The Devil's Copper by Jamie Crothall (ink ebook reader .txt) 📕

“It crossed my mind,” I admitted.

“Totally his idea. Though I probably served as an inspiration.  He got me involved.  I think he was trying to get me to work a regular job, though he should have known better.  I helped him out where I could though.  I mean, you get a bit of information from the person hiring you about the intended ‘target.’  However, I can glean more information by having an informal run-in with them on the street, and get some minor details out of them.  Helps if they don’t remember, but that all depends what I can get out of them in ten second segments.  I always thought the idea was a bit dumb, to be honest.”

“I think it’s lovely,” I said defensively.  “He gives people hope.  And Encouragement.”

“Does he though?  I mean, what if it was for the better that these people changed their ambition?  In the end, are they doing what they want?  Or are they being conned into changing their minds, based on what their friends or family think?  I dunno.  Call me a skeptic, but I always figured it was a bit manipulative.  I get that it gives him satisfaction.  It proves he’s got a good heart.  But in the long run, who really benefits from it more?”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.  Nor did I really want to.  It led me to meeting Jack, so that was always good enough for me.

“Stay here,” said Walter, as we approached the small, and rather sketchy pizza place.

I did as he said.  He casually walked up the steps and in the front door.  He hesitated a few times, looked over his shoulders, and craned his neck around to assess his surroundings.  At one point, he gave a ‘one moment please’ gesture to someone behind the counter, pretending to read the menu board.  Then, he simply lifted a prepared pizza off the counter, and left with it.  He smiled as he descended the stairs.

“Let’s go, I already got caught like four times,” he laughed.

I followed him as he briskly walked back to our apartment.

“Do you steal on a daily basis?”

“Don’t go getting all moral on me.  You’re such a buzz-kill, princess.”

Why did it bother me so much when he called me that?

“You’ve got me thinking,” I said as we returned to the apartment.  “I’ve been putting so much thought into what Jack might have gotten involved with during his day job that I didn’t think about who he might have pissed off in his side job.”

“Good point.”

“Maybe we should go to his other office and check it out.  See if there’s anything of any note there.”

“You said ‘we.’ ”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Are you saying you trust me?”

“I’m not saying that. I’m still not entirely convinced, to be honest.”

“Fair enough.  Why don’t we go in the morning?  It’s late and the freaks are more likely to be out now.”

“Fine,” I said.  “You can sleep on the couch if you need to.”

“See?  You do trust me.”

I shook my head.  “I trust that I still have a gun in my purse with three bullets.”

With a mouth full of pizza he simply said, “Fair enough.”

SIX

I never questioned Jack’s need to have a separate office for his side job. He could have easily run it from home.  I just assumed he didn’t want to have the phone based in his own personal residence.  I wondered if he was setting up a base of operations, in preparation to someday go on his own, independent from his firm.  When I’d asked, Jack just shook his head dismissively, like it was some far off idea.  I never suspected anything illicit.  I did my best to chase any such ideas.  None of his meetings with ‘T’ seemed to occur at his office; they always took place at random locations around town.  As far as I was concerned, it was just a place to base his fledgling operation.

I parked at the City Centre.  Walter and I walked through the downtown core toward Jack’s office building.  It was on Larch, next to a medical building.

Along the way, we made a quick pit-stop at a newsagents.  Walter wanted lottery tickets.  He was disappointed to find they’d stopped selling them.  He tried his hand at a few scratch tickets, but the fact he scratched as fast as he could and still won nothing proved it took him too long to loop back and try again.

Y’know; if you believe that kind of thing.

We carried on our way.

As we were about to round the corner, Walter froze in his tracks.

“Bad idea,” he said, his eyes wide.

“What’s wrong?”

“Cops.  All around the building.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Depends which cops.”

He did say something about crooked cops. But it was vague.  It was always possible he knew more than he let on.

“…one…two…let’s go back. This was a mistake.”

Walter turned and headed back the way we came before I could reply.  I stood motionless, but he kept walking, so I followed him.

I came face to face with Officer Simpson, the young, black policewoman I’d met at the precinct.

“Billie Turner?” she asked.

Walter seemed just as off-guard as I was.  Either he saw no way to avoid her, or he wasn’t as paranormal as he made himself out to be.

“Uh, hi,” I said.

“Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

“Does she need a reason?” said Walter.

I gritted my teeth.  He was going to make this worse, wasn’t he?

“She’s not under arrest,” she replied coldly. “It was merely a question.”

“Walter, this is officer Simpson,” I said, attempting to diffuse the tension with some level of familiarity.  “I met her at the station the other day.”

“Oh, right.