by Tee Morris
“Oh, come on, Mick,” I groaned, rapping my knuckles against the worn wood of the table. “I’ve got a long night ahead of me, so if you could just keep it simple—”
“There is no keeping it simple, not tonight!” he shot back. (Now, Mick knows I don’t like being cut off, so for him to do that means he’s also got a lot of deliveries in the queue, too.) He motioned to the patrons along the bar, and a few of the tables. “I got a lot of orders to take care of before you helped yourself to that booth…and to my seat cushions.”
Wow. He really doesn’t miss a thing.
“Gerry and Albin both called in sick, and I’m not happy. I’ll need one of them or something better to come walking through that door before I bump up your order to the front of the line.”
The door jingling made both our heads turn. Gertie’s eyes searched Mick’s only for a moment before they landed on me. She arched her eyebrow and blew a rogue lock of hair out of her eyes before joining me in the booth.
“Sorry I’m late, Billi,” she huffed. “Had to rearrange my evening just for—” And then, she got a good look at me. Those sapphires flashed concern as she gingerly touched my still-swollen cheek. It was like a feather brushing my skin, the gentlest of touches that carried with it a torrent full of emotion. “Good Lord, Billi, what happened to you?”
I went to answer, but then I saw Mick looking at me, then at Gertie, then at me again, and then back at Gertie.
“Okay,” he said, clasping his hands together. His sudden smile was brighter than any Illumination spell I’ve ever seen cast. “Two chili specials, coming right up!”
What? But—oh, wait a minute…
Gertie’s brow furrowed as she pulled out what appeared to be some sort of hard portfolio, her eyes watching Mick for a moment and then finally coming to me. “You know I’m probably breaking a half-dozen rules here. Checking out books is one thing, but if these photos are damaged in any way, shape, or form…”
“I swear, I wouldn’t ask you to put your ass on the line if it weren’t important,” I said, flashing her that Baddings smile that won the ladies easily in Acryonis.
Her crooked eyebrow only rose higher. “Don’t think for a moment, Mr. Baddings, that we are even close to being settled on our outstanding date. Tonight does not count.”
“Now, is that what you think of me?” I asked. “Do you think I would stoop—”
And there was Mick, seeming to appear from the Mists of Trysillia with Annabelle right behind him. His dishtowel was draped over his forearm, and in one outstretched hand he carried a saucer with a small, fat candle burning from its center. Mick gingerly placed the far-from-usual centerpiece on the table as Annabelle slid the chili specials in front of us.
As this little bit of vaudeville played out, Gertie kept her peepers locked on me, that gaze of hers saying it all to me with chilling clarity.
“Dinner is served,” Mick purred. Remaining totally oblivious to Gertie’s reaction, he continued to play Maitre D’ at Chez Miguel’s. “Mr. Baddings failed to place a drink order with your meal, madame. What would you care for with your special tonight?”
“A Coke will be just fine,” Gertie replied.
I pinched the bridge of my nose, screwing my eyes shut. He’s my friend. He’s my pal. He’s really not helping out here one bit.
With a tip of the head, Mick glided away, leaving me under the drawn bow of a mad librarian, her fingers tapping on the table.
“You…” I started dryly, and then I cleared my throat. “You got something for me.”
“As requested, with a lot of favors cashed in, I managed to get photos wired to me. Would you like to hear how long it takes to get photos wired to you, and would you like to hear how much longer it takes when you’re having them wired to you under false pretenses?” I raised a hand, shaking my head slowly as Gertie continued, “I also managed to get photographs from the games at Wrigley. I specifically narrowed the photographs to ones that only featured the pitcher.”
The photos of the Mariners’ ace pitcher Eddie Faria, all taken from various angles, now formed a baseball fan’s quilt. Five rows of pictures, three in a column. The wired pictures were nowhere near the clarity of the Chicago shots, but they would have to do. Somewhere in there was the last piece in this puzzle.
The Pendant of Coe bestows upon those who wear it a strength and agility beyond that of those not born of The Touched. While I still hadn’t seen the blessed thing, my gut (and my dreams) told me one of the Nine Talismans was granting an edge to a baseball team of unknowns. I also knew, based on My World Book’s description and the fact that none of the Mariners wore an enchanted breastplate or were catching with a silver gauntlet, that the talisman had to be the Pendant of Coe.
This ended my certainty. Now I was going on my own deduction and a few hunches, some more confident than others. For one, the pitcher: somehow he was involved. The scent of magic really didn’t hit me until the Mariners took the field. It was strongest when he was pitching those burners from mound to plate. When he was relieved at the end of the game, I had to search for the smell; and even when I caught it, the odor was merely a trace, an afterthought, like perfume hanging in the air after a viscountess crosses a grand hall to pay reverence to a king. How deeply was the pitcher involved with the Mariners’ infamous Trouble? Faria seemed to keep his distance from the group of dinks that took a lot of pride in living up to their nickname. Smart guy…
…unless he was my boxing partner at the Jefferson.
Then came the heists. Could that have just been a strange coincidence? A headline crime in every town this team visited? (Well, in all save one town, and it took a visit from the President to trump it.) Hell of a coincidence, if it was. The crimes themselves, making a jump from simple bank jobs to museum heists, whispered of an outside influence. This player, probably not one from the Mariners’ roster, understood the value of art. Currency can sometimes be worth less than the paper it’s printed on, but sketches, portraits, and sculptures only increase in value. All this deduction continued to point to the smug prick that was Miles Waterson. Was one of Chicago’s local royalty working this crew from Baltimore?
Throw in a botched heist at Waterson’s own establishment, the death of a store manager, and the death of someone associated with these high profile heists, and you had a jigsaw puzzle. A stupid, fucking jigsaw puzzle. Did I ever mention how much I loathe jigsaw puzzles? And this was one of those puzzles where your dwarvlings have pinched the crucial piece and scooted away with it, raising your frustration level higher and faster than a dungeon’s water trap. I knew that missing piece was in here.
The time had come to employ the two-handed broadsword of my trade.
Gertie watched me produce the tool from my coat pocket. “Billi?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, peering at a Mariners-Pirates moment through its massive lens.
“Detectives really use magnifying glasses?”
I looked up, pursing my lips together. The stereotypes of being a Dwarf were enough for me to handle, but the whole “magnifying glass” thing with detectives bothered me a bit. Books, plays, and moving pictures would lead you to believe we were blind without the damn things. I was so put off by the question, I didn’t even bother to thank Annabelle for the two drinks she brought to the table.
“My eyes are fine, Gertie,” I grumbled, “but yes, some detectives—the good ones, thank you very damn much—use these to bring out some details that might otherwise go missed.”
Gertie took a sip of her Coke. “Any idea what you’re looking for?”
“Like I said, details.” My lens bent and distorted the captured moment of Faria releasing a pitch that looked so fast, it had probably reached the off-camera catcher the day before. I couldn’t see any glimpse of a chain or bulge of a token under his uniform. That was a stretch, I admit. A hope beyond hope that I would get a peek at the pitcher’s pendant.
Huh. The Pitcher’s Pendant. Worked for me.
The magnify
ing glass now pulled other players around the pitcher into view. William “Shuffle” Patterson at shortstop and Archie “Flyball” Randalls at Second, both of whom I knew as Trouble.
“What I need,” I muttered moving deeper into the photographic patchwork on the table, “is that little detail I’m missing. That we’re all missing.”
“Somewhere in these pictures is the key to the Mariners fixing their games?”
“For starters.” I looked up into the concentrated gaze of my lady librarian. “Remember that attempted robbery at Waterson and Sons a few nights ago?”
“The headlines and the scores?” Gertie tipped her head to one side as she dipped into the chili. “So you’re looking in these pictures for…?”
“For the sign.” I muttered, studying each image. “There had to be some kind of sign, like what we do in Snoopers, to let those involved know ‘Tonight’s the night’.”
She looked over her glasses at me, “You’re going to let a stadium full of people know that you and your friends are planning a robbery?”
I huffed, looking up from the glass. “Well, it’s going to be something subtle. I’m not expecting any of the players to be wearing a sandwich board with big block letters spelling out, ‘Hey, guys, how about we hit a jewelry boutique tonight!’ or anything.”
Her eyebrows bobbed. “Hmm.” She cleaned her spoon of chili. “It has been a while since we’ve grabbed a bite together. I’d forgotten how irritable you get when you’re hungry.”
Dammit. I hate it when I get like this.
Waste not the gifts of the Master’s toil, as my people’s saying goes. Amazing how something as simple as Mick’s garlic-cinnamon-tomato-pepper medley can clear your mind and give you a sense of purpose. The slow burn lingers under the tongue while the ground beef remains succulent in the surrounding sauce. My chili had cooled just enough to be ready for a mouthful, but enough heat remained to give the spices that kick. Bliss. Sheer bliss.
“Don’t get too comfortable, Mr. Baddings,” chided Gertie. “The chili’s good, but you still owe me…and your bill is even farther from clear.”
“Now come on. At first I was looking into something suspicious in baseball, and now I’m neck-deep in an attempted robbery and double-homicide. Think you can cut me some slack over there, Miss Thunder from Downunder?”
She froze, and her eyes seemed to go from bright sapphires to rich emeralds. “You didn’t just call a Kiwi an Aussie, did you? Tell me you didn’t.”
My head cocked to one side. “There’s a dif—”
The warrior’s instinct—the one that controlled the defensive crouch in me—echoed loud and clear in my head: Hey, Billi, if you value your balls, stop right now and change the subject.
“Let me try again.” I took a sip of my own Coke before continuing. “This started out as a discreet case for the Cubbies, but I’m finding out the hard way—as you can tell from the looks of me—it’s a bit bigger than that.” One more spoonful of Mick’s best, and then I swapped the spoon for the magnifying glass. “I’m thinking there’s a crew working in the team.”
Gertie leaned in a little closer. “And that was why you were also looking at the robberies happening at the same time the Mariners were in each town?”
“Yeah. It just struck me as odd that high profile crim—”
“And continuing with WPOD’s Evening of Romantic Classics,” a radio crackled from across the diner, “the Chicago Philharmonic presents Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky’s sweeping masterpiece, Romeo & Juliet…”
When the music started, Mick upped the volume on his radio and turned around just enough to show off his profile, and the contentment glowing therein.
“Hey, Mick,” I barked. “You know those two died at end of the play, right?”
Mick just snorted. “Love story’s a love story.”
I considered my friend for a moment, and then returned to the photos. Looking up at Gertie would reveal, no doubt, how hard my friend’s good intentions were making me blush.
Then, as the music traded its sweet, caressing melody for the more dramatic staccato movement, I saw it.
“Hold on.” I set my soda aside for a moment. “Let me see something, here.”
My eyes swept across the patchwork again, and then I started shuffling the photos around. The dinner plates didn’t give me a lot of wiggle room, but I was managing. Gertie, her concern divided between trying to figure out what I was thinking and being protective of the photos, watched me, her spoon slowly stirring her meal.
“You know, as entertaining as you may think it is when you’re working in silence, I can give some critique on your one-man show.” She slipped the straw from her Coke and chewed on it as she said, “Action’s a bit slow.”
My head popped up. Sometimes, when on the clock, I can be a bit of a chump.
“Sorry, Gertie. I tend to get a little…”
“Rude?” she quipped.
“Obsessed,” I corrected. “Especially when I’m nearing the end of a case. I want this thing solved, and the sooner the better. When I initially laid these photos out, I mixed them up, so they’re in no real order. Now I need them organized by opposing teams.”
Now she really looked pissed. By the Fates, what did I do now?
“Billi, what is my job?”
What kind of question was that? “The bruise is on my jaw. My head is fine.”
“I want to hear you say it,” she insisted. “What is my job?”
“Fine, you’re a—” Oh. Shit. That’s right. “This night is really not going well for me, is it?”
“You want me to help you on this? It’s going to cost you.” Her eyes were back to ice-blue, and seemed to sparkle as her mouth turned into an extremely wicked smile. Far more wicked than I would have expected from a librarian. “Dinner at The Palms.”
She wasn’t kidding. I’d rather face a charging horde of blood-starved Goblins than the dinner bill at The Palms.
“You sure we couldn’t do a few choice seats at Wrigley? Nice day. Terrifi—”
“A nice suit on you. I’ve got a lovely dress for the occasion. A nice appetizer.” Ouch. “A lovely dinner.” Oww. “And dessert.” Ooofff. “That would serve as ample compensation, Mr. Baddings.”
The last time I got hit this hard, it was at the loading dock of the Jefferson. “I’ll have Miranda make the reservations.”
Gertie loosed a curt nod, gently pushed me back, and started checking the backs of the photos. She was switching and swapping them out with the speed and skill of a tavern hustler. While dice games were the common gambling vice, cards—considered the nobleman’s game—never failed to bring in some extra income for a few inns and pubs I frequented. It was more a matter of novelty than popularity with the cards, and the dealers in Acryonis who brought their games to the people were slick, quick, and skilled. You played card games for the privilege of playing, not to win. This was how Gertie handled the photos. She even gave a little flourish across the grid when she was done.
“The column to your left is the earliest, and you progress forward in dates as you go right.” Gertie motioned to the head of each row. “Each row is a different city, or team, if you’re going by what’s in the picture.”
By the Druids of Hadismill, she was good. Really, really good. “Um, I…wow, Gertie. So,” I started, “which one—”
“This was the photo you were looking at. Pittsburgh. Third game against the Pirates.”
I looked at the photo, and then my eyes slowly came up to meet hers. “Not bad, Gertie, considering you’re not a fan of the sport.”
With a wry smile, she picked up one of the wired photos and flipped it over, revealing a date, location, photographer’s name, and what appeared to be a number for filing purposes, written in her delicate hand.
“The method to my madness, Billi,” she said, winking.
I flipped through my notebook and found the scores I had jotted down with Gertie on my last visit to the library. With my eyes looking over Pittsburgh, I
checked the scores. April 25th, Mariners—9, Pirates—2. Backwards. April 26th, Mariners—6, Pirates—5. Facing front. The other row was the Robins. April 28th, Mariners—11, Robins—1. Front. April 29th, Mariners—8, Robins—3. Backwards. April 30th, Mariners—4, Robins—2. Front. And finally, the Braves. April 19th, Mariners—3, Braves—0. Backwards. April 20th, Mariners—6, Braves—1. Front. April 21st, Mariners—2, Braves—5. Front. Now there were the photos from St. Louis…then Chicago…
“You found it, didn’t you?” Gertie asked, her spoon returning to the chili.
“Yeah, I did.”
She didn’t ask (I really didn’t expect her to), but the glass was out of my hand and in hers. Gertie slipped out of her side of the booth and pressed me against the wall as she slid into my seat. She was the quietest I’ve ever seen her, apparently determined to find the detail I had caught and she hadn’t.
I’d be willing to chalk this up to librarian’s pride, but I couldn’t shake that feeling I got when Mick played Junior Gumheel with me.
My head tilted to one side. There are a lot of dames in this town. My girl Miranda is one of the serious head-turners and she knows it. Gertie, however, was the kind of maid that me and my boys always liked. When you’d see a girl like Gertrude at first, all prim, proper, and…well, let’s just call it like I see it…book-smart, your demeanor would change. You tone down the bawdy quips, try to recall those basic etiquette lessons, and generally clean up your act.
Get a girl like Gertie to smile, and you’d catch the kind of mischief and madness that would take you completely by surprise, either in a drinking contest, a spirited debate over which cigar smokes best, or in a relentless tavern tickle. That was what I suddenly saw in Gertie when she had her “A-ha!” moment. Those baby blues behind the specs twinkled, a light of discovery dancing in her eyes.
But then, her heartbreaker of a smile disappeared. “So what does this mean?”
“It means I’ve got a long night ahead of me. A very long night,” I said, casting a glance at the time.
My eyes jumped from the clock to Mick, who was standing just underneath it, grinning like the warlock who possessed the spell that would win him the day.
