Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) (24 page)

J
onathan awoke, sweating from a dream of being torn apart by ravens. No matter how hard he had struggled, their beaks just kept jabbing and tearing his flesh.

“Shit. Now I remember why I don’t take those bloody pills,” he complained to the empty apartment.

With a groan, he sat up and swung his feet to the floor. He’d slept enough to get him through the upcoming ordeal. Although it had ended with a dream delivered by an ancient Greek’s guilt complex, he felt prepared.

He took a deep breath, stood up, and stretched as best he could without taxing his abused abdomen. Feeling something akin to human, he shook off the last lingering tendrils of the dream and stalked into the kitchen. He hoped he was wrong about having already drunk his last beer.

One quick glance in the fridge was all he needed to know that he wasn’t getting his breakfast out of it. He had gone to sleep knowing that when he woke up he would no longer be a private investigator but private security.

Jonathan stifled the echo of Mary Parson’s voice that rose unbidden from the graveyard of his memory.

He wandered over to the window to look with dismay at the snow. It resembled nothing more than tiny balls of soft white Styrofoam littered over the street. The sky hung low and heavy, the moon only a vague dark spot among the clouds.

“Charming.”

He turned away and went over to his phone. No new message awaited him, so he made a call without having to debate anything.

He placed an order with Bao for three Singapore noodles, three dumplings, and two beef with black bean. When Bao commented on the amount of food—a lot even for Jonathan—he explained how he planned to lock himself and his client into his office until the day of his predicted death had past.

Bao responded by telling Jonathan he would stay open late the following night, so they could both get fresh food and hot tea. Jonathan thanked Bao but told him not to go to any trouble.

“Not trouble, Mr. Alvey, courtesy and friendship.”

“Okay, Bao, thanks.”

“Good luck, Mr. Alvey.”

Jonathan hung up, feeling confused by Bao’s words. He liked Bao and his nephew, Quan. They had always treated him well. Bao saying that Jonathan was his friend had caught him off guard, however.

Jonathan didn’t consider himself a man with family or many friends. There was family, just not for him anymore.

‘Friends’ was Ralph Madden. Everyone else was just people.

He wondered if his inability to see friendship meant he just used everyone. Jonathan pushed the thought away. He didn’t have the leisure to think about it.

He had a client counting on him to keep him alive. That was all he should be thinking about. Yet Bao’s declaration refused to leave his mind completely as Jonathan began walking to his office.

Falling snow accentuated the dark sky. The light of the halogen streetlamps was off-putting and gave the street a surreal quality that Jonathan didn’t appreciate.

Winter was showing its intentions for the season, usurping autumn’s show, and sliding its face onto the marquee. It wasn’t here for good yet, just declaring its readiness to blanket the city and pound it relentlessly.

He shrugged the snow off his coat and climbed the stairs to his office. The elevator hadn’t killed anyone that he knew of—yet. But some days, Jonathan found he needed the almost Zen-like state that could be achieved by taking one step after the other. Plus, the rattling cage hadn’t killed anyone—yet.

He reached the third floor and walked to his office. Instead of creeping in this time, he drew his gun as he kicked open his door.

No one waited for him. Neither was anyone in his personal office.

Jonathan holstered his nine-millimeter and began to check the defenses he had fortified before leaving earlier.

Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. The salt still remained in place. He’d have to seal the front door once Wendell came in, but he could see no signs of tampering.

He hadn’t even sat down when he heard the rap on the side of his doorframe, and Quan called out his name as he entered.

“Big order, thought I’d have to make two trips,” Quan joked. “My uncle told me about your plan. You are a good man, Mr. Alvey.”

“Ah, you’re just sucking up for another big tip.”

“Don’t know what to do with them. Bought my uncle a nice watch with what you gave me.”

“And you say I’m a nice guy,” Jonathan smiled. “Look, Quan, I’m feeling a little worse for wear. Got into a bit of scuffle the other day.”

“The man with the blue suit?” Quan said, reminding Jonathan just how astute the kid was.

He chuckled. “Yeah. Listen, there’s a case of beer and some bottles of bourbon in the trunk of my car. The bottles I can do, but the case . . .” Jonathan shook his head.

“I’ll bring them up, Mr. Alvey. No problem.”

“Great. Thanks, Quan.”

Jonathan tossed the keys at the kid, who scooped them out of the air like a harpy going for a man’s heart.

Jonathan looked at the bill stapled to the brown paper bag. He dug out his wallet and simply placed everything left in it on the desktop beside the three large paper bags.

When Quan came back up, he had the bourbon on the top of the case of beer. He tried to dicker over the money, but Jonathan remained obstinate.

He opened the case and offered Quan a bottle of beer.

“Better not, Mr. Alvey,” Quan said with some reluctance.

“Your uncle wouldn’t approve?”

“Oh, it’s not that—but we are a bit busy, so I should get back.”

“Quan!” Jonathan exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have made you do my menial labor if you’d said something.”

“That is why,” Quan said with a grin. “You never ask for my help with something, Mr. Alvey. I figure that if you are asking me now, you must really not be in any condition to carry the beer.”

“What would I do without you and your uncle, Quan?”

“I suspect, get very hungry,” the kid said and then, looking at all the alcohol on the desk, added, “and very, very drunk.”

“Get outta here,” Jonathan grumbled with a smirk.

“See you later, Mr. Alvey.”

“Take it easy, kid.”

Jonathan put the paper bags full of food beside the desk on the floor. He got up and placed the bourbon in the filing cabinet. Then he opened the case of beer and gratefully took one out.

It was nice get the breakfast you wanted sometimes.

He enjoyed his first beer and allowed himself a second. Before he cracked the third, Jonathan did some further preparation for the night.

It took time to carefully complete the warding symbol outside the elevator doors, especially since he wanted it to blend into the scuffed, mock marble floor.

He did the same ward outside the door to the stairs, and on the second-to-top stair itself.

These marks would alert him should anything step on them, giving him precious seconds to be ready.

Feeling good about his accomplishments, he had the third beer and waited.

After almost an hour had passed, Jonathan got what felt like a kick from a teddy bear on the inside of his head. A moment later, Wendell walked into his office.

“Hey. I have beer, bourbon, food, and smokes. I’m going to complete some last minute preparations, so I advise you take this opportunity to use the washroom down the hall because once I’m done, it’s bottles and buckets.”

“Think that might indeed be a good idea, then.”

Wendell excused himself and Jonathan called up the elevator to prepare the last of his defenses.

When it clacked and shuddered to a stop, he blocked the door and went to work.

First, he laid a confusion sigil over the button for his floor in clear nail polish. He then placed the same ward he’d laid on the floor outside the elevator on the buttons for both floors above and below his office.

He let the elevator return to its normal functions and, seeing Wendell had returned, poured the salt across the doorway.

Jonathan had done the last of the preemptive maneuvers that he could. If Wendell could manage to remain in the protective circle for twenty-six hours, then he should be safe from whatever sought to harm him.

Wendell was looking at the case of beer when Jonathan returned to the office.

“Do you think that is such a good idea, if we are relieving ourselves into bottles?”

“I wouldn’t want to try it for longer than twenty-four hours, but I think we’ll survive. I also picked up some Coke and Red Bull, just to even it all out.”

“So . . . now?”

“Now? Now, we wait. We run out the clock on your expiry date and come out the other side.”

Jonathan picked up one of the bags of food from the floor. Opening it, he asked Wendell what he had done with the rest of his day.

“I slept. I didn’t think it fair for you to stay up all night while I got to sleep. It is because of me you’re doing this, after all,” Wendell replied, opening a beer. “What did you do, Mr. Alvey?”

“Slept, like you. And please, Wendell, it’s going to make the next—” Jonathan glanced at the old clock above his door, mechanically ticking away the minutes.  “—twenty-five hours and forty-four minutes really long if you keep calling me Mr. Alvey. For both our sanity, I really think you’d better start calling me Jonathan.”

“Jonathan—right.” Wendell sat down in the same chair he’d occupied the night before. He impressed Jonathan by making sure not to disturb the protective salt circle as he crossed it.

“I got enough for both of us,” Jonathan said, motioning to the bags on the floor. “Dumplings and some beef in black beans; it’s quite good, probably my third favorite dish.”

“I think I can guess what the first is,” Wendell commented with a chuckle.

Jonathan shrugged and shoveled a mouthful of the spicy Singapore noodles into his mouth.

A question came to him once he had swallowed. “When you first came here, Wendell . . . ?”

“Yeah?”

“Your face was dotted with tissue paper. Did you shave especially to come see me?”

Wendell’s pale face flushed. “Um, yeah. I know it seems silly—worried as I was—but I wasn’t thinking straight, see? I didn’t want to come in looking like a wild man, so I shaved, thinking I would look more . . .”

“Believable?”

“I guess. But I’d already shaved that morning, see? I always do. So, all I really managed was to nick myself—everywhere.”

“You know your hair was a mess, right?” Jonathan pointed out with a grin.

“I was quite stressed.”

“And yet,” Jonathan couldn’t help but get into it, “now, here we are on the cusp of the day predicted, and you are calm and collected.”

Wendell nodded.

“Not quite as much as I might appear. I am scared and anxious, Mister—Jonathan—but I have had a few days to wrap my mind around a whole lot, magic for one thing. I think the fascination is helping to dull the fear, see? Plus, well . . . I trust you.”

Jonathan sighed. He couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“Don’t worry,” Wendell said. “I’m not trying to put this all on your shoulders. I simply meant I believe you have done all that anyone could, see? I don’t know what is going to happen in the next day, but I feel that what happens now, happens. Better to enjoy what there is to enjoy,” he lifted his beer and smiled, “than to be all worked up and fretting. Besides, I can’t see how my being a spaz right now would help you do your job one single bit.”

“Huh. You are an interesting fellow, Wendell Courtney.”

“Also, did I mention I hardly ever drink?”

Jonathan laughed and raised his beer in salute.

For the first couple of hours, Jonathan and Wendell managed to make small talk.

Wendell spoke of his life growing up in a small town, spending his summers corn de-tasseling or picking tomatoes to save enough to pay for his college tuition.

He’d graduated from a notable business school and landed a job in the company where he still worked.

He had met a girl his final year of college and they had been in love, but she’d had a heart condition and died in her sleep just after he’d graduated.

Jonathan momentarily thought of pursuing that avenue, but a ghost couldn’t do everything that had happened, especially without leaving some evidence of its interference. Besides, a vengeful girlfriend after twenty-some years had to be one of the thinnest straws he’d tried to grasp at so far.

Having told his tale, Wendell asked Jonathan how he had gotten into the line of work of Private Investigator.

At first, Jonathan’s reaction was to shut Wendell down. He always found himself reluctant to share; too many painful memories were wrapped up in it.

But he realized he did want to talk about it after all. He offered an abbreviated version of his life.

He spoke of his childhood and his seeing the souls of the departed from early on. How it had been a sometimes terrifying and often confusing thing, made more awkward by being the son of an Anglican priest.

Wendell seemed to intuitively understand the complications that such a situation could cause, sparing Jonathan from explaining the troubled relationship he and his father had shared.

Instead, he spoke of how he had wanted to go into law enforcement as a way to help those who had passed on, but had dropped out when he realized it would never work.