. Oh, and that brings up something I wanted to ask you.” His eyebrows went heavenward, as they often did when we spoke. I paused long enough for him to open the door out of the inner sanctum of the Seattle PD and into the waiting room. There we collected my personal effects – thoroughly searched by the Lieutenant, no doubt – and after signing a receipt, escaped into the great outdoors, and freedom. Rainy, overcast freedom, but sweet nonetheless.

  It wasn’t until the cab swung up to the curb that I leaned closer to speak what had been on my mind ever since I woke that morning. “Gordon, I need to know what happened to Gerhardt Mueller’s estate after his death. The executor of his will, any next of kin, beneficiaries, who owns his house now – that sort of thing. Can you find that out?”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. “I will do my best, Miss Sheehan. There should be some manner of public records relating to it. When will I see you to discuss the current... matter?”

  “Tomorrow,” I told him, certain he could do it that fast. Gordon Buskin would serve a subpoena on Calvin Coolidge and Al Capone on the same afternoon if I asked him to. I hadn’t, but if pressed on it I’m sure he would say I was capable of asking. Gerd’s estate was ten years cold by now. Maybe there were clues to be found and maybe there weren’t, but if someone else was looking for something in Gerd’s personal effects and wanted it badly enough to kill Tommy and use my head for a punching bag, I needed to figure out what it was and why, fast.

  At my attorney’s terse nod and murmured farewell, I ducked into the cab and told the driver to take me down to SoDo. I was looking forward to being home, for once. I needed to get cleaned up, find something nominally edible to cram down my throat, and figure out what I was going to do next. I craved sleep more than anything else, but like so much else it would have to wait. There were too many moving parts I couldn't see yet. The Russian with the major league swing. The fire at the warehouse. How I got picked up by the police instead of burning to death. There were too many questions, and I was too bone tired to think straight. But sleep would have to wait.

  The cab turned the corner and I let my eyes cling to the perfect curves of an elegantly attired woman striding along the sidewalk on Second. Twin bags from Frederick & Nelson swung in her hands, giving me no doubt where she’d just come from. I let myself sigh. A lot of things would have to wait, as always. Sometimes I wondered how long I would have to wait for the world to catch up to me. The rest of the time I was sure it never would.

  Then my eyes caught a flicker of movement behind us, near my perfectly-coiffed dream dame. Three cars back was a shiny black Ford, A-model. We were being followed.

  EIGHT

  I tried. You can believe it or not as you like, but I did try. Still, the devil-may-care grin that cracked my mug would not be suppressed. This was a gift, exactly the kind of lucky break in the case any gumshoe prayed for. I didn’t dare let it get away while I took care of little things like recovering from criminal assault and a night in the drunk tank. If the warehouse had burned then I was out of leads. I needed this tail to show me another angle on the case, and that meant letting it follow me for a while. Then again, I didn’t exactly want them knowing where I lived, either. Where could I go?

  “Change of plans,” I told the cabbie, an Irishman to judge from the carrot-orange hair below his seen-better-days bowler. “Head down to Dearborn and make a left. I need to get to the Mikado.” A true son of Erin, he grunted eloquently and shifted the pipe to the other side of his mouth without using his hands. He looked sour, but a fare was a fare. He probably shared the prevailing local attitude on the denizens of Chinatown, a part of the city better known as the Mikado. Tough.

  The blocks passed too slowly while I tried to keep myself from turning around in my seat to rubberneck. No good tipping my hand just yet. I’d leave that for once we reached our destination.

  It didn't take long to get there. All I had to do was glance out the window and check if I was the only Caucasian in view. At least, it was that way during the day. At night, the opium trade drew sailors and dock workers; it was a short walk from the waterfront, and not everyone who walked there came back. The streets were closer together here, the shadows less willing to retreat. The buildings were covered in black Chinese characters and other unreadable signs. The dark eyes and unreadable expressions of the people who lived here matched them perfectly.

  I stopped the cab at Ninth and jumped out before he could try to take my money in addition to Gordon's. I inhaled deeply, savoring the strange mixture of his departing exhaust fumes with the exotic spices and frying fish. It wasn't home, but I had a friend here. Used to, to be more precise. I strode toward a storefront beneath a bright red awning with gold Chinese characters inscribed on it. Time to pay a call.

  The bells chimed brightly when I pushed the door open. The shop was small, but like many things in Chinatown, size was deceptive. I strolled for a moment, pretending to look at the little clay sages and bronzed Buddhas until that black A-Model Ford drove by. Then I turned and went straight to the counter.

  "This is for Albert King," I told the wizened man behind the counter, handing him one of my last three business cards. He bowed hastily and retreated - not from me, but from the magical incantation I'd just uttered. Albert King had a reputation here. His father, Ah King, had been the King of Chinatown for longer than I'd been alive. Albert might not have that level of influence, not yet, but he and I had worked together before his father had passed away. I had helped to clear one of the local Chinese community of a murder rap. Oddly enough, no one else would touch the case but a half-trained wizardling trying to get her start as a gumshoe. There are times when it can be a good thing, not giving a damn whose case you take so long as your client pays cash in advance. It meant I was the only investigator who could get answers in Chinatown, and that was occasionally damned helpful.

  I hoped today was one of those occa
sions. It took a few minutes, but eventually the old man returned and made it clear with gestures and a spate of syllables I couldn't understand but nodded at anyway that I was to come with him. We went through a little curtained arch, through a jammed storage area in back, out the back door and into the warren: tiny alleys that seemingly linked every part of Chinatown with every other part. If you knew your way, it probably did. I didn't, but that was why I had a guide. The alley was dark, full of strange and not always pleasant smells, and every inch of it looked like every other inch. At least it did to a round-eye barbarian like me.

  Fortunately, getting lost here meant my tail would have just as much trouble finding me as I would finding myself. That was part of why I had come here at all. We threaded our way between crates and around stacks of produce, navigated past a few hundred poultry, and finally entered the back door of a brick building that looked like every other brick building in Chinatown. Except that it wasn't. A dragon dwelt here, and I felt it watching me. I might have ten years worth of rust on the skills Gerd taught me, but I would have had to be blind, deaf or stone drunk not to notice the skin-prickling hum of latent power radiating from this building.

  One out of three ain't bad odds.

  The back door to the building opened three inches, and my guide unleashed another torrent of unintelligible syllables. I waited. The door opened another five inches. More sounds. The young man in the doorway must have heard him just fine, though, since he gestured for me to enter and bowed off the old man. I echoed the bow, but my guide was already shuffling off by another route than the one we'd used. He didn't so much as glance backwards. Oh well.

  The young Chinese man evidently straddled cultures: he wore a long black changshan robe and a fedora that had seen better days than mine. He led me down a hallway lined with those walls made of translucent rice paper. I followed, getting a nice view of his braided queue. At the end of the hall he knelt on a woven mat outside a door and slid it ajar with one hand before bowing his head down almost to the woven mat. What was this? An audience?

  I stepped inside. Albert King wore a black changshan robe and an utterly unreadable expression. He was sitting in a fairly impressive chair. I didn't know all that much about the Chinese but I knew they knelt or sat on the ground unless they were Important. Maybe he had inherited his father's title after all. The door slid shut behind me with a sound as soft as a dying man's sigh. We were alone.

  "What have you brought into the Middle Kingdom?" he asked without preamble.

  "Nice to see you too," I returned, trying to catch my footing.

  "I have no time for polite words. My walls hold, but they are challenged. There is a tiger in my garden. I think it followed you here. Is this not so?" His tone was clipped and deceptively soft.

  "It is." I would anger him more by beating around the bush than by admitting the truth straight off. I hoped. "Someone attacked me last night and framed me for the burning of that warehouse in Riverside. I think whoever did it followed me from the police station downtown. I was hoping to lose her in the Mikado once I got out of the cab." Not exactly true, but close enough.

  "She has power." It was not a question. I shrugged, then grimaced and nodded. "You ask much, coming here unannounced with a tiger following your scent. I have more responsibilities to my people than when last we worked together. If you were anyone else..." He did not complete the thought. I knew exactly what he meant. I owed him big for this.

  So be it. "I'm sorry to inconvenience you, Albert. I just didn't have anywhere else to turn at the moment. Give me a few minutes, until she leaves, and I'll get out of your hair."

  "No." Albert stood gracefully. "A tiger who thinks it may enter my garden unchallenged once will do so again. It is too dangerous to be ignored. Come." He turned and led me behind another screen of rice paper and lacquered wood. I hesitated before entering the room. That sense of latent power was not so latent here. I stood on the threshold of Albert's sanctum, and that was close enough for comfort. Or for discomfort, rather; I already felt that pins-and-needles sensation of being too close to something hot. I didn't feel like going any closer, thanks.

  Albert paid no heed to my trepidation and walked to the middle of the perfectly square room. In the exact center was a square sandbox. Okay, that's probably a horrible round-eye barbarian type thing to say, but my hand to god, that's exactly what it looked like. In the middle of the sandbox was what looked like a lantern on a tripod, except the whole thing was carved from stone and looked to be older than Moses. Albert knelt, lit a bit of incense - without matches, I noticed - and adopted a meditative pose. Incense smoke spiraled silently upwards, creating a thin bluish layer about level with my eyes. Albert was statue-still. I tried not to fidget. After a few minutes he reached down and picked up a mallet with a soft round head and used it to ring a gong set beside the sandbox. The sound went on and on, reverberating much longer than it should have. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and suggesting we depart with some urgency. I forced myself to ignore them.

  Then I heard a voice, hollow and faint but very real. It was speaking Chinese, so I could not understand it; but I would never forget that voice as long as I lived. I discovered my back was pressed against the wall to the audience room. Ah King. Gerd had held some very strong views on the practice of necromancy. So did I, and they involved staying as far away from it as I could except on days not ending in Y. Today was not that day.

  Albert intoned something questioningly in a sing-song monotone, and the voice of the former King of Chinatown filled the room. He sounded out of sorts. I hoped it wasn't with me.

  It went back and forth like that for a bit. I couldn't understand any of it, and I turned my thoughts to the case instead. You really can get used to anything. Well, almost anything. I hadn't exactly gotten used to the fact that Albert had called up his dead father for a heart to heart, but I didn't have to be. This was his thing, not mine. The case. Think about the case. I tried to focus, but it's hard not to be distracted when the living call up the dead in your presence and proceed to have a conversation.

  And then, just like blowing out a candle, it was over.

  The sense of power was gone. Albert was standing in front of me. I wasn't sure, but I think he was smiling just a bit. If so, I felt sorry for whoever was tailing me. Well, kind of.

  "The way is clear for you to return to your home. The tiger has fled the dragon, and knows it is not welcome in his garden. And I have a message for you." Albert looked as if he knew I was distinctly uncomfortable with the whole talking-to-the-dead thing and was taking a measure of amusement in watching me squirm. I was definitely squirming. Still, help was help. "Okay. Shoot."

  "He says the tiger hunts, but not for you. Though it is a stranger to you, the master who holds its leash is not. A message waits for you, and a ship - but any journey you take upon it will have no return. Take the measure of your enemy, or he will take your soul."

  There it was again. That cold feeling, like icy winter rain down my back. I hated necromancy. I hated vague fortune cookie prophecies. But more than anything I hated being the last to know what was going on. "Thanks, Albert. If it's all the same, I'll be on my way now. I'm sorry to have brought trouble to your door. I'll try not to let it happen again." If there was an again. Ever. "Thanks for your help. And, uh, your dad's help."

  Albert grinned demonically at me, teeth white against his skin. "He said you are welcome any time."

  The door didn't even come close to hitting my ass on the way out.

  NINE

  This was serious.

  I paced. It didn't help much. I did it anyway, cup of tea gone cold and forgotten on my windowsill. Outside, the rain fell in endless sheets of grey. Inside, it felt more like a summer storm was brewing.

  I glanced at the letter from Gordon Buskins again, as if it might tell me something new. He was good, and he was fast. What he wasn't was cheap; his bill was attached, almost apologetically. I would have to do something about that. I w
ould also have to come up with enough money to eat, and figure out how I was going to put off my landlord's demands for rent. Again. But those were background noise. Gordon had found a record filed with the county by the executor of Gerd's estate, a man by the name of Heinrich von Griffe. His connection to Gerd was unknown. I'd certainly never heard of him. The files stated Gerd's heir was his next of kin, a woman by the name of Florence Zimmerman, currently a resident of New Zebedee, Michigan. From the context it seemed she was Gerd's sister. Strange. I'd never heard him talk about having family.

  But that wasn't the really strange part. The really strange part was the fact that I was mentioned in Gerd's will.

  I re-read the end of Gordon's handwritten note. There are references in Mr. Mueller's will to bequests placed in trust for both Thomas Cooke and for you. No mention is made of what your bequest is, where it might be, nor with whom; nor even under what circumstances it was to be delivered to you. I take it you were unaware of this? -G.B.

  No, I was bloody well not aware, thank you very much. The idea there was something Gerd meant me to have ten years ago was putting me very much on edge. What could it be? I racked my brain, trying to think of things I'd spent a decade trying to forget or drown with alcohol. Part of me hoped it was something I could use against the Russian tiger-woman, but Gerd was not the type to leave items of power to a half-trained apprentice, no matter how talented. No, it couldn't be that. A personal memento from a happier time, in all likelihood. Nothing to get in a twist over.

  But I was in a twist. A big one. Because a cold, ruthlessly analytical part of my brain had put a gun to the back of my head and told it that whatever the Tiger and her master were looking for, chances were it was whatever Gerd had left to me or Tommy. "Chances," by which I meant, somewhere between certain and final. And that meant Tommy's death was partially my fault. Whoever was trying to get at our bequests had killed him. But had they gotten whatever Gerd had left for him?