Tricks of the Trade

I’d be carrying all those unknowns with me tonight when I tried to get to sleep, and keeping me company in my dreams, and when I woke up again, hoping against hope we’d be able to find even one answer…and knowing we might not.

Sometimes, this job sucked large, pointed rocks.

Pietr pulled the tarp back over the body and nodded to the cop that we were done. They’d cart the body off to the city morgue, to the little cold room in the back that nobody talked about, and stash it there until we figured out who the next of kin were. “You think Shar and Nick are having more fun?”

I glared up at the clear blue sky. “They’d better be.”

Sharon’s report later was the usual tersely professional recounting, but no, they hadn’t been having more fun.

Mass transit didn’t reach into their destination, so they had to walk from the bus stop, pausing to check their directions several times.

“Huh. Nice.”

Sharon let out a sniff that wasn’t entirely disagreement. “Gaudy.”

Nick shoved his hands into his jacket pocket and smirked. “I like gaudy. It takes a lot of money to be that tasteless.”

The house they were looking at wasn’t actually tasteless, although it leaned that way: a gleaming white, pseudo-Federalist structure on a lot not much larger than the house itself. There was enough frontage, barely, to allow for an imposing driveway from the street, and enough shrubbery to suggest privacy without hiding the grandeur of the house from the peasants driving by. Peasants were, clearly, supposed to be aware of their own insignificance in the face of such a house.

Sharon said as much, as they walked up the driveway, each of them carrying their kit in their off-hand, so as not to bump against each other. Nothing in the kits was terribly unstable, but some of their equipment was best neither shaken nor stirred.

“In this neighborhood, any peasants would get kneecapped by the private security force,” Nick said, not really joking. They had noted the discreet but blunt signs when they walked down the street: nonresidents were not welcome here, unless invited.

The double doors were white, with lions’-head knockers in brass, and a simple buzzer underneath.

Sharon touched the buzzer, and they waited.

“Yes?”

The woman who opened the door for them wasn’t the owner—she was dressed in a neat cream pantsuit that had the feel of a uniform, and had an air to her that was pride but not ownership.

Nick took the lead. Women of a certain age and position, Venec said, would respond more automatically to a man than a younger woman, especially a good-looking man. You used whatever tools you were given. “We’re from PUPI. Mr. Wells is expecting us.”

“Oh.” The woman wasn’t flustered, just checking them out, her gaze taking in the details of Sharon’s neat, dark blue suit and pumps, and Nick’s more casual slacks and loafers. He was wearing a leather jacket, but it was quality enough to pass muster, apparently, because the housekeeper nodded once, and stepped back to let them in.

“Mr. Wells is in the sunroom,” she said. “Please follow me.”

They both took in the details, not obviously scanning their surroundings. The foyer was larger than either of their apartments, with marble floors and a carpet that was probably worth more than they earned in a year.

“Ouch,” Nick said softly, and Sharon’s gaze followed his as the housekeeper led them down the wide hallway. The left-hand side of the hallway boasted only closed doors, but to the right there were archways opening to a great room with soaring ceilings and expensive furniture—that had been torn apart. Fabric was shredded, as though huge claws had used it as a scratching post, and cabinet doors were ripped off their hinges, antique-looking carpets shoved in a crumpled pile against the walls.

“I don’t think this was a Retriever,” Nick said softly.

“No?”

“It just doesn’t feel right. Retrievers are pros. They don’t leave behind any trace, much less damage.”

Sharon nodded. “Although, it could just have been the owner’s temper tantrum after being robbed.”

“You really think one guy could get that mad?”

Sharon merely looked at Nick, one delicate eyebrow raised. Anger could make even the calmest, most sedate people do things you wouldn’t expect; they both knew that. And they had no idea who—or what—their client might be.

“In here, please,” the housekeeper said, pushing open an interior door, and ushering them inside.

The sunroom was a surprisingly cozy place after the grandeur of the rest of the house, filled with orchids and small potted trees placed to catch the appropriate light coming in through oversize windows, and a series of comfortable-looking chairs upholstered in dark gray fabric. Each chair had a small table next to it, perfect for a newspaper or drink.

Nothing in this room appeared to have been disturbed, not even a trace of dirt on the parquet floor where a plant might have been knocked over.

The woman stopped the moment they entered the room. “Mr. Wells.”

It was less an introduction than an announcement, the way a museum docent might say “The Mona Lisa.” The client was—to all appearances—an ordinary sixty-something-year-old male. Tall and well built, with skin just naturally dark enough to avoid assumptions of WASPy wealth but not so much that an observer assumed any particular ethnicity. His head was clean-shaven, his face lined and slightly creased around the eyes and mouth. His clothing was rich-man’s casual—a pair of expensive twill slacks, and a black pullover sweater that obviously was cashmere, and not a cheap single-ply weave, either.

“These are the—”

“The investigators I hired.” His voice was cultured, almost lazy, with an oddly clipped drawl. “Yes. Thank you, Joyce. You may go now. Please remind the staff not to touch anything in the affected rooms.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please,” the client said, waving to a grouping of cloth-upholstered chairs off to the side of the room. “Be seated.”

They sat. The chairs weren’t as comfortable as they looked.

“You had a break-in last night.” Nick took the lead without checking with Sharon, continuing how they had begun with the housekeeper. It was fifty-fifty how the client would respond, but Sharon’s truth-sensing would be a strength here, and it was easier to use it when she could focus her attention entirely on the subject, without worrying about how to phrase the questions. And Nick, while not diplomatic, could do a solid guy-to-guy thing. So Sharon sat and watched, and listened.

“Yes. It happened early this morning, actually. Around 3:00 a.m. We heard the noise.”

“We?” They knew already, from the original report, but the more the client talked, the more detail they could pick up, even if the client didn’t think it was important.

“My staff—Joyce, my housekeeper, and Clark, my cook. I live alone, otherwise.”

“And you did not go down to investigate?”

Wells looked surprised, and a little amused. “I think not. I assumed that the silent alarm had gone off and the police would be arriving soon. Joyce and Clark both know to stay in their rooms in such a case, to ensure that they are not mistaken for the intruder by the police. That would be most unfortunate.”

“Indeed. And the police came…”

“They did not. The intruder managed to bypass all the sensors. Neither my security firm nor my local police department knew anything had occurred until I informed them.” His voice boded not-well for both security firm and police. “It was then I suspected something out of the usual had occurred.”

Magic, he meant, although like most Nulls he resisted actually saying the word.

“When I came down this morning, after the noise had ended, I found…” He sighed, shaking his head. “Wanton destruction.”

So it hadn’t been a temper tantrum. Or the client was lying. Nick didn’t look at Sharon, keeping all of his attention on the client. “What valuables were taken?”

Wells frowned, a slight furrowing of his expression more than any downturn of his lips. “Very little. A few…trinkets, things I’ve had for a long time, but nothing of particular value beyond the sentimental. The cash in the safe, but none of the papers—securities and whatnot. Most of the truly valuable items are kept in my vault in the bank, of course.”

“Of course,” Sharon echoed, almost involuntarily. Neither pup believed it for a moment. This was the sort of man who kept everything he really valued close at hand. Sharon would also have said he wasn’t a man who had sentimental attachment to anything that wasn’t also worth a great deal, financially.

She’d worked for the type before; they made your life miserable, watching over everything you did no matter how good you were because they didn’t trust anyone, not really, no matter how many times you’d proved yourself.

It made sense now, that Venec had sent the two of them, and not Bonnie or Nifty. They were good, but Nifty could get his ego tied up in the job, and Bonnie was so honest, someone like this would assume her openness meant she was hiding something. Both those things, with someone like Wells, could cause a problem if he took it the wrong way. Sharon and Nick, on the other hand, looked like exactly what they said they were, and that any sneaky bits they invoked were working for the client, not against him.

Sharon, particularly, excelled in making people believe that she was totally, unquestioningly, on their team. Wells barely gave her a glance now; she had become an appendage, the same as his housekeeper and his gardener.

“I have put together a list of everything I saw that was missing. You will want to examine the site of the intrusion, now?” It was less a question than a gentle order.

“Yes, thank you,” Sharon said, standing up when it looked like Nick was going to try and continue the questioning. Her partner, used to following his coworker’s cues, shut his mouth and stood up, as well. Rather than call his housekeeper back, Wells escorted them himself.

“The report said that you suspected a Retriever,” Sharon said, both because she was curious, and because he would wonder why they hadn’t asked, if they didn’t. If he had been a member of the Cosa it would make sense, but Wells was, unquestionably, Null. “Did you have specific reason to believe…?”

“I have reason to believe that the alarm system I have set up is suitable to detect any normal means of intrusion,” he said. “I also paid a great deal of money to install a spell-detector on the perimeter of my property, to prevent any—” he paused and Sharon and Nick both had the sense that he was about to say “of you people” and changed in the last breath— “unwanted intrusions of a magical sort. Therefore clearly it had to be someone of exceptional skill.”

Nick coughed, smothering a laugh. Sharon kept her face poker-still. Their client had been sold a bill of goods—there was no way to detect a spell being cast, short of actually being there when it hit. Venec and Bonnie had been working on it as a side experiment, and the current just wouldn’t hold in place long enough to be useful—you could do a short-term thing, maybe a few hours, but after that, it just faded.

The only thing worse than Nulls who were current-blind were Nulls who thought they knew all about current…and didn’t have a clue.

Sharon noticed that the client hadn’t really answered the question about why he suspected a Retriever specifically, which was interesting. Was that deliberate or was he avoiding giving them some piece of information? She had no chance to follow up on that thought, however. Wells stopped in front of a heavy wooden door, and slid it open. “This is where the worst damage was done.”

It was, clearly, his study, and Wells was right, the damage was far worse here than even the room they’d seen before. There was an oversize desk made of some deep red, clearly exotic, wood, that had at one point been placed against the far wall, based on the indentations in the carpet. Now, though, it lay on its side, in the middle of the room. That alone would have taken a lot of muscle power—or a serious push of current. The client was a normal, late-middle-aged human Null. Unless he was hiding a Hulk-like alter ego, he was out from under suspicion in the damage, at least.

The books on the built-in shelves had all been crashed to the floor, and pages lay scattered like feathers after a plucking. A floor lamp lay on its side, the shade shredded much like the upholstery they had seen earlier, and there was the sparkle of glass in the Persian carpet. Out of the corner of her eye, Sharon saw Nick pull a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, and stretch them on quietly, without fuss.

Not that the gloves mattered in terms of evidence—most of what they collected couldn’t be smudged by a physical touch—but protection would keep any of the tiny shards from sticking in his fingers.

“You look over the floor and shelves,” Sharon said, with a nod at his gloves. “I’ll look over the desk, see if our intruder left any hints behind.” If the intruder had used current, there should still be signature left, especially if he was feeling strong emotion when he went on his rampage. So long as she was only testing for it, and not actually trying to collect it, she should be within Venec’s safety guidelines.

Neither of them were Bonnie-level in terms of their reading and gleaning abilities, but they could do what was needed.

Sharon set down her own kit, and took out a small object wrapped in a silvery chamois. Unwrapping it revealed a chunk of crystal about the size of her thumb, a hazed pale pink chunk of rose quartz.

It had been a birthday present from Bonnie, a few months ago. Sharon wasn’t big on aids, but Bonnie swore that using a focus would help her, and none of them were going to refuse anything without at least testing it. Sharon had planned to do that testing in a more controlled circumstance, but…

The crystal felt warm in her hand, but otherwise it just lay there, more a distraction than not. Bonnie had claimed that it would warm to her, connect her to herself more fully, and deepen her fugue-state without losing touch with the actual world.

Nothing happened. Sharon slipped the stone back into her chamois, and went to work without it

The client stood and watched them for a few minutes, but when they didn’t do anything more interesting than run their hands lightly over the furniture, seemingly lost in thought, he gave a quiet snort and left them to it.

That was exactly why Venec had them work low-key, not showy. People who were bored were less likely to hang around and interfere.

After giving the desk a full once-over, Sharon sighed and shook her head, waiting until Nick blinked his way out of his own fugue-state, and looked at her.

“I’m not picking up anything,” she said. “You?”

“Annoyance,” he said. “But I’m not sure if it’s his, or mine. Otherwise, this place is clean as a washed-down whistle.”

“Like someone cleaned up after themselves?” The perp, she meant, not the victims.

“Maybe,” he said. “Or like they weren’t here at all.”

Not a Talent, he meant. “Client may not know as much as he thinks he does,” Sharon said, “but I’m inclined to agree with his conclusions, whatever I think of his logic. There’s no way a Null could have gotten in, and done all this. Not in the time he claimed, without a clear point of entry.”

Nick lifted one narrow shoulder in a shrug, a move he had stolen from Pietr. “Fatae? Some of them are pretty good at fast and sneaky, and those slashes might have been claws. That’s a guess, though. I’m nowhere good enough to pick up an unknown fatae trace. Hell, I’m not even sure I could pick up a known breed, unless I’d encountered it before. We need to find out more about the client, see if he might have pissed off any of the Cosa- cousins.”

Sharon considered it, then put the crystal into her suit pocket, and lifted her kit up off the carpet. “If he did, Lou will turn it up, and Venec will let us know. Come on, let’s check the other rooms.”

They both had the bad feeling they weren’t going to find anything useful, but by god, they’d check every inch, first.

three

Not every aspect of PUPI involved investigation. Some times, it required suasion and statistics. That particular part of running the company they left to Ian Stosser.

Or, more to the point: that part, he kept for himself.

Ian stood in front of his audience, making eye contact with selected members seemingly at random, and infused his words with the firm and fervent belief he had in his team, his methods, and his results. “In the year we have been accepting clients, our success rate has been a rather significant 87%. Of the remaining 13%, we still managed to bring up enough information to pass along to Null authorities. The fact that my team has not yet been able to close the case you referenced—” organ-leggers, an open ticket that still annoyed Ian “—merely emphasizes the difficult and delicate nature of the work we do. More, that we are the only force that is both willing and capable of taking on cases involving magic.”

He did not emphasize the willing part, but knew that his point had been taken, here among those who could do good, and instead chose to hamstring his efforts.

Someone in his audience tapped a gold-plated pen on the table, impatiently. “There are others who work with magic, Stosser. You’ve been involved with some of them yourself.”

“Private investigators, working on a borrowed shoestring and their own instincts.” That was damning the half-fatae detective, who was actually reasonably capable, but Ian Stosser did not let anyone get the upper hand in presentations he was making. “My team is trained to use science as well as magic, harnessing their instincts into verifiable and logical routes, using teamwork to pool our respective skills into something greater. Perhaps more importantly, we determine the evidence not by who hires us, but by what the investigation reveals as facts.”

The feel of the room remained resistant. The individuals gathered here didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to know, and most especially didn’t want to have to change their minds.

Ian Stosser was too trained, too skilled to sigh, and to turn up his current-driven charisma in a room filled with already-suspicious Talent of comparable skill would be a disaster. Instead, he ratcheted his body language up a notch, using the cast of his shoulders, the cant of his hip, even the way he rested his arm to project a calm, reasoned, pragmatic appeal that would—hopefully, ideally—reassure them without their knowing why they were reassured. That was the trick with the Council: most of them so relied on current, they forgot the basics of human psychology, too.

“What I am asking of you is a rational decision, not an emotional one,” he continued. “When a crime has been committed, the offender must be determined, and punished. We are all in agreement about that.” A firm, if subtle nod, and he was pleased to see several in his audience nod back, almost automatically. “I am offering you, again, the way to determine, fairly and without prejudice, where the responsibility might rest, in any given situation. That way the proper individuals will be taken to task.”

A voice from the far end of the table, previously quiet, spoke up then. “And what happens when you cannot determine, for certain, who that party is? Or, worse, when you accuse the wrong person?”

Once. Once, they had… Ian beat down his irritation.

“We do not claim to be perfect,” he said smoothly. “We do claim to be extremely good. And that, sirs, madams, is more than you have right now, with your refusal to accept the results of our investigations into your deliberations.”

It was the same song and dance he’d done twice before, for each regional Council, crafting his argument to each specific region’s objections, designed to entice each specific Council with what he thought they wanted.

According to Cosa history, the Mage Council had been split into regional areas back in the 1800s to keep them from becoming too powerful and overshadowing the lonejacks, or unaffiliateds, in each region. In theory. In practice, it was because the seated Council members didn’t trust each other any more than the lonejacks trusted the Councils et al. So far, two Councils had voted to accept his people’s testimony to their deliberations. The Eastern Council was not one of those, and their refusal, here in PUPI’s base of operations, where they could see the good being done directly, stuck in Ian’s craw. He took that personally.

“Already, the Midwest Council has benefited from our work. You know this.” The pups had determined the truth of a murder, causing some embarrassment to the Council, true, but saving them considerable danger going forward by revealing the presence of a stone killer for hire, who also happened to be a Talent. “And you, yourself, saw the results of our efforts.” He did not go into detail; he didn’t have to. The events of the previous spring, where they had exposed a scam that might have set human against fatae, had been covered up for fiscal and political reasons, but they all knew the truth. Had it not been for PUPI, the damage could have been devastating—and bloody.

“You make strong points.” Madame Howe, the leader of the Eastern Council, was a delicate woman, but nobody ever made the mistake of thinking her frail or gentle. The Talent who worked for her called her the electric dragon, and it wasn’t an affectionate nickname. “And we appreciate your restraint while making this presentation.”

She might have been speaking for the entire Council. Or she might have been using the royal “we.” Ian merely inclined his head to her, accepting both the reminder that they were his equals, in current-usage, and that his part in this meeting was over.

“I shall leave you to your discussions, then. Madame, Council members.”

He left the wood-paneled conference room at exactly the right pace, neither hurried nor lingering, counting off the steps deep in his head. When the door closed behind him, he did not stop or breathe a sigh of either relief or disgust, but kept moving, headed not for the elevator, but the stairs. He needed to move.

The hard sound of his shoes in the stairwell gave him something to focus on, and once out on the street, he let his stride lengthen, taking full advantage of the mid-morning lull in street traffic. He pushed all his excess energy, both physical and magical, down through his hips, down his legs, and out into the pavement, a sort of walking meditation and grounding all at once.

Everything was working; it was working exactly the way he had planned. They had enough work coming in that—for the first time since starting this venture—he wasn’t paying the bills out of his personal account. If the Council relented, and approved PUPI to their members, they might actually have more work than they could handle. He would need to rearrange the office structure, bring in another investigator, maybe set up a separate lab, so they could work out new spells without worrying about shorting out the entire building….

His mentor would warn him against building a business plan on ifs. Stosser believed that it was almost impossible to fail, betting on the trouble that the combination of magic and human folly could create. Even if this Council refused to approve them, eventually they would gain clients from within these ranks, as well as beyond. Ian Stosser took a long view, always. In the long view, PUPI was needed, and therefore would thrive.

Now that the presentation was over, however, another worry insisted on worming its way into his thoughts.

Benjamin.

Ian frowned, a sudden surge of irritation and worry sparking the air around him, and setting off a car alarm on the street as he passed by. They had been friends since they were teenagers, the kind of friendship you counted on, even if you didn’t see each other for years. Ian hadn’t hesitated for a moment when thinking of a partner for this venture, hadn’t hesitated in dragging the other man away from his life in another city, from whatever else he might have planned, and handing him the team of green Talent to mold into proper investigators.