Dead to Rites (4 page)

Heh. Between that’n the earlier apology, he’d be off-balance for days. I really did mean it, though.

Franky opened the door above and—since the sun had gone and bunked while we were talking—disappeared between the streetlights. I hit the sidewalk just a minute behind him, hands in my coat pockets and leaning into the nighttime breeze. I had more’n a few questions dangling in front of me, some new, some that’d gone unanswered for over a year now. I didn’t figure it made any kinda sense to wait until morning to get started.

So, which fish did I wanna try’n hook?

Goswythe had managed to duck me for a year, and I had no good cause to think he’d be easier to find now. Although, if he was active again—and all indications suggested “yep” on that one—maybe he would be.

Somewhat easier, but not much. It’d probably be less of a trip for biscuits to hunt up the delightful Ramona Webb instead.

But while that might be simpler, it also meant dealing face-to-face with the aforementioned Miss Webb. And I just wasn’t sure how eager I was to do that. If she was mixed up in whatever trouble’d come knocking on my door this time around, it was probably inevitable, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t put it off as long as inhumanly possible. Frankly, I’d rather have faced down a whole chopper squad or even a few Seelie knights with iron blades. All
they
could do was kill me.

So how to find the
phouka
palooka? No way Franky or the crew knew from nothin’. I hadn’t asked around about Goswythe in a while, but I’d poked ’em about him often enough when I first started looking that they knew I was still gunnin’ for the guy. If they’d heard something about him, I’da heard it by now.

I’d already run down all the leads I could come up with, all the hunches, and nada. I suppose I coulda gone to Elphame and asked around, but it ain’t as though I’d suddenly gotten popular over there in the last few months. Even if anyone there
could
help me, most wouldn’t, not without cost, and I already owed more people more’n I wanted. So that was out, too. I just didn’t have anything new to try.

’Cept… Huh. There was a thought. Maybe I didn’t
need
to try anything new. If Goswythe’d finally surfaced, if he was active or back in town or whatever’d changed, maybe now was a good time to retry something old.

He was gonna need resources if he was up to something. For him, here in the mortal side of Chicago, that probably meant stealing. (Easy enough with his powers, right?) And if
that
was so, well, I had a pretty good idea who might know about it, might even be helping the bastard for a percentage.

Hruotlundt’s office was only about a block or so away from where I’d left it. You remember; I told you all about this place. Connects to both worlds, solidly anchored on the Elphame side, little less so on this one. Doesn’t move
too
far, and you can find it easy enough if you’re already kinda wise to where it is.

And no, I dunno what happens to whatever used to be there when it takes up a new spot, or why most of you mortal saps don’t ever seem to notice. It’s magic. You want a more detailed explanation than that, you feel free to step into the Otherworld and find an expert to ask. Me, I understand all I need to about it.

So I walked a half mile or so from the L to the door of a rundown building that sorta resembled the last one I’d found him in, tromped on up a few flights of creaking stairs that didn’t even remotely resemble the ones I’d climbed last time, and…

Say, you remember those spurts of ugly luck I told you I’d been havin’? Guess I was due again.

I gawked across the landing at them. They gawked across the landing at me. A whole lotta mugs twisted into some real unfriendly expressions, and a few hands slipped under coats, reaching for iron or—in my case—hardwood.

“I thought I made it real plain what was gonna happen if I saw your face again, pally,” Nolan Shea barked at me. “You gotta be fuckin’ stupid to be following us after that!”

My noggin was spinning so hard I’m flabbergasted it didn’t just pop on off. What the
hell
were the Uptown Boys doing here? This was bad news in a dozen different ways, and the strong possibility I was about to come down with some serious lead poisoning wasn’t even close to the worst.

“I ain’t following you,” I insisted, knowing he wasn’t gonna buy a word of it. “Hell, I promise I’m more surprised to see you here than you are me. I’m just here to chin-wag with the man for a spell.”

“Yeah, right. And you just
happened
to show at the same time, after dark, that we did.”

All I could do was shrug. “That’s more or less how my luck’s been lately, yeah.”

“Boys, whack this—”

“
Don’t.
” No finesse, no subtlety. I just thrust everything I had through my own peepers and into his. If my usual rummaging around and reorganizing people’s thoughts and emotions was somethin’ akin to pickpocketing, this was more a solid sock to the brain. Took more outta me than it should, too, but bad luck throws the rest of my mojo off some and I hadn’t drawn my wand, since I hadn’t wanted to start ’em shooting. Woulda been easier for me to do it the usual way, but not near as swift, and swift was what I’d needed right then.

Shea locked up, frozen like a slab of beef in the freezer. His goons had drawn, but they weren’t shootin’. Fact that the boss hadn’t finished the order, that it looked to them as though he’d actually listened to me when I told him to stop, put ’em all at a loss.

“We can solve this simply,” I said, slowly pulling back from the innards of Shea’s head. “And without anyone leavin’ here in a wooden kimono. Just go
ask
. Tell him Mick Oberon’s here, and
he’ll
tell
you
that he knows me. That this ain’t remotely the first time I dropped in.”

“That…” Shea was shakin’ his conk, like he’d just woken up. I coulda done real damage busting in as I had, and while I wouldn’t shed too many tears over the Uptown
capo
, I was happier this way. It’s an ugly way to destroy a man, crushing his thoughts, and it’s not something you ever really get over doing. I’d seen Fae go mad from crumbling too many minds.

“That don’t prove you aren’t here for us today,” he finally finished.

“What kind of a bunny you take me for, Shea? You think if I
were
shadowing you, let alone gunning for you, I’d come barging in here out in the open this way? What was my plan, to come racing upstairs and get-killed you to death?”

“I… Wait, come again?”

“You heard me.”

The other thugs were giving me the evil eye—which didn’t much impress me, since I’ve gotten it from genuine witches and King goddamn Balor himself once—and kept sorta twitching Shea’s way. Like they wanted to help the boss but didn’t really know how, or even what was wrong with him.

Fortunately (for a change), before they could up and decide to try and clip me on general principles, the choice was neatly taken outta their mitts.

“
What in the name of everything living below us is going on out here?
”

“Evening, Hruotlundt,” I said. “How you been?”

Hruotlundt was a
dvergr
, which means he was a short lug with skin and beard the color of worn stone—which, in turn, means that even in a good mood he comes across grim as the Reaper with IRS problems. Right now, he wasn’t in a good mood.

“Oh, I’ve been just peachy, Oberon. Right up until my clients started trying
to kill each other in my goddamn hallway
!”

Yeah, that probably woulda steamed him pretty good, at that. As a fence—sorry, “facilitator”—of Chicago’s supernatural hot merchandise, Hruotlundt didn’t care for his clients even knowing about each other, let alone meeting face-to-face.

Or, of course, shooting at each other.

“You know this fucker, then?” Shea asked, soundin’ a little more put-together.

“No, Shea, I called him by name as a sneaky way of hinting that I’ve never met the man before in my life. You’ve fallen for my cunning ruse.”

All there or not, the Uptown
capo
sure recognized when he was bein’ insulted. I told you before his face was always kinda flushed, but it darkened notably now. I decided it wouldn’t do anybody any favors to compare it to a flower comin’ into bloom.

“I don’t like people talkin’ to me that way, Mr. Hruotlundt.”

“I imagine not. What a shame that I don’t remotely care. If that’s a problem for you, feel free to take it up with your boss. I’m sure you can suggest someone to him who can do my job better than I can. Who did you have in mind?” Then, “Nobody? Good. Then since our business is done and you were on your way out, can I suggest you
continue
on your way?”

They shuffled past me on down the stairs, Shea glaring fire the whole way.

The last of the Uptown Boys turned out to be either more excitable or more of a bootlicker than the others. He felt the need to stop and poke me hard in the chest with two fingers.

“And don’t let us see you around agai
uuuuullk
!”

Whaddaya want from me? I’d gone outta my way to keep things friendly from the first moment I’d stepped outta the trees a couple nights ago, and I wasn’t lookin’ to escalate things now, but I wasn’t gonna be pushed around, either. A quick flash of the hands, a few painful twists, and Shea’s toady was facin’ his buddies with his back to me, gasping in pain, elbow pressed almost to his spine.

Shea and his boys skinned iron—again—but any shots they took were gonna perforate their friend well before they reached me.

“You mind terribly asking your goons not to poke me?” I said. “I don’t much appreciate it.”

“Are you
trying
to make an enemy here, Oberon?” Shea demanded.

“I hadn’t realized I still had a choice. But no, Shea. If I were, this arm would never work again.”

I released the gink with a rough shove, enough so he stumbled down a couple steps but had no difficulty catching himself. With his
left
hand; he seemed to be having problems with his right.

“As is, he’ll be fine in a few hours. Couple days, tops. I’m just making a point, that’s all.”

Hruotlundt was starting to grumble, which sounded a whole lot like a rock-crusher with a cold.

“If you gentlemen are
quite
finished, then?”

“I don’t—”

“You gentlemen
are
quite finished.”

I shrugged at Shea. “I’m done. You done?”

Shea shoved his roscoe back under his coat, snarled, and stomped out, his trouble boys right on his heels. Guess he was done.

“So,” I said to Hruotlundt, “how’s your night going?”

* * *

It took some fast talking to convince the
dvergr
to even let me into his office after that, which I guess is only fair. Finally, still sounding as though he was gargling gravel, he pushed open the outer door—still with the Minotaur-head knocker—and through the reception room. His blonde and vacant secretary was perched behind a heavy oak desk, meticulously applying nail polish so bright red she coulda used it to signal aircraft. I couldn’t tell without closer examination if she was the real deal or another homunculus crafted to appear human—and I decided without too much difficulty not to ask Hruotlundt one way or the other, since I’d been responsible for thoroughly wrecking the last one when she (it) didn’t wanna let me in.

Huh. You know, it occurs to me that there’s maybe a
reason
a lotta folks don’t like me.

Office itself hadn’t changed, but then, it never did. Everything was old, worn, bland. One lamp, one phone—an old candlestick model—and two doors, one to the storeroom, the other to Elphame. One of these days, I’d have to visit from the Otherworld side of things, see if it was true that the place was a lot swankier if you came from that direction.

“What do you want, Oberon?” He slumped hard into his chair, which woulda been a more significant gesture if he’d had a longer way to go between
stand
and
slump
. “I’m still trying to recover from all the chaos that resulted last time you were here.”

I grinned openly at that. “First off, you know damn well that was none of it my fault. I got dragged into the whole mess. And second, I keep my ear to the ground, Hruotlundt. So many Fae in town, digging for the Spear of Lugh? A whole lotta them wound up with other little valuables, and you turned a real nice profit on most of those. So nix the sob story; you ain’t had it so good in years.”

“What. Do you. Want?”

I jerked a thumb toward the outer door.

“What’d
they
want?” I’d hoped, just tossin’ it out that way while he was already agitated, I might surprise some information out of him.

Since the glower he gave me pretty clearly said, “You’re
intensely
stupid,” it obviously didn’t work.

“You know I don’t discuss clients, Oberon.”

“Yeah, but…”

Dammit. What could I tell him? That Shea bein’ here made me nervous? That I’d run into the gink before, even been inside his house specifically searching for it, and hadn’t caught even a hint of a whiff of a trace of magic?

I get that I mighta given you cause to think otherwise, since all the events in my life I talk about revolve around magic. But here in your world, it’s rare. It ain’t something most people are wise to, obviously, and that includes the mob. The old ways Fino learned from his mamma, “Bumpy” Scola’s protective charms and private witch? Those are the exceptions, see? They’re two of only a handful of the city’s crooks who dabble in the supernatural.

And Shea ain’t one of that handful. Up until ten minutes ago, I’da signed an oath in blood to that effect. So either I’d missed some signs last year (and a few days ago) that I absolutely shouldn’t have missed, or something hinky was up.

But telling Hruotlundt alla that would net me bupkis, and get him even more steamed to boot.

So, something else I hadda dig into. Peachy.

“All right,” I said, conceding defeat. Then, like it’d just occurred to me and throwing in a faint grin for good measure. “You let ’em see you as you really are?”