San Diego Noir

My stomach growled reminding me I hadn’t eaten today. I checked my watch again. Too early for breakfast at Richard Walker’s, damnit. Sleep called, but hunger’s voice outspoke it right now. Maybe I could cajole Risa into rising early and making me something to eat. For while she was a powerful fae, equally powerful at her job, at home she loved to play at domesticity. I knew it was a phase, but hell, right now it worked for me. I hated domestic activities. My nature lent itself more to fighting and physical strength. Risa was probably as good a fighter as I was, but she loved to cook. I took a deep breath, the lavender scent filling my nostrils. Damn, that stuff lingered. I looked around at the scene, no longer clean, but that would be handled by morning. The brownie city services would take care of that. Another yawn and a stretch. That was it. Time to go home.

No sooner than I’d made up my mind, I heard a squeak of door hinges. The green door creaked open, an eye peering out through the crack. I stared at it for a beat, then two.

“You coming out?” I asked.

Another beat and the door slowly opened to reveal a man of medium height, nattily attired in an expensive gray suit, perfectly complemented by a matching silk tie in varying shades of gray, a meticulously folded square of silk tucked into the breast pocket. I did a quick calculation. Newish suit, worn by someone who knows how to dress. Spent more on the suit than my monthly pay. A glance down confirmed the rest. Italian loafers, shined to perfection. Hotel manager, probably.

“Mister … ?” I ventured forward, my hand outstretched, senses poised to gather as much intel as I could with the incipient shake.

“Maggiano.” The man offered me a brusque bow. “Forgive me,” he said, remaining where he stood. “Ahem …” He motioned to the alleyway behind me, never closing the distance between us. “You are done here?”

I let my hand drop and stepped back, reassuming the mantle of officer of the law, even though, technically, I wasn’t. “We’re finished. You the manager?”

He nodded, an absent gesture. His attention was entirely taken up by the surroundings.

Humans, I thought. So nervous around death.

Maggiano finished his study of the alley and returned his attention to me. “Do you know what happened?”

“Other than the brutal death of a protected Licensed Worker?” I asked, giving the sarcasm free rein. “That’s pretty much it.”

He started, his surprise quickly masked by the standard obsequious hotel manager mien—bland, professional. He placed his right hand on his breast, again giving the short head bow. A flash of gold caught my eye. A Patek Philippe added another few thousand to the overall cost of his ensemble. I knew the Leaf must pay well, but if this was the kind of clothing and jewelry afforded by the manager, I was in the wrong business. Hell, all a person needed to manage a hotel like this was the ability to tolerate the vagaries of the wealthy, both human and fae, and be able to provide whatever amusement they required. That I had in spades. After all, I played PR flunky for nearly twenty years at Mesa division, this would be cake. It was a thought.

I realized I needed to question the man since he was already here. I’d hoped to freshen up a little before doing my bit, but what the hell? I never looked a gift opportunity in the mouth.

“Mr. Maggiano,” I said, adopting my most pleasant PR- type voice. “If you could spare me a few moments?” I motioned toward the door, indicating we should step inside.

An hour later, I wished I’d just gone home when Abe did. It was as if I’d opened a dam.

“I’ve worked with them for years. And nothing like this …” He shuddered, a delicate move in harmony with his natty appearance. I suppressed the desire to roll my eyes and sigh. He’d been saying pretty much the same thing for the past sixty minutes. My instinct was to let him ramble, let him keep talking. Sometimes, we caught the bad guys by just letting them ramble. In this case, I was getting nowhere fast. Just talking in circles about how much he respected the Pros, how the hotel business would suffer, etc., etc. Ad nauseum. With every gesture of his hand, the gold flash of his watch reminded me how ridiculous it all seemed. This impeccably dressed man, smelling of the same signature scents as the air around him, so rattled he’d lost all composure.

I slid a little forward in my seat, a comfortable leather armchair in an elegant cream color, the standard leaf image twining up the wooden legs, stamped into the back. I needed to stop this inane chatter and get the hell out of here. My nostrils were clogging up, the lavender permeated everything. I realized that it was just my own reaction; humans and many fae would barely even notice, but I’d been here so long, my sense of touch so sensitive, that even the air molecules irritated me. I noticed that Maggiano kept a bottle of the hand lotion on his desk.