The Perdition Score (15 page)

What's a bastard like that doing with a missing kid?

Or is there a slim chance I'm reading this all wrong? What if this isn't sinister and is just some kind of
Magnificent Ambersons
family spat? The Burgess family are a bunch of bourgeois pricks, but even they must take breaks from being pure evil to have dinner. I mean, Nick didn't look freaked out. He didn't scream or pound the window. And he waved to me. I had on Geoff Burgess's face and he acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to see him.

Goddammit, I hate this Mike Hammer stuff. Trying to figure out people's dirty little secrets. It's worse when they
don't have any good ones. I mean this is L.A., where everyone has a skeleton in the closet. But that doesn't make them all Mr. Hyde. Most people are just idiots, getting bounced around like pinballs by bosses and lousy marriages. They're quiet desperation types, not backyard cannibals cooking the Little League team over mesquite chips.

What if I'm wrong about Burgess? I've been known to make mistakes. I've always been best at hoodoo and hitting things, not at pondering the deep mysteries of life. Maybe I'm just on edge about what I saw Downtown. What if I dragged all that horror back home in my head?

Great. I'm going to end up a hermit like Howard Hughes, sealed up in the apartment with six-inch fingernails and my feet in Kleenex boxes, afraid of people, germs, and my own shadow.

I have another drink and another cigarette and wander downstairs.

Kasabian is counting the money in the till. The final credits for
Until the End of the World
are running on the store monitor, so I switch to the news.

A truck jackknifed on the 405. A gangbanger was shot in a drive-by near Compton. Before the show cuts to a commercial, the newscaster teases a story about an attempted kidnapping in Beverly Hills. I recognize the street. I recognize the tangle of cops and private security cars. I turn off the monitor and go back upstairs. Put on
Them
. James Arness fights giant ants in the L.A. sewer system with machine guns and flamethrowers.

Finally. Something I can identify with.

I fall asleep on the sofa.

I
SPEND THE
next day locked in the apartment waiting for a call from Abbot, Julie, or Candy. It's a long wait for nothing at all. I watch movies. Alternate spaghetti westerns with old-school Japanese horror and science fiction.
Death Rides a Horse,
then
Matango, Curse of the Mushroom People
.
The Great Silence
, then
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
. No one calls. I drink Aqua Regia, smoke, and sleep all day. By the time I think about eating something, my stomach feels like it's full of battery acid and eels.

In the afternoon, I wander downstairs when there are no customers in the store and ask Kasabian about borrowing the peeper again.

All he says is “Don't make me get the bucket.”

I go back upstairs with
Keoma
and
The Human Vapor
under my arm.

Around seven, Candy calls.

“Have you been out of the apartment today?”

“What about the thing last night?” I say, ignoring her question.

“Julie says the kid is fine. She's chasing down leads, trying to find out where he's been and who knew about it.”

I take a sip of Aqua Regia.

“It's just like when I worked for her. I solve her case and she's still mad at me.”

“She's not mad at you for finding Nick. And she wasn't mad about you solving Vincent's murder last winter. She gets upset about how you do things.”

“I solved the case.”

“You solved it your way, by breaking in, scaring the neighbors, and getting all of Beverly Hills up in arms about roving
packs of baby snatchers. Julie was a U.S. marshal. She's a bit more procedurally minded than you are.”

“And what about Abbot? I haven't heard from him either.”

“I can't help you there. Why don't we do something tonight? Want to go to a movie?”

“I'm too antsy to sit through a movie where I can't drink.”

“Want to drive to the beach?”

“I don't have a car and we don't have helmets. We'd make it about five blocks.”

“Fine. We'll go somewhere you can walk to. Let's meet at Bamboo House of Dolls in an hour.”

“I've been drinking all day.”

“I haven't,” she says, “so I need to catch up.”

“That's the most reasonable thing anyone has said to me in days.”

“See you there.”

“One hour.”

“Or sixty minutes, whichever is sooner.”

I hang up feeling vaguely better.

I put the Aqua Regia away, brush my teeth, and take a shower, scraping off the grit of this frustrating day.

I'll give Abbot and Julie twenty-four hours to call me. After that, I think I'm going to have to do something really stupid.

V
IDOCQ AND
A
LLEGRA
are already at Bamboo House when we get there. Candy chats with them while I go to get drinks. On the jukebox, Frankie Carle is playing “Beyond the Reef.” Carlos uses one of the potions he's been buying from Lurkers to spritz a civilian clown harassing a young Ludere. The guy's skin turns a pale green when the potion hits him.

“So everybody can see your sorry ass from a mile away,” he says.

The harasser doesn't need to be told to get out. He figures it out all on his own. As he hits the exit, half the bar is laughing at him. Usually I'd say the incident was the price civilians pay for playing on our turf without knowing the rules. But how dumb do you have to be to not know to back off when a woman—Lurker or civilian—is giving you the cold shoulder? Fuck him. Maybe Carlos grew the guy up a little tonight. If you go home from a bar looking like a jalapeño in Dockers, it's time to reexamine your life choices.

I bring the drinks back and give Candy hers. The three of them are talking about music. Candy and Allegra get excited about their favorite guitarists. Vidocq has them both beat when he talks about seeing Django Reinhardt in New York in the midforties.

“That's not even a little bit fair,” says Allegra. “You've been around too long to play this game.”

“Then I'll remain silent,” he says.

“Besides,
show-off,
I know Jades who saw Jimi Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival,” says Candy.

“Alas, I wasn't there,” Vidocq says. “But I did see him perform at Madison Square Garden, though I honestly don't remember the evening very well. My friends and I had taken LSD before leaving home.”

“Goddammit,” says Candy. She looks at Allegra. “We missed everything cool.”

“It's true. I never even got to try getting into Studio 54,” Allegra says. She holds a hand up to Vidocq. “And if you ever went, I do not want to hear about it.”

A small smile creeps across his face, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“Did you ever seen Robert Quine?” says Candy.

“No. That was more James's type of music,” he says.

Candy looks at me. I shake my head.

“Quine was the New York scene. I'm an L.A. boy.”

“You haven't seen enough,” she says to me. “And you've seen too much,” she says to Vidocq. “You're both useless.”

“We've been put in our place,” says Vidocq.

I nod.

“I'm humbled. Do you feel humbled? I feel humbled.”

I think just to change the topic, Allegra says, “Have you learned anything new about black milk?”

“Don't talk about that here,” I tell her. “And no. I'm still working on it.”

“I'd love to have more of it to test.”

“As would I,” says Vidocq.

I look around the room.

“I never want to see the stuff again.”

The crowd mills and flows through the bar. No one is paying any attention to us, even after Allegra mentioned black milk. I haven't been this jumpy since planning my escape from Downtown. I assume everyone is listening, that every kid with a fake ID nursing a whiskey sour is a master spy. I need to stop looking over my shoulder all the time and deal with real things in the real world.

“Have I mentioned that Candy's boss still hates me?”

Candy makes a face.

“She doesn't hate you. She just gets . . . concerned.”

“But I'm not invited to her birthday party, am I?”

“Be quiet and stop feeling sorry for yourself.”

“Tell her not to worry about me. I'm going back to the Sub Rosa council like a good boy and staying off the streets.”

“Really?”

“Not right away. I mean, eventually. Probably.”

“How about I don't mention you at all?”

“That might be even better.”

Allegra looks past us.

“I think Brigitte came in. Who's her friend?”

I look over. All I see is what might be the backs of their heads.

“Probably Marilyne,” says Candy.

The two of them head to a table with a couple of young guys in sharp suits. Film producers probably. They're all smiles and air kisses. If they're the ones financing Brigitte's new movie, are they Wormwood or just show-biz schmucks? Either way, I don't think Brigitte would appreciate me busting up her meeting, so I stay put.

“Marilyne is French,” says Candy. “When they're done with the civilians maybe we can get them over and you can compare bouillabaisse recipes.”

“Not every Frenchman is a chef,” says Vidocq.

“It's sad but true,” says Allegra. “He's better at raising the dead than making breakfast.”

“Alchemists do not raise the dead.”

“And you can't fry a damned egg.”

“Je suis désolé.”

They go on like that for a while. Friends having a drink and talking nonsense. I try to listen, but I can't. I keep flashing on angels with crates of black milk and Samael being cut to pieces.

Allegra says, “Looks like they're coming over.”

Brigitte and Marilyne head in our direction. Vidocq is telling Candy about buying King Oliver a drink in Chicago in the twenties.

“Hello, you lovely people,” says Brigitte.

“Bonsoir,”
says Marilyne happily. I think she's a little drunk.

At the sound of her voice, Vidocq stops talking and turns. His face goes slack.

“Liliane?” he says.

Marilyne turns white.

“Eugène?”

Everyone just stands there for a minute, not sure what the hell just happened.

“It is you,” he says.

“And you,” Marilyne says.

He takes a step toward her, holds out a hand. Lets it drop. Holds it out again.

“You're dead,” he says. “Long ago.”

“Not so dead after all,” she says.

He looks her up and down.

“Your hair was different.”

She looks him over.

“So was yours. You look better without those curls and whiskers.”

He nods.

“It is you.”

“So it is,” she says.

He grabs her and they hug for a long time. Too long. I watch Allegra, but can't quite read the look on her face. She's
as shocked as the rest of us and also a little uncomfortable watching Vidocq and this stranger stuck to each other like barnacles. Finally, they break the clinch.

He takes the woman's hand.

“Everyone, this is Liliane. A friend from long, long ago.”

“She's like you, you mean?” says Candy. “I thought there was only one of you.”

“Apparently, immortality isn't quite so rare as I thought,” he says.

Liliane puts her hand on Brigitte's shoulder.

“I'm sorry I never told you my secret, but then you only told me yours recently.”

Brigitte shakes her head, as stumped as the rest of us.

Quietly, she says, “It's all right.”

“So you're two hundred years old?” says Candy.

“I'm afraid so,” Liliane says.

“Holy shit.”

Allegra puts out her hand.

“Hi. I'm Allegra. Another
friend
of Eugène's,” she says a little stiffly.

Vidocq drops Liliane's hand and takes Allegra's.

“Remember, dear? I told you about Liliane.”

“I remember. I also remember you said you killed someone because she died. Only it looks like she didn't.”

That shuts everyone up. Vidocq's shoulders sag. Liliane takes hold of his sleeve. She says something to him in rapid French. He answers her the same way and they keep on like that for a couple of intense minutes. The conversation goes from grim whispers to quiet shouts, then back down again to smiles and awkward laughs.

Liliane touches Vidocq's face.

Finally, he turns back to us.

“Liliane and I knew each other back in Paris. She worked with me as I delved into the alchemical arts.”

“Kind of like you and Allegra now,” says Candy, I think trying to remind him who he came with tonight.

The look Allegra gives her is as hard as the six inches of steel I imagine
she's
imagining sticking in Vidocq's back right now.

He speaks French with Liliane, gesturing at Allegra. She crosses her arms. Shifts her weight. I know she must have picked up some French over the last year, but there's no way she's keeping up with Vidocq and Liliane's pillow talk.

I say the only useful thing I can think of.

“You want a drink?”

She nods. “That would be very nice.”

“You stay here with her,” I tell Candy.

She gives me a look somewhere between abject fear and
fuck you
.

Brigitte follows me to the bar.

“I don't know what to say,” she whispers. “I had no idea. Really.”

“I believe you. I'm more worried about Allegra.”

“The poor thing. Her lover pining for another woman for two centuries and here she is. What can she be thinking?”