AN!: Before I get PMs about working on something other then the stories I'm already working on I just want to say this came out of me one night, all in one sitting, after doing research about the 1940's for the other story I'm working on. This took an hour to pump out and I felt like I was letting something out. I feel like this story has been sitting in the back of my brain for a while. It's a product of a few things. My love of Noir films, my love of 40's/50's aesthetic, and trying to see if I can tell a story in first person. If you like, let me know. As you can see I left it open for more short one shot stories in this series. I know i have about four more short story ideas in this universe. I'm still working on the other stories. This was just a pressure release. I hope to have more chapters ready to go in a few weeks. Until then, i give you Harry Potter, Private Detective: The fallen Angel.
Los Angeles, the city of angels, but you'd be hard pressed to find an angel in this city. Demons on the other hand, are a dime a dozen. It was mid December and there were Christmas lights and decorations everywhere you looked. The decorations were the only sing of winter in this fallen city of silver screen promises full of compromise and lies. But winter also meant rain, and rain made folks in L.A. act nuttier than they already where. I was on my fifth cup of coffee for the night and my stomach was starting to burn. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost ten meaning my seven o'clock appointment was more then late, she was a no show. She probably got cold feet or she didn't want to drive in the rain. Not that I needed the work, but she sounded worried over the phone. A case of a young up and coming starlet with a stalker.
I made a mental note to check up on her in the morning. Any other Private Dick would just leave it be but I'm not a normal private detective. I'm new to the game, but in my short few months on the job I had made a name for myself. Harry Steel, finder of lost items, people, and souls. In just four and a half months I had my ad in every newspaper and magazine in the city. My business cards were sitting on the desks of half the lawyers in town, and in the pockets of every beat cop. I was even good friends with the chief of detectives of the LAPD's Robbery Homicide division. But I wasn't always a Private Detective. Six months ago I was an Unspeakable.
I could still remember that day like it was yesterday. I was hot on the case of a black market Magical artifact dealer with a knack for killing. I tracked him down to a small warehouse in L.A. where I had the drop on him. He was in the middle of a deal when I slipped into his makeshift shop. That's when I was attacked by a living gargoyle. The metal beast was six foot long and four foot high. It weighed a ton and it was shaped like a dog. It pounced on me and I had just enough time to throw up a hasty shield spell before it tackled me to the floor. I hit the thing with a blasting spell point blank and it few ten feet into a wall. I pulled the 1911 from my shoulder rig and shot the beast while it was recovering from the blast. I aimed for the glowing blue crystal eyes. I blasted the thing with twenty rounds of steel cored lead before I finally shattered one of the enchanted eyes. That stopped the beast dead.
By that point the broker was half way out of his warehouse with a bag of money in one hand and a box full of objects in the other. I scrambled to my feet and gave chase. When I got a clear shot I took it. The bullet hit his leg at the midpoint shattering the knee cap. The Broker hit the floor like a marionette with his strings cut. The bag with the money and most of the items in the box went flying out of his hands scattering across the two lane street. I advanced on him with my gun up.
"Your hands! Show me your hands! What is that? And why is it glowing?" I asked as the broker rolled over clutching a glowing carved stone figurine.
"Find out for yourself, here, Catch!" the broker said tossing me the figurine.
By reflex I caught it out of the air and as soon as it touched my hand I was blinded by a flash of white light. The next thing I know I'm standing in the middle of the street in the pouring rain all by myself.
I looked out the window at the rain coming down in angry cold sheets as I closed my eyes and took in the sound of Kate playing a soft tune on the stand up piano in the corner. The song was something bluesy and slow and it matched the rain outside, and my mood, perfectly.
I threw back the last shot of of my cold cup of coffee and waved Mickey the bartender over. He came by and took my cup. He replaced it with a bottle of coke and a plate with a cheeseburger and fries. I looked up and smiled.
"Your seven o'clock ditched you?" Mickey asked with a knowing smile.
"It looks that way." I said checking my watch yet again.
"It's the rain, no one in their right mind goes out in a downpour like this." Mickey said laughing as he handed me a bottle of ketchup.
I laughed too. Mickey met me that first night I landed here. Well, met isn't the right word for it. Mickey hit me with his car that night. The impact shattered both my legs and my hips. Mickey wanted to rush me to a hospital. But I waved him off as I tried in vein to stay awake and not pass out from the pain. I hit myself with a pain numbing spell and sighed when the pain became tolerable enough to think. I hit my legs with a healing spell but I was too weak to heal the bones. I reached into my bag and to pull out my healer's kit but I was slowly fading out. I waved Mickey down to my level.
"I'm a mage. Take me somewhere out of the rain and I'll be fine." I managed to mutter.
"If you say so." Mickey said before I passed out.
When I came to I was laying in a bed in a small bedroom. A young girl of about sixteen was sitting in a chair next to the bed looking through my bag. I hit myself with a stronger pain numbing spell by touching my chest. Instantly I felt the pain subside.
"You find anything interesting in there?" I asked in a groggy voice startling the girl and making her jump. When she turned around I got a better look at her. She was a cute girl in her late teens maybe even twenty years old. She had dark reddish brown hair, light blue eyes, and an innocent smile. She wore very little makeup except for dark red lipstick. She took her hand out of my bag with a blush.
"No, the bag seems to be empty." She said.
"Looks can be deceiving. Give it to me and I'll show you." I said holding out my hand.
She handed me the bag and I stuck my hand in. I thought about my Healer's kit and the small leather case appeared in my hand. I pulled the kit out and shocked the girl.
"How did you do that?" She asked. At this point I had broken more than a few laws. I told the man that I was a mage. What was one more?
"I'm a mage. This is my mission bag. I'm a magical Fed. This is my healer's kit. This is a general purpose healing tonic. With this and a few spells I'll be right as rain. Then I have to figure out what happened." I said pulling the sheet back to find my mangled legs.
I hit my legs with a few overpowered healing spells and we both cringed at the sound of my bones cracking and snapping back into place. Even with the pain spell doing it's job I still felt most of it. I grunted and gritted my teeth through the pain. When the last of the bones snapped back into place I drank two healing tonics and sighed as the potions made their way through my system healing all the internal damage as it went. A few minutes later and I was mostly recovered. I reached into my pants pocket and found my phone. It looked like a sheet of thick glass but with the swipe of my finger it turned on and displayed the app icons. I selecting the phone book and tapped Hermione's name. The app tried to make a connection but failed. That wasn't supposed to happen. The phones used magic, not cell towers. It should be able to connect no matter where I was in the world… that's when a thought hit me. The blinding white light. The figurine. I looked at the girl.
"I'm sorry, but what is your name?" I asked.
"Kate, Kate Abbott." She said.
"Nice to meet you Kate, I'm Harry. Do you know the man that hit me with his car? Is he around?" I asked.
"He's my grandfather Mickey. He's downstairs working the bar. He owns the place. Do you need me to go get him?" She asked.
"Maybe, do you know what happened to the other things I had on me? My gun and the glowing figurine?" I asked sitting up a bit.
"It's all on the kitchen table." She said pointing to the open door and the small table.
"Good. I can't lose those two things. If I lose any of my kit then the boss will have my ass for dinner." I muttered as I hoisted myself up and tried to stand up. I lost my balance and almost fell over but Kate shot out of her chair and slipped under my arm to held hold me up.
"I got you. Are you sure it's a good idea to be walking around?" She asked.
"Help me to the table. I'll be fine." I said grabbing my mission bag off the bed.
Kate deposited me on a wooden chair by the table. I picked up my gun and tucked it in to the shoulder rig under my jacket. Then I picked up the figurine. I could see it better now that it wasn't glowing. It was a monkey carved out of jade with a pair of rubies for eyes. There were a few runes carved under the base of the figurine but I knew jack shit about runes. I set the figurine down and picked up the discarded news paper off the table. I did a double take when I saw the date. June 1, 1947. That would explain why my phone wasn't working right. The figurine sent me back in time.
"Kate, do you have a phone I can use to make a call?" I asked trying to play it as cool as I could.
"Sure, you just sit there I think the cord will reach." She said dashing out of the room. She came back with an old black Bakelite phone with a rotary dial. I picked up the handset and looked at Kate.
"How do I get in touch with an operator?" I asked. She dialed 0 and I heard a few clicks.
"Operator how may I direct your call?" A curt female voice asked.
"Hello, can you please direct my call to the Los Angeles police department please?" I asked.
"Hold please." She said before I heard more clicks.
"Los Angeles Police department. Sergeant Skinner speaking, how can I help you?" A gruff male voice asked.
"Auror Department please." I asked.
"Auror department? What are you talking about? Is this a prank call?" The officer asked.
"No sir, I'm sorry if I used the wrong word. As you can tell from my accent I'm not from around here. I just moved to this country a few weeks ago and my wallet was just stolen. I wanted to report it missing." I said thinking fast to cover my tracks.
"I'm sorry to hear that. You're going to have to come down to the station. You need to fill out a bunch of forms to get a new set of ID's." The sergeant said in a nicer voice.
"Thank you sergeant. I'll be down in the morning. I hope it turns up by then." I said hanging up. I held my face for a few minutes after hanging up. The cop answering the phone had no idea what an auror was. That could mean one of two things there were no aurors because there were no mages in this world, or magic was still so far underground that the aurors didn't work with the cops here. Either way I knew this wasn't my world. By 1947 the aurors were working full time with local police departments to solve magical crimes.
"You okay Harry? You look sick." Kate asked feeling my forehead with a worried hand. I smiled at her. She really was a cute kid.
"I need a drink. And a have a bunch of questions. I think you should take me down to the bar." I said smiling a tired smile.
That was six months ago. It took me a few days to really confirm that I wasn't in my dimension. And months to learn the ins and outs of the magical world here in this dimension. In this world magic was still hidden away all over the world. There were small pockets of it here and there but there were no big schools of magic, there were no mass produced textbooks. Magical creatures were hunted to extinction or hidden so deep in dark forests that they were never seen. It took me a few days to get my bearings. I relied on the kindness of Mickey and Kate a lot at first. Hell I still do but now I at least pay my own way. More than my own way if you asked Mickey.
Mickey was a giant of a man, he had a scary look about him and you knew just by looking at his eyes that he could handle himself. He used to be muscle for the Chicago Outfit. But when his daughter and her husband died in a car crash he was given custody of his granddaughter. He cut ties to the Mob, sold everything, chased out of the windy city, and moved west to the city of angels. He bought the bar in 1940 and sunk every dime he had into his granddaughter and the bar.
Kate was a college student at UCLA where she studied literature. She wanted to be the next Jane Austen but her grandfather wanted her to be the next Chopin. She was good, too good for his bar. He pushed her to play in bigger venues but she was shy, too shy to sit at a concert grand in front of an audience of hundreds. She only played the bar stand up piano because it faced the wall. With her back to the room she could play that piano all day. And I could sit and listen to every minute of it.
They let me stay in their guest room that night. The next morning I started getting my shit together. I was a trained operative for the Department of Mysteries for god's sake. There were protocols for this sort of thing. I knew if I was ever in a situation like this one I was to lay low, stay close to where I landed, and wait for the egg heads in the department to find me. I had all the confidence on the world that Neville would catch the Broker and that my sister Hermione would find me.
I shrank all the furniture in the guest room and expanded my cube. The six by six foot black cube with a door was expanded on the inside into a 3600 square foot four bedroom five bathroom home decorated in the Georgian style. The walls were floor to ceiling polished mahogany wood paneling that matched the parquet floors. The ceilings were bone white plaster with classic inset designs and crown moldings. On the walls were brass wall sconces and large landscape paintings to give the home a more airy feel without having windows. There were dark green carpet runners on the floor and side tables with vases of magically preserved fresh cut flowers in bone white vases.
I took stock in everything I had on me. The list was long and plentiful. I was a hoarder when it came to mission supplies. I had expanded trunks full of ammo, potions, petrol, explosives. You name it, I had at least six of them. I also had my TV with my media drive and my music. But most importantly, I had gold. Every operative had a small case with 20 one kilo gold trade bars. I had five cases. I used them all the time in stings and deals. I grabbed a case and had Kate drive me to a jewelry store in Beverly Hills.
In my black three piece operative's suit I blending in nicely with the high end clientele. I showed the jeweler my case of gold bars and he had to work hard to keep the shock off his face. With a few easy lies and a couple of memory spells we agreed on a price. Gold was going for $43 an ounce. I agreed to $40 an ounce. I walked out of that shop with a little over $28,000 in cash. I handed Kate a hundred dollar bill for driving me and she practically crapped her pants.
"That's way too much. For two more of those you could buy this car. For eight more you can buy it new. The average man only makes about two and a half thousand dollars a year. Grandad's bar only cost him eight thousand dollars when he bought it. He had to put that much in it to fix it up, but the place itself was only eight grand. You need a lot of help fitting in Harry." Kate said laughing at my fish out of water situation.
"Well keep it and you can drive me around until I get my bearings." I said laughing too.
That was six months ago. For the first week I didn't do much. I expanded and cleaned out the basement of the bar giving Mickey six times the space he had for booze storage. I took the back corner and set up a workshop with my tools. I made a car lift and spent my days wrenching on the cars I brought back with me. A week later I made a shooting range to blow off some steam.
I bought a used 1936 Ford convertible for $250. The car was not much to look at and the engine was shot but that's what I wanted. The midnight blue paint was fading, the chrome bumpers were dull, and the cloth top had two leather patches. But the interior was well kept, the rumble seat worked, and it still had the greyhound hood ornament. I spent the better part of two weeks rebuilding the car from the ground up by cannibalizing my 2015 ford mustang GT. The mustang was my cheap American undercover car. I had to distill the lead out of the leaded gas with magic to make unleaded and I had to mix it with some of the gas I brought back with me to bring the octane up and make it run smooth but I figured it out. I lightened the steel body, added fatter tires with sticking charms, and put as many shield charms as I could on the car. When I was done I had the fastest best handling car in the world. After that project was finished I found myself getting bored.
I spent my days sitting in Mickey's bar listening to Kate play the piano, and drinking myself into a sad stupper. Then it happened. It was a late afternoon on a Tuesday in early July. I was sitting at the bar deep into my tenth glass of scotch of the afternoon when Kate came back from her mid day classes with a news paper in her hand.
"Did you guys see this? The daughter of a rich oil baron was kidnapped last night. There's a $5,000 reward for information that leads to her rescue." Kate said dropping into a seat next to me at the bar.
"That's nice." I said. By this point I was so bored with the day to day life of laying low.
"Why don't you do something about it Harry? You used to be a magical cop. Can't you do some magic and find her?" She asked looking at me with those cute soft eyes. Kate had, over the last month wormed her way into my heart like a kid sister. She reminded me of a young Hermione.
"I can't, I have to keep a low profile. I don't even have a real ID. I can't go after some kidnappers." I said looking away from her.
"You don't have to go after them, just find her and call the cops. You don't even have to take the cash. This girl is the same age as me. This could have been me." Kate said holding up the paper so Harry had to look at the picture of the girl. She did kind of look like Kate. Between the soft innocent eyes of the girl in the paper and the pleading innocent eyes of Kate I felt my resolve cracking.
"Fine, I'll do this, but if I get caught doing something stupid and I have to erase the memories of half cops in this town, it's on you." I said finishing my drink and heading up to the apartment.
I hit myself with a sobering charm and shook the haze of drink out of my mind. I took a hot shower and shaved. I put on my dragon hide under vest before I pulled on one of my black three piece operative suits, a white shirt, and black tie. I checked my mission bag to make sure it was all stocked up. I grabbed my black fedora off the coat rack before I headed for the door. Kate was standing by my car when I walked outside. She had a big smile on her face. I rolled my eyes when I saw her.
"Learn to win with grace kid." I said making her laugh.
"I'll remember that for the next time I win." She said opening the passenger side door.
"Where do you think you're going?" I asked.
"With you to find the missing girl." She said dropping into the passenger seat.
"I don't think so. Go back in the bar and do your homework." I said.
"But I want to help. I can be you're extra set of eyes. I'll stay in the car the whole time. I want to write about this for my creative writing class." She said.
"Absolutely not! What part of laying low did you not get? You can't write about me. I'm trying to be a ghost. One day soon my sister's going to show up to take me back to my world. When that happens I don't want to leave a trace of me behind. The fact that you and your grandad know about me is dangerous enough young lady." I yelled and I watched her face crumble. She looked like she was going to cry so I sighed and hugged her to my side.
"I'm sorry I yelled. I didn't mean to yell at you. But what I'm doing, me being here, it's dangerous. In my world a guy like me, a dimension hopper, was treated like an alien from outer space. You read about the witch trials. What do you think would happen to me if I was found out? To you and your grandad? I need to keep this under wraps kid." I said rubbing her back.
"I know. it's just, you're the coolest person in my boring life. I just wanted to…" She sighed.
"You wanted to be in on the action? Well this is going to be very boring night. Stay in the car. I'll be right back." I said getting out of the car and walking back into the bar.
"You seen Kate?" Mickey asked.
"She's sitting in my car. She wants to come with." I said shaking my head.
"What?! I don't think so. It's too dangerous." Mickey said looking like he wanted to jump over the bar to get his little girl.
"Relax Mickey. I'm going to let her tag along. You seen how bullet proof my car is. I'm going to make her stay in the car. I don't really plan on getting out of the car to tell you the truth. This is going to be a boring night of driving around. I'll take her to a burger shack and bring her home by midnight." I said calming him down.
"You sure it's safe?" Mickey asked.
"Perfectly safe. Once she sees how boring it is she'll never want to go with me again." I said waving him off.
"Again? You planning on doing this often?" Mickey asked with a smirk.
"Not if I can help it." I said walking out of the bar and back out to my car.
"So I can go with you?" She asked.
"Yes. But you stay in the car. You leave the car and I'll shoot you myself. Understand me?" I asked starting the car as she grinned like a fool.
"I understand you." She said trying not to smile.
"Good." I said pulling away from the curb. I pulled out my gold compass, and stuck it to my dashboard before I looked at Kate looking at me.
"What's that?" She asked.
"My tracking compass. If the girl's within fifty miles of this compass then it will find her and tell us where to go. What's the girl's name?" I asked watching the road.
"Mary Eleington." Kate said.
"Track Mary Ellington." I said the the gold needle spun around a few times before stopping and pointing southwest.
"Now what?" Kate asked excitedly.
"Now we follow the compass, find the girl, and call it in." I said watching as the oranges and purples of sunset creeped across the sky.
I followed the compass for a half hour and rolled into the dodgy white's only neighborhood of Hawthorn. I drove around the area as the compass movements got more violent. Until finally the needle pointed to a rundown two story house. I kept driving until I came around to the side of the block. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to nine and the last little bit of daylight was fading. The street lights were on and the street was dead. I reached into my bag and pulled out my back up enchanted 1911 and handed it to Kate who took the gun like it was going to bite her.
"Hold on to this with your finger off the trigger. It's loaded, the hammer's back, and the safety is now off. If something goes wrong I want you to take the car back home and forget you know me." I said in a calm but forceful tone of voice. She nodded with a frightened look on her face.
"What are you going to do?" She asked me and I smiled reassuringly.
"I'm going to make sure the girl's in the house. If she's in there then I'm going to come back to the car. We'll drive to the pay phone on the corner two blocks away and call in the tip. That's it." I said as I slipped out of the car but Kate grabbed my hand.
"Be careful please." She said looking worried.
"I always am." I shot back with a smirk that faded from my face as soon as I walked back up the block.
I walked up to the house and slipped into the backyard of the house next door. I checked the backyard before hopping the chest high fence. I looked into the back window and saw a kitchen. There were two white men sitting around the kitchen table. Both men looked like junkies from the gaunt and hollow looks on their faces and their unkempt hair. Another man came into the kitchen. He looked healthier. I slipped around the side of the house and found a room with newspaper taped to the window. Using a one way charm on the wall I saw all I needed to see. The girl was tied to a bead. She was naked, covered in bruises, and she had a gag in her mouth. I slipped back around to the kitchen and saw the men talking. I vanished a small corner of the kitchen window to hear what they were saying.
"... I'm telling you Clyde, the old man ain't gonna pay. He put a bounty on our heads." One of the junky's said holding up the paper.
"We still have time. We spent so much time and money planing this. I can't let this payday slip through my fingers." The other junky said.
"We made the call, if he don't call back soon we kill the girl and dump the body. I'm not going to jail for the rest of my life for this. We can always try again and the next time we do this they'll know we mean business. We killed the first one because they wouldn't pay. The next father that gets a ransom note from us is going to pay and pay quick." the cleaner one said.
"Fuck me. I'm going to have to kill these guys." I muttered to myself as I pulled out my gun. I was about to kick in the back door when a thought hit me. I'm not an unspeakable here. They are going to want to question me. Maybe take my gun. It was at that moment I remembered the pawn shop down the street. I popped to an alley near by the shop.
I walked into the pawn shop and I knew I was in the right place. The counter had a dozen pistols in the glass case and a rack of long guns on the back wall. The pawnbroker looked like a fat pervert with creepy eyes. He was the kind of big sweaty man you crossed the street to avoid, especially if you had kids.
"Give me your best handgun, your best pump action shotgun, and a few boxes of ammo." I said putting a one hundred dollar bill on the counter.
"Make it two and I never saw you." The perv said with a learning grin.
"Deal." I said slapping down another Ben Franklin.
I walked out of the shop a minute later with a nickel plated colt pocket hammerless with pearl grips, a Winchester model 12 trench shotgun that looked like it saw service in the war, and three boxes of ammo. I popped back to my parked car and set the shotgun on the seat next to Kate.
"What's going on?" Kate asked.
"They're going to kill that girl soon and the cops will never get here in time. And if they do come quick with their sirens blaring then they'll kill the girl anyways. So I popped over to the pawn shop and bought a few regular guns." I said as I loaded eight rounds of 32acp into the colt's magazine and six 12 gauge buckshot shells into the pump gun.
"This is more than what I asked you to do." Kate said looking guilty.
"In for a penny, in for a pond. I've seen the girl and the junkies. This ends here and now. This is the story. You're my niece. I got a tip that the missing girl was in this house, I came to check it out, I saw the situation and came back for my pump gun. Repeat it." I said looking at Kate.
"You got a tip about the girl, you went to go see, you came back, and grabbed your shotgun." She said.
"Good girl. I'll be right back." I said patting her cheek with a wink.
I hid the shotgun in my bag until I got to the back of the house. I checked the kitchen and saw two men sitting at the table. One of the junkies was missing. I rolled around to the bedroom and cast the one way spell again. I found what I feared. The junky was on top of the girl. Trying to get his pants off. I popped into the room in front of him. Pulled the colt from my belt and popped him in the side of the head. The shot was loud in the quiet house. I heard chairs getting upset in the kitchen. I tucked the colt away in my belt and pulled the pump gun out of my bag. I waited until I heard movement in the hallway before I spartan kicked the door clean off it's hinges and into the two men in the hallway. I brought the shotgun up and pumped a round of buckshot into each of them at close range. There was practically nothing left of the two men's chests. I popped outside the bedroom window and ripped the newspaper aside from the corner and fired through the window into the wall twice before slamming the butt of the shotgun through the window and clearing the glass. I hopped into the window deliberately cutting my hand and on the glass. I ran to the phone and called the cops making sure to drip my blood all over.
"Los Angeles Police department. How can I help you?"
"I just shot the three kidnappers of the Ellington girl. I'm at 4157 W 135th street in Hawthorne. You better send an ambulance, the girl's in bad shape." I said.
"We're sending all available units to your location. I need you to drop your gun and stand out front of the house.
"I understand. I'll be waiting." I said. I set the shotgun and the colt on the kitchen table. And popped back to my car.
"Is everything alright?" Kate asked seeing my hand.
"It's fine I did this on purpose. I need you to hold my stuff." I said taking my gun out of the holster and tossing it in my bag before handing her my bag.
"What's going on now?" Kate asked.
"I have to wait for the cops. I'd imagine they are going to want to question me. Stay here in the car. I'll be fine." I said with a smile before I vanished.
I popped back to the house and checked on the girl, I erased the last few minutes from her mind and walked out the front door as three black and whites rolled to a stop out front of the house.
They took my statement and I ran through the story I set up with the lead detective before I was taken in for questioning but they didn't cuff me and they let Kate follow us back to Downtown L.A. in my car. They took me to one police plaza and right into the chef of detective's office. Chef John Turner was a slightly out of shape man in his late fifties. He had a mostly bald head and what little hair he had was grey. He wore a well used grey suit and he had a permanent sad frown on his face. It was a face that had seen too much.
"You said your name was Harry Steel. What do you do Mr. Steel?" Turner asked looking over the notes the lead detective handed him.
"I used to be a cop with the Yard. Then I did some work for the crown during the war. When I got out I moved to LA to be close to the last remaining family I have. My cousin and his granddaughter. He owns a bar not too far from here called Mickey's Pub. I'm unemployed at the moment." I lied easy but kept a list of the lies I told that day.
"I see. And how did you find yourself in that house tonight Mr. Steel?" Turner asked.
"Let's just say I tracked the girl there and call it a day." I said pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with my gold zippo.
"Tracked her there? How?" He asked and I sighed.
"Look, I don't have a good answer and because you're the chef of Detectives I'm not even going to jerk you around. I'm a mage." I said lighting up my hand to see what kind of reaction I was going to get out of the man. It was a risky play but one I had to take. If I could get him on my side then I was set, if he freaked out then I would modify his mind and walk out.
"I see." Was all he said.
"You see? That's it? I expected more than that." I said feeling a little let down.
"Yes, as you can see, you're not the only one. We're rare and we can't just track a missing girl like you did tonight but we do exist." He said holding up his hand and making it glow softly.
"I see. How many of us are there on the force?" I asked.
"Not many. We do have a small community in Chinatown." He admitted.
"How small? You're the first mage I've meet in this city and I've been here over a month." I said.
"Small, a few hundred, maybe a thousand at most. They live in a little pocket alley in Chinatown. The entrance is a little shop called the Golden Dragon Medicinal Shop. There are a few shops and apartment buildings in the alley. But aside from that, you won't find too many of us out west." John said.
"In that case you get the full story, can you have a uni take my niece home? I'd like to see her before she goes." I asked.
"Sure Harry. I'd be happy to. We'll go down and see her off. Then I want to talk to you about working with us. We got a lot of cases that could use your level of expertise. You found that girl in record time and you took care of three junky shit heads without much hassle. I can use an ace up my sleeve if you're willing to work with us. You wouldn't be on the pay roll, but we would shunt cases your way and pay you out of our discretionary fund." John said.
A cop took Kate home and before she left she handed me my bag. We headed back up to John's office and I told him everything including the fact that I was a cop from another dimension. He in turn helped set me up with a better airtight background. Real IDs, a real birth certificate, and a real detective license. I waited for my documents in John's office. While I waited I talked to him about taking cases they couldn't solve or didn't want to get involved with. In the end I became a private dick and he gained an Allie outside of the LAPD.
That was four and a half months ago. In that time I solved three kidnappings, eight murders, and I recovered dozens of stolen items. I've made the headlines more than a few times and every time I make the papers my workload doubled. I was most of the way through my burger and fries when Mickey called me over to the phone on the wall by the bar. I took a big swig off my coke and shuffled over to the phone. It was at that point that I noticed the rain had stopped. I took the phone with a nod and a silent thanks.
"Harry Steel?" I said fishing in my jacket pocket for my pack of Lucky strikes.
"Steel, this is detective Bill Forester. Out of the Hollywood division.
"I remember you, we met a couple of months back on a robbery turned homicide. What can I do for you Bill?" I asked lighting a cigarette with my gold zippo.
"I got a dead girl named Scarlet Davis. She was stabbed to death in the street as she walked to her car. Your card was in her purse and 7pm is written on the back. Do you know this girl?" The detective asked and I sighed. That was my Seven o'clock.
"Yeah Bill. The girl called me earlier. She had a stalker that was sending her threatening letters. She asked to meet with me. I told her to come on by the bar any time after five. I had a case this afternoon. She said seven, I agreed, and that was the last I heard of her. I thought she stood me up. I figured she was afraid to drive in the rain." I said feeling a dark cloud roll in over my head.
"That explains the card, but now we have to find a stalker. Thanks for the tip Harry." He said about to hang up on me.
"Hey Bill, wait a second, you mind if I work this with you? She came to me for help and I pushed her back to this evening…" I started but Bill cut me off.
"I understand and I'd never say no to the help. Where at the corner of Broadlawn drive and Cohanga." Bill said.
"Thanks Bill, I'll be there in ten minutes." I said hanging up the phone. I checked my watch, it was half past ten already.
"I overheard your side of the call, your seven o'clock didn't stand you up did she?" Mickey asked with a sad knowing look on his face.
"No she didn't. Don't wait up for me Mickey, I have a feel this is going to be a long night." I said grabbing my black trench coat and fedora off the coat rack by the door as I all but ran to my midnight blue Ford.
i flew north to Hollywood the whole time I drove I thought about Scarlet's call. Did I miss something? When I got there they were about to question a man standing in his doorway as the coroner examined the body of the dead girl. I stooped down next to the coroner who was in the process of preparing the girl for transport. That was the first time I got a good look at her. She was a slight girl with dark red hair, a cute face, and porcelain skin. She was stabbed through the heart once but that was all it took. There was hardly any blood. It was a clean kill, very skilled. It takes a lot of training to kill like that. Or one lucky killer.
I ran a quick scan of the body and came up clean. No trace of magic to speak of. I stood up and walked over to Bill who was just sitting down on a couch near the open front door. He was seated across from a a rat faced man in a loud pink shirt and white cotton slacks. I walked into the house and took in my surroundings. The place screamed money. From the plush white carpet, to the soft black leather couches, and the steel and glass tables with ugly crystal lamps. I caught the tail end of a sentence but understood what was going on instantly.
"... here about ten after seven. She said the rain made her late. We sat right here and talked over a couple of glasses of champagne. Scarlet is… was the star of a new musical I'm producing called Paris is for lovers. It's a big production so we've been rehearsing the song and dance numbers in a little theater on Sunset for the last few weeks. It's saves production costs if we can hammer out all the details before we walk on to a sound stage and make fifty crewmen stand around under hot lights while we figure out a dance routine. Today was our last day of rehearsals. We were going to start shooting in the new year. Scarlet was going to be a huge star. She was the real deal. She could act, sing, dance, and she had the look." West said looking sad. I bought it, West was sad. He lost a talent he would be hard pressed to replace. But I didn't trust the emotion behind his eyes.
"What, if you don't mind asking did you talk about Mr. West?" Bill asked.
"I was trying to talk Scarlet into a six picture deal. If I could get her signed to a contract now before Paris is for Lovers starts production I could lock her down before everyone else in this town saw what kind of talent she had. I tried pitching her ideas for upcoming movies I'm producing but she was distracted. We ended our conversation at about ten to eight. It was raining pretty bad so I told her to stay a while and let the storm pass but she was insistent on leaving. She was in a big hurry. She knocked over her glass of champagne when she noticed the time. She put on her coat as she walked out the front door. I went to get a broom and dustpan to clean up the broken glass. That was the last I saw of her. When the rain stopped an hour and a half later I noticed her car was still parked in front of my house. I went out there to see what happened and saw her on the ground. I rush over to her and saw that she had been… My god I was right here in the house when it happened. I didn't even notice. Why did this happen?" The rat faced man said looking close to tears. I looked at Bill's notes over his shoulder. The man's name was Alan West. Bill had 'Killer?' written next to the name.
"My name is Harry Steel, I'm a PI, I was working for Scarlet. Did you know about the stalker she had?" I asked trying to read his face.
"I seen a few of the letters. They were short and to the point. They all boiled down to Scarlet was the love of their life. Everyone gets them at some point. This is Hollywood. If your not being stalked then your not a real movie star. Scarlet was new to the movie business. She just moved here from Kansas with her husband Mark. They had only been in town for a few months. In that time, Scarlet had been in a few radio commercials, and print ads for shampoo. That's how I found her. We were casting this movie and I saw her ad. Has anyone called Mark?" West asked.
"He's our next stop. We'll be in touch Mr. West." Bill said standing up. As we walked out of the house he looked to me. I shook my head.
"Not our guy I think, but he's lying about something. I can tell. Then again he's a sleazy movie producer. They all look like they're hiding something. Where are we headed?" I asked as Bill laughed a sad little laugh.
"We have to notify the husband." Bill said.
"I'll drive." I offered leading him to my car.
We drove in near silence to an apartment building on Fairfax and Rosewood. We approached the apartment on the third floor at the stroke of midnight. A tall well built man with a buzz cut and cold blue eyes opened the door after a minutes. He looked half asleep. The second he saw the gold shield hanging out of Bill's suit jacket his face took on an edge of worry. I let Bill take the lead giving the death notice to Mark Davis as I looked around the mid range apartment. Nothing was out of place, the place was almost too clean, like someone with OCD lived there.
As Bill talked to the man about what happened to his wife I wandered around the small apartment scanning for anything out of place. I walked out of the bathroom as Bill was done giving the man the rundown. He was sobbing uncontrollably on the couch. I filled a tall glass with water from the sink, and a rocks glass with bourbon from the half empty bottle on the drinks cart. I handed the man the two glasses and he drank them both down with a nod of thanks.
"Mr. Davis, I'm Harry Steel. I'm a Private detective. Your wife tried to hire me to look into her stalker. Do you know anything about that?" I asked.
"Yeah. About a month ago Scarlet started getting letters. At first they were just overly aggressive fan letters. Nothing too bad. Then things started getting darker over the last week or two. Letters saying that Scarlet was his angel and he was going to kill her for ignoring him. The studio put a man on Scarlet but after two weeks of nothing they called off the bodyguard. It was just a nut case fan looking for attention the bodyguard said. You think this was…?" The husband asked.
"We're not sure yet. Your wife was found outside of Alan West's house. Did you know she was going to be there this evening?" Bill asked.
"Yeah, Scarlet said she was going to head over there to talk to him about something before heading out to meet with a Private eye. That's you I'm guessing?" The husband asked looking at me.
"Yeah, she was my seven o'clock. She didn't show. You wouldn't happen to have the letters would you?" I asked.
"Yeah, I have a few, the studio has a few. They're in the top drawer of the roll top desk." Mark said pointing the a well used desk in the corner of the room. I found the letters held together with a paperclip. I thumbed through them scanning as I went for any hint or trace of magical signature but came up short. This job couldn't be that easy.
"Tell me Mr. Davis, where were you this evening? Why didn't you drive her?" I asked.
"I was at a bar down the street called Mcginty's. It's a little Irish pub. They got a darts tournament every Thursday. The pot's fifty bucks and free drinks for a week. I was there at six to play in the early rounds but then I left at about half past seven and ran back to the apartment because I remembered I left the bedroom window open and it started to rain. I ran back here and shut the window just before that big downpour started. I spent the next half hour or so until the rain slowed down before running back to the pub. I remember being so happy I made it back in time for the end of the next round." He said looking a bit shell shocked and sad.
"I think we have everything for now Mr. Davis, we'll call you into the station if we need you or we get a lead on the case. This is my card, call me if you think of anything." Bill said as we walked out of the apartment.
"What do you think?" Bill asked as we walked out to my car.
"He has a good alibi, one with a gap perfectly timed to kill his wife and get back here in time to make it back to the pub." I said.
"That's what I thought too. Do you mind if we head to the little pub on the corner and check the story before you drop me off at my car?" Bill asked looking at his watch. It was just after one.
"Sure, then I'm going to try to track down this stalker. You going to be in the office if I call you?" I asked starting my car and pulling away from the curb as the rain started falling again.
"Yeah, I have to log all this into a murder book and I have to wait for the autopsy." Bill said looking dead tired.
The alibi was solid, the bartender and half the guys still in the pub remember Mark being there and they corroborated his story about remembering the open window and rushing out to go close it as the rain picked up. I dropped Bill of at his car and saw the last remnants of the crime scene techs packing up for the night. I pulled up to a 24 hour dinner on a corner three blocks away. I ordered a passable cup of coffee and spread the letters out on the booth table. I spent an hour and three cups of 'coffee' looking at the letters before I got a thought. The words of the last letter postmarked two days ago came from a magazine, if I found the magazine the cut out words belonged to then I'd find the stalker. I packed all but the last letter and hurried out to my car. I pulled the gold compass out and asked it to find the magazine. The needle spun around a few times before it locked on.
I tracked the compass to a little two bedroom ranch style house in Burbank at half past three in the morning. I found a few cut up magazines in the trash and I knew I had my man. I walked up to the house but no one was home. I opened the back door with a wave of my hand and slipped into the dark house expecting to find a shrine to our dead angel but what I found, I was not expecting, and I had to reevaluate everything I knew up to that point.
The house belonged to an actress by the name of Trixie Carter. A B-level talent if the posters hanging on the wall were any indication. I used the time I had to look around but aside from a few more cut up magazines I didn't find anything else. That's when I heard the front door open. I took a seat on the couch and waited for Trixie to walk in and turn on the lights when she saw me she screamed, jumped back, and pulled a small Colt vest pocket .25 auto pistol out of her hand bag and pointed it at me.
"Put your hands up!" she yelled.
"No." I said confidently.
"WHat?!" She squawked.
"I said no." I reiterated.
"But I have a gun." She said confused.
"And?" I asked trying to see if she was a killer.
"Who are you?! And why are you in my house?!" She yelled keeping her gun trained on me.
"I'm Harry Steel, I'm a private detective. I was hired by Scarlet Davis to find her stalker. That's you." I said pointing at her.
"What are you…' She tried to deny it but I cut her off by tossing the cut up magazine at her feet.
"What's your game lady?" I asked simply.
"Okay, it was me sending the letters. You caught me. But it was harmless fun, prank the new girl, you know? Just a bit of hazing." She said innocently.
"You're not that good of an actress Trixie. Try again. The truth this time, if you please." I said locking eyes with her.
"Fine, that little bitch took my job. I had the lead in Paris is for Lovers then little miss Kansas community theater walks into town and I'm tossed to the side and handed a bit part. I tried to scare her off. I fingered I'd send her a few letters and she'd pack her bags and go running back to Kansas with her tail between her legs. But Alan stuck by his guns and hired her a bodyguard. If you ask me I think she's sleeping with him. I didn't think she had it in her playing little miss innocent but I saw him leaving the dressing room two nights ago. When I went in she was touching up her makeup. I have to hand it to her. The bitch plays it cool." Trixie spat out.
"Is that why you killed her?" I asked conversationally to see her reaction.
"What are you talking about?" She asked with real confusion.
"Scarlet's dead. She was murdered earlier this evening." I said reading her face. She went for confusion, to disbelief, before landing on shock. She dropped into the chair across from the couch.
"She's dead?" She said more then asked.
"She was stabbed outside of Alan West's house a few hours ago." I said standing up and moving to the drink's cart. I poured a glass of brandy and handed it to her.
"I bet you're happy she's dead. You'll get your part back." I said with a smirk.
"What kind of monster are you? Why would you say something like that?" She said looking at me like I was nuts.
"What? You're the one that wanted her out of the way." I shot back at her.
"I wanted her to go back to the small town she came from. I didn't want her dead. What kind of a cold bastard are you?" She said holding her gun on me again.
"Relax lady, I was seeing if you were telling the truth. I'm sure you didn't do it. You're too small and weak to grab Scarlett from behind and stab through the rib cage. You got any idea who did it?" I asked putting my hands up.
"My guess is Alan. Maybe he put the moves on her and she rejected him. I know he blackballed a girl for turning him down before. We've all heard the stories. No girl in Hollywood turns Alan down. Not if she wants to work. That amount of power can go to a guy's head. An innocent girl like Scarlet turns him down and who know what he might do?" Trixie said pulling out a gold cigarette case with shay hands.
"Here let me help you with that." I said taking the case. I took out a pair of cigarettes out and lit them with my gold zippo before handing one to her.
"Thank's." She said taking a long drag. "So what are you going to do about the letters?" She asked looking down at the gun in her lap.
"Nothing. Scarlet's dead, no one made a police report, there's no open investigation. As far as I'm concerned, you're off the hook. I'd send one or two more so no one suspects you. Scarlet's death notice will be in the papers tomorrow. Make it good, real sorry about your angel being dead. Vowing vengeance against the man who did it. You get the idea." I said patting her on the shoulder as I walked to the door
"Hey Harry?" She called out and I turned around. "I hope you get the guy. She was a good kid, if I had known I would have tried anything to stop it. She didn't deserve to end up dead." she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
"You have my word. I'll find out who did this." I said tipping my hat and walking out the door.
I pulled into a gas station a few blocks away just before five and used the pay phone to call Hollywood Homicide. I told Bill about Trixie and what I found out about Alan West.
"That's real good stuff Harry, I just got off the phone with the ME's office. Scarlet was killed with a eight inch long double sided dagger. He said the knife had to be razor sharp to go in as clean as it did. Where you headed next?" Bill asked.
"I figured I'd take another run at West if you don't mind? I don't want to step on your toes." I said.
"No, go right ahead. Maybe you'll get something I missed. I don't care who gets the guy that did this as long as we get him. Call me if you get something." Bill said.
I drove back to Alan West's house for the third time that night. At this point it was after five. I knocked on his door and he answered it almost too fast. He was still dressed in the same clothes from the night before. I saw that he was more than a little drunk. He let me in with a wave and poured me a gin and tonic without even asking me if I wanted one. At this moment I knew this we going to be a good interview, I just had to play it right.
"We've been running down leads all night. I can say with some certainty that the stalker didn't do it. I got my money on the husband, but Bill thinks you did it." I said conversationally.
"What? I didn't do it. I loved Scarlet. She was perfect in every way. An angel full of innocence and purity. The husband on the other hand is an animal. He beat her. Did you know that? yeah, I saw it with my own two eyes. I was talking to her about the six picture deal a few days ago backstage at the theater, and I'll admit I was trying to make a play for her to be more than just my star. But when I walked away I doubled back a minute later because I forgot my my script on a box. I turned the corner and saw that beast of a man push her up against a wall telling her he saw how she was making eyes back at me. Telling her she was going to have to drop out of the picture. She talked him out of it, reminded him how much money they were going to make. When I saw that he was calm I walked away but I know that wasn't the first time he beat on her. I asked my costume designer Judy Goldman to do a fitting and check her body over for bruises. Judy told me she had bruises all over her body in hard to see places. I might be a sleazy Hollywood producer but I never hit a woman. What kind of man does that?" Alan asked.
"The kind that likes control. Tell me the truth, when she came over here earlier did you make a pass at her?" I asked doing a scan of the house with my compass for a dagger.
"I'm not going to lie to you, I did. I tried to talk her into divorcing that jerk and coming to live with me. If she didn't want me then she should still drop that loser of a husband. She said no. That she loved her husband. That he wasn't really like this. That the war made him mean. He was trying to change. That's when she left just the way I told you she did. She put on her coat and ran out the door into the pouring rain." Alan said looking at the door with tears in his eyes. Harry knew he was telling the truth, but he also knew he had to do his job. The compass pointed to the the left.
"Look Alan, I believe you. Bill on the other hand, thinks you did it. Now earlier, when we were here I thought I saw a dagger in the room over here, can I see it?" I asked.
"Sure, it's a prop off the set of a knights of the round table movie I did a while back." Alan said open the door to his office and grabbing the dagger off his desk. It was like he said. Duller than a butter knife. I handed it back to him with a sad smile.
"Can I use your phone?" I asked.
"It's on the table by the drinks cart unless you want to use the phone in my office?" Alan said looking dead tired.
"This phone is fine." I said dialing Bill's phone down at the Hollywood station. The phone rang for a minute until it was picked up by another cop.
"Hollywood Homicide, Detective Green speaking." The cop said.
"Detective, it's Harry Steel, I'm working the Scarlett Davis case with Bill, is he around?" I asked.
"He's with the husband at the ME's office verifying the body. I think he wan't to question him again to see if his story sticks." the Detective said.
"Good, I'm going to go check his apartment. I'll call Bill when I get a lead." I said hanging up. I jogged out to my car and blasted back to their apartment on Fairfax. I pulled into the lot a few minutes later knowing I broke just about every traffic law in the books. I jogged up the stairs two at a time and opened the front door with a wave of my hand. I pulled out the compass and after a few spins it pointed to the bedroom. It took a minute of digging but I found what I was looking for under a loose floorboard under the bed. Wrapped in a green cloth as a Hitler youth fighting dagger, and the SS holster for a Walther PPk. war trophies. I scanned the clean and well kept dagger and found a speck of blood in the crack where the handle met the blade. I walked over to the phone on the bedside table and made a call to Bill. Just as the phone connected the line went dead and I felt someone behind me at the door.
"You got tired of beating her so you killed her, right?" I asked turning around to see Mark Davis with the Walther PPK pointed at me.
"She was two timing me with that rat faced producer. So I killed that cheating bitch." Mark said coldly.
"No she wasn't, he tried but she said no. she loved you. You dumb bastard. You killed your wife for nothing." I said.
"Shut up! Shut your mouth before I shut it for you!" He said.
"You're no going to shoot me." I said with a cocky smile.
"You know that for a fact?" He asked.
"I do. I know because you're soft. And weak. And beating on a small women made you feel good. You're a wife beater. A little man. I bet you take it in the ass too. You're going to love prison. You'll be everyone's favorite bitch." I said with a know smile.
"Shut up!" He yelled at me losing his temper and dipping his gun down just a little so it wasn't pointed at my chest.
I dove over the bed and came up with my gun. I fired once clipping his shoulder and sending him to the ground. I rolled to my feet, crossed the room in three long steps, and kicked the gun away before I reached down to cuff the bigger man. Davis reached for me so a halled back and kicked him in the arm I shot making him wail in pain. I rolled him over by kicking him in the ribs and when he was laying on his belly I put my knee in the middle of his back and cuffed his hands violently behind his back making him scream in pain. Between the gunshot and the sound of me cuffing him the next door neighbor came into the apartment to see what was going on.
"I'm a detective. Go back to your apartment and call the cops and have them send a car over to pick up Mr. Davis please. Tell them he's been shot but not bad." I said pulling a belt out of the closet and tying off his upper arm.
It was after seven by the time I was done giving my statement to the cops. I tried to give Bill all the credit but the fool was too noble to take it. The reporters hounded us for an hour after that and I didn't get back to the bar until almost nine. When I got there Mickey was just getting up. I waved at him and headed up to the apartment. At this point I had been up for twenty five hours straight. I was about to head off to my room and the cube beyond but the phone rang. I ignored it but Mickey called up the stairs.
"Hey Harry! Phone for you!" He called up the stairs. I rolled my eyes, picked up the phone.
"Harry steel." I said feeling dead.
"Hello Mr. Steel, my names is Victor Hendricks. I desperately need your help. I'm being blackmailed and I think someone's following me…" I looked at my watch. Felt the stubble on my chin and sighed.
"I'm at Mickey's pub on the corner of Hill and 6th street. Can you make it to the bar?" I asked feeling dead.
"I can make it." The man said.
"Good I'll meet you there." I said.
I took a quick shower, shaved, and cleaned my suit before putting it back on. I shuffled down to the bar and Mickey put a hot cup of coffee and a plate with eggs and bacon in front of me. I thanked him with a tired smile and a nod.
"It looks like it's going to rain again today." Mickey said pointing to the overcast sky out the front window of the bar.
"When it rains it pours." I muttered.
Las Angeles, the city of angels. But you'd be hard pressed to find in angel in this city. Demons on the other hand, are a dime a dozen.