Ch.169Request Log #015 – Even a Single Drop of Blood Calls the Shark (4)

I needed to get proper rest for the job. I reluctantly took one of The Morrígan’s pills that I’d been saving and swallowed it.

Sleep always wears the face of death. I staggered and collapsed onto the bed. A pleasant sense of relief washed over me. I could almost hear a comforting whisper telling me it was all over.

Sometimes when falling asleep, regrets linger in my ears. In the bartender’s voice… no, her name wasn’t “bartender.” It echoed in Sarah’s voice. Just delusions. Just regrets. Only after declaring this to myself could I finally fall asleep.

Tonight I wanted to dream after so long, but I couldn’t. Just as well. The only places I want to see in dreams are places I can never return to.

Thanks to The Morrígan’s pill, morning came. I felt like I’d lost consciousness rather than fallen asleep, simply waking up in the morning without any sense of having slept. I felt refreshed. My body was comfortable. I was ready to work.

Today I needed to visit the Heartland Hotel. Since my destination was room 603, it would be best to get room 602 or 604, or failing that, the third room on the fifth or seventh floor wouldn’t be a bad choice either.

Do people really believe promises of payment when leaving a woman at a hotel? Even with a down payment, it was too easy for either the client or the contractor to run off with the money.

If money was prepared in the hotel room, there were plenty of contractors who would take it and flee without getting involved in the crime. And there were many clients who would disappear after confirming delivery of the person without paying.

For such transactions to work properly, there needed to be monitors. One in the hotel lobby, and another where they could see if someone was actually brought to the room… no, that’s a stupid thought. It would cost too much.

Unless you gathered people who shared a purpose, keeping them quiet would be the first problem. It was too much money to spend on a woman who was merely a banker’s mistress, nothing more, nothing less.

Until now, I could understand if I thought ritual practitioners were looking for sacrifices, but even they were just subcontractors and low-level operatives. I needed to find out who was behind all this.

Today I was fortunate enough to have hot water and could wash with it. Cold water was a bit more comfortable, but hot water was more luxurious. That’s the only difference. As soon as I got out, I picked up the receiver.

Thanks to The Morrígan’s pill, I woke up after nine, so Yehoel would already be at work. I called the police station and asked to be connected to him.

The connection was reliable, but I still had to be careful. Having killed two people just yesterday, I needed to avoid giving anyone any reason to be suspicious.

“Is this Angel Yehoel? This is Michael Husband, civilian collaborator from the Husband Agency. Can we talk now?”

I’d heard someone had come down from the Holy Protection Bureau, but Yehoel answered with a slurred voice. He sounded like he’d been drinking heavily yesterday.

“Of course we can talk. Ah, ugh… I’m dying, I’m dying. Why do I have to go to work every day…?”

“I heard officials came down from the Holy Protection Bureau. How can you come to work completely drunk? If you start messing things up in there, I’ll suffer too. Hey, get your head straight.”

He responded as if just remembering. There are things one should forget and things one shouldn’t, but he was forgetting the important things.

“Ah, right. Those officials all left. What was it… direct orders from the God-President or something. They said the god they were trying to catch would be fine for a while, so withdraw… something like that. The Holy Protection Bureau guys seemed disappointed. They had all the evidence and just needed to arrest someone at some cafe, but they were stopped. Don’t ask me why. How would I know?”

I had no idea how he’d become friendly enough with Holy Protection Bureau agents to pick up such information. This guy had talent in the most useless areas.

“Seems like they have some damn plan. Anyway, our business is over here. Can you look through the case files for any disappearances? The victim was a young woman, seems like they came in while she was sleeping, put her under with some ritual, and took her… Find anything like that. I’ll contact you, so don’t call my home.”

“You bastard, you’re the only one who treats an angel like a servant. I hear others pay their collaborators something…”

“Those guys all get caught for bribery. When no money changes hands like with us, the higher-ups just give us dirty looks but can’t catch us. Besides, it’s not like I’m asking for free.”

Yehoel’s sigh traveled through the phone line. While I’d helped him advance his career, working with me was tough. It’s not easy working with a detective who tries to solve most cases in a single day.

“That’s true… Ah, I just feel like I’m the only one busting my ass, you bastard. Anyway, why target only young women? If they’re being sold, we’d be involved too.”

“I don’t know. But it seems they specifically needed that woman. They apparently kidnapped her while she was sleeping with her lover. If they didn’t specifically need her, they wouldn’t have kidnapped her that way.”

I needed something to tie together all these questions. If there were other cases, things might get easier.

“Got it, got it. I’ll look into it and call you. Ah, are you going to work past quitting time? If so, I’ll go straight home today instead of the bar.”

“I’ll try to finish before quitting time. Hanging up.”

It would be quite annoying to leave my room at nine in the morning and find no clues by the time Yehoel got off work in the evening.

With the missing person case becoming a kidnapping case, the fee would jump significantly, but I was losing the means to collect that increased fee… It might be better to call that mentor woman and get Blingkerton’s help too.

There was no reason to tell the client to hire Blingkerton as well. While it might be difficult for the client to hide that the kidnapped person was his mistress, it was easy for me.

If I provided not just information but actual help, we’d have to split it 70-30… but based on past experience, 70% of a kidnapping fee was usually more than 100% of a missing person fee.

Money is value written in numbers. Trying to earn money means placing that much value on the missing woman. I justified it with such reasoning. I left the house.

I headed straight to Littlehold. The effects of the death magic unleashed by the illegal immigrant seemed almost gone now. When every house becomes distressed property, no one pays attention to distressed property anymore.

Even the “patriotic” clothing store owner I’d seen last time must have died, as the store I’d inquired at was closed, which was quite satisfying to see. Fanaticism about the state isn’t called patriotism.

The Heartland Hotel was neither large nor, to put it kindly, cozy. It was just a small six-story building with only four rooms per floor. A shabby place.

The person at the counter didn’t even look like an employee but rather the hotel owner. Cheap suit. He seemed to have dressed up nicely, but it was obviously cheap. A man without finesse.

He looked almost like a purebred dwarf. Judging by how his speech whistled through his molars, he must have quite a bit of orc or ogre blood mixed in.

Such mixed blood was common. Even those dwarves who wanted to kill all goblins clearly had at least some goblin blood mixed in themselves.

The hotel didn’t seem to have any decent security guards. And the shabby hotel’s owner was right in front of me. So there was no need to rent a room and investigate secretly.

The Heartland Hotel’s owner, clearing his throat a couple of times at the rare sight of a guest, looked at me with a forced smile.

“Thank you for choosing our Heartland Hotel, sir. I’m McCallin Heartland. What kind of room do you need?”

“Judging by your surname, you seem to be the hotel owner. Does the hotel owner handle reception here too?”

McCallin Heartland, still unable to read my intentions, nodded proudly.

“For a small hotel like ours, that’s how it should be. I pride myself on seeing and remembering every guest who comes through here.”

Fortunately, there were no other guests. Let’s see how good this proud memory of his is.

“If a crime occurs in a hotel where you remember every guest, then it would naturally be your responsibility.”

“Ah, well… yes, I suppose so. If I hadn’t properly observed a guest, that could have happened, but, um, are you police?”

I pulled the guest book in front of him toward me. This time I didn’t use a pseudonym. I wrote Michael Husband, included my contact information, and handed it over with a business card from my wallet. Discomfort spread across the dwarf’s face.

McCallin Heartland was contemplating. He seemed to be wondering what to say to get past this situation, so I gave him a little help with his choice.

“What’s the biggest thing you’ve ever given to a hotel guest?”

He swallowed. The sound was so loud it was like throwing porcelain on the floor and breaking it.

“The suite room on the second floor. It’s quite spacious, with lots of furniture…”

“A hotelier to the bone. But I meant something personal. No matter how precious the hotel is, if it bears your family name, it belongs to your family more than to you.”

Despite the change in question, he didn’t protest. Politely folding his hands, he considered before answering in a trembling voice.

“Well, that would be kindness and… such things. Goodwill and… things like that.”

I drew the gun from the holster in my pocket. The hotel owner reflexively covered his face, but I didn’t shoot. I just removed the magazine and took out the top bullet, placing it on the counter.

“Take it. And give me the same thing this time too.”

The hotel owner, relieved he hadn’t been shot but still trembling with anxiety, picked up the bullet from the counter. He seemed about to put it in a drawer, so I clicked my tongue.

“No, put it in your breast pocket. That’s how you’ll learn the lesson properly, Heartland.”

Instead of answering, the hotel owner put the bullet in his suit’s breast pocket. He didn’t look stupid enough not to understand what I meant. His face looked like he was about to suffocate.

As his trembling lips were about to open, I tapped the counter with my gloved fingertip. He closed his mouth again. I continued.

“List all the guests who came five days ago.”

McCallin Heartland slowly began turning pages. Though it was only five pages, it looked incredibly heavy to him. Finally, the date from five days ago appeared. There were eleven names. Business wasn’t good.

As I listened to him recite details about each guest, I turned one more page in the guest book. The previous day had even fewer guests. But on that day, someone had rented the suite on the second floor.

I snapped my fingers a couple of times to make him stop talking and pointed at that name. Heartland, who was about to cover his mouth with both hands, examined the name.

It’s strange to have a suite on the second floor. Anyone staying there would be annoyed all day by the sound of other guests going up and down the stairs. In other words, there was no better place to observe other guests coming and going.

“That was, um, an ogre. He wasn’t very talkative. Ah, ah! He said he came to Littlehold looking for suppliers…”

“Was he a tailor?”

“Ah, no, no. Not a tailor, but a chef. Someone well-versed in dwarf cuisine, who said it was sad that many good chefs had died in Littlehold… He said it was fortunate, though guilty, that he could find suppliers in Littlehold because of the situation. A businessman who came with many large suitcases. Yes, yes…”

Maybe he just preferred a larger room than a dwarf-sized one because he was an ogre? Apparently not. I thought of it because the tailor seemed to know that Julia woman quite well. I turned back to the records from five days ago.

“Two people came together, with large luggage. The suitcase was big enough to fit a person, and heavy as if it contained one. Know anything about that?”

McCallin Heartland unbuttoned his shirt collar as if he couldn’t breathe, but it didn’t seem to help him breathe any better.

“I just, just received some money. They told me not to worry about what was in the luggage… so I just said, yes, I understand, and showed goodwill…”

So those ritual practitioners who received a large down payment were throwing money around. Money received is never forgotten. Unless this hotel owner was involved, there was no reason for him to be so frightened.

“Then, were there any guests who asked about who was in room 603?”

He shook his head. They didn’t seem to be sloppy operators, which made it even more puzzling why such people would target a banker’s mistress.

If they had intended to extort money from the banker, they would have left a note when kidnapping the woman or sent a letter the next day. They wouldn’t have allowed him to hire a detective.

They seemed to have no clear purpose but were meticulous in their work. Strange fellows. Room 602 and 604 were occupied by a shabby dwarf and an ogre who brought a prostitute, respectively.

If someone brought a woman, the size of the hotel room wouldn’t matter. As long as there were walls and a roof, they wouldn’t care much. I didn’t need to suspect the shabby dwarf… damn, there was no evidence.

“Obviously the two guys in room 603 didn’t leave with the suitcase, but did you see which guest took it?”

He shook his head. I hadn’t expected much from this question, which is why I asked it last… Such hopes always shattered this way. Back to square one again.

The suite guest had brought many suitcases, but that ogre was still staying here. If the staying guest had disposed of the suitcase, this dwarf would have mentioned it.

Who took it and how? There was nothing to go on. It was a dead end for now. There was only one place left to take the next step.

“The prostitute the ogre brought to room 604, what race was she?”

“Ah, that… she was human. A rather large human woman, almost like an ogre hybrid.”

Is there a place that offers ogre hybrid prostitutes? The red-light district usually had smaller races. I should visit places frequented by larger races.

I didn’t rule out the hotel owner as a suspect either. If no one took it out of here, he’s the only one who could have taken the suitcase containing the woman.

Of course, it wasn’t a good hypothesis. If this hotel owner were really the culprit, much more explanation would be needed about why he targeted a Manhattan banker’s mistress.