I pulled it out from under the wiper, half expecting the wholething to blow up in my face, and took another breath when nothing happened. Iopened the fold.
It looked like standard copy paper, office supply houses sellit by the ton. A quick glance said laser print, either computer printer or acopier. No way to trace that, not like your classic detective mystery UnderwoodOffice Manual typewriter with the clogged “e” and chipped cross-bar on the “t”.Times New Roman font, looked like sixteen point, again something you can get onany computer in the land.
Message: “Drop the case, Patterson. Drop it, or yourgirlfriend dies.”
Signature, also laser print: “Albertus Magnus.”
X
I can’t say that Kratz’s theatrics exactly froze my blood.Sandy knew how to take care of herself. She’d had the same training I had, she’dsurvived on the mean streets through a lot of the same wars — when it cameright down to it, she was one tough bitch. Smart. And she knew Kratz. Like Ialready told you, she had been my backup when I went in after him.
Still, I needed to warn her that she’d been added to thetarget list. And I couldn’t, not until she got back from a trip out of town.Not until she got back from her snit, too.
No, she didn’t carry a cell phone. I didn’t have a contactpoint for her. Neither of us trusted cell phones, when working our “trade.” Wehad ’em, but the damned things aren’t all that reliable around strong magic.And people can track them.
We usually compared schedules, kept each other up to speed,but ran on different courses. She had her life, I had mine. Mostly, weintersected in bed or in the kitchen. Sex and food, basic animal drives.
I flattened that note and stowed it in a plastic evidencebaggie from the field kit in the cruiser’s trunk. Believe me, I scouted thetrunk lock and the kit before I touched them, feeling around for any tampering.That would have been a typical Kratz move, tucking his note under the wiper andthen leaving his real surprise buried in the forensic kit with the swabs andgloves and stuff.
And then I hoisted myself back into the cruiser and cranked itwithout any explosions and drove out through that charred diesel-oil stink inthe hollow and through the gate of Malcolm Ridge’s estate and out of his life.I washed my hands of the slimeball. Or almost — he sent me a check for thedeductible on my Lincoln, and I cashed it. Guess he did have something he usedin place of a conscience.
I didn’t see or “smell” any sign of Kratz on the drive backinto town, but I hadn’t expected any. I kept the speed down, this time. A coldfront had moved in while I was acting virtuous in that shopworn mansion. Abouthalfway back to town I drove into one of those howling drenching Novemberstorms that rips the last of the leaves off the trees and washes them intowindrows along the ditches and tells you to batten down for winter.
I drove and thought, as the day grew dark around me. Thatnote, that threat, they weren’t the Kratz I remembered. Yeah, I could feel himthere, a signature that couldn’t be forged. No way for some greedy hand orhands to trim off the wrong date from a sheet of paper and grind up old inksludge with fresh water and use the same fancy gold-nibbed pen to add a littlechange to an existing document.
But the vintage Kratz wouldn’t warn me off, he’d just kill me.Or at least try, like with that propane tanker. I reminded myself that morethan a decade had passed. Both of us had changed. I had no way to guess how he’dspent that time, the things he might have done and seen and learned wherever he’dbeen hiding his ugly face. And I had hurt the guy in our last battle, the kindof damage that could affect his twisty little brain. Maybe he didn’t dare takeme on, mano-a-mano.
I made it back into town. Sandy was off wherever business tookher, she had her own consulting practice, so I wouldn’t find her creating magicin my kitchen. Or hers. And besides, she hated me just then. I pulled in atanother of my hidden gems from decades of research, a tiny Indian restaurant onthe north side of town where the family thought they had to bribe old fatbalding cops with vast quantities of fine food or Krishna would be angry.
You want some examples of magic used to a good end, I’ll pointto Noor’s kitchen. I felt the “working” there, not just fine ingredients well prepared. Don’t know what it was, that’snot my territory. Maybe it involved applying different temperatures to items inthe same pot or telling spices to mingle with some things and not with others,but she used power. Power for good, just like the cliché.
By the time I’d wrapped myself around that bliss and huggedthe cook, full night had fallen. I headed home, parked the cruiser well awayfrom dark shadows that might hold menace, and dodged sheets of rain across theasphalt. Shielding has many uses, not just for .44 caliber slugs or rocks andgravel fleeing a propane-air explosion.
I hiked upstairs, sniffing for Kratz all the way, and tossedback a couple of straight slugs of Malcolm Ridge’s old Jack Daniels, no otherentertainment on offer until Sandy cooled her anger, and thence, as SamuelPepys would say, to bed. I hadn’t slept well the night before. Too much Sturm und Drang.
I went to sleep thinking of Maggie, woke up thinking ofMaggie, in spite of Sandy and in spite of whatever game Cash seemed to beplaying. Made it easier to turn down the added bribe that Ms. One-Button-BlouseRidge-Cousin offered to toss into the pot, anyway.
I got up early without a hangover, proving I hadn’t sampledenough of Jack’s product, cooked up a couple of thousand calories of breakfast,put on my usual tweed sport-coat to hide the shoulder holster and backup, andwalked down to the office through bright golden sunrise and fresh-washedsidewalks and fresh-washed air from the storm. I thought it
