Frank clamped a hand down hard upon his hat, the other pulling his coat closed to keep it from blowing open with the wind. The rain coming down was barely more than a drizzle, but combined with the sudden and now rising gale, he feared that those droplets would soon work their way into places he would rather remain dry.
He needed to work his way around several piles of uncollected horse-droppings as he moved to the other side of the street, to the small diner across from his office.
Hanna’s; a long-favoured establishment which he and Donny often visited. It was through her large windows where he could see his partner and the boy—now his other partner, he would need to remember—seated at a corner table. The reason for his crossing being Frank needing some company and something warm to eat after his bungling at Central Processing.
Entering the left side of the two doors leading into the diner, a small bell chimed out, the sound barely heard as the light rain outside turned into an outright downpour as the weeks of heat finally relented, that respite allowing the moisture within the air to finally coalesce into a torrent that would soon see some parts of the city flooded.
But that was another story.
This one saw Frank offer an equally unheard greeting to the proprietress of the establishment as she went about serving the various customers who, like him, had come in more to relieve themselves from the stresses of the day and to escape the rain than to actually partake of anything on offer.
Hearing him, Frank saw Donny give a wave from where he and the boy sat, a booth he now quickly made his way too, stripping off his damp coat as he did so, to avoid wetting the seat as he sat down and antagonising Hanna for doing so.
His partner was procrastinating in finishing off a plate of the diner’s special: a cheeseburger with a side of potato fingers—something Goodie kept insisting on calling fries. The kid looked to have already finished his own, and was instead now working on a strawberry milkshake while he read a cheap-looking booklet of some sort.
“Donny—Goodie. Get it done?”
“More or less,” Donny replied, “just have to wait for the registration to go through.”
Frank nodded, having expected as much. The bureaucracy of the city was about as fast as it was efficient—something that would vary depending on wow the city felt about you. He also noted how Donny had said nothing about organising the kid with a top-up, the boy now useless as he and Donny were without magic flowing through his veins.
“But otherwise, everything go well?” he asked his long-time partner, fully expecting the theme of the day to be, “kick me while I’m down, then kick me again for good measure.”
“The kid wants to hire Germaine,” Donny answered offhandedly, much to Frank’s confusion.
“What? Why? Where’d he even meet him?”
“The D.I.A.A.” the kid replied.
“The wha…? Oh, right,” Frank nodded, realising what the boy meant.
“Kid, you're not wrong, but don’t say it like that. The government doesn’t have much imagination when it comes to naming stuff, so ‘Department of’ tends to be a given. Just say the rest or people will think you’re foreign,” Donny told him as he looked out the window, silently watching as the rain turned into a curtain of water.
“But I am…”
Frank waved the boy off, looking around to see if anyone was listening before turning back.
“Now, why you want to hire him?” Frank then resumed his questioning.
It was Donny who answered instead, saying, “Kid figures that with half the freelancers kissing dirt, now’s the time to expand. To fill in the gap before someone else does.”
“Well,” Frank said, sort of seeing the thinking behind that plan, “it’d take more than just Germaine to do it, and I don’t think we have the money to…”
“Kid wants to pay with it out of his own pocket,” Donny cut in, his tone and the look in his eye indicating more than his words did, conveying to his partner that he had issues with the kid essentially wanting to start his own agency while working for theirs. Barely a few months here, and the boy from another world was already trying to become the boss.
Donny had already been agitated by the boy’s presence, and this…this was setting off all sorts of alarm bells.
Whether Frank had understood what his partner was trying to convey to him and disagreed with that opinion or he was only hearing that he would not have to pay for anything, the man replied, “Well, the kid’s money is his money. And if it works out…”
“Frank…?”
“…then I’m sure we can…,” he continued, dismissing his partner.
“Frank…?” Donny repeated, his words cold as ice as he stared over his partner’s shoulder.
Now seeing the concern in his partner’s eyes, Frank turned with a sigh to see what had Donny so perturbed.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Looking over, all he could see was some schlub reading a paper as he ate, the front page displaying something about a missing girl; said mug then looking back at him as he noticed that he was now being watched.
Turning back, Frank asked his partner, “What?”
Looking to him, Donny told Frank, “That’s the third time today.”
“What? The missing girl?” Frank asked, his tone now just as serious as his partner’s.
“Girls; first at the newsstand yesterday, then a couple of freelancers talking about it at Assessment…now here.”
“Concerning, but…”
“Met the Rodent, too,” Donny added.
“Damn,” Frank swore.
The boy, Goodie, looked from one to the other, confused, but also somewhat apathetic to whatever it was that was going on here. But, having nothing better to do than sip from his nearly empty glass or ask, he asked them, “Something you mind sharing?”
“You know your trick?”
“Remote viewing?” the kid said.
“Yeah, well, everyone has their own; just don’t have the magic to use it, right—but for those that do, those that get it pumped in like us or were born with it, they can do things like you do. To different degrees, o’course. Donny…well, Donny gets these feelings sometimes. Sees connections when fate slaps him in the face with them.”
“That’s not how it works, Frank,” Donny uttered bitterly.
Frank waved him off as he continued.
“Thing is, just ‘cause he sees something, it doesn’t mean it’s something to do with us. Things he sees could be a warning, could be an opportunity—but most of the time, it’s just something that’s happening.”
“And the Rodent?” Goodie asked.
“Him? Oh, he just has a knack for getting tied up in things. Sorta similar to Donny’s thing. Not necessarily in the middle of them, mind you, just be nearby—snagging on the threads that connect everything. What makes him such a good snitch,” Frank all but spat as he mentioned that last part, “Always happens to be nearby when something important goes down. Just close enough to take advantage of it.”
“So, him and the three times thing?”
“All but confirms that there’s something to get tied up in, which always means trouble…even if it ain’t about us. Usual play is to ‘Avoid but prepare’,” Frank told him.
“And how do we do that?”
“We can’t,” Donny said. “Every time we’ve tried, it got us tied up in some mess or other. Best we can do is see what’s what and hope for the best.”
“Okay, then how do we do that?” asked Goodie.
“Good question. Frank?”
“Eh, it’s too late to think. Ask me tomorrow.”
Donny was about to remark on Frank’s ability to think, but was interrupted as the owner of the diner, Hanna, walked over.
“Hey—sorry, Frank, rain’s got me more customers than I can handle. You ordering or just talking?”
“Uh…yeah,” the ginger-haired man replied, his mood much better for now addressing a woman, “A coffee and…what? A burger? Yeah, a cheeseburger.”
“And that chocolate cake,” Goodie said.
“Okay, cheese-b and a slice of cho…”
“No-no, the entire thing,” the kid corrected.
The woman, Frank and Donny all looked at him, Frank then asking, “Celebrating something?” with a bit of a laugh.
The boy responded with, “Yes,” his tone stating that that should have been obvious.
Looking at him a moment longer, Frank realised what the kid was talking about, then said, “Right, right,” as he turned to Hanna to explain. “Got the kid registered today. Looking at the new partner of our esteemed little agency.”
Donny snorted.
Frank gave his partner the eye.
Ignoring the two, Hanna congratulated Goodie, and promised to bring him his order along with a refill on the shake.
“So,” Frank said after a short bit of awkward silence, “what’s with the book?”
“Catalogue for the…what was it called again?” Goodie asked Donny.
Instead of answering him, Donny turned to Frank and explained, “Took him to one of the auction houses—where we ran into the Rodent, if it matters—wanted to impress upon him just how difficult it is for us to get ahead in this line of work. And just how hard it was to get anything good.”
Frank nodded, but then asked, “So…the book?”
“Catalogue for the long-term storage,” Goodie informed him.
“Seeing if you can see something we can’t?” Frank guessed.
“M’—figured with me not being local, I might have a different perspective on things.”
“And?”
“And nothing; it’s been a long day and I’m very tired. Mostly just browsing.”
Frank nodded, feeling much the same. The rain was rapidly cooling things now, but that did not help them after a day of walking around in the sweltering heat, now did it?
“There’s a lot of cursed items here?”
“M’hm, a lot of bad people in the world,” Frank replied offhandedly.
“Yeah, but I meant: why are they being sold?”
“Officially? For researchers and collectors, and I hear some of the Africans and Orientals can eat magic. Truth is, people are paying for these things regardless of whether they're illegal or not, so might as well take their money for the city instead of allowing it to fall into the hands of whoever’s making these things,” Frank explained.
“Assuming it’s not the city that’s doing it,” Donny commented wryly.
“Donny,” Frank warned. Honestly, the city did not really care what the man on the street thought of them, but there was always the chance that some middle-management type could be listening in—some brown-nosing tit that would immediately run off to tell daddy about whatever they heard because they thought it would get them a pat on the head.
Surprisingly, for all that she was busy, Hanna was quick to return, placing Frank’s burger and fingers in front of him, then returning to the nearby counter to retrieve the cake and a collection of small plates and cutlery, which she then placed within the middle of the table.
“Thank you, Hanna,” Goodie said as she turned to leave, first taking Donny’s order for a top up of his own drink.
As they each ate, a silence descended over the small booth. Not an awkward one, just a casual lull in the conversation as they got busy with their meals, the soft mumble of the other patrons and the diner’s radio filling in the void as they each ate and drank.
“So, anything interesting?” Goodie asked Frank after a while later.
“About?”
“My file.”
Frank stopped chewing, but other than that, he gave no sign of what he felt about being caught snooping. Rather, he answered, “You could say that.”
Goodie looked at the man, and he, in turn, looked at Donny as Frank then said, “Curse card.”
Donny frowned.
Explaining, Frank turned to the kid and said, “The people that handled you guessed that someone would come looking, so they left a slip of paper at the back of the file. It ever so kindly invited me to come and have a chat with them. The type of kindly that you don’t refuse.”
“Could have told you that if you had asked first,” Donny mumbled under his breath in that, “I told you so,” kind of way.
Frank ignored him.
“Organised a sit down with ‘em on Friday.”
“Want me to go with you?” the kid asked, which somewhat took Frank for a surprise. Few people would willingly volunteer in dealing with the government, especially when they had not been the one to attract their attention in the first place.
“Thanks, but it’s my mess to deal with.”
Then an awkward silence did fall over them, a lot going unspoken in its presence.
Frank had been caught snooping on the kid when he had previously played the ally, whereas Donny—while being openly and blatantly suspicious of him—had always been forthright and honest, if not likeable in the doing of it, and had helped him throughout the day.
And Goodie…he did not care at all, the wolf having stripped him of such trivial concerns that most normal people would have felt, his only thoughts being on how the strawberry milkshakes and the slice of chocolate cake he now dug into tasted so much better than the preservative-laden counterparts from his Earth.
“Tell him about the blood,” Goodie said a moment later, his request directed to Donny.
“Blood?”
“Clara Bow; While we were at the auction, her blood came up on offer.”
“What?! Why the hell would someone like her do something like that?” Frank asked incredulously.
Donny did not comment, but Goodie did, offering, “Maybe with half of her clientele dead, she was hard-pressed for cash or something?”
“No,” Frank stated firmly. “This lady? She may not be the best in terms of quality, but her blood’s a sight above-and-beyond anything people at our level can get a gander at. Even if they don’t have anyone in need of it right now, the established agencies would just pay her to wait until they do. No, there’s something not right about this?”
“You check that it is her?” he asked Donny.
“Yeah, Frank, I broached it at our weekly social,” Donny replied with blatant mockery.
“Alright, alright,” Frank waved him off, “But seriously, this doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, we’ll see what’s what when we get it done.”
“How much?”
“Money or Blood,” Donny asked.
“Yes,” Frank answered with a bit of his own snark.
“Well, the woman charges what she’s worth; and that’s all I’ll say in public…”
Frank snorted.
“As for the blood: four litres. I figured one for you and me, and two to keep the kid going for a while.”
“Hm,” Frank nodded but said nothing, still thinking this might be a scam of some sort. It would not be the first they fell for if it was.
They would stay there for a good while longer, waiting until well after dark in hopes of the rains abating. When it became apparent that the downpour was without end, they would eventually be forced to make a dash through that weather back to their office building and the apartments within.