Jim Butcher - Side Jobs

“If they followed all the rules, they wouldn’t be bad guys,” I said.

“It’s just . . .” He swallowed. “I really wish Harry was around. He’d have a take on it.”

“That makes two of us.”

Will shook his head. “I’ve been too crazy to even ask. . . . Where is he?”

I glanced at him and away, keeping my face still.

The color drained out of Will’s cheeks. “No. He’s not. . . . It doesn’t work like that.”

“We don’t know where he is,” I said. “He was staying out on that ratty boat he uses until he could find somewhere else to sleep. We found blood. Bullet holes. Blood trail leading into the lake.”

Will shook his head. “But . . . if he was hurt, he wouldn’t go to a hospital. He’d call Waldo Butters.” He took his cell phone from his pocket. “He’s in my contacts. We can call—”

“I know about Butters, Will,” I interrupted gently. “I called him first thing after I saw the blood. He hasn’t heard from Harry.”

“Oh my . . . Oh my God,” Will said, his voice a whisper.

I felt like I’d just double-tapped Santa Claus.

“Maybe he isn’t dead,” I said. “Maybe it was somebody else with the same blood type who got shot. Or maybe Dresden pulled one of his tricks and just vanished, whoosh, off to . . . a wizard hospital somewhere.”

“Yeah,” Will said, nodding. “Yeah, maybe. I mean, he can do all kinds of things, right?”

“All kinds of things,” I said.

Including dying. But I didn’t say that.

DETECTIVE MALONE WAS good to his word, and five minutes later we were heading for a building on the north edge of Bucktown, another renovation project Gentleman Johnnie’s mostly legitimate business interests had secured. He had purchased, refurbished, updated, and preserved more than a dozen buildings in the city over the past several years. He’d been feted and decorated and honored at various society functions, as a man who was preserving the native beauty of Chicago architecture, saving it from being destroyed and forgotten, et cetera.

If you didn’t consider the drugs, gambling, prostitution, extortion, and other shadow franchises he ruled, I guess he was a real citizen hero.

Contractors were hard at work on the building as we came in, and a security guard in a white shirt and black pants walked over to us with a frown as I entered the building. Will was at my back. I hoped that if things went nutty, I wouldn’t have to drag him with me when I shot my way out.

I felt myself smile at that image, mostly because of its fantasy content. If blood was spilled in Marcone’s headquarters, I wouldn’t live long enough to drag anybody out.

“No trespassers,” the guard said firmly. “This is a construction site. Dangerous. You’ll have to leave.”

I eyed the man and said, “I’m here to see John Marcone.”

The guard eyed me. Then he got on his little radio and spoke into it. A moment later, a voice squawked an answer. “Mr. Marcone is not available.”

“Yes, he is,” I said. “Go tell him Karrin Murphy is here to see him.”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “You’ll have to leave.”

He had a gun, a 9mm Glock, I noted.

I took out the little leather wallet with my police ID in it, and said, “If you make me open this, it gets official. There will be official questions, official paperwork, and lots of men in uniform trespassing all over your site.” I held the wallet out as if presenting a crucifix to a vampire, fingers poised as if to open it. “Do you want to be the one who gives your boss that kind of headache?”

His eyes moved from me to Will. He looked quickly away. Then he took a few steps back toward the interior of the building and had a low, rather emphatic conversation with his radio.

I folded my arms and tapped one foot impatiently.

“Would you really do that?” Will asked me.

“Can’t,” I said. “I’m getting fired. But they don’t know that.”

Will made a choking sound.

The guard came back and said, “Through that door. Two floors down. Then take your first left, and you’ll see it.” He coughed. “You’ll have to leave any weapons with me.”

I snorted and said, “Like hell.” Then I brushed past him, nudging him slightly aside with my shoulder as though spoiling for a fight. Martian for It is inappropriate for you to screw with me in any way.

He got the message. He didn’t try to stop us.

Will’s quiet chuckle followed me down the stairs.

MARCONE’S OFFICE WAS located in what appeared to be a dining hall. The room was huge and tiled, and several contractors—most of them brawnier and more heavily tattooed than the average laborer—sat at long tables, eating. Caterers kept several serving tables of food stocked with the same attention and care that I would have expected in a high-society gala. It was brightly lit, and a raised stage at one end of the room, which would presumably host a full orchestral band if one were present, had instead been loaded with computers and office furniture.

The portrait of a busy executive, Marcone sat at an enormous old desk, holding a phone to his ear with one shoulder, his business shirt rolled up to his elbows.

Everything about him screamed “successful patriarch.” His suit jacket, hung over the back of his chair, was worth more than some small nations. His loosened tie, a simple silver number rather than a bright “power” tie, bespoke confidence and strength that needed no such sartorial declaration. His hands were broad and looked strong. There were scars on his knuckles. His short, conservatively cut hair was dark, except for just enough silver at his temples to announce a man in his physical and mental prime. He was well built and obviously kept himself in shape, and his features were regular and appealing. He was by no means beautiful, but his face projected strength and competence.

He looked like a man others would willingly follow.

Two other people stood on the stage, slightly behind him, testimony to his ability to lead. The first was a woman, a blond amazon more than six feet tall in a grey business suit. She had the legs that had been cruelly denied me at birth, the bitch. Her name was Gard, and Dresden had believed she was an actual, literal Valkyrie.

The other was Hendricks. He wasn’t truly ugly, but he reminded me of a gargoyle, anyway, a slab-muscled being with a misshapen appearance and beady eyes, ready to leap into action on behalf of the man he watched over. His eyes tracked me as I approached. Gard’s blue eyes focused on me for a moment, then skipped past me to Will. She narrowed her eyes and murmured something toward Marcone.

Chicago’s resident lord of the underworld gave no indication that he’d heard her, and I caught the last few lines of a conversation as I approached.

“You’ll just have to do it yourself.” He paused, listening. Then he said, “I don’t have the proper resources for such a thing—and even if I did, I wouldn’t waste them by sending them there blind and unprepared. You’ll have to use your own people.” He paused again and then said, “Neither of us will ever be scratching each other’s back, mutually or otherwise. I will not send my people into danger without more information. Should you change your mind, you may feel free to contact me. Good day.”

He hung up the phone and then turned toward me. He had eyes the color of several-days-old grass clippings. They were opaque, reptilian. He made a steeple of his fingertips and said, “Ms. Murphy.”

“News travels fast,” I said.

“To me. Yes.” His mouth turned up in a heartless smile. “Which are you here for? Work or revenge?”

“Why would I want revenge on such a pillar of the community?”

“Dresden,” he said simply. “I assume you’re here because you think me responsible.”