Crooked Halos Read online

  “Nice try, Detective Hazzard,” Crowder said from behind me. A fizzle indicated the expiration of my force field.

  Swinging my cane in a shallow, quick arc, I knocked the gun away as Crowder squeezed the trigger. The gunshot reverberated, deafening us. The gun spun out of his hand and over the railing of the catwalk. With ringing ears, I leapt at Crowder, tackling him. I landed on top of him, my cane spinning away and over the edge of the catwalk as well, as I raised myself up and started punching Dresden in the face. He pushed back, tossing me off easily and leaping onto my chest. His fists, hard and meaty, slammed into my head. I saw flashes of light in the blackness behind my eyelids with each blow.

  “You. Should. Know. Better,” he said, punctuating each word with another blow. “I always win,” he continued, grabbing me by the lapels of my jacket and hauling me up into a sitting position. “This was always how it would end between us.”

  “Oh God, just kill me already, please. You’re clichéing me to death,” I muttered through a mouthful of bloody teeth. Dresden punched me again, hard, then dragged me upright and hung me from the railing of the catwalk. It creaked ominously as Crowder brushed himself down and straightened his coat.

  “Eddie, you idiot. Now I gotta kill you painful. Maybe drop you on your head from a couple stories up.”

  “Nah, wouldn’t work. My head’s too damn hard,” I replied, a stupid grin plastered across my quickly-bruising face. I could feel my left eye swelling shut, and something very uncomfortable had happened to my jaw. Crowder grabbed me again, pulling me off the railing. I didn’t have the strength to support myself, but I did have the strength to reach into my coat pocket and pull out the street fighter’s best friend: a pair of brass knuckles.

  Admittedly, they’re not traditional brass knuckles. They’re not even made of brass. Instead, they’re some high-density alloy with a rubber guard and a small button that you can press that sends 10,000 volts through the knuckles. You don’t necessarily have to hit someone hard to put them down, as I proceeded to demonstrate by pressing the knuckles up against Crowder’s stomach and pushing the button. He arched his back and convulsed as the electricity pulsed through his nervous system. It dropped him, and he in turn dropped me. I fell to the catwalk, unable to support my own weight on wobbly knees, then collapsed on top of Crowder. I pushed myself up into a sitting position and tagged Crowder with the shock knuckles again for good measure, then sat there as his insentient body twitched and smoked slightly. The smell of singed flesh hung in the air, making me feel slightly sick to my stomach.

  “Win that, you son of a bitch,” I growled before toppling backward and passing out.

  V.

  I woke up back in the office, propped up in a twin bed that someone had set up in the corner across from my desk. Maya and Miss Typewell were sitting close by, keeping a weather eye on me.

  “Are you okay, Eddie?” Miss Typewell asked.

  “Did we get Crowder?” I asked.

  Miss Typewell nodded. “He’s in our holding cell downstairs right now,” she said.

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Good. If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to sleep for a thousand years now.”

  “Before you do,” Ellen said, “Maya found something while she was digging through the Organization’s files. It’s…well, you just need to see it for yourself, really.”

  Miss Janovich pulled up a vid window and slid it in front of me.

  The vid window listed a series of files, organized and labeled by date. I opened up one at random and encountered a block of text.

  “What am I looking at?” I asked, starting to read the file. “It looks like…is this a diary?”

  Miss Typewell nodded. “From what I can tell, it’s Vera Stewart’s personal diary.” She scrolled through the file list. “It goes back years. A secret history of the Organization, a record of every shady deal, every piece of obtained information, every underhanded dealing with every crooked thug. It’s…everything.”

  “It was buried, uh, pretty deep in some heavy encryption,” Maya added. “She didn’t intend for anyone else to ever see it.”

  “I wouldn’t think so,” I agreed, returning my attention to the file I’d opened. It was dated just a few days before Vera’s death. She knew bad things were afoot; more than anything else, Vera had been the sort of person who wanted to know everything, who could find out anything, and she’d used her information-gathering network with the finesse and flair of a Cold War spymaster.

  “How far back do these files go?” I asked.

  “Um, pretty far,” Maya said. “I haven’t really read any of them. I-it, uh, didn’t feel right.” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

  “It’s okay,” I said kindly. “You’re spying on a dead woman. I don’t think she’ll mind.” I scrolled all the way to the beginning of the files, finding the oldest one; it was nearly twenty years old.

  “Hold up,” I said, “I thought Vera only started the Organization about ten years ago.”

  “That had been my impression as well,” Kimiko said.

  “What is it?” Miss Typewell asked.

  “The oldest files here are twice that,” I said, indicating the flickering directory in the vid window.

  “Maybe she just kept a personal diary before she became the Boss and just continued it on after she started the Organization?” Miss Typewell suggested.

  I frowned. As plausible and pat as that would be, it didn’t feel right. I opened one of the early files and began reading.

  “The content is similar, but the writing feels…different, somehow,” I said, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “The sentence structure and syntax, the word usage…they’re different. I’m no linguistics expert, but this isn’t the same person writing.” I got lost in my own thoughts for a moment. I remembered hearing rumors about something like the Organization from my time as a cop, fifteen years ago. But the first time I remember really hearing about people talking about something actually called the Organization was only about ten years ago. I don’t know if what I’d heard about before that was the same thing, but these documents implied it might’ve been.

  “Vera Stewart wasn’t the original Boss,” I said, earning me strange looks from the other three. “It all makes sense. Look, there was that raid on Precinct House 4 fifteen years back, right?” Kimiko and Miss Typewell nodded; Maya, young and out-of-touch-with-the-physical-world as she was, just gave me a blank look. “I remember, I was there. The guys behind it, they indicated someone was trying to unite all of Arcadia’s criminal underworld into a single syndicate, which eventually became known as the Organization. About ten years ago, Vera Stewart must’ve taken it over from the original Boss. I don’t know if it was a hostile takeover, or if the previous Boss died, or what, but Vera took over the role, and no one noticed because whoever had started the whole thing made sure the ‘Boss’ was an unknown, a cipher.”

  “I bet if we look, we’ll eventually find the spot where Ms. Stewart took over,” Miss Typewell said. She pulled up a vid window of her own and began scrolling through the diary files.

  “Should’ve been almost exactly ten years ago,” I said. “Everyone, take a chunk of three months from that year, see what you can find.” Kimiko and Maya nodded and opened up vid windows of their own.

  A half hour of searching later, we found what we were looking for. Or rather, Miss Typewell did.

  “Check out August 12th,” she said, and everyone immediately went to that file and opened it. I scanned the short entry several times, making sure I truly understood what I was reading.

  August 12

  I have taken over for Ms. Pratt. While she did an admirable job establishing the Organization, I know I can run it more efficiently and effectively than she ever could.

  I’ve already frozen, emptied, or transferred to my control all of her accounts. I confronted her this afternoon. She never expected her secretary to be the one who figured out her secret. But I have, and now it’s my secret to guard. Pratt w
ill be out of Arcadia by midnight. She won’t talk; it would cause people to ask too many questions about her, and she doesn’t want anyone to know.

  “So, the original Boss was—” Miss Typewell began.

  “Genevieve Pratt,” I finished. “Looks like.” That just added too many weird wrinkles to fact that she’d hired me to bring Crowder to justice for her murder. The murder she’d supposedly been complicit in.

  “Do me another favor,” I said to Maya. “Look up the following individuals for me.” I rattled off three names. She pulled up the Organization’s personnel files and did a search for the names. All three showed up.

  “Rothgarten, Tremaine, and Caruthers,” I said, staring at their pictures in the three personnel files. “All three of them, operatives for the Organization for the past fifteen years.”

  “And employees of Pratt’s for a good five years before that,” Miss Typewell said, pointing to a line of data in each of the files.

  “Why are all three of them listed as ‘active’ here?” I asked.

  Kimiko frowned and looked closer at the files. “I did not send them out on any missions,” she said.

  “Well, neither did I,” I replied. “So, whose orders are they following?”

  VI.

  I sat in deep shadow in the Church Street Headquarters, a voice modulator hanging around my neck and a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d been on the other side of this sort of encounter too many times to count; I wasn’t too sure I wanted to be on this side, though. It had never been my intention to become a mob boss and rule over a vast criminal empire, but here I was anyway.

  And, across from me, Kimiko—decked out in full traditional ninja footie pajamas—dragged in Alex Caruthers.

  “I thought it was time we had a little chat,” I said, my voice distorting through the modulator’s speaker as Kimiko shoved him down into a metal chair sitting in a pool of light. The only light in the room, of course. Just because I didn’t care for the position I found myself in didn’t mean I was going to ignore narrative convention or an opportunity for dramatic effect.

  “W-who are you?” Caruthers asked, his voice breaking ever-so-slightly.

  “The one asking the questions, Mr. Caruthers,” I replied evenly. “Who are you working for?”

  “What?”

  “It was a simple question, Mr. Caruthers,” I growled. “Who are you working for? Who put you in that safe house? Who is pulling your strings?”

  “I d-don’t know what you’re talking about!” Caruthers yelped. Kimiko stood next to him, arms crossed, emitting an aura of intimidating competence in the field of murder and violence.

  “Your boss,” I said. “Who is it? Is it Genevieve Pratt? Don’t play the fool with me, Mr. Caruthers. I know you too well for that.”

  Caruthers’s eyebrows quirked. “Hazzard?” he said, hesitantly. Dammit.

  “Answer the damn question, Caruthers,” I snarled, my voice inhumanly harsh and mechanical through the modulator.

  “N-no,” he said, suddenly growing a spine. My patience ended suddenly, snapping like the proverbial camel’s back, and rose from my chair, cane gripped tightly in my hand.

  “Wrong answer, Mr. Caruthers,” I growled, emerging in his pool of light. Caruthers twitched back from me; the look in my eyes must’ve implied the murder I felt in my heart. “Tell me who you’re working for, or I’ll let the ninja get hold of you. You may think I’m merciless, but I’m an angel compared to her.”

  “Pratt! I’m working for Ms. Pratt!” he yelped, his eyes wide.

  “Dunno if anyone told you, man, but Genevieve Pratt is dead,” I said.

  “No, she’s still alive!” he cried. “The thing with Crowder was a setup!”

  I subsided and took a step back. “Go on.”

  “They set you up,” Caruthers replied, whimpering, proving what I’d been trying to say since the trial.

  “What’s the point of that?” I asked.

  “They know who you are,” Caruthers replied. “They know you’re the new Boss, and they want you out of the way.”

  And just like that, I had all the pieces of the puzzle, and it all clicked into place. I didn’t know how they knew, but that wasn’t really important at the moment. They knew that Vera Stewart was dead, and that I’d taken over as the head of the Organization. And if Pratt was the original Boss…

  “She wanted her old job back,” I muttered, more to myself than Caruthers. “She and Crowder are the new Boss.”

  “That’s right,” he said, sweat dripping down his face. “She wants to destroy you and take back what was hers. You’re not ruthless enough to beat her, and she knows it.” He was sneering, feeling more confident now that I knew the truth. He thought I’d be scared. He didn’t know me.

  “Kimiko, if you’d be so kind as to take care of this gentleman. I’ve got some work to do.” I turned away and walked off into the darkness, as Caruthers started weeping and begging for his life. Kimiko wasn’t going to kill him; I’d made it very clear I didn’t want us to be murderers. But she was going to probably rough him up a bit and leave him tied up in a dark alley somewhere, possibly naked, just to give him something to think about.

  I myself had plenty to think about. My enemies were numerous and working together. Even with the resources of the Organization at my disposal, there was no guarantee I’d be able to win this. I was the underdog, which is exactly where I always find myself.

  At least it was familiar situational territory for a final confrontation.

  VII.

  I headed down to the holding cell on the first floor of the warehouse headquarters to have a chat with Crowder. He was sitting on the cot that was the only furniture in the cell, one leg up and an arm resting on it in the most nonchalant lounging I’d ever seen from someone who’d been captured and placed in a holding cell.

  “Good to see you up and about, Eddie,” he said with an easy grin. He sure wasn’t acting like someone who was a prisoner.

  “Yeah, it takes more than multiple murder attempts to put me down,” I said, pulling up a chair and settling gingerly into it. My gunshot wound was starting to heal, but my busted rib was still giving me problems. My confrontation with Crowder in the refinery hadn’t helped any.

  “What can I do for you, Eddie?” he asked casually.

  “What’s your game, Dresden?” I asked. “I mean, what the hell are you trying to accomplish?”

  Crowder chuckled. “Still trying to figure it all out, huh?” he said. “Maybe you’re not as clever as I thought.”

  “Maybe you’re more of a jerk than I thought,” I replied. Yeah, all I had was schoolyard taunts at this point, but in my defense, he was being a poopyhead.

  “Eddie, I’m not gonna monologue it for you,” Dresden said. “I’m not some sort of supervillain out for world domination or anything like that. We just want back what’s ours.”

  I stood there with my arms crossed and a dubious look on my face. “And just what is it that’s yours?”

  “Arcadia,” he replied simply.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I left Crowder in his cell and headed back up to the office. I felt unwell and achy, and wanted to either crawl into bed or a bottle. Maybe both.

  I found Kimiko and told her to keep a ninja on guard downstairs around the clock. “But don’t let them talk to him,” I warned. “He’s a damned persuasive guy, and he’ll get them wound around his finger in a snap.” Kimiko nodded and went off to set up a duty roster for that while I collapsed into my chair and sighed heavily. I had no idea what I was going to do with Crowder now. I couldn’t exactly take him to the police; I knew he was guilty of some heinous shit, but I didn’t have any hard evidence for it and besides, they were still looking for me. I didn’t want to cut him loose, either, for obvious reasons. And I didn’t want to just straight-up kill him. As much as I hated Crowder—and, after fifteen years, I had plenty of reasons to hate the man—I didn’t want to commit cold-blooded murder. I’d done a lot
of things wrong in my life, but I wasn’t that far gone.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I was lightly dozing when Kimiko entered my office a few minutes later. “Did you send Crowder out with someone?” she asked.

  I looked at her through half-open eyes. “No. He should be down in his cell, wasting away.”

  “Well, he’s not,” she said.

  I sat up, fully awake. “Well, shit.”

  We headed downstairs as fast as my healing wounds would allow, and discovered that Crowder’s cell was, indeed, empty.

  “Dammit, he’s pulled a Houdini!” I yelled, kicking the bars of the cell.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  With Crowder gone, we were back to square one with the investigation. We had no idea where he or Pratt were hiding, what they were planning to do next, or how we were going to defeat them. Luckily, I still commanded one of the most powerful and robust information-gathering systems in the whole world: Maya Janovich.

  “Found them!” Maya cried triumphantly, her fists pumping the air in an impromptu victory dance.

  “Really?” I said. Not because I was surprised Miss Janovich had done it—if anyone could hack the city of Arcadia’s ambient security camera network and turn it to their advantage, I would have put even money on it being Maya—just that I didn’t think she’d track them down that quickly. I’d hoped for a couple more days of planning, preparation, and healing before facing down my enemies.

  “Where are they?” Kimiko asked, leaning down next to Maya’s chair and staring at the vid window the hacker had open.

  “Um, the hospital,” Maya replied, surprising us all.

  “What are they doing there?” I asked. I wasn’t above ambushing my enemies when they were experiencing a moment of weakness. If they were injured or otherwise less than their best, I was perfectly okay with taking them down then and there. It just meant I was less likely to be hurt or killed. Hopefully.

  “Was Ms. Pratt, uh, pregnant?” Maya asked.