He shrugged. "What's life without a little danger?"
I shook my head.
Jason got to the door first but didn't try to open it for me. He knew me better than that.
I opened the mostly glass doors. I guess the doors were also a clue. Everything else on the street had doors like you'd see on a house. The glass doors were modern business doors. The interior was painted white, including the long barlike desk across from the door. There were some wanted posters tacked to a bulletin board to the left of the door and a radio system behind the desk, but other than that, it could have been the reception room for a dentist.
The guy sitting behind the desk was big. Even sitting down, you had a sense of size. His shoulders were almost as broad as I was tall. His hair was very short and still curled in tight ringlets. He'd have had to shave his head to get rid of the curls.
My executioner's license is in a nice fake-leather carrying case. It had my picture on it and looked damned official, but it wasn't a badge. It wasn't even a license good in this state. But it was all I had to flash, so I flashed it. I went in, holding the license out in front, because I was bringing a gun into a police station. Cops tended not to like that.
"I'm Anita Blake, vampire executioner."
The cop moved just his eyes; his hands were hidden behind the desk. "We didn't call for an executioner."
"I'm not here on official business," I said. I stood in front of the desk. I started to put the license away, but he held his hand out for it, and I gave it to him.
He studied the license while he asked, "Why are you here?"
"I'm a friend of Richard Zeeman."
His grey eyes flicked up then. It wasn't a friendly look. He tossed the license back on top of the desk.
I picked it up. "Is there a problem, Officer ... " I read his nameplate, " ... Maiden?"
He shook his head. "No problem except that your friend is a damned ra**st. I never understand why the meanest son of a bitch in the world always seems to have a girlfriend."
"I'm not his girlfriend," I said. "I'm exactly what I said I was: his friend."
Maiden stood, and he looked every inch of his six-foot-plus frame. He wasn't just tall; he was bulky. He'd probably been a wrestler or a football player in high school. The muscle had started to melt into a general bulk, and he was carrying about twenty pounds around the waist that he didn't need, but I wasn't fooled. He was big and tough and used to it. The gun around his waist matched the rest of him. It was a chrome-plated Colt Python long barrel with heavy black custom grips. Good for hunting elephants, a little much for scaring drunks on a Saturday night.
"Who are you?" He pointed a thumb at Jason.
"Just a friend," Jason said. He smiled, trying to look harmless. He wasn't as good at looking harmless as I was, but he was close. Beside Officer Maiden we both looked sort of fragile.
"Her friend, or Zeeman's?"
Jason gave a big, good-humored smile. "I'm everyone's friend."
Maiden didn't smile. He just looked at Jason, giving him a cold, hard stare out of those dark grey eyes. Maiden didn't have any better luck staring Jason down than I did. Jason kept smiling. Maiden kept staring.
I finally touched Jason's arm ever so lightly. It was enough. He dropped his eyes, blinked, but the smile never faltered. But it was enough for Maiden to feel he'd won the staring contest.
Maiden lumbered out from behind the desk. He moved like he was aware that he was big, like in his own ears, the earth trembled as he moved. He was big, but he wasn't that big. Of course, I wasn't going to point it out to him.
A second man came out of a small door to the right of the desk. He was wearing a pale tan suit that fit him like an elegant glove. The white shirt was ribbed down the front, and he had one of those string ties with a hunk of gold at his throat. His eyes were large, black, and surprised when they saw me. His hair was cut very short, but stylish. The hand he extended for me to shake had a diamond pinkie ring and a college class ring on it.
"Could this vision of loveliness be the infamous Ms. Blake?"
I smiled before I could stop myself. "You must be Belisarius."
He nodded. "Call me Carl."
"I'm Anita, and this is Jason."
He shook hands with Jason, still smiling, still pleasant. He turned to Maiden. "May we go see my client now?"
"The two of you can go, but not him." Maiden jerked another thumb at Jason. "Sheriff said let the two of you in. No one said anything about anybody else."