Mob rules

"Oh, I see," Sandy said. "Can I ask what you do, or would you have to kill me?" She giggled, bringing a delicate and bejeweled hand to her mouth but making sure I could still see her perfectly straight and whitened teeth. In the outfit, I didn't get any real sexism from the guys and I didn't deal with cattiness from the girls. I had juice, and that's all that mattered on the street. I only ran into that kind of shit from civilians.

I laughed, turning from her to Tommy, and then back to her. I put the smile away. "I wouldn't have to."

She stopped in midgiggle, and I could almost hear the little wheels in her head turning as she tried to figure out if I was joking or not.

Tommy laughed loudly and put his hand on my arm. "That's a good one, Domino! Sandy, why don't you run along so we can talk business?"

Sandy lit up again and the smile reappeared. "Oh, okay!" she bubbled. "It was nice to meet you, Domino." She bounced away and I turned my attention to the painting on the wall, some kind of abstract brown swirl on a yellow background.

"Looks like shit."

"It is," Tommy said, following my gaze to the painting. "Dog, I think."

I looked closer. It was. The artist had lacquered it to the canvas.

"Let's go outside for a smoke."

Tommy nodded, gri

I have a purification spell that rules that out, but I didn't mention it. It's the kind of thing that pisses people off. They don't really mind if you smoke as long as it kills you. Out on the sidewalk, I drew a Camel and lit up.

Tommy immediately began sca

"Jamal is dead," I said. Tommy's gaze immediately snapped back to me. I wouldn't be able to keep the murder a secret, and Tommy would need to know eventually.

"When? How?" Tommy asked. His store-bought tan had lost a little color.

"Last night. Probably a hit."

"Jesus. Who did it?"

"Hard to say. Jamal isn't talking."

"How did he die? Where did you find him?" Tommy was fishing for all the details that would allow him to spin a good insider report to impress his friends.

"Ski

Tommy let out a low whistle. "Damn. Hell of a way to go."

"Yeah, Tommy, not the best."

"So what do you want from me? You want me to call it in?"

"No, just report him AWOL the next time he comes up on your schedule. I don't need a police investigation, even if it is half-assed."

Tommy nodded.

"What I really need is information. I already ran Jamal's homeboys through the paces. They don't know much."

"Okay," Tommy said, thinking hard. "Like what? I was his PO. It was my job to keep him out of Chino. I guess I knew Jamal about as well as anyone." For once, I didn't think Tommy was exaggerating, at least not much. A probation officer was the closest most outfit guys ever came to a confessional. Jamal probably told Tommy Barrow things he'd never tell his friends or family.

"I need to know if he was up to anything unusual. Maybe he had something going on the side, maybe he made a new enemy."

Tommy shook his head. "Far as I know, Jamal was a stand-up guy. The outfit was his life, and he wouldn't try to run something under the radar. He thought he had a future with the outfit…and more to the point, he didn't think he had a future without it."

That fit with what I knew about the kid. He was smarter than most, and ambitious. It wasn't exactly helping me co

"Any new habits? New friends?"

"Yeah," Tommy said, after a moment biting his lip. "He was hanging out at the Ca

The Ca

"What about family?" I asked. It bothered me that I hadn't thought about it before. Jamal had been a person before he'd been a corpse and a problem for me to solve.

Tommy shook his head. "You know the story. Father split, mother OD'd when Jamal was fifteen."

"Okay," I said. "You got anything else?"

"I don't think so, Domino. If I remember anything, I'll let you know."

"Do that. Have fun with Sandy. You make a great couple." I guess I can be a little catty, too, sometimes. I flipped my cigarette into the street, drawing a contemptuous sniff from a middle-aged woman in a white dress, saucer-size sunglasses and a ridiculous hat. I smiled at her and tapped a little juice, vaporizing the butt where it lay on the asphalt. She didn't even notice.

About eleven o'clock that night, I left my condo and drove into Hollywood. It was a Saturday night, and as usual, traffic was a bitch. Fortunately I have a spell that allows me to weave through even the worst snarls with a little lane-jockeying.

Technically, the incantation I think of as the traffic spell is chaos magic-the old school would call it a luck spell. It's one of my favorites. It's subtle, and practical and complex enough that most sorcerers can't manage it. In simple terms, it isolates and adjusts probability lines such that you just happen to find an open route through even the heaviest traffic. I surfed the probability waves through the Hollywood night and found the club on Sunset Boulevard.

I pulled up out front and spun my parking spell, muttering the words of the incantation. "Any place worth its salt has a parking problem." I eased my car into a spot right by the door of the club just as a yellow Honda tuner pulled out. What luck.

There was a line of pasty, black-clad kids winding around the block, but sorcerers don't wait in lines any more than we settle for lousy parking or sit in traffic jams. I walked up to the bouncer and smiled.

"I'm on the list," I said. I wasn't. I didn't even know if there was a list. The bouncer's meaty, clean-shaven head didn't even budge as he checked me out from behind his wraparound sunglasses.

I reached out and touched the juice, cha

"I have with me two gods," I said. "Persuasion and Compulsion." I released the magic and let it wash over him. Behind the sunglasses, the bouncer blinked.

"Oh," he said, stepping aside to let me pass, "you're on the list."

I met the chorus of protests from the waiting kids with a smile and a little shrug. "I'm on the list," I said.

Metal detector, pat down, cover charge and then I was inside and heading to the nearest bar.

The Ca

I went to the bar and ordered a beer. I used a little juice, or I'd have stood there for hours without attracting a bartender's attention. I took a lengthy pull from the longneck and sca