Pros and Cons

  By the time I left Douglas’s town house, I knew there were only two ways to keep Fowler from coming after Heather and Douglas. The first and easiest way was to kill him, but I’m not a murderer, so that option was firmly off the table. The second way was to set him up for a long, hard fall. The kind that would put him in prison for the rest of his natural life. The setup, however, was going to be something of a bitch to pull off.

  In theory, I could use Heather and Doug as bait to lure Fowler in. Set up some kind of a trap, where I could catch him on camera threatening their lives. Unfortunately, there were numerous problems with the idea. Fowler might not come after Heather and Doug himself. He had people for that kind of thing. And even if he did come in person, he might well shoot first and ask questions later. Catching Heather and Doug’s murders on camera wouldn’t do them a whole lot of good.

  I left Douglas’s house after securing his promise that he would give me a little time to work out a permanent solution to his problem before he went on the run. The promise of a con man isn’t worth a whole lot, but I had to hope he saw that it was in his own best interests to let me handle things. Besides, in the end, I would probably only need one of them to serve as bait.

  I stopped by Heather’s to give her an update on the situation, and I assured her that I had a plan in the works to hoist Fowler with his own petard. I didn’t mention how nebulous and uninspiring that “plan” was so far. Then I arranged a rendezvous with the member of Anderson’s merry band I least wanted to spend any amount of time with.

  Jack Gillespie is very possibly the most irritating person on the planet. A fact in which he takes great pride, I might add. He’s a descendant of Loki, the Norse trickster god, and he thinks he’s a laugh a minute. He isn’t.

  I trusted Jack about as far as I could throw him, and since my supernatural aim doesn’t come with a side order of inhuman strength, that isn’t very far. However, he is at least nominally one of the good guys, and his powers as a trickster could be key to putting Fowler away without endangering Heather and Doug.

  I’d feared that persuading Jack to help me would require a lot of verbal fancy footwork, because he isn’t what you’d call a natural altruist. However, when I called and told him I wanted to ask a favor, he asked only one question.

  “Will it be fun?”

  “Not to any normal person,” I said. Jack’s idea of fun included pissing off out-of-control death-god descendants, which in my mind made him certifiably nuts.

  “Sounds like it’s right up my alley, then,” he said, ever predictable. He probably wasn’t going to like it when he found out my plan involved avoiding mortal danger instead of plunging headfirst into it.

  Because Jack couldn’t wait until we were actually together to start being annoying, he declared that we would meet to discuss the situation at a combination bar and arcade in downtown D.C. I could have avoided the place if I’d been willing to go back to the mansion, but I feared the chances of Anderson catching me there at this hour were too strong. I, of course, had never been to a combination bar and arcade, but I was able to conjure up a pretty vivid—and, it turned out, depressingly accurate—mental picture of what it would be like.

  My first impression when I walked in the door was that the space was far too small for its intended purpose. The bar took up a significant chunk of wall space on one side of the room, and the game cabinets against the other walls were crammed in there so close I wondered if people bumped into each other while playing. My second impression was that if you were going to set up a space where you’d be blasting music while various video games bleep, bing, and honk, you’d be better off not choosing a place with interior brick walls and a tile ceiling. The brick was pretty, but the sound echoed and reverberated through the place with headache-inducing volume. Of course, normal people didn’t go to arcades for quiet conversation, so maybe it hadn’t been a bad choice after all.

  It wasn’t hard to spot Jack, who had beaten me there. He was hunched over a flashing, blinging pinball machine, hitting the flippers hard and fast, putting his whole body into the effort. It was an impressive display of dexterity, considering he was holding a bottle of beer by its neck in the fingers of his right hand. He didn’t look up as I approached, though I was sure he knew I was there.

  “You’re going to tilt the machine if you’re not careful,” I said. The ambient noise was loud enough that I practically had to shout. It was going to be a long evening, if the start of it was any indication.

  Jack gave me a sidelong glance. “Oh, ye of little faith,” he said, taking a moment to swig from his bottle of beer. The pinball took that opportunity to roll through the gap between his flippers. I hoped that meant the game was over and we could go somewhere quieter to talk, but I should have known better. The machine flashed a “game over” message, but that quickly blinked out and was replaced with “free ball.”

  “Here, hold this,” Jack said, thrusting his beer bottle into my hand. Then he pulled back the plunger and sent his “free ball” into play.

  I considered pouring the remains of his beer over his head, but he’d probably find that funny. And the bartender would probably get stuck cleaning it up.

  “Really, Jack?” I said instead. “We have more money than everyone else in this place combined, and you’re too cheap to just feed a few quarters into the machine?” In a lot of ways, Jack is the most powerful of all of Anderson’s Liberi. Not because he could cheat a pinball machine, but because of the impressive variety of skills he’d revealed over the short time I’d known him. I was pretty sure he could use his powers in more ways than I had yet seen.

  “I’d have had to start back at zero if I did that,” he answered, not looking at me this time.

  Don’t let him draw you in, I reminded myself. Arguing with Jack was a pointless endeavor. I bit my tongue and reminded myself to slip a big tip to the bartender when we left to make up for whatever Jack stole.

  “So,” Jack said, his eyes still on the ball as it careened wildly. “You said on the phone you needed some help setting up a sting. What can I do for you?”

  Silly me. I’d thought Jack would stop playing so we could talk.

  He didn’t turn his attention from the pinball machine once as I told him all about Heather and Doug and their ill-fated blackmail attempts. His lips twitched a couple of times—I suspected he found the idea of Doug running a scam on Heather, who was running a scam on Fowler, amusing—but that was the only indication that he heard a word I said.

  He kept right on playing after I’d finished telling him the whole story, saying not a word. I hoped his mind might twist the same way mine had, because I was pretty sure he’d like any plan better if he was the one who came up with it. I waited a good minute or two in hopes that he might be thinking things over, but it became quickly obvious that he wanted to force me to do all the talking. Like maybe contributing something to the conversation himself would be too much trouble.

  I get that he’s descended from a trickster god, but is it really necessary for him to be so annoying all the time?

  I let out a sigh of resignation. “Well?” I prompted, trying to hide my annoyance because I knew he’d enjoy it. “Do you have any brilliant ideas for how I can get Fowler locked away for good without risking getting Heather or Doug killed?”

  He waited a little while longer to answer, bouncing the ball repeatedly off of the same bumper, making the same high-pitched dinging noise over and over again until I wanted to do something much more violent with the beer bottle I was holding than simply pouring it over his head. Then, as if he hadn’t been focused on the game with such intensity for the past fifteen minutes or so, he took his hands off the buttons and stood up straight, letting the ball roll through and ending his game.

  “Why ask for ideas when you already have a plan?” he inquired with one of his cocky smirks.

  So much for my attempt to make him think the plan
was his idea. I was just going to have to hope he thought it would be fun anyway. Here goes nothing, I thought, resisting the urge to cross my fingers.

  “My first thought was to use Heather and Doug as bait and try to lure Fowler into doing something incriminating that I could catch on video.”

  Jack snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh, brilliant!” he said. “Because this Fowler guy is likely to come after Tweedledum and Tweedledumber personally. It’s not like he might, you know, send one of his hit-man buddies to take care of the problem for him.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I said that was my first thought. Generally, when someone tells you something was their first thought, it means they came up with something better.”

  “Then maybe they should have skipped right to the something-better part. Just sayin’.”

  I was letting him get to me, and I knew better. Although if I somehow, miraculously, didn’t let him get to me, odds were he’d just try harder, so maybe giving in early and often was the key to maintaining my sanity.

  “Did you know your ears get red when you’re pissed off?” Jack asked, really enjoying himself at my expense.

  “Fascinating. My heart rate and blood pressure go up, too. And I start fantasizing about slow and painful ways to kill people. So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, how would you like to play the role of Wayne Fowler in the sting I just described?”

  One of Jack’s gifts from his divine ancestor is the ability to shape-shift. I’d seen him turn into a huge black hellhound, a fluffy white poodle, and a perfect doppelgänger of Konstantin. I doubted he would have any trouble duplicating Fowler.

  “Hmm,” Jack said, rubbing his chin as he mulled it over. “Not bad. Saves you from having to persuade Fowler to show up in person. And reduces the chances of anyone getting killed.”

  “We can also be sure you’ll say something incriminating enough to put Fowler away.”

  Jack looked doubtful. “Might be hard to get him put away on words alone. Would you mind if Doug got roughed up a bit? If I physically attack him, it’ll be much more convincing to a jury. You can spring out of hiding to save the day before it gets ugly. And don’t worry, I won’t touch your paying client.”

  I stared at him long and hard. His logic made perfect sense, but with Jack, I always had the sense that there were layers upon layers of motives. Was it really necessary to use violence, or was Jack merely making the suggestion because he thought it would be more entertaining and dramatic?

  “You don’t want to set up this elaborate sting and then have him convince a jury he didn’t really mean it when he threatened to dismember your client,” Jack wheedled when I hesitated.

  Dammit, he was right. We had to catch Fowler in action, not just talking.

  “Fine,” I agreed grudgingly. “Just remember, he’s human and breakable.”

  “I’ll be very gentle with him,” Jack promised with an earnestness I’d have been a fool to believe. “I’ll have to pay Fowler a quick visit so I can impersonate him.”

  I decided not to think about just what kind of mischief Jack might get into during this visit. What I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me, right? Besides, I had other things to worry about.

  “And I’m going to have to persuade Doug and Heather to show up for a meeting with a guy they’re sure wants to kill them.” I had a feeling that was going to be a daunting challenge. Especially when my plan ultimately required they reveal to the police that they’d been attempting to blackmail Fowler. I wondered if I could leave that part out somehow when I explained what I wanted them to do.

  “Remind them they might wake up dead someday if they don’t put Fowler away,” Jack said. “From what you’ve told me, neither one of them is as smart as they think they are, so you might be able to convince them they could get immunity in return for testifying against him. The authorities already have a hard-on for the guy, so it might sound believable.”

  Yeah, if Doug and Heather forgot that the authorities would already have a viable witness in me, plus video evidence that probably made any witness testimony a bonus rather than a necessity.

  Jack must have seen my doubt. “Desperate people don’t think things through, and these two are desperate. But let’s not give them a lot of time to consider other options. We should do it tonight, after we’re sure Fowler has turned in and won’t have a good alibi to confuse things.”

  Despite all my misgivings, I agreed. Having pulled a similar switcheroo with Jack before, I should have known better than to think he’d told me everything that was going on in that twisted mind of his.

  EIGHT

  Time was of the essence, so Jack and I set up our sting for just after midnight the very same night. Talking Douglas and Heather into playing the bait was every bit as difficult as I’d thought it would be. I told them I’d called Fowler and arranged for them to turn over the video in return for a promise that he would let bygones be bygones. Since no one in their right minds would believe Fowler would actually go for such a deal, I acknowledged that Fowler was more likely to show up with the intention of killing them once he got hold of the video.

  Not having enough money to fund herself if she tried to run away and create a new life where Fowler couldn’t find her, Heather was desperate enough to take the risk, even if it meant having to confess to her blackmail. Douglas was another matter. He was scared, but he was also an arrogant bastard who thought he was smarter than everyone else, that he was such a good crook he could disappear himself so thoroughly that even Fowler couldn’t find him. Of course, I don’t know if he’d have been quite so confident if he didn’t also believe I could pull off my sting without him. He figured he’d let me and Heather take all the risk. If everything went as planned, he’d be off the hook without any consequences, and if it didn’t, he’d go to his Plan B and make a run for it.

  He was right that I could have done the sting without him. All I needed was someone to play the helpless victim so Jack could incriminate Fowler both on video and with eyewitnesses. But I wasn’t about to let Douglas off so easy. I wanted to save both his life and Heather’s, but I also wanted them to pay for their crimes. Maybe they would learn a valuable lesson from this whole nightmare and turn over a new leaf when they got out of jail. So I might have played a little bit dirty. I might have been wearing a wire myself when I talked to Douglas about the plan, and I might have manipulated him into making a number of confessions that could get him in trouble if the police ever got hold of the recording. If that put me in some kind of moral gray area, well . . . I was okay with that.

  I arranged for our meeting to take place on a wooded running trail that would see little or no foot traffic late at night. The last thing I wanted was innocent—or not-so-innocent—bystanders getting in the way and screwing things up. Besides, Heather and Douglas would expect Fowler to meet them somewhere spooky, and a running trail in the middle of the night definitely fit the bill. The spot was just isolated enough to give us a modicum of privacy but not so much that we couldn’t park nearby. Best of all, it was outside the D.C. city limits, so I could legally carry my .38 Special. Not that I intended to use it, mind you, but it was an important prop for when we sprang the “trap” on “Fowler,” and since the police would be hearing all about it, I didn’t want to find myself up on firearms violations.

  I wanted someone to keep an eye on Douglas in case he had second thoughts, so I took him to Heather’s house. I was prepared to intervene in the event that feathers started flying. Luckily, Heather was too scared to do more than call Douglas a few unflattering names, and he seemed to be mortally embarrassed by coming face to face with her after what he’d done. I suspected he was used to being long gone before his marks ever knew they’d been conned, and that meant he never had to see the damage he’d caused.

  I gave Heather strict instructions to call me if Douglas made a break for it so I could sic the cops on him. Then I did a quick drive-by o
f Fowler’s house to make sure he was alibi-free. A peek into his garage showed me his car was there, and the lights were all off in the house. When Jack had stopped by Fowler’s office in the afternoon, he’d learned that Fowler’s wife and kids were off visiting her mother, so unless he’d brought some other woman home, he was alone in there, probably asleep.

  Satisfied that there would be no one who could truthfully say Fowler had been with them all night, I headed out to the rendezvous point nice and early to set up my surveillance cameras.

  You never experience true darkness in the heart of a big city, and there was enough ambient light that, after my eyes adjusted, I could walk without tripping over my own feet. The images my cameras would collect would be darker than optimal, but since Jack knew he was being recorded, he’d make sure to position himself in the best light so that the jury would have no trouble identifying Fowler when the prosecution showed them the video. And to make sure we got a good, incriminating view of his face, I had an industrial-strength flashlight with me that I would shine right at him when we sprang the trap.

  When I was sure all my equipment was ready, I hunkered down behind a clump of bushes to wait. I almost laughed to think how perplexed the real Fowler would be when he saw the video from tonight. He would think he was either insane or sleepwalking, or maybe even both.

  Heather and Douglas, both wired for sound, showed up right on time. Whatever anger Heather might have felt over being conned, she seemed to have gotten over it. I noticed she was clinging to Douglas’s hand as if it were a lifeline. I felt a little bad for terrifying her so badly, but it wasn’t like I could tell her she wouldn’t have to face the real Fowler tonight.

  While Heather looked scared to death, Douglas looked grim and determined. I’d made it very clear that his only choice was to show up, and he was making an appearance even though it went against every one of his con man’s instincts. He hunched his shoulders against the chill of the January night, and one hand was tucked into the pocket of his brown leather bomber jacket. He made a slight motion as if to pull his other hand free of Heather’s grip—it was pretty nippy out, and he wasn’t wearing gloves—but she held on tight, and he relented.