The other man snorted. “Do your due diligence.”
“That’s right.” Altieri clucked his tongue again. “Due diligence saves us from shit like James Brownstone coming at us because…” He stomped toward Mario, his eyes blazing with rage. “…some piece of shit threatened his orphanage and disrespected his employee!” he screamed.
James frowned. He almost felt a little bad for Mario at this point.
Altieri took a step back and adjusted his tie, his slight smile and calm expression returning. “I’m assuming that since you came in that less-than-fashionable long coat, you’re probably packing, right, Brownstone?”
“I wouldn’t walk into a mob restaurant unarmed. That’s just stupid.”
“Not that you need that shit. I know all about your magic armor. I’ve seen video of it.” Altieri pointed at Mario. “I understand respect, Mr. Brownstone. We Family men live and die by it, and Mario has disrespected you and yours. So I offer his life to you.”
James glanced at them. Ironically, he’d been prepared to gun down a dozen people, but the idea of killing some poor bastard who was already half-beaten to death whimpering on the floor held no appeal.
James shook his head. “Just put him on a plane out of town. If he ends up dead here, it’ll probably cause trouble for both of us in the long run. The main reason I came here was to protect the orphanage.” He glowered at Mario. “But don’t ever even think about coming back to LA.”
Mario nodded quickly.
Altieri nodded at the other mobster. “Take his ass out back. Get him some tickets, and put him in a Currus out of state. I hear Maine’s pretty this time of year.”
The thug opened the door, marched to the cringing Mario, and yanked him up by his collar. He shoved the thug through the door and closed it behind them.
Altieri sucked in a breath and took a seat behind his desk. “You run a business. You ever have any trouble with problem employees?”
“A few.” James shrugged. “I’ve got a retired Marine who whips them into shape.”
“I should get me one of those.” Altieri flexed his bruised hand a few times. “I still feel bad about this, so I want to make further amends. You don’t want blood. That’s fine. You’re right. Fucking feds are always up my ass, and bodies lead to trouble.” He frowned. “No one has any respect anymore. My grandpa used to talk about the old days. Being a Family man meant something back then. Now everyone’s just a half-assed thug in a suit.”
James grunted. “I don’t really want anything from you. I don’t need mob favors.”
“Sure, sure. I get that you’re the Granite Ghost, and you’ve got to maintain a certain distance from me and mine.” Altieri snapped his fingers. “But it’s the orphanage that was threatened, not you directly, so maybe I’ll make a donation to the orphanage.”
James shook his head. “Father McCartney won’t accept blood money. It took him a long time to even accept my donations because they were from bounty hunting.”
“I could do something indirectly.”
James’ mouth twitched. “Are you trying to do what Mario thought was going on? Don’t.”
Altieri waved his hands placatingly. “Whoa, calm down there, Mr. Brownstone. I’m not trying to do anything. No one’s attempting to manipulate you. I heard you walked right up to some asshole who could control people’s minds and still put his ass down.” He laughed. “To be honest, I’m not sure how much longer we can even run a true underground business in this town with you and your boys and girls breathing down our necks. I’ve even been thinking about going legit.”
“I don’t give a shit. Keep your guys from having bounties, and you won’t have to deal with my people or me. You care so much, then donate to some other charity that helps orphans.” James turned around and headed toward the door. He stopped when his hand touched the handle and looked over his shoulder. “I’ve got something you can do if you really feel bad.”
“Sure, anything.”
“I want to invite you and your top guys to our wedding. Pick like the top eight or something.” James shrugged. “I don’t give a shit about your organization, so I don’t care. Just make sure you’re there too.”
“What?” A mask of confusion took over Altieri’s face. “Your wedding?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be the last day of July. I’d give you a Save-the-Date, but I didn’t bring any with me. Sorry. If you call the agency and ask, they’ll be able to give you the information and make sure you’re on my guest list. We don’t have the venue selected yet, but I’ll make sure full transportation is provided if it isn’t somewhere you can get to easily.”
Altieri blinked a few times and tilted his head as he processed the odd turn in the conversation. “You want me and my top eight guys at your wedding? Which, from the sound of it, is going to be in some weird out-of-the-way place?”
James nodded and grinned. “It would show respect.” His grin vanished. “And not coming after I invited you would be disrespectful.”
“You got, like a registry, or some shit like that?” Altieri asked, his voice unsteady. “I don’t really know what to buy you as a gift.”
“Shay and I don’t need shit. We just want people there. And to be clear, I also don’t want any bullshit happening in LA on my wedding day, even if I’m not here.”
“Bullshit?” Altieri asked.
James grunted. “Yeah. Bullshit. I’m gonna invite all the top underworld people, and they’re gonna make sure that the day doesn’t end with trouble that’s gonna give the cops a headache. When the cops get a headache, I get a headache, and I don’t want to go on my honeymoon and come back to some mob war shit, understood?”
Altieri replied with a shallow nod.
James opened the door. “Good. See you in July. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you get a formal invitation. Everyone likes weddings, right?”
“Yeah.” Altieri swallowed, as pale as if he had just been sentenced to death. “Everyone likes weddings.”
3
Trey sighed and leaned back on his grandmother’s couch. The damned thing was older than he was. Hell, it had a good ten years on him. He kept offering to buy her new furniture, but she refused him every time.
“Nana, I don’t need you in there getting me anything. I’m a grown man. I can get my own lemonade.”
The elderly woman snorted from the kitchen, her expression hidden by the wall. “Boy, just because you all fancy now with your magic gloves and suits don’t mean I can’t take care of you. Let your nana feel useful.”
It’s taking her even longer than normal.
Trey waited a painfully long time as his grandmother crept around the corner, a glass of lemonade in one hand and a supporting cane in the other. He accepted the glass and let out a sigh of relief once she finally sank into in her recliner and the risk of a fall vanished.
“I heard that, boy,” Nana Garfield muttered. “You think I’m old and useless. I know you’re thinking it every time you come back to town these days. You done went off to Las Vegas, and you’ve let all that glitz and glamour impress you, even though you’re from LA.”
Trey shook his head. “I don’t think you’re useless, Nana, but I do think you’ve spent a lifetime looking after worthless ingrates like me, and it’s time for you to take a rest.” He smiled softly. “And I worry about you. Did you think Auntie Charlyce wouldn’t tell me about the fall? I’m a bounty hunter. I sniff out secrets and lies for a living.”
Nana Garfield scoffed. “That woman—she’s making such a big deal of it. She lived on the streets and she’s seen a lot worse, and she’s acting like I’m going to die just because I took a little fall. People fall all the time. What of it?”
“You’re lucky she was here, and you’re lucky you didn’t break anything. You don’t always have your phone next to you. If you hurt yourself and no one’s here, what are you going to do then, huh? Even at the agency, we rarely do a job alone for that reason. It wouldn’t be so bad if you at least used a smart speak
er or something.”
Nana Garfield frowned. “I don’t need no robot spy in my living room. I don’t trust no robots, I can tell you that. Humans and Oricerans, they are all parts of God’s creation. Robots are made by people and we’re sinful and fallen, which means what we’ve created is dangerous when it’s not about praising the Lord.”
Trey groaned and took a deep breath before responding. Yelling at his grandmother wouldn’t accomplish anything. “Nana, I just don’t want you breaking your hip and lying there in pain, especially since Auntie Charlyce and I don’t live with you no more. She also told me, by the way, that she asked to move back in and you told her no. What are you thinking? That would solve everything.”
“I’m thinking that girl finally got off the Devil’s drugs and is working a normal, honest job. She deserves to have a life, not be looking after me.” Nana Garfield shook her head. “I won’t do that to her. No, I won’t.”
“Okay, I hear that. What about moving in with me? You’d like Las Vegas. It’s not all casinos and clubs, you know. Plenty of elderly folks like it.”
“Las Vegas is nothing but sin, and that takes some effort, considering I live in LA. Not only that, I’m not gonna inflict myself on you. Don’t you get it, boy?” Nana Garfield frowned.
“It’s not like that.” Trey sighed. “You’re not a burden. You deserve it. I could get a bigger place. I’m sure Zoe won’t mind.”
“No. I won’t be doing that.” Nana Garfield leaned back in her chair and let out a long, labored breath. “You and Charlyce have both made me proud. I’m not ready to meet the Lord yet, but I when I do, I know I can go with fewer regrets since some of my children and grandchildren have escaped from the pain and poverty that I worried y’all would be stuck in. That same pain and poverty I couldn’t help free you from. It’s your time now, and I want to give it to you. You don’t need to be looking after some old woman.”
Trey stood. He didn’t want to raise his voice to his grandmother, but the woman’s intransigence was more frustrating than a level-one bounty who refused to accept that he was outclassed.
From what Charlyce had told Trey, she had come by to visit, only to find the older woman moaning on the floor. Charlyce had called an ambulance, and the ER doctor had said it was a miracle Trey’s grandmother hadn’t shattered her hip.
Trey had the resources, monetary and magical, to protect and save his grandmother if he were around, but he wasn’t around anymore. Not enough, anyway. He was hours away in a different city, not able to drop everything at a moment’s notice and drive to her house.
“Charlyce also told me you haven’t been taking all of your pills,” Trey noted.
“Pills, pills, pills. I take pills to take care of the problems caused by the other pills.” Nana Garfield shook her head. “Sometimes I forget, but it ain’t the end of the world. I’m still here.”
Trey looked down at the floor. His next best plan would require her cooperation, and he had his doubts. He forced a look of confidence onto his face and lifted his head. “If you won’t move in with Charlyce or me, and you won’t let Charlyce move back, maybe we should consider other options.”
“What other options?” Suspicion colored Nana Garfield’s face.
“You know…like a place where older folks gather together but still have some independence.”
“I ain’t living in no home.” Nana Garfield glared at him. “You ain’t sticking me in one. You better bring Mr. Brownstone and every bounty hunter in your agency if you try to force me into one, because I’m gonna fight with every last ounce of my strength.” She lifted her cane and shook it menacingly.
Trey groaned. “No homes. I get it. It’s like I said, a place where you can have some independence, like an assisted-living apartment. You would still have your own place, but there are more people around your own age, and you have people checking in on you.”
“I ain’t need that.” Nana Garfield shook her cane at him again. “I’ve got all the ladies at church. Plenty of friends. Why leave behind my nice house for new friends when I’ve already got them?”
“This house is too much for one old woman to keep up, and you know it.”
“I’m the one who has to live in it, boy. You mind your own place and don’t worry about mine.” Some of the anger faded from Nana Garfield’s eyes. “Besides…”
Trey’s brow furrowed. “Besides?”
Nana Garfield released her cane and pointed to the framed pictures filling a glass cabinet in the corner. “Memories, good and bad—that’s what this place is. I get that for you, Trey, this place is probably what you think of when you think of your old life of pain, but it’s not like that for me.” She sighed. “I’m old, and my time is coming sooner rather than later, but I want to spend my final years with all my memories, not in some strange apartment with a bunch of people I don’t know.” She gestured to the front window. “It makes even less sense now to leave. Because of all you boys getting honest, good-paying jobs and Mr. Brownstone, the neighborhood’s changing. Businesses are coming back. Other young people can get jobs, and jobs bring hope for the future, where there was so little hope here before.”
She smiled. “I don’t want to leave now, when everything’s changing. When the entire neighborhood is coming back to life. No, I want to die in this house. Not anytime soon, Lord willing, but when I do pass, I want it to be here, or in church. That’s fine, too. It will cut the time for my trip to Heaven.”
Trey laughed. “You’re too stubborn for me to win against, Nana.”
“Promise me, Trey. Promise me you won’t try to make me leave.”
“Fine, I won’t.” Trey put up a hand. “But you can’t keep pretending you’ve got everything under control. If you don’t want to move, and you don’t want to let family in, then let me pay for a cleaner to come maybe a few times a week and a nurse to check on you a few times a week.”
Nana Garfield frowned. “I ain’t sure about having strange folks visiting my house, but if that is what it takes to get you to agree, then I’ll do it.”
“Good.” Trey slapped his hand over his breast pocket of his expensive black suit. “Remember, Nana. I’m rich now. I’ve got tons of money, so let me share it with you. Every time I take down one of those level threes or fours, even after the agency cut, it’s a huge amount of money.” He leaned forward, eagerness on his face. “You’re right. The big man gave the boys and me an opportunity and almost all of us took it, so now we’re in a much better place. I know I am, so I can do what I could never before: make sure that my family is taken care of.” He grinned. “I’ll hire all the sweet-ass male nurses you need. Anything to keep you in the home.”
“Oh, I don’t need some hunky man checking in on me.” Nana Garfield considered that for a moment. “But it wouldn’t hurt none, either.”
4
“A trip to Earth?” Calal asked, his blond eyebrows raised. “I don’t see why you want to go there. It’s very unpleasant, I’ve heard, and also from what I’ve heard, the magic is still minimal. It needs a few hundred years to become comfortable, I’d say.” The Light Elf gave his friend a look of disgust, unsure why he would want to do so something so foolish.
A cool wind blew over them. Both elves stood in a guard tower at the edge of a high plateau overlooking a modest trade town in an otherwise unremarkable area of Oriceran. Stone and wood buildings were interspersed with the occasional ostentatious metal or crystal tower, but the town was too far from any of the mines in the region to have a major concentration of wealth.
The other Light Elf, Mear, shrugged. “It’d be more interesting than being a guard in a town where nothing ever happens. The most exciting thing we’ve done in the last year was break up that brawl with all those drunken dwarves from that mining caravan. This isn’t why I spent all that time training. This was supposed to be an opportunity, but it feels more like a punishment.”
Calal laughed. “I think that’s a good thing. What do you want, the Great War?” He shuddered. �
�Random battles against rogue witches, Atlanteans, and Mountain Striders? Peace is underappreciated.”
“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that something other than an arrogant gnome or thieving pixie would be nice now and again.” Mear scoffed. “A visit to Earth would at least be interesting. Different. I’ve talked to several people who have gone, and they’ve enjoyed it. The stores are fascinating compared to ours.”
Calal shrugged, disbelief still written on his face. “Travel more around Oriceran if you’re so bored. There’s far more to see here than you’ll find on Earth. Most of their magical races still hide from the rest of the planet. The humans infest it like a cancer, and there are so many of them.”
Mear chuckled. “That seems interesting. Those teeming cities must be a sight, indeed. Still, I’d like half a chance to prove myself.”
“All the recent trouble dates back a few decades, but things aren’t too bad, and I think that’s perfect. Rhazdon’s been handled, and the gates are stable, though opening. I was half-afraid the non-magical humans would start pouring over here and bringing all their noxious technology with them, but you barely see them except in the larger cities.” Calal gestured to a convoy of beaked men riding giant, colorful lizards. “They’re a long way from home, aren’t they? I’m surprised to see desert folk out here.”
“I suppose,” Mear answered, his gaze distant. After a moment, he pulled out a gleaming long sword. “This sword is thousands of years old. The magic on it helped one of my ancestors end a Drow rebellion, but what I am doing with it? Nothing. Threatening drunkards into submission.” He scoffed. “I knew I should have gotten a position as a royal guard when I had the chance a hundred years back. At least I could have been involved in the murder investigation. That would have been interesting.”
“Not really.” Calal marched to the edge of the tower, watching the caravan proceed farther into the town. “They kept it tightly contained and closed, and they brought in… Well, it turns out she wasn’t just a human, but they didn’t know that at the time. They were trying their best to keep many things secret.”
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