Killing Pretty (34 page)

Samael looks at me.

“Is that what's bothering you?”

He reaches into his pocket and drops a small, gnarled red thing in my hand.

“What the hell is this?”

“Do you remember the story of Persephone?” he says.

“Not really.”

“I forgot. You're illiterate. Just eat the pomegranate seed and it will take you to the Tenebrae.”

“You walk around with a pomegranate seed in your pocket?”

“It brings back old times.”

I put it in my coat.

“Thanks. Just one more thing.”

“You want to know how you're getting back.”

“That would be swell.”

“Getting you back is trickier than sending you. Do you still have the key to the Room of Thirteen Doors in your chest?”

“I can't use the Room.”

“No, but if you can make it back to Tenebrae Station, I'm sure the key will let me bring you the rest of the way home.”

“Sure? You've done something like this before, right?”

“Of course.”

“You're lying.”

“I'm being reassuring.”

I stop and head back toward the hotel. It takes him a second to catch up.

I say, “You're not supposed to admit it when you're telling someone a comforting lie. You're the Prince of Lies. You should know these things.”

“I can bring you back with one hand tied behind my back. We can even stop for ice cream if you're a good boy.”

“That's better.”

“Well,” he says. “I should be getting back. I'll look for you tomorrow in the Tenebrae.”

“I'll wear a rose in my lapel so you know it's me.”

A Lincoln limo pulls up and a chauffeur opens the door for him.

“A rose? Funny, I always pictured you as a prickly-­pear man.”

“I'm whatever will get me rescued.”

He waves and steps into the car. It takes off, disappears around the corner. The worst thing about knowing I might be stuck forever in the land of the dead tomorrow? Now I want a hot dog, but Pink's is all the way across town and I'm goddamn exhausted. I head inside. Maybe we'll order pizza for a last meal.

C
ANDY IS WATCHING
Girls und Panzer
and eating tamales when I come in.

“Where did you get those?”

“I went to Bamboo House of Dolls. Carlos gave me a plate.”

“Did you leave any for me?”

“You don't get to eat yet. Julie wants you to call her.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“When aren't you?”

“Did you tell her the car was dented?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She wasn't happy, but at least you hadn't totaled it.”

I go into the kitchen, where the rest of the tamales are on the table, wrapped in foil. The hotel keeps garage-­sale-­grade plates and forks in the cupboards. I grab a plate, pile on a ­couple of tamales, and go back to the living room. Candy has turned down the sound on the show. When I set my plate on the table, Candy pushes it away.

“Bad dog. No food for you until you call Julie.”

“I'll call her after.”

“Your tamales are getting colder by the second.”

“I hate having a job.”

“You had a job before.”

“Running Max Overdrive wasn't the same. I was boss.”

“Really? Tell that to Kasabian.”

“I'd rather argue with Julie.”

“Now would be a perfect time.”

I get out my phone and hit Julie's number.

She picks up on the second ring. She's been waiting.

“Stark, Candy called and told me that you have new information about the Legion and their plans. I'm not even going to ask how you found it out because I don't imagine I want to know.”

“Probably not. But I have something else.”

Julie sighs.

“No. It's okay,” I say. “We just talked. Tykho told me where Vincent's heart is hidden. If we get it, I think we can put him back the way he was.”

“Where is it?”

“At the White Lights warehouse.”

“Good. The Vigil raid is set for tomorrow night. They'll take possession and keep it safe.”

“You want to give the heart to the feds? We need it right away. Before dawn, or Vincent is fucked.”

“I'll speak to my contacts. We'll get it in time.”

“And you trust the fucking feds to just hand it over? How many forms do we need to get notarized?”

“We'll make it work. Where's the heart?”

“They're going to screw this up, and if you complain they'll make it your fault and there goes your agency.”

“Stark, where is the heart?”

One room over, Vincent is watching TV with Kasabian. If things go wrong, that's all he's ever going to do until Townsend's body wears out and he floats off to where McCarthy is waiting for him.

“Beneath the fight ring on the main floor. Buried under the floorboards.”

“Good. I'll pass that along.”

“I want to go in with the raid.”

“You know that's not possible. I want you staking out the necromancers working with Tamerlan. Something you should have been doing all along, I might add.”

“More busywork.”

“Not if you do it right. We still want to know which necromancers helped at the Murphy Ranch ritual.”

“The Vigil will get that from those clowns ten minutes after they arrest them.”

“Candy has the list of necromancers you're to check out.”

I look at Candy and she holds up a sheet torn from the hotel memo pad.

“Remember our deal,” says Julie.

“I know I owe you, but you're playing this all wrong.”

“It's the way it has to be.”

“Okay, then. Is there anything else?”

“Stay home. Eat something. Go to bed and get an early start in the morning. We'll meet with the Vigil after the raid and go from there.”

“Sure. Good night.”

“Good night.”

I put down the phone and Candy turns up the sound on the TV. I reach across her and retrieve my tamales.

“What does she have you doing tomorrow?”

“Same as you,” says Candy. “Babysitting Dead Heads. We divvied the list in half.”

“You know she's making a big mistake.”

“Maybe. But I don't want to go to jail, so she calls the shots.”

“She wouldn't rat you out.”

“I don't think she would either, but I just want to be an employee with a job who does what she's told for a while, you know?”

“Yeah. I know.”

“So, do what you're told. We can talk on the phone. If you're lucky, I'll get bored and sext you.”

“Just as long as you don't mind Kasabian getting a copy. He can hack my phone.”

“I'm the only one with a laptop. He'll have to make do with hotel spanktrovision.”

I take a bite of my tamale. It's great. I used to mooch off Carlos's kitchen all the time. I might have to start again.

I say, “Life is funny, isn't it? Look at us. We're private dicks.”

“It's not where I thought I'd end up. But it's not bad.”

“We're going to have to do something about getting the store back.”

“I kind of like the place, but we can't live here forever,” she says.

“We can't afford it.”

“Yeah.”

We eat our tamales and Candy brings the rest out of the kitchen. We gnaw on a ­couple more while Candy turns on the news. Crew Cut was right. More ­people are dying all over the world. It's still just a few at a time, but more than a hundred have checked out in the last twenty-­four hours. Vincent needs to get back in the saddle.

I look at Candy.

“That thing you said the other day, about missing women. I meant it when I said I'm not getting in the way of anyone you want to be with.”

“Not now. I'm busy eating.”

“Okay. I just wanted you to know.”

She sits for a minute.

“I miss the Jades sometimes. Rinko came by with a message that one of the Ommahs is coming to town. I should go see her. And the rest of the girls.”

“The Ommahs are kind of your den mothers, right? The matriarchs?”

“That's right.”

“Going sounds like a good idea.”

“You think so?”

“Absolutely.”

“I'll think about it.”

“You do that.”

Candy turns back to the other channel.
Cowboy Bebop
is on. She hums along with the closing theme music, sounding almost happy. Like maybe she hadn't hooked up with a complete idiot after all.

I
N THE MORNING,
she leaves first. Julie loaned Candy her Prius and she wants to get to her Dead Head's place before opening, but without rushing. No scratches on the boss's wheels.

I'm supposed to keep an eye on a guy named Sabbath Wakefield. He runs his necromancer office out of a shop on Venice Beach. He doesn't have a necromancer sign in the front window or anything. He's set up as a fortune-­teller. Cards. Palm reading. Crap for the tourist trade. It says in the file Julie texted me that he makes sure the local authorities know it's all in good fun, and he greases the palms of the local cops so they spend their time hassling boardwalk weed vendors and leave him alone.

He runs the actual necromancy trade out of a back room, like a speakeasy. Only the right customers with the right passwords get past the counter to the inner sanctum. In other words, he's utterly boring. If he conjured Fatty Arbuckle and sent him down the beach on a mammoth's back, he'd still be boring.

I get there a few minutes before he opens, when I can get a parking space with a decent view of the shop. The camera Julie gave us to work with is pretty idiot proof, so I get some shots of him opening up. Checking out a few lady joggers who run by. Feeding a piece of his morning donut to a local mutt who trots away to hustle other handouts. I write it all down in my notebook. Julie is going to get a record of every person who goes in, every tarot reading, every pigeon who shits on his awning. It will all end up in my report.

Ten ­people wander in and then quickly out of Wakefield's shop in the first hour. I take photos of all of them. The mailman comes by. I get a shot of him. In another hour, six more ­people go in and out of the place. I get shots. Wakefield comes out for a smoke.
Click. Click. Click.

Two hours in and I can't stand it anymore. I dial Candy, but she doesn't answer and the call goes to voice mail. Even with the windows down, it starts getting hot in the Crown Vic. I smoke a Malediction, then another. Wonder if I could sneak away to get a cup of coffee, and curse myself for not buying a cup on the way over.

Around one Wakefield locks up and wanders down the boardwalk to a burrito place and has one with a beer. I get some discreet shots of him with his mouth full. Sexy stuff. Helmut Newton would be jealous.

Another dozen ­people go in and out of his shop. No one stays very long. Either his business is on its last legs, or he charges enough for the stuff he does in the back that he doesn't need much tourist trade and he just likes being at the beach. My guess is it's the second. He looks like a man who truly does not give one single fuck.

It's a sunny January day in L.A., but still technically winter. The sun starts going down around five. By five thirty, the sky is dark and Wakefield hasn't had a customer in an hour.

At six thirty on the dot, Tamerlan Radescu and his crew arrive at the shop. Wakefield meets them outside and ushers them in. I put the camera on infrared and snap away.

Tamerlan is inside for all of twenty minutes. Then he's out again. He and Wakefield shake hands warmly at the door. Tamerlan's men scan the crowd like nervous meerkats in case a vicious skateboarder or some bikini girls decide to race up wearing dynamite vests.

After Tamerlan and his men leave, Wakefield starts to lock up. Faced with a choice between watching Wakefield have another cigarette or following Tamerlan, I go for door number two.

Just as I pull out of the parking lot, my phone goes off. It's Candy.

“How was your day?” she says.

“I longed for Gojira to rise from the sea and put me out of my misery. But things are looking up. Tamerlan Radescu just showed up and I'm following him.”

“Aren't you supposed to stay with the other guy?”

“He's a stiff and Tamerlan was in and out of his place real quick. Just long enough for a shakedown. I want to see if he hits any other Dead Head shops.”

“I guess that's a good idea. You should call Julie.”

“Why don't you call her for me? I don't want to lose him.”

“Don't spook him. Stay cool.”

“Don't worry about my cool. I'm Steve McQueen riding a polar bear.”

“Okay. I'll call Julie.”

“How was your guy?”

“Boring too. He went to a bar down the street like ten times during the day. I kind of felt sorry for him after a while.”

“Weren't you going to send me smut if you were bored?”

“Yeah, but I got depressed watching him. I'll mail you dirty pictures from the kitchen when I get home.”

“Then I'll make this quick.”

“You do that.”

I hang up and concentrate on Tamerlan's limo. It heads onto the San Diego Freeway, then over to the 10. The fucker gets off in Boyle Heights and I have the strangest feeling I know what's going on. The limo pulls over, one of Tamerlan's men ducks into a coffee shop and comes out with a whole tray of cups. They head back on Whittier Boulevard, then turn north, straight toward the Sixth Street viaduct and the goddamn White Light Legion.

I let Tamerlan go on ahead of me. The street at the railroad yard near the Sixth Street bridge is dark, so that's where I park the Crown Vic. The dirt by the side of the road is loose and easy to pick up. I use it to draw a protective ward—­a mean one—­on the car's roof. Anyone who comes calling will go home sad, but wiser.