"Now maybe you is telling me why you are here and then you is leaving so I don't have stranger in my house," Emil said.

  "Relax, Emil. This is about the missing folks you asked me to look into. This here is Donnie Frisk. He's been helping me learn how to be an investigator. Remember how you told me I needed to learn how to do that?" replied Sam.

  Emil nodded at Donnie. Acknowledging his presence without insulting him was major progress as far as Sam was concerned.

  "So sometimes you are taking advice I am seeing, okay? Maybe not so stupid. What are you finding? Where is friends of mine?"

  "First of all, did you know them two were working together? The missing guys?" asked Sam.

  "Yes, of course I am knowing. This is why I am asking you to be on the case. It is because I am working with them."

  "So you know what they're working on?"

  "Yes," said Emil. "My friend Hoffman is asking me, 'Hey Emil, are you knowing about Bathym the Vast?' And I say, 'Yes of course I am.' And then he is saying, 'Do you want to be working on a project with me?' And I'm saying, 'Yes of course I do, but you give me a contract when it's done that you are making.' Especially then because I am saying, you know how good it would be to be having bigger stuff on the inside than on the outside? That is what it is doing in case you are not smart enough to figure out."

  "I figured it out, Emil, good lord. You ever heard of a guy named Harold Maris?"

  "No, I am not knowing him. Why, is he... what? You tell me."

  "Hey, Emil, why ain't you tell me that you're working with these guys?"

  "OK Samantha, you first of all got to understand you didn't ask for anything. You're taking the names, asking for the addresses of houses, and then you're going. You say goodbye and then you don't ask me no questions. It's good you got yourself a teacher here because you are terrible at your job."

  Donnie laughed. Sam glared at them both.

  "Well, I'm learning," she said.

  "Yes, but Samantha, what I'm saying is maybe some things are obvious and you don't need a teacher to be like, 'Hey maybe you should ask some obvious things.'"

  "So you haven't heard of Harold Maris," Sam said, ignoring Emil's taunts. "That means we still don't know where to find this guy."

  "What are you thinking is happening to my friends? You know I know Mr. Wilson too. He is not a very nice guy but we are working together. He's a smart guy I tell you that."

  "Mr. Vargas," said Donnie, interrupting the banter. "You got a safe place you can go to for a little while?"

  "Oh no, what are you saying to me? No, I don't have no place. This is a safe place. You're telling me there's troubles? What is going on? Samantha, did you break somebody face? They are mad at you?"

  "Yeah, Emil, what we found is here. Why don't you take a look at this, go through it? I'm sure you'll spot it, smart guy like you."

  Sam handed Emil the notebook they had found in Philip Hoffman's secret compartment. The old man fumbled with his reading glasses for a few moments, putting them far on the edge of his nose. He flipped open the first few pages.

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  "Yes, yes, okay, he's making the bindings here and then doing the contract. Oh, I'm seeing you got the Harold Maris in here. This is the man you were asking me about. Okay so now we have this man being a part of the project but I am never meeting him or talking to him. That means, oh I see right here, it looks like he's not in it anymore. Maybe he got fired. Maybe Hoffman doesn't like him. You are thinking maybe he is doing some bad stuff and he doesn't like being not in the project and then he is coming and what is he doing? Is he killing my buddies? That would be so sad. I like them. Well, I like Philip Hoffman. He is a nice guy."

  "Yeah, that's basically what we got figured out, anyway. If Maris is going after diviners that were associated with the project, it might be a good idea for you to get out of dodge for a little while."

  "Okay, Samantha, it's gonna be time for your next sorcery lesson. The first thing you gotta understand is I'm gonna be okay. You can surprise diviners but if I am knowing that somebody is gonna be coming after me, you know what I am gonna be doing? I'm gonna be doing a little bit of magic so they're gonna have a really bad day if they're gonna be coming after me. Let me tell you what they're gonna be: sad in the face, angry, and they're also probably gonna be bloody, is what I'm saying. I'm gonna do bad things to them if they come after me.

  "And let me tell you this: I use Duke bindings and I use a special expensive contract to see where my friends have been going, okay? Then you know what happens? Nothing! You know what that means? When a Duke can't be answering your questions, that means somebody paid King price to hide themselves. If Maris is a big bad guy, he kill somebody to pay that price."

  Sam nodded and thought about what Emil told her. She'd still worry after the old man. She didn't want to see him get attacked under any circumstances. And he still owed her one gold's worth of training in sorcery.

  "Hey Emil, what if you went and stayed at my place? I got kind of a big house out towards the rich neighborhood, sorta fell into my lap after a case. I'd just feel better if you was over there just for a little while, a week or two maybe. I got some other folks stayin' there too. A young lady that works for me and a younger lady that I kinda took responsibility for and let her stay at the house."

  Donnie's eyebrows twitched at the mention of the house. His expression didn't give nothing away but Sam could tell he had noted the new information she'd let drip about herself.

  Donnie carefully watched everything that happened around him. Not much slipped past the guy. He must have known she had a secret or two of her own and was at least polite enough to not ask about it. Sam kind of figured after showing him her office he knew she wasn't rich. At least not continually so. Her wealth came in fits and starts and was taken almost as soon as it was gained.

  "Mr. Vargas," Donnie said. "It really would be a good idea for you to just not be in your apartment for a little bit, while we take a look into this Maris guy. I don't know if he's responsible but I do know the two people that worked on this project have disappeared. You're the third person. That means he might come after you if he's coming after anybody."

  "You're knowing something else. Let me tell you this: sometimes," Emil began, holding his finger up to both of them. This was his favorite teaching pose.

  "Sometimes," he continued, "there is Dukes versus Dukes, okay? And they is keeping secrets from each other. So I am asking a Duke for what happened. But Bathym he says 'No!' and they is secret from me. Maybe what happened is that Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Wilson have some kind of success but they also are fucking up. Maybe what happens then is that now they have a problem where they are trapped in a weird space they made because they are trying to mess with forces of nature. If they're doing that maybe, you know what? Maybe nobody is the bad guy and they are just fucking up."

  Donnie and Sam glanced at each other. This was a strong possibility and, given the situation, a simple explanation.

  "How would we figure that out?" asked Sam.

  "I don't know," said Emil. "Maybe Mr. Wilson has more than just his office. I remember you saying you're going over to his apartment. You're not telling me anything that you found in his apartment. Did you ever go over there?"

  "Yeah, that's our next stop if you didn't know where to find Maris. Wilson's office was already cleaned out. That's our last physical location to go investigate before we hit a dead end and have no idea where to find Maris."

  "Well hold on now, Sam," said Donnie. "That's not quite our only stop if we don't find Maris. I got a couple more ideas about how we can find the guy, but you're right. Let's head over to Wilson's apartment to see if we can pick up the trail of Harold Maris there.

  "Maybe you can show me if you learned how to get past the doorman."