Harmony Black (Harmony Black Series Book 1) Page 7

  I locked eyes with him.

  “You would be amazed how much I can take,” I told him.

  Jessie slapped her palm on the table. “Change of subject. When we crossed paths with the Gresham brothers, we left them bleeding. One’s got a bullet in his shoulder. Are they dumb enough to go to a hospital, or is there somebody they’d call for an off-the-books patch job?”

  Douglas thought about it for a second. He held up a finger, nodding.

  “One guy, one guy I know, does that kind of work. Emmanuel Hirsch. He’s a big-name plastic surgeon in Detroit, but he offers backroom surgery for anybody who can keep their mouth shut and pay in cash. Pretty sure he’s in tight with the Detroit Partnership, mobbed up to the eyeballs.”

  “Got a number for this doctor?” Jessie asked.

  “Been a long time since I cared what a doctor thinks,” Douglas said. “What’s he gonna tell me? Quit drinking? Yeah, sure, maybe I’ll take up jogging and healthy eating, too. You got a name, you got a phone, he ain’t hard to find.”

  I nodded. “I think we’re done, then. Thank you for your help.”

  “You just keep my name out of it,” he said as we slid out of the booth. “And you watch your asses around the Gresham boys. Demon-blooded and high on crank is one hell of a bad combo.”

  We were almost to the door when he called after me.

  “You just remember, Agent. There’s always more monsters. There’s always more monsters.”

  Jessie dropped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  “Fuck that guy. He wants to die so badly, I should have capped his miserable ass myself.”

  I shrugged and fired up the engine. I was numb, shaken, tired. The sky was crystal blue, but I still felt like I was sitting under a storm cloud.

  “He gave us a good lead,” was all I could manage to say.

  “Sure. But the rest of it sounded like weapons-grade bullshit.”

  I paused with my hand on the shift. “One thing, though. I think he was trying to tell us something. Something else. Get Kevin on the phone?”

  “Why not?” Jessie said. “Gotta tell ’em we’re headed back to Detroit anyway.”

  She held out her phone and put it on speaker so we could both talk.

  “Got an update for home base,” she said. “Looks like our cambion buddies are headed to a mob doctor in Detroit to get patched up. We’re on the trail.”

  Kevin’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Cool. April’s studying that wicker-ball thing you guys found at the crime scene, seeing if she can tie it to any recorded symbolism. I’m looking through the old newspaper archives looking for anything else like it. So far, no hits.”

  “One other thing,” I said. “Can you or your hacker buddies dig up anything on old black-budget programs?”

  “Depends on how deep they’re buried. Whatcha looking for?”

  “It’s called Operation Cold Spectrum,” I said. “I don’t know anything else about it.”

  “Needle in a haystack, but I’ll throw out a line and see if anything bites. Drive safe.”

  Jessie hung up and gave me a look.

  “What?” I said. “That Cold Spectrum thing rolled really easily off Bredford’s tongue. Like it meant something to him, but he didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Much like the alcohol rolled off his tongue, and down his throat, in vast quantities.”

  “Indulge me, okay?” I shrugged and backed out of the parking space, loose gravel rumbling under the tires. My shoulders sagged. “I just . . . I don’t know how much of what he said was true.”

  We rode in silence for a moment. Jessie looked over, studying me.

  “Can’t believe he made us the second we walked in the door. That’s just embarrassing. I blame you.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Me?”

  “Well,” she said, gesturing at me, “you do have this stereotypical lesbian FBI agent look going on.”

  My foot slipped off the accelerator. “What? Jessie, I—I am not gay.”

  “Really? Are you sure? Because you totally present as queer.”

  “Yes,” I said, glaring at her. “I am sure I’m attracted to men, thank you.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying, don’t worry about me hitting on you or anything. I don’t date coworkers, even if you are really cute.”

  “Not gay, Jessie.”

  “But,” she said, “you experimented in college.”

  “Where are you getting this stuff?”

  She tapped the side of her head. “Finely tuned gaydar. And that wasn’t a denial, was it? Okay, so what’s with the men’s ties?”

  I glanced down. “They’re . . . colorful. I like them.”

  “They’re colorful.” She eyed me, dubious.

  “They’re organized color. Black suit, ivory blouse, one splash of color always in the same place. That’s my style.”

  “Now I get it,” she said, nodding. “Have you been formally diagnosed with OCD?”

  “Are you going to spend the entire drive to Detroit tormenting me?”

  She looked in the backseat. “Is Kevin here? No? Then probably, yes. Now let’s talk about your experimental phase in college . . . ”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. It was the first time I’d smiled since we left Douglas Bredford to marinate in his misery, and the feeling of gloom he’d left us sloughed off in the sunshine. Of course, that was exactly Jessie’s intention. Coping mechanisms.

  If we’d known the horror that was waiting for us in Detroit, it might not have worked.

  TEN

  We hit the Motor City right around noon, sitting in a snarl of traffic under a hazy autumn sun. Like Douglas said, Emmanuel Hirsch wasn’t hard to find. He ran his own practice, a swank boutique clinic in the Bricktown Historic District.

  “People love this guy,” Jessie said, thumbing over reviews on her phone. “Tummy tucks, face-lifts, implants, he does it all.”

  “And that’s just the legal stuff. So what’s our approach?”

  She set the phone in her lap. “Hmm. Well, we could masquerade as prospective patients in need of emergency surgery, but unless you literally want to take a bullet for the team . . . ”

  “Yeah,” I said, “that one’s out. Besides, a guy like this is going to be careful. He’ll want referrals, a voucher from an existing client, something like that.”

  “We could go in after hours, search his clinic.”

  “You think we can get a warrant?” I asked. “All we’ve got is Douglas Bredford’s say-so, and that’s not a lot.”

  Jessie tilted her head and squinted at me.

  “Warrant? Why the hell would we need that?”

  “Because,” I said slowly, “it’s . . . the law?”

  “When we run these cambion punks down, they’re getting offshored. They don’t have legal rights.”

  I merged from a slow lane of traffic to a slower one, edging toward the off-ramp.

  “I don’t like that,” I said, “and you shouldn’t like it, either, considering it’d be just as easy for us to disappear that way. Demon blood or not, they’re still American citizens.”

  “You think I like it? It sucks, but what’s the alternative? Tell the whole world that magic is real, and there really are things that go bump in the night?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe we should. Maybe it’s time.”

  “Wow,” Jessie said. “Wow. No. Wrong. So very wrong. Case in point: not just anybody can learn to do magic, right? But it’s safe to say, there’s a lot of potential magicians out in the world who just never figure out that they’ve got the spark. Like, on an order of magnitude.”

  “Sure,” I said, “that’s reasonable.”

  “Okay. Now, how many of the sorcerers you’ve met are dangerous, deviant, murderous assholes? Most of them, right? So picture every Tom, Dick, and Harry Potter studying hard, trying to become a real live wizard. If just one-tenth of them succeed, and one-tenth of them let the power go to their heads—and it’ll be a lot more than one-te
nth, you know this—we’ll be mopping up corpses around the clock.”

  “That . . . is a frightening mental image,” I said.

  “Then there’s the simple fact that the law can’t handle this stuff. How do you prove that someone cast a death curse on their boss? What happens when someone says, ‘Oh, I didn’t stab my neighbor to death, I was possessed by a demon’? How do you prove they weren’t?”

  “We do that. Figuring that stuff out is part of our job.”

  “Sure,” she said, “on a small scale. Again, orders of magnitude. And even for us, there’s a lot of judgment calls and leeway. Stuff that doesn’t fly in a courtroom. Oh, and another good reason not to expose the truth? You just met him, back in that bar. Imagine a nation of Douglas Bredfords. Some people can handle the truth, some people can’t. And the ones that can’t, well, they don’t end up too good.”

  She had a point. I wanted to argue, but I couldn’t come up with anything. It felt like I was digging my heels in for the sake of digging them in, so I just lightly drummed the steering wheel and focused on the traffic.

  “The system sucks,” Jessie said, her voice softer, “but it’s the best one we have. The way I see it, it’s not about the monsters; we’re here to protect the innocent. The only way to stop these freaks from hurting people is to remove them from the equation entirely. So no, I’m not all broken up about the Gresham brothers’ constitutional rights. In a perfect world, yeah, they’d get their day in court like everybody else. This isn’t a perfect world.”

  “I can see it your way,” I told her, “but there’s one thing you’re missing.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Emmanuel Hirsch. As far as we know, he’s just a regular garden-variety crook. Guy might be mobbed up, but he’s got no occult connections.”

  “Yeah? And?” Jessie blinked at me.

  We turned down the off-ramp. I braked at a red stoplight and looked over at her.

  “So,” I said, “as long as we’re here, don’t you want to bust this guy? He does have legal rights, and if we break into his clinic without a warrant, we can kiss any evidence we find good-bye. Play this the right way and we can take him off the streets.”

  “I might,” Jessie said after a moment’s deliberation, “have had a bit of tunnel vision. Okay, I’m down. Let’s bust the mob doc.”

  “First thing we need to do is establish if the Gresham brothers are even here. Hmm. We can’t poke around Hirsch’s clinic without permission. So let’s get permission. From him.”

  The Hirsch Clinic was a box of glass and steel, an elegant cube of new-wave architecture that stood out like a sore thumb on the historic district’s streets. We walked into a dazzlingly clean lobby, sunbeams streaming off a pink-granite floor, and up to a pale-gray desk whose surface curved like the scallops of an ocean wave.

  Big, wall-mounted LCD screens played a looping, endless advertisement, showcasing everything the good doctor could offer. Create a Brave New You, the scrolling text trumpeted. Behind the desk, a young blonde nurse in a salmon-pink smock flashed a flawless smile.

  “Welcome to the Hirsch Clinic,” she said, eyes bright. “How can we improve you today?”

  We’d worked out our plan in the car. Jessie and I looked at each other, playing at being nervous and giggly.

  “I’m, ah, thinking about having some work done?” Jessie said, pitching her voice low on the last two words.

  I held up a fluttery hand. “I’m her moral support.”

  “Is there someone I could talk to,” Jessie asked, “you know, about my options?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” the nurse said, checking her computer screen. “Let’s see. Dr. Hirsch has appointments all morning, but it looks like his partner, Dr. Carnes, is just finishing up with a consultation. If you’d like to have a seat, she’ll be out shortly.”

  The chairs in the lobby were as sleek as the building, gray canvas stretched across curving frames of beech wood. We took a seat by the wall of glass.

  “Well,” Jessie murmured, “so much for getting a read on Hirsch.”

  I glanced around the room. The door leading into the clinic proper had a heavy-duty lock, and the eye of a video camera kept a bird’s-eye watch over the lobby from one corner of the room.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Long as we can take a good look in back, we can still get something out of this.”

  A tall, lean woman in a tailored suit, with sallow cheekbones and eyes as dark as her braided hair, strode out to greet us.

  “I’m Dr. Victoria Carnes,” she said, eyeing us like she was trying to peek into our bank accounts. She shot a pointed glance at my shoes. “A pleasure. I understand you’re interested in our services?”

  “That’s me,” Jessie said, raising a sheepish hand. “My friend Harmony is just here to keep me from going too crazy.”

  Victoria gave a polite, humorless chuckle. “Well, if you’d both like to join me in our consultation room, I’d be happy to go over your options.”

  The door leading to the back gave a slight click as we approached it. Buzzer behind the reception desk, I thought. They hadn’t spared any expense in back, either. The polished granite floor was clean enough to eat off, and doorways along the salmon-pink corridor looked in on plush offices and a cutting-edge surgical suite.

  “Business must be good,” I said, trailing in the doctor’s footsteps.

  “Our facility is state-of-the-art. Dr. Hirsch and I have worked very hard to provide our clients with a safe, discreet, and comfortable place to embrace their becoming.”

  “Their . . . becoming?” Jessie said.

  She nodded back at her, eyes widening. “Oh, yes. What we sell isn’t vanity or ego. It’s all about the ideal you. The inside you.”

  As Victoria turned her back, Jessie rolled her eyes at me.

  Victoria ushered us into a windowless office, the walls painted lavender and lined with glossy, blown-up photographs. Close-ups of eyes and hairlines, breasts and thighs, all shot in hazy soft focus. There was something creepy about the display, almost fetishistic, but I kept a smile on my face as the doctor motioned for us to sit. The room was appointed with a curving glass-topped desk and a thirty-inch screen hooked up to a computer and a webcam. As we took our seats, the screen displayed a menu of three-dimensionally rendered limbs and the wire-frame outline of a woman’s body.

  The office smelled like faint vanilla spice. The air was warm, like bathwater or bedsheets fresh from the dryer. Victoria sat down on the other side of the desk.

  “Our philosophy is simple: everyone knows, in their heart, how their body should look. Sadly, nature rarely meets those expectations. This leaves a person fragmented, incomplete. My job, as your surgical guide, is to help select the perfect procedures to bring your flesh into solidarity with your heart.”

  “Wow,” Jessie said, nodding very slowly. “That’s . . . so true. That’s so real.”

  Victoria smiled placidly. “You won’t regret choosing us. So. If I might ask, are you two . . . partners?”

  Jessie reached over and rubbed my shoulder. “We are! Our first anniversary is next Sunday. Isn’t that right, sweetums?”

  “That’s . . . right,” I said, forcing a smile. “It’s like every day is a honeymoon.”

  Victoria clasped her hands together and looked my way. “Ah, I thought so. I only ask because we do offer a couple’s discount. For instance, if you wanted to do something about your nose, or perhaps a breast augmentation?”

  Jessie nodded vigorously, eyeing my chest. “Oh, yeah. We need to pump those babies up. Double Ds, at least. Do they make quadruple Ds?”

  “My . . . nose?” I asked.

  “To unearth the beautiful woman,” Victoria said, “who lives inside your heart.”

  “Let’s talk about me for a while,” Jessie said. “I’ve always been insecure about my thighs. They’re so . . . thigh-ish.”

  I held up a finger. “Um, sorry, I need to freshen up. Is there a washroom I could use?”

/>   Victoria pointed behind me. “Of course. Just go back out into the hall, turn left, and it’ll be on your right-hand side.”

  “Great, thank you.” I stood up and patted Jessie’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back, sweetheart.”

  I had no doubt Jessie could stall for as long as she needed to. What I needed, at the moment, was a better look at the clinic. First, though, I followed Victoria’s directions and ducked into the washroom.

  “There is nothing,” I told my reflection in the mirror, “wrong with my nose.”

  All the same, I tilted my head left and right, checking from different angles. No. My nose was fine.

  I was pretty sure, anyway.

  Back in the halls, I prowled past empty surgical suites and recovery rooms. Victoria wasn’t kidding about discretion: there wasn’t so much as a stray slip of paper to be found, every file stashed out of sight, and every drawer and cabinet firmly locked.

  Would he take care of his off-books clients here? I wondered, ducking into an examination room and tugging on cabinet handles. Unless the whole clinic’s in on his scheme, it’d have to be after hours. But where would they recover, then? That cambion who Jessie mangled is going to need serious reconstructive surgery. That’s not an outpatient kind of deal.

  There just wasn’t enough room here to hide a recovering fugitive, let alone three of them. I was thinking it over when I found a closed door with Dr. Hirsch etched on a brass nameplate.

  My hand was on the handle, about to give it a try, when I heard an anxious voice on the other side.

  ELEVEN

  “And I’m telling you,” a man said, “I have other buyers. Does the name Damien Ecko mean anything to you?”

  I leaned close, putting my ear by the door. I could hear soft, rhythmic taps. He was pacing the office floor, and from the lack of any response I could hear, talking on the phone.

  “No. It has to be tonight. Do you understand the kind of risk I’m taking here? This isn’t normal product. I have three of them. And two are still breathing.”