Scarlett Undercover

by Jennifer Latham

  “That’s crap,” I shot back. “Any East Side gun thug can guard an old bottle. Call one of them. Because, to tell you the truth, I care a hell of a lot more about my client right now than about some stupid hunk of metal.”

  Deck was quiet.

  “Are you even listening?” I said. “She. Will. DIE. And you know what? I won’t be able to live with myself if I let that happen.”

  “Then you understand exactly how I feel.”

  The slow smolder behind his words caught me off guard. I hated being caught off guard.

  “Just come distract the dog,” I said. “Bring a steak or something. Gemma needs me.”

  “That’s her name?”

  “Yeah. She’s nine, Deck.”

  He chewed on that awhile before he came out and said what he wouldn’t before.

  “Mook told us they’re watching you. Two women, waiting outside. If I go over there by myself in the middle of the night, they’ll try to kill me.”

  It was my turn to chew.

  “Mook knows you can’t stay in the apartment much longer,” Deck said. “He wants me and Ma to get you out.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. You just have to be patient.”

  “Sure,” I snorted. “That’s really my thing.”

  “For tonight, it has to be,” he said. “We’ve got stuff to get, things to arrange. It all takes time. Just give us until tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Too long. Not an option.”

  Deck sighed. “Of course not. Nothing ever is unless you’re in charge, right?”

  I didn’t answer. The silence between us grew dense. Stubborn.

  Deck broke first.

  “You know that thing I didn’t say last night?”

  My pulse sped up.

  “I meant it.”

  I broke back.

  “I know. So did I.”

  “I’ll get you out as early as I can, okay?”

  I took a deep breath. “This isn’t just a case, Deck. It’s my life.”

  “Mine too,” he said quietly.

  “First thing tomorrow. Promise me.”

  “I promise.”

  We left the rest unspoken and hung up at the same time, together. Then I lay back down on the couch, and waited to see whether sleep or dawn would find me first.

  22

  Her name is Jones.”

  Mook was on a stool next to the Laundromat’s front door. It was 7:14 AM, and the sun was out.

  “Go away,” I told the dog for the millionth time. She sniffed the narrow crack between the door and its frame and gave me a broken-tailed wag.

  “Why won’t she leave me alone?” I asked.

  “Manny must have sent her to protect you. He has a way with animals.” Mook turned the page of his book. Held it high enough to keep anyone on the street from seeing his lips move when he spoke.

  Jones let me widen the crack just enough to see through the Laundromat’s front window. A dark-haired woman in jeans and an orange construction vest leaned against a utility truck outside, watching a fat man wheel cases of tomato sauce into DiSanti’s. The clothes suited her. Better than the rags she’d worn outside Calamus, at least. And today, she wasn’t swaying.

  Nuala.

  The dog’s head swiveled toward the window. I looked down at her shoulders, saw the scars crisscrossing them like a road map. My hand slipped out of the closet, slid cautiously down her back, over knotted sinews, bristly hair, and ribs. I’d never pet a dog before. She didn’t seem to mind.

  Other than Nuala being there, things on Carroll Street looked the same as they did every morning. Felt the same, too, which was all wrong. There was no sign of Blondie. Shorty, either. I called Decker. He didn’t answer. It was 7:19.

  At 7:21, a bowlegged woman rounded the corner from Fifty-Fourth. She cut in front of a cab, ignored the driver’s tantrum. Tired circles darkened the skin under her eyes, but she carried her laundry basket high on her hip, as if the clothes inside were going to get washed whether they liked it or not.

  Mook nodded hello as she walked into the Laundromat. Jones sniffed her ankles. The woman ignored the dog and opened the door of an empty washer. Jones shambled back to her post.

  “Hello, Scarlett,” the woman said, loading the machine with her back to the windows.

  “Hi, Delilah.”

  She started the machine, settled into a folding chair, and pulled a magazine out of her purse.

  “Delilah?”

  She tore a page out of the magazine.

  “I’m sorry I nearly got myself killed last night, and I promise I won’t ever do it again.”

  “Liar.”

  She was pissed.

  “Are you going to at least tell me how I’m supposed to get out of here?”

  Delilah sighed and turned a page. “I suppose.”

  “Today?” I asked.

  She smiled to herself.

  “Do you know who owns this building, Scarlett?”

  “No, but…”

  “Hush up and listen for a change.”

  I held my tongue.

  “Manny owns it,” she said.

  My tongue got away.

  “They put this thing up more than thirty years ago, Delilah.”

  “They didn’t. Manny did. Designed it himself. He’s responsible for every last nook and cranny, right down to the tunnel underneath us.”

  I kicked back the ratty braided rug under my boots. Saw a solid metal disc embedded in the floor. Solomon’s knot was engraved on its surface.

  “Son of a bitch!” I said. “This has been here the whole time!”

  Delilah’s smile turned downright smug.

  “Now,” she said, “you’re going to climb down the ladder below that lid to a vault that’s connected to the city’s old sewer system. Decker’s waiting. He’ll wrap you in ventilation tubing, push you up through a manhole to Nuala, and she’ll load you into the back of that truck you see out there. Then the three of you will drive away, easy as pie.”

  I thought of the pie I’d ordered at Rita Mae’s, how it had never shown up.

  “Delilah?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How long have you known about all this? About the ring, I mean, and the Children of Iblis?”

  “Feels like forever, hon.”

  “So you knew they killed Abbi for some stupid bottle?”

  “Don’t you ever say that,” she snapped. “Your father died defending us all.”

  “From what?” I said. “Old mumbo jumbo about magic rings and genies?”

  In the harsh glare of the fluorescents, Delilah suddenly looked old.

  “Scarlett,” she said heavily, “you know what Abd al-Malik means, don’t you?”

  “Servant of the King,” I said.

  “That’s right. Servant of the King. Only the king we’re talking about died a long time ago. What your father served—what we serve—is an idea. A faith in wisdom and courage and the goodness of humankind.”

  I reached out and ran my palm down Jones’s back again.

  “I miss him, Delilah. Ummi, too.”

  “I know, hon. But they’d be real proud of you if they were here. Real proud.”

  I was glad she couldn’t see me choke up, glad for the feel of Jones’s fur beneath my fingers.

  “Now,” Delilah said, back to her usual cantankerous self, “even though it’s against my better judgment, let’s get you the hell out of here.”

  I stood over the open trapdoor in the supply closet and stared down into nothing. Abbi’s decoy and the real Shubaak were wrapped in an old pair of Mook’s socks inside my backpack. The flashlight under my arm was on. I went down the ladder until my feet hit dirt. Shone the beam around. Took in the vault’s wet stone walls and cloying smell of old, dead things.

  Cockroaches scattered ahead of me. Gravel crunched under my feet, loud as gunshots. I passed into a narrow hallway. Tried not to think about morgue refrigerators or coffins or fresh-dug graves.

  The hallway ca
me to a sharp turn. I stopped and gave myself a pep talk. It’s just Decker down here with you. You’re fine. You’re fine.

  When that didn’t help, I grabbed hold of my fear, twisted it until it felt more like anger, and used it to propel myself around the corner. That’s when I hit a wall. A living, breathing wall.

  I jerked away, smashing my head against the bricks behind me. My flashlight clattered to the ground.

  “It’s about time you got here.”

  The flashlight’s beam rose as the shape in front of me picked it up. Deck’s grin came into view, lit from the chin up like a kid telling ghost stories around a campfire. He was laughing.

  “Funny, jinn boy,” I grumbled. “Real funny.”

  He took my hand. Suddenly the tunnel didn’t feel so lonely. And Deck wasn’t laughing anymore.

  He pressed his lips to the top of my head.

  “I was so worried about you,” he said. “I wish this whole mess would just go away.”

  I held him close. “Well, it won’t.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to fix it. You know that, don’t you?” The tightness in my throat sliced my words down to slivers.

  “Yeah.”

  I closed my eyes, felt his fingertips travel along the curve of my jaw.

  “You’re amazing,” he said.

  “Funny. I was about to say the same thing about you.”

  He smiled. Leaned in. Kissed me, lips barely parted.

  It wasn’t a kiss that was meant to lead anywhere; it was a world all its own, complete and whole. For just that one, brief glimpse of forever, I gave myself to someone else.

  Decker pulled away first.

  “We have to go.” His fingertips lingered on my collarbone.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and took my flashlight from him. “I suppose we do.”

  Thirty feet later, we were standing beneath an open manhole with a long stretch of flexible ventilation tubing on the floor in front of us.

  “Safety orange isn’t really my color,” I said.

  Deck didn’t smile.

  “You shimmy in, I hoist you up, Nuala pulls you out.” He sounded serious. Looked that way, too.

  I glanced up at the manhole.

  “Have you seen her arms?” I said. “They’re like undercooked spaghetti. How’s she supposed to lift me out of here?”

  Decker laughed with the kind of confidence I needed to hear.

  “Don’t worry about Nuala. She’s tougher than me and twice as stubborn as you. She’ll get you out.”

  “You sure?”

  “Trust me,” he said. “Trust her.”

  “Trust is hard when you’re used to taking care of yourself,” I said.

  “I know, but survival’s a team sport. Now get in.”

  I dropped to my hands and knees and wriggled into the tubing, arms wedged tight against my sides. The Shubaak and its twin pressed into my back, uncomfortable as truth.

  “Stay still.” The plastic distorted Decker’s voice. “Once you’re on the truck, we’ll drive to a utility garage, switch cars, and head to Calamus. Don’t move until I give you the all clear. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good. And, Scarlett?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re gonna be fine.”

  Arms scooped around my middle and lifted, as easy as if the pipe were empty. It was disorienting, moving straight up without seeing where I was going. Worse than a fast-moving elevator, better than a cheap carnival ride. Vertigo kicked in, all wrapped up in the smell of vinyl and the ugly feel of losing control.

  I’m coming, Gemma. The thought steadied me, kept me from fighting against the walls of my orange prison.

  I’m coming.

  23

  After the initial lift, Deck jerked me over his head, shifted his hands, and pressed into my belly. Air flew out of my lungs so hard I barely heard him tell me to fold. I tucked my chin, jackknifed my nose to my knees. Hands grabbed me by the hips from above. I rag-dolled to make the tube seem empty. Traffic sounds filtered in. My spine scraped the lip of the manhole.

  Once my head cleared the hole and Nuala started lugging me sideways, my vertigo eased. I gritted my teeth and waited for my body to hit the bed of the truck.

  Nothing happened.

  Everything stopped.

  Hanging there, helpless and blind, I heard a livid string of curses break free from Nuala and hang like thunderclouds. Then I was moving again, fast, until my shoulder and hip hit metal so hard my teeth smashed together with my tongue between them. Coppery blood filled my mouth, but the feral sound of a dog in full attack distracted me from the taste.

  “MOVE!” Decker’s voice boomed. Slamming truck doors sent painful vibrations through the bruised pulp of my body. The engine rumbled to life. Something smashed into my side. Shuddered. Lay still.

  My thoughts skittered and slid as the truck took off. Too many people were taking too many risks, and it was all my fault. I should have listened to Reem. Gone to college. Been a good girl. But I hadn’t, and now people I cared about were getting hurt.

  The truck settled into the stop-and-go rhythm of city traffic. We inched along, idling for minutes at a time, making slow progress toward a destination I’d had no say in choosing. Most of an eternity passed before the orange light around me went dim and the truck stopped.

  Please be Decker and Nuala, I thought as the truck doors opened. Please, please, please…

  “All clear.”

  Decker’s voice was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard.

  I started to wriggle out of the tube. A low growl rose from the shape beside me.

  “We’re the good guys, old lady. Take it easy,” Decker said.

  Then came Nuala’s voice. “All clear, Scarlett.”

  I cleared the pipe and slid off the back of the truck, wincing at the raw burn in my shoulder and the grinding pain in my hip. I was banged up and felt like hell, but I was alive.

  We were inside a large metal building, empty except for a muddy backhoe and a green pickup with tinted windows. Decker stood nearby, looking away while I tugged my shirt down from around my rib cage.

  “Lovely to see you again, Scarlett.” Nuala sounded as if we were meeting for tea at Calamus. “My apologies for the roughness back there. Turns out there was a bit of nasty lying in wait for you outside the Laundromat. If it weren’t for Jones, you’d not be alive now.”

  Decker looked into the bed of the utility truck and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong?” I said.

  “She’s not going to make it.”

  I walked over and stared down at Jones. She wasn’t panting anymore. She was barely breathing.

  “It was all her back there,” he said. “The two women Mook told us about were gone, but there was a man. We didn’t even know he was there until he came at you. Jones did, though. She took him down and got knifed for her trouble. You’d better thank her while there’s still time.”

  I moved closer to the dog. White rib bones shone through a six-inch gash on her side. One rear leg twisted off at a sickening angle, and her pale tongue hung, limp, out of a muzzle so blood soaked I couldn’t see the wound. Still, her eye was half-open, and her tail thumped at the sight of me.

  “It’s my fault,” I said, choking on the words.

  “It’s nobody’s fault,” Decker said. “Jones was born a fighter, and from what I’ve heard, she’s won more rounds than she’s lost.”

  I climbed back into the truck bed and knelt beside Jones’s crumpled body. Whispered “thank you” into her ear. She struggled to lift her head. I stroked her matted fur. “You didn’t have to do this.” Her empty socket wept. The warm brown eye next to it searched my own.

  I saw life in there—too much to give up on.

  “Please don’t die,” I whispered.

  Her tail thumped again, harder.

  That sealed the deal.

  “We’re taking her to the hospital,” I said.

  Decker shook his h
ead. “We’re going to Calamus. Jones is a good soldier, and she’s earned a good death. It’s time to let her go.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “Reem can save her.”

  Deck started to say something. I cut him off.

  “Look, I know you want me to find Solomon’s ring and the Shubaak. I know I’m supposed to be some kind of Abd al-Malik warrior princess. But this dog saved my life. I owe her.”

  Deck shook his head. “You don’t…”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “So the sooner you get me to the hospital, the sooner I can get back to work. And I gotta tell you, without me, Manny’s chances of getting his ring back are looking pretty slim. I know some things you don’t, and it’s only a matter of time before I find the damned thing.”

  It was a bluff. Truth was, I only had a lead and a hunch and less than sixteen hours to follow them. But Jones had been willing to give her life for me, and I had every intention of giving it back.

  “Help me out here, Nuala.” Decker looked to Nuala for support. Nuala was eyeing Jones.

  “You can find the ring?” she said.

  “I can.”

  She tapped her lips with her index finger. “What about the Shubaak?”

  “You’d be surprised what an Abd al-Malik like me can pull off,” I said, feeling things tip my way.

  The gold in her eyes shone.

  “And what will you tell your sister about this dog?”

  “The truth. That Jones was in a fight.”

  “You can’t be serious!” Decker looked ready to bust a gut.

  Nuala eyed him, sober as a Sunday school teacher. “Nobody followed us, Decker. Jones saw to that. As long as we stick to side streets, I think we’ll be fine.”

  Decker kicked an empty plastic oil bottle toward the backhoe.

  Nuala turned to me. “Are you sure your sister will treat a dog?”

  “Pretty sure,” I lied.

  “And you know she’ll be there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Very well.” Nuala had reached a decision, and Deck’s opinion was no longer required. “Let’s get the dog to the pickup, then, shall we?”

  Together, she and I slid a tarp underneath Jones’s body and carried her over as gently as we could. She didn’t whimper, didn’t whine. I almost wished she would.