We settle into Win’s old Model T, Howie in front, me in the back, turn out of the Red Den lot and make our way through the city. I haven’t said a word to Win Matthews since I’ve met him, not that it’s noticeable. Howie has said enough for all of us, keeps his mouth running as fast as the motor—about what he learned in prison, his plans for life on the outside, and how he’s itching to meet Boss McEvoy. He’s still coming down off the shine, taking in the world through magic-tinted glasses. Eventually he’ll sober up, hollow out. Feel empty and hungry for more.
“That mouth has to shut when we get to the meeting point,” Win finally says. He takes a right and the busy avenues fall away, and now we’re following the Highway Bridge out of town.
“All right, yeah, of course,” Howie says to his passenger-side window.
“I’m serious. You aren’t here for anything but standing next to me quiet as church mice. This is an easy run. We’ve already made our own form of payment—we just need to grab twenty gallons of remedial spells Baltimore brought down from their inside man up north and drive the spells out to our shine redistillery.”
So the same type of trades my father was orchestrating, before the Feds got wind and took him down: stealing legal magic cures off pharmaceutical shelves, flipping them to redistilleries who try to edge the spells closer to shine, then funneling the knockoff product to shining rooms and dealers around the city. I file it away for Agent Frain. Sounds like since my father’s Danfrey Pharma Corp. has been thrown out of the remedial magic game, sources outside the city have been pinch-hitting.
Win takes the next exit, and we make another right. The slick road beneath our wheels completely falls away, and now we’re just treading over stones, hopping and bumping as we make our way through a dense forest.
“Where’s the pickup?” Howie asks.
“At one of our warehouses,” Win answers quietly.
We park in a gravel lot surrounding a colorless building and get out. The cold of early November shocks me, forces each breath out with a startled puff. Win opens the warehouse door, and we follow him into the darkness. There’s a thick, different kind of air in here—heavy, musty air that smells like it’s been held captive.
I take a quick look around—the place is stacked with boxes and bins along the perimeter, and a pile of thin cots is thrown into the corner. Thanks to the slim row of windows perched high on the far wall, I see that our meet-up is already here. Three men stand in the shadows, right at the border of where the moonlight hits the dirty cement floor.
“It’s Win Matthews,” Win calls out. “I’m looking for Bobby Hun.”
A youngish man, twenties maybe, steps into the slice of light.
“I take it all went well last night,” Win says slowly. “So where’s our thank-you?”
The young Baltimore thug, Bobby, I guess, stays silent for a moment. Then he glances back to his chums and sighs. “Bring the gallons in.”
One of Bobby’s associates turns back into the shadows. A rattling of glass echoes through the warehouse, and then a large cardboard box is pushed into the sliver of moonlit cement.
Win steps forward, bends down, and opens up the box. He pulls out one of the glass gallons inside, full of a murky pink liquid. A remedial spell—maybe the flu vaccine, or one of the magic trials they’re running for the sleepy sickness. Ripped off the shelves before it can reach the world, to be repackaged for folks who are so hungry for a break from reality, they’ll guzzle medicine to get high. A shame blooms inside me. My father was doing the very same thing. I was helping him do the very same thing.
Win screws off the cap, sticks his pinkie finger in, and puts it to his lips. He puts the cap back on the gallon and studies the contents of the box. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“That’s all of it.”
Win barks a laugh. “That’s a joke, right? Boss McEvoy and your boss made a deal,” he says. “Our man Kerrigan loaned your gang twenty men for your Baltimore Equitable Bank shake-down—a loan we now expect to be paid back in full. The deal was for twenty gallons.” Win shakes his head. “Not ten.”
I try to put together the pieces as Bobby crosses his arms and begins to whisper to one of his associates. Our man Kerrigan loaned your gang twenty men. . . . The name Kerrigan rings a bell from my training days at the Unit. He’s one of McEvoy’s underbosses on the racketeering side, from what I remember, commands a small army of Shaw thugs to “protect” local businesses with muscle and magic (businesses that have no choice but to pay for this “protection”). Sounds like Kerrigan loaned some Shaw manpower to the Baltimore Gang, for their bank raid up north—
“You really don’t know what happened last night, Matthews?” Bobby interrupts my thoughts, snaps out his own forced laughter. “Half of Kerrigan’s men never showed up. And half of the ones who did? They were high. One of them even tampered with the linked-door trick that was set up as a means of escape. Whole thing was a mess, our men barely got out with the cash.” Bobby takes another step toward Win. “It was definitely not the stellar Shaw service we were promised.”