“Got it,” I said.
With that, Morales and I walked through the lobby to the curtained doorway. The hallway was dark and each of the doors was closed. Suspicious moans filtered out into the cramped space.
“We should go left, right?” Morales joked at my back.
“Very funny.” I opened the third on the right. Even though I shared my partner’s amusement about the location of our errand, I was tense about the reason for our visit. If Krystal really was the new leader of the coven, she wasn’t someone to underestimate.
The door opened into a storage room. Shelves lined with dingy white towels and industrial-sized bottles of massage oil lined the walls. I shuddered upon seeing boxes upon boxes of rubber gloves.
Just past all the shelves, a doorway was blocked by a bamboo-beaded curtain. Morales went through first, but he stopped short on the other side, which forced me to run into his back.
“Hey!”
He pulled me around him so I could see what he was looking at. Instead of entering an office, we’d entered a control room. A semicircle of TV monitors displayed the action inside all of the massage rooms. Nothing really prepares a person for seeing half a dozen illegal hand jobs projected on large screens, but it’s not something I cared to repeat—ever.
“Jesus!” I looked at the floor so fast, I experienced vertigo. “Warn me next time.”
“I didn’t get any warning,” he muttered.
“Why are so many of them weeping?” I asked.
“Nothing sadder than paying for an apathetic handie,” Morales said in a philosophical tone.
“Excuse me,” said a bitchy voice.
The woman sitting in the office chair monitoring all of the TVs spun around. She had blond hair and wore too much makeup. Last time I’d seen her, she’d been dressed like the girlfriend of an up-and-coming coven member—that is to say, showing lots of skin and attitude. However, that day, she wore a tailored skirt suit in a flattering light blue. The cut bordered on being just a tad too sexy for business, but considering the woman’s business was discount hand jobs, it worked. She also wore a pair of nude heels with the tell-tale red on the sole that meant she’d paid way too much for them.
“I’m afraid we don’t service ladies,” she quipped. Then she looked at Morales. “But if you play your cards right, handsome, you can have one on the house.”
He smirked. “That’s so nice, but I prefer to live a hepatitis-free lifestyle.”
She sniffed. “What do you want, then?”
“Would you mind turning those off?” I asked.
“Didn’t know you were a prude, Kate.”
“That’s Detective Prospero to you, sweetheart, and I’m not a prude. That’s just the saddest porn ever.”
She pursed her lips and hit a button. All the screens went blessedly blank.
“There,” she said. “Now, make it quick. I’ve got a business to run.”
I wasn’t sure how watching bored massage therapists dole out manual stimulation counted as busy, but what did I know?
“We’ve met before,” I said. “At the Red Horse.”
“Oh, really?” she said in a bored tone. She remembered, but she wanted me to believe she didn’t. “I don’t recall.”
Considering she’d just called me by name, she knew exactly who the hell I was. “Yeah,” I said, “I normally don’t remember coven wizes’ arm candy, but that day was special, seeing how it had been Charm’s wake and all.”
Her eyes had flared at my characterization of her as Puck’s flavor of the week. “Oh, that’s right,” she said, “You’re that girl who betrayed the entire coven.”
I smiled. “That what Puck told you?”
“No, actually, your uncle did. He also said you were nothing special. That’s why I didn’t pay much attention.”
“You talk to Abe often?” Morales cut in.
She shrugged.
“Because we’ve been hearing some things about you,” he continued.
“Oh, yeah? What kind of things?” She crossed her legs in a way she probably thought was seductive. “I didn’t catch your name, Detective—”
“Special Agent Morales,” he said. “MEA.”
Her eyes widened. “Impressive.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “We heard that you sold out Puck.”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend. Puck Simmons. Some people called him ‘Pain.’”
“Oh, him? What can I say? He broke the law. I couldn’t continue to associate with him.”
I smiled at her. “We also heard that you took over the Votaries once he was gone.”
She had a donkey’s laugh. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages,” she brayed. “How hilarious!”
“According to the tax records, you opened this place up a couple of weeks after Puck was arrested.”
“So?”
“Where’d you get the money?” I asked.
“Since when is it illegal to be an entrepreneur?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I got the money the old-fashioned way—I worked for it.”
“Hey, Morales?” I said, turning to him.
“Yeah?”
“What’s the start-up cost for an outfit like this, do you figure?”
He rubbed his chin. “I’m no expert, mind you, but rents in this area have to run, what? Two grand a month? Any landlord worth their salt would demand first and last’s deposit, too. Plus there’s all the massage oil to buy.”
“And the rubber gloves,” I added.
“Sure, can’t forget those. Let’s call it ten grand minimum.”
“That’s an awful lot of hand jobs.”
“Indeed,” he said.
“I suppose someone could get a loan from the bank,” I responded conversationally.
“Sure, but remember? The records on file listed the business was started in cash.”
She jumped out of her chair. “Shut up, all right! If you want to come back here with a warrant, you can try it, but you have zero PC.”
“All evidence to the contrary,” I observed, tipping my head to the screens.
“You’re MEA, right? There’s no potions here. It ain’t your jurisdiction.”
“Honey, I don’t know who told you that, but they don’t know shit about how jurisdictions work.”
“Maybe Puck taught her,” Morales said. “Or Abe.”
“Uncle Abe knows better than that, but he does like to take young ladies under his belt, so to speak,” I said. “They still got those conjugal visit trailers at Crowley, Krystal?”
Her cheeks had flushed red with anger. “Get the hell out of here and don’t come back without a warrant. But I’ll warn you both, I have a very good lawyer.”
“Let me guess, his name is Dicky Goldman,” I said.
She looked shocked at my guess. “How did you know?”
“Because Dicky is Uncle Abe’s lawyer. Makes sense that he’d want to protect his new puppet.”
“I am nobody’s puppet.”
“Does Abe know that?”
Her voice shook with rage. “Get. Out!”
I held up my hands. “We’re going, we’re going. But one last thing. You might want to watch your ass with the Fangshi.”
Despite her flushed cheeks, she managed to school her features when she responded. “The who?”
But it was too late. I’d seen the flash of knowledge in her eyes. “We’ll be seeing you real soon, Krystal.”
“Not if I see you first.”
Morales pulled my sleeve. “Let’s go.”
We pushed through the beaded curtain, out of the storage area, and back into the hallway of sadness. Neither of us spoke, because it was a safe bet that Krystal had audio to go with the video surveillance. By the time we made it back outside, I inhaled and exhaled like my life depended on getting fresh air into my lungs.
“I need a shower and a drink.”
“In that order?”
I shook my head. “Drink first. Definitely.”
“I know just the place.”
Chapter Seven
The place in question turned out to be the Irish Rover, a cop watering hole that served decent bar food. Since neither of us had had lunch, we ordered a couple of sandwiches with our beers.
We waited until we’d each gulped half our mugs before discussing what went down at Krystal’s place.
“So,” he said, “she’s totally not in charge.”
“I told you.” I shoved two fries in my mouth.
“You were right. No way Abe would install someone that easy to rile up at the head of the coven.”