Hank Mossberg, Private Ogre: Murder in the Boughs

  Murder in the Boughs

  By:

  Jamie Sedgwick

  Published by:

  Timber Hill Press

  Chapter 1

  “One man’s murder is another man’s justice.” -Hank Mossberg

  It was four PM Wednesday afternoon. I had just spent the last thirty minutes hiding in the walk-in freezer at the back of Annie’s Market, waiting for Julius Kaiser and his sidekick Vinnie to show up for their weekly shakedown. I was wedged in between stacked boxes of imported beer and some sort of Chinese rice balls. I had my hands shoved deep into the pockets of my wool trench coat to keep them warm, but my fingers were going numb and my ears felt like icicles hanging under my old fedora hat. I had a nasty crick in my neck from stooping over because I couldn’t stand upright without hitting my head on the ceiling.

  I watched through the frosty glass as Julius and Vinnie finally parked out front –illegally, of course- and walked into the store like they owned the place. The two mobsters were dressed in expensive Italian suits and loafers, and they wore bowler hats to cover their long, pointed ears. It was still perfectly obvious to anyone who bothered to look that they were more than human -or less, depending on your point of view. Elves stand at a little less than five feet tall, generally speaking. Julius and Vinnie were about that, Julius being slightly taller than his companion. He was also slightly older -about sixty if my memory served correctly- but he still looked like a kid.

  Nobody even gave the mobsters a second glance as they waltzed into the store. Nobody ever does. Humans are surrounded by fae creatures like elves and fairies all the time, but they don’t even notice us. I’m a perfect example. I’m six-foot-six and then some, with dark green hair and pale, green-tinted skin. I walk among humans every single day, but nobody gives me a second glance. In a city of millions, people learn to see just what they want to. Nobody sees the homeless guy, the drug addict sleeping in a doorway, or the mugging victim begging for help. And they don’t see me.

  People are good at ignoring the things that frighten them; things they don’t understand or want to deal with. When they see something they can’t cope with, their mind just turns it into something else. To most humans, I’m just a big guy with a skin problem. Half the time they don’t even look that close. More often, they just see a big trench coat walking down the street. I guess they assume elves like Julius and Vinnie are well-off teenagers, maybe even fashion models. That would explain the retro clothing. And let’s face it, humans rarely look any further than the clothes.

  The mobsters waited quietly by the wine racks until the customers cleared out. I cupped my hands together and blew into them, trying to keep the blood flowing. At last, the final customer paid up and left with her bag of baby diapers under one arm and a bag of groceries under the other. Vinnie locked the door behind her and placed the Closed sign in the window. Then the two of them walked up to the front counter. I pushed the walk-in window slightly ajar so I could hear them talking.

  “We’re here for your payment,” Julius said nonchalantly. He had a wine bottle in his hands. He appeared to be reading the label. He snorted and set it aside, apparently deciding it wasn’t up to his standards.

  My friend Annie, the owner of the tiny downtown market, stood behind the counter. She gave the two high-elven hoodlums a hard glare. “Payment for what? Get out of my store.”

  I was impressed with her courage. I’ve known Annie for a long time and she’s a classy lady, but I hadn’t expected her to be so strong. I just wished she’d come to me with her problem sooner. The Kaiser gang had been stealing from her for almost a year.

  “We’re here for your security deposit,” Vinnie said, cracking his knuckles. They both chuckled.

  “What if I don’t have it?” Annie said.

  “Then you’d better get it,” Julius said. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a wand. It was a nice one, custom made. It looked like hand-carved ivory. He waved it towards a bottle of rum on the shelf behind her and it exploded like it had been hit by a bullet. Annie flinched.

  “Now,” he added.

  I heard the sound of the till opening. That was enough for me. I reached for the door. As luck would have it, I slipped on something and my feet went out from under me. I crashed hard on the concrete floor, flat on my back. A case of beer toppled over on top of me. The bottles broke and beer started pouring out all over my face and chest. I twisted awkwardly in the narrow space, sputtering and trying to get my arms underneath me. I heard muffled voices outside the fridge and knew that I’d given myself away.

  Finally, I managed to get to my feet. I jumped through the door half-expecting them to be gone. They weren’t. Julius and Vinnie stood in front of the counter facing me, with their wands at the ready. Huge, crooked smiles broke out on their faces when they saw me. They burst out in laughter.

  I glanced down and saw beer and rice balls all over my coat. I grimaced. “What’re you goons laughing at?” I said. “You’re under arrest.”

  They laughed even harder. “You gotta be kiddin’ me,” said Vinnie.

  I took a step forward and Julius raised his wand. The smile vanished from his face. “I wouldn’t try it,” he said. “Besides, you ain’t got nothin’ on us.”

  “Extortion is against the law.”

  “Extortion?” said Vinnie. “We weren’t extortin’ nuthin!”

  “What do you mean it’s against the law?” Julius added. “Human law? That don’t apply to us!”

  “I’m the law,” I said between clenched teeth. “And you two are going downtown.” It’s hard to look tough when you’re covered in beer and rice balls, but I think I managed. Julius snapped his wand in the air and took a shot at me. A tiny explosion went off a few inches from my left shoulder. I leaped aside, taking cover at the end of the aisle. I pressed my back up to the cereal boxes and glanced over my shoulder to see if they had moved.

  Vinnie took a shot at me and Corn Pops exploded over my head. They rained down around me and went skittering across the floor. I frowned. What am I doing? I thought. They’re just wands. I’ve been shot at with guns before, so I tend to be a bit jumpy. I shook my head and chuckled at my own stupidity. Then I leapt into the aisle, lowered my head, and rushed them like an angry bull.

  Vinnie and Julius hammered me with wand-attacks and muttered spells as I came at them, but they had forgotten one crucial thing. Magic doesn’t work on ogres. They nailed me with a couple shots, but the magic dissipated instantly. I hardly felt more than a slight static tingling across my skin.

  A split second later, I was on them. I hammered into Julius with my right shoulder and he toppled over the counter, crashing into the wall of booze behind Annie. Vinnie punched me in the jaw as I was regaining my balance. Luckily, high-elves don’t have much of a swing. The little fop cried out as his fist bounced off my chin. He grasped his bloody knuckles and a look of terror swept across his face. I smiled. Vinnie turned to run, but I reached out and nabbed him by the collar.

  Just about then, I felt something round and hard poking into my ribs. I could hear Julius’ heavy breathing behind my back. “That better be a gun,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, it is.”

  “What are you doing with a gun?” Annie said, horrified. Fae creatures like high elves don’t use guns. Not usually, anyway. They look down on guns as crude human inventions. Julius started to answer, but I whipped around and smacked his arm, knocking the pistol out of his grip. It clattered across the floor. As he stumbled back, I reached out and caught him by the throat.

  Julius and Vinnie struggled to break free of my grip for a few seconds and then they both
went limp. Fae creatures like elves and fairies have a huge amount of magical energy. So much that when it drains out of them quickly, they’re completely sapped. To them, I just happen to be like a lightning rod. I suck the magical energy right out of ‘em.

  They think I’m stupid because I can’t do magic, but that’s the whole point. That’s why I’m the Steward. I’m the law, among the fae. Ogres have always been the guardians of the forest, historically speaking. Only now, the forests are concrete jungles and the elves are mobsters. And I’m the only true Steward left.

  I’m the last of my kind. I’ve never seen or heard of another ogre. In fact, the only reason I’m even alive is because a human found me when I was an infant. My mother had been killed, and an old farmer found me laying in a snowdrift, crying. I guess I looked human enough that he took me home with him. A few months later, the farmer and his wife legally adopted me. I grew up thinking I was human. I didn’t even know what I was. Because of that, I didn’t know about my special dietary needs. I was a scrawny little runt with scraggly hair and pale skin. I was sickly and weak, and the older kids beat me up all the time. It was like that all through grade school. It wasn’t until high school that I came into my own. By then, I had a pretty good-sized chip on my shoulder. Sometimes it still shows.

  As the elves went limp, I dumped them onto the floor. “Thank you so much,” Annie said. “Those two have been robbing me for months. A few more weeks and I would have had to close my doors.”

  “Just doin’ my job,” I said with a smile. “Sorry about the mess.”

  “No worries,” she said. She reached into the till and pulled out a handful of twenties. “Here, I owe you.”

  “Forget it.” I tossed Julius over my shoulder and tucked Vinnie under my arm. I headed for the door.

  “Hey, Hank!” Annie called out behind me. “I’m free Friday night. Give me a call!”

  “You got it, sweetheart.”

  A smile spread across my face as I stepped out of the store. I never turn down a date with a pretty lady. Unfortunately, Annie’s kindred. She’s part nymph. Her grandfather got lucky, I guess. Her grandmother passed the fae blood down to Annie. She looks human, save for a certain brightness in her eyes, but she’s got enough fae in her that I can’t touch her without knocking her out, just like Julius and Vinnie. I can still enjoy her company, though. I just have to be careful. If I forget what I’m doing and give her a kiss or try to hold her hand, she’ll fall asleep at the dinner table and that’ll be the end of our date.

  I knew Julius and Vinnie would be out cold for at least twenty minutes, so I set them down in the back of Julius’ Escalade and started snooping around. I found two sets of handcuffs in the glove box. I glanced back over the seat at their slumbering bodies. I twirled a pair of cuffs around my finger.

  “Handcuffs?” I murmured. “What’ve you boys been up to?”

  I was concerned by the fact that the Kaiser gang needed guns and handcuffs. The fae –especially elves- can do some wily magic, and handcuffs are about as useful against them as rubber bands. That meant they’d been dealing with humans. That’s not unheard of, especially with a bunch like the Kaisers. They go back to the early days of organized crime. Prohibition, that’s when they really got a foothold in the human world. I wasn’t too sure about what they’d been up to lately, though. I knew they were into all kinds of trouble, but pinning anything on them was like trying to catch a greased pig.

  I jammed the cuffs in my pocket and stepped away from the door. A glint of silver under the front seat caught my eye. It was a briefcase handle. I pulled it out and set it on the front seat, examining it. It was a nice briefcase, the expensive kind with stainless steel construction and hand-made locks. I hesitated a moment before opening it. I figured it probably had some kind of spell protecting it. I wasn’t too worried about the spell since magic doesn’t hurt me much, but it was conceivable that the Kaisers had booby-trapped the thing with explosives, too. I didn’t feel much like having my hands blown off.

  I glanced back at the unconscious elves, wondering how clever they were. I knew from both reputation and experience that they were cocky. They’d been robbing Annie for months in broad daylight without giving it a second thought. That was their way. But were they paranoid? Nah. They were a couple of powerful and scary mobsters. A person would have to be crazy to break into their vehicle, much less their briefcase. Julius wouldn’t have bothered to put a bomb in there because nobody would have been stupid enough to steal it from him in the first place.

  I pulled on the locks, busting them out of their metal frames, and I popped the case open. Sparks went off as the protection spell fizzled. I lifted the lid and my jaw dropped. The entire briefcase was full of little bags of sparkling, iridescent powder. I picked one of them up and examined it, and a cold chill ran down my spine.

  “You boys have got some explaining to do,” I said. Julius moaned in his sleep.

  I tossed the gangsters in the back of my Blazer, and I wasn’t too careful about it. I took two river stones out of my pocket and whispered, “Heavy.” Then I put them in the elves’ pockets. It’s not exactly a spell; I just have a way with nature. I tell the stones they’re heavy, and the stones believe it. That way if the elves woke up when I was driving, they wouldn’t be able to move because the stones would hold them to the floor. It’s a nifty trick. I may be a big, slow-witted ogre but I still have a few surprises up my sleeve.

  I confiscated their weapons and put the briefcase in the passenger seat. Then I headed downtown. As I drove, I had a lot to think about. Vinnie and Julius were more than just a couple of street thugs. They were members of the Kaiser crew. In fact, Julius was the youngest of the three Kaiser brothers. Brutus was the middle brother, a real meathead, and Anthony was the kingpin. He was the one who started the gang back in the depression era. If you think streetgangs are bad, or mafia or yakuza, think again. They’ve got nothing on the Kaisers. There’s nothing worse than a high-elf gone to the dark side and the Kaiser family is a perfect example of that.

  High elves are the most magical creatures in existence. They’re more powerful than any of the other fae, and they are masters of spellplay. They can create trouble like you couldn’t imagine. Because of that power, they’re also haughty. They think they’re better then everyone else. In some ways, I suppose that’s true. Only the most powerful human sorcerers can keep up with a high-elf, and it takes humans decades to master their abilities. Elves are born that way. Their attitude doesn’t help their reputation, though. Nobody likes a snob.

  The Kaiser family is into all kinds of trouble: the protection racket, illegal trafficking of nymphs and satyrs, and illicit alchemical substances. And now, apparently, pixie dust. I’d been looking for evidence to put the Kaisers away for years, especially Anthony because he was the ringleader. I knew that with him behind bars, the rest of the gang would fall apart. The problem was pinning something on him. Anthony was slick, and sharp as a tack.

  Since Annie had called me about her problem, I’d been thinking that by arresting Anthony’s little brother I might lure him out of the shadows. As soon as Annie told me about what Julius had been doing, I saw my chance. If I could get Anthony angry enough, he just might get sloppy. He might do something stupid, and I’d have him. Now I’d seen the briefcase, and that changed everything. I suddenly had the evidence that I’d been looking for. I just had to find a way to prove it was Anthony’s pixie dust, and not his brother’s.

  The jailhouse is in an old building on the edge of the business district. Parking out front is illegal, but there’s a nearby street where I can park. I usually do that, and then walk the short distance back to the building. This time I couldn’t because I had Vinnie and Julius to deal with. So I parked in the loading zone out front. I walked around the Blazer and pulled open the rear tailgate. The drowsy-eyed mobsters were just starting to come around, but as I touched them, their lights went back out. I tossed ‘em over my shoulder and grabbed the briefcase with my spare han
d.

  Gene, the delvish doorman, let out a low whistle as I stepped onto the curb. Delvers are distant cousins to the dwarves. They’re smaller and thinner and instead of living underground, they tend to build their homes in junkyards and city dumps. They like to collect trash. Other than being smaller than dwarves, delvers look just about the same. Gene stands a little under three feet tall with a long red beard and wild, shaggy hair. Like all delvers, he has an aversion to wide-open spaces but he doesn’t mind working the door because he gets to stay close to home. Wearing his doorman suit, which is red with gold tassels, he’s kind of like a short, scary looking Santa Claus. Nah… he’s nothing like Santa. Forget I said it.

  “That who I think it is?” he said, staring at Julius. I nodded, and he gave me a serious look. “You better be careful.”

  “I know.”

  He glanced around me, at my Blazer. “You need a valet?”

  “Yeah, I better. I don’t wanna get towed.” I had a sinking feeling as I said it. My old Blazer’s not much to look at but it’s the only wheels I’ve got. Plus, it’s the only vehicle I’ve found that I fit in. They don’t make cars like that anymore. I sometimes wonder if people were bigger back in ’69, or maybe they just liked more open space. Modern cars are so small and claustrophobic that I wouldn’t want one even if I could figure out how to fit in the driver’s seat.

  Gene put his fingers to his teeth and let out a shrill, ear-shattering whistle. I heard a shuffling sound in the grating at my feet. It swung open with a loud creak and two brownies jumped out, each about two feet tall. If you haven’t seen them before, they look more or less humanoid but with tiny proportions. They’re thin with long limbs and wild, spidery hair. They have the big wide-open stare of a crazy person, which suits their mental acuity just fine.

  “Keys,” Gene said.

  I grimaced. “Really, Gene? That’s all you’ve got?”