Free Curse of the Jade Lily by David Housewright

vernacular for an item that is missing?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    Pozderac slowly edged to where I was sitting and looked down at me. “Lily must be returned,” he said. “Immediately. See to it.” He moved to the door, opened it, and stepped out. “See to it,” he repeated over his shoulder.
    I guessed that he was speaking to Hemsted, because the man pulled out a chair and sat at the table directly across from me.
    “McKenzie,” he said. “It greatly distresses me to be forced to speak to you in this manner. I had hoped you would embrace our cause out of a sense of…”
    “Patriotism?”
    “To be blunt, Branko Pozderac is not the first asshole that our government has had to appease in order to keep the peace. I cannot go into details. I can tell you that Bosnia and Herzegovina is made up of three ethnic groups, constituent people they’re called—Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats—that were happily slaughtering each other not so very long ago. Each group has an equal share in governing the country. As you can imagine, the government is a fragile enterprise at best. So far it works. To keep it working, at least in the short term, means catering to Pozderac. He wants the Lily. He claims it’s a national treasure. We’re going to get it for him.”
    “You mean I’m going to get it for him.”
    “I’m not very good at threatening people,” Hemsted said, “but I can arrange an audit of your tax returns for each of the past seven years and every year from now until you die, at which time I’ll have your estate audited. I can arrange to have your name placed on the Do Not Fly list. I can arrange for you to have problems with your passport, your Social Security, your Medicaid, with any federal program. I can have men dressed in black interview every person you have ever met about your character, your love of country, threats you might have made against the government. I can have you detained and released over and over again as a person of interest in whatever interests Homeland Security at the moment. That’s what I can do legally. Give me time and I’ll think of a lot more.”
    “I get it.”
    “Illegally, well…”
    “I get it.”
    “I can make your life miserable.”
    “You’re mistaken, Jon,” I said. “You are very good at threatening people.”
    “Will you retrieve the Lily for us?”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “Please do.”
    He smiled then, but there was no joy in it. In fact, I could detect a measure of pain in that smile, the kind of pain that comes from self-knowledge gained at a heavy price, and it occurred to me that Hemsted might have become a prick against his will.
    “I’ll be in touch, McKenzie,” he said.
    He stood and nodded at Rask. “I am sorry about all of this, Lieutenant,” he said. “I truly am.”
    He left the room a moment later. Rask got up and carefully closed the door as if he were fighting the impulse to slam it.
    “Our federal tax dollars at work,” I said.
    *   *   *
    Rask turned slowly toward me. The scowl on his face reminded me of the Tiger tanks that chewed up Tom Hanks and his men in Saving Private Ryan.
    “Tell me about Tatjana Durakovic,” he said.
    “Didn’t I mention her last night?”
    “It must have slipped your mind. ’Course, you have a history of withholding vital information from the police, don’t you?”
    “I never actually met the woman.”
    “Tell me.”
    I did, giving up Heavenly’s name along the way, recalling our conversation without explaining the details of how we came to have it.
    “You’re saying that this Tatjana is in Ontonagon, Michigan?” Rask said.
    “I’m saying that’s where I was told she was from. I have no idea where she is now or where she was last night when Tarpley was killed. What time was that, by the way?”
    Rask paused for a moment as if he were weighing the consequences of his next statement before he made it.
    “I need a favor,” he said.
    “A favor? From me?”
    “That’s