by Ari Marmell
Felt something else, too, though. Something spiritually hinky. Something that, far as I knew, was unique to this house. Or rather, to the girl lying dead to the world upstairs.
And then there I was, back in that same sitting room. The same table, the same chairs and sofa with the same paisley upholstery and cushions so overstuffed you could build wings for an entire choir of angels with the feathers.
(Given what I already told you, I guess I better clarify again. If angels exist, I never seen one. Just me being poetic. Go with it, savvy?)
Ramona gawped, and I couldn’t figure why—place wasn’t that ritzy—until she said softly, “My, they’re very Catholic, aren’t they?”
I chuckled at that. “Votaries outnumbered the crucifixes and portraits together, last I checked. But that mighta changed by—”
“Mick!” The woman was first through the door, wrapping me in a hug that I’d really rather have avoided. Her hair was ink-black, and she was startin’ to look her age—worry lines, mostly—but carried it well.
Her husband was right behind her, and their daughter—well, one of ’em—behind him. Block-jawed and heavy lidded, Fino wore dark brown, and combed his hair like he was still trying to pretend it wasn’t going away. And the girl… Well, she looked a lot like her mother.
All one happy, normal family, if you didn’t know what the guy did to earn his lettuce. Or his ancestry. Or the girl’s history. Or… Yeah, not a normal family at all.
“Hey, amico!” Another hug, damn it. Couldn’t the guy just shake hands? “How you doin’?”
The daughter didn’t come close enough to hug or slap palms, just hung back and jerked me a nod.
“Keeping alive, Fino. Guys, Ramona. Ramona? Fino, Bianca, and Celia Ottati.”
Then, of course, I hadda sit through another round of handshakes and half hugs and the good-ta-meetchas and the any friendas. Almost as bad as being back home at the Court.
Another five minutes or more, until everyone who wanted a snort of something had a glass beside ’em, and we’d all staked out a seat somewhere. Few more minutes of gum bumping that nearly had me pulling my hair out with my teeth, until finally we passed whatever that magic line is where it’s not rude anymore to talk business.
“Are you here about Adalina?” Bianca whispered, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear herself ask.
I opened my trap, but her husband beat me to it. “Nah, tesora, he ain’t here for that. He’da said so right off, same way he always does. So, what the fu—uh, heck—” he corrected himself, gaze ping-ponging between Ramona’n me, “does bring you all the way cross fu—uh, cross town?”
I might notta been at my sharpest just then, but I ain’t that slow. It only took me a shake to figure out what his dancing eyeballs were asking.
My soul sank into my stomach so hard, I figure it was lookin’ at real estate down there. It hadn’t even crossed my noggin to watch what I was about to blurt out. And not just my own secrets, but the Ottati’s, too.
I trusted her. I just… did. And that, that didn’t sit right. With my job, my history, my life? I gotta have months, if not years, before I’ll let my guard down around someone. Ramona was different—and she shouldn’ta been, no matter how taken I was.
Could I really be that much off my game?
I loved what I hadda do next even less, though. I wanted to squirm in the chair, maybe crawl under the cushion.
“Hey, Fino, I wonder if someone could entertain Ramona for a while. I don’t think she’d have much interest in what we gotta say.”
“Sure. Hey, Celia, you wanna show our guest around a little?”
Whatever muscle it is that adolescents got that let’s ’em roll their eyes farther’n adults can, Celia’s was well developed.
“I think I’d prefer to stay.” Ramona’s voice woulda frozen a hot cuppa joe solid through.
Oh, God, I was gonna suffer for this. Hell, I already was.
“Ramona, we got things to…” I began gently. “Confidentiality issues, you dig? If it was just about me…”
Ramona said nothing more, didn’t even look my way, just followed when Celia stood—with a sigh just quiet enough for her parents to pretend they didn’t hear—and blew the room.
“The Shark,” as they called him in Mob circles, studied the door, studied me, and grinned.
“That’s one hot number, but you maybe shoulda left her at home. You’re gonna fucking pay for this, later.”
“Tell me about it.” And sure, I didn’t much enjoy the thought of Ramona hot under the collar, but… I’d hurt her pride and her feelings, both. I felt like a heel for it, too.
But damn it, why hadn’t I thought of it? Why’d Fino need to remind me?
“How’s Celia doing?” I asked, then, tearing my attention from the empty doorway—and circling questions I knew I couldn’t shoo away right now.
They both frowned, and Bianca began sliding a rosary between two fingers.
“It’s been hard,” she admitted. “Six months is a good while, but not enough to recapture a lifetime. We… still don’t really know who she is, sometimes.”
“But she’s still here,” I pointed out. We’d all figured there were decent odds she’da taken the run-out by now. “She’s tryin’ to be your daughter.”
“I dunno,” Fino said. “Maybe.”
“She spends most of her time alone,” his wife continued, “or else taking care of—of her sister. I think she’s a lot more concerned with Adalina than becoming family with us. Still, we talk. We eat together. There’s less distance than there was. That’s something.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot better’n it coulda gone,” I agreed.
“I think she’s still a little afraid, too. Any sign of him?” she asked.
The “him” in question was a miserable, abnormally cruel phouka by the name of Goswythe. He was the bastard who’d raised Celia in Elphame, telling her that her family hadn’t wanted her, teaching her to obey and steal and otherwise be his damn slave-puppet. Me’n him had had it out, and I think I was gettin’ the better of him, but last I saw of him was right before a witch’s spell had knocked us both completely loopy. Hadn’t heard hide nor hair of him since; when a shapeshifter wants to stay hidden, they can, but I’d have expected him to come after me—or her—by now.
’Cause, y’know, we none of us had enough to worry about.
“Not a peep,” I told them.
They weren’t surprised.
“And Adalina?” I asked. “How’s she?”
Bianca’s rosary occupied both hands, now. “Nothing’s changed, Mick. She still won’t wake up, no matter what we do.”
I winced at that—I’d told ’em more than once not to do anything until we knew more—but it woulda been a trip for biscuits to try to convince ’em yet again.
“The muttering has gotten worse, though,” she continued. “It’s almost constant, now. It keeps her tossing and turning for hours and hours…”
The muttering was a new symptom, started about a week ago. They’d called me in a panic, and I’d been stuck with that damn horn in my ear for an hour.
“All right. Don’t think it means a lot, but I’ll look in on her before I go. Eating?”
“Yeah.” Fino shook his head. “We put food in her mouth—well, Celia does, mostly—she chews and swallows, but… Maddon’, she still don’t seem anywhere close to awake! Just, mouth movin’, lifeless, like a fucking industrial—”
“Stop!” Bianca sobbed.
“Yeah,” he said again. “Sorry.”
“I’m doing what I can,” I assured them. Which I guess wasn’t technically true: I coulda been spending all my time in Elphame, instead of just popping in now and again, trying to suss out what the hell the changeling actually was. But I got my limits; nothing’s worth spendin’ any more time in the Otherworld than I absolutely gotta.
Besides, I did have other cases. Speakin’ of…
“Look, guys,” I said. “Reason I am here is,
I got this thing I’m working on, and I think you could do me some good.”
“Anything,” Bianca said quickly. “We owe you that.”
Fino answered a bit slower, bit more thoughtfully. “Whatever we can do.”
“Swell. You can start by singing me a couple verses about Giancarlo Manetti.”
“Ha!” Fino declared. “Anything I sing about that stronzo’s gonna be ‘Amazing Grace.’ Maybe Chopin.”
“I’m gonna use my brilliant gumshoe deductive powers,” I said, “and guess that, one, you already know someone knocked him off. And two, you and he didn’t exactly drink outta the same bottle.”
“I mean, it ain’t like we had a real beef or nothing. Guy was just a fucking ass. Hang a gondola from his ego, you’da had yourself a fuckin’ zeppelin.”
“I’ll bring you by the Seelie Court sometime. You wanna see ego… So, yeah. Bootlegger, right?”
Fino nodded, throwing back a quick slug of whatever eel juice had been poured for him.
“Bootlegger and smuggler of anything you care to fucking think of. Booze, sure, but also stolen goods, hop, mescal, even people didn’t want nobody wise that they were in—or leaving—Chicago.”
Bianca lightly toe-kicked him under the table.
“All right, already!” he snapped. Then shrugged at me. “Gink was the worst kinda gavone, but I gotta admit, he was good. One of the best. Think that’s why everyone put up with him. ’Til now.”
His wife glanced my way and smiled. “You have to prod him, sometimes.”
The Shark muttered under his breath. I didn’t catch most of it, but there were a whole lotta words that rhymed with “duck.”
I let him simmer down, took a slug of my own drink—they knew to keep extra milk for me by now; sweet of ’em, really—and went on. “Any notion of who he’s been working for, or with?”
“Hmm. Well, I can tell ya who got zotzed in the car along with him, for starters. I got a guy in the coroner’s office, and I just got the lowdown myself. Lessee…”
Fino rattled off a trio of names, the first two of which meant zip to me. Name number three, though…
Pretty sure I leaned forward sharp enough to slice the cushion under me.
“Gimme that again?”
“Uh, Caro. Miles Caro. Say, wasn’t that the guy you were askin’ around about the other day?”
Well, dunk me in the river and call me Ophelia. How’dya like that? Guess the poor idiot had gotten into something over his head. Least I had an answer for his family, even if it wasn’t the one they wanted.
(And yeah, that’s the slight overlap I mentioned earlier. Big case gave me the answer to a little one, is all. Sometimes weird coincidence really is just weird coincidence.)
“Any idea who Manetti’d been running for, lately? Any chance it was Scola?”
“Shit, what do I know, Mick? It coulda been, sure. That bastard hired him often enough. But it coulda been any one of a couple dozen others, too.”
The upholstery fwoomped under my head as I leaned back, staring at the line where wallpaper met ceiling. Tiny grey spider in one corner paused in his web-building to stare right back.
Then, since “web” made me think “Webb,” and I really needed my focus right now, I ignored it.
I sighed, really for their sake, not mine. So they knew I didn’t wanna do this.
“You guys know of anyone else in the, ah, business might also use some of the… special tools you do?”
Didn’t either of ’em look happy I’d asked. We were startin’ to tread on some uncomfortable ground.
It was Bianca who answered. Guess he’d given up trying to keep any of the business from her.
“You already know about Scola—” she began.
“Right.”
Now Fino jumped in again. “Guy called Eli Housemann. North Sider. Rumor has it he uses that, uh, whaddayacall? That Jewish hocus-pocus?”
“Kabbalah,” Bianca and I said at once.
“Yeah. That. He ain’t been around much last couple years, though.”
No shock, there, since I was why he hadn’t been doing much. Got into a case involving him back in ’29, though I never met the guy. Wasn’t able to get anything the state could use to convict, but Pete’n me’d managed to gum up his magic safeguards enough that his operation sorta fell to pieces. I called it a win.
Didn’t seem worth getting into right now, though.
The both of ’em tossed a couple more monikers my way. Ricky Kincaid, Saul Fleischer, Finn Skelley…
Two things, right off the jump.
One, while it wasn’t exactly a phone book they were givin’ me, it was more names than I expected. Really didn’t care for the notion that so many of Chicago’s low-and-mighty even knew magic existed, let alone used it.
And two…
“Can’t help but notice,” I said, “that, other’n Scola—who I already knew about, and who you guys wouldn’t mind seeing pushing up daisies—there’s not an Italian name on your list. How much you wanna bet that, if I dig into it, I’m gonna find out real easy that everyone else you’ve named is a North Sider, not Outfit?”
Bianca, at least, had the grace to look a little embarrassed. Fino just grinned—friendly enough, but with some real bite behind it if you got a close enough slant.
“I owe you. Maddon’, there ain’t words for what I owe you. But I got other loyalties, too. I can’t rat one to satisfy the other. I won’t.”
I coulda made him. Right there. But the both of ’em would know what I’d pulled, and right now I was a lot better off with Fino “the Shark” as an ally, not an enemy. Still, I was seriously considering it when he continued.
“I’ll tell you this. There ain’t a lotta guys in the Outfit have any truck with the kinda shit you’re talking about. Those that do, least according to rumor? None of ’em been real busy last few weeks with anything but normal business. I’d have heard otherwise.”
“You sure about that, Fino?”
He was all stone, now. “Sure enough for this conversation, Mick.”
“Capisco,” I said. He’d just told me I’d pushed that question ’bout as far as it’d stretch, and if he hadda tell me again, it wouldn’t be so politely.
It’d do, for now. If I hadda come back later and make him sing louder, well… I’d deal with the troll under that bridge when I came to it.
“Thanks.”
I stood, and the pair of ’em scrambled to do the same.
“I’ll pop in on Adalina real quick, and…”
Huh. Now there was a thought. I didn’t wanna worry ’em any more than they already were, but I didn’t want ’em caught by surprise, either.
“Fino, Bianca… I can’t much go into what’s happening, but there’s a lot of Fae in Chicago right now. Far more’n usual, and that includes the Unseelie. They all got a particular reason for being here, but that don’t mean one of ’em might not try to grab Adalina while the gettin’s good.”
Bianca gasped, clutching at her rosary. Fino’s breath seemed stuck in his throat.
“I’ll try’n strengthen the wards,” he said finally.
I nodded.
“Do that.”
It probably wouldn’t help. As I said, Fino didn’t have whatever his mother had had, when it came to witchcraft. But it couldn’t hurt.
“Don’t worry about leaving a back door for me. We’ll deal with that after. And remember, iron. Your boys’ heaters would probably hurt whoever or whatever came after Adalina, but not enough. Iron knives, pipes, fireplace poker, whatever.”
“You got it, Mick. Grazie.”
“Yeah. Watch your backs, kids.”
I got two steps towards the stairs and stopped.
“Y’know, now I think about it…”
They both waited. Think they could see the wheels spinning.
“You been hearing about any spilled blood that ain’t related to the Outfit at all? Anything private or outside?”
You could tell the Ottatis’d be
en hitched for a good while: their headshakes coulda been choreographed.
“Nothin’ jumps to mind,” Fino said. “I mean, usual small-time shit you see every day in this burgh, but nothin’ outta the ordinary. Kurtzman, maybe, but everyone’s pretty sure that was a accident.”
“Kurtzman?”
I knew the bird he probably meant; even worked with him myself a time or two. Martin Kurtzman, an accountant who often consulted with the cops when goin’ over Mob books. Since you can imagine how well the Mob liked him for that, the guy had cops stationed far enough up his keister they could brush his teeth. Last I’d heard—though it’d been a spell, I admit—guy was doin’ just great.
“Yeah. Gavone made a bad left and turned himself and his flivver into a fucking tree ornament. Lotta made guys’d love to take credit for it, but like I said, it was probably an accident.”
Another one.
That was, what, the third time an unrelated “accident” had come up over the course of this job? And every one of the poor saps was important in some capacity or other. My “this ain’t kosher” bump was startin’ to itch.
Then again, accidents happen, and I was payin’ more attention to things than I had been, so who the hell knew what was what?
Took me a sec to realize the Shark’d followed up his answer with: “Why’d you ask?”
“Curious. Tryin’ to figure what the Unseelie are doin’ and where. It ain’t like them to be this quiet.” I briefly pondered the notion that there was some connection between the two—the Unfit and the accidents—but I couldn’t get it to track.
Aw, hell, what was one more hinky wrinkle to add to this whole shindig?
I didn’t figure either of ’em was planning to just shake hands, and I really didn’t care to hassle with any more hugs today, so I just turned and resumed the long and arduous trek across the room to the stairs.
“Oh,” I added at the last, “tell Archie I said ‘hello.’”
“Sure.”
“Actually, tell him I said, ‘hello, hello.’”