Once I gave my statement to the arresting officers, and people started to walk around the scene instead of gawking at it, I made my way back to the trendy part of town.
The Seeing Eye is a popular hangout for a lot of reasons, the coffee’s not bad, they have decent Jazz on Thursdays, and it’s protected from psychic powers. I’m told that people with any kind of psychic powers can go there to be in public without all the usual noise. Anyone else who goes there can be sure that no one can use psychic powers to spy on them. So, the place has a lot of foot traffic. So, once I was through the door and smelled the caffeine in the air, I knew my tail would have to come in after me to keep tabs.
This would be the second expensive coffee I had to buy to cover this case. I needed to finish quickly before the act of charity bankrupted me.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wait too long before my tail came in before my play of looking at the menu while I nursed a free glass of water with a lemon became too obvious. He was lanky, moved to keep out of the way and to go as unnoticed as possible. He was decent at it, but he was a little too uncomfortable being in the same room as his target. That made sense for him. Eddy the Snitch, was a remote viewer. Meaning he could normally stay within the same general area as his target to keep tabs just fine. Here, he had to use his actual eyes. And he wasn’t as practiced at being subtle about it.
I got up to head out of one of the back exits. He’d have to follow me out to reestablish his surveillance. I took half a moment, making it look like I was noticing a picture on the wall. The frame’s glass gave me a nice look at the room behind me. Eddy was getting up to follow just a couple of seconds behind me.
Once I was outside, I jumped to the left behind a trashcan and waited. And Grabbed Eddy as he was about to ‘zone out’. Since he was counting on following at a distance, his reflexes were a little slow and I had him against the wall in wristlock before he could do anything.
I decided to begin my expert interrogation with cool nonchalance. So I mushed his face against the bricks and asked him why he was following me.
“Hey! Leo, let up man! You can’t just jump a guy for no reason.”
I mushed harder. “Why ya following me, Eddy?”
“Come on Leo. A guy can’t have a cup of coffee.”
“You didn’t have a cup of coffee. You followed me in and followed me out. Right after I got jumped by some Goons outside the place I was having a nice spontaneous lunch. So now I’m very jumpy. And wouldn’t you know it, another shifty individual tried to jump me again. And I had to forcefully…” I twisted his wrist a little more, making Eddy stifle a whine, “Defend myself.”
“Give me a break Leo, just trying to make a living.”
“…That was the poorest choice of words I have ever heard, Eddy.” He did howl that time, though I was pretty sure I hadn’t even sprained his wrist.
After that, I was able to convince Eddy, that it would be better for his occupation for him to quietly tell me the specifics of the job and let me get to them fast, rather than if I guessed right and then publicly let it be known that he turned over his clients to me.
The word of Eddie the Snitch wasn’t ever to be trusted, but I had put the squeeze on him pretty good, and while he may lie a lot Eddie was never particularly good at lying well when he was caught. He said had been watching me for the Goons. Which more or less confirmed that the attack had been for me. I was lucky that JJ had been around then. But it still had been a very near thing. Now that I’d managed to shake off their trace on me, I had a little time before the rest of the Goons found out that Eddy wasn’t following me anymore.
Now I needed to figure out why the Goons were involved. It wasn’t unusual for them to be involved in random deaths and accidents in the city. They were well known as muscle for easy hire. Though easy didn’t mean cheap. And something as blatant as jumping possibly, killing me (and any bystanders in the way) in broad daylight would be pricey. Were there supervillains in the city with enough money to get them to do it? Yes. Was there a reason for them to? I didn’t think so. That theory being both unlikely and beyond my ability to do anything about it, I moved on to the next idea.
The other explanation that came to mind, was that the Goons came after me themselves. That would still be odd. It would imply that they were involved without being paid and used their funds to try to pay me off and then have me tracked by Eddy. They only did stuff like this without being paid if it concerned them. It made sense in a weird way. The Goons were the level of employer that would hire Eddy, and not be too careful about what he knew. They’d been on me too hard and too fast, for them to be working as a hire. Well, whatever they were up to, I could actually look into it, and either rule it out or learn something.
I decided to check with the police, under the pretense of filing a report on the Goon’s attack on JJ, officially. They wouldn’t disclose all the info (unless they had already decided to close the case), but I had managed to cultivate enough goodwill that I could give, the police a line of inquiry and be reasonably sure they’d do something with it. In return, they’d advise on how to “keep safe”.
Some of my tension relaxed when I saw Frank was working the desk that evening. Listening to his telltale Sinatra music, which echoed through the Lobby.
“Hey, Leo. Whatcha up to?”
“Thought that I should follow up with that incident at the Diner this afternoon. I found Eddy the snitch, following me later. He said The Goons put him up to it. They say anything to back that up?”
“Sorry. They haven’t said much. But they’ve been quieter than usual. The
Detectives did get them to slip that they weren’t there for JJ though.”
“In that case, is there anyone I can talk to about the dead girl that came in
today?”
“Detective Connally would be the one, she’s over at her desk. I’ll let her know that you’re coming in.”
“Thanks, Frank. I owe you another one.”
“Good luck, Leo. Let me know if you need a hand.”
With the OK from Frank, I walked into the police bullpen. The Detective stood from her desk. She looked to be from the same cloth as JJ. Same guts. Same tenacity. But, she looked like a rule follower. Neat hair, neat suit jacket, dress shirt. And if I was given to stereotypes, the wavy red hair put into a contained bun meant a “Direct” personality.
“You have some information for me, Sir?”
“A possible lead, and a concern. Yesterday a young girl asked me to find her friend. That friend was found dead in the street this morning at about 10:30. Then at 11:20 I received payment, presumably from the girl’s parents to drop the case. At 12:45 some of the Goons assaulted Ms. Janice and myself. Soon after I found a well-known informant following me. When questioned, he said that the Goons had contracted him to follow me and keep them updated on my location, until they said otherwise. I’ve no conclusive evidence but the Goons may be a fruitful line of inquiry concerning the dead girl.”
The Detective looked unimpressed. “Mhmm. We’ll look into it. Thank you for your input. Let us know if you learn anything else concrete.”
“I don’t suppose that I could get any information regarding the arrests from my assault or the coroner’s report on the girl?”
The detective’s hard look when I didn’t leave after her momentary silence told me I hadn’t done enough to ask her for those kinds of favors. And her irritated expression told me I wanted her to forget about me as soon as possible.
“Sir, let me be transparent with you. The girl’s death is going to be ruled by emergence unless conclusive evidence to the contrary presents itself. Unlikely. And though the Goons may have had something to do with the death of this girl, it would be a very hard thing to prove conclusively to the DA. What is sure, is that the Goons we have in custody have pertinent information on future super criminal activities and imminent threats to the city. And the sooner I can get back to those cases, the more likely I’ll be able to prevent harm to the public.”
When she finished, I got up, and said “Thank you for your time, Detective.” And made my way back to the front of the station passing by Frank on the way out.
Unfortunately, I had made an impression on the detective. My chances of getting new info from the police would be slim to none now, regardless of Frank’s good opinion or helpful disposition. Detective Connelly would not change her mind. If I didn’t back off now, anything I asked for in the future would be considered a nuisance. Worse, if I went over her head and something came of it, it would be a public embarrassment to her and possibly, by extension, the precinct. Any goodwill I had left after today would be gone, and anything I said would be ignored going forward.
The case was as good as dead. But maybe that was for the best. The simple fact was that for all the weirdness around her, that girl probably had just died from emergence. It was a simple answer and one that her friend could understand. More importantly, there was no one else that I could pass the case to. No one else was going to find another answer beyond what the police found. I tell my clients, I’ll do the best I can or point ‘em to someone who can do better. If I can’t see a solution, I tell them upfront and that’s the end.
As I walked past Frank’s desk, he smiled to himself humming that Sinatra music (just wanting to help people), I knew I had one more thing to try before I could say that no more could be done. Hopefully, it wouldn’t put me out of business.