Friday. 12:04 PM

Finding a place to park on 39th street in the early afternoon was never easy, especially not on a warm, sunny weekend, but I managed to find a spot that would fit my motorcycle with only a little searching. Dropping the kickstand, I started down the sidewalk.

The street smelled like good food and bad exhaust. Kansas City’s restaurant alley, there were restaurants lining both sides of the street, interspersed with occasional other shops, including one particular store that I had in mind.

The book store I was going to had a sign on the door claiming that it was comprised of ‘three floors of books’. That wasn’t entirely true. A more accurate sign would have said they had four floors of books, but one of them was off limits unless you knew the password.

I didn’t know the password. I did know the owner of that floor, though, which was the next best thing.

I waved at the guy behind the register as I came in. “Buck’s upstairs?”

He confirmed as much with a nod, and I navigated between the tall, half-organized shelves, to the back stairs. It was an old building, and it smelled like knowledge. I could spend hours there, perusing the stacks or just finding a corner to sit down and read. I had done that, in fact.

Buck didn’t own the whole book shop, just the fourth floor. From what I understood, it was a common arrangement. The magical community in Kansas City was only about as big as a small town, and stores either needed complex illusions or some sort of front so that they wouldn’t be visible to straights. For Buck, it was cheaper and easier to sublet a spot in an existing store than to build something from scratch.

The third floor—the highest I could go, without being granted access to the hidden stacks of magic books—was more casual than the ground floor, and more sunny and open than the basement. There were chairs, and enough space for author readings or other events to take place. If you wanted to take a book, relax, and read for a while, it was a great place to do it.

“Buck!” I said, waving to him as I unslung the backpack on my shoulder. He was in one of the easy chairs, engrossed in a book until I caught his attention. “How are you?”

“Getting by,” Buck replied, looking up from his novel. He was a little heavier set than me, and dressed casually, but he still managed to make it look clean and professional. “Here for some chess?”

His tone suggested it was a joke, so I laughed. “I’m here to sell you some ad space.”

Buck sighed. “Levi, I told you on the phone, I’m not really interested.”

“You said you’d think about it,” I pointed out, taking my laptop from my bag and setting it on the small side table by his chair. “Just hear me out.”

He checked his watch. “How long is this going to take?”

“I can go over the basics in just a couple minutes.”

“Fine.”

I’d worked on this pitch a couple times. Buck wasn’t the first to hear it, but with a little luck he would be the first to take me up on it. Pulling up the layout for Sunday’s paper, I waited, watching the loading screen. To cover the awkward pause, I added, “Heh, sorry. The software’s kind of old.”

“I don’t mind.”

The screen finally loaded, and I gestured to the page, with a blank spot where an ad could go. Right now, business for you is slow, but there’s a way to fix that.”

“Ads in your paper?” He suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Well… yeah. You aren’t currently doing any advertising, because up until now, you’ve had no good platform. Mine is the first community newspaper for the Kansas City magical scene, so it’s your first chance to get in and start getting your name out there.” I tabbed over to an alternate layout of the paper, letting a simple ad copy for his part of the book store load. “I could put this in and it’d go out on Sunday.”

“Levi…” he sighed. He wasn’t looking at the ad I’d put together. “Yours is the first newspaper because we don’t need one. There’s not a lot of us, and we talk.”

“That’s just gossip,” I waved my hand dismissively, then pointed back to the ad. “Here, if you’d just—”

“On top of that, I don’t need ads, because everyone knows I’m here. Most of my sales are direct orders, people looking to buy spellbooks that you can’t get online.” He crossed his arms, sitting back. “I told you this when you were getting started.”

“And I still think you’re wrong,” I said. “When you hear a story from a friend, you can’t know how much of it is true, if he’s telling the story right or embellishing, how much got lost in a game of telephone. I get the facts straight, and I’m thorough, and I’m working to ensure you hear everything you need to know about what’s been happening.”

“Okay, so, let me take a couple guesses here.” He leaned back, rubbing his chin. “This Sunday, you’re going to run a piece about the troll under the bridge, but you’re not sure if it’s a troll, because Cryptid Control hasn’t had a chance to go there and deal with it yet. Nobody’s done anything about the pixies by the Plaza, there’ll be a story about that. If you’re lacking content, you’ll write a story about the planetary conjunction in a couple weeks, and how that’ll lower everyone’s magic bills. You’ll run that advice column that Katrina’s been sending in and nobody reads, and that crap about getting robbed that Manolis was going on about. Then you’ll pad things out with some letters to the editor and a half page of funnies. Am I missing anything?”

“I…” He was wrong. Not about the content—he’d pretty much nailed my layout—but he had to be wrong about the viability of my paper. In frustration, I tapped a couple fingers to the side of my head, trying to think of how to rebut him. “I haven’t finalized anything yet. I’m still chasing down leads, and… and I’m going to make sure I have all my facts straight before I print anything.”

Buck smiled, and I interpreted that to mean he was satisfied, but he leaned in anyways and spoke in a lower, softer tone. “Look, I don’t mean to piss on your parade, it’s just better to get this over with early. How much have you invested in this already?”

“I’ve got some money left,” I deflected.

“And how’s your circulation numbers?”

There wasn’t a good way to deflect that. I knew the answer, I’d checked it just that morning. “A few, uh, hundred.”

“A few?”

“Two.”

He sat back in the easy chair, sipping his coffee. He probably thought that he’d proved his point. I continued tapping a finger to my temple, concentrating, thinking of how to respond.

“I’ll run the ad for free,” I said, finally.

That caught him off guard. “How’s that?”

“I’ll put it in for a month. No cost to you. When your sales pick up, you can pay me to keep them going.” I stuck out my chin defiantly. It was a gamble, but it wasn’t like anyone else was paying me for that ad space.

He sighed. “I wouldn’t make you do that.”

“I’m offering it anyway.”

Pressing his lips into a line, Buck looked at me, then finally leaned towards my computer so he could read the ad copy. “Hmm.”

I didn’t know what that sound meant. “If you think it’s terrible—”

“It’s not. How much would you normally charge?”

“That’s a half page ad, so… three hundred per issue,” I said, lowering my hand. “Discounts for a longer contract. Why?”

“I’ll give you fifty per, if you run this for the next four issues,” Buck said, sitting back. “I don’t let people work for free.”

I shook my head. “You’ve made it clear, you don’t think an ad in my paper is worth the cost of ink. I’m not running a charity. When you see your sales pick up, you can pay me, but not a second before.”

Closing his eyes, Buck shook his head and let out a breath. “Levi…”

I shut him down fast. “I’m building this business myself. I don’t need help. If you think it’s a valuable product, pay me. Until then, I’m not taking handouts.”

He gave up on arguing the point. “Alright, fine. Knock yourself out.”

I gave him my best grateful smile. “Thank you. Do you want to change anything about the ad, before I run it?”

He picked up his book, set down his coffee, and shook his head.

“Alright. Are you happy with the placement on page six?”

He didn’t look up from his book. “Mm-hmm.”

Apparently, he was done with the conversation.

I paused, then asked, “Do you sell any books on leylines?”

He shut his book, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I thought you weren’t licensed to do magic.”

I shook my head emphatically. “I’m not going to. It’s an academic curiosity, not a practical one. ‘Leylines for Dummies’, if you have it.”

He got up from his easy chair, making it creak. “Wait here.”

…

Friday. 12:45 PM

Maggie was underneath a truck when I showed up at her garage shop. It was a smallish place, smelling of oil and auto paint, and a baseball game was playing on a radio next to her feet. A couple cars in various conditions were parked inside, and I’d seen a couple more lined up on the sidewalk.

The auto mechanic side of her business wasn’t just a front. From all reports, she did good work.

The bell over the entrance jingled as I walked through the door, and I noticed a little security camera watching me. Maggie’s legs lifted, and the roller seat she was on skittered as she slid out from beneath the pickup. A bandanna wrapped around her forehead to wick away sweat, and there was a large grease stain over her cheek.

“I’ll be with you in just a moment,” she said, taking off the pair of heavy-duty rubber gloves that were covered in engine grease. “Help yourself to some coffee.”

I followed the direction of her gesture and noticed the old Mr. Coffee by the door, ceramic mugs on a shelf next to it. Never one to turn down free caffeine, I poured myself a mug, added a packet of powdered creamer, and took a sip.

Bitter.

That reminds me, I need milk.

Reaching over, she turned down the volume on the radio all the way, though I could still hear a tinny whine coming from the speakers. Getting to her feet, Maggie walked over, tossing the gloves onto the floor by her roller, finally giving me a good once-over look. “Alright, how can I— Ah, hell, not this again.”

So, she recognized me.

“Hey, it’s fine, I’m not here looking for a story,” I put my hands up defensively. “Or, I mean—”

“You’re here about the pathfinding stones, yeah?” Walking past me, she poured the rest of the coffee into a mug, then bent to get new grounds so she could make a fresh pot. “Well you can tell Manolis that if he wants his stones so much, he could at least grow a pair of his own and confront me personally instead of sending another gopher.”

I raised my eyebrows. “So you would still give them to him?”

“Oh, no.” She poured Folgers into a filter and pressed the button for the machine to percolate. “I already sold ‘em. But some basic respect would be appreciated. I don’t talk to middlemen. No offense.”

“None taken, I’m not a middleman.” I sipped my coffee as she crouched a second time, digging around in the small cupboard for a second time. “I’m not planning on reporting back to Mike about this, I’m just here to get your side of the story.”

She came up with a small flask. “If you say so.”

I took out my phone, pulling up the audio recording app. The first question of any interview. “Mind if I record this, so I can quote you?”

“Yes.” Tipping the flask into her mug, she added two shots of what smelled more like paint thinner than whiskey.

“Alright.” Pocketing my phone, I pulled out a notepad. I always had a backup. “Is this okay?”

She glared down at the paper, but nodded. “That’s fine.”

I clicked my pen and got ready to write. “Great. So, from your perspective, why don’t you tell me what happened with Mike?”

“He’s a lying piece of crap is what,” Maggie said. “Those pathfinding stones weren’t ever his, and now he’s going around telling the whole town that I’m some sort of thief.”

I jotted that down as quick as I could, already forming the follow-up question in my head. “He didn’t order them?”

“He asked me to get them shipped in, but he never paid me. A hundred bucks a pop just for the shipping fees, out of my pocket, and he expects I’ll just sit on ‘em until he can scrape the money together. Do I look like I’m rolling in cash to you?” She gestured with her arm at the garage to emphasize her point.

“I don’t see any cash,” I said, jotting down her full quote. “So you had a verbal agreement, but he didn’t pay when the stones arrived. Is that correct?”

“That just about sums it up. I don’t get enough business to keep everything you would ever need in stock. I’ve got your basics, but for anything bigger than a dowsing rod I’ve just got dealers who I keep in touch with. It’s not like I’ve got a whole warehouse just to keep parts lying around.” She gestured again, taking a sip of her coffee and giving me time to hurriedly note all that down. “Mike’s done business with me before, he knows that, but then he expects me to just sit on product for weeks at a time whenever it’s inconvenient for him to pay for what he ordered.”

My pen started to run dry on the last few words. I sucked on the tip to draw out more ink and doodled a few loops on the corner of the pad, but it didn’t do any good. “I’m sorry, do you have a pen I could borrow?”

“Here, keep it,” she said, pulling a pen from her pocket and passing it over. It had ‘Maggie’s Mechanics’ written on the side with a phone number and address, and the ink was bright red. “They’re better than business cards.”

“Thanks,” I said, clicking it a couple times and making a test mark on the corner of my notes. “So, who ended up buying the pathfinding stones?”

“I couldn’t tell you.”

I paused, glancing up at her. “You don’t know who bought them?”

“That’s not what I said. I couldn’t tell you. My client asked that I didn’t go running their name around, which makes sense, since Manolis would probably go blabbing their name around if I told him. They paid cash, and twenty percent above asking price. That’s all I really care about.”

As we were talking, my phone buzzed. I paused, took out the device, and checked the number. Fishwife lady. It was probably nothing, but before I could decide if I would ignore it, the call ended prematurely.

Maggie eyed me. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Just spam,” I replied, pocketing my phone.

She set down the mug and began untying the knot that held her bandanna in place. “I was just about to go take a lunch break. Do you have any more questions?”

I tapped the pen to my temple, considering it for a moment. “Do you work on motorcycles?”

Now that we were talking business, her shoulders relaxed and she smiled, giving me the sense that her air of hostility a moment before had been performative. Tucking the bandanna under her belt, she said, “I have in the past. You need something done?”

“Not right now, but I’ll keep you in mind next time something goes out. I, uh...” I blinked, only now noticing the tips of her ears. They were pointed. Come on, it’s rude to stare. Before I could stop it, a question passed my lips. “Aren’t you repelled by iron? How do you…”

Rolling her eyes, she gestured over to the gloves she’d been wearing. “It’s just an allergy. As long as I don’t rub my skin all over the metal all day, I’m fine.”

“Right.” I hesitated, getting my train of thought back into place. “My last guy, he was always trying to upsell me on one thing or another when I just needed a basic tune up. It got old.”

“Hmm.” Gesturing with a nod, she said, “Well, give me a call when you need me. You’ve got my number, now.”

“Thanks,” I said, stuffing my notepad back into my pants pocket. “I’ve got to get going here in a minute, anyways.”

“And, Levi?” she added, before I could walk away.

“Yeah?”

She lifted her lips and showed her teeth, but it didn’t really seem like she was smiling. “If you publish a smear article about me, you’d better watch your back.”