Murder and Mayhem (29 page)

The rain began to turn icy, and Dante sprinted across a broad cement sidewalk scribbled with a pastel hopscotch game. A few feet away, two teenaged girls sat giggling at a coffee shop table, cowering beneath a narrow awning as they tried to wash chalk daubs from their hands. Hank was close on Dante’s heels, shaking himself off like a soaked golden retriever once he reached the overhang stretched along the curio shop’s front. Taking the package out from under his jacket, Hank inspected the paper, showing Dante the outer wrapping was dry.

“We’re all good.” He shivered. “Shit, it’s cold.”

“Probably warmer inside.” Dante opened the door, striking a tiny bell dangling above the jamb.

“You sure Stevens didn’t call ahead and kill the deal?” Hank paused at the threshold. “Right now, this is our only lead. Nothing else is panning out.”

“Yeah, pretty sure.” He dug through his pocket, found what he’d taken off Rook before he left Potter’s Field, then held it up for Hank to see. “I took his phone too.”

“Fucker!” Rook spit at his own front door. “Son of a fucking bitch!”

There had to be a level past anger. Some point beyond boiling rage and straight through magma fury. Either way, Rook knew he’d reached it. A pair of handcuffs dangled from his left wrist, and another remained fastened to the headboard frame Dante’d bound him to. Too pissed off to remove the other bracelet, it jangled and sang as Rook pounded at the heavy door Dante’d somehow wedged from the outer hall.

“That’s what you get for trusting a cop, asshole,” he raged at himself, pacing off a few feet before returning to pound at the door. “Son of a….”

Cursing wasn’t going to get him very far. It felt good, but other than leaving him dead tired, it wasn’t good for much. A part of him wanted to call JoJa’s and tell the women not to talk to Dante, anything to set the cops back a few steps, but the memory of Archie’s gaunt, pale body lying in a cold hospital bed stopped him in his tracks.

He also apparently didn’t have a phone. And his laptop was probably keeping his cell phone company.

“I can’t believe he did that to me. Fucking… cop,” Rook growled. “Okay, screw him. I’m leaving. I’m not waiting for Charlene to get me out. She’ll laugh her fucking weave off.”

Getting out was… complicated. Scaling the side of the sheer-faced building was out. His harness and ropes were stored away in the warehouse not far from where Dante and Hank were shaking JoJo and Janet for information. Not to mention the damned storm hammering the outside walls. Rappelling in the rain sucked. He’d done it before but in full equipment.

And he hadn’t had the threat of someone picking him off the wall like a clay pigeon at the time either.

“Tear the place apart just to get the fuck out of here?” The chill rooms were metal boxes laid into the brick wall without room for him to squeeze through to get to the hallway outside of his front door. In ensuring there was no direct access to the loft from the elevator or stairwell, he’d effectively imprisoned himself with his paranoia. “Pride isn’t worth breaking anything, Rook. How hard is it to just fucking wait? Sit down. Charlene’s going to be here soon.”

A few minutes later, he’d shed the other handcuff and was already climbing the walls.

“Screw this. The door can come fucking down for all I care.
Shit
. Dude. God, Rook, you are
so
fucking stupid.” Taking a deep breath, Rook stalked over to the island separating the loft’s kitchen from its living space. A quick rifle through a catchall drawer provided him with what he needed, and Rook went around to the front of the island, armed with a screwdriver and a sharpened temper. “Okay, Dante.
Now
I’m aimin’ to misbehave.”

He’d debated long and hard over a bottle of tequila and regrets the first night he’d opened up the loft after its initial renovations. The chill rooms were empty narrow coffins of cold air and maybes, and the only furniture in the whole space was the king-sized mattress, box spring, and frame he’d spent way too much money on. Standing in the empty expanse, Rook’d wondered where he was going to put the remains of his past life.

Because he’d had no intention of ever going back to it. None whatsoever.

But the thought of tossing away nearly a decade and a half of hard work and cheap thrills seemed… sacrilegious. Especially since he wasn’t quite sure he’d be cut out for a normal life.

“You’re getting the shit shot out of you, and you’re related to a man Genghis Khan would be terrified of,” Rook reminded himself sharply. “How the fuck is this a normal life?”

Because now, he had a cop. A cop who thought nothing of clicking a pair of bracelets on his wrist and ankle just to keep him safe… or contained. Rook hadn’t quite decided which, but he was more than willing to hear Dante’s stumbling excuses about why he’d done it.

“So going to fucking do the same thing to him one day. Just when he least expects it. Going to take those damned handcuffs and….” The thought of Dante’s muscular body stretched out on his bed made Rook hard. It was difficult enough to think. He didn’t need the image of golden skin, wicked smiles, and a dick stiff enough to hammer nails with in his mind as he worked. “Okay, handcuffs later. Breaking shit open happens now.”

The island was a solid build. He’d made sure of it. Now it was time to crack it open.

“Next time, just put a door. What the hell were you thinking?” Rook felt along the panel’s edge, looking for the slight depressions he knew were there. His fingertips were less sensitive than they’d been in the past. Years out of the trade meant he’d lost a bit of his touch and instincts, but Rook closed his eyes and let his intuition guide him back to where he needed to be.

He’d been good—damned good—at what he’d done. There wasn’t a house or building he couldn’t get into. He just hadn’t realized one day, he’d have to actually break himself out. Letting his mind wander, he dove down into the nothingness he kept in his mind, skimming the surface of his thoughts until nothing remained by the sound of the rain pounding at the glass and the feel of fine wood beneath his fingers.

“There you are.” Keeping his finger on the spot, Rook guided the edge of the screwdriver under the hidden tab, then popped it out. After finding the remaining three, he sat back on his haunches and took a deep breath. “Just open it, stupid. Not like you’re going to be cracking safes or anything. You’re just going to get the hell out of your own house.”

Twisting the locking screws open, Rook heard a click, and the hidden door he’d installed on the back of the island swung open.

His hands shook a little—he wasn’t too proud to admit that. When he reached for the pouches he’d left rolled up on the narrow spacers built in behind the island’s drawers, he had to shake his hands out before he touched the waterproofed fabric. Placing the bundled-up rolls onto the counter, he took a second before untying them, steeling himself for the rush he knew would hit his blood as soon as he saw his old tools.

He shouldn’t have waited. Or perhaps waited longer, because the adrenaline hit him, and it felt nearly as good as Dante making him come.

Everyone’s kit was different. Some preferred a brutal smash and grab, but Rook learned quickly that it was a dirty way to go. He might as well call the cops himself if he’d done that. Instead, he’d gone with finesse, sets of picks and electronic sniffers, trinkets he’d known better than he’d known his own soul. Sadly, none of them would help him now. Instead, Rook grabbed the long tube set diagonally into the space, popped its lid, then shook out the telescoping baton he’d hacked into years ago.

“Ah, I think
you’ll
work.” It was a piece he’d used only once or twice before. A pair of snips, a hollowed-out baton, and cables attached to a squeezing clamp on the fat end of the stick made for an ugly tool, but when he’d needed something a bit more flexible to ease around a heavy door to cut open a chain, it’d worked. A large compact mirror fixed to a long stem would give him an idea of where he needed to go, and the roll of duct tape from the junk drawer would help him get there.

The segments jiggled as he approached the door. Once he had them through the tiny slit he could make by leaning on the door, he’d tighten the cables to give himself enough tension to cut through whatever Dante used to string the lock closed. Angling the mirrored tool first, Rook found the view he needed, then duct-taped the stem into place.

“Really? A zip tie?” Rook shook his head as he worked the segments out through the crack. Guessing at the length he needed, the articulated baton would barely reach, and he once again questioned his wisdom in using the space’s original wide, heavy door. “’Course, this was a damned dance studio. What the hell was that teacher trying to keep out? Zombies on a ballerina-only diet?”

A twist of his shoulder, and he brought the snips into contact with the zip tie, then pulled on the cables to snap the baton into its rigid form. The shears closed down on the ties, their sharp edges easily slicing through the thick plastic, and the door gave way, sliding quickly out on its greased rails and into the hallway beyond.

“Great, fucker turned off the elevator from downstairs. Stairs it is.” Taking the dimly lit stairwell down meant meandering through the maze of corridors below, but without a landline in the loft, Rook didn’t have a choice. He got to the bottom quickly, hoping to use the shop’s phone to call one of Archie’s pet gorillas to come get him, then grinned when struck by a sinister plan. “Shit no. I’ll call Manny. Bring his uncle over. That’ll teach him.”

There didn’t have to be much spin on the story. The handcuffs, combined with the whole Dante fucked him over and left him, would be enough to score sympathy with the tenderhearted ex-drag queen. Stalking through the back of the shop on his bare feet, Rook quietly rehearsed what he was going to say, looking for the right tone to lay down to work Manny over.

A light was on. From the corona leaking out into the narrow corridor, it looked like one of the overhead lights in the main sales room was shining at full sunburst. Grumbling, Rook headed to the front, realizing too late he should have put shoes on before walking across the shot-up storefront. A sliver of something caught his toe, and he had to stop to yank it out. Hopping around on one foot, he reached out to balance himself on one of the few tall display cases left intact after the decimating firefights prone to erupt in his shop. He’d just gotten the speck of metal out when Rook heard heavy footsteps stomping across the store’s main floor.

“Dante, that better be you. I swear to God, if you’re turning this into some fucking horror flick and try to scare the shit out of me, I’m going to be pissed,” Rook grumbled, watching his step as he headed to the phone. Emerging from the back corridor, Rook passed the elevator, then turned the corner. “Because
really
? Do you see me as the damned plucky cheerleader?”

And right into the one person he least wanted to run into—Dante’s missing Betty.

Standing side by side, JoJo and Janet were as different as salt and pepper. Both were sweet faced and dressed in clothes Manny would call midcentury retro, but where JoJo was a brightly hued mod-inspired peacock of a woman, Janet was more subdued Woodstock fertility goddess, a study in earth tones and gravitas. Built generously, they sat as Rhyme and Reason personified behind the counter of their shop, majestically curious at the pair of detectives wandering about.

“You know, we don’t do….” Janet began to speak, then looked at her younger partner. “Rook
did
tell you we don’t take in stolen goods anymore.”

“He mentioned it,” Dante murmured softly.

“Dante. That’s a neat name.” JoJo cocked her head and smiled, her green-shot ponytails bobbing about her ears.

“My mother teaches literature. She named me after Alighieri.” He picked up a crystal pyramid from the counter, his heart skipping a beat when he saw the price tag on its bottom. Carefully putting it back down, he said, “JoJo’s interesting. I box at a gym called JoJo’s.”

“It’s a cool name. I kind of want to get a goldfish or something and call it MoJo.” The woman fussed with a quiver of quill pens sticking up from a mug bearing the shop’s name. “It’d be better if it was a monkey, but that’s a hell of a commitment.”

A full set of armor stood proudly next to what looked like a wooden chainsaw on a handle, shark teeth rimming the edge of the blade section. Posters lined some of the open wall space, antique broadsheets announcing mysteries and magical entertainments from old burlesque shows. A few feet away, a glass case held a branch with a multitude of butterflies pinned to its surface, their colorful wings so numerous Dante could barely see the bark underneath.

There didn’t appear to be any sense to its organization, and Dante wondered if JoJa’s average patron was meant to wander in its labyrinth of odd items for hours on end, trapped without a skein of twisted wool to lead them back out.

Dante stopped, entranced by a metallic helm with wires and prongs bristling out of the top of it. “What is this?”

Like all of the shop’s items, the piece seemed to be a solitary display, standing alone on a sleek black plastic mannequin head. While not cluttered, the curio store was packed with niches and alcoves, each space lit up to highlight a certain article for sale.

“That there is a hair curler.” JoJo bounced out of her chair, joining Hank and Dante on the floor. “Well, it was supposed to be. This one allegedly electrocuted two of its owners before the line was declared too dangerous to use.”

“What the hell do you two
sell
in this place?” Hank was brought up short by a narrow display cabinet set in front of the foyer. Tall glass bottles sealed tight with cork stoppers and metal bands were arranged in a delicate display of varying heights to show off their floating contents. “Are those…
eyeballs
? Those are
fucking
eyeballs!”

“Some of them are, yes. Those in the small one on top purportedly belonged to a dodo, but we seriously doubt its provenance. The glass is too finely made for the period. Although there was some lovely glasswork back in the thirties.” Janet emerged from behind the counter to peer at the cabinet. “That one is a baby two-headed shark. The globes there on the lower shelf are actually dyed jellyfish suspended in a glycerin compound. Wonderful man down on Venice Beach makes them. He won’t share what he mixes together to hold them in place, but they sell really well. They’re hard to keep in stock at Christmas.”