California Bones (27 page)

Daniel showed Parvis his gun.

“It’s either open your mouth or I shoot you in the eye.”

With a glare of contempt, Parvis opened his mouth.

Daniel slipped the Disneyland globe between his teeth. “Don’t spit it out, or you’ll slosh it and ignite the firedrake. I wouldn’t scream, either. It’s sound-sensitive. Your watch relief comes on in two hours. I’ll be out of here by then.”

He inspected his work. Tiger kidnapping, fake mustache, duct tape and tourist souvenirs.

He went to the door, then stopped and looked back. “Parvis, I know you’re having a bad shift, but don’t blame Chao for this. I’m responsible. Everything that’s gone to shit…”

He found himself thinking bad thoughts.

“Everything that’s gone to shit is all on me.”

*   *   *

The world was beautiful. Everything was gardens of misty roses, and wheat fields of soft gold, and clean, white sails, drifting over glassy blue water.

French Impressionism occupied two galleries and was patrolled by a single guard who paced between them. In the passage separating the two galleries, Chao peered around a corner and signaled Daniel to follow him. He took Daniel through the north gallery when the guard was in the south gallery, and by the time the guard returned to the north gallery, they’d slipped into Dutch Golden Age.

Before the Ossuary job, the idea of hitting the Los Angeles Museum of Art would have been too ludicrous for Daniel to consider. Now, he saw it was relatively easy. Or, it would have been if he’d had his crew. Cassandra would have dealt with the cameras and alarm systems. Jo would have impersonated a guard, and Moth would have dealt with anyone they couldn’t scam their way past. Also, Daniel might have gotten a little sleep first.

He just had to keep Chao in line. And what if Chao led him right into a guard patrol, or triggered some hidden alarm switch, or decided he no longer believed in the threat of the Daniel’s gun and Knott’s Berry Farm snow globe? Would Daniel shoot him? Would he electrocute him? Who was he willing to hurt to protect his friends?

“You’re doing fine,” Daniel whispered. “Just tell me this: How’s the People’s Gallery guarded?”

Chao stopped. He turned and looked at Daniel in disbelief.

“The People’s Gallery? You’re hitting the People’s Gallery? That’s the
Hierarch’s
gallery.”

“I know.”

“His personal collection.”

“I am aware of this fact.”

“You steal his shit, and he will flay you.”

“I am comfortable with my choices,” Daniel said. “And keep your voice down. How many guards?”

“Four outside the entrance.”

“And inside?”

“Nobody gets inside. I thought you already knew the layout.”

“Are you talking shit? Don’t talk shit to me. Just tell me about the guards.”

“The guys in there aren’t like me and Parvis,” Chao said. “They’re armed to the teeth with magic.”

“I think I mentioned I’m a badass osteomancer. Take me there.”

“You’re going to die, and you’re going to take me down with you.” But Chao resumed, leading Daniel through a cloud of aromas—three-headed wolf, mastodon, Pacific griffin—until they came to the source of the smell. Four guards stood before a timber door, a massive thing, banded with black iron, like the entrance to a castle. These guards wore special uniforms, of royal purple, with gold-braided sleeves and epaulettes.

“The epaulettes are too much,” Daniel said.

The guards struck poses with their trident-fang lances, leveling them at Daniel’s belly. Daniel removed the last of his snow globes from his pocket, this one from Universal Studios, and placed it on the floor.

“Tell them what I am, Chao.”

Chao sighed. “He’s a badass osteomancer.”

“That’s right. The globe’s filled with the amniotic fluid of a wyvern. Same stuff is packed in my molar. Move or speak and I’ll bite down and destroy you and the stuff you’re paid to protect. Lay down your arms and open the door.”

A pause long enough for a bead of sweat to trickle down the back of Daniel’s neck.

“Do it,” one of the guards said.

Two of them drew back the great iron bolt lock, and all four pushed the door open for him.

“End of the line for you, Chao,” Daniel said.

“And for you, too.”

“We’ll see. By the way, your girl in Modern Art? Sanchez?”

Chao glowered. “What about her?”

“I think she likes you.”

Chao’s face beamed like the sun emerging from clouds.

Hope must be a nice thing, thought Daniel. He entered the People’s Gallery.

The guards shut the door behind him and slid the bolt back into place, and Daniel went forward into a chamber dedicated to the Hierarch’s majesty. There were gifts from foreign governments: a jade teapot and rice paper scrolls and a brick from a Mayan temple. There were bronze sculptures of the Hierarch on horseback, and a B-52 tail section hanging on wires. The most splendid piece was a billboard-sized oil painting dominating the eastern wall. The Hierarch strode across the water from Catalina Island. Seas churned and foamed at his feet, and gray whales leaped from the water, like eager dogs. He seemed to smile down on Daniel, and the smile was threatening in its paternal indulgence. A brass plate identified the work simply as
ARRIVING IN LOS ANGELES
. Nobody actually knew where the Hierarch had come from. Some said he came in the 1880s from China on the deck of the frigate
Prometheus
. Others said he came up from the deserts of Mexico. Still others had him sailing an iceberg down from the Bering Sea.

The Hierarch had been in this room. He’d spent his time, wandering the gallery, admiring himself, and leaving behind osteomantically charged air as thick as tar. Daniel understood now why Mulholland had instructed him to break into the museum, to come here, to breathe the Hierarch’s air.

It wasn’t to assassinate the Hierarch.

Daniel was being fattened for the kill.

If he actually did manage to assassinate the Hierarch, then good for Mulholland. If he failed, then Mulholland was no worse off.

Beneath the painting was a modest tunnel opening. Mulholland had told him that this tunnel was the Hierarch’s private gallery entrance, but even without the water mage’s intel, Daniel would have known where it led. A familiar essence wafted from it, one Daniel had not smelled in ten years.

He breathed deeply of the Hierarch’s magic and entered the tunnel.

TWENTY-TWO

Gabriel took a Department of Water and Power service boat to the former location of his neighborhood coffee bar. From the passenger seat, Max sniffed the air. If he detected magic, Gabriel didn’t want to know about it.

In a short time, Gabriel had secured a position in Mulholland’s organization. He could requisition a boat. He could requisition water mages. He had a future at the Department of Water and Power. Patronage. Someday, maybe real power. All he’d had to do was deliver Daniel Blackland.

He killed the engine and let the boat drift. Canal lights cast wan yellow light over the black water. A few days ago, this was a vibrant place of galleries and restaurants and shops. Now, all was quiet. The current rippled, and Gabriel let it carry him along, like an amusement park dark ride.

City workers had already erected a construction fence around the charred ruins of the coffee bar. In a few days they’d have the wreckage cleared, and in a few weeks the property would be granted to someone else, and something new would be built on the site and it would be hard to remember what had stood here before. Property in Los Angeles was a revolving door.

Gabriel valued documentation and reports and spreadsheets. Records were history. Even bureaucratic records. And history was important. He flipped open a notepad, got out his pencil, and wrote, “Former Uses of 3922 W. Sunset Canal.”

He took a moment to consider before writing anything down. He liked his reports succinct.

People used to come here to drink coffee.

They played chess and checkers and backgammon and bridge and hearts.

They read
Variety
and the
Hollywood Reporter
and the
Los Angeles Times
and the
Chinese Daily News
and the
La Opinión
and the
Herald Examiner
. They read the official hagiographies of the mages. They read westerns and detective novels and
fotonovelas
.

They wrote poems and plays and novels and screenplays and manifestos.

They did crossword puzzles and sketched and doodled. They met for first dates and blind dates and for immoral and unethical affairs. They fell in love.

They were beaten with clubs and shoved through plate-glass windows. They were arrested, and they bled, and they burned.

“Max. Tell me why you killed your last handler. The true reason.”

The hound tucked his chin into his chest, as if he were trying to avoid a foul odor.

“I already told you. I wasn’t lying.”

“I don’t think you told me the whole truth. Tell me now.”

“He had power over me. I was tired of people having power over me. So I killed him.”

“Don’t I have power over you?” Gabriel asked.

“Obviously.”

“But?”

“Is there a but?”

“I’m still breathing, so there must be.”

“You never made me wear a leash,” Max said.

Gabriel had taken off Max’s leash because he thought he could get better work out of him that way. There was no kindness in the act, only utility.

“And that was reason enough to kill? Because you didn’t like someone having power over you?”

Max gave him a look, innocence combined with irritation. “Is there a better reason?”

“Fenmont Szu called me a risk taker,” Gabriel said. “I was insulted. I took some risks because I didn’t see any other choice. Now I’m about to take another one. A big one.” He glanced over at Max, in his fine gray suit and lavender tie, the profile of his nose carved sharp against the canal lights. Here was a man who had been used as a tool most of his life, and when Gabriel looked at him, he couldn’t imagine him as a boy or an adolescent. It was as if he’d come this way out of the box.

Gabriel started the engine. “If you want to leave, now would be a good time.”

“Where would I go?”

“I could get you to the desert. I have a cousin there. She could help you get out of the Southern kingdom.”

“She could? But would she?”

“She’s rich and she likes me. We used to stick gum to the bottom of pianos.”

Max sniffed. The tinge of soaked wood and smoke still hung in the air.

“I think I’ll stay with you,” Max said. “This cousin of yours would sell me back in less time than it’d take to soften a wad of gum.”

Max was probably right about that. Blood ties didn’t mean much. Nor did personal history.

Gabriel threw his notepad in the canal. The pages darkened, and his neat, precise writing blurred, and the pad sank below the surface of Mulholland’s canal.

*   *   *

Most of the great powers in Los Angeles kept private prisons in their strongholds. Disney’s was said to be sunken beneath his haunted house, but Gabriel didn’t know. Maybe he dressed his prisoners in international costume and forced them sing that “Small World” song.

William Mulholland kept his prisoners in tanks.

The room where the tanks were kept was not called a prison or a jail or even a detention facility. It was simply called “Tank Room 17.” Gabriel took note of the high number.

Tank Room 17 was chilly and damp. The floor, walls, and ceiling were lined with mint-green ceramic tiles, like a public shower. It contained a dozen cylindrical glass tanks, each eight feet tall and connected to an elaborate system of pipes and hoses. Inside two of these tanks were Daniel Blackland’s associates, Cassandra Morales and the man called Moth, whose real name Gabriel hadn’t yet uncovered. In fact, he’d stopped trying.

The prisoners were as lethal in their own ways as Blackland himself, and if not for the water mages Mulholland had loaned him, Gabriel wasn’t certain he’d have pulled off arresting them. As it was, the people he’d found hiding with them had escaped into their labyrinth of interconnected warrens and were scattered who-knew-where. Gabriel had lied and told Mulholland he was working on tracking them down, but he didn’t think Mulholland cared that much about them.

Stripped naked, Blackland’s friends floated vertically in their cells. Cassandra Morales’s hair waved languidly, like the tendrils of an anemone. Moth was stuffed in his tank like a pickle in a tight jar. They were given no breathing apparatus, but the water in the tank was rich with perfluorocarbon, which carried more oxygen than blood. They stared hatefully at Gabriel through fluid and glass.

Liquid breathing was the way we were meant to live, Mulholland had proudly declared to Gabriel. He believed man had evolved from aquatic apes, and Mulholland had some sort of mad utopian dream of returning to that natural state. Gabriel couldn’t understand why guys with power couldn’t be content to make sure people had adequate food, shelter, transportation, education, and opportunity. Why wasn’t that ever enough?

A single guard sat behind a steel office desk. He looked hopelessly bored.

“I need a few minutes alone with the prisoners.”

The guard wasn’t even armed. The tanks were sealed with custom bolts, and it took a special wrench to turn them. That wrench was kept elsewhere under lock and key. There were slots near the top of the tanks through which once a day someone sprinkled food flakes, exactly as though the prisoners were goldfish.

The guard got up and reached over his head to stretch. He yawned. “If you can spot me five minutes, that’d be great. All the water in this place but I still gotta walk through half the building to take a leak.”

And suddenly Gabriel was doing the guard a favor instead of asking for one.

“No problem.”

He waited until the guard was gone and then approached Cassandra Morales’s tank. It must have been awful to be immersed. They must have thought they were being drowned. Mulholland’s “natural state” was preceded by terror.