Damian FINUCANE's Arc

Chapter 17 of 57

The city swallowed them for three days. Damian and Rolo left the bound witness with a jailer they paid to hold their tongue, then hunted the glass tower on foot. They found it at last: sheer walls, guards in fine coats at the doors. At its base sat a bright little shop with a painted sign. Beyond Juice. Fruit slices and wraps grinned from the windows. It looked like nothing. It was his only trail to Tom Clarke Parker. "That's the lead," Damian said. He leaned on his cane and watched the counter through the glass. "A smoothie shop." Rolo hopped onto a low rail and balanced there, reading the street. "Then we go in and ask smart," she said. "Not loud." Inside, the air smelled of orange and warm bread. A worker wiped the counter. Damian ordered a wrap and paid slow. "I'm looking for a friend," he said. "Ginger hair. Thin. Likes his music." He watched the worker's hands, the way Rolo had taught him. "He comes through here." The worker's rag stopped moving. That was answer enough. "He picks up here," the worker said, quiet. "Envelopes. From the men upstairs. He listens to a song, takes the packet, walks out." She glanced at the ceiling, at the tower above. "I don't ask what's inside." Damian's grip tightened on the cane. The false bottom of the shaft held his hidden blade. He kept it still. "When," he said. "He came this morning," she said. "Took his packet. Gone by now." He had missed him by hours. The trail was fresh, not cold. Damian sent the raven out through the open door with a low word. The bird lifted over the street and vanished between roofs. It could not find one man in a whole city, but it could watch the tower doors and mark who came and went. Rolo slid off her rail and came close. "So the shop is a drop," she said. "He fetches orders here. That means he'll come back." She smiled. "We don't chase him across the city. We wait where he has to return." Damian breathed out. The name had been sound. Now the sound had a place, a habit, a schedule. Tom Clarke Parker walked into this shop for his kills. He would walk in again. "We watch it," Damian said. "Days if we must." He turned the wrap in his hand and set it down untouched. "Next time he comes for a packet, I'm across the counter." The worker looked from Damian to the tower and back. "You're not his friend," she said. "No," Damian said. He walked out into the bright street. The masked man was no longer a ghost on a road. He had a bright little shop with a door Damian now knew, and a reason to return to it. The hunt had a place to stand.