Die on Your Feet

by S. G. Wong

  Lola pushed into her waiting area. Aubrey inhaled sharply just as Lola saw a shadow come out from the corner. Swiftly, she knocked away the hand reaching to grab her and swept her left leg out, felling her attacker. A slender body toppled on to the low table and sent the ashtray crashing, the sound reverberating off the small room’s walls.

  “What the holy—!”

  Lola froze in the act of stomping her assailant’s leg into bits.

  “Ria?”

  “Turn on that damned light already,” Ria grumbled, brushing glints of broken glass off her shirt. Lola complied, her hands shaking, her heart pounding still.

  “Ria, for the love of—I almost obliterated your leg!” shouted Lola. “What’re you thinking, sitting in the dark like that?”

  Her friend scowled at her and reached up a hand. Lola pulled her up.

  “I was taking a nap, genius. Do you know how long I waited at Arty’s for you?” A large yawn broke into Ria’s glower. “I’m tired and now, I’ve got a bum shoulder. Thanks to you.”

  Lola blew out a breath, thinking hard. “Listen, I’m sorry about Arty’s. I, uh, ran into a roadblock and couldn’t get free till now. I was coming in to call you,” she finished quickly.

  “Like I said, you’re a terrible liar,” replied Ria. Eyes narrowed, she pointed at Lola. “If this is you trying to ‘spare me’ the tawdry details of your life, I’m not buying it. We’ve been through this and through this. I don’t need your protection. I’m just as big a girl as you.”

  Lola closed the door to the hall and led her friend into the office. “I can’t get into the details, Ria. Simple as that. I can’t have you nosing around this one. It’ll cause more trouble than either one of us can handle. Just trust me on this.”

  Ria stopped, hands on her hips, in the middle of the office. “Just wait a damn minute. You came to me, remember? You got me involved in this. I was waiting at Arty’s with information I dug up for you. For you. And what do I get? Stood up, nearly beaten to death, then lied to. By my best friend,” she shouted.

  Lola walked behind her desk. A quick pull on a drawer and out came two tumblers and a bottle of Canadian rye. Two fingers went into each glass. Lola tossed hers back, closing her eyes against the sting of sudden tears and the burn down her throat. She reached confidently for the bottle before her eyes were completely open again. She took another hit.

  Ria eyed her angrily as Lola refilled her tumbler. “Rough night for our heroine?”

  Lola shrugged, ignoring the sarcasm. “Same old, same old.”

  “Uh. Huh.”

  Lola sighed. “So, what do you want me to say? I’m not going to spill the beans on my case.”

  “How about an honest-to-gods apology?” yelled Ria.

  Lola threw her hands up in concession. “I’m sorry already.”

  Ria’s eyes widened. “What is so gods-damned hard about apologizing, Lola? You messed up. It happens to everyone. Just own up and say sorry. Don’t make like it’s my fault you have to be responsible for your mistakes.” She glared. Lola stood, silent and unyielding. Ria’s mouth tightened. “Aubrey, you’d better say something to her before I do something I’ll regret.”

  Lola tensed, waiting for Aubrey to join in the lecture, but he remained silent. The sudden clang of the elevator bell broke the quiet. Lola released the breath she’d been holding. She groped for the chair behind her and fell into it. “Can we at least sit down?”

  Lola watched Ria weigh her decision. As Ria finally limped to the client’s chair and sat, arms crossed, Lola felt the knot between her shoulders slowly unravel.

  Lola took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry I forgot you were waiting at Arty’s. Something came up with the second client. I couldn’t avoid it. Things got hairy and I forgot to call.”

  Ria looked Lola over suspiciously. “Then why didn’t you just say so? Why lie to me about that? I know you don’t get chatty about your cases and clients, and I don’t push.”

  Lola looked around her office. There was nothing to settle her gaze on except blank walls, dark windows and furniture. She met Ria’s eyes and shrugged. “You’re right. You’ve got me dead to rights. I’m sorry.”

  Ria held her gaze for several moments. Then she blew out her breath, hard. She took up the tumbler, drank off half of it. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she grumbled. “Fine, I accept your shameful excuse for an apology.” She pointed. “You’d better remember this the next time you want to protect me from the rough stuff, girlie. I can blister your ears with the best of them.” She took a cautious sip, then replaced the glass on Lola’s desk with a thump. “Let’s get this over with so I can go home and nurse my bad leg.” Ria threw a glare at Lola before she sat back, pulling her lapels straight.

  “Our girl Stoudamire. All right. She graduates from Rose Arbour Prep, same year as us. She enters the Temple of Conjury immediately. Musta been one hell of an interview. Finishes four years and then kaput. Nothing. No Conjurer’s robes, no thesis, as far as I can dig up. Two years later, she pops up as Mrs. Teddy Marshall IV, thank you very much.”

  Lola placed her glass down impatiently. “I know all this, Ria. I want the skinny on those two missing years.”

  “Stop your grousin’,” countered Ria. “I’m tellin’ it my way. It’s that or no way.”

  Lola kept her mouth shut.

  “Good call,” murmured Aubrey.

  “So,” continued Ria, “our intrepid Conjurer-that-wasn’t disappears. No records of her working anywhere in the City, no address other than the ancestral home up behind the Beacon. No memberships in any of the usual socialite-in-training societies. Not even a whisper in any of the Women’s Clubs. She literally does not exist for two years.”

  “You check the East Coast?”

  An impatient nod. “Whaddya take me for—a rookie? Of course, I checked. I checked with all my people. Everywhere. Across the country. Overseas, east and west.”

  Lola rubbed at her temples, closed her eyes briefly. “So she was working at it. No one in her circles disappears like that without effort.”

  Ria nodded encouragingly. “Now you’re using that pretty little head.”

  Lola did not react. Ria grinned and took up her glass again. She grimaced after another sip, shook her head. “You keep pouring that into your engine and your liver’ll give it up before you turn thirty.”

  “Pantywaist.”

  Ria shrugged and put her tumbler down with a definite thump. “So, where are you taking all this, Lola?” Her gaze was shrewd.

  “Not sure. Can’t see all the tiles yet.” Lola stared at a darkened window. Then she shook herself and looked directly into Ria’s eyes. “Thank you.”

  Ria nicked an Egyptian cigarette from the desk humidor and lit up, exhaling at Lola. “You owe me a meal.”

  “Anything for you, doll.”

  Ria kept her gaze on her friend’s face for a long, silent while before she finally sighed, got up, and limped out of the office.

  Lola’s grin faded as soon as she heard the elevator bell clang. The hours pulled down on the corners of her mouth until she was left with a frown and a headache.

  “You should take your own advice. Sleep will do you good,” said Aubrey.

  Lola replied with silence. She got up, locked up the office tight. She removed her jacket and folded it up into a square. It played pillow for her as she stretched out on the sofa and drifted off to the sounds of the occasional car passing by on the street.

  Chapter Ten

  The night was warm. Lola could see a bright spot high to the east, but it wavered and disappeared as she watched. She was thankful for the clouds that cloaked the moon tonight as she returned her attention to the Gaming Commission Building. The late hour guaranteed quiet. This part of the City was strictly for daytime workers who took
their nighttime amusements far from here, under the glare of neon. Medium-sized Chinese elms threw out regularly spaced pools of shade from the streetlamps. Ten minutes of waiting had netted Lola zero passing cars. There had been no foot patrols on the outer perimeter of the Gaming Commission Building either. Aubrey assured her the strength of the building wards made human patrols redundant. In a strange stroke of luck, which Lola was disinclined to question, the parking lot across from the building’s southeast corner had no wards at all, just a sturdy padlock that opened easily. Even the chain link gate pulled back silently, its wheels well-greased. Lola thanked whatever gods were watching for the City’s fleet of government vehicles. Her sturdy old Buick looked clean enough in the night to pass for just another City car. She slumped a little farther in her seat. She knew there had to be a police car along sooner or later. She was betting on a twenty-minute rotation. Aubrey thought thirty.

  Just shy of one hour later, Lola smiled in tired satisfaction. A prowl car was gliding down Chang Boulevard, away from the building. It was the third pair of hollow-eyed cops that had driven past. Lola checked her watch: three seventeen.

  “Let’s go,” said Aubrey.

  Lola counted ten beats before getting out. She closed her door quietly and crouched slightly, then stayed still. Another careful pause, another count to ten, then she resettled a dark duffle over one shoulder and ran down the length of parked cars, passed through the slim gap in the gate and over to the closest corner of the Gaming Commission Building. A line of elms ran down the length of the sidewalk. The one closest dipped down toward the concrete. Lola kept close to its trunk, searching with her eyes slit against the ambient light. Streetlights were sparsely strewn around the building. Conjurers preferred dark spaces around their work.

  She knew there was an employee entrance on the north side of the building. It led to the employee parking lot, across an alley. It was arguably the cleanest alley in the entire city. The Spells set out by the Conjurers repelled the usual regiment of alley rats and feral felines. Lola judged it the likeliest place for her purposes. She stayed close to the line of elms as she jogged down the sidewalk toward the back of the building. At the corner, she surveyed the street and the alley. As rumoured, it was indeed hard to tell which was cleaner. She kept her ears and eyes alert as she walked straight down the alley, keeping to the right side, close to the employee parking lot fence.

  “These wards are strong but they’re not seamless,” murmured Aubrey. “All I need is the smallest sliver of space between wards. I can pry it open enough for us to slip inside. The door is up to you.”

  Lola waited next to a chain link fence ringing the employee lot. It wasn’t what she’d call cover, but it was a convenient handhold if she needed to lean over suddenly, pretending drunken illness. Why she would even be there at this time of night would be harder to explain, but she knew there was one dancing club four blocks over. It was a stretch but she knew she could sell it. She’d have to. For now, she waited, eyes alternately checking the alley and her watch.

  At three twenty-eight, Aubrey called out success. “I’m six feet to the left of the door. Come forward until your nose touches the wall. That’s it. Don’t move.”

  “Now what?” Lola whispered.

  “Hush.” A slow minute passed. “I’m resetting the Wards to include our presence.”

  Lola gritted her teeth. She couldn’t feel any difference. She didn’t hear any differently. Most troubling of all, she couldn’t see anything with her nose up against the wall. She wondered for the millionth time if she should even be trusting the Ghost of an actress’s dresser to deal with Warding. As far she knew, Aubrey had never come within a European mile of learning about Spells. She couldn’t be absolutely sure he hadn’t, though, and he was the only way she’d be getting inside this building tonight. Aubrey, naturally, refused to elaborate beyond saying “Trust me.” The more she thought about it, the worse she felt until she was ready to call the entire thing off. Finally, Aubrey ordered her to start working to pick the lock. They slipped inside after a few seconds and Lola closed the door with a firm hand. The lighting was dim. Aubrey breathed an audible sigh of relief.

  “That’s it?” asked Lola. “You’re sure you secured the Wards?”

  “Yes. I said you could count on me.”

  Lola shrugged, loosening her shoulders and rolling her neck. She scanned the corridor.

  “Nothing,” said Aubrey.

  “Or the stairs?” asked Lola, looking toward the steps to her right.

  “Nor the elevator,” replied Aubrey. “Perhaps they concentrated everything on the outer walls.”

  “They must Ward individual offices.”

  Aubrey agreed. “No time for dawdling. There’s got to be foot patrol inside.”

  Lola was betting that security used the elevators for their rounds. She turned to the stairwell and started upward. She told Aubrey to stay alert for Wards and trapping Spells. She would listen for footsteps.

  Eight floors and three near misses later, Lola stepped into a darkened corridor. She carefully pushed the door closed behind her and stood motionless, listening. No echoing footfalls from within the stairwell. Nothing within earshot at all. Lola walked quickly down the hall, came to a corner, and paused. She kneeled before slowly peeking around. When no one came barrelling down the corridor, shouting at her, she stood and stepped forward in one continuous motion. Then she ran lightly onward until she faced a gilt door without a nameplate.

  Eying the long corridor, Lola urged Aubrey to hurry.

  “Quiet,” he replied.

  Lola ran back down to the turn in the hallway. Still no sign of security. She made her way to the bank of elevators. Pressing her ear against the cold metal of the doors, she heard a distinct whirring. She had no way to tell the direction, but it spurred her to return to Aubrey.

  “The elevator’s moving,” she said. “I need in.”

  “I’m done,” replied Aubrey. “The entry Ward’s open. Close the door and stay still. I have to patch it up.”

  The space within was darker than the hallway. When her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Lola took a step toward the inner office. In the distance, the elevator bell sounded. “Aubrey,” she whispered urgently.

  “Shush,” the Ghost replied. “I need to be thorough. If I’m not and he has a Ghost, it’ll spot the patch job immediately.”

  Lola bit down on her lip. She thought she heard the creak of shoe leather approaching. It was accompanied by low whistling, something jazzy and upbeat. Lola realized with a small smile that steps and whistle were in time. Apparently, this was one security guard who didn’t mind the night shift. They waited until the guard passed and the elevator bell sounded once more. Three forty-eight. Lola told Aubrey to check the rooms, while she silently counted to twenty and listened for noise in the hall.

  Finally satisfied, she turned her attention to the inner room. Its door stood open. Lola startled at the voice at her shoulder.

  “I don’t see any Wards in the room itself. Not even on this inner door.”

  Lola nodded and looked around the room once more.

  Although the office was large, there wasn’t much in the way of furniture. Just the massive desk and its attendant chair, the two visitors seats, a lone round table for four, and the sofa arrangement. Much of the room’s centre was clear of obstacles. Lola went to the desk and sat gingerly. The windows behind the desk were covered by blinds.

  For all of her outward elegance, the Assistant Deputy Commissioner kept a very messy work area. A blotter sat crookedly on the desk, surrounded by a few short stacks of paper. A black telephone stood to the left. Next to it were a pen and inkwell, as well as a canister filled with pencils bristling upward like quills. Lola took her pocket torch out from the duffel and clicked it on. She rifled through the paperwork. Memoranda and letters, invoices and accounting reports.
It was a dull job indeed, if these were the sole testaments. Lola replaced the stacks carefully and sat back, considering the drawers. Blank letterhead, business cards, unused notebooks and ruled pads filled the top right drawer. The one beneath it was empty. The left set of drawers was a false front of three for a single compartment. Inside was a sizable stash of candies, cigarettes, breath mints and European chocolates. Lola unwrapped a Scottish toffee and popped it into her mouth. She pocketed the wrapper.

  Placing her light carefully on the top of the desk, she returned her attention to the lower empty drawer on the right. She flicked open her pocket knife and slid the edge along the sides of the drawer bottom. The knife caught on a spring-loaded latch. The bottom panel popped up just enough for Lola to place two fingers underneath. Lola reached for her light, but her eye was caught by a strange abstraction on AJ’s blotter. It was illuminated in the short beam of the flash. Circles within circles. Squares and rectangles as frames. Wings even. Lola squinted to pick out more details. There was something there that had caught her attention. She just needed to see it. There. Underneath the squiggles and lines and curves, she made out a word. It was a name. A name she knew.

  She sat back for a moment, considering.

  “The files, Lola. Get into the files,” said Aubrey.

  Lola quickly flicked her light into the secret compartment. It was as empty as the rest of the drawer. She swiveled in the chair to face the filing cabinet. It was low, only four drawers high. She tried them all. Locked.

  “You sure they’re clean?” Lola whispered.

  “Yes. I told you I didn’t see any Wards in here,” he replied.

  Lola worked her picks for a few seconds. The drawers all opened smoothly and silently.