by Cari Z
“TGI Friday’s, down on the Magnificent Mile. Be grateful―I could have you buying me a fifty dollar steak.”
I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest. “Don’t get carried away just because you get to play private investigator for a while.”
“Hey, I don’t have to be a PI to know my shit. Reporters are fact finders. I could do this in my sleep,” he chided as we turned onto the highway.
“Oh yeah? Then tell me what you’ve found out.”
“Not yet.” He glanced sidelong at me. “I need to make sure of something first.”
I knew what was coming; I fucking knew it. I groaned. “For fuck’s sake. Really?”
“Do you have any idea the kind of weird shit that’s going on with these people?” he asked. “I’ve got to make sure you’re above board before I do any more business with you.”
“Yeah? And how can I possibly prove that to you?”
“Tell me what they’ve got on you that makes you so anxious, and let me verify it.”
I shook my head. “No way. This is you angling for a story, Andre, and you already got your story from me. I told you not to expect a new one.”
He waved a hand dismissively. “You didn’t tell me not to, either, and you know what? There’s something happening here. That other story was a puff piece for a magazine about psychics. This is about the Icelandic mob moving some sort of illegal contraband into the United States and throwing its weight around to make sure no one comes down on them before they move it again. And when I say weight, I mean some heavy-duty shit, Cillian. Political, monetary, and mercenary leverage. This is a real story.”
Aaand here was the unwitting deprecation of my entire life. I was good at taking it, but I had rarely been in less of a mood to. It seemed that living for a few months with people who were like me, who believed me, had spoiled me. Andre knew what I could do, and I had expected to be taken at face value, especially after he’d done an entire interview with me. Apparently he considered that prior experience a waste of time.
Fuck that. “Look at me.”
“I’m driving, man―”
“The road is clear for the next two hundred yards, this won’t take me long. Fucking look at me.”
Andre kept his eyes resolutely forward for another moment, surveying the traffic and slowing down a little before, finally, turning his head. Our gazes met, and I pushed myself hard, fell into his mind and past his surface thoughts―ridiculous, not really a, oh my god―and beyond into the depths of his past, and his future.
Three seconds later, I broke eye contact. “Journalism major but you entered the Marine Corps right out of university because you thought it would make your daddy proud of you the way college wasn’t going to. You did two tours in Afghanistan, and you hate it there, but you also can’t stay away, can you? You’re always thinking about going back, looking for whatever you feel like you lost over there, but you’ll never find it again.”
“So you did some research on me,” Andre said, his lips pursed tight, eyes staring straight ahead. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“You’ve got a baby girl who’s five months old and has been colicky for the past three days. She keeps you and your wife up at night. You love her, but you don’t know how to tell your wife that you’re going to accept a contract to go overseas again in three months and leave her alone with the baby.” I plowed ahead, ignoring the growing strain on his face. Question me? Let’s see you question me now.
“You haven’t fit into the life you thought you should have ever since getting back from the war, and you never completely will. You have a scar above your left knee that you scratch at when you get nervous, and you secretly like how easily you can tear the skin and make it bleed. It makes it feel fresh, like it’ll never go away, and you don’t want it to.”
“Shut up now, Cillian, or I swear to god―”
Time to back it off a little, or I might self-righteous myself out of any help. “You’ve got a special speech all planned out for your daughter’s first date, and it’s going to scare the shit out of that boy, but he wouldn’t have been good for her anyway. You’ll be there to walk your daughter down the aisle, and your first grandchild will be named Andrea, after you. You’re a survivor.” I exhaled noisily, letting go of the visions as best I could. They were still lurking in my mind, and they’d be there forever now, but I had plenty of practice pushing them back. Andre wasn’t the worst I’d seen, not by far.
“And I’m a psychic. You don’t think that a person like Egilsson would be able to find a use for me?”
“He did before,” Andre guessed after a tense minute. “When you told me about being a guest, you meant more like a prisoner, right? This is a personal thing for you.”
“I certainly don’t give a shit about the mob.”
“Huh.” We drove the rest of the way to the restaurant in silence, but it wasn’t the kind of silence that made me worry I was going to be shoved out of the door onto the road. That was an improvement.
Andre managed to find parking in a ridiculously crowded section of downtown, in the middle of skyscrapers I’d never seen before. I felt positively tiny and completely insignificant. It was kind of nice.
“The Magnificent Mile,” Andre said as we got out of the car. “Shopping and lodging for people with more money than sense.”
“And we’re eating at TGI Friday’s?”
He smiled at me, a little narrow but still genuine. “Everybody wants to slum it sometimes.”
“Why are we here?”
He snorted as we walked down the sidewalk. “What, you didn’t see that in my head?”
“I don’t see anything that connects to my own fate.”
“So you never know what’s going to happen to yourself, just to other people.”
“Yeah.”
He sighed. “Gotta say, I’m real tempted to pop you in the mouth for what you pulled in the car, but I don’t start shit with guys who can’t fight back.”
“Not to mention you had it coming.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “Come on.” We went in and were seated fast inside the overly bright, overly neon restaurant. We got water and ordered burgers, and then Andre started pulling things up on his phone.
“So, this is your guy’s warehouse.” He showed me a picture of a two-story brick building with high, opaque windows. “It’s huge, twenty-thousand square feet, and he had some big-ass skylights installed before he moved whatever contraband he’s got into there. It’s also guarded.” He swiped a few more pictures across the screen. “Four people are always on site, two outside, one just in the door, and another on the roof.” I quickly checked the pictures for Sören, but he wasn’t there. “What I’m getting at,” Andre continued, “is that you’re not gonna get into that place. Not the way it is now, not without major backup that I don’t think you’ve got.”
“Great,” I muttered, grabbing my pain meds from my pocket and popping one out. I washed it down with some water and grimaced. “What else?”
“Well, Egilsson himself? He’s not staying at the warehouse. He’s in a hotel, checked in as Ollie Venkin. He got two suites, one for some bodyguards and another for him and a guest.”
A guest…it had to be Sören. If something strange was going on, he’d want to keep Sören close. “Which hotel?”
Andre grinned. “Glad you asked. We happen to be one block from it. It’s the Omni.” He looked at me. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a nice suit in your bag, huh? Sports coat, maybe? They’ve got a bar―good place for some recon―but it’d be easier if you looked the part.”
I’d left most of my nicest suit in the club, and the pants had been unfixable after sliding through broken glass. “Shit.”
Our burgers came, and we lost a couple minutes of conversation to hunger as my appetite caught up with me. Marisol’s chicken and rice had been delicious, but it had also been yesterday, and I hadn’t eaten since. It was almost one now.
“Never mind,” Andre said after
most of the food was gone. “I can go in and do the initial sightseeing.”
“No, you can’t. Your wife’s about to call.”
“My―what?” His phone rang a moment later, and he stared at me unblinking. I carefully avoided his eyes, and he finally answered the phone. “Hey, baby. Yeah. Really? No, I can do that, sure…yeah. I’ll be there soon.” He hung up and stared at me. “My sister-in-law just went into labor. I’m supposed to meet the family at the hospital as soon as I can.”
“Fancy that.”
“Did you do this?”
I laughed―I couldn’t help it. “Did I what, jumpstart your sister-in-law’s labor? How the hell would I do that?”
“How the hell do you do any of the stuff you did?”
“Good question, one for the ages.” I didn’t say anything else, and he looked away after a moment.
That was fine. It was better I be alone for the next part anyway.
Chapter Ten
Far be it from me to confess to a fault, but if I had to name one off the top of my head, it would be vanity. Used to be pride, or maybe arrogance, but after you got kidnapped, tied up, and threatened with death enough times, the arrogance bled out of your system. Literally, in some cases. So, while I might be confident in my abilities, I wasn’t arrogant.
Vanity, though―well, fuck it, I knew I looked good. I had my mother’s eyes and nose and her rail-thin build, but my naturally dark hair, the square of my jaw, and my height all came from my unnamed sperm donor. I might look like a tattooed punk, but they were nice tattoos. They should be―I had put a lot of thought into them. Each one had a meaning, a little slice of purpose inked into my skin.
I’d met a guy once, back when I was fifteen and invincible, who could actually pull his tattoos off his body into the objects they represented. He had a stiletto along the inside of his forearm, a gun at his hip, and lock picks along his thigh. He had to keep getting them done, he told me when we were drunk one night, because eventually his trick wore the ink away, and eventually there was nothing but blank skin. He’d been there when I’d had the work done on my throat, a winged Eye of Horus spreading out across my Adam’s apple and around my neck. He’d kissed me afterward to distract me from the pain. He’d been one of the only people smart enough to know what I did and not ask for a glimpse into his future. I almost wished I had looked anyway. I could imagine him enjoying himself, living large, an ever-changing palette of color and design.
My tattoos were noticeable because I liked them that way, and also because by in large, I tended to hang out with a more, shall we say, relaxed crowd than the business-elite happy hour contingent I was going to find at the Omni. Most of my ink could be covered up by a well-tailored suit, though, and that was what I left to find after I finished my burger.
I had to hand it to the guy in the shop―he didn’t bother with a double take when he saw me, just stepped right up. “Good afternoon, sir. How may I assist you today?”
“My last decent suit just met with an unhappy accident,” I said, casting my eyes over the tasteful displays behind him. No racks, just well-dressed mannequins representing a handful of upscale designers. “I need something as close to fitted as you can manage in the next hour.”
The man frowned, not quite hopelessly, but with more than a bit of doubt. “One hour won’t get you a decent suit. There’s no time to tailor anything significant.”
“It’s just got to be good enough to pass for a little while.” His frown got deeper. “I know this is a rotten thing to ask you for.” I meant it, too. People who made couture their careers were serious about it. “But it can’t be helped.”
He sighed. “Well, needs must, I suppose. Come with me, I think we have something in Tommy that might work.”
One hour was enough to get me into a charcoal three-piece suit, a crisp white shirt with French cuffs fastened with seed-pearl cufflinks, and a simple burgundy tie. I bought the cufflinks mostly because I felt guilty, but by the end of it, I did manage to look presentable, especially once he handed me a hat. I’d been missing my hat.
“You could look worse,” he said philosophically as he took my cash without question. “Come back sometime, and give me more than an hour to work with, ideally without a wounded wing as well―” He cast a glimpse at my bandaged arm, the bulge barely noticeable under the suit. “―and I’ll have you looking phenomenal.”
“You’re a miracle worker.”
“The duffel bag rather ruins the effect, though.”
“It’s temporary,” I assured him as I slung the bag over my shoulder. It made my arm ache, but I wasn’t going far. “Thanks again.”
The Omni was only two blocks down. I walked inside and gave myself a moment just to get the feel of the place. Sometimes, if I cast a very wide net and only caught glimpses into people’s eyes here and there, I could get an idea of things in the near future. It was nothing specific to an individual except how their day got derailed. I glanced from the front desk to the doorman to a server walking through the lobby and got an impression of…a parking garage? Level one? There was no reason a server would have to think about that sort of thing unless something loud was going to go on there, and I sort of specialized in loud. It was a starting point, at least.
I walked through the lobby, past the front desk and the curious eyes of the concierge working there, and back to the parking garage entrance. It was locked―only accessible by keycard, naturally―but a moment later, someone came along and opened it for me on their way inside. I slipped out, tucked the bag in front of the nearest car, just beyond where the cameras monitored, and then ducked back in before the door closed.
This sort of thing used to be a lark for me, back in Vegas. How to sneak in and out of casinos without getting caught, how far I could push it at roulette or craps before someone accused me of cheating. I’d been an idiot, but the skill set still had its uses. Speaking of skill sets―I needed to find a way into Papa Egilsson’s suite, and I needed to do it quietly. The last thing I wanted was a confrontation with that guy before I was ready. Or at all, honestly.
I considered going big. A fire alarm was highly effective at clearing a hotel, but if Egilsson and his crew were upstairs, it would put them on alert. Better to be subtle. I glanced around, caught sight of the bellhop again, and…hmm. Embarrassment. That would do. I wouldn’t need long, and the way those suitcases were piling up, an accident seemed almost destined at this point. Which, ha, turns out it was.
It didn’t take much for me to start a chain reaction of falls, from a woman in teetery high heels subsequently caught by her husband, who had to take a step back to do it and ran into the luggage rack, which then toppled the pile of bags, which then tripped up the bellhop, who ended up sprawled right in front of the door. The concierge behind the desk gasped and came out to help, and I went to make my move, but then―
I was frozen. I felt like a mouse under the eye of an owl, trying desperately to blend in as Ólafur Egilsson stepped through the front doors, escorted by one of his equally blond and enormous sons. He wasn’t looking at me―he was looking with bemusement down at the mess in front of him―but I still felt inexplicably trapped. He hadn’t changed at all. He was just as broad, a snowcapped mountain clad in linen and silk. He was also just as imposing. People unconsciously moved out of his way even as they struggled with the pile of bags. And his face…I averted my own eyes, not willing to risk catching a glimpse of his. I’d seen enough of his fate to last me a lifetime. The screaming was the worst. It was the first thing I’d sensed and the one thing that had persisted, no matter how deep I got, which wasn’t very.
This is an opportunity, my brain reminded me. Don’t waste it. Get moving already.
“Lend them a hand, Rolf,” Ólafur said to his son and then headed not for the elevators, but for the bar. Perfect. My lungs expanded more easily as I watched him move away. Rolf bent over to pick up a bag, and in a blink, I was there, under the guise of grabbing the luggage rack but taking a moment to pick R
olf’s pocket as well. He’d used the pants pocket, thankfully. I had no desire to brush up against his chest in an effort to get at an inside compartment.
I slid the wallet into my own pocket and then continued away with the luggage rack. “Sir, we need that here!” the poor bellhop called out, but I didn’t turn around.
“Back with it in a moment,” I promised as I punched the button for the elevator. It opened smoothly, and I got inside and shut the door as fast as possible. No one joined me, and I closed my eyes for a moment as the tremors in my fingertips subsided. Then I realized that the elevator wasn’t moving. “Fuck, fuck.” I pulled the wallet out and opened it up, looking for a keycard. There―room 224. A governor’s suite, of course. I rolled my eyes and punched the button for the twenty-second floor. The elevator rose smoothly and without pause, which was a lucky break.
I had maybe ten minutes, I figured. Ten minutes before Rolf checked for his wallet or Egilsson headed up to the room or someone else barged in. Hell, the room might be occupied for all I knew. I mean, it probably was, with Sören and who knew who else. Shit.
The door opened on the twenty-second floor, and I got out, pulling the luggage rack with me. It was past checkout time for most places, but before check-in, so there was probably a―perfect. Cleaning carts, two of them. I pulled off my jacket and waistcoat, removed my tie, and laid them on the luggage rack, which I pushed into an alcove next to the elevator. Hopefully I’d be back for it all soon, but if not…well, one more suit to regret. I walked to one of the carts, checked that the housekeeper was busy in the room, and then pushed it in the other direction, down to the end of the hall where room 224 taunted me with gold letters. I cleared my throat, caught my breath, and ran my thumb over the smooth plastic of the keycard.
One look, just one. If it was Sören and he seemed fine, I’d―I didn’t know. Find a way to get him alone. If things were off, I’d do something else. Yeah. Great plan.
I knocked on the door. “Housekeeping.” Nothing. There was a Do-Not-Disturb sign hanging from the handle, but I ignored it as I ran the keycard through the reader. The light turned green. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside.