PsyCop 3: Body and Soul

by Jordan Castillo Price

  "I really do want some kind of divination. How about, uh, tea leaves?"

  Crash glanced down at the colorful box in my hand. "You won't find anything that benign if you keep shopping in the Voodoo section. Maybe what you really want is a bigger hard on."

  I put the box of lodestone shavings back on the shelf, where it lived between a "Come to Me" aerosol spray and a candle with Saint Barbara on it. "You keep the Voodoo next to the religious stuff?"

  Crash huffed and repositioned the lodestone box that I apparently hadn't shelved to his satisfaction. "Voodoo is a religion. What the hell did they teach you at psychic school—or where you high that day?"

  I considered buying the Triple-X Curse mojo bag and dumping out the contents on his spiky, blond head.

  "Saint Barbara is a Catholic saint," he said, "sure. But she also represents Chango, one of the Oshiras. The slaves who honored their African religions had to do a little creative improvisation to keep on worshiping while the whites were watching."

  I thought about the shrine in Mrs. Lopez's house. "What about Mexicans—do they buy this stuff from you?"

  "Who, the Santerians?" he shrugged. "They could, if they want to do business with a gringo. They prefer to shop at their own Botanicas, but once in a while they'll come here in a pinch." He tweaked the angle of the lodestone box again.

  "Shit. I gotta do inventory—this shelf looks picked over, and lately jimson weed is nearly impossible to find. Must be a Voodoo convention in town."

  I noticed a Saint Martin candle just like the one in the Lopez apartment burning beside the doorway. "They have conventions?"

  "It's an expression." Clash rolled his eyes. "More likely, some kid's figured out he can get high if he smokes it."

  I nudged a stack of "Fast Luck Money Drawing" soap out of alignment. "So everything's connected to a whole religion, a giant ritual? You don't have anything that'll just give me an answer?"

  Crash narrowed his eyes. "I can sell you something, sure.

  But none of the tools will work for you if you don't have the talent to use them. Come on. You and I both know a good precog can read the future in a chicken liver or a wet spot.

  You're the PsyPig. Don't you have a cop friend who can tell your fortune?"

  "I do. Only she won't talk to me."

  "Aha." I could see him grinning again in my peripheral vision, even though I was trying really hard to avoid him by focusing on an illustration of the Seven African Powers.

  "That's why you're so tied up in knots that I can feel it from across the room. And here I thought you'd ditched Mister Perfect and come over to take me for a spin."

  "You'll be the last person I'll run to if that ever happens."

  "We'll just see about that." He grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me toward the counter. "Miss Mattie's not here, is she?"

  I gather that when Crash was a child, he'd been closer to his neighbor, Miss Mattie, than he was to his own mother—who was still alive and heading up her garden club in the wealthy suburb, Arlington Heights. "Why would Miss Mattie be here?" I said. "You were sitting in her spot."

  "She hung around here all the time before I even got her that chair. And I totally surrender the chair when Oprah's on.

  And The View." A small television perched across from the chair on an end table painted with zebra stripes. The TV was currently off.

  "If she's not here now," Crash said, "then I don't need to behave." He pulled a wooden box out from behind the counter as he spoke, grinning all the while. It was just banter. I don't think he actually had the hots for me. He just needed to preserve his reputation as a slut. Probably.

  "I'll let you test drive a pendulum if you give me a blowjob."

  "No!" I snapped.

  He opened the box with a flourish. "Can't say I didn't try."

  He pulled out one of the pieces, a fancy metal pointer-looking thing on a chain, and held it between the two of us where it circled over the glass countertop. "But anyway, I won't let you get your wiggy vibes all over it and just sell it to someone else. Unless...."

  I watched the charm circle around, and thought of the little metal person Mrs. Lopez had given me that morning. I dug in my pocket, hoping it wasn't so small that I'd managed to lose it.

  "Ohmigod. I could totally market these as ... as Medium Charms. Or something. I'd have to think of a better name.

  'Get messages from beyond the grave.' They'd have your name on 'em, endorsed by the most powerful medium in the United States. What do you say?"

  "Right. Everyone'll believe that." I felt the cool metal between my fingertips, snugged up against a pack of gum and a Polaroid.

  "That's the beauty of it," Crash said. "It'll be totally true. You can wear 'em under your shirt for a week, rub your weird mojo off all over 'em."

  "No, I mean the 'most powerful medium' part. You'll need a bigger celebrity than me."

  Crash twitched his fingers so that the pendulum spun in a figure eight. "Didn't you test out at level five? Or is that just another juicy Internet rumor?"

  I avoided talking levels with Crash, since he'd bombed his testing and therefore couldn't get a government psychic job, and he got nastier than usual when his jealousy was aroused.

  Instead, I put the photo on the counter and laid the charm across Miranda Lopez's stretchy, purple sweater, and abruptly changed the subject. "Say, do you know what this is?"

  "A Mexican chick with big boobs?"

  I glared at him.

  He smiled back, wide. "Oh. You mean the milagro?"

  I looked at the little charm, hardly more detailed than a stick figure, standing with her feet planted far apart, wearing a wide triangular skirt. I concentrated on the word "milagro," but knowing the word for it clarified nothing.

  Lisa could probably explain it to me. Damn it.

  "I sell a few, though I don't bother keeping a big stock like the Botanica. It's a Hispanic thing, a form of sympathetic magic, though the more Catholic ones don't really acknowledge the paranormal connection. There are just a few different types: arms, legs, hearts, heads, and whole people.

  Someone might tie a heart milagro to a saint candle, and it could mean anything from 'help me lower my cholesterol' to 'gimme a boyfriend, now.'" He raked his tongue stud over his lower teeth as he toyed with the tiny figure. "So where'd you get this one?"

  "A case I'm working on." I wondered if the charm of the woman's head on Miranda's dresser was a piece of jewelry or a milagro. Given the items it was hanging with, I was guessing it wasn't just decorative.

  "The girl," said Crash. "Someone's daughter?"

  I poked the milagro Mrs. Lopez gave me and spun it around so that it faced me again. "Yeah. She's missing."

  Crash slid the charm toward me. "Keep it on you. You never know, it might help you. Belief's a powerful thing."

  Chapter Seven

  I pulled up half a block away from my crappy courtyard building a little after nine. I'd fended off Crash's attempt to drag me out for drinks, but ended up agreeing to keep a handful of pendulums somewhere on my person so they could soak up my vibe. I wasn't supposed to put them under my pillow, since I was sleeping with a Stiff in my bed. I figured that meant the glove compartment was out, too, since that would put them in Zigler's range for a good part of the day, at least as long as we took my car. I ended up putting them in my blazer pocket. Seemed safe enough.

  My body dragged at me as I headed toward the courtyard gate. A Valium would feel amazing. Too bad I didn't have any.

  Or maybe that was for the best. It was easy to stay clean when everything was going smoothly. Not so easy when I was putting in fourteen hour days with nothing to show for it.

  "Hey."

  A woman's voice—a familiar one. My insides sank as if someone had cranked up the gravity. All I had to do was get inside. She wouldn't follow me inside.

  "Hey, white boy. Where you been at?"

  One good thing about buying a new place with Jacob: I'd get away from the prostitute who turned t
ricks in the afterlife right outside my courtyard. "Not tonight, Jackie. I'm beat."

  "I ain't see you in a long time. What's wrong wit you?"

  "Your concern is touching." I picked up the pace. Just a few dozen more steps to the courtyard gate. From there, twenty yards to the vestibule door.

  "C'mon, baby, don't be that way. You the only one who talk to me."

  "Really?" I couldn't see her—which I was glad for. She had this ugly shank sticking out of her breastbone when she was visible.

  "Whatsa matter? You don't look right."

  I stopped and stared up into a streetlight. Snow whirled around in the yellow beam, and I realized I was shivering. I'd need to break out my winter coat. If I'd remembered to pick it up from the cleaner's. I slipped my hand into my jacket pocket and fingered the milagro. "Jackie, can you tell me if someone's dead or not?"

  "Who it be? Maybe I heard something."

  "Miranda Lopez." I pulled out the charm and balanced it on my fingertips, and then I realized that the photo was probably a better likeness. I pocketed the milagro and held up the Polaroid.

  "I find out for you if you get me a dime."

  I sighed and put the photo away. "You can't smoke crack.

  You're dead. And even if you weren't, I'm not gonna score for you. I'm a cop."

  "You so full of shit. You ain't no cop neither."

  "Would I be wearing this fucking suit if I wasn't a cop?"

  "I don't know. I always thought you sold cars or somethin'."

  I tucked my chin toward my chest and stomped toward my gate. Jackie couldn't help me. And how dare she call me a used car salesman? I wasn't always a dork in a blazer. Once upon a time I was actually cool. Until the Cook County Mental Heath Center, anyway. After that, I guess I kinda stopped caring.

  "Mmm, mm. Now there's a fine piece o' man."

  I looked up and saw Jacob approaching the courtyard gate from the other end of the block. He wore a black leather jacket, black boots, and slim jeans, and he carried our laundry from the cleaner's in a sack as big as a body bag, holding it with such ease that he made it look like it weighed as much as the milagro. "That's my boyfriend," I snapped.

  He stopped in front of me and raised an eyebrow. The corner of his mouth twitched. He loved it when he caught me talking when no one else was around, probably because he knew I'd never be so desperate as to talk to myself.

  "Nuh-uh, he ain't no homo. Is he?"

  "Tell me you saw a really great house today," I said to Jacob through clenched teeth.

  "The one in Rogers Park had possibilities," he said, opening the gate for me even though he was the one carrying fifty pounds of laundry and I was empty handed.

  "Did you happen to see my winter coat?"

  "It's upstairs. They replaced the buttons at the laundry last month. One was missing, one had a chip out of it, and two were hanging off by threads."

  I felt Jackie, her spirit-cold vaguely different from the nighttime winter chill, as she skittered along beside me and talked about how Jacob looked like he should be on T.V., wondered what he was doing with someone as raggedy as me, and speculated that she gave a better blowjob than I did.

  Jacob and I crowded into the vestibule together, and I felt his breath hot on the back of my neck as he nuzzled at me while I jammed my key into the stairwell lock. My scalp prickled, and the thought of Jacob flinging me down on the stairs and having his way with me was starting to look good.

  "I can still hear her," I sighed, rattling my key until the lock surrendered.

  "Jackie?"

  "Uh huh."

  Jacob followed me closely up the three flights of stairs.

  Jacob's big into closeness. I was out of breath when we got to the third floor landing. He wasn't. "I think I want to live on the first floor when we move," I said. It occurred to me that walking up to my apartment was the only exercise I ever got.

  Oh well. I'd get a treadmill or something.

  He dropped the laundry, mashed me into the wall beside my apartment door, and covered my mouth with his before I could even sort the keys out. He had me by the shoulders, kneading them through my blazer while his tongue worked its magic. He kissed me deep as he pressed his whole body against me like he could make me one with the wall. My cock thought that was a fine idea and perked right up. I was sure he could feel it swelling against the top of his thigh; I could feel quite plainly through his jeans that he was already hard.

  I reached around Jacob and grabbed his ass with both hands, encouraging him to rub against me. He groaned deep down in his throat and sucked my lower lip into his mouth.

  His hips moved, stroking his cock against my hip, and I pulled him against me harder, getting into the feel of his thick slab of meat grinding against me as he humped my thigh.

  My fingers slipped lower, caressing the backside of his balls through his jeans. He broke our kiss to gasp, and I seized on the opportunity to blow his mind. "I want to suck you off. Right here."

  If I've ever seen my across-the-hall neighbor, I don't remember him. Or her. But I'm pretty sure I have one.

  Sometimes I hear the ten o'clock news, or some hits from the seventies playing on a stereo. Whoever lived there, it wasn't very likely that they'd get an eyeful of gay cop sex, given that our paths never crossed.

  There was an outside chance, though. A small one. Which must've totally gotten Jacob's rocks off, given the way he shoved me to my knees and whipped his cock out in no time flat.

  He took my head between his big, strong hands and butted the crown of his cock against my lips. I watched his face as he did it. He stared into my eyes, a half-smile playing at his already-full lips, which were flushed from kissing. He was just as handsome from my angle on the floor as he was straight-on, or giving a press release with a dozen microphones pointed at him, or splashed across the front page of the Tribune for some high-profile crime he'd solved.

  Jacob rolled his hips and his cockhead glided over my mouth, the skin silky smooth and hot against my lower lip.

  "Jerk off while you blow me," he said, gripping my head tighter, like it was an order and not a request.

  Surprise, surprise. My cock enjoyed it when Jacob ordered me around. It strained against my boxers and slacks as I unzipped my fly to give it some attention. Funny, the fine line between a total turn-off and a kink. If anyone ever tried to tie me up, I'd probably start having Camp Hell flashbacks. But a little bit of bossiness? That took some pressure off me. I could get used to being told what to do.

  I wet my lips and his cock pressed in, filling my whole mouth with its incredible thickness. I loved Jacob's cock, unapologetically huge like the rest of him. I felt the thick flare of the head drag along the roof of my mouth while the engorged veins that patterned the shaft bulged against my tongue.

  Jacob's fingers wove through my hair, holding my head tight, and he started to move. He wasn't gentle, not exactly, but he took it slow. A muscle leapt in his jaw as his cockhead bumped my throat. He wanted to fuck my mouth to kingdom come and could hardly hold back, his massive body a tensed mass of barely-controlled lust. Yeah.

  I slid my fingers down the length of my cock, then set a quick rhythm. I wanted to catch up to Jacob. I returned his stare, watching his eyes watching me as my hand moved faster on my cock. He saw something in me, evidently—

  something beyond a guy who was willing to do him in the hallway. He gripped my head and pulled out slowly, only halfway, then sank back in again, his cock filling my mouth and throat, obliterating my awareness of everything else but my hand on my cock, beating it fast, and the steely look in his incredibly dark eyes.

  My head swam as I focused hard on Jacob, watched his eyes while he fucked my mouth. "You went out after work,"

  he said, and I scrabbled to make sense of the sentence that I'd been expecting to be more of Jacob's dirty-talk.

  His cock drove in deep, and I struggled to keep my throat open.

  "Your hair smells like incense. Visiting Crash?"

  I
might have jumped a little, except that I couldn't move.

  He had my head in a vise grip, and his cock was so deep down my throat it could practically support me.

  "There's just something about him," said Jacob. "Believe me, I know."

  Okay. It wasn't fair to talk to me with his cock stuffed in my mouth, and even worse to make me enjoy it. I pounded my cock even faster and gave Jacob a nice, hard suck.

  "God, Vic, that's so good." He rocked into my mouth while I jerked off, the fleshy sounds of cock against mouth and hand filling the hallway. I grabbed his balls with my free hand and rolled them together while I sucked, doing my damnedest to shut him up.

  I must not have been trying hard enough. "If you've gotta be with him ... Jesus, Vic ... tell me, okay? We'll do it together."

  I shook my head, dragging his cock side to side, and kept on sucking. Of course, a full blown threesome popped into my mind the second Jacob offered—and it wasn't lost on me that each of them had suggested it to me at one point or another.

  I tasted the tang of precome at the back of my throat. "It's okay," Jacob murmured, "it's okay."

  I shook my head again, a small jerk, and sucked even harder. No. It wasn't okay. I did not want to be with Crash.

  He'd told me that Jacob would never agree to a three-way, and here Jacob went and offered—and I suspected that it meant something. I just couldn't quite figure out what.

  I forced my jaw to relax and I drove my face onto Jacob's cock as far as it would go. Jackie might've had more practice in her short, pathetic life, but damn it, I could give a blowjob every inch as good as one of hers. I sucked him and stroked his balls as my hand flew on my own cock, and I stared into Jacob's eyes, which never so much as blinked.

  "I'm close," Jacob breathed, his eyes boring into mine, and yeah, I knew he was almost there by the way his thighs had clenched up and started shaking.