Death Casts a Spell, Chapter 13

The next Monday I didn’t see much of Mr. Gallo in the office, which was by no means unusual. What it most likely meant was that he was out pounding the pavement, making inquiries in order to firm up what we’d learned last night, or perhaps pursuing one of the other cases that were presently on our roster. There was a time when I used to envy him the time spent chasing down cold, hard facts, but I’d since learned that it was mostly boring work, combing through public records that were denser and more poorly organized than Mr. Gallo’s own files. Which was saying something.

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Death Casts a Spell

So, I was happy enough to leave him to it. Anyway, I had a job of my own to do. Over the time I’d spent at Gallo Investigations, I’d worked hard to bring the office out of the disarray in which I’d found it, and into keeping with a modern aesthetic that would project capability and confidence to prospective clients. I’d junked his horrible old overstuffed couch spotted with mustard stains, and replaced it with a nice, dark emerald settee and gray chairs. I’d been unable to convince Mr. Gallo to spring for new filing cabinets, but I’d painted over the ones we had with a flat black coat that hid the scratches and dents. And everywhere I’d added little touches—a fern on my desk, a rubber plant in the corner, a Jadeite candy dish on the coffee table.

But there was one job I hadn’t tackled yet, and that was the inner office, where Mr. Gallo kept his desk. The truth was, I was a little scared. The office had good bones: creamy plaster walls, a solid oak floor, and a large, arched window that looked out over the city skyline. But within that framework, I’m afraid I had allowed Mr. Gallo to run somewhat amok. It wasn’t all my fault. The man generated paper at a terrifying pace, from his newspaper clippings to his case notes to his ever-growing library. These items perched wherever he decided to drop them: stacked on the floor, lining the windowsill, teetering on the corners of his desk. Stepping inside the office, I had often thought, felt a little like stepping inside Mr. Gallo’s mind: packed with facts and alive with inquiry. I had grown to appreciate my boss’s insatiable curiosity—but that didn’t mean I wanted to organize it.

Still, I couldn’t keep slamming the inner door closed whenever clients came by. I wanted the whole of Gallo Investigations to give off a polished, competent aura. And the last frontier left to conquer was the inner office.

I swung the door open and stood there, taking stock. The pile of legal pads on the edge of the desk had grown since last I’d seen it. Its top occupants had sloughed off onto the floor, and lay there, yellow pages stirring gently in the breeze from the open window. In falling, they had knocked over a coffee cup—or perhaps the cup had been sitting on the pile. Either way, Mr. Gallo hadn’t noticed it. From it flowed a thick black puddle that perfumed the air with Columbian roast.

The other smell was dust. It stirred from the bookshelves, which also seemed to have acquired new tenants since I had last taken stock. The books had been treated better than most of my boss’s possessions. Even so, they were stacked double deep on the shelves, and many of them bristled with extra pages: Mr. Gallo’s notes, scribbled in a tight scrawl and stuck between the leaves.

Behind me, the door to the outer office opened. “Thank God,” I muttered, and slammed the inner office closed. I turned to face Mr. Gallo.

He was hanging his coat on the rack, and he looked at me with amusement. “I told you I’ll clean up in there,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied, which was my usual reply to this sincere but soon-to-be-forgotten offer. I came over to sit on the settee. “How’s your day been?” I asked. “Partner?”

Mr. Gallo smiled and sat across from me in one of the chairs. “I’ve spent most of it looking into our hapless Mr. Burrage.”

“Was he hard to track down?” I crossed my legs and leaned back on the settee, feeling unreasonably happy. We had discussed cases plenty of times in the past, and so this was nothing new. But I still had the sound of the word partner ringing in my ears, and that had given everything a new, invigorating sheen.

“Very much the opposite. He’s a financial lawyer with a lot of clients. It wasn’t long before I found someone who knew him.”

“What did they say about him?”

“Not much. Arthur doesn’t seem to be the sort of person who leaves people with a strong impression.”

I could believe that. If not for Arthur’s fascination with mysticism—and with Freddie—I would scarcely have paid him any mind.

“What’s more captivating than Arthur’s personality, though, is his list of clients.”

“Big names?”

“And lots of them. He handles investments and financial matters for a large number of wealthy men.”

“Investments,” I said. “That explains it! What Vetrovsky wants. Arthur is no cash cow.” I smiled. “He’s the teat!”

Mr. Gallo smiled. “Apt.”

“So.” I rubbed my hands together like a cartoon villain. “Vetrovsky is hoping to get his hands on some of the money Arthur handles.”

“With his cooperation, it would be all too easy. Arthur could simply siphon off some of the money as investment capital. As long as he doesn’t beggar any one of his clients too badly, they may never even notice they’ve been duped.”

“So what’s the girls’ part in this?” I asked. “Vetrovsky hopes that they can get him to do as he’s told?”

Mr. Gallo frowned. “I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like enough, somehow. Arthur has an excellent reputation. Vetrovsky will be asking him to go against everything he’s always been known for.”

I frowned, mulling it over. Since I had met him, Arthur had seemed ready—eager, in fact—to do whatever Vetrovsky wanted. So what was holding him back? For me, it might be an academic question, but for Vetrovsky, it was an entirely practical one. What was the trick he’d have to pull, the lever he’d have to push, to get Arthur to change his mind? To answer this question, he might have to become something more than a sensational showman. He might have to become Arthur’s psychologist—or even, in appearance, his friend.

“Being a con man is a harder job than I imagined,” I mused.

Mr. Gallo grinned. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “If Vetrovsky was half as dedicated to a real job as he was to scamming people, the man could really make something of himself.”

I returned his smile. “And we’re only talking about how hard it is to manage a mark,” I said. “We haven’t even considered how hard it is to find them in the first place.”

“I doubt getting marks is Vetrovsky’s problem,” Mr. Gallo said. “They probably find their way to him through the publicity for his shows.” He thought for a moment. “Getting rid of them is probably a bigger concern.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “It’s a problem for every con man eventually.”

“Why?”

“Because, sooner or later, one of these two things happen: Either the mark runs out of money. Or the mark runs out of patience.”

I thought about it. If Arthur ran out of money, Vetrovsky would be eager to be done with him. But the feeling wouldn’t be mutual. Arthur would keep hanging around, begging for help, generally making a nuisance of himself. If Vetrovsky gave him no encouragement, maybe he’d eventually give up and take himself off. But maybe he’d get angry. Maybe he’d even bring the long arm of the law down on Vetrovsky’s tidy little scam.

And what if the other problem happened—if Arthur ran out of patience? If Vetrovsky kept taking his money, but was never able to provide what Arthur really wanted—a real connection with his dead daughter? Which, of course, he never could.

This was a thornier problem, and it was probably down, once again, to careful management of Arthur’s psychology. How would Vetrovsky manage Arthur’s expectations and disappointment? Could he find a way to make the man believe he’d gotten what he wanted after all?

“You should talk to Arthur,” I said. “See if you can get a handle on what buttons, exactly, Vetrovsky is trying to push.”

Mr. Gallo leaned back and looked at me evenly. “I’d say that’s for you to do,” he said.

“I—oh.” I blinked, then squinted at him. “What?”

He ticked off points on his fingers. “You’re the one who made contact with Arthur,” he said. “You’re the one he knows. And he seemed to like you.”

He was right of course. But I still felt floored. Evidently he’d meant it when he called me his partner the previous night. And I found myself flush with pride at the confidence he was showing in my judgment.

First, though, I had an appointment to keep. I got to my feet.

“Time to go?” Mr. Gallo asked.

I nodded. Last night we had discussed how to relay our findings to Eleanor. Since I didn’t want Mrs. Jacoby to know I was speaking with her daughter, the school was the best place for us to meet. I could stroll over to St. Seb’s at dismissal time, deliver Jeannette’s note, and walk Koko home. It would look like any ordinary afternoon.

As for the information to deliver with the note? On that, Mr. Gallo and I had been in full agreement. Eleanor didn’t need to know that her sister was working as a magician’s assistant, and she certainly didn’t need to know that the magician in question was a con artist and a bully. The existence of Freddie also seemed like something we should leave out of our narrative. Eleanor might have a right to know why her sister left, but it would be better coming from Jeannette herself. If pressed, I’d tell Eleanor that Jeannette was safe, and that Mr. Gallo and I were watching out for her. It was stretching the truth a bit, but it was the best way I could think of to give the child a bit of reassurance.

Mr. Gallo got to his feet and retrieved my coat from the rack. I turned my back to him, and let him help me into it. The heavy wool settling around my shoulders felt like an embrace. I bid him goodbye and set out for Koko’s school, feeling as though I were wrapped in the warmth of something new happening between Mr. Gallo and myself.

It wasn’t just the word partnership. It was more than that. I felt like it was the first step in a new frankness between us, a new opening up of possibility. Since I had moved to Chicago, I had wanted to be closer to him. I knew he wanted it, too. But something about our working relationship had kept us mired in a stilted, not-quite-something. We flirted. We smiled. But we didn’t move forward. Perhaps that was about to change.

When I neared the school, I spotted Koko immediately. It would have been hard not to. She was standing at the edge of the schoolyard, her back to me. Around her, in a semicircle, stood a group of girls. The Shebas.

The body language of the girl at the center of the group made it clear that this was not a friendly gathering. She was a tall child, with curly black hair that framed a pretty, heart-shaped face. Or at least, it would have been pretty, if she had not presently been sneering at my cousin.