by Ari Marmell
I was starting to get a little agitated; I picked up my menu again and shifted in my chair, making sure her boys across the room hadn’t tumbled to our conversation. It’s obnoxious trying to talk about anything important to someone when you can’t face each other. I don’t recommend you give it a whirl.
“Adalina…” Another sniff. “Adalina was always a sickly child, but she used to be a good girl. Such a good girl…” She sobbed softly, and I could hear the rustle of her dress’s padded shoulders as she shook.
“Nix the waterworks, sister, and give it to me straight.”
She gasped as though I’d slapped her, and I heard Archie’s chair scrape across the floor as he started to stand, but it did the trick. She stiffened in her seat, and her voice was hard when she said, “Very well, Mr. Oberon. Straight it is.”
You probably think I’m cold, but you gotta understand… I know how you humans are. It wasn’t that I thought she was faking it—she could have been that good an actress, but the tears smelled genuine, her words tasted honest—it’s just that I knew if she got on a jag, we’d be here forever.
Anger’s a lot more efficient than grief, see?
Bianca said something to Archie, something calming, and he sat his keister back down. Then, her neck held rigid—I knew because of how her voice sounded—she started again.
“Adalina got very sick only two weeks after she was born,” she said. “We managed to nurse her back to health, but she was always small for her age growing up. Donna Orsola and I took care of her as best we could, but she was always weak, always clumsy, always getting ill.”
“Donna Orsola?”
“Orsola Maldera,” she clarified. “Fino’s mother.”
“Ah. Okay, Mrs. Ottati, please go on.”
“Well, it was a hardship, of course, but nothing too awful, and certainly nothing we weren’t willing to put up with for our daughter. But it only got more peculiar as she grew older. She never, ah, she never began… her, ah…”
“Her cycle.” I swear, you people are squeamish about the strangest things. “I understand.”
It ain’t possible, but I swear I heard Bianca blush to speak of such things in public, and she nodded brusquely. “Right. We thought she was just a late bloomer, what with her being so sickly, but she’s sixteen now… And it’s gotten worse. In just the past few months, she’s developed a fearsome temper. She’s getting into fights at school, and even though she’s weaker than the other girls, she’s doing terrible injury to them. Biting, clawing, yanking out whole handfuls of hair. She never had many friends, and now she’s driven most of them away. Even Gary—her, uh, young man—walked away from her. A fact I’ve kept from her father,” she added quickly, “since I don’t really care to see the boy fall on a baseball bat half a dozen times.
“But it’s not just her behavior, Mr. Oberon. She looks so strange, almost deformed.” She started to sniffle again, cleared her throat loudly to cover it. “We thought at first that she might be possessed, but while she reacted poorly to Donna Orsola’s and my own prayers and rosaries, it wasn’t enough to suggest a demon or a spirit inside her. It was then that we understood what she must be—what she’d always been.
“I need you to find my real daughter. Before it gets worse, before she seriously hurts someone, and before my husband finds out. You know Fino’s business and associates, so you know how important family is to him.”
I frowned around another sip of milk. “Mrs. Ottati, everything you’re describing actually could be the result of illness and dementia. I think you oughta—”
“Mr. Oberon, I found you, didn’t I? Do me the courtesy of assuming I know what I’m talking about.”
Which, of course, brought up an interesting point. “How do you know? Assuming you’re right, what kinda modern dame jumps to ‘changeling’ as an answer for these kinda problems? And how’d you know enough to come to me?”
“I’m not prepared to divulge that; it’s enough for you that I know.”
I’m pretty sure I was scowling by then. A changeling meant a lot of legwork, asking around for people I didn’t much want to deal with, possibly going places I really, really didn’t want to go. And sixteen years? The trail wasn’t just cold, it was frostbitten enough to be losing toes.
“Mrs. Ottati, I don’t think I—”
“Please, Mr. Oberon. She’s my daughter.”
“I know, but I can’t—”
“There’s nobody else who can help us.”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“I’ll pay you seven hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I’ll need half up-front.”
Yeah, sometimes I can be bought against my better judgment. Whaddaya want from me? That’s more than half the average Joe’s yearly pay. With that, I could get Soucek outta his jam, and have enough left that I wouldn’t have to charge cash again for a good long while.
Archie was making sounds very much as if he was choking on a live marmoset.
“Archie?” Bianca asked. “Be a dear and hand me my bag, please.”
“Ghlk!” he offered, as he did so.
I heard a snap pop open, then rustling papers. “Will a check be all right, Mr. Oberon?”
“Yeah, that’ll do me fine.” I don’t actually keep a bank account, but I know several shopkeeps who’ll trade me cash if I sign the check over to ’em.
The scratch of a scribbling fountain pen crawled up my back and over my shoulder from behind me.
“Uh, Bianca,” Archie said, apparently having found his voice (possibly under the tablecloth). “I don’t mean to stick my beezer in where it ain’t welcome, but… seven hundred an’ fifty? I know you got your own accounts and all, but Mr. Ottati, he’s gonna notice if that kinda rhino goes missing.”
“I know,” she said, casually brushing the check off the table so it drifted to the floor beside the feet of her chair—and mine. “But it’ll take him some time, busy as he is.”
I took a quick gander, made sure nobody’d spotted her little maneuver, and then dropped my napkin. I bent down to retrieve it, sliding the check under it in the process.
And I was right about to pick ’em both up when her heel came down on the edge of the napkin.
“As long as our daughter’s been found before he does…” Bianca continued, and though she was looking straight at Archie, it was crystal clear she wasn’t talking to him anymore. “…then I can safely explain what happened, and there shouldn’t be any problems for anybody. If he notices before that, we could all be in trouble. You understand, Mr. Oberon?”
“I understand that your shoe’s on my payday, Mrs. Ottati. But yeah,” I told her as she scooted her foot aside, “I got it. Don’t dawdle.”
And that was the last word we exchanged. Her food arrived a few moments later—roast quail, I think, with a whole heap of garnishes—and she and Archie ate in silence. Once they were done, she rose and swept imperially from the room, barely pausing long enough for her two guards to fall into step behind.
My wand thumped onto the table in front of me, bouncing with a clatter off the edge of my glass. “Here’s your dingus back,” Archie said. I heard the sizzle of a lighter, caught a whiff of smoke. His fist closed on my shoulder, just tight enough to be uncomfortable. “That’s a lot of scratch Mrs. Ottati’s paying you. And a lot of personal, private stuff she told you. I dunno how much of it I buy, but I know she believes it. You try to cheat her, or embarrass her, or hurt her in any way…”
Interesting; it was “Mrs. Ottati” now, but it’d been “Bianca” when he was talking to her. “One, I don’t chisel my clients, Archie. Ain’t good for business. Mrs. Ottati’s money, and her secrets, are safe with me. And two, get your hand off me before I make you eat it.”
“Eat it. I’d love to see you try.” But he did let go, and the glowing tip of his cigarette appeared in the corner of my vision. “You need a lift back anywhere?”
I tensed a little, mostly to keep from shuddering. “Nah. I’ll catch the L.”
He nodded, dropped a few bills back on his table, and then he, too, was gone. I sat for a while longer, going over it all. It was probably a good thing nobody paid me much attention, ’cause I think I forgot to do all the little things—y’know, fidgeting, blinking—that you guys expect. What can I say? The whole situation had knocked me for a loop.
So, what’d I have?
Well, on the plus side, I wasn’t actually working for the Outfit or anyone in it, though working for a made guy’s frau was close enough that they might notice me if I wasn’t careful.
But on the other hand, if I really was looking for a changeling—and I didn’t know for sure that I was, though it all sounded right—it meant I might have to deal with other Fae, and probably the Unseelie, since kidnapping is more their bailiwick. So avoiding the Outfit directly might not have actually accomplished much of anything.
And to top it all off, any clues that might still be lying around were probably older than Prohibition.
Yeah, I had a headache, that’s what I had.
Grumbling under my breath and pocketing both my wand and a check that didn’t feel like quite as much dough as it had a few minutes ago, I dropped a few pennies on the table to cover the milk and shuffled toward the door.
* * *
If I had any hope at all of avoiding the Otherworld, it meant tracking down some people—and I use the term loosely—who might already know the score. It was duck soup finding a couple of them; the others proved a little tougher.
The wind had kicked up something fierce by that evening, whipping and spinning down the city’s streets, twisting litter and fallen leaves into little spiral staircases to nowhere. People quickened their pace along the sidewalks and up on the L’s platforms, clutching their coats around them. The weather was probably just gonna stay breezy, without any real rain—that’s how it smelled, anyway—but I wouldn’t have sworn to it under oath.
I climbed down the steps from the L, squeezing through the bustling crowd and trying to steady my breath from yet another ride on that damn electrical railway, passed under the tracks clacking and settling way overhead, and made my way up South Princeton. There, within spitting distance of Schorling’s Park, was the place I was supposed to find the guy.
Course, this was the third place where I’d been “supposed to find the guy,” and my patience was stretching thin as taffy.
I could sense the crowd—not just hear ’em and smell ’em, though there was plenty of sound and stink to be had, but sense ’em—before I even got near the building. Just a plain greystone, it mighta once been a row house, or a warehouse, or who-knew-what else. Now, though, with most of its inner walls knocked down and cleared out, it was a cheap, makeshift stadium for the poor folk (read: mostly black) of the neighborhood. Sometimes it hosted local jazz bands that weren’t big enough, or quite good enough, to play the Savoy; sometimes a cheap-production play.
And sometimes—tonight, just for instance—they rigged up a ring in the middle of the place, with drooping ropes and sagging floorboards, and put on a boxing match.
The economy being what it was, prizefighters were earning a lot less these days than they used to, and there were a whole lot more burly galoots looking to earn a living with their knuckles, so it shoulda surprised absolutely nobody that a bunch of local circuits—some legit, some less so—sprung up outside the auspices of the National Boxing Association. I hadn’t actually been to any before—once you’ve witnessed (and lived through) a couple dozen duels, boxing just don’t hold the same excitement—but I could see two things straightaway, soon as I walked through the door.
First, neither of these fellas was a Jack Dempsey yet, but they were pretty good; the pro fighters would have some competition if they ever broke out of the local scene.
And second, the fight here mighta been regulated as though it was official—gloves, ref, timer, all that—but the bystanders sure as spit weren’t.
Most of the audience was black, just by virtue of the neighborhood, but there were more than enough white faces to suggest that word of this particular circuit had spread. Voices and arms, the latter covered in everything from cleaned and pressed coatsleeves to yellowed rolled-up shirtsleeves—were raised high, and while most were cheering for one boxer or the other, more’n a few were clutching bills and shouting for the attention of anyone making book.
Of whom, without taking but a few heartbeats to get a good slant on the place, I spotted at least four. Guys weaving through the crowd or perched on a stepladder against one of the walls, collecting dough from a dozen hands at once that probably couldn’t really afford to lose it. I wondered, for about a blink, which of the fighters was the favorite and what the odds were, before remembering that I had no reason in the world to care.
Yeah, lotsa ways to earn a quick buck, and to lose an even quicker one. This was definitely his kinda place. Shouldering and elbowing between bellowing bystanders, blinking through enough cigarette smoke to fill a zeppelin, and trying neither to go deaf from the roar of the crowd nor to slip on the various puddles of legitimate cola and bootleg beer, I went off in search of Four-Leaf Franky.
I got shoved a few times—once practically off my feet—and pounded by some glowers that were even harder than the fists flying in the ring, but I finally picked him out. Sure enough, he was loitering around toward the back of the joint, collecting money hand over fist, and scribbling down people’s wagers in a raggedy notebook. I couldn’t make out much detail from where I was, but yeah, it was Franky all right.
But I hadn’t gotten another yard closer when someone else beat me to him.
From behind a curtain of sweaty meat in acrid clothes, I watched as some palooka roughly the height of the Old Chicago Water Tower, with fists that’d probably send both boxers running home to momma, put a not-too-friendly arm around Franky’s shoulders. Four-Leaf’s peepers went wider than his glasses, and he let the big guy guide him—since the other choice was probably being picked up and thrown—toward the closest back door. The bell chimed loudly, signaling the end of the round, as if to punctuate my own thoughts.
Is my timing perfect, or what?
Sardine-packed crowd between me and them; sardine-packed crowd between me and the front door, too, but a little less of it. I headed back the way I came, one hand on the butt of my L&G in the holster, glaring and grousing willpower out before me like the cowcatcher on a train. Wasn’t easy messing with so many minds at once, but then, I wasn’t trying to do anything too subtle, either. I just sort of tickled at the fear that lurks in everyone’s mind, making them jump, or else ran a faint itch down a foot or a calf so that they’d shift one way or another. It didn’t exactly clear me a path, not in a joint this crowded, but it thinned ’em out some, enough that I could squeeze or elbow my way through what was left. Again I got shoved and shouted at more’n once, and again I kept my feet through the worst of it.
In the doorway, I just about bowled over an older black couple who were, frankly, dressed far too nice for this sorta venue, offered a quick nod of apology, and was sprinting off down the street. Round the corner, between the walls of the greystone and a ramshackle grocer’s next door, old newspaper flapping against my ankles and broken bottles crunching beneath my shoes…
And into the back alley, which woulda been ankle-deep in the same sorts of garbage if the winds weren’t picking the stuff up and tossing it down somewhere else like an indecisive child. The place smelled of rotting food, stale liquor, and piss (both rat and human)—same as every other alley in Chicago, basically.
Except every other alley in Chicago didn’t have Franky Donovan getting beat into porridge by a giant in a blue overcoat.
(I suppose, given what you already know about what I am and where I come from, that I oughta clarify: I’m speaking metaphorically here. Guy wasn’t an actual giant; just plenty rugged and built to match, so he seemed big enough. Just so we’re clear.)
I gotta admit, I was awfully tempted just to let Franky take his lumps. H
eck, I’d have been tempted to let him take other people’s lumps, too. Chances were pretty damn good that he’d done something to deserve whatever he was getting, and I knew that unless the bruiser pounding on him was wearing iron knuckles, he wasn’t about to do Franky any permanent damage. So whatever was happening here, it was none of my business.
But then, I kinda needed Franky to be able to talk, and having him owe me one wouldn’t hurt my cause any.
The thug was rifling through Four-Leaf’s pockets when I deliberately cleared my throat. I stood, squinting, coat flapping in the wind, fist under my jacket and clenched on the wand. Impressive, if I say so myself, especially since I was focusing more’n a touch of willpower to make it feel impressive.
“Get off him,” I said simply, “or I’ll make you.”
The big guy turned, and stood. And stood. And holy mackerel, kept standing! (I was starting to doubt my initial assessment that he wasn’t a real giant.)
And you know what? Magic or no, I don’t think he was all that impressed. It mighta been, in part, because I had to crane my neck back something fierce in order to stare him in anything other than the nipples.
“Huh,” I said.
His greasy, unshaven face glowered down at me from on high. “You really wanna walk away,” he told me.
“Yeah, I really do,” I agreed.
He started to turn.
“I can’t, though.” I drew the L&G and squeezed off a burst of raw terror that shoulda had him squalling and pissing himself as he ran the other way.
But damn, the guy wasn’t just big, he was fast. I’m sure he thought I was pulling a gat, not a stick of whitewood; either way, he’d dropped into a shoulder-roll, passing clear beneath my line of fire, before shooting back to his feet like a breaching whale. He hit me in the sternum with both open palms, lifting me off the ground and hurling me back to land in a sprawling heap amid the rest of the trash. A human woulda had half a dozen broken ribs, might even be dying; me, I just hurt. A lot.