The Love-Haight Case Files

by Jean Rabe, Donald J. Bingle

  “Mr. McKenzie—”

  “And, like I said, no more attempts on Evelyn Love.”

  “Ordering a hit? On Thomas Brock? On his little assistant? That would be illegal, and beneath me. I play within the law. While I might help facilitate matters for a friend, I don’t personally cross the line. I don’t need to. Look elsewhere for your Thomas Brock woes, Mr. McKenzie. I’m not the man a dog like you should be sniffing around. And the ghost who holds your leash should be looking a little closer to home. A lot closer, actually.”

  Dagger’s eyes narrowed. Arnold had just told him who had really ordered the hit on Thomas Brock. Dagger had to consider how and when to pass that unfortunate tidbit along.

  “What is in the bag, Mr. McKenzie? This trade-off for leaving the gargoyles alone?”

  “A gift. You can open it after I’m out of here. Hope you’re up to date on your shots.”

  Arnold nudged the bag and it wiggled. Something inside started trying to claw its way out.

  “Your wife,” Dagger added, “is a whole lot older than you think she is. By a few centuries, I’m betting. And I’m also betting you know a lot of good lawyers. Maybe one will handle your divorce on the cheap.”

  Chapter 2.15

  Thomas heard the bell above the door jangle and saw Dagger walk in and stop at Gretchen’s desk. He slammed a bill down on it.

  “Good heavens! What is this?” Gretchen set her hands on her hips. “How do you get off, McKenzie, giving us a bill for a new wardrobe?”

  “Not an entire wardrobe, just a leather jacket and a pair of shoes. Doesn’t have to be paid right away.” Dagger looked up and saw Thomas hovering above the conference table. “But it does have to be paid.”

  Dagger strode past a still-grumbling Gretchen and took a seat across from the ghost. “I checked with the hospital. Evey’s doing all right. I’ll go see her in a little while.”

  “I have to tell you,” Thomas started. He knew the excitement was evident in his voice, and he didn’t care. “I left the office last night. Really left it. I went to the hospital and saw Evelyn. The doctor made me leave, but I went to the hospital. And I’m going back this afternoon. She can have visitors in a few hours.”

  Dagger didn’t say anything.

  Feeling exasperated, Thomas stared at the private detective, knowing the man wasn’t that dense. “Don’t you get it? I can go to the hospital. I’ll be able to go to the courthouse.”

  Dagger sat back, his expression flat.

  Thomas continued: “I know that Evelyn is going to be fine. I talked to the doctor. Evelyn is smart. She’ll pass the bar. We’ll get more cases. We’ll get enough money, somehow, to keep this place open.”

  Gretchen raised her voice from the front of the room. “And apparently we need to raise some money so we can pay McKenzie’s extravagant clothing bill.”

  Dagger related most of what happened in Chinatown, the story interesting enough to draw Gretchen to the table.

  “So, I got the story from one of the Asian vampires or zombies, or whatever they were—I have pictures of them so I can show Z-man. Arnold’s wife is a huli jing, a fox spirit, sort of like a European fairy. They’re either good or bad, these fairies, and Mei-li is definitely on the Dark Side of the Force. Supposedly immortal. I didn’t try to test that theory. She had some bad stuff going on in a Chinatown basement. Indentured servants slaughtered. Nasty stuff.”

  “You found her?” Thomas leaned forward.

  “Obviously.”

  “Did you fight her?” Thomas pointed to the bruises forming on Dagger’s knuckles and the thick bandage on his cheek.

  “Fight her? Not exactly, but I caught her. Handed her over to her loving hubby a little before midnight. I’m thinking Gretchen will see the divorce notice in the Chronicle sometime next week.” Dagger drummed his fingers against the table. “Come to think of it, I need to adjust my bill. You also owe me for a helmet bag.”

  Thomas leaned forward farther, until he was halfway into the table. “So Evelyn was right, thinking Mei-li was behind—”

  “The fox didn’t have anything to do with the gargoyles. But I’m thinking maybe Arnold will lay off them now. He has other things to worry about.”

  “His OT wife,” Gretchen supplied. “Why didn’t you hand her over to the cops instead?”

  “What would it do, Gretchen? More bad news about OTs, like they need that kind of press. Let’s say I traded her for Pete … and for the city’s other gargoyles.”

  Gretchen gave him a stern look.

  “Mei-li was interested in only four buildings in Chinatown, which she legally owns.” Dagger grinned wide. “Though that will be a matter for the divorce settlement, and part of a four-gallon can of worms. There are bodies in the basement, at least in one of the buildings. Had to be people that were smuggled in, illegals from the Triad. She was feeding them to her pet vamps. Cops are crawling all over the place right now. So Arnold is gonna be busy, working to distance himself from Mei-li … who is going to have to disappear, at least for a while.”

  “You really think Arnold will let the gargoyles go … in exchange for his wife?”

  Dagger held up his cell phone. “For keeping pictures of his wife out of the papers. Yeah, I think he’ll back off. He can’t afford to have this public, not the way he publicly hates OTs. If nothing else, it’s bought you a lot more time to save those buildings.”

  Thomas wondered if Dagger could read his pleased expression. “We owe you.”

  “Yeah, you do. I gave Gretchen my bill.”

  Gretchen made a “harrumphing” sound. “And it will be a while before it gets paid.”

  Dagger pushed the chair back and stood. “The undead … they said Mei-li wants what is under those buildings in Chinatown.”

  “Under?” Thomas floated higher to be eye-to-eye. “There’s no subway or underground or—”

  “Some undead are quick to talk when you take their arms and legs. They said she’s looking for buried treasure.”

  Gretchen “harrumphed” again and returned to her desk.

  Dagger took a step toward the door. “No, Tom, there’s no subway or underground beneath that part of Chinatown. I’ve been in this city a while, I’m good with its history. The densest part of San Fran … it wasn’t always land. It was water, the shoreline right about Montgomery Street. The land changed, quakes and such, the gold rush … the town grew up around Montgomery and Washington, buildings were set down on the skeletons of abandoned ships.”

  “There are ships buried under Chinatown?”

  “Yeah. A bunch of ships.” Dagger touched his fingers to his bandaged face. “Apparently Mei-li wants what is in those ships. She can’t get to the ships unless she gets rid of the buildings, and she needed Arnold’s money to do that. Bet she doesn’t get much of it in the divorce.”

  A hint of sadness crept into Thomas’s voice. “Arnold should fare very well in the divorce. He has a very good attorney.”

  “Yeah, your father. We need to talk about him someday. Hey, I’m out of here. I’m gonna stop by and see Evey.”

  “They said no visitors until sometime this afternoon,” Thomas said.

  “And you always play by the rules, don’t you, Tom? I’ll tell Evey you’ll be bringing your ghostly self over later.”

  Thomas waited until Dagger had peeled away from the curb, then he floated up the staircase, past Evelyn’s empty apartment, past the doorway to his “haunt” on the third floor, and to the roof.

  Pete was sitting in one of the folding chairs near the edge of the roof, studying birds on the tops of the buildings across the street. The gargoyle reached to his feet and grabbed a pair of binoculars.

  “Where’d you get the binoculars?” Thomas drifted closer.

  “Z-man found them in a pawn shop. Said it was an early Christmas gift. Minolta Activa, large front lens, wide eye cups, coated, fog proof and waterproof.”

  “What are you watching?”

  “A grouping of Black Phoebes.”r />
  Thomas waited.

  “Hard to tell the males from the females, the plumage is identical. There are some juveniles with them, feathers the color of cinnamon. They will darken in a few weeks, pick up a white underbelly. I cannot hear them, but I know their song and quite like it. Maybe they will come closer and sing to me. ‘Tee-hee tee ho,’ they sing. ‘Sisee sitsew.’ A pair has a nest near that chimney.” Pete pointed to the blues bar’s roof. “There is a little overhang, and they have cemented the nest with mud. Typical. You know, flycatchers make up the largest family of birds worldwide. There are hundreds of known species. These Black Phoebes have six subspecies.”

  “How do you know so much about birds?”

  “Books. Evey loves books, said I could read hers anytime. She has quite a few on bird watching.”

  Thomas started; he didn’t realize Evelyn had been bringing books up here.

  “She said I could read anything on her shelves. She even has a stash of books in her closet.”

  “You’ve been to her apartment?”

  “Sure. She has me in for tea once in a while.”

  Thomas noticed the gargoyle train the binoculars elsewhere. He put them down when two pigeons landed on the law office’s ledge and started cooing.

  “So, you can come inside the building?”

  “Sure.”

  “Franklin Arnold isn’t going to tear down this building and put up condos. He can’t get around the neighborhood’s zoning restrictions. And I’ve started the paperwork—well, Gretchen is filling out the forms—to get this place on the National Register. You’re going to be all right, Pete.”

  “Good to know. But I would feel a lot better if you started getting more paying clients. Building needs some more renovations. Z-man was barely able to pay the roof repair bill. Z-man needs some more money for school too, and to pay off his loans. After he graduates with his bachelor’s, he wants to get into law school. Says he wants to be a lawyer.” The gargoyle made a snorting sound. “I think he should be a writer, but he has his heart set on law. He probably admires you.”

  They didn’t say anything for a time, Pete continuing to watch the pigeons, which strutted back and forth on the ledge, lifting their tails and making deposits on the trim, cooing.

  Pete stood, folded the chair, and placed it and the binoculars under the tarp.

  “I could use some help in the law office,” Thomas said. “I’m at a disadvantage. I can’t open books, turn pages, can’t use the Internet. And I can’t ask Evelyn to be my hands. Or Gretchen for that matter. They’ve got plenty on their plates.”

  Pete shuffled close to the pigeons; they didn’t fly away. Bold or used to the gargoyle, Thomas thought.

  “I can’t pay you, though I could have Evelyn get some beer.”

  “That would help you get more clients? Handle more business? Me helping?”

  “I hope.”

  “And more money?”

  “That’s my thinking.”

  “Sure. When do you want me to start?”

  “How about tomorrow morning?”

  Pete’s hand shot out, his stone fingers closing around a pigeon. The other flew off in a flurry of feathers.

  Thomas watched in horror as Pete squished the bird and tossed it over the side of the building.

  “Pete … why … how?”

  “I like birds, Tom. Actually, I love birds … to watch them … Black Phoebes, rails, sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Chestnut-backed Chickadees. But pigeons? Pigeons are not birds. Pigeons are rats with wings and they crap all over me. This?” He faced Thomas and held his bloody palm out, then stooped and wiped it against the roof. “This was just a preemptive strike.” Then he climbed over the edge of the roof and affixed himself to the corner. “See you tomorrow morning.”

  Chapter 2.16

  Thomas saw ghosts in Chinatown. They were harder to see in bright light, especially on this cloudless late morning. They looked like thin, watery patches of air, and he had to concentrate to make out the details, suspecting he appeared similarly to them. There were a few in every block—men, women, children, even a couple of dragon-faced creatures with long slender tails.… the first OT ghosts he’d seen. They didn’t interact with each other. They just wandered, and not far. Most seemed to be confined to a particular section of street. However, one of the dragon-faced ghosts traveled quite a few blocks, and so Thomas suspected it was anchored to a concept rather than a place.

  Police were still on the scene at the abandoned furniture store. It looked like an episode of CSI: with all the little tent-shaped markers set throughout the first floor, digital cameras taking pictures, pieces of evidence being bagged and boxed up. If it was bloody, it was placed in cardboard boxes; plastic degraded DNA, Thomas knew. He’d been to crime scenes, and he could tell the crime scene techs had been here a lot of hours. Police were going through the other buildings Mei-li had purchased. A bat-winged officer carried out a cardboard file box from the tattoo parlor. The bat-winged cop was the only OT he saw working the scene. Most departments avoided hiring them, a discrimination Thomas hoped to address down the road.

  He sank through the floor and into the basement where he saw an amazing gathering of ghosts. They were so thick it looked like a cloud had come to ground, and they talked in Chinese … he couldn’t understand a single word.

  Technicians worked around them, bagging remains, taking photographs, and shivering—not realizing it was the specters that were responsible for the drop in temperature. There were children, men, women, all human, all Chinese, and it looked like they’d died in threadbare garments.

  “Hello,” Thomas tried.

  A chorus of voices came at him, but nothing he could understand.

  One of the technicians—all of them dressed in something similar to Hazmat suits—held a hand to an ear. The ghosts, at least some of them, were talking in voices that the living could hear.

  “Hello,” Thomas repeated.

  More voices, a buzz of Chinese words. Their expressions held a mix of emotions, sadness the most prevalent, but there was joy, too, probably at being discovered and for the promise of justice.

  Thomas sank through the concrete floor and into the earth beneath. He’d mastered the ability to see in utter darkness, and he made out shapes—rocks, old railroad ties, a broken, rusted G.I. Joe lunch pail. He went deeper and spiraled outward. There were no ghosts down here, just dirt and rocks and the occasional piece of railroad detritus.

  Deeper. He’d lost track of the sounds and the sensation rattled him. He heard absolutely nothing. He’d never heard absolutely nothing ever before. Always the sounds of the city had crept in, even in the quiet moments between conversations, or at times in the park when he’d sat—when he was living—on a bench and watched the sunset. Those quiet moments had never been wholly quiet.

  The absence of noise … was this what death sounded like?

  He lost track of up and down, disoriented by the dark stillness. He imagined this was like being caught in an avalanche, the snow thundering over a skier and cutting out light, and then sound, nothing to tell up from down.

  Thomas picked a direction and continued in it. He lost sense of time, too, but he continued to wander, finding the bones of small animals, the husks of burrowing insects, a piece of rotted canvas, a beam of rotted wood, an anchor.

  He couldn’t tell how many ships were buried under this section of Chinatown. Thomas tried inventorying the masts, but realized that wasn’t helping. Some ships would have had one, others two or three, and not one was intact. All broken, he couldn’t picture them like jigsaw pieces to arrange them and get an actual count.

  Many, he settled on. The husks of many ships were packed tightly under Chinatown. There were a few skeletons, but not enough to suggest that a ship sank with an entire crew. And there were no ghosts … not a soul haunted this place. Books had essentially turned to pulp, though some covers had been preserved by the press of the earth. Pieces of brass lanterns, cooking pots, though
again there were not a lot, hinting that most of the useable items had been taken off the ships before they were left to rot and become part of the ground.

  Then Thomas found two exceptions. He’d studied admiralty, and types of ships were actually mentioned in one of his law books. These two were older, one with the hull intact. It looked like something out of Pirates of the Caribbean or Mutiny on the Bounty. He imagined that they must have been tall and beautiful … and filled with treasure, galleons or schooners.

  Thick gold coins were strewn across a wide stretch of ground, pearls that probably had been strung were scattered between them, all held tightly by the hard-packed earth and bands of wood and iron. A chalice, a gold platter, silver candelabras, and more. So much more. The wealth was staggering, and Thomas was mesmerized by it.

  How could Mei-li have known it was here?

  Thomas continued his search, finding rotted paintings, chunks of ivory. Images were carved on some of the pieces, looking like cameos.

  Mei-li knew because she’d been here, Thomas guessed, a very long time ago. One of the pieces of ivory bore the image he’d seen on the computer screen—Mei-li. She hadn’t changed. Beautiful, with almond eyes and a high neck, the suggestion of a pearl choker necklace.

  Was it the same necklace he’d seen in the Internet picture?

  He would have shuddered had he been living. Dagger said Mei-li claimed to be immortal, some sort of fox-spirit. And if that was true, and if Mei-li had been on this ship when it sailed above the waves, she’d try again to regain her treasure.

  A veritable king’s ransom, all the gold and jewels, and a few odd-shaped baubles that despite the black cocoon of the earth glowed with some eldritch light.

  Mei-li would try again.

  And Thomas, no longer burdened by the confines of mortality, would be around when she made the attempt.