Water to Burn

by Katharine Kerr

  “Dad. That’s where you get them, bro, the world-walking genes.”

  I heard a choking sound, then silence. “Mike? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Jeez, I wish I’d known him. I can’t even really remember him, y’know? I can sort of see his face, laughing about something. That’s all.”

  “Yeah, I wish you’d known him, too. You were only three when he—”

  “I’m gonna sign off. I’ll call you later.”

  The line went dead in, I was willing to bet, a trickle of tears. You could have broken the news better, I told myself. Yet when I tried to think of fancy ways of saying it, I decided that out with it and blunt was the only way it could have been told.

  “Well,” I told Ari, “Michael is growing up every which way at once.”

  “We all have to, though I must admit, you O’Gradys have a more difficult time of it than most. It must have been particularly difficult for you.”

  I got an impression that he was waiting for me to go into detail about those miserable years. “Yeah, it was,” I said. “I hate remembering it.”

  “I can understand that.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “I feel that way about my childhood.”

  We shared a sigh that was not nostalgic.

  “Anyway,” I said. “I’m beginning to think Caleb has no intentions of returning my phone calls. It’s been days now.”

  “True. I wonder if he knows you’ve been given information about him.”

  “He might. He’s got talents of his own. And his friend Belial does, too.”

  I remembered his invisible presence hovering in the restaurant, watching Ari’s charade of the jealous boyfriend. What did Belial make of it, I wondered, and of me? Nothing good, I was willing to bet. Nothing good at all.

  CHAPTER 13

  BETWEEN CALEB AND REB ZEKE, I grew increasingly irritated with men who refused to show up on my psychic scans. Zeke, at least, was harmless. Caleb, who was not, presented the more pressing problem. When Kathleen called to tell me that she and Jack had returned from the wine country, I decided that the time had come for the big reveal.

  “Ari’s got the information you asked for,” I said. “He wants to tell Jack himself, though I don’t see any reason why you and I can’t be there to listen.”

  “That’s great!” Kathleen said. “I guess the information makes you know who look bad.”

  “Very bad. Do you want us to come out today?”

  “Why don’t we come in? I haven’t even seen your new flat. Say, do you want a couple of living room chairs? They’ll fit in the SUV. Jack’s mom gave them to us, and I don’t have room for them.”

  “Yeah, I sure do! Thanks. That way you’ll have something to sit on when you’re here.”

  Jack, Kathleen, and two very modern chairs with wooden arms and burgundy leather cushions arrived at noon. While Jack and Ari wrestled the chairs upstairs, I showed Kathleen the flat. She looked typically gorgeous in a pair of cheap jeans and an Anna Sui black-and-white print blouse with dolman sleeves. In the kitchen she noticed my post-it about getting more furniture.

  “What else do you need?” she said. “I’ve got stuff just sitting in the attic.”

  “A desk for Ari is the main priority,” I said, “now that you’ve given me those chairs.”

  “Okay, that’s easy. I’ve got Dad’s old desk. I pried it off of Mom because she was turning it into a shrine, and I didn’t think that was, y’know, healthy.”

  Every now and then Kathleen could hit the target dead center.

  “I’d love to have that,” I said. “And you are so right about the not healthy.”

  “Okay. Just don’t let Ari take it when you guys break up.”

  Then again, there were times when she could score a real miss. Still, I could see why in this case. Breaking up with boyfriends had been something of a hobby of mine.

  “I won’t,” I said. “Don’t worry.”

  With the chairs in place, we all sat down in the living room. I ran a quick SM:Danger and then an SM:Personnel just to make sure that neither Caleb nor Belial was spying. They weren’t. Jack was watching Ari so apprehensively that I figured Ari had hinted at bad news. I was right.

  “Okay,” Jack said, “out with it.”

  “I did some research on your business partner,” Ari said. “Do you know he’s a convicted felon?”

  Jack stared at him for a long moment, started to speak, then stopped and stared some more.

  “A blackmailer, as a matter of record,” Ari went on. “As a teenager, he mowed lawns for pocket money in his small town and collected information on his customers while he did so. He was particularly good at spotting adulterous affairs and then extorting cash from the guilty parties, which he spent on alcohol and drugs. He was sent to juvenile facilities twice for possession of cocaine. At nineteen, he became too ambitious and tried to blackmail a local politician who was something of a womanizer. This victim went to the police. He figured, quite rightly, that if the scandal got out it would only increase his status among male voters.”

  Jack had turned bright red. His hands clenched into fists. Kathleen leaned forward in her chair and put a hand on his knee.

  “Your blood pressure,” she said. “Honey—”

  “I’ll strangle the little bastard,” Jack said. “So he’s pulled this shit before, has he?”

  “Yes, and he served a sentence of eighteen months for it. Who’s his target this time? You or your father?”

  “Dad, of course. I’ve got nothing to lose, now that the statute of—wait a minute, how do you—” Jack ran out of words. He returned to staring at Ari, this time with the helpless smile of a man who knows he’s put his foot in too deep to pull out.

  “Interpol keeps detailed records on everything that comes its way,” Ari said. “When Nola told me that Sumner struck her as a criminal type, I did a bit of research. From there, I wondered what information we might have on you, because your wife had told Nola that Sumner had some sort of hold over you. As you say, it’s an old matter. But I gather it would hurt your father if it came to light.”

  Jack’s red face returned to its normal heavy tan. Brilliantly done, I thought. Ari’s explanation left Kathleen in the clear, put Jack at ease, and as for me, everyone in the family knew I saw ‘things’ about people.

  “Rather than physically assaulting Sumner,” Ari said, “I suggest you threaten to go to the police. There are protections for blackmail victims these days. With a prior conviction for the same offense, Sumner would be wise to say nothing to anyone to avoid prosecution.”

  “Yeah, he would, but will he?” Jack glanced at his clenched hands and relaxed them. “Wise isn’t a word I’d use to describe him.”

  “Who knows?” Ari shrugged. “If you like, I’ll go with you when you confront him.”

  “Right, you’re an actual cop,” Jack said. “You can’t just arrest him, huh?”

  “Sorry, no. It’s out of my jurisdiction. If you like, we can file a report with your local police department. I can then act as a consultant, if they ask me to.”

  Jack tossed his head and laughed. “I can just see the crew in San Anselmo trying to deal with all of this. But I wouldn’t mind your company, yeah. I’m supposed to see this floating piece of shit tomorrow. I appreciate the help, but why are you putting yourself out like this?”

  “It’s a criminal matter. I’m a police officer.”

  “Right, of course, yeah. Sorry.” Jack shook his head as if he were trying to dislodge an invisible hat. “Nola, thanks. It’s been eating me up inside. I’ve thought about going to the police a hundred times, but I never felt I had the leverage over the little turd that I’d need.” He smiled with a thin twitch of his mouth. “Now I do.”

  “Just be careful,” I said. “Real careful.”

  Ari nodded his agreement. “Where are you meeting him?”

  “Over at the Chalet for lunch.”

  The Chalet was a bar and restaurant just across the Great Highway from the
ocean.

  “Can you change that location?” I said. “You’d be better off meeting him somewhere inland. I can’t explain why, but it’s important.”

  “What’s this?” Jack said. “An O’Grady moment?”

  “Exactly that.”

  Jack glanced at Kathleen, who said, “Nola’s always right when she has one of those.”

  “Sure, why not? I can find a restaurant that’s just as convenient for the little turd.”

  “Where does Caleb live?” Ari said. “I’d like that information for my files.”

  “In Pacifica. He was living up on Esplanade Avenue in one of those cliffside apartment blocks, but thanks to the erosion he had to move.” Jack paused for a snarl. “Too bad the cliff didn’t cave in and take him down with it. I’ve got his new address right here.” He took a cell phone out of his pocket.

  I fetched an old-fashioned sticky note and wrote down the address when Jack read it off. Something about it struck me as wrong. I found out what when I used my Agency laptop to log onto the Internet. I tried Google and a couple of other map sites.

  “There’s no such place,” I told Jack.

  “Shit,” he said. “I must have recorded it wrong.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “He might have given you a false address.” I remembered the result of one of my scans, the image of Caleb sitting on a bare floor and reading a book by flashlight. “What was his old address? Do you remember?”

  “Yeah, 3––Esplanade. But that property’s been red-tagged.”

  “That doesn’t mean someone looking for a place to hide wouldn’t creep back in now and then. Especially if he’s desperate for money.”

  Jack quirked both eyebrows, then nodded agreement. “Good point,” he said. “He’s going to be more desperate than ever real soon now. I’m going to cancel his credit card as soon as we get home.”

  “If I were you,” Ari interrupted, “I’d wait till after we speak with him. Otherwise he’ll get the wind up. He might not keep your lunch date.”

  “Right.” Jack nodded his way. “And I have a few things to say to him.”

  “I want to be present at that meeting,” I said. “Can you tell him that I’ve decided to work with you on the treasure hunt?”

  “Sure.” Jack paused for a tight-lipped smile. “Anything to set him up.”

  “He has reason to think I’m obsessively jealous,” Ari put in. “So tell him I insisted upon coming with Nola.”

  “Okay.” Jack grinned again. “I’m beginning to enjoy this.”

  “You can say that I hate the Chalet, too much grease, too many calories in everything.” I thought about restaurants for a minute. “Why not the Boulevard over on John Daly Boulevard? It’s an easy drive from Pacifica, but it’s far enough away from the beach.”

  “One last thing,” Ari said. “I’ll need to contact the police force in Pacifica, since that’s the address we have for him. I want the matter on record in case Caleb cuts up rough. Is that acceptable?”

  “Whatever you want, pal.” Jack suddenly laughed, a short bark that was colder than a snarl could have been. “I owe you big-time for this.”

  “No,” Ari said. “It really is part of my job.”

  Jack and Kathleen left under a clearing sky. The rain clouds scudded off to the east to drop unseasonable snow on the mountains. I watched them go while Ari phoned various local police departments and made appointments.

  By two o’clock, sunlight gleamed on the damp streets. My luck turned with the weather. A quick LDRS showed me Sarge sitting just inside the entrance to his territory downtown. I told Ari the news, then changed into the tight jeans and a red T-shirt that had shrunk in the dryer. I applied some bright red lipstick, too, and wore the black high heels.

  “You look like a slut,” Ari announced.

  “Good. That’s what I’m supposed to be. Besides, I’ll be wearing Sean’s old jacket again. It’ll cover most of me.”

  Ari managed to drive us down to Market Street without causing an accident. He dropped me off at Fourth Street, then drove off to park the car in the public lot at Fifth and Mission. On Market, I hurried along the sidewalk, crowded with shoppers and workers on coffee breaks. As I passed under the row of plane trees, I noticed that some of them had swollen buds on their branches, a promise of leaves.

  In his old green parka and filthy slacks, Sarge stood in front of the slice of Roman bath otherwise known as the entrance to the Flood Building. A black-and-white patrol car sat at the curb. A uniformed officer was talking to Sarge, and from the way he’d shoved his pale pink face right into Sarge’s dark brown one I suspected the worst. As I came up to them, I heard Sarge say, “I told you, I’m waiting for a girl I know, and here she is now.”

  The cop looked me over with a twisted scowl around his mouth. “Yeah?” he said. “Okay, then, you can both move along.”

  He sauntered back to the patrol car. We walked up to the crosswalk that led over Market to Bloomingdale’s.

  “Am I glad to see you!” Sarge said. “I got that letter for you.”

  “You do? Where’s the rabbi?”

  “In San Francisco General. He’s been back a few days, sick as a dog.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “The pneumonia, I’m betting. He told me that the flying saucer people dumped water on him, and he got a chill from it. Or something like that. He wasn’t making much sense by then.”

  “I guess not. How bad is it?”

  “Real bad. Me and some of the boys got him down to Emergency last night. Finally. He didn’t want to go, but he was coughing and spitting too hard for too long.”

  The light changed. We worked our way through the crowd of pedestrians coming across. On the other side, I looked back. The squad car and its driver, that overexcited champion of Order, had left.

  “Ain’t no use standing around in front of this store,” Sarge jerked a thumb at Bloomingdale’s. “They got private heat to roust us.”

  “Let’s go down to Fifth,” I said.

  “Good idea.”

  We walked past the fancy indoor mall and around the corner under the scornful eyes of enormous fashion models, photographs, that is, three-times-life-size posters that covered the windows of the Westfield Building. Down on Fifth Street, we found a spot to talk by a loading dock, closed at the moment with a metal pull-down door. We stood in front of three normal-sized posters advertising gold jewelry. Out on the street, traffic snarled and honked. Pedestrians hurried by, glanced our way, then looked somewhere else fast.

  Sarge reached under his parka and pulled out a beaten-up brownish envelope that had started life white. He handed it to me. I tried to say thanks but sobbed instead—just once. On the front it read “for Nola O’Grady” in my father’s handwriting.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarge said.

  “I thought he was dead,” I said. “My dad.”

  “Jeezus!”

  “Yeah.” I stuffed the letter into an inside pocket of the jacket. From another pocket, I brought out a twenty and a pack of cigarettes. “Thanks.” I handed them over.

  “Thank you.” Sarge grinned with a display of missing teeth. “Aint you gonna open it?”

  “Curious?”

  “Real curious. Look, the rabbi wants to see you, too. If you want to see him, you better go down there right away. He’s pretty bad off. He kept talking about wanting to see you and someone he called Shira’s boy. Know who that is?”

  “Not for sure, but maybe.”

  “The rabbi told me that he went to Israel to look for Shira’s boy but couldn’t find him. So he came back here to give you the letter. I told him, no way you could get to Israel and back again. He didn’t say nothing to that, and then the doctor made me leave, because they was going to X-ray him.”

  I took the letter out of my pocket. I wanted to read it. I was afraid to read it. Finally, I got up my courage and tore off a corner so I could slit it open with a fingernail. When I took out the letter, Sarge caught his bre
ath.

  “That paper,” he said, “looks like the crap they give you inside.”

  “Sure does, yeah,” I said.

  Cheap wood pulp paper, lined, and the piece measured maybe four inches by six. At the top Dad had put a number—his number, I assumed, in whatever prison he was in. He’d covered every inch of the rest with tiny writing, except for one printed line at the bottom, which read “Moorwood H Block 814 Inspected 77.”

  “They sent him up, for sure,” I said. “At least he’s not dead.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Long story.” My hands began to shake.

  “You read it.” Sarge took a step to put himself between me and the sidewalk, then turned his back to me. “I’m too damn nosy.”

  I leaned against the cold damp stone of the wall behind me and read. “Nola, I’ll pray to every saint I can remember that you get this. They’re letting Reb Ezekiel out without the StopCollar on, so maybe he can get back. I’m sending it to you because you’re the one with the brains in our cursed family. Tell your mother I never meant to leave her and you kids. I didn’t think they’d come that far—”

  “Oh, shit!” Sarge said. “That lousy undercover cop!”

  I looked up and saw Ari striding down the sidewalk toward us. He had his hands shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, but when I ran an SPP, I picked up annoyance, not rage.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Yeah, he’s a cop, but he’s one of my regular johns, too. I was supposed to meet him over on Market.”

  “I hope the bastard pays you.”

  “Yeah, he does. He’s not one of those fuck me or get busted cops.” I stepped away from the wall. “Hey, good-looking! Think you could give me a ride somewhere? Or are you on duty?”

  “Off for the day,” Ari said. “Where do you need to go?”

  “San Francisco General. The rabbi sent me this letter, and he’s in there with—” I glanced at Sarge.

  “Pneumonia,” Sarge said. “I hope you ain’t gonna bust him for something.”

  “No,” Ari said. “There’s no warrant out on him. That’s what I was trying to tell you that day in the park.”