a lot going on behind those hazel eyes of his – maybe too much.
A smile made a cameo appearance on his lean face before he said, 'Those nasty little things require black magic, detective – which, as you pointed out a moment ago, is illegal.'
'Can we take that as a no?' Karl asked.
Trombley turned to him and raised one eyebrow, a trick I've never been able to manage. 'You may.'
'Well, somebody's been making them – two, to be exact,' I said. 'And I'm thinking that he – or she – probably did it for hire. Would you know anything about that?'
More silence. I could almost hear the wheels turning in Trombley's brain as he weighed how much to tell me, and what it might be worth to him – as well as the cost, if I caught him holding out on me.
'Do you know any ecdysiasts, Sergeant?' he asked. 'Professionally, that is.' He sat back in his chair. 'I meant your profession, of course – not theirs.'
If he was planning to make me feel stupid for not knowing what an ecdysiast is, he was wasting his time. 'Yeah, I've met a few strippers,' I said. 'Some human, some not.'
'Do of those, um, ladies ever turn tricks on the side?'
'They don't tell me about it, if they do. Anyway, I'm not the Vice Squad.'
I heard Karl stir impatiently in his chair. But I was willing to wait. There was a point that Trombley was trying to make, and I wanted to find out what it was.
'But some strippers do 'hook' on the side – fair to say?' Trombley asked.
'Yeah,' I said with a shrug. 'So?'
'I have a couple of… acquaintances in that profession. Not prostitutes, you understand. These ladies only exhibit their bodies, not sell them. But they tell me that there is a certain kind of man who assumes that every stripper is also a 'working girl.' Some of them can be quite obnoxious in their quest for sexual favors.'
'Look, buddy, we don't have all night…' Karl began, but Trombley held up the hand again.
'Of course, Detective, and I won't delay you unnecessarily. But I wanted to make the point that people, ignorant people, sometimes make assumptions about what various… professionals will and will not do for money.'
I thought I could see where this was going. 'You're comparing yourself to a stripper?'
He gave me the smile again. 'Only figuratively, of course. Although it's a venerable profession. Almost as old as mine.'
'Somebody asked you to make a Gorgon statue,' I said.
'Indeed, yes. Two of them, in fact.'
'And the fact that we're having this conversation means you turned him down. Or was it her?'
'I did decline, yes. And I was quite insulted by the assumption the man was making. I do not dabble in black magic, nor will I – for any amount of money.'
'Because you're such a law-abiding citizen,' Karl said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
The look Trombley gave Karl this time was definitely of the turn-you-into-a toad variety, but his voice was mild when he said, 'That's right, Detective. But more to the point, I am not subject to self-delusion.'
'Meaning what?' I asked.
'Meaning I do not assume that I could make a pact with any of the Dark Powers without eventually paying the ultimate price.'
'Your life, you mean,' Karl said.
'No, Detective. My soul. Unlike some foolish practitioners of the Art, I have never forgotten that when you make a deal with the devil, the notes come due in brimstone. Invariably.'
'All right, you didn't take the job,' I said. 'But somebody did.'
Trombley looked at me more closely. 'Yes – I should have seen it sooner. You've had a brush with the Reaper recently. Clearly he came in second best.' It was hard to tell whether his voice contained relief or regret.
'Well,' he went on, 'I have no idea who among my fellow practitioners might have accepted that commission. I could give you a list of names, but you're as familiar with the local magic community as I am. Perhaps even more so.'
'What about the guy who tried to hire you?' Karl asked. 'Did you get a name?'
'He called himself Thomas L. Jones,' Trombley said, deadpan. 'Do you suppose that could have been an alias?'
'How about a description?' I said.
'White male, mid to late twenties,' Trombley said with a shrug. 'Well built, average height, brown hair cut conventionally, clean shaven, rather attractive brown eyes.' He looked at me. 'I realize that probably describes about five thousand of the local residents, but I may be able to narrow the field for you. Excuse arl t moment.'
He stood up smoothly and left the room for what I assumed was the kitchen, judging by the clinking of glass that soon followed. I had a feeling that the wizard wasn't planning to offer us refreshments. Just as well – I hate to be rude, but I wouldn't eat or drink something this guy gave me if it came with a nihil obstat from the pope himself.
Karl and I were exchanging silent 'What the fuck?' looks when Trombley came back into the room.
'Here you go,' he said, and gently tossed a glass in my direction. I picked it out of the air and saw that it was the kind of squat, wide glass people often serve booze in. I think it used to be called an Old Fashioned glass, after the drink. Maybe it still is.
'When the gentleman called on me, I offered him some hospitality,' Trombley said. 'I didn't yet know what he wanted, and so treated him like any other potential client.' He nodded at the glass in my hands. 'After I learned what 'Mr Jones' had in mind, and asked him to leave, I thought I'd best put that glass aside without washing it. It should now have three sets of prints on it, Detective. Mine, which are on file with the application for my magic license, your own, and those of the elusive Mr Jones. Perhaps you'll be able to identify him from those.'
As we got to our feet, Karl asked him, 'How come you waited until now to share this information with the police?'
Trombley gave us a nonchalant shrug. 'Until now, I had no reason to believe he had found someone to indulge his foolishness. As far as I knew, no crime had been committed.'
Karl looked at me, and I gave him a shrug of my own. If Trombley wanted to play innocent, there was no way we could prove otherwise. And he had provided us with the glass.
As he saw us to the door, Trombley said, 'Regardless of how the prints work out, don't bother to return the glass. I'm sure it will make a nice addition to one of your kitchens.'
Then we were on the porch, the door closing firmly behind us.
Snotty bastard.
We didn't even have to send the prints on Jonas Trombley's glass to the FBI. They rang the cherries in the Scranton PD's own fingerprint files.
'Jamieson Longworth?' I looked at the mug shot on my computer screen, full face and profile. The image seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't say from where.
I turned to Karl, sitting next to me. 'Who the fuck is he?'
'Let's find out,' Karl said. 'Keep going.'
I clicked a couple of times, and there it was: an arrest report. And it was recent.
'Holy shit,' Karl said softly. 'He's one of the cultists. From the warehouse.'
'And now he wants payback?' I said. 'I've busted people who ought to hate me a hell of a lot more than him, and none of them tried to get me turned into stone.'
'I'm surprised the guy's not still in County, awaiting trial,' Karl said. 'Assuming what's-his-name, Trombley, wasn't yanking our chains. Because of the hooker, those cultists were all charged with felony murder, haina? They should've been looking at some pretty high bail.'
'Let's find out,' I said. I clicked my way to the case file and started scrolling.
It didn't take long. 'Yeah, old Judge Rakauskas set bail at half a million each, fifty-K cash equivalent,' I said. 'Either way, that's a lot of green for your average lowlife to come up with.'
'And only one of them did.' Karl was looking at the screen.
Jamieson Longworth.
'Okay, that puts the bastard on the street,' I said. 'But it still doesn't explain why he-'
