Ghost of a Chance

4 The Missing Man

Alex arrived late to his office the next morning. Callahan had given him a ride home the previous night, since he didn’t have the money for a cab, but he still didn’t get to bed until well after midnight. Then, in the morning, Iggy had wanted the full report about Alex’s findings in the matter of the ghost killer. He agreed with Alex’s conclusions but had nothing substantive to add.

“You’re late,” Leslie said as he walked in. She stood in front of her desk, smoking Alex’s last cigarette. He was about to chastise her but something was off. Leslie was usually dressed immaculately. Her beauty queen days had given her a keen eye for fashion. Today, however, she wore a light blue blouse with a green, knee-length skirt. Alex was no expert, but they didn’t seem to go together.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. His danger sense was telling him to tread lightly.

“Oh, this?” Leslie said, indicating her ensemble. “These are the last clean clothes I own,” she said, her voice hard. “It’s been three weeks since I’ve been paid, and I can’t afford to get my laundry done.” She regarded him with a hard stare. “The Bickman job was supposed to solve all that. I don’t suppose there’s any chance they’ll be paying you soon.”

Alex put on a smile and moved over to where Leslie was fuming. He had the distinct feeling that he was stepping inside a tiger’s cage.

“Mrs. Bickman is off the hook,” he said. “But they’re still fired.”

Leslie’s eyes went hard and he could hear her grinding her teeth.

“But there is some good news,” he went on quickly. “I may have got them a new job.”

“Can you get one for me?” Leslie asked, no trace of humor in her voice. Alex knew she wasn’t serious, but he hated the fact that she was suffering for his problems.

“Take it easy,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Call Bickman and tell him to go over to Sorsha Kincaid’s office after noon. She says she knows someone who’s looking for help.”

“Wow,” Leslie said, a sardonic smile creeping onto her face. “Things must be bad if you called the Sorceress for help.”

“Funny,” Alex said. “I was just looking out for you and your laundry,” he continued. “I can’t have you looking anything but your best; after all, you represent me.”

She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, and he winced.

“How much does your laundry cost?” he asked.

“Three-fifty,” she replied.

“I’ve got a few bucks at home. Call Bickman and I’ll go home at lunch time and bring back enough for your laundry and two packs of smokes for you.”

Leslie glared at him.

“Better bring me a fiver,” she said. “I’d like to eat this week, too.”

Alex nodded.

“A fiver, two packs of smokes, and an invitation to dinner at the brownstone this week.”

Her glare finally cracked, and the ghost of a smile crossed her face.

“Now was that so hard?” she asked, slinking around her desk.

“After you call Bickman, call around to the Inner-Ring hotels west of the core.”

Leslie picked up her notepad and pencil.

“Who am I looking for?”

“Anne Watson,” Alex said. “Her husband was murdered last night.”

“And she wants you to find out who did it?” Leslie asked, her ghost of a smile widening into a warm grin.

“Yes, but I don’t think there’s much I can do.” Alex explained about Lieutenant Callahan’s visit and his investigation. “I’m not going to take her money for a job the cops are going to do anyway,” he finished.

“But she does owe you for the work you did last night,” Leslie pointed out. “Those oils you burn in your lantern aren’t cheap, you know.”

“I was there about two hours,” Alex said. “Charge her my usual rate and let her know I’ll come by to see her this afternoon and answer any questions I can.”

“Will do, boss,” Leslie said, sitting down. With the prospect of some money coming in the door, she was much more chipper.

Alex ducked toward his office. He knew he was behind in paying Leslie but he should have known that she hadn’t been paid in three weeks. It was Leslie who handled the money, and the fact that she hadn’t paid herself meant that their situation must be particularly bad. He flirted with the idea of staying on the Watson case for a few days, just to pad out the bill, but he wasn’t desperate enough, or enough of a heel, to skim money from a grieving widow.

Not yet, anyway.

Once in his office, Alex pulled out the morning paper that he’d stolen from Iggy earlier. One reason the doctor insisted he read the paper every day was that, if a detective were desperate, he could always try to drum up work from the paper. In the classifieds, there was always someone seeking something, or someone, they’d lost, and the police blotter held news of people who’d been robbed. Such folk were excellent prospects for a detective with a good finding rune, and nobody had a better finding rune than Alex.

He read the classifieds, but nothing jumped out at him. One woman was seeking a man she’d met in the Great War, but she had no idea where he might be living. Alex’s rune was good, but he could usually only find things that were still in the city. The lady’s lost love could be anywhere.

Lost dogs were his go-to backup, but for some reason all of New York’s dogs decided to stay home this week. He shrugged and put that section aside. Leslie would have combed through it already anyway, looking for the obvious jobs.

He had just turned his attention to the police blotter when there was a knock at the door and Leslie let herself in.

“You find Mrs. Watson?” Alex asked.

“Not yet,” Leslie said in a quiet voice. That usually meant there was a client in the outer office. “There’s a Mrs. Hannah Cunningham outside who says her husband is missing.”

“What does she look like?” Alex asked. It wasn’t a pleasant fact, but husbands with plain wives had an annoying tendency to look for greener pastures. Alex hated those cases because they always ended badly. Still, he was in no position to be picky.

“Young,” Leslie said. “And she’s a looker. Seems pretty upset.”

Alex pulled out his red rune book and checked to make sure he had a finding rune prepared. He had two.

“Send her in,” he said.

Mrs. Hannah Cunningham looked like she was still in her teens, but something about the way she carried herself made Alex peg her age at twenty-one or twenty-two. Leslie had been right; she was quite pretty, with delicate features, deep blue eyes, and hair a shade or two darker than strawberry blonde. Alex decided it was more the color of ripe wheat. Hannah wore sensible, working class clothes, a cream-colored blouse and a black skirt with navy flats. It was clear she wasn’t wealthy, but she had a beauty that made her appearance rich. The only detraction to her look were the tracks of tears that traced down her cheeks.

Alex rose as she came in and offered her the comfy chair in front of his desk.

“How can I help you, Mrs. Cunningham?” he asked once he’d taken his own seat.

“Didn’t your secretary tell you?” she asked. Her voice was pulled tight with worry.

“She did,” Alex admitted. “But I find it’s always good to hear a client’s problems from her own mouth. Saves misunderstandings.”

“Oh,” she said, more quietly. She wrung her hands together, nearly tearing the handkerchief she clutched in half. “I don’t know what to do, Mr. Lockerby,” she began. “My husband Leroy has been missing for three days.”

“Have you been to the police?”

She nodded.

“They say there’s nothing they can do beyond telling their officers to keep a lookout for him.” She leaned forward in the chair and clutched the edge of Alex’s desk. “I know something’s happened to him,” she said. “He would never just leave and not tell me where he was going.”

Her face had a desperate, anxious look, as if the next words out of Alex’s mouth had the power to save her or destroy her. He reached into his desk and pulled out a pair of shot glasses followed by his nearly empty bottle of bourbon.

“Here,” he said, pouring two-fingers’ worth into a glass and passing it to her. “This will calm your nerves.”

She took the glass and downed it in one gulp. Alex refilled it, then poured one for himself.

“What does Leroy do for work?” he asked.

“He’s a draftsman for Milton and White,” she said. “They’re an architectural firm on the west side. He also goes to school at night to become an architect himself.”

“Have you called his office and the school?”

She nodded.

“I called every day, but neither one of them have seen him.”

“How long have you and Leroy been married?” Alex asked.

“Three years,” Hannah said. “We met right after he moved to the city to go to school.”

“Where did he move from?”

“Coaldale,” she said. “It’s in West Virginia. Leroy grew up there.”

“Do you know if your husband had any enemies?” Alex asked, scribbling the details in his notebook. “Anyone who might have wanted to hurt him?”

“No,” she gasped. “Everybody loved Leroy.”

“Does he gamble, or have debts?”

She shook her head.

“You’re not rich, are you?” Alex asked.

She shook her hand again, tears blooming afresh in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, setting the glass back on Alex’s desk. “I guess I made a mistake. I though you could just find Leroy with magic.”

“I can, Mrs. Cunningham,” he said, offering to fill her glass again before he realized the bottle was empty. “But the magic works better the more I know about the person I’m looking for, and why he might have disappeared.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m not being much help.”

“You’ve been a big help,” Alex lied to her. “Do you happen to have anything that belonged to your husband, or something he was attached to?”

Hannah started to shake her head, but stopped. She pulled a small silver ring off her finger and passed it over.

“This belonged to Leroy’s mother,” she said. “He gave it to me when we got married. It’s kind of a family heirloom.”

The ring was a simple band of silver, dented and scraped from years of wear, but it was clean and lovingly cared for.

“This will do,” Alex said. “I charge fifteen dollars to cast a finding rune.”

Hannah nodded and took a wad of faded and rumpled bills from her bag. Alex guessed she had raided the coffee tin or wherever they kept their emergency money. She counted out a five and ten ones, most of her stack, then returned what little remained to her handbag.

Alex pocketed the money, then removed the glasses and the empty bourbon bottle from his desk, stowing them back in the drawer where he’d gotten them. He then rose and moved to the filing cabinet in the corner. Opening the top drawer, Alex took out a rolled map of New York and a cigar box.

“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.

Alex put the map down on the desk.

“This is how I’m going to find Leroy,” he said.

Unrolling the map, Alex placed the cigar box on it to keep it from rolling back up. Opening the box, Alex took four small figurines from inside; a wolf, a jaguar, a rhino, and a horse. Each figure was about the same size, rendered in dark green Alaskan jade, with a rectangular base.

“What are those for?” Hannah asked, her fear for her husband momentarily forgotten.

Alex picked up the wolf and smiled an enigmatic smile. He rolled the map out to its full size and placed the figurine on the corner.

“Weight,” he said.

Hannah couldn’t help herself and snickered while Alex placed the other four figures on the other corners of the map.

With the map fully open, Alex took a battered, brass compass out of the cigar box, then set the box aside. The box also contained chalk, candles, and special powders that he could use to draw a stabilizing symbol around the map that would make the Finding rune work better. Here in his office, however, he didn’t need them. Alex had a permanent stabilizing rune cut into the wood floor under the room’s faded red rug.

He took out his rune book and tore out one of his two remaining finding runes. The rune had an octagon as its base, with diamond shapes at each corner, and a symbol in the center that looked a bit like a dragon reclining on a chaise longue. Carefully, Alex folded the paper into quarters and then placed it atop the brass compass. He put the compass in the center of the map with the silver wedding ring on top of the rune paper.

“We’re ready,” Alex said, shifting his gaze to Hannah. “I’m going to activate the rune and the compass will be linked to your husband.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I can use the compass to find him,” Alex said. He removed the metal match in the touch-tip lighter on his desk and pressed it down on the sparker. The match caught and flared to life.

“Now, I need you to think about your husband,” Alex said, bringing the burning match close to the rune paper. He closed his eyes for a second and mentally reviewed everything she had told him about Leroy Cunningham, architecture student from Coaldale, West Virginia. Opening his eyes, he lit the flash paper and it vanished in a puff of smoke and fire. A sound like a miniature gunshot erupted from the space where the paper had been, and the silver ring was sent rolling across the map. Alex had been expecting this, and he intercepted the ring before it could roll off the table, dropping it into his pocket.

In the space above the compass, an orange copy of the finding rune appeared, spinning in the air over the compass. As Alex and Hannah watched, the needle on the compass began to spin in parity with the rune. As the needle came up to speed, the rune began to slow down until their speeds matched, then rune and needle slowed to a stop.

“That way,” Alex said, following the direction indicated by the north end of the compass needle. The indicated direction moved away from the compass toward the east side of Manhattan.

“So, Leroy is somewhere along that line?” Hannah gasped.

Alex slid the compass along the map in the direction of the needle. He didn’t lift it up; that would break its connection to the map. Eventually, the needle began to spin in lazy circles. Alex pulled the compass back to see what was directly beneath it. The spot was near the east side docks. At this scale, it was hard to tell exactly but it looked like a small, private marina.

Alex knew the place. Rich folks kept their boats there. It didn’t seem like the kind of place to keep a kidnap victim, but he’d ask them about it when he found Leroy.

“Is he there?” Hannah Cunningham asked, fresh tears blossoming in her eyes.

“Yes,” Alex said.

Hannah leapt to her feet.

“Then let’s go,” she said. “Hurry.”

“Easy,” Alex said, motioning her back into her chair. “Would Leroy leave and not tell you where he was going?”

“N-no,” she stammered, not understanding Alex’s hesitation. “But, we need to—”

“You need to go home,” Alex said in a firm voice. “If Leroy didn’t go there on his own, someone took him. Whoever did that is likely to be dangerous. I’m going to go over there right now and check it out. If I can get Leroy out safely, I’ll do it.”

“What if you can’t?” Hannah asked, fear rising in her voice.

“If I can’t,” Alex said, coming around the desk to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, “then I’ll call the police and they’ll go in and get him. Either way, I’m not going to put you in harm’s way.”

He didn’t say that having an emotionally involved spouse on the site of a rescue was likely to get him and Leroy killed. He hoped he didn’t have to explain that.

“What if he’s not there?” she asked.

Alex picked up the compass and its connection to the map vanished with a small pop. The needle swung around and pointed off to the east.

“The needle is linked to your husband,” Alex said. “If he moves, I can follow. Now go home and wait. I’ll call you as soon as I know anything. Okay?”

Hannah hesitated for a long moment, then she nodded.

“Thank you, Mr. Lockerby,” she said, rising. “Please bring my Leroy back.”

Alex promised that he would, and Hannah left.

“She seemed happier,” Leslie said, entering the office once Hannah was gone. “I take it you found her husband.”

Alex grinned at her.

“Best finding rune in the city, remember?”

“Did she pay you?” Leslie said, trepidation in her voice. This was clearly the reason she’d come in and Alex didn’t blame her a bit.

He pulled the bills from his pocket and handed the singles over, then presented the fiver to Leslie.

“As promised,” he said.

She started to turn away, but he stopped her and picked up two of the ones.

“Cab fare,” he explained.

“Take a crawler,” Leslie said, reaching for the money, but Alex put it in his pocket.

“I think I might need to hurry this time,” he said, rolling up the map.

“Why?” Leslie asked. “You know where the husband is, right?”

Alex nodded as he returned the figurines to the cigar box, and put it and the map back into the filing cabinet.

“Something just doesn’t add up about this,” he said. “The husband has no money, nothing they could use to ransom him.”

“You’re worried the kidnappers will figure that out and kill him,” Leslie finished. “What are you going to do when you find him?”

Alex opened the second drawer down in the filing cabinet and withdrew his Colt 1911 in its holster, slipping it over his shoulder.

“I’ll convince whoever took him that Leroy Cunningham isn’t worth keeping,” he said.