The Nite Jar was an old-time diner with a long white marble counter and rows of booths upholstered in red leather. The walls were mint green, the floor was chequered in black and white tiles and the coffee was always hot and strong.
It was just after 7 p.m. and the juke box was playing ragtime jazz. Lil and Nedly had taken a window booth and ordered two ginger beers. Every few minutes Lil wiped the sleeve of her sweatshirt across the window, leaving an arc of almost clear glass to look through at the drizzle-blurred line of traffic that crawled past as the grey early-evening light darkened towards night.
Someone had left a copy of the Herald behind on the table. Nedly was reading the front-page story out loud.
Security Guard Killed by Exploding Car!
In the early hours of this morning, fifty-six year old security guard Antonio McConkey was killed when his car unexpectedly exploded into a ball of flames outside City Hall.
An initial report suggests the vehicle had been leaking petrol and by turning the key in the ignition, McConkey must have caused the spark that ignited it.
Despite the close proximity to City Hall, a police spokesman has stated that they can find no evidence to suggest that the explosion was the result of terrorist action.
‘Is that the fire your mum was talking about this morning?’
‘Probably. Although Mum said she put that fire out with the mayor’s sheepskin coat, which doesn’t seem likely if it was an exploding car.’ Lil took a large gulp of ginger beer.
Nedly watched her with an envious look in his eye.
She felt his gaze and stopped drinking. ‘Why did you want me to order you one if you weren’t going to drink it?’
‘I am going to drink it.’
Lil glanced over her shoulder to check that no one was looking and then slid the bottle towards him. ‘Go on, then.’
Nedly stretched out his fingers but they just delved through the bottle as he tried to take it. He sighed despondently. ‘Forget it.’
‘You turned the pages of the newspaper, didn’t you?’
‘I would probably just knock the bottle over.’
‘So?’
‘The ginger beer would go everywhere.’
‘Big deal, I’ll get a cloth. It’s worth a try, isn’t it? Maybe there’s a knack to it.’
He gave her a tired look.
Lil pushed the bottle closer. ‘Go on. Try it.’
Nedly looked like he wanted to hope and was afraid to. He wiggled his fingers and, warming up, he steepled and stretched them. He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and tried again. He wrapped one hand round the bottle.
‘That’s great. Can you feel it?’
‘Kind of.’
Lil leant in until she was eye-level with the bottle. She could see Nedly’s fingers hovering a fraction of an inch from the glass. ‘You’re not actually touching it.’
‘I can’t do it,’ he moaned.
‘Not if you don’t actually try.’
Nedly shook his head at her and then closed his hand. It disappeared through the glass and became a ginger-beer-coloured fist.
‘OK, so that’s going to take some work.’ Lil pushed the bottle to one side. ‘But there’s loads of other stuff you can do that ordinary people can’t.’ She glanced up and met the gaze of a couple sitting holding hands at a table on the other side of the cafe. They looked away quickly when they realised she had seen them.
Nedly raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Like what?’
Lil picked up the newspaper and pretended to read the front-page story again.
‘Like what?’ Nedly repeated. ‘Lil? Lil!’
‘What?’ Lil hissed, lifting the paper so she could hide behind it. ‘People are staring.’
‘So? Are you just going to ignore me then?’
‘No,’ Lil muttered through gritted teeth. ‘I just forgot that no one else can see you.’
‘Like, what else can I do?’ Nedly persisted.
Lil propped her head up on one elbow and cupped her hand to hide her mouth. ‘Like, you can give people the creeps.’
Nedly sunk his head into his hands. ‘Great.’
Lil continued, ‘And you’re invisible.’
‘Again, great.’
‘It is great. You can sneak around and find stuff out, follow people without being seen. That’s really useful.’
‘Useful for you, maybe.’ He peered at her from between his fingers.
‘That’s why we make such a good team,’ Lil grinned. ‘How about that stuff you can do with the lights? Making them flicker and go out.’
‘That’s not on purpose, it just happens.’
‘But you know what it means? You can affect electricity. I bet you could learn how to influence radios, TVs …’ Lil’s eyes lit up. ‘Tape recorders. Hey, you could hide out up at City Hall and …’
Her chain of thought was broken by a shadow falling across the table. She looked up to see Abe Mandrel standing outside, staring at her through the steamed-up windows, rainwater dribbling from the brim of his battered brown trilby. Lil beckoned at him to join them.
The detective peeled off his wet coat and hung it over the seat. He pulled a paper folder out of the plastic bag he was carrying and placed it on the table. It was Nedly’s file.
Nedly stared at it, full of hope and apprehension at what it might hold and then he let out a strangled yelp as the detective flumped suddenly onto his lap, completely enveloping him. Nedly scooted quickly into the corner as, with a shriek, Mandrel jumped back up like a jack-in-the-box and glared, pasty-faced, at the empty seat. Then, his cheeks reddening, Mandrel eased himself back down again, shuddered once and tried to regain his composure.
He and Lil sat there for a moment in silence, staring each other out until Mandrel went for the draw and, reaching with his left hand, pulled the photograph from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘I figured you might want this back.’
‘Keep it.’ Lil shrugged with feigned nonchalance. ‘Means nothing to me.’
Nedly snorted but she ignored him.
Mandrel stared down at the photo. ‘This was taken right here at the Nite Jar, you know? That big table right over there.’ He held the picture up so that Lil could compare the backgrounds. ‘It was the last time we were all together,’ he said grimly, placing it back on the table. ‘We thought we had it all worked out back then.’ He nodded at Nedly’s ginger beer. ‘Is that for me?’
‘No!’ said Nedly.
Lil nodded helplessly.
Mandrel picked it up and took a couple of swigs while Nedly flapped his hands at the bottle trying to grab hold of it so he could wrestle it away. The ginger beer began to churn, the glass trembled, and Mandrel tried to steady it and failed, splashing himself in the face. ‘Damn shakes!’ he swore, dabbing his chin with his tie.
‘I almost had it!’ Nedly was triumphant. ‘Did you see?’
‘Pretty good,’ murmured Lil.
‘All right!’ the detective grumbled. ‘So, I spilt a bit on my chin, no big deal. I prefer a hot cup of Java anyway.’ He raised his left hand for the waitress at the bar with two fingers up. The waitress brought the coffee straight away along with a large plate of Danish pastries. Her lips and nails were post-box red, her hair curled under into a smooth blonde helmet.
‘Long time no see, Abe.’
Mandrel began to wave a hello and then hesitated, looking at his hand attachment as though he was seeing it for the first time, and then he hid it under the table. The waitress gave him a quick smile and went back to the counter.
‘So, anyway, you’re Naomi’s kid.’ He ran a hand down his banana-patterned tie. ‘Has she ever mentioned me?
‘Never,’ Lil said through a mouthful of pastry.
Mandrel looked crestfallen, then lifted his coffee and took a big swig for something to do. Nedly stared menacingly at an apricot custard. The plate of Danish started to vibrate but Mandrel didn’t seem to notice.
‘She never talks about the old days,’ Lil explained. ‘Not any of it.’
‘Well, it was a long time ago, I suppose.’ He gave the pecan slice on his plate a doleful look and then picked it up and took a mouthful.
The apricot custard suddenly flew from the plate, hit the window and slid down to the floor, leaving a trail of pale orange slime on the glass.
‘I hate those ones,’ said Lil.
‘I would have eaten it.’ Mandrel picked up the photograph again. ‘You know this is a bit of history, right here; a week after this shot was taken everything changed.’ He slid the photograph away into his pocket. Lil watched it sink from sight like a setting sun. ‘We all lost something when McNair went down. Peligan lost hope.’ He stirred his coffee, looking down into the dark brown liquid as though it were a portal to another time.
Lil’s heart beat a little faster. ‘You knew McNair?’
Mandel gave her a curious look. ‘You could say that.’
‘Back in the good old days?’
‘Back when we thought that politicians were clean, law enforcement was fair and the press was free to report the news.’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘Turns out we were living in a dream. After McNair we woke up to find that the kingpins had got their dirty fingers in all the pies and there was nothing left for the rest of us to eat.’ Mandrel slugged back the rest of his coffee and swallowed it like a bitter pill. ‘It was just my rotten luck that the justice system was the dirtiest pie of them all.’
Suddenly the pastries didn’t look that appetising. Lil pushed the plate away from her towards Nedly but he backed away, sinking further into the upholstery.
‘Is that why your case against the Lucan Road Mob collapsed?’
Mandrel flashed Lil a sharp look. ‘What do you know about that?’
‘Just what I’ve read.’
‘Mob boss Ramon LeTeef was known to be as slippery as an eel, but I got him – my case was watertight.’ With another gulp he emptied the cup. ‘Only, he must have had some powerful friends because when it got to trial the ratfink turned on the rest of the mob and vanished. After he split, his fellow mobsters starting singing. Each of them managed to cop plea bargains for lesser sentences – all except one: LeTeef’s partner in crime, this weird fish called Cornelius Gallows. He was what we in the force call “an evil genius”. Gallows lost his head in the trial and wound up shouldering most of the charges; the judge took one look at him and sent him down to Rorschach Asylum. He died in a fire there two years later.’
Nedly shivered.
‘But LeTeef never served a day.’
Lil took a long gulp of ginger beer and then asked, ‘So where is he now?’
The old detective shook his head despairingly. ‘No idea. He’s probably in the witness protection scheme, been given a new identity, the works. They just let him go, even after he …’ He looked miserably at his prosthetic hand. ‘They called it “resisting arrest” but he shattered all the bones in my hand when I tried to stop him getting away. Shut the car door on me. Seven times. He knew that was the only way to get me to let go. I might have lost my hand but I’m never going to let him rest, not until he’s in jail, where he belongs.’
Out of the corner of her eye Lil saw Nedly turn his attention to the brown folder.
‘Lil!’ he hissed. ‘Lil! Can you open the file for me so I can take a peek?’
Ignoring him, Lil took a bite out of her pastry and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘Is that why you quit the police force?’
Mandrel frowned. ‘It felt more like they quit me. I’ve been working for myself for a while now and, let me tell you, I don’t pay well. But I’m not giving up. LeTeef escaped justice once – he won’t a second time.’
Nedly flicked at the file with a ghostly finger and the paper inside rustled invitingly.
Mandrel gave an unconscious shudder and continued speaking. Nedly was glaring at the file, the cover gaped a few times like fish gills gasping for air, but Mandrel didn’t notice; he was too wrapped up in his story.
‘I hadn’t had a whiff of a clue to LeTeef’s whereabouts until these fires started.’
Lil raised an eyebrow. ‘The nurse and the security guard?’
‘They’re just the latest, the ones that ended in death made the papers but there have been more than thirteen mysterious fires in Peligan over the last year, and they have all targeted former members of the Lucan Road Mob. Of course most of them have different identities now, but I know that crowd, so I’ve been following it, joining the dots. Whoever the Firebug is, he’s going to lead me straight to LeTeef.’
For the first time Lil saw something of the old Scourge of the Underworld in the grizzled detective. She reached across the table and took his hand. It was the prosthetic one but that didn’t matter. ‘I’ll help you find him,’ she said.
The detective’s eyes started to fill up and he looked away and cleared his throat. He gave her a look that said he would have squeezed hers back if he had that kind of mechanism available to him.
Out of the corner of her eye Lil saw the cover of the file swing spookily open like a trap door. She slapped her hand down on top of it, shutting the file with a bang, and making Mandrel jump.
‘But first, we need to solve the Ned Stubbs case,’ she said quickly, and then slapped the table again for emphasis.
Mandrel sighed and blew out his cheeks. ‘I told you already. That case went cold.’
Lil gave him a stern look. ‘You let it go cold. Show me the case notes.’
Reluctantly Mandrel reached inside the folder and pulled out a single sheet of paper. ‘Knock yourself out.’ He handed it over.
Lil read it through; it didn’t take long. ‘This is it?’ She flattened it out on the table so Nedly could see.
Case File #112
Ned Stubbs
Status: Missing.
Address: Hawks Memorial Orphanage, Bun Hill, Peligan City West
Family: None. Guardian is Mr E. Kolchak. Address as above.
Other information:
The rest was blank.
‘This is it?’ Nedly echoed Lil. ‘We sat through that whole story for this?’ He flopped face-down into the plate of pastry crumbs.
‘Don’t you have anything?’ Lil asked. ‘Any leads at all?’
‘There were no leads. The boy just disappeared. I hate to break it to you, kid, but in Peligan City stuff like that happens all the time.’
‘Not on my watch.’ Lil gulped back the rest of her ginger beer and then banged the bottle back down on the table. ‘Someone killed Ned Stubbs and you’re just going to have to take my word for that until I can prove it to you,’ she added darkly.
The detective gave her a strange look: irritation traced with nostalgia. ‘You’re not going to give up, are you?’
She folded her arms and looked him hard in the eye. ‘Never.’
‘You know, you’re a lot like her – your mum, I mean.’
Lil’s cheeks turned pink as she untucked her hair and flattened it. ‘I know. It’s the ears.’
Mandrel snorted, lips curled in a rusty smile. ‘That’s not what I meant, but yeah – you’ve got her ears too.’ He rootled around in his pocket and pulled out a crumpled five-pound note and some coins and laid them on the table. He picked up the discarded Herald that Lil had been reading earlier, ran an eye over the cover story and then rolled it up and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘Anyways, why all the interest? Who’s Ned Stubbs to you?’
‘He’s my friend.’
‘Was your friend.’ Mandrel got to his feet, perched his hat back on the top of his head, and swung the cafe door open to the rain-splattered world beyond. ‘You said he was dead, remember?’