Chapter 13
Finally waking up in Dash’s bed again made almost dying worth it. Waking up alone wasn’t my choice, but I would take what I could get. My dick wasn’t as satisfied with the Dash-less bed, but it hadn’t been happy with me for a long time. I pressed my hand hard against it and pondered my options. Take care of it in the shower, or ignore it?
Dash came out of the bathroom in a cloud of orange-scented steam wearing nothing but a towel, his dark hair pushed back from his forehead in wet, tousled waves.
I took advantage of the fact that his eyeglasses were still steamed up from the wet heat to do some light perving on his body.
My gaze roamed over the curves of his thick muscles up his arms, over his shoulders, and down his wide chest with its curly hair. I followed the thick line of his treasure trail down his flat stomach, took a detour and slid down the cut of his hips until stopped by the edge of the towel.
Wow. That was quite a journey. Shower it was, then.
Dash pulled his glasses off and wiped them with the corner of his towel. He blinked nearsightedly at me as I passed and patted him on his damn shoulder. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
I was practically whistling as we headed out to Dash’s office. I was pain- and cast-free. We’d decided not to bother putting the ankle boot and foot cast back on. It was clear our would-be killer knew we were looking for them, so there was no point pretending we weren’t. But even knowing Serena no longer had the necklace, I was still jumpy as we walked the several blocks to Dash’s third-floor office.
The first stop was the Cornor Mart for some coffee. Neither the store nor Mr. Park had changed as far as I could tell. I was sure some of the groceries on display on the higher shelves hadn’t been produced since the eighties.
I followed Dash up to the counter where Mr. Park sat on a high stool reading a Korean newspaper. “Hey, Mr. Park, remember Harlan?”
He looked up, pushed his glasses down his nose, and gave me a thorough once- over. Damn. My drill sergeant back in boot could have taken lessons from him. He gave a small nod and then pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “About time.”
As I searched for a response to that, Dash tugged gently at my elbow and tilted his head toward the door. I could take a hint.
Outside, I pulled my suit jacket a little tighter as the wind sliced through me. I’d forgotten how cold and damp and windy this city could be. The sun was always shining in my memories of my time here with Dash.
Dash looked good in his suit and trench coat. He was the only person I knew who could wear a fedora and not look pretentious. “Do you always wear a suit to work?”
“Usually, if I’m going to be in the office. I’ve found the clients I prefer to take on respond well to it. Makes me look reputable.” He threw me one of his charming sideways smiles. “Don’t tell them any differently, okay?”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Also, I have a meeting later at one of the law firms I do work for.”
“What about? If you can tell me.”
“I can’t name names, but what I’m doing isn’t a secret. Or it shouldn’t be for the people involved. It’s just the usual background investigations for a big civil case. Witnesses, claimants, anyone involved, especially the people the defense is bringing in.”
“Sounds interesting.”
He shrugged. “It can be, especially when I find things people have been trying to hide. But mostly it’s tedious hours at the computer or interviewing people who really don’t want to talk to you. And everyone is hiding something or lying outright. As I’m sure you know.”
I did. A huge percentage of my job was talking to people and sorting the truth from the lies and listening to hundreds of hours of taped interviews to cull the few pieces of useful information.
We walked passed a car that had its back window smashed in. Pebbles of glass littered the sidewalk much like they had on Dash’s carpet. Dash kicked at a rather thick pile. “That reminds me, where’s your car parked?”
“Gated parking garage at the apartment.”
“Good. Even so, it’s better if you don’t keep anything in it.”
“I won’t. I don’t.” My first full day in San Francisco, four different people had given me warnings about car smash-and-grabs. I’d seen at least one broken window every day since.
The climb to Dash’s office was much easier without the cast and cane. This time, I could appreciate the architectural details of the old building. As I waited for him to unlock the door, I heard a noise behind me, like something scuttering across the floor. When I turned to look, there was nothing there.
Once we entered, Dash flicked on the lights and hung his coat up. I really needed an overcoat. I’d forgotten how cold this city could be in the summer. The damp set into my bones, especially the recently healed ones.
“Is DT coming in today?” I wasn’t sure what the relationship was between Dash and DT, but he didn’t feel like simply an employee.
“He told me he’s following up something on those flyers.” Dash opened a door to a what looked like a smaller, more private space. “Come on, let’s go into my office and get our investigating on.”
Dash’s office was furnished in the same style as the other room, with a heavy wooden desk, an Asian-style carpet that was either vintage or a convincing reproduction, and a few chairs. Pearly light streamed through the large bay window overlooking Geary Boulevard.
Dash sat down behind the desk and I sat across from him. A blotter with a large paper calendar occupied half of the desktop real estate. Dash’s scribbling sprawled across the calendar, unconstrained by the neat boxes. Post-it notes were stuck to the edges and to the shade and base of the green-shaded banker’s lamp. A vintage Rolodex sat next to an equally ancient black rotary phone. Contemporary business cards were shoved between yellowing cards covered in spidery handwriting.
Dash reached into a drawer and pulled out a stack of spiral notebooks, the kind that cost ten for a dollar at back-to-school sales. “What color do you like?”
I surveyed my options. “Purple.”
“Purple it is.” He opened it, and held a pen over the empty page. “Okay. What do we got?”
“I started making some notes.” I pulled the notes I’d started keeping I realized my accidents weren’t accidents out of my bag.
“Me, too.” Dash took a small spiral notebook out of his suit jacket and tossed it on the desk. “Let’s compare. We’ll put the important things in the new book.”
The things we agreed on were:
Someone is trying to kill me.
They know Dash and I are connected.
They know where Dash lives.
They know where I am staying.
Serena wasn’t trying to kill me.
Whoever gave her the necklace at the Blackish Market might be the person we want or could lead us to them.
Flyers advertising an ugly collection of Dwayne Johnson decorative plates might have some connection to the situation.
Someone wanted me physically in San Francisco. I made a note under that one. Move to SF. To investigate something or to get rid of me?
Dash looked up from the notes he was making in his notebook. “Do you think they put the eel in the bathtub or teleported it? Manifested it somehow?”
I’d wondered the same thing. “I’m leaning toward that. There were no signs of a break-in. Or maybe that was Serena’s powers in combination with the necklace working to fulfil her desires?” The one thing about powers is that they were unpredictable.
Dash wrote the word eel and a question mark, then drew a circle around it. “Are there any security cameras in the building?”
“No. But there’s a doorman and reception desk. Everyone who doesn’t live there has to sign in.”
“Have you checked out the building logs yet?”
“Not yet.” I added check logs to my list. “But everyone in the building works for SPAM, and I don’t know who I can trust in SPAM. I don’t have any connections here yet.”
“You have me.”
“I have you.” We shared a smile. Fuck, I did have him. Again. And this time, I wasn’t going to let him go.
Dash flicked his pen back and forth between his fingers. “I assume you’ve made a list of everyone who has a grudge against you?”
“Like an entire sheriff’s department?”
“Exactly like that.”
“As best I could.” It had taken a while. The jobs I got assigned to didn’t lend themselves to cordial relations with coworkers. Though both SPAM and the US Army tried to keep me in the background, inevitably my face and name got connected to investigations. And not being able to talk about what I did for work didn’t make it easy to make new friends.
“Okay. We’ll come back to that. What else do we know? Just throw out anything. For instance, your transfer to the city. It was a surprise, right?”
I waggled my hand in a maybe gesture. “Unexpected, for sure. It’s not completely unknown for transfers to happen on short notice.”
“But you said this one was a kind of… back channel transfer, right?”
“Yes. But it’s not a secret that I’m here. I have a badge and everything.” I’d hit the ground running in San Francisco, and the accidents had started shortly after. There’d been no time to think about the bigger picture. So I thought about it now while Dash doodled. “I think I need to see what the field office has on me. Why they think I’m here.”
Dash nodded. “Good idea. Will it be a problem?”
“Shouldn’t be. I have a person I can trust who has access to all the personnel records.” He was also the one helping me keep any possible mentions of Dash or his power out of those records.
“Given your usual assignments, do you think you’re here because someone thinks there’s something going on at SPAM?”
It had crossed my mind. I hadn’t gotten any bad feelings yet, but I hadn’t been around very long, and my path didn’t cross with too many other employees. “Maybe. I don’t know nearly enough yet. I haven’t spoken to April about it.” I made a note: Talk to April re attempted murders.
“Who’s April?” Dash tried to sound nonchalant, but the way he wasn’t looking at me revealed that he cared. Could he be jealous?
I pretended to make a note in order to hide my smile. “She’s the director’s executive assistant. I think. Maybe. She knows everything about everything. And she’s the one who gave me the transfer.”
“Definitely someone to talk to, then.” He tapped the purple notebook with his pen. “Is there anything else we can think to add?”
I flipped through my notes while Dash paged through his. I knew from experience that a successful investigation could depend on the smallest of observations. One thing kept bothering me. “The whole MO is very strange. As in, it doesn’t make any sense.” I threw my notebook onto the desk. “I can think of a hundred more effective ways of killing someone than hoping some weird accident takes them out.”
Dash flipped through his notebook. “I was thinking about that, too. Either this person is just not that bright or they like fucking with you. It’s part of the thrill. Do you have that list?”
“Yeah.” I opened my notebook to the page and handed it to him. He studied it and then took a picture with his phone. “Any names jump out at you?”
He shook his head. “Nothing immediate. I’ll run them through some background checks I have. Have DT do some investigating, see what he can dig up.” He handed the notebook back.
“Another question is, why now? What triggered this assassination attempt? I assume everyone you’ve pissed off recently is in jail?”
“I wish. But no.” The guilty didn’t always get what they deserved, but that was beyond my ability to change.
The sound he made indicated he knew what I was talking about. “So, is it a newer person or an old enemy? If it’s someone from the past, there may be something in their life that changed recently. We should look into what’s happened to everyone on your list. Where they are, etc. If any of them has had a change in circumstances.”
“Ugh.” I sat back in my chair. “This is really not my favorite part. If only I had a PI to do all this paperwork for me.”
Dash steepled his hands in front of him. “I charge six hundred for an eight-hour day, plus expenses. More if it’s powers related, which this is. And I need a retainer.”
“Damn, that’s too rich for my blood.” We’d used PIs occasionally in Tulsa, but they were much cheaper than that.
“Luckily, there are plenty of law firms and celebrity supes who can afford me. I know of PIs getting a thousand a day.”
Shoot. Maybe I needed a career change. “I’m in the wrong field.”
“Yes, you are. Nobody works for the government if they want to get rich. Why do you think there’s so much corruption? Pay’s low and opportunities to be a scumbag are everywhere.”
“Tell me about it.”
Dash put the pen down and clasped his hands. “Speaking of corruption, have you given any thought to the possibility that you do have some sort of ability to detect corruption? Something that allows you to identify people within an organization who are breaking the rules.”
“Like bad cops.”
“Like bad cops.”
I exhaled and sat back in my chair, clasping my hands behind my head. Dash was not the first person to suggest that. I didn’t know why I was so resistant to the possibility. Partially it was because there was no certainty to the feeling I got after being around people in positions of trust or public safety who were abusing their authority. I didn’t know how I knew. Sometimes I couldn’t even tell you who, exactly, was giving me the bad feeling. I just knew someone was doing something underhanded. The thing that kept me from being sure it wasn’t a power was that, even though the feeling could be vague, it was never wrong.
It was as if I caught the scent of a distant fire. Maybe I didn’t know exactly what was burning, but I knew something definitely was, and I had a general idea of where it was coming from.
When I dropped my head and looked at Dash, he simply raised his eyebrows.
“Okay, fine. Maybe. But what does it change?”
He shrugged. “You’re the teacher, always talking about control and making the most of your powers.”
“How does it help us now?”
“I don’t think it does much, but you know. Another tool for the tool box and all that.” He tapped the desk. “Anyway, to summarize. We have… not a lot of anything. The flyers and the necklace are the only things that even come close to clues. And they may not pan out. Do you still have the necklace on you?”
“I do. I figured I would try to find out anything about where it came from, beyond the market. Not sure that will help. It looks like tourist jewelry from Indian country. But it could be a specific artist.” I was slightly familiar with the area and art due to spending a few years I’d never get back in the Albuquerque SPAM office. I wasn’t thrilled with the city, but I’d spent a lot of time driving around and camping from southern Colorado through the deserts of California. I had a feeling I’d be missing those wide-open blue skies after a while in San Francisco.
“Okay, I leave that to you.” Dash wrote something in his notebook that I assume was H. Necklace? Where??? Dash’s notes were comprehensible only to him and sometimes not even that. “Where should we start? Background checking?”
Speaking of unacknowledged powers… While Dash did admit his, I knew he hadn’t explored the full potential of the way it worked in synergy with the Magic 8-Ball.
Hell, I don’t think he fully understood the 8-Ball on its own. Now that I was here we were going to run some experiments, test the limits of both of them. As soon as I knew no one was trying to kill me anymore, that is.
“I have a better idea.” I picked up the 8-Ball. “Why don’t we try to narrow down the list a bit?”
Dash looked confused. “You mean just ask if person X is trying to kill you and see what it says?”
“Yes? Why not?” It felt like a no-brainer to me.
Dash held his hand out and I gave him his ball back. “It’s not as if the answer would stand up in court. I’d end up having to do the grunt work anyway. Besides, it’s not that helpful. The answers are usually some variation of yes, no, or ask again later.”
“Sounds like a pretty good place to start. Is it ever wrong when it gives you a definitive answer?”
He rolled his eyes and quirked his mouth before admitting, “No.”
“Wait. Did you say usually? Are there times it gives a different type of answer?” I leaned forward as far into his space as I could with a desk between us.
Dash leaned back.
I gave him my best disappointed look. “Dash.”
He sighed and shook the ball, then he looked into the viewing window. “Very, very rarely—like I can count on one hand rarely—it will give a different answer. A specific answer.”
I sat back in the chair. “Shit. Can you give me an example?”
He hesitated before answering, and when he did, the words came out slowly. “When my mother was in the hospital getting her gallbladder removed, I asked it if she was going to die. The answer was Don’t worry.”
“I take it that’s not one of the normal options.”
“It is not.” He rubbed the edge of the desk blotter with his fingertips, watching the movement as if it were the most fascinating thing in the room. “And then it flipped over and said, ‘She’ll be fine’.”
“And you didn’t think that was important enough to warrant further investigation?”
“I was fourteen and a bit occupied.”
“Did you ask your godmother about it?”
“No.”
Of course, he didn’t. “Maybe you should.”
“Do I have to?” Dash made a look like a teenager being told to take out the garbage right that minute.
“You’ve had this for what, over twenty years, and you never thought to ask her about it?”
“I did when I was younger. She always said I had to figure it out myself. Or she’d just cackle madly at me. She’s scary.”
“Yeah, she is. But she obviously knows something.” I pointed at him. “We’re going to talk to her and then do some in-depth exploring of you and that ball.”
“Fine, as long as you agree to look more into your potential power, too.”
“I will, I promise. In the meantime, let’s see what we can find out with its help now.” I picked up the list and read the first name. “Rex Whiteford. Sheriff’s deputy. One of the ones that avoided jail by throwing his cronies under the bus.”
Dash held the ball up and stared at it. “Why am I suddenly nervous about this?”
“Because maybe you’re starting to realize it’s more of a big deal than we’d realized?”
“Maybe. If this thing were always accurate, it would be almost too much power for one person. Not thinking about that now.” He looked at the list and then shook the ball. “Is Rex Whiteford the one responsible for hurting Harlan?”
No.
Well, that was straightforward. “So, that’s one name off the list.”
Dash shook his head. “No, he’s just not responsible for hurting you now. That was a bad question.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Picking the right question is the trickiest and most important part. Ask the wrong question and you get accurate but useless information.”
“What do you mean?”
“Watch.” He picked up the ball and went down the list. “Does Elisha Simpson want Harlan dead?”
Yes. Definitely.
“Does Adil Pearce want Harlan dead?”
Yes. Definitely.
“Does Lukas McMillan want Harlan dead?”
Yes. Definitely.
“Does Ollie Waters want Harlan dead?”
Yes. Definitely.
“Does Savannah?—”
I laid my hand on the 8-Ball to stop him from shaking it. “Okay. I get it.”
“So, you see?—”
“A lot of people want you dead, Harley.”
I jumped as DT spoke from behind me. “Jesus, DT, make some noise. And don’t call me Harley. Makes me sound like a motorcycle club wannabe.”
Dash slid the 8-Ball out from under my hand. “I warned you about that. I’m going to get you a collar and a bell.”
DT shrugged and threw himself in an old wooden library chair with a spindle back and curved arms. It rocked back and then rolled a few inches. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” He touched his neck. “Nehemiah bought me the nicest one from the market. Though I was glad it came off when he died.”
“When he died? How long did you have it on for?”
DT studied the ceiling, pursing his lips and rocking his head back and forth as he thought. “Five years. Ish.”
I shouldn’t ask. We had things to do. I shouldn’t ask.
“Why only five years? Was he old? How did he die? When was this?”
DT rocked forward, his heavy Doc Martens hitting the floor with a thud. “That’s as long as I felt like dealing with him. He was thirty-five. I killed him. Eighteen-oh-nine.”
I knew I shouldn’t have asked.
“We’re going to put a pin in that,” Dash said, “and come back to it when no one is in danger of being killed by some Looney Tunes-inspired psycho.” He turned to DT. “Anything from the flyer?”
“Not much. Unsurprisingly, these things were not popular. But a few people bought some. I found a Reddit post talking about them that implied there were counterfeit versions floating around. Why? Why bother? And how much cheaper could they have been?”
“Beats me,” Dash said.
“Anyway, I’ll be following up on some other leads a little later. Got some irons in the fire and all that. There’s a whole world of collectible plate fanatics. Fascinating what people will assign value to. Remember Cabbage Patch Kids?” He shuddered. “Ghastly things.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dash said.
“Count your blessings.”
“I like the kind of preppy look you’ve got going on today.” Besides the Docs, DT wore a cloth jacket with knit bands at the wrists and waist over a pink button-up tucked into tight grey pinstriped trousers.
DT scoffed. “It’s not a preppy look, you Philistine.” He opened the jacket to display its plaid cotton lining. “This is an original G9 jacket, aka a Harrington jacket, circa 1951, and these”—he plucked at leg of his pants—“are vintage John Simms trousers given to me by the man himself in London in…” He hung his head back and looked at the ceiling for answers. “Nineteen seventy or seventy-one.”
I held up my hands. “Sorry. I know nothing about fashion.”
DT looked me up and down and then raised one eyebrow. “Obviously.” Then he laughed and winked at me. “Don’t you have a real job?”
“I got the day off with pay after yesterday’s fiasco.”
“That’s very generous of them.” He jumped up and paced across the room. “Where are we at, then, lads? Background investigation into the people who most likely want Harlan dead?”
I was impressed. Maybe DT was a full partner rather than some kind of office manager. “Exactly. And I’ve convinced Dash to use the 8-Ball as a starting place.”
DT looked as skeptical as Dash had at the suggestion, but then he shrugged and said, “Why not? Let’s get started then.”
Half an hour later, I admitted that they had both been right about the 8-Ball’s uselessness. I called a time-out. “Okay. Obviously, you were both right. I still think in the right circumstances, it’s a powerful tool.”
“Oh, it is,” DT said. “The problem is manufacturing those circumstances. It’s very probable that the would-be killer isn’t even on this list.”
Dash and I immediately turned to look at each other. I could read the same self-disgust in his eyes as I was feeling. He picked up the 8-Ball and took a deep breath. “Is the person trying to kill Dash on the list he’s made?”
My sources say no.
“We’re idiots,” I said.
“Well, fuck,” Dash said. “Christ, I feel like we’re back to square one.”
“It’s not that bad. Look at it this way, we’ve eliminated”—I did a quick count of the names on the list—“thirteen suspects. Despite popular opinion, I can’t believe there are that many people who want me dead badly enough to do something about it. Oh, ask the ball if the person currently actively trying to kill me is someone I know.”
Dash did.
It is certain.
That was good news. The pool of people I knew was exponentially smaller than those I had no acquaintance with.
Dash had the next question. “Is the person currently actively trying to kill Harlan someone he crossed paths with in a professional capacity?”
Concentrate and ask again.
“That usually means we need a more specific question.” Dash tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought of the next question. “Is the person currently actively trying to kill Harlan someone that he previously investigated and found guilty?”
As I see it, yes.
That wasn’t exactly a definitive yes, but it also wasn’t a no. I ran my fingers through my hair. “At lease we know we’re on the right track. I’m just going to have to think harder about who’s felt like I fucked them over some way.” I’d listed all the obvious people. I was going to have to dig deeper.
Dash stretched his arms over his head and groaned. “I think we could use a break. Get some fresh air, more coffee. Clear our minds. Want to head to the market?”
I did, but it was only a little after nine a.m. “It’s open during the day?”
Dash looked at me as if I were the crazy one. “Yeah, of course. It’s open nine a.m. to nine p.m. most days.”
I held up my hands. “I just thought a mysterious magical market would be a nighttime kind of thing.”
“Weird shit happens during the day, too,” DT pointed out.
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Besides, it’s not that mysterious,” Dash said.
“If you say so. DT, are you coming with?”
He shook his head. “I’m going to chase down those plate leads. What time is your meeting at SKD?”
“Skadden, Klein, and Danvers, the law firm,” Dash explained to me. “Two-thirty.”
“I can come with you to that, if you’d like,” DT offered.
Dash hesitated. “It’s probably better if I go alone. You’re not very popular there right now.”
DT scoffed. “Wankers. It’s not my fault they don’t understand maritime law, is it now?”
“DT, they’re a white-collar kind of firm. They deal with corporate compliance issues and regulatory enforcement. Not the high seas.”
He made a face. “It’s the basis for all international law. They should know it.”
“I’m not having this argument with you again. You do whatever it is you do. Harlan and I will go to the market, get some lunch, do some investigating. Then I’ll go to SKD because I have to pay the bills.”
“I’ll start combing through my old cases and see who I missed. Maybe somebody who wasn’t quite complicit but got caught in the blowback.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Dash stood up. “Let’s go.”
I had to admit, I was dying to see this “Blackish Market.” Working with Dash on an investigation, even if it was my life on the line, was a rush. I knew he must be good at his job. Making a living as a PI wasn’t easy, and here he was, thriving.
This was going to be fun.