Once satisfied, he lifted the fedora from his head, studied it, and flipped on the switch hidden in the lining of the brim. A light flashed. Nestling the hat back atop his head, he decided Kit’s gift was kitschy, insulting, and damned annoying.
Question was, did it work?
Taking a step forward caused the brim to emit a short, shrill beep. A series of increasingly urgent trills allowed Grif to ascertain that that pawn shop’s front faced south. He swiveled that way, and was trying to figure out how to adjust the volume, when a voice popped up behind him.
“Bro, why is your hat beeping?”
Jolting, Grif jerked the hat from his head as he turned. It began beeping madly in response and he fumbled for the off switch. Glancing back up, he mumbled, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Across from him was a kid with scrawny semitransparent shoulders and jagged wings glistening with dew from the Everlast, feathery tips trailing off into smoky wisps. They were ruffled, but still magnificent. Good thing, too, Grif thought, eyeing the Centurion. It kept the focus off the kid’s parachute pants and Members Only jacket. Not for the first time did Grif give thanks that he hadn’t been offed in the eighties.
“I’m slumming, G-man.” The kid, Jesse, gave him a sidelong grin. “Why else would I be on the mudflat?”
Grif cut his eyes to the wavering form of a woman, wingless, next to him.
“Oh, this is Mei.” Jesse jerked his head at his Take. “She’s newly dead.”
“I can see that.”
She was also compact, Asian, and wearing sensible black heels and a crisp pantsuit. Must have been working late when she’d been bumped. Grif didn’t know how she’d died—death wounds never showed in the ether—but she was lucky no matter the method. Dressed like that she could spend eternity with a little dignity.
“Good to meet you, Mr. Shaw,” said Mei.
“You know my name,” Grif said evenly, before turning a dead-eyed stare back on Jesse. “Why does she know my name?”
But Mei was the one who stepped forward and answered. “We’ve been speaking of you, Mr. Shaw.”
He glanced at her, but busied himself lighting a cigarette. “You’re pretty calm for someone who’s just been slugged.”
As she and Jesse were still pounding mud, she’d been killed within the hour, and probably half that, since her etheric form hadn’t yet begun the Fade. If Jesse didn’t see her back before it faded altogether, she’d disappear entirely, and ghosts were almost impossible to find, even for a Centurion.
But Jesse didn’t seem worried. “Mei’s a psychologist. Or she was, until one of her clients decided she was a whack quack.”
“It was that asshole, Collins. I just know it.” Her professional demeanor dropped for a moment and she shook her head. “He’s a narcissistic manic with a coke problem and mommy issues. I should have buried him in his eval.”
“So how’s it going, homes?” Jesse turned to Grif, deliberately using the eighties slang Grif hated. The first time Jesse had said it, Grif thought he’d meant “Holmes,” as in Sherlock.
“Naw, it means you’re my homie,” Jesse had said, punching his biceps, and bouncing backward before Grif could return the punch. “My brothah. My friend.”
But Grif wasn’t any of those things, so as he lit a stick, he told the other Centurion the same thing he’d told Luis earlier in the day. “Don’t call me that.”
Kids these days, Grif thought, shifting the now-silent hat on his head. No respect for their elders.
“Whatever, dawg. I’m just the messenger.” Jesse fluttered his wings, enjoying the play on words.
Grif flicked ash. “You’re molting, messenger.”
Jesse made a face. “Sarge wants you back in the Everlast, bro.”
“Sarge is fine with me here. He gave me a Take. In fact,” Grif said, crossing his arms, “I’m helping find the Lost.”
Mei’s long hair swayed as she took a step forward. “Sympathizing isn’t the same thing as helping, Mr. Shaw.”
Freezing, Grif shifted his eyes to her. “Charming bedside manner, Doc. Can’t imagine why a client would wanna dust you.”
“Ouch, Grif. Mei’s just trying to help.”
Flicking his stick aside, Grif shoved his hands into his pockets. “Didn’t ask for it.”
“I told her about you because Sarge says that the longer you stay on the mud, the more you’re going to remember, and—”
“You been talking about me with Sarge, too?” Grif interrupted sharply. “Gee, homie, you’ve been talking about me a lot lately.”
Jesse just shrugged. He knew Grif couldn’t touch him in his etheric state. Not while Grif wore flesh. “It’s not just me, bro. It’s everyone. Your return to flesh and the Surface is the most interesting thing to happen since the Fall. Manny is even laying odds that you get offed twice. Courtney thinks you’re just biding your time till you die of natural causes. Or are they unnatural, if you’re technically already dead?”
Grif didn’t want to know what the over/under was on the former, and he ignored the latter. Tilting his head, he asked, “You really want to help me, Jesse? Tell me what you know about the Third. In particular, about banishing them from the Surface.”
“You can’t banish the Third,” Jesse scoffed. “Technically, they aren’t really here.”
“They are. I saw one. It told me they could possess souls that weren’t in possession of themselves. It said they can even possess those who give themselves over to negative emotions.”
“Sure, but that’s not real possession. They’re like Mei and me here. We’re talking to you now—”
“We’re influencing your mood,” Mei added, voice detached and clipped.
“Yeah, and mood is how they getcha,” Grif said.
“True. They can possess bodies for short periods, but they can’t displace the resident souls.”
Grif thought about that. So even if Scratch did get into Kit, it wouldn’t be forever. But it didn’t take forever to make someone go mad.
“What about water?” he asked.
“They can’t stand it.”
“I know that, Jesse,” Grif said through clenched teeth. “Can I use it to get rid of a fallen angel if one of them is possessing a human body?”
“I suppose. Being dunked would be a sort of reverse baptism for a fallen angel. It’d kill them rather than save them. But like I said, they won’t go near the stuff. Why you asking, bro?” Jesse asked, eyes narrowing.
“No reason,” Grif said quickly. He didn’t need Jesse reporting the query to Sarge. If Frank even thought Kit was in danger, he’d force Grif to leave her side for sure. Turning to pace, he caught Mei giving him a cool sidelong stare. “What?”
Mei only lifted her pointed chin. “Please, Mr. Shaw. Don’t waste the short time we have together with unnecessary defensive emotion. I’m here to help.”
Grif looked back at Jesse. “You brought me a shrink?”
This time—etheric state or not—the young Centurion did step back. “C’mon, homes. I want to help you solve your life’s, and death’s, greatest mystery.” Jesse splayed his fingers wide and whispered dramatically, “Who killed Griffin Shaw?”
Grif felt a vein begin to pulse in his head, and turned back to Mei. “I don’t need your help.”
“And Katherine?”
“The name is Kit,” he said quickly, because what he really wanted to say was Go pound sand, but he didn’t talk that way to ladies.
“Maybe you should reconsider whether you’re good for Kit,” Mei said evenly.
Maybe he should reconsider the way he talked to ladies. “You know you can’t charge me by the hour for this, right?”
“Kit is going to age, Mr. Shaw. Did you ever think about that?”
“No,” he lied.
Mei smiled tightly. “Well, maybe you should. She’s twenty-nine now, but her mortal clock is ticking. Soon she’ll be thirty-three, same as you when you died. Soon after that she’ll be fifty-four. A cougar.”
The smile widened. “You’ll be her boy toy.”
Grif thought of the changes he’d seen between now and his first go-round on the Surface. Men married older women now. Shoot, men married men now. “It won’t matter.”
“Of course it will. You, Griffin Shaw, are a stopwatch while Katherine Craig is an hourglass. You should quit her now. Let her live the life she was meant to live, with someone from her time and era. Sure, it’ll pain her in the short term, but she’ll eventually heal, find some mortal man to wed and have babies with, and they’ll grow old together. Just as God intended.”
Grif stared at Mei for so long the silence almost snapped. Then he turned to Jesse. Seeing the look in his eyes, the other Centurion held up his hands. “Don’t shoot the messenger, bro.”
That’s exactly what Grif did. His ankle piece was in his hand so quickly it surprised even him, and he blasted a hole through Jesse’s semitransparent body before anyone else spoke. Mei was newly dead enough that she actually screeched, and cowered behind Jesse’s frayed wings. Jesse just stared at his belly, then whirled to regard the new hole in the brick wall behind him. “You shot me!” he yelled, also incensed.
“And I’ll do it again, you meddlesome little pansy!” Grif waved the snub-nose in their direction. “Get out of here, both of ya!”
But Jesse didn’t know when to stop.
“Know what your problem is?” he yelled, hands on hips, parachute pants flaring wide.
Grif shot him again.
Jesse didn’t flinch this time, pointing at Grif instead. “You’re straddling worlds, bro!”
“I ain’t your bro.” Grif aimed.
“Oh, save your bullets,” Jesse scoffed, fully recovered now. “You don’t belong to the Everlast or on the mudflat anymore. You don’t belong anywhere.”
“Get out of here, Jesse,” Grif said in a low voice. “Cuz you and I aren’t always gonna be on opposite sides of the great divide.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jesse waved him off, turning away. “See if I ever help you again.”
He turned his back on Grif and pulled open the pawnshop door, motioning for Mei to follow him into the yawning maw of the Universe. Recovered from her mortal scare, she paused to regard Grif with a hard, cold eye.
“Jesse told me that the longer you wear flesh, the more you remember. Be wary of that, Mr. Shaw. Memories are stronger than we think. You’ll want to find out who killed you, do it quickly, and leave.”
“Why should I?” he huffed.
“For the woman you love, of course,” she said, and Grif wasn’t sure if she meant Evie or Kit. Mei knew it and smiled. “Katherine Craig is totally alive in the moment, Mr. Shaw. But you are completely lost in the past.” And with a swish of her dark hair, she followed Jesse through the doorway, into the cosmos, and Grif was again alone.
Chapter Thirteen
Kit couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so poorly. She’d drifted off around three-thirty, when it became clear that Grif, for whatever reason, wasn’t coming home. She’d woken to the sounds of her paperwork on the Marielitos tumbling to the floor, around five. Unable to fall back asleep, she decamped to the living room, where she settled in to work through the sunrise. Having dozed, she was startled to awareness by the thump of the paper on her doorstep just before six, and had been awake ever since.
At least it was Sunday, she thought, sipping her first cup of coffee. She was curled up on her modular velvet sofa, wearing a white cotton nightgown identical to the one Audrey Hepburn wore in Roman Holiday, with a steaming mug at her side and chenille throw over her knees. The paper lay in front of her, and her computer hummed on her lap. She kept her eyes glued to it even when she heard the door open . . . even as the alarm she knew was set remained silent. She looked up only when Grif remained at her periphery, lingering uncertainly in the foyer.
“You finally made it home.” She winced inwardly, hoping she didn’t sound like a nag. Or worse, needy.
But Grif only inclined his head. “I had some things I needed to work out.”
And he couldn’t be in two places at once, Kit thought, looking away.
“I’m sorry, Kit.” When she still said nothing, he lifted his fedora, ran a hand over his head, and sighed. “My head is . . . screwy.”
“I . . .” She wanted to say “I understand,” or “It’s okay,” or “It doesn’t matter,” as she always had before, but none of that was true. He’d left her alone to wonder and worry while he was out chasing memories of another woman, and they both knew it.
“I know,” Kit finally said.
Edging over, he sat on the sofa beside her, elbows on his knees as he toyed with his stingy brim. “The hat works.”
Despite the lingering low-grade tension, a smile slipped onto Kit’s lips. “It beeped?”
“And how.”
Now a true grin bloomed. So she had been with him, then. In a way. “You wore it.”
“I wore it,” he confirmed, edging closer so that their hips touched. He tilted his head, eyes meeting hers. “And found my way back.”
He leaned over and kissed her then, and the tension she carried all through the long night slid from her shoulders. It wasn’t a kiss you gave to someone in second place. It wasn’t flavored with distraction or misplaced emotion. His mouth claimed hers like he was taking ownership, and making up for the empty night. His lips firmed like she was his hunger, then softened like she was also his need. It was the way Kit longed, always, to be kissed. By the time he pulled away, her hair was mussed, her vision blurred, and her loneliness almost forgotten.
Almost.
“How are you, doll?” he said, with that low scratch of a voice.
Kit’s heart skipped in double beat. She loved it when he called her that. And she wasn’t going to squander this moment—hers—by dwelling on worry. Sure, the night had been long. But Kit was ever looking forward. It was morning now, and Grif was back, with fingertips entwined in her hair as he nestled in tight to her side. This was real. Not the brittle, buried past. Not another woman’s ghost.
“The story ran,” she said, thinking business might steady them both. She pointed to the coffee table, where the morning edition of the Las Vegas Tribune lay flat. “Marin agreed to put a rush on it after I swore on my life to dig up more on the Kolyadenkos.”
“Probably that of your firstborn, too,” Grif muttered, reaching for the paper. He began skimming the article, but quickly looked up. “It’s her byline.”
“Really?”
He held the paper out so she could see Marin’s name printed there.
“Hmm. Must have been the autocorrect on her computer. She proofed it before sending it to print.” Kit waved the inaccuracy away. “Anyway, I don’t care who gets credit for breaking the story. As long as all our resources are marshaled to solve the damned thing.”
Grif continued reading, then stilled. “You mentioned the Russian mob by name? Jeez, Kit.” He looked up at her. “That’s a good way to get killed.”
Kit huffed, and lifted her mug. “Maybe in the fifties. These days it’s a good way to let them know we’re onto them, and get them to stop distributing this crap. Besides, I didn’t mention them by name. It’s a direct quote from ‘a source close to the investigation.’ They said it, not me.”
Grif just frowned, then nodded at her printouts. “And what’s that?”
“Just some additional leads my girls gave me on the Naked City population. Did you know that historically it’s been largely comprised of Cubans? More notably, it’s been home to a boatload of Marielitos. Literally.”
Kit filled him in quickly on the history of the Mariel boatlifts, and the influx of immigrants fleeing Cuba, stigmatized by Fidel Castro’s inclusion of the island’s criminals and mental-asylum population. All had occurred after Grif’s death in 1960.
Then she leaned over and pulled out a sheet of paper buried under the others. “Our friend Marco Baptista is second-generation Cuban-American, and direct descendant of one of those Marielitos. He
also has a rather impressive prison record, though it pales in comparison to his father’s rap sheet. But, more important, I discovered there’s been a recent turf war in Naked City between two rival gangs, allegedly in pursuit of control of the local meth market. Care to take a guess as to which individuals control those two gangs?”
“Kolyadenko and Baptista.” Grif looked impressed. “You’ve been busy.”
I’ve been jittery. I’ve been worried. I’ve missed the hell out of you.
Making sure her hand was steady, Kit lifted her coffee mug and said, “And I’m not done. Baptista mentioned a woman, a looker who dresses in wigs and tight clothing. If my hunch is right, and the Russians are targeting addicts in Baptista’s neighborhood, I think they’re using this woman to do it.”
She pulled up an image that’d been minimized on her computer, revealing a stunning blonde with a cascade of curls framing glossy red lips, cold blue eyes rimmed in smoky hues, and a creamy heart-shaped face that dipped at cheek and chin in slanting angles. Diamonds the size of thumbnails winked at her ears, while lace curled delicately along her long, slim throat.
“Yulyia Kolyadenko.” Grif recognized Sergei’s wife from the photo Marin had printed out. He looked at Kit.
Kit set down her mug, then angled toward him. “Tell me if this plays with you, or if I need more coffee, but what if the Russians are trying to pick off their Cuban rivals by targeting their kids and families? Fleur and Lil were telling me just last night how closely knit the Hispanic community is. Generations often live with generations.”
“As we saw with Baptista and his grandmother.” Frowning, Grif glanced again at Yulyia’s image. “And you think this is how they’re doing it? Sending in . . . teasers? Then letting the addiction spread?”
Kit pulled her knees up tight and nodded. “Like a virus. Once begun, it’s practically unstoppable.”
“Maybe.” Grif began to nod. “Because they can’t get clean due to the withdrawals, yet they can’t live long if they don’t get clean.”
The Lost Page 15
