Since Cura was proving to be not helpful on account of she was magic-drunk I decided that I would to try my finding spell on the faith healer that maybe put a magic snake inside her. A real magic snake not a penis. Henry Fong reaction was along the lines of “great let’s go partner” and then acted like I was being insane even considering not teaming up with him at that point.
“You’re not telling me anything! You’ve given me no information, why would I bring you along?”
“I’ve already told you too much!” he spit at me like he was the one who was getting jerked around, like I was wasting his time..
“What are you doing here? You have to give me something man! Do you work for the FBI magic squad? I already know about them.”
Henry did a double take and then a triple take to back that up “Is that a real thing?! Does the FBI have a magic squad?!”
I told him that I understood having secrets and that he couldn’t necessarily tell me everything that was going on, but if he wanted to come with me he needed to at least tell me what he was going to do with this woman if we found her. I asked him if his game was covering up the existence of magic, was he going to murder this woman just for doing it.
He was offended by the very idea!
“No one believes in magic Grace, not unless someone like you comes along and forces them to, and not even then a lot of times. That’s not our concern. I do the same thing in both my jobs Grace, I protect the people.”
“How can you say that? You didn’t do anything for that girl before!”
“She was dead Grace. What could I have done for her?”
“Gone after the people that did it!”
He gestured at Cura “Does she look okay to you? How about we worry about what’s in front of us.”
“So if we find the healer you’re going to shoot her?”
He was even more disgusted by that question “No Grace, I’m not a murderer, if we find her I’ll arrest her. It’s hard to do magic in ultra max. Especially if you’re on enough Xanax to kill a hippo.”
“Arrest her on what charge?”
He shrugged “Whatever I want, I can figure that out after she’s locked up. That’s just paperwork.”
Henry asked me if I had any decent clothes. His idea was that I could pretend to be a detective also. He was so into it that when I told him that all my clothes are garbage he suggested that we go buy some. I told him that I was going as is and if he wanted to tag along that was his choice.
Wouldn’t it have been funny if after all that my finding spell hadn’t worked?
Driving up to her house I got a bad sense of déjà vu. It was out in exburbs and looked enough like Madame X’s sex compound in Bellefontaine that it brough back bad memories. I’d like to have something remind me of a fond memory someday. That would be nice for me.
I mentioned that incident to Henry Fong and he gave a “so what” response like I was wasting his time. I asked him if we were walking into something like that, what were we going to do then? His response was “deal with it”.
“Deal with it how? Do you even know magic or what is your deal? I haven’t seen you do anything.”
It was important enough to lecture me that he pulled the car over the shoulder and stopped.
“What was your plan in that story you just told me? Sounds like you didn’t have one. There’s no standard operating procedure here Grace. I’m just trying to figure things out like you are. We have no idea what we’re walking into so how can I come up with a plan? That’s why this job is so dangerous.”
He didn’t say it but I could tell that the next line in his head was “and why I’m such an important hero for doing it.” I asked why he didn’t call in his resources, get some surveillance on the place, have the boys in research dig into research stuff, round up some Seal Team guys to bust in the door.
His tone was bitter as can be “You’re looking at the sum total of my resources.”
I can empathize with that much at least but that just raises further questions. He’s clearly working for someone, who are they and why don’t they have anyone or anything to back him up? What kind of shitty mysterious benefactor is that? I asked once again and once again he ignored me. Maybe his support structure is just the person who taught him magic. Maybe if Royale was alive this would be what we’d be doing.
“So what? You’re going to try and bluff her with a fake warrant too?”
He gave me a look like I was an idiot, which I was really getting tired of “No, I’m just going to say that I want to talk to her. Rich people are usually willing to talk to the cops Grace, because they have no fear of them, to them the cops are one step away from being their personal staff. Only poor people are afraid of the police.”
