Mark Del Franco - Unquiet Dreams

“Okay, gang fight. Two nights ago. What happened and when were you going to tell me?” I said, as he pulled an illegal U-turn and drove the wrong way up Sleeper Street to the Avenue.

He threw me a look that was at once surprised and annoyed. “What’s with the attitude? I was just going to bring it up.”

“I heard about it from Keeva, who took much joy in my lack of knowledge, thank you. Why didn’t you mention it the other day?”

He frowned. “I don’t know. I must have been distracted by the fire. Nothing much to tell. A face-off between the TruKnights and the Tunnel Rats.”

I grabbed the dash as he took the corner a little too fast. “Okay. TruKnights I know are elf and fairy kids. That makes the Tunnel Rats our dwarf boys?”

He nodded. “Don’t know much about the dwarves. Keep to themselves mostly. You saw the colors: black hoodies and yellow bandanas. They claim a small area south of where the Farnsworth kid was found.”

“Still leaving the question of why a human kid was wearing the colors of a dwarf gang,” I said.

He nodded. “Except for the dead kid, all the members are dwarves as far as we know. The report didn’t have much detail about why the fight happened. The TruKnights claim turf just east, so based on what you picked up from the Tunnel Rats you met, it was probably turf related. Two elves ended up in the hospital pretty cut up.”

Dead kid. Murdock can do that, just refer to him as a dead kid. He’s much better at emotional detachment than I am, at least when he’s working. It’s a cop thing, to an extent. He’s seen more murders than I have, so he’s got an extra layer of protection against the horror of it. Not jaded so much as resigned.

We left the working lights of the Avenue behind and entered a more desolate stretch of road that led to the warehouse district. Murdock pulled the car to the mostly empty curb. It wasn’t an area where you left an unattended car parked for long. We got out and walked toward the harbor.

“I’m still convinced the blood on the kid’s shoe was Kruge’s,” I said.

Murdock gave me a lopsided smile. “Of course you are.”

Joe chose that moment to appear. Murdock is getting better at not being startled by a flit popping into view without warning, but you can still see the surprise on his face when it happens. He has to work on that if he ever wants to do undercover work with the fey.

Joe swirled around us, clearly pleased. “Right on time, guys. I just checked and our guy’s inside. Let’s go, let’s go.”

“What’s the rush, Joe?” I asked.

I didn’t get an answer, or, rather, I didn’t get an answer from Joe. Yggy’s is on the dead-end side of Congress Street north of the Avenue. A few people milled around the black-stained door with a “Y” painted in the middle. No one reputable. We were eyed with wary curiosity, but no one bothered us. The door slammed outward, followed by an airborne body that landed firmly in the gutter. Murdock and I exchanged glances.

Stinkwort laughed nervously. “I guess he decided to meet us outside!”

At that same moment, we were close enough for me to sense the guy’s essence. I stopped short and glared at Joe. I didn’t need an introduction, and I didn’t need the guy to roll faceup for me to recognize him. Murdock paused a step ahead of me, turning back with a questioning look on his face.

Stinkwort zoomed ahead. “Cal! How are you doing, bud?”

Cal opened one eye and smiled. “Hey, Joe, what do you know?”

Joe crossed his arms, sat down on Cal’s chest, and looked up with a self-satisfied, I-dare-you-to-get-mad-at-me smile.

“Hi, Cal,” I said.

When he realized it was me, he opened his other eye in surprise. “Well, well, what do you know, little bro?”

I didn’t hide the displeasure I felt. “Leo Murdock, meet Callin Grey. My brother.”

Naturally, Murdock was surprised as hell. “You have a brother?”

Cal reached up a big, meaty hand. “Pleased to meet you, Leo.”

Murdock shook and found himself pulling Cal off the ground while Joe fluttered up. “Same to you. And it’s Murdock.”

Cal stood a good five inches taller than either of us. We look nothing alike. He takes after our father—broad shouldered, barrel-chested, rough-cut facial features—but has our mother’s coloring—ash-blond hair, light brown eyes that can appear yellow. He has an infectious smile that belies an unpredictable temper. Which is how he ends up in gutters a lot.

Joe clapped his hands. “Drinks are on me!”

“My favorite words,” said Cal. He reached for the door handle to Yggy’s.

“Didn’t you just get thrown out?” I said.

He gave a sheepish smile. “Nah, not really. Just a prelim.” He sauntered inside with Joe on his shoulder.

“You don’t look happy,” said Murdock.

“More ambivalent. Let’s see where this goes,” I said.

I opened the door, and Murdock passed inside. No one really stood as bouncer at Yggy’s. It was the kind of the place that if you needed to rely on a bouncer to get you out of trouble, you didn’t belong there in the first place. When the management wanted someone removed, the bartender usually asked one of the meaner, drunker customers to take care of it for a free round. There were always takers.

Immediately inside the door stood a coat check that no one ever used, but the coat-check girls, usually elves, always got tipped for their outfits, or suggestions thereof. After a short hallway, a large square bar area filled the front of the place. Stools surrounded it on all sides and could easily seat a few dozen people. Beyond that was a dance floor that was primarily an excuse to place wooden barrels to lean on when the bar was full. And beyond that was a pool table. For the right price, pool wasn’t the only action the felt saw.

Cal waved to a sallow-looking fairy with shaggy black hair sprouting from various points on his skin. Not all the Celtic fairies are from the pretty Dananns clans. The fairy frowned and gave him the finger.

“My table’s back here,” Cal said over the low din. Yggy’s is bar-loud, not club-loud. You can carry on a decent conversation without having to raise your voice too much over competing conversations and the new-wave-retro harp and fiddle classics on the sound system. Not far from the pool table, we slid around a battle-scarred table with four chairs in the style every New Englander knows as colonial. Joe flipped over the empty black plastic ashtray and used that as a seat. Cal waved four fingers at a waitress, who nodded and disappeared toward the bar.

Cal smiled down at Joe. “Someone said he had someone I needed to meet. Someone implied it was a date.”

Joe put on an innocent look. “I never said date. Why does everyone think I want to set them up on dates?”

“Maybe because strange women end up with our phone numbers?” I said.

“Not true!” he said. He winked at Murdock. “It’s not always women.”

Murdock shot me a sly glance. Joe thinks I don’t date enough and believes if he throws enough variety at me, someone will stick. Murdock can’t understand how anyone can be without the company of women for more than a week. Since I don’t rise to their baiting, they keep wondering if my interests lie outside the assumed. Of course, not rising to their baiting also means they keep baiting. I think we all enjoy it.

“How ya been, bro?” Cal asked. I hated the “bro.” Even though Cal always used it, it felt like an affectation. The constant reminder of our relationship was a constant reminder that we were hardly buddies. When I lost my abilities two years back, Cal managed to show up at Avalon Memorial a week later, mildly sober, with enough contrition for the delay to indicate he meant it. It still irked me that he took so long. Our parents called the day I woke up, and they were in Ireland.