“Heard of you,” I said. “You did Torelli a couple of years back.”

He smiled, very slightly. “I don’t know any Torelli.”

“Yeah, I figured,” I said.

“How is he?” Stevie D asked.

“Who?”

“The little guy.”

“Fine,” I said. “Wearing a vest.”

Stevie D nodded. “Good.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Professional killer is happy he didn’t kill someone?”

“Had nothing against him. Wasn’t getting paid for him. Don’t wanna do time for hitting the wrong guy. Isn’t professional. But everything I heard about you said I shouldn’t dick around waiting to get the shot off, so I had to get him out of the way.”

“Stevie,” I said, “this can go a couple of different ways. The simplest is that you give me who hired you, and I let you go.”

His eyes narrowed. “No cops?”

I gestured at his bound form with one hand. “Does it look like we want cops all over this? Spill and you’re loose as fast as we can take the tape off.”

He thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “Nah.”

“No?”

He made a motion that might have been a shrug. “Did that for you, I might never work again. People get nervous when a contractor divulges personal information about their clients. I gotta think long-term.”

I nodded. “I can respect that. Honoring a bargain and all.”

He snorted softly.

“So we can go to option two. I’m going to go call Marcone. I’m going to tell him what happened. I’m going to ask him if he’s interested in talking to you, Stevie. I’m sure he’ll want to know who is purchasing hits in his territory, too. What impact will that have on your long-term productivity, do you think?”

Stevie’s nerve cracked. He licked his lips. “Um,” he said. “What’s option three?”

Sanya stepped forward. He beamed at Stevie D, picked the backboard up off the floor without too much trouble, and in his lowest voice and thickest Russian accent said, “I pick up this board, break in half, and put both halves into incinerator.”

Stevie D looked like a man who suddenly realizes he is sitting near a hornets’ nest and is trying desperately not to run away screaming. He licked his lips again and said, “Half of what I hear about you says Marcone wants you dead, that you hate his guts. The other half says you work for him sometimes. Kill the people he thinks need killing.”

“I wouldn’t pay much attention to rumors if I were you, Stevie,” I said.

“Which is it?” he asked.

“Find out,” I said. “Don’t tell me anything.”

Sanya put him back down again. I stood facing him expectantly. “Okay,” he said, finally. “A broad.”

“Woman, huh. Who?”

“No name. Paid cash.”

“Describe her.”

Stevie nodded. “Five-nine, long legs, brown eyes,” he said. “Some muscle on her, weighed maybe one fifty. Long dark hair. Had these tattoos on her face and neck.”

My heart just about stopped in my chest.

I closed down every doorway and window in my head, to shut out the gale that was suddenly whipping up in my heart. I had to stay focused. I couldn’t afford to let the sudden tide of emotion drown my ability to think clearly.

I reached into my pocket and drew out my own wallet. I’d kept a picture of Susan in there for so long that when I pulled it out some of the image’s colors stuck to the plastic sleeve. I showed him the picture.

The hit man squinted and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s her.”

Chapter 33

“Give me the details,” I said quietly.

“She said you’d be here. Gave me twenty thousand up front, twenty more held in escrow until delivery was confirmed.”

Mouse made a soft, uncomfortable noise that never quite became a whine. He sat watching my face intently.

“When?” I asked.

“Last night.”

I stared at him for a moment. Then I tossed Stevie’s wallet back onto the folding card table and said, “Cut him loose. Walk him to the door.”

Sanya let out what seemed like a disappointed sigh. Then he produced a knife and began cutting Stevie free.

I walked down the hall, back toward the living area with my head bowed, thinking furiously.

Susan had hired a gunman to kill me. Why?

I stopped walking and leaned against a wall. Why would she hire someone to kill me? Or, hell, more to the point—why would she hire a gunman to kill me? Why not someone who stood a greater chance of success?

Granted, a gunman could kill even a wizard if he were taken by surprise. But pistols had to be fired at dangerously short ranges to be reliable, and Stevie D had a reputation as a brazen sidearm specialist. It meant that the wizard would have more time to see something bad coming, as opposed to being warned only when a high-powered rifle round hit his chest, and would have an easier time responding with hasty defensive magic. It was hardly an ideal approach.

If Susan wanted me dead, she wouldn’t really need to contract it out. A pretext to get me alone and another one to put us very close to each other would just about do it. And I’d never see that one coming.

Something about this just wasn’t right. I’d have called Stevie a liar, but I didn’t think he was one. I was sure he believed what he was saying.

So. Either Stevie was lying and I was just too dim to pick up on it, or he was telling the truth. If he was lying, given what kind of hot water I could get him into, he was also an idiot. I didn’t think he was one of those. If he was telling the truth, it meant . . .

It meant that either Susan really had hired someone to kill me, or else someone who could look like Susan had done business with Stevie D. If Susan had hired someone to kill me, why this guy, in particular? Why hire someone who didn’t have better than even chances of pulling it off? That was more the kind of thing Esteban and Esmerelda would come up with.

That worked a lot better. Esmerelda’s blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. But how would she have known where to find me? Had they somehow managed to tail Sanya back to the church from my apartment without being noticed by Mouse?

And just where the hell were Susan and Martin? They’d had more than enough time to get here. So why weren’t they?

Someone was running a game on me. If I didn’t start getting some answers to these questions, I had a bad feeling that it was going to turn around and bite me on the ass at the worst moment imaginable.

Right, then.

I guessed that meant it was time to go get some answers.

Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren’t ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.

For instance, I had spent more than a couple of off hours trying to figure out how I might track someone through Chicago if I didn’t have some kind of object or possession of theirs to use as a focus. Basic tracking magic is completely dependent upon having a sample of whoever it is you want to follow. Hair, blood, and nail clippings are the usual thing. But let’s say you don’t have any of those, and you still want to find someone. If you have a sample of something in their possession, a piece snipped from their clothing, the tag just torn out of their underwear, whatever, you can get them that way, too.

But let’s say things are hectic and crazy and someone has just burned down your house and your lab and you still need to follow somebody.

That’s when you need a good, clear photograph. And minions. Lots of minions. Preferably ones who don’t demand exorbitant wages.

There’s a Pizza ’Spress less than two blocks from St. Mary’s. Sanya and I went straight there. I ordered.

“I do not see how this helps us,” Sanya said, as I walked out from the little shop with four boxes of pizza.