“Looks fine on paper. What’s he hiding underneath?” Patrick asked.
“This is Chicago. You want to do politics here at any level, you have to kiss some rings to do it,” Kelly said.
“Digging up dirt is an Olympic sport in this city. Westberg came to our attention when a criminal informant let us know he was taking rent payments from tenants at some of his slum properties with bits of people’s souls instead of money,” Benjamin said.
Patrick kept his eyes on the file and forced himself not to react to that news. He’d known there was a reason Setsuna had given him this case as cover for searching for the Morrígan’s staff, but he’d had no idea it had to do with criminal actions against a person’s soul. That classified information hadn’t been included in the case file sent over through electronic means, encrypted or otherwise.
“Do you have proof?” Patrick wanted to know.
“Not enough to charge him with anything. Our criminal informant isn’t missing parts of their soul, but the people we’ve tried to interview haven’t been willing to talk. We can’t read their auras without their permission, a warrant, or a subpoena. Westberg has to know we’re investigating him because subpoenas have gone out to third parties and he’s hired lawyers, but the attorney general’s office doesn’t want to tip their hand too much. We’re being as careful as we can not to draw attention until we have an airtight case, and Westberg doesn’t want this in the news with the election so close, so he’s not talking,” Kelly said.
Patrick drummed his fingers against the table for a few seconds. “Housing is difficult to come by if you don’t make a living wage. Desperate people do desperate things, but selling your soul is pretty far out there. I find it strange Westberg would make that a requirement for his tenants when he doesn’t personally care for magic and is in the middle of a mayoral campaign that’s just a stepping stone to a Senate run once his term is over if he wins.”
“Winter here is brutal. It’s not surprising people wouldn’t want to lose their home, with nowhere to go, when the temperature is below freezing.”
She had a point. Patrick knew from personal, painful experience that the way to get someone to agree to a shitty proposition was to wait until they were backed into a corner with no other options available. Coercion wasn’t always done by force, but by the necessity of the person being asked to agree to the impossible.
“You said not enough proof, which means you have something.” Patrick looked up from the file to stare at the other two agents. “What is it?”
Benjamin pointed at the left-hand side of the open file folder. “The pawnshop slip should be clipped in that stack. There’s only the one, and it’s a photo of it because the person in question wasn’t willing to hand it over, but her daughter convinced her to at least show us.”
Patrick flipped through the pages in question, sliding free the color copy of the pawnshop slip. The writing on it was faded, not because it was old, but because it was carbon copy. He didn’t even know people still used that form of record-keeping anymore.
The name printed and signed in shaky handwriting read Margaret Jones. The item being sold was listed as a favor, the cost set at to be determined. It was innocuous enough if one didn’t know the background details of the transaction.
People sold favors all the time. They were binding, like any promise—a valid contract the courts routinely upheld when challenged by people who regretted offering what they shouldn’t. Patrick pulled out his phone and took a picture of the pawnshop record number, as well as the address. When people sold things, the items in question were kept in a shop’s inventory as collateral until the person paid off their loan and retrieved it, or failed to do so and the item was put up for sale.
“Have you talked to the owner about this yet?” Patrick asked.
“Twice,” Benjamin said. “With no warrant, he wouldn’t give us a damn thing.”
Patrick stood and shoved his phone into his back pocket. “I’m going to pay him a visit.”
Kelly frowned at him. “Do you really think the third time will be the charm?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Good luck.”
She sounded like she didn’t believe Patrick would get far, but there was a reason Setsuna gave him the hard cases over the years. His record for closing out cases stood on its own.
Patrick left the SOA field office and crossed the street for the warded parking garage that belonged to the government. Patrick had parked the rental on the fifth level, and he half expected to be greeted by a god when he arrived, but the seats were all empty.
Patrick plugged the pawnshop address into the GPS on his phone before shoving the key into the ignition. The route was taking him to the New City neighborhood on the southwest side of the South Side district.
“Great,” Patrick muttered.
He was going to stand out, he wasn’t going to be welcomed, and he doubted anyone he met would be willing to talk.
Chicago was a sprawled mess of a city where the divide of haves and have-nots wasn’t as starkly noticeable as in other metropolitan areas. Patrick could still pinpoint when the shift in neighborhoods happened. Buildings gradually turned from the gleaming skyscrapers of downtown to the tree-lined streets of the well-off, before thinning out to narrow brick buildings that had seen better days and dilapidated storefronts that still served a marginalized community.
Patrick eventually made it to The People’s Pawn Shop, a small business bracketed on either side by a Dunkin’ Donuts and a corner store. The small parking lot was half-full, with the Dunkin’ Donuts doing more business than the other two. A handful of men hanging out by two low-riders watched him get out of the SUV. Patrick didn’t bother with a look-away ward on his gun or dagger, and the badge hanging from his neck was easy enough to make out.
His face stung from the cold winter wind until he entered the pawnshop, passing through two sets of doors that helped keep heat in and the cold out during winter.
A bell chimed overhead, and the hint of magic that washed over Patrick’s shields wasn’t human in the least. He shoved his sunglasses up onto his head, taking in the pawnshop. Glass display cases took up most of the floor, with shelves lining the three walls filled with items accessible only to employees. The windows up front were bare of items, the security bars on the outside made of iron and filled with magic.
Patrick doubted the owner had a problem with break-ins, despite the neighborhood.
A pair of Hispanic men in winter parkas, jeans, and boots looked up from whatever they were perusing in a glass case. The rapid conversation they had in Spanish ended with them heading for the exit, abandoning whatever they’d come to look at. The employee who had been helping them didn’t watch them go, his dark brown eyes focused on Patrick.
The recognition burning through Patrick’s soul and magic was one he hadn’t felt in years, not since he was on the Hellraisers and they’d run a mission in the Kandahar mountains. Ifrits tended to prefer the countryside over the density of mortal cities, but beggars couldn’t be choosers in a rapidly developing world.
“Long way from your ancestral home,” Patrick said in greeting as he walked forward.