The Love-Haight Case Files (35 page)

“I’m on break,” Pete rumbled as his stubby fingers pushed and maneuvered the buttons of the controller, saving his character’s progress and powering down the combat-heavy fantasy MMORPG. “Workers get a fifteen minute break in the middle of every four-hour period, and a mandatory paid lunch break for any shift of seven hours or more. It’s the law. I saw it when I was turning pages for Thomas.”

“Hmmph,” growled Gretchen as Pete jumped out of the chair with a thud that reverberated across the office. “I’ll bet those books don’t say anything about using your co-worker’s equipment or scratching up her desktop with your elbows while you play games.”

Pete felt the green granite veins in his stony countenance darken from embarrassment. His rough composition was hard on wood, even wood as tough as oak. “Er, sorry, Gretchen.” He moved to feel the rough surface of the desk with his stony fingers so he could tell how bad the damage was, but stopped short. The effort would only make the scratches worse. “I’ll see if Z-man … you, know, Zaxil, our landlord … has any furniture polish in the janitor’s closet.”

Gretchen’s scowl softened. “You do that, Pete. Then join us on the roof. Dagger’s on his way over, and I know Evey’s been talking to Animal Control on and off all day. Time for everyone to report in, including you.”

O O O

Thomas gazed westward, past the uneven jumble of buildings of the city’s many neighborhoods, toward the distant ocean. At least he had his sight. Even as a ghost, he could still enjoy the sunlight glinting off the choppy surface of the fierce blue of the Pacific Ocean. Even as a ghost, however, he was careful not to stare too long toward the bright light of sunshine on the waves. He didn’t know if ghosts could go blind by looking too long at the sun, but he wasn’t about to risk any damage to his eyesight. Without it, he would truly be a lost soul, wandering around San Francisco in perpetual dark, unable to tell where he was, unable to practice his profession even in the limited fashion he still could now, unable to see Evelyn or the beauty of nature … unable to see any point for continuing on.

He took a deep breath, though he could not feel himself do so, gathered his thoughts, and then turned to face the rest of the rooftop assemblage: Dagger, Gretchen, Evelyn, and Pete, who was rubbing his hands as if trying to get some residue off them, producing an irritating
scritch
of stone against stone.

“Uh, could you stop that, Pete?”

The green granite gargoyle scowled in Gretchen’s direction from behind her back. “I smell lemony fresh. It’s not good for my reputation to smell lemony fresh.”

Dagger interrupted. “Can we get to it?”

“Sure.” Thomas nodded toward Gretchen, and she held a clipboard up so that he could read from the top page. “I talked to Patrolman Lane. He had a bit of a hard time getting anyone to take his inquiries about noise complaints about barking dogs seriously, but he was able to confirm that each of the locations in the Tenderloin and Chinatown the police later discovered had been floating arenas for dog fights had an elevated level of complaints for the thirty-six hours proceeding the event.” He looked up at the group. “That means our theory for locating the fights is sound, but that we won’t get much lead time.”

Dagger frowned. “So when and where do the noise complaints indicate the next fight will be?”

“Phillip doesn’t have a clue. He was only able to find a correlation looking at noise complaints for past sites. The police just turn such complaints over to Animal Control, unless there’s a suggestion of some kind of foul play associated with the complaint. You know, like a missing person or broken door or something suggesting the noise complaint may be due to a deceased owner or some such.”

Evelyn chimed in, her voice bright and cheery. “Fortunately for us, and for Sadie and Barney, the people at Animal Control pay a lot more attention to animals in distress than to people in distress. Since they have trucks going about the city to handle grim situations like cat-hoarding old ladies and escaped exotics which deranged people try to keep as pets, they have the trucks patrol for strays between such calls. They track noise complaints as a way to suggest the most useful patrol routes. I asked them to compile dog-barking stats this morning. And once Thomas gave me Phillip’s information about past spikes, I confirmed his info with them as a way of focusing their analysis.”

Dagger growled again. “Getting to the point would be good.”

Thomas could tell that Dagger’s impatience irritated Evelyn, but someone who did not know her as well as he did likely would not notice the micro-movement of her lips pursing before she continued. She was an attorney, a professional. To practice law, one had to control one’s demeanor, whether in front of an irksome judge, a clueless jury, or an irritating client or colleague.

“There are two potential hits. One in Chinatown, within a block or two of the intersection of Jones and Filbert. The other one is, as suspected, in the Tenderloin, near some warehouses along Polk, between Ellis and Eddy or somewhere thereabouts. The time frame suggests that tonight’s the night something is going to happen.”

Thomas tried to picture the neighborhoods in his head, wishing he could conjure up GoogleEarth StreetView in his mind. “That’s not very specific. It’ll be a lot of ground to cover, especially for two locations miles apart.”

“Might not be necessary,” responded Dagger. He looked into the distance as if he was remote-viewing both spots. “If I recall correctly, that’s a pretty dense part of Chinatown. Lots of small buildings. Restaurants, shops, small apartment buildings. Not sure there’s anything the right size and remote enough from a lot of hustle and bustle to hold a dog fight.” Dagger stopped looking into the distance and faced Thomas directly. “I say we go with the odds. Tenderloin.”

Behind them all, Pete grumbled to life. “I agree, not that anybody’s asked me about what I found out.”

Evelyn looked hurt, as she turned to Pete. “We’re sorry, Pete. It’s just that you said that you weren’t expecting to find out much from the gargoyle clan. Do you have information on a specific location?”

Pete used a talon on his right foot to scratch at a pigeon dropping on the roof, as if attempting to smudge it out. “Well, no,” he admitted. “But I agree that Chinatown is less likely.” The gargoyle looked up at the group. “Not too many of my brethren are near either location, but they did suggest that sounds of animals in distress in Chinatown seem to peak on a semi-regular basis. You know, cyclical.”

“Cyclical?” asked Gretchen. “Like with the economy?”

Pete shook his carved stone head. “More like with the lunar calendar.”

“Werewolves?” asked Evelyn with a shudder. Thomas and Evelyn dealt with a lot of OTs in the brief existence of the law firm, but so far they had not had any lycanthropes as clients. Thomas knew that Evelyn wasn’t prejudiced against the pitiable beasts, probably just a bit scared. A lycanthrope in full fang could be a frightful sight, he was sure. Fortunately, that was only an issue during the days surrounding a full moon as best as he understood it.

Dagger laughed heartily. “I doubt that. A lycanthrope loping through the narrow streets of Chinatown would be pretty obvious. No doubt they prefer public parks and open expanses. It’s something else altogether.”

“Like what?” asked Gretchen, looking back and forth at Dagger and Pete, as if they were sharing an inside joke and not letting the rest of the group in on it.

Pete stood stone-faced.

Finally, Dagger spoke again. “The whole Chinese culture is lunar-calendar based, including the holidays. So the big feasts and festivals and party times, they all are timed to the lunar calendar. Lots of business for the restaurants.”

Evelyn interjected. “But Chinese New Year is already past.”

Dagger shrugged. “Plenty of holidays on the calendar. Azure Dragon is coming up.”

Evelyn shook her head. “Okay, so there are holidays I don’t have on my calendar. I still don’t get it. What do Chinese holidays have to do with dogs and cats?”

The realization spread across Thomas’ mind like the sunset would soon spread across the waves beneath the western sky. “Well, you know,” he said, searching for the right words to convey what he had concluded without shocking her. “Times are tough, economically, and with lots of customers wanting to feast and, uh, the prices for traditional …” He faltered, unable to continue, to impinge further upon her innocence.

Dagger took up the narrative. “Some of the cheaper, more traditional restaurants, they serve … they serve cat and dog.”

“Oh my God!” whispered Evelyn, her right hand flying to cover her mouth.

“Gross,” muttered Gretchen. “Not that I don’t sometime suspect they do that at The Towers. The mystery meat in the cafeteria is sometimes pretty stringy.”

Evelyn stared at Dagger, wide-eyed. “And people order it?”

Dagger shrugged. “Sometimes they say its beef or chicken or rabbit. But the old places, where the dishes listed aren’t in English, they might put it on the menu.” He gestured with his large hands palms up. “In some places it’s considered a delicacy. What do you think happened to all the dogs during the Cultural Revolution?”

Gretchen winced. “That’s probably one of the reasons there were so few Chinese Shar-Peis left in China when an effort was made back in the seventies to save the breed by bringing some of them to the States.”

“I may be sick,” Evelyn said with a tremble.

“Well, if you are, don’t make your deposit over that side,” said Pete, pointing a pudgy finger toward the roof edge nearest Evelyn. “Sad Sadie’s box is right below and I don’t think those broken umbrellas can take a load.” He gestured with his head toward the middle of the side behind him. “But there’s a pigeon nest over here that could use a bit of biological warfare.”

Gretchen barked out a raspy laugh and Thomas couldn’t help but smile at the stone-faced practicality of his gargoyle friend. Pete had broken the grim mood of their discussion with a joke.

The queasy look on Evelyn’s face diminished and Dagger took the group back to the mechanics of the task at hand.

“They won’t start ’til well after dark,” the private detective stated, all business once again. He looked at Thomas. “I’ll meet you somewhere on Polk, around Ellis or Eddy—just look for my car—at ten tonight. I hope you’ve got Officer Lane’s phone number memorized. We might need to call for support and 911 calls from the Tenderloin don’t always get quick response, if you know what I mean.”

Thomas nodded, then turned to Evelyn. “Stay at the office and be ready to call your contacts at Animal Control. We might need some trucks.”

Dagger nodded his own head in agreement as he turned toward Evelyn, too. “A lot of trucks. And a lot of vets on call.”

Gretchen grimaced. Thomas sensed she was worried about having put her friends in danger over a promise to a bag lady, but finally she pursed her lips and nodded, too, then looked past Thomas toward the sun as it dipped lower toward the distant sea. “I guess this is what they mean by a ‘dog day’ afternoon.”

Chapter 4.7

As always, the smells of the Tenderloin assaulted Dagger’s keen senses. The stench of sweat and sex and booze and piss permeated the district. It didn’t help that he was hyped up about the prospect of dishing out some violence to the sick, cowardly perpetrators of the “alleged” sport of dog fighting—the same type of violence the evil sickos so often cheered on during the depraved bouts of their beaten, starved, and abused fighters. Above everything else, he could smell the stink of his own adrenaline and his own wolfish scent as he tensed for what he knew was coming.

He practically growled when Thomas suddenly began to materialize in the passenger seat of his 1972 Dodge Charger, in his suit and tie, as always now—though Dagger actually couldn’t remember the lawyer ever wearing anything else even when he was alive and still had a sartorial choice to make. Thomas was fidgety and sweating, if that was possible, not that Dagger could smell the ghostly perspiration that seemed to cling to the young attorney’s forehead.

“Been here long?” asked Thomas.

Dagger looked out the windshield at the passing street traffic as he replied. “About an hour.”

He saw the frazzled lawyer raise his left arm to look at his wristwatch, then roll his eyes and fling it back to his side. Dagger guessed that, with no way to wind them, ghostly watches ground to a halt pretty quick, and were just useless costume jewelry after that. An accessory which you could never remove and that constantly reminded you that time held no real meaning for you anymore.

Thomas spoke. “I’m not late, am I? You said ‘ten,’ didn’t you?”

Dagger harrumphed. “Don’t get your legal briefs in a twist. I just came early to scope things out, get a feel for the neighborhood. See if I could hear or see anything that would narrow our choices.” Thomas didn’t need to know how keen Dagger’s senses of sight, smell, and sound were. Dagger didn’t volunteer information about his special abilities or from whence they stemmed, whether from his black ops history or from his OT affliction.

The lawyer seemed to relax a bit. “Find out anything? Some place you need me to check out, you know, incorporeally?”

“Some faint howls, probably from that warehouse taking up the last half of the next block. Looks abandoned. No trucks in or out, but a few guys have slipped through a gap in the razor-wire topped chain link and then gone in through a side door.”

He watched as Thomas peered down the street. “That’s suspicious.”

Dagger chuckled. “Yeah. Especially when they look both ways before they do it, to see if someone’s watching them, then pretend to nonchalantly stroll from the fence to the door after skittering through the gap in the fence. Like anyone watching from cover wouldn’t find that eyebrow raising.”

Thomas scrunched up his face, as if making a decision. “Well, then, I guess I should mist out and go take a look. I’ll be back … when I’m back, I guess.” He began to fade from translucent to transparent.

“Better if we go in together.”

Thomas popped back to translucent, becoming almost tangibly opaque as he sat … or hovered … in the bucket seat of the muscle car.