David Coe - Spell Blind

He scowled, but after a moment he nodded for me to go on.

“You know of anyone in town who’s been playing with dark magic? Maybe showing signs of power that he shouldn’t have?”

Luis shook his head. “No.”

I would have preferred that he give the question more thought, but I didn’t sense that he was hiding anything from me. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have been fool enough to call him a liar in his own place, with his friends in the next room. Luis was as skilled with his magic as I was with mine, maybe more so. And I didn’t think the weremystes listening from the barroom would be siding with me if it came to a fight.

“Can you think of any reason why someone would kill with magic on the night of the quarter moon?”

He sat forward. “The first quarter?” Clearly I’d gotten his attention. “ El Angel Ciegos? ”

“Yeah,” I said. “Every time.”

He sat back again, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

I took another sip, watching him. “What does that mean, Luis?”

“ No estoy seguro .” I’m not sure. “The first quarter-that’s a powerful night. Not like the full, but strong, you know? If I was doing magic and I needed it to be just right- perfecto , you know? — that’s when I’d do it.”

“I think he’s using these kids to make himself stronger,” I said. “I have no proof, and I don’t know what kind of magic he’d have to do, but that’s what I think. Call it the hunch of an ex-cop. I’d appreciate any help you can give me.”

“I don’t talk to cops, Jay. You know that. And private eyes are no different in my book. But this. .” He shook his head. “ Esto suena mal. ” This sounds bad. He stared at the table for several seconds, seemingly deep in thought. “You talked to Quinley yet?”

“Brother Q?” I said with genuine surprise.

Luis laughed. “Yeah, Brother Q.” He said it in a way that made me think he didn’t like Q very much.

Orestes Quinley was the weremyste Kona and I arrested after my first conversation with Namid. He was a minor conjurer then, still new enough to his power that a jail would hold him, and he served a couple of years at Eyman State Prison.

Within a few months of his release, he started getting in trouble again; small time offenses primarily. He’d never been a violent guy, and for the most part he was accused of stealing esoteric stuff-strange pieces of jewelry, unusual gems and stones, rare herbs and oils. On several occasions, the victims dropped the charges as soon as they recovered the stolen goods. Many of them seemed reluctant to tell us too much about why Orestes might have wanted them, or why they were so anxious to have them back. Even in those cases where the charges weren’t dropped, it never seemed that we could find enough evidence against him to get a conviction. And since I was the one guy in the PPD who could track magical crimes, after I left the department he stopped getting caught at all. Those twenty-six months at Eyman still represented the only time Orestes had ever done.

To this day, whenever something strange happens in town-strange in a magical sense-Kona will ask me to go around and speak with Orestes. On a few occasions he had been able to help us out, but always for a price, and, of course, never in any way that implicated himself. To be honest I was glad I hadn’t been able to prove anything against him. I liked Orestes, and despite the fact that our friendship began with me arresting him, I believe he liked me, too. But I hadn’t talked to him about the Blind Angel case since I’d left the force, and before then he hadn’t been particularly helpful.

“You think he has something to do with this guy?” I asked.

Luis gave a noncommittal shrug. “I just said you should talk to him.”

“Yeah, all right.” I drained my beer and stood. “Thanks, Luis.”

A sly grin carved across his face. “You sure you don’t want to play a few hands?”

“Weremyste poker, huh? I don’t think so.”

He laughed. “By the time we’re done for the night, the cards are glowing with so many colors you can barely tell which suit is which.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” I said. “Goodnight, mi amigo .”

“Jay.”

I halted in the doorway. His expression had grown deadly serious.

“This guy-this killer. . he loco peligroso . Crazy dangerous, you know? Watch yourself.”

I nodded once, and left, pausing at the bar long enough to give Sophie my empty mug and wish her goodnight.

Once outside, I had to resist the urge to jump in the Z-ster and drive straight to Q’s place in Maryvale. But it was late and I’d had a long day. I’d find him soon enough, and if it turned out he’d been lying to me when I was on the job and asking him about the Blind Angel case, he was going to wish he’d never left Eyman Prison.

I woke up early, not because I was so eager to see Orestes Quinley, but because after working for the PPD for eight years and getting to work first thing in the morning, I was no longer capable of sleeping late. Besides, this was Tuesday, and every Tuesday morning I drove out to the desert north of Wofford to see my dad.

I started doing this several years ago, when I was still on the job. It had become clear to me that while he could take care of most of the day-to-day stuff-cooking his own meals, getting an occasional load of laundry done, keeping his trailer somewhat clean-he couldn’t handle anything that involved interacting with the rest of society. The way the shifts worked after Kona and I moved to Homicide, Tuesday mornings were my free time, and since Dad had no one else, I gave them to him.

I went to the market first to get his shopping done. He still received a small pension from the department, and that paid for his place and some of his food. We also had some family money-from my mom’s side. It went to my dad when she died, although ultimately I think it was meant for me. These days though, I made enough to get by, and my dad needed the money more than I did.

He liked steaks, New York strips mostly, and chicken salad, the kind that came in cans like tuna. He ate raisin bran for breakfast every day, but only one particular brand. And, man, could he tell if you tried to slip in the wrong one. He loved ice cream at night before he went to bed, and he didn’t care much what kind, so I liked to surprise him with something different most every week. I also picked up basic supplies for him as he needed them: paper towels, toilet paper, laundry detergent, soap; stuff like that. And I usually brought him a six-pack of beer. Two, if I intended to stay with him for dinner. He no longer drank the way he had in the years after my mom died-though of course he’d quit many years too late-and his doctors said an occasional beer wouldn’t hurt him, as long as he didn’t have too much. The funny thing was he never did. For a guy who’d accelerated his own psychological decline by boozing, my father was now pretty disciplined. He allowed himself one beer a night. No more.

He was funny that way, a study in contradictions. I never knew from one visit to the next what I’d find when I reached his place. Some days he was sharp as a tack; other times it seemed like his brain and his mouth weren’t connected, so that he’d be carrying on a normal conversation, except that nothing he said made any sense at all. There were times when he was jovial and talkative, and times when he acted so depressed, so withdrawn, I was afraid to leave him alone, and I’d end up spending the night curled up on his couch. And sometimes he’d have what he called his “piss and vinegar days” when he was ticked off at the world. Those days were no picnic.

The tricky thing was there were endless combinations with all of these moods. He could be pissed off and incoherent, or lucid and utterly cheerless. Each visit was a crap shoot.