Smiling, he feigned a backhand slapping motion. “Wouldn’t work with your wet fur scent anyway, Tiger.” He dropped something into my palm.
I opened my hand to see a half-charred matchbook. The complementary type bars gave out for free advertising. The match heads were all scuffed bare, the cover’s paper crumpled and crisped, but the bar’s name was stillbarelylegible: Latona’s.
“Thesematches survived that fucking inferno?”
Teddy Bear nodded. “Ironic, isn’t it? For all we know, your vamp could have started the fire with them.”
Attaching the Latona name to this case surprised me a little. Yes, it was known to cater to vamp clientele, but it was a super upscale cocktail bar in the trendiest part of town, favored by the city’s well-heeled and wealthy. The sort who visited Hunter’s upscale club too. I’d have expected our two lowbrow gangsters to frequent a shady dive bar on the south side.
“Where’d you find them?”
“They were stuck under a big bastard of a safe that had toppled over and crunched through the basement floor. The safe was open, cleared out, but this little nugget was tucked far enough under, it escaped the worst of the flames.”
“So that’s where we’re headed. Any other leads?” I asked, unzipping a bit now that our speed had clicked the car’s heating on properly.
He shook his head. “The smatterings of dope, the Fae girl’s remains—they give us fuck all to go with, I’m afraid.”
“What about all the shipments they were talking about in the drug lab?”
“All useless, so far. Nobody home. They must have changed their plans after you made an appearance.”
“Fuck.” I set the matches in the cupholder between us. “Anyway, we’ve got a start. First priority, we find these two fucking pukes, we beat every last ounce of information out of them, then hand them over to the judge for a permanent stay in the pen.”
New Nebraskan prison sentences differed from those in the United States, being weighed against the lifespans of the offenders’ particular species. For the most serious crimes though, the punishment was the same across the board: life without parole. Conrad and his sidekick would spend a good century or two caged in concrete and steel before going on to whatever torments awaited them in the next life.
“Be a lot cheaper just to fill them with silver,” Teddy Bear said, tapping his 50-caliber revolver in its charcoal holster.
I thought of my mate, brave Serenity, and all the suffering and indignities she’d been forced to endure. “Suits me. If it comes down to it, I’ll happily save the taxpayers some money.” I patted his shoulder. “Remember what I said though.”
“Aye, I do. This Conrad cunt’s got a few wee magic tricks up his sleeve.”
I clasped his shoulder, cautioning him. “They’re not as ‘wee’ as you might think though. And I’m not sure how many he’s got either.” I exhaled hard as the city passed by. “But I’m taking that motherfucker down, one way or another.”
Once on the highway, Teddy Bear revved the engine, and we headed uptown, toward Latona’s Bar.
Dagger
We entered Latona’s right as they opened at noon. Everything screamed class, from the mahogany tables, accents in polished brass and mix of leather and velvet seating options. High-end liquor lined the shelves and fine champagne fattened the fridges along the wall.
A lone bartender gently dusted champagne flutes with a spotless white dish towel.
He greeted us with a broad, fangy smile as we surveyed the empty tables.
I showed my badge to the vamp. He looked about my age, but for all I knew he could have been well over a hundred. “Afternoon, sir. I’m Detective Pierce, this is Detective Eglauf. We’re here to investigate a possible vermin problem here in your bar.”
The bartender fidgeted with one side of his bow tie, squinting. “Vermin? I’m confused. There must be some mistake, detectives.”
Teddy Bear, arms crossed, stooped to level a glower on thebartender. “That so? We heard vermin might be crawling about here. Rats, snakes, cockroaches. For all we know, this place is infested.”
The vamp cleared his throat with a soft gulp and a smile. “There’s, uh, nothing like that here.” He gestured across the fancy establishment with an open arm. “As you can see, we keep a high standard of cleanliness for our customers.”
The surfaces were immaculate but the air damn sure wasn’t. Wisps of stale cigar and spilled champagne gone sour irritated my honed nostrils. That was to be expected in a place where the rich came to party. There was something else though. Sweat? Adrenaline? I couldn’t quite make it out, but it was even less pleasing than Teddy Bear’s Scottish splash-on sewage.
My jaguar growled his own distaste for the smell.
I clipped my badge back onto my belt and focused on the bartender’s face. The lips could lie. The eyes never did. “Some vermin prefer it clean.”
“They do?” The bartender subtly leaned away, intimidated, but I couldn’t be sure if the sweat on his lip was just a byproduct of Teddy Bear towering over him.
