“I’ll be fine,” was all he said. “Goodnight, Taylor. Oh, and you too, Presley. Thanks.”
He turned and walked toward the door.
Taylor was suddenly at his side. “Remy. One more thing.”
“What?” He turned to face her, exhaled slowly, and allowed his shoulders to slump. It had been a long day.
The vampire looked into his eyes and drew him into the black pools of her own.
“It’s not safe for you to stay at your own home right now, not with Moswen on the move. You might be able to get away with it tonight while she reviews the results of her feint and decides what to do next, but starting tomorrow night, I feel that you should begin staying at my house. Presley and I can protect you here when Conrad isn’t available. You’d never be without preternatural aid.”
Remy rubbed his eyes and forehead. “All this talk of protection and how much I need it.” He groaned. “I suppose I appreciate that you care about my safety, but is all this really necessary? Besides, I don’t like the idea of giving up my independence. The whole reason I started working for the agency was to forge my own way after mooching off my family for far too long—”
Taylor had tried to be nice with him but now, her eyes narrowed a little. “Everything is not about your ego, you know,” she chided. “Everyone needs help at times. Including me.”
“Okay, great,” he countered, “but I’m not on board with…ugh, it would almost be like moving back in with my parents. No offense, but I’d rather find a way to make my apartment more secure. Set up a collection of booby traps or something.”
She frowned. “Please think it over. I refuse to force you to do the smart thing.”
He nodded, waved his hand, and opened the door. “I’ll…consider it,” he said and stepped out into the darkness.
Chapter Six
Abandoned Warehouse, Harlem, New York City
“Why?” Remington groaned. “Dear God, why did I pick last night, of all nights, to get drunk?”
Riley frowned a little. “Umm…I don’t know. Why are you asking me that?”
He rubbed his eyes. “It was a rhetorical question. Besides, I wasn’t asking you. I was asking God.”
“Oh.” She seemed confused.
The investigator brought his gaze down from his hands and hoped his face wasn’t flushed with embarrassment. If it was, he could probably claim it was only the cold making the blood rush to his face, but still.
The truth was that he could not believe that three drinks—three— had given him a hangover. Not only was his tolerance shot all to hell, but this might indicate that he was starting to get old. His thirty-second birthday wasn’t too far off. The thirtieth had been bad enough.
As they strolled toward the warehouse sequestered in one of the more godforsaken corners of Harlem, Remy glanced over his shoulder. “Wait, I changed my mind. I hereby declare that it wasn’t a rhetorical question. What do you think, Wonder Boy?”
Conrad smiled innocently. “Me, sir? And, does this mean that—as per your rules—you are giving me permission to speak and offer commentary on the situation?”
“Yes,” he stated in a monotone.
“Very well.” The well-groomed werewolf had trailed behind him but now, he picked up his pace to walk alongside.
“I think, sir, that you over-drank due to stress and trepidation over the potential difficulties that we knew we’d face today. People do that kind of thing all the time, you see. The discipline of Psychology refers to it as the Self-Handicapping Effect.”
Remy had only paid attention to the parts of his Psych classes that dealt with sexuality and had used various hallucinogens to forget the rest, so he waited for the man to explain.
“You see,” the lycanthrope went on, “an individual is afraid that, if put to the test, he might fail. So, to save face, he deliberately sabotages himself by doing something highly stupid—like, for example, getting drunk right before an important event—thus all but guaranteeing his failure. But, critically, he can then blame the failure on the alcohol, rather than having to face the prospect of failing even when operating at the top of his abilities.”
The investigator almost missed a step but forced himself to continue his stroll.
“Very nice, Conrad,” he said in a low voice. “No one asked your opinion. ‘Look at me, I’m Conrad. I know psychological stuff, wooo…’” He raised his hands and wiggled his fingers.
“Wait,” Riley pointed out and looked even more befuddled, “you actually did ask his opinion.”
Remy took a deep breath to keep from plunging his own head directly into the nearest snowdrift. “Don’t explain the joke, Riley.”
She shrugged. “Sorry. You’ve made even less sense than usual lately, I guess.”
Conrad shot her a gentle, sympathetic smile. “It’s all right, Riley,” he assured her, “he’s having a bad day.”
Something in his new bodyguard’s tone was ever so slightly patronizing and Remy’s teeth ground and scraped against each other. Still, they had work to do, so he forced himself to keep his mouth shut for the moment. Perhaps they’d get along better once the hangover dissipated.
They’d been on the case for almost two hours, not counting prep time at the office or travel time thereafter. And although, finally, they were on the verge of finding something noteworthy, he already felt as though he’d worked a full shift.
At nine in the morning, they had all congregated in Bushwick. Everyone had arrived on time, except for Remy, who was one minute late. Riley had appeared in human form for the benefit of Bobby, the receptionist, who still hadn’t been properly initiated into the whole “preternatural” side of things.
Thereafter, they’d spent time quickly outlining their—Remy’s—brilliant plan, which was to park at the north edge of Central Park, have Riley enchant the car to protect it, and walk randomly around Harlem all day, asking anyone they met where they could find ‘Snow White.’
Once he had explained the plan, Conrad had raised a hand like a schoolboy requesting permission to speak but he had ignored him.
When they were in the car and headed toward Manhattan, though, he had permitted the werewolf the use of his mouth and asked him for the capsule version of his life story.
“Well,” Conrad had begun, “first of all, would you like to know how old I am?”
“Sure,” he had agreed. “I would assume you’ll be able to legally drink within the month.”
Of course, the man had laughed at that. “Oh, I’m flattered, but you’re a little off. I was born in 1946. I’m a Baby Boomer.”
“Wow,” Remy had reacted, his voice monotone. “That’s…uh, great. Baby Boomer. You must be proud. Did you drop much acid in the sixties?”
Another canned chuckle followed and Conrad had replied in the negative before he continued with the surprisingly boring tale of his normal, upper-middle-class upbringing, and how proud his parents were to be able to send him to Harvard—in time to miss out on the Vietnam War, too. Of course, college was where he had been bitten by an extremely large dog one fateful night.
The investigator’s mind had begun to wander during the anecdote. Specifically, it wandered toward Riley. He still wanted to have that intervention talk with her, but his bodyguard was a late addition to their plans. Having a heart to heart with a female fairy would have been strangely awkward with a goateed male werewolf listening.
Eventually, Conrad finished relating his life story. They’d driven the rest of the way in relative silence before finally arriving at the edge of Harlem.
Once they had eventually found a parking space, Remy had maneuvered the Lincoln into it, waved Riley and Conrad out, and shut and locked the doors. A quickly performed magic spell from the fairy had ensured that no one would steal or damage it while they searched the neighborhood.
Unfortunately, not many locals had been out and about. It had snowed overnight, and, he had noticed, the day wasn’t much warmer than the Ninth Level of Hell. Cocytus, the cold one. He
did remember some things from school.
“Hey,” Riley had said after they’d already walked for twenty minutes or so, “there’s a person.”
They were tramping through a residential area and a fortyish black man wearing a heavy parka lugged a second trash receptacle out to the curb alongside the first. He’d only shoveled enough snow to make room for two, so there probably wouldn’t be a third.
Remy guided his companions toward the fellow. “Excuse me,” he called, raised a hand, and tried to make eye contact.
The man squinted at him with a reserved skepticism that stopped only slightly short of hostility. “What you want, man?”
“So…” The investigator continued until he moved within five feet. He stopped and glanced from side to side as he put his hands in his pockets. Conrad hung back behind his shoulder. He lowered his voice. “Nice morning, huh? So I was wondering—and don’t take this the wrong way—but would you happen to know where I can find Snow White?” He allowed his eye to twinkle mischievously.
The stranger’s eyes, on the other hand, bulged with sudden fury. “Motherfucker, this ain’t that kind of neighborhood,” he ranted and flung his hands up. “Get the fuck out my face. Gentrifying-ass motherfuckers.”
He spun on a heel and stormed back to his house, snowpack crunching under his boots.
“Huh,” said Riley. “That didn’t work.”
Remy frowned, followed by a sigh. “Well, at least we narrowed it down.”
“True,” said Conrad, “we have eliminated a single address within Harlem from consideration.” Even though there was no such noise, Remington somehow thought he could hear him laughing.
His head snapped toward the werewolf. “Yes, Conrad, thanks. But it’s not what I meant.”
Riley flew around in front of his face. “What, then?”
“More importantly,” he explained, “we now know for sure that whoever Snow White is, she’s illegal. It might be an individual—say, a prostitute—or might be the name of an underground brothel or gambling house. Or it could be the street name of a drug or something like that. Possibly even code for some asshole who could point us in the direction of any of the above, plus maybe black-market weapons. It’s definitely something that law-abiding citizens such as this gentleman”—he gestured toward the house—“don’t want to be involved with.”
Harlem, like New York City in general, had far less crime than it used to. Still, there ought to be someone who could point them in the right direction.
As they started down the street in search of more citizens, Conrad raised a hand. “Is our man Surrly usually involved with illegal contraband?”
Remy shrugged. “He mostly ships rocks. Uncut gems and such, which can go either way depending on exactly how and where he got them.”
They obtained nothing of value from their next three attempts to question the locals, either. A tired-looking woman and two teenagers, when asked, shrugged and said they had no idea what Remy was talking about, although the woman looked suspicious.
Annoyingly, Conrad also received appreciative looks from a couple of college-aged girls, and the investigator motioned for them to keep moving.
They moved gradually into a less-reputable part of the neighborhood, where they saw a man in his twenties getting out of his car in a lot beside a large housing complex.
“Excuse me,” Remy had said while he attempted to flag the guy down.
He’d taken one look at them and immediately bolted into a run, vanished across the lot, vaulted a fence, and disappeared somewhere into the snow.
Riley was confused. “What was his problem? I don’t think he saw me. And you don’t look scary.”
He pondered that last statement for a moment. “Actually, Conrad and I are wearing rather nice coats and our ties are poking out near the collar. I should have thought of this and had us wear something cheap and casual.”
The thought hadn’t occurred to him before. He never really wore cheap casual clothes, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to make sacrifices for the job.
“As is,” he went on, “either that guy has a warrant out and assumed we were cops, or he pissed off the wrong people and thought we were mob enforcers.”
“Ohhh,” the fairy acceded. She’d always struck him as more cognizant of human culture than most fae and she was learning more all the time.
Finally, they had encountered an attractive young lady who had both known what the hell they were referring to and been willing to help.
She stood with her arms folded, glowered in a self-protective way, and frowned before she spoke.
“Yeah,” she said, “I don’t have no involvement with that ratchety shit, but if you looking for Snow White, you go down this street, take a left, and go all the way to that old warehouse. But don’t mention me.”
Remy flashed her a conspicuous grin of reassurance. “Have no fear, we won’t. Besides, we don’t even know who you are. In any event, thanks. Go inside and have a warm mug of cocoa or something.”
In response, she stared at him as though a leprechaun were dancing on his head, shook her head, and backed slowly away as they strode off in the direction she’d indicated.
“Interesting,” he told his entourage as they’d advanced into a desolate, non-residential zone. “She specifically used the phrase ‘that shit.’ I’m leaning toward it being a drug.”
Having said that, his smile immediately slid off his face as his brain sank back into memories.
It had been so, so long since he’d been high.
And I don’t miss it, he’d told himself, forcefully. Really, I don’t.
That train of thought, however, simply made him remember the night before and once again, he felt the full force of his embarrassing hangover weighing down on him.
Now, they were almost at their destination. The warehouse was in sight.
“Wait,” Riley commented, “that place doesn’t look like anyone is using it. I sense something strange up there, but it looks…”
Remy finished for her. “Abandoned, yes. Junkies like to congregate in places where no one will bother them. Or occasionally in swanky penthouses.”
He immediately cursed himself for that last statement. Conrad might file it away to use against him later.
The location was half-hidden from the street by a combination of a defunct gas station and a concrete half-wall, with a dilapidated and rusty chain-link fence encircling the rest of its grounds. Aside from the three or four places where it had fallen, of course, which allowed for easy access.
The building itself looked about ready to be condemned.
Remy glanced at Conrad and the fairy. “I say we go right in. Quietly and carefully, yes, but I don’t feel like staking the place out all day, especially not in this weather.”
The werewolf looked like he was about to say something but he only nodded. He must have remembered the “I’m in charge” rule.
Riley flew up to perform aerial scout duty as the other two found the fence gap that looked the easiest to get through. No other people were around. A single car drove past but the occupants ignored them.
They climbed through the hole and approached the building itself. A side door hung slightly ajar. The fairy descended and hovered between the heads of the two men before they advanced.
“There are people in there,” she informed them. “They remind me of some of the people who sleep near my colony.”
Remy nodded. “That sounds about right. How many?”
“Four.”
Whether that was bad news or neutral news, he knew, depended on the nature of the druggies and, more importantly, the nature of the drug.
Snow crunched slightly under their boots but otherwise, they made little noise as they approached the side door.
“I’ll go in first,” he whispered to his companions. “Come in about thirty seconds after me unless I come back and tell you otherwise.”
Without waiting to see how Conrad might respond, he eased the door open
and stepped through.
It was mostly dark within, although pale winter sunlight filtered through the boarded-up windows and some cracks in the ceiling to keep the place from being pitch black. A few rusted shelves of cheap metal and old, battered crates and boxes were piled around but otherwise, the warehouse was effectively empty.
In the center of the floor, four persons sat around a crude makeshift campfire, its edges ringed by scrap metal. They were bundled in torn and ragged clothes, still damp in places from the snow outside. All had the characteristic look of the chemically addicted homeless.
Two of them held syringes. Remy blinked. Within the plastic cylinders was a brilliant liquid the color of fresh milk, and it gave off a faint luminescence. He’d never seen anything like it before.
It looks like we found Snow White.
Conrad’s soft steps came up behind him, and he felt rather than saw Riley float near his shoulder as well. The three of them, half-hidden by a stack of crates, watched as the two junkies with syringes inserted the needles into their arms and slowly shot up.
A sudden wave of nausea hit Remy—he’d done the same thing far too many times—but he forced it away with a deep breath. He turned to his companions.
“I’ll simply ask them where they got that shit. It’s the simplest method,” he told them. “If it leads back to Surrly, we’ll know that the reason he wanted extra protection is because he’s branched out into crap he really shouldn’t be dealing in.”
The lycanthrope raised a hand again. “Ah, sir, I would advise against that.”
Hearing the werewolf say that only made him want to do it even more, although part of his mind knew it was stupid. He spun toward the druggies, also ignored Riley’s sudden look of worry, and stepped out toward their little bonfire.
“Hi,” he greeted them and walked slowly to make his approach nice and obvious so as not to startle them. “Someone told me this was the place to find Snow White. Is there any chance you boys know where…” He trailed off.
The four—three men and one woman—had not even acknowledged his presence. The other two must have already shot up a moment earlier. Remy watched them as they languished in bliss-faced oblivion.
A Girl’s Best Friend (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 3) Page 7