Magic Steals (Kate Daniels #6.5)(23)

My mother got up and left.

For a while I sat at the table crying and I didn’t even know why. About five minutes after the door closed Jim came down from upstairs and put his arms around me. I leaned against him and let him hold me.

? ? ?

MAGIC flooded during the night, but the phone rang anyway. It wasn’t for me. It was for Jim. He listened to it for a long time, while I made us breakfast and wondered why I wasn’t freaking out about the fact that someone in the Pack clearly knew Jim was spending his nights with me.

“Wait a minute.” Jim pulled the phone from his ear. “Dali? I’ve got a guy at the courthouse. Want to hear what he’s found?”

“Yes!” I waved the kitchen towel at him.

“The law firm that sent the letters only exists on paper,” Jim said. “It was active about eight years ago but Shirley retired from law practice five years ago and moved away, Sadlowski died shortly after, and Abbot died about a year ago. But the firm still exists as a legal corporation. It’s registered with the Georgia Bar Association under John Abbot.”

“The one who died?”

“No, different bar number.” Jim frowned. “This is where it gets interesting. I also had them check into the building. It’s old, pre-Shift. The records are sketchy, but apparently it used to be a strip joint.”

“I don’t see why it’s so valuable.” Strip clubs sprang up in Atlanta like mushrooms.

“It was a full-nudity strip club,” Jim said.

“And?”

Jim shrugged. “I don’t understand what the deal is either. A full-nudity license is more expensive, but that’s about it.”

“What was the name of the club?” I asked.

Jim repeated the question into the phone. “The Dirty Martini.”

“Is the license still active? Can they pull up prior owners?”

“Good idea. Check if that license is still active and see about the last owner,” Jim said. “Oh and, Tamra? Check the alcohol permit for me.”

“Why alcohol permit?” I asked.

“A place with the name Dirty Martini is likely to serve alcohol.” Jim tapped his fingers on the table. He was thinking about something. I could see it in his eyes.

Minutes passed by.

“Okay,” Jim said. “Thanks.”

He hung up and looked at me.

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“The club owner’s name was Chad Toole. He was indicted twelve years ago on money-laundering charges, convicted, and sentenced to thirty years in prison,” Jim said. “He died while incarcerated. Guess who represented him?”

“Abbot, Sadlowski, and Shirley?”

He nodded. “You were right. License is still active. The strip club hasn’t been open for eleven years, but apparently John Abbot has paid that license every year.”

“That had to cost a fortune.”

“Oh it did.” Jim nodded.

“So let me get this straight. Chad Toole owns a strip club. He gets in trouble, hires John Abbot to represent him and turns the club over to him as payment for legal services. Chad goes to prison and dies. John Abbot’s firm divides the club into five shops and sells it as retail space?”

“Looks that way.”

“I am confused. If John Abbot sold the club, what’s the point of paying for the permit?” I thought out loud. “Permits are tied to the address. John Abbot must’ve only sold four shops and held on to one. He still owns a chunk of the original building. That’s the only way his permit would be valid.”

Jim grinned. “Exactly. There is more. The club also has an up-to-date liquor permit, paid in full again by John Abbot.”

He looked at me.

“Why is that significant?” I asked.

“Because it is illegal for a full-nude bar to serve alcohol in Atlanta’s city limits. Topless bars can serve it, but the dancers have to wear a G-string.”

I crossed my arms. “How do you know that?”

Jim gave me a look. “It’s my business to know.”

Aha. “So if it’s illegal . . .”

“It’s not. This law was relaxed after the Shift and then tightened again, but Dirty Martini must’ve been grandfathered in. It is the only wet full-nudity strip club in Atlanta. In the right hands, it would be a gold mine.”

“But the club doesn’t exist anymore,” I said.

“As long as the permits are on file and the physical location is unchanged, I don’t know that the city would care.”

I leaned against the island. “Okay. John Abbot, the lawyer, secretly owns one of the five shops. He decides he wants to bring back the club. He tries to buy out the other four shop owners, so he can reopen Dirty Martini and make a fortune. Except they don’t want to sell, so he gets them cursed to get them out of the building? This John Abbot was willing to kill five people over a strip club?”

“People killed for less,” Jim said.

“I don’t suppose there is a picture of John Abbot or an address?” I asked.

“The address is the same as the former strip club. He also could hire someone to manage one of the shops for him.”

I ran through the list of shop owners in my head. “I think we can eliminate Eyang Ida and Vasil Dobrev,” I said. “They were targeted.”