Stalking the Angel (19 page)

Hmmm.

I got out of the Corvette, walked up to the gate, and took a look. The drive followed the curve of the hillside for about sixty yards to where the mountain had been cut away for a large neat lawn and a large, well-lit Bauhaus house. There were garages on the right of the property with what looked like a tennis court peeking out from behind, and a guy and a girl standing just outside the entry to the house. They were both wearing pale gray pants and pale gray Nehru jackets with black leather belts. That good old Red Army look. Mimi and Kerri were framed in a large picture window to the left of the entry, talking with another boy and girl. The boy was Asian, but the girl wasn’t. The girl wore the same pale gray uniform. The boy wore baggy white pants and a too-big tee shirt. The four of them stood in the window for a while, then walked out of my line of sight. There came no cries for help, no sharp crack of gunfire, no blood-curdling screams.

I went back to the Corvette, got in, and stared at the gate. Mimi was in the house, and it appeared that she planned to stay there. It also appeared that she was safe. The smart thing would be to find a phone and call the cops. It was also the obvious thing. I sat there and stared, and after a while I started up and drove west.

Just off Beverly Glen at Mulholland I found a Stop & Go convenience store and used their pay phone. I called the phone company again, gave them my name and the number off my license, then told them the Mulholland address, and asked who lived there. The phone company voice said that there were four numbers
installed at that address, all unlisted, two being billed to something called Gray Shield Enterprises and two being billed to a Mr. Kira Asano, all billings being sent care of an accountancy firm with a Wilshire address. I said, “Kira Asano, the artist?”

The voice said, “Pardon me, sir?”

I hung up.

I went into the Stop & Go, got more change, then called the
Herald Examiner
and asked if Eddie Ditko was on the night desk. He was.

Eddie came on with a phlegmy cough and said, “Elvis Cole, shit. I heard you got shot to death down in San Diego. What in hell you want?” Eddie loves me like a son.

“Know anything about a guy named Eddie Tang?”

“What, I’m supposed to know about some guy just because we got the same goddamn first name?” You see? Always the kind word.

“Try out Yuki Torobuni.”

Eddie made a gargling sound, then spit.

“How about a guy named Kira Asano?”

“Asano’s the gook artist, right?”

“That’s what I like about you, Eddie. Sensitive.”

“Shit. You want Asano or you want sensitive?”

“Asano.”

“Okay. Made
Time
back in the sixties. Back then, he was some kinda hot shit artist from Japan, mostly because of a lot of minimalist landscape work showing empty beaches and crap. He stopped painting and came here, saying America was gonna be the new Japan, and he was gonna instill the samurai spirit in American youth. Some shit, huh?”

“The Hagakure,” I said.

“Huh?”

“What else?”

Eddie made the gargling sound again, then said, “Jesus. You wouldn’t believe what I got coming out of me.” That Eddie. “Asano founded something called the Gray Army and got a couple hundred kids to join. That was a long time ago, though. Old news. I ain’t heard about him in years.”

I said, “Is he dangerous?”

“Hell,
I’m
dangerous. Asano’s just crazy.”

I hung up and got back in the Corvette but didn’t start it. Sonofagun. Maybe Kira Asano was behind the theft of the Hagakure. Mimi would have gotten involved with his organization because she didn’t have anything else in her life, and Asano would’ve pointed out what a grand fine place the Hagakure would have in the movement. Only now Eddie knew about the Hagakure, and wanted it, and was playing on Mimi to get to it.
You and me, babe
. My, my.

A fat man in baggy shorts came out of the Stop & Go with a brown paper bag. Inside, the Persian clerk stared at a miniature TV. The fat man looked at me, nodded, then got into a black Jaguar and drove away. When the Jaguar was gone, the little parking lot was quiet except for the insectile buzz of the street lamps. Here in the mountains, the Stop & Go was an island of light.

I had come to rescue Mimi, and that would be easy enough. I could call the cops, and let them do it, or I could return to Asano’s, crash through the gate, and drag Mimi back to the safe tranquility of Holmby Hills and her mother and father. Only she probably wouldn’t stay. Something had driven her away. Something had turned her into a kid who burned herself with cigarettes and adopted a different personality for everyone
in her life and had made her want to get away from home so badly and hurt her parents so much that she had gone to incredible lengths to do it. Something wasn’t right.

I sat and I stared into the warm light of the Stop & Go and I thought about all the different Mimis. The Mimi that I’d met and the Mimi that Bradley and Sheila knew and Traci Louise Fishman’s Mimi and the Mimi who thought the kids in the gray uniforms had “purpose.”
I’m with people who love me now
. Maybe there would even be a different Mimi tomorrow. Maybe I needed to know which Mimi was the real Mimi before I’d know what to do.

At eighteen minutes after ten I started my car, pulled out onto Mulholland Drive, and went home.

At nine-forty the next morning I drove back along Mulholland, pulled up at Asano’s gate, and pressed a blue metal button on the call box. A female voice said, “May I help you?”

I said, “Yes, you may. My name is Elvis Cole, and I’d like to speak with Mimi Warren.”

Nothing happened.

I pressed the call button again and said, “Knock, knock, knock! Chicken Delight!”

The female voice said, “There is no Mimi Warren here.”

“How about I come in and talk with Kira Asano.”

“Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“Yes. Under the name George Bush.”

A male voice came on. “Sir, if you’d like to make an appointment with Mr. Asano, we should be able to fit you in sometime toward the end of next week. If you do not wish an appointment, please clear the driveway.”

“Nope.”

There was a long pause. “If you don’t clear the drive, sir, we’ll phone the police.”

“Okay.”

I turned off the Corvette, got out, crossed my arms, and leaned against the fender. After about fifteen minutes the front door opened and two Asian guys came out and started down along the drive. They wore the same cute little gray jumpsuit some of the kids wore. Gray Army. Only these guys weren’t kids and they weren’t cute. They were close to my age and had flat faces and eyes that didn’t think much was funny. The guy on the left walked with his hands floating out from his legs like he was a gunfighter. The guy on the right bounced a nightstick off his thigh in rhythm with their stride and looked pleased with himself. When they got to the gate I said, “Hey, Kira didn’t have to send a welcome wagon. I’m touched.”

The guy with the priest said, “You’re going to be more than touched if you don’t move that shit pile outta here.”

I said, “Shit pile?”

The gunfighter said, “You got no business here. You’re also trespassing. Beat it.”

I took out my license and held it up. “Mimi Warren is being sought by the police and the FBI as the victim of a kidnapping. I know Mimi Warren is in there because I saw her. If I have to leave here without speaking with her, I’ll call the cops and the FBI and you can play tough with them.”

The guy with the priest said, “Open the gate, Frank. Lemme kick his ass.” The license impressed the hell out of ’m.

Frank ignored him. “You’re mistaken. There’s nobody
here named Mimi Warren or anything like that.” Frank looked as if he didn’t like the thought of the Feds coming around. Probably had a couple of outstanding traffic warrants.

I said, “There is, and I’m going to stay here until I see her.”

Nightstick gave me you’ve-done-it-now eyes and slapped his open palm with the priest. “Open the gate, Frank. How ’bout it?” Neither Frank nor I looked at him.

Frank said, “You gotta go.”

I said, “You won’t be able to move me without the cops.”

Nightstick said, “Oh, man.” He was smiling.

Frank said, “Maybe not.” He was looking at me the way you look at someone when you’re remembering things you learned the hard way. He’d probably learned some things the guy with the nightstick would never know. He raised his right arm, and the gate lurched inward.

Nightstick stepped back out of the way, then came around. He was smiling like a loon, gripping the stick tightly with his right hand. “Last time, asshole. Move it or lose it.”

I hit him on the side of the head with a reverse spin kick just about the time he said
lose it
. The priest spun off against the gatepost and clanged against the gate and he was down on the drive. He didn’t try to get up. Frank hadn’t moved. He said, “What style?”

“Tae kwon do. Know a little kung fu. Know a little wing chun, too.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Saw the kung fu there in the leg move.”

“Where are we?” I said.

Frank shrugged. “Guess I’ll go in and tell’m you’re serious about staying. The man says move you anyway, guess I’ll come out and give it a try. I’m better than Bobby.”

“Yeah. I guess there’s that chance.”

Frank hefted Bobby over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then went back up the drive. The gate closed. I went back to leaning against the Corvette. I waited.

Twenty minutes later I was still waiting. Frank hadn’t come back, and it didn’t look like the cops had been called. Maybe they thought I bored easily and would soon grow tired and lax in my vigil. Maybe they were planning to wait me to death. Maybe they were all out back at the pool, grilling hamburgers and drinking cold beer while I stood around out front trying to look tough.

I left the Corvette blocking the gate, walked back along Mulholland and around Asano’s ridge to a fire trail, and followed it away from the road. The fire trail angled down into a little erosion gully, then slowly wrapped around the ridge toward Asano’s estate. It flattened out across the ridge crest and came out behind a little concrete retaining wall. I scrambled up the slope and the concrete wall and found myself standing by a pool. The pool decking was stained and cracked and needed repair. The pool itself was a fifty-foot oval with a discolored bottom. A slim young man in black racing goggles and a black Speedo suit was swimming laps. He wouldn’t notice the Circus Vargus troupe rumbling past.

At the far left edge of the pool was a tennis court. The court looked old and was flaking surface paint. Beyond it, the ground had been terraced in ascending levels up to the house. I walked along the length of the
pool and up three stone steps and passed two young women coming around the tennis court. One wore red pants and a white blouse, the other a sleek lapis lazuli one-piece swimsuit. The one in the suit was quite pretty. Neither of them was Mimi Warren. I nodded and smiled and kept walking as if I had just had a nice conversation with the young man swimming laps.

I walked along beside the tennis court until they were out of sight, then turned up a walk past several dwarf orange and lemon and kara tangerine trees. Fruit had dropped to the ground, and no one had bothered to pick it up. At the main house, a boy in the nifty Gray Army uniform was coming out of a set of French doors. I said, “They told me Mimi would be out by the pool, but I just went there and she wasn’t. Any idea where I could find her?”

“Try the community room on the second floor.”

I gave him a big smile and went in. The house was as large and open as it looked from the outside, with high ceilings and blond wood floors and plenty of glass to let in the view. It might have been nice except that the walls needed painting and the floors were due wax and there were cobwebs in the high corners. Maybe when you’re founding a revolution, basic maintenance just sort of gets away from you.

Every room and every wall contained large wash paintings of beaches and dunes and flat placid lakes and other lonely places, all in pale, cold colors. There were quite a few tall and spindly steel sculptures. Some of the work was impressive. All of it was signed by Kira Asano.

I was halfway up a wide curving staircase when Mimi Warren and her friend Kerri came around the corner and started down. Mimi’s nose was red and her
hair looked like she hadn’t brushed it. When she saw me she took a half step back up toward the landing, then stopped. “How did you find me?”

I spread my hands. “You’re supposed to be kidnapped. You go to clubs on Sunset Boulevard, you gotta expect to be found.”

Kerri said, “Who is this?”

I said, “Peter Parker.”

Kerri looked confused.

“Most people know me as The Amazing SpiderMan.”

Kerri turned and ran back up the stairs.

“Mimi,” I said, “you and I have to talk.” Somewhere deep in the house, doors opened and closed and footsteps sounded on hardwood floors.

She said, “I won’t go back.”

“I won’t make you go back.”

She said, “You won’t?”