I’m not saying that cops are a bunch of white knights. I’m just saying that the politicians can spin things all sorts of ways if it means that they’re guaranteed stacks of cash for their campaign chests—or that Marcone’s blackmailers won’t expose some dark secret from their pasts.
I still had friends in the CPD. I called one who worked in the Organized Crime Division and asked him where I could find Marcone.
“Aw, Murph,” Malone said. He sounded weary. “This ain’t the time.”
“Since when have you been big on punctuality?” I asked. “I need this. It’s about Dresden.”
Malone grunted. Dresden had saved his uncle from some kind of possession or (and I still have trouble with the concept when I say it), an evil enchantment. The elder Malone had been suffering to a degree I had never seen elsewhere. Cops and medics and so on couldn’t do a thing for the man. Dresden had walked in, shooed everyone else out of the room, and five minutes later Malone was sane again, if worse for wear. It had made an impression on Malone’s nephew.
“Okay,” he said. “Give me a couple minutes. They got everyone with a star running around the city looking for bin Laden or Bigfoot or whoever else might have blown up that building. I ain’t slept in two days. And the FBI is coming down like a freaking cloud of angry mama birds, after what happened at their office.” He cleared his throat. “Um. I heard you might have been around there.”
I grunted. Neutrally.
“Weird stuff, huh?”
I sighed. Internal Affairs or the FBI might still have my phone tapped, and I was reluctant to say much.
On the other hand, what were they going to do? Take my career away?
“Serious weirdness. The same flavor as the kind that hit the old Velvet Room.” That was where Dresden had fought a whole bunch of vampires and wound up burning down the entire house.
Malone whistled. “Was it as bad as that guy down in the SI holding tank?”
The kid meant the loup-garou. We were stupid enough to lock Harley MacFinn in a normal cell. He transformed into this hideous Ice Age-looking thing. It was half the size of an old Buick and it could only loosely be called a wolf. Brave men had died that night, fighting with weapons that were utterly useless against the loup- garou. Carmichael, my old partner, had died there, all but throwing himself into the thing’s jaws to buy me a few seconds.
I feel nauseated when I think about it.
“I don’t know, really. Things happened too fast. I rounded up some people, went down a stairway and out. SWAT went in, but by the time they did, there was nothing left but staff hiding in closets and under desks, and a lot of bodies.”
“Jesus,” he said.
“Malone, I need this,” I pressed firmly.
“Call you back in a minute,” he said.
I put my phone back into my coat pocket and looked at Will. We were both standing on the sidewalk in front of his apartment.
“This is crazy,” Will said quietly. “Vampires hitting a government building? Blowing up buildings in a major city? They don’t
“If they followed all the rules, they wouldn’t be bad guys,” I said.
“It’s just . . .” He swallowed. “I really wish Harry was around. He’d have a take on it.”
“That makes two of us.”
Will shook his head. “I’ve been too crazy to even ask. . . . Where is he?”
I glanced at him and away, keeping my face still.
The color drained out of Will’s cheeks. “No. He’s not. . . . It doesn’t work like that.”
“We don’t know where he is,” I said. “He was staying out on that ratty boat he uses until he could find somewhere else to sleep. We found blood. Bullet holes. Blood trail leading into the lake.”
Will shook his head. “But . . . if he was hurt, he wouldn’t go to a hospital. He’d call Waldo Butters.” He took his cell phone from his pocket. “He’s in my contacts. We can call—”
“I know about Butters, Will,” I interrupted gently. “I called him first thing after I saw the blood. He hasn’t heard from Harry.”
“Oh my . . . Oh my God,” Will said, his voice a whisper.
I felt like I’d just double-tapped Santa Claus.
“Maybe he isn’t dead,” I said. “Maybe it was somebody else with the same blood type who got shot. Or maybe Dresden pulled one of his tricks and just vanished, whoosh, off to . . . a wizard hospital somewhere.”
“Yeah,” Will said, nodding. “Yeah, maybe. I mean, he can do all kinds of things, right?”
“All kinds of things,” I said.
Including dying. But I didn’t say that.
DETECTIVE MALONE WAS good to his word, and five minutes later we were heading for a building on the north edge of Bucktown, another renovation project Gentleman Johnnie’s mostly legitimate business interests had secured. He had purchased, refurbished, updated, and preserved more than a dozen buildings in the city over the past several years. He’d been feted and decorated and honored at various society functions, as a man who was preserving the native beauty of Chicago architecture, saving it from being destroyed and forgotten, et cetera.
If you didn’t consider the drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and other shadow franchises he ruled, I guess he was a real citizen hero.
Contractors were hard at work on the building as we came in, and a security guard in a white shirt and black pants walked over to us with a frown as I entered the building. Will was at my back. I hoped that if things went nutty, I wouldn’t have to drag him with me when I shot my way out.
I felt myself smile at that image, mostly because of its fantasy content. If blood was spilled in Marcone’s headquarters, I wouldn’t live long enough to drag anybody out.
“No trespassers,” the guard said firmly. “This is a construction site. Dangerous. You’ll have to leave.”
I eyed the man and said, “I’m here to see John Marcone.”
The guard eyed me. Then he got on his little radio and spoke into it. A moment later, a voice squawked an answer. “Mr. Marcone is not available.”
“Yes, he is,” I said. “Go tell him Karrin Murphy is here to see him.”
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”
He had a gun, a 9mm Glock, I noted.
I took out the little leather wallet with my police ID in it, and said, “If you make me open this, it gets official. There will be official questions, official paperwork, and lots of men in uniform trespassing all over your site.” I held the wallet out as if presenting a crucifix to a vampire, fingers poised as if to open it. “Do you want to be the one who gives your boss that kind of headache?”
His eyes moved from me to Will. He looked quickly away. Then he took a few steps back toward the interior of the building and had a low, rather emphatic conversation with his radio.
I folded my arms and tapped one foot impatiently.
“Would you really do that?” Will asked me.
“Can’t,” I said. “I’m getting fired. But they don’t know that.”
Will made a choking sound.
The guard came back and said, “Through that door. Two floors down. Then take your first left, and you’ll see it.” He coughed. “You’ll have to leave any weapons with me.”
I snorted and said, “Like hell.” Then I brushed past him, nudging him slightly aside with my shoulder as though spoiling for a fight. Martian for
He got the message. He didn’t try to stop us.
Will’s quiet chuckle followed me down the stairs.
MARCONE’S OFFICE WAS located in what appeared to be a dining hall. The room was huge and tiled, and several contractors—most of them brawnier and more heavily tattooed than the average laborer—sat at long tables, eating. Caterers kept several serving tables of food stocked with the same attention and care that I would have expected in a high-society gala. It was brightly lit, and a raised stage at one end of the room, which would presumably host a full orchestral band if one were present, had instead been loaded with computers and office
