Our food came, and I started into my eggs-overgreasy while I thought about what Karl had said.
After a while I put my fork down. "Okay, so maybe Sligo doesn't know we've got shit. He knows we're on the case, but thinks we're doing better than we are. Guess he doesn't know us too well."
Karl swallowed a mouthful of French toast before saying, "I dunno, Stan. The Evil Wizard is slick enough to find out who's investigating the murders, and a good enough magician to get in and out of that parking lot without tripping an alarm – hell, he even knows which cars we drive. But he hasn't figured out that we're going nowhere with this case?"
"Well, when you put it like that…"
We ate in silence for the next few minutes. Then Karl said, "Look, could be I'm full of shit. Wouldn't be the first time. Maybe Sligo's just paranoid, and decided to take us out as a precaution."
Brave man that he is, he signaled the waitress for more coffee.
"Or maybe," he said, "somebody else besides Sligo wants us dead."
The next night, we hung around the squad room just long enough to check messages and make sure that Rachel Proctor hadn't turned up yet – alive, or dead. After that, it was just like the old song: we were off to see the wizard.
Jonas Trombley made magic, and maybe worse, out of a big old house in Clark Summit, a borough just east of Scranton. When we rolled up a little after 9:30, there was no light showing anywhere. That didn't mean anything; if the wizard was working tonight, it would most likely be in a room with no windows at all.
I rang the doorbell a couple of times, with no result. So I put my thumb on it and kept it there. Even from the porch, I could hear the buzzing sound the thing was making inside. I was prepared to keep my thumb on that button for an hour, and I was betting that Trombley knew it, too. "So," I said over my shoulder to Karl, "You been watching that documentary series on HBO, True Blood?"
A couple of minutes later, Karl was describing a book he'd been reading about some scientists who'd accidentally opened a doorway to Hell. I was about to asif it was fiction or nonfiction when the big wooden door finally cracked open.
A man's voice said from inside, "Do you realize what I could do to you, without lifting a finger, for disturbing me like this?"
"Nothing, I hope," I said. "If you did, that would be black magic, wouldn't it, Jonas? And that stuff's illegal. Now open the, uh, darn door, so we can get this over with."
I heard the voice mutter something that sounded suspiciously like "asshole," but the door opened wider. There was enough light from the street for me to make out a human shape inside. Then it waved one hand, and at once the house was ablaze with light.
Once we were inside, Jonas Trombley said, "Close the door."
I was tempted to say, "Why don't you show off some more, and close it yourself?" But the visit had already started on a negative note. No point in growing that into a symphony.
"In here," Trombley said, and motioned us into what turned out to be a living room furnished in what I think of as Thrift Shop Modern. Whatever money Jonas Trombley was making off the practice of magic, he wasn't spending it on an interior decorator.
Once we were seated, he looked at Karl, then at me and said, "So?"
I didn't answer right off, which is an old cop trick. Sometimes, if you don't tell them what you want right away, citizens will fill the silence with some interesting information. I took those few seconds to study Jonas Trombley, who I hadn't seen in three years.
He didn't seem to have aged any, which could be the result of magic or just good genes. Blond, slim, and fit-looking, he looked to be in his late twenties, although I knew he was thirty-four. He wore a zippered velour shirt in what I guess is called royal blue above a pair of designer jeans that were no tighter then the skin on your average grape. The sandals he wore displayed what I was sure was a professional pedicure.
I didn't know, or care, if Trombley liked girls, boys, or both – but whatever his preference was, I would have bet that he got more ass than a rooster, even without the magic.
Once I realized that he wasn't going to blurt out anything useful, I said, "Made any Gorgon statuettes lately, Jonas?"
He tilted his head a little and looked at me, not answering right off. Maybe Trombley wanted to give me a little of my own silent treatment, but most likely he was taking a few seconds to think. I'd always figured there was a lot going on behind those hazel eyes of his – maybe too much.
A smile made a cameo appearance on his lean face before he said, "Those nasty little things require black magic, detective – which, as you pointed out a moment ago, is illegal."
"Can we take that as a no?" Karl asked.
Trombley turned to him and raised one eyebrow, a trick I've never been able to manage. "You may."
"Well, somebody's been making them – two, to be exact," I said. "And I'm thinking that he – or she – probably did it for hire. Would you know anything about that?"
More silence. I could almost hear the wheels turning in Trombley's brain as he weighed how much to tell me, and what it might be worth to him – as well as the cost, if I caught him holding out on me.
"Do you know any ecdysiasts, Sergeant?" he asked. "Professionally, that is." He sat back in his chair. "I meant your profession, of course – not theirs."
If he was planning to make me feel stupid for not knowing what an ecdysiast is, he was wasting his time. "Yeah, I've met a few strippers," I said. "Some human, some not."
"Do of those, um, ladies ever turn tricks on the side?"
"They don't tell me about it, if they do. Anyway, I'm not the Vice Squad."
I heard Karl stir impatiently in his chair. But I was willing to wait. There was a point that Trombley was trying to make, and I wanted to find out what it was.
"But some strippers do 'hook' on the side – fair to say?" Trombley asked.
"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "So?"
"I have a couple of… acquaintances in that profession. Not prostitutes, you understand. These ladies only exhibit their bodies, not sell them. But they tell me that there is a certain kind of man who assumes that every stripper is also a 'working girl.' Some of them can be quite obnoxious in their quest for sexual favors."
"Look, buddy, we don't have all night…" Karl began, but Trombley held up the hand again.
"Of course, Detective, and I won't delay you unnecessarily. But I wanted to make the point that people, ignorant people, sometimes make assumptions about what various… professionals will and will not do for money."
I thought I could see where this was going. "You're comparing yourself to a stripper?"
He gave me the smile again. "Only figuratively, of course. Although it's a venerable profession. Almost as old as mine."
"Somebody asked you to make a Gorgon statue," I said.
"Indeed, yes. Two of them, in fact."
"And the fact that we're having this conversation means you turned him down. Or was it her?"
"I did decline, yes. And I was quite insulted by the assumption the man was making. I do not dabble in black magic, nor will I – for any amount of money."
"Because you're such a law-abiding citizen," Karl said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
The look Trombley gave Karl this time was definitely of the turn-you-into-a toad variety, but his voice was mild when he said, "That's right, Detective. But more to the point, I am not subject to self-delusion."
"Meaning what?" I asked.
"Meaning I do not assume that I could make a pact with any of the Dark Powers without eventually paying the ultimate price."
"Your life, you mean," Karl said.