F³ The Secret

           I put my lobster roll down. “Okay, so obviously you know there’s lots of supernatural stuff out there. I’m sure you’ve encountered horrors that I don’t want to know anything about,” I whispered.

            She nodded. “Yeah.”

            I glanced over my shoulder again, then slowly turned back to her. “What you don’t know is that there are, well, for lack of better terms, librarians, archivists. Their whole deal is to keep knowledge. They’re practically immortal. They don’t age, don’t succumb to disease. They can be killed, but that’s it. And they just live to record knowledge and give it out.”

            “Are serious?”

            “Listen, they’ve almost been wiped out a bunch of times. Witch trials, purges, whatever. For a long time they were considered property of powerful people. They were advisors. Even heard of one that was chained in a special dungeon so the Chinese Emperor could visit and be the only one to receive the knowledge.”

            “Fuck,” she drew the word out.

            “Others hid themselves from people in power, looking to get the knowledge out to everyone. First they migrated as traders, and a lot of them became monks, you know, scribes. They would copy books but also write their own and slip in corrections when things were wrong.

“When the printing press becomes a thing, they finally see a new way out, not just handing things out piecemeal, but preserving knowledge for all time. But they didn’t realize just how much other crap humanity was going to print off, too. So it all gets lost in the mix. Even with the internet, they’re just a tiny voice among the millions. But I was able to pick up on stuff, one who actually is pretending to be a librarian here in the city. Most people just want the usual, every day stuff, but I get special consideration because I’m always asking for the older stuff, the stuff that hasn’t had a chance to get out as much. I don’t know what I’d do if she ever left or got killed or something.”

“Holy shit, that’s amazing!”

“And it’s total BS,” I said, picking my lobster roll back up.

“Wait, what?” Her expression was shock bordering on anger.

Oh well.

“Total BS. Made the whole thing up. I told you. I research this stuff, piecing it together like a puzzle. The wise guy, ancient one, librarian, or even singular book that has all the secrets is a total fabrication. Doesn’t happen.”

“You bastard,” she scowled.

F³ Duct Tape in The Glove Box

           “You really need a bigger trash bag in your car,” Cait said, tossing yet another foil and wax paper ball into the empty takeout bag.

            The car smelled of butter and lobster. I was on my third roll; she had just finished her fifteenth. Storm riders had an impressive metabolism.

            “I don’t expect someone to show up with fifteen pounds of seafood, you know?”

            “Well, that’s an oversight on your part. Thought you would have all sorts of stuff. You know, be prepared. Trash bags, duct tape, shovel.”

            “Duct tape is in the glove box. As for the rest, I’m a private investigator, not a mob hitter.” I sucked a drop of butter off my thumb before it could fall onto my shirt and joint the others.

            Kate shrugged. “Not just for mob hits. You know, vampires and such.

            I just shook my head, taking another bite. “So,” I said around the mouthful of lobster and bun “how’d it all pan out?”

            She shrugged again, using a napkin to wipe an impressive amount of butter of her mouth. “They went into the thing and sweat for hours. They come out, they’re okay. Melissa said it was a cleansing ceremony.”

            I nodded. “Common to a lot of cultures. Lots of bad juju out there, so you gotta have a way to get rid of it.”

            “How do you know about this stuff?”

            It was my turn to shrug. “Research.”

            “There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

            I gave her a hard stare, then looked around to see if we had attracted any attention, then made sure the windows were up tight. They were because it was still drizzling rain.

            “You can’t be too careful,” I muttered. I leaned closer to her, dropping my voice to a whisper. “You gotta swear not to tell anyone.”

            She leaned in, too, the nodded. “I swear.”

            “All right, here’s the skinny. . . .”

F³ Stakeout Food

            I had tailed Kyle Wilson from work to racquetball at the gym to the apartment of his mistress in Fairhaven. The place was quite a step up from the condo he and his wife had in Meriville. Thanks to a car camera setup that Ira had turned me onto, I was able to get pictures of the woman answering the door and letting Kyle in. This wouldn’t be enough to close the case, but I’d have to wait around to get the pics Kyle’s wife would need.

            Really wish this had been a gypsy curse.

            I didn’t like these kinds of cases, but it was just the nature of the business that I would get a lot of people thinking—or wanting to believe—something supernatural was going on, even when it wasn’t.

            Gypsy curses are easier to fix than a broken marriage, too.

            I settled in for the long stakeout, pointing a laser microphone at the living room window so I’d know when to move to the backyard and get pictures through the bedroom window.

            Suddenly, thunder cracked above, making me jump. Instead of the usual drizzle of rain Belport usually got, a full on downpour ensued, making me roll up the window or get completely drenched.

            And then my phone rang, the ringtone telling me who it was.

            “Kate,” I answered, “I’m working a case. Go away.”

            “I have lobster rolls,” she said.

            “I’ll text you where I’m at,” I said.

            Lobster rolls made for great stakeout food.