Fisher followed Artemis and me onto the balcony, where he lit up and sighed.
“God—sorry Astra. I’ve been wanting to do that for an hour.”
Artemis smiled. “I can’t throw stones, detective—all this has made me thirsty and I’m off to The Fortress for a drink. Goodnight Detective Fisher, and call me anytime you need quick bloodwork done.” Without looking at me, she turned to mist and faded from sight. Fisher puffed a smoke-ring.
“And that’s not disturbing. Sorry about tonight kid. You okay?”
I sighed. “I wish Atlas were here—I’m no good at this.”
“You’re better than you think. It still sucks.”
I leaned against the balcony. “Do you have any idea who did this?”
“If you mean who put him in the box, no. Who ordered it? Yeah, maybe.”
“Could it be the bank robber?”
He made another ring and shook his head. “Naw. The MOs don’t match. Whoever she is, she left him alive and well; why kill him now, after we’ve already talked to him?”
“The Outfit?”
“Now there’s a possibility. Especially since our missing Mr. Tony Ross is an independent antiques dealer. Personally, I think he’s an Outfit banker.”
“A what?”
“Sorry. I think he’s a wise guy who’s job is to hold the cash. It’s better than a numbered offshore account—electronically untraceable. He keeps a ledger with the bonds, and pulls or collects payments on his trips. An Outfit auditor checks the books quarterly to keep him honest. Everything’s coded, no names are used, so even if the feds flipped him they wouldn’t get much—and his bosses probably have something on him anyway. We’ve got the Organized Crime Division looking into that angle.”
“So why kill poor Mr. Moffat?”
“Send a message to anyone who knows what the robbery was about. For all they know, he might have been our thief’s accomplice.”
“Oh.” I shivered, hugging myself. “Do you think Mr. Ross is dead too?”
He nodded. “Yeah kid, I do. Or dropped off the face of the Earth. His bosses have to assume the leak was on his end—or maybe that he arranged it himself. So he’s dead or running.”
I thought about that.
“You’re not going to catch them, are you?”
Taking a last puff, he ground out the cigarette in his palm (the balcony was still part of the crime scene, I supposed) and tucked it away.
“Not unless somebody somewhere gets monumentally stupid. Contrary to popular belief, contracted hits are really hard to solve, even if you have a good idea who ordered the job. We’ll do our best, and they’ve got to be careful. That’s probably why our thief showed us the bonds; so we’d know who she was stealing from, make them be cautious. Fly safe, kid.”
Chapter Five
A protest outside Restormel, the base of the Hollywood Knights, turned violent today. The crowd, gathered to protest the Knights’ break with the National Superhuman Professionals Union over its support of the Domestic Security Act, threw bricks and even improvised incendiaries at the gates. Baldur, the team’s photokinetic, flash-blinded the crowd, making it easier for police with eye-protection to remove the rioters.
LA Evening News
* * *
Flying is without a doubt the coolest part of my breakthrough. I always loved stargazing, and the night sky high over Chicago had become my sanctuary. There are few things as beautiful as a full moon over a sea of clouds, and tonight I needed it to get the image of the box out of my head.
“Shelly?” I called. “You can come out now.”
She floated beside me, looking down at the gossamer white clouds below us. The wind ruffled her unruly red hair. A dream in my head, a future-tech cyber-neural projection onto my senses, she was real to me.
“Thanks for keeping me out down there,” she said, hugging herself though she didn’t really need the 501 jacket she wore.
I smiled. A tired smile, but I could make it a real one. “I told you so.”
“Bite me.”
She sighed dramatically. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
A commuter jet roared by far below us, flying out of O’Hare.
“No,” I agreed. “We never played at ‘crime-scene examiner.’ But the dress-up was fun.”
Tucking my legs up into lotus position, I watched her play with her hair.
“Shelly? I’ve been thinking. Why didn’t you warn us about the godzilla? With all those future-files in your head, a historical event like a godzilla attack on Navy Pier would be hard to miss.” Certainly nobody had really expected a godzilla attack to come out the Great Lakes; Lei Zi still had Riptide, Galatea, and a scratch-team from the other Crisis