I didn’t wait around for the knuckle-headed chimp and jackal to finish their search. They might not notice anything was missing from their car right away, but it wouldn’t take them long to find me if they went looking for anything suspicious. Dolores was parked in the first place they’d check. I hot-footed it out of the neighborhood and toward my office, but when I hit another chunk of election-day traffic, I used the time between curses to peruse the notepad.
I opened to a random page near the back and immediately regretted my decision to take it. The entire sheet was filled with doodles of genitals and breasts with a few stick figures in the mix to provide context for the prestigious scale of the more finely rendered bits.
I thought I had put myself at risk for nothing until I turned to the back and saw a few meaningful scribbles on the last page. At first glance, they had looked like more doodles, but when I held the pad up to my snout, I could decipher the script. I saw Guy’s name, the model of his Cadillac, its registration and VIN number, then next to that, “Steel Polaris Associates.”
A car honked behind me and I jammed my foot onto the accelerator before the person in the next lane squeezed into the gap I’d left. I tossed the notepad into the passenger seat and wracked my mind, trying to remember if I had ever heard the name before. It hardly sounded like a real place, but the company Guy worked for didn’t post openings in the classifieds. They headhunted employees like him and built their client base off the guest lists of the city’s most exclusive parties and most influential board meetings.
As enmeshed in the city as I had been, I was fairly certain I’d never heard the name before, but I thought I might know someone who had.
I drove two blocks past the election-day jam and stopped at the side of the road to use a freestanding payphone. I dialed the number from memory, hating that it was still taking up soace in there. As soon as I found Ethan, I was going to drink enough scotch to smudge over the numbers in my internal Rolodex and replace them with something more meaningful, like the number to the Chinese place around the corner.
“Adora Counsel’s office, Mackenzie speaking,” the pleasant, but airy voice of Adora’s receptionist said. “Adora’s very busy at the moment. Would you like to set up an appointment? Or you can leave a message and I’ll—”
“No time,” I said.
A pencil dropped and a chair squeaked as Mackenzie jumped in her seat. She took a tremulous breath. “Detective O’Howell?”
I tried not to snap. In order to restrain myself, I had to talk through my teeth. “That’s right. Now get Adora on the horn. It’s important.”
“I’m sorry, Detective O’Howell, but she is terribly busy. Maybe if you—”
“I don’t have time for her games. Whatever she’s tied up with, she needs to drop it. You remember the Ethan Calhoun case? The one where someone Adora hired got knocked down?”
“Yuh—yeah…”
“There have been some developments. If Adora doesn’t cooperate, I’m afraid she might be…implicated.”
Mackenzie gasped after taking a second to wrestle meaning out of what I’d said. “But she didn’t have anything to do with Al.”
“Maybe. But the police don’t know that. Don’t think they’ll care either. They’ll bust down the door to her office and start digging through files for dirt. They’ll spend as long it takes to validate whatever narrative they’re spinning up.”
“They wouldn’t.”
“It’s fine if you don’t want to take my word for it, but if I were you I’d start poking around about finding a new job. You’re going to need one. That is, if you don’t get wrapped up in the investigation yourself.”
“I didn’t—” she started to protest.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it. So have the police. The only way to avoid it now is if Adora gives me what she’s got.”
“Oh my god. I’ll see if she can talk.”
The handset’s speaker filled with the sound of fumbling, a door opening, then low and frantic conversation. Mackenzie came back to her desk breathless, and said, “I’m putting you through now.” She made the switch and Adora’s husky breathing took over.
“Howl, this had better be important. I’m leaving a big-shot producer dangling so I can talk to you.”
Sure, like this one was going to be her big break. I didn’t want to waste time with acidic banter, so I cut to the chase. “Your guy, Al. He used to work for a place called Steel Polaris. Isn’t that right?”
“Maybe he did. Sounds like you’ve got all the answers already. Why don’t you tell me?”
“Adora, try to take this seriously, would you? Your whole career might depend on it.”
“You sure spooked Mackenzie into thinking it did, at least.”
“Lots of people have their eyes on the Calhoun case. Like it or not, you’re caught in the middle. This case hinges on you piping down and giving me what I want to know.”
“I don’t think I like your attitude,” Adora said. Her voice was all gravel. “I’ve worked with enough actors to know when someone’s trying to pull one over on me. Your chops are rusty, Howl.”
“Maybe they are, but Ethan’s aren’t. You lose him, you lose one of the most valuable clients you’ve ever had. You help find him, you get your name in the newspaper.”
“Jesus, Howl. You make it sound like I’m murdering the kid myself. I’m just looking through my papers now.”
The shuffling started midway through her talking. I heard static and rubbing and thumping as Adora moved the phone from shoulder to shoulder. A heavy metal drawer clunked on crooked rollers. Papers fluttered. The phone dropped and knocked against the desk, Adora’s chair and the ground. Adora grunted, cursed, pulled out a folder, then picked up the phone.
Her breath was a tornado in a grain silo, all whooshing and crackling as flecks of tar broke off her alveoli and pinged around inside her chest. She coughed, packing some of that debris into a wet hack, then gasped and talked into the mouthpiece again.
“All right, Howl, I got Al’s file here. Give me a second.” Pages flipped and Adora mumbled as she searched. “Ah, here it is. Previous employer: Steel Polaris Associates. I told you he worked there.”
“You got an address? A phone number?” I asked, pencil poised over my notepad.
Adora clicked her tongue as she searched. “Yeah. I got it here. Before I give it to you—”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“You don’t have time or the leverage to put the squeeze on me right now, Adora. Think of Ethan. Think of your name in the paper.”
“I know, I know. The address is 4878 Benday. But now that you’ve got that—”
I hung up, hopped back into Dolores, and peeled out as quick as the terminally ill engine allowed. I could thank Adora later.
Delores rumbled down the freeway to Headline Boulevard, then puttered through traffic to Benday. I searched all around to catch building numbers. I found 4876 and 4880, two massive, expressionless office buildings with steel and glass facades. They were so generic, they could have been cut out of Hot Type City and dumped in any other metropolis in the world and they wouldn’t have stuck out.
I lurched around the block but didn’t find the address on any of the other four sides. When I came back around to where I had started, I pulled into a corner lot across from 4876. The lot was littered with cars belonging to the people who walked back from city hall on the other corner with proud “I Voted” stickers on their chests, but I found a spot.
Before I got out and started wandering around like a tourist, I scanned the buildings again. A long black town car with a mirror finish drove right in front of Dolores’s nose. I sunk down in my seat, but the window didn’t roll down to show me the barrel of a Tommy Gun as I feared.
Soon after it was past me, it put on its brake lights, then its blinker, and cut across traffic like it was going to mount the curb and drive straight into the office buildings. Instead of clunking and scraping, the car glided through a subtle cut in the concrete I hadn’t noticed the first time, then down into the recessed entrance to a garage occupying the space I had assumed was simple connective tissue between the two buildings.
Not only did Steel Polaris not have a sign, they had made themselves invisible. It was a selling point for the clients they courted.
I watched a while longer and another car came out, this one leading with the spearhead of a Mercedes caltrop poking out of its hood. It rocked onto the street and disappeared into traffic. A few more cars came and went while I watched, but all of their windows were tinted so I couldn’t make out the drivers.
A mongoose in a suit walked up the ramp and glanced around. His eyes didn’t linger, but I felt them pierce my windshield as he scanned the lot. He talked into his cuff, and the sloshing coffee in my empty stomach turned to a block of ice. With his arm lifted to his mouth, I saw the butt of a gun poking out of a shoulder holster inside his tailored suit.
I felt for my gun, reaching out toward it like an addict. Before I touched it, a sharp crack next to my head made me jump. I thought I was dead, then thought I was dreaming when I saw the same suit and tie from across the street standing next to my car. The tamarin wearing it lowered himself down and made the window cranking gesture.
It was only one man, but with cars all around me, I felt trapped. I rolled the window down until there was enough gap to speak through.
“You need to move along,” the tamarin said in the flattest deadpan I’d heard since the geriatric Mr. Crumbley’s eighth grade history class. “This lot is for city hall parking only.”
“Funny. You don’t look like a traffic cop.”
“Don’t make this hard. Just get the fuck out of here.”
Every aching bone in my body told me to nod my head, apologize, and back Dolores out, thanking my lucky stars the guy felt like talking instead of jumping straight to shooting. But I refused to be intimidated.
“You work for Steel Polaris?”
The tamarin’s face didn’t change.
“I heard about your coworker, Guy Urban. Maybe you knew him. Real shame what happened to him, but when you play with fire…”
I was dipping my toe in, testing the water. Turns out it was as tepid as the last shower I’d taken. Either this man didn’t know Urban, didn’t care for him much, or was an excellent actor. I suspected some superposition of the three.
“Sir, please move your vehicle. Others need to use the lot.”
I looked behind the unlikely attendant at a bevy of open spots like missing teeth in a boxer’s mouth. More cars were going out than coming in. Nobody was waiting on me.
“You talk to the police yet?” That garnered a slight shift behind the eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was rage at my obstinance or some hint of recognition. “Maybe an asshole bulldog named Henry? Or a tubby boar named Boggs?”
The tamarin raised his cuff to his lips, and I snuck in one last jab. “Or maybe you talked to Fosse?”
The man’s jaw jittered, halfway to opening. He squinted at me for a pensive moment, then shook his head.
“We have a situation in the south lot. Subject is refusing to relocate. Please advise.”
I heard a break of static and the tamarin tilted his head as if it would bring the pigtail plugged into his left ear canal any closer.
“All right, you got me!” I said, putting my hands up. When the tamarin lowered his arm from his face, I dropped mine to grab the steering wheel and gearshift.
The tamarin watched me as I rolled out of the space, circled the parking lot for an exit, then pulled out into traffic. I saw him talk into his wrist again through my rear-view mirror. When I passed the entrance to the subterranean garage, I slowed down and locked eyes with the mongoose I’d seen earlier. He was on his way out, with one hand on the steel security door and the other jammed into his ear.
The cold stare sent a shiver down my spine, but I got a better look at the gun in his holster. It was the same model Guy had shown off to Virginia, but it looked a lot bigger strapped to the more moderately proportioned body.
The Steel Polaris thugs might not have had any authority or jurisdiction by law, but they did in a de facto sense. They were the hands and wheels of Hot Type City’s untouchables. Sure, they drove people around, but they provided so much more.
Even while I was pulling out of the parking lot I had hoped to find some way inside the garage or compound itself—if they were willing to help steal a kid, it wasn’t too much more of an ask to hold him for them—but seeing the second guard on high alert dissuaded me. If I tried to get in, the only thing I would find myself inside of was a fifty-five gallon drum, cozied up with hundreds of pounds of quick-dry concrete as I sank to the bottom of the Gutter.
I should have backed off, regrouped, maybe condescended to asking Marcella for help, but I couldn’t leave empty-handed. I orbited the building again, this time at an offset of several blocks, but never reached escape velocity.
I didn’t know what I was looking for until I saw it: a boxy black car with a watery clearcoat and windows tinted black. I followed it with a few cars between us until it turned onto Benday, heading back to headquarters. Fortunately, I picked up another car going the other way a minute later.
I kept my distance, and never took my eye off my rear-view to make sure I didn’t pick up a tail of my own. The car only drove a few blocks before it peeled off the main street and turned into the valet circle of a palatial apartment building. It didn’t reach quite the same heights—either in feet or class—as the Morales Building the Sanders family ruled from, but it was a close rival.
The building’s security would have converged on me like a pack of lions if I tried to sneak Dolores into the turnaround. I would have lost the scent if I had to stop and explain myself at gunpoint, so I kept driving. I circled the building twice, and just as I started the third loop, the car I was tracking poked its nose out of the drive.
It emerged into the flow of traffic behind me, and I nearly rear-ended a taxi trying to tail it from ahead. After it turned off, I had to do some creative driving to catch up. I pissed off a few drivers and traded paint with an erratic delivery van, but I found the car again in front of the Morales Building. I was going the other way, and caused the Volvo behind me to slam on its brakes when I darted into a dubious parking spot to watch through the stream of traffic.
The Volvo’s driver, a middle-aged hare, cursed me out and flipped me off, but the attempt at an insult slid off me.
I watched the black car’s driver, a seal wearing the standard issue suit given to all Steel Polaris associates, step around the car to open the passenger door. He stepped back and stood at attention, making room for Felicity Felini and her broad sun hat to squeeze out the door.
She wore a camera-friendly, but not especially elegant, off-white floral-print dress with short, strappy heels. A beaver wearing a black and white frock to identify her as the help followed her out of the car, loaded up with a garment bag, a shoe box, and a piece of wheeled luggage big enough to contain a portable makeup trailer.
I flashed back to the conversation from the last time I came to the Morales Building and flipped through my notepad to jog my memory. I had written that Cynthia was hosting a party on behalf of Regis, planned for the night of the election—today.
The seal closed the door behind Felicity’s girl, but stopped to scan the area for threats before following them. His eyes flicked from car to car and building to building, then I felt the sting of his eyes on mine. One hand moved ominously toward the inside of his jacket while the other raised up to his mouth.
There was no doubt he had spotted me, so I didn’t waste any time trying to hide. I put my trust in the attentiveness of the drivers passing by and backed up. Brakes squealed and horns blared, but I got out and was around the corner before the bodyguard finished sending his report in to HQ.
I had a powerful hunch the person who had hired Steel Polaris to kidnap Ethan would be at that party, but I wouldn’t be able to get past the score of guards who would supplement the building’s already substantial security. Not alone, at least. I had come as far as I could on my own. It was time to ask for backup.