Sam Marlowe's Arc

Chapter 7 of 14

The relic sat in an evidence locker eight floors up. Sam stood across from the brown stone police station and knew he couldn't just walk in and take it. McSnork had bagged the wooden model himself. The Ork trusted Sam about as far as he could spit, and Sam had nothing to trade. He needed leverage. So he called the one man who dug through papers instead of faces. Lysander met him in a diner two blocks from the station. Sam's partner wore a navy suit that cost more than a cop's yearly pay, and he ordered nothing. He worked cases for sport, funded by family money, and he liked a puzzle the police wouldn't touch. "You want the model back," Lysander said. "McSnork won't give it. So you need something he wants more." "I've got nothing," Sam said. "You have me." Lysander slid a folder across the table. "Three bodies in the warehouse district. Same six weeks. The police called it coincidence and closed the file. I don't believe in coincidence." Sam opened the folder. Names, dates, a map. "How's this help me with McSnork?" "It doesn't. This does." Lysander laid down a second page. A city waste contract, signed and stamped. "Paid to a company that doesn't exist. Harbor district. Someone in the mayor's office is stealing." Sam saw it then. A dishonest cop wanted a bribe. An honest one wanted a bigger fish. He found McSnork at his desk, cigar down to a stub. The Ork didn't look up. "You again. I told you not to make me sorry." Sam dropped the contract on the blotter. McSnork read it. His yellow eyes went flat and hard. "Where'd you get this?" "A friend who reads papers," Sam said. "Someone's robbing the harbor district blind. Same district where your shopkeepers won't meet your eyes. You've been hunting the thread. I'm handing it to you." McSnork chewed the dead cigar. He knew the mayor kept things quiet. He'd been looking for the line he wouldn't cross, and now it lay on his desk. "What's the price," he said. Not a question. "The wooden harbor model in your evidence room. It's not tied to any murder. Sign it out to me." A voice cut in from the doorway. "That contract is mine to untangle." Aldric Quillscale stood there, the mayor's chief administrator, silver scales catching the light, feathered crest stiff. He'd traced the phantom company himself and meant to fix it before the mayor heard. He hadn't counted on a detective finding it first. "Give me the papers," Aldric said, "and the model is yours. Both of you stay quiet." McSnork looked at Sam. Sam looked at the raptor. A trade, three ways. They made it. An hour later Sam walked out of the brown stone station with the wooden model under his arm. Then a clerk called after him. Someone had already posted bail for Knuckles Malone.