I turned back to LM. “Is that how you ended up hurt? He beat you until you gave him their names?”
The silence was the only affirmation I needed. “Son of a bitch.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “So what happened after you gave up the names?” I didn’t even bother to ask how a lone man managed to rough up Mary, but the fact he’d done it spoke volumes about what we were up against.
“He told me if I left anyone else’s name off the list he’d be back. He said if I went to the cops, he’d be back. He said if I so much as thought about him, he’d be back.”
“That’s why you ran the other day?” Morales asked.
He nodded. “This asshole wasn’t no joke.”
The fear in his tone shocked me. Little Man was usually full of piss and vinegar. I’d never heard him admit to being intimidated by anything.
“Anyway, I heard he already hit up Aphrodite’s joint,” LM said. “That asshole better hope the herm doesn’t catch him before you guys do.”
I chuckled despite the bad feeling swirling through my abdomen. “I’d actually pay for ringside seats to that show.”
Morales crossed his arms and gave LM a hard look. “Hold up, so you’ve known for a while that this asshole was gonna knock over wizes and it didn’t occur to you to call us?”
LM shrugged. “He paid better. Plus”—he pointed to his face—“I was pretty sure if he found out I was snitching to you bitches, he’d come back to finish what he started.”
Morales opened his mouth to deliver what was no doubt a meathead threat to the only source we’d spoken to who’d had contact with our suspect. I elbowed him in the ribs before he could deliver it. I ignored the glare it earned me. “Did he give you any indication what he was planning to do with the stuff he took?”
LM shook his head. “Just said something about how he had some fireworks planned for the city of Babylon to celebrate the Blue Moon.”
Something dropped in the pit of my stomach. LM had just confirmed both Abe’s predictions and the letter the mayor received. “He said that? Fireworks?”
LM nodded. “Yeah, so?”
I shook my head because there was no sense giving him more rumors to spread on the streets. “Is there anything else you can give us? Any detail, no matter how small, that might help us find this guy?”
LM leaned back against Mary’s flat bosom. “I might be convinced to call you if I hear something.” He raised his little left hand and brushed his thumb across the tops of his fingers.
“You fucking got to be kidding me,” Morales said. “If you’d called us earlier we could have arrested the asshole and saved that ugly mug of yours. But now you want us to pay?”
LM grimaced. “I might be an asshole, but I ain’t your bitch, Macho. Pay up.”
I nodded at him. He jerked his wallet from his back pocket and threw a twenty at them. The wind caught the bill and whooshed it up so it landed on Mary’s large noggin. Despite her catatonic look, her hand had no trouble snatching the bill and stashing it quick as lightning.
Little Man leaned back with an elbow on Mary’s bosom. “It’s been nice doing business with you.”
Morales looked like he wanted to strangle the homunculus, but I tugged his sleeve. “Let’s go.”
Little Man pursed his split lip and blew Morales a kiss. “Bye-bye, Macho.”
Chapter Fourteen
October 22
First Quarter
All right, people,” Gardner said, “if you got ideas about how to find this asshole, I want to hear them.”
We were gathered in the old boxing ring back at the gym. Gardner stood next to a large whiteboard pasted with the picture of Dionysus we’d gotten from the mayor and a list of facts we knew about him—not many—as well as information I’d gotten from Abe—very little—and facts about the crime scene at Aphrodite’s temple—slightly more, but not nearly enough to inspire confidence that we’d get this guy.
Even though Mez and Shadi hadn’t had the pleasure of getting their asses chewed out by the city’s mayor, they’d been fully briefed on the shit show. The instant we’d left the mayor’s office, Gardner had called Shadi in off patrol so she could help. But like the rest of us, she sat silent, totally stumped about how to track down a madman armed with a rape potion.
“Eldritch is working the robbery now, right?” Morales said.
Gardner nodded. “He’s sending some of his guys over to go over the crime scene in case we missed anything,” she said, her tone dripping with rancor.
Mez’s posture stiffened with pride. “They won’t find shit.”
“Of course not,” Gardner said. “Not our issue anymore. Our goal is to track down the potions.”
Morales leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How about the other covens?”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they’ve been robbed, too, but aren’t too eager to get a visit from the BPD.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “Little Man said he gave Dionysus a list of all the top wizes in the city.”
Gardner crossed her arms and thought it over. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have the manpower to interview every wizard in the Cauldron.”
“If Dionysus has the balls to go after Aphrodite Johnson, he’s not going to waste his time with two-bit sorcerers selling snake oil on the corner,” I said. “He’ll go after the other big dogs.”
“Volos,” she said.
I paused before nodding. The thought of having to interview John made my skin feel too tight. After our talk at my party I wasn’t too eager to spend time with him anytime soon. Especially when it was because I needed his help breaking another case. “Harry Bane, too,” I said, trying to redirect focus. “He’d be an excellent target for a Raven since he only just took over his daddy’s coven.”
Hieronymus Bane had turned on his own father to escape jail time in the Gray Wolf case. According to my snitches, Harry was now running the Sanguinarian Coven out of a junkyard.
Gardner nodded. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea to check in with him anyway with Ramses’s trial coming up soon.”
“We’ll go talk to Harry, then,” I said quickly.
Morales blinked, as if he’d been expecting me to volunteer to talk to Volos instead. I shrugged.