In the far-gone days when the Bowery had been noted for its fashionable nightspots, the decrepit building now known as the Werewolves' Lair had been a famous luxury hotel. When things started going bad for the neighborhood, the hotel had been turned into apartments. When the neighborhood really hit the skids, it had degenerated into a flophouse, then been abandoned for well over a decade, sinking even further into pathetic decrepitude before the Werewolves took it over as their headquarters.
They'd made some effort to clean it up, though Werewolf sanitary standards were not exactly those of the Ritz.
It was a smelly warren of dirty little rooms the heart of which was Warlock's Sanctorum. This was a large chamber behind double wooden doors that had a crude pentacle surrounded by the legend 666: LAIR OF THE BEAST Sloppily lettered on them in drippy red paint. It was dimly lit and cluttered with books overflowing their shelves and piled against the walls and sitting on the dusty furniture where they competed for space with occult gimcracks ranging from real human skulls to bundles of dyed chicken feathers that looked like they'd come from Auntie Leveaux's Hoodoo and Love Potion Shoppe.
Cunningham had co-opted Warlock's normal seat behind a desk piled high with more occult stuff, under a rather badly executed portrait of a bald and jowly Aleister Crowley, Warlock's patron saint. Warlock sat in a chair across the desk that was usually reserved for visitors. He was watching Cunningham closely. The ace sat with his bandaged leg held stiffly in front of him, his voice low and thoughtful as he mused on the day's wild events.
"It's Christian," he muttered, "it's got to be Christian. But how did that limey bastard think he was going to get away with taking over? He's too much of an outsider in the Shadow Fists to have a real power base."
"Unless he was conspiring with Sui Ma," Warlock suggested.
Cunningham shook his head. "She seemed genuinely surprised that her brother was dead. I think she really thought that I did it."
"There's Loophole," Warlock said. "He might figure in somewhere."
"He might," Cunningham agreed. "That's why I sent a few of the brothers to his office to pick him up. Maybe he can clear up some of the mystery." He fingered a sheet of paper lying on the desk in front of him. "Like who the hell this is."
It was a sketch done in colored pencil of the redhaired mind-control artist who'd killed Kien's watchdog. Deadhead was really a talented artist, and he'd caught an expression of cruel delight in the kid's smile that was doubly horrific on such a young, otherwise sweet face. There was a respectful knock on the Sanctorum's double doors, and Cunningham looked up from the sketch to see two Werewolves come in with Edward St. John Latham between them.
Latham was a lean, handsome man in a dark gray Brooks Brother suit with a light, almost imperceptible purple pinstripe. His face had no expression at all as he entered the room and nodded at Cunningham. He ignored Warlock as he sat down in the chair next to him, crossing his leg casually, ankle over knee. "I suppose congratulations of a sort are in order," he said.
"Thanks, Sinjin." Cunningham knew that Latham disliked being called Sinjin as much as he could be said to dislike anything. He was an emotionless, supposedly utterly loyal bastard. It was hard to see where he'd fit into a conspiracy against Kien. "But there's still some things I'd like to clear up."
"Such as?"
"Such as are you with me and Warlock, or the general and his sister?"
Latham smiled without humor. "I've already heard about the late general and his late sister. There's not much of a decision to make, is there?"
"I'm glad to see that you're being sensible. Tell me. What do you know about Leslie Christian?"
"Christian?" Loophole frowned. "Why?"
"He's the missing ace from the deck. I've got, the Werewolves scouring the city for him, but he seems to have disappeared. Not, however, before trying to pin Kien's murder on me."
Loophole looked faintly surprised. "Then you didn't kill Kien?"
Cunningham shook his head. "No. Would I do a thing like that? I figure Christian had to have been involved in the killing somehow. He showed up right after I'd found the body and tried to frame me, then he disappeared."
"Why would Christian kill Kien?" Latham asked.
"I don't know. But what do we really know about him?" Cunningham asked, ticking the points off one by one on his fingers. "He's an ace of some kind. He's foreign. He drinks. Somehow he wormed his way into Kien's confidence. He could have half a million reasons for wanting Kien dead, but we don't know enough about him to guess what they might be."
"Whereas," Latham said dryly, "you just had one reason for wanting the general dead."
"Okay," Cunningham conceded. "We're being honest with each other. I admit it. I wanted to be head of the Shadow Fists. I had… plans. But I didn't kill Kien." He reached across the desk and handed Latham the drawing of the youthful mind-control artist that had skewered Kien's batrachian watchdog. "He did."
Latham took it, glanced at it. Something flickered across his face, and for a moment Cunningham could swear that the usually unflappable lawyer was unsure of himself.
"The joker saw this kid mind-control Kien and make him shove his face into a bag of rapture. Then the kid killed the joker."
"Interesting," Latham murmured.
"You have any idea who this could be?"
Latham looked at him a long while, then said, "Perhaps. "
"Do you want to let me in on it?"
Latham considered it for another long moment, then nodded. "In the interest of truth," he said without a trace of irony in his voice, "and justice."
Cunningham suppressed a smile, but Warlock let out an audible snort.
"He runs with a street gang that's done some work for the Shadow Fists," Latham said. "His name is Blaise. He is Dr. Tachyon's grandson."
A half-dozen derelict jokers were sitting around the entrance to the boarded-up old movie theater in the heart of the Bowery, sharing a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag and soaking up the last rays of the autumnal sun like a clutch of bloated lizards.
"How's it going, fellows?" Cunningham asked the bums. A few looked up as he spoke. "Maybe you guys could help me. I'm looking for someone. This kid." He waved Deadhead's drawing. "I heard he hangs out here with a gang." He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a twenty. That elicited a little more interest.
One of the joker's eyes rotated forward like a chameleon's and focused on Cunningham. "You a cop or something?"
"That's right," Cunningham told him.
"You look like a cop. Kind of clean-cut, anyway. A cop on television. That right, boys?" There was general murmured assent, and Cunningham decided that he'd better bring the conversation back on track.
"What about the kid?"
"That bratty asshole. Him and his gang of assholes. The theater used to be ours before they moved in. Now it's loud music every time of the day and night and you really gotta be careful. They know when the welfare money comes in and they'll take it right from you."
"Is he inside now?"
"Yeah," the joker said. "Him and his expensive clothes. You can tell he's rich. He don't need to hang out here. He should give it back to us and go home to Manhattan. Him and all those brats."
Cunningham smiled, and dropped the twenty-dollar bill. It fluttered onto the bum's lap and he grabbed at it as the other derelicts surged to their feet. Cunningham watched them scramble for the loot, and then weave and stagger to the liquor store across the street in the wake of the lucky stiff who'd grabbed it.
He crossed the street himself and looked into the window of the car idling at the curb. Warlock was driving. Deadhead was in the seat next to him, looking jittery and unsure as always. Latham was in the backseat, flanked by a pair of fierce-looking Werewolves. There were three cars parked at discreet distances behind this one. All were loaded with heavily armed Werewolves.