Dead Things (3 page)

“Okay. So . . .”

“We wanted to say thank you and give you your payment,” Brigitte says.

“And a warning,” Samedi says.

Ah, I knew something was wrong.

“Piss on his payment and his warning,” Kriminel says. He’s cracked open the bottle of Johnnie Walker and is pouring it into his open mouth. Most of it ends up down his shirt. Glad I didn’t buy anything expensive.

Brigitte pulls a small leather purse from her handbag, hands it to me. I open it up. Doubloons.

“This isn’t what we agreed on.”

Kriminel gets right up my face, spitting as he says, “Who do you think you are, making demands?” The longer they stay in their hosts the more the hosts will begin to resemble them. Already Kriminel’s host is starting to smell like grave dirt and decay. I push him away from me.

“I know,” Brigitte says, hesitating and looking like she’s bit into a lemon, “but we are having trouble. Kriminel agreed too hastily and we were bound by it. We don’t understand what a ‘bank transfer’ is.”

And apparently couldn’t find someone who did. “Don’t you blame this on me, Brigitte,” Kriminel says.

“I understand,” I say. There’s no helping it. “Not a complaint, merely an observation. This is more than adequate.” I know a guy in New Jersey who can move the coins, so that’s not a problem. “You said something about a warning?”

“Beware what you trust,” Samedi says.

“Oh, it’s one of
those
warnings.” Some things like to be cryptic, some things have to be cryptic. And some are bound by old laws to be cryptic only about certain things, like prophecies and fortunes. Seems this falls into one of those camps.

“I wish we could say more,” Brigitte says. “We like you.” She glances over at Kriminel, who’s finished the scotch and has moved onto the shampoo on the bathroom counter.

He scowls at her. “Fuck him,” yells Kriminel. “Fuck him to hell.”

“Well, Samedi and I like you,” she says.

“We would hate to see anything untoward happen,” Samedi says, “and lose one of our most talented friends. So please, take care.”

“Can we leave now?” Kriminel says. “I’ve run out of things to drink.” Good thing he hasn’t noticed the minibar. His shirt and face are caked with shampoo, scotch and shaving cream. I feel sorry for the guy he’s taken over. That is going to be one nasty hangover in the morning.

“Yes,” Samedi says. “You have your payment, we have given your warning.”

Kriminel is the first out the door, muttering something about black roosters, Samedi right behind him. Brigitte stops at the threshold, turns to me, puts a hand on my cheek. She searches my eyes for something.

“Truly, beware. Things have already been set in motion, but your part has not yet begun. It starts tonight.”

What would be so bad that they would hand deliver a warning? And get Kriminel to go along with them?

I close the door behind them, wondering what Brigitte meant, when the phone rings.

I stare at it like it’s a rattlesnake. Coincidences are few and far between with magic. I wait for it to stop and kick over to the hotel’s voicemail. It’s got to be a wrong number. Nobody knows I’m here.

And I mean nobody. I’ve got so many redirection spells inked into my skin it’s a wonder I can find myself on a map. Sure, I can be tracked, but it’s not easy.

Five rings. Ten, twenty. I disconnect it from the wall. It keeps ringing.

That’s what I was afraid of. It’s
that
kind of call.

We get into a rhythm, the phone and I. It rings. I don’t answer. I can do this all night. I let it go and toss back a couple more drinks.

There’s a banging on the wall from my neighbor, a muffled shout telling me to answer the goddamn phone. I let it ring some more.

The more it goes on, the more pissed off I get. Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to track me down. I’ve got a voicemail number I check every few days for clients and job offers. It’s easy to find.

Finally, after the ringing’s gone on for almost half an hour, I pick it up, say nothing.

“Hello Eric,” says the voice on the other end. Quiet, hesitant. “I know you’re there.”

Now there’s a voice I haven’t heard in a long time. No use denying it. “Been a while, Alex. What, ten years?”

“Fifteen.”

“Tough to track me down?”

“Yeah. You’re not easy to find.”

“Good. I’m not supposed to be.” I hang up the phone. It starts ringing again before I get the handset into the cradle.

More ringing. More shouting from the neighbor.

I might as well talk to him. It’ll just keep going. I pick it up. “I give up already. What?”

A beat of silence, then, “Lucy’s dead.”

I want to ask “Lucy who?” but I know who he means. I haven’t seen my younger sister since I left Los Angeles behind. Is Alex right? Has it been fifteen years? That would make her, what, thirty-two?

“What happened?” I say.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Alex, the fuck happened?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the phone. If he’s expecting me to wail and gnash my teeth he’s going to be waiting for a long time.

“Murdered,” he says. “Something attacked her in her home.”

“Some thing? I assume you’re not talking about an animal.”

“No. Though the cops are saying that. They don’t know what else to call it. Eric, she was torn apart. It’s bad. And it stinks of magic.”

“When did it happen?”

“Couple weeks ago. Been trying to track you down since.”

There’s no question in my mind that Alex might be wrong. Lucy wasn’t powerful at all, but she would have known enough to buy wards for her home, something. Unless she blew through the inheritance and trust fund she got after our parents died, she’d have been able to afford it.

This numb feeling is shock. I’ve been here before. A wave of grief starts to crack through. I want to scream. Beat something. I slam that feeling down, bury it where it can’t get to me, where it can’t get in the way. I can control it or it can control me.

“Do you know who did it? Or why?” My voice doesn’t even crack.

“No. I tried a divination when I was in the house, but whatever did it covered its tracks really well. But I’m wondering . . .”

“What?”

“Well, I know it’s been a long time, but, Boudreau? That is why you left, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why I left.” That’s a name I haven’t thought of in years. Haven’t let myself. Put it behind me, never looked back.

“Well?”

“Hang on. I’m thinking.”

I left L.A. in a hurry. Didn’t tell anyone I was leaving, but everybody had to know why I disappeared. I killed a guy named Jean Boudreau. I was as surprised as anyone else when it happened. I was raw then. Angry. I’ve learned a lot since.

He ran a mob that was fucking around with magical types. Had some powerful mages on his side. Pissed off a lot of people when I killed him.

“No,” I say. It can’t be him. “I don’t think so. You ever hear of a guy named Ben Duncan? Black guy. Probably be in his fifties now. Was working for Boudreau.”

“I stayed out of that mess, man. As much as any of us could.”

“Smart. He was pretty high up the food chain. Got hold of me after it happened. Gave me a choice. I bail or he’d kill me, Lucy, and pretty much everybody else I know.”

The silence on the other end of the line stretches a long time.

“Well, that explains a lot,” Alex says, though something in his voice tells me it doesn’t excuse anything.

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. Now’s not the time to get into it.

“There’s no reason he would have done anything,” I say.

I’m trying to treat this like it’s a job. But my control’s wavering.

“Where are you now?” Alex says.

“New Mexico.”

I haven’t thought about Lucy in a long time. Our parents are long dead, and I’ve never heard of any other family.

Fuck. Somebody needs to make arrangements. Set up the funeral.

How do I do that? I don’t go to funerals. Hell, I don’t go to cemeteries. I hang around real dead people. Nobody dies in a fucking cemetery.

I’m getting dizzy, short of breath.

“Funeral. I need to . . . Fuck. Alex, I need to set up a funeral.” The room starts to spin around me.

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “It’s done. She’s with your mom and dad. I took care of it.”

Suddenly I’m angry at Alex. I was supposed to do that. I’m her brother. I couldn’t make her safe when I was there and I couldn’t make her safe when I left. The least I could have done, the least Alex could have let me do, is set up her fucking funeral.

Did a lot of people show up? I don’t know even who her friends were. Was she dating anybody? Did she get married? Holy fuck, what if she had kids?

I pull myself together. Take a deep breath.

“Right. Thanks. I’ll be out there in, fuck, give me a couple of days. Where can I meet you?”

“I run a bar in Koreatown. I’m there every day.” He gives me the address, a place on Normandie, and his phone number.

I’m not sure which of us is more surprised. Him about me coming out there or me that he owns a business. Last I saw Alex he was running short cons down in Hollywood using magic to bilk marks out of cash. Jesus, what else has changed?

“There’s a bouncer,” he says. “Tell him you’re there to see me. He’ll let you in.”

“Sounds like an upscale joint,” I say.

“I prefer to keep the riff-raff out.”

“I’ll see you there.”

I hang up the phone, realize too late I didn’t ask any of those questions about Lucy. I’d get him back on the phone, but that wasn’t the kind of call that leaves a return number. I get my breathing under control, fight the urge to throw the phone across the room. Do it anyway.

They say you can’t go home again. Guess I’m about to find out if that’s true.

Chapter 3

The early morning sun bleaches the landscape. Scrub brush, dirt. Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Kind of view that’ll drive a man crazy. I’m exhausted and look it. Spent the night running scenarios in my head, coming up with a plan. Too many unknowns. Anything beyond, “Get to L.A.” is pretty pointless. But I keep trying, anyway.

The desert isn’t helping. I’ve had everyone from the guy at the motel counter to the woman I bought my coffee from tell me it’s a dry heat. Yeah. ’Cause that somehow makes it better.

As a guy I know from Texas is fond of saying, “Fuck all y’all.”

I’m not a fan of the desert. Not the heat, the dryness, or the magic.

Most of us don’t have enough power to light a monkey’s fart, much less chuck a fireball, so we tap into the local pool. The way the flavor of soil leaches into wine grapes, so the character of a place leaches into its magic.

The desert tastes dry like dust and wind. Air spells are easy here. Water spells take a bit more effort. Go down to the Everglades and it’s a different story.

Down there it’s all wild green and wet, loamy earth. The insane growth and deadliness of the swamp is great for plant magic, fertility magic, death magic.

I cut up through to the 82, head west and down to Alamogordo and Holloman Air Force Base. The magic tastes of airplane fuel and oil, hot metal and order. The feeling stays until well after White Sands.

Each city is different. Their character is in their people, their history. New York is heavy like brick and mortar, metallic like hammers. San Francisco is dark and intricate like gold-filigreed chocolate. Vegas tastes like despair.

I don’t know what L.A. tastes like, anymore. It changes. Tears itself down, builds itself up again. Recreates itself a thousand times in one day. One block it’s the heaviness of Kabbalah, the next it’s the dust of Africa. Take two steps and you’re steeped in Aztec magic brought up by Mexican immigrants mixed with the not as old, but just as powerful illusions of Hollywood.

Cities turn to counties turn to states. I’m popping Advil and Tylenol for yesterday’s fight. Ease my bruises, tear up my stomach. Every mile I get closer to home the urge to turn back grows. But I keep going.

I start to see shrines on the side of the road. Ones I’ve seen in Juarez, or closer to the border in Texas, dedicated to Santa Muerte, a skeletal version of the Virgin Mary. Patron Saint of drug dealers and killers. I haven’t met her myself, but I’ve heard things. She’s got quite a following. Not just among the Narcos, either, but by families living in war zones where two guys can go into a club, gun down twenty people and walk away.

Place like that, you better believe they’re praying to Death.

I pass another shrine coming into Arizona on the shoulder of a blind curve, withering flowers at the skeleton’s feet. Most of the ones I’ve seen have been carved from wood, about half life size. But this one’s more than five feet tall, skeletal hands peeking from the sleeves of an ornate wedding dress, skull visible beneath a gauzy veil.

I look in the rearview as I pass, and I swear it turns its head to watch me.

—

I stop at the Chiriaco Summit above Indio not long after I cross the California border. Gas up, stretch, toss back a couple Red Bulls. Haven’t stopped for more than gas and taking a piss since I left Carlsbad. The sun’s starting to set and I’m fighting exhaustion.

I grab an overcooked burger at a diner next to the George Patton museum, a plain building surrounded by World War II-era tanks that were used for training. They sit in a field of gravel and scrub brush, weeds growing up against their tracks.

Not a lot of men died in these tanks, but there were a few. Haunts in tanker gear tied to their machines. Sitting on the turrets, leaning against the tracks, watching me.

I wave, and one of them gives me the finger. I’ll take Haunts over Wanderers any day. They’re stuck. Tied to a house, a car, a spot on the road. The ones who didn’t move on and couldn’t move out.

Of course, Haunts tend to be a lot pissier. How’d you like to spend a couple hundred years staring at the same four moldy walls somebody sealed you into to die?

I leave the Haunts behind and head down into Indio. The Eldorado glides over the 10 Freeway, deep rumbling bass of the V-8 chugging along, and the cities stream by. Magic shifts from place to place. It’s like a tasting menu at eighty miles an hour.