Flesh Circus (26 page)

Well, isn’t that interesting.
“And the winner is?”

“Someone named Ruth Gregory. Utilities, phone, garbage pickup, all under the same name—there were bills in the house. But
here’s some other weirdness: Ruth Gregory doesn’t exist.”

“If she gets bills, she must exist.”

“That’s the thing. None of her information’s anywhere we can find it, no DOB, no nothing. But she got bills and paid them.
Has a bank account, but if it wasn’t for paper statements we wouldn’t know, her bank doesn’t have her on electronic file.
There’s not even a listing in the phone book. This woman just came out of nowhere, and she doesn’t show up in the databases.”

That’s voodoo for you. The electronic stuff is easier for the
loa
to affect than paper. Dammit.
Ruth Gregory. “What’s her middle initial?” It was a small question, but I needed something I could feel good about anticipating.

“Ruth R. Gregory. Why?”

Ruth R. Arthur. A little fuck-you from Mama Zamba. Just like a supervillain. “I don’t suppose you’ve found any hints of other
houses?”

“I ran a check. Guess how many Ruth Gregorys there are in the good old United States.”

How the hell should I know?
But it was just like her to run it into the ground. “Thousands?”

“Less than four hundred. Four in our state. None with the middle initial R. And no hint of a separate identity, though it’s
a good bet that if she had one we wouldn’t be able to find it electronically either. It could take us weeks of sifting paper—”

We don’t have weeks.
“That’s not necessary. If any scrap of another identity comes up from processing the house, let me know. Otherwise, just
keep identifying those stiffs. Okay?”

“All right.” She sounded almost disappointed. She would run Zamba into the ground over weeks if she had to. Months. Or years.

“Good work.” And I meant it. “Did you get everything you needed out of the house?”

“Boxes of paper. She was a real pack rat, our Miz Gregory. We left everything not needed for Forensics there and closed it
up. Should we go back?”

No way.
“No. God, no.” I didn’t mean to sound horrified. “Stay away from there. Just keep processing that paper and buzz me if anything
else tingles your weird-o-meter, okay?”

“You got it.”

“Any ID on the other bodies yet? Other than Trevor Watson?”
At least, the zombies that weren’t Zamba’s followers?

“Not yet. They’re pretty spludgy.”

Well, that’s one word for it.
“Okay. Thanks.” I dropped the phone in the cradle, considered screaming and shooting something.

Prioritize, Jill. Get your head straight.

It was a good plan. I just wasn’t sure I could do it.

What next? Come on, what are you going to do next?

There was only one thing to do. And it wasn’t going by the Cirque, thank God, or standing around yelling at Saul. I looked
up, but the bookshop was deserted. Nothing but empty aisles faced with stuffed-full bookshelves, boxes on the floor, the antique
cash register sitting stolidly, gathering dust. “Saul?” The word quivered. Was he gone?

Oh, fuck.
I stood there with my hand on the phone, my hip against Hutch’s desk, and my heart twisting itself like a contortionist inside
my chest. “Saul?”

I checked the kitchen and the
EMPLOYEES ONLY
room. I even checked the goddamn bathroom.

He was gone. I hadn’t even heard him leave.

God.
I swallowed something hot and nasty, paced through the entire shop one more time. Blinked several times. My cheeks were wet.

This is one less thing for you to worry about. Get back up on the horse, Jill. Do your job.

It was time for me to visit Melendez.

I
f Zamba was the reigning voodoo queen, Melendez was the court jester. Don’t get me wrong—anyone who bargains with an inhuman
intelligence is suspect, and just because I hadn’t heard of Melendez doing anything even faintly homicidal or icky didn’t
mean he didn’t dabble.

But it didn’t mean the little butterball was harmless, either. Any more than the mark on my wrist meant I was a Trader.

Only I was, if you thought about it a certain way. And while Melendez didn’t go in for the theatrical horror and power games
Zamba did, he also didn’t go out of his way to make things easier on people.
Live and let die,
that was probably the closest thing to a motto he would ever have.

Saul had left me the car. Awful nice of him. I told the sharp spearing ache in my heart to go away and made time through midmorning
traffic, brakes squealing and tires chirping. The shadows leapt and cavorted in my peripheral vision until I began ignoring
them, even the colorless crystal eyes and the glass-twinkle teeth. I caught the flow of traffic like a pinball down a greased
slide, all the way across town to the northern fringe of the Riverhurst section.

A nice address, all things considered, clinging to rich respectability like cactus clings to any breath of moisture. The houses
are old, full of creaks, fake adobes and some improbable Cape Cods. They had bigger yards than anything other than the rest
of Riverhurst, and most of them were drenched green. I even saw some sprinklers running, spouting rainbows under the heaving,
cringe-inducing glare of dusty sunlight.

Melendez didn’t hold his gatherings in his home. He owned a storefront on the edge of the barrio, with a trim white sign out
front announcing the Holy Church of St. Barbara, nonprofit and legitimate under a 501(c)(3). His own private little joke,
I guess. Seven nights a week you can find drumming, dancing, and weird shit happening on the little strip of concrete that
had pretensions of being Pararrayos Avenue.

Mornings, though, he could be found here. It’s a good thing the streets are wide even on the edge of Riverhurst, because his
followers usually come out for consultations, filling up his driveway and the street for a block or two. Quarter-hour increments,
donations optional—nobody leaves without paying
something
—and results guaranteed.

You don’t last long in that business unless you have the cash to back the flash.

Today, though, the street was clear and I parked right near the front door. Melendez’s faux-adobe hacienda sat behind its
round concrete driveway with the brick bank in the middle, holding still-blooming rosebushes, a monkey puzzle tree, and a
bank of silvery-green rue. Lemon balm tried its best to choke everything else in the bed, but aggressive pruning had turned
it into a bank of sweetness.

I was relieved to see his tiny garden was tiptop. The fountain—a cute little chubby-cheeked cherub shooting water from his
tiny wang—was going full-bore. I wondered if there was a homeowners’ association in this part of town, and what they thought
of his choice in lawn decorations. Not that there was much lawn to speak of. The largest part of his lot was out back with
the pool.

The heat was oppressive, a bowl of haze lying over the city. A brown smudge of smog touched downtown’s skyscrapers, and high
white horsetail clouds lingered over the mountains. I couldn’t wait for the autumn rains to move up the river and flash-flood
us, just for a change of pace. Hunters are largely immune to temperature differentials, it’s right up there with the silence,
one of the first things an apprentice learns.

I winced at the thought of apprentices, opened the car door and stood for a few seconds, looking across the Pontiac’s roof,
sizing up the place. My smart eye caught nothing but the usual stirrings and flickers, an active febrile etheric petri dish.

I wonder if I’m not his first visitor today.
Well, no time like the present to find out.

The wrought-iron gate was open, as usual. The courtyard was just as lush as it ever was, smelling of mineral hosewater and
the sweet orange tang of Florida water. The splashes across the threshold, where the concrete stopped and the red-brick paving
began, were still wet.

Well, Melendez. You’ve been keeping your house neat and clean, haven’t you.
I stepped over the barrier, a brief tingle passing over my body. The silver in my hair sparked and chimed, oddly muted. I
wanted to touch a gun butt, kept my fingers away with an effort.

He had a fountain in the middle of the courtyard too, a big seashell with a spire rising from the middle of it. It was bone-dry.
Masses of feverfew, more rue, a bank of bindweed… and the red-painted front door, open just a crack.

Gooseflesh rose hard and cold on my arms and legs. I wished Saul was behind me. Right now he was probably back at the warehouse,
packing. Or maybe he’d already blown town. He traveled light, sometimes just a duffel, most times not even that.

Focus, Jill.

I wanted to kick the door open and sweep the house. Instead, I stood on the front step and rang the bell. The sweet tinkling
chimes of—I shit you not—the chorus to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” sounded, leaking out through the open door.

The air changed, suddenly full of listening. No matter how many times you get to this point as a hunter, it never gets any
easier.

I toed the door open. “Melendez!” I tried to sound nice and cheerful, only succeeded in sounding like Goldilocks saying
hello
when she walks in the door and smells porridge. “Señor Melendez,
una clienta para Usted.
”

The entryway was red tile, full of cool quiet and the smell of incense. Lots of incense, in thick blue veils. My blue eye
smarted, filling with hot water. There was a sound of movement, and my hand leapt for the gun, fell away.

“Ola, bruja,”
he said at the end of the hall. “Come in. Been expecting you.”

Melendez lowered himself down in a straight-backed leather armchair behind a massive oak desk cluttered with paper and tchotchkes.
He called this room his study, and it was full of bookshelves holding leather-bound books—nothing Hutch would get excited
over, these were just for decoration—and other, more useful tools of his trade. An empty fireplace, clean as a whistle, seemed
just a set piece for the crossed rapiers hung over it. Both fine examples of Toledo steel, and worth more than the house itself
and
probably the neighbors’ houses as well.

I surveyed the choices available. A padded footstool that would put me below him, literally, like I was a third grader. An
overstuffed armchair that would swallow everything up to your neck. A penitent’s chair made of iron, with a faded red horsehair
cushion.

I elected to remain standing, and Melendez’s broad brown face split in a yellow-toothed grin. He settled his ample ass deeper
in his chair, his potbelly brushing the desk’s edge. “Been a while.”

“No murders traced to any of
your
followers lately.” I folded my arms.

“You here about Ruth?” His dark eyes gleamed.

Well, there’s either a very lucky guess, or he knows something. Guess which.
“I’m here about Arthur Gregory. And the Cirque de Charnu.”

“You here because Mama Zamba is calling in all her favors. She got an old feud against the devils, older than yours.” He steepled
his long, chubby brown fingers. In a blue chambray shirt and jeans, a red kerchief tied around his straight black hair, he
was in that ageless space between twenty-nine and forty if you went by his round, strangely unlined face. It was only the
way he moved, with a little betraying stiffness every once in a while, and the distance in his gaze that gave him away.

The
loa
can hold off age just like a Trader’s bargain can. They cannot grant immortality, but it gets awful close.

“If she keeps killing Cirque performers there’s going to be trouble. I don’t have a lot of time to dance around.” Impatience
boiled under my breastbone. I shelved it. “What do you know?”

“Oh,
bruja.
” He laughed. “You need a better question, you gonna expect answers from me.”

The urge to whip out a gun, squeeze off a shot for effect, and put the barrel to his forehead and then
expect
answers from him leapt up like a flame in the middle of my head. I took in a deep breath, fixed him with my mismatched stare,
and told myself firmly I was not going to be shooting anyone unless it was necessary.

The trouble with that is, all of a sudden you can think it’s necessary when it’s not. Especially when you’re deconstructing
under severe stress.

“Melendez.” I tried to sound patient. “I’ve got a city that could explode at any moment and a voodoo queen looking to cause
a lot of trouble. You fuck around with me and I just might decide to look too hard at this sweet little deal you’ve got going
for yourself. Besides, with Zamba out of the picture soon you’re looking at being the reigning king of the scene around here.
If, that is, she doesn’t show up and do you like she did the bitch of Greenlea. It didn’t seem like Lorelei had an easy death.”

“Ah, Lorelei. She was Zamba’s godmother. Seems like Zamba cleaning up loose ends.” He looked down at the desktop, ran one
blunt finger along a glossy strip of varnish peeking out from behind papers.