by Tanya Huff
Lee handed Tony his green tea and visibly settled into his character as Tony moved back beside the camera. When he looked for Valerie, she was right where Lee’d left her, cradling the muffin in both hands. Suddenly becoming conscious of Tony’s regard, she turned her head slightly and their eyes met.
Tony almost recognized her expression.
“Upon reflection,” he said softly to himself, hands wrapped around the warmth of the paper cup, “I don’t think that’s why she came around either.”
*
“You don’t have to come in now, you know.” Eyes half closed, Tony stared blearily across the elevator at Lee. Early mornings were not his best time. “Cast call isn’t for another hour.”
Lee waved it off. “Five thirty, six thirty—they both suck. But my car’s back in the shop, it’s too early to haul one of the drivers out when you’re going in anyway, and once I’m there, I can always grab some shut-eye on the couch.”
“I don’t know.” Tony sagged against the elevator wall, the stainless steel cold even through three layers of clothing. “We’ve been seen a lot together lately, and that roommates thing only goes so far.”
“Tony, it’s five o’clock in the morning, even the paparazzi are still asleep. What’s up with you?”
“I’ve just been thinking about it, that’s all. About the choice you’re making for…” He waggled his coffee between them. “…us. And I want you to know that I appreciate it.”
“What the fuck brought that on?”
Lee’s eyes started to narrow, as if he could read the word “Valerie” in the space between them, so Tony hurriedly muttered, “I don’t know. Lack of sleep.”
After a moment, Lee leaned in, gently bumped the sides of their heads together— a manly embrace for the security cameras—and stepped away as the elevator reached the parking garage. “You’re an idiot.”
Unlike Lee’s expensive hybrid, Tony’s elderly car seldom broke down, and Tony gave thanks that his ancient brakes worked as well as they did when he pulled out of the underground garage and nearly ran down a brown-haired woman in a short blue dress.
“Is that…?”
“Yeah, I think it is.” Lee twisted in his seat as she disappeared behind a panel van in the small parking lot. “Pull over.”
“What?”
“I should talk to her.”
“About what?”
“I don’t…” Sighing, he faced front again. “Doesn’t matter. She’s gone. Maybe it’s the way we met, maybe it’s just that she’s so vulnerable in spite of… everything. I think she needs a friend.” When Tony glanced over, Lee was frowning slightly. “There’s just something about her, you know?”
“Yeah.” Tony could feel her watching from wherever she’d hidden herself and worked very hard at unclenching his jaw. “I know.”
*
Finished at four thirty—almost like a person with a real job—and back home by six, thanks to traffic, Lee sagged against the minivan’s seatbelt and muttered, “I should never have gotten rid of the bike.”
Richard, CB Productions’ senior driver, shrugged as he pulled into the condo’s driveway. “Well, you got domestic.”
“Jesus, Tony had nothing to do with it.” Lee wondered which of them Richard thought had lost their balls. “CB suggested the insurance wouldn’t cover me if I kept riding.”
Richard shrugged again. “Yeah, that’s a good reason too. You going to need a ride in tomorrow?”
“No, my car’ll be ready in the morning; I’ll drive. I’ve got a late call, it’s all Mason and the…”
Girl. Woman. She was standing on the other side of the street. Watching him through the breaks in the rush-hour traffic. Smiling. Looking good. Looking beautiful. Looking even better than he remembered, actually. The black sweater had fallen open, and soft curves filled out the drape of the dress.
“Lee?”
Lee was already out of the car. “Thanks for the ride, Richard.”
By the time the traffic cleared and he had a chance to get across the road, she’d disappeared. He crossed anyway, although he had no idea which way she’d gone or what he’d do if he caught up to her. He knew better. He was on a syndicated vampire show, for crying out loud, he’d had crazy stalking fans before. Not as many as Mason, but then, Lee wasn’t the one actually wearing the fangs.
He wondered if she was homeless. The unchanging wardrobe suggested as much. There really wasn’t much he could do, except give her money, but he found he wanted to do something. Be the hero.
He didn’t get much chance to do that these days.
*
It had been another fifteen-hour day, and all Tony wanted was a chance to spend some time with Lee before falling into bed and starting the whole grind all over again in the morning. The flashing lights on the patrol cars and other emergency vehicles, not to mention the bored-looking police officer approaching his car, suggested otherwise.
“Sorry, only residents are allowed into the building right now.”
“I live here.”
Her gaze flicked down to his car. When it flicked back up, she didn’t even pretend to hide her disbelief. “Driver’s license, please.”
Tony handed it over and stared past her as she checked his name against a list. Two EMTs were rolling an elderly man wearing sweatpants and a UNBC t-shirt out of the building on a stretcher.
Tony knew dead.
He knew freshly dead.
He knew long dead and decaying.
He knew undead.
This guy, he was dead.
“Who is he?” he asked, as a man in a rumpled trench coat zipped up the body bag.
The officer glanced over her shoulder. “No idea; no identification. Custodian found him in the mechanical room.” She handed Tony back his license. “ME says natural causes. You’re good to go, Mr. Foster.”
Lee was distracted that night, but hey, dead guy in the mechanical room, so Tony figured he had cause.
Hoped that was the cause.
Next morning, when Tony pulled into the studio parking lot, he found himself parking next to Constable Jack Elson’s red pickup. Jack had started coming around when a bit player had died under suspicious circumstances, had hung in there when the circumstances had changed from suspicious to really fucking strange, and continued to come around because he was dating the production company’s recently promoted office manager. Leaning on the tailgate, he was obviously waiting for Tony.
“Go easy in there,” he said, as Tony joined him. “Amy’s…”
“In a mood?”
“That’ll do.” Jack rubbed his hand over his head, ruffling his hair up into pale blond spikes. “I had to cancel on her again. I’m working a missing person case, and unless he magically appears in the next twenty minutes there’s no way I’ll be free for lunch.” Blue eyes narrowed. “He’s not likely to magically appear in the next twenty minutes is he?”
Tony rolled his eyes. The RCMP constable had been a part of what Amy liked to call “CB Productions and the Attack of the Big Red Demon Thing”, where all the cards had been laid on the table—and then incinerated—and was remarkably open-minded for a cop, while still managing to maintain his profession’s suspicious nature. “Not as far as I know. Why?”
“He was seen four days ago in Gastown. You were in Gastown four days ago. Know a twenty-seven-year-old named Casey Yuen?”
“Name doesn’t sound familiar.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You know they… well, we found a body in an alley down the street from our shoot?”
“The John Doe? I heard you found him. And I checked him out, but he’s about seventy years too old.”
“They found another elderly John Doe in the mechanical room at Lee’s condo last night.”
“I heard. You weren’t there when it happened.”
“You checked?”
Jack shrugged. “Things happen around you. But I also heard it was natural causes both times. And that the first guy’s heart had a good reason to give o
ut.”
Valerie. Who he’d seen outside their building the morning of the day the old man had died. It hadn’t even occurred to him to tie her to the second death until Jack’s innuendo.
“The second death occurred in the early evening,” Jack pointed out after Tony filled him in. “And I think I’d have heard if it was a second death by hand job. That’d make it a pattern and we watch for those.”
“Neither man had ID.”
“That’s not as uncommon as you might think.” Jack studied him shrewdly. “I’ll check to see if the second body gave any indication of recent sexual activity, but I suspect there’s another reason your working girl is hanging around. Lee was playing white knight at the scene and she showed up at the shoot later.”
“How…” Tony cut himself off. “Amy.”
Jack shrugged. “All I’m saying is that if the girl was outside your building, odds are good she was there for Lee, not because she’s been helping absent-minded old men die happy.”
“I’m not jealous.”
“Did I say you were?” But he was thinking it. Tony didn’t need to be a wizard to see that on his face. “Look, Tony, old men die. It happens. Sometimes they get confused and wander off without identification. Before he went into the nursing home, we got my granddad an ID bracelet, just in case. But, right now, I’m more concerned about that missing twenty-seven year old.”
“I could…”
“No.” Jack held up a hand. “I don’t want you out there playing at Sam Spade with a wand. I just wanted to know if you knew him.” If you were involved said the subtext. “If I run into any weird shit, trust me, I’ll call you.”
*
Tony didn’t have an office. He had a corner of a table in one end of the soundstage near the carpentry shop where craft services occasionally set out the substantials rather than have cast and crew tromp through the truck. Barricaded in behind a thermos of coffee and a bagel, he alternated between working on a list of what he needed to do before they started the day’s shooting and thinking about the woman in the blue dress.
Sure, Lee seemed taken by her, but Tony wasn’t jealous.
He was suspicious. Not the same thing.
The old guy in the alley had five hundred and twenty-seven dollars in his wallet and was dressed to score. Tony remembered his initial impression of trying too hard and anyone trying that hard—not a lot of eighty year olds would shoehorn themselves into a pair of tight, low slung jeans—hadn’t been wandering around randomly.
When he called lunch, Tony reminded everyone to be back in an hour, then told Adam he might be late. That there was something he had to investigate downtown. If Adam believed the investigation was necessary to protect the world from a magical attack, well, Tony wasn’t responsible for Adam’s misconceptions.
Jack Elson could go fuck himself. Tony wasn’t playing at anything. Two men were dead, Valerie had a connection to them both, and she was hanging around Lee.
And he didn’t have a fucking wand.
The drive into Vancouver from Burnaby wasn’t fun, traffic seemed to be insane at any time of the day lately, but Tony wanted the car with him, just in case. In case of what, he had no idea. Stuck behind an accident on McGill Street, he pulled out his phone and realized that of the three people he could call for advice, two of them would be dead to the world—literally—until sunset. His third option, Detective Sergeant Mike Celluci, would likely tell him the same thing Jack had. Stay out of it.
Lee was in it.
So was he.
As the car in front of him started to move, he pocketed his phone and hit the gas.
Gastown was a historic district as well as an area the city was fighting to reclaim, and in the middle of the day in late fall, the only people out and about were a few office workers hurrying back from lunch, a couple of bored working girls hoping to pick up some noon trade, and a man wearing a burgundy fake fur coat passed out in a doorway. The alley didn’t look any better by daylight.
Tony walked slowly past the graffiti and the dumpster and the other debris he hadn’t noticed that night. He walked until he stood on the spot where the old man’s body had lain, checked to make sure no one was watching, and held out his left hand. The scar he’d picked up as a souvenir of the night in Caulfield House was red against the paler skin of his palm. The call wasn’t specific; he had no idea of where the old man’s identification was, he just knew it had to exist.
That would have to be enough.
Come to me.
It took Tony a few minutes to realize what he was seeing—that the fine, grey powder covering his palm was ash. He traced the silver line back to a crack where the lid of the dumpster didn’t quite fit. Watched it sifting out and into his hand. There was quite a little stack of it by the time it finished. Mixed in with the ash were tiny flecks of crumbling plastic and what might have been flecks of rust.
The old man had ID with him that night. Someone had burned it then dusted it over the garbage in the dumpster. Even if they’d looked, the police would never have found it.
Tony flicked his hand and watched the ash scatter on the breeze.
Most modern identification was made of plastic.
It would take more than a cheap lighter to destroy it so thoroughly.
*
Lee wasn’t exactly surprised to see Valerie standing at the end of the driveway when he headed out to work. He pulled over and unlocked the passenger-side door. She stared at him for a long moment through the glass—although, given the tinting, he doubted she could see much—and then, finally, got into the car.
Enclosed, she smelled faintly of cinnamon. He loved the smell of cinnamon. Her lips were full and moist, the lower one slightly dimpled in the middle. Her eyes made promises as she said, “I know places we can go where we won’t be interrupted.”
“That’s not why I stopped.”
“That’s why everyone stops.” A deep breath strained the fabric of the dress. “I can give you what you need.”
“I have what I need.” As a line, it verged on major cheese, but it was true. “What do you need?”
“What do I…?” She blinked and the promises were unmade. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked startled by the sympathy. He had a feeling no one had ever apologized to her before, either. Slender fingers tugged at the hem of her dress. “I… I could use a ride downtown.”
“Okay.” Lee pulled into traffic. “That’s a start.”
*
Amber snapped her gum and pushed stringy hair back off her face. “So you’re not a cop?”
“No.”
“Or some kind of private dick?”
Tony spread his hands. “I don’t even play one on TV.”
“Then why are you askin’?” She sagged back against the building and yawned. “You don’t look like some kind of religious nutter. What’d this girl do for you that was so fucking great you need to find her?”
“It’s not what she did for me…”
“Ah.” Amber cut him off. “I get it. Jealous boyfriend.” She laughed at Tony’s expression. “Honey, you haven’t looked at my tits once, and even the nutters check the merchandise. And…” Her voice picked up a bitter edge. “…you turn, just a little, when a car goes by. Enough that a driver could check us both. You’ve got a history. Afraid he’s going to find out about it?”
“He knows.”
“Uh huh.”
Tony had no idea how this had suddenly become about him. “Look, I just need to find Valerie. Reddish brown hair, short blue dress.”
“Black heels? Black sweater, kind of cropped? She just got out of one of them expensive penis-mobiles on the other side of the street,” Amber added when he nodded. “At least someone’s making the rent today.”
Tony turned just in time to see Lee’s car disappear around the corner and Valerie walk into a sandwich shop. He shoved the fifty he’d been holding into Amber’s hand and ran across Cordo
va, flipping off the driver of a Mini Cooper who’d hit the horn.
The sandwich shop was empty except for the pock-marked, middle-aged man behind the counter.
“The woman who just came in here, where did she go?”
The man smiled, looking dazed. “I didn’t see a woman.”
“She just came in here.”
His smile broadened. “I didn’t see a woman.”
The guy was so stoned he wouldn’t have seen a parade go through. The only other door was behind the counter. When Tony moved toward it, he found himself blocked.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Counter guy didn’t look stoned now, he looked pissed.
“Look, I need to find that woman.”
And the smile returned. “I didn’t see a woman.”
It wasn’t magic, at least not magic Tony recognized, but it wasn’t right.
*
“I gave her a ride, Tony, what’s wrong with that.”
“Nothing’s wrong with it.” Tony paced the length of Lee’s dressing room and back again, wishing he had another ten or twenty meters to cover. “It’s just… she wants something from you.”
Lee rolled his eyes. “No shit. But I’m not going to give it to her. I feel sorry for her. She’s in a bad situation.” He caught Tony’s wrist as he passed and dragged him to a stop. “You should know about that.”
Except this still wasn’t about him. “I think she had something to do with those two deaths.”
“Then why did she scream that night in the alley? Why did she scream and attract attention to herself if she had something to do with the guy’s death?”
“She screamed because I was already on my way into the alley. She knew she was going to be discovered and screaming would shift suspicion away.”
“You have any evidence to support this theory?”
“I found the old man’s ID…”
“Tell Jack.”
“It’s been destroyed. I’m guessing that between the time he died and the time she screamed—and he was still warm so that wasn’t long—something reduced his ID to a fine ash.” Tony twisted out of Lee’s grip. “Your average hooker couldn’t do that.”
“You could.” From the look on his face, Lee knew exactly how that had sounded. “Look, you have no proof Valerie’s involved in anything but bad timing. You’re not a detective…”