Angel of Vengeance (13 page)

“’Preciate that,” I say. “How ’bout the face? I’ve already taken two in the chest tonight.”

“You think I’m mufuckin’ playin’ wit you, fool? You think dis here some kinda mufuckin’ joke?”

“No. You’d have to have a sense of humor for that.”

Leroy looks over at Ugly. I can smell the rage in his system. “Shoot him in da leg, dawg.”

Figuring I’ve been shot enough for one night, I give Ugly the eye and say, “Point the gun at Leroy.”

Ugly’s eyes ice over and he slowly pivots the gun so that it’s pointing past me at his boss. It’s fair to say that Leroy is more than a little flabbergasted by this development. Can’t say I blame him.

“Aw no you ain’t. I know you ain’t pointin’ that mufuckin’ gun at me. You musta lost yo’ mind, fool. The fuck you be thinkin’?”

“Last chance, Leroy. You can still limp away from this.”

Leroy ignores me. He only has eyes for his traitorous pal. “You my bitch, bitch. I’m tellin’ you right the fuck now, you best get that gun outa my mufuckin’ face.”

The gun wavers ever so slightly. Got to give it to Leroy, he wields a lot of control. Too bad for him it’s no match for my hypnotic gaze.

I lean close to Ugly and whisper in one soup-bowl ear. I have to get up on tiptoes to do it. “Keep the gun on Leroy. Don’t let him move. Anything he tells you to do to me, you do to him. I’m gonna go move the truck. Nod if you understand.”

Ugly nods. I head for the Navigator.

“Where the fuck you think you be goin’, fool?” Leroy asks. When I don’t answer he turns back to Ugly. “I be tellin’ you for the last time. Get dat gun off me and shoot that mufucka in the leg!”

The Glock fires with the Navigator’s engine. Together the clap of the gun and the rumble of the engine sound like summer thunder in the garage. I look out the passenger side window to see Leroy collapsed amid his crutches at the side of the Benz, a fresh bullet wound just above the knee in his one remaining good leg.

I move the truck. When I get back to the Benz, Leroy is sitting up clutching his leg, in the middle of an angry tirade. Can’t say I blame him.

“What the fuck? You mufuckin’ shot me, bitch! What the fuck you be thinkin’? Fuck!”

His boy doesn’t answer on account of he is still under my control, but Leroy doesn’t know it. Ignoring all the bleeding and yelling, I climb into the Mercedes and start her up.

“Mufucka’s gettin’ away, bitch. Shoot him. Shoot him right mufuckin’ n—”

Blam!
Leroy takes another bullet. In the shoulder this time. It drives him down hard on his back to the oil-stained floor like a tackle from a linebacker. It’s no more than he deserves, but I don’t feel good about it.

“Fuuuuuuuck!”

Much as I’d like to stick around and have a midnight snack, the gun was too loud. People will have heard. The cops will be coming.

Time to go.

I crank the window down so I can give Ugly one last instruction. “Help your friend,” I say. I figure it’s the least I can do.

And the most.

15

I
drive east to the Blue Veil. It’s been a long night, but I still intend to find out what Callie-Dean knows about all this, even if it means being less of a gentleman than I would prefer. But I’ll leave that up to her.

When I get there, I locate my favorite mitt-faced waitress, who tells me that Dallas hasn’t shown up for her shift. No call. No nothing. With a bad feeling rolling around in my stomach like two greasy ten-pound bowling balls, I leave and drive to Callie-Dean’s house as fast as the Roadster will take me. I park on the street. The house is dark and sullen behind the chain-link. Not even a porch light burns tonight.

I get out, walk up, try the door. It is unlocked. Not a good sign. I take my gun out and turn the knob and shoulder it open. It opens like a mouth; the darkness inside illuminated by my night-vision eyes.

Everything looks exactly as I left it until I get to the bedroom. I smell her before I see her. Callie-Dean lies naked and lifeless atop the pink cotton-candy covers, her eyes staring into the nevermore. Blood and brains create a grisly Jackson Pollock on the headboard behind her. The nine-millimeter hole in her forehead looks like a peephole into hell.

I look for the gun. I don’t find it. Because suicides can’t dispose of guns I rule that out as a possibility. It’s thinking like that that makes me so good at what I do. The girl was killed. The question is why? And by who?

I nose around. I find her cell phone tucked beneath one blood-saturated pillow. I fool with the tiny goddamn buttons until I figure out how to get into her dialed call log. According to the log, the last call she ever made was the one to me.

Swell. Now I’ve got trouble. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that once the cops discover her body, it’ll only be a matter of time before they check her call log and then stop by my place with their sneaky cop questions. I make a mental note to purge my place as soon as I get home. The last thing I need is for them to decide to search and find vials of blood linking me to Vin Prince or any of the others.

There’s nothing else for me here. The blood still in Callie-Dean’s body will have gone bad as rancid milk by now and be just as useless to me. Damn shame. I pocket the phone, planning to dispose of it on the way home; no sense making it any easier for the cops to find me than it will already be. I close Callie-Dean’s accusatory eyes and leave her the way I left her the night before—except more dead.

I smoke and drive. I ditch the cell in a rain gutter. My watch tells me it’s going on one-forty-five in the A.M. I’ve been so busy tonight I haven’t had any more time to try to figure out where Reesa lives.

I head to the Tropicana. I get there too late. Closed. Looks like this lover boy is out of luck.

I turn and head back along Melrose to the Benz when I see her trumpet player—a short, soft, bald egg of a guy—exit a side door and carry his case over to a dark sedan which sits in a side lot.

I detour. I slip up vampire-quiet behind him, clap a cold hand on one round shoulder. He starts, turns toward me, raising the black trumpet case as if for protection.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle ya,” I lie.

“That’s all right, buddy. What can I do for ya?” His eyes are wary.

“I’m a friend of Reesa’s. I’m supposed to meet her tonight, but I don’t have her address.” It’s no good. I sound like a stalker, even to me.

“You crazy? I don’t know you. I’m not giving you her address.”

“Okay, but just so we’re clear: you know it, you’re just not going to give it to me. That right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.”

Good enough. I move up close, throw an arm around him like we’re old friends just in case anyone’s looking, and jab my gun into the soft-boiled fat of his belly.

“Any way my friend here could convince you to change your mind about that?” I ask, my eyes selling near-death experience for all they’re worth. “I mean, you don’t really want to die tonight, do ya, pal? Not over something as stupid as an address...”

He sucks in a breath, pisses himself a little, jitters the address to me. A condo in Westwood. Wilshire Corridor. Upscale. She must be doing well to afford a place like that.

I thank him and give him the gaze and tell him to kindly disremember the conversation. He assures me he will. I start to leave, but then—not sure exactly why—turn back and tell him to hand the trumpet over while he’s at it. He does it, easy as you please. I take it and walk away fast.

It feels good under my arm after all these years.

16

I
get to Reesa’s building a little before two-thirty. Twenty-three stories of pristine white stucco standing in wait to try its chances against the next big quake. I park at a metered spot up the street. I pull my kit from beneath the seat. I fix.

While I drowse, I dreamily open the black case and take the trumpet out. She’s a knock-out. Her white polished brass gleams like a silk camisole in the streetlight. I hold her. I fiddle with her pearl-white buttons. I even put her to my mouth. We kiss, short and chaste, and then I put her back without playing a single note. Not on the first date. It’s too soon for that. She wouldn’t respect me in the morning if I did.

I get out and go see Reesa up on the thirteenth floor.

“It’s late—” she says when she opens the door. She has on a black silk kimono tonight that matches her mood.

“I know. Sorry. Got a little busy with the case.”

“You could’ve at least called.”

“You’re right. You want me to go?”

“I didn’t say that, but if I let you in you’re going to have to make it up to me.”

“That right?”

“Mmm-hmm. And it won’t be easy either. Could take all night.”

“Well I’m a hard worker.”

“You’d better be.” She grins now, dropping the act and throwing her arms around me. We kiss right there in the hall. It’s like the first time only more familiar. Hungrier. Better.

I let her take me by the hand and pull me inside and shut the door. I look around. The place is dim and neat. Minimalist. Very L.A. feng shui. A low table sits in front of an expensive cherry-wood futon, a bonsai at its center. High-heeled shoes and assorted sneakers mingle on a reed mat just inside the door. Oriental dragon paintings cover the walls. A fat Buddha leers knowingly at me from beside the fireplace. Candle-lit paper lamps flicker light around the room. It reminds me of an opium dream. Reesa bends at the knee in the manner of a Japanese wife and removes first one of my shoes and then the other. She looks up at me as she places them on the reed mat next to hers.

“Drink?”

“Maybe later,” I say.

She stands with a grin and leads me across a red and black and white oriental carpet to a bedroom, hidden behind a pair of black-slatted rice-paper doors.

The room is dark, only lit by candles. We kiss at the edge of the bed. Careful of my wounds, I shrug out of my jacket and start to unbutton my shirt, but she pushes my hands away and does it for me. She stops, seeing the gauze straightjacket around my torso.

“What happened?”

“Bad paper cut,” I say.

It earns me a smile. “Oh, tough guy, huh?”

I shrug.

“Well you should be more careful opening envelopes.”

“Good advice.”

“So you’re okay?”

“I’ll live,” I lie.

“Can you—I mean, do you still want to?”

“Sure. Just so long as you’re gentle.”

“I make no promises,” she says, pushing me down onto the embroidered comforter with a mischievous grin.

I watch her make the kimono disappear into shadows and I know that somewhere God exists. She comes to me, gentling in between my legs. She stares down at me, red locks hanging in her face. The unread contract sits between us again. This time I pick up the pen and sign my name.

In blood.

Afterward, we lay in a tangle of bed sheets and limbs. The smell of spent passion hangs like cordite in the air. It hasn’t been like this for a long time.

Hell, maybe it’s never been like this.

“You’re amazing,” she says breathlessly as I roll off of her slick and hungry flesh for the fifth time. “I’ve never met a man who could keep up with me. I mean, even on coke or meth, all the guys I’ve been with have needed to rest in between. How do you do it? Are you using tantra?”

“Something like that,” I say. I could tell her that as a vampire I have some control over where the blood in my body goes, but I don’t. I feel her shiver against me and reach down to pull the rumpled comforter over us. “Cold?”

“Just a chill. It’s strange. Even after all that, your skin is so cool to the touch. Cold almost.”

Her words snap me back to reality, reminding me of all the myriad reasons this will never work out between us. It also reminds me of another thirst that will soon need quenching.

“Let’s go again,” she whispers in the dark, rolling over and reaching down for me.

Feeling the approaching sunrise counting down like a time-bomb inside me, I gently set her grasping hand aside. “Can’t,” I say. “Time’s up. Gotta go.”

She gives me a disappointed “No,” then a “How come?”

I stand and play a game of hide-and-go-seek with my clothing. “I won’t lie to ya, doll. The truth is if I’m not home by dawn, well, I’ll turn into a pumpkin.” Reesa giggles. “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

She shakes her head like a little girl. “No.”

I pull my pants on. Propped on one arm, she watches me. “So was this just a—you know—a one-time thing?”

“Weren’t you counting? It was a five-time thing.”

She laughs again. “You know what I mean.”

“You tell me.”

“I’d rather it wasn’t.”

“I guess I’d rather that too.” I mean it, even though I know all this has us on the dead-end express straight to Nowheresville.

“Good.” Looking tired-eyed now, she bites the head off a yawn and says, “Maybe next time we can try your freezer out.”

“You wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh I dunno. Might be kinky.” She gives me that too-cute smile as I shrug into my jacket with a wince.

I tell her we try doing what we did tonight in there and the only kinks she gets will be in her neck. Then I bend and kiss her goodbye and leave her smiling in the dark.

17

G
as as a form of execution was first conceived by a toxicologist by the name of Dr. Allen McLean Hamilton. The initial idea was to simply gas condemned inmates while the poor dumb bastards slept in their cells. When that didn’t prove workable, the sadistic powers-that-be settled on the gas chamber. Seen by some as more humane than shooting, hanging, or electrocution, the idea caught on. It became the main form of execution for San Quentin penitentiary in 1938.

Kept hidden away in the prison basement like a shameful family secret, the San Quentin gas chamber looks like what it is: a death room. No way anyone would mistake it for a sauna. Just the sight of its octagonal six-by-eight witch-skin green metal walls is enough to make you go all weak in the knees. You enter it through an airtight oval door—the kind you see on submarines. The first thing you notice going in is that there are two chairs instead of just one, presumably in case the warden should find himself in a Noah’s Ark kind of killing mood. Through five large square windows, stone-faced witnesses watch as the guards belt you into the chair with worn leather straps.