Unsympathetic Magic

by Laura Resnick

  “With a boa constrictor on the loose there, I’m worried about them, too.”

  “I want to keep an eye on them. At least until we know what’s going on and . . . and I’m sure they’re not in danger.”

  He looked at me. “Well, I know by now I can’t talk you out of that. But if you’re going to keeping going there, then I want you to promise me you’ll be careful and keep your eyes open, and call me if you need help.”

  “Agreed.” I appreciated that he’d decided not to press me about certain subjects. Even though that was only because he was hot, tired, distracted, and in no mood to deal with the sort of answers he was probably afraid I’d give, if pushed. Which reminded me . . . “I need to ask another favor.”

  “Go ahead.” He smiled wryly. “If you put on your hooker outfit again, I’ll probably do anything you want.”

  The memory of wearing Lycra and vinyl in this heat prevented that comment from being as tempting as it might otherwise have been.

  I pointed upward, through the leafy trees that climbed the steep rocky hill that was nearby, to the dully gleaming roof of the old iron watch tower that sat high above the park. “Will you take me up that hill?”

  He looked up at the tower. “Why?”

  “Because you’re armed.”

  He turned his head sharply. “Excuse me?”

  After today’s misadventure in the foundation’s lobby, I thought it was entirely possible that what had excited Nelli’s interest on those curving stone steps last night was the scent of a snake living in the vicinity. But I thought it was equally possible that the dense shrubbery concealed baka or zombies, so I didn’t want to climb that hill alone and unprotected. I also thought that investigating the area by day in the company of a cop with a gun made a little more sense than sneaking up there at night with a sword.

  “Esther?” he prodded.

  I didn’t want to explain to him about Max, Biko, and Nelli’s nocturnal activities, nor to discuss our theories about supernatural creatures.

  So I said, “Biko told me about that old watchtower, and I want to see it. But it’s so overgrown and isolated, I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go up there alone, even in the middle of the day. So will you walk me up there?”

  “Sure.” Looking surprised and relieved that I was making such a normal, ordinary request, he rose from the bench and extended a hand to help me up. As we crossed the pavement together and approached the curving stone steps, he asked, “What is the old watchtower, anyhow? I don’t know this neighborhood.”

  As we began ascending the old stone stairs, many of which were in need of repair, I related what Biko had told me about the tower.

  “In other words,” Lopez said, “we’re climbing a long, steep, crumbling staircase in hellish heat to see a dangerous ruin that might fall on top of us while we’re looking at it?” He grinned at me. “I’m so glad you invited me along.”

  I was surreptitiously trying to spot baka claw marks or anything else that might explain what had excited Nelli last night. But I’m no tracker, and the stairs were in such bad shape and so littered with fallen leaves, clumps of moss, rocks, and broken sticks that just trying not to trip and fall was occupying most of my attention. Lopez kept his hand under my elbow to steady me, but even so I stumbled a couple of times.

  The surrounding flora and foliage was so dense that, halfway up the hill, it was easy to forget that we were in Manhattan. As I eyed the dense bushes and surrounding trees, I was very glad to have an armed cop at my side. In addition to my fear that mystical monsters lurked in those bushes, I realized that much more mundane dangers could easily lurk there, too. I’d be nervous if I were here alone, even without the menace of baka running loose in the neighborhood.

  We reached the crest of the hill without my seeing anything suspicious, let alone anything that I thought Lopez should shoot. To my surprise, we emerged onto an old stone plaza. It was about as long and wide as a basketball court. Many of the paving stones were broken, and others were missing altogether.

  “I love this city.” Lopez looked around the crumbling old hilltop plaza with a pleased smile. “New York is full of so many surprises. I never would have guessed this was up here.”

  “Now aren’t you glad you came?” I said.

  “That all depends on whether this thing falls on top of us.” Squinting against the harsh sunlight, he looked up at the nineteenth- century watchtower that rose above the tree-shrouded plaza. “Actually, it’s not in such bad shape, is it?”

  The imposing tower, which was quite tall, was a hollow octagonal structure made of long iron bars, poles, and rods. At ground level, the outer edge of the tower was defined by a cage made of evenly spaced vertical bars; I was briefly reminded of my jail cell in the local precinct house. A spiral staircase inside the cage ascended to an enormous bell that hung suspended about fifteen feet off the ground. The iron staircase continued past the bell, circling the tower all the way up to the lookout platform at the top of structure.

  Gazing up at this elegant and impressive iron framework hidden here on a forgotten, overgrown hilltop in a city park, I was in complete agreement with Lopez. I just loved New York.

  “You must get to see a lot of stuff like this, as a cop,” I mused. “Hidden things, obscure pieces of the city that most other people just walk past.”

  “Back in the days when I was on patrol, I did. Sometimes I kind of miss that. Getting to know a neighborhood and its people really well.” Still gazing upward as he strolled around the tower, he said, “Since I became a detective, though, I mostly just see crime scenes when I’m on the job. And they’re usually not very scenic.”

  “This structure looks sort of familiar . . .” I realized what it reminded me of. “It’s sort of like a starter-kit for the Eiffel Tower, isn’t it?”

  He chuckled at the description, then said, “Here’s a gate. This must be how the watchman got in, in the old days.” Lopez gave it an experimental tug. He looked a little disappointed when it didn’t open. But, like a responsible police officer, he said, “I’m glad to see there’s a good lock on it. Kids might try to get in there to climb around.”

  “Kids of any age,” I noted, coming around the tower to join him at the gate. “I can see I would have trouble keeping you out of there, if not for that lock.”

  “Well . . . yeah.” He smiled sheepishly. “And I was the kind of kid who would have found a way in there anyhow.”

  “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Looking at the lock on the gate, I remarked, “That looks shiny and new. Maybe someone did get in here.”

  “Or maybe the parks department is just being smart and making sure it doesn’t happen.”

  Lopez’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the LCD panel. “It’s my dad. He doesn’t call me very often.”

  I knew that, by contrast, his mother called him all the time.

  “I should probably take this. Excuse me.” Lopez set down my daypack and flipped open his phone. “Hola, papá. Que tal?”

  Lopez started to relax and lean back against the iron bars of the tower. Then he made a face and moved away from them when he realized how hot the bars were, having been in the sun all day. “Bueno . . . Sí . . . Por qué? Cuál es el problema?”

  I knew his father was from Cuba, but I hadn’t known that the two of them spoke to each other in Spanish.

  As Lopez stepped away from the tower, he frowned a little at something his father said. “Yo? No, no . . . No puedo, papá.” He said more emphatically, “Porque estoy muy occupado.”

  Actually, I realized, I hadn’t known Lopez spoke Spanish at all, though it probably should have occurred to me. Indeed, listening to him arguing gently but firmly with his dad about something now, it was clear that he was completely fluent in the language. His parents must have raised their three sons to be bilingual.

  It was a reminder of how little Lopez and I actually knew each other.

  I also realized, as I listened to him
speaking fluidly in a language I didn’t know, that I found him incredibly sexy at the moment. The Spanish words flowing musically from his mouth sounded mysterious and romantic to me . . . even though, based on the few words I understood, I had the impression he was trying to refuse to do something his father wanted him to do. His speaking in a foreign language seemed to fit so perfectly with his exotic looks. His black hair gleamed like onyx under the harsh sunlight, his dark golden skin glowed in the heat, and his long-lashed eyes flashed with blue fire as he started arguing more fiercely. His shoulders moved with oiled grace beneath his thin cotton shirt as he paced around the sun-drenched stone plaza . . .

  Okay, I needed to look away now.

  I took a sobering breath of muggy air and reminded myself that this was guy who wouldn’t even date me! In fact, this guy had dumped me.

  He was, I was pretty sure, talking to his dad about his mom now . . . and here I was, getting turned on by the conversation. Just because his words were all in Spanish . . . rolling off his silken tongue like melting honey and—

  “Oy.” I turned away.

  Conversations in Yiddish had certainly never had this effect on me.

  I needed to think about something else. Humming softly to myself, in hopes of drowning out the tummy-tickling sound of Lopez using words like encantado and semana, I started poking around the plaza looking for leftover baka food or other signs that the creatures had been here. It was a big area to cover, but Lopez’s argument with his father was taking a while, so I had time to look over the whole place.

  I got excited when I found some splotches of red on the paving stones—so excited that I even forgot about Don Juan for a few moments. But the color of the scattered blotches was too bright to be blood, I realized after my initial reaction. It looked more like faded red paint or chalk. There was also melted candle wax. Not far from these marks and wax droppings, there was a large blackened area with ashes around its edges.

  “Ah.”

  Not baka or zombies, I realized. Partiers. A bonfire, some candles, some . . . red whatever. If the group was large enough that they didn’t have to worry about being mugged by night in this isolated spot, then it was a great place for a party: a big, private, open-air plaza beneath the skeletal beauty of the old iron watchtower. And after the trees lost their leaves for the winter, there would be good views of the city by night from this spot.

  But the start of autumn was still more than a month away, and the summer sun was merciless up here. I decided it was time to suggest to Lopez that we be on our way.

  As I returned to his side, to my relief, he broke into English. “All right, fine. Okay. I’ll do it. Yes.” He sighed. “I just said yes, didn’t I?”

  Apparently English was the language of surrender in the Lopez family. Based on what little I knew about his mother, this didn’t really surprise me.

  “Two hours, start to finish,” he said firmly. “From the moment I pick her up at the station until the moment I drop her off there again. That’s all I can spare. Make sure she understands that.”

  I caught his eye and pointed toward the stone steps. Lopez nodded to me and raised a finger, indicating he’d be done momentarily.

  “Sí . . . Sí, entiendo.” In response to his father’s next comment, he said ironically, “De nada, papá.”

  I felt my insides fluttering again. Even when being ironic, he sounded sexy in Spanish.

  Oh, get a grip.

  Lopez ended the call and pocketed his phone. “Sorry.”

  “No problem.” I made a sympathetic face. “Parents.”

  “Exactly,” he said wearily.

  I decided not to mention the Spanish thing. He might not even realize that I hadn’t known he spoke the language, and I was seriously concerned that I’d turn into some sort of gushing nudnik as soon as I opened my mouth on the subject.

  “My dad can be a little . . . old-fashioned about certain things,” Lopez said as he walked over to my daypack and scooped it up. “My mom complains about it, but I swear to God she encourages it.”

  “Is there something wrong at home?” I asked carefully, not wanting to pry, but nonetheless curious.

  “No, no. Nothing like that.” As we approached the uneven, rocky stairs, he said, “Here, you’d better take my arm.” We began descending the steps together. “When something’s actually wrong, my parents go to church. Or they retreat to their bedroom to discuss it quietly behind a closed door. Long dramatic arguments occur in our family strictly over stupid stuff.” He paused. “We have a lot of long dramatic arguments.”

  Making my way carefully over a broken step with Lopez’s help, I asked, “What was this stupid stuff?”

  “My mom wants to go to some fancy new store on the Upper West Side tomorrow, and my dad can’t take her, so he wants me to take her. Even though, between my actual job and the other cases I’m helping out on, whether my help is wanted or not—such as the Twenty-Fifth Precinct’s lonesome severed hand . . . I’ll probably be working fourteen hours tomorrow and don’t have time for this. But I’m the son who lives in the city, so I’m the one who has to do it.”

  Wondering if I was missing something, I asked, “Is there some reason your mom can’t shop on the Upper West Side in broad daylight without an escort?”

  “That’s where we get to the part about my dad being old-fashioned. There are naked men in this store, so he doesn’t want my mom going there without a husband or son at her side.”

  “Naked men?” I repeated. “In a store?”

  “They’re not naked naked,” Lopez said. “Watch your step.” He helped me over a rocky patch. “The men are wearing—I don’t know—thongs or loincloths or something.”

  “What sort of store is this?”

  “Would you believe it’s a gourmet grocery store? And it’s all the rage.”

  “Well, with naked employees, I guess it would be.”

  “I doubt my dad ever even removed his shirt in front of my mom before their wedding night,” Lopez said. “So the idea of her nibbling samples of gourmet delicacies served by mostly naked men at some Upper West Side food emporium is way outside his comfort zone.”

  “Maybe she just shouldn’t have told him she was going.”

  “Oh, are you kidding?” he said in disgust. “That would take all the fun out of it for her.”

  “Ah. I get it”

  Now I understood why steam was practically coming out of Lopez’s ears. His mother enjoyed this little game with his father, which was perhaps the sort of thing that helped keep the sparks alive in their (I gathered) contented long-term marriage. But tomorrow, their game was going to cost their youngest son at least a couple of hours of valuable work time. And so—especially since he was overloaded this week—he felt like throttling them both for it.

  When we reached the bottom of the steps and were once again back in the busy, bustling park, I said, “And now I really do have to leave for my shift at Bella Stella.”

  “I’ll walk you partway to the subway,” he said. “I’ve got a few more questions for Dr. Livingston if she’s still at work, and then I want to stop in at the Twenty- Fifth Precinct, where I’m getting more and more popular every day, of course.”

  His mentioning the precinct reminded me that Lopez had resources that Max and I didn’t.

  “I just thought of another favor I need to ask,” I said.

  “If it involves another steep climb, the answer is no.”

  “A man who was teaching workshops at the foundation is missing. His name is Frank Johnson, and no one has seen or heard from him since Monday night.” Since Lopez was already concerned about my presence at the foundation, I didn’t mention that Frank was my direct predecessor. “He’s not answering his phone or returning messages. Can you find out where he lives? Or find out if he’s . . . all right?”

  “Missing since Monday night?”

  I nodded. “He might be going about his daily life and just ignoring calls from the foundation. I mean, I hope he is. But ju
st in case . . .” Seeing Lopez’s intent expression, I asked, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “No reason.”

  “No, tell me,” I insisted.

  “I’m thinking,” he said with some reluctance, “that the hand we found lying in the street could belong to someone who was last seen alive on Monday night.”

  “Oh.” I feigned distress, which wasn’t hard to do at this point, and nodded.

  As we exited the park, Lopez told me that as long as I was working at the foundation, and until we really knew what was going on, he wanted me to keep his cell phone number on speed dial.

  I agreed, and I accepted my daypack from him as he returned it to me. We stood together awkwardly for a moment, and then I said good-bye and turned to go.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered.

  Lopez reached for me, pulled me into his arms, and kissed me. He was a little rough, and then very gentle.

  And I could swear I tasted Spanish words on his lips.

  Then he rested his forehead against mine. “You’d better go.”

  “Right,” I murmured. “After all, you know what time my shift starts.”

  “I do.” He kissed me softly again, then let me go.

  I practically floated all the way to the subway station. When I got there, luck was with me. I caught a downtown train immediately. Only as I was standing in the crowded moving train, aware of the silly expression that was probably still on my face, did reality start to set in again.

  I was sure the severed hand belonged to Darius Phelps. However, unless I personally introduced Lopez to Darius’ zombie, I knew there was no way I could convince him of my theory. Meanwhile, I felt very worried about Frank Johnson, and Max really wanted to talk with the man.

  So if Lopez’s theory—that the hand might belong to Frank—motivated him to find out what had happened to the missing instructor, well, I supposed that worked out well for everyone.

  After a few stops, I changed trains and caught one that would take me to Little Italy. There was an empty seat on this train, and as soon as I sat in it, I saw that my shoes and ankles were still covered in Nelli’s blood, now dried to a rusty brown color. I realized some of her blood was on my left hand and both of my knees, too. I’d need to clean up when I got to the restaurant.