Windfall (29 page)

Banter was over. Silence fell, hot and oppressive, and he studied me with wary eyes. Waiting.

I caved. “Look, Detective, what can I do? What is it going to take to make you, you know . . .”

“Go away?” he supplied, and eased down into a chair across from me. Not as comfy as mine, I noted. “Answers. I need you to tell me everything, start to finish. Nothing left out.”

“That's why I'm here. I'll give you the whole story, but honestly, it won't do you any good. And there's not a shred of proof, one way or the other, so you'd better give up on having any peace of mind. All you'll have is my word, and I have the impression that isn't going to carry a lot of weight with you.”

He sat back, watching me, and finally picked up the orange juice and sniffed it, then took a sip. “Actually, I revised my opinion a little,” he said. “Last night. On the beach.”

“Why?”

He didn't answer. He swiveled his chair instead and looked at the screen, where my sister and her new boyfriend were scrubbing dishes and laughing.

“What's his story?” he asked. “Your new friend.”

“Sarah met him at the mall. Same day I met you, as a matter of fact. Though you and I haven't hit it off quite so well.”

He sent me one of those looks. “You live an interesting life.”

“You have no idea. What made you change your mind on the beach?”

He drank more of the OJ. “Two things. One of them has nothing to do with the beach itself: You were pissed off, not scared, when you confronted me the first time. Guilty people get scared, or they get smooth. You're different.”

Well, that was a nice compliment. “And the other thing?”

“Guilty people don't save lives in the dark. Murderers can save lives, if it suits them. They can run into burning buildings and grab babies out of cribs at risk of their own skins. They can even feel sorry about it if it doesn't work out. But if there's a
choice,
and if there's no percentage and no witnesses, they won't put themselves out for it. If a guy's bleeding to death in an alley and all they have to do is make a 911 call, they won't unless there's a reason—unless somebody sees them and expects them to do it, or there's some profit in it. Get my point? It's all about the way it looks, not the life they're saving; they really don't give a shit about that.” He shrugged and tilted the glass to drain the orange juice to a thin film of gold. “You do. All you had to do was walk away and let that hole collapse on those poor bastards, and nobody would have known.”

“Nobody but me.”

“Yes. That's my point.”

Something he said rang a bell. “You said, a murderer can run into a burning building and grab a baby . . . you were thinking of Quinn, weren't you?”

He was silent for a moment, reluctant to say it out loud. “There was something about the way he did it. Standing there in the street, calculating the angles. There was a crowd, there was a mother begging him for help, but it was like some little computer inside of him was adding up benefits. Look, I wasn't lying to you. Quinn was a good guy. I liked him. But being a good guy doesn't mean you're not a bad man.”

“Detective, if you're not careful, you might start sounding deep.”

He gave me a faint, strange smile. “No chance of that. I'm a good cop. If I can't see it, feel it, taste it, explain it to the jury, I don't believe it. Quinn, he was intuitive. Mind like a jumping bean. It was all like a game to him. A contest; see who's the smartest guy in the room.” His hands were clasped now, his thumbs rubbing slow circles on each other. He bent his head and watched them at work. “Can I believe he was a wrong guy? Yeah. I can believe it. I didn't want to, but I've been thinking about it, and I've been watching you. You don't change when nobody's looking. You say what you mean, and you say it to anybody who'll listen.”

“Are you saying I'm not subtle?”

“You're about as subtle as a brick. But you can take that as a compliment. Hero-types generally aren't that subtle.”

Hero-types?
“Anything else?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The greasy-looking kid who was in your apartment last night ripped off some cash from the flour jar in your kitchen. And the guy you were talking to before you left for work made him put it back.”

Kevin and Lewis, each acting according to their natures. It made me smile.

“Also,” Rodriguez finished, “you looked totally hot on TV, and your sister looks pretty good naked. Now. Tell me about what really happened with Quinn.”

 

I realized, about two sentences into it, that I couldn't
not
tell him about the Wardens, and especially the Djinn. He had to understand what we were dealing with, and the stakes we played for. He had to understand that Quinn was doing something far beyond the capacity of the justice system to punish.

It took a long time. When my voice ran hoarse, Rodriguez got me a cold bottled water, and when I started trembling from nerves, he switched me to cold beer. The air conditioner kicked in with a dry rattle at some point, drying the sweat trickling down into the neckline of my white tank top.

It was a strangely quiet interrogation. He just listened, except for those small acts of kindness. Occasionally, he'd ask for a clarification if I wasn't getting something across, but he never disputed, never doubted, never accused me of being a lunatic straight off the funny farm.

Which I would have, if I'd been in the less-comfy chair hearing someone spout the same explanation.

When I got to the part that talked about his partner's death, I saw his eyes go cool and hooded, but his expression stayed neutral. Then it was over, and I was clutching an empty brown bottle in my hands, and all I heard was the steady whisper of the A/C fighting the Florida heat.

“You know how that sounds,” he said.

“Of course I know. Why do you think I didn't tell you all this up front?”

He got up, as if he wanted to pace, but the van was too small and besides, I thought what he really wanted to do was put his fist through something yielding. Like me. There was that kind of sharp angle to the way he moved.

And still, nothing in his expression. The anger was burning, but it was somewhere miles down and sealed off with a steel hatch.

“You say there's nobody to back up this version.”

“Well, there is,” I said. “The guy that was here last night. The kid. And you saw some of it yourself last night on the beach. Hell, you could call my boss in New York if you wanted. He'd tell you it was true—well, maybe he wouldn't, come to think of it; he's got a hell of a lot of problems of his own. But the point is, none of these people would be credible to you. They don't have real jobs and real identities you can check out with independent sources. They're ciphers. Like me. So I think you've got to go with your gut on this one, Detective. Do you believe me or not?”

He stopped and put his hand on a leather strap hanging from the wall—the better to grab onto if the van had to move into gear, I realized. This was quite a mobile cop shop he had.

“Tell you what,” he said after a moment. “I'll believe it if you show me something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Anything, you know, magic.”

“It's not
magic,
” I said, exasperated. “It's science. And—well, okay, the Djinn, maybe that's magic, but really, it can all be explained if you go far enough with the physics, and—”

“You do stuff other people can't do, and you make things happen with the power of your mind?”

“Well—um—”

“Magic,” he said, and shrugged. “So show me something.”

Truth was, I didn't have enough power to show him much of anything. I stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said, “Okay.” I had enough energy left inside for a tiny little demonstration. Maybe.

I held out my palm and concentrated.

It should have been easy, doing this; it was a trick I'd been practicing since I'd first joined the Wardens. Nothing to it—anybody with more than a spark of talent could pull it off; the trick was controlling it and doing it with grace and elegance.

I closed my eyes, let out a slow breath, and built a tiny little rainstorm over my hand. Pulled moisture out of the surrounding air and carefully crowded it together, cooled the vibrations of the molecules just enough to make them sticky. When I opened my eyes, a faint, pale fog was forming above my palm. It was ragged and not very well established and, all in all, the crappiest demonstration I'd ever seen, but I held on and continued to draw the moisture together into a genuine little cloud.

A tiny blue spark zipped from one side to another inside of it, illuminating it like a tiny bulb, and Rodriguez drew closer, staring.

I made it rain, a tiny patter of full-size drops on my hand—they had to be full-sized, because it had to do with gravity, not scale. I only squeezed out two or three, because of the size of the source material, but enough to get the point across. The friction of molecules sparked another baby lightning bolt; this one zapped me like a static charge. I winced.

Rodriguez dragged a hand through the cloud, and stared at his damp fingers in fascination.

“Real enough for you?” I asked him, and let it go. It broke apart into fog, which rapidly evaporated into nothing in the dry, air-conditioned environment of the van. I wiped my wet palm on my leg.

He didn't answer for a long moment, and then he reached over and picked up the empty orange juice glass. Handed it back to me.

“We're done,” he said. “Watch your step when you get out.”

That was it. He slid the door open. The glare of sunlight startled me, as did the humidity rolling in the door. I looked at Rodriguez, who stared back, and finally stepped out and onto the hot pavement.

“That's all?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he replied. “That's all.” He started to slide the door shut, then hesitated. “Two pieces of advice; take them or leave them. First, get rid of the car. It's a sweet ride, and it's also hot and it attracts too much attention. Somebody's going to figure it out.”

I nodded. Poor Mona. Well, I was really more of a Mustang girl, anyway. . . .

“Second,” he said, “if what you told me about Quinn is true, he was in business with somebody, and he had a shipment to deliver. You might want to think about the possibility that somebody might be looking to collect, and why they wanted it so bad in the first place.”

I felt the skin tighten on the back of my neck. “You mean, collect from me?”

“You're the visible link, Joanne. I found you. Somebody else could do the same thing. Watch your ass.”

I nodded slowly. “So this is good-bye?”

“You see me again, it's because I found out you were lying to me, and believe me, that
would
be good-bye.”

He slid the van door shut. I stepped back. He slid into the driver's side seat in the front, and the van started up with a shiver and a roar. He rolled down the window, gave me a little salute, and backed out of the parking spot.

I watched him drive away. Except for a small patch of oil on the asphalt where he'd been parked, my cop stalker was gone as if he'd never been there.

One problem down. About a million to go.

Overhead, the clouds piled thicker, darker, and more imminently threatening.

I wished I knew what to do next. If Lewis hadn't bugged out, at least I could have mined him for information—I knew he had a lot more than he was saying—but of course holding on to Lewis was like trying to hold on to a wave in motion. And without access to the aetheric, trying to find
anyone
was trouble. The Djinn were—at least for now—leaving me alone, probably too preoccupied with their own battles and problems. Jonathan, despite his threats, hadn't come knocking for his pound of flesh. Ashan was proving the once-bitten, twice-shy cliché. I didn't know whether that was a good sign, or bad, but at least it gave me a little more time to do whatever it was I proposed to do.

Which was . . . what?

I was in the middle of dithering about it when my cell phone rang, and it was Paul Giancarlo, calling from the Warden offices at the U.N. Building in New York.

“Good morning,” I said. “Before you forget to ask, thanks, I'm fine.”

“I wasn't going to,” he grunted. “Lewis was with you last night?”

He had good sources, but then, he was the Head Hon-cho. At least for now. “Yeah. He needed someplace to stay and recover. Look, you've got rogue Wardens running in packs out here. Lewis has a bull's-eye painted on his back. You need to do something, fast.”

“Would if I could. I've got a problem. I need your help.”

“Does the word
no
ring any bells with you? Because I've said it before.”

“Joanne, I'm not fucking around here. When I say
problem
to someone like you, what do you think it means?”

“Disaster,” I said briskly. “From what I've seen, there's plenty of that going around, and I'm sorry about it, but I can't help.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Seriously, I can't.”

His voice went very quiet. Gravelly. “Did you hear me ask you a question? Short declarative statements, sweetheart. Not negotiable. This is serious business, and you're going to get in line or I promise you, your powers get yanked. Clear?”

Fuck.
Frankly, Paul sending Marion's team after me to rip out my powers was far down my waiting list of panic attacks, but it wasn't worth risking, either. “Clear,” I said. “What do you need?”

“Get over to John Foster's office. Nobody's answering over there. I got nobody on the ground I can trust right now. Just make sure everything's okay.”

That gave me a quiet moment of worry. “Paul? Is it that bad?”

His sigh rattled the speaker of my cell phone. “However bad you think it's gotten, it's worse than that. And I don't think it's anywhere near hitting bottom yet. Get over there, but watch your back. I'd send you cover if I could.”