Ghost of a Chance

“We only need twenty more to make rent,” she said. “But I still have a bunch of those rune orders to collect on. With luck, we’ll be all caught up in a few days.”

She was about to say more when the door opened, and Andrew Barton walked in.

Leslie’s jaw dropped open and she blushed, standing up quickly.

“Really, Lockerby?” Barton said, looking at Leslie. “Another beauty? I need to start keeping you around.” He crossed the room and held out his hand for Leslie to take. “And who is this lovely creature?”

“Andrew Barton, this is my secretary, Ms. Leslie Tompkins.”

“Enchanté,” he said in French, kissing the back of Leslie’s hand.

Leslie blushed harder, keeping up her million-dollar smile.

“How can I help you, Mr. Barton?” Alex asked, nudging Leslie with his hip.

“Excuse me,” she said, snapping out her trance. She picked up the envelope the Bickmans had given Alex. “I need to put this away.”

She stepped around the desk and busied herself pulling the lock box out of the desk drawer.

“You should write dating advice for the newspaper, Lockerby,” Barton said, still watching Leslie. “You’d make a fortune.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” Alex said, not trying hard to hide a grin.

Barton finally tore himself away from Leslie and smiled at Alex.

“I was going over my files and I discovered something in my Operations Filing.”

“What’s an Operations Filing?” Alex asked, not really interested, but willing to see where the sorcerer was going.

“It’s a document the state makes you file if you want to have a big company,” Barton said, sounding a bit bored himself. “Anyway, as it turns out when I set up the company, I established a bounty for anyone who exposed a traitor in my organization.”

“What kind of bounty?” Alex asked, his interest returning.

Barton grinned at him. He’d apparently been watching the expression on Alex’s face match the wheels turning in his head.

“One hundred and fifty dollars, cash,” Barton said, handing Alex an envelope that looked remarkably like the one the Bickmans had just handed him.

Alex didn’t know why the government would want a paper on how a business operated, or even if there was such a thing. Barton had been right when he refused to pay Alex at the museum. Technically Alex lost that bet. If he had paid Alex after the bet expired and anyone found out, he could lose prestige and maybe leverage in negotiations. Bargaining at any level was a lot like staring down a predator — whoever blinked first usually lost.

The envelope and the story about the bounty were Barton’s way around that. If anyone asked, Alex lost the bet, and Barton didn’t pay him. Coincidentally, Barton paid off the exact amount he would have owed… as a bounty for exposing a traitor in his organization.

“Glad I could be of help,” Alex said, accepting the envelope. “Did you get the motor back all right?”

Barton nodded.

“It’s being transported to Baltimore as we speak. The kid that Jimmy and his miscreants grabbed actually did a good job of adapting it for mining. We didn’t have to do much to get it ready for the contest.” Barton stuck out his hand. “I’ve got to catch a train,” he said as Alex shook his hand. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Good luck in Baltimore.”

Barton winked at Leslie, then withdrew.

“Did we just get paid?” Leslie said, not trusting what she heard.

Alex dropped the envelope on her desk with a smile.

“Yes, we did,” he said. “This means not only are we in the black this month—”

“But we can buy cigarettes again,” she finished.

“Take a fiver across to the five and dime and pick up a couple of packs for us,” Alex said.

Leslie grinned at that.

“Sure thing, boss,” she said, pulling the lock box back out of the drawer. “Right after I take care of this.”

* * *

An hour later, Alex found himself in a little room in the Manhattan Central Office of Police. He’d been through the rune books taken from Jimmy and at least three of his accomplices. Most of the strange glyphs looked familiar, since Alex had seen them in the book Alex had taken off their dead colleague. A few were new, and Alex faithfully copied them down in his notebook.

He wasn’t sure what he would do with them, because without knowing what they actually did he couldn’t make them work… or didn’t dare try. So far, Lieutenant Callahan hadn’t found where Jimmy and his cohorts were keeping their lore books, either. Those would have details about writing the glyphs and what they were for, though they wouldn’t necessarily enable Alex to use them himself. Each school of runes had their own methods for using magic and the didn’t play well with each other. Still, Alex had to find the missing lore books to know for sure.

Once he finished, Alex returned the books, and Callahan took him down to lockup to see Jimmy.

“What do you want?” he grumbled, once a uniformed officer brought him into one of their interrogation rooms.

“Just to talk,” Alex said, trying to put him at ease.

“We’ve got nothing to say to you, traitor.”

Alex raised an eyebrow at that. How did Jimmy think of him as a traitor?