Foreword 3 page

Benny consults his little book. “The biggest bookie working Del Mar is No‑Neck McGee.”

“Give me his number,” I say, and a moment later I dial it, and No‑Neck McGee picks it up on the third ring.

“Hi, No‑Neck,” I say. “This is Harry the Book.”

“Harry,” he says. “Long time no see.”

“No, I can see again,” I tell him. “Wanda the Witch’s spell only lasted a couple of weeks.”

“So what can I do for you on this most terrible of days? Did you see what just happened in the seventh?”

“That’s what I want to ask you about.”

“I’m making a formal complaint to the Jockey Club.”

“It’ll never hold up,” I say. “There’s nothing in the rules that says a horse can’t have wings.”

“Just as there’s nothing in the rules that says he can’t have blinkers, or shoes for that matter. I’m basing my case not on the fact that he had wings but that he didn’t declare them prior to the race, the way you have to declare all other equipment. Is that what you’re calling about? Did someone pull the same trick up at Belmont?”

“No,” I say. “I just want to know if you had any big plungers on Pondscum?”

“I took just one bet on him,” answers No‑Neck. “Problem is, it was for six hundred dollars. That’s why I’ve filed the complaint. Paying it off will break me.”

“Who placed the bet?” I ask.

“An ex‑jockey who hangs around the track all the time,” says No‑Neck. “Remember Charlie Roman‑off?”

“Chinless Charlie?” I say. “Didn’t he get ruled off the track for life?”

“Life or three hundred years, whichever comes first,” answers No‑Neck. “Anyway, he lays the bet, but he’s never seen six hundred dollars at one time in his life, so I know he is someone else’s stalking horse. Or is it stalking bettor?”

“Thanks, No‑Neck,” I say. “That’s what I needed to know.”

“Glad you called today,” says No‑Neck. “I have a feeling my phone will be disconnected by next week.”

We hang up, and I turn back to Benny and Gently Gently. “I think I’m starting to see the light,” I say.

“I don’t know how you can,” says Gently Gently. “It’s almost nine o’clock at night.”

“Give your Form to Benny and go into the next room for another cookie,” I say, and he does so faster than Pondscum or even Godzilla Monsoon ever moved.

“I can tell by your face you got an idea,” says Benny. “Or maybe it’s just a sty in your eye. But it’s something. ”

“It’s an idea,” I say. “It comes back to your question: Why would someone hide the fact that he was laying bets? After all, betting is legal at the track and in Vegas, and it’s almost legal with bookies.”

“I already asked that,” says Benny.

“The logical answer is that the hex was in, and he didn’t want people to know that he was the one who made the bet.”

“Yes, that makes sense,” says Benny. “But we already know the race and the game and the match were hexed.”

“But we know something else,” I say. “We know that the kind of wizard who can cause a tidal wave or do the other things does not come cheap. So the next thing to do is find out who can afford three such wizards on the same day.”

“There’s hundreds of guys with that kind of loot just in Manhattan,” says Benny. “It’s like finding a blonde in a haystack.”

“Don’t you mean a needle?” I ask.

“I found a needle in a haystack once,” he answers. “I’ve never found a blonde.”

I couldn’t argue with that, so I went back to the subject at hand. “We can work it from either end,” I say. “We can narrow it down by finding someone who could afford all three wizards, or we can narrow it down by finding out just which wizards have the power to pull these stunts off.”

“Too many either way,” says Benny, as Gently Gently comes back into the room. “There’s a third way.”

“Oh?” I say. “What it is?”

“Pound the hell out of Big‑Hearted Milton until he tells you who gave him the money.”

“It could have passed through four or five hands before it got to Milton,” I say.

“That narrows it down,” says Gently Gently. “Who do we know who has four or five hands?”

I send him out to a chili parlor.

“You know,” I say when he is gone, “I think the money is the key to it all.”

“Of course it is,” agrees Benny. “No money, no hexes.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, I think you hit on something before. There are hundreds of possible plungers, and dozens of possible wizards, but there’s only one pay‑off, and that’s the one I have to make to Milton.”

“You’re going to pay him?”

“Tomorrow,” I say. “Tonight there’s something I have to do. Get me Morris the Mage’s phone number.”

I talk to Morris, and we agree on a price, and he casts his spell and gives me the magic word, and the next morning I hunt up Milton in the men’s room at Joey Chicago’s, where he is sitting fully clothed on one of the toilets, his nose covered in bandages, reading an ancient book of magic.

“Good morning, Milton,” I say pleasantly.

“I ab nod talkig to you,” he says through the bandages.

“That’s too bad,” I say. “Because I have sought you out to pay my debt of honor.”

I pull out the money and hand it to him.

He smiles, gets up, puts the money in a pocket, and walks to the door.

“Thag you, Harry,” he says. “I god to deliver this. I’ll see you lader.”

He walks out of the men’s room, through the tavern, and out the front door, and I go back to the apartment, where Benny and Gently Gently have spent the night. (Well, Benny spent the whole night; Gently Gently made four more trips out for nine‑thousand‑calorie snacks.)

“Is it accomplished?” asks Benny.

“Let’s give it an hour,” I say.

Benny spends the time staring at his watch and counting down minute by minute. Finally it is time.

“He’s got to have delivered it by now,” I say, “and whoever he’s delivered it to hasn’t had time to get to a bank. So let’s make sure he thinks twice before trying to rob Harry the Book again.” I pause for dramatic effect, and then say: “Abracadabra.”

“That’s it?” asks Benny. “Nothing’s happened.”

“It’s not going to happen here,” I say. “Turn on the news in another hour and we’ll see if it worked.”

Benny counts down from sixty to zero once more, and then turns on the television. The news is on all the channels: The estate of Mafia don Boom‑Boom Machiavelli has spontaneously caught fire and burned to the ground.

“And that’s that!” says Benny, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

“Not quite,” I say.

“Oh?”

“ Milton never used a bank or a safe in his life, which means his share caught fire in his pocket. Find out what hospital he’s in and send him some flowers.”

“Any note with it?” asks Benny.

“Yeah,” I say. “Tell him that if God had meant pianos to fly, He’d have given them wings.”

Gently Gently looks surprised. “You mean He didn’t?”

If Vanity Doesn’t Kill Me by Michael A. Stackpole

For a guy who squeezed into a rubber nun’s habit before hanging himself in a dingy motel room closet, Robert Anderson didn’t look so bad. Sure, his face was still livid, especially that purple ring right above the noose, and his neck had stretched a bit, but with his eyes closed you couldn’t see the burst blood vessels. He looked peaceful.

I glanced back over my shoulder at Cate Chase, the Medical Examiner. “I’ve seen worse. Is that a good thing?”

“Let’s not start comparing instances.” With her red hair, blue eyes, and cream complexion, Cate should have been a heartbreaker. She would have been, save she was built like a legbreaker. One glance convinced most men that she could hurt them badly, and not in a good way. She jerked a thumb at the room’s vanity table. “What do you think?”

I shrugged. Dragging it along had tipped over a can of soda, and a half‑eaten sandwich had soaked most of it up. The Twinkie had resisted the soda, being stale enough you could have pounded nails with it. “Looks like he unscrewed it from the wall, shifted it so he could watch himself. Autoerotic asphyxiation?”

She nodded. “Suffocating as you climax is supposed to take the orgasm off the charts. You pass out, you can strangle to death.”

“Not my idea of fun.”

“There go my plans for the rest of our afternoon.” She flicked a finger at Anderson. “Take another look. ”

I caught her emphasis and breathed in. I closed my eyes for a second, then reopened them. I peered at him through magick. He was a silhouette, all black and drippy. Corpses tend to look like that. I’d seen it before.

“Something special I’m supposed to see?” I faced her as I asked the question, and magick rendered her in shades of red gold, much like her hair. It put color into everything, save for that Twinkie. It was neither alive nor dead.

Cate shook her head. “Something, I hoped. Anything.”

I waited for her to expand on her comment, but she never got a chance.

Detective Inspector Winston Prout charged into the room and thrust a finger into my chest. “What the hell are you doing here, Molloy?”

“I invited him, Prout,” Cate said.

I smiled. “Coffee date.”

He glared at the both of us, about a heartbeat from arresting us for indecent urges. He was one of those skinny guys who’d look better as a corpse. He wouldn’t have to keep his parts all puckered and pinched tight. He habitually dressed in white from head to toe, and he had exchanged his skimmer for a fedora after his recent promotion to Inspector.

“Civilians aren’t allowed in a crime scene, Molloy.”

“My prints, my DNA are on record. I haven’t touched anything.”

“If you don’t have a connection to this case, get the hell out of here.”

I hesitated just a second too long.

He raised an eyebrow. “You connected?”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “A little.”

“Spill it.”

“Your vic?” I nodded toward the man in the closet. “He’s married to my mother.”

That little revelation had Prout’s eyes bugging out the way Anderson ’s must have at the end. I’d have enjoyed poking them back into his face, but he got control of himself pretty quickly. He was torn between wanting to arrest me right that second and fear that I’d already set a trap for him. He’d wanted a piece of me since before his stint in the Internal Affairs division. He saw it as a divine mission, and getting me tossed from the force for bribery hadn’t been enough.

He punted the two of us, leaving a tech team to do the crime scene. Cate and I retreated through a hallway where painters were trying to cover years of grime in a jaunty yellow to a nearby coffee joint. We ordered in java‑jerkese, then sat on the patio amid lunch‑bunnies catching a post‑Pilates, pre‑spa jolt.

“You didn’t know about Anderson, did you?”

Cate shook her head. “Should I say I’m sorry for your loss?”

“If it will make you feel better.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was a shit. He and my mother were very Christian, which meant they were usually anti‑me.”

Cate understood. Prejudice against those who are magically gifted isn’t uncommon, especially with Fun‑dies. It’s that “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” thing. Having a talented child is as bad as having a gay kid was late last century. My mom had compounded things by being the society girl who ran off with a working man‑my father‑then getting pregnant and actually delivering the child. My having talent was the last straw. She ditched my father, the Church got the marriage annulled, and she made a proper society match with Anderson.

I blew on my coffee. “Why did you call me?”

Cate leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. “ Anderson ’s the fifth Brahmin who’s died like that in the last two months. Very embarrassing circumstances. The deaths have been swept under the carpet.”

She fished in her pocket, produced a PDA, and beamed case files into mine. I glanced at the names on each document. I knew them. I dimly recalled that they’d died, but I couldn’t remember any details. I’d met three of them, liked one, but only because she didn’t like my mother.

“How did Amanda Preakness die?”

“You won’t want to look at the photos. She drowned. In her tub. In chocolate syrup.”

“What?” She’d been slender enough to make Nancy Reagan look like a sumo wrestler. Tall and aristocratic, with a shock of white hair and a piercing stare, she could have dropped an enraged rhino with a glance. She always threw lavish parties but never ate more than a crumb. “Not possible.”

“Not only did she drown in the syrup, but her belly was stuffed full of chocolate bars. Junk food everywhere at the scene, all washed down with cheap soda.” Cate shook her head. “Nothing to suggest anything but an accidental death. Or suicide.”

“Neither of which could be reported, so her society friends wouldn’t snigger at her passing.” I frowned. “No leads?”

“Plenty. Problem’s no investigation. I pester Prout. He hears but doesn’t listen.”

“Which is odd since you suspect our killer is talented. ”

“Has to be. And strong.”

Just being born with talent isn’t enough. Talent needs a trigger, and not many folks find that trigger. Mine’s whiskey‑I discovered it when I was four by sucking drops from my old man’s shot glass after he passed out. The better the whiskey, the faster the power comes.

Once you find the trigger, you next have to learn your channel. For most folks it’s the elements: earth, air, fire or water. A talented gardener with an earth channel is good; one who works with plants is better. Some channels are a bit more esoteric, like emotions. I even met a guy whose channel was death.

Not really a fun guy, that one.

If there was a killer, knowing his trigger and channel would be useful. I could guess on the channel being emotional or biological, but that didn’t narrow things down much. More importantly, it really did nothing to figure out why the murders were taking place. Without a why, figuring out who was going to be tough.

I set the PDA down. “What’s in this for me?”

Cate rocked back. “Stopping a murderer isn’t enough?”

“Not like it’s my hobby. I work mopping up puke in a strip club. I know where I stand in the world. I don’t see this getting me ahead.”

“Maybe it won’t, Molloy, maybe it won’t.” Cate’s eyes half lidded, and she gave me a pretty good Preakness‑class glance. “Maybe it’ll stop you from sinking any lower.”

“Is that possible?”

“You’re not there yet.” Her expression hardened. “If you were, I’d ask if you had an alibi for when Anderson died.”

I guess being a murderer would be a step down. Not that I minded Anderson being dead. Given the right circumstances I might even have killed him. Or, at least, let him die. A shrink would have said it because he was a surrogate for my mother and that secretly I was wishing her dead.

There wasn’t any “secretly” about it. I knew I had to start with her, so I reluctantly left Cate. The part I was resisting was that seeing her would prove she was still alive.

I tried to look on the bright side.

Maybe she was sick, really, really sick.

And not just in the head this time.

The Anderson Estate up in Union Heights was hard to miss. Fortune 500 companies had smaller corporate headquarters. The fence surrounding it had just enough juice flowing through it to stun you; then the dogs would gnaw on you for a good long time.

The gate was already open, and a squad car was parked there. The officers waved me past, but it wasn’t any blue‑brotherhood thing. I’d never known them when I was on the force. I’d just gotten their asses out of trouble at the strip club.

Took me two minutes to reach the front door. Would have been longer, but I cut straight across the lawn. Wilkerson, the chief of staff‑which is how you now pronounce the word “butler”‑opened the door before I’d hit the top step. “It will do no good to say the lady of the house does not wish to see you, correct?”

He didn’t even wait for me to reply before he stepped aside. He looked me up and down once. He channeled my mother’s mortification, then led the way up the grand staircase to my mother’s dressing room. He hesitated for a moment and memorized the location of every item in the room, then reluctantly departed, confident the looting would begin once the door clicked shut.

The room was my mother: elegant, well appointed, tasteful, and traditional. I’m sure it was all “revival” something, but I couldn’t tell what. Even though she’d made an attempt to “civilize” me in my teens, very little had stuck. I did know that if it looked old, it was very old, including some Byzantine icons in the corner with a candle glowing in front of them. In a world where even people were disposable, antiques held a certain charm.

Not so my mother.

She swept into the room wearing a dark blue dressing gown‑clearly Anderson ’s‑and dabbed at her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief. Her eyes were puffy and rimmed with red. For a moment I believed she might have been crying for him, but grief I could have felt radiating out from her.

My mother doesn’t radiate emotions. She sucks them in. Like a black hole. I think that’s why her daughter is a nun in Nepal, I’m a waste of flesh, and my half‑brother is the Prince of Darkness.

“There’s nothing in his will for you, Patrick.”

“Good to see you, too, Mother. I hope he spent it all on himself.”

Her blue eyes tightened. “It’s in a trust, all of it, save for a few charitable donations.”

I chuckled. “That explains the tears. Hurts to still be on an allowance.”

“Yours is done, Patrick. I know he used to give you money.” She fingered the diamond‑encrusted crucifix at her throat. “He was too softhearted.”

“He gave me money once, and it wasn’t Christian charity.” I opened my hands. “I came from the crime scene…”

Her eyes widened. “You beast! If you breathe a word!” Tears flowed fast. “How much do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.” I shook my head. “Five people have died in the last two months, your husband included. All of them nasty. Sean Hogan, Amanda Preakness, Percival Kendall Ford, and Dorothy Kent.”

“Dottie? They said it was a botox allergy.”

“It doesn’t matter what they said, Mother.”

She blinked and quickly made the sign of the cross. “Are you confessing to me, Patrick? Have you done this? Have you come for me?”

“Stop!” I balled my fists and began to mutter. Like most folks, she bought into the Vatican version of the talented. She figured I was going sacrifice her to my Satanic Master, or at least turn her into a toad.

Tempting, so tempting.

She paled and then sat hard on a daybed. “I’ll do anything you ask, Patrick. You don’t want to hurt me, your mother.”

I snorted. If she had enough presence of mind to invoke the maternal bond, she wasn’t really shocked, just scheming. “How was Anderson hooked up with the others?”

“Hogan did the trust work, damn him. Everyone else we knew socially. The Club, of course, the Opera Society. Various nonprofit boards.” She paused, her eyes sharpening. “Yes, this is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Absolutely. They were all on the board of The Fellowship. All of them.” Her accusing finger quivered. “I never wanted him to have anything to do with that place, but he did, because of you. And now he’s dead.”

“The Fellowship never killed anyone.”

“They saved your life, Patrick. I know. He told me.” Her eyes became arctic slits. “If they hadn’t, if you were dead, my husband wouldn’t be. Dear God, I wish it were so.”

She burst into a series of sobs that were as piteous as they were fake, so I took my leave. It really hadn’t been her best effort at emotional torture. Anderson ’s death had hurt her. Probably it was more than having a leash on her spending. I wondered how long it would be until she realized that herself.

From the Heights I descended back into my realm. People in my mother’s class acknowledge it exists, but only just barely. It’s where they go slumming when cheating at golf has lost its thrill. For the rest of us it’s just a waiting room. Prison or death, those are your choices. Sure, you hear stories of someone making good and escaping. Never seems any of us down here knew them when; and they damned sure don’t know any of us now.

Reverend Martha Raines could have made it out, but she stayed by choice. She was kind of the “after” picture of Amanda Preakness doing a chocolate diet for a decade or two; but her brown eyes had never narrowed in anger. Not that she couldn’t be passionate. She could, and she often held forth at City Council meetings or prayer services. She kept her white hair long and wore it in a braid that she tied off with little beaded cords the children in her mission made for her.

She smiled broadly as I stepped through the door, and I couldn’t help but mirror it. Even before we could speak, she caught me in a hug and held on tight, even when I was ready to let go. She whispered, “You need this, Patrick.”

Maybe I did.

Finally she stepped back. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“No loss.”

She gave me a sidelong glance. “I seem to remember things a little bit differently.”

“You always think the best of everyone.”

“It’s a skill you could acquire.”

“I don’t like being disappointed.”

She slipped an arm around my waist and guided me into the mission. The Fellowship has built out through several warehouses and manufacturing buildings that, save for Martha’s fiery oratory, would have long since been converted into lofts. The city wanted this end of town gentrified and envisioned galleries and bistros. Martha thought buildings should house people and proved convincing when she addressed the City Council.

Things had changed a lot since I’d done my time in the mission. The first hall still served as church and dining facility, but the stacks of mattresses that used to be piled in the corner had moved deeper into the complex. The far wall had been decorated with a huge mural that looked like a detail piece of da Vinci’s Last Supper. Thirteen plates, each with a piece of bread on it; but one was already moldy. The style wasn’t quite right for da Vinci‑some of that stuff my mother had forced into my head was creeping back.

Martha smiled. “Our artist is very talented.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Talented? Or talented?”

“She’s a lot like you, Patrick.” Martha just smiled. “You’ll like her.”

“I need to ask you some questions.”

“About Bob Anderson?”

“About all of them.”

She studied my face for a moment, then led me over to a table and pulled out two chairs. She sat facing me and took my hands in hers. “They were all lovely people, every one of them. I know many people said bad things about them; but they had seen the work we do here. They wanted to help. They did things for us. Projects. Fundraisers. What they gave wasn’t much for them, but it was everything for us.”

I nodded. “When they died, they left the mission money.”

Martha drew back. “What are you suggesting?”

“There are idiots down here who figure that if you start making money, they want a piece. Criminals aren’t bright; and you’re a soft touch.”

“True on both counts.” She smiled. “But your step‑father and Sean Hogan were not stupid. Bequests go into a trust with a board of trustees who vote on capital expenses. I can’t really touch that money. More to the point, no one has tried to extort money.”

“No rivalries? No animosity on the committee?”

Martha smiled. “The meetings were all very pleasant.”

That didn’t surprise me. Martha had talent, though I wasn’t sure she knew it. Somehow her positive nature was infectious. When she gave a sermon, people listened and her words got inside them. She always exhorted folks to be their best selves. It was like a round of applause accompanied by a boot in the ass that left you wanting more of each.

It was her inclination to think the best of folks that had her believing Anderson ’s death was a loss. She remembered he’d pulled me out of the mission and had given me money. She thought I’d been rescued. My mother, having taken to Christianity like a drunk to vodka, had tried to save me a couple times before, especially after my father went away. Martha thought this was another instance of maternal concern.

Truth was, Anderson had been fed up. He just wanted me to stop embarrassing my mother. He wanted me gone from the city. By giving me money he hoped I’d crawl into some motel room and die anonymously, pretty much the way he did.

What goes around, comes around.

“Who else was on the committee?”

“No one, per se. They’d lined up a number of people to make donations. Let me get you a list.”

Martha left her chair, then waved a hand at a petite woman with white blonde hair and a pale complexion. She had freckles, but they were barely visible beneath a spattering of paint. “Leah, come here. I want you to meet Patrick Molloy. He used to live here, too.”

Leah smiled at me, all the way up into her blue eyes. I started liking her right then, because a lot of beautiful women would have been mortified to be introduced wearing overalls thick with paint. She wiped her hand on a rag, then offered it to me, bespeckled and smeared. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Molloy.”

“Trick.” She had a firm handshake, warm and dry. My flesh tingled as we touched. It was more than attraction. She truly was talented, but I was liking what I was seeing normally so much that I didn’t look at her through magick. That would have been an invasion of privacy‑the last bastion of privacy in the mission.

I nodded toward the mural. “Nice work.”

She smiled and reluctantly released my hand as Martha headed toward her office. “You recognize it as da Vinci, yes?”

“Not his style.”

“True. I interpreted it through vanitas. ”

“Uh‑huh.”

Leah laughed delightfully. “Sixteenth‑ and seventeenth century painters in Flanders and the Netherlands popularized the style. It’s still‑life with decay. It’s supposed to remind us that everything is fleeting and that we’ll die some day. But you knew that.”

It was my turn to laugh. “That’s maybe the one bit of art knowledge that stuck. I was in my nihilistic teen phase when I was force‑fed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“Art is something that everyone should experience because it helps them grow. You got it as though you were a veal calf being fattened up. No wonder you didn’t like it.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“But you don’t go to galleries or museums, do you?” She glanced down. “I used to, all the time. I’d sit and sketch. I’d see the work through the artist’s eyes, and then I’d endure watching boorish people troop through, or school kids rushed through with only enough time to look at the back of the kid in front of them. They were walking through beauty and saw none of it. Yet the teachers and the parents all thought the kids were getting culture.”

“They were, it was just the McRembrandt version of it.”

She snorted out a little laugh but didn’t look up. “I kind of lost it. Nervous breakdown. That’s how I ended up here. Martha’s very good at putting puzzles back together.”

I nodded, reached up, and parted my hair. “You can’t even see the joints anymore.”

Leah laughed openly, warmly, and looked up again. “She said you could be cold, but I don’t get that. And she said you could be trusted.”

“She’s right on both counts.”

“I’m right? I guess my work here is done.” Martha handed me a printout of the recent donors to the mission. “The initials after each name indicates the contact.”

“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure what the list would get me, but if the Fellowship was the connection, it was a vector in. “I guess I have to go to work.”

Martha smiled. “You go, but you’re going to come back later. We’ll be having a big crowd tonight, and I need an extra hand on the soup line.”

Leah nodded. “You soup them, I’ll bread them.”

I studied her face, then smiled pretty much against my will. “I think I’d like that.”

Back in the street, my phone rang.

Cate. “ 4721 Black Oak Road. You want to be here now.”

“Who?”

“E. Theodore Carlson.”

I glanced at the printout. “We have a winner.”

“I’d hate to see what happened to the loser. Hurry, Trick. It’s not pretty, and it isn’t going to get any better with time.”

Cate wasn’t kidding. The corpse was ripe. He’d been dead a couple of days. Carlson had a reputation as a food critic and gourmand who got himself a cooking show and sold a lot of cookbooks and spices. While he liked exotic stuff, his critics claimed he simplified things for the common man. He took folks living hand to mouth and made them think they were mastering haut cuisine.