Species (15 page)

16

I
t took Press a long time to answer the telephone. Fitch could imagine the guy in his room, sprawled across the bed in front of the television. He’d probably have the Sports Channel on, some used-up former athlete with a toupee blathering on about this year’s rising basketball star. But Press was a thorough if not always obedient worker; no doubt the photographs of the destruction at the compound and the two killings were spread across the bed with him—along with a few empty beer bottles.

“Yeah?” Press’s voice sounded groggy.

Finally,
Fitch thought with irritation. “The conductor’s credit card has turned up at the Sunset Palms Motel in Hollywood,” he said curtly. “The van’s out front and ready to roll. We’re leaving in thirty seconds, so—”

There was a sharp crash on the other end and the line went dead. Fitch winced at the noise and pressed his lips together, then headed toward the van, grinning at the thought of Lennox cussing in his room and trying to shake the sleep out of his head enough to function, tripping over smelly bottles as he searched for his shoes.

Well . . . maybe not. The man
was
a professional, after all. While the others climbing into the van looked pressured by the sudden orders and still muddled from sleep—Dan was carrying his socks and shoes—Press was probably already fully dressed, completely alert and in the elevator on his way down. Still, Fitch would bet Lennox really hated him right now, or at least a little more than usual. And that was okay.

The feeling was mutual . . . for
all
of them.

“W
ell, here’s a classy place,” commented Press. He jerked his chin sardonically at a dirty window and ledge on the left side of the building. “What do you say—let’s go for the drive-up room.” Dr. Fitch ignored him and steered the van under the arch above the driveway of the Sunset Palms Motel.

“Why would she stay here?” Dan asked, craning his neck in an effort to see out the side window. “The Biltmore’s much nicer.”

“She wouldn’t know any better, or care,” Stephen answered as Fitch brought the vehicle to a lurching stop. The team scrambled out and headed toward the motel’s front door, where the clerk stood waiting, his hands jammed into the back pockets of his jeans.

“The woman claiming to be Angela Cardoza—what room is she in?” Fitch grabbed the younger man’s arm. “We don’t have time to waste. You were notified—”

“Hey, man, let go.” The clerk shook him off. “You’re gonna wrinkle the shirt. I know who you are.”

He made an exaggerated show of straightening his sleeve and Press stepped forward, a black scowl twisting his features. He was easily a head taller and thirty pounds more powerful than the motel employee. “We’re not screwing around here, buddy.”

The greasy-haired clerk blinked and held up his hands. “Take it easy, man. She’s gone, anyway—took off right before the card number came up as stolen.”

“Where’s her room?” demanded Stephen. “Did she leave anything in it?”

“Nothing,” the clerk said slyly. “I checked.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you did,” growled Press.

The smaller man shrugged. “Hey, go and see for yourself.”

“I intend to,” Press declared. He brought a hand down on one of the guy’s bony shoulders in a pseudo-friendly gesture, but hard enough to make the joint give an audible pop. The weaselly man gasped as Press squeezed and beamed at him companionably. “In fact, I’ll do that personally a little later. You’ll be a swell guy and make sure everything’s there, won’t you? You know, all that stuff the . . .
maid
probably moved?”

The clerk’s Adam’s apple bobbed jerkily as he swallowed. “Sure, yeah, sure. I—I can do that.” They all heard his sigh of relief as Press lifted his hand and folded his arms.

“That security camera up there,” Stephen said, pointing toward the ceiling. “We’ll need to see the film.”

The clerk shook his head. “Forget it. I’d have to—”

“Oh, I think you’ll do whatever it takes,” Fitch snapped. He pushed his face close to the other man’s. “Or haven’t you got a clue yet? Maybe you’d rather explain to the owner that your failure to cooperate is why I had the place shut down for the next two weeks. And maybe you’d like to do
that
from the comfort of a federal jail cell.”

“Okay, okay!” The clerk threw up his hands. “You got it—gimme five minutes.” He stalked through a door off to the side that had a handwritten sign marked
EMPLOYEES ONLY
taped on it and they heard him rummaging around and cursing under his breath. A couple of minutes later, just before Fitch was about to start screaming at him, the guy came back with an ancient black-and-white portable television balanced atop a battered, bottom-line-model VCR.

“Hurry it up, would you?” Fitch glared at the man, and Stephen grinned to himself as the clerk seemed to downshift visibly, moving even more slowly than before.

Finally he got everything plugged in and turned the set on, then hit the play button on the VCR. He fiddled with the fast-forward and rewind buttons awhile, then paused the machine. “There,” he said, “that’s her.”

“Is this the best picture you can manage?” Laura asked, peering at the small screen.

The clerk folded his arms peevishly. “This ain’t a video store, honey. What you see is what you get.”

“And there’s certainly not much around here to
see,”
Laura said with a pointed look. She turned back to the screen.

“Do you have any idea where she went?” Fitch asked. His eyes were glued to the picture. “Even a guess?”

“Yeah—well, maybe. She said she wanted a good place to meet a man, so I told her about the club around the corner, the ID.” For a moment the group fell silent and the clerk looked at them, perplexed. “What’s so strange about that, right? The way she was dressed, I figured her for a hooker, though she looked like she’d be a little pricey for this place.”

“Give me the tape,” Fitch said. The guy opened his mouth to argue then thought better of it, and ejected it from the machine. He handed it over. “We’ll send this to the lab and have it enhanced, see if we can get a better look at her.” He glanced at the other members of the team. “In the meantime, next stop—

“The ID.”

17

T
he ID was L.A.’s biggest club, and the sight of it dazzled Sil. Converted from an old movie palace, the outside looked like something she’d seen during her television scans, only on a smaller scale. Around a massive, arched entrance, graystone walls rose three stories above sidewalks inset with glittering mica. As the clerk had told Sil, a line of people stretched three blocks back from the club’s entrance, and she simply walked beside the line until she found the front doors. Compared with some of the women standing sullenly in line, her outfit was nearly conservative. Her legs, though, were better than most: sheathed in a nearly transparent fabric of shimmery black gold, they were long and sleek and impossible to ignore. As it turned out, they were her ticket to get in.

“Hey, you. Legs.” A big-muscled bouncer with a thick, flat-topped crew cut guarded the club’s entrance. He gestured at Sil and flicked his head in the direction of the dark doorway behind him. “You’re in.”

Sil smiled at him and walked purposefully forward, oblivious to the jealous mutterings from those still forced to wait at the front of the line. Passing through the heavy, beamed doors was like nothing she’d ever experienced; inside was a huge room, crashing with movement and people and flashing lights that periodically tried to blind the patrons. Presiding over everything was the music, immense and relentless, pounding from dozens of unseen speakers in the high, blacked-out ceiling, sending waves of energy coursing through the atmosphere. Sil hesitated just down the wall from the entrance and looked around, formulating her next move. In the center of the enormous area was a giant, circular bar made of diamond-plate sheet metal and chromed railings. Suspended above it, a line of television monitors followed the generous curve of the bar, all screens showing sexy but dated images from black-and-white movies. Above those, midway to ceiling level, were two all-but-naked dancers bathed in multicolored lights while their hair blew in all directions, swept by the brisk currents of concealed fans.

For a little while Sil gawked, excited by the motion and hundreds upon hundreds of people, women dressed in every imaginable kind of clothing, men cruising along, their eyes flashing with sexual energy. Eventually she pushed her way to the bar. When somebody got up, she seized the opportunity to sit among the other women preening around the bar, watching as some bounced with the music or twined their fingers in shining curls, while others dipped their fingers in glasses filled with strawberry-sweet drinks and chewed their bottom lips engagingly.

Sitting straight on her barstool, Sil realized that her low-cut black silk blouse covered her far more than any of the clothing worn by the females around her. She crossed one long leg over the other, exposing more smooth thigh, but it wasn’t enough to attract attention. A woman with blond hair, like hers but considerably longer, drifted past with a lazy sway in her walk. Sil saw several of the handsome men milling around the bar turn to watch, saw their gazes drop to the woman’s midriff, skin bare and tanned below a tight, cherry-colored tank top. Sil’s own blouse was tight but masked far too much; in one smooth move she pulled it free of her skirt and slid it over her head. Underneath she wore a black lace bustier trimmed with a thin, gold ribbon that perfectly complemented the tight miniskirt and shimmery stockings, and no one appeared to notice the blouse she let drop to the floor behind the barstool.

As Sil scanned the crowd a nice-looking guy with brown hair locked eyes with her. She looked boldly back, then blinked when, after about five or six seconds, he dropped his gaze and turned his back, shooting a final, mystified look in her direction. She couldn’t understand it—what had gone wrong? Brow furrowed, she watched him openly for some time, noting that every time he looked over at her, he seemed increasingly uncomfortable. Finally, Sil saw him catch the gaze of another woman, just as he had with her. But this woman didn’t hold his stare as obviously as Sil had; instead, she met his eyes, then fluttered her lids and looked down at her drink, repeating the ritual several times. At last the guy walked over and started a conversation as he slid into the space next to her at the bar.

Sil’s eyes narrowed as understanding dawned. The males needed to feel
dominant,
and her refusal to look away had made her seem too brazen, too strong. She would not make the same mistake again.

“What’ll it be?”

Sil swiveled on the barstool, then realized a bartender had stopped nearby but was talking to someone else, a young man with sun-streaked hair and a face that was attractive enough to be on one of the television screens with which she was becoming so enamored. The guy felt her gaze and smiled at her. “Hi,” he said. The bartender shrugged and moved away to wait on someone else.

“Hi,” Sil said in return. She gave him her best smile then carefully averted her gaze for a second or two.

He turned in her direction and casually leaned an elbow on the bar. His skin was deeply tanned and his teeth were very white. Despite his closeness, the color of his eyes was impossible to see because of the wildly flashing lights. “Where’re you from?”

“I’m . . . foreign,” Sil answered. She fingered a strand of her hair as she tried to plan her next words.

“Really?”

Sil wasn’t sure whether this was the right thing to say, but she never got the chance to find out. As she opened her mouth, still not sure what her next words would be, another girl weaved through the crowd and stumbled into the man standing next to Sil. Quite pretty and apparently drunk, she had auburn hair that fell past her shoulders in thick waves and cascaded onto a full bustline that was nearly coming out of her black leather vest. When the man who’d been talking to Sil caught the girl’s arm and helped steady her, the other woman gave him a moist grin. “Hi,” she said. Her voice sounded vaguely slurred. “I’ve got a party to go to and no one to take me.”