Hank Mossberg, Private Ogre: Murder in the Boughs Page 3

  “What about Anthony?” I said.

  “Julius didn’t tell him. He said Anthony wouldn’t allow that kind of stuff, but Julius said his brothers wouldn’t find out.”

  I grimaced. This wasn’t going in quite the direction I’d hoped. If the shakedown scheme was all Julius’ idea, then Anthony was clean. But it really wasn’t the shakedown I was worried about. It was the pixie dust. That was the game changer. “Tell me about the briefcase,” I said.

  Vinnie frowned. “Briefcase? Oh!” his eyes lit up. “When he picked me up this morning, Julius had a briefcase. He said it was a business thing for his brother.”

  “So the briefcase was Anthony’s?”

  “Yeah.” Vinnie got a concerned look after he answered me, as if he’d just realized he said something he shouldn’t have. I pressed on, hoping to distract him from the fear of what the Kaisers might do to him for rolling over on them.

  “What were you going to do with the briefcase?”

  “We were supposed to meet somebody today, make a swap.”

  “A swap? For money?”

  “I don’t know… I guess so.”

  “Who were you meeting?”

  “Some guy named Keith.”

  I lifted the notepad off the desk and scribbled the name down. “When and where?”

  Vinnie eyed me nervously.

  “Don’t clam up now,” I warned him. “You saw what happened to Julius. The Mother tree isn’t going to put up with your nonsense.”

  Vinnie looked desperate. “You gotta protect me, man. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”

  I took a moment to let that settle, a smile growing inside of me that I didn’t dare show. Vinnie was mine. I owned him. “All right,” I said. “I’ll give you protective custody until the Kaisers are put away for good. They won’t be able to touch you.”

  That was just the answer he was looking for. Vinnie wasn’t worried about being prosecuted or tried for his part in the crimes; he just wanted to be safe from the Kaisers. That made my job easy. I questioned him for a few more minutes and got the time and location of the meeting. It wasn’t far away, but it was rush hour and the swap was supposed to be in ten minutes.

  “You catch all that?” I called out over my shoulder.

  Butch stepped around the corner, grinning from ear to ear. His drinking partners appeared behind him. “Ah, we got it a’right!” he laughed.

  I sighed. “Butch, you’re not supposed to involve citizens in official business.”

  “We’re witnesses,” Kal blurted out. “In case ya need ‘em.”

  I ignored him. “Butch, run downstairs and check on Julius. Make sure he’s okay and that he didn’t hear anything.”

  “Gotcha.” He disappeared down the tunnel, with the other two following him.

  “Wait a minute!” Vinnie cried out. “What do you mean check on Julius? I thought he was dead!”

  “Dead?” I said. “I just moved him to a different cell. What are you, crazy?”

  Vinnie’s face went crimson red as he glared at me. I could see the threat in his eyes, but he thought better of it. “You better remember your promise,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t forget about you.” I glanced at my watch. My meeting with the Council of Elders was just a few hours away. I had to get moving.

  I called ahead so Gene would have my Blazer waiting for me out front. The brownies came screeching up to the curb just as I stepped through the front doors. I scanned my Blazer, looking for obvious signs of damage. Surprisingly, it actually looked okay. That’s a relative expression. My Blazer’s over forty years old and has a rust hole in the fender the size of a man’s fist. A random passerby could reach in and pull out a handful of sparkplug wires if he was willing to risk catching tetanus in the process. Gene looked at me expectantly and held out his hand, waiting for a tip.

  “I paid you twenty bucks earlier,” I said. He just eyeballed me until I took a couple more bills out of my wallet and thrust them into his hand. “There, that’s all you get,” I said. I jumped in the Blazer and took off before he had a chance to argue with me.

  I made it to the meeting spot under the Bay Bridge in less than twenty minutes. That was stellar, but I was still fifteen minutes late. I was afraid Julius’ contact might have left. As it turned out, I had no reason to worry. I found him sitting on the hood of an old GTO at the far end of the otherwise empty parking lot. I could see why it was empty. A heavy mist rolled through the area, washing out all the colors and giving the place a dreary sense of isolation and darkness. It hardly seemed like summer, down there under the bridge. It didn’t look like a very safe place to leave your car, or anything else you valued.

  I parked a few yards in front of the man, and he eyed me cautiously as I got out of my Blazer. He may have been worried that I was a cop for a moment, but those fears melted as he looked over my vehicle. He relaxed visibly.

  “You Keith?” I said.

  “Where’s Julius?”

  I glanced around, making sure we were alone. There was no one in sight. It was possible that someone was hiding in that old primer-gray muscle car behind him, but I doubted it.

  “Nice car,” I said. “Some bodywork and a paint job, you’d have had a real classic there.” I could tell from his twitchy behavior and post nasal drip that he had other expenses to worry about. I wondered if he was using pixie dust or just trafficking it.

  “Where’s Julius?” he said again.

  I was almost close enough to reach out and grab him, and I could tell he was getting nervous. “He couldn’t come,” I said, putting on a big, friendly grin. “He gave me a message for you.”

  “Yeah? What message?”

  I closed the distance between us in one step and grabbed him by the collar with both fists. I can move surprisingly fast when I want to. I pulled him close, lifting him off the ground so I could look him dead in the eyes. “You’re out of business,” I snarled.

  He struggled, trying to pull away from me, but I was holding him too tight and it was already too late. He’d seen me. He hadn’t just looked at me, he had seen me. By lifting him up, by getting into his comfort zone and breaking down his barriers I had forced him to see me for what I really was.

  Keith’s eyes were wild with panic, his drug-addled mind grappling with this sudden fundamental change in his reality. It was like someone had pulled the rug out from under him, like the whole world had just become a different place. He continued to struggle, the fear and adrenaline giving him strength he wouldn’t normally have had. I had a good grip on him, though.

  “Where’d the briefcase come from?” I said.

  “Briefcase? What are you talking about?”

  “You know what I mean! The pixie dust!”

  Understanding dawned on his face. He knew about the drug. I doubted he knew what it really was, but there was no doubt he had heard of it. He was probably selling it on the street for Anthony. That wasn’t good. Half a gram of pixie dust can put a normal human in a coma. More than that will almost certainly kill him.

  “Julius was bringing the dust, man. He was supposed to meet me!”

  “Who gave it to Julius?”

  “What?” he said frantically. “I don’t know! How should I know who Julius works for?”

  I clenched my teeth. I had been hoping Keith might know Anthony personally. I needed another witness who could tie Anthony to that pixie dust. Vinnie’s testimony was going to help, but he hadn’t actually seen Anthony with the briefcase. I was afraid that wouldn’t be enough to put Anthony away. I needed more. Unfortunately, I was looking in the wrong place. Keith was a little fish, an opportunistic little drug dealer who’d sell out his own kind for a handful of cash. He wasn’t who I was looking for. I needed the big fish. I was downstream and I needed to be upstream. I needed to get close to the Kaiser family. I just didn’t see how that would be possible.

  I set Keith down on the ground and he went running towards the beach. Apparently
, he’d forgotten he had a car. I watched him for a few seconds, wondering. People in his situation usually do one of two things. They either have an epiphany and change their lives, or they convince themselves that they didn’t really see what they thought they saw and go back to life as usual. Most often, they do the latter. Either way, I knew his face. I never forget a face. Even in a city the size of San Francisco, you always run back into a person eventually.

  I got back to my apartment with an hour to spare, or so I thought. The phone was ringing when I opened the door. I picked it up just in time to hear the sound of a dial tone. I was about to check Caller ID when I heard a knock at the door. I answered and found Malachi, the satyr who owns the plush restaurant at the top of the tree, standing on my doorstep. He had a chef’s knife in one hand and a menu in the other. He had the glint of murder in his eyes. I eyed the knife nervously.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  He slapped the menu into my hands and said, “What are you trying to do to me? You give me three hour’s notice that I’m catering a party and then you disappear!”

  “I’m… uh, sorry about that. There was a miscommunication-”

  “No excuses. I’ve got no prep time now, thanks to you! Here are your choices: you get chicken parmesan or goose. No soup, either. You get swampleaf salad.”

  I glanced at the menu. “You have goose?”

  “Yes, it’s excellent.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever had goose… chicken is fine.” When in doubt, it’s always best to go with the familiar. Besides, it sounded cheaper.

  “Of course you want the chicken; it’s twice as much work as goose!” Malachi said angrily.

  “Well, goose is fine then.”

  “No, don’t patronize me. You’ll get your chicken. Just don’t complain about the service when you give me an hour to prepare in a kitchen the size of an outhouse.” He took his menu back and stepped back into the elevator, grumbling the entire time.

  The phone began ringing again, and I raced to pick it up. “Mossberg,” I said.

  “Mr. Mossberg! I’ve been trying to get hold of you!” The woman on the other end of the line sounded desperate.

  “Sorry, I’ve been out all afternoon. How can I help you?”

  “I need to hire you, Mr. Mossberg. My daughter has been kidnapped!”

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t usually work that kind of case, Mrs.-”

  “Paton. Roxy Paton. I really need your help, Mr. Mossberg. I was referred to you by a friend of yours, a man named Solomon Jones.”

  My eyebrows went up. Solomon is something of a bounty hunter in the world of the fae. He wouldn’t refer a case to me without reason. At least I didn’t think he would. I have a Private Investigator’s license, which makes it easier for me to follow cases that move through the human world, but I don’t take just any case that comes my way. “I’m sure he meant well,” I said reluctantly, “but Solomon knows I don’t take cases like this. You need to call the police, Mrs. Paton.”

  “But I have! They don’t believe that my daughter’s been kidnapped. They think she’s run away. They won’t even search for her! They said to fill out a missing person report and they’ll let me know if she shows up.”

  “I see. How old is your daughter, exactly?”

  “She’s ten.”

  “And when did she disappear?”

  “Last night.”

  Well that was that. If the police still wouldn’t consider her missing after twenty-four hours, then Mrs. Paton was on her own. I suppose it was the desperation in her voice that forced me to capitulate, but I also wondered why Solomon had referred her to me. Maybe there really was something to the case.

  “I have an important meeting tonight,” I said. “I really can’t miss it. Can we meet tomorrow morning?”

  “Of course, anything you want! When can you be here?”

  “Eight,” I said. “Stay close to your phone, in case the kidnappers call.”

  “I will.”

  I hung up the phone and it instantly began ringing. I sighed and put it to my ear. “Yeah?”

  “Hank, it’s Butch. You’d better get up to Malachi’s.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “No time to explain. Just get up here.” I slammed the phone down and headed for the elevator.

  Apophis zipped me right to the top of the tree and I stepped out into the lobby less than a minute later. Butch was waiting for me, and I followed him past the bar and into the main lounge where the wait staff had gathered around Chef Malachi. They were all complaining loudly, and it looked as if he had a mutiny on his hands. He saw me coming and shouted at me across the room.

  “You’re the law around here, Mossberg. Do something about this!”

  The group parted as I approached them, and I found myself face to face with a dozen angry nymphs, naiads, dryads, and gnomes. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “It’s them-” Malachi said, pointing to the back of the room. His voice trailed off as he realized there was nobody there.

  “Uh, who exactly?”

  He looked perplexed. “The Kaisers,” he said after a moment. “Anthony and Brutus have been making all sorts of trouble. They’ve been assaulting the entire staff.”

  After that, they all began speaking at once. “Anthony pinched me!” exclaimed a dryad. “Me too!” said a satyr. “He stole my hat,” complained a short, bearded gnome wearing a busboy uniform.

  I frowned, my eyes roving back and forth, as they all tried to speak over the top of each other. “Quiet, I get it!” I said at last. “Where are they now?”

  “I don’t know,” Malachi said, “but you’d better do something about this. Come on, the rest of you back to work. We’re on a timetable here!” He shot me a nasty look as he said that, as if to remind me that I’d messed up his entire schedule because of my meeting. Then he vanished back into the kitchen and the rest of the staff scattered. I found myself standing there alone in the middle of the room. I could feel Butch’s eyes on my back.

  “Well?” I said, turning.

  He was standing in the lobby watching me; his eyes sparkling with mischief. “What?”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “Nope.”

  “I thought not. What good are you, any way?”

  “Eh… I’m great at watching the jail!”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that a fact?”

  “Err, I’ll be getting back to work now.”

  I rolled my eyes as he disappeared through the doors. I checked my watch. I had less than half an hour to prepare for the meeting, and now I had to search the entire tree for a couple of high-elf mobster hoodlums. A grim smile came to my face as I realized my troubles with the Kaisers were just about over, permanently.

  I searched for them for fifteen minutes before I finally gave up. It seemed everyone in the tree had seen Anthony and Brutus, but no one knew where they’d gone. Then I caught wind that the Elders had arrived, and I knew my time was up. I had to present my case to them, and I knew they wouldn’t be pleased if I kept them waiting. I made a beeline for my apartment and rushed upstairs to retrieve the briefcase. When I got there, I opened my closet and saw the safe hanging open, the branches dangling off to the side. The briefcase was gone.

  Chapter 3

  I was stunned. I stared for a moment with my jaw hanging open. I scanned the safe for signs of forced entry and found none. I searched my apartment, trying to figure out how the thieves had gotten in, but found no evidence anywhere. There was only one explanation.

  “The Kaisers,” I muttered.

  No one –and I mean no one- knows where my safe is. In the half hour I’d been absent, such an accomplishment would have been impossible… unless the thief was a powerful magic user. Even more so, since he’d somehow managed to get through the Mother tree’s defenses. That had never happened before. Who could have gotten into my apartment, found the safe, and broken into it without leaving a trace? It certainly wasn’t p
ossibly by conventional means -not even using magic- unless the thieves were particularly skilled. Not many people could have pulled that off, but I had a sinking feeling the Kaisers had found a way.

  Of course, it was obvious in hindsight that the Kaisers had played me like a fiddle. The entire episode at the restaurant had been a distraction. While I was dealing with the angry wait staff and searching the tree for the missing mobsters, the Kaisers had been up here, searching my apartment for their briefcase. And now that they had it, my entire case against them had dissolved. I had nothing. Not even Vinnie’s testimony could help me now.

  I called Butch to give him the bad news. He answered the phone on the second ring. Apparently, he was diligently watching my captives. Or rather digilently, as he said, with enough slurring to assure me he was still drinking, too. I thought about having him meet me in the conference room and then thought better of it. I was already going to look like a fool after summoning the Council for an emergency meeting and then having no evidence. If they got a whiff of my deputy, I might just be out of a job. Not that there’s anyone standing in line for my job, but a guy’s gotta make a living.

  As the Steward, the community pays for my base expenses. Part of my salary is my apartment, which the tree provides but only at the discretion of the homeowners’ association. By democratic vote, the community decides who gets to live in the tree. It just so happens that history is on my side, and no one is about to vote the Steward out of his own tree. So I get to live here and I earn a meager salary that doesn’t really cover my expenses. I work odd jobs as a private investigator in the human world to make ends meet. It ain’t glamorous, but it’s a living.

  Before hanging up, I told Butch to start looking for the briefcase. I told him to search the entire tree if he had to. Then I headed for the conference room. I arrived ten minutes late. The Elders were all there, waiting patiently as the servers brought plates of food and refilled their glasses with wine and mead. The complaining started the second I entered the room.

  “Nice of you to show up,” said Magnus, a middle-aged white-haired wizard with a superiority complex the size of Alaska. A hideous little gremlin about six inches tall that was perched on his shoulder picked up an olive from his plate and hurled it at me. The gremlin giggled maniacally and a slight smile tugged at the corners of Magnus’ mouth. I brushed the juice off my shirt. Obnoxious or not, it’s best to let the Elders and their pets do what they want.