Never An Angel

Eleventh

        Magdalen was sitting on the kitchen counter, delicately peeling an orange. The sink was full beside her and Nico's bright young face was reflected there. Magdalen tore away another piece of orange skin and asked, "So what do you want? You almost never want to talk to me this way."

     "Yes, I know. It's hard," Nico groaned. "But even though I suck at it, I thought this would be better with your crisis thing going on. I wanted to see how you were. Now, I have some things to tell you, though, but first, how did it go yesterday? Everything cool in the neighborhood?"

     "It's fine, Nico, thank you. Get to the point."

     Nico made a fart noise with her mouth. "You're so guarded. However Miss Petra copes with that is beyond me."

     "Get to the point, already. I won't have the house to myself forever."

     "I am, jeez. Chill out. First I want to say that I did everything that you asked me to yesterday. Paid Buck-o, opened a new account, started to slowly fill said account, and I even looked into Sergei's big expansion. How cool is that, by the way? That man really knows how to set up a plate."

     Magdalen gathered all the orange peels into a little pile. "You don't mind?"

     "No way. I get the upper floor of the next building over, right? The apartment will be twice as big."

     "You can have a portion of it." She cracked the peeled orange in half, then started to tear away segments. "I assume Sergei and Lenka will need some storage."

     "Ah, that's fine. Lenka already keeps some stuff up here in my place, anyway."

     Magdalen slid a segment into her mouth and pressed it to her cheek with her tongue. "Does she?"

     "She has a boyfriend. I offered to hide all his letters and gifts. Cute, right?"

     "Yes." Juice squirted into Magdalen's mouth as she crushed the segment with her tongue. She drank what she could get then spat out the husk left behind. "So what else do you have to tell me?"

     "You eat oranges weird."

     "The point, please."

     "Right. Well. You know how I keep an eye on pretty much every major movement of cash?"

     "Yes."

     "There has been some freaky stuff lately. I mean, there's always freaky stuff in this city, but freakier stuff. Now, I did take into account all the shit you and Murello do. You know, large sums transferring from or to you. But there is big money coming from a lot of people to one person. Multiple accounts, but definitely one person. And I know you're having trouble with some nut controlling that Peter dude. I assume you already guessed who ever is behind it all is getting funds from somewhere."

     Magdalen sucked the juice from another orange segment. "Yes, I did. A big player. They're probably dealing like us."

     "Yeah, see, I thought that, too. At first. But the amount of money... there's no way it's what you and Murello deal in. Since you and Murello don't like to deal in certain things... it seems this person is extremely popular."

     "There's a reason we don't deal in certain things."

     "I know, and that's great. This city has been far better since you two made that pact. But this person is giving sickos what they want. They're paying a hell of a lot for it, too. I know you're already having trouble, but I figured you should know this."

     Magdalen sighed. She was finished with her orange. "Not only is this asshole trying to undermine Murello and I, they're trying to take over. They're trying to turn things to shit again."