The Love-Haight Case Files

by Jean Rabe, Donald J. Bingle

  Yeah, this was much more interesting than watching Clapper Rails and squishing pigeons.

  “Hmm … what’s this?” Pete moused over another link. He was careful with the equipment, as he knew his stone hands were heavy and that the law firm didn’t have a lot of money to work with. Evey couldn’t afford to be buying new computer equipment. She needed to spend the money on rent so the landlord could pay all the fees and for building renovations. Keeping the building safe kept Pete alive. “Now this is really interesting. Too bad Evey’s gone for the day.”

  He drew his face in close to the screen and read until his vision blurred. He looked out the window. The street was murky, definitely after sunset. Pete didn’t bother looking at clocks, as time really had little significance. He could call her. Thomas had taught him how to use the phone. But he worried he might interrupt her during the revival. That wouldn’t be polite, a cell phone going off during the service. He couldn’t call Thomas. The ghost didn’t have—nor could he use—a cell phone.

  But Dagger McKenzie?

  Dagger was on speed dial on Evey’s phone. Button #3. Pete swiveled in the chair, again careful because of his weight, stretched to the phone and touched the control for speaker so he didn’t have to worry about the handset.

  Dagger picked it up on the fifth ring. “Evey?”

  Pete cleared his throat. “No. Uh, it’s me, Permythius.”

  “Pete?” The surprise was evident in Dagger’s voice. “You calling me for Tom?”

  “Uh, no. Listen, Dagger, they’re working on a case, Evey and Tom.”

  “And you’re being Tom’s fingers again, right?”

  Pete pulled a face. “No.”

  There was a tapping sound, probably Dagger drumming his fingers against something. “I’m eating dinner Pete, and it’s getting cold.”

  “This case Evey took … you know, she got shot when she was poking into a case in December. Shot and in the hospital.”

  Pete heard a sharp intake of breath. He knew Dagger had a soft spot for Evelyn, and so he was playing the “Evey card” to his advantage.

  “She’s picked up a new case, with a vampire and—”

  “Damn, Evey. Doesn’t she know that vampires can be—”

  “—dangerous, I know. Listen.” Pete gave him an abbreviated explanation of Dimitar Vujetic’s situation. “She’s got me convinced that Dimitar’s a good guy, and she thinks someone doesn’t like him and so had him framed. But Evey’s missing an angle here. Tom, too, I bet. I just found out a little tidbit that might have something to do with all of this. I can show it to Evey when she gets in tomorrow. And when I do I’m sure she will check it out. But I’d hate to see her get hurt again. The Libyans can be as bad as the vamps … or worse.”

  “Damn it, Pete.”

  “Evey’s headstrong, Dagger, and I know she will give it a look. Somebody’s got to give it a look. I’m thinking—”

  “Do you know how to work e-mail?”

  Pete growled softly. Did the P.I. think he was stupid? “Of course I can work e-mail.”

  “Then send me this so-called dangerous tidbit ‘that might have something to do with all of this.’ I’ll check into it.”

  “Tonight?” Pete edged forward and moved the mouse so it opened Evey’s Hotmail account. “Will you check into it tonight?”

  The gargoyle cringed slightly when he heard the exhalation of breath.

  “Yes, Pete. I have nothing better to do tonight. Can’t do it tomorrow. I’m on a client’s dime starting at noon.”

  “So you’ll go to the Tenderloin tonight? Good,” Pete added.

  The line went dead and Pete hit “send.”

  The gargoyle pushed away from the desk and looked toward the little refrigerator at the back. One or two beers would hit the spot before he downloaded that free trial of Warcraft.

  Chapter 3.11

  Dagger McKenzie knew the ’Loin. Where others avoided the neighborhood, particularly its roughest sections, he outright enjoyed the place and usually found an excuse to visit at least every other week. And so he hadn’t minded that Pete’s Internet research led here. He did mind, however, that there’d been no talk of compensation. Dagger had taken on a few too many freebies for the little law firm on Haight. And as much as he liked to help Evelyn, there were limits. He’d stop by the office in the morning and talk to her about getting paid for this evening’s jaunt. He usually billed two hundred and fifty an hour. He’d quote her fifty less than that, a favor for a friend.

  Dagger dwarfed the hooker who’d pressed herself up against him. She was pretty, Asian, and her round face was tastefully made up. The top of her head came to the center of his chest, and she looked up and smiled invitingly.

  “Show you a good time?”

  “I’d like that,” Dagger said. In truth, he would. She’d be a pleasant distraction, and no doubt an hour of her company in this neighborhood would not be expensive. “But not tonight, sweetheart.” She frowned and drifted toward another target.

  The hookers were out in number, and Dagger could see over their heads. He stood six feet five, and tonight he wore his jet-black hair loose and grazing his broad shoulders. With thick sideburns too long to be stylish and muscles threatening to burst the sleeves of his denim jacket, he knew he had the look of ex-military. Around here that appearance would make the unsavory element think twice about messing with him.

  Dagger stopped in front of the Islamic Temple on Geary, halfway between Jones and Leavenworth Streets. The building was gorgeous, modeled after the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. He’d been inside the original more than a few years back, and he found this one just as impressive … though a little out of place in this block.

  The OTs were out in force tonight, too. He spotted a fey with gossamer pink wings that he’d be tempted to approach were he not on a mission. Maybe some other time. He memorized her face and caught a whiff of her as she passed by, sequined mini-skirt sparkling in the lights from the temple. She was wearing Estee Lauder’s White Linen. Dagger had amazing senses, and he was familiar with the fragrance, as a previous client had him shadow a woman who worked a cosmetic counter in Union Square, and she always wore White Linen.

  A few goblins bunched together outside a bar a few doors down, chatting animatedly. One of them caught Dagger looking and flipped him the finger. Then they sauntered away and around a corner. A ghoul shuffled along across the street, the humans on the sidewalk granting her a wide berth. Conversations and music rolled out of the opened doors and cars cruising by, urban clamor he ignored.

  A dozen feet to the north Dagger saw some imp-looking creature appear to sell drugs to a raggedy-looking teen. Two beat cops paused nearby, and then kept going. Dagger knew that juries didn’t prosecute the small offenses from this area, and so the law didn’t waste its time and only went after more egregious crimes.

  Which made the case against Dimitar Vujetic interesting. All this fuss over a dozen pints of blood.

  There was no sign of the particular OTs Dagger looked for, and this should be the right street for them. He spotted tourists. There was something about the area that drew them—the clash of luxury hotels, five-star restaurants, massage parlors, head shops, and strip joints. A little something for everyone, he mused as he leaned against the temple and let the time pass. He remembered reading an article in the San Francisco Examiner that labeled this area “Hell at your doorstep.”

  It wasn’t that bad. Not anymore.

  Forty years ago … Dagger would have considered it that bad. In the ’70s the ’Loin was the poorest area in the city, the residents barely eking out livings, stretch after stretch of vacant and boarded up buildings, rats skittering around in broad daylight. In the middle of that decade, close to half of the city’s reported drug overdoses were here, and a quarter of all its homicides.

  It still had a way to go, but things had improved—the residents banding together to work for change. Dagger hoped it didn’t improve too much more. It would lose its color and flavor
.

  “Whatcha lookin’ for, mate?” The imp drug-peddler had made a circuit of the block and approached. He was a little thing, maybe four feet standing on his toes … which were gray and clearly visible against the dirty sidewalk. February, he didn’t seem to mind the cold. His voice was high and tinny. “Somethin’ maybe I can supply?” The creature wore a child-sized trench coat, and made a move to open it. “Good prices. I bet I’ve got something—”

  “Nothing you have interests me,” Dagger said. He wrinkled his face. The imp smelled like spoiled bananas. “Get out of here … wait a minute.” He squatted so he was face-to-mug with him. The thing’s odd odor hung heavy in his nostrils. “Nothing I want except, perhaps, information.”

  The imp made a clicking sound with his tongue against his tiny pointed teeth. Dagger saw himself reflected in the imp’s wide eyes. “Information is expensive,” the imp returned.

  Dagger reached into his back pocket, pulled out a fifty and pressed it onto the imp’s palm. He knew better than to pull out a wallet and risk it being snatched. Dagger would add the fifty to the bill he’d give Evey in the morning. “I want to know where the Libyans are.”

  The imp screwed his face into a painful-looking expression. “Oh, I don’t know anything about any Libyans.” He withdrew his hand and went to thrust the fifty into the folds of his coat. Dagger’s arm shot out lightning fast and his fingers closed on the imp’s wrist.

  “I think you do know about the Libyans.”

  A trio of human women in tight, sparkling dresses strolled up, arms linked and awkwardly tipsy. A gaggle of young men in Army fatigues followed. Dagger waited until the entourage was well past them.

  “If you’re selling anything on this particular street, you know about the Libyans. I hear they get a take on all the action.”

  The imp swallowed hard. “There’s not enough money in the world, mister.”

  Dagger squeezed tighter and the imp cringed and buckled. “Where can I find them? I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “Th-th-that’s good,” the imp returned. “Good that you’re not going to ask me again. Because I’m not going to tell you.” Then he twisted and slipped Dagger’s grip. He took off running to the south. Dagger stood and watched.

  When the imp was out of sight, Dagger leaned back against the temple again, listened to the whine of a clarinet, a street performer a block or so away. The faint clink of a tambourine provided the syncopated measure. He looked at his watch and waited a few minutes, and then he turned and followed the imp. He’d purposely let his quarry slip his grasp.

  Dagger’s sharp senses separated the dried sweat of beggars who clung to a gap between buildings, the assorted smells that wafted from restaurants serving dinner to early patrons, and the battling perfumes of the hookers. He honed in on the imp’s unique rotten-banana odor and unerringly tracked the creature to a strip club two blocks away. The place was called Hair of the Dog. He let out a laugh—so obvious it had escaped his consideration! He’d been past it before, but never inside it. Dagger’s tastes were usually a tad more upscale. He sniffed and registered the biting odor of urine at the buildings corners. Several someones had marked their territory.

  He opened the door and let another wave of odors assault him. The greasy food being served at the bar was the strongest, the spices at the same time exotic and unpleasant. Everywhere was beer, and the floor was sticky with it. Cigarette smoke lingered on the clothes of the patrons, and there was an assortment of men’s and women’s colognes to battle with the scents of some of the customers who’d clearly gone days without bathing. Dagger managed to keep from gagging.

  The interior was dimly lit by neon tubes that wrapped around the main room and along the base of the stage in the middle, on which two overly skinny human women in G-strings undulated while clinging to brass poles. Lava lamps were perched on each of the dozen small tables, the colors twisting in slow, dizzying patterns. All of the speakers sat on the floor, and so the songs that spewed from them sent vibrations up through the soles of Dagger’s feet. “Play That Funky Music” was the current selection.

  He took a quick head count. Except for the two “dancers” and three bartenders, the occupants were all men: thirty-five patrons—a good number for a bar given that the sun was still up. Only a dozen of the customers were human. Four ghouls sat at a table near the door, munching on fingers that looked like French fries in a basket. Another table had three other undead seated at it. They were neither ghouls nor zombies, but they had the taut, pale skin and empty eye sockets of the departed. Maybe he’d Google their description later and find out what they were.

  A troll sat on the floor against the far wall, probably no chair large enough to accommodate his considerable rear end. A half dozen gold-skinned fey were pressed up against the stage and shoving money at the dancers. They didn’t have the graceful-looking wings that the females of their species did. Wings too small to support them in flight, Dagger figured. The remaining OTs consisted of eight men with German shepherd dog-like heads and furry hands, along with the rotten-banana-smelling imp, who was at the far end of the bar apparently talking up a storm to one of them.

  The imp had led Dagger straight to the Libyans.

  The average San Franciscan would think the men lycanthropes who’d decided to “wolf out” despite the lack of full moon tonight. But then the average San Franciscan would be wrong.

  They called themselves the dog-headed, and Dagger had clashed with one of them a few years back when he was tailing a woman whose husband believed she was cheating. She was cheating … with one of the dog-headed. Dagger had done his research on the case. The dog-headed traced their origins to Western Libya and still held to a heritage that stretched back to before the Sahara was formed. They could well be the oldest OTs on the planet.

  Supposedly birthed through dark rituals conducted on the Wadi Mattendush, which was now a dry riverbed, the dog-headed had remained hidden until hunter-gatherers and nomadic pastoral farmers discovered their community around 1,000 BC. Libya’s messak, or plateau region, was peppered with rock carvings of dog-headed men dragging rhinoceroses and other large beasts. More carvings were found by archaeologists working at sites over the Algerian border at Tassili n’Ajjer. Dagger had been in the area many years ago, searching for someone. He’d seen the carvings, though at the time he’d known nothing about the race.

  Dagger’s own roots reached back to that part of the world, but he wasn’t one of the dog-headed. Dagger opened his cell phone and called the law office. Pete picked up on the fourth ring. Dagger heard the sounds of swords clashing in the background and ominous music, probably a computer game.

  “Pete, Google something for me. Google ‘Hounds,’ ‘Tenderloin,’ and ‘recent activity.’ E-mail me whatever you find that looks interesting.” He closed the phone without waiting for a reply. Then he growled from deep in his throat, thrust his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and headed toward the dog-headed the imp was talking to.

  “All salt and no sugar,” Dagger said. “This probably won’t go well.”

  Chapter 3.12

  Thomas noticed ghosts on O’Farrell. They’d not been visible when he’d made a circuit of the block earlier, or perhaps he hadn’t been looking close enough then. There were four. Two looked to be couple, a man and woman in garb from the 1800s. They were linked arm-in-arm and glided through oblivious passersby on the sidewalk. The wispy pair paused in front of a bar a few doors south of the Golden Pumpkin, faces halfway through the front window. The other two—one probably a hooker from the skimpy suggestion of clothes, and the other a man in a business suit clutching an ephemeral briefcase, sunk into the sidewalk when they caught Thomas staring at them.

  He’d not spoken to many ghosts since his murder. Valentino Trinadad, of course, the ghost who lived on the corner outside the law office. But Valentino had appeared when Thomas was still alive, and they’d struck up a friendship then. There was a ghostly doctor in a hospital that had been helpful to
Thomas in December when he checked on Evelyn after she’d been shot. But Thomas, while curious, felt a reluctance to approach spirits. He didn’t want to intrude on their “lives” … or perhaps recognize himself as a contemporary. Maybe it was like the elderly who refused to visit senior centers because they didn’t want to admit they’d gotten old.

  He floated through bars and boutiques and paused in a head shop operated by a busty green-skinned hag. One wall looked like a slice out of the 1960s with psychedelic posters that probably popped under a black light. The hag took casual note of him, and then busied herself arranging water pipes on a shelf.

  Eventually he reached the Golden Pumpkin. The hours on the window listed noon to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to midnight Friday through Sunday.

  It wasn’t quite sundown, and so he traveled through the building top-down first, five stories, the top floor was empty and sheets of cobwebs draped from the rafters, the next two storage—he stopped himself from poking his head into the various crates and boxes, the second floor had three good-sized apartments with tenants elsewhere at the moment … and not of the vampire variety, as there wasn’t a coffin or boarded up window anywhere.

  The restaurant had a reasonable crowd, most of the diners human, though there were six goblins on booster seats at a round table near the salad bar. Servers went in and out of the kitchen through a swinging door.

  What does this place smell like? Probably amazing, Thomas thought, judging by the array of various dishes. The empty feeling intensified. He listened to the clink of glasses, gentle laughter, and pleasant conversations. What does everything taste like? He was incomplete, a suggestion of a man, one who could hear and think and interact, but—

  Two dog-like men in black leather jackets shouldered their way out of the kitchen, ending Thomas’s morose descent. He had time to register their narrowed eyes and the angry way their snouts curled, and then they were past him, threading their way through the tables and out the front door. They weren’t werewolves, Thomas had seen one of those. Rather, they more resembled two-legged German shepherd dogs with hairy hands.… like the ones he’d spotted outside the sandwich shop earlier today.