Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

city limits. Assuming that the barkeep wasn’t covering for Russ, he had an even more rock-solid alibi than we thought. I pulled a folded picture of Lily Dubois on the autopsy table from my hip pocket and showed it. “How about her?”

“Lemme see…” He took it with fingers black on the tips from holding a glass smoke bowl. After he squinted for a second, he recoiled. “Is she dead?”

“Nah, she’s napping,” Bryson snorted. “Just tell us: You seen her, yes or no?”

The bartender grimaced. “I knew she looked young.”

“Meaning?” I prompted.

“Look, I tell you what I know and you don’t bust me for serving a minor, right?”

“We’re not Vice, you twitchy little freak,” Bryson said. “Just spill it.”

“She was in here,” said the bartender, going to the register and digging around under the cash tray. “She ordered a gin and tonic. Not a gin and tonic sort of place, you feel me?”

I looked at the gyrating girl again. She was having a hard time staying upright. “I get it.”

“Anyway, her ID was sketchy but we were slammed, so I took it to start a tab and she never came back for it. Never paid her fucking tab, neither.” He passed me the small laminate square, and I ran my thumb over Lily Dubois’s face. The ID wasn’t obviously a fake, but it gave her age as twenty-two, so it had to be.

“You didn’t think she looked maybe a little youthful to be in this shithole?” Bryson asked the bartender. He spread his hands.

“Man, this place has dancers twenty-five years old that look younger than that chickie. She had the cleavage, she had the attitude, and I didn’t look too hard. My mistake.”

“Yes,” I agreed pleasantly. “Your mistake that allowed her to be killed and dumped in the bay. Who did she leave with?”

The bartender didn’t appear remorseful in the least. “I don’t keep track of the skirts in here, lady. I did my civic duty and talked to you cops. Now I got work to do.” He retreated to polish glasses. At least until we left, and he returned to dealing meth to his customers.

“You have got to find a new place to hang out,” I told Bryson. “This is just sad.”

“Dead end, too,” he said. “No cameras, no witnesses.”

“Don’t be too sure,” I said. “Give me fifty bucks.”

Bryson frowned. “You make more than I do. Pay scale for lieutenants is a whole gods-damned galaxy away from us grunts.”

“You want results, David? Give me the fifty bucks.”

He counted out two twenties and two fives and passed them to me. I crossed the sawdust, peanut shells and broken glass crunching under my boots. The dancer perked up when I approached. “You want a private session?”

I gave her a peek at my shield. “I want to talk to you. You working last night?”

She stopped moving and tottered to the edge of the platform in her hot-pink platform heels. “Yeah. Usually I’m days but I took a double. I was here until closing. Napped in the back.”

“What’s your name?”

“Dakota.”

“Original.” I fanned the photograph of Lily and the money under her nose. “You see this girl leave with anyone, Dakota?”

The dancer bit her lip. “Money first.” I passed her the bills and she tucked them into her bra, disappearing the green folds like a magic trick. “She left around the beginning of my shift with Johnny Boy. I was glad, too—she was dancing like a tramp and cutting into my tips.”

“Johnny Boy?” I said. The dancer shrugged.

“Well, it’s not, like, his real name. That’s something all long and foreign and stuff.”

“Of course,” I said. “Silly me.”

“He comes in every night,” she said, starting to gyrate again as the song changed. “Around nine. Stays until two or so. Unless he meets a girl he likes, then it’s earlier.”

“Thanks,” I said, pocketing Lily’s photo. “We’ll be back.”

CHAPTER 5

It was getting near lunch time, and the hole in my stomach told me I’d only had coffee since my abruptly interrupted supper the night before. I have a were metabolism, and when it demands food it’s hard to ignore.

“Hey, I’m starving,” I said as we passed my favorite burrito stand. “Let’s stop and pick up lunch for the squad.”

I cut across traffic, garnering an angry chorus of horns that I returned with a finger. Some people have no respect for the police and their lunch.

Bryson stayed in the passenger seat. “Hey. Get me a churro.”

“Do I look like your waitress?” I asked as I climbed out.

“No, but I did give you fifty bucks. Make sure it’s fresh. I don’t want one that’s been sitting out for half an hour.”

“Bitch, bitch, bitch,” I told him before I headed across the sidewalk to the open-air taco truck.

The guys who worked the truck knew me, and I put in an order for one of everything that the squad liked to eat. Lane would just have to fend for herself.

I dug my wallet out and paid in cash—I had more than enough on me to bribe Dakota, but I liked letting Bryson do my dirty work for me. A perk of being a lieutenant.

Turning to head back to the Nova, I found my way blocked by a very tall, very thin gentleman in an all-black suit and aviator sunglasses that reflected my own tired, makeup-free face back at me. “Can I help you?” I asked.

The taco truck driver tapped me on the shoulder. “Miss? You forgot your extra habanero salsa.” That was for Andy—he liked his food nuclear, contrary to all outward appearances.

“Thanks,” I said, palming the plastic bucket. “And I ask again, sir … can I help you?”

Skinny looked me over, head to toe. I wasn’t unused to the reaction from straight men, but there was something about him that set me off. I opened my nostrils, over the scent of frying beef and chilies. He was a were.

“The Duboises sent me,” he said. Just that, no explanation, as if I could read minds.

“How nice for you,” I said. “They