Free Abracadaver (Esther Diamond Novel) by Laura Resnick

looked at me again. “That’s his name?”
    “The guy is smart. He don’t miss much,” said Lucky. “I’m not Wonder Boy’s biggest fan, but—”
    “Because of Esther?” John asked.
    Lucky scowled. “Because Lopez is the cause of these unconscionable intrusions of privacy that are hurtin’ the perfectly legitimate business interests of Victor Gambello and a bunch of our associates.”
    “Oh!” John said in surprise. “He’s in charge of the investigation into, um . . . that?”
    The Chens never mentioned Lucky’s criminal life. It was a feat of considerable tact, given that Lucky had been deeply involved in Gambello business for decades and was famous—or notorious—in certain circles.
    “No, I think his lieutenant is in charge of the case,” I said. “And it’s a big investigation, involving a bunch of detectives. But Lopez is the one who found some key evidence, and he’s been making a lot of the recent arrests.”
    “Is Detective Lopez . . .” Nathan glanced anxiously at Lucky. “Is he still making arrests? I mean—should you leave town for a while, Alberto?”
    “It’s okay, Dad,” said John. “A cop at the scene of the shooting today told Uncle Lucky he’s in the clear.”
    Nathan looked relieved. He asked Lucky, “This is definite? You’re sure?”
    The Chens had been worried about Lucky during the OCCB’s recent sweep through the Gambello family. Lucky had been worried, too, in fact, and he’d been hiding out here in the funeral home before finally learning earlier today that the cops weren’t looking for him.
    “Definite,” said Lucky. “Detective Lopez and I kinda bumped into each other today, and to give him credit, he told me fair and square, they got no evidence against me.”
    “
That
was Lopez?” John said to me. “That cop who told us that?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh.” John looked bemused for moment, then shrugged. “He didn’t seem . . . Well, I guess after Uncle Lucky told me about the guy who didn’t treat you right, I pictured this cop walking around with
jerk
stamped on his forehead. But that detective seemed like an okay guy.”
    “He is an okay guy,” I said. “We just . . . never mind.”
    “And he seemed like he was on top of things, too,” said John. “Good at his job, I mean.”
    “He is good at his . . . Can we talk about something else?”
    “How about we return to my point,” said Lucky, “which is that Detective Lopez would notice if there was something weird about Quinn. I don’t mean that Quinn’s
not
weird. I just mean, if Lopez don’t see it—even after spending every day with the guy for a few weeks—then we sure ain’t gonna see it just from meeting him once or twice.”
    “Yes, you’re right,” said Max, who’d had a frown of concentration on his face while the rest of us had been talking. “Another police interview or a social encounter is likely to be insufficient exposure for our purposes. Especially if Detective Quinn is a skilled dissembler, as we suspect may be the case. It would be advantageous if we could monitor him for a protracted period.”
    “You mean, spy on him?” I asked doubtfully. “Follow him?”
    “Don’t you think a detective would notice something like that?” said John.
    “Especially if he also has mystical power?” I added.
    “Mystical . . . Oh, you mean if he’s someone who can animate a corpse, for example?” said John.
    Nathan said faintly, “Between John nearly being killed and then Mr. Capuzzo . . . Well, this is turning out to be one of the worst days of my life.”
    “Hang in there, Nate,” said Lucky. “We’re on it.”
    “It’ll be okay, Dad,” said John. “I’m fine, Susan’s in jail, and Dr. Zadok—I mean, Max—knows about stuff like our—our . . . stuff like this.”
    “We need to get in this cop’s life and dig deeper,” Lucky said to Max.
    “Yes, we shall have to find a way,” Max agreed.
    Lucky said hesitantly to me, “It seemed