Angel of Vengeance (7 page)

Shaking a disappointed finger at Roy, I turned back to the safe and began to toss the cash—what looked at a glance to be about forty grand or so— into the bag we’d thought to bring. When it was empty I closed it and zipped the bag and smiled at Coraline.

She didn’t notice. She was too busy staring down the barrel of the .38 at Roy. The way her one eye was swollen shut gave the impression she was taking careful aim.

“We’ve got the money, but my face still hurts, Roy,” she said regretfully.

“Coraline—” I interrupted.

“Yes, darling?”

“This wasn’t the plan,” I said.

“Stay out of it, Mick. It’s not your face he beat up. It’s not you it happened to.”

I had to admit that it wasn’t. Still, this wasn’t the plan.

“Put the gun down, baby.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She smiled. “I don’t want to. And besides, he knows my name. He can finger us. We walk out of here he’ll have the police on us in an hour.”

“No I won’t. I won’t. You can have the money. I don’t care about it,” Roy sounded a lot more sober as he pleaded for his life.

“He says that now, but we leave, he’ll start to care, Mick. It’s a lot of money. He’ll care and he’ll call the cops. You know he will.”

I knew it, despite the vehement way Roy was shaking his chins at me. Still, killing people—even ones who maybe could do with killing—wasn’t my style. Not back then anyway. We had his money. We’d given him a beating. It was enough.

“We’ll tie him up,” I said. “We’ll go to Mexico. By the time he works himself free we’ll be across the border.”

“I don’t want to live in Mexico,” Coraline said.

“Canada then.”

Coraline shook her head. “Not there either. I like it right here.” She looked highly satisfied about things as she cocked the gun.

Roy went all pie-eyed. I didn’t know eyes could get that wide.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me if I went along,” he said. “You promised.”

Coraline shook her head and smiled like a teacher speaking to a confused student. “No, Roy. What I promised was that I wouldn’t let Mick do it,” she said sweetly.

The crack of the gun left a ringing like alarm bells in my ears.

6

N
ext night I awaken with a severe hemoglobin hangover. Old blood has a way of doing that to you. Maybe the binging I did wasn’t such a great idea. In fact I’m sure of it.

I go to the mini-fridge. I pry the door open. I take stock. It doesn’t take long. Only two measly vials left. Damn. Two vials would be a modest nightly allotment, but now I’m going to have to stretch them. I curse my weakness. Then I decide to forgive myself and fix. I’m not one to hold a grudge, especially against someone I like as much as me.

I gather my tools together and sort myself out. Better. I might not be feeling like a million bucks, but at least I’m drawing interest again. I go get dressed. On the way past, I punch the play messages button on my machine. There is a message waiting for me from a Detective Coombs. He wants to talk to me. Just a few routine questions about a case he’s working on. Give him a call back at my convenience. Yada, yada, yada.

I’m not in the habit of talking to cops. They make me uneasy. Always have. If he wants me, he’ll just have to run me down. I erase the message and turn my attention to picking out an ensemble.

A sharp rap sounds at the door as I re-knot my tie for the fourth and final time. I stash my kit and go answer it. A familiar-looking rumpled Schmo in an off-the-rack suit stands there. He’s about my height, but fatter, balder, and has the look and smell of bacon about him.

“Detective Coombs.”

“That’s right. Good guess. You Michael Angel?”

I nod. I’m not in the habit of talking to cops.

“Can I come in?”

I nod again. Then I step aside to let him enter and shut the door and point him to a chair. He sits, and rubs his arms together for warmth.

“Kinda cold in here, isn’t it?”

“I like it,” I say, sinking like depression into my own chair across the desk from him. I don’t bother to explain that as a vampire I keep it that way to slow my decay. I figure that information is need-to-know only and he don’t need to know.

Coombs is irritated, but gives me a suit-yourself shrug. He stares across the desk at me a minute, then cocks his head, and gives me a puzzled look. “Have we met somewhere?”

“Oh I think I’d remember that,” I say.

Coombs has been a homicide detective for more years than he has chins and the truth is we’ve met on two previous occasions. This makes three. Another thing he don’t need to know.

He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah. Anyway, uh, I called earlier but you didn’t get back to me. Hope you don’t mind my just dropping by like this.”

I do, but I don’t bother to mention it.

“Oh, yeah, well I didn’t get your message until now. I just got in.”

“That so? You sure about that?”

“Yeah, sure I’m sure.”

“Well, the reason I ask is I’ve been parked out front for a while now. You know, filling out paperwork and such, an’ I didn’t see you come in. I only came up because I figured I ought at least knock before I left.”

“Yeah well, there’s a back way. I use it to avoid bill collectors. And cops.” He looks at my smile like it’s a new undiscovered species of expression. “That was a joke.”

“Oh, I gotcha. Funny.”

I light a cigarette, offer him the pack, but he shakes me off. “So what is it I can do for you, Detective?”

“Oh, well, see, like I said, I’m just running down some details on a case I’m working on.”

“Interesting case?”

“Oh I think so. ’Course, then I think all murder investigations are pretty interesting.”

“Murder huh?”

“The big M.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Funny, I was just gonna ask you that question. Dead guy goes—went I should say—by the name Michael Ensinger. Ring a bell?”

I scrunch my brow all up in a way I hope appears I’m giving this some real thought, then shake my head and say: “Nope. Should it?”

“Well, guy was in the
Times
a while back. He got arrested for stalking and raping a girl by the name of Elizabeth Lowery. Hurt her pretty bad too.”

“If he got arrested, what was he doing out?”

“He got off. Girl wouldn’t testify. Too scared.”

I shrug. “Maybe she did it. You think a that?”

“We did, but I don’t think decapitation would be her style.”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“So I guess that means you don’t know Elizabeth Lowery either, huh?”

“Now look who’s the good guesser.”

The detective’s face settles into a comfortable frown that looks very natural on him. “Where were you last Monday night?”

“Here.”

“All night?”

I go through the big contemplative act again and nod. “Yeah, except for running a few errands.”

“These errands, did they happen to take you by the fourteen-hundred block of Ivar?”

“No,” I say too quickly.

Coombs notices, but pretends not to. “Well, the reason I ask is because I talked to a guy who says a red Mercedes matching the description of yours was seen parked just up the street from the crime scene.”

There’s nothing there for me so I just grunt.

“You do own a red mint-condition ’57 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster, don’t you?”

I feel my head nod a response.

“Yeah, see, we got lucky, ’cause this guy who saw it happens to be a real car buff. He lives in the area and he pulled over to really check it out. Even got a look at the plate.” Coombs fishes some reading glasses out of one rumpled suit pocket and a notepad out of another. He puts the glasses on and flips the pad open and reads my plate number out to me. “That yours?”

The one drawback to having a one-of-a-kind set of wheels is people tend to notice.

“Yeah. It’s mine,” I say, with that sinking feeling that only comes when being interrogated by cops and women.

“Seems a funny coincidence, but I guess if you say you weren’t there, then you weren’t there.”

Coombs sits back, scratches his Friar Tuck dome, and waits to see if I’ll hang myself with the length of rope he’s run out for me.

I snap my fingers like I’ve just had a thought. “Oh wait, did you say Monday night?”

“Yeah, Monday.”

“Tuesday is when I ran the errands. But Monday, Monday I was near Ivar.”

“Mind if I ask what you were doing there?”

“Just visiting a friend.”

“Can I get the name of your friend? You know, for my records.” He finds a pen and gets ready to write.

“I’d rather not say.”

Coombs doesn’t give me much, just raises his eyebrows a little. It’s a neat trick. The awkward silence sits like a guilty plea between us, making me feel like I should explain, so I do. “See, my friend, she’s a married woman. Her husband travels. She gets lonely. You know how it is.”

“Oh I know,” he nods. “Tell ya what. You give me her name and I’ll be real discreet when I go talk with her. You have my word on that.”

Okay, damage-control time. I’m reluctant to use the hypnotic gaze, not knowing how many people know what at this point, but the damn guy has me painted into a corner. Moving fast, I bolt out of my seat and smack the reading glasses off the detective’s surprised face. There’s a lot at stake. Can’t take any chances on them screwing with the works. Floored by this development, Coombs sputters and spews and tries to jump out of the chair, but I pin him in place, stare deeply into his shit-brown eyes and say, “You’re fine. Calm down.”

“I’m fine,” he says, growing calm.

“Nothing out of the ordinary has happened here.”

“Nothing... ”

“The woman’s name is Marla Dupree.”

“Marla Dupree,” he mumbles.

“Write that down in your pad.” He writes it. “You already went and talked with her.”

“I talked with her.”

“That’s right, and Marla, she backed my story up. It all checked out.”

“It checked out.”

“Right. So, I’m no longer a suspect in this investigation. If it ever comes up you’ll find a way to explain it all. But aside from that, you won’t even think about me again after you leave here. We’ve never met. I don’t even exist.”

“Never met. Don’t exist.”

“That’s right. Very good, Detective,” I say, bending and retrieving his glasses from the floor. I set them back on his face and return to my chair and my cigarette. “Now I think we’re done here, so why don’tcha scram.”

Coombs stands abruptly, his meaty hamstrings screeching the chair back on the wood floor. “Scram,” he says.

I watch from behind a veil of cigarette smoke as the Detective zombie-walks to the door and opens it. In the doorway, he stops and looks back at me, a bewildered smile spread on his face.

I smile, wave. “Nice talking with you, Detective.”

“Uh yeah. Y-you too.”

“Keep up the good work,” I tell him as he steps out of my office, pulling the door shut behind him.

When he’s gone, I sit and smoke and fret. Goddamn Michael Ensinger is turning out to be more trouble dead than alive.

I could just kill the guy.

7

“C
an you tell me if Dallas is working tonight?”

“Who?”

“Dallas. I think that was her name. She danced for me the other night and I wanted to come in and see her again.”

“No girls here by that name, pal, but we got lotsa others—”

“That’s all right. Thanks anyway.”

I hang up. I cross the number out in the book and move on to the next one. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes calling every strip club I can find a listing for. Working the phone is tedious, but sometimes it pays off. I’m an hour in and halfway through my third L.A. directory when it finally does. Dallas works at a joint called the Blue Veil in Hollywood. The woman’s voice on the other end tells me Dallas will definitely be in later. I thank her and hang up.

I have some questions for Reesa so I head to the Tropicana where I am directed backstage to her dressing room. The star on the red painted door bears her name. I knock.

“Yes?”

“It’s me. Mick.”

“C’min.”

The room is only half as big again as a good-sized walk-in closet, but it is crammed full with amenities that include a costume wardrobe, an old-timey dressing blind, a television, an antique bureau, a mini-fridge and a futon. I find her seated at the bureau, painting her face in the lighted mirror there. She wears the red silk kimono I like so much. From the way it folds open invitingly just below the neck I can tell she isn’t wearing much underneath.

“Well this is a nice surprise,” she says, standing and taking my hands in hers and painting my stubbly cheek with red brushstroke lips. “Oh, look what I’ve done,” she says, rubbing out the lip-mark memento I would just as soon have kept. She takes my hat and directs me to the futon. “Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

Like a good soldier, I do as I’m told.

“Can I pour you a drink?”

“What have you got?” I ask.

With a sly smile, Reesa delves into a bureau drawer and comes out with an unopened bottle of Macallen Eighteen. “I asked the bartender what you drank after you left the other night. Hope you don’t mind.”

I don’t and tell her so. She locates a couple of glasses, pours us each a healthy belt and hands me mine.

“To new friends,” she says, glass held out.

“New friends,” I agree.

We clink glasses. We drink. She pulls the bureau chair closer and sits so that our knees touch. Times like this I wish I had more feeling in my limbs.

I start to get a cigarette out, but stop. “You mind if I smoke?”

“Not so long as you share.”

I stab two smokes between my lips, set them on fire, hand her one. She takes hold of it delicately, branding the tip with her lips like she did my cheek. “So, are you here on business or pleasure?”

“Business.”

“That’s too bad.” She smiles. “Okay, what can I do for you?”

“Well, for starters, you can tell me why you lied to me.”

The only tell that the remark has hit home is the slight catch of smoke in her throat. “What do you mean?”

“You told me Raya just ran away from Vin’s. But that’s not how it happened, is it?”