Maggie Get Your Gun (5 page)

Mr. Smith held his hand out to me, “I shall be in touch.”

“I won’t answer the phone.”

Mr. Smith smiled, “If experience has shown me anything, you
will.”

He tipped his hat and walked out.

I looked over at Killian as the door shut, “I’m thinking it
might be time to get a receptionist.”

Chapter 6

“Hey, Maggie-girl!” called my dad, sauntering into the
office and tossing his coat on his desk.  His lean, craggy face was burned to
that crisp shade of red that only the Irish can do and his shaggy hair was
bleached from too much time in the sun.  Guess he decided to show Mom that
Mediterranean spot we had discovered. 

“Productive weekend?” he asked as he sat down.

“Something like that,” I said, barely looking up from my
disassembled gun.  “Nice to see you again.”

Dad looked at me and sighed, “All right.  What did I do
wrong this time?”

“Nothing,” I said, shoving the patch and bore brush down
the barrel, “Just might have been nice if you had left your phone on.”

He slapped his head, “I totally forgot.  Sorry about that. 
International rates are a bitch.  Hope there wasn’t anything too urgent.”

“No, nothing too urgent,” I replied.

That’s when Dad opened his drawer and saw the stack of
money.

“Where did all this come from?” he asked, pulling it out to
show me like I wasn’t perfectly aware of its presence.

“Oh, yah,” I said, maybe just a little smugly, “you might
want to check your voicemail.”

He put the wad of cash on his desk and felt around his
pockets for his forgotten phone.  He dialed and punched in some numbers, hung
up, then dialed again, then hung up in exasperation, “What’s my pass code again?”

“1969.”

“Right.”

This time he got through.  I watched as his eyes got wide.

He covered the receiver, “Isaac Smith was here?”

I nodded and he went back to listening to the message.  He
sat down in his chair as if his knees were going weak.  He hung up and looked
at me, all hang dog and guilt, “I am so sorry, Maggie-girl.  You should have
waited for me.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s fine.  Killian came out.  We had
some real laughs, you know, fighting off a horde of reanimated mummies in the
middle of the desert sun and all.  We got paid.  All’s-Well-That-Ends-with-the-Right-People-Dead-and-a-Paycheck,
right?”

“I don’t think that’s the title of Shakespeare’s play,
Maggie.” 

“Are you sure?  Because I think I caught it on Masterpiece
Theatre.  It was either that or Much-Ado-About-Trying-to-Guilt-Your-Daughter-When-It’s-Your-Own-Fault-You-Didn’t-Check-Your-Phone.”

“Listen, I should have picked up.  I’ll never turn my phone
off again.  I’ll always look to see if I have any messages from here on out.”

“Of course you’ll turn your phone off and you never check
your messages.  Now, put the money away and let’s get this day started,” I
said, putting the barrel and spring back into my revolver.

“I never would have let you take a job from that man.  You
should have held off until you cleared it with me.”

I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean to make it sound like he was
territorially pissing in the proverbial corners of my business-decision-making-skills,
but shit, the guy took off for the weekend and left me to make decisions.  I
had made decisions.

“Listen, Dad.  I went out to pick up a lady’s comb and
ended up having to set a mob of mummies on fire that I accidentally brought
back to life.  And you weren’t here to warn me this dude was on our blacklist. 
I made a judgment call and earned us a metric shitton of money, so you’re
welcome.  In fact, I think you owe me a raise.”

“Maggie, Isaac is the one who sent me after the lion
statues,” he said.  “He told me he had purchased the lion online and just
needed someone to pick it up.  Sound familiar?”

So Isaac was a sneaky little bugger and had gotten us both... 
Like father, like daughter.

“Don’t take any more jobs from him.  Leave those jobs to me,”
Dad said in a voice that sounded like he was in no mood to be trifled with.

Except trifling is what I do best.  I gave him a look, “How
about neither of us take any more jobs from him, huh?”

“Maggie…”

“Because he offered me an open ended gig,” I said, tossing
him the envelope Mr. Smith had left, “and even though I told him no, now I’m
thinking maybe I should reconsider.”

He caught it midair, opened up his desk drawer, threw the
envelope in, and slammed it closed.

“I mean it, Maggie."

"Whatever." 

"I have worked for that man and if he comes here
again, you kick him out.  You call me.  You do not speak to him until you clear
it with me.  Do you understand me, young lady?”

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Margaret Gertrude Mary MacKay!”

I couldn't believe he was so mad he used my full name.

I put the slide back onto my gun, “Fine.”

“Fine.”

We sat glaring at each other for a minute.

“Did you have a good vacation?” I spat.

“It was great,” he growled.

And thus began another Monday at MacKay & MacKay
Tracking.

Chapter 7

I flipped through a folder in my inbox.  Teach me to run
downstairs to pick up a soda.  Work magically shows up on your desk.

“Did you put this in here, Dad?”

He was scrolling through something that appeared utterly
fascinating on his computer, “Yah, I mistakenly thought you were going to have
a quiet Friday, so I swung by Frank’s this morning to get us some jobs.  He
specifically picked that peach for you.”

“Really, Dad?  You’re pawning this off on me?” I groaned as
I read through the pages.  The case involved a genie and a missing necklace. 

Genies fall under the category of "dimensional
demons".  They don't belong on the Other Side.  They come from a third
plane, which most folks just refer to as The Dark Dimension and leave it at
that.  The Dark Dimension houses about all the delights you'd expect from a
spot with such a cheerful name.

Genies can be called to both Earth and The Other Side by
summoning circles and incantations, just like a regular demon.  The difference
is that genies can be bound to bottles and toted around, which is why some
dumbasses think it is a super awesome idea to have a genie as their very own
special, wish granting pet.  What the books don’t tell you is that once your
three wishes are done, you are genie jam-on-toast.  Genies have lives and
families in The Dark Dimension and they tend to get a little cranky when they
can't make it home in time to watch their favorite game shows.  They fucking
hate
granting wishes.  And since you aren’t their master anymore, they take a
certain delight in making sure you viscerally understand that sticking them in
a bottle was not the way to go.

Also, genies are just jerks.

This case did not look particularly nasty, but dealing with
genies is never nice.

“Come on, you’re not sending me out on this alone.”

Dad held up another file that was about five inches thick,
“I’m afraid I have to go deal with this one.  You want to trade?”

I shook my head as I looked at his pile, “What did you do
to piss Frank off this time?”

“He’s not a particularly chatty fellow, is he?”

“Shit, Dad, did you try talking to him?  NEVER try to talk
to him.”

“I forgot.”

“You have been away for way too long…” I looked at my case,
“So my guy is wanted for lifting some jewels that didn’t belong to him… wait. 
Are these magical jewels?”

“No."

"I've heard that one before."

"Frank said they were plain, old, ordinary rocks out
of the soil.”

I looked over at Dad and groaned, “You know I’m no good at
that sort of thing.”

“You gotta learn sooner or later how to track down ordinary
objects, Maggie-girl.”

“That’s why I keep you around.”

“Head on out,” he said, standing up and stretching.  “I’ll
get my job done, you get your job done, and I’ll meet you back here for lunch.”

I was two seconds late shouting, “Not it!”

Dad grinned and pointed at me, “You’re buying.”

Chapter 8

The street was bustling.  It felt good to get out of the
office. 

The Other Side grew and developed over the years, just like
Earth.  There are parts of town that have retained the charm of those eras gone
by.  This particular spot was home to a lot of Studebakers and outdoor cafes. 
The entire place looked like 1940’s New York.  Some of the local monsters even
went so far as to fade their hides to grayscale.  The rest actually had gray
scales.

The report said the jewels were stolen from a locked safety
deposit box from right under the nose of a rich ol’ witch, so I headed over to the
scene of the crime.  She lived in the penthouse at the top of a schwanky hotel,
so I grabbed the elevator going up, and knocked on her double door.

“Come in!” called the distressed dame’s voice.

I pushed the brass handles and walked in.  The walls were
white, the thick pile carpet was white, her silk peignoir that she somehow
thought was appropriate to wear at noon was white.  The only color in the room
was her painted, ruby red lips and ebony hair set in tight pin curls.

“
Miss Veronica Dubois
?” I said,
hand outstretched as I walked over.  “I’m Maggie MacKay.”

She stared in horror at her carpet.  Guess her lily white rug
didn’t like the underside of my ass-kicking boots.

“Sorry,” I said.  “I’m sure you’ve got someone you can pay
to get that shampooed.”

“Who are you?” she asked with a long look down her short, pug-like
nose.

“The police sent me.  Heard you had a necklace lifted by
someone magic-like.  When that happens, the po-po call me to dig around in the
dirt.”

I flopped down on her couch as she looked at me like I was
something that crawled out from the shower drain, which is actually a problem
on The Other Side.

“Listen, I promise not to get your couch dirty," I
said as I rubbed my palms on her cushions to prove I had washed my hands.

Miss Dubois blinked towards me and looked like she was
going to hock something up.  Judging from her dress size, it was probably the
Tic-Tac she ate for breakfast.  On a plate.  With a knife and fork.  I imagined
she probably dabbed her mouth with a napkin when she was done.

“It’s
fine
,” she said, biting off her words.  “I’ll
just throw it out after you leave.”

“Or you could…
clean
it…”

“That’s not the way I choose to live my life.”

“Right,” I said.  The place was so posh, she probably blew
her nose on dollar bills and dried her dishes with twenties.  “So, this
necklace, what can you tell me about it?”

“My grandmother’s necklace,” she whispered, suddenly over
the outrage that I was sucking up air.  After a dramatic pause, she got up and
wrung her hands like we were on a fucking episode of
Dynasty
.  She waved
an arm to a portrait over her mantle and then bit her finger, “She entrusted it
to me on her deathbed and now it is gone! 
Gone
!  I am ruined!”

The gal in the painting was a lovely Asian woman in
traditional dress.  Her hair was set with combs, which, frankly, I was feeling
like I had my fair share of over the weekend.  Around her neck was a necklace
of rough, yellow stone.

“Is that the necklace?” I asked, pointing at the pretty
dead lady.

“Indeed.  It has been passed down through the generations
until finally it came to me and now I have lost it.”

“How did you lose it?”

She waved me over to another picture frame, which was
hanging off its hinges.  The door to the safe behind it was open.

“He,” she said, pausing to make sure I caught every word,
“took it.”

She flopped down on a chair and buried her head in her
arms, “As I slept, he broke into my home and took it.”

“Who is ‘he’?”

“I already told this to the police.”

I barely controlled the eye roll wanting to spring itself
instinctively in my sockets, “I admit I might not be the foremost expert in translating
subtle emotional cues, but I sense that recalling this theft is a little
distressing for you.  I promise you only have to tell your story one more time
and that time is to me.  Right now.”

Miss Dubois sighed, dragging her head up as if the mere
task was of Herculean proportions.  If I didn’t know my dad would give me lip
all day for mouthing off at a client, I would have been happy to put things in
perspective for her.