by Simon Hawke
“That’s impossible,” said Angelo.
“Well, unlikely, maybe, but not impossible,” said Wyrdrune. “Have they got any adepts on their staff?”
“Not unless they’re using unlicensed adepts,” said Wetterman. “And that would leave them wide open to civil lawsuits, not to mention criminal charges.”
“Yeah. Why take the risk when you can simply hire licensed adepts?” Angelo said.
“My point exactly,” Wetterman replied. “There’s no shortage and it’s not as if they can’t afford it. The center is technically a separate entity from the Armitage Foundation and receives state and private funding in addition to its foundation backing. Their finances and affairs are managed expertly, by top people. In the few years they’ve been operating, they’ve acquired an excellent reputation. Jimmy the Arm has come a very long way. He seems to have been a street-smart operator, but not smart enough to do all this on his own. He had to have a lot of help.”
“How would a street hustler like that know who to go to?” Billy asked.
“Well, with the kind of money he fell into,” Angelo said, “he could easily hire a bright lawyer to find the right people for him. He’d certainly have known who the top lawyers in town were. But I’m wondering if he had any help winning that lottery in the first place.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that, too,” said Kira. “Only how do you rig a state lottery?”
“On the surface, it doesn’t seem as if you can, even using magic,” Wetterman replied. “There’s simply too much of a random element involved. A lot of the numbers are computer-generated, while others are picked at random by the ticket buyers. I don’t see how you can influence anything like that on a state level. It does seem impossible.”
“There’s that word again,” said Wyrdrune. He frowned, thinking. “Nothing is impossible. Especially when it comes to the Dark Ones. If the ticket companies are generating the numbers, then the obvious way to rig that would be to control the computers.”
“But what about the numbers picked at random by the ticket buyers?” Wetterman asked. “You know how people are. Some of them play their birth dates for luck, or the birth dates of their kids, social security numbers, anniversary dates, any sort of combination that might have some sort of personal significance. You can’t possibly influence every individual who buys a ticket. And that’s pretty much what you’d have to do. You’d have to cast a spell capable of covering an entire state. Nobody has that kind of power. I just don’t see how it could be done.”
“You’ve got a point there,” Angelo agreed. “It does seem impossible.”
“Maybe not,” said Wyrdrune thoughtfully. “We have to look for common factors. What’s the one common factor among everyone who enters the lottery?”
“Tickets!” said Kira…
“Influence the tickets?” Angelo said.
“Or the paper they’re printed on,” said Wyrdrune. “The job is probably contracted out to one place that provides the paper for the machines and the entry forms the customer fills out. Cast a spell on the paper and you can influence both the machines and the customers. Then all you have to do is control the choice of the winning number by casting a spell on the machine that pops the balls out. That reduces the whole thing to controlling just two elements.”
“Boy, that’s good,” said Angelo.
“How come you never thought of this before, when we were broke?” asked Kira wryly.
Wyrdrune shrugged. “Never occurred to me, I guess. Besides, back then I wouldn’t have had the skill to pull it off.”
“Yeah, I remember how you kept screwing up your spells,” said Kira. “It’s a miracle you didn’t get us killed.”
“Well, if that’s how it was done,” said Wetterman, “then we couldn’t check the tickets, because too much time has passed. They’re all gone by now, thrown out and recycled, but the machine that picks the winning number might still have some trace emanations on it. Unless they’ve changed it. But it’s worth checking out.”
“We’re forgetting one thing,” said Kira. “Armitage or Parker or whatever his name is might have gotten some adept to rig the lottery, but there’s still no indication that any of the Dark Ones are involved. Wherever they turn up, people wind up dying.”
“I was getting to that,” said Wetterman. “We still don’t have any authenticated reports of necromancy, but we have established a possible connection in several reported disappearances. “ He consulted the documents in front of him. “Joseph Medina, a recently released repeat felony offender, failed to report to his parole officer and has apparently disappeared. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. Several known associates of his, all with records, have also disappeared. “ He briefly went over their names and prior offenses. “They were all last seen together at a bar in South Tucson two weeks ago. A day after they were spotted in the bar, a van was stolen from the parking lot of a shopping mall in Tucson. That same van was found wrecked at the side of the road on Ajo Highway, about forty miles west of town. The van had numerous dents and scratches on it, along with pieces of brush stuck in the undercarriage. It had been rolled several times, though there was no trace of an accident where it was found by the side of the road, nor were there any traces of damage to the brush in the vicinity. Medina’s fingerprints were discovered in the van, as well as the prints of several of the other men who disappeared. There was a fully loaded 9mm semiautomatic found lodged under the passenger seat rails. It had been reported stolen a year earlier and the fingerprints of Julio Rodriguez, one of the missing men, were on the gun.”
“Not exactly pros, were they?” Angelo said. “But where’s the connection?”
“Ajo Highway is the road leading out to Dragon Peak,” said Wetterman. “And Medina had a girlfriend named Maria Sanchez, an addict with a number of arrests for possession and prostitution. Her last arrest was dated shortly before Medina was released and her attorney plea-bargained her out into the drug rehabilitation program at Dragon Peak.”
“So Medina gets out, decides he wants his girlfriend back, and gets some friends together to help bust her out of rehab,” Angelo said. “And the next thing you know, the van they stole for the job is discovered out in the desert, wrecked and with a gun inside it. And no trace of the suspects. I could believe they walked away, but I don’t believe they picked up the van and moved it. And guys like that wouldn’t leave a perfectly good gun behind.”
“Were there any trace emanations on the van?” asked Billy.
“Plenty,” Wetterman replied. “The sheriff’s department ran a T-scan as soon as they realized the vehicle had been moved and it was in no shape to be driven. The battery had been cracked in the accident.”
“I think we need to take a trip out to Arizona,” Wyrdrune said.
“Maybe, but not just yet,” said Wetterman. “I’m going to ask you to sit tight for a while longer. “ He raised his hands to forestall their reaction. “Look, I know this isn’t very easy for you all. But before we go off half-cocked, I want to make sure we’ve really got a fire to put out. We know magic was involved somehow, but we don’t know for sure that it was necromancy.”
“Yes, but we will,” said Wyrdrune. “The runestones react to the emanations.”
“But suppose it’s a false alarm and while you’re off in Arizona, we get a real one somewhere else,” said Wetterman. “We’ll lose valuable time and that could result in more people being killed. I know you’re used to doing this on your own, but you’ve got a lot more resources backing you up now. Let’s use them to full advantage. That way, we minimize the chances of making any mistakes.”
“He’s got a point,” said Angelo.
“But suppose while we’re waiting here for confirmation, it all suddenly blows up in Tucson and a lot of people die,” said Wyrdrune.
“I’m prepared to take that responsibility,” said Wetterman. “It’s a calculated risk, but I have to make decisions like that every day.”
“Not like this, you do
n’t,” said Wyrdrune. “If time’s a factor, and it is, we could teleport to Tucson without depleting any of our energy by having a team of ITC adepts combine to cast the spell.”
“And if you need to get back in a hurry, how do you get back without using up a lot of energy?” Wetterman countered. He shook his head. “Besides, it’s much too risky teleporting over that kind of distance. All I’m asking you to do is wait until we get some more hard data. I’m putting Simko on it. And according to the CIA, he’s one of the best there is.”
Wyrdrune shook his head. “I don’t care how good he is; if he runs into a necromancer, he’ll be way out of his league.”
“Then if he fails to report in as scheduled, we’ll know what we need to know, won’t we?” Wetterman replied.
The buzzer sounded in Makepeace’s apartment. Without getting up from his desk, he reached back over his shoulder and jabbed a finger into the air. The talk button on the buzzer by the door, clear on the other side of the apartment, was pushed in. “Who is it?” Makepeace yelled.
“Simko.”
Makepeace sighed, jabbed at the air again and buzzed him in. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the pile of papers he had yet to grade. Not tonight, apparently. “Oh, well,” he said to himself.
He swiveled his chair around and made a beckoning gesture toward the small kitchen at the front of the apartment. One of the cabinet doors over the counter opened and a glass drifted out and down onto the counter. Makepeace gestured once again and the cabinet door closed, then the one next to it opened. A chromed martini shaker drifted out and down, setting itself on the counter by the glass. A pitcher followed it.
Another spare gesture and a bottle of vermouth placed back against the wall atop the counter slid out, the cap unscrewed itself, and the bottle floated up and poured a dash into the shaker, then capped itself back up again and returned to its proper place. Next, the freezer door opened and a tray of ice cubes slid out to hover in midair. Makepeace inverted his hand, from palm up to palm down, and the tray flipped over. He wrinkled his nose and the ice cubes cracked out of the tray and, instead of falling to the floor, drifted gracefully across the kitchen to clink into the shaker.
The empty ice cube tray slid back into the freezer and a bottle of Stolichnaya slid out and poured a generous amount into the shaker, then floated back into the freezer. The freezer door closed, the shaker capped itself, rose up into the air, and at a signal from Makepeace, proceeded to shake itself. It then poured the martini into the glass pitcher and the pitcher poured a drink just as a soft knock came at the door. The latch on the deadbolt clicked back.
“Come in, Victor, it’s open,” Makepeace called.
As Simko entered, the glass rose up into the air and met him, hovering before him. Simko smiled and plucked it from the air. “How thoughtful,” he said. “Stoli?”
“But of course,” said Makepeace. “I figured you’d be dropping in at some point. And I know you only drink things that are clear. Martinis, mineral water, 7-Up… as neutral and colorless as you are.”
Simko grinned and came through the kitchen into the living room where Makepeace sat. He was still dressed the same way as when Makepeace last saw him in the bar. He set the glass down on the coffee table, removed his shabby raincoat and dropped it on the couch, then sat down beside it and picked up the glass, taking a sip.
“Ahh… perfect. Like an early morning mist in winter. Here’s to better times. “ He raised his glass and drank again.
“You should have stayed retired, Victor,” Makepeace said with a sigh.
“And enjoy my princely pension, you mean?” Simko drank again. “A dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to. And they give me so very few of them. I deserve better, don’t you think so?”
“I’m sure you do. But this job is one you don’t deserve, believe me. Even a wicked man like you, with all you’ve done.”
“But they’re paying me very well,” said Simko, raising his eyebrows. “I insisted on much better terms this time. I figured I had nothing to lose.”
“You don’t seem to have spent any of it on clothes,” said Makepeace with a smile.
“No, I’m being rather more thrifty this time around. I don’t know how long this job will last and I’m not deluding myself that there will be another one to follow. This will be my last hurrah, I fear.”
“And then?”
Simko shrugged. “I was thinking Mexico. Maybe Jamaica. Someplace warm, where I can sit on a beach with a good book while young dark-skinned girls in thong bikinis bring me good cigars and ice-cold drinks with little umbrellas in them.”
“Sounds very pleasant.”
Simko grunted. “Beats hell out of sitting in the park feeding the pigeons.”
“Why don’t you just leave now?” asked Makepeace.
“Well, there’s the small matter of the money,” Simko said.
“Suppose I wrote you a check right now.”
Simko raised his eyebrows.
“How much would you need?” asked Makepeace. “A hundred thousand? Two hundred? Three?”
“Are you serious?”
“Name a sum.”
“Half a mil.”
Makepeace swiveled his chair around and opened a drawer in his desk. He took out a checkbook with a dark red leather cover embossed with silver runes.
“You keep a checkbook for an account with that kind of money in it in your desk drawer?” asked Simko.
“It’s spellwarded,” Makepeace said, indicating the runes. “Assuming anyone managed to get past the wards protecting this apartment, then even if they got the drawer open, they still wouldn’t see it.”
“I can see it.”
“That’s because I’m holding it,” said Makepeace. He put it down on the desktop. The checkbook promptly disappeared.
“Nice touch. What bank would it be drawn on?”
“The Bank of New York,” said Makepeace, reaching for a pen. “It’s my petty cash fund. I’ll call the bank president and let him know you’re coming. It will all be handled quite discreetly.”
“Sebastian… wait.”
Makepeace paused with pen in hand and looked up.
“I don’t doubt you have that kind of money,” Simko said. “But why? You don’t owe me anything.”
“Let’s just say it’s for old times’ sake,” Makepeace replied. “I’d like to see you live long enough to enjoy your tanned girls, good cigars, and ice-cold drinks. You can buy yourself a brand-new wardrobe and leave first thing in the morning.”
“Afraid I can’t do that,” Simko said. “I’m on a flight for Phoenix in two hours.”
Makepeace frowned. “Phoenix?”
“Then a connecting flight to Tucson. We may have a fire. I’m supposed to check it out.”
Makepeace put down his pen. “Jamaica’s much nicer at this time of year.”
Simko shook his head. “No can do, old friend. I already took the job. Can’t take a job and then not do it in this line of work. It’s not good for a man’s reputation. And mine is about all I have left. It’s worth a lot more to me than half a million dollars.”
“I see,” said Makepeace. “Well, I won’t insult you by trying to put a dollar value on it. Something like that would never be for sale, not with a man like you.”
“I appreciate that,” said Simko. “Even more than I appreciate the offer, believe me.”
Makepeace nodded and put away the checkbook. “Well, in that case, I’d better start packing.”
“For what?”
“I’m going with you.”
“Wetterman wouldn’t like that.”
“I don’t much care what Wetterman likes or doesn’t like,” said Makepeace. “I don’t work for him. “ He gestured toward his bedroom and a battered leather suitcase slid out from underneath the bed, floated up onto the mattress, and opened up. Another gesture and the bureau drawers slid open, disgorging clothing that started floating neatly into the open suitcase.
“You always wer
e a lazy bastard,” Simko said. “Seriously, Sebastian, I don’t think you should go.”
“Nonsense. You didn’t come here just to say good-bye before you left. That never was your style.”
Siroko smiled. “Am I that transparent?”
“No, not really. I just know you.”
“I could handle this myself, you know.”
“I’m sure you think you can,” said Makepeace. “I was hoping I could talk you out of this, but seeing as how you’ve got your pride all tangled up in it, I’m not even going to try. This isn’t really about money, Victor, is it?”
Simko pursed his lips and stared at him over the top of his martini glass. “No, I suppose not.”
“This isn’t going to make you young again, you know.”
“Oh, I know that,” Simko said. “But it might keep me from feeling old. It’ll be like old times, Sebastian. I miss those days. Don’t you?”
“To be perfectly honest with you, no,” Makepeace replied. “Believe it or not, I like my life right now.”
“Teaching a bunch of snot-nosed kids and grading papers? What kind of a life is that, Sebastian, after where you’ve been and what you’ve done?”
“It actually has much to recommend it,” Makepeace said. “Being a teacher has rewards you couldn’t begin to understand unless you’d tried it.”
“What does it do, satisfy some frustrated parental urge or something?”
“No, it’s not like being a parent; you don’t have the same responsibilities,” Makepeace replied. “The focus is much narrower, more clear. You are responsible for the development of young minds. They come to you intellectually unformed, not really trained to think yet. Even starting college, most of them aren’t thinking, just reacting. A few have started to develop, showing that first spark of real intellectual curiosity, and those can be particularly enjoyable to watch and guide along, because they already have the eagerness and the desire to learn. But most of them are merely there because they think they have to be.
“They think they’re there to get good grades,” he continued, “so they can get their degrees, which will help them get good jobs, careers. Most of them don’t really understand what the purpose of a college education is. And it has only one purpose… to teach them how to think. It doesn’t matter what they want to do. If they want to become lawyers, they need to learn to think like lawyers. Or if they want to become doctors, or adepts, or engineers, they need to know how to think like doctors, adepts, and engineers, how to think logically and systematically. Even creatively. Natural creativity cannot be taught, of course, but even if you possess it, you still need to learn how to organize your thoughts and how to communicate them effectively. Of course,” he added with a smile, “they all believe they know how to do that already. After all, they’re young adults. It’s great fun to watch them realize they’re wrong. And then become motivated because they don’t like being wrong. Or because they’ve suddenly discovered that learning how to think is fun and stimulating. Or both. It’s very rewarding to see them grow intellectually and realize you’ve had something to do with that. It’s a form of satisfaction you really can’t find anywhere else.”