Play Dead by John Levitt

Jessie might have sent you. Until we know that ...”
    “Well, just as long as we’re making progress,” I said. I hunched my shoulders in resignation and headed toward the door. “I’ll call if anything new comes up.”
    “What are you going to do?” asked Eli.
    “I’m not sure. See Jessie, for one. Maybe it’s not a good idea to tell her anything, but if I stir her up a bit, maybe something will shake loose. If it does, Lou can track down Jackie again—only this time I’ll be better prepared. After today she’s bound to think we’ve been thrown off the trail, so her guard will be down.”
    “And then what?”
    “Play it by ear, I guess.”
    Eli looked unconvinced, but he didn’t say anything. After all, he didn’t have any ideas, either. I left Victor’s rather disappointed. I hadn’t expected any brilliant deductions but I’d hoped for at least something.
    When I got home, there was a message on the machine. When I hit play I heard Jessie’s voice.
    “Mason. Any luck so far? Call me.”
    So she wanted to know how the search was going. Or wanted to keep an eye on me. I had nothing to tell her but I couldn’t just ignore her call, not if I wanted to keep working for her.
    If I could get hold of Cassandra, it would help. I put the twig from her walkway, the one that was now an alarm system, on the kitchen table and stared at it hopefully. It remained stubbornly twiglike without a sign of magical activity. My mind remained as obstinately blank without a wisp of an idea.
    When you’re stuck it’s always better to do something than nothing, though. Jessie wanted to know what was up. But instead of calling her back, I’d show up at her offices downtown and see if stirring would produce anything.
    I headed over toward the Twenty-fourth Mission BART station, Lou trotting a few steps ahead of me. It was another beautiful day, and Valencia Street was as crowded as if it were the weekend. We hadn’t gone more than a couple of blocks when Lou stopped, almost tripping me. He stared fixedly down the street, then back at me.
    “What’s up?” I asked.
    He took several steps forward, stopped again, and looked back over his shoulder. So he was either telling me there was someone he wanted to follow or asking me if I wanted him to follow someone. There was only one logical person.
    “Jackie?”
    A short bark. Jackie it was. I scanned the street on both sides, but didn’t see her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t around, though. She could be shielding, making herself look like just about anyone, and if she was a block away, there wasn’t any way I’d be able to tell. After the illusion of the dead body, I wasn’t sure I could tell even if she bumped into me. But Lou could.
    A bit of a coincidence, though. San Francisco’s not that big a city, but it’s big enough so that you don’t usually run into someone you’ve been looking for by accident. So either she was keeping an eye on me, wondering if the ploy had worked, or she knew Lou would notice her and was leading me on for her own unfriendly purposes. Either way, I was game.
    I nodded at Lou and he started up again, moving purposefully, but slowly enough so I didn’t have to hurry to keep up. We passed Clarion Alley, well remembered from a couple of years ago, but Lou trotted past without a look.
    We wove through the usual Valencia crowd without incident : twentysomethings with odd hairstyles headed for their favorite cafés, homeless people sleeping on the sidewalk, Hispanic families shopping at discount stores. Then, right before we reached Sixteenth Street, something odd.
    A large branch lay across the sidewalk, blown down from God knows where. There weren’t any nearby trees large enough to account for its presence. Lou paused, then hurdled it gracefully at the same time I stepped across. I immediately felt a sticky sensation, as if I’d pushed through some gelatinous barrier. It wasn’t exactly magical, but it wasn’t normal, either. I stopped