by Jaye Wells
“I’m not a fucking housecat.”
“No, sweetheart, you’re a Prospero. Any man you’re with has to understand that going in.”
This man was the last person I wanted to discuss this topic with, so I changed the subject.
“Did you know the Fangshi are moving in on Aphrodite’s territory?”
He blinked, and I allowed myself a brief moment to enjoy catching him off guard for a change.
“Why do you assume I keep up with what’s happening in the covens?”
I shrugged. “Old habits die hard.”
“As it happens, I’m aware of legitimate Chinese-American businesses coming into the city. In fact, I have a meeting with a representative in about ten minutes.” He glanced at his watch. “But I’m unaware of the Fangshi making any moves in town.”
I watched him for a moment but couldn’t detect a lie on him. That didn’t mean much. John Volos lied as easily as most people breathed.
“Is that the direction this Valentine case is taking you?” he asked.
I tilted my head. “I thought you didn’t lower yourself to keep up with coven business.”
His mouth twitched. “I bother myself with issues concerning the safety of this city. A potion lab exploding near downtown is a pretty big deal to my constituents.”
I tipped my chin, accepting that explanation for now. “We don’t have much hard evidence to go on yet, but we have reason to believe the Chinese are in town and may have been doing business with Basil.”
“Interesting,” he said in a noncommittal tone.
I glanced at the clock. “I need to head out.” I paused until I was sure I had his full attention. “Do not contact Danny. If you need to speak to him, you go through me.”
He looked distracted, as if his wheels were still turning. “I’m willing to give you some space, if that’s what you’d prefer, but sooner or later, you’re going to have to come to terms with the fact that we’re connected in ways that can never be severed.”
“Jesus, do you ever listen to yourself? You sound like a stalker.”
His eyes narrowed. “I won’t be mocked, Katherine.”
I leaned forward until I was in his face. He smelled like money and ozone. “And I won’t be managed, John.”
“Trust me,” he said in a sardonic tone. “I know.”
He showed me to the door and opened it for me. As I brushed past him, he said, “See you soon.”
I turned to tell him I hoped not, but a man in the waiting room caught my eye. Middle-aged and handsome, he exuded the confidence of a man used to being in charge. Volos had mentioned a meeting with a representative from a Chinese-American business, but this man had CEO written all over him.
Volos stepped around me and approached the man, offering his hand. Relieved to be forgotten, I slid toward the exit. But before I made it out the door, I heard Volos say, “Sorry to keep you waiting, Mr. Hung.”
It was the first time I’d ever heard John Volos defer to anyone. It was surprising enough that when I got into the hall, I wrote the man’s name down with the intention of researching him and his business when I got a chance.
* * *
On my way out of City Hall, I passed the pigeon man again. This time, he called out, “Beware the five.”
I stopped. “The five what?”
He shrugged. “Peewee tells me what to say. Not what it means.”
I crossed my arms and looked down at him. “You could ask him.”
The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, there’s no talking to Peewee.”
He shot the pigeon at his feet the same look a mom might give to her naughty but beloved child.
“What’s your name?”
He started, as if no one had ever asked him before. Given his profession was acting as a medium for a psychic pigeon, I couldn’t say I was surprised. “Sweet Ray. What’s yours?”
“I’m Kate.” I held out my left hand to shake his.
He hesitated a moment before offering his right hand. “Pleased to meet you, Detective Kate.”
I shook his green fingers. “How’d you know I’m a cop?”
He withdrew his hand and pointed at my waist. I looked down and saw the badge on my waistband was peeking out of my jacket.
“Ah,” I said, “I thought maybe Peewee told you that, too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
Sweet Ray was as mad as a loon, but I found him charming. “What potion you use?”
He held up his hands. “I ain’t looking for no beef with you, cop lady.”
“I bust the dealers and suppliers, not the users.”
“Regardless, Peewee isn’t comfortable sharing that kind of information.”
I looked to the pigeon, who was busy pecking at the concrete. “I didn’t ask Peewee—I asked you.”
Sweet Ray crossed his arms. “I ain’t comfortable either.”
“Naturally. Listen, you here every day?”
“Every damned day. Peewee doesn’t like to move anyplace new.”
“You ever see the mayor coming and going?”
He nodded. “Peewee doesn’t like him.”
I was beginning to like Peewee. “Why not?”
“Says the mayor man keeps some shady company.”
“Listen, I have a favor to ask Peewee. Do you think you could ask him for me?”
Sweet Ray huffed. “Hello? He don’t like it when you talk about him like he can’t hear you.”
“Of course.” I looked at the fidgety pigeon and said, “Sorry, Peewee. Would you mind keeping an eye on the mayor for me? Like maybe if I came by in a few days, you can tell me who all has been by to see him.”
Sweet Ray leaned down near the pigeon, who shied away from him. I noticed then that Sweet Ray wore flip-flops, and that his feet were swollen and covered in lesions. I was no doctor, but they looked a lot like the sort of sores diabetics got on their feet. Which might explain why he was called Sweet Ray.
“Peewee says we’ll do it for one million dollars a week.”
I raised a brow. “How about twenty bucks?”
He leaned down to the bird again. A moment later, he nodded. The turban made it all feel very formal. “All right, we’ll accept those terms.”
“Good,” I said. “Just write down anyone who seems out of the ordinary.” I handed him my card. “If anything especially weird happens, call me. Otherwise, I’ll come by to check in with you.”
He looked at the card for a moment before offering it for Peewee’s inspection. The bird pecked at the card halfheartedly before wobbling off in the other direction. “It’s a deal, Detective Kate.”
I reached in to my pocket and removed a twenty. “Here’s a down payment.”
Sweet Ray snatched it out of my hand and had it stashed inside his turban before I could blink. “Much obliged.”
“Tell me again what you’re looking for?”
He looked put out, like he expected that after our brief acquaintance, I should already trust him. “Write down any unusual visitors. Call if something weird happens.”
“Something weird concerning Mayor Volos directly,” I corrected. The last thing I needed was for a man who had talked to flying rats calling me about every little thing he might deem odd. “All right, I’ll be talking to you soon.”
“Bye,” he said, looking away as if he’d already dismissed me from his mind.
I was five steps down when he called out, “Wait! You forgot to say goodbye to Peewee!”
A woman in a business suit was walking up the steps and heard what he’d said. She shot me an odd look. I ignored her. “Bye, Peewee,” I called.
I jogged down the rest of the steps to the parking spot where I’d left my Jeep. I didn’t have a lot of faith that my new off-the-books CI and his feathered friend would actually net me much intel, but the worst I had to lose was twenty bucks. However, if Sweet Ray was actually saner than he let on, which I had a feeling he was, he could potentially see something that might be useful dow
n the road when Volos finally went too far.
I left City Hall, feeling like I’d gotten a couple of new ticks in the win column that day. That feeling lasted only as long as it took me to reach County.
Chapter Nine
County Jail sat in the Mundane side of downtown, back across the Bessemer Bridge from the Cauldron. Most of our cases required us to go to Crowley Penitentiary for Arcane Criminals on an island in the middle of Lake Erie. But in this case, the felon we came to see had been brought up on a Mundane homicide rap, so he was at County awaiting trial.
Puck had been arrested a few weeks earlier for murdering Pantera Souza, a henchman for the Brazilian coven. Souza’s associate had also died that night in a fight with the MEA team that no one else knew about, so Puck had gotten pinned for that one, too. In addition, he was also charged with being an accessory to murder in the death of Alexander Parsons aka Charm, whose body had been found decapitated in an abandoned church.
Problem was, the evidence the BPD had on Puck was mostly circumstantial because the murder weapon was sitting under the floorboards in a closet at my house. Obviously, the reasons Puck had been charged were complicated and highly illegal, which was one of the reasons I hadn’t been in favor of Assistant U.S. Attorney Grey joining us.
The meeting rooms at County were smaller than the average broom closet. The guard turned out to be a friend of Dixon’s, so we used the connection to convince him to let us meet with Puck in the area where inmates met with family during visitation hours every Saturday. Since it was Wednesday, the room was cleared. There were about twenty tables and Puck sat alone at one in the very center.
Before we went inside, we watched Puck through the windows. “Been a few hard weeks for our boy,” Morales said in a grave tone.
When we’d last seen Puck, he was full of piss and vinegar. He’d had a mohawk that stood straight up from his scalp like some sort of metaphor for his erection. Now it lay limp and to the side, like he’d been swimming in cold water. Yellowing bruises decorated the right side of his face, and the left held some newer, purple souvenirs. He looked up and saw us standing at the windows watching him and smiled. The move made the split in his lip start bleeding down his chin.
I held up my middle finger. I felt bad he’d been framed, but that didn’t mean I liked him.
“Kate, we want him in a good mood.”
I lowered my hand but didn’t apologize. “If we’re too nice, he’ll shut down even more.”
Morales said something under his breath that sounded a lot like “I hate it when you’re right.” Then he pushed open the door. “Let’s get this over with.”
As we approached, Puck crossed his arms. “I ain’t got nothing to say to you.”
“Play nice and we’ll put a good word in for you with Grey,” Morales said.
“I don’t need you doing me any favors. I’m innocent.”
I snorted. “Sure, you are.”
“Bitch, you know I didn’t cap Panther.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “We’re not here about that.”
He pursed his lips and looked at me, daring me with his eyes to beg him to talk. I met his stare and held it. Morales stood quietly, waiting for the test of wills to play out.
After about a full minute, Puck finally looked away. “You’re a real bitch, you know that? Damn!”
“You listen to me,” I began in my lowest, meanest tone, “my partner might want to help you with Grey, but I got different priorities. If I get to him first, he’s gonna send you to maximum security in whatever cell block is the heart of A Morte territory. Whoever put those marks on your face? They’re nothing compared to the Brazilians.”
Some of the wind leaked out of his sails. “Why you gotta play me, Prospero?”
“Why you gotta waste my time posturing? I were you, I’d drop the act and get down to answering my questions before you find yourself the recipient of O olho de Deus, my friend.”
O olho de Deus meant “eye of God.” It was one of the Brazilian coven’s calling cards to stab their enemies in the eye socket with a knife called a facón. Puck had clearly heard about it, because he didn’t ask me to explain. He just swallowed hard and slid a little further into his seat.
“I didn’t kill him,” he repeated lamely.
“We know.”
His head jerked up. “You know who did?”
I shrugged.
“Oh, I see. You know, Prospero, I thought you left the game behind a long time ago. Turns out the cop game’s just as dirty, right?”
“Spare us the street morality routine,” Morales said. “We’re here because your ex-girlfriend is tied up in the case we’re working. We want you to tell us everything you know about it.”
“Krystal.” He said the name with about as much warmth as one might say Nazis.
Morales shook his head. “Must have been tough. Your own girl.” He clucked his tongue. “Had to sting, man.”
Puck perked up and his cheeks got some color. “She’s a suspect?”
“Her new boyfriend got murdered.”
“Her new boyfriend?” His voice rose. “Who?”
“Basil Valentine.”
His eyes widened and his hand clenched into a fist. “That pussy-ass pimp? Goddamn!”
“It’s only been what, Prospero?” Morales said.
“Six weeks,” I said in a dismayed tone. “That’s awfully quick to find herself a new man.”
Puck drew in a deep breath, like he was trying to get his temper under control.
“You know what I heard?” Morales said to him. “Krystal sold you out because she wanted to take over the Votaries. Did you know she had ambitions to take over the coven?”
Puck sucked on his teeth. “She said she wanted to open a nail salon. Was taking business classes.”
“Oh, she opened a business, all right.” I smiled. “A massage parlor that specializes in happy endings.”
“That scheming bitch,” he growled. “Watch and see—she’ll be dead before the month is out.”
“Why?”
“She ain’t street. Not as smart as she thinks, either. They’ll eat her alive.”
“Who will?” Morales said. “The Chinese?”
Puck rubbed his bottom lip, smearing the blood from his wound. He looked down at the smear of red on his left hand and huffed out a humorless laugh. He lifted it up to show us. “I got this tattoo the day I turned sixteen.”
He nodded at the snake-eating-its-own-tail tattoo on his left wrist. I had a similar one on my left wrist. It marked us as made members of the Votary coven. I remembered the day I got mine, too. How proud I’d been.
“The thing they told us over and over was never to snitch on your family. Right?” He looked right at me as he said it. I nodded because there was no use pretending I didn’t get that same lecture. “Where’s the family now? Who’s got my back? Fuck ’em. I’ll tell you what I know.”
I was surprised to feel a twinge in my gut. Maybe it was just that I knew what snitching cost a company man. You don’t rat out your coven—or anyone, for that matter. It’s the first and last commandment of the streets. But since I’d been a cop, I’d seen the screws get turned on enough street toughs to know that it took a pair of steel balls to sacrifice your own life for the good of the coven. However, I also knew that the first people to snitch to save their own asses when they got nabbed were the bosses themselves, the very ones who’d beaten the “no snitch” law into their troops.
“The Chinese,” Morales prompted softly.
“Right. So, before the shit went down with the Brazilians, there was some new marching orders came down from the top.”
“From Abe?” Morales asked.
“Yeah. Through Charm.”
“How did Abe communicate with Charm?” I asked.
“Couple of ways,” he said. “Abe’s got a private phone in his cell at Crowley so he can call whenever he wanted. But he knew that was monitored, so he also has a guard on payroll who acts as a mule.”
The fact Abe had his own phone or a guard under his thumb wasn’t exactly a surprise. If power brokers like Abe were denied anything, the warden might find his favorite son floating in the family pool when he got home.
“So, what were the orders?” I asked.
“We were supposed to start moving a new package on our corners. Something we ain’t seen before.
“What kind of potion?”
“Charm didn’t say. Just that it was some new formula and we were supposed to hand out samples to get the hexheads hooked.”
“It was a Votary potion?” Morales asked.
“Nah. It was from outside the state. The vials I saw had some weird markings I ain’t seen before.”
“Could you recognize it if you saw it again?” I asked. “Or draw it?”
“I think so.”
I slid a piece of paper and a pen across the table. After a moment, he handed over the rough drawing.
Morales studied it for a moment before handing it to me for a look. It was the same symbol that had been on the vials from Basil’s house—the Chinese symbol for cinnabar.
“Why would Abe make a deal with the Chinese?”
Puck shook his head. “Don’t know. Charm wasn’t so open to answering questions, you feel me? But knowing Abe, he wouldn’t do it unless there was some big win in it for him.”
“When did all of this happen in relation to you helping Pantera Souza kill Charm?” Morales asked.
Puck paused, staring hard at Morales.
“You already pled guilty to that crime,” Morales pointed out.
“A couple of weeks before. See, Charm said we had to keep the new package on the down low.”
“From who?” I asked.
He leaned back, his demeanor changed from that of a man offering confession to one about to launch a grenade.
“Aphrodite. Charm said if the Hierophant found out, it could cause problems.”
Instead of pursuing that path like he wanted me to, I detoured back. “Why did you kill Charm?”
He sneered. “Because I saw where it was all headed. It was only a matter of time until Aphrodite found out what we were doing. Figured I’d get poisoned or we’d find ourselves in the middle of a turf war.”