A Criminal Magic (15 page)

“It's working out just fine.”

“Maybe they're just tricking you into thinking that.”

As she laughs, I glance back to the door, wonder when Win's going to arrive.
I need to get Howie, run him under cold water, slap him sober
. “What's your name?”

There's a rumble of noise from the back of the performance space. Two middle-aged chaps roll a cart loaded with glass bottles to the base of the stage, which spans the entire back wall. They clamber up the stairs to the stage and call down, “Hey, Joan, Grace is looking for you. Something about the right dress?”

“I'm coming!” the girl answers, then mutters to herself, “Lord, that woman is obsessed with details.”

“Joan,” I repeat to her, with a smile.

“Look at you, putting two and two together.” Joan gives me another smirk as she steps by me, and places her basket of feathers down in the center of one of those little performance stages near the front. Then she flits past me again on her way to the back stage. “Good luck with your friend, Alex Danfrey.”

I hurry down the dim, windowless hall studded with a few wall lanterns, stop in front of the door marked
GENTLEMEN
, and step inside. Like Joan promised, Howie's standing at the sink, arms outstretched, pupils tiny pinpricks, smile as wide as the Potomac River. He sees me in the reflection of the mirror, and his smile breaks even wider. He turns around with a flourish.

“Alex Danfrey!” he announces loudly to the bathroom stalls. “Get the hell over here.” Howie wraps me in a full body hug, holds the shaky embrace one, two, three seconds too long.

“So you're already all shined up?” I pull away and fake a smile.

“Shiny as a freaking new penny, man,” he whispers.

“And that's the best idea, when we're about to meet Win and
get started?” I put my hand on his shoulder, keep on my forced, hollow smile.

“A trip like this is always a good idea.” He closes his eyes. “We'll work hard, play hard. Every night, Danfrey, we're going to be partying here until dawn.”

I take a deep breath.
This will work out. Howie has to be coming down soon, shine's high doesn't last more than an hour
. “Why don't we go wait outside for Win? Don't think your cousin wants to meet us in the john.”

As I push Howie out the door, he gushes, “I swear, brother, you need to try this shine
now
. Your eyes—they're like, two radiant beams of light.”

I lead him into the hallway. “I think you're beyond shined, How.”

“
You're
shined. You're so shiny you're glowing. God, man, you're beautiful.” He reaches his hands up to my face as we turn into the main performance space. I carefully take his hands and place them back by his sides. Joan and the other stagehands are gone. “Just take a seat, all right?”
Win better be late
.

Like a cruel joke, the double doors on the other side of the large room slap open, and through them barrels a monster of a man. Tall and meaty, big arms and wide chest. His loose hair hangs over his forehead like a permanent dunce cap, but it's clear this guy's no joker. He's got the look of a man you don't want to meet. He's the kind of man who should send you running.

“Cousin!” Howie cheerfully bellows through the space. He slides off the chair I've managed to sit him in and opens his arms to embrace this behemoth. But Win doesn't return the hug. He's all cold eyes, cold stare, cold shoulder. “You're high,” Win tells Howie, but keeps his gaze trained on me.

“No worries, Win, I'm coming down.” Howie gives an awkward laugh. He puts his hand behind my shoulder and shoves me forward. “This is Alex Danfrey. The fella I was telling you about,
my Lorton cell mate.” Howie reaches up to slap his cousin's back, misses. “Take a seat, we've got a lot to catch up on. Sure there's time for another shot of shine before we hit the road.”

“There isn't.” Win shifts. “And it's just me and you on the ride along.”

I start to get a nauseating, sinking feeling as Howie shoots me a loaded glance. “I don't understand. I thought you were looking for extra men on the street—”

“Don't want the liability of a junior Danfrey.” Win shakes his head, but those odd bangs of his don't budge. “It's not time to further antagonize D Street—there's too much at stake.” Just Win's mention of D Street sends a flash of something heated and hungry through my frame, but I know better than to open my mouth. He looks me up and down, then adds, “Besides, I don't like the look of him.”

Howie glances at me again, his anxiety weakening the hold of his high. But his nerves don't have anything on mine.
If Win says no, this is it. I'm finished before I even manage to hit the street
. “Win, I swear, the boy's solid—he stood up to a bunch of guinea chumps who were messing with him on the inside. I saw it—I saved him. The two of us, we were like a tornado at Lorton. No one fucked with us after that.”

Win shows no outward signs of being impressed.

“Plus, he's got sorcery talent—I've seen his tricks—and he knows the street side of the business. He was trying to break out on his own before he landed at Lorton.”

“Talent,” Win repeats dubiously. His eyes crawl over me once more, searching for something I'm not sure I have.
Honesty? Presence? Loyalty
? I try my damnedest to keep my eyes locked on Win's. I try to show him whatever he's looking for.

“I'm asking you for a favor, Win,” Howie coaxes, in his softer, more tentative tone—the tone he'd use only at night in our cell, when we were trading whispers about our fears in the dark. It's
a last resort for Howie—I know he doesn't like showing anyone his softer underbelly—and despite all else, it actually touches me. “Danfrey and I had each other's backs. I gave him my word I'd look out for him on the other side.”

Win sighs. “How—”

“Come
on
, cousin.” Howie drops his voice to a low, slurring hum. “Don't make a liar out of me.”

And then my warmth tips over into itchy, ugly guilt. I remind myself that Howie's just a two-bit thug who's only vouching for me because he knows I'll prove an asset in the future. That he only cares about me because he cares about himself. But right now, watching Howie plead with his cousin to take a chance on me like an eight-year-old making a case for a puppy—it's kind of hard to do.

Besides, as much as I don't want to admit it, I've actually come to like the bastard.

Win runs his fingers through his bizarre hair, walks away, leaving Howie and me unsure of where we stand. “We don't have time to talk this to death,” Win calls behind him.

Howie looks at me hopefully.

“Come on,” Win adds. “Might as well bring your girlfriend with you.”

Howie slaps my shoulder excitedly as we trail after his cousin.

“I owe you one,” I say quietly.

“That's for damn sure.” Howie throws his arm around my shoulders and laughs as we head for the double doors. “You would've done the same for me. Like you said, you and me against the world, right?” he says. “Just wait till Win sees what you can do. Up, up, up we go, my friend. Together.”

*    *    *

We settle into Win's old Model T, Howie in front, me in the back, turn out of the Red Den lot and make our way through the city. I haven't said a word to Win Matthews since I've met him, not
that it's noticeable. Howie has said enough for all of us, keeps his mouth running as fast as the motor—about what he learned in prison, his plans for life on the outside, and how he's itching to meet Boss McEvoy. He's still coming down off the shine, taking in the world through magic-tinted glasses. Eventually he'll sober up, hollow out. Feel empty and hungry for more.

“That mouth has to shut when we get to the meeting point,” Win finally says. He takes a right and the busy avenues fall away, and now we're following the Highway Bridge out of town.

“All right, yeah, of course,” Howie says to his passenger-side window.

“I'm serious. You aren't here for anything but standing next to me quiet as church mice. This is an easy run. We've already made our own form of payment—we just need to grab twenty gallons of remedial spells Baltimore brought down from their inside man up north and drive the spells out to our shine redistillery.”

So the same type of trades my father was orchestrating, before the Feds got wind and took him down: stealing legal magic cures off pharmaceutical shelves, flipping them to redistilleries who try to edge the spells closer to shine, then funneling the knockoff product to shining rooms and dealers around the city. I file it away for Agent Frain. Sounds like since my father's Danfrey Pharma Corp. has been thrown out of the remedial magic game, sources outside the city have been pinch-hitting.

Win takes the next exit, and we make another right. The slick road beneath our wheels completely falls away, and now we're just treading over stones, hopping and bumping as we make our way through a dense forest.

“Where's the pickup?” Howie asks.

“At one of our warehouses,” Win answers quietly.

We park in a gravel lot surrounding a colorless building and get out. The cold of early November shocks me, forces each
breath out with a startled puff. Win opens the warehouse door, and we follow him into the darkness. There's a thick, different kind of air in here—heavy, musty air that smells like it's been held captive.

I take a quick look around—the place is stacked with boxes and bins along the perimeter, and a pile of thin cots is thrown into the corner. Thanks to the slim row of windows perched high on the far wall, I see that our meet-up is already here. Three men stand in the shadows, right at the border of where the moonlight hits the dirty cement floor.

“It's Win Matthews,” Win calls out. “I'm looking for Bobby Hun.”

A youngish man, twenties maybe, steps into the slice of light.

“I take it all went well last night,” Win says slowly. “So where's our thank-you?”

The young Baltimore thug, Bobby, I guess, stays silent for a moment. Then he glances back to his chums and sighs. “Bring the gallons in.”

One of Bobby's associates turns back into the shadows. A rattling of glass echoes through the warehouse, and then a large cardboard box is pushed into the sliver of moonlit cement.

Win steps forward, bends down, and opens up the box. He pulls out one of the glass gallons inside, full of a murky pink liquid. A remedial spell—maybe the flu vaccine, or one of the magic trials they're running for the sleepy sickness. Ripped off the shelves before it can reach the world, to be repackaged for folks who are so hungry for a break from reality, they'll guzzle medicine to get high. A shame blooms inside me. My father was doing the very same thing.
I was helping him do the very same thing
.

Win screws off the cap, sticks his pinkie finger in, and puts it to his lips. He puts the cap back on the gallon and studies the contents of the box. “Where's the rest of it?”

“That's all of it.”

Win barks a laugh. “That's a joke, right? Boss McEvoy and your boss made a deal,” he says. “Our man Kerrigan loaned your gang twenty men for your Baltimore Equitable Bank shake-down—a loan we now expect to be paid back in full. The deal was for twenty gallons.” Win shakes his head. “Not ten.”

I try to put together the pieces as Bobby crosses his arms and begins to whisper to one of his associates.
Our man Kerrigan loaned your gang twenty men
. . . . The name Kerrigan rings a bell from my training days at the Unit. He's one of McEvoy's underbosses on the racketeering side, from what I remember, commands a small army of Shaw thugs to “protect” local businesses with muscle and magic (businesses that have no choice but to pay for this “protection”). Sounds like Kerrigan loaned some Shaw manpower to the Baltimore Gang, for their bank raid up north—

“You really don't know what happened last night, Matthews?” Bobby interrupts my thoughts, snaps out his own forced laughter. “Half of Kerrigan's men never showed up. And half of the ones who did? They were high. One of them even tampered with the linked-door trick that was set up as a means of escape. Whole thing was a mess, our men barely got out with the cash.” Bobby takes another step toward Win. “It was definitely not the stellar Shaw service we were promised.”

I can hear Win swallow from here, but his face stays stone. “Sounds like all's well that ends well to me,” he says slowly. “Your men got out, you got your score.” Win nods into the darkness. “Now quit screwing around, bring out the rest of the gallons.”

Bobby shifts a bit, then puts his hands in his pockets, stays silent.

“Are you deaf?” Win barks.

“Ten gallons,” Bobby answers. “As a lesson.”

I can practically see anger radiating off Win like steam. “A
lesson
?”

“If McEvoy provides half-rate services, he's going to get half payments. Tell your boss not to fuck with us, Matthews. Baltimore's not afraid of the Shaws. And we make far better friends than enemies.”

Under the moonlight, Win looks monstrous, like an animal ready to pounce. And for a moment, I'm sure as hell glad I'm standing next to him, and not on the other side. “You don't know what you're starting. I can't go back to McEvoy with ten gallons—”

“Then forget the whole thing.” Bobby smiles, a hollow, crooked one.

There isn't a word, a breath, for a long time. I'm watching, waiting, my heart in my throat. If I could fly away, I would. Christ, I'm tempted to try and disappear.

Just when the tension becomes so loaded that I think the warehouse might combust from the pressure, Bobby jerks for the gun in his pocket. But Win's too quick and draws his own pistol first.