Masks (Out of the Box Book 9)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Ehh, you think what you want,” he said, “but I’ve met this broad, and she’s bad news of the sort—”

  “If you say ‘broad’ and ‘bad news’ in the same sentence, I think you hit pulp novel bingo.”

  He smiled faintly. “She was giving me an itch in a bad place.”

  “Your taint?”

  “I don’t know what that is,” Welch said. “But she triggered my instincts—”

  “Frost triggered your instincts, and he’s a moron.”

  “But a dangerous moron.”

  “To impressionable twenty-something women who want to remain syphilis-free, maybe,” I cracked. “To the rest of us, he’s just another goober whose primary use in life is to ice a drink.” I gave it a moment’s thought and started to lift off into the air. “Still … maybe I could pay a visit to this Nadine Griffin. Where do you think she is?”

  “Her office is on Wall Street,” he said. “Look for the building with the big hole in the side where a window ought to be.” He glanced at his watch. “If she’s at home, she’s got a mansion out on Long Island. I’ll text you the address.”

  “Grazie,” I said, taking off. “I’ll rattle a few bushes of my own and see what I can come up with.”

  “I thought you already gave me everything you h—” I lost his words to the wind. It didn’t really matter; I needed to talk to Nadine Griffin and one other person before I had anything else for him, anyway.

  I’d read all about Nadine Griffin, and she sounded like a real ball buster. As someone who had busted a few of those myself, I was looking forward to meeting her. I took to the air and cleared the buildings, heading south for Wall Street, figuring I’d check her office first. Who went home at two in the afternoon on a weekday, anyway?

  53.

  Jamie

  When she heard a knock at the office door a few minutes later, Jamie thought for sure that it was Clarice coming back for another round, or perhaps to settle some other bit of routine business. “Come in,” she said, her voice muted, their last conversation still pressing on her as she brooded in the office, the sun’s rays cast long across her floor as the yellow disc slid lower in the sky.

  The door opened, and to her surprise, there stood Jacob Penny, his eyes less lively than when she’d seen him before. Yesterday he’d seemed exuberant; today he seemed almost morose.

  “Uh, hi,” Jamie said, coming to her feet and slamming her knee against her desk. The whole thing rattled and moved back a few inches, and a wracking pain radiated from her kneecap and almost dropped to her chair again. “Oww,” she said as she took the weight off that leg, standing there with one eye squinted shut, the other open to look at her visitor. “Hello,” she forced out.

  “Are you all right?” Penny asked, easing into the room. He had his leather briefcase in hand, holding it before him like it was a shield to protect him from a well-placed kick. He bumped the door shut behind him with his backside and stood there, not coming any closer to the desk, a statue that was turning back and forth slowly with nervous energy. His shirt’s top button was still undone.

  “Fine,” Jamie said, the pain starting to fade slightly as her surprise at seeing him increased. “What … brings you by today, Mr. Penny? I didn’t think we had an appointment—”

  “We didn’t,” Penny said, clearing his throat nervously as he avoided her eyes. “I was just dropping in to—did you go to the gym today?” He asked, and when she shook her head, looking curiously at him, he pointed to her head. “I just—your hair. Looked like you might have worked out.”

  Jamie stood there, stricken, and raised a hand to run it through her hair. It was tangled, a mess, probably from the time she spent in the water. Clarice couldn’t have mentioned that while she was running me through the ringer for everything else? She pulled her hand out of her hair; it was a lost cause that could only be solved by a shower and starting over, and besides, it was bringing out the briny smell when she touched it. Her fingers passed under her nose and she almost gagged at the resurgence of the stink, which she had faded from her notice until now. “I, uhm—racquetball game,” she said, trying to find some cover.

  “Ah,” Penny nodded. “I, ah … wanted to stop by in person because the underwriters for your loan called me this afternoon.” He looked to be in exquisite discomfort. “They told me … the bank is going to have to decline your application for an extension as well as the additional credit.”

  Jamie felt like falling back, just dropping into her chair in hopes that it was there. “Decline?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, still holding his briefcase handle with both hands. “They wouldn’t tell me what the criteria were for the declination, which is—really weird, actually.” He stared off into space for a moment, then looked contrite and cast his gaze downward. “But that doesn’t matter to you, of course. I’m so sorry. I was … I was looking forward to working with you and Barton Designs on this.”

  “I …” Jamie stood there, stunned, as though someone had just taken a pickaxe and driven it between her eyes. “But … I thought … things were looking good?”

  “I thought so, too,” Penny said, shaking his head. “I mean, we’ve made loans to companies in worse straits with less capital on hand, more credit risk … I mean … I don’t know. I guess this is what the underwriters get paid for, though, and I don’t understand their problem, especially given the collateral here in your—”

  Jamie lost focus on what he was saying, the old her, the tireless CEO, stepping out from the back of her mind, her own voice droning in her ear. We don’t have enough capital to fill outstanding orders. We don’t have enough inventory on hand to fill even a quarter of our orders. Our biggest accounts are still ninety days from paying in full on some of their current …

  Oh … oh … no …

  Clarice was right.

  I stopped paying attention and look what happened.

  “Are you all right?” Penny asked, and Jamie came back to herself, dry mouth and all.

  “I’m … yes, I’ll be fine,” she lied, and she sat back down in her chair, a little more forcefully than she’d intended. “Thank you for … coming and telling me in person.” Her voice sounded quiet inside her own head, muffled as though she had a cold. She certainly felt sick, though it was more of a twist in the stomach from the uncertainty of what would happen next—or perhaps the certainty of knowing that they were almost assuredly finished. And in one stroke, no less.

  “It was the least I could do,” Penny said, and then he looked as though he might want to say something else, but he blushed, and opened the door instead. “I was looking forward to working with you.” And he eased himself out as Jamie sat there, watching him go at first, and then, after the door clicked closed, staring at the piles of invoices and paperwork and compliance filings and tax documents … realizing that not one of them meant a damn thing now.

  Barton Designs was done.

  54.

  Sienna

  Apparently, Nadine Griffin went home at two in the afternoon on weekdays. Bankers’ hours were getting shorter all the time. Welch had texted me her address, so I pulled it on my phone’s GPS as I left Wall Street, taking off from the roof of Nadine Griffin’s building, where I’d stopped to concentrate on setting my next destination and bringing up one of my contacts to dial. The wind was rushing in my face as the Bluetooth headset I’d grabbed on my way out of the hotel felt snug in my ear, hissing and ringing to let me know my call was going through.

  There was a cool female voice at the other end. “Veronika Acheron speaking.”

  “I like how you pretend you don’t know it’s me calling,” I said.

  “Well, I assume you’re calling me for business and not to meet for a happy hour to swap stories, so I try to keep my tone professional—because I love money more than answering the phone, ‘Hey, girl.’ At least a little more.”

  “Honestly, if having you burn off half my face with plasma hands didn’t dissuade me from hiring you, answering
your phone like a Ryan Gosling meme isn’t likely to flip the table, if you know what I mean.”

  “I figured burning off your face was a key factor in you hiring me,” Veronika said, hiding her amusement under the veneer of professionalism. “By the way, I haven’t heard from Kat Forrest yet. I figured she’d be calling five minutes after she landed.”

  “She probably hasn’t even picked up the casefile yet, honestly,” I said. “But I appreciate you being willing to babysit.”

  “Long as my pretty face doesn’t end up on camera and your check clears, I’ll help your blondie Nancy Drew all you want,” Veronika said. “But I assume since you’re calling me, you have reasons of your own that don’t involve your adopted child.”

  “Reasons of my own?” I asked. “More like problems of my own. You watching the news at all?”

  “Not today,” she said, a little tautly. I thought I could a heartbeat monitor somewhere in the distance behind her, but it was pretty faint and staticky, what with the wind blowing on my end and the limitations of the phone on hers stifling my meta hearing. “Why? What did you do this time?”

  “Very little, surprisingly,” I said. “I’m in New York—”

  “Hold on,” and I could hear her pull the phone away from her ear for a second as she punched the speaker button and a door closed behind her. “I see … FBI headquarters in Manhattan destroyed … and the US Attorney’s office … and a bank robbed … car crashes in the streets … a container ship blowing up off Long Island …” She put the phone back up to her ear and the hiss of the speakerphone and the tinny quality of her voice ceased. “Yeah. I could have figured out you were in New York just by looking at the headlines.”

  “Har har,” I said. “Listen, the US Attorney’s office … it got hit by a meta who turned the whole place to glass.”

  “Ouch,” she said. “I’m not an architect, but I’m guessing without concrete and steel to hold it up, that sucker collapsed on itself.”

  “It’s in slivers, yes. But the problem is, we have nothing on the meta who caused it. No type, no idea, nothing. I figured you—”

  “Ooh, I can feel the butter coming out, and I’m worried for my arteries. I’m about to get slathered.”

  “—as a much wiser, more traveled, and quite brilliant meta with worlds of experience—”

  “I like that better than ‘old.’ Good call.”

  “—and someone with a keen insight into the domain of metas for hire … might have some idea who could have done this.” I paused a second as I flew over Brooklyn’s congested shorefront. “Or, failing that, maybe a type name for what kind of meta is responsible.”

  “The latter, yes, for sure,” she said. “I don’t know that there’s an official type name, but I’ve always called them ‘Alchemists.’ They’re a lot like that family of idiots you ran across in Nebraska—”

  “The Clarys.” I thought about them, with their meta abilities to turn their skin into seemingly whatever substance they wanted—I’d seen rubber and steel, but there were probably other possibilities. “But they can’t change the state of unconnected matter.” I paused. “I don’t think. Because that would have made kicking their asses a lot harder.”

  “Yeah, their steel skin melts like that butter you just applied to me under plasma’s heat,” she said, then paused. “That … wow, I went to the awkward place this time, didn’t I?”

  “It’s okay, I kinda live there.”

  “So, anyway, same ballpark, different … uh, game? Sport, maybe? Whatever,” she said, “I’m not into athletics and stuff.”

  “I figured, seeing how you weren’t too torn up about us destroying Soldier Field.”

  “Well, that’s the Bears, so …” Her wry amusement died. “This power, though. I knew of a meta who used those powers for profit.”

  “Illicit gain, you mean?” I teased her.

  “I forgot that you use your powers for charity these days,” she shot right back.

  “Ouch. Counterpoint taken.”

  “You’re entirely too fun,” she said. “We should totally have another team-up sometime. I bet I’d be a better wingwoman than any of your other lackeys. This meta, though, the one who changes matter for profit—”

  “The alchemist?” I asked.

  “I’ve heard him called ‘the Glass Blower,’” Veronika said. “He bounces around a lot, but he’ll basically put his talents to work for anyone. The first thing I ever heard about him was a job he took on a few years ago for a really rich creep who wanted an ex transmuted into pure gold.”

  “Gross,” I said. “That poor woman.”

  “It was actually a guy that got turned into a statue,” Veronika said, and I could hear her smirk bleed through the line. “You know what happens when you assume, right?”

  “You make an ass out of you,” I said, “but not me.” I paused for comic effect. “Because I’m way too busy being an ass on my own merits.”

  “And you win a counterpoint of your own. Anyway, the Glass Blower takes contract jobs like that, I assume. Only other work I’ve heard of his is whispers, like creating gold for some small country somewhere to buoy their economy—”

  “Any idea which small country?” I asked.

  “No clue. It was all rumors anyway, because I’d imagine if someone actually was able to do that, they’d really crash the precious metals market.”

  “What do you even pay a guy like that?” I asked, frowning as I flew over small houses in Brooklyn, tree-lined streets that looked like they were from a bygone age.

  “Lots of non-monetary exchanges in my business,” Veronika said. “Favors and rare objects and things like that. Most of our kind can get money pretty easily. Power trades for power, generally speaking, because let’s face it, money always follows power’s lead.”

  “As true with metas as with the rest of the world, I guess.” I could see Long Island stretching ahead, and I pulled my phone away from my ear for a second to check my course. It was all good. “So no idea where this ‘Glass Blower’ originates? Hangs his hat?”

  “Sorry,” she said, sounding almost apologetic, “but I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew—which I don’t. Professional courtesy. Besides, this guy isn’t your problem. Whoever hired him is. He’s the instrument, so the most you could hope for from him was a line to your real villain. Odds are good, though, that he’s long gone.”

  “Well, damn. I don’t imagine it’d be much of a joy to try and contain this Glass Blower even if I could catch him. Thanks for the info,” I said. “If you think of anything else—”

  “I’ll send it along in a mash note, written on pink paper, with big flowery writing and—”

  “Bye, Felicia.”

  “You did not just ‘bye, Felicia’ me!”

  “I did. Figured you might think I’d forgotten your name, but I was totally meme-ing you. Since you didn’t ‘Hey, Girl’ me when you answered.”

  She sighed in disappointment. “So pedestrian. Go trade wits with others who are unworthy of you. And when you get bored of that, call me back. I’ll be here, unless Kat calls me first to bail her out of something infinitely stupid.” She hung up.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared down at the map display again. I was very close to my destination now, flying over neighborhoods with much more space between the homes than anything I’d seen in Brooklyn. I flew lower and lower, looking at the tree-covered grounds of the palatial estates. It was a far cry from the high towers of Manhattan, but not such a far distance, really.

  I set down in Nadine Griffin’s brick-paved driveway. Her house looked older, but with touches on the outside that suggested to me that this august estate had seen some reconstruction projects in the years since it was first built. The lawn looked like hell, like the gardener had resigned in protest or something. I’d gotten the lay of the land on the way in, and Ms. Griffin had some serious property, with Long Island Sound at the edge of her giant backyard. I walked toward the door slowly, easing my way up, an
d rang the bell. I could hear it chime inside, loud and lovely, echoing like a church bell in a European village. I pressed it again. And again. For fun.

  “I can hear you!” an irritable female voice shouted from inside. “Just a second!” I heard swearing, a little lower than the frustrated commentary, so I pushed the bell again for kicks.

  Nadine Griffin swung the door open without even checking who was outside first, which was a mark of either how pissed off she was at me for the repeated ringing or the utter contempt in which she held even the most basic smart security precautions. If I’d been in her shoes, I wouldn’t have answered the door, not a chance.

  Then again, I thought as I looked down to see her clad in four-inch heels that looked uber-expensive, if I were in her heels, even my meta powers of increased dexterity couldn’t save me from the turned ankle that would result.

  “Nadine,” I said, greeting her with a growling sort of contempt that I reserved for people I knew well and disdained.

  Give the woman credit: she was a cool customer. When she saw it was me at the door, her eyes didn’t even widen, though her pupils dilated a little bit. She froze, but just for a second, and the expression on her face went from that momentary surprise into a swift return of the contempt I’d leveled at her only a moment earlier. “Oh,” she said, disappointed, “it’s you.” Like I always just showed up on random peoples’ doorsteps.

  “It’s me,” I said, smiling brightly. “Let’s have a chat.”

  55.

  Nadine

  Sienna Nealon was at her door, but Nadine refused to show even the slightest hint of worry at the sight of her. That was a key to her success, to eliminate any sign of surprise, of fear, of worry from her expression. A lot of men wore their emotions right on their sleeve, giving away everything to a practiced observer. One of the first things Nadine had done, before she even started on Wall Street, was to temper her emotions in private, staring in the mirror and practicing all the requisite ones, developing rigorous control over every motion of her face, every muscle, every twitch, and making sure that they all worked in harmony to project whatever image she chose.