Die on Your Feet Page 6

  “Copenhagen to see Tsu and Luke.”

  The sergeant looked down his long nose at her, then at Lola. He pointed a thick finger at the latter. “She stays out here.” He fixed sharp brown eyes on Thick and Thin, nodded curtly to them.

  Copenhagen raised an eyebrow, turned to Lola. “Your reputation precedes you?”

  Lola shrugged. Aubrey mumbled, “Oh, for the love of—”

  Copenhagen slid her card across the beautiful mahogany. Ping placed a forefinger on it but didn’t pick it up. He read her title without expression. He said: “You keep strange company, Commissioner.”

  “I’m not interested in your approval, sergeant. Miss Starke is my associate, for now.”

  Ping gambled his career with an insolent shrug. “If you say so.” He picked up the telephone at his elbow.

  Copenhagen turned, raising an eyebrow, to Lola.

  Lola shrugged again, her attention caught by half of an invisible conversation.

  “I’m not any happier about it than you, Stan.” Aubrey indeed sounded displeased. “Let it go, Stan. It’s ancient history.” Pause, then a sigh. “No, it’s not. And don’t bring your son into it. Lola’s got nothing—” The unseen anger raised the hairs on Lola’s neck. “No. You tell him to back off.” Another tense pause. “Empty threats,” Aubrey said dismissively. Then: “If I so much as smell your sorry carcass near us, you’ll regret you didn’t die sooner. Now, beat it.”

  A little smile played along Copenhagen’s mouth as she studied Lola’s startled expression. Her eyes were as shrewd as her tone was insincere. “Problem, Lola?” she asked. Her gaze swung to just over Lola’s right shoulder. “Something troubling Aubrey?”

  Lola regained her mien of indifference.

  “Well, they’ve got Interrogators and Catchers at every station,” continued the deputy commissioner. “I’ve heard it can get discomforting for Ghosts. Even if they’re not under scrutiny.”

  “He’s fine,” Lola replied. “Chatting with an acquaintance.”

  “Oh?” Copenhagen raised her eyebrows. “Seems a strange place for someone like Aubrey to have friends. I mean, your father, I could understand, but what’s an actress’s dresser got to do with the cops?”

  Aubrey snapped, “You tell her to stay out of my business.”

  Lola passed on his message. Copenhagen nodded, unfazed by the hostility. “I apologize for snooping, Aubrey. It’s a hazard of a curious mind.” Suddenly, she shifted her line of sight. Lola turned as well. “Our escort.”

  A wide-shouldered man in a navy suit clambered down the steps behind and to the left of Ping. He had black hair swept back from his forehead, revealing a square face and smooth cheeks.

  Copenhagen dismissed her thugs with a curt movement. They turned and left the station house with neither word nor backward glance. Sergeant Ping glared at Lola. She shrugged at his enmity. She wasn’t interested in calling out his personal demons. It was unlikely he would cause her much trouble, anyway. His father was once deputy commissioner of police, before death and dementia caught him, but Ping Jr. had nothing but a gimp arm and an unstable Ghost.

  Copenhagen made introductions with the detective. Detective Inspector Tsu gripped Lola’s hand with exaggerated care, as though it were porcelain, and gave it a brief, limp shake. He led the women around the sergeant’s perch and down a hallway that ran under the stairs. There were closed doors on both sides, but only some had lit rooms beyond them. Tsu stopped after one corner and about ten doors. This one was open, and inside was his partner. Another round of introductions. DI Luke tried to crush Lola’s hand in his slender grip. He stood, tight-lipped and scowling, as Copenhagen smiled.

  “I expect you to cooperate fully with my associate, detectives. She’s here as my representative. She also happens to have skills pertinent to your investigation, which clearly needs to move faster.” Copenhagen turned. “You’ve got a lot of ground to cover, Lola. I’ll leave you in the detectives’ capable hands.” She nodded briefly and swept out of the room. The door closed firmly behind her.

  The room was tight, about ten by ten, and filled with a large oak desk in the centre. Three chairs sat around its square solidity, with another two lined against the wall opposite the door. The walls were unadorned institutional grey. No windows, no mirrors, no clocks. Lola checked her watch: just past eight.

  “We keeping you from something, Miss Starke?” asked Tsu politely.

  “Just wondering about the commissioner’s game.”

  “Assistant deputy,” said Luke. “Her rank doesn’t mean much here.”

  Lola took a seat. Tsu sat as well. Luke remained on his feet, prowling one corner of the room to the other, behind his partner. She waited.

  Luke suddenly stopped, crossed his arms and deepened his scowl. His eyes were brown and flat. No surprise there. All cops had flat eyes. Requirement of the job.

  “Why are you here again, Starke?”

  “My client seems to think I can help out.”

  “You think so?” challenged Luke.

  “No idea. Don’t have enough information to know.”

  Tsu had a surprisingly smooth voice. “Miss Starke, you’ll have to excuse us. We’re just a coupla dumb mugs stuck with a tough case.”

  “I doubt that.” Lola leaned in. “Look, I’m not here to tell you how to do your job, and I’m not here to spy. My client’s forcing my hand here. She wants answers and she’s impatient. This isn’t my line of work, but she’s got a bee in her bonnet and she can make my life miserable. Mine and yours.”

  “Is that a threat?” asked Luke. He stood rigidly, fists held at his side. Tsu remained sitting, relaxed and observant. He gave no indication that his partner’s outburst had even occurred.

  Lola’s expression was bland.

  “You don’t need the dough. What’s tying you up?” asked Tsu.

  She shrugged. “I’m here to make the best of a bad situation.”

  He studied her in silence. Luke continued glaring. Lola sat and waited. Aubrey might have been doing the same. He hadn’t made a peep since his exchange in the lobby.

  “It’s your situation,” Tsu said, “not ours.”

  Lola stood. Her tone was sympathetic. “I doubt that’s your choice to make.”

  Luke blocked her exit. “I don’t appreciate threats, Starke.”

  “Then you oughta be glad I didn’t make any.” She met his glare until he stepped away. Tsu also stood. They walked her back down the corridor. The same group of harried cops, bored prostitutes and worried citizens filled the room around Sgt. Ping’s imperial dais. Aubrey said not a word as the two detectives escorted Lola out the station doors and then left her to walk to her car alone. Halfway there, Lola glanced back. Luke was no longer scowling. He was talking animatedly to Tsu. The larger man was listening thoughtfully.

  “That’s about as much as you could’ve expected,” said Aubrey. “They’re not going to be much happier being ordered by the DS to work with you.”

  “It’s their call. I’d’ve done the same. This way, they have an extra reason to give me a hard time. Soothes the ego. Won’t feel so much like they need help.”

  Lola unlocked her door and tossed her purse on the front passenger seat. Instead of starting it up, she got the torch from the glove compartment and kneeled down on the pavement. Bracing a hand against the door, she bent down and clicked on the light, shining it on the undercarriage. She hauled open the trunk and checked around, feeling for lumps and loose lining. She gave the interior of the car the same treatment. She felt around the seat and shone the flash into every crevice along the floorboards and doors. The engine compartment was next. There were no loose wires or valves, no nicked hoses. Finally, she emptied the glove compartment and felt around inside as well.

  “Satisfied?” asked Aubrey. A uniform walked past, ignoring Lola
.

  “Until I can take her in,” Lola replied, brushing off her trouser legs. She patted the old car affectionately.

  “It drove just fine over to The White Crane.”

  “Her thugs had plenty of time with it while I was here.”

  “Seems to me she had an easier way to kill you earlier,” said Aubrey. “Car bombs aren’t exactly subtle.”

  “Listen,” said Lola, “I know you pride yourself on playing devil’s advocate, but you’re used to playing gai-woo. Amber Jade Stoudamire wants baht-fuhn and she’ll cheat to get it.”

  “She just hired you. Why hurt you?”

  “Why not? She’s never needed a reason before. Besides, her thugs owe me something for their troubles. Maybe it wouldn’t have been a bomb, but faulty brakes could still get me hurt badly.” She cranked the engine and slid out into traffic. Luke was still outside on the sidewalk as she drove past. He dragged on a cigarette, his eyes squinting against the smoke. He watched Lola drive away.

  Station Forty-four was fifteen minutes from Lola’s building. A traffic snarl at Yan and Seventeenth made it forty-five. An ambulance squatted on the northeast corner of the intersection as attendants helped an elderly man onto a stretcher. His arm flopped limply at one point, surprising the attendants, who allowed their cargo to tip precariously for a few seconds. They had to stop, place the stretcher down and move the poor man back squarely between the sides. Naturally, people had crowded on the sidewalks, stretching their necks for a glimpse of another’s misery. A few motorists had exited their cars, walking as close to the scene as possible. A few uniforms were scattered around the intersection, chatting with bystanders, ordering the occasional nervy gawker to keep back. The culprit was apparently a maroon coupe, its driver bracketed by two suited detectives. She looked ready to faint. A kid driving daddy’s latest gift a little too wildly. Ones like her filled the Hills around the City. They were the ones brought up with golden chopsticks. Spoiled little monsters who raced through the city with impunity, their hides covered by Mummy and Daddy’s green money.

  “There but for the grace of gods,” Lola muttered.

  “Your father did a better job than that of raising you,” Aubrey scolded.

  “What would you know about it?” Lola asked absently.

  The ambulance hit its siren and wailed away into the distance. A couple of uniforms started directing traffic through the intersection. Lola slipped the car into gear and they began moving again. She remained silent. She checked her watch. It was coming up on ten o’clock. She drove toward home, her body tense.

  Aubrey matched her silence until she pulled into the parking garage. “This isn’t the time for more carousing, Lola,” he said. “You’ve still got Josephson to find.”

  “I don’t tell you how to be a thorn in my side—you don’t tell me how to earn a living.”

  “The fact remains,” he continued, “running two cases simultaneously is difficult at the best of times. This time, you’ve got two unyielding clients and some unhappy cops to juggle. It’s only a matter of time before everything comes to a head and most likely explodes in your face.”

  “Your vote of confidence is a real relief,” Lola replied. “It’d be a cryin’ shame if you were to nag me every step of the way.”

  “Facts are not nagging, Lola, any more than snappy remarks constitute action. What are you going to do about Josephson?”

  She parked the Buick, got out and stretched, eying the surrounding cars for movement. Aubrey started to speak. Lola cut him off.

  “Arbogast will keep till morning. Calling him now wouldn’t make him feel better. And let’s face it. That’s why he hired me. Handholding. Plain and simple.” She strode toward the elevator.

  “I’m not talking about Arbogast. I’m talking about Josephson. Sister Amelia had old news. There’re plenty more places for you to look for something more recent. Josephson may even be back in town by now. Daylight doesn’t suit the kind of quarry you’re hunting, Lola. Take advantage of the night.” Aubrey paused. “Wouldn’t your father have said the same?”

  “He would’ve trusted me,” she replied. She stopped mid-stride, spun around, and headed back. Passing the trusty Buick, Lola went instead toward her other car, cloth-covered and sitting low to the ground. Impatiently, she threw away the canvas cover to reveal a bright red REO coupe.

  “Dammit, Lola.”

  Lola smiled as she revved the engine up to a low growl and pulled out slowly. She drove deliberately and carefully east along Twenty-second until Shu, then turned northward toward the desert. Lola concentrated on the road and kept silent.

  Shu Boulevard became a highway, and traffic thinned to a miserly trickle. The cold desert night swirled around Lola’s bare head. She stopped just on the side of the empty highway to tie a scarf around her hair. Then she pulled back onto the pavement with a spray of gravel. She drove until her eyes wept from wind and her cheeks burned cold. Aubrey’s words disappeared in a snarl of desert air and machinery, like a tail of smoke in a stiff wind.

  Chapter Five

  Lola awoke groggy and ill-tempered. She went into the bath and splashed her face ruthlessly with frigid water. Her face was still pale as she sat down at her bedroom telephone. She let out her held breath when St. John answered.

  “It’s barely half eight,” he said, “what’re you doing up, my girl?”

  “Dear Uncle St. John,” Lola drawled, drawing out the sound of his name: Sinnn-jinnn. “Sarcasm is strictly forbidden before noon.”

  “God girl, don’t try that horrible accent this early in the day. You’ll hurt yourself, you will.”

  “It’s no more horrible than yours.”

  “Yeh, but I come by mine honestly,” he chuckled. “Looking for your mum?”

  “You know me better than that.”

  “Sadly, I do. What’s on your mind then?”

  “This’s more your purview anyway. I heard a rumor there may be some mayhem down at the Guild Office. Something about lost records and missing guild licenses. Thought you ought to have a lackey swing by and check on Mother’s guild credentials.”

  There was a long pause. “Forgive me, love, but why are you interested?”

  “Call it a sudden outbreak of filial piety. Duty calls and all that rubbish,” Lola replied. “Will you do it or not?”

  “A reliable source?”

  “A troubling rumour, let’s say. Will you take care of it?”

  “Already done. Grace never starts a new project until everything’s in order.” He paused. “What’s this about?”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Lola.”

  “Right. Good.”

  “Duty to one’s parent notwithstanding, since when do you care about Grace’s career dealings?”

  “It’s a molehill, not a mountain. I’ve got to go. Working a new case.” Lola rang off. She blew out her breath and shook off her misgivings. St. John was the security expert, after all. He’d handle it.

  Lola was wringing her hair dry when Elaine knocked at the bathroom door to fetch her to the telephone. Looking amused, Elaine took the limp towel out of Lola’s hand and threw it into the hamper. With a dry one, she expertly wrapped up Lola’s hair and sent her out of the room with a gentle shove.

  St. John spoke in clipped tones. “Lola, what’s going on? Whom did you talk to?”

  “Are they missing then?”

  “Everything at the Guild office about Grace is gone.”

  “What does that mean for her?”

  “The Guild Secretary knows her too well to fine her. They’re considering it a clerking error. Someone must have moved the file without proper documentation.”

  “And you?”

  “Given my suspicious nature and superior intelligence, I’d say it’s a security breach. Your call this mo
rning tips the scale. Now, tell me what the hells you’ve gotten yourself into.”

  “You’re head of Mother’s security, not mine.” She forged onward quickly at his sharp intake of breath. “What is she going to do?”

  “Grace can’t go abroad until that license is reissued. It’s part of her work documentation in Europe.”

  “What’s the delay then?”

  “Most likely a week. They’re being extremely cooperative, but it takes time to authenticate and verify old records.” He paused. “It will help that Mayor can vouch for her.”

  “But it won’t hold up the project start?”

  “They’re not slated to start for another four months. Grace is leaving in a few days. Train to the east coast and then onto the Empress Liner. Train on the other end, as well. Three months to get there and another to nose around.”

  “A month-long holiday?”

  “Working holiday. There are some details she wants to hammer down before the director gets on location.”

  “I think it’d be a good idea for her to leave early. There’s got to be someone she can charm at the Guild offices.”

  “A week is charmed, Lola,” St. John answered. “All right, you’ve had your go. My turn next. Why the sudden interest in your mother’s affairs?”

  Lola considered before answering. She opted for truth. “Someone threatened me by threatening her.”

  “The records theft?”

  “They overstated the results, but proved they could carry through.” She sighed. “A case I don’t want.”

  “Do what’s right for you. Grace can take care of herself.”

  “If I knew she was out of the country, that would help.”

  “Sorry, love, can’t force her schedule.”

  “You can overrule her. Make her see the urgency.”

  A pause. “Is there a physical threat?”

  “No. Not so far,” she amended.

  “Just this monkey business with the Guild.”

  “Look, St. John, this is a powerful enemy to make. She’s the Assistant Deputy Commissioner of Gaming and she doesn’t throw her punches. You need to get Mother away from the City.”