"Do you know any ecdysiasts, Sergeant?" he asked. "Professionally, that is." He sat back in his chair. "I meant your profession, of course – not theirs."
If he was planning to make me feel stupid for not knowing what an ecdysiast is, he was wasting his time. "Yeah, I've met a few strippers," I said. "Some human, some not."
"Do of those, um, ladies ever turn tricks on the side?"
"They don't tell me about it, if they do. Anyway, I'm not the Vice Squad."
I heard Karl stir impatiently in his chair. But I was willing to wait. There was a point that Trombley was trying to make, and I wanted to find out what it was.
"But some strippers do 'hook' on the side – fair to say?" Trombley asked.
"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "So?"
"I have a couple of… acquaintances in that profession. Not prostitutes, you understand. These ladies only exhibit their bodies, not sell them. But they tell me that there is a certain kind of man who assumes that every stripper is also a 'working girl.' Some of them can be quite obnoxious in their quest for sexual favors."
"Look, buddy, we don't have all night…" Karl began, but Trombley held up the hand again.
"Of course, Detective, and I won't delay you unnecessarily. But I wanted to make the point that people, ignorant people, sometimes make assumptions about what various… professionals will and will not do for money."
I thought I could see where this was going. "You're comparing yourself to a stripper?"
He gave me the smile again. "Only figuratively, of course. Although it's a venerable profession. Almost as old as mine."
"Somebody asked you to make a Gorgon statue," I said.
"Indeed, yes. Two of them, in fact."
"And the fact that we're having this conversation means you turned him down. Or was it her?"
"I did decline, yes. And I was quite insulted by the assumption the man was making. I do not dabble in black magic, nor will I – for any amount of money."
"Because you're such a law-abiding citizen," Karl said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
The look Trombley gave Karl this time was definitely of the turn-you-into-a toad variety, but his voice was mild when he said, "That's right, Detective. But more to the point, I am not subject to self-delusion."
"Meaning what?" I asked.
"Meaning I do not assume that I could make a pact with any of the Dark Powers without eventually paying the ultimate price."
"Your life, you mean," Karl said.
"No, Detective. My soul. Unlike some foolish practitioners of the Art, I have never forgotten that when you make a deal with the devil, the notes come due in brimstone. Invariably."
"All right, you didn't take the job," I said. "But somebody did."
Trombley looked at me more closely. "Yes – I should have seen it sooner. You've had a brush with the Reaper recently. Clearly he came in second best." It was hard to tell whether his voice contained relief or regret.
"Well," he went on, "I have no idea who among my fellow practitioners might have accepted that commission. I could give you a list of names, but you're as familiar with the local magic community as I am. Perhaps even more so."
"What about the guy who tried to hire you?" Karl asked. "Did you get a name?"
"He called himself Thomas L. Jones," Trombley said, deadpan. "Do you suppose that could have been an alias?"
"How about a description?" I said.
"White male, mid to late twenties," Trombley said with a shrug. "Well built, average height, brown hair cut conventionally, clean shaven, rather attractive brown eyes." He looked at me. "I realize that probably describes about five thousand of the local residents, but I may be able to narrow the field for you. Excuse arl t moment."
He stood up smoothly and left the room for what I assumed was the kitchen, judging by the clinking of glass that soon followed. I had a feeling that the wizard wasn't planning to offer us refreshments. Just as well – I hate to be rude, but I wouldn't eat or drink something this guy gave me if it came with a nihil obstat from the pope himself.
Karl and I were exchanging silent "What the fuck?" looks when Trombley came back into the room.
"Here you go," he said, and gently tossed a glass in my direction. I picked it out of the air and saw that it was the kind of squat, wide glass people often serve booze in. I think it used to be called an Old Fashioned glass, after the drink. Maybe it still is.
"When the gentleman called on me, I offered him some hospitality," Trombley said. "I didn't yet know what he wanted, and so treated him like any other potential client." He nodded at the glass in my hands. "After I learned what 'Mr Jones' had in mind, and asked him to leave, I thought I'd best put that glass aside without washing it. It should now have three sets of prints on it, Detective. Mine, which are on file with the application for my magic license, your own, and those of the elusive Mr Jones. Perhaps you'll be able to identify him from those."
As we got to our feet, Karl asked him, "How come you waited until now to share this information with the police?"
Trombley gave us a nonchalant shrug. "Until now, I had no reason to believe he had found someone to indulge his foolishness. As far as I knew, no crime had been committed."
Karl looked at me, and I gave him a shrug of my own. If Trombley wanted to play innocent, there was no way we could prove otherwise. And he had provided us with the glass.
As he saw us to the door, Trombley said, "Regardless of how the prints work out, don't bother to return the glass. I'm sure it will make a nice addition to one of your kitchens."
Then we were on the porch, the door closing firmly behind us.
Snotty bastard.
We didn't even have to send the prints on Jonas Trombley's glass to the FBI. They rang the cherries in the Scranton PD's own fingerprint files.
"Jamieson Longworth?" I looked at the mug shot on my computer screen, full face and profile. The image seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't say from where.
I turned to Karl, sitting next to me. "Who the fuck is he?"
"Let's find out," Karl said. "Keep going."
I clicked a couple of times, and there it was: an arrest report. And it was recent.
"Holy shit," Karl said softly. "He's one of the cultists. From the warehouse."
"And now he wants payback?" I said. "I've busted people who ought to hate me a hell of a lot more than him, and none of them tried to get me turned into stone."
"I'm surprised the guy's not still in County, awaiting trial," Karl said. "Assuming what's-his-name, Trombley, wasn't yanking our chains. Because of the hooker, those cultists were all charged with felony murder, haina? They should've been looking at some pretty high bail."
"Let's find out," I said. I clicked my way to the case file and started scrolling.
It didn't take long. "Yeah, old Judge Rakauskas set bail at half a million each, fifty-K cash equivalent," I said. "Either way, that's a lot of green for your average lowlife to come up with."
"And only one of them did." Karl was looking at the screen.
Jamieson Longworth.
"Okay, that puts the bastard on the street," I said. "But it still doesn't explain why he-"
"Wait," Karl said. "Scroll down some more."
"To where?"
"To the name of the guy who ended up as Purina Demon Chow."
I'd heard that, on the advice of their attorneys, the surviving cultists had clammed up tighter than a banker's wallet. They weren't saying anything about anything, including the name of their buddy who Karl had thrown to the demon. They weren't even admitting that there was a demon. And any ID the guy had been carrying had been consumed, along with the rest of him.
I sat there frowning at the monitor until Karl said, "Try the M.E. He might have something."
It took a few seconds to find the medical examiner's report. In one of the appendices, it said that forensics had found enough DNA to make an identification of the deceased.
Ronald Longworth, age twenty-one. Same addr
ess as the cultist who had made bail.
Jamieson Longworth's brother.
I started to say something, but then my computer made a ping and a little tab appeared on the bottom of the screen. It read, "New mail from Vollmanex@aol. com."
I looked at Karl for a second, then clicked open my mailbox. Sometimes when it rains, it pours.
Nobody would ever accuse Vollman of being verbose – not online, anyway.
I have examined, with considerable difficulty, a copy of the Opus Mago. Only one spell in it calls for the sacrifice of Nosferatu. The one attempting to cast this spell must not succeed. He must be stopped, at any cost.
The number of Nosferatu sacrifices required for the sacrifice is 5.
"Five vamps," Karl said. "Which means two to go."
"You can do subtraction," I said. "That's a good start. We'll have you up to the multiplication tables by next week."
"Yeah, if any of us are still here next week. What do you figure the Big Bad is – the one Vollman says is gonna happen if the spell goes off as planned?"
"The End of the World as We Know It, maybe? I think I've heard that one a few times before. And the World as We Know It is still here."
"Yeah, but maybe that's because the good guys always stopped the bad guys who were gonna cause it," Karl said. "You ever think about that?"
"Right now I'd rather think about how to find Jamieson Longworth, before his tame wizard manages to do us in. We can't save the world if we've been turned into lawn furniture."
I turned back to the computer. "Last known address for both these guys is in Abington Heights."
Karl snorted. "That explains where he got the money to make bail. Dude's got some coin, if he lives up there."
"Maybe." I brought up the Reverse Directory and typed Longworth's address into it. "Then again, the money may belong to Mommy and Daddy. The property's in their name, anyway."
"Well, I guess human sacrifice is one way to rebel against your parents," Karl said. "But it seems kinda extreme, even if they are real assholes."
I stood up. "Let's go talk to them," I said, "and find out."
On our way out to the car Karl said, "Maybe we oughta not mention to Mommy and Daddy that I'm the one who fed their other kid to a demon."
"Yeah, that would make kind of a bad first impression, wouldn't it?"
"Bastard deserved it, though."
"Even so."
amp;n Karl said. "Even so."
We don't have mansions in Scranton. People with enough money for a mansion would rather live someplace else. But if there were going to be any mansions in town, you'd find them in Abington Heights. That's where the money lives, most of it. Some of the really rich have isolated estates up in the hills around Lake Scranton. But there was enough money in Abington Heights to offset a good-sized chunk of the national debt, if you could only get it away from them, and good luck with that.
The Longworths had built themselves a threestory mock Tudor that sprawled across a plot of ground about the size of New Zealand. I wondered what issue of Architectural Digest they'd seen it in. "Build us one like this," I bet they'd told the contractor, "only bigger." The immense lawn was so immaculately kept that I couldn't imagine kids playing on it. I wondered where the Longworth brothers, growing up, had played ball, and tag, and generally run tear-assing around the way kids are supposed to.
Maybe they hadn't. Maybe that was the problem, or part of it.
The door was answered by a smiling chubbycheeked housekeeper who said her name was Mrs. Moyle. She was wearing a tasteful version of what my mom used to call a housedress, except this one had probably cost five times as much. At least they hadn't put her in a maid's uniform.
We'd called ahead and were expected. If we weren't exactly welcome, you couldn't tell it by Mrs. Moyle, who showed us into a living room that wasn't nearly as big as Dodger Stadium.
"Would you officers care for some tea, or coffee, or maybe something light to eat?" she asked.
"No, thank you, ma'am," I said. "We're good."
"A cocktail, perhaps?" She touched her fingers to her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh, that's right, you're still on duty, aren't you?"
"Yes, we are, ma'am. If you could just tell Mrs. Longworth we're here?"
"Oh, of course. Please make yourselves comfortable. I'm sure she'll be right out."
Karl and I sat down on a leather couch that was more comfortable than it looked. Mrs. Longworth kept us waiting exactly five minutes – the same length of time I'd spent cooling my heels in a few other rich people's homes. It must be in a manual somewhere, under "Appropriate Waiting Time for Visiting Tradesmen, Police Officers, and Other Representatives of the Working Class."
Emily Longworth wasn't more than five feet tall, but she hadn't let her height, or lack of it, give her an inferiority complex. Her hair was a shade of auburn that nature never thought of but should have, and she wore a simple gray wool dress that was probably worth as much as my pension fund. I assumed the pearls on the single string around her slim neck were genuine.
She looked at our ID folders closely, whether out of disdain or mere curiosity I couldn't tell. After we were all seated, she said with a tight smile, "So, gentlemen, what can I do for you?"
"First of all, ma'am, I'd like to offer my condolences on the death of your son. I know what a terrible thing that must be."
There was no point in tiptoeing around it. If she was going to vent about it, let her. She might be more talkative, afterwards.
The semblance of a smile was gone as Mrs. Longworth asked me, "Indeed, officer? You've experienced the loss of a child, yourself, have you?"
"Yes, ma'am, I have." In ways you can't even imagine.
She saw the truth of it in my face, even if she didn't fully understand what I'd meant.
"In that case, thank you for your… condolences."She'd been about to say "sympathy," I was sure of it – I'd seen the "s" start to form in her mouth, but then she'd remembered that one doesn't accept sympathy from social inferiors.
Next to me, Karl was looking at the carpet as if he wanted to memorize the weave. He'd been pretending that throwing that little bastard to the demon had been all in a night's work, but I knew better. It would be a long time before either of us forgot the screams coming from Richard Longworth as that demon had eaten him alive. The fact that it could easily have been me screaming, as Richard Longworth cheered, was some consolation, but only some.
Closing her eyes, Mrs. Longworth shook her head slowly. "It's been like a nightmare, except even in my most frightening dreams I never thought that my son would be set upon by werewolves…"
The word seemed to hang, vibrating, in the air. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I'd been about to say, Werewolves don't do that kind of thing anymore – not outside the movies, then I remembered that case in Denver last year.
A guy had been arrested for molesting little kids. He'd been doing it for a while, apparently. The victims had kept quiet a long time, for the usual reason: the scumbag had threatened them, their parents, or their pets with terrible deaths if the poor kids talked.
But one of them finally did. When word got out, the dam broke and more victims came forward. One of them was from a supe family.
The pederast had made three major mistakes, the way I look at it. The first was giving into his sick desires instead of either getting serious psychiatric help or cutting his own wrists. The second was molesting the six year-old daughter of a werewolf. His third mistake, the fatal one, was somehow coming up with the money to make bail.
They call them "short eyes" in jail, and pedophiles are often the target of other inmates. Even killers and bank robbers have kids of their own. But this guy would have done better to stay behind bars and take his chances in the shower room.
What you hear about werewolves is true. The wolf part of their nature means that they tend to form tight social groups, similar to the packs you find in the wild. You think Italian families are close? They've got nothing on your ave
rage werewolf clan.
I don't think the Denver cops ever figured out exactly how many weres had been in the group that cornered the child molester after he left his bail bondsman's office. But there wasn't any doubt about how he died. He'd been eaten alive – and they figured he'd taken over an hour to die.
But this kind of thing was really uncommon among werewolves these days, and I was about to say so to Mrs. Longworth when Karl asked her, "Is that what the police told you, ma'am? That your son was attacked by… werewolves?"
"The police? I didn't speak to the police. There are some things a mother just shouldn't have to do. My husband spoke to them. He told me later, because I insisted on knowing."
"Is that also what your other son, Jamieson, says happened?" I asked carefully. "After all, he was there."
"He was not there. I wish you police would get that absurd idea out of your heads. Don't you think he would have tried to protect his own brother?"
Then he could have been eaten by the werewolves, too, I thought – if there'd been any werewolves.
"Jamieson spent the evening with some friends in Wilkes-Barre, and he had barely crossed the city limits on his way home when the stupid police pulled him over on some trumped-up murder charge. As if my son would have anything to do with a prostitute. It's ridiculous, that's all – it's just ridiculous."
Her face twisted, but she stopped herself from breaking into tears. That just wasn't done – at least, not in front of the stupid police.
I gave Mrs. Longworth a few seconds to pull herself together, then said, "Is your son home now, ma'am?" Fat chance of that, since we'd had to call in advance. And there's no way we'd get authorization for a raid on this place – not without a dozen witnesses and a signed deposition from the President. But I'd asked anyway, as an entry to some other questions I had.
"No, he's not here," she said. "He hasn't been for days."
"Doesn't he live here with you, ma'am?" Karl asked her.
"Yes, of course he does, but he's got another place somewhere in town, some kind of bachelor pad, if people still say that. I was against it, but his father said a boy needs to have some privacy."
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