Redemption Alley

Monty let it rest for a few beats. “How’s Saul?”

I don’t know, I’m not home enough to answer the phone. It was a pinch in a numb place. “I talked to him a couple days ago. His mom’s doing better.”

It was half a lie. Once Weres get a particular lymphoma they tend to go downhill quick, bodies burning up from the inside. They call it “the Wasting.”

“Good.” Monty nodded. His chair squeaked as he shifted, uneasily.

My back still hurt, a lead bar of pain buried in my lumbar muscles. I wanted to go home and scrub the smoke and fear off my skin. I wanted to check the messages and see if Saul had called again. I wanted to hear his voice.

Too bad, Jill. There were other things to do before dawn.

Like whatever Monty was sitting on. “Spit it out, Montaigne.” I folded my arms, leaning against the file cabinet. My bullwhip tapped the metal, a soft thumping sound. I had to pick up more ammo soon, drop by Galina’s and get a whole run of supplies.

He gave me a look that could have peeled paint and his eyes flicked toward the open door.

Subtle, Monty. I hauled myself upright, padded across thin cheap industrial carpet, and swept the door closed, without even a sarcastic flourish. “That better?”

“I need your help. On a case.” He looked down at the drift of paper covering his desk, and I began to feel uneasy.

Normally, he says There’s something I need you to take a look at, Jill. Like he can’t believe he’s asking a woman half his size for help.

What the hell. I had nothing else I was doing tonight, other than visiting Galina and patrolling the streets for stray arkeus and other hellbreed. There weren’t any leads to chase for tonight’s Trader—the ’breed who had given him the ability to fling fire was still out there, free as a bird.

It didn’t matter. I’d catch up with him, her, or it soon enough. You don’t get away with things like that. Not when Jill Kismet’s on the job.

I dragged the only unburied chair over to his desk, pushing a stack of files out of the way with my boot. I settled down, resting against the straight wooden back, and fixed my eyes on the piles of paper. “Talk to me.”

He opened up a drawer and set a bottle of Jack Daniels down. Amber alcohol glowed under the fluorescents.

Uh-oh. I leaned forward, closed my fingers around the bottle, and twisted the cap off. “A case? One of mine?” If it is, why haven’t you said something before now? It’s the rules, Monty. You’ve done this before.

“I don’t know.” He reached down, digging in another drawer as I took a swig. The alcohol burned, and I was reminded that I hadn’t eaten yet today.

Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember eating yesterday either. Once you get going it’s hard to slow down.

And Saul was gone.

“Will you just tell me, Monty? The cloak-and-dagger routine gets old.”

“You’d think you’d enjoy that.” He didn’t quite raise an eyebrow, but it was close.

I sighed, exaggeratedly rolling my eyes. A very teenage movement, which he acknowledged with a sour smile. Neither of us had seen our teens for a decade or two, or three. I doubt Monty even remembered his teen years, and I had no urge to recall mine ever again. “Just get on with it. I have other shit to do tonight.” Or this morning, as the case may be.

“You’re always in such a fucking hurry.” He had a file in his hands, a thin dog-eared manila number held shut with a rubber band.

“Hellbreed don’t take vacations.” When they do, I’ll be the first to celebrate. I sniffed smoke, still rising from my clothes and skin. Maybe not with a barbeque, though. “What’s this all about?”

“Marvin Kutchner.” He held up the file. “Cop. Ate his Glock about two months ago.”

“Has he come back?” In my line of work, that’s always a possibility. If you run up against the nightside in Santa Luz—or really, anywhere in my territory, which runs from Ridgefield to the southern edges of Santa Luz; Leon Budge in Viejarosas and I split some of the southern suburbs—you’ll see me sooner or later. I will avenge you, if you fall prey to the things that go bump in the night.

And if you come back, I’ll lay you to rest. Permanently.

Monty shook his head. “Buried out at Estrada. No sign of him since.”

Well, that’s a relief. I eyed the folder. “So what’s the deal?”

“I want you to look into it.”

“A cop suicide? No offense, Monty, but—”

“He was my partner, back in the day.” His weak, smoke-colored gaze fixed itself over my shoulder, and his mouth turned down at the corners.

The bottle of Tums on his desk wasn’t open, and the whiskey bottle was mostly full. He was laying in for a siege.

I studied him for a long few moments. What aren’t you telling me? “Is there a suspicion of homicide?”

“Something just don’t smell right, Kismet. I don’t know. I didn’t think Marv was the type, though God knows any cop can be driven to it.” He spread his hands, helplessly, like people do when they try to express the inexpressible. “It just don’t smell right.”

Scratch any cop hard enough and you’ll find intuition. Most of the time it’s an educated guess so reflexive it seems like a hunch, courtesy of working the edges of human behavior for a long time.

A hunter, on the other hand, is normally a full-blown psychic. Messing around with sorcery will do that to you. Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. Doesn’t matter.

Still… why me, Monty? “Why not just set IA on it?”

“Them?” He made a dismissive gesture. “Look, Marv was a good cop. Maybe it got to be too much for him, maybe not. He had a wife, she’s getting his pension, and if something…”

I waited.

“He was my partner,” Monty finally said, heavily. As if it explained everything.

Maybe it did. If he was just uneasy, or wanted to know why, he was no different from the people who come to me looking for their loved ones. Everyone who disappears is someone’s kid, someone’s friend, someone’s lover. Even if they’re not, they deserve someone to care about finding them.

Even if that someone is only me.

Kutchner had pulled the very last disappearing trick anybody ever does. If it didn’t look kosher to Monty and he wanted to do right by the widow by having someone quietly look at it so the pension wasn’t interrupted, it was reasonable. More reasonable than a burning warehouse and a throat-cut Trader.

I leaned forward, holding out my right hand. The leather cuff on my wrist slid a little bit under my coatsleeve, over the scar. “I won’t promise anything. It’s not my type of case.”

Monty’s shoulders sagged as he let me take the file. It could have been relief or a fresh burden. Vacations never last long enough. “Thanks, Kiss. I mean it.”

I almost winced. Leather creaked as I made it up to my feet, sighing as my back twinged and settled into aching. The scar burned, a reminder I didn’t need, just like the reek of smoke clinging to me. “Don’t call me that, okay?” A few days looking into this, it’s the least I owe him.

Monty wasn’t just a liaison. He was also a friend.

Even if he sometimes couldn’t look me in the face.

I left with the file tucked under my arm, heading out into the rest of my night. The gray of false dawn was coming up, sky bleaching out along its edges, and I kept my windows down as I drove. The cold air was a penance, but at least it didn’t smell like fire.