Por set the martini on the bar. Remy snatched it immediately and gulped. “Yeah,” he muttered, “and what would I get in return as part of this hypothetical deal? Which, by the way, I haven’t actually agreed to yet.”
“Information,” the reporter said. “Over the course of a long career in investigative journalism, you see, I’ve built up quite the list of contacts. I know most of what goes on in this city, even if I’m not as fast on the trigger these days. I know things, Remington—things you might also benefit from knowing. Information for information, a fair exchange, if you ask me.”
Remy drank a little more and almost emptied his glass. The woozy rush made him feel slightly better about the whole Jenny Ocren thing. If he was lucky, he might even kill the brain cells responsible for remembering that she existed.
“Well, Don,” he replied, “that does indeed sound fair. I’m not decided yet, though, since it also sounds like it might be a potential hassle and could involve the kinds of risks that my employer—er, partner—doesn’t want to take. Still, I’ll think about it.”
Gannon smiled in an almost wistful way. “Please do.” He pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote something on the dry part of his cocktail napkin. “Here’s my number. Call me if you turn up a good lead or even if you only want to ask me a question. Leave a message if I don’t answer. I promise it won’t be long before I get back to you.”
Remy accepted the napkin and stuffed it into his pocket. “Thanks.” He finished his beverage and pushed the glass away. “I think it’s time I called it a night, though. I’m dangerously close to the point where I’ll be able to tell in the morning that I’d been drinking.”
Don extended a hand. “Good to meet you, sir.”
He gave it a cursory shake and noticed with something close to surprise that the old man still had a strong grip. He half-slid and half-hopped down from his stool, wobbled for a second, and turned away. “Por, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. And yes, my tab will be taken care of directly. You know how reliable I am.”
The gnome almost chuckled. “Have a nice night there, buddy.”
Remy took two steps toward the door before he stopped. An idea had come to him, intruded upon his contented haze, and sharpened the edges of his thoughts. He turned toward Gannon.
“Don,” he called. “How much does it cost to take an ad out in the Inquirer, anyway?”
Chapter Seven
Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York
Remy’s index finger hovered over the page, seeking the line he’d last been on.
“M…kay,” he said, “uh, that’s four hundred fifty-four point seven eight, as of, let’s see, eleven-fourteen, twenty-twenty…”
He cross-referenced the number from the invoice against what was recorded in their bank statements. So far, everything was kosher.
“You know,” he said aloud, mostly to himself, “it’s amazing that the IRS hasn’t shown up on our doorstep by now. Usually, small businesses—especially ones that try to operate in semi-secrecy—have those assholes knocking on their door sooner rather than later. Granted, our paperwork seems to be in order. But still.”
It occurred to him that perhaps, at some indeterminate point before he had ever met Taylor, the IRS had shown up only for her to have “dealt” with them.
He shuddered. As unpleasant as the government’s tax-henchmen were, he didn’t relish the notion of much of anyone being on the receiving end of her wrath.
“Then again,” he mused, “she has that weird power to make people do whatever she says using that one tone of voice. I would think that even federal employees would have enough of a human soul to be moved by magic of that caliber.”
It made sense, the more he thought about it. Far too many people with big guns and big connections would get suspicious if a number of IRS guys turned up dead. Simply using a Jedi Mind Trick on the tax collectors to get them to stop asking bothersome questions seemed much smarter.
Riley, meanwhile, was seated at her own “desk” made from the upturned coffee cup. Earlier, as he worked through the company’s accounts and receipts and other such tedious documents, she had watched with curious eyes to get a feel for the process of accounting and had asked pointed questions here and there.
Now, at least, she had seemingly moved on to doing some accounting of her own. Her soft voice was barely audible even with him right beside her. “Sixteen… Seventeen…” She took a fragment of a once-round peppermint candy off the general pile and added it to the peppermint section.
The fairy was making good progress. The generalized heap of tiny sweets on the left had shrunk to about half its original size and to her right, multiple smaller and more organized piles were growing. Not only peppermint chunks, but also individual Skittles, pieces of chocolate bars, and candied peanuts were all now subject to a thorough inventory process.
Watching the fairy at her low-tech work, Remy sighed. They really needed to set computers up in there, and sooner rather than later.
The front door opened and footsteps entered the building. He perked up, slightly apprehensive but mostly curious. Whoever it was, they definitely wore high heels, judging by the clacking sound their footwear made against the floor.
He almost rose from his desk but stayed where he was when it became apparent that the visitor moved directly toward his office. The heels stopped outside his door and a fist rapped against it. “Hello?”
Remy glanced at Riley and made a fluttering motion with his hand. She scowled at him but obeyed and flitted away to hide in the narrow gap behind a file cabinet.
“Hi,” he said to the door. “You may come in.”
The knob turned and a woman stepped through. His eyes widened.
She was probably in her late twenties and possibly Puerto Rican, although with shoulder-length blonde hair and green eyes half-hidden by huge black lashes. She wore a green dress, low-cut up top and about knee-length at bottom, along with matching heels, and carried a brown pleather purse.
Her most striking features, though—two of them—were located between her shoulders and her abdomen.
“Hello,” the woman said again in a voice that sounded like a teenager’s, although huskier.
He blinked, cleared his throat, and forced his eyes upward to the new arrival’s face. “Uh…” he began and cleared his throat again. “Hello there, ma’am. Can I help you?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “I’m here replying to the ad about needing a secretary?”
Remy had momentarily forgotten that he might receive applicants any day now and would therefore have to conduct proper interviews. “Oh, great…perfect, yeah. Pull up a chair and have a seat.” He gestured and smiled.
The woman pushed an extra chair away from its place against the side wall and toward his desk. He tried not to wince at the scraping sound and hoped she hadn’t damaged the floor.
She sat, crossed her legs, and fluffed her hair. Her cleavage was directly in front of his field of vision and commanded his full attention.
“So,” she said. “Hi. My name is Roberta Diaz. You can call me Bobby, though. Everyone else does.” She laughed and extended a slender hand.
He stretched across the desk and took it, again struggling to keep his eyes level with her own. “Nice to meet you, Roberta. Or Bobby. I’m Remington Davis, Vice President and senior co-agent here at Moonlight Detective Agency.”
For now, he decided not to mention that everyone called him Remy. In his mind, it didn’t sound professional.
“Hello, Mr Davis.” She returned the smile. “So, yeah. I have references, and of course I also wanted you to tell me, like, what duties I’d need to perform. I have some experience with this type of thing, so I bet I’d be perfect.”
Remy nodded as he tried to organize his thoughts. There was a slim chance that what Ms Diaz had said about experience was some kind of coded signal about the preternatural…but probably not. She didn’t come across as all that bright.
“That is possible,” was all he said. �
�You say you’ve run a reception desk before? May I see your references?”
She continued to smile as she opened the flap of her purse. “Yeah, sure. Oh, crap.” She withdrew a manila folder and seemed surprised to discover that it was bent at the center.
Her smile faded. “I didn’t think it would crease. I didn’t really fold it, only kind of rolled it a little to fit it in my purse. Something must have jostled it—people bumping into me and stuff. Sorry!”
He chose not to comment on that. Instead, he accepted the folder, flipped it open, and thumbed through the references and work-history documents. Bobby had indeed held several receptionist jobs.
“Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “This looks good, for the most part, but it says here that you were dismissed from your position at the university office. May I ask why that was?”
Her head moved down a notch and her shoulders up as she cringed in slight embarrassment. “Oh, yeah. I guess you could say I misjudged my audience a little in that case. Ha, ha. I would have thought a science department would have more open minds.”
Remy arched an eyebrow. “Go on. I’m curious.”
“Well,” Roberta began and re-crossed her legs. “They said I was weirding out the staff and students because I kept talking about things you’d think they ought to be curious about. You know, mysterious stuff—the paranormal and supernatural and all that. Sure, some people think it’s…uh, BS, but maybe that’s only because it hasn’t been investigated properly yet, right?”
With a slow, underwater-like motion, he nodded. “Yeah…you might be onto something there, Bobby.” He scooched forward an inch or two in his seat and leaned toward her across the desk. “Tell me, do you know what it is we do here?”
“Kinda,” she answered him. “The ad said you guys do private investigations for clients who want good discretion. So, like, I guess confidentiality agreements and whatnot. I have no problem with any of that. My aunt hired an agency once to see if my uncle was cheating on her.” She paused and squinted as she looked around. “Can I chew gum in here?”
“Certainly,” he said. “Wrap it and put it in the trash when you’re done.”
She withdrew a stick of gum from the purse, unwrapped it, and popped it into her mouth. “I guess I’d have to deal with the walk-ins and take the phone calls and stuff, so you wouldn’t have to clue me in on all the gruesome details, anyway, if it’s too sensitive. At the university, they said I was fantastic at that kind of thing but they didn’t feel I was a good fit for their ‘culture of inquiry.’ Even though I inquired about stuff all the time.”
“Right,” Remy concurred. “Those academic types have a somewhat narrow definition of inquiry. So, if I may ask, where do you get your information on all these…paranormal subjects?”
She made an excited “ooh” sound and dived into her purse to surface again with a rolled-up newspaper.
“Right here,” she announced. “The New England Inquirer. Mostly, it’s stuff about local celebrities, but in every issue, they have a column about unexplained occurrences. Like when that rat the size of a pit bull came out of the sewers? They had one of their science guys test the water trail the thing left behind. It was full of chemicals he traced all the way back to the Pentagon.”
“Wow,” he droned. “Fascinating. I didn’t hear about that, but it definitely sounds like something a university science department ought to look into more.”
“That’s exactly what I said,” Bobby responded and almost bolted from her seat in her enthusiasm. “Someone ought to request a grant for stuff like this. We might have government bio-weapons living right under our streets. And then there’s all the stuff with remote viewing and how they’re trying to weaponize auras…”
Remy continued to nod until she momentarily ran out of steam. He injected another question.
“So, Roberta…clearly, you’re the curious, observant type. Now, we don’t want you getting too curious since we respect the privacy of our clients, but overall, I’d say those are desirable qualities.”
He paused for effect and the woman smiled with pride.
“Since you pay so much attention to the preternatural,” he went on, “does that mean you could tell if an alien craft was buried under this building? Or if it was haunted? Or if a fairy was hiding behind that file cabinet over there? This place seems to have something of a reputation, honestly. That might be why we got such a good deal on it. I haven’t seen any ghosts myself yet, but it might be useful if someone else were alert to things like that.”
She’d ceased chewing her gum and her mouth had dropped open. Her eyes were wide and enthralled.
“Holy crap,” she blurted. “That’s really interesting. But…uh, no, this place seems perfectly normal to me so far. I’ll keep that in mind, though.”
Remy leaned back in his chair. “That’s encouraging to hear, Bobby. I wouldn’t want our work to be interrupted by those malicious Fair Folk or any vampires or anything.” He chuckled.
She responded to this with an exaggerated laugh, which caused her bosom to heave in eye-catching fashion.
The interview proceeded, with him determining that the young woman possessed some basic computer skills, experience with managing an itinerary, and decent customer service abilities.
“Well,” he pronounced when they reached the end of the process, “I’d say you’re hired, Ms Diaz. I think you’ll do fine here.”
Her face lit up. “That’s great! Thanks, Mr Davis. Remington, I mean. Where will my desk be? When do I start?”
He pushed his chair back and stood. “Come with me, I’ll show you. As for your starting date, it will be soon but I’ll have to consult with my…ah, partner before I can give you a definite answer.”
Remy took her out front and flourished his hand at her desk and chair before he quickly reviewed the procedure for greeting customers—whether in person, over the phone, or via email—taking messages down, and so forth.
In the middle of his spiel, a door in the far corner opened and Taylor strode out.
Both Remy’s and Bobby’s eyes snapped up as the other woman glided toward them, aloof and elegant in her black dress and jacket.
Bobby extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Roberta Diaz, but you can call me Bobby. Mr Davis just hired me.”
Taylor accepted the hand. “Hello, Roberta. I’m Taylor Steele, the agency’s owner and Remington’s boss.”
His teeth scraped against each other and a muscle along his jaw rippled.
The vampire turned toward him. “Remy, may I see you in my office ASAP, please?” She spun on a heel and was already halfway across the floor before he could even think to respond.
Remy decided to cut Bobby off before she could ask any further questions. “Taylor’s busy right now so don’t mind her. She’s a nice person to work…with. But yeah, welcome aboard. We’ll say this interview is concluded for now, but we’ll get in touch with you shortly with more details.”
“Great!” She turned away to spit her gum discreetly into its original wrapper and looked around for a trash can.
He held out an open palm. “I’ll take that.”
Smiling awkwardly, she dropped the wad in his hand. “Okay, thanks. If you don’t need me to do any paperwork yet, I’ll get going. I’m looking forward to your call! Oh, is it okay if I read the Inquirer and maybe some fashion magazines when I’m not busy?”
“When you’re not busy, sure.” He shrugged.
She thanked him again and ambled toward the exit, the clacking sound of her heels diminishing as she left. He hoped Taylor wasn’t about to override his hiring decision and force him to deliver the bad news.
No sooner had the woman shut the door behind her than Riley zipped out of their shared office.
“What was that?” the fairy demanded with a pouting expression. “It sounded like you were about to ask her out on a date. And you couldn’t keep your eyes off her chest. I was watching. I saw the whole thing.”
Remy shrugged. “She’ll make an excellent
face for our organization, I’d say.”
“You weren’t paying attention to her face!” Riley hovered in front of him and planted her fists on her hips. “Instead of calling her Bobby, you might as well call her ‘Boobs.’ Plus, I heard that humans sometimes call someone a ‘boob’ when they think they’re stupid—which she obviously is.”
“Oh,” he retorted as he walked slowly toward Taylor’s office, “I found her quite charming. She’s a clever and multi-talented girl, really. Not many people can chew gum and talk about mutant pit bull rats at the same time. Now, please wait while I speak to Taylor.”
She hovered where she was and glared at him when he knocked on the door.
“Enter,” Taylor said.
Remy stepped in and closed the door, entirely confident that Riley would press her ear to it momentarily. He lowered himself into the chair in front of the lady’s desk.
“Remington,” she began, “I am…perplexed by your choice of secretary. Well, I can see how she’d appeal to human males, but I expected better of you.”
Her demeanor, he decided, was cool but not yet icy. She was giving him a chance to explain his reasoning. He waited to make sure she was finished before he spoke.
“Why would you want another mortal involved in our business?” she went on. “And Boobs there doesn’t seem like the sharpest knife in the drawer. Riley and I were right in front of her and she suspected nothing.”
He gestured emphatically with his right hand. “Exactly. Boobs—er, Bobby—is completely harmless. She’ll be pleasant to the customers while failing miserably to uncover the secrets we want to stay secret. While she claims to believe in paranormal or supernatural shit, everything she believes is completely wrong.”
Taylor’s gaze drifted to the side while she digested his words.
“If she were herself a preternatural,” he continued, “we’d have to worry about hiding her nature from mortal clients. Or cops, the landlord, or whatever. And if she was a savvy human, we’d have to go through the whole process of initiating her. As is, she won’t betray any sensitive information, and you could waltz right past her, sip from a blood bag and turn into a bat, and she wouldn’t suspect a damn thing.”
Diamond In The Rough (Moonlight Detective Agency Book 2) Page 9