Hallow Point by Ari Marmell Read Free Book Online

building with them
, some newer eyes are just what we need. And I’ll tell you another thing, I won’t be shy punishing any further dereliction or carelessness. You are
not
gonna embarrass me or the department in front of an outsider!”
    Oh, for the love of… Just tell ’em all to draw their billy clubs and pound me into hamburger, why don’tcha!
    And yep, Pete—and one or two of the others I’d gladhanded personally now and again—all winced or muttered and looked at their toes.
    The rest?
    Yeah, I’d better not need the boys in blue anytime soon. ’Cept maybe as pallbearers.
    “Detective Galway,” I began, “I don’t—”
    He waved me off. “I know, I know. Gotta negotiate fees and all. Come on by the clubhouse tomorrow morning. Assuming they give us the go-ahead, we’ll have you John Hancock something.”
    “But I—”
    “Listen.” His voice dropped to a rough whisper. “You won’t just be digging for an actual burglar. I ain’t sure the old man—” he cast a glance at Lydecker that mighta qualified as subtle if it’d been at all, y’know, subtle “—isn’t putting us all on. Give him a good up-and-down, too.”
    “Yeah, but I—”
    “Go on and bunk for the night, Oberon. You look all in.”
    Swell. Even complete strangers could see I was bushed.
    Tell you square, what I’d been about to say was that they’d have to do this one without me. Been noodling on that since before I even peeled myself off the floor. I’d wanted nothing much to do with Herne even before he’d gotten himself bound to the Wild Hunt, and he was even worse now that it’d left him behind. I
sure
as shooting didn’t wanna get dragged into whatever wingding had brought him to Chicago.
    And I couldn’t get his little parting speech outta my noggin, either. Maybe he was just being melodramatic—it’s a Fae thing—but I couldn’t shake the notion that he’d been legitimately trying to warn me off. Off something other’n just him, I mean.
    That… wasn’t Herne’s style. When the Hunter says something’s dangerous, wise folks listen.
    Fuck it for now, though. Galway wasn’t wrong; I was tired. I’d
been
tired, started the night off tired, and that was before I went five rounds with a guy who wrestles bears to loosen himself up in the morning.
    And that meant I was too damn wiped to argue with Gasbag Galway. He’d just hafta find out my decision tomorrow.
    Over the phone, preferably. And given how I feel about the damn dinguses, that alone oughta put you wise to just
how
bushed I was.
    So for tonight, I just jerked him a nod, then a second more friendly one to Pete—poor guy was gonna be stuck here a while yet, with a buncha pals who weren’t feeling real pally—and made for the exit.
    Actually, sympathies for my buddy aside, I was kinda relieved he wasn’t driving me home. Hoofing it to the station and taking the L meant a longer trip, but it also meant not crossing town with an engine right in my kisser, trying to process my brain into cheap sausage.
    It was drizzling again by the time I got outside. Of course. The bulls still loitering around the property tried to hide under their caps—the two or three hadn’t been called inside—getting cold wet down their necks and cheeks for the trouble, and muttered to each other about how much longer they were expected to stand there.
    Miserable as a teetotaler’s birthday, basically.
    Not that I was a lot happier, but the cold don’t bug me as much, and more to the point, I was heading home. I squeezed past with a few polite words most didn’t return, and aimed my cheap Sears and Roebuck Oxfords south toward 18th Street station. Should be duck soup to hop the L over to Pilsen, even this time of night, and I could finally get some damn shuteye. Hell, after the wringer Herne put me through, I might just let myself snooze an extra day. Galway could wait to be disappointed.
    Whatever the case, I was done. This whole spear thing was curious, yeah, but