Realization struck me. “You’re right. It stands for ‘Float.’ It’s new. You’ll probably be seeing more of it.”

She considered it for a moment. “It’s always something new. Does this help your case?”

“Yes and no, to be honest. It connects a few dots but makes the picture more tangled,” I said.

She nodded. “I’m intrigued by the binding spell on it. There’s something elven about it, but I can’t place it.”

I pushed myself away from the table. “You’ll let me know if you come up with anything?”

“Of course. And thanks again,” she said.

“Please, please, please, thank Meryl. And don’t tell her I asked you to,” I said.

She gave me a knowing smile. “Ah, that’s the way of it.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I’ll tell her.”

Despite the bright sun, a cool breeze caught at me when I left the building. October in Boston can be balmy or freezing. I bunched my hands in my jacket as I walked back to the Weird.

Dennis Farnsworth had been running drugs. I rolled the words around in my head, letting myself get comfortable with them. It’s not the way I hoped he went, but there it was. Fair enough. I could live with that. Lots of kids think it’s a way to make a little cash and get out of a rough neighborhood. They don’t get that it just sucks them in deeper. It’s not the best idea, but I’ve been living down in the Weird long enough to understand that the bad ideas are sometimes the only ones.

I could walk away from the case, let Murdock close the file, and move on. No one would question us. Just another dumb kid in a string of dead kids. People don’t expect gang hits to get solved. The only people who care are the families and the gangs. The only time it gets bigger than that, when some politician or preacher or chanter starts up on gangs, is when someone squeaky-clean dies by accident. The scholar on his way home from Boston Latin High who gets caught in the cross fire of a drive-by or some office worker on a subway platform who accidentally gets bumped in front of a train during a brawl. Then it’s news, and justice gets talked about. But Dennis Farnsworth died near the worst part of the worst neighborhood in Boston. And now the weather.

But I had loose ends. Dennis Farnsworth had been wearing the colors of a gang led by Moke. Moke had a turf rival in C-Note. C-Note was running a new drug called Float. Why would Dennis have been wearing one gang’s colors and running another gang’s drugs?

I pulled out my cell and called a number I didn’t call that often. To my surprise, it still worked.

“Hey, little bro,” Callin said.

“Hey. How’d you make out last night?”

“Not bad. Yggy’s is neutral again. I appreciate the brotherly concern.”

I ignored the sarcasm. “Listen, I was wondering if you can tell me where to find the gentleman responsible for that.” Given that someone had been right on my heels when I found the Nike, I decided to be cautious with what I said.

“Maybe. I know a place he shows up sometimes.”

“Where can I meet you?”

“Can’t. I’m in the middle of something. I’ll send Joe when I know something.”

I felt oddly let down. “Okay. Great. And, um, Cal?”

“Yeah?”

“I am glad you’re okay.”

There was a short silence. “Thanks, man.” He disconnected. I tried not to dwell on Callin. Most times, I can put him out of my mind. I didn’t even know where he lived at the moment, but he obviously spent a lot of time down in the Weird. I could try and take comfort in the fact that the Clure still hung around with him. The Cluries weren’t so bad, more amoral than anything else. Fun as hell. Small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

I was still playing the connections around in my head a few hours later as I stood outside the Rowes Wharf Hotel. MacGoren’s comment earlier to Keeva about a gala prompted the memory of having seen Seacorp’s promotional schedule on their Web site. The latest dog and pony show for their waterfront project was scheduled at the hotel tonight. Given that Keeva was going to attend, I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone and try to get an update from her on the Kruge investigation as well as see what else I could learn about macGoren’s business.

With a mixture of envy and annoyance, I watched many of the city’s high-powered fey—the beautiful ones that the press called flitterati—entering the lobby. At one time, I mingled with these people, drank with them, ate with them, and slept with more than a few. Now, on the rare occasions I run into them, they get that faraway look in their eyes as though they cannot place where they know me from. The price of falling from on high is the angels tend to look busy when you drop by to say hello.

I slipped past security with laughable ease. Tricking myself out in a long leather coat and lots of black just sealed the deal. Picking the right entry point, in my case a city employee, strutting like a privileged fey, and I was sipping mediocre champagne before my presence even registered with anyone.

Since the Seacorp project involved hard-core real estate, major property owners circled around each other. MacGoren, of course, several high-ranking Consortium elves, and more dwarves than I had seen together in a long time. If memory served me correctly, and as a druid it usually did, dwarves didn’t own much land near the Tangle, but they had to be concerned about their own nearby investments.

Seeing all these dwarves made me think of Moke. Murdock had left me a message that he had some information and would fill me in later. Later was starting to look pretty late. I probably should have asked Cal about Moke, too, but that would have been pushing my luck with him. It didn’t take much for us to trigger silence between us, and me looking like I was just hanging around him for information would probably piss him off again.

Waiters circulated with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, paying particular attention to the various city officials. If macGoren wanted the project to move forward, he had to make the mayor and local reps happy.

I mingled with a crowd perusing placards off the lobby. Maps and projections of potential development ranked down a long hallway that led to a banquet room. I did not see anything that I had not already researched, although the fact that all the land under consideration had not been secured seemed to be conspicuously absent.

As I studied a color-coded map of the piers on the south end of the Weird, I felt an essence coalesce behind me like a spear.

“Interested in investing?” Keeva asked.

I turned and smiled. She was in full impress mode, a lovely deep blue wool skirt, leaf-patterned blouse, and ivory-colored brocade vest setting off her flowing red hair. The small necklace she wore cast a glamour that made her seem to move in a haze of soft light. “You could say I’ve invested in the Weird for some time.”

She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Ah, yes. The Weird. Of course you’d go there.”

“That’s what the point of all this is, isn’t? Getting rid of the Weird?”

She shrugged. “Yes, Connor, that is the point. Does the city, any city for that matter, really need a neighborhood called the Weird?”

I pursed my lips. “I would think the people who live there think so.”

She gave me an exaggerated bored look. “Why are you here, Connor? Can I have at least a little time off from aggravations?”

“Old friends, you might say. Why are you here? Playing hostess?”

She shook her head. “Not really. I’ve been so busy, this is the first night in a week Ryan and I have been able to see each other.”

“And you love a big party,” I said.

She toasted the air with her glass. “And I love a big party.”

“So, you two an item?”

“You could say that.” She smiled smugly, the kind of smile that dared me to think their relationship was anything less than pure attraction. I’m sure that was there. I’m also sure that each had a private little pros and cons sheet on the other.