Black Of Mood (Quentin Black: Shadow Wars #2): Quentin Black World

by JC Andrijeski

  I snorted. Despite the humor in his voice, I could tell he wasn’t kidding.

  I could also tell he was really trying to teach me. I felt that twinge of jealousy again, even as I thought it, and realized he still didn’t want me learning these things from anyone else.

  Feeling that, I had to fight not to roll my eyes.

  Before I could unravel any more intricacies of Black-mind, the doors pinged.

  He ushered me out, and we entered the floor’s lobby.

  The instant we did, activity erupted all around us. I watched as uniformed cops stopped to stare as they walked by, holding zippered evidence bags. Two more plainclothes cops, likely detectives, stood by the reception desk, peering down at something on the desk between them. As we got closer, I realized it was a map of the top floor. One of the two men standing over it, an auburn-haired cop with a disheveled-looking suit, looked like he was in charge.

  Then a familiar voice rose, coming from my left.

  “Black.”

  Both of us turned. I found myself staring at Mozar, who looked at us like he hadn’t seen us earlier that day. Remembering what Black told Ravi before we left that dressing room, I realized that, as far as Andrew Mozar was concerned, he likely hadn’t seen us.

  “Black.” He sounded openly relieved. He held out a hand when he got closer, offering it to Black first and smiling grimly. “Thanks for coming. I admit, I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  He turned his gaze on me next. Doing a double-take on my face, he glanced down my body, his eyes widening along with his smile.

  “Wow, Miri. I wouldn’t have recognized you––”

  “Why am I here, Andrew?” Black cut in, his voice annoyed-sounding.

  Mozar looked at him, starting a little and releasing the hand of mine he’d been shaking. “Did Nick tell you I came to see you today?” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about a friend of mine. Did Nick tell you that?”

  Black glanced at me. He looked back at Mozar, his expression puzzled. “He mentioned it. I thought we were going to talk tomorrow. I told Nick to pass along that message––”

  Mozar broke in, holding up a hand. “He did. He did tell me tomorrow, and I apologize... but this really couldn’t wait.”

  Frowning, Black glanced around the floor’s lobby. “So what am I doing here?” he repeated. “You pulled me out of a meeting. I haven’t had dinner yet.” He looked at his watch. “And it’s ten-thirty.” Black reached for my hand, gripping it more tightly than necessary. “You pulled Miri out of time with her friends. Time she’s not getting much of lately, thanks to me.”

  Feeling another pulse of that protectiveness off him, I struggled not to react, keeping my expression as neutral as I could.

  Mozar nodded, giving me a brief, if not altogether sincere sympathetic look.

  “I apologize,” he said again. Giving Black a harder look, he added, “I didn’t want to say this over the phone, but one of the bodies in there is the reason I came to talk to you today. Alan Horne was a personal friend of mine.”

  “What?” Black stared at him. “Horne’s dead?”

  Shock rippled through me. I looked at Mozar and saw anger touch his expression, along with a grief so tangible I flinched.

  He really had cared about Horne.

  After a pause where he seemed to be collecting himself, Mozar’s brow furrowed, and he continued more in the cadence of a police report.

  “Three men killed in total. Murdered, execution-style, at approximately 6:21 p.m. You might know some of the others, as well, Black… they ran in your circle. Wall Street, I mean.” Pausing to look at Black, he shrugged. “David Garrison and John Forsythe were murdered along with Alan. Within seconds of one another, according to forensics. No known motive.”

  “Garrison… Jesus.” Frowning, Black stared down the hallway towards the suite’s offices. He returned his gaze to Mozar, narrowing his eyes. “Who did it? Someone must have seen them, right? This office couldn’t have been empty at 6:20.”

  From his expression, I guessed he was reading Mozar.

  “It wasn’t.” Mozar’s expression turned grim. “This whole floor was full of people, but we’ve got nothing. No suspects. No idea who did it. That’s another reason I called.” Stepping closer, he leaned towards me and Black, speaking low so the passing uniform cops wouldn’t hear. “There are a lot of similarities.” He nodded down the far hall, toward the offices. “You know. With the port that night.”

  Black frowned. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  Mozar scowled back. “What do you think it means? It means no one saw anything. No one heard anything. No one remembers anything. It’s like nothing happened here at all.”

  “They have cameras in here, right?”

  “All mysteriously switched off.”

  “Security?”

  Mozar shook his head, pursing his lips.

  “No witnesses at all?”

  Mozar shook his head again. When Black’s frown deepened, Mozar let out a disgusted sound. “Oh, a few people saw something. But when you ask them, they can’t agree on a single damned point. No one can agree what time Horne, Garrison and Forsythe started their meeting. No one remembers the last time they saw any of the three men alive. No one can agree who found the bodies... or when. No one can agree whether anyone came to visit the office while they were there, or who they were––”

  “Yeah, okay. I got it,” Black muttered. “So it was just a hit?”

  Mozar shrugged. “They tossed the place. But whatever they were looking for, I don’t think they found it.”

  Black gave him a sharper look. “What makes you say that?”

  Just then, another voice interrupted from our right.

  “Mozar.” A thick Brooklyn accent. “Wanna introduce me to your friends, here?”

  I turned, and found myself looking at the auburn-haired plainclothes cop I’d noticed before. When I glanced over my shoulder, I saw the second detective, who’d been standing with him at the lobby desk, walk into an elevator with three of the uniform-wearing officers. All of them were carrying evidence bags and stacks of papers. One carried a laptop.

  When I glanced back at the disheveled, auburn-haired cop who’d stayed behind to talk to us, I saw Mozar scowling at him. He motioned towards me and Black with exaggerated politeness.

  “This is the private detective I told you about––” he began stiffly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know this piece of shit. Don’t bother standing on ceremony.” The detective gave Black a semi-irritated look. “What the fuck are you doin’ here, Black?”

  Black shrugged, motioning fluidly at Mozar. “He called me. Ask him.”

  “His colleague,” Mozar broke in, his voice stiff. “...Is Dr. Miriam Fox, forensic psychologist. She’s worked with the SFPD and LAPD in the past, and has a stellar reputation. Your captain said it was all right to let both of them in, once he saw her credentials.”

  The detective with the two days of scruff, bloodshot eyes and shaggy auburn hair gave me a deliberate once-over. I couldn’t help but do the same to him. He was younger than I’d first pegged him, maybe only in his early forties, instead of the early fifties I’d initially guessed. He was in pretty good shape too, even if he did look he spent the night in a dumpster.

  “She don’t look like any kind of forensic psychologist I ever seen.” Looking at Mozar, he grunted, hands on his hips. “You pullin’ my leg? Or is this cocksucker yanking your dick? ‘Cause someone here’s pullin’ or yankin’ something. Besides her, that is,” he added sourly, giving Black an openly irritated look. “And I don’t wanna hear shit about that, Black, you gloating, big-mouthed, pansy-fucking son of a bitch.”

  “They’re also married,” Mozar said, giving the detective a grimace, and a more obvious warning look. “I caught her when she was out on a social occasion.”

  “A ‘social occasion’?” The cop snorted. “Well, la-de-fuck-de-da. Looks like a high-paid escort to me.” He gave Black a dour look. “You sti
ll got a taste for hookers, Black?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Gordon,” Black growled.

  Enough aggression came off his light and voice that I jumped.

  I glanced up at him in alarm. Before I could speak, Black grabbed my hand and tugged me behind him once more, and out of the detective’s clear line of sight. I was so surprised I moved when he nudged me, barely conscious I was following the prodding of his hands and light.

  Black’s voice stayed openly angry.

  “Is someone going to tell me what the fuck I’m doing here?” he growled. “Or can I take my wife home?” He glared at the detective. “You call her a prostitute again and I’ll sue your goddamned department into bankruptcy, Gordon.”

  The detective grunted. “Sure you will.”

  “Try me, you piece of shit.”

  The detective waved him off, his expression deliberately bored.

  “Whatever. Your bullshit threats don’t scare me, Black. Maybe that crap works out in California, but you can go suck a dick here… assuming that’s not on the menu for later tonight, already.”

  The detective glanced at me again, though. That time I saw him assessing me more shrewdly, focusing more on my eyes that time and less on my chest. After another pause, where I felt Black’s anger rising, he shrugged, that bored tone still coloring his words.

  “All right. You can take a look. Our fuckin’ tax dollars at work, right? Givin’ a tour of a murder scene to a dickhead celebrity.” He glanced at me, frowning. “You got your P.I. license on you, Black? Mozar said he hired you for this.”

  Black turned, staring at Mozar, who held up his hands.

  “You’re already here,” Mozar pointed out. “And I’ll pay you.”

  Exhaling in irritation, Black gave me another dark glance.

  “Fine,” he said, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. “But it won’t be cheap. Especially if I have to put up with this shit all night.”

  MOZAR AND THE detective led us down an art-lined hallway with thick beige carpets, passing two more side corridors and a few office doors along the way. I looked for any evidence of death, for any tell-tale outline of bodies in tape, bullet holes left behind by the gunmen, blood splatters, evidence markers left by forensics.

  I saw nothing.

  Nothing but the door at the end of the hall, covered in an X of yellow police tape.

  We walked straight to that X, and the detective yanked both strands of tape off the right side of the door.

  “Do we need booties?” Black asked him.

  The detective shook his head, glancing at our feet. “No. CI guys said it’s clear.”

  He made no move to leave.

  “Great. Are you going to hold my dick in there?” Black growled. “Or can my wife and I take a look without you breathing down our necks?”

  There was a silence. In it, I saw Gordon’s pupils contract, leaving pin-points of black in a sea of green. His face went briefly slack as well, his expression confused. A more subtle thread of what might have been alarm darted through his expression and vanished.

  Stunned, I looked at Mozar, and saw a similar look on his face.

  After that long-feeling pause, Gordon grunted. “Whatever,” he said, swinging open the door. “Just don’t fuck anything up. Fingerprinting’s done, but wear gloves anyways.” Reaching into his pockets, he handed over two sets of latex gloves.

  I took mine, frowning a little as I glanced at Black.

  Black was already putting his on, snapping the latex around each wrist once he’d worked in his fingers and palms. I knew by then that Black was using his mind to push the two of them, but I couldn’t stop staring between their faces, thrown by how different they looked.

  I also couldn’t help being a bit alarmed.

  Not only for how flagrantly Black erased both men’s free will, but how methodical and businesslike it was. Sure, he’d intimated he could do things like this. He’d more or less admitted he coerced people outright at times, including in relation to the work he’d been doing on the stock market of late. Still, it shocked me a little, just how heavy-handed it was.

  Black nodded towards Mozar.

  “We can talk tomorrow night. At the party. Do you still plan to attend?”

  Mozar nodded, eyes blank. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “What about now? You want me to come inside with you? Now?”

  “No.” Black glanced between the two of them.

  Both Gordon and Mozar looked almost comically relieved.

  When I glanced at Black that time, eyebrow quirked, he answered in my mind.

  We can only manipulate their emotions so much, he explained. They might not notice anything’s wrong on the surface, but underneath, they’re afraid of me. Not enough to act on it, more of an underlying uneasiness when they’re around me. They’ll both avoid me as much as possible for that reason. It’s normal when you push someone to this degree.

  Alarmed, I looked back at Gordon and Mozar.

  They just stood there, each of them shuffling their weight from foot to foot. They made no move to leave, but watched Black warily, as if waiting for instructions.

  You aren’t afraid they’ll figure out something was wrong as soon as they get their free will back? I sent, turning to stare at Black. Or come back in ten minutes, wanting to know what the hell you’re doing in here alone?

  Black shook his head. It’s not a conscious thing, Miri. It’s just that parts of their minds are more awake than others. Those parts know something is wrong. Those parts resist being controlled by an outside force. Those more awake parts aren’t connected enough to their conscious minds to pose a threat, however. Every now and then you’ll come across a human who’s a bit more awake. Then it’s more like pushing a seer. But that’s pretty rare... even on this version of Earth.

  I gave him another bewildered look.

  Black only shrugged.

  He might as well have said: Humans. What’re you gonna do?

  Mozar cleared his throat. “Do you want to know anything more before you go in?”

  Black shook his head. From the slight off-focus cast of his eyes, I could tell he was still reading them, probably for the same information Mozar just offered him.

  “No,” he said. “I’d rather see it cold.”

  Gordon snorted. “Figures. Mr. Famous-Fucking-Bigshot.” He still looked nervous though, and glanced over his shoulder towards the floor’s reception area.

  Black’s eyes clicked back into focus.

  “You can go now,” he said, looking at Gordon, then at Mozar. “Both of you.”

  Relief returned to their expressions.

  Gordon grunted, but I heard that relief even in his voice. “Whatever. It’s your time to waste. Just don’t fuck anything up.”

  Black was already pushing past him through the door.

  Without bothering to say anything to either of them, I followed him inside.

  Once the door closed behind us, I stared around at the space, a little daunted by the sheer size of it. Lights twinkled through the windows from nearby buildings, showing offices still occupied, even though it was after eleven at night. I could see the Statue of Liberty in the distance over the water, along with the moving lights of ferries. Below us, Battery Park was lit up brightly enough that I could see pedestrians.

  “Wow,” I said. “Is this Horne’s office?”

  “Garrison’s,” Black said.

  I turned, frowning slightly. “Have you been here before?”

  “Name was over the receptionist’s desk. Outside.”

  Reviewing my memories of the desk and the signage behind it, I flushed. “Right.” Frowning again, I looked up. “Why did you want me to come in here with you? If you didn’t know anything about the case––”

  “I knew the basics,” Black said. “I knew it was Horne. I only pretended I didn’t when Mozar called.”

  Still puzzled, I nodded, deciding to let it go.

  My eyes
went back to scanning the room. The corner office was floor to ceiling windows on two sides, and bigger than some apartments I’d rented, especially back when I first got out of the military. Bull elephant tusks from an African elephant jutted obscenely out of one wall. I moved out of the area by the door, still staring at those tusks.

  It felt I’d walked into some kind of bizarre movie set.

  Then I looked down.

  Red stains covered two segments of the floor. White tape delineated where the bodies had lain when the cops arrived. I only saw two outlines, and glanced around until I found the office’s desk chair, which still rested behind a massive desk made of aged teak. The stains all over the wide leather backrest and the window behind it answered my unspoken question.

  One of them must have been sitting in that chair when he was killed.

  I couldn’t help wincing, looking at Black.

  He didn’t return my gaze. He walked to that same desk, careful to step around the body outlines on the floor. I noted the one sprawled just on the other side of that desk, then glanced to my right, looking at the tape outline located directly beneath an antique bookshelf. It looked like that one tried to run away.

  I could also see now what Mozar meant when he said the killers had been looking for something. Most of the room’s books were on the floor. Paintings were on the floor, too. The desk had papers littered around it, and the couches and other furniture were in odd positions, as if someone had moved them around. Some of the books and higher shelves were stained red like the back of the office chair, especially by the tape outline of the third body.

  I could still smell the coppery aftertaste of blood in the air, even with the addition of chemicals and a fainter odor I realized came from fingerprint dusting powder.

  They likely would have used blue light on the room too, but since that could only pick up certain substances––seminal fluid, urine, saliva, bone fragments and a few other things––it probably wouldn’t have told them much.

  This looked like a pretty cut-and-dry professional hit.

  Glancing at Black a second time, I bit my lip.