Chapter Three
TY PULLED UP in front of a run-down apartment building. As usual, there were a number of homeless folk loitering on the dirty sidewalk. He got out and cast a discreet gesture spell, the invisible tattoos on his fingertips prickling with the surge of it. His car was way too ostentatious for this part of town, and this would prevent it from standing out like a sore thumb. Not invisible, exactly, but when protected with the spell, people’s gazes tended to slide right past it and focus on something else. He’d used the same spell on himself on a number of occasions, but maintaining it on a moving person, as opposed to an immobile object, was a lot harder.
AJ, Ty’s fence, lived on the second floor. Well, Ty had no idea if he actually lived there. Other than his “office,” which took up most of the living room, the tiny space was crammed full of old junk Ty couldn’t even begin to categorize. Most of it was packed in various crates and cardboard boxes, but some of it spilled onto shelves and the floor—clocks, books, vintage appliances, porcelain dolls, framed photos. The dolls with their dead, staring eyes creeped him out like nothing else. If there was a bed buried in there somewhere, he’d never seen it.
The short walk up the stairs left him more than a little dizzy. His head was throbbing, but that could wait to be taken care of later. There was no answer when he knocked, so he took out his set of picks and undid the lock. Opening the door, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
This recent trend of being threatened with firearms was really getting old.
“Put that thing down before you hurt yourself,” he told AJ irritably.
“I don’t think so.” AJ’s hands shook a bit, but he kept pointing the gun at him. He was a short, middle-aged man with a receding hairline, but size didn’t matter when one had a gun. His eyes darted behind Ty, as if he expected him to bring reinforcements. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, but that was probably due to the room being stiflingly warm. “You don’t lockpick your way into a person’s place to have some nice friendly tea.”
“For fuck’s sake, I texted you nearly twenty minutes ago to let you know what happened,” Ty said. “You didn’t think I’d come to have a chat?”
“Nearly gave me a heart attack, you did,” AJ complained, finally lowering the gun and edging around the desk to shove it into a drawer. The sleek new laptop that was opened on the desktop looked startlingly out of place. “If I’d died, it would be on your conscience.”
“Nice of you to think I have one.” Ty freed one of the chairs that stood in front of the desk of the antique gilded globe that was occupying it, and sat down, stretching his legs. AJ was a hell of an actor, but he’d been genuinely panicked when Ty came through the door. “So what’s the deal with selling me out, AJ? You set me up pretty bad tonight. I thought we had a healthy loving relationship here. Expecting you to show up to pick the merch and almost ending up dead tends to leave a sour taste in my mouth.”
“We do have a loving relationship!” AJ said earnestly, not even bothering to deny the accusation. “Look, I had no choice. That creep barged in a couple of hours ago with all his goons, armed to the teeth, and made me spill the beans on the job. I had to tell him about the drop-off, or he threatened to shoot me right here. What was I supposed to do? Die, and then he’d find you anyway? Besides, I tried to warn you, didn’t I? He told me not to—in no uncertain terms, mind you—but I couldn’t leave you out to dry—”
“You sure took your sweet time about it,” Ty said, cutting him off. “Your text came in too late. They took the damned necklace, so now you’re out of your commission.”
Losing a commission was hardly a fitting punishment for not having his back when the shit hit the fan, but Ty knew AJ all too well. The man didn’t take to being threatened with physical violence. And he had tried to warn him, even if in the end it’d proven useless.
Ty had absolutely no illusions as to the depth of AJ’s loyalty. Their partnership was based on profit, and profit alone. But he was a damn good fence, and his connections ran deep and wide. And that profit thing went both directions, so Ty couldn’t be quick to let his indignation cloud his judgment, even if he was pissed off as hell.
“I was counting on your resilience and resourcefulness to get you through,” AJ said gravely. “And I was right, wasn’t I? Here you are, all handy-dandy, after you’ve lost my shitload-worth-of-money artifact, and I had to explain all this to my client. So hey, I’m the one with the problems here, go easy on me.”
“Yeah, yeah, woe is you, AJ. Do accept my humble apologies for being coldcocked and losing your merchandise. Now, can you quit whining and find out who it was?”
“Oh, he didn’t have to introduce himself. That’s Tony Giordano, Nick Giordano’s son.” Seeing Ty’s blank expression, he added: “That’s right, you’re not from around here. ‘Old Nick’ Giordano is a big-shot crime boss from North Beach. He likes to keep his business on the down-low, but Tony has always been more…brazen.”
Ty frowned. “So now the mafia is interested in the occult? That’s new.”
Strictly speaking, the Italian mafia getting into the occult was new. The Chinese were into really hardcore magic shit, but they had their own network of supply and demand that Ty wisely stayed away from.
“Not the mafia,” AJ corrected. He visibly relaxed as it became clear Ty wasn’t about to throttle him. “I doubt Old Nick has any interest in this stuff. I bet it’s all Tony’s doing. He was always an ambitious sort of fellow, from what I’ve heard, and the Giordanos have been hard-pressed by the Chinese syndicates in the recent years. That might have something to do with him wanting the amulet, though how the hell he even knew about it, I have no idea.”
“And who was the woman?”
“What woman?”
“Never mind,” Ty said. Apparently, Giordano hadn’t risked offending the beautiful sorceress’s sensibilities by bringing her into this dump, whoever she was.
“Anyway, everybody’s all right, no harm done,” AJ continued. “We’ll just work out a plan to protect ourselves from similar shit in the future. ’Cause if the occult gains popularity with the crooks, its prices will go up, and not in the good way.”
“I like how it’s all ‘we’ all of sudden,” Ty said. He might not be in any rush to drop AJ, but he wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. “Who says I’m gonna be working with you after getting out from under that bus?”
“Oh, come on,” AJ whined. “You can’t seriously blame me for this. It was supposed to be a quick and easy job I’d managed to score for you. Take an artifact from a fucking common. How hard can it be?”
“Well, it damn well wasn’t easy,” Ty growled in annoyance.
A “common” was practitioners’ slang for someone who lacked magical abilities, and Ty was dangerously close to being classified as one, since nearly all his skill came from studious practice rather than natural aptitude. But from what he could see, Cary was definitely not a common. Ty might not have the talent himself, but he recognized it in others. The depth of it remained to be seen, but there was no question it was there, beneath Cary’s many layers of insecurity.
“That whole debacle was the result of a big misunderstanding,” AJ said with fake conviction. “You know I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. In fact, I’ll make it up to you. It just so happens we still have the chance to recover the fee.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“I talked to the client right before you came calling,” AJ said. He wiped his brow in a nervous gesture. That had probably been an interesting conversation. Ty wondered again who could have commissioned the job, and what they had to say about it being botched so badly. “And once I explained everything, they were very understanding of our predicament. And now, see, they still want you to retrieve it for them.”
“The client wants me to steal it back from Giordano?”
“Yes! I talked you up,” AJ said hurriedly, “and I made them see it wasn’t your fault the merch was lost. And they’re willing to pay an extra fifteen percent for the expenses.” He seemed eager to get Ty hooked on the idea. “Which I am willing to pass on to you in full, as, um, moral compensation for my part. What do you say?”
“That’s one hell of an operation you’re talking about here,” Ty said, stalling. He had to give it to AJ. He’d pulled quite a feat, convincing the client to give them a second chance. He certainly wouldn’t entrust something so sensitive with a guy who’d already failed once. AJ was his own kind of magician, and it was part of the reason Ty was willing to continue working with him. “This isn’t robbing some Harry Blackstone wannabe. These are some serious folks with some serious punch.”
“And who better to handle them than you? Now that you know who to watch out for, it’ll be a walk in the park for someone with your skill set.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” Ty muttered, but he didn’t reject the idea outright. Yes, the ambush and the humiliation were fresh in his memory, but he was still alive and free to do what he wanted. “Okay, fine. I’ll look into it. No promises.”
“Sure, sure,” AJ said, relaxing fractionally. “No pressure. You do your thing, scope the target, what have you. Just remember the client really wants that bauble, and our reputation is at stake here.”
“Again with the ‘ours,’” Ty said, though of course AJ was right on that point. Reputation was everything in their business, which relied on very limited clientele and word-of-mouth-only advertisement.
AJ just waved at him dismissively and moved to a nook that looked vaguely like some sort of a toy kitchen. “How about that tea?”
“I’ll pass,” Ty said, getting up. He’d gotten all the information he’d come for and didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary. The cumulative energy of so many old and pre-owned objects piled on top of each other made his skin crawl unpleasantly. AJ didn’t have a magical bone in his body, but while Ty wasn’t a sorcerer by any means, he’d been trained over the years to sense these things more acutely. He’d also had to learn to tune them out—otherwise, he’d have gone completely bonkers at some point. “Oh, and AJ? You pull this kind of shit on me again, that gun won’t help you.”
AJ clutched his chest dramatically, but Ty wasn’t staying for the rest of the performance. After he shut the door behind him, he could hear AJ move some stuff around, probably barricading it.
Ty paused in the dim hallway to light a cigarette, turning things over in his head. The idea of going after the amulet for an even larger fee sounded appealing on the face of it, but it was incredibly risky. Giordano already knew who he was and where to apply pressure if he suspected Ty was still somehow in the running after the prize. He didn’t believe AJ would sell him out to Giordano when not faced with the possibility of torture or death. After all, they did have a good partnership going, despite the occasional glitches, and that was based on Ty making AJ a good amount of money. But as recent events had demonstrated, the fence wasn’t one to stand his ground under duress, and no amount of potential earnings would prevent him from tattling on Ty if the mafioso had his gun to his head again, or if the mysterious sorceress decided to hold another son et lumière.
And another thing. AJ was usually good about keeping his clients’ confidentiality, but this time he was being extra vague, and Ty had the distinct impression Giordano wasn’t the only one the fence was afraid of. Unease stirred in his gut. Did he really want to get into all of this? Not that he hadn’t already realized he was dealing with some dangerous people here, but he wasn’t sure he should be messing with a crime boss, or the crime boss’s son, as the case might be. Not to mention an actual sorceress, and this mysterious customer who was willing to go against the mafia to get what he wanted.
Ty was used to keeping to the shadows, sailing under the radar of both law enforcement and criminal elements, organized or otherwise. That part of his training had been deeply ingrained in him by Leland. There was nothing blatant about the way he got things done. In some aspects, he was not unlike a professional hit man, though he didn’t usually have to kill anyone in his line of work. People in the business knew him well, of course, but he rarely got into altercations with any of them, except when it came to direct competition. Even then, it was almost never a life and death situation, which in this case it most certainly would be. Objectively, the fee for the amulet wasn’t worth the risk, really, and he could always find some other useful magic trinket to replace his ring. The only thing that would suffer would be his pride.
But no. That wasn’t how things worked. If all it took to discourage him was a little intimidation, soon no one would hire him, or worse, they’d make him do all the dirty work and then try to stiff him. AJ wasn’t the only one who had a reputation to uphold. People came to Ty to obtain those rare, dangerous, hard-to-find and forgotten objects, and he was the best at it. He’d never turned down a job because it was too difficult, and he wasn’t about to start now. It wasn’t too late to remedy the situation before word spread about his blunder. Once he had a clear plan of action, the rest shouldn’t be that hard, or that different from his usual contracts. Ty just had to make sure he didn’t get caught.
He stomped on the butt of his cigarette and headed for his car.
TY WAS CURRENTLY staying at a cheap motel on Geary Street. The interior was dated and worn, and not in that vintage-y, quaint style. There were a few shady characters hanging out in the lobby even at this hour, but he paid them no mind and went straight up to his room on the second floor.
The first thing he saw when he reached the top of the stairs was the Incredible Mr. Mars huddling on the worn carpet next to the door to his room. From his posture, Ty assumed he was asleep, but the man looked up at his approach and flashed him the plastic room key.
“Looking for this?”
“God, you’re a leech, aren’t you,” Ty said wearily. He was tired and aching, and all he wanted was to take a Tylenol, crawl into bed, and get some much-needed sleep to clear his head. But he couldn’t help grudgingly admire Westfield’s tenacity. “What do you want?”
Westfield scrambled to his feet, jutting his chin out defiantly. “I figure you owe me my amulet back.”
“Do you now,” Ty said levelly. “In case you failed to notice, I don’t have it.”
“But you can figure out how to get it back.” Westfield was looking at him with those big doe eyes again, his eyelashes long and thick almost to the point of looking fake. An edge of desperation crept into his voice. “I mean, you probably do this stuff for a living, right? What if I hire you to steal it?”
Ty was certainly in high demand today. Was the kid even serious? It wasn’t as if he could realistically afford his services, though he must not realize it. Still, there was something about him. Like the fact he’d managed to steal Ty’s key card without him noticing (of course, he was dazed after a head injury at the time, but still) and had enough guts to follow him, despite the very real possibility of Ty shooting him on sight.
“Let’s discuss it inside,” he said.
Westfield hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded and unlocked the door with the card. It opened with a click that echoed too loudly in the empty hallway.
“After you,” Ty gestured and then stepped after Westfield into the awaiting darkness.