by Mark Fassett
“That’s right,” she said. “You’re Gifted. I’d forgotten.”
He tilted his head slightly, just enough so that she could see his eyes, and they were staring at her.
“It’s not much of a Gift. I can see hidden metal, sort of like a human metal detector.”
“Like the gun in my pocket,” she said.
“Yeah, like that, only I can’t tell what kind of gun it is. No details, just shapes. Not much use for taking over for Dad.”
“I see you can read my mind, too,” she said.
A smile reached his lips.
“Nah, nothing like that. I just used logic. After all, with Dad gone, if I were the mayor of this town, I’d be out looking for a replacement.”
“He expressly forbid me to go to the places where I might find a replacement.”
“Chicken and egg, isn’t it. With Dad gone, we need a replacement, but if you go looking for a replacement, everyone will learn he’s gone.”
His chest expanded as he drew in a deep breath, and then fell as he let it out slowly.
“Well, if we’re going to do this,” he said, “you better grab some of those binders. We don’t have a lot of time before the sun sets.”
She went to the shelf and pulled a half-dozen binders from the shelf.
“Why? What happens at sunset?”
“We’re going out, of course.”
She hadn’t thought of taking anyone with her, but he was Gifted. He might serve as some protection for her.
She took the binders over to a couch on the other side of the room and split them up, giving half to Reggie.
Then she sat down and started reading notes about villains her father had not caught before he died.
Chapter 8
THOUGH THERE ENDED up being more than forty binders on that shelf, Nice and Reggie made short work of them. Many of the binders only had a few pages to skim through. With others, it became clear pretty quickly that the subjects weren’t likely to pose much of a threat to Red.
At the end, just as darkness was settling over the Sound outside, they’d whittled forty down to three. Three Gifted whose powers seemed to give them the potential to surprise Red in a way that could result in him taking a bullet from a gun.
Doctor Viscosity, who was not an actual doctor, could cause the air molecules around a body to stick in place so that a person couldn’t move. He could also solidify air molecules into various invisible shapes. At least, that’s how Red thought he was able to manipulate locks and carry museum artifacts across pressure plate alarms without tripping them. From the security camera footage Red had seen, it looked like telekinesis, but chasing after the Doctor once, Red had run into an invisible wall. When the Doctor disappeared around a corner, the wall crumbled. Red chased after him, but the Doctor was gone. Red hadn’t yet figured out how the Doctor did that.
April Levine was a master of illusions. She could make you think one thing was happening when there were an entirely different set of events taking place. She ran a drug dealing operation in South Seattle, and she used her illusions to hide her transactions from anyone who might be watching. She didn’t carry a gun, but she had always had muscle with her that did—a pair of men who could take care of anyone she couldn’t fool. Red hadn’t bothered her until she started expanding her territory and dealing drugs that killed.
The third file contained notes on a man named only with the initials TR. He could manipulate electricity, in wires, in the air, even call down lightning from the sky. Mostly, he used his Gift to manipulate computer circuitry, disabling security, erasing video, and disrupting wireless signals. Occasionally, he used it to kill. Everyone knew he had a beef with Red calling himself Red Lightning. While TR had never been known to use a gun, Reggie thought the motive was enough to put him in the list, suggesting that TR might have killed Red with some sort of electrical pulse, and then used the gun to cover it up.
The one thing that tied them all together was that they were known to frequent The Curio—the same place Nice’s mother had met her father, and only three blocks away from where Red was gunned down.
“I’ve been there,” Reggie said after Nice mentioned the link between them. “Is that where you were planning on going tonight?”
Nice nodded.
“My mother met him there. It was where I was planning to start my search. What’s it like?”
“It’s a nice place, not a dive like you might think, especially looking at that lot. They even tolerate the ungifted, to a degree, though it’s far better if you’re with a Gifted. They won’t give you as much shit if you’ve been invited.”
Nice looked up from TR’s binder and locked eyes with Reggie.
“It’s a good thing I found you, then, isn’t it.”
Reggie smiled.
“I guess it is, though I honestly would have preferred less traumatic circumstances.”
“You knew where I was,” she said. “Red knew.”
“He said it was best to avoid you. Some of the people Dad put away would have used you against him, if they’d known.”
“But why did he make an exception for you? From what you told me about your training, it sounds like he didn’t even try to hide you.”
Reggie stood up.
“Look,” he said, “Dad did what Dad did for Dad’s reasons. I don’t know what was going on in his head all the time. Why don’t we get going. We’ve got to get you home and dressed more appropriately for The Curio.”
“It sounds like you don’t want to answer me.”
“I would answer you,” he said, his voice raising slightly, “if I knew the answer.”
Nice wondered what she’d said to get him upset, because she thought it was a valid question. It didn’t really make sense that Red would try to hide her, but not Reggie, unless it was a Gifted/Ungifted thing, but in that case, why not just say so?
She took her phone out of her pocket.
“Since you’re not going to let me take these with me, do you mind if I take pictures of some of it before we go?”
Reggie rolled his eyes, but when he spoke, it was with less of an edge.
“Go ahead, but hurry. I’m not kidding about getting you a change of clothes. You’ll want a dress, but not black.”
“Why not black?” she asked while turning back to the binders to photograph the pages.
“We don’t want anyone to think you’re in mourning.”
“I get it,” she said as the pages flipped beneath her fingers, and her phone took photo after photo. The two of them looked too much alike, and she was known as Red’s liaison. Someone could put two and two together and figure out that Red was dead.
She didn’t think it likely to happen as long as she didn’t wear a black veil. Better not to risk it.
Still, a dress. She’d prefer her jeans and leather jacket.
Whatever it took to catch Red’s killer.
Chapter 9
NICE CHOSE A dark blue dress that didn’t quite hide her ankles. It left her shoulders bare, but didn’t expose much of her chest. A solid compromise, she hoped, between looking good, and not looking like she was Reggie’s date.
She patted her purse as she got out of the car, making sure, again, that her gun and her phone were safely inside. Then she and Reggie walked the block and a half from their parking spot to The Curio, staying silent most of the time. She had butterflies in her stomach, and didn’t want to betray how nervous she felt. Reggie seemed lost in thought while they walked, and she assumed he had fallen back into thinking about Red.
The Curio didn’t look like much on the outside. A brick building three stories high, nestled between a couple of other buildings. The windows on the lower floor were blacked out, making it impossible to see inside. The name of the club, scrawled in neon lighting, hung above a black glass door. Whatever Reggie had said, it looked, for all the world, like a dive.
Cars were parked on the far side of the street. Other than the cars, the neon light, and the very large man stand
ing outside the entrance to The Curio, Nice would have guessed the place was closed.
The doorman/bouncer/security guard stood at least a foot taller than her, and he probably weighed something like three hundred pounds. He had no belly, though. Every pound seemed bound up in the muscles the man clearly had beneath a black blazer that looked three sizes too small.
His bulk wasn’t the most interesting thing about him.
The man wore a blindfold, really just a thick black cloth covering his eyes that, to Nice, looked all but impenetrable.
He stood with his hands behind his back, his feet spread wide.
“Who’s that with you, Reggie?” the man asked.
Even with the blindfold, he could see. It had to be his Gift. Similar, Nice thought, to Reggie’s, but not the same. Reggie could see the gun in her pocket. This man could see her and Reggie, both well enough to know he knew Reggie, but not her.
“A friend from out of town, Mike,” Reggie said.
The man brought his arms from behind him and folded them across his chest—a move calculated to impress, as his biceps grew big enough that they threatened to rip through the sleeves of his blazer.
“Don’t bullshit me, Reggie. I’ve seen her face before, just can’t remember where.”
Reggie smiled.
“Alright she’s…”
“I’m Red Lightning’s liaison with the Mayor’s office,” Nice said, cutting Reggie off.
Mike smiled, and his stance loosened up a bit as he relaxed.
“I knew I’d seen your face before,” the guard said. He turned to Reggie. “So you’re dating your old man’s connection. Nice work. She Gifted?”
“No,” Reggie said.
Nice threw a look of disgust at Reggie, then spoke for herself, annoyed that Mike only seemed to see her as something belonging to Reggie. Sure, the guard knew Reggie and probably only knew her from an image in the paper or the evening news where she’d inevitably be standing behind Red and the Mayor during a news conference, but the slight galled her, anyway.
“No, we’re not dating,” Nice said, as coldly as she could. “The Mayor asked me to recruit some people to help Red out, and Red asked Reggie to introduce me to possible candidates.”
Mike looked down at her, he had to be a foot taller, seemed to ponder a response for a moment, then turned back to Reggie as if Nice wasn’t worth talking to.
“You know the rules, Reg. If she’s not Gifted, she can’t stay past midnight, and her safety is your responsibility.”
Nice fumed silently, wishing, not for the first time, that she was Gifted so that she could put this guy in his place. She didn’t know whether it was that she was not Gifted, or that she was female, but she could feel the condescension dripping off the man. Either way, he deserved a swift kick to the balls.
“I know the rules, Mike,” Reg said.
“Then, by all means…” Mike said, waiving them toward the door.
Once inside the club, Nice had to retract her initial impression that the place was a dive. The tables were solid walnut, the fittings brass, the floor a highly polished rosewood. The lighting was fairly dim, making it hard to see who sat at the tables, but it seemed that about half were full. A chandelier hung above a sunken dance floor in the middle of the room where a pair of couples danced close to a slow electronic piece that sounded familiar, though Nice couldn’t place it.
They were greeted by a short, blonde woman in a strapped black dress. She wore gloves that ended above her elbows. She couldn’t have been much taller than five feet, but the way the dress was cut, she seemed half a foot taller. Her eyes curiously narrowed as they approached, but just before she spoke, her features resolved into a somewhat forced smile.
“Welcome to the Curio, Reggie and…” The woman tilted her head slightly to left and bored into Nice’s face with dark dark eyes.
“I know you,” she said at last. “You work for the Mayor.”
“I do. I’m Nice.”
“Nice, yeah.” Then the woman brought her head back up and let out a bark of a laugh. “I get it. That’s your name! You know, whoever did that to you, your Mom, your Dad, I hope you get them back some day.”
“I guess my Mom didn’t think there were enough nice people in the world,” Nice said, ignoring the comment about getting back at her parents. It was just too soon, even though her mother had been dead for years. It would always be too soon.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I didn’t mean to open a wound. I just… I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t pry. You’re new, here, and I can’t help wanting to know things.”
She leaned forward and started to whisper.
“They keep telling me to stop searching people or they’ll put me in the kitchen, so please, accept my apologies and my condolences, and don’t report me. I really don’t want to work the kitchens.”
Her condolences?
What did she know?
How did she know?
But then Nice remembered where she was, and realized it had to be the woman’s gift. She’d have to ask Reggie about it later, once they were alone. If the woman learned that Red was dead…
“I won’t say a thing,” Nice said in her best conspiratorial voice.
“Well then,” the woman said, “I think it’s time we find you two a table. Up front or in the back?”
“What’s in the back?” Nice asked.
“The bar,” Reggie said, coolly. “Pool, poker, drinks, companionship.”
Nice had to wonder at how a poker game would go, especially when people had mental gifts like the hostess seemed to have. It occurred to her that she didn’t want to reveal just how ignorant she was of the Gifted, despite her role with Red, so she didn’t ask.
“Ah,” she said, instead, and looked to Reggie. “Dinner first?”
“Sounds good,” he said.
The hostess led them to a table toward the back of the room that was up against the wall, and at least two tables from any of the other seated patrons. While not quite a booth, it was separated by a low wall from the tables on either side of it. While standing, she could look over it, but when seated, it was as if they were sitting in their own little room with a view of the dance floor.
When they were seated, the hostess said, “Henry will be by to help you in just a moment.”
Then she leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “Again, I’m really sorry, and no one will hear about it from me.”
Then the hostess spun and left them alone at their table.
“I wonder how much she knows,” Nice said, keeping her voice quiet. She didn’t know if anyone was listening.
“We can trust Aidan,” Reggie said. “She knows lots of things about a lot of people. If any of them became public, she’d lose her job, and it’s her job that lets her learn so many things. The management of this place threatens her with the kitchens at least once a month, or so she says.”
“Aidan,” Nice said, filing the name away in her memory. “You seem to know a lot of people here.”
“I know some. Dad brought me here to dinner every once in a while.”
“He ever take you in the back?” She picked the right front corner of the placemat, and rolled it up, then let it roll back.
“No. I’ve been back there on my own, but never with him. He always told me I never needed to go back there. I think he was trying to protect me.”
“From what?”
“I don’t know. A lot of the morally challenged hang out in back, Dad said. But not everyone back there is that way. I saw that when I went back on my own. Most of the people there seemed okay, to be honest.”
All right. It wasn’t a ringing endorsement. But it didn’t really matter. Red had met her mother here, and Nice was willing to bet it had been in the back where all the fun was.
Chapter 10
HENRY, THEIR WAITER, was not at all what Nice expected. Short, thin, and of mixed Asian descent. Nice couldn’t quite figure out the mix, but she wasn’t about to ask. The most surp
rising bit was that he didn’t look any older than fifteen.
While she had issues with asking about his heritage, she couldn’t help asking his age.
“Thirty-eight,” he said with a laugh. “I haven’t aged a day since I was sixteen.”
His Gift. Didn’t seem like much of a Gift—more like a curse. Finding dates would be hard, unless…
He laughed and held out his left hand. A silver band circled his ring finger.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve been married for a decade to someone only slightly younger than I am.”
“How did you…”
“How did I know what you were thinking? I could see it on your face. Besides, it almost always comes up when someone asks about my age. Better to get the weirdness out of the way.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nice said. “I didn’t mean…”
“Don’t worry about it. It is what it is. Now, would you two like to order something?”
Henry took their orders, halibut for Reggie, a nice peppered steak for her, and then left them alone. Nice felt awkward the entire time, and she knew she’d have to leave him a big tip. For being Red’s liaison, she realized she really didn’t know nearly as much as she thought about the Gifted.
“You seem flustered,” Reggie said after Henry left.
Nice looked around the dining room. She still couldn’t really see into any of the booths. The people inside were all just shadows.
“How many…” She stopped. She hadn’t meant to speak aloud.
“How many what?” Reggie asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just wondering in my head, and didn’t mean to say anything.”
Reggie leaned in, and the strange sensation of looking into a funhouse mirror came over her again.
“Now you’ve got my curiosity piqued,” Reggie said. “What were you wondering?”