Skin Trade

meeting up, but once the vampire showed up, there wasn’t time to call you guys.”

“Right,” Hooper said, not like he believed it, really.

“All the marshals in your department have a reputation for being the Lone Ranger,” Spider said.

“He was a Texas Ranger, not a U.S. Marshal,” I said.

Spider frowned at me. “What?”

“The Lone Ranger was a Texas Ranger, not a marshal.”

Spider smiled, shaking his head. “Okay, I’ll try to be more precise.”

That’s it, Anita, correct the man’s conversation, that’ll win him over. I couldn’t apologize-one, I hadn’t really done anything wrong; two, apologizing would draw attention to the fact that I’d been awkward. In man land, the less said, the better. If Spider had been a woman I’d have needed to say something placating, but one plus to working with men was that they didn’t expect, or want, that. I’d been working with so many more men than women for so long, I was actually getting a little rusty on girl talk. I’d had several female clients complain that I was abrupt.

Ted was reading the warrant over. He handed it to me, and I knew that he hadn’t liked something in it. Now that the warrants were all federal and run through DPEA, pronounced Dopa by our friends and Dopey by our not-so-friends, you didn’t have to sweat different judges and wording as much, but… there were still different people giving them out.

I stood in the heat between the two cars and read. Edward read over my shoulder, waiting for me to get to whatever bothered him. Olaf and Bernardo waited, as if they didn’t need to read it.

The warrant was broad in its wording, like usual, then I got to the part I didn’t like. “The warrant covers the lycanthrope that killed your operators, but specifically excludes weretigers.” I looked up at Hooper and Spider. “I’ve never had a federal warrant that took into consideration local politics before. Your Master of the City has some serious pull in Washington.”

Hooper’s face was unreadable. Spider’s face was still pleasant in a neutral sort of way, and I realized that was his version of blank cop face.

“Apparently,” Hooper said, “but the warrant covers the damage to Wizard. That’s proven shapeshifter death. You wanted the weretigers included because you smelled tiger on the body. No one’s going to give you a warrant to target the Master Vampire of Vegas’s wife and sons just because you said you smelled tiger.”

I nodded. “Okay, fair enough. Even if I were a full-blown wereanimal, my sense of smell wouldn’t be admissible in court. But it’s another thing to exempt the tigers from the search warrant.” I folded the warrant up and Edward put it in the pocket of his navy windbreaker that had U.S. Marshal in big letters on it. I’d left my windbreaker at home. Vegas was almost too hot for clothes; coats were out, well, until it got dark. Deserts can get cold at night; weird, but true.

“The warrants from DPEA are pretty broad, Anita. I think they were afraid what we might do with it. Your reputation, all of you, is pretty high on the kill count, and we’ve just lost three of our own. They trust us to back you guys up, and maybe to be a civilizing influence.” He took a breath deep enough that it raised all that chest and fluffed out the gray mustache. “I think the powers that be are afraid we might not be so civilized under the circumstances.”

“You guys have all been very controlled since I’ve been here. They should have trusted you.”

“Control is what we do, Anita, but trust me, it’s not easy on this one.”

“It’s never easy when you lose your own,” Ted said.

We all had a moment of remembering. Not the same losses, or the same dead friends, but we all had names, faces, that would never come through a door again. They talk about moments of silence for the dead, but when you have enough of them behind you, you do it automatically.

“You’re taking this well, Anita,” Spider said.

“You sound like you expected me not to.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Some people said you had a temper, especially if you didn’t get your own way.”

“I have a temper, but not about stuff like this. If you got a warrant on the tigers because of the smell, it might not hold up in court later. We don’t want to kill upstanding wereanimals of Vegas on a bad-faith warrant, now do we?”

“No, we do not,” he said.

I sighed again. “But now you’ve put me in an awkward situation. I have a badge but no warrant for the tigers, so they can keep me out of their home, badge or no badge.”

He nodded. “True.”

Then I had an idea, a good idea, an almost happy idea. “Serving this warrant won’t get us in to see the tigers.”

“No,” Hooper said.

“This means I’m going to have to charm my way in and not flash the badge. That means that I’ll be going in not as a U.S. Marshal.”

“What does that mean?” Spider asked.

“It means that as the girlfriend of the Master of the City of St. Louis, I can ask for an audience with Max’s wife, and I’ll probably get it.”

“On what grounds?” Hooper asked.

“On the grounds that Max’s wife, Bibiana, would expect me to visit her before I left town. It would be a courtesy that if skipped would be a grave insult. I wouldn’t want to insult the Chang of your local weretigers, now would I?”

Hooper was studying my face. “I guess not.”

“Without a warrant, all you can do is ask questions,” Spider said, “no hunting.”

“Trust me, guys, I don’t want to throw down the gauntlet to Max and his crew while I’m here. I think if it was one of their tigers, they’d be eager to help solve this; they’re mainstream monsters. Killing cops is bad for business.”

Hooper was getting his cell phone out. “We’ll have everyone else meet us at Max’s place,” Hooper said.

“Hooper, if we can’t go in there as marshals, and I have to make this a girlfriend coffee klatch, then I sure as hell can’t take in a tactical assault team. Without a warrant, you guys are not getting in the door. Hell, I’ll be lucky to get Ted and me through the door.”

“And me,” Olaf said.

Bernardo raised his hand and said, “Oh, pick me, pick me.” Then he gave me a look so unhappy that I wondered what I’d done wrong now, but I just didn’t care enough to ask. Maybe I’d care later, or maybe I wouldn’t.

“Ted?” I made it a question.

“I’d feel better if all the marshals went in, but I don’t know how the tigers will feel about that.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable going in by myself, to be honest.” As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. One, it sounded weak; two, I wasn’t sure how to explain my real reasons for being nervous around the weretigers with Shaw.

The two operators gave me serious faces. Hooper said, “We heard about the weretiger attack in St. Louis.”

I realized that he’d take that as a reason why I shook my head. I jumped on it. “Yeah, getting cut up by an animal will make you a little leery of them.”

“We’ll go in with you, Anita.”

“There is no way that Max’s security will let me take you guys inside their home on a social visit. I’m sorry, you guys are just too much what you are.”

I wasn’t sure that made sense, but they accepted it, or understood it.

“I’ll still call ahead. We’ll wait for you in the parking lot. You give the signal that you’re in danger, and we’re allowed to go in and save your asses.”

“Why, Hooper, you did read the standard clauses in the warrant, didn’t you?”

Hooper’s mouth gave a tight, unpleasant smile. It was close to the one I had, and Ted had. It was not a good look to have aimed at you, but he didn’t mean to aim it at me; he was thinking about the people who killed his