April Prompt (The Detective)

The night had been going pretty well. And then the Prince’s lackey showed up at my office.

Sorry, let me introduce myself. My name is Mark Lykos…or it used to be, before the change. You can call me Malik now. That’s Mah-leek, not Mal-ick. I’m just your friendly neighborhood Nossie, and I’m a private investigator. I run a company called Night Owl Investigations. It’s a one detective office, and I have a secretary to handle the daytime stuff.

So back to the story. The Prince’s lackey showed up at my door. It was a guy named Steven. That was a good thing; if it were his leg-breaker Gregor, it would mean the Prince had sent him to bust me or my place up.

I try to put on my best face. Literally, as us Nossies have pretty ugly mugs, and I didn’t want the Prince’s man wigging out because he got a look at what I really look like. “Evenin’ Steven.” Hey, that almost rhymed. “What can I do for his highness?” The Prince was in charge of the city, and thus, all of us vampires. Yeah, I said vampires. That’s what I am now, same as the Prince. Steven, he’s just the Prince’s human servant, something that we call a ghoul.

“The Prince has a job for you. He wants you to meet him at his office on Creswell.”

I nod. A summons. Well, at least the Prince sent someone to do it instead of just compelling me to come to him. Not all Kindred were so lucky. “How soon?” I ask. It took a minimum of ten minutes to get to the Prince’s place, thirty if you got real unlucky.

“Twenty minutes. But you’re coming with me.”

I roll his eyes. I’d rather drive himself to the Prince’s place, but what the Prince wanted, he got. Damn. “Let me get my coat and hat.” I grab my battered fedora and place it on my head, then going to the door, I takes my stained and dirty trench coat from the hanger it often resided on. After letting Steven go out, I lock the place up and follow him to his car. The guy may work for the Prince, but he wasn’t getting paid enough. He was driving a beater that was worse off than mine, an early 70’s Datsun with a crumpled back fender and a muffler that was held on with string.

I get in the back of the car. Given a choice, I sit in the back. The driver can’t see what you’re doing, and you have a clear shot if they try anything. Steven drives like a maniac, and I find myself putting a death grip on the door handle and feeling glad I’d strapped myself in. I reach into my pocket and grab my cigarettes and my silver lighter with the eagle on it. Rolling the window down a crack, I mutter, “Mind if I smoke?” not really caring what Steven’s answer was. If we wrecked, I wanted one last cigarette. I light it, and take a long drag. It wasn’t like they’d kill me, I was already dead.

The Prince wanted us there in twenty; we made it in just under ten, thanks to Steven’s utter disregard for speed limits and traffic signals. I make a mental note never to accept a ride from him again.

The Prince’s office on Creswell isn’t much to look at. In fact, it’s really just the local sales office for Enterprise Rent-a-Wreck. I look around, then deposit the cigarette butt in my pocket before I go in. Steven leads me to the back of the building. The Prince was ensconced in what is the Manager’s office during the day. Based on the photos scattered around the room that bore no resemblance to him, it was obvious he was just borrowing the place. This office is where he did business away from the prying eyes of other Kindred, or, you could say, his ‘dirty work’. The last time I was here, it hadn’t gone all that well for me. I’d accused a prominent Brujah of arranging the creation of his adopted Childe, even though the Prince had already refused him permission to create any progeny. His adopted Childe flatly denied this, and I wound up owing the Brujah a favor.

The Prince wasn’t alone in the office. The head of my own Clan, Rolf D. was there too. That can’t be a good thing. Also present was a lovely woman I’d met only a couple times, Sara Angelina, the head of the Toreador Clan. Things were looking worse and worse. All three were standing, waiting for me to come in.

The Prince was the first to speak. “So nice of you to join us, Mr. Malik.” He says, his tone less than pleasant. Yeah, that wasn’t a good sign. “Have a seat.”

I sit down, and the bigwigs follow. I turn my head in time to see Steven backing out of the room and closing the door behind him. Crap. None of the bigwigs appeared to be armed, but that didn’t matter. They had other abilities at their disposal, same as me. I look at the Prince, but keep my eyes on Rolf. You never wanted to diss your Clan Primogen. I already learned that lesson the hard way.
I decide to talk first. “So, what’s the story?” I ask. I don’t bother to remove the coat, but I do remove my hat, since there was a dame in the room. They were vamps, like me, so they shouldn’t be too bothered by an ugly mug like mine. I set the battered fedora in my lap though, it really wasn’t fit to touch the nice desk the Prince was sitting behind.

The Prince leans forward and steeples his fingers. “We need your powers of detection, Mr. Malik.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Oh really?” I ask.

Sara Angelina is the next to speak. “Mr. Malik, the problem we have is that something has been stolen, and I want it back.” The dame was trying to keep her cool, but she was a little frayed around the edges.

“All right, what was stolen?” I ask her. “And can you describe what happened when it was?”

The dame’s hand goes to her throat. “A pearl necklace.” She replies. “It was a gift from my…husband many years ago.”

So, a sentimental item, but not terribly valuable. Still, she was hiding something. I look at the Prince. “Okay, this can’t just be about the necklace.” I say. “Otherwise, it would just be her coming to my office and talking to me. So what’s it really about?”

“The robbery took place during the DAY, Malik.” Rolf growls. “They also left a knife sticking in the back of the door.”

So, that was it then. A knife in the door implied a possible threat to the city’s Kindred. “You have the knife, and you’ve had someone check it out?” I couldn’t do it myself, but there were a few Kindred in the city that could touch an object and get an impression from it, much like a psychic could.

“I have someone working on it, yes.” The Prince replies.

I look at Sara Angelina. “Can I dust your place for prints?” Of course, our kind didn’t generally leave fingerprints, but they couldn’t walk around in the daytime either. I hoped she’d agree to it, because it could offer me a chance to track down the suspect. I also understood if she said no. Creatures like us, we didn’t want a lot of people to know where we slept.

“If it helps, yes.” She replies.

“We need this matter resolved as expediently as possible.” The Prince warns me. It wasn’t necessary. If it wasn’t just a robbery, it wasn’t going to stop with the attack on the Tory.

I get up from the chair. It didn’t look like they were going to give me any more information, and I wasn’t going to solve the case sitting on my ass here. “Well, then I’d like to get started. Have Steven take me back to my office, I’ll collect my tools and head to the crime scene.” Hopefully, I’d be able to drive myself there.

After another white-knuckle ride back to my office, I pack up my evidence kit and head over to the Tory’s place. Steven wasn’t driving me, but neither was I; the dame had sent a town car to take me there. There’s a glass partition between me and the driver, and it’s so opaque, I can’t see the windshield. The side windows are also tinted, but they can’t be opened. So she didn’t want me knowing where the place was. No big deal, there was more than one way to track such info down.

The car finally comes to a stop and I step out, looking around. It looked like we were in Belltown, one of Seattle’s trendier neighborhoods. It made sense for a Toreador, but I preferred the Sodo and Central districts of my town. They were more hospitable to a vampire like me.

Sara’s place used to be a historic building. Now it was a humdrum condo of glass and steel, lacking in character and individuality. The car’s driver leads me up to Sara’s floor, and I make a mental note of the building’s address. I’m not surprised when we take the elevator all the way to the top of the building. In typical vamp fashion, she had the penthouse suite. I step out and wish I’d worn a nicer coat. The stained and patched trench was rather out of place in these upscale digs. Then again, so was I.

The apartment had a whiter than white décor. There is a pair of brown loafers set by the door, so I take my scuffed black loafers off and set them next to the other pair so they can keep each other company. The white carpet under my feet is the expensive stuff, so I feel my feet sinking into the deep pile. I turn and look at the front door. Its stark whiteness is marred by a deep puncture wound. I examine the wound and get out my digital to take a picture of it for the case file.

As I’m about to take the picture, I hear a noise behind me. I turn around and it’s Sara Angelina, dressed to kill in black with enough ice on her ears and neck to make a jewel thief salivate. With all that bling, why just steal the pearls? Good question. “Evenin’.” I say, removing my hat and doing my best to bow to the lady. “So, another question for you, was anything else stolen, or just the pearls?”

Sara Angelina’s gaze turns to focus on a point away from me. So she didn’t like looking at my ugly mug. I mentally shrug. Most Torries didn’t like to look at me, so it wasn’t anything new. “No, just the necklace.” Her hand travels almost instinctively to the diamonds at her neck.

“Were your other valuable pieces where a thief could find them?” I ask.

“They were in my jewelry box, along with the pearls.” She nods.

A normal burglar would have stolen all the jewelry, but this one just took the one item. That meant it was something different. A personal vendetta, perhaps? Or a message to the city’s Kindred?

“Does your ha-condo have any sort of video surveillance system?” I’d stopped myself before I said haven. You weren’t supposed to ask another Kindred about their haven. It was considered at best rude or at worst that you were gunning for them.

“The building has a surveillance system, but no, I don’t.” Before I can ask her, Sara starts to lead me through the apartment, to her bedroom. Her pale well-manicured hand pauses on the door. “I haven’t gone in there…since it happened.” Well, I couldn’t blame her. A lot of victims found themselves reminded of the crime when they visited the scene again, and avoided it at all costs. She opens the door for me, but doesn’t follow me inside, nor does she watch. I set my case on the bed and take out the dusting kit. I look at her perfect form standing in the doorway, facing away from me. “Where’s your jewelry case?” I ask. I could probably recover prints from that, and wouldn’t have to do the rest of the room. “And is there anyone else that has access to this room besides you?” If they did, and they were human, I’d need to get their prints for elimination purposes.

“The box is on top of my vanity.” She replies. “And no, no one else is allowed in the room.”

Impressive, really, because the place was neat as a pin. Maybe Sara Angelina had been a housekeeper back in her mortal days…or just a neat freak. I look at the jewelry box. It’s made of shiny black enamel. A good surface for picking up prints, but prints are harder to find when you use black powder. Good thing that I have powder in two different colors.

I open up the bottle of pink neon material and start to apply it. A couple prints do appear, and I smile at my good fortune. So the attacker didn’t wear gloves. How fortunate…for me. I take the prints. I can run them in APIS when I get back to my office, but I had a feeling I’d come up empty on this. I try to get prints from the door, but come up empty. Which means he had to take a different way out. I head to the balcony. Looking at the Toreador, I begin my line of questioning again. “Is there any way down from the balcony?”

The woman nods. “There’s a fire escape.”

I dust the handle of the sliding glass door, and sure enough there are prints. I collect these as well then head onto the balcony, and hop onto the fire escape, taking note of where it ended up. An alley. A perfect means of escape.

After collecting the prints and taking some photos of the scene with my digital, I take my leave of the place. I was, however, going to do a bit more questioning before I left. I tell the driver to wait for me, then head to the alley nearest the building. Maybe I could find a witness.

I focus for a few minutes and I hear a mrring sound behind me. Turning, I see that it was an alley cat. A grey tabby to be exact. It rubs against my legs and I begin to talk to it in its own language, asking if it had seen anyone of interest during the day. The cat is friendly and talkative, and tells me that a human had woken it up while it was napping. I pat my shoulder. It was better to take the feline with me to do a preliminary sketch, and I didn’t have any treats on me either.

The cat jumps on my shoulder and I pet it, telling it I was taking it home with me. The cat purrs. I’ll take that as a yes. With the cat riding on my shoulders, I get in the car. I can almost see the driver turning toward me. “Home, Jeeves.” I say, waving my hand. Okay, so I’m a wise ass some of the time.

The car starts, and I pet the cat. It rubs my face, not caring what I look like. I think I like this cat already. It needs a name though. I know, I’ll think I’ll call it Snack. I reach up and scratch it behind the ears. “Hey there Snack, what do you think about staying with me for a while?”

The cat doesn’t move. Guess Snack likes the name and the idea.

Arriving back at my office, I carry both the cat and my kit upstairs. I set the cat on top of my desk and look around for something to feed it. Obviously, I don’t need to eat, so I don’t normally keep a lot of food around. I manage though to scrounge up a can of tuna, and make a note to buy Snack some food later.

I open the can with a manual opener, and Snack hops off my desk. It must have been someone’s pet once if it knew that an open can means food. I’ll ask it for its story later. I set the can on my desk and while it eats, I get my antique computer warmed up, then start scanning the prints using a small desktop scanner. Okay, so my office ain’t got the latest and best high tech goodies, but they get the job done.

With its meal finished, Snack looks at me and mrrs a thank you…or what passed for it in cat talk. Offering it some pets and encouragement, I coax it to the computer screen and pull up the artist’s sketch program. Patiently I start to get a description from the cat and a picture of the suspect starts to take shape. No one I recognize.

The computer beeps at me. It was done searching the fingerprint database, and like I thought, it had come up empty. Well, the sketch might yield some results. Not wanting to piss off the cranky old comp, I shut the fingerprint program down and start running a facial recognition program. Okay, I admit it, my comp may be a piece of crap, but I’m a Nossie, and I’ve got access to some serious computing power through Shrek.net. My Clan, we are masters of information and secrets, which means many of us have mastered the thing called the World Wide Web. I’m one of them, but I was always interested in gadgets even when I was a mortal.

I pick up the empty tuna can and toss it in the overflowing trash can under my desk. I really oughta hire a janitor, but it’s pretty hard finding one of my kind that’s willing to work for the crap salary I can afford to pay. I decide to take out the trash because even with the server, it’s going to take my pos a while to come up with any results.

When I get back, the computer’s still working, but Snack comes to greet me, tail raised. I pick her up and let her sit on my shoulder. I can feel her claws digging into my trench coat, but I’m not bothered by it.

Finally, the pos beeps at me. The results, this time, are fairly positive. The computer had come up with a name to match the face. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t all that good. The suspect was a man named Isaac Berkowitz, and he was a known associate of the city’s Warlocks. Yeah, this could get interesting. I think as I look at the man’s actual picture. Well, they just hired me to find out who did it. It was their job to sort things out…