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.
CHAPTER FOUR
“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.
* * *
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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.
He wasn’t around either, though. Dunno if he was off work or out on a case, and I don’t guess it matters. Point is, no dice.
I’ll tell you who was there, though, who saw me wanderin’ the paperwork-and-cheap-desks labyrinth and took it on himself to say somethin’ before I could figure out how to duck him. He marched right on up to me, all doughy and florid, mustache you coulda used as a whisk broom carvin’ out a path for him.
“Oberon.”
“Galway.”
“Havin’ a good morning?”
“Not bad so far.”
“Great. The fuck are you doing here?”
And that, ladies and gentleman, is a picture-perfect example of why—even though his job in Robbery made him better suited to the questions I wanted to ask than Keenan, who’s Homicide—I really hadn’t wanted to talk to Donald fucking Galway.
He hadn’t seemed to care for me much when we first met, a few months ago, but I didn’t guess he cared for much of anybody. And yeah, I’d skipped out on a meeting with him, but the department had rescinded the job offer we were supposed to discuss anyway, so he shouldn’t have any particular beef with me.
I wasn’t gonna put too many nickels down on that “shouldn’t,” though.
“Was kinda hoping to look at some recent robbery and theft reports,” I told him.
“Why?”
“I’m tired of the pulps and lookin’ for some light reading. Why do you think? It’s for a case I’m working.”
See, one of the few details I had managed to learn about Ramona—which you’ll remember if you been payin’ attention—is that she worked for a collector, someone among the ranks of the Windy City’s high and mighty who gathered mystical and mysterious objects for fun and profit. So if I was gonna dig her up, I’d decided that lookin’ into the disappearance of items that might fit that bill—and that hadn’t been fenced by Hruotlundt or his ilk—might lead me somewhere.
“I meant,” Galway half-sighed, half-shouted (and no, I can’t explain how he managed that), “why would I waste my time helping you?”
“Goodness of your heart?”
“I’m a Chicago cop. They confiscated that when I got the job.”
“Okay, how about ’cause it’ll take some of the workload off your shoulders if I close a case or three?”
“And it’ll add to my workload if I take the time to walk you through a whole fucking pile of files and you don’t close anything.”
“What can I say? You coppers get paid to take risks.”
“But not enough to deal with certain kinds of nuisances. How about you go climb your thumb and I go back to work?”
Yeah, so this wasn’t getting me much of anywhere. I looked around at the rest of the clubhouse, watchin’ cops pounding away on typewriters or gabbin’ away between desks, creating enough of a hubbub that I doubt anyone even really noticed me’n Galway talking, let alone paid us much attention. Swell: meant I should be able to stick my fingers in his head—metaphorically speaking—without anybody noticing.
I turned back to him, gathering my focus, and—
“Officer, that’s him! That’s him, right here!”
The both of us—and everyone else around—turned at that shout, saw a uniformed bull escorting a scrawny, mustached fellow with a black eye and swollen lip. He’d raised a spindly finger when he shouted, and that digit was pointed at me like the rifle on a firing squad.
“That’s the man who mugged me!”
* * *
I been in an interrogation room before. All drab walls and cheap furniture and a bright lamp. They don’t get any prettier with repeat viewings.
Galway was there, and a couple uniforms, and the guy who’d accused me. His name was Phelps; I’d picked up on that, on account of that’s what the cops were calling him. That’s my keen detective skills at their sharpest, see?
Wasn’t exactly normal, us all being packed into one room this way, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. We’d all come in here mostly to get out of the public eye, not so much for an actual grilling. Though it could still have gone that way.
“…understand you’re upset, Mr. Phelps,” Galway was saying. “And I know you think you’ve got the right guy. But Mr. Oberon here, he’s a private dick. He’s worked with us before, a lot.”
I’ll give the man his due. He may not be all that fond of me, but he still stepped up.
Not that Phelps was buyin’ a word of it.
“I don’t care if he’s the son of the Pope!”
“Uh…”
“I know what he did! It wasn’t even dark; the sun hadn’t gone down yet! He got in my face and laughed at me before he beat me!”
“Wasn’t me,” I said, not for the first time. I was leaning back in the chair, arms crossed, lookin’ more at the ceiling than anyone in the room. “I’ve never seen you before in my life, bo.”
“You’re a damn liar!”
Yeah, we’d been here before a couple times already. This conversation was chasing its tail something fierce.
Galway leaned in, which gave me a nice snootful of sweat and what I think was some combo of eggs, coffee, and liverwurst.
“Listen, Oberon, the guy’s pretty firm. I don’t think you did it, but I dunno if we’re gonna have any choice but to book you until we can get this straightened out.”
Hmm. No, we didn’t want that, did we?
“What time did I supposedly attack you?” I asked Phelps.
“Huh?”
Since I was surrounded by mortals, I went ahead and sighed.
“You said the sun hadn’t gone down. What time was it?” Then, when he just glared at me, “You were gonna actually included minor details like that in your police report, yeah?”
“About six-thirty or so,” he grumbled.
I did some quick subtraction in my head.
“There’s a couple lives on Burton Place, name of Marsters. Give ’em a ring. Ask ’em how their evening went yesterday.”
Took a bit of persuading—though not too much, and nothing mystical—and a lot of suspicious glares from Phelps, but one of the bulls finally went and got on the horn. Came back a few minutes later shaking his head.
“They ain’t too happy with you, Oberon.”
“Yeah, I figured. Wasn’t me who broke their crystal dingus, but whatever. I ain’t looking to be pals with ’em. I just need to know if they told you I was with ’em.”
“That they did.”
“And when did they say I left?”
“They weren’t exactly sure, but…”
“But?”
“Definitely after six.”
I raised an eyebrow at Phelps. “You wanna tell me how I got from Barton Place to the west side in time to put the broderick on you?”
“They’re lying! Or mistaken! Or—!”
“Look, Mr. Phelps. I’m real sorry you got beaten and robbed. But it wasn’t me.”
“I saw—!”
“Come on, Mr. Phelps.” Galway stepped around him and opened the door. “Officer Nichols will take your statement, and we’ll be on the lookout for someone who resembles Mr. Oberon here.”
“But—!”
“I’m sorry, he’s got an alibi. You heard it. Let’s go.”
Phelps glared at me the entire way out the door, nearly walking into the doorframe in the process.
As for me, this whole affair had me pondering a whole new heap of questions.
What’d been the purpose behind this? I sure as hell didn’t believe for one second it was a coincidence, that someone who just happened to look like me had mugged this poor sap. I may not look exactly the same to any given mortal, but I’m still me; still pretty close, between one soul and the next. This all but had to be deliberate. Disguise at least, and more likely magic. All kinda ways someone coulda done it—hell, give me a minute in someone’s head, muckin’ with their perceptions and memories, and I could make ’em believe something this way—but the most obvious answer? Shapeshifting. Again.