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It sucked to save the world and get arrested. It really sucked to get shoved into the same cop car as Marcone.
“Hey!” I protested to the kid in the driver’s seat. “How come he gets his hands cuffed in front?”
I couldn’t move my hands from where they were pinned behind me. I’m a tall guy; the cuffs were adding to my discomfort at being folded into the back seat of the car. Marcone, whose hands rested in his lap like they weren’t graced by shiny new metal bracelets, smiled slightly. “Perhaps because I made the effort to be polite, Mr. Dresden. That, and I didn’t resist arrest.”
“I wasn’t resisting! I was making sure Chicago wasn’t crushed by frost giants.”
“To the uninitiated, refusing to drop your staff and bellowing nonsensical phrases does look like resisting arrest.”
“I did drop it! As soon as the threat of imminent death was over.”
The rookie decided to interrupt. “Shut it!” he said, turning to look me in the face, probably not wanting Marcone to think he was being shouted at. I ducked the kid’s gaze. “You can share your crazy with someone at the station.”
I thought about that for a moment. “You know, if I was mentally ill, I’d definitely sue you.”
“Shut. It.”
I did. It had been a long night.
So long, apparently, that I fell asleep. I woke up when the car stopped at a red light, with my head on Marcone’s shoulder; he smelled of soap and expensive cologne.
“Ack!” I yelped, retreating to my side of the car. Marcone wore the patient brand of resigned amusement he often exhibited in my presence. Usually it provoked me into needling him; I preferred a look of irritation to one that made me feel like a clumsy kitten tripping over its paws for Marcone’s amusement. But tonight I just didn’t have the energy to indulge in our traditional alpha male posturing; instead, I fretted at the question of John Marcone playing pillow for me. Was it for future blackmail material? Or just the joy of freaking me out?
“Tired, Harry? I understand you had a busy morning before the showdown by the lake. Are you feeling well?” Marcone asked. I glared at him. I was tired enough not to pick a fight, maybe. I was by no means tired or suicidal enough to admit to a weakness. “You fell to your knees after closing the portal,” Marcone noted. “You overexerted yourself. Again.”
“Standard operating procedure,” I muttered, “and there won’t be any supernatural baddies to fight at the station, so you can skip the phony concern, John.”
“No,” he said, levelly. “Not supernatural. I’ll venture a piece of advice you’re going to ignore, but keep your wit to yourself once we get there.”
“I make it a rule not to deprive the world of my gifts,” I yawned.
Marcone shook his head.
I shouldn’t have laughed at the immediate descent of Marcone’s lawyers on the station. In my defence, the gung-ho cops that dragged me in weren’t SI, they’d ruined my already horrible day, and now they looked gratifyingly panicked. The sharks in well-cut suits weren’t going to do me any good, but I was getting a vindictive pleasure from the verbal barrage they launched at junior-cop before he could get us through booking. Sadly, I was extracted from this spectacle by Junior’s more experienced partner; the older cop callously sacrificing his rookie to some slavering briefcases. Ignoring Marcone’s polite requests that he be allowed to speak to his attorney, Senior manoeuvred us towards the duty officer.
I’ve been arrested before, but never actually convicted; a record would be pretty damaging for me, professionally speaking. I was kind of hoping Murphy might sweep in to play lady-knight in shining armour, but so far Senior seemed dedicated to booking us.
I hadn’t been paying too much attention.
“Wait, what are they charging us with?” I asked. I was pretty sure there weren’t any actual laws against anything I’d done today; I’d had the sense to toss my gun in the lake before the cops had gotten near me.
“Disturbing the peace, and possibly something regarding an unlicensed pyrotechnic display,” Marcone replied softly. “They seem a little uncertain about that... and where to hold us.”
“I’m telling you Wayne, there’s no damn space!” the duty officer snapped. Irritation made her oddly pretty as she glared up at her colleague.
“Suzie. Suzie. Are you trying to tell me every cell in this place is full? Dispatch couldn’t have mentioned that when we called this in?” Senior scrubbed a hand over his face and through his graying hair; clearly I wasn’t the only person feeling the worse for wear. “Is there a full moon out tonight or something?”
Huh. A sudden spike in arrests might have something to do with the invocation ritual I had to dismantle earlier; the heavy-duty working I’d smashed through by the lakeside had cast off a lot of psychic residue before I nuked it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the more metaphysically sensitive denizens of Chicago had hulked out a little when it was still going strong. Leaving the cops to clear up, as usual.
“I don’t mind going home if there’s no room at the inn,” I suggested helpfully.
They ignored me.
“Suze, stick them in the goddamn drunk tank if you want to, but stick them somewhere. That’s John Marcone. I’m not letting him walk even if I have to lock him in the goddamn stationery cupboard.”
Usually, I’d applaud police integrity that led to giving Marcone a hard time. I just wasn’t very interested in sharing it. “Also, I’m not with the mob, if that’s relevant.” I offered, with a tentative smile.
Marcone managed to step on my toes. “This will progress much faster if you cease contributing to the conversation.”
I contemplated kicking him in the shins, before deciding I valued our mutual pact of non-aggression too highly. He’d probably dodge. “You’ll miss my insights, when you’re stacking post-it notes and counting pens by yourself.” I muttured.
Senior cop seemed to have scored some kind of minor victory, because he broke away with a grin. “Right this way, Gentlemen,” Senior sneered the last word, which confirmed he belonged firmly to the fifty percent of the Chicago PD that Johnny couldn’t bribe his way around.
We did end up in the drunk tank. If you've never had the opportunity to spend a night in one, it’s basically just a big room where three of the walls are made of bars. There are benches lining the walls, all made out of metal. The floor is concrete. Easy to hose down after you’ve had drunks lying there in their own juices.
There were six men already in the tank, and they didn't look particularly drunk; they weren't sprawled out on the benches, but standing and pacing, throwing dark looks at one another. I was willing to bet they were shaking off the angry Hulk magic that'd been crawling through Chicago tonight. Bozo smash. Bozo grab. Great. I’d never really liked the Hulk.
As I stepped through the door held generously open by Officer Wayne, Marcone slipped in behind me, sliding his way off into one of the corners. In his dark combat gear, leaning casually against the bars, you’d never place him as a mafia kingpin; Marcone didn’t look particularly interesting. I, on the other hand, with my lanky figure and long coat the CPD hadn’t tried to relieve me of (though they had emptied all the pockets and been a little puzzled by their contents), drew a hell of a lot more attention. But at least I wasn’t cuffed anymore.
Unfriendly glances came my way as Officer Wayne made his exit, and I realised that there was a distinct lack of supervision on this drunk tank. Maybe Senior also belonged to the percentage of the Police Department that wouldn’t mind John Marcone meeting a mysterious and violent end.
It took me about five minutes to get in trouble. Sadly, that isn’t even a personal best. This time it was mostly because some overly muscled idiot decided he admired my coat, and I didn’t have the sense to give it up and ask a cop to reclaim it later. As it was, I had to duck a couple of punches.
I had no staff, no rod, and no rings. Not even my damn bracelet. Trying to evocate indoors with no foci and all those unforgiving metal surfaces around me would probably result in shattering the first law of magic into lots of little pieces. Bad idea, even if I had the raw power left.
I probably shouldn’t have made that comment about his sex life.
I was doing fine though, until one of the bystander bozos decided to club me around the back of the head. Ow.
I staggered to the floor just as a voice rang out, “Enough!” Everyone froze. It was a voice comfortable with authority, and it definitely wasn’t a cop. “I don’t intend to remain in here long, so I hadn’t bothered with introductions. But some of you may recognise me. My name is John Marcone.”
There was a chorus of muffled swearwords, and one slow “what?” hushed by a whisper of, “Gentleman Johnny.”
The guy about to kick me in the ribs stepped back, looking nauseous. “Man, if he’s one of yours, I’m sorry. He didn’t say!”
I staggered upright. “I’m not- ”
“Harry,” Marcone snapped, “I think you’ve landed yourself in enough trouble for one evening.” That was a valid point, but I did’t take well to being bossed around, even when I’m being rescued. I opened my mouth to object again, but Marcone cut me off with a wave of his hand. “Harry is not, in fact, one of mine. Nevertheless, he is off limits for the rest of our stay. Anyone to touch him answers to me.”
“Did you hit your head when that frost giant dropped you?” I demanded. Marcone’s tone had been bizarrely... proprietary.
And then Marcone was in front of me, his hand pushing me back against the bars before I could regain my balance.
Marcone was a restrained kind of man; he didn’t touch casually, and he didn’t touchme. I knew these things about John Marcone, or at least I thought I did. Our current situation continued to merrily contradict these certainties as he hissed, “Are you honestly stubborn enough to reject my assistance?”
“Your kind of assistance comes with a price tag.” I snarled back, thinking fuck it, this was it. Our tense detente was finally, inevitably, about to burn to the ground. Over nothing. Chicago might never recover.
“It’s already paid for,” Marcone said coldly. “You recall we agreed to an alliance for the evening?”
Huh. “I thought that wrapped up when I closed the gateway?”
“You thought wrong,” Marcone said, staring up at me unflinching. It’s not an easy thing, meeting John Marcone’s gaze, especially for a man who spends most social interactions avoiding eye contact. But I’m not used to having things easy.
“We got a problem here?” I looked over Marcone’s shoulder to see the familiar figure of Rawlins, just outside the bars of the doorway. The cavalry finally arrived. Go Murph!
“No,” I grinned. “No problem.”
Marcone dropped his hand from my chest but didn’t step away from me, or turn to face Rawlins. He straightened the collar of my coat idly, and I resisted the urge to slap his hands away when I realised how phenomenally stupid that would look.
“Good to hear,” Rawlins asserted, slowly. His eyes stayed focused on Marcone, as if he expected the man to abruptly start throttling me.
He wouldn’t. Not with witnesses around.
Finally, apparently satisfied with the state of my coat, Marcone turned to lean against the wall beside me. I decided that between a notoriously territorial mafia don and a sympathetic police officer, I wouldn’t get the crap kicked out of me if I accidentally fell asleep; I obeyed my weary legs and sat down.
Marcone’s lawyers sprung us an hour later.
Slightly confused, I followed Marcone out of the station. I hadn't intended to let him lead, but he slyly blocked all my attempts to overtake.
“They got me out too?” I queried, as we came to a halt outside the main entrance. What, exactly, was this was going to cost me?
“Temporary. Alliance.” Marcone said, with a slight tension in his mouth that meant he wasn’t in the mood to argue with me. A shiny black Bentley pulled up at the kerb in front of us.
“It’s dawn,” I pointed out; I’m contrary by nature. “Past alliance time.”
Marcone eyed me. “Then take it as a favour if you must. I’m not averse to having you in my debt.”
“Huh. I am. Maybe I should go and smash a car window and get sent back.” I yawned again. Damn my treacherous body.
“No,” Marcone decreed. There was that authority again, as he stiffly turned to give me his full attention. “You are going home. To sleep. You will not indulge in petty vandalism to make a point. Now please get in the car.”
A besuited lackey got out of the driver's seat and opened the back door for us. I wondered where Hendricks and Gard had ended up. At home and in bed, if their luck was better than mine.
“You,” I pointed out, “are not the boss of me, John Marcone.”
“Mr. Dresden. Enough. Your autonomy is noted. The fact that you would like to go home and sleep can, I believe, safely coexist with the fact that I would like you to do the same. For once in our long and mutually frustrating acquaintance, humor me, and get in the car.”
I opened my mouth, ready to blow him off, before something stopped me. Marcone’s posture was perfect, his voice steady, and his eyes clear. I wasn’t the only one who had suffered a long day, but still, he was there, unflinching and immovable, determined to wrap up every loose end before he rested.
“Ok,” I said, surprising even myself. The shocked blink that slipped past Marcone’s iron control was worth it, and I slid into the back seat of his expensive car.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked brightly, as he stood there watching me.
After a moment he gave one of his half-smiles and got in beside me. “Well. At least you keep things interesting, Mr. Dresden. Try not to fall asleep on me this time.”
“I’m not stupid enough to fall asleep now. God knows where I’d end up.”
“In bed,” Marcone promised, but this time his smile said things I didn’t quite understand. It was my turn to blink, and I buckled my seatbelt in silence.
I’d work it out eventually. I always do.