Page 1143 of One More Kiss

Chapter3

Bottle of Bruichladdich in hand,I walked Officer Graham up four flights of stairs. I stopped at the landing and turned to him. “You know how you said that not everyone in the community loves EGW?”

“I recall saying something to that effect.”

“Well, Lakshmi fits the bill. She also doesn’t really like anyone else in the community, either. Or in her apartment building. Or in Portland. But I’m pretty sure EGW officers are lower than average on her list of people she hates.”

“Well I’ll just have to cry.” He nodded toward the scotch. “I assume that’s to make her like you?”

“There’s no making Lakshmi like you. She likes animals, books, money, and single malt.” I shook the Bruichladdich to put a point on it. “So hopefully, between this and the fate of the jeweled tortoises, she’ll be amenable.”

“If not, I’m sure there’s some lever I could pull.”

“You’re not implying that you’re going to frame her or something, are you? Because I haven’t told you what her apartment number is, yet.”

He lowered his shades, and for the first time, I saw one corner of his mouth quirk upward. “I’m implying that everyone in your business has some kind of violation. I saw three in your shop while I was waiting for you to finish up.”

Thatwas a hell of a mix of emotions suddenly thrust on me. Confusion and curiosity won out over everything else, though. “What problems do I have?”

The other corner of his mouth went up at that. An actual, full-fledged smile. “The glass fronts on your fire-breathing dove’s cage aren’t properly enchanted to keep their flames at bay, you didn’t have the full pedigree of your familiar-class cats on display, and your feeding rats and familiar rats aren’t being kept far enough apart to prevent magical bleedover to the feeding rats.”

“I wasn’t actually expecting an itemized list.”

He slipped his sunglasses all the way off and stuck them into his breast pocket. “I don’t tend to give out citations for little crap like that. But you really should separate the rats.”

“Yeah, I know. Would you buy it if I told you I was planning on doing it right before you walked in?”

“If you and your single malt scotch get Lakshmi to talk? Absolutely.”

It was as good as anything I could have expected. And I did know about the damn rats. But I also knew that I’d never had magical bleedover to the food supply in all the time I’d been running the shop. It wasn’t exactly top priority. But if he was right about the pedigree, that was me leaving money on the table. Those familiar-class cats could be traced back through eighty generations of powerful magic families.

For a later date. I headed down the hall to apartment 47A. Even with the best intentions and a healthily priced bribe, I wasn’t looking forward to this, but I rapped my knuckles on the door all the same. If there was any actual human being that Lakshmi might actually budge for, Al Fishbein was on that very short list.

After a few seconds, the door opened wide, filled with the impressive figure of Lakshmi Patel. Deep bronze skin, an obsidian-black bob dyed with streaks of lime green, and a three-foot winged boa curling and uncurling around her arms and shoulders.

She pulled a pair of pince-nez up from a chain around her neck and slipped them on, although we both knew damn well she only needed them for reading. She knew exactly who I was, and Graham was six feet tall and broad-chested. She wasn’t having a hard time seeing either of us.

She sighed. “Can I help you, Rhodes?”

“It’s less about helping me, and more about helping Alan Fishbein and this fine officer behind me.” I raised up the scotch to make sure she could see it, just in case her poor vision had been so bad that she missed it.

She snatched that straight out of my hand. “Laddie.” She slipped it inside, then finally moved out of the doorway and gestured for us to enter. “What’s this about Alan, and why exactly did you buy expensive enough scotch to convince me to let an EGW officer into my apartment?”

“Because of Alan.” Honestly, this whole thing was already beginning to spiral into a bigger story than I needed to deal with in a week, let alone a day, but I was hoping that she could crack this open and get things moving in a good direction.

Graham stepped up at that point, which was great for me. I needed a second to collect my head so this didn’t all feel so giant. Graham nodded and pulled out his little notebook to jot things down. “You turned Alan Fishbein onto someone with some familiar-class birds of paradise they wanted to offload.”

“Yes.” She led us into her tight living room, lowering herself onto a divan and allowing the boa to slither off and into its terrarium on the shelf up above. “Completely legal, if that’s what’s got you concerned, officer. If you need me to name names, then you can get a warrant or figure out a way to slip me a draft of truth.”

Graham sat directly across from her and leaned forward. “I’m not concerned with the legality of the shipment. You gave Fishbein some advice. What he did with it, that’s up to him, and there’s no evidence right now that things are anything less than completely legal. But they are problematic. He’s gone missing, and at the same time, there’s a shipment of Wallsman’s jeweled tortoises that apparently passed through the port. Odd coincidence, considering he’d likely be the one who’d know about any such thing.” His voice was completely flat and businesslike, and he stared straight ahead the entire time he was talking to her, not once breaking eye contact even though she met him with active, forceful disinterest. “Unless you have some other opinion, which I’d be fascinated to hear. But one way or another, someone needs to find those tortoises and get them away from whatever sort of person would like to keep them. Or worse.”

He was good. It was the best angle an EGW officer could reasonably take with Lakshmi. And after a few seconds of her silence, I had a feeling it might be working. She wasn’t usually one to hold her tongue.

She drummed her fingers against the arm rest of her divan, several rounds of rhythmic tapping. “Wallsman’s?”

Graham nodded. “A dozen. Unknown age. They came through some time this morning, according to our sources. Very possible they were in the port the same time as Alan Fishbein. And if not, I still want to see what he knows, if anything. Try to save the lives of some tortoises before they end up as expensive wall art and dick pills for some rich asshole.”

He was good. It sure as hell got to me, and although Lakshmi was famously stoic and nonreactive, she shifted in place at his mention of that. Then she reached for the scotch and cracked it open, swirling a finger through the air to send a large-bowled whiskey goblet flying into her grip. Then she poured a small measure and took a sip.

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