Dead Beat Page 12

Chapter 15~16

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gentleman Johnnie Marcone was the most powerful figure in Chicago 's criminal underworld. If there was an illegal enterprise afoot, Marcone was either in charge of it or had been paid for the privilege of its operating in his territory. Bony Tony had done most of a dime in a federal penitentiary for trafficking in narcotics, and after that he'd moved into less politically incorrect areas of the business. He mostly dealt in moving stolen goods, everything from jewels to hot furniture.

  I wasn't sure exactly where Bony Tony ranked in Marcone's criminal hierarchy, but Marcone wasn't the sort of person who would take the murder of one of his people lightly-not without his approval, at any rate. Marcone would know about Bony Tony's death soon, if he didn't already. He was sure to get involved in one fashion or another, and the best way for him to get to whoever had killed Bony Tony would be to get his hands on whatever it was they wanted.

  I had to get Butters somewhere safe, the quicker the better. But until I knew what was on that storage device, I couldn't judge what would be safe for him and what wouldn't.

  "Harry," Butters said, as if he was repeating himself.

  I blinked a couple of times. "What?"

  "Do you want to hang on to this?" he said in the same tone. He stepped over to me and offered me the little slip of plastic.

  "No!" I snapped, and took two steps back. "Butters, get that the hell away from me. "

  He froze in place, staring at me, his expression somewhere between confused and wounded. "I'm sorry. "

  I took in a deep breath. Where the hell was my concentration? This was no time to start spacing out on trains of thought, no matter how relevant to the circumstances. "Don't be," I said. "Look, that thing doesn't have any moving parts, right? Electronic storage?"

  "Yeah. "

  "Then I don't dare touch it," I said. "Remember how messed up my X-rays were?"

  He nodded. "You're saying that the data on here could get messed up the same way. "

  "I couldn't ever have cassette tapes after I started working magic," I said. "They'd just fade away into static after a while. The magnetic strips on my credit cards stopped working in a day or two. "

  Butters chewed on his lip and nodded slowly. "The data on the jump drive would be even more fragile than a magnetic strip. It might make sense if it was some kind of erratic electromagnetic field around you. Every human body gives off a unique field of electromagnetic energy. It could be like with your cell replication, that your field is more-"

  "Butters," I said, "no time for that now. The important thing is that I don't dare touch that toy. " I frowned, thinking out loud. "Or take it back to my place, either. The wards keep magic out, but they keep it in, too. It would probably fry it to hang around in there for too long. Even working any heavy energy around it could be dangerous. "

  "Well, that's stupid," Butters said. "I mean, storing important wizard information on something that getting close to a wizard would destroy. "

  "It's not stupid if you want to sell it to a wizard and you're worried the buyer might off you instead of dealing in good faith," I said.

  Butters looked at the corpse and then back at me. "You think Grevane killed Bony Tony?"

  "Yeah," I said. "But Grevane knew that he couldn't get to the information on that jump drive on his own. "

  Butters swallowed. "Which explains why he needed me. "

  "Yeah. " I chewed on my lip for a second and then said, "Get Bony Tony back in the fridge. We're leaving. "

  Butters nodded and went back to the examining table. He threw the cloth over the corpse. "Where?"

  "Can you read that thing here?"

  "No," Butters said. "This computer is too old. It has the wrong ports. We could go to one of the other offices, maybe-"

  "No. We need to get out of here-now. "

  "We could go to my place," Butters suggested.

  "No. Grevane will definitely have it under surveillance. Dammit. "

  "Why dammit?"

  "We're short on options, and that means we have to go someplace I didn't want to go. "

  "Where?" he asked.

  "A friend's. Come on. "

  "Right," Butters said, and promptly walked over to his polka suit. He heaved up a couple of pieces. The cymbals clashed tinnily against one another.

  "What are you doing?" I demanded. "We've got to go. "

  "I'm not leaving it here for God knows what to mess with," Butters said. He grunted and threw a strap awkwardly over his shoulder. The bass drum rumbled.

  "Yes, you are," I said. "We are not taking it with us. We don't have time for this. "

  Butters turned to face me, his expression stricken.

  That stupid polka suit filled up most of the back of the SUV It was a pain to move it without making a bunch of noise, but in the end we managed to slip out the back door of the Forensic Institute and make a clean getaway. I watched the road behind us carefully, until I was sure that I wasn't being followed. Then I headed for the campus area, and Billy's apartment.

  I pulled into the apartment's parking lot, leaned out, and yelled, "Hey!"

  A young man with arms and legs a few sizes too large to match his body appeared from behind the corner of the building, frowning. He was dressed in sweats, a T-shirt, and boat shoes, standard easily discarded werewolf wardrobe for troubled times. He flipped an untidy mop of black hair out of his eyes and leaned against the SUV's door. "Hey, Harry. "

  "Kirby," I greeted him. "This is my friend Butters. " Kirby nodded to Butters and asked me, "Did you spot me?"

  "No, but Billy always has someone on watch outside when times are tense. "

  Kirby nodded, his expression serious. "What do you need?"

  "Park this beast for me. I keep running into things. "

  "Sure. Billy and Georgia are upstairs. "

  I got out of the car, and Butters hopped out with me. "Thanks, man. "

  "Yeah," Kirby said. He got in the SUV and frowned. He looked around at all the doors.

  "The door is ajar," the dashboard said.

  "It won't shut up," I explained to him.

  "It gets sort of Zen after a while," Butters said brightly. "Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is a jar. "

  Kirby gave him a skeptical look. I grabbed Butters by the shoulder and hauled him into the building and up to the apartment.

  Billy opened the door before we even got to it, and looked out expectantly. He stepped a bit to one side, holding the door open for us, watching up and down the hallway. "Heya, Harry. "

  The apartment was a typical college place-small, a couple of bedrooms, nothing permanent on the walls, furniture that wasn't too expensive or hard to move, and equipped with an expensive entertainment center. Georgia sat on the couch reading from one of a small mountain of medical books. I walked in and introduced everyone.

  "I need a computer," I told Billy.

  He arched an eyebrow at me.

  I waved a hand in a vague motion. "Tell him, Butters. "

  Butters pulled the jump drive from his pocket and showed it to Billy. "Anything with a USB port. "

  Georgia frowned and asked, "What's on it?"

  "I'm not sure," I said. "I need to know. "

  She nodded. "Better let him use the one on the far wall of the computer room, Will. The farther from Harry the better. "

  "Feel the love. " I sighed. I pointed at the little table next to the door and asked, "Can I make a few calls while I wait?"

  "Sure. " Billy turned to Butters. "Right this way. "

  They went into one of the bedrooms. Georgia went back to her book. I picked up the phone.

  The phone at my place rang a dozen times before it rattled, and then Thomas slurred, "What?"

  "It's me," I said. "You all right?"

  "I was all right. I was asleep. Stupid Mouse woke me up to get the phone. "

  "Any sign of visitors? Calls?"

&nbs
p; "No and no," he said.

  "Get some more sleep," I said.

  He made a grunting noise and hung up.

  I called my answering service next. They had recently phased over to stored voice mail. I was suspicious of it on general principles. From a purely logical standpoint, I knew my issues with technology wouldn't extend all the way across town over the phone lines, but all the same I didn't trust it. I would much rather have dealt with an actual person taking messages, but it cost too much now to keep someone manning the phones when voice mail could do all the work. I punched the buttons and had to go through all the menus only twice to get it to work.

  Beeeeeep. "Harry, it's Murphy. We got into Hawaii all right, and there was no problem with the hotel, so you can reach me at those contact numbers. I'll call in again in a couple of-" Her voice broke off into a sudden high-pitched noise. "Would you stop that?" she demanded, with a lot more laughter than anger in her voice. "I'm on the phone. In a couple of days, Harry. Thanks for taking care of my pants. Er, plants, plants. " Beeeeeep.

  I wondered what had caused Murphy to make a high-pitched noise and a big old Freudian slip. And I wondered what to read into the fact that she had left me a message instead of calling me at home. Probably nothing. She probably didn't want to wake me up or something. Yeah. She was probably only thinking of me.

  Beeeeep. "Harry. Mike. The Beetle will be ready at noon. " Beeeeep.

  God bless Mechanic Mike. If I heard a car complaining about its closed doors being open one more time, I would have to disintegrate something.

  Beeeeep. "Oh," said a young woman's voice. "Mister Dresden? It's Shiela Starr. We met at Bock Ordered Books last night?" There was the sound of her taking an unsteady breath. "I wondered if I could ask for a few minutes of your time. There have been. . . I mean, I'm not completely certain but. . . I think something is wrong. Here at the store, I mean. " She let out a snippet of laughter that was half anxiety and half weariness. "Oh, hell, I probably sound crazy, but I would really like to speak to you about it. I'll be at the shop until noon. Or you can call my apartment. " She gave me the number. "I hope you can come by the store, though. I would really appreciate it. " Beeeep.

  I found myself frowning. Shiela hadn't said it outright, but she had sounded pretty scared. That wasn't terribly surprising, given what she'd probably seen happening right outside Bock's shop the night before, but it made me feel uncomfortable to hear fear in her voice. Or maybe it's more correct to say that I'm not comfortable with fear in any woman's voice.

  It's not my fault. I know it's sexist and macho, and it's retrograde social evolution, but I hate it when bad things happen to women. Don't get me wrong; I hate bad things to happen to anyone-but when it's a woman that's in danger, I hate it with a reflexive, bone-deep, primal mindlessness that borders on insanity. Women are beautiful creatures, and dammit, I enjoy making sure that they're safe and treating them with old-fashioned manners and courtesy. It just seems right. I'd suffered for thinking that way more than once, but it still didn't change the way I felt.

  Shiela was a girl, and she was scared. Therefore, if I wanted to have any peace of mind, I was going to have to go talk to her.

  I checked the clock. Eleven. She was still at the store.

  I dialed one more number, and got an answering machine with no message, only a tone. "This is Dresden," I told the machine. "And we need to talk. "

  Butters and Billy reappeared. I hung up the phone and asked them, "Well?"

  "Numbers," said Billy.

  "More specific?" I asked.

  Butters shook his head. "It's hard to be any more specific than that. There was only one file on the jump drive, and it was empty. The only information on it was the file name, and it was just a number. " He offered me a piece of white paper with a string of numerals printed on it in his spidery scrawl. I counted. There were sixteen of them. "That's it. "

  I took the paper and frowned at the numbers. "That is spectacularly useless. "

  "Yeah," Butters said quietly.

  I rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "Okay. Let me think. " I tried to prioritize. Grevane was out there looking for Butters. Maybe Marcone was looking for him too. Maybe the dead professor's two assistants to boot. "Butters, we have to get you behind my wards again. "

  He blinked at me. "But why? I mean, they wanted me so that they could get to the information. I'm useless to them now. "

  "You and I know that. They don't. "

  "Oh. "

  "Billy," I said, "could you please take Butters over to my place?"

  "No problem," he said. "What about you? Won't you need wheels?"

  "The Beetle is ready. I'll take a cab. "

  "I can drop you off," Billy offered.

  "No. It's the opposite way from my apartment, and Butters needs to get there yesterday. Go around the block once or twice before you pull in. Make sure no one is watching the door. "

  Billy smiled. "I know the drill. "

  "Don't try to open the door yourself, Butters. Knock and wait for Thomas to do it. "

  "Right. " Butters fretted at his lip a little. "What are you going to be doing?"

  "Detective stuff. I have places to go and people to see. "

  And with a little luck, none of them would kill me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Billy's apartment was only a couple of blocks from Bock Ordered Books, and while I could have taken a couple of alleys to make the trip even shorter, I kept on the open streets, where there were plenty of people. I didn't see anyone following me, but if there was a good enough team on me-or if they were using veils to hide their presence, of course-I might miss them. I kept my staff in my right hand and made sure my shield bracelet was ready, in case anyone tried some kind of variant on the old drive-up assassination. I'd survived them before, but the classics never go out of style.

  I got to Bock's in one piece, and no one so much as glared at me. I felt sort of rejected, but comforted myself with the knowledge that there were at least half a dozen people in town who were sure to keep making my life dangerous. More if you counted Mavra, who technically wasn't a person.

  Bock didn't open the doors of his store until eleven, so when I went in I was probably the first one to show up for the day. I paused outside the door. Two of the store windows and the glass panel of the door were all gone, replaced by rough sheets of plywood. Bock had gotten off better than the boutique next door-all the glass was gone, doubtless shattered by one kind of flying debris or another during my conversation with Cowl and his sidekick. I went inside.

  Bock was at his place behind the counter, and looked tired. He glanced up at the sound of his door chimes. His expression became something closed and cautious when he saw me.

  "Bock," I said. "You here all night?"

  "End- of-the-month inventory," he said, his voice careful and quiet. "And repairing the windows. What do you need?"

  I looked around the inside of the store. Shiela appeared from behind one of the shelves at the back of the store, looking anxious. She saw me and exhaled a little, then gave me a quiet smile.

  "Just here to talk," I told Bock, nodding toward Shiela.

  He glanced at her, then back at me, frowning. " Dresden. There's something I need to say to you. "

  I arched an eyebrow at him. "What's wrong?"

  "Look. I don't want to make you upset. "

  I leaned on my staff. "Bock, come on. You've known me ever since I came to town. If something's wrong, you aren't going to upset me by telling me about it. "

  He folded his thick forearms over his paunch and said, "I don't want you coming into my store anymore. "

  I leaned on my staff a little more. "Oh. "

  "You're a decent enough man. You've never jumped down my throat like the other folks from the Council. You've helped people around here. " He took a deep breath and made a vague gesture toward the plywood patches on his shop. "But you're trouble. It follows you around.
"

  Which was true enough. I didn't say anything.

  "Not everyone can drop a car on someone who attacks them," Bock went on. "I've got a family. My oldest is in college. I can't afford to have the place wrecked. "

  I nodded. I could understand Bock's position. It's terrifying to feel helpless in the face of a greater power-more so than it is painful to be told you aren't wanted somewhere.

  "Look. If you need anything, give me a call. I'll order it or pull it off the shelves for you. Will or Georgia can come pick it up. But. . . "

  "Okay," I said. My throat felt a little tight.

  Bock's face got red. He looked away from me, at the ruined door. "I'm sorry. "

  "Don't be," I said. "I understand. I'm sorry about your shop. "

  He nodded.

  "I'm just here for a minute. After that I'll go. "

  "Right," he said.

  I walked down the aisles back to Shiela, and nodded to her. "I got your message. "

  Shiela was wearing the same clothes as the night before, only more rumpled. She'd pulled her hair back and held it in place with a pair of ballpoint pens thrust through a knot at right angles. With her hair like that, it showed the pale, clean lines of her jaw and throat, and I was again struck by the impulse to run my fingers over her skin and see if it was as soft as it looked.

  She glanced at Bock, then smiled up at me and touched my arm with her hand. "I'm sorry he did that. It isn't fair of him. "

  "No. It's fair enough. He has the right to protect himself and his business," I said. "I don't blame him. "

  She tilted her head to one side, studying my face. "But it hurts anyway?"

  I shrugged. "Some. I'll survive. " The chimes rung at the front of the store as another customer came in. I glanced back at Bock, and sighed. "Look, I don't want to be here very long. What did you need?"

  She brushed back a few strands of hair that had escaped the knot. "I. . . well, I had a strange experience last night. "

  I lifted my eyebrows. "Go on. "

  She picked up a small stack of books and started shelving them as she spoke. "After all the excitement, I went back to the inventory in the back room, and Mr. Bock had gone to get the plywood for the windows. I thought I heard the chimes ring, but when I looked no one was there. "

  "Uh- huh," I said.

  "But. . . " She frowned. "You know how when you go into an empty house, you know it's empty? How it just feels empty?"

  "Sure," I said. I watched her stretch up onto the tips of her toes to put a book away on the top shelf. It drew her sweater up a little, and I could see muscles move under a swath of the pale skin of her lower back.

  "The store didn't feel empty," she said, and I saw her shiver. "I never saw anyone, never heard anyone. But I was sure someone was here. " She glanced back at me and flushed. "I was so nervous I could hardly think straight until the sun came up. "

  "Then what?" I asked.

  "It went away. I felt a little silly. Like I was a scared little kid. Or one of those dogs that's staring at something growling when nothing is there. "

  I shook my head. "Dogs don't just stare and growl for no reason. Sometimes they can perceive things people can't. "

  She frowned. "Do you think something was here?"

  I didn't want to tell her that I thought a Black Court vampire had been lurking unseen in the shop. Hell, for that matter I didn't particularly want to think about it. If Mavra had been here, there wouldn't have been anything Shiela or Bock could do to defend themselves against her.

  "I think you wouldn't be foolish to trust your instincts," I said. "You've got a little talent. It's possible you were sensing something too vague for you to understand in any other way. "

  She put the last book away and turned to face me. She looked tired. Fear made her expression one of sickness, an ugly contortion. "Something was here," she whispered.

  "Maybe," I said, nodding.

  "Oh, God. " She tightened her arms across her stomach. "I. . . I might be sick. "

  I leaned my staff against the shelf and put a hand on her shoulder, steadying her. "Shiela. Take a few deep breaths. It's not here now. "

  She looked up at me, her expression miserable, her eyes wet and shining. "I'm sorry. I mean, you don't need this. " She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, and more tears fell. "I'm sorry. "

  Oh, hell. Tears. Way to go, Dresden -terrify the local maiden you showed up to comfort. I drew Shiela a little toward me, and she leaned against me gratefully. I put my arm around her shoulders and let her lean against me for a minute. She shivered with silent tears for a little bit and then pulled herself together.

  "Does this happen to you a lot?" she asked in a quiet voice, sniffling.

  "People get scared," I murmured. "There's nothing wrong with that. There are scary things out there. "

  "I feel like a coward. "

  "Don't," I told her. "All it means is that you aren't an idiot. "

  She straightened and took a step back. Her face looked a little blotchy. Some women can cry and look beautiful, but Shiela wasn't one of them. She took off her glasses and wiped at her eyes. "What do I do if it happens again?"

  "Tell Bock. Get somewhere public," I said. "Call the cops. Or better yet, call Billy and Georgia. If what you felt really was some kind of predator, they won't want to stick around if they know they've been spotted. "

  "You sound as if you've dealt with them before," she said.

  I smiled a little. "Maybe a time or two. "

  She smiled up at me, and it was a grateful expression. "It must be very lonely, doing what you do. "

  "Sometimes," I said.

  "Always being so strong when others can't. That's. . . well, it's sort of heroic. "

  "It's sort of idiotic," I replied, my voice dry. "Heroism doesn't pay very well. I try to be cold-blooded and money-oriented, but I keep screwing it up. "

  She let out a little laugh. "You fail to live up to your ideals, eh?"

  "Nobody's perfect. "

  She tilted her head again, eyes bright. "Are you with someone?"

  "Just you. "

  "Not with them. With them. "

  "Oh," I said. "No. Not really. "

  "If I asked you to come have dinner out with me, would it seem too forward and aggressive?"

  I blinked. "You mean. . . like a date?"

  Her smile widened. "You do. . . you know. . . like women? Right?"

  "What?" I said. "Oh, yes. Yes. I'm down with the women. "

  "By coincidence I happen to be a woman," she said. She touched my arm again. "And since it seems like I might not get a chance to flirt with you a little more while I'm at work, I thought I had better ask you now. So is that a yes?"

  The prospect of a date seemed to me like a case of bad timing in several ways. But it also seemed like a good idea. I mean, it had been a while since a girl had been interested in me in a nonprofessional sense.

  Well. A human girl, anyway. The only one who even came close was in Hawaii with someone else, giggling and thinking about pants. It might be really nice just to be out talking and interacting with an attractive girl. God knows it would beat hanging around my crowded apartment.

  "It's a yes," I said. "I'm kind of busy right now, but. . . "

  "Here," she said. She took a black marker out of a pocket in her sweater and grabbed my right hand. She wrote numbers on it in heavy black strokes. "Call me here, maybe tonight, and we'll figure out when. "

  I let her do it, amused. "All right. "

  She popped the cap back on the marker and smiled up at me. "All right, then. "

  I picked up my staff. "Shiela, look. I might not be around this place. I'll respect Bock's wishes. But let him know that if there's any trouble, all he has to do is call me. "

  She shook her head, smiling. "You're a decent person, Harry Dresden. "

  "Don't spread that around too much," I said, and started for the door.


  And froze in my tracks.

  Standing in the little entry area of the bookstore, facing Bock at his counter, were Alicia and the ghoul, Li Xian.

  I stepped back to Shiela and pulled her around the corner of a shelf.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "Quiet," I said. I closed my eyes and Listened.

  ". . . a simple question," Alicia was saying. "Who bought it?"

  "I don't keep track of my customers," Bock replied. His voice was polite, but it had an undertone of granite. "I'm sorry, but I just don't have that information. A lot of people come through here. "

  "Really?" Alicia asked. "And how many of them purchase rare and expensive antique books from you?"

  "You'd be surprised. "

  Alicia let out a nasty little laugh. "You really aren't going to volunteer the information, are you?"

  "I don't have it to volunteer," Bock said. "Both copies of the book were bought yesterday. Both were men, one older and one younger. I don't remember anything more than that. "

  I heard a couple of footsteps, and Li Xian said, "Perhaps you need help remembering. "

  There was the distinct, heavy click of a pair of hammers on a shotgun being drawn back. "Son," Bock said in that same voice, "you'll want to step away from the counter and leave my shop now. "

  "It would appear that the good shopkeeper has taken sides on this matter," Alicia said.

  "You're wrong, miss," Bock said. "I run this shop. I don't give information. I don't take sides. If I had a third copy, I'd sell it to you. I don't. Both of you leave, please. "

  "I don't think you understand," Alicia said. "I'm not leaving here until I have an answer to my question. "

  "I don't think you understand," Bock replied. "There's a ten-gauge shotgun wired under this counter. It's loaded, cocked, and pointing right at your bellies. "

  "Oh, my," Alicia said, her voice amused. "A shotgun. Xian, whatever shall we do?"

  I ground my teeth. Bock had asked me to stay away, but even so he was standing there protecting my identity, even though he knew damned well that the two in front of him were dangerous.

  I checked. The door to the back room of the shop was open. "The back door," I said to Shiela in a whisper. "Is it locked?"

  "Not from this side. "

  "Go into the back room and get in the office," I said. "Get on the floor and stay there. Now. "

  She looked up at me with wide eyes and then hurried back through the open door.

  I gripped my staff and closed my eyes, thinking. I patted my duster's pocket. The book was still there, riding along with my. 44. Ghouls were hard to kill. I had no idea what Alicia was, but I was willing to bet she wasn't a mere academic assistant. For her to command the respect of a creature like Li Xian, she had to be major-league dangerous. It would be an extremely foolish idea to assault them.

  But that didn't matter. If I didn't do something, they were going to get unpleasant at Bock. Bock might not have been a stalwart companion who stuck through thick and thin, but he was what he was: an honest shopkeeper who wanted neither to become involved in supernatural power struggles nor to compromise his principles. If I did nothing, he was going to get hurt while protecting me.

  I stepped around the shelf and started walking toward the front of the store.

  Bock sat in his spot behind the counter, one hand gripping its edge in a white-knuckled grasp, the other out of sight below it. Alicia and Li Xian stood in front of it. She looked relaxed. The ghoul was slouched into an eager stance, knees bent a little, arms hanging loosely.

  "Shopkeeper, I will ask you one last time," Alicia said. "Who purchased the last copy of Die Lied der Erlking?" She lifted her left hand and faint heat shimmers rose from her fingers along with a whisper of dark power. "Tell me his name. "

  I drew in my will, lifted my staff, and snarled, "Forzare!"

  The runes on the staff burst into smoldering scarlet light. There was a thunderstorm's roar, and raw power, invisible and solid, lashed out of the end of my staff. It whipped across the shop, knocking books from the shelves on the way, and hit the ghoul in the chest. It lifted him off his feet and sent him smashing into the plywood-covered door. He went through the wood without slowing down, out over the sidewalk, and into the wall of the building across the street, where he hit with a crunch.

  Alicia spun toward me, her eyes wide and shocked.

  I stood with my feet spread. My shield bracelet was on my left hand, thrumming with power and drizzling blue-white sparks. My staff smoldered with the scent of fresh-burned wood, and the scarlet runes shone in the darkness at the back of the store. I pointed it directly at Alicia.

  "His name," I snarled, "is Harry Dresden. "