Devil's Bargain

Anger at least kept you sharp.

“Well?”

They were somewhere over Illinois, heading toward Missouri, when Lucia asked the single-word question. Jazz, who’d been drifting steadily toward nap land, came awake with a hard jolt. The drone of the airplane filled her ears, and she glanced out the window to make sure they were still flying, not falling. So far, so good.

Lucia was nursing a drink. It fizzed, so it was probably sparkling water, something suave and European. Jazz flagged down the flight attendant and got a Sprite, which she figured was the Americanized version.

“Am I in favor?” Jazz asked. Lucia inclined her head. “Honestly? I don’t know. But, presuming it checks out…”

“And if your friend Ma

“Then I’d say maybe we should seriously consider it.” The money. The thought of that crisp, cashable check in her wallet made Jazz’s mouth go dry.

Lucia closed the partnership agreement and stared down at the cover, which was embossed with the logo of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins, LLP. She rubbed a finger over it, silently, and then nodded. Just a bare inch of agreement. “Maybe,” she said. “Where would we have the office?”

“What?”

“The office,” Lucia repeated. “Garza & Callender Investigations. Where do we hang the shingle?”

Against all reason, Jazz found herself gri

“Yeah, it’s not bad.”

“But it’d be Callender & Garza. Alphabetical order.”

“Age before beauty.”

“Pearls before—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t if I were you.” Lucia took a sip of her water. The flight attendant arrived with a small plastic cup of fizzing Sprite on the rocks, and passed it across to Jazz.

They looked at each other mutely for a few seconds, and then Jazz held up the Sprite. Lucia held up the sparkling water.

They clinked plastic.

“Deal,” Lucia said.

“If there’s nothing hinky that turns up.”

“Obviously. Goes without saying.”

The Sprite tasted cool and refreshing, like champagne. That’s it, Jazz thought with a sudden surge of mingled dread and euphoria, as the plane started its descent for Kansas City. Something just changed.

She hoped it was for the better.

Two independent attorneys had reviewed and signed off on the partnership agreement—and one of them called it a “work of art”—by the time Ma

“Nothing?” she repeated, startled. She was standing in the lobby of the second law firm, one selected at random from the phone book, and Lucia was in the restroom. The partnership agreement, well thumbed, was lying in front of her on the coffee table, decorated with grubby yellow sticky notes. “What do you mean, nothing?”

“Well, I mean that the paper’s consistent with the official letterhead of Gabriel, Pike & Laskins—I had their nice receptionist courier me some pieces—and the fingerprints on the paper are yours, one James R. Borden, and a woman named Pansy Taylor, who is his—”

“Assistant, yeah, I’ve met her.”

“She’s really named Pansy?”

“Apparently. What else?”

Ma

“The blood on the note? A positive. Not your type.”

I don’t know about that, she thought, and suppressed it. “Borden’s,” she said. “Did you do a DNA test?”

“You said the full ride, Jazz. Yes. DNA profile. I don’t know what good it will do you, but it’s here. You’ll be pleased to know he’s not your long-lost brother or anything.”

She was, actually. “So there’s nothing you can tell me about this letter? Nothing hinky?”

“Hinky?” Ma

“But…?”

“It’s the envelope.”

The big red Valentine’s Day envelope. “What about it?”

“Two sets of fingerprints on the envelope, besides yours and Borden’s. Not Pansy Taylor’s.”

Jazz tried to remember if either of the truckers had touched it. No, she was pretty sure they hadn’t. “Get any hits?”

“Actually, yeah,” he said. “One of the sets belongs to a guy named Bernard Lozano, he was sent up for assault ten years ago, but he’s been out a couple of years now. I didn’t get anything off of the other set.”

Maybe the trucker twins had touched the envelope, after all. The name Lozano wasn’t ringing any bells with her. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Ink, paper, blood. That’s all you gave me, Jazz. Not a lot to work with here.”

“I get it, Ma

He grunted. “You’ll get the bill. Oh, and don’t come by for a while. I don’t like the company.”

“Ma

“Not you, Jazz. The other guys.”

She felt a sudden chill and clutched the phone tighter. “What other guys?”

“The ones who pulled up in a van and sat surveillance outside my building for two hours after you left,” Ma

He dead-dropped his address and phone numbers into a post office box when he got paranoid. Jazz had been through it before. “I’ll pick them up once I’m sure I’m not being tailed.”

“I thought you were sure the last time.”

I was. She didn’t tell him that. “Sorry, Ma

“Yeah, well, there’s a bump in your bill for it.” He hesitated. Static crackled the phone. “The other woman? The one you brought here?”

“Lucia?” Who was, as it happened, coming out of the bathroom and heading her way.

“I liked her,” Ma

He hung up before she could say another word. She blurted, “You’re kidding me!” but it was lost to the ether.

“What?” Lucia asked, sinking down to the couch beside her.

“Ma

Lucia smiled and shrugged. “People like me. It’s a gift.”

“Ma

“And the letter?”

“Clean. I’ve also asked him to look into the Cross Society, but it’ll take time.”

Lucia hitched her shoulders wordlessly. She tapped the partnership agreement with one high-gloss fingernail. For someone who’d been living out of a very small suitcase for two days, she looked fresh from the showroom. Jazz, who’d had access to everything in her own apartment, hadn’t managed to achieve much more than comfortable and awake. I need a haircut, she thought, swiping the shag out of her eyes again. Lucia’s hair always stayed where it was told. But then it was that glossy, silky black, and Jazz’s was coarse and blond and not very damn cooperative, in general.

She was thinking of these things to avoid the next step, she realized. Lucia was watching her.

“Look,” Jazz said, “I’m not going to lie to you. I need the money. I need it to pay for Ben’s appeal. I want to sign this thing.”

“Jazz, I’m not judging you. But these people know you need the money. It’s a lever.”

“And you don’t need it, do you?”

Lucia shook her head. “That’s not what they’re offering me.”

“Then what?”

“Independence.”

Jazz had had a bellyful of that. “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“It is when you’ve spent half your life trusting your life to pinheads who have no idea how to plan their way out of their offices,” Lucia replied, grim lines around her eyes and mouth. “I don’t mind fighting for the right things. I mind being wasted. I want to set my own priorities for a change.”