Third Time's the Charm

by K. J. Emrick

  It’s not really a shortcut to anywhere but people like to walk through here and look at the murals, or sit and talk, or just hang out on their lunch hours. With all these people coming and going, no one ever notices a tall and wiry man with skin the color of coal and teeth the color of bleach leaning against the brick wall to one side, huddled into a long tweed coat, smoking a cigarette. Behind his plastic sunglasses, however, Parker sees everyone and everything.

  “You know those cancer sticks will kill you one day,” I say, leaning against the wall next to him, our backs up against an artist’s rendition of a dancing bear balancing the Earth on its nose. Art. Who can figure it?

  Parker takes a long pull on his Marlboro and then slowly, luxuriously, he lets the smoke filter out between his lips. Then he smiles. “Might kill me someday, might not. In the meantime it’s pure enjoyment, Sister Sidney.”

  With my future-sense, I hear those words coming before he says them—Sister Sidney—and I can’t help but smile. Me and Parker aren’t related. He just calls everyone ‘Sister-this’ or ‘Brother-that.’ He likes people. Everyone who knows Parker treats him as a friend, even the police officers who have arrested him countless times. You’d never know that he was any kind of criminal by looking at his smiling face, or his braided dreadlocks, or the multicolored scarf wrapped around his neck. He is, though. He’s a dealer in stolen goods—or a ‘procurement reallocation specialist’ as he calls himself. Standing here, in the Belt, he looks just like any other resident of the Motor City.

  His mother knitted him that scarf, for crying out loud. How bad can a guy be who still loves his mother?

  “Business or pleasure?” he asks me after another puff of smoke.

  “It’s business this time, Parker. Although it’s always a pleasure to come visit you.”

  “Aw, shucks. You gonna make my ebony cheeks blush, saying things like that.” He chuckles and drops the cigarette to the pavement to crush it out under the toe of his hiking boot. “You know my going rate. We cool with that?”

  “Always.” I wait for a group of women in business suits to wander by, taking pictures of the murals on their cellphones. When they’re far enough away I lean in toward Parker and ask, “So. Did you find anyone trying to move a statue like the one I described?”

  He leans down to meet me halfway, since I’m half a foot shorter than he is. “Yes, and no.”

  I glare up at him. Even though I knew what he was going to say, I have no idea what it means. “Parker, I don’t pay your going rate for ‘yes and no.’ Did you find the statue, or didn’t you?”

  “You ex-soldier types,” he smirks, adding a little noise like a cough at the back of his throat. “You’re all about the straight line. You go from point A to point B and you miss all the good stuff in between. Lookit. Sometimes to get to point B, you gotta take a detour. Not everything happens in straight lines, Sister Sidney.”

  I can’t see his pupils behind those glasses, but I know he’s looking up and down the Belt, always looking, checking for police officers walking a beat, or potential customers for his particular business. He wants to make sure no one’s getting too close. Undercover cops will do that sometimes, trying to trick him into getting arrested. So will other thieves, looking to move in on his piece of the action. So far, it’s just me and him and an uninterested crowd. I’ve known Parker for a long time now. I trust him, and he trusts me. He doesn’t trust many people so that’s a pretty big compliment for me.

  “You’re going to have to explain this one to me,” I tell him. “What did you find out about the statue?”

  “Well, didn’t find nobody trying to sell that fancy piece of art you described. No dragons. No messed-up unicorns with scales, neither. Instead, what I found was somebody asking around about buying Chinese antiques. Asking about their value. Asking what maybe the going rate is on the black market for stuff like that. Asking where he can find things from that long-ago land called ancient China. So yes, and no, Sister Sidney.”

  Oh, okay. I get it now. Yes, and no. Parker didn’t find someone with Arnie Chen’s statue, but he did find someone who wants to buy Chinese antiquities. If this guy tries to buy Chen’s statue, then I’ll be able to follow him right to the thief. Like Parker said, that’s not a straight line, but it gets me to the same place.

  “So you found me a lead, is what you mean. You could’ve just said that, Parker.”

  His thin eyebrows pop up over the plastic rim of the sunglasses. “Pretty sure I did.”

  “Eh. Agree to disagree. Who is this person looking to buy ancient Chinese stuff?”

  Without turning my way, he holds out a hand, and wiggles his fingers. That’s the universal sign for ‘gimme.’

  Parker deals all in cash. He doesn’t take checks, and he doesn’t accept debit card payments. Kind of hard to set up a direct deposit for your clients when you don’t report any of your income to the IRS. That’s fine with me. I came prepared.

  From the front pocket of my jeans I take out a folded stack of twenty-dollar bills. Eight of them in all. That’s his going rate for a name. Sounds like a lot, I know, but he’s worth it. It’s a lot easier for me to come up with cash like this now that Arnie Chen is paying me a pretty hefty weekly retainer.

  I hand the cash over to Parker without so much as a twinge of remorse. He doesn’t bother counting it, just takes it and slips it in his pocket with a smile. We both know the score. If I were to ever shortchange him on his payment, he wouldn’t give me the time of day the next time I come looking for his help.

  When his hand comes out of his pocket again, he’s holding a yellow scrap of paper, folded over in half. He passes it across to me, and I casually flip it over to find a name and a street address on Joy Road written there in blocky letters. Samuel Kato. I’ve never heard of him but I recognize the address or at least, I recognize the area. It’s over in Fiskhorn. Yes, that’s a real place in Detroit, and no, I have no idea who comes up with these names. I mean, seriously. What’s a Fiskhorn? What I do know, is that the neighborhood is quiet and out of the way and there’s hardly any reason for anyone to go there.

  Sounds like the perfect place to find a guy trading in black market Chinese antiquities. If I was really lucky, this Samuel Kato would lead me right to Arnie Chen’s thief.

  “Good job, Parker.”

  “Always. You know me, I aim to please.”

  “As long as I’ve got the money.”

  “Now, now, Sister Sidney. I still aim to please without the cash in my hand.” His pearly smile shows off one gold tooth. “I just don’t always come through without a little something-something to make it worth my while.”

  “Sure,” I tell him. “A man’s got to make a living.”

  “Women, too,” he adds. “You take care of yourself out there. Bad people all over.”

  He laughs so hard at his own joke that the braided strands of his hair start to bounce like a tangled knot of ropes. An older couple with gray hair look at him oddly as they pass us by. Suddenly they’re very interested in getting to a mural further down, depicting ducks walking in the rain with umbrellas tucked under their wings.

  I frown in their direction, but people are always going to be people. I admit Parker’s an odd man to look at, with his height and his clothes and those sunglasses, but really that nice elderly couple has nothing to worry about from him. Nobody does. Parker might steal things. He might buy stolen goods from other people and then sell them again. He might live his life just this side of a long prison sentence, but he’d never hurt a fly. There’s good people in all walks of life. Even his.

  Besides, it never hurts to know people like him. The people who hear and see all the stuff that the good people miss. Things that no one else knows about.

  Turning on my heel to leave, I stop again. A crazy thought just tiptoed its way into my brain. The things no one else knows about…

  “Hey, Parker? You ever hear of someone named Kurt Dachiana?”

  It’s like someone had just pul
led on an invisible string attached to the back of his neck. His muscles tighten up. His shoulders bunch. His expressive mouth purses up tight. For just a moment he stands there just like that, as if he’s one of the art installations put here in the Belt for tourists to stare at. Come see the native Detroit thief! Take pictures! Amaze your friends!

  Then he breathes again, and the illusion vanishes. I know exactly what he’s going to say, and I don’t like the tone of his voice.

  I sure have…

  “I sure have, Sister Sidney. I maybe heard some things about the Dachiana family and I might tell you some of it. You in the market?”

  Stiffly, his hand reaches out to me again. The fingers don’t wiggle this time but there’s no mistaking the unspoken request for payment up front. I’m asking him to provide me with information, after all, and that’s his business. Looking up at his face, and at his eyes hidden behind the sunglasses, I get the impression that it’s information he’s none too happy to talk about, but he’s not going to pass up another payment from a friend.

  In my pocket is more cash. Two one-hundred-dollar bundles, all in twenties, held together with paperclips. I never know when a snitch like Parker might have more for me than I asked for, and more information always costs extra. So I come prepared. I take out one of the folded amounts and press it into his palm.

  His glasses stare at me steadily, and his hand doesn’t move. Well, well. He must think whatever he knows about this family is pretty valuable.

  Without hesitating, I give him the rest. After all, it’s only money. Arnie Chen’s money, to be precise, and I know he didn’t earn his wealth legally, so I figure putting it to good use kind of balances out the scales.

  “That’s all I have on me,” I tell Parker, being honest with him. “If you need more, I can bring it to you next time…?”

  His fingers fold over the cash, and he stands there considering for just a moment before he shakes his head.

  No, that’s fine, he’s going to tell me.

  “No, that’s fine. Only because it’s you, understand? Anybody else asked me for what I’m about to tell you and they’d have to take out a personal loan to make it worth my while. You and me got what I like to call a working relationship. It’s all good.” Into his pocket goes the money as he looks up and down the long expanse of the Belt. “Lookit. Come on over here with me.”

  There’s a bench a little ways further in, past a palm tree made from used paint cans. Parker leads us over to it and we sit down for a moment in silence until he’s satisfied that no one is paying us any attention. In order to be listening in, someone would literally have to be standing right behind us. And if they were, I’d know about it with enough time to keep either of us from saying anything really stupid.

  “All right, Parker. What do you know?”

  “You got dealings with Kurt Dachiana?” he asks me.

  “Sort of. His fiancé hired me to find a necklace that got stolen from them.”

  “Hmm,” is all he says for a long time. “You sure are making some strange friends these days, Sister Sidney.”

  “They aren’t my friends, Parker. Just my clients. What can you tell me about Kurt?”

  His face twists into a frown. “If you’re asking me about him, I’m guessing you already know.”

  “Know about what?”

  “About him being…”

  Something not human, is what I hear him say in my future-sense, but then he changes his mind and stops himself before the words come out. Doesn’t matter. I heard what he was going to say, loud and clear.

  Until that point, I hadn’t been sure if I expected him to confirm what Molly had told me or tell me I was crazy. Well, obviously I wasn’t crazy. “Does everybody in Detroit but me know about the People of Magic living in the city?”

  “The what—?”

  “People of Magic!” I whisper-shout. “You know, people who can use magic. Does everyone but me know about them, or is it just the criminals?”

  “Here now, that’s not nice.” A little smile plays at one corner of his mouth. “I like to think of myself as an entrepreneur-type, not a criminal.”

  “Sorry, Parker. Really. I wasn’t trying to offend you it’s just…this is all a little new to me. What can you tell me about them?”

  His smile vanishes again.

  The werewolves…?

  “The werewolves? Not much to tell, I guess. The stuff you hear in movies is mostly right. Silver kills them quick. Silver bullets, silver powder, silver coins, they got a powerful allergy to it like some people have to peanuts. Makes their skin get all blistery and then they can’t breathe, and then they go pop.”

  Now that was a visual I didn’t really need. “Okay. What about, like, crosses? What do they do?

  His head rolls towards me. “That’s vampires. With wolves, it’s all about the silver.” Reaching up a hand, he feels under his scarf, and pulls out a thin chain necklace with a shiny cross on the end. “Unless they’re made out of silver, that is. Then they work pretty good. Wolves can smell this stuff from fifty paces off and they avoid it like a census taker.”

  All right. So now I knew how to defend myself, I guess, while I’m investigating a bunch of werewolves to find out if one of them is a thief. Not what I was expecting, but it was definitely a start. “Okay, but let me ask you this. These werewolves, do they really run around the city killing people? How long has that been going on?” He doesn’t answer me right away. “Parker? How long?”

  His hand has started tapping the pocket where he put the money, making me wonder if he’s reconsidering the price after all. I wait until I can hear him about to speak again. “The Dachiana family are old blood. From Europe. They hold tight to the old ways, which means werewolves hunt. Every full moon, they go hunting prey. Sometimes its animals up in those woods of theirs. Sometimes, it’s not.”

  “Sometimes it’s people?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes it is.” From a pocket of his coat he pulls out a hard pack of cigarettes, shakes one loose, and sticks it between his lips. He doesn’t light it. “I’ve heard rumors that they only hunt people who cross their family, but I don’t know. They got lots of enemies. People who don’t like the wolves, people who don’t like the rich, and God alone knows who else.”

  “Any way you can get me some of those names?”

  “Mmm,” he murmurs. “Uh-uh. No can do, Sister Sidney. I stay away from that whole scene. Not the kind of people it’s smart to tick off, you know?”

  “You mean, for instance, by stealing a priceless necklace from them?”

  “Uh-huh. That’d be a good way to make an enemy of the family, for sure…hold on now. Are you telling me someone stole the Garoul Necklace? They stole that necklace?” His voice rose up loud and clear over the hum of conversation around us on that last word. He stops, looking frantically back and forth and then leaning in super close to me. “The necklace that lets them stay human? That necklace? Oh, crap on a stick. The queen’s gonna be furious. Kurt’s her son, you know. The queen’s son. He’s like freaking royalty and he’s your client.”

  “The Lupus Regem,” I tell him. “Yeah, I heard.”

  “And you still took a job from them?”

  “From his fiancé. She’s not a werewolf.”

  He gives me a low whistle of surprise and it plays a duet in my mind, three seconds apart. It shows exactly how serious he thinks this is, but he hasn’t really told me anything I didn’t already know. Except for the silver thing, I mean, and I kind of knew that already.

  “So let me ask you, Parker. You hear things. You know things. You’re a smart guy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. And, since you’re so smart, maybe you know who would want to hurt Kurt Dachiana and his family by stealing the Garoul Necklace?”

  Putting a finger to his glasses, he pulls them down far enough to look me directly in the eye. “Depends on what you mean by ‘hurt them’?”

  To answer that, I’m going to have to sha
re at least part of the story Molly told me, even though I know it’s a story she’d rather keep private. There’s no such thing as client-P.I. privilege, not like there is with doctors and their patients, but I don’t make a habit of revealing my clients’ personal issues. It’s bad for business, and it just lacks a certain integrity. There are times when it can’t be avoided, however, and as long as I’m sharing information with someone I trust then I’m okay with it. Parker’s one of those people.

  “What I mean,” I tell him, “is that Kurt’s stuck as a werewolf until I can find the necklace and get it back for him. Something about the magic of the charm interfering with his ability to change back and forth, I don’t really understand it—Parker?”

  He’s up from the bench now, his dark skin looking pale against his sunglasses. “You should drop this case, Sister Sidney. There’s no good gonna come from associating with werewolves. It was bad enough you took on a case for Arnie Chen, one of the biggest crime bosses in Detroit, but this is different. This is way different. Werewolves…they ain’t human, Sister Sidney.”

  I would hate to burst his bubble and let him know that Chen isn’t exactly human, either, but this doesn’t seem like the time or place for that little chat. “Parker, I took this case already. I’m doing this. Don’t worry about me, my friend. I can handle myself.”

  “Uh-huh. Everybody thinks that.” He nods his head, over and over, and repeats himself, dropping his voice until only I could hear him. “Everybody thinks they can protect themselves from the things that go bump in the night. You know why I don’t like to go out in the dark? Werewolves is why. Werewolves and things like that are all out there in the shadows looking to make Parker Broderick into their next meal. Well, I ain’t going to let it happen. That necklace is a symbol to the werewolves. It’s a reminder they have a human half. It meant as much to them as the Holy Grail means to the Catholic Church. Somebody took that away, now the wolves are gonna be on a warpath. They’re going to tear this city apart until they find it. I think maybe it’s time to go visit my cousin up in Flint. That’s what I think. I’m getting out. You should oughta do the same.”