by Jackie May
“We can’t.”
“—have to report it—”
“No, no reporting. Henry Stadther’s right. This is strictly an underworld thing; it has to be left to the underworld.”
“But three girls are dead.”
“You have to think of them as witness protection. If you were working a case and the feds told you to back off because the suspect was in the witness protection program, wouldn’t you have to drop it? Out of your jurisdiction, right? A whole separate thing. Same with underworld. Let us deal with it.”
I can see the struggle in his eyes, and then with a twitchy shake of his head, he gives in. “Let you deal with it. Okay. So then, you’re one of them? You’re…something?”
“Sure am. Wanna guess?”
“Just not…anything but vampire, please.”
“Because demon is so much better?”
He looks me in the eyes through the mirror. “You’re a demon?”
“Does that change things?”
He answers quickly. “No. You could be Medusa, for all I care. After what you did for me, getting my memory back. I owe you.”
He looks so miserable, I try to lighten the mood by messing with him. “For sure. Our rules say you owe me a life debt now.”
“Oh.”
“Like, you have to follow me around wherever I go, so if anybody tries to shoot me you can throw yourself in front of the bullet.”
After gulping down his fear, he tries to sound determined when he says, “Okay, yeah.”
Now it’s my turn to be afraid. “You know I’m kidding, right? Don’t actually do that.”
“Yeah, but I mean it, though. Anything. I’m your guy.”
“Huh. So you kind of just say whatever comes into your mind, don’t you?”
He blinks hard, as though my comment has inflicted pain. “No, not always, I guess. I didn’t used to, I…” His voice trails off.
“I know her, by the way. Medusa.”
“Oh. Okay.” He seems on the verge of crying again, so I decide to lay off. For a fraction of a second, I consider returning his complete honesty, admitting that I wasn’t being heroic by getting his memory restored. I simply need him for my job. I need his jurisdiction. Not worth a life debt. Not even worth a thank-you.
But I don’t admit that, because unlike him, for better or worse, I have a filter. “Brenner, relax; I’m not a demon. I’m a shifter.”
“Like a werewolf?”
“That’s the right idea, but there’s all kinds of shifters. Wolves, coyotes, bears.”
An alarming thought hits him. “Lions?”
“Oh yeah, all the big cats. Lion, cougar, jaguar.”
“Are you a lion?”
“I wish.” Well, great, so now that we’ve built up all these images of mighty lions and frickin’ grizzly bears, I get to say, “Nope, I’m a fox.”
“A fox? Like, a…okay.”
“What?”
“No, that just seems…smallish. Not…”
“Not scary.”
“Not really. Like, more of a nuisance than anything. I had a fox going through my garbage the other day. I threw rocks at it. Sorry.”
I feign indignation. “Apology not accepted. What if that was my mom?”
He hangs his head in his hands. “Sorry.”
Okay, okay, I know. I’ll stop. It’s just, his misery makes me feel bad, which makes me uncomfortable, which makes me want to joke. I’ll stop. “How about food? Let’s get you something to eat. Or a coffee?”
His head shakes violently. Wiping his eyes, he blows out a frustrated breath. “No, let’s just work. Don’t worry about me. Let’s do the job.”
As if waiting for this cue, Hillerman’s head pops up from her phone, on which she’s been studying a police database. “I’ve got a link between all four of our victims. Two years ago, Dario Machlin and all three succubi lived within a five-block radius of each other, and you can guess the neighborhood.”
I can, recalling Dario’s demon sigil. “East Side.”
“Grandy district,” she confirms. “Ten minutes from here.”
“We can’t go there,” Brenner laments. “Grandy, Big Heights, East Side, all that’s off-limits to police.”
“What do you mean off-limits?” Hillerman asks.
I answer for him. “He means it’s open season all year round in Grandy. Nobody goes there, and especially not police.”
“And you all keep to this? This is mutually acknowledged?” It’s clear that Hillerman is appalled. The authority and sanctity of U.S. law enforcement rejected? Limited? Blasphemy!
“It’s unofficial policy,” Brenner explains. “One of the first things they told me when I transferred in was to avoid East Side altogether, unless you’ve called in the National Guard for backup.”
Hillerman is stunned. “East Side. The entire East Side.” She pins me with a skewering glare. “A full-fledged, self-sustaining demon horde, given free reign over a dozen square miles of slum? What about the Agency? Let me guess, as long as the demons keep to themselves, who cares, right? Let’s just sit around and wait for another 9/11.”
“9/11 was demons?” Brenner asks.
“No,” I say, annoyed.
Hillerman pushes back. “Everything is demons.”
“Not true. And we’re not even looking for a demon right now. We’re looking for a faerie.”
She waves me off. “We don’t know that. Just because the killer’s good-looking.”
“Have you seen a faerie? It’s a kind of good-looking you don’t mistake. If the vamps agree—”
“And demons can’t be good-looking?” She narrows her eyes at me. “Dario Machlin wasn’t good-looking?”
Cheap shot. “Not the same. And why are you so hot to roll straight into Grandy, into a literal hell? We want to follow the money.”
“What if the money’s there?”
“For the money to be there, Dario Machlin would have had to take it there himself, right? He went to the Monolith, exchanged three succubuses for 40K in cash, after which his only options were to deliver the cash to his client, or—”
Hillerman throws her hands up. “His client in Grandy, which is why all three girls are from there. Do you think Dario Machlin just asked some old girlfriends from the block to give themselves up as sex slaves to a vampire clan to help him out with a deal? This had to come from higher up the chain.”
“I get that—Dario’s client needs clean cash, and so he provides the three succubuses in exchange—”
She cuts in: “Three succubi who belong to his horde.”
“You’re talking about Arael Moaz again. But you didn’t let me finish. Yes, maybe Dario goes back to Grandy to deliver the cash to Arael Moaz. Or! The get-me wasn’t gotten yet, and Dario made a purchase with the money himself.”
“Purchase what? You don’t need 40K to buy bomb materials. He could steal all that.”
I’ve had enough. “You know what, I’m going to stop talking now. You can keep guessing, and just let me know when you want me to tell you exactly how we’ll find out where Dario went with the money.”
I’m really hoping Hillerman will call my bluff, but she doesn’t bite, so the car goes silent. We’re stopped at a red light. A lowered Acura RSX next to us revs its engine and inches forward eagerly, like a tiger caught by the tail.
“Oh my gosh, just stop already,” I plead to the universe.
Hillerman eyes the car, then me. “You race?”
“Are you kidding me, in this Crap-pile? You don’t see that slime trail behind us? That Acura probably gets zero-to-sixty in four seconds. I get zero-to-sixty in theory. Old people give me the finger.” I could go on with the slow car jokes, but Brenner’s probably on the verge of calling out methinks again, and besides, the light turns green. The Acura streaks away as I crawl through the intersection, my Crap-pile lurching uncomfortably each time I pull the stick into another gear. All the while, Hillerman scrutinizes my face, trying to read me. My cheeks burn. I feel like a four-year-old�
�stop looking at me! Instead of that, I say, “Why did Henry Stadther ask what clan you’re from? Why does he think you’re a vampire?”
Instantly turning away, she says, “Fine. Tell me where Dario went with the money.”
“You have his bank statements?”
“You know I do.”
“Brenner, when did he place the girls at the Monolith?”
“A month ago.”
“A month ago, he walks out of the casino with the cash. There’s our starting point. Go back one month on his bank statement and start reading out loud to me.”
“He didn’t make any deposits,” Hillerman says.
“I know. We’re not looking for deposits. We’re looking for debit card usage.”
“It’s cash we’re looking for, not card, and there’s hundreds of entries.”
“So get started.”
“Which part?”
“Read it.”
“Date? Location?”
“Read it.”
“The amount?”
“Read it, read it, read it, read it—”
“I’ll read it,” Brenner volunteers. Hillerman relinquishes her phone like, Be my guest.
It only takes three minutes for me to know where to go. I whip into a gas station and cut across its lot to a northbound street while I explain that according to what Brenner had just read, on the seventeenth Dario ate at two different restaurants within four hours. Nothing peculiar, right? Unless you know that the street addresses of these two restaurants are within a block of each other. Still nothing peculiar, right? Unless you know that these street addresses are clear across town from Dario’s house, not exactly close enough to be his regular haunts, besides the fact that one of the places is a popular fast-food joint with a million closer locations. So why go to that one? I’ll tell you why: because he passed the entire afternoon visiting someplace near those restaurants. Fine. Could be anything, right? Movie theatre. Bowling alley. Church. Friend’s house. We can only guess.
Unless you know that Dario bought his red Camaro from Don Roman’s car dealership, which you also happen to know is located directly across the street from both those restaurants.
“You got all that from two debit charge locations?” Brenner asks.
His surprise is a compliment, but much more enjoyable to me is Hillerman’s reaction. Snatching her phone out of Brenner’s hand, she sets her fingers tapping across the screen, no doubt looking up the addresses in a maps app.
“It’s my super power,” I say. “I know every inch of Detroit. You give me an address, I can tell you where it is and what’s nearby. It’s nothing you couldn’t do with your phone and a few hours.” How modest of me, I know. “But even then, no app could tell you that Don Roman is underworld.”
Hillerman’s fingers pause. I’ve got her attention.
Brenner quickly asks, “Is he a lion?”
“A gnome. Kind of like a troll, but shorter and less grumpy. His dealership is actually owned by a troll named Terrance, who was my boss when I worked at Underworld. One of Terrance’s kin—sort of like a second cousin, I think—married one of Don Roman’s sisters, and the wedding singer was a sorceress who used to bus tables with me at a pizza place across from Comerica Park. It’s a small underworld, right?” Now I’m just showing off. But Hillerman puts her phone away, so I know the message has gotten through to her: nobody can work underworld cases better than underworld agents. Evaluate that.
Brenner pulls at his tie. “But how do you know that’s where Dario Machlin bought his Camaro?”
“From that night I tailed him to Underworld.”
Brenner doesn’t get it, so Hillerman helps. “His license plate frame.”
“Right. Don Roman Auto Plaza.” I remember rolling my eyes at the frame, which featured the trademark quote from Don Roman’s radio commercials: It’s a Don Deal!
Brenner pushes hair back from his forehead. “He bought a Camaro with the forty thousand dollars?”
I shake my head. “No, the Camaro he’s had for a while. He had real plates for it. If he’d only bought it a month ago, he’d still have the temporary plate. Anyways, a Camaro doesn’t cost that much.”
“What costs that much?”
“Two vehicles,” Don Roman tells us from behind a bank of Chinese takeout boxes on his desk. The walls of his office are covered with pictures of himself shaking hands with D-list celebrities, famous golfers, that sort of thing. He’s a big man, but not in height—almost wider than tall, very nearly a square shape.
Gnomes have a glamour, but their power is nowhere near that of a faerie’s, so all a gnome can do is barely dress up their natural ugliness with a human visage of average, middle-aged features. Anything too young or pretty just looks creepy. Don Roman looks about fifty, with fleshy jowls and an Elvis Presley pompadour above a massive forehead.
He slurps noodles off chopsticks. “He bought one car, one van.”
“One car, one van.” Brenner takes notes with his phone. “Make and model?”
Roman nudges a takeout box toward Special Agent Hillerman. Hungry? “Ford Taurus Interceptor, white.” His desk phone beeps, and through the intercom comes the voice of his receptionist. She fires off several dollar amounts from three different offers for cars. To the first, he barks, “No deal.” To the second and third, he says, “Don Deal.” Then back to Brenner with, “and a Ford Transit, white.” He elbows a bottle of water toward Hillerman. Thirsty?
“Ford Transit,” Brenner repeats. “That’s a cargo van.”
“For inventory. That’s what he told me.” Roman digs in the box for more noodles. “Vitamin supplements, something like ’at.”
“Dario Machlin said?”
Don Roman nods, jowls flopping. “Dario. Said he wanted to start up a business selling vitamin supplements, or energy pills, I dunno. Point is, he needed a van.”
“And a car?”
“Car for sales calls. Felt like the Camaro was too flashy, which I do not agree with at all. Too flashy! Hell.” He pushes a candy bowl toward Hillerman.
“So Machlin comes in here and says he’s got forty thousand dollars cash?”
“Cash.”
“And what did you say?”
Durrr. He said Don Deal.
“I said, ‘Don Deal!’”
Brenner looks at his notes. Knee bouncing. He looks at Don Roman. He looks at me. I realize that he doesn’t know what else to say. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Thing is, I usually take some time before an interview to plan out, write down all the questions. Like, I might put some brainstorming music on—” He waves that thought away. Panicking, he asks Roman, “Maybe you have some questions for us?”
Don Roman’s mouth is full, but his eyes say, Are you serious?
Yeah, so we had agreed that Brenner would take point, since Roman can feel that I’m underworld, and fey get touchy about the FUA. While not sharing the demons’ open scorn of an underworld Agency, fey still refuse to acknowledge any authority outside their own realm. In order to make a life on this side of the ley lines, they’re obligated to obey human law but do so with amusement, as though they’re somehow outsmarting humans every time they pay taxes or drive under the speed limit. The idea of underworld authority, on the other hand, simply pisses them off, because we should know better. I don’t blame them, I guess, but then again, too bad and suck it.
“We’ll need copies of the paperwork,” I demand.
As expected, my voice irks Roman. He immediately becomes testy, eyes narrowing with contempt. “Who needs it?”
I gesture to Brenner. “Detroit PD. Who else?” I reach for a peppermint, but Roman pulls the candy bowl away with one hand while slapping at his phone’s intercom button with the other.
“Photocopies,” he instructs his secretary. “Dario Machlin, white Ford Taurus and Transit, paid cash. Don Deal.” He slaps the intercom off, then with a patronizing smile, says to me, “Anything for the Detroit Police Department.” He leans way back in his office chair, its spring gr
oaning loudly. “What for, anyway? Don’t tell me Dario robbed a bank with my cars.”
Hillerman stands. “He was killed for them. Do you have anything else you could tell us about the day he was here?”
Roman stares at her, suddenly very still.
“Just tell me this,” Hillerman says. “Two vehicles. A car and a van. So how did he get both of them home?”
The chair spring creaks. Creaks again. Roman thinking. Finally, he says, “Two friends. Lady friends.”
“He drove the Camaro, the girls drove the Fords?”
Roman nods.
“What did these girls look like? Young? Pretty?”
He seems afraid to answer, so I say, “By that she means, ‘Were they succubuses?’”
After a long pause, he says, “Yes.”
I know it’s a long shot, but… “Any idea where they were headed?”
Roman’s gaze drops to his noodles. He stirs them with the chopsticks until Hillerman, stepping forward, seizes the box. Roman appeals to Brenner, “Isn’t there some kind of client confidentiality something or other?”
“That’s for doctors and lawyers,” I say. “Not gnomes.” His face reddens. Out of anger or embarrassment, I can’t tell.
Leaning over the desk to look Roman in the face, Hillerman says, “Everybody who knew about this forty thousand dollars is dead now, including those two succubi. So maybe you want us to find out who’s doing this before they come after you next?”
Beads of sweat break out on Roman’s forehead. “But this is underworld business.”
I can’t resist saying, “I know, right?”
“Where did they go?” Hillerman presses.
“I can’t say for sure, and that’s the truth. Demons…you don’t just go around snitching on ’em, so you can’t say I told you anything. I can only guess. I swear on Winter Court.”
Hillerman squeezes the takeout box. “So guess.”
“It’s just something I heard after handing over the keys that day. Dario says to the girls, ‘Meet back at His place.’”
“Meet back at Dario’s place?” I clarify.
Roman shakes his head. “No, he didn’t say ‘my place.’ Dario’s exact words were, ‘Meet back at His place.’”
“With a capital H,” Hillerman says with scornful finality. She releases the takeout box, straightens up, levels a significant look at me, then stalks out of the office.