“Hush,” I hissed at him. “Where’s the Mercedes?” I asked Sweet Ray.
He pointed farther up the road. Once the traffic cleared enough, I spotted the black Mercedes gleaming in the afternoon sunlight. I nodded and turned to Morales. “Sweet Ray said they’ve been in there about”—I paused to check the clock—“fifteen minutes now.”
“Who’s they?” Morales asked.
“Mr. Mayor and the Chinaman,” Sweet Ray said. “Peewee said they’re trying to call Liberace.”
I closed my eyes and waited.
“Liberace?” Morales shot me a level look as he spoke.
Sweet Ray made a disgusted noise. “Hello? Liberace had the voice of an angel.”
“Got it—thanks,” he said, his tone strangled. “And who exactly is Peewee?”
I opened my eyes. Sweet Ray stared at my partner like he’d just insulted his mama. Morales was watching me like I’d lost every damned one of my marbles. “Peewee is Sweet Ray’s friend,” I answered evasively.
Sweet Ray snorted. “That’s an understatement.”
Morales nodded as if he understood, even though he was nowhere close to comprehending what the hexhead actually meant. “Okeydoke,” he said, “so we wait until Hung comes out and take him in for questioning.”
“All right, Sweet Ray,” I said, “you can go back to your step.”
“When do I get my cell-a-phone?” His tone bordered on petulant.
“I promise I’ll bring it by tomorrow, okay?”
He shook his head. “But Peewee said the eclipse is bringing death for you.”
All of the air got sucked out of the car.
“Step the fuck away from the vehicle.” Morales had his weapon in hand and pointed at Sweet Ray before I could blink.
“No!” I yelled. “That’s not—”
Before I could explain that Sweet Ray hadn’t been threatening me, the hexhead took off. His turban flew off his head as he ran right into traffic.
“Shit!” I started to open the door, but Morales grabbed me.
“Kate, don’t—”
Blaring horns interrupted him. We both looked up in time to see a car squeal to a stop mere inches from Sweet Ray. He executed a spin and jumped out of the way of another car before safely making it to the curb.
“Damn, he’s got more moves than Frogger,” Morales breathed.
I slapped him on the arm. “Why did you pull a gun on him?” My fear was making me surly.
He shoved his gun back into his shoulder rig. “He threatened you—or his buddy did, anyway.”
I blew out a breath to get my temper under control. “You misunderstood. Peewee isn’t his friend.”
“But he said—”
“Shit, listen.” I slashed a hand through the air. “Peewee is a pigeon, okay?”
Morales went so still, I worried he’d seen another threat outside the car. I looked around but didn’t see any immediate danger. When I looked at him again, I said, “What?”
“Kate, have you been drinking?” He ran a hand through his hair. “It’s fine if you have. I just need to know.”
“No, jackass, although I will need one pretty fucking soon.” He didn’t speak, just waited for me to explain. “All right. Sweet Ray sits on the front steps of City Hall every day. He thinks he’s a medium for a pigeon named Peewee.” I didn’t mention that Peewee wasn’t just a single pigeon but the collective pigeon consciousness. There was only so much ammunition I was willing to provide for the eventual mental health review his look was promising.
“Let me get this straight. You hired a cross-dressing hexhead who believes he can communicate with a bird to be your informant?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds crazy.” I crossed my arms and sank down in my seat. “It made sense at the time, though.”
He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I’m not sure how to respond to any of this.”
While he thought it over, I looked past him to make sure Sweet Ray made it back to his spot. Sure enough, he sat on his normal step with the flock. He looked vulnerable without his turban.
“Maybe we need to knock off for the day,” Morales said. “It’s been a crazy couple of— Son of a bitch!”
I jerked out of my contemplation of Sweet Ray’s existence. “What?”
“Hung and Volos just got into the car.” He pointed at the Mercedes zooming away from the curb. We both watched, open-mouthed, as the car rolled past on the opposite side of the road. Sure enough, Hung was driving and Volos was in the seat.
“Crap, what should we do?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to track the car’s progress.
“It’s going to be a clusterfuck if we pull that car over without an arrest warrant.”
“Let’s just follow them, then. See what they’re up to.”
He nodded resolutely. “All right. Call Gardner and tell her what’s going on. That way, if shit gets messy, she’s already in the loop.”
While I pulled out my phone, he executed an illegal U-turn. I quickly filled Gardner in on the situation.
“Stay out of sight. Do not pull that car over with the mayor inside. You understand?”
“Got it.”
“If they stop somewhere and you witness illegal activity, you call in backup. I can’t have it being their word against yours.”
“Got it,” I said. “I’ll be in touch soon.”
“And, Prospero?”
“Yep.”
“No fuckups.”
“10-4.” I hung up and filled Morales in on the plan. His only response was a tightening of his jaw and the engine of the SUV revving as he sped up.
Four blocks ahead, the Mercedes turned toward the river.
“Are they headed toward the docks?” Morales said, almost to himself.
I didn’t answer because the car was already making another turn, away from the lake and toward the Bessemer Bridge. It smoothly merged into the late-afternoon traffic as downtown’s Mundane worker bees fled to their safe suburban hives.
I leaned back in my seat and watched the sun ooze into Lake Erie through the side mirror. “Did you ever think of quitting?” I asked.
From the corner of my eye, I saw his head turn as if I’d shocked him. “What do you mean?”
“The MEA.”
“Why in the hell would I quit?”
I turned to look at him. “Well, Los Angeles, for example—based on what you’ve said, it was pretty fucked up.”
“Like Babylon isn’t?”
He was trying to deflect with sarcasm. Since I’d practically invented that maneuver, I wasn’t about to let him get away with it. “I’m serious. After the Fangshi killed that dirty cop, it didn’t occur to you that maybe it was time to cut and run?”
His chest heaved with a massive sigh. “Why are you asking me about this?”
I toyed with a loose string on the hem of my jeans. “Just making conversation.”
He laughed but it didn’t sound amused. “Cut the shit, Prospero.”
I finally looked up. “I’m just giving you a chance to tell me the whole truth.”
“You calling me a liar?” The acid in those words threatened to eat away at the connection between us.
“I’m saying maybe you downplayed some details, is all,” I said carefully. Truth was, ever since the meeting with Yü Nü, I’d been fighting a bad feeling about Morales’s original version of the tale.
“Details are just decoration. What really matters is at the end of the day, I helped put away a lot of bad guys because of that case. “
It was such a perfect Morales answer that I laughed out loud instead of getting angry. “Ends justified the means? That’s what you’re going with here?”
“How’s the weather up on that high horse, Cupcake?”
I cleared my throat and looked back out the window. He wanted a fight, but I wasn’t playing that game. “What do you think Gardner will do if she finds out?”
He waited a beat too long before answering. “If I’m lucky, she’ll just fire me.”
“And if you’re unlucky?”
“She’ll have me arrested.”
“Shit.”
“Right.”
An image of Morales being led in chains into a prison filled with people he put there made me shudder.
“Surely there were extenuating—”