'Til Death (part twelve of fifteen)

‘Til Death

A Trick Molloy Mystery

©2009 Michael A. Stackpole

Part Twelve

By the time we woke up, things were coming together. Talia had a text message from Coast College announcing the Patterson Award recipient news. The announcement missed the local rag’s print edition, but headlined the website. It was mostly a cut-and-paste job from whatever Patterson’s people had put together in a press release. I’d given him twelve hours, his people came up with twenty years of awards.

I gathered the money up and repackaged it. I dropped Talia off at her place, then came to campus. I met Fairfield, coached him on his spiel, then gave him the money. He made the call and the Russians were very happy about getting the money. They agreed to meet him in a very public place, and accepted that this was just a down payment.

I didn’t watch the exchange. I was halfway across town with Sniff, preparing to follow the money. If Sniff isn’t the ugliest human being on the planet it’s only because anyone uglier turned to stone when they caught their own reflection in a mirror. Short, squat, he looked like a toad in serious need of a wax-job. Voice to match.

Thing with Sniff is that his talent runs to psychometry. Give him an object and he reads its history through the vibes it’s giving off. He all but creamed his jeans when I handed him four of the bills we’d prepped. “Damn, Trick, you have a future in adult entertainment.”

“Pay attention here or your future is over.”

Sniff shivered, then bent to work. He clipped the four bills to the corners of a city map. He closed his eyes and let his hands float. Kinda looked like a guy playing air-piano. Then a finger stabbed down. “It’s here right now.”

I looked. He’d tagged the meeting site. “That’s a start.”

“I got it covered, Trick.”

“Make sure you do.” I handed him a bag full of high-end chocolates. “All the detail you can muster.”

He took readings every fifteen minutes for twelve hours. We put markers on the map, using different colors for the strength of impression generated. Green was really faint. That was petty cash spending. Yellow was payoffs to aides. Red would have been his stash, and Turpeluk made the rounds before hid the money away.

Talia got in touch with her IT guy at the university. He used some programs to show us the neighborhoods around Turpeluk’s red hits. The Google gave us a good look. Then he found the websites for local restaurants that delivered. He hacked in and pulled their usage data. He then expanded things and tagged local groceries that delivered, too.

Three sites emerged as places where food got ordered-in on a regular basis. Only one of them had grocery deliveries: lots of bread, peanut butter, jam and feminine hygiene products. I put that one on the top of my list and did some field recon.

I had to be careful, but Turpeluk made that easy. The site had been a small warehouse, now abandoned. Chainlink had surrounded it, save for the lot’s northwest corner where fencing had vanished. No visible cameras in the area. I didn’t see any vice squad surveillance crews either. Maybe the cops didn’t know about this place, or they just didn’t think it was very important.

I made several drive-by peeks, using cars I borrowed from the girls at Club Flesh. I promised them no dents and a full tank of gas, so they were happy to let me test-drive their cars. They were under the impression I was looking to trade up. One, Nicole, wondered if that was in the girlfriend department, too; but she let me use her car despite my disappointing her.

On one run I saw a pizza delivery. Kid just rolled up, delivered the pies, got paid at the door. I thought about debriefing him on what he could see, but his ratting me out was a risk I didn’t want to run. Besides, Talia’s IT guy pulled the Water and Sanitation records for the warehouse. Statistical analysis suggested ten people, which broke down into three guards and seven prisoners, based on the pizza and grocery orders.

One of those people had to be Irina.

I decided to go in at 3 AM, which meant I had plenty of time to kill. I went through the folder Fairfield had given me. He’d been formal when they started to correspond, but opened up as Svetlana poured her heart out to him. He’d been seeing himself as the proverbial frog, and she was a Russian princess all set to kiss him. He was kind of a still-waters-run-deep guy. Based on what I read, I wanted to hear him play the violin—that being the other passion in his life.

Svetlana surprised me. Her openness and honesty really didn’t match the vanity suggested by her body mods. She didn’t mention that she’d already had a child, but there could have been any number of reasons for that. What she did make clear is that she was madly in love with Fairfield, and loved her sister dearly, and would do anything necessary for either of them.

Telling Fairfield the truth would utterly destroy him.

And I wasn’t thinking it was going to do much for me, either.

I forced myself to concentrated on the task at hand. I didn’t figure the guards would be asleep no matter when I went in, but at 3 AM the women would. The guards wouldn’t have to work so hard. They’d get sloppy, and I could exploit that. I had Sniff orbiting with a van, so once I got the women free, I’d hit him with a call, and he’d ride in to the rescue.

Hollywood would have had me making a frontal assault. I’d have strapped a gallon jug of Irish to my back, be sucking it in as I went, and just blasting everything with magick. Doors would explode, fires would start, bad guys would roast and I’d free the women in a heartbeat. The problem with that approach is simple. Hollywood’s grasp on magick is second only to its grasp on history as far as accuracy is concerned.

Magick can be detected unless the user is really good and can tightly control what he’s doing. Only spell I know well enough to keep on a tight rein pops locks. That spell got me into the building through a side door.

The warehouse had a small office in the far corner with big windows. Big TV, a half-dozen naked people writhing together in high-def. At least the jamokes had the sound low. Backlight showed me three heads. Probably Boris, Ivan and Nikolai.

I found the missing chainlink fence off to the right. They’d used it to fashion a couple of cages. Eight girls, two of them on the small side, four to cage. Blankets on the floor, bucket-latrines in the corner. Everyone appeared to be asleep.

The trio of guys being together presented a problem. I had a stun-gun and zip-ties. I was hoping I could pick them off one at a time, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. Unless…

I checked the layout again. The only bathroom was in the corner nearest the office. His and hers, cheap wood walls. They shared a sink on the outside. Staying low, I crossed toward the facilities, then crouched beside the refrigerator.

I gauged the distance to the office, then opened my right hand. Two little golden sparks drifted toward the men. They passed through the glass wall. Ivan scratched at his ear as one sank into his skull. Nikolai burped when he got hit. Each man shifted in his chair, but never turn away from the screen.

Satisfied, I started looping zip-ties together and waited.

If you are enjoying this story and don’t want to wait for the last four parts to make it to this blog, I’ve collected the entire story and you can purchase it from The Stormwolf Store. It costs $3, and your purchase goes to supporting more serial fiction like this.

If you were wondering how we got here, please visit the Stormwolf Store. The short story “The Witch in Scarlet” is the Trick Molloy tale that immediately precedes this one.