Ghost Story

“So?”

“So which is it?”

“You’ve got half a clue, Fitz,” I said. “You know that talk is cheap. There’s only one way to find out.”

Fitz tilted his head to one side and then nodded. “Yeah. So. Where we going?”

“To visit an old friend.”

We went to a street toward the north end of the South Side. Seedy wasn’t a fair description for the place, because seeds imply eventual regrowth and renewal. Parts of Chicago are wondrous fair, and parts of Chicago look postapocalyptic. This block had seen the apocalypse come, grunted, and said, “Meh.” There were no glass windows on the block—just solid boards, mostly protected by iron bars, and gaping holes.

Buildings had security fences outside their entrances, literally topped with razor wire. You’d need a blowtorch to get through them. At least one of the fences in my line of sight had been sliced open with a blowtorch. Metal cages covered the streetlights, too—but they were all out anyway. Tough to make a cheap metal cage that stops rounds from a handgun.

Every flat, open space had been covered in spray-painted graffiti, which I guess we’re supposed to call urban art now. Except art is about creating beauty. These paintings were territorial markers, the visual parallel to peeing on a tree. I’ve seen some gorgeous “outlaw” art, but that wasn’t in play here. The thump-thud of a ridiculously overpowered woofer sent a rumbling rhythm all up and down the block, loud enough to make the freshly fallen snow quiver and pack in a little tighter.

There was no one in sight. No one. Granted, it was getting late, but that’s still an oddity in Chicago.

I watched as Fitz took in the whole place and came to the same conclusion I had the first time I’d seen it— the obvious squalor, the heavy security, the criminally loud music with no one attempting to stop it.

“This is territory,” he said, coming to an abrupt halt. “I’m alone, I’m unarmed, and I’m not going there.”

“Vice Lords,” I said. “Or they were a few years ago. They’re a long-term gang, so I assume they still are.”

“Still not going there,” said Fitz.

“Come on, Fitz,” I said. “They aren’t so bad. For a gang. They almost always have a good reason to kill the people they kill. And they keep the peace on this street, if you aren’t too far behind on your payments.”

“Yeah. They sound swell.”

I shrugged, though he couldn’t see it. “Police response time for this place is way the hell after everything has already happened. People here are more likely to get help from a gang member than a cop if they’re in trouble.”

“You’re a fan?”

“No,” I said. “It shouldn’t be like this. The gangs are dangerous criminals. They rule through force and fear. But at least they don’t pretend to be anything else.”

Fitz grimaced and looked down to stare at his open palms for a moment. Then he said, “Guess I’m not in a place where I can throw stones.”

“You couldn’t break anything if you did,” I said. “You’re of no use to me dead, kid. We’re not going down the block. First place on the right. If you don’t walk past there, you won’t be crossing any lines.”

Fitz frowned. “The place with the metal shutters?”

“Yeah. You remember what I told you to say?”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember the script,” Fitz said, scowling. “Can we get this over with?”

“I’m not the one who can knock on the door.”

He scowled more deeply and started walking.

The building he went to was part of a larger building that had once held four small businesses. One had been a clinic, one a lawyer, and one a small grocery. They were gutted and empty now. Only the fourth one remained. The metal shutter over the doorway held the only thing that looked like actual art: a nearly life-sized portrait of a rather dumpy angel, the hem of his robe dirty and frayed, his messy hair doing nothing to conceal his oncoming baldness. He held a doughnut in one hand and had a sawed-off shotgun pointing straight toward the viewer in the other.

“Heh,” I said. “That’s new.”

Fitz regarded the painting warily. “What is this place again?”

“A detective agency,” I said. “Ragged Angel Investigations.”

“Looks kinda closed,” Fitz said.

“Nick can’t afford an apartment,” I said. “He sleeps here. He drinks sometimes. You might have to be loud.”

Fitz eyed the block and then the door. “Yeah. Great.” He rapped on the metal shutter. Nothing happened. He repeated it, knocking slightly louder and longer. Still nothing.

“Ticktock, kid.”

He glowered in my direction. Then he started pounding on the shutter in a heavy, steady rhythm.

Maybe five minutes later, there was the click of a speaker, evidently small enough to be concealed virtually in plain sight. “What?” said a cranky, whiskey-roughened voice.

“Um,” Fitz said. “Are you Nick Christian?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Fitz,” the kid said. He’d pitched his voice slightly higher than usual. It made him sound a hell of a lot younger. “Harry Dresden said that if I was ever in trouble, I could come to you.”

There was a long silence. Then Nick’s voice said heavily, “Dresden is history.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Fitz said. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Nick sounded annoyed. “Dammit. He told you to say that, didn’t he?”

Fitz looked slightly bemused. “Well. Yes, actually.”

“I am getting too old for this crap,” he growled. Then there were several loud clicks and a short, heavy screech of metal, and the shutter rolled up.

Nick Christian hadn’t changed much since I’d last seen him. He was short, out of shape, well past his fiftieth birthday, and had sharp, quick, dark eyes that seemed to notice everything. His bald spot was larger. So was his stomach. He was dressed in a white undershirt and boxer shorts, and he held an old wooden baseball bat in his right hand. He shivered and glared at Fitz.

“Well, boy. Get in out of the cold. And keep your hands in sight, or I’ll brain you.”

Fitz held his hands up in plain sight and went in. I followed. There was a threshold at the doorway, but it was flimsy as hell, and felt more like a sheet of Saran Wrap than a wall. The muddling of business and home life in the same space was probably responsible. I pushed through it, following Fitz.

“Right,” Nick said. “Close the shutter and the door. Turn all the locks.”

Fitz eyed Nick for a moment. Streetwise and cynical, the kid didn’t like the idea of locking himself into a strange building with a strange old man.

“It’s all right, Fitz,” I said. “He might kick your ass out his door if you give him trouble, but he won’t do anything to hurt you.”

Fitz glowered in my general direction again, but he turned and followed Nick’s instructions.

We stood in his one-room office. It looked . . . Hell, it looked almost exactly like mine had, though I’d never compared the two in my head before. Old filing cabinets, a coffee machine, a desk, and a couple of chairs that had been pushed all the way to one wall to make room for a simple folding cot on an aluminum frame. Nick also had a computer and a television set, features my office never had. Nick was no wizard—just an old detective with a set of iron principles and a self-appointed mandate to help people find their lost children.

There were also seven pictures on his wall, every one of them an eight-by-ten school photo of a child between the ages of six and thirteen. The first few were faded, the hair and clothing styles in them clearly aged.

Nick went around to the back of his desk, sat down, pulled a bottle of rye from the top drawer, and slugged back a swallow. He capped it, put it back, and eyed Fitz warily. “I don’t get involved in Dresden’s line of work,” he said. “I know my limits.”

“The magic stuff,” Fitz said.