Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

“Precisely. But your mind is a perfect camera.” I tapped my forehead. “It just takes the right software to download it.”

“So what’s my wallet got to do with anything?”

“One of the guys nicked it out of your pocket while you were getting slapped around.”

Now he frowned, with his whole body. His muscles stiffened and there was a scent that told me he was hiding something. “I checked it after I came to. It was in my pocket and nothing was missing.”

“Precisely. They put it back . Interesting, huh? Those South American guys didn’t come to the condo to rob you. They were looking for something. And from the expression on the guy’s face in your memory, he found it. So, I say again … empty your wallet. Let’s find out what they wanted.”

“There’s nothing to find! There’s personal … stuff about business that’s none of yours.”

I glared at Carmine, meeting those cold eyes with steel blue ones that were beginning to glow with magical fire. “So you’re telling me that even though I’m positive the reason you were beaten up was only to distract you from the real reason for their visit, you don’t care? You want me to just kill them, without finding out what they wanted or why? Jeez, your personal and business life have already been compromised! Are you positive that the damage hasn’t already been done, while your people had no idea you were laid up in the hospital?” I paused while his pulse pounded under his skin so loud I’d swear it was coming out of speakers in the walls. “Tell me, Carmine. Be honest. Are you really pig-headed and stubborn enough to risk everything you have just to keep your little secrets — that I don’t give a damn about anyway?”

Sometime in the middle of my little rant he went still and thoughtful. The gears I knew he had in that grey matter finally jump-started. He raised up one hip to sit partway on the table. His face, and scent, went through a dozen emotions, before finally settling on the dry heat smell of embarrassment.

“Okay, so what’s the plan? Let’s say I give you my wallet.” He shot a glare at Lucas, who glared back — two junkyard dogs sizing each other up. “ Just you. Do you know what you’re looking for?”

I nodded. “The last thing he pulled out was a slip of paper, about the size of a post-it note with fringed edges. An old photograph, maybe? It was on the left side and he had to dig to get it out.” Actually, I knew it was a photo. I’d even seen the image, but it didn’t make sense. It was just a photo of a long brick wall with no other identifying marks.

Carmine had gone still again, but this time he wasn’t embarrassed. He was nervous. He pulled out his wallet like a snake after a mouse. Any inhibition he’d had was lost as he nearly tore apart the soft suede. Pictures, credit cards, money, receipts and all manner of cryptic notes were tossed on the table as he frantically looked for whatever wasn’t there. A solid five minutes went by while he opened every paper, made sure the missing item wasn’t attached to anything, and re-probed every pocket, pouch and slit in the leather.

When he finally gave up, he stood staring at the pile of papers that constituted his life, looking older than I’d ever seen him. It only lasted a moment and then he smiled. The flash of teeth was completely empty of meaning and everyone in the room knew it. “Eh. No big deal. Wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me.”

“What’s missing?” Lucas demanded. “I’d suggest you talk to us before you start talking to those who can make you talk.”

Carmine shrugged, the patently false smile abandoned. He turned his back so we couldn’t see his face. “Just an old photo of some architecture. Something my dad took years ago. Like I said, only important to me.”

I didn’t know much about Carmine’s father — only that he was raised in Chicago around the Capone era. He didn’t settle down and get married until he was nearly sixty, and most of Carmine’s friends thought Marco was his grandfather, instead of his dad.

Lucas made a gesture, pointing to my hands and then to Carmine. I knew what he wanted and I didn’t disagree. This conversation would go a lot faster if I just did another hindsight. I don’t really like doing two in one day on a person, but this was taking for-freaking- ever ! I pulled off one of the black leather gloves I have to wear to keep from getting accidental images from people — but then froze and raised my nose in the air. Lucas did the same, but got a frustrated look on his face. He can’t smell things like he used to anymore, and it drives him nuts. But he’s still got eyes, and he used them … scanning around the room to try to see anything out of place. I shook my head and pointed toward the door and then thumped Carmine on the shoulder hard enough to make him jump and turn around.

The scent that was coming under the door was a peculiar one that I’d smelled before. I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I’ve stood in a field of cantaloupes, right at the point when the whole lot was about to turn and go moldy inside. The smell is nearly overpowering — musty, sweet and slightly rotten. I carefully drew my Taurus back-up revolver from my ankle holster and wasn’t at all surprised that Carmine and Lucas produced guns as well. I smeared the polish on the clean, shining mahogany table by using my finger to write: snakes .

There was a polite knock on the door, followed by a woman’s voice. “Room service.”

I raised my brows at Carmine and he shook his head firmly. He didn’t order, and we didn’t order, so it was a trap. He got the hint of me rolling my finger at him and called out “Just a second,” as if he was in the bathroom.

Snakes don’t have the best hearing, so they probably wouldn’t hear if we kept our voices to the barest whisper. “Is there a back way out of here,” I said, “or do we take them on? I’m pretty sure there’s more than one out there.”

Carmine paused longer than I liked, and I leaned so close to his face that he could probably smell cinnamon toothpaste. “Unless you want your kid to grow up without a dad, you’d better start spilling. I can take one of them, maybe two, barehanded, but understand that even one shot will bring the cops.”

A second knock turned his head toward the door and to the shadows that moved across the sunlit carpeting, showing there were at least four feet on the other side. With a tiny, disgusted noise from the back of his throat, he turned and hurried into the separate bedroom. It was a gorgeous room, befitting a hotel of the Fairmont Palliser’s reputation. But I was pretty sure that most rooms didn’t have a bookcase that swung out from the wall when a portion of the baseboard was pressed.

He waved us through just as I heard a cardkey being inserted into the door in the outer room and the tiny high pitched whine as the lock released. He got the wall closed just in time and the thick, flat steel bar that slid into the oak header would make sure that nobody followed us — at least not quickly.

We had to squeeze against the wall to let him pass, then followed him down an old iron staircase that seemed like it might have been attached to the outside of the building once upon a time. I knew Lucas was burning up with curiosity, just like I was. But now wasn’t the time to ask. Not until we were in a more defensible position.

The staircase descended several floors and when the temperature of the walls changed, I was pretty sure we were at the basement level, or below. In a moment, I was proved right. The sounds of metallic thumping and hissing came from behind the wall at the end of the staircase and Carmine put his eye up to what appeared to be a peep hole into the outer area. After a long moment, as I listened to the snakes tearing things apart in the upper room, he slid back a steel bar that was a twin of the one above. The door pushed outward smoothly and we stepped out, into a back corner of the boiler room.