“Hello?” Mickey was breathing hard, as if he’d had to run a long distance to get the phone. Maybe even all the way from one side of the room to the other.
“Mickey, why didn’t you answer the first time? If you’re not going to be there when I need you, you can go home and I’ll call you there. Or maybe you should get a cell phone. This is 2005, after all.”
“Sorry, Cal. I was in the john,” Mickey puffed. “You can leave me a message, after all. I’ll get back to you.” His sentence ended in a long wheeze and another drag of breath.
“I didn’t know if you were there or not. No point in leaving a message if you’re not around.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. That’s why we have a machine. So that you can leave a message—” Another wheeze, “—when I’m not in.”
“Whatever. I need you to run background on a guy for me.”
“Sure. Does he have a name?”
“Pete—probably Peter—Potoczek.” Cal had one of the photocopied flyers from the Renfaire and spelled it out for Mickey.
“Well, at least he’s no John Smith. That should make it easier.”
“He’s part of the SCA crowd, so he might be on that user group. He’s the Prince of the Misty Hills. AKA Pete the Potter.”
“Pete the Potter, right. What do you want on him?”
“Right now, criminal history, red flags, any rumors on that group about him. He’s married, but I think he’s got an eye for the merry maids. Not that I care, unless he got together with Jenna, or she rebuffed him. He might have prison tats.”
“You got pictures of the ink? I can do something with that.”
“No. No chance to get any, and they were mostly hidden. It might be nothing, but I’m curious.”
“Roger that. I’ll look into him, boss.”
“Thanks. I guess I’ll keep you on for a while longer.”
“I can always use a bottle at my desk to pee. That way I can pick up on the first ring, and I don’t have to pause my game. Hey, that’s a good idea!”
“No,” Cal said immediately. She imagined him dribbling all over the office. Ew. “Don’t you dare. I’ll leave a message on the machine next time.” She hung up.
Mickey, one. Cal, zero.
When she got home, Cal found a note detailing when Starlight came by to feed the animals and take the Pekes out for a little bit of exercise. The note was on Cal’s pillow, weighted with a little bundle of herbs that smelled like Sunday dinner. Cal was pleased that her mother hadn’t burned them this time. She brushed anything with leaves or rose petals off the blankets and climbed in beside Snowflake, happy to be back in her own bed again.
She felt like she’d barely drifted off to sleep when her bedside phone woke her up. Obviously, she should have called Starlight before going to sleep. Cal clawed the handset off the holder and held it to her ear. “Mom?”
“Sorry, I am not your mother,” a droll male voice crooned in her ear.
Cal sat up, blinking. She pulled the phone away from her ear to look at the phone number, and put it back to her ear again. “Luger?”
“I’ve told you to call me Gunther, leibchen. I thought we were past all that?”
“Gunther,” Cal repeated, pronouncing it the way he did, with a ‘T’ sound instead of a Th. “Hey.” She couldn’t raise any enthusiasm for his call. “What’s going on? I was sleeping.”
“Why don’t you come to me when you need something? Wouldn’t it be so much easier to have dinner with me and to discuss these things in a social setting? Why all the cat-and-mouse games?”
“I truly have no idea what you’re talking about. What’s going on?”
“Your case. You start asking questions that enter into my…areas of interest. Why don’t you just call me?”
Cal yawned, making no effort to cover the sound. If he knew she was on a case, he should know she needed her sleep. “I’m still lost. What would Jenna Duncan’s murder have to do with you? I don’t see the connection.”
“You’re being coy. You’re making enquiries after Peter Potoczek?”
“Pete the Potter. Yeah. Are you telling me you know him?”
“Quite so. Better to come to me than stir things up.”
“I didn’t even think about it.”
“You saw his tattoos.”
Cal racked her brain for who she’d told about that. Or maybe Luger was fishing. “I saw there was something there.”
“A swastika.”
“I couldn’t see the full thing. I wasn’t really sure what kind of a symbol. He does costuming stuff. I thought it was a medieval rune.” Cal drew in a breath and tried to rein in her tongue. Why was she giving him any explanation? She could investigate whatever she wanted, in whatever way she wanted to. She would have to talk to Mickey though; he’d obviously been too clumsy in his inquiries if Luger had become aware of them.
Or maybe Pete had noticed and word had gotten to Luger. In any case, it was a bit unnerving to see how well-informed the crime boss was.
“California, just call me,” Luger said in a coaxing tone. “You have my number. Why don’t we go out for dinner tonight? We can discuss Peter Potoczek over schnapps.”
“Ugh. No more schnapps. I don’t even like the stuff and it gives me a terrible hangover. Next time we get together, I’m choosing the drinks.”
“How about a nice bottle of Riesling over dinner? Where would you like to go, then?”
“I’m already in bed.”
“What a lovely picture. I suppose we can skip dinner,” he purred.
“Gods and monsters, let a girl sleep!” But Cal didn’t think she was going to be able to get back to dreamland for a long time now that he had called and spun her up.
She never could fathom the neo-Nazi’s unaccountable attraction toward her, no matter how much he philosophized about pain, scarring, and imperfections. If he wanted scarred, she definitely qualified. But she wasn’t interested in him as anything other than an information source. His old-world manners were flattering, but she’d never dealt well with being pursued, and his ideology was repugnant, even if he gave her a pass on being one-quarter “racially impure.”
“California,” he called her back to reality. “Are you still there?”
“Thinking.”
“When can we get together to discuss Mr. Potoczek?”
Sighing, Cal looked at her clock. She had been hoping for a good night’s sleep, but during an active case like Jenna Duncan’s, sleep was hit-or-miss. She would rest when Jenna did. The conversation with Luger had already awakened her too much to go back to sleep; she might as well use the time to work the case.
“Fine. Tonight. An hour. But nowhere fancy-schmancy. How about Boca Grande’s?”
“California. You expect me to eat food of the brown races?”
“Hey, Gunther, one of my grandmothers was brown.”
“I won’t hold that against you. Your Aryan and Japanese blood obviously dominates.”
She should have guessed he wouldn’t go for Mexican. Cal would have suggested Vyazma just to spite him—she didn’t imagine he much liked Russians either—but she didn’t want Sergei to see her there with someone like Luger. Or for Starlight to see her, for that matter. She’d never hear the end of it, even if it were for a case.
“Chinese takeout?”
“Why don’t you come here and I will order Japanese?” he said.
“I think I prefer Chinese.” She negotiated with him just to show he couldn’t push her around. Besides, Cal didn’t actually like most Japanese food, outside of sushi. Too bland. She found Chinese or Thai far more varied, with the opportunity to go spicy when she felt like it, and Chinatown provided anything imaginable, from exotic and authentic to Americanized.
“Chinese shall do. I will see you soon. You know my place.”
“I know it.” She hung up the phone before he could make any comments about dressing for the visit, up or down. She took a quick shower and slammed a cup of almost-hot coffee to make s
ure she was fully awake, and headed over to the Tenderloin to meet her weird admirer.
Leaving Molly with a scary-looking pair of skinheads who would no doubt make sure she wasn’t stripped by any of the friendly neighborhood chop shops, Cal made her way to Luger’s ornate office-cum-Nazi museum. The picture of Der Führer behind Luger’s desk glared down at her as if she were unworthy. She gave him a surreptitious middle finger.
Luger signed something with the flourish of a fountain pen and walked from behind his desk once she entered. “I’ve had our repast set in more comfortable surroundings,” he said, gesturing back toward the hallway.
He escorted her, one hand on the small of her back, down the corridor to another chamber, an airy corner dining room on the second floor with large, but barred, windows overlooking a courtyard below. Unlike the dark, heavy décor in Luger’s office, this room had light wood accents and framed paintings on the wall depicting scenes from the Alps—castles, half-timbered houses, cows in fields of wildflowers, snow-capped mountains in the background.
A table had been spread on a crimson cloth with white and black trim. Takeout boxes sat between real china dishes and silverware. There was a wine glass at the top corner of each place setting and a green-glass bottle chilled in a bucket. She could smell the savory dishes even before they’d been opened, mixed with the scent of fresh-cut flowers in a vase.
“You declined my schnapps,” he said, “but you didn’t specify your preference. I hope this is acceptable. If not, I have good German beer or I can send someone out for something else.”
“Don’t go to any trouble,” Cal said, her face getting warm again. It was nice to be pampered, even by a creep like Luger. There wasn’t enough genteel romance in her life most days. “It’s fine. You didn’t need to do all this.”
“I know how to treat a beautiful woman. Come, sit.”
That made her wonder about how he treated women he considered non-beautiful.
Cal slid into the seat in front of the table before he could hold it for her. Luger sat on the other side. She opened the takeout boxes, releasing more spicy and sweet aromas. Until then, she hadn’t known she was so hungry.
“Mmm, this looks and smells so good. I love Chinese.” She couldn’t help trying to poke Luger’s complacent racism every chance she got.
He didn’t seem to notice. They dished up and Cal dug in. She ate ravenously for a couple of minutes before she looked up and found Luger gazing at her, barely touching his food.
“It’s not polite to stare.”
“Can a man help being entranced? You have such gusto for life.” He sighed and picked at a flaw in the tablecloth. “Langweile is the curse of the highborn.”
“Long-what?”
“The French say ennui. Boredom. My business bores me lately. You, on the other hand, are never boring.”
Cal looked down at her food, pretending she had to concentrate to use her chopsticks. It unsettled her to receive such blatant admiration, and it unsettled her even more to feel so good about it. This must have been how the Nazis had done it, feeding people what they wanted to hear, even if it came from well-dressed thugs. Like mobsters, she figured, or Congressmen. She resolved not to be manipulated, though she found it surprisingly difficult.
“So why did you ask me here? Besides the obvious. You said you knew something about Pete the Potter?”
“Pete the Potter, Pete the Potter,” Luger repeated, shaking his head. “What’s wrong with a good Polish name like Potoczek?” He said this as if granting a boon.
“Polish is good?” Cal asked tentatively, never quite sure which nationalities and races Luger approved of and which he didn’t.
“Broadly speaking, they are Aryan, though not generally as pure as the Nordics. There are some very interesting theories about the Aryan lines in Poland,” he informed her. “The percentage of those with Aryan blood—”
Cal cut across his rambling Nazi bullshit. “So Pete Potoczek: he has swastika tattoos? He’s some kind of white supremacist? Convict? Aryan Brotherhood?”
Luger’s eyes flashed anger and his lips tightened. Cal’s heart pumped. She always had to push it just a little too far. It didn’t matter that she knew what a dangerous man Luger was; she had to act like he was just a date or a source and annoy him.
Cal’s mouth dried and she licked her lips, trying to find the right words to smooth it over. She took a drink from the glass Luger had poured for her, hardly tasting the German white wine. “Pardon me.” She swallowed again. “I’m just eager to move this case forward. I have a one-track mind.”
Luger rubbed his chin and relaxed, apparently letting it pass. “Very well. We will talk about your business concerns first, though it’s crass.”
“Thanks.”
He folded his hands and leaned forward. “You think these people are children playing a game?” he asked. Cal wasn’t immediately sure whom he was talking about. “They are merely dressing up and playing at something harmless?”
Ah, he meant the Renfaire people, or perhaps the SCA in particular. “Well, yes. From what I’ve heard and seen, it’s entertainment, a hobby. A way to have some recreation on the weekend. I guess some take it more seriously.” She thought of Mickey, her own personal nerd, and how much time and effort he put into useless geek pursuits. He could be making good money working for Facebook, like Cruiser, but he’d never gotten a degree or even applied, as far as she knew.
Luger shook his head. “Don’t be fooled. You are only seeing what they wish you to see.”
“And what should I be seeing?”
“You should be seeing that they play at nobility, but they do not embody it. They are corrupted people, with the weaknesses and vices of the mongrels. It’s not just all good clean fun.”
“Okay. Like what? Sex? Swinging, the multiple partners? The drinking and…partying?” She’d gotten the impression the Renfaire as a whole was a place to cut loose a little, but it made the average outdoor rock festival look tame by comparison.
“Some of them, yes. Dressing in costumes helps compartmentalize and give permission for behaviors they wouldn’t normally enact. But other things too. It is an alternative culture, with its own norms, rules and taboos.”
Cal snagged a long trail of noodles and munched on them, thinking this through. “I can see that. All of the rules of chivalry that aren’t really what you grew up thinking they are. Settling things simply, with a fight. Leaving the jobs and the bills behind. They’re imitating a different time, a different place, so why wouldn’t it have its own rules?”
“And you don’t know the rules,” Luger pointed out sternly. “So you shouldn’t get in the middle of things.”
“I’m just running an investigation. Asking questions. I haven’t insulted anyone’s honor or challenged anyone to a duel.”
“But not knowing the rules, you don’t know what you might have stirred up.”
“Have you heard something? Do you know something I don’t know?”
“I know much you don’t.” Luger still hadn’t eaten much of the food, but he tipped his glass up, watching her. “Many different things.”
“If you’re going to talk in riddles, don’t expect me to understand. Just be blunt, and cut the Wizard of Oz act.”
“I think I have been quite blunt. I have told you that your investigation is clumsy. I have told you that you don’t know the rules and you are stirring things up that you would do well to let alone.”
“How’s that supposed to help? If you want me out of the middle of things, guide me through it. What do you know about Potoczek? Even if he does have a swastika tattoo, that doesn’t mean anything to me. It was a symbol of peace for thousands of years, wasn’t it? That’s what you told me once. They were used in medieval decoration. So it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s...associated with you or your people, right?”
But Cal knew her theory was improbable. The swastika had been appropriated so thoroughly by Hitler that its original meaning was forever tainted. Gett
ing the ancient rune tattooed on oneself and claiming to have done it for historical accuracy would be asking for trouble with anyone outside the neo-Nazi white supremacist axis.
Anyway, by the blue color she’d glimpsed, she was pretty sure it was a prison tattoo. Inmates usually used homemade needles and ballpoint pen ink. And the swastika did not signify peace in the corrections system. It almost always meant explicit affiliation with the Aryan Brotherhood, one of the major prison gangs.
“Don’t be obtuse,” Luger snapped. “Would I be calling you about it if it were a symbol of peace? He is not someone to be trifled with. He’s not a buffoon. The Renfaire and this SCA smokescreen is his domain and his territory. If I were you, I would not challenge his authority over it.”
“I haven’t challenged anything. I only asked him about the suspect’s girlfriend. Who turned out to actually be a boyfriend, but that’s beside the point. He’s not even part of my case, except as a source for information on Jenna and her associates.”
“That is good, because he also has enemies. Best to take no sides.” He gave her a small smile. “Maybe Herr Potoczek is not the only one there who is not what you expected.”
“They’re all in costume, so I would say no one there is what they appear to be. They’re all acting their parts. How does that help me solve the case?”
“So I’m to help you solve the case?”
Cal sat back in her seat. She wasn’t sure if she’d eaten too quickly or if it was the atmosphere of the room, but she felt suddenly nauseated, too warm. She took another sip of wine and put it down. She couldn’t afford to lose what wits she had bandying words with Luger.
“No, I guess not. I’m here to be warned off. Not for the first time. But I’m also not interested in generalized warnings. If you have something specific, quit playing the mysterious know-it-all and say so. Stay away from Potoczek? Okay. I don’t plan to talk to him again. If there’s something else, you’d better tell me what it is, because I’m too dense to get it, and too stubborn to take your word for it.”
The Girl In the Morgue Page 12