Page 21 of Caroled
“You’ve adapted well.”
Tenrael shot him a wide smile.
The exterior of Vic’s Club was bright red, with a tiny window on either side of the door and no adornments apart from the white-and-red sign. Inside, Charles judged it slightly below midrange in respectability. The kind of place where working men came to socialize and get drunk, and where any illegal activity was probably small-scale and discrete. It was poorly lit, with smoke roiling sluggishly through the air, and smelled of overworked men. But it wasn’t crowded, and the few customers glanced with only mild interest when he and Tenrael entered.
Charles led them to a table against one wall, where he hoped he could discretely dispose of his drink. He ordered whiskeys and waited.
It was almost fifteen minutes past the meeting time when a man entered the bar. He was younger than Charles expected—midthirties, probably—with thinning hair almost as pale as Charles’s and a prominent Roman nose. His suit and coat weren’t cheap, but he looked slightly disheveled, as if he hadn’t bothered to dress carefully. He had the unmistakable stance and expression of a cop. “Boilermaker, Tim,” he called to the bartender, then veered toward Charles and Tenrael. “Grimes?” he said to them both.
“That’s me. And this is my partner, Tenrael.”
Collins raised his eyebrows slightly at the unusual name but took a seat with his back to the wall. “You two filling in for Donne and Ferencz?”
“For now.”
“Huh.” Collins’s thoughts on the matter were opaque, although he certainly didn’t look pleased. They stared at one another until Collins got his drinks, at which point he downed the shot of whiskey in one go and followed with a long swallow of beer. He then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I hate when I get mixed up in Bureau shit. I regret it every damned time.”
“We’re not certain thisisBureau business.”
Collins scrunched up his mouth. “Just tell me there’s no giant furry scorpions, okay? Last time there were giant furry scorpions.” He shuddered.
“Nasdanfal,” Tenrael said helpfully. “They hibernate this time of year.”
Collins probably should have been grateful for the information, but he didn’t look it. “You guys’ll come up with something worse. You always do. Last year there was this… thing… with only half a body and half a head, and it was hopping around and….” Another more violent shudder, and he drank half of his beer. “Whattaya want?”
“We’ve been hearing reports of missing men. Soldiers and sailors, for the most part. They never return from leave.”
“Is one of your monsters getting ’em?”
Charles could have protested that they weren’thismonsters at all, but that wouldn’t get them anywhere. Instead he shrugged. “We don’t know. We were hoping you might have some information to share.”
Collins scratched his cheek, which needed a shave, and relaxed a little, although he still didn’t look happy. Charles wondered if he was physically incapable of smiling. “Yeah, okay. I’ve heard some of those same reports, but there’s not much meat to ’em. Army and navy brass have been biting my chief’s ass over it, but the chief figures it’s their fault if they can’t control their men. We got enough problems of our own, you know?”
Hoping he looked sympathetic, Charles nodded. He did, in fact, have a basic understanding of the SFPD’s plight. The war might have brought a lot of business to the city, but it also brought a lot of newcomers, many of them young men away from home for the first time and eager to experience some pleasures before facing death abroad. “Do you know any details at all?”
“It’s been going on since early November. As far as we can tell, most of ’em were last seen in wharfside bars. And none of ’em have showed up floating in the Bay, which is what usually happens when someone goes for an unwise nighttime swim.” Collins finished his beer and set down the glass with a heavy thunk. His hand twitched on the table as if he wished he had more, but he didn’t call to the bartender.
Charles thought for a moment. “Robbery and murder?”
“Could be. It’s an easy game—wait for a mark to get soused, then bop him while he’s weaving down a dark part of the street. Maybe knife him if you wanna make sure he won’t fight back. Only there’s the problem of bodies, you see.”
“Bodies?” Charles had an inkling where this was going.
“We haven’t found any. Like I said, if you drop ’em in the Bay, most of them sort of hang around, and nobody’s found any floaters. I guess the perp could be stuffing them in the trunk of a car and dumping them. Maybe in, I dunno, the woods somewhere or the middle of a cow pasture. But that seems like a lot of effort for the small change these victims carry.” Collins curled his lip. “Oh, Jesus. Is one of your monsters eating them?”
It was a possibility. There weren’t many creatures large enough to consume an adult human all at once, and those few creatures tended to attract notice. Plus, most would leave at least something behind: gnawed bones, a desiccated corpse, a bloody smear on the pavement. “I don’t know.”
“Fuck.” Collins looked mournfully into his empty glass for a moment. “Tell you what. I’ll head down to some of those bars tonight and see if I can dig up anything more. But you gotta promise me that if I getanyevidence that this is under your jurisdiction instead of mine, I’m out. Got it?”
“Fair enough.”
“Good. And you’re paying my tab. How do I reach you?”
Charles took out one of his cards and a pen, and scrawledSt. Francis Hoteland the number. He flicked the card onto the tabletop.
Collins picked it up and read it, then pursed his lips. “Bureau’s shelling out for you to live the high life, huh? They must have a bigger budget than the SFPD. Still, you couldn’t pay me enough to deal nonstop with your shit.”
Tenrael, who’d been silent since mentioning the nasdanfal, leaned forward. “Is it so much better to police humans? Are they so much better than monsters?”
