Scarlett Undercover (15 page)

S
ister’s office was a bright room filled with enough security monitors to put a Vegas casino to shame. There were screens for the front gate, the lawn, kitchen, and dining room, along with classrooms, supply closets, and dormitory hallways. Sister had been watching me ever since I got out of the cab.

She steered me toward a wingback chair and took a love seat for herself. A squat cast-iron teapot, the kind they sold in Japan Town, sat on the coffee table next to a teacup with steam still coming off it. She didn’t offer me any. I didn’t ask.

“Tell me what you want,” she said, blunt as a billy club.

So I did.

“Quinn Johnson stole a stack of mail from a trailer at The Parker’s site that belonged to Archer Construction. My theory is that he did it because he was desperate—because a cult called the Children of Iblis was threatening to hurt his little brother if he didn’t help them find George Fagin, the man behind The Parker. And whether you want to call it bad luck or good, what Quinn found in that mail was an envelope with a Hammett House return address and a handwritten note from Fagin inside. I think Quinn believed he’d found the person the Children of Iblis were looking for, and that he killed himself to keep his brother safe and George Fagin’s whereabouts hidden.”

Sister was gray as ashes by the time I finished.

“You’re rather direct, aren’t you?” she said.

“Yes.”

She looked out the window a long, long time.

“Look, Sister,” I said. “I don’t know why the Children of Iblis want Fagin so bad, but it has something to do with an old legend, an antique ring, and the fact that
they honest-to-God believe they’re genies. The little girl they took is Arthur Archer’s daughter. They’ve brainwashed his son. Please, please help me stop them.”

Sister stood and walked to her desk slowly, as if she’d aged a hundred years. She picked up a framed black-and-white snapshot. Brought it back. Handed it to me without a word.

A pretty blond stood underneath a banner that read:
LAS ALMAS MAYFEST PARADE
, 1979. The girl’s hair hung past her tube top to the waistband of sequined hot pants. She looked exactly like the woman in front of me, only younger. A large gold ring dangled from a chain around her neck.

“This is you?” I said.

Her head dropped. She looked exhausted. Sick of secrets. I knew exactly how she felt.
Abbi
had kept the
Shubaak
secret,
Ummi
did the same with her cancer, and both had died for their trouble. Secrets killed Quinn Johnson, too, and they were making a hard run at Gemma.

Sister’s eyes met mine.
Ask me
, they seemed to say.
Ask me and I’ll tell you
.

“Where’s the ring now?” I said quietly.

She stared out the window some more.

I forced myself to strip off every bit of armor I’d built around myself since
Abbi
’s death and leaned toward her.

“They killed my dad, Sister. And yesterday, they tried to kill me.”

“How can I be sure you don’t just want the ring for yourself?” she asked bleakly.

“You can’t. You’ll have to take a leap of faith. It’s the only way to save the little girl.”

Sister’s eyes filled with tears. Her hand moved to her throat.

“My name,” she said, tugging at the long chain around her neck, “is Lillian George Fagin. And it’s not me they’re after. It’s this.”

A hammered gold ring hung from the chain, gleaming dully in the afternoon sun. It was simple. Unadorned, except for the raised knot on its face. Sister caught it in her hand.

“So you’re him?” I said.

She laughed. Stopped short, like the sound surprised her.

“No. I’m me. But people in the business world don’t expect women to make themselves rich, especially not as rich as I am. That’s why I use my middle name—George—in my business negotiations. It’s easier that way.”

I hadn’t looked away from her hand yet. Without realizing it, my own had drifted down to my backpack and was resting over the bottles inside. Everything the Children of Iblis wanted, everything they were willing to cheat, steal, lie, and kill for, was in that room.

“I was a pickpocket,” Sister said. “A good one. I never got caught, not even when I stole the ring off that man’s finger outside Marlowe’s department store. It was my seventeenth birthday.”

She took a tissue from her pocket. I fought off the urge to snatch the ring from her hand.

“I knew there was something special about the ring the moment I first held it,” she went on. “It made me feel stronger. Better. So long as it was with me, every tourist I robbed was loaded with cash, every pocket was full. Some days I didn’t even have to work; I’d just find money lying around on the street. Of course, I had always known that stealing was immoral, but doing it
to survive never made me feel guilty. Once I’d moved past survival, though, I… well, it felt wrong.”

“So you went legit?” I said.

“Yes. I bought a magazine stand in the financial district and hired street kids like me to run it. When that little enterprise did well, I bought more stands, then storefronts. Eventually, I started my own venture capital company. The riskier my investments got, the more money I made. I grew very rich very fast.”

She started to drift off into memory. I brought her back.

“So rich that you started giving it away?”

“Money used to mean a great deal to me, Scarlett. But now I understand that its real value lies in its power to help others.”

“Is that why you took this place over?”

“No. Hammett House is personal. I… spent time here as a child. It was awful. So, two years ago, I told the city I was a nun, used my first name in our negotiations, and paid a ridiculous sum for the property. Technically, one of my shadow companies runs Hammett. In reality, it’s me.”

My phone vibrated in my bag. I eyed Solomon’s ring and let the call go to voice mail.

“Tell me about the letter, Sister.”

“I wrote it,” she said, “to thank Mr. Okoye, The Parker’s architect, for blueprints he’d drawn up for a new wing here at Hammett. It was meant to go out on Fagin Inc. letterhead, but Gaby was working with me that day and must have put it in a Hammett envelope by mistake. It was my fault, really. She was just trying to help.”

Sister played with the chain around her neck.

“I’m never that careless,” she said. “I even paid a clerk to purge all of The Parker’s records down at City Hall.…”

Delores
, I thought.
You cherry menthol–breathed old sneak
.

My phone vibrated again. This time I excused myself and checked it. Saw a close-up on the screen of Reem, hunched over in the back of the truck, working on Jones.
TICK TOCK
, the message said.

My heart dropped like a broken elevator.

“They found my sister. They found Reem,” I croaked.

Miles Davis had stopped playing. Sister watched me, her mouth open helplessly.

Then I saw the message that had come in earlier. From Delilah.

“Scarlett?” Sister whispered.

“They…”

My tongue seized. My eyes stung.

“They might have killed someone I care about very much.”

Sister’s hand, the one holding Solomon’s ring, shook. Tears flowed silently down her cheeks.

“Go, then,” she said. “But let me tell you something first.”

I listened because, for the moment, there was nothing else I could do.

“Quinlan Johnson came here the day before he died,” Sister said. “He told me about the Children of Iblis, how they’d seen sketches of my building, of its skybridge shaped like Solomon’s knot, in the paper. Those pictures led them to believe that Fagin—that I—might know the whereabouts of the ring. The poor boy kept going on about armies of genies taking over the world. He asked for my help. He was so scared, but I…”

Her fingers tightened into a fist around the ring.

“When I lied and told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, a spark went out inside him. I watched it happen. And I did nothing.”

Her fingers opened.

“This isn’t mine anymore,” she said, looking at the ring. “It never really was.”

She pressed the gold into my open palm. It was warm from her hand. Alive. She smiled, as if she’d made a decision, and that decision had brought her peace.

“Take it,” she whispered. “Take it and save your friends.”

L
illian George Fagin didn’t ask if I had a driver’s license. She just handed me the keys to a late-model minivan, smiled wryly, and told me not to scratch the paint. Any other time I would have put in a bid for the blue Jag convertible parked nearby in the Hammett garage, but with my whole world falling apart, sports cars just didn’t matter.

As I backed the van out, Gaby and William came into the garage. A word or two from Sister was all it took to clear the worried look from Gaby’s face. William didn’t look appeased. He just looked like William. And he didn’t wave good-bye.

Outside Hammett’s gates, the first thing I did was call Reem. I needed to hear her voice, to tell her what was going on, and to ask whether Decker was alive or dead. But she didn’t answer. She never did while she worked.

And Delilah didn’t answer, either. I left a message saying I was okay, and could she please call me.

Emmet picked up right away.

“Scarlett?”

Getting right to the point had worked so well with Sister that I decided to give it another go.

“Reem’s in danger, Emmet. You have to protect her.”

“Come again?” he said.

I took a deep breath. Stopped at a red light. Looked both ways before I swung a right.

“You remember that case I was working?”

“The Archer Construction kid?”

“That’s the one.”

“Of course I do. What about it?”

“It went bad. Or good, depending on how you look at things. I’m about to bring down something big, Emmet, and the people behind it would just as soon kill a person as tell them hello. They sent me a picture of Reem at the hospital as a threat. If I don’t work this right, they’re going to hurt her.”

There was no play in Emmet’s voice.

“Come in, Scarlett. Right now.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Scarlett…”

“I mean it, Emmet. They already poisoned my friend Decker, probably with the same stuff that killed my father. He’s at the hospital. Reem’s working on him.”

“What the hell have you gotten mixed up in?” he said.

“Nothing I wasn’t meant to. Anyway, it’s a done deal now, and I have to see it through to the end. I can’t do that if I come in, and nobody else can do it for me.”

“This is too much for you to handle alone, Scarlett. I’ll put some officers on Reem and come help you. Name the place, and I’ll be there.”

“Uh-uh,” I said. “If they see you, they’ll kill Gemma Archer.”

Emmet went quiet. He was thinking, and even though I was short on time and temper, I gave him the space to do it.

“I don’t want Reem to have to live without you,” he finally said.

“I don’t, either, but she could do it. She’s strong that way, Emmet. It’s how she’s built. Besides, I’m not going to let them kill me.”

“Please don’t.”

“So you’ll help me? You’ll keep her safe?”

“No one’s going to hurt Reem,” he said. “You can be damn sure of that.”

“Thank you, Emmet.” I hung up before he could get in another word.

Next, I dialed Mook.

“As-salaamu alaikum.”

“
Wa alaikum as-salaam
. Where are you, Mook?”

I could hear his scowl, louder than words.

“Mook, I need your help. The Children of Iblis know where Reem is. My friend Emmet’s going to keep an eye on her, but he doesn’t understand how crazy they are. Will you watch over her, too?”

“No.”

I accelerated through a yellow light.

“Come on, Mook, I don’t have time for this. You’re a
mu’aqqibat
. Do your job.”

The ring thumped against my chest as I hit a pothole.

“I believe you, okay?” I nearly shouted. “I believe you’re an angel, and that your job is to protect me. Only right now Reem needs you more. So help her. Please!”

“No.”

There was finality in his voice. The kind you don’t take back.

“Why?” I demanded.

He sighed. “Because,
akht
, the dance between
mu’aqqibat
and
Qadar
is a delicate one. Mankind has free will, but Allah knows everything that has and ever will come to pass. Only He can say whether it is time for me to lead or to follow.”

“This isn’t about fate, Mook! It can’t be. Reem didn’t have any say in what’s happening. That means she’s not really making choices right now. She has to be able to make choices, Mook, or it’s not fair. You have to protect her!”

“Fair has nothing to do with it,
akht
. Reem’s
Qadar
is set, and only Allah can know it. Haven’t you learned that by now?”

“So you’re not going to help.” It wasn’t a question. I was saying what I already knew.

“I’ll help when I am meant to,” Mook said. “
Mu’aqqibat
are not put on earth to protect all humans, all the time. We merely prevent them from dying before they’re meant to. Whether or not you wake tomorrow morning has already been determined. For now, you are alive, and life is a gift. Use it wisely.”

He was gone before I could tell him where he could stick his
Qadar
.

It was probably a good thing.

I swore out loud, looked at my backpack on the passenger seat, and took a quick inventory. I had two bottles, both of which were priceless relics, one of which the Children of Iblis thought was a portal to another dimension. Hell, for all I knew, they might even be right; the real
Shubaak
might open straight into Oz or Narnia or goddamned Middle Earth, for all I knew. I also had two phones, a lock-picking kit, a blackjack, an armed cop on his way to protect Reem, and the best doctor in Las Almas busting her ass to keep Decker alive. What I still
needed
was to make sure Hashim didn’t kill me before I got to The Parker. I
needed
to figure out how to keep Gemma alive. I
needed
to tell Decker that I loved him.

And there were only six hours left until midnight.

No problem.

I had it covered.

Slick Eddie’s was a pawnshop on the south stretch of Daly where nice people didn’t go. It was small and
cramped and filthy and smelled like old fish, but the owner had a reputation for not asking questions or checking IDs. He also had a thing for me.

“Evening, Eddie,” I hollered. The shop seemed deserted when I walked in, but he was there. Eddie was always there.

“Is that the lovely Miss Scarlett?”

His voice came from behind a crowd of naked mannequins wearing Mardi Gras beads and stilettos.

“It’s me,” I answered.

Eddie appeared, wearing his usual frayed blue suit. The one covered with stains from God-knew-what that had been there since God-knew-when. His greedy, myopic eyes leered at me from behind glasses thick as bricks.

“It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure,” he said. “I’ve missed every luscious bit of you.”

“Quit it, Eddie. You’re making me blush.” I stepped behind a stack of old ammunition boxes, grateful for the foot of space they maintained between the two of us.

“Yes, yes. Well, what can I do for you tonight?” A pale tongue slithered out to wet his liver-colored lips.

I flashed him the stack of bills I’d withdrawn from a
nearby ATM. It was everything Reem and I kept in our checking account. I hoped it would be enough.

Eddie’s eyes sharpened behind their lenses. If there was one thing that turned him on more than underage girls, it was working a deal.

“What are you looking for?” he said.

I rattled off my shopping list and took it as a good sign that he let me keep talking.

I shouldn’t have.

“I won’t sell you a gun,” he said flatly. “I could go to jail for that.”

“You’d go a lot faster and a lot longer if the cops bothered tracking down where most of your merchandise comes from. This stuff is hotter than lava, Eddie.”

“I run a clean shop.” He didn’t bother trying to sound indignant.

“Up front, maybe,” I said. “But what about in the back?”

He licked his lips again. I fought my gag reflex. Nearly lost.

“A wise man once wrote that guns are just a fast curtain to a bad second act,” he said. “You looking for a bad second act, Scarlett?”

“I’m looking for any kind of second act at all, Eddie.”

Something ugly came into his eyes as they slid over my body, leaving the kind of slime trail you can’t wash off.

“Maybe…” he said, dragging the word out, “we could work something out in a trade?”

I pressed my hand against the
Shubaak
in my bag. Facing whatever waited for me at The Parker with a gun would have been nice, but not nice enough for the kind of deal Eddie was suggesting.

“Cash, Eddie,” I said. “That’s all I’m offering.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Pity.” He snaked a hand into the deep pocket of his pants. “Then no gun.”

I kept my eyes on his, refusing to look down. “Fine. Then let’s talk about what my cash will get me.”

A reptilian smile spread across his face. His hand came out of the pocket, jangling a loop of keys.

“Right this way, m’dear,” he said with one more flick of his tongue. “Follow me.”