Dead to Rites (6 page)

Gave some serious consideration to makin’ a dive for the Murphy bed. My rapier lived in the niche, next to where the frame folded up into the wall; if I couldn’t whammy the story outta her, maybe a bit of physical intimidation’d do the trick.

Honestly, though, probably not. As I said, she was a tough one. Plus, I still had no notion of how dangerous she mighta been in turn—to say nothin’ of the fact that she could easily reach the door and make tracks well before I could retrieve the blade and get back to her.

No way to know if she’d sussed out what I was thinking, but either way she smiled again and shook her head.

“Wow. You’re even stronger than I’d heard, Oberon. I believe I could come to like you.”

She was layin’ on the false charm again; just a trickle this time, not the earlier flood. I completely ignored it.

“That so? Don’t figure you’d wanna make me an enemy, then.”

“Oh, but I don’t. I’m still trying to hire you, you foolish
sidhe
. And I’m offering you a higher fee than you could possibly have asked for.”

She was, too, damn her.

“How do you know about it?”

“Really, Mick. You don’t mind if I call you Mick, right?”

“I—”

“You weren’t exactly shy about searching for a changeling, were you? All your asking around? Challenging a Court clerk to a duel in the middle of City Hall to force Judge Ylleuwyn to see you? The whole Chicago Seelie Court heard about it, and you know how aristocrats are. People
will
gossip so. It’s not terribly difficult to trace the rest of it, if you’re so inclined. I found Adalina rather easily, and I doubt I’m the only one.”

Well… Fuck. I mean, it ain’t as though I’d had any reason to keep my investigation quiet at the time. Hadn’t learned why that woulda been wise until a lot later. Still, hearin’ it just laid out this way made me feel kinda goofy.

Of course, it
also
meant that she’d been workin’ this angle for a while, getting herself ready to hold it over my head. That didn’t seem to jibe too smooth with the idea that she’d only come to me because someone was gunning for Ramona. Not proof she was lyin’, but definitely hinky.

“Yeah, okay, but why were you diggin’ in the first—?”

“Oh, Mick, none of that matters, and it’s not what you want to know. You want to know how I can do it.”

Well, yes, there was that, too.

“Quite simply, I have the means of brewing an elixir,” she said. “It’s tricky, a great deal of work, and the ingredients are… tough to come by, to say the least. But when mixed properly, there’s not much shy of death itself that it cannot cure. It’ll awaken your little Sleeping Ugly, guaranteed.”

I decided to ignore the dig and focus on the big picture.

“That’s mighty convenient, Ms. McCall, and a pretty ambitious claim. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to provide this elixir in advance?”

“You don’t suppose correctly. And please, call me Carmen, since we’re such good friends now.”

“So how do I know you’re being square with me—Ms. McCall? Why should I believe you can do what you say, or that you’ll come through even if you can?”

“Because as I just said, I’m not looking to make you an enemy.” Guess
she
decided to ignore the dig, too. “You’re a detective, and you’ve made it very clear just how dangerous you can be. It’d be more trouble than it would be worth to double-cross you over this and try to get away with it, don’t you think?”

Made sense. Sounded good. I didn’t trust a word of it, since I actually do
have
a brain, but it ain’t as if I had much choice. It’d been more’n a year now, and I still hadn’t been able to help Adalina one iota. If McCall was bein’ even halfway straight with me, I hadda go for it.

Long enough to learn more, if nothing else. And I’d already known I was gonna have to go find Ramona at some point, even if I’d rather have done it
without
a new leggy Sword of Damocles hangin’ over me.

“All right, lady, you got yourself a deal. I find Ramona for you, and then—”

“Then you contact me. Without letting her know I’m the one who hired you. We’ve had, let’s say, a bit of a spat lately. I’m afraid she’s not going to let us help if she knows I’m involved. We’ll talk about what I need you to do then, how we’ll set up the meeting.”

Oh, yeah. That didn’t sound hinky at all.

“My card,” she said, handing over a torn strip of paper with a number scribbled on it. “Call me when everything’s ready. And chin up, Mick. You’re
this
close to Adalina’s cure. See you around, you big lug.”

And then there was nothin’ for it but to watch her go swayin’ and swishin’ on her merry way, wondering again what the hell Ramona’d gotten me into—or maybe what I’d gotten her into, or what we’d both stumbled into—and also wondering why, as always, I seemed so damned determined to dig myself in even deeper.

“Hey, Bianca. Mick Oberon.”

“Mick!” Even over the blower, through the cracklin’ and poppin’ of the line, she sounded all in. Sure, it coulda been the wee hours, but she
usually
sounded like that these days. Guess havin’ one daughter pullin’ a Rip Van Winkle while you’re still tryin’ to figure out what species she is, at the same time you’re tryin’ to get to know the other daughter after sixteen years apart, will do that to a person. Still, she was clearly thrilled to hear from me. Nice lady, Bianca Ottati. “How are you?”

“Oh, can’t complain.”

I mean, sure, I
coulda
complained. I coulda complained until I was blue in the cows and my face came home, or however that goes. Not least because my ear was near on fire and my whole head buzzed like I had bees makin’ whoopee in my sinus cavities. Damn, I hate using the phone. But I wasn’t willin’ to trundle across town to speak with her right now. Not this late at night, when there were fewer trains and the trip woulda taken hours, and not with Carmen McCall out there. She already knew too much about Adalina, but I couldn’t be sure
how
much. Yeah, she almost certainly knew where the Ottatis lived, or at least enough to look ’em up—but just in case she somehow didn’t, I wasn’t gonna lead her right to their doorstep.

Guess, with the way my luck’d been running, I oughta have been thankful the phone was even working after my little display earlier.

“Listen, Bianca, I won’t keep you long. I’m just givin’ you a ring to see how Adalina’s doin’.”

Nice, but no bunny. I heard her mood change, her whole body tense and the hair on her neck stand up, even before she said another word.

“She’s fine. I mean, as fine as… as usual. Why? What’s wrong?”

“And Celia? She’s home? Everyone’s good?”

“Tucked in bed. Mick, what is it?”

Hadda pick my words carefully here. I wanted ’em on their guard, but not panicked. Enough to do what little good they could, not enough to make ’em worry over the fact that if one of the Fae really
did
have a beef with ’em, nothin’ they could do
would
prove much good. I hated to upset the Ottatis even that much—especially since I’d done pretty much the same, a few months back—but if I were them, I’da wanted the warning.

And no, I sure as fuck was
not
gonna tell her about McCall’s supposed cure-all elixir. No way I was gonna get
those
hopes up until I had it in my paws and
knew
it was more’n snake oil.

“It’s probably nothin’,” I hedged, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Really. But just in case, you and Fino may wanna have a few of his boys keep close to Celia for the next few days. Maybe put an extra man on Adalina’s room, too.

“Um, and they probably oughta be carryin’ iron pipes or knives in addition to their gats.”

“Oh, God. Why do these things keep targeting us?”

I decided to assume it was “present company excepted” where
things
were concerned.

“I meant it when I said it’s probably nothin’, Bianca. But, if it
ain’t
nothin’, no, you don’t have anyone new after you. It’s possible—just
possible
—that Goswythe’s back in town.”

She spat somethin’ in Italian then that I knew, one, she’d picked up from her husband, not her mother, and, two, she wouldn’ta wanted translated.

“I want that bastard out of our lives, Mick.”

“Trust me, we got similar goals here.”

“Do you think I should tell Celia?”

Hmm.

“Probably,” I conceded. “I don’t wanna panic the girl. But she lived with Goswythe for most of her life. If anyone’ll know what to watch for, or see him comin’ no matter what shape he’s taken, it’s her. Probably fairer and safer to let her know.”

“You know best.”

Ha! Good one.

“Just make sure she knows this is a precaution. Better safe, ’n all that.”

“All right.”

“And that I’m lookin’ into it.”

I never have figured out how some people manage to smile so that you can hear ’em over the blower.

“That’ll make her feel better.”

Makes one of us.

“Listen, while we’re jawing…” Much as I wanted to just hang up already and get as far from the damn payphone as the building’s architecture would allow, I wasn’t gonna waste a resource. “I could use your help on somethin’ I’m investigating. May or may not be related to the Goswythe thing.”

“Whatever I can do.”

“This is really more a question for Fino, but… Nolan Shea.” I knew she’d know who he was, if nothin’ more; the Uptown Boys’d been some of her husband’s biggest enemies, back before the Outfit and the Northsiders stopped openly warring on the streets.

The name elicited another quick bit of Italian I ain’t gonna bother translatin’ for you.

“What about him?”

“I know the Uptown Boys answer to the Northside Gang, but I don’t figure Shea reports to Bugs Moran directly, does he? So who’s
his
boss?”

“No, not to Moran. I think Shea answers to…” She paused, pondering. I let her ponder.

It finally came to her. “Fleischer! Saul Fleischer!”

I seemed to remember hearing the name a time or two, but I didn’t know the first thing about the guy. Well, except—judging by the name—his religion, but I guess that didn’t help me a whole lot.

“Anything you can tell me about him?” I asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know a great deal about the man. I’ve only heard the name on occasion when Fino’s been… uh, ‘talking’ about Shea and the Uptown Boys.”

Heh. I’ve heard Fino when he goes off on somethin’ or someone he hates.

“I’m surprised you could make out a name in all the profanity.”

Bianca laughed softly. “I’ve been with him long enough to speak his language.” Then, more seriously, “He’s out right now, but when he comes back—or if Archie stops by—I’ll have one of them give you a ring if they think there’s anything you ought to know about Fleischer.”

“Appreciate it, Bianca.”

I let her keep me on the horn long enough for a couple more reassurances, another minute of pleasantries, and then I slammed the receiver down like I was drivin’ a railroad spike.
Fuck
, I hate that thing!

Spent the rest of the night in my office, starin’ at the walls and goin’ through a whole quart of milk trying to drink away the lingering pain of the phone. I wasn’t tired enough to need to sleep tonight, but there also wasn’t a whole lot more I could do until the sun came up, not with so few leads. Plus, it was nice to be able to put off trackin’ down You-Know-Who for a few extra hours.

When dawn
did
show her rosy cheeks, though, I’d spent enough time mulling things over that I had myself a plan, and some idea of where to start.

* * *

As often as I’ve visited the station, at so many different times of day, it’s always got the same sorta crowds hangin’ around the entrance, sitting on uncomfortable wooden chairs, keisters slowly going numb, as they wait to make whatever report or demand whatever answers brought ’em here. Always the same volume, too, as bulls and detectives and secretaries holler back and forth, raisin’ their voices high as they’ll go to be heard over everyone
else
shoutin’ because God forbid they get up and walk a dozen steps to ask for a file or tell someone they got a dil-ya-ble on the front desk telephone.

Sometimes I wonder if most of it’s the
same
crowd every day. If some poor saps got stuck in some kinda Purgatorial loop, or the intense emotion of the throng’s just generating its own faceless members. I think Poe wrote something like that, once.

Couple of times on the way there, I got that same hinky feeling of someone watching me. I took a few turns, made a few stops, doubled back now and again, and either I managed to ditch ’em or they got a lot better at hiding.

I’d gotten to the drab block of a building later’n I’d hoped, thanks to a delay on the L—somethin’ about one of the trains breaking down a ways down the line—but still by mid-morning. Cops were used to seein’ me and some of Chicago’s other private shamuses around, so nobody objected to me just pushin’ through the swinging door and heading back to the “here’s where we actually do our work” part of the clubhouse. Well, nobody but the desk sergeant, who always wanted me to sign in even though he really hadda know by now that it wasn’t gonna happen.

Wending my way between rows of desks, dodging legs both human and chair, I traded a wave here or a nod there. Polite, if not exactly friendly; not that these coppers had anything against me, but to most of ’em I was just another PI, see? An amateur who might occasionally be useful, but who’d probably get in their way more often than not. A few of ’em knew me better, sure, but only a few.

Pete, who was the only guy on the force I’d call a real pal, was usually an afternoon- or night-shift guy, and even if he
had
been workin’ the morning, odds were he’da been out on the beat, not parked on his keister here at the clubhouse. So I wasn’t even lookin’ for him. I’d been hoping to run into Lieutenant Keenan, though. We might not be exactly friends, but we’d worked together and got along well enough, and he
was
a good buddy of Pete’s. I could usually count on the guy to gimme a hand if it wasn’t interfering with one of his own cases to do it.