Conned: A Bureau Story (The Bureau Book 6)

by Kim Fielding

  “They’ll have a car or two out front, maybe an officer in the alley. But I have a plan. I’ll get us to the house; you get us inside.”

  “Sounds fair.”

  They took a crowded Geary streetcar, jostling and rattling up the hill. Abe watched the familiar scenery with a fresh eye and liked what he saw. San Francisco had a brashness, a beauty of mixed artifice and nature, a youthful bravado. It reminded him of the men who put on dresses and lipstick and beads, propositioning specific other men with the confident knowledge that they wouldn’t be refused. The city, a mixture of charm and danger, existed on its own terms and according to its own rules.

  He didn’t want to abandon it.

  At Eleventh Avenue they hopped off the streetcar. Mrs. Osinova’s grocery was nearby, leading Abe to wonder if he’d ever again taste her stuffed cabbage. But now wasn’t the time for food. Thomas walked a half block west along Geary Street and then turned north into the narrow alley.

  “It’s not going to be this easy, is it?” Abe asked. “Us just marching on up.”

  “Nothing’s ever easy.” Thomas stopped and grabbed Abe’s arm. “Look. When we get inside, we won’t have long. Five, ten minutes at the most. Can you find it that quickly?”

  “I don’t know.” He’d been thinking about where the dybbuk might have hidden the amulet—assuming it was indeed in his house. If the spirit was acting entirely on its own, it might have left the thing anywhere. Under a loose floorboard, perhaps, or at the back of a cupboard. Maybe even up in the spider-infested attic. But Thomas knew where he would secrete something small and valuable. If he had only a few minutes to search, that was where he’d look.

  “Too bad there aren’t any spells to find lost things,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, there are, but I don’t know them. And using them to find a magic item would be unwise.”

  “We’ll have to rely on luck then. Um, any chance you could ask the dybbuk?”

  Abe shuddered. “I’m not calling on that thing.”

  Although Thomas frowned, he nodded. “I understand. And Birdie?”

  “He might not know, and I don’t want to use him anymore. We’ve done enough to him already.” Birdie had earned his rest, even though Abe didn’t know if he’d ever get it.

  “We’ll have to rely on luck then. And your good sense.”

  If Abe had good sense, he would have realized long ago what was happening. And he wouldn’t be falling in love with Thomas Donne.

  They stopped right before Clement Street, still hidden by the shadow of the alley. Abe couldn’t quite see his house, but they were very close. He recognized the orange cat watching them from atop a trash bin. Sometimes it would nap on his front porch and let him give its chin a quick rub as he passed. Today he only smiled at it.

  “You’ll cross the street,” Donne ordered. “Then step out of sight in the alley there. Within a minute or so, you should hear a fuss. As soon as you do, run down the alley to the back of your house and get inside. I’ll join you when I can.”

  “Where will you be?”

  Thomas grinned. “Making the fuss.”

  He crossed Clement and entered the alley. Abe could see him jogging down its length toward California Street.

  Abe took a deep breath and crossed the street. He wasn’t sure how fast he’d be able to move right now, with his head still sore and the stitches pricking at his back. What if he stumbled? What if he couldn’t find the amulet? What if the dybbuk—

  He had barely gotten settled into the shadows of the alley before shots rang out—three of them, very fast and loud—in the direction Thomas had gone. Glass broke. Something heavy crashed. Well, that sounded like a fuss. He just had to hope Thomas was on the safe end of those bullets.

  Abe did a short lope down the alley, heading toward the back of his house. Sirens started up. It sounded as if two police cars might have been parked in front of his house but were now moving away. Nobody accosted him as he reached the back door, and it took him only seconds to manage the lock. The kitchen was as he’d left it, clean and tidy, but blood—his and Munroe’s—still marred the floor and walls of the hallway. It smelled like death. Munroe’s spirit, however, was nowhere to be seen, which was a considerable relief. Sometimes murder victims didn’t rest easy.

  Somebody had rummaged through the parlor. Chairs were disarrayed and overturned, the table in the back sat crookedly, and cards, gauze, and bits of paper were scattered everywhere. Several of his slate tablets had been broken and—far worse—the special cabinet he sometimes used for seances lay in chunks and splinters. It had been a beautiful thing, painted in bright colors and equipped with an array of secret drawers and latches. He’d mourn that cabinet later, if he survived.

  For now, he rushed to the black curtains hanging along one wall, parted them, and stepped into the small storage space behind. Someone had rummaged through his stash of props, damaging many of them. But… ah, there it was, dented but otherwise intact. The rusty tin box had flowers painted on the side and Cyrillic writing on the hinged top. It had once contained his mother’s favorite brand of tea, a drink so beloved that she’d brought a boxful of it in her luggage when the family emigrated. After she emptied it, she gave the box to Abe, who’d filled it with the tiny treasures a young boy found on the streets of the Lower East Side: a penny, a roller skate key, a few buttons, a rubber ball. Abe had later modified the box for some of his very first magic tricks, and later still, had proudly showed the box to his mentor, Emil.

  He tucked the box under his arm and was about to leave when someone ran into the room. He peeked around the edge of the curtain and was relieved to see Thomas, panting and red-faced but apparently unharmed. “We have to go,” Thomas said urgently. “Did you find it?”

  “Maybe.” Abe hadn’t had time to check.

  They rushed to the back door, Abe wondering whether he’d ever see his home again, and then ran north up the alley toward California Street. They’d almost made it when a man in a suit stepped out from between two houses on their left. “Freeze!” he barked, pulling a gun.

  Thomas shot him. Just like that, without hesitation, his movements so fast that Abe barely tracked him. The man collapsed with a grunt, clutching his chest. Thomas didn’t slow down; he grabbed Abe’s arm and pulled him to the opposite side of the alley. “Hurry!”

  Abe’s wounds hurt, but he did his best to keep up. Thomas led him on a serpentine route between houses and through alleys, finally busting open the flimsy wooden door of a shed and dragging Abe in. He pulled the door closed.

  The shed smelled of mouse droppings and rotting wood, and only a little light snuck in through a crack in the roof. The sirens remained distant, and during several minutes of stressful waiting, nobody had barged in on them.

  “Did you kill that man?” Abe asked.

  “Didn’t stop to take his pulse.”

  Abe wasn’t sure what to feel. The victim could have been an honest policeman simply doing his job, or he could have been another of Townsend’s men sent to kill him. Well, there was nothing to be done about it now.

  “Did you find the amulet?” Thomas demanded.

  “Let’s find out.”

  “Do you need more light?”

  “No.” Abe had managed the box in complete darkness before.

  If someone had opened it, they would have found it empty except for the faint odor of tea. But as Abe pressed the inside in exactly the right spots and in the right sequence, hidden springs activated and an entire side swung open, revealing a hidden chamber lined with thick fabric to keep any contents from rattling around. When he was just starting out, it had been the perfect way to con a quarter out of rubes. They’d give him the coin, he’d hide it in the box, and the rube—usually amused enough not to protest—would believe Abe had made it disappear.

  And now it was the perfect place to hide… an amulet.

  He held the thing up to the light. It wasn’t much bigger than a quarter, in fact, although it was heavier. Possibly solid
gold, in fact. There were carvings and a few gemstones, but the talisman was filthy, and he couldn’t discern details in the poor light.

  “Six people have died for that,” Thomas said.

  “Six that we know of. Objects like this tend to have a bloody history.”

  “Do you want to keep it?”

  Abe looked at him in horror. “No!”

  “You could become a ruler.”

  “I don’t want to rule anyone. I’d be horrible at it. I’m not a good man. I’d… I’d never trust myself for something like that.”

  For some reason, that made Thomas smile warmly. “Right. Then we need to decide what to do with the bloody thing.”

  The longer Abe held it, the heavier it became. It felt oily in his hand, and warm. “I’d rather you hold onto it while we decide,” he said.

  Thomas took the amulet, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and tucked it into an inner pocket. “This isn’t the best place to decide. Let’s get out of here.” He crept out of the shed, gesturing with his hand for Abe to wait. Then he disappeared, and for a terrible minute or two, Abe thought he wouldn’t come back. He did, though, and this time he waved at Abe to follow.

  They spent a good half hour wandering through a maze of alleys, side yards, and shops until Abe, who’d lived in the city for nearly twenty years, hardly knew where they were. He was surprised when, turning a corner, he spotted familiar ground. “We’re going to Golden Gate Park?”

  “I think we should go see the buffalo.”

  Abe assumed he was joking, but apparently not. Thomas led them to the paddock, huffed in what might or might not have been approval at the huge animals, and then walked toward a stand of trees. He stopped when they were tucked among the shrubbery.

  “A good hiding spot,” Abe observed.

  “Not all that good. A few months ago I found a client’s husband here with a lawyer’s cock up his arse.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Told the bloke on the bottom that when his wife asked for a divorce, he’d better say yes.”

  Abe chuckled. “Did you plan to reenact the event now?”

  “Don’t think you’re in any condition for it, love.”

  Fair enough. There might have been some parts of Abe that didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t find them. Besides, the presence of the amulet made him uneasy. He pulled a bottle of gin from his coat and took a long pull, grimacing at the taste. He’d pay a great deal for some slivovitz or good whisky right now. “What do we do next?”

  “That’s your decision.” They had dropped their voices for privacy’s sake.

  Abe blinked at him. “Mine? Why mine? It’s your case.”

  “And you expect Townsend’s going to pay me?”

  “I bet he’d pay you plenty if you told him you had the amulet.”

  Thomas shook his head. “He’d turn around and kill us both. Besides, I don’t want him in charge either.” Then he surprised Abe by reaching over to stroke his face. “I’m just a private dick, for hire by anyone with a few dollars. Townsend tried to kill you. Magnus used you. That makes this your decision.”

  “I thought you didn’t trust me.”

  “Don’t trust myself either.”

  Abe considered their options. They could throw the amulet into the ocean and flee the city, but then he’d spend the rest of his life feeling like a hunted rabbit. And he suspected that the right kind of magic could find the amulet, even in the Pacific; objects like this one had a way of not staying lost for long. They could hand it over to Townsend in exchange for a lot of money and a promise to let them be, but he had no confidence that Townsend would honor the promise. Like Thomas, he didn’t relish the idea of President Townsend. Then there was Emil… but that was even worse.

  “The Bureau,” he finally said with a sigh. He didn’t know whether that was a safe option either, but it seemed a better bet than the others.

  “Right. We’ll go find a phone and ring Agent Crespo.” Thomas left their hiding place and began striding back toward the buffalo paddock.

  It should have been a relief to reach a decision, but before Thomas made it into the open, Abe grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

  “Yes?” No surprise on Thomas’s face. Just… expectation, perhaps.

  “Between them, look what Townsend and Emil have done. I have a bullet hole in me and I’m only alive because of Birdie, who’s stuck now because of it. As for what Emil did….” He swallowed thickly. “He shoved a dybbuk into me more than once. That’s essentially rape, Thomas.”

  Thomas nodded and gave Abe’s lips a quick swipe of his thumb. Such tenderness inside a hard man made Abe want to melt, but there was no time for that now.

  “What do you want?” Thomas asked.

  “I don’t know if the Bureau will do anything to them. I guess they have their own priorities.” He licked his lips, tasting the salt of Thomas’s skin on his own.

  “The government always does.”

  Abe closed his eyes and thought for a moment, then took a deep breath and looked Thomas in the eyes. “I want to stop both of them. Permanently.”

  Thomas gave the brightest smile of all.

  21

  They were in a blind pig deep in the Tenderloin. The place didn’t have a name, and although it must have opened after the 1906 earthquake—and probably hadn’t been cleaned since—it looked and felt like one of London’s most ancient pubs. It was deep and dark, and it served enough booze to meet Abe’s needs. Plus the owner was in far enough with the cops that they pretended not to notice the joint’s existence, but not so far that he’d inform on Thomas and Abe.

  That made it perfect. Thomas and Abe sat at a rickety table in the back, both downing gin and Thomas smoking cigarettes. Abe’s face was drawn with pain, but he didn’t complain, keeping his back straight and chin up.

  “Charming place,” he said, lifting a brow at a patron who was passed out drunk and drooling on the table. The man had wet his trousers, but the reek of urine was barely noticeable in the general stink of the place.

  “You want to return to the Garden Court?”

  “Maybe not.” Abe sighed and rubbed his head. “I’d really like to return home, actually.”

  Thomas didn’t miss his own miserable little flat, and it had been years since anywhere had felt like home. But he could understand Abe’s feelings nonetheless. “It’d be lovely to fix all this in a way that meant you could go back.”

  “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “No. But I’ve recently learned that loads of impossible things exist.”

  When Abe grinned back, Thomas’s heart beat an obnoxious little pit-a-pat and his cheeks felt hot. No, damn it all, Thomas was not going to fall for this man, no matter how bewitching he was. Despite the fact that he was beautiful. And smart and funny and strong, with a big enough wicked streak to make him irresistible. A man who could be shot and possessed by spirits, could lose his home and be betrayed by his mentor, and yet still sit in a shitty blind pig with a bottle of gin and a genuine smile.

  Push it away, Donne. Other problems to solve right now. But he could almost have sworn he heard Birdie laughing the same way he used to whenever Thomas was being stubborn and stupid.

  “So, your plan?” Abe asked, his eyes falsely innocent.

  “Nothing fancy. We lure them both with the amulet as bait.”

  “At the same time? That seems risky.”

  “It’s risky any way we turn it, love. But if they’re both there, the odds shift, you see. Each of them opposed to the other as well as to us—takes some of the pressure off you and me.” He wasn’t sure this was true. But in the end, he’d prefer to have all the players in the same spot, where he could see them all.

  “Okay.” Abe gave a small shrug as if it were as easy as that.

  “How did Magnus force that dybbuk into you?”

  “I don’t know. Emil’s not like me—he doesn’t usually see spirits. But he knows I do. And he’s a scholar. If there’s a way to control spirits
, he could find it.” Abe frowned deeply. “I wonder if he planned to use me all along. God, I wonder if he’s used me before.” He dug his fingertips into his brow.

  “Drink some more.” Abe obeyed as Thomas tried to marshal his thoughts. “So we can assume that he’ll try again.”

  “He might be trying right now, for all I can tell.”

  “Have you any defenses?”

  “No. Except now that I know what’s happening, maybe I can fight off the intrusion. Or maybe not.”

  Thomas had assumed as much. It added a layer of danger and uncertainty to an already precarious situation. But he’d never been one to live safely, so no point in trying now. “We’ll lure them both at once,” he announced. And hope that the sprits keep their distance.

  Someone had been in Thomas’s office. The furniture was out of place and the drawers half-open. But there hadn’t been anything worth stealing, and the intruder was likely long gone. Thomas opened the windows, and the last of the day’s sunlight made bright shapes on the scuffed wooden floor.

  Abe started to help him set things to rights, but Thomas growled at him to sit down, and Abe obeyed. It occurred to Thomas—not for the first time—that Abe seemed eager to let him take the lead, both in bed and out. Perhaps if someone spent his life on his own but subject to being taken over by spirits, it was a relief to have a living man in charge. And truth be told, Thomas was enjoying that role far more than he should be, under the circumstances.

  Collapsing heavily into the chair behind Thomas’s desk, Abe swiveled around to look out the window and spoke without looking at Thomas. “What will we do with them when they get here? Will you shoot them dead?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Abe remained silent for a moment, his gaze fixed on the view, and then his shoulders slumped a bit. “No. They both deserve it, but….”

  “Could torture them first. Shoot out their knees and make them crawl, carve them up with a blade, scorch them.” He took out his lighter and flicked it aflame for emphasis, even though Abe’s back was turned.