Better Off Undead: The Bloodhound Files Page 9

  I believe him. But if that was true, why the hell was he running a transpecies club? I can’t think of a single case of the Mob operating a gay bar, even as a front. Which means there has to be a really, really good reason for it—and when it comes to the Mob, that means really, really profitable.

  And then, out of the blue, it hits me where I know that smell from.

  “You know,” I say, “I’m sorry I implied you were anything less than an alpha male. Matter of fact, you’re such an irresistible hunk of man-wolf I think I just have to spend some quality time getting to know you. In a small, windowless room with a one-way mirror in it. Let’s go.”

  “You’re taking me in? What the hell for?”

  “That intoxicating scent you’re wearing. It’s a mix of the industrial delousing agent they use down at Stanhope and boiled shoe leather. I don’t know why I can’t smell either of the guys we’re hunting—maybe they’re suppressing their natural odor with magic—but they were definitely here. That’s enough to bring you in.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Iggy says. “I can’t smell a damn thing, and neither will my lawyer.”

  “We’ll see.” Mystic forensics can do some amazing things; as long as I’m not hallucinating, I’m sure both Tair and the Don were in close physical proximity to this guy. The whole turning-thrope thing is starting to look a lot more attractive. But why can I smell it and he can’t?

  “It’s the link,” Eisfanger says.

  Ignacio’s in an interview room, waiting for us to talk to him. Charlie and I are on the other side of the reinforced, one-way glass, and Damon’s just arrived with the results of the tests he performed on our guest. Sure enough, he has traces of the delousing agent on him—but that’s not enough to charge him with harboring a fugitive.

  “You’re probably right about Falzo and Tair using magic to hide their natural scent,” Eisfanger says. “Those kinds of charms are highly specific, though, and won’t usually affect secondary odors. Even so, the readings I got were very, very faint. You shouldn’t have been able to detect the chemical at all.”

  “So this mystic bond Tair and I have is making me hypersensitive?”

  “It’s a fairly common side effect of prelycanthropy. It’s not reliable, though—it’ll come and go, and won’t necessarily pick up what you want it to.”

  So much for having superpowers—dependable ones, anyway. “So we know that Tair and the Don were there. We know they talked to Iggy. But why? What kind of game is Tair playing?”

  Charlie shifts in his chair. He’s been studying Iggy on the other side of the glass silently ever since we put him in there; times like this, I can see the reptile in Charlie’s soul. A cold-eyed, patient predator, just waiting for his prey to make a mistake. “He’s a con man, and he’s got the Godfather in his pocket. Who knows what Tair’s convinced him of?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe the Don’s the one doing the convincing.”

  Damon frowns. “I thought you said he was irrational.”

  I shrug. “Craziness is like magic: its boundaries shift and blur. He seemed completely out of it when I talked to him—ripping the guts out of one of his own men pretty much persuaded me he wasn’t faking—but he could still have lucid periods. If Tair owes the Don as much as he says he does, he might be willing to trust him to a certain point.”

  “Still doesn’t answer the question of why they were there.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. They’re both on the run—how did they hook up? Was something prearranged, or did they have some kind of safe house they both bolted to? And why risk going out in public?”

  “They needed something,” Charlie says.

  “Yeah. I ran Prinzini’s file—he’s got a lot of priors, but not for running a bookie operation.”

  “Let me guess. Fraud or forgery.”

  “They needed documents,” Eisfanger says. “A new identity for both of them.”

  “That’s what I figured,” I say, “but I was wrong.” I pick up the file I’d had Records drop off and hand it to Charlie.

  He leafs through it, scanning the pages quickly. “Huh. How about that. Iggy was telling the truth—in a bottom-feeding kind of way.”

  “Not sure how it ties in to Tair and the Don, but I’ve got a few ideas.”

  “I’ve got one of my own,” Charlie says. “Let’s go ask him.” He jerks a thumb at the one-way mirror.

  Ignacio looks up when we enter the interview room, and smiles. “Hey, if it isn’t my favorite cop. You figured out yet that you got nothing to hold me on?”

  “I’m a little slow,” I say, taking a seat on the other side of the table. Charlie stays on his feet, arms crossed. “Bear with me, okay?”

  “I’ll bear it if you will,” he says. His eyes slide down to my chest and back up again. Guess that’s what passes for flirting in the Mafioso set.

  I flip open the file and pretend to study it. “How’s the bookmaking business?”

  “You’d have to ask someone who makes books, I guess. I wouldn’t know.”

  “’Course not. That was your cousin Vincenzo, the one who’s doing a few years in Stanhope. The Bureau figured you’d taken over, set up shop over the Mix and Match, but that’s not really your style, is it? You don’t have a head for figures.”

  “Oh, I’ve got a head, all right.” His grin is gradually turning into a smirk. “And it’s one that’s interested in figures, too.”

  “Sure, just not the ones we thought. You’re a pimp.”

  His eyes get a little wider, but that’s the only reaction I get. “You know, Agent Valchek, I think I’m insulted. Just because I have a certain amount of success with the opposite sex is no reason to—”

  “You’re running hookers out of the club. I don’t why you chose the M and M for a front, since you’re clearly not interested in their regular clientele, but I know there’s a reason. I’m going to find out what it is.”

  Now he looks a lot less cocky. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do. And now you’re getting nervous, because you went to the trouble of setting up a phony bookie joint as a decoy, with a kinky nightclub downstairs you normally wouldn’t be caught undead in. You picked it for a reason and you wanted it to stay hidden. That’s all over now.”

  He doesn’t look like he’s flirting with me anymore. He looks more like he’d really like to rip my throat out and is trying not to let it show.

  “There’s a reason they call me the Bloodhound. Once I get a scent, I follow it all the way to the end. And I’ve got yours.”

  I get to my feet. “You’re free to go, Iggy. I’m already looking forward to our next little chat.”

  NINE

  “Why would Tair and the Don go to a pimp?” I ask. Charlie and I are in an NSA car, Charlie behind the wheel while I eat. It’s not easy getting a vegetarian burrito here, but I’ve found a place that will stick strictly to black beans, cheese, salsa, and some token strands of lettuce. We’re parked, the windows rolled down, while I eat and talk with my mouth full.

  “You’re asking me? Golems don’t do sex.”

  “Or food, or drink, or any of those other squishy biological things. I know. But two guys running from the cops and the Mafia are not going to be stopping for a little nookie.”

  Charlie’s got a newspaper open on the steering wheel, reading while I chow down. “You sure? Seems to me like you non-mineral types will take your clothes off and jump in the sack first chance you get.”

  “Some of us, maybe. But I don’t think Iggy’s running a brothel—the place wasn’t set up right for that. More likely an outcall service, where the girls are sent to hotels or private residences.”

  Charlie nods and turns a page. “You don’t need a bricks-and-mortar location for that. Cell phones and a Web site work just fine.”

  I chew, swallow, and ruminate. “Yeah. No need for an elaborate cover-up. So what’s that leave us with?”

  “Maybe the pimp angle is a dead end.
Could be Tair was looking to get back into his old business.”

  “The Gray Market?” Tair used to work as a biothaumaturge, activating undeclared lems that were used as illegal—and disposable—slave labor.

  “Can’t run without money. Lem activators are always in high demand.”

  “Maybe—but there’s no way the Mix and Match is a lem-production site, either; you’d need industrial facilities for that. You’d think the Don could at least point him at the right place.”

  Charlie shrugs. “Might be that’s the answer. Tair says, Hey, where’s a good gravel pit where I can get some work? Don says, Follow me, only his brains are scrambled and he takes his pal to a bookie joint instead.”

  “Not even a real bookie joint, a fake one. Maybe the Don knew that. Maybe he knew what the place really was, and why it was disguised.”

  “Which brings us back to where we started. Congratulations. We finished, or do you want to do a few more laps?”

  I shake my head in disgust. “You’re right. This is getting us nowhere, and this burrito is a lost cause.” I stick it back in the paper bag I got it in, and toss it in the backseat to get rid of later.

  “I thought you liked this place.”

  “I do. It just doesn’t taste right today, that’s all. And I’m still hungry.”

  “Great. Only thing I like better than spending my time watching you stuff organic products into a hole in your face is looking for a new location to stuff organic products into a hole in your face.”

  “Forget it, let’s just go. I’ll eat later.”

  “I’m sure you will. Where to?”

  “You know where any of these local gravel pits are?”

  “I know some guys we could ask.”

  “Then let’s go ask.”

  We head to the waterfront. Not the touristy part with the boardwalk, but down by the working docks, where the cranes loom like the yellow steel skeletons of giant praying mantises. We park in a large, half-full lot beside a squat industrial-looking building with LOCAL 109 emblazoned over the large wooden double doors of the entrance. Longshoreman’s union—or the Thropirelem equivalent, anyway.

  I let Charlie lead the way. Inside, there’s a long, wide room, lined with benches on either side and a double row back-to-back in the middle. It’s a little after 5:00 AM. At this time of the morning I’d expect to see a mix of the supernatural races on those benches, maybe weighted a little lighter on the pire side; hemovores prefer to work inside, which means they gravitate toward white-collar jobs.

  But there aren’t any pires here at all. Or thropes, for that matter; the benches are occupied solely by golems, maybe fifty or sixty in total. Yellow in color, which is the default for their race. All of them wear heavy-duty work clothes, overalls or jeans and thick wool jackets, with steel-toed boots on their feet and hard hats on their laps. The overhead fluorescents gleam off their plastic skin where it isn’t covered by denim or flannel.

  There’s a counter with a glassed-in booth on the far wall, a bored-looking lem behind it. He’s the only one not dressed for industrial labor, in white short sleeves and a dull brown tie. Charlie strides right up to the window, me in tow.

  “Morning,” Charlie says. “Looking for Mason Zeta. He working today?”

  “Lemme check.” The clerk taps a few keys with thick, beach-colored fingers. “Yeah. Pier six, unloading a Danish ship. Been on since eleven.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Once we’re back outside, I say, “That was easy. You didn’t even have to flash your badge.”

  “It’s called being civil. You should look into it.”

  “Nah. I like to stick with what I know.”

  We get back in the car. “Lot of lems in there,” I say. “That a union thing?”

  “More or less,” Charlie says, starting the engine. “Lems didn’t invent unions, but we know a good idea when we see one. Might be different pretty soon, though.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Nevada changed everything. For the first time, lems have a say in their own production. That’s causing repercussions all over the world.” The entire state of Nevada—thanks in part to me and Charlie—is now a separate golem nation; they even tried to headhunt Charlie into being their top cop. He turned them down, muttering something about a prior commitment to a lunatic with a gun. “Washington is trying to impose new regulations on the industry, and everyone’s afraid that Nevada’s either going to flood the market or freeze production and demand reforms. Congress is voting on a bill next week—supposed to make it harder for renegade operations to exist, though I can’t see it. Just drive them deeper underground, probably. Typical Washington solution—more laws make us safer, right?”

  “Yeah. Never mind that every substance or act we make illegal generates more income for groups like the Gray Wolves.”

  Pier six is a short drive away. We park beside a heavy chain-link fence, on the other side of which is a mountain range of shipping containers. More like a block of tenements, actually—no hillside was ever that squared off.

  We get out, find the gate. A thrope security guard lets us in once we show him our credentials. Charlie approaches the first worker we see—another lem—and asks him if Mason’s around. He points and gives us directions.

  Mason’s up in the cab of one of the cranes, jockeying big metal boxes from the ship to the dockyard. Charlie flags down a lem in a bright orange vest carrying a walkie-talkie, and gets a message relayed. Then we head over to a utility trailer where the lems take their breaks and wait for him.

  We have the trailer to ourselves. It has neither bathroom, coffee, nor vending machines, though it does have two couches, an ancient TV, and a stack of magazines. I leaf through an old issue of Entertainment Weekly, while Charlie channel-surfs through recycled sitcoms, talk shows, and infomercials. After ten minutes or so the door opens and a lem walks in.

  Charlie gets to his feet and puts out his hand. “Mason. Good to see you.”

  Mason looks about the same as most lems I’ve met, and he’s wearing a checked blue flannel shirt and jeans. I’m starting to understand why Charlie goes out of his way to have a flashy wardrobe.

  “You, too,” Mason says, shaking Charlie’s hand. “What’s up?”

  “Need a little help,” Charlie says. “Looking for a gravel pit.”

  Mason frowns. “Yeah? Why come to me?”

  “You know why,” Charlie says. His voice isn’t as friendly anymore.

  Mason stares at him for a long moment, then his eyes move to me. He gives me a hard, evaluating look, then says something to Charlie in Lem—a single, bass syllable that reminds me of dropping a brick into a barrel. Charlie’s reply is a little longer, but still in Lem. They go back and forth like that a few times.

  Only 7 percent of face-to-face human communication is relayed through words. Thirty-eight percent is intonation and inflection, while the other 55 is body language. Lems aren’t human, but the overall principle still applies; I can pretty much follow the emotional flow of the conversation, even if I can’t understand the specifics. It goes something like this:

  MASON: Meatbag!

  CHARLIE: She’s my partner.

  MASON: Meatbag meatbag!

  CHARLIE: I trust her. And you owe me.

  MASON: Bag. Of meat. Further racial slur. (pause) And anyway, whatever you’re referencing, it was a long time ago.

  CHARLIE: That thing I did for you. And then all that stuff happened. Don’t you remember? Don’t you love me anymore?

  MASON: Oh, that thing. (long pause) Boy, that was really something, wasn’t it? The Good Old Days, when thropes were thropes, pires were pires, and lems were tall, man-shaped piles of rock that everybody agreed were Really Cool. But now the world is worthless crap and there is nothing anyone can do, ever.

  CHARLIE: There, there. I commiserate in a manly way. Now how about that thing I mentioned?

  MASON: I am deeply gloomy, but you have reminded me of better times before all hope and joy we
re crushed from my spirit. (even longer pause, with searching looks) I will help you, but you must pretend to be grateful for my loyalty even though it’s really because I’m scared gritless of you.

  CHARLIE: I know.

  And then Charlie turns to me and says, “Mason might have a lead for us.”

  “Huh,” I say. “How about that.”

  Back in the car, with me driving. Charlie would happily drive all the time, but I hate being a passenger. Control issues, Charlie says. Which is a phrase he picked up from me, since psychoanalysis on Thropirelem is about as advanced as alchemy on mine.

  We’re on our way to the address Mason gave us. Now that we’re alone again, I ask Charlie what the deal is between him and Mason.

  “We were in the army together,” he says. “Saw some stuff. Did some stuff. You know.”

  Since the closest I’ve ever been to the military is watching reruns of Hogan’s Heroes, I say, “Not really. Care to elaborate?”

  “No.”

  I don’t ask him the obvious question, which is how a lem would know about an illegal lem-making operation. Same way a slave knows about the Underground Railroad, or an undocumented immigrant knows about border crossings.

  We drive for a while in an uncomfortable silence. I’m really not sure how to approach the subject that has to be brought up, so I finally just haul it out into the light and let it flop around. “So. How do you want to do this?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Quietly.”

  “Why wouldn’t I like that?”

  “No need to raise your voice.”

  “I’m not—oh. Yeah, you’re hilarious. Okay, I’ll use my inside voice.”

  “And no gun.”

  “Fine. No gun.”

  He gives me a skeptical look. “Just like that. No argument?”

  “I don’t need the gun. I’m packing the scythes today. I’ve got you. That’s plenty.”

  “I mean it. It stays in the car.”