Hallow Point (19 page)

(Uh, I guess I oughta clarify, I don’t mean a literal curse, I mean someone’d put out a contract on her. Metaphor and slang and all that. Given where we were headed, and what happened here a few months ago, figured I better lay it out clear.)

“How do you know these aren’t the people who are after me?” she demanded.

“’Cause I know ’em, Ramona. He ain’t gonna take home any awards for kindness, and people who cross him occasionally seem to walk in front of really tiny, really fast-moving objects. But he don’t hurt people without good cause, and he owes me. Big. Hell, if I
did
have to muster up some guys to protect you, I could probably count on his more’n most of the cops.

“Plus, his wife’s real friendly.”

Considering that she spent the rest of the walk up to the door grumbling about the idiocy of bringing her to a gangster’s home, I’m gonna go out on a limb and suppose she didn’t buy the reassurance. I tried not to take it personal, and
mostly
succeeded.

Raised some knuckles to knock, and froze. Always did, just for a blink or two, even though I’d been here something like five times since it all went down. No matter how much I
knew
Maldera’s wards were long gone, I couldn’t forget the burning, the sickness. Approaching that house, stepping across that threshold, was an act of will every damn time.

Suck it up, Oberon.

If I hadn’t already been wise to the birds watching us through various windows, the door opening about a second and a half after I knocked woulda told me. Lug tryin’ to stare me down wasn’t one of the boys I’d met before, but he definitely came off the same assembly line. Big, not real sharp-looking, and draped in a suit that did bupkis to hide the heater he was packing at his left shoulder.

I was sure he could have it in his meathooks in a heartbeat if he decided he didn’t care for me.

“Yeah?” he said.

I couldn’t help it. “Would you kindly tell the lady of the house that the representative from Credne Household Device Repair—and his, uh, assistant—would be grateful for a moment of her time?”

He blinked, and the already limited intelligence shining in his peepers dimmed another notch. It was like the shadow of a cloud passing in front of a slightly whiter cloud.

“Look, pal, this household don’t need any kinda—”

“Hey! Jerry!” This from a guy inside who was basically a conceptual twin to the doorman (Jerry, apparently). He, though, was a crew soldier I
had
met on a couple prior visits. “Let the man in already! He’s right with the boss.”

Jerry’s forehead and cheeks turned into wrinkles. Guess he didn’t enjoy being showed up.

“What about the dame? You didn’t say nothin’ ’bout her!”

Ramona reddened. “I beg your—!”

I shook my head, and she sullenly bit her lip.

The other guy sighed, tossed me a halfway apologetic look.

“So check her before you let her in, you
gavone
!”

The doorman turned back with a leer, and I decided I was done playing nice. I was just about to slip in behind his forehead and dance an impromptu samba in his noggin. Turned out I didn’t need to.

“I want you to think really hard,” Ramona said—nah,
growled
—“about what’s going to happen if a friend of the boss complains to him about wandering mitts.”

Jerry might be dumb, but he wasn’t
that
dumb. He nodded so hard I think it slung the smile off, and proceeded to pat Ramona down—politely and professionally. I figured it’d ruin her performance if I applauded, so I held off.

As I figured, I hadda force myself to pass through the door, and also as I figured, it was the memory of Maldera’s magics, not the new ones, that did it. The Ottatis got their own wards up, now, but they’d worked in a free pass for me. Not that it made no nevermind anyway. The new wards wouldn’t keep out a determined pixie. Pretty clear the talent for witchcraft didn’t run in the family.

Felt something else, too, though. Something spiritually hinky. Something that, far as I knew, was unique to this house. Or rather, to the girl lying dead to the world upstairs.

And then there I was, back in that same sitting room. The same table, the same chairs and sofa with the same paisley upholstery and cushions so overstuffed you could build wings for an entire choir of angels with the feathers.

(Given what I already told you, I guess I better clarify again. If angels exist, I never seen one. Just me being poetic. Go with it, savvy?)

Ramona gawped, and I couldn’t figure why—place wasn’t
that
ritzy—until she said softly, “My, they’re
very
Catholic, aren’t they?”

I chuckled at that. “Votaries outnumbered the crucifixes and portraits together, last I checked. But that mighta changed by—”

“Mick!” The woman was first through the door, wrapping me in a hug that I’d really rather have avoided. Her hair was ink-black, and she was startin’ to look her age—worry lines, mostly—but carried it well.

Her husband was right behind her, and their daughter—well, one of ’em—behind
him
. Block-jawed and heavy lidded, Fino wore dark brown, and combed his hair like he was still trying to pretend it wasn’t going away. And the girl… Well, she looked a lot like her mother.

All one happy,
normal
family, if you didn’t know what the guy did to earn his lettuce. Or his ancestry. Or the girl’s history. Or… Yeah, not a normal family at all.

“Hey,
amico
!” Another hug, damn it. Couldn’t the guy just shake hands? “How you doin’?”

The daughter didn’t come close enough to hug or slap palms, just hung back and jerked me a nod.

“Keeping alive, Fino. Guys, Ramona. Ramona? Fino, Bianca, and Celia Ottati.”

Then, of course, I hadda sit through another round of handshakes and half hugs and the
good-ta-meetcha
s and the
any frienda
s. Almost as bad as being back home at the Court.

Another
five minutes or more, until everyone who wanted a snort of something had a glass beside ’em, and we’d all staked out a seat somewhere. Few
more
minutes of gum bumping that nearly had me pulling my hair out with my teeth, until finally we passed whatever that magic line is where it’s not rude anymore to talk business.

“Are you here about Adalina?” Bianca whispered, as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear herself ask.

I opened my trap, but her husband beat me to it. “Nah,
tesora
, he ain’t here for that. He’da said so right off, same way he always does. So, what the fu—uh, heck—” he corrected himself, gaze ping-ponging between Ramona’n me, “
does
bring you all the way cross fu—uh, cross town?”

I might notta been at my sharpest just then, but I ain’t
that
slow. It only took me a shake to figure out what his dancing eyeballs were asking.

My soul sank into my stomach so hard, I figure it was lookin’ at real estate down there. It hadn’t even crossed my noggin to watch what I was about to blurt out. And not just my own secrets, but the Ottati’s, too.

I trusted her. I just… did. And that, that didn’t sit right. With my job, my history, my life? I gotta have months, if not years, before I’ll let my guard down around someone. Ramona was different—and she shouldn’ta been, no matter how taken I was.

Could I really be
that
much off my game?

I loved what I hadda do next even less, though. I wanted to squirm in the chair, maybe crawl under the cushion.

“Hey, Fino, I wonder if someone could entertain Ramona for a while. I don’t think she’d have much interest in what we gotta say.”

“Sure. Hey, Celia, you wanna show our guest around a little?”

Whatever muscle it is that adolescents got that let’s ’em roll their eyes farther’n adults can, Celia’s was well developed.

“I think I’d prefer to stay.” Ramona’s voice woulda frozen a hot cuppa joe solid through.

Oh, God, I was gonna suffer for this.
Hell, I already was.

“Ramona, we got things to…” I began gently. “Confidentiality issues, you dig? If it was just about me…”

Ramona said nothing more, didn’t even look my way, just followed when Celia stood—with a sigh
just
quiet enough for her parents to pretend they didn’t hear—and blew the room.

“The Shark,” as they called him in Mob circles, studied the door, studied me, and grinned.

“That’s one hot number, but you maybe shoulda left her at home. You’re gonna fucking pay for this, later.”

“Tell me about it.” And sure, I didn’t much enjoy the thought of Ramona hot under the collar, but… I’d hurt her pride and her feelings, both. I felt like a heel for it, too.

But damn it, why
hadn’t
I thought of it? Why’d Fino need to remind me?

“How’s Celia doing?” I asked, then, tearing my attention from the empty doorway—and circling questions I knew I couldn’t shoo away right now.

They both frowned, and Bianca began sliding a rosary between two fingers.

“It’s been hard,” she admitted. “Six months is a good while, but not enough to recapture a lifetime. We… still don’t really know who she is, sometimes.”

“But she’s still here,” I pointed out. We’d all figured there were decent odds she’da taken the run-out by now. “She’s tryin’ to be your daughter.”

“I dunno,” Fino said. “Maybe.”

“She spends most of her time alone,” his wife continued, “or else taking care of—of her sister. I think she’s a lot more concerned with Adalina than becoming family with us. Still, we talk. We eat together. There’s less distance than there was. That’s something.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot better’n it coulda gone,” I agreed.

“I think she’s still a little afraid, too. Any sign of him?” she asked.

The “him” in question was a miserable, abnormally cruel
phouka
by the name of Goswythe. He was the bastard who’d raised Celia in Elphame, telling her that her family hadn’t wanted her, teaching her to obey and steal and otherwise be his damn slave-puppet. Me’n him had had it out, and I think I was gettin’ the better of him, but last I saw of him was right before a witch’s spell had knocked us both completely loopy. Hadn’t heard hide nor hair of him since; when a shapeshifter wants to stay hidden, they can, but I’d have expected him to come after me—or her—by now.

’Cause, y’know, we none of us had enough to worry about.

“Not a peep,” I told them.

They weren’t surprised.

“And Adalina?” I asked. “How’s she?”

Bianca’s rosary occupied
both
hands, now. “Nothing’s changed, Mick. She still won’t wake up, no matter what we do.”

I winced at that—I’d told ’em more than once not to
do
anything until we knew more—but it woulda been a trip for biscuits to try to convince ’em yet again.

“The muttering
has
gotten worse, though,” she continued. “It’s almost constant, now. It keeps her tossing and turning for hours and hours…”

The muttering was a new symptom, started about a week ago. They’d called me in a panic, and I’d been stuck with that damn horn in my ear for an hour.

“All right. Don’t think it means a lot, but I’ll look in on her before I go. Eating?”

“Yeah.” Fino shook his head. “We put food in her mouth—well, Celia does, mostly—she chews and swallows, but…
Maddon’
,
s
he
still
don’t seem anywhere close to awake! Just, mouth movin’, lifeless, like a fucking industrial—”

“Stop!” Bianca sobbed.

“Yeah,” he said again. “Sorry.”

“I’m doing what I can,” I assured them. Which I guess wasn’t technically true: I
coulda
been spending all my time in Elphame, instead of just popping in now and again, trying to suss out what the hell the changeling actually was. But I got my limits;
nothing’s
worth spendin’ any more time in the Otherworld than I absolutely gotta.

Besides, I
did
have other cases. Speakin’ of…

“Look, guys,” I said. “Reason I
am
here is, I got this thing I’m working on, and I think you could do me some good.”

“Anything,” Bianca said quickly. “We owe you that.”

Fino answered a bit slower, bit more thoughtfully. “Whatever we can do.”

“Swell. You can start by singing me a couple verses about Giancarlo Manetti.”

“Ha!” Fino declared. “Anything I sing about
that stronzo
’s gonna be ‘Amazing Grace.’ Maybe Chopin.”

“I’m gonna use my brilliant gumshoe deductive powers,” I said, “and guess that, one, you already know someone knocked him off. And two, you and he didn’t exactly drink outta the same bottle.”

“I mean, it ain’t like we had a real beef or nothing. Guy was just a fucking ass. Hang a gondola from his ego, you’da had yourself a fuckin’ zeppelin.”

“I’ll bring you by the Seelie Court sometime. You wanna see ego… So, yeah. Bootlegger, right?”

Fino nodded, throwing back a quick slug of whatever eel juice had been poured for him.

“Bootlegger and smuggler of anything you care to fucking think of. Booze, sure, but also stolen goods, hop, mescal, even people didn’t want nobody wise that they were in—or leaving—Chicago.”

Bianca lightly toe-kicked him under the table.

“All right, already!” he snapped. Then shrugged at me. “Gink was the worst kinda
gavone
, but I gotta admit, he was good. One of the best. Think that’s why everyone put up with him. ’Til now.”

His wife glanced my way and smiled. “You have to prod him, sometimes.”

The Shark muttered under his breath. I didn’t catch most of it, but there were a
whole
lotta words that rhymed with “duck.”

I let him simmer down, took a slug of my own drink—they knew to keep extra milk for me by now; sweet of ’em, really—and went on. “Any notion of who he’s been working for, or with?”

“Hmm. Well, I can tell ya who got zotzed in the car along with him, for starters. I got a guy in the coroner’s office, and I just got the lowdown myself. Lessee…”

Fino rattled off a trio of names, the first two of which meant zip to me. Name number three, though…

Pretty sure I leaned forward sharp enough to slice the cushion under me.