Chance in Hell

by PATRICK KAMPMAN

  I heard the cab pull up fifteen minutes later. I told Lacey goodbye, but she was still engrossed in her book and didn’t seem to notice. I opened the door and walked down to the white cab. It seemed wrong to me, like green fire trucks. I maintained that all fire trucks should be red and all taxis should be yellow. I had this certain order of things, and I got annoyed when it was upset.

  I got into the cab, gave the cabbie directions, and we sped off. I checked my phone. We had twenty minutes to get there, which according to the driver would be plenty of time. True to his word, we made it with almost five minutes to spare.

  It was lunchtime on Monday and the Deli was packed, which was exactly how I wanted it. The more people, the less likely it was for someone to try anything. Especially when a lot of the patrons were cops.

  This time when I entered, there was no wet animal smell. Just the regular deli aromas that made my stomach growl. I ordered a Reuben, chips and a drink. I tended to do that. Found something I liked at a restaurant, then ordered the same thing every time I went there. Hey, when something isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Besides, I hadn’t gotten to finish my sandwich yesterday.

  No one seemed to remember me, which was good. I half expected to be ID’d and banned when they realized I had started the commotion a couple of days before. However, that was a Saturday, and the weekday lunch crew and customers appeared to be a different crowd.

  Luck smiled on me again when a couple of uniformed cops vacated a small table just as I finished filling my Coke. I pounced, getting there a full three seconds before a sturdy-looking lady in a business suit. I felt a brief flash of guilt as she glowered at me and continued her hunt for a place to sit.

  I heard a couple of high-strung bikes and knew Toni and her friends had arrived. I was somewhat surprised, however, when only Toni walked in. She was wearing jeans and her ballistic jacket. She came over to my table, took off her jacket, and set it over the back of the chair across from me. She was wearing another tank top. If this was her standard uniform, I wasn’t complaining. I caught the faint smell of animal. She almost dropped her keys on the table; this set didn’t have a rabbit’s foot attached to them. She stopped herself when she noticed my grin.

  “Hey, what? I’ll watch ‘em for you.” My grin got bigger.

  I think she actually growled at me. She put her keys in her jeans pocket and got in line to order. I tried my mom again while I waited for her, and once again got voicemail. I didn’t bother to leave a message. She must have found a keeper. Three days is almost a record for her. The girl at the counter called my number and I grabbed my food, sitting down at the same time Toni made it back from the soda fountain.

  I set my basket on the table and dug her key out of my pocket, setting it in front of her. “Thanks for loaning me your bike. Again.”

  “At least you filled it up this time,” she said.

  “Hey, I’m not the one who lets their tank get down to fumes.”

  “It had a couple of gallons in it when you stole it the first time.”

  “Really?” I guess I had taken it out for a bit of a ride. “Well, still.”

  “It also has a big red light that goes on when there’s low fuel.”

  “Yeah, well, I was kinda distracted.”

  She shook her head, grabbing the rabbit’s foot and sliding it closer to her. “Your face looks better.”

  “Thanks.” Actually, my ribs felt better as well.

  “You heal fast.”

  “I had some help.” I did heal fast, but not this fast. Lacey really had done something to speed up the process.

  “Handy having a witch around, even if she is evil.”

  I was about to take a drink and stopped. “Lacey? Evil? Maybe if you’re a pint of ice cream.”

  “Let’s see—she consorts with vampires and practices necromancy.”

  “Necromancy?”

  “It’s what she used yesterday. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  “I thought that was blood magic.”

  “Oh? Blood magic, was it? Well, that’s so much better.” She rolled her eyes. “So, what’s a human doing hanging around with them anyway?”

  “Slumming?”

  “Living on the edge is more like it.” She leaned back and shook her head. “Witches can be dangerous, but vampires are for certain.” Trust me; I knew.

  If you were going to live on the edge anyway, you might as well throw a heck of a party. So I poked Toni with a verbal stick. “So, you’re a werewolf.”

  She nodded once. “That’s right.”

  “I thought you’d be furrier for some reason.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You know,” I said, using the excuse to slowly look her over, “considering what you are and all, it doesn’t like you have much fur on you at all. ‘Course I can only see half of you, so I can’t be too sure.”

  Her eyes widened and for a second I thought they changed, but then it was gone. She leaned over, giving me a nice view, and said, “Would you like to inspect the rest?”

  I willed my eyes up and looked right into her eyes, not backing down like I had done a couple of days before. Then, in the most indifferent voice I could muster, I said, “Maybe later.”

  We stared at each other for a good twenty seconds, neither of us blinking, when she broke into a smile. “They just called my number.” She got up, still looking into my eyes, “Oh, you’re going to be fun.” Then she turned and headed for the counter.

  I couldn’t help it. It was just lying there. I picked up the rabbit’s foot and casually twirled it around. She came back holding a club sandwich. She sat down and snatched the keys out of my hand.

  “Sorry, force of habit.” I smiled.

  “Do you mind telling me why Jonathan Powers is so interested in you?”

  I leaned back and said, “I’m just an interesting guy.”

  She snorted. “You’re either crazy or a moron. But I’m voting for moron.”

  “Hey!” I said, a little louder than I intended. “Why do you say that?”

  “Let’s see.” She set down her sandwich and used her fingers to tick off each point. “You hang out with vampires, who drink human blood, by the way; you hang out with a witch who practices black magic, which tends to use human sacrifice; you somehow managed to piss off the most powerful man in the city—”

  “Jonathan Powers? You know him?”

  “Not personally, but he’s insanely rich and influential, which makes him powerful. And his reputation is that he’s dangerous. Now, let me finish. Oh yeah, and you stole a motorcycle from a pack of man-eating werewolves. Twice.”

  Ew. “You eat humans?”

  “Well, no,” she admitted. “At least, I haven’t yet, but it sounds a lot more menacing to say I eat humans than club sandwiches and the occasional deer.” She smiled at me and winked.

  “So how do you know I hang out with vampires? I mean, not that I do, because I don’t.” Well, just one. But I wasn’t going to count her. She was small.

  “Because I know the witch does, and because you left my bike practically right in front of their bar.” Oh. “Despite the goth fascination with them, they aren’t a healthy addiction. So forget the bloodsuckers for a moment. C’mon, ‘fess up—why is he so interested in you?”

  “Powers?” I stalled, debating how much I wanted to tell her. Despite Megan and Lacey’s warnings, she didn’t seem like she was going to kill me. I took a bite of my sandwich and pondered a few things. Toni waited patiently for me to respond. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But first, answer a question for me.”

  “Sure.”

  “Why is it that Megan and Lacey describe you guys as some sort of bloodthirsty animals who would as soon rip my head off as talk to me—”

  “So you do hang out with vampires!”

  Oops. “Yeah, okay, fine. But still, they say that about you, and you pretty much say the same things about them.” I left out the part that I would have said the same thing about any of them just a couple of days ago. “
Is there some history between you guys that I should know about?”

  She shook her head. “What, with Megan and Lacey? No, not really. I only know Megan by reputation, and I haven’t heard much about your witch at all. I could have almost forgiven her hanging out with vampires until I saw her use black magic yesterday.” She gave me a disapproving look.

  “So why all the animosity? Is it like in the movies, where all the vamps and all of the werewolves hate each other?”

  “No. Well, okay, yes.”

  I sighed. “Should I even bother asking why?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Fine. So why?”

  “We just don’t trust each other. Werewolves and vampires are both predators, and we don’t like sharing the same territory. So, now tell me what it is that Jonathan Powers wants with you.”

  I thought about not telling her, but at this point I could use all the ideas I could get. I could be making a mistake, but she just didn’t strike me as the type of person who would want some supernatural weapon of mass destruction for herself.

  So I told her the story, leaving out the whole vampire-hunter part and starting with getting a call from someone in California who wanted an object moved and then destroyed. I told her that the troll had killed my contact, but not before he was able to pass me a key that got me the object. Then I told her what we thought it was.

  She listened to it all, and was about to speak, when the sound of a chair scraping on the floor interrupted her.

  “Well, hello there, Chance!” came the familiar Boston accent as Detective Cassara sat at our little table, setting down a corned beef sandwich, large fries, and dill pickle. “Is the food here great or what?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted. “It’s pretty good.”

  “Hope you don’t mind me sitting here.” I shrugged, and he said, “Thanks, man. Been a busy couple of days. Researching the homicide of that professor. He was kind of an archeologist. You know, the guys who look around and dig things up.” I nodded, letting him know that I knew what an archeologist was.

  He continued, “So I’ve been doing a lot of research, ‘cause that’s what a lot of detective work is—research. Finding out information, talking to people. Digging. Digging, just like those archeologists, you know?

  “And so there I was digging, and I find out this Professor Stone, he was in the Middle East on some archeological—what is it you call them? Excavation? Expedition?—whatever, my point is that he is looking for something.” He took a bite of his sandwich and a drink of soda.

  “So then I find out the dig was financed by Jonathan Powers. Not directly. No, very indirectly. Now, that information took a lot of digging, you know what I mean? It was buried pretty deep. Like a treasure chest, or one of those mummy tombs in Egypt. Buried and hidden under a ton of sand. But I like to dig. Don’t mind getting a little dirty when I do, so I found it.

  “It seems there was some excitement over there; they found something. But then the professor, he leaves the dig pretty quick, you know. Like, calls in sick the next day, and then no one can find him. But I’m a cop, see, and we can do things. Things like look at airline records and stuff. It’s pretty cool. Makes my job a lot easier. So, turns out this Professor Stone—that’s his name, by the way; Professor Jerry Stone—so this professor left the site, flies straight back to America. Doesn’t check in any luggage. Just one carry-on. Disappears when he gets here, then turns up stuffed face-first into a truck two days later.

  “So, it’s funny, but I heard this story from a couple of my buddies. Apparently, two days ago, a guy fitting your description was chased out of here by a guy fitting the description of the one who stuffed Mr. Stone through the front of a Ford. That’s the same guy who knocked you out, if I remember correctly.” He took a loud bite of the pickle and then proceeded to shake it at me. It was kind of disturbing.

  “Tons of witnesses, about half of them cops. The other half…“ He glanced at Toni, acknowledging her for the first time. “Not so reliable.

  “So, this is interesting, I tell myself, but then it gets better. Damn phone company finally gets me the records I requested. Takes them two lousy days. Thing is, I get them eventually, and you know what they tell me? Well, it turns out the good professor made a few calls to Texas before he died. One all the way from the Middle East, and a couple more while he was back here. He received a few, too. Even got a call the day he died. And, shit, I got to admit this one surprised me—the one he got the day he died, it was from your phone number.

  “So I thought that was funny, you know? So I called the number you gave me, knowing you said you lost your phone—you know, the one that made the call to the professor. So I call, and I get some lady’s voice mail. I run a check and it turns out to be your mom. So I leave a message asking her to call me. Called her a few more times since, and she still hasn’t called me back. Kind of rude, you know?

  “So I do a little more digging. Dig, dig, dig; it’s what I do. Seems you have a brother. So I get his number and I call him. Now he did answer the phone. And, to my amazement—I mean, it really surprised me—he supports your story. Says you’re in California looking at graduate schools for next year. Says he has never heard of a Professor Stone. Of course, in between the information, he did find it necessary to insult me a couple of times. Called me a five-oh pig, and some stuff. Hurt my feelings.”

  “Yeah, sorry. He can be difficult,” I apologized, hoping to divert the onslaught elsewhere while my brain worked furiously to figure out how to manage this situation.

  “He’s a little punk. So then I figure you might have got your phone replaced. And since you forgot to give us that number, I had the friendly people at the phone company give it to me. So I was going to give you a call. You know, to chat. Talk about the weather. And maybe how you know the professor, and while I was at it, why Jonathan Powers wants you so badly. ‘Cause that’s what it looks like. This professor, he finds something—something valuable, something Jonathan Powers wants—and so he maybe just decides to take it for himself. Figures like that might be a good idea. Maybe sell it and make some money. Buy an island or something. Fuck if I know.

  “So, I was going to call you. That was this morning. But then I get this unofficial call. Comes from high up. Says the case is being reassigned. I’m now looking into a gangbanger drive-by on the east side. Dirtbags managed to miss what they were aiming at and killed some poor kid instead. You know, maybe if they held their guns straight up instead of sideways, they’d finally hit what they were aiming at and kill each other off. Instead of innocent kids, you know? Thinking maybe I should make a recommendation to my superiors. Offer to teach the gangs how to shoot, kind of as a public service.

  “So that kind of bothers me, you know, not being able to finish a case; but I need the job. Got to pay the bills, got to eat, feed the family. Okay, I don’t have one, but if I did, I would have to feed them. So I do what I’m told.

  “Then bang, here I am, coming in here to grab a bite to eat just like I do every day, and who do I see? The kid that everybody is looking for, eating at a sandwich shop making kissy faces with the girl he stole a bike from a couple days ago.”

  “He didn’t steal it,” Toni said. “He borrowed it.”

  “You don’t say? ‘Cause people said you were pretty pissed when it happened.”

  “I forgot I told him he could take it. Blonde moment.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, sure, whatever. Look, I’m off the case, so I don’t really care any more. I got the message, and the message is that Mr. Powers wants your boyfriend here, or something he has, and we’re supposed to let him get it.

  “So, you know, from past experience, I gotta tell you—Mr. Powers, he has no problem stuffing people in a car if it helps him get what he wants, you know? You follow me? So I’m just doing you a favor, kind of as another public service, if you will, and I’m telling you to give him what he wants. Then take your girl here and go back to Texas. Maybe find a graduate school on the East Coast. Florida is
nice; I have an aunt who lives there. Great beaches.”

  He finished his sandwich in three huge bites, continuing to glower at me. Then he got up, leaned down with his hand on the table, and said, “Now most of us cops are honest, hardworking Joes who do the best job we can. We take our oath seriously; uphold the law. We’re regular heroes. But there are always a few bad apples, you know, hanging out at the bottom of the barrel. You get them in any profession. And this Detective Vargas, the one who just took over Professor Stone’s murder, he’s about as rotten as they come.” He straightened up, nodded at Toni, and then walked away. On the table where his hand had been was a business card. I grabbed it.

  We ate in silence for a while, both digesting what we had just learned.

  “Your car’s just down the street,” said Toni, “but it doesn’t look like it’s such a great idea to be driving around in that right now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not that I had a choice.

  “Tell you what. How about we hold off on this hostage exchange for a little bit longer? I can babysit your car until things blow over. And if they don’t…” She shrugged and winked at me. “Then you won’t be needing it back.”

  “You’re going to lend me your V-Max?”

  “Oh, hell no! I got something else you can use, though. C’mon—let’s get out of here.”

  I went outside and, sure enough, my car was just down the street. The top was down. She had even fed the meter. The tire blown out by the bullet had been replaced with the donut. I was going to have to get a new tire before I drove it back to Texas.

  I opened the door and saw a couple of wires hanging down under the dash, but otherwise, it looked intact. I got in and started it up. Half a tank of gas. I heard the bike before it pulled up alongside me. Her visor was up.

  “Follow me,” she said; then she lowered the visor and sped off. I pulled out behind her and followed.

  Chapter 14