The Shine

Need to know

Turns out that you can have visitors in rehab at certain times. Even if I had been at Kim's apartment during the time I doubt I could have come up with a reason to tag along with Evan to visit. I'm not a very good liar.

I casually asked Evan if his friend had said anything "weird" when he told me he had visited his pal but he wasn't interested in talking about it. He mumbled something about "junkie hallucinations" and changed the subject.

I really wanted to know what was going on, so I decided to lean on my good friend the Atlanta detective. Since she doesn't answer my calls and she never returns my messages and since I was going to be in the Atlanta area for a show, my plan was to ambush her in real life.

I knew she wouldn't like that but I felt like I needed to regain some power in this "relationship". If she wants to continue getting my help she needs to lighten the fuck up. The problem is after spending several hours on the phone with various general information and public information lines, I was told that there was no such detective in the Atlanta PD.

I was at iHOP wondering what that might mean after the show when she wandered in. She was wearing a red leather jacket over a mesh top and she had a Johnny Depp-load of chintzy necklaces and bracelets. She was slick with sweat and seemed slightly out of breath. No, not out of breath, more like breathy?

She flopped down in the booth across from me. She seemed slightly amused instead of her standard scowl of thinly suppressed murderous anger that she gives me. I asked her if this is how she always dresses when she's off duty and she loudly and theatrically shushed me and then said he was undercover. Then she giggled.

This is the nastiest most unpleasant woman I've ever met and she was giggling? Very unsettling.

I asked to see her badge and after she showed it to me, I told her I had contacted the department and they said they never heard of her. She banged the table loudly and said that of course they said that. In these times they can't be giving out information about their soldiers on the front lines. "Need to know only" she whispered loudly with her hand over her mouth. She leaned forward slightly and said "it's a war out there you know, and it's not going good". She said it with a dreamy smile.

I asked her if she was on Ecstasy. That did make her scowl. She said that I was looking for her and there she was so what the fuck did I want? She frowned even more at one of her many necklaces and then struggled to get it over her head.

I told her about the incident in Havana and asked if she could get access to the report or some records that might clue me into what was going on there. She leaned back and propped her arms on the table in an awkward way that popped her tits at me and said that it would be no problem. She grinned and said "The door swings both ways".

I had no expectation that she would remember this conversation after she left or that she would help me if she did, but a few days later when I was driving into Chattanooga she called and told me to meet her. What's a four-hour drive between old pals like us?

The meeting took place at a rest stop, but she had a bag of Hattie B's Hot Chicken and some MGD tallboys, so it wasn't bad. She was back to dressing like a police detective and looking at me like a half-squashed cockroach that was twitching on the floor. When I mentioned that she's much nicer when she's stoned, she came at me hard.

I'm starting to figure her out. She explodes and yells but it doesn't mean anything. She's like one of those yappy little dogs. When she does actually shoot me in the kneecap, there won't be any carrying on and shouting beforehand. When she stopped screaming, she told me not to tell anyone about what I think I saw. Who the hell would I tell? People are weird.

Once all the angry posturing was complete, she told me she had pulled some information on my Havana beat-down and that as soon as she saw the details she knew what was up. She said that magic people LIKE ME snatch junkies so they can siphon the pain they go through in withdrawal to power their spells. They lock them up and give them just enough meth or Special K or whatever to keep them tweaking.

I told her I didn't do magic like that. I told her I wouldn't even know how to do magic like that. She sneered and asked how I did do magic. I told her to give me her hand. Surprisingly she did. Hesitantly, like she was going to grab an angry rattler, but she reached out.

Everyone has a little magic in them. Some people more than others. Being a mage the way I was taught is about learning to store more energy inside yourself like a battery. Not taking it from any outside source like pain or fear.

The detective had more magic in her than most people. Surprising. I drew some of that energy out of her and did a simple spell to make colors dance across my fingers. She gasped, not in surprise, but something else. I don't know what. I guess it was a weirdly intimate moment.

She jerked her hand away and was ready to lay into me, but the words died on her lips and she just held her hand to her chest. "That's how I do magic" I said as I reached for another piece of chicken.

She ordered me never to do that again. I said I wouldn't dream of it. I asked her if she would tell me what happened with the diary girl. She reacted with true hostility, not bluster, and told me she was "somewhere you'll never find her".

I asked her what she was so afraid would happen if I met the girl. You know in movies when someone who's clearly scared shitless proclaims "I'm not afraid of anything" and it seems cheesy and fake?

That happens in real life.

Comments (3) | Leave a comment | Like | Share | Report this Post