The forensics guys knew their stuff. I had to assume the newmage on the force, Pennington, knew his.What the hell could I add, besides mybad dreams? Yeah, I was one of the few people alive who ever saw Kratzface-to-face and knew who, knew whathe was. A city this size, I could walk the streets from now to doomsday andnever see him. Or smell him.
Unless he wanted me to.
Sandy and good sex and good food hadn’t taken my mind offKratz. The whiskey hadn’t washed his stink from my throat. I heaved my bulkupright again, shrugged into the shoulder holster, and checked the SIG beforehanging it under my armpit.
That chunk of metal was going to be my closest friend until I’dsorted this mess out, one way or another. I thought about old habits for amoment and added the snub-nosed Smith .38 Special to the back of my belt, noankle holster like Cash used for her hold-out because my ankles are too faraway on the south side of my so-called waist. On with the Burberry, on with thefedora, out the door.
I spend a lot of nights walking the streets, that bad dreamthing again. Most people never see me. I’d like to say it’s something machoabout spreading fear everywhere I walk, people not willing to see bad newsunless it got right in their faces. The truth is, it’s one of the first lessonsthat wizards and witches learn — how to hide. It’s another of those old habitsthat you do as automatically as you breathe. A few thousand years ofpersecution make it practically genetic. We’ve only been out of that damnedcloset for a couple of generations now, not enough to make anyone feel safe.
Anyway, two AM, three AM, you’d have thought at least the beatcops cruising by would slow down, maybe pull over for a quick ID check and scanfor stolen TV sets tucked under my trench coat. I used to think they knew me,knew my face and didn’t worry about another cop, but it kept on with new guysafter I retired. I turn gray and fade out without even trying.
I walked through that miserable drizzle, not raining and notnot-raining, soggy musty heavy cold air as depressing as a night can get. Ithought. I didn’t come up with any bright ideas. I stood in the middle of abridge and stared down at the cold black salt water flowing, river at half tiderising, and wondered what secrets ithid. A lot of things got dumped in that river, and water, salt water, shieldsmagic about as well as copper screening. I could be looking at twenty graves,right there in the acre or so of murk visible in the streetlights, “sleepingwith the fishes,” classic concrete overshoes and all. Most killers don’t wanttheir victims to be found, not like Kratz.
So I walked for three or four hours and didn’t get anywhere,either on the ground or in my head. Finally, my stomach talked to my feet,bypassing that useless thing I call a brain, and delivered me to a breakfastshop down by the fish market where the work day started about the time mostpeople got to bed. Some of those places make ptomaine look attractive, butAngie’s was a different kettle of fish. Or pancakes.
Angie recognized me the minute I stepped into the haze ofcoffee fumes and breakfast grease, even though I hadn’t dropped by for over ayear. “Sausage, ham, or bacon?”
That was my only variable. At most, I’d gone in there once amonth or less, even when I worked the night roster. Still, she knew me andremembered my order. That was only part of what made her place special. The otherpart, she’d mentioned sausage first.
“What’s your sausage?”
“Drucker’s.”
“Sausage, then.”
She yelled some incomprehensible shorthand back to her husbandat the big Vulcan range and that was that. I found an empty stool with elbowroom at the counter, balanced my weight on it, and she slid a mug of strongblack coffee under my nose by the time I settled. Five minutes later, a stackof pancakes three inches high joined the coffee, steaming big pancakes just enough smaller than the plate to allow room forthe syrup to run off, fresh creamery butter, real maple syrup, and six fatbrown links of sausage on a separate plate.
I like good food.
IV
I sat in my office in smog of my own making, straightVirginia burley this time, no flavorings or other muck, puffing on my thirdpipe of the afternoon. Two more in the morning. If I kept up at this rate, I’drun through my entire rack of six and have to start in again at the firstbefore it had time to cool and rest.
Kratz. The bastard had no rightto break out of my nightmares to haunt my days as well.
I shuffled paper on my desk, staring at photos, staring atlists, staring at opaque air and even more opaque clues. A week had vanished insmoke — smoke thick enough that the office walls and windows and doors turnedgray around me to match the November weather, smoke thick enough that I stood afair chance of setting off the fire alarms.
But hey, a wizard is supposed to smoke a pipe. It’s all aboutthe image.
Cash had dropped off the reports that morning. She’d ditchedthe super-trooper uniform this time, had been wearing a puffy green jacket overa shoulder holster over some black bodysuit thing and skin-tight knee-highblack suede boots. The whole getup looked like she’d jumped naked into a vat ofSpandex. That woman sure knew how to distract male eyes from the fact that shewas a cop and carrying.
I’d wondered where she hid her badge and backup and cell phonein that rig. Then I’d decided there were some things man was never meant toknow.
Anyway, I’d spent the day reading technical cop andpathologist gobbledygook, learning everything and nothing. The city force haddigested the crime scene and spat out, shat out, this. The state MEs had donetheir thing. Yeah, toxicology reports would take a month or three to wend theirway back from the labs, but I could guess they’d come up clean. I’d bet longodds against a
