Hard Bite (12 page)

Ding dong morning time. Must've died and gone to hell by the looks of it. Ohhh. The dungeon. At Pebley Mansion. Now I remember. Sure is quiet in here compared to Washington Boulevard. Eyes adjust to the gloom. Cinda's wrapped in a sheet on the gurney. Sid snores gently, inside the human cage. Events from yesterday come back. The Silverado assassins. The clumsy attempt to hit me. Two guys against one in a wheelchair and a) they can't hit me with a truck, and b) they miss at close range with a rifle. I'm beginning to suspect the intervention of God. What a waste.

My eyes roam over the dangerous walls. I recognize a few samurai katana swords and wakizashi daggers in the collection, some authentic, some reproductions. The jewel is an authentic Yasutsugu School blade from the early Shinto period, carved and signed by the maker. I've studied a little Bushido and read Miyamoto Musashi's
The Book of Five Rings
.

Found out last night you can pluck any piece off the wall and handle it. We have to be real careful in here with Sid.

It's so quiet inside these stone walls—conducive for a good think. My mind roams over how Bushido warrior conduct inspired the code of the vigilante. Thugs kill randomly, or for anyone who pays them to kill—probably the
modus operandi
of the two stooges from yesterday, whoever they are. There might be some code for their band of thugs but it doesn't extend outside their clan. Rape, murder and pillage are fine outside their own community. Not so the knight, the samurai and the vigilante. Vigilantism is a response to the failure of law enforcement. The vigilante bridges a gap between violation and justice, a perp and his punishment. It's nothing new. I'm nothing new. I've said it before and I'll say it again: The circumstance I found myself in—broken in bed, crushed like a worm—gave birth to Vigilante Cripple Man so he could roll justice across Los Angeles, one hit-and-run driver at a time.

Anyway, I can sleep in or I can apply energy to what really counts, my work. Even if we're on the lam, I need to keep working. I try to be quiet and reach for the backpack with the phone in it, but it bumps and rustles. Cinda wakes.

"What are you doing?" One of her eyes squints at me.

"I need to check my email."

She looks at me like I'm daft. Takes a deep breath. "Dean, we need to get out of here."

"We just got here. Your idea, by the way."

"Out of Los Angeles."

I know she's right. But I can't do it on my own and don't want to ask her.

"You should leave me here now. Get out while you can."

"I can't."

I've never seen the set of her mouth like that. Seen it before in my wife, though. It means "not moving."

"Why? I'll be gone sooner or later anyway. You know that. Save yourself."

"We can still have some time together… until you go."

There it is on the table. She's saying she won't leave. A strong man would drive her off, make her leave for her own good. A strong man would slap her silly. Instead I say, "I have cash in a safety deposit box at the bank. We can grab the cash and go."

"Let's do it now."

"Baby, it's Sunday. We just need to hang out till tomorrow morning when the bank opens."

A couple of tears fall from her eyes but she wipes them away and straightens up. "I'll go back to my place and get a few things."

***

While Cinda is out, a tap comes on the door. "
Señor
, is okay to clean the room?" I call out, "Sure, come on in." A lady with a bucket filled with spray bottles and cloths gives me a cheery smile. "
Hola
!" She props the door wide open. I guess that's the signal for Sid and I to vacate. It's a good time to take Sid out for a walk anyway. Get him acquainted with the environs of Pebley Mansion.

***

Orella's heels click on the tile as she throws a jacket over her shoulders and marches to the front door. "Help me with the dogs," she says to Luis.

She's not dressed for dog walking. Not in that pencil skirt with her hair teased high and curled. She looks ready for a Beverly Hills cocktail party. "Where you going?" he asks.

"Bel Air."

"With our dogs?"

"That's where he is."

Luis looks stupefied. "Where who is?"

"Luis, think! We have eyes over the whole city. Our people clean homes, they take care of buildings and properties."

"Some cleaning lady called you with a tip about the wheelchair guy?"

"He's not hard to spot. A cash reward helped."

"Bel Air! They got armed guards, surveillance. The streets are all the way up in the hills. There's no place to run."

"You think I'm stupid?" She gives him a warning smile that could frost chilies.

"No Mama."

"Good. Because I don't want you to worry. Now help me with the dogs."

She bustles to the back door. Luis exits behind her.

"What gun you taking?" he asks.

"After what happened to you, I'm going to use a gun?"

On the top of the trash can is an empty vacuum-wrap package. Luis stares at the label: Certified Monkey Meat. Product of Argentina. He looks at the dogs waiting expectantly in their pen. "You been feeding them this?"

"They love it."

"There's none left. They're hungry right now."

"I know that Luis. I'm taking them to breakfast."

***

It's a beautiful day at Pebley Mansion. My chair makes slow progress on the gravel, but there's a winding cement walk skirting the building that isn't too bad. Sid wears his collar and leash, walking alongside my chair. I may be imagining it, but Bel Air clouds appear fluffier and whiter against the brilliant blue sky than they do in Venice. The mansion's carved front doors are wide open and a mop and bucket brigade is in full deployment.

Sid and I are almost at the grand front steps when we see them. The front gate is just closing—I catch a glimpse of a big SUV, a woman standing beside it, but my attention is drawn to two large pit bulls, walking unescorted through the gate as it closes behind them. One is brindle brown with half of a left ear. The other is black with a white stripe around its eye like a bad Mike Tyson tattoo. They're heading for us. It doesn't take a genius to figure trouble's coming. I reach to release Sid's leash, but he's already got it. The little bastard secretly knows how to unhook himself.

The pits catch Sid's scent and break into a lope. "RUN!" I scream. Sid skitters like hell but he's no match for well-muscled dogs. They're gaining, kicking up gravel as they run, digging in for traction with their powerful chests. Sid takes a hard left and shoots up the stone steps, through the front doors and into the grand foyer. Screams—a bucket of soapy water flies out the door and overturns down the stairs, soaking the dogs. They don't slow for an instant, right on Sid's heels. Sid takes a flying leap onto a suit of medieval armor.

Attached to the arm of the suit is a mace, one of those ancient clubs with the iron spikes all over the ball at the end. The dogs are right below, baying and snapping. Sid scrambles to the shoulder of the suit, knocks the helmet off. A hundred grand worth of historic hardware bounces across the floor. This enrages the pits and they start jumping at the suit, pushing at it with their paws. Sid holds on with all four hands but the steel is slippery. The dogs know they're onto a good thing. They jump at it harder and harder until it rocks crazily. Sid screams as the whole thing goes over. SMASH, it pins the brown pit's front paw on a spike. Blood spurts from his crushed limb. Frenzied, he gnaws at his own leg.

In a flash, Sid takes a long bound over the head of the black pit and flies down the steps. The black pit gives chase. I roll forward and block the dog for a split second which gives Sid a tiny advantage. He speeds for the back of the mansion and our dungeon. I roll frantically that way. Screams come from the cleaning woman inside and she rounds the corner waving a towel. I arrive just in time to see Sid cornered on the back wall, screeching bloody murder and clinging to the wooden torture rack. It's solid and sturdy, won't tip over, but the ceiling is low in here and the slavering pit leaps higher and higher, saliva dripping. One more jump and he's going to have Sid between his teeth.

The katana dagger is right beside me. I snatch it off the wall and throw. BOING, it stabs into the wood a foot away from Sid. In a flash Sid grabs it, and as the pit makes another jump, Sid shoves the blade right down the dog's throat. A sickening howl, a mighty belch of blood. The dog falls to the floor, gargling on the contents of his own artery.

Sources connected to the disappearance of Sherryl Lynn Hastings tell us authorities found her body yesterday, deep in Tuna Canyon. Sherryl Lynn, an actress with commercial credits for Diet Zero drink and Tidy White Cleanser was breaking into films and well-known to casting directors. "She had the kind of fresh looks and appeal that America loves," said veteran agent, Dolores Rhinegold, of Academy Booking Agency.

Pulling up at the Department of Coroner, Miles Davis and John Coltrane aren't quite finished blowing blue. Doug kills the Charger's motor anyway and goes to sign in. He finds Claire in a basement office.

"The lab analyzed the hair," Claire states. "Raccoons made those wounds on her body, it wasn't a stabbing. The DNA found birds, squirrels, rats and one unidentified hair. Everything checked except this one." She holds up a vial with a dark brown hair. "I remembered seeing another hair similar. So I went back and checked samples from the dog-kill case. There was a beige and brown hair. Scale patterns of the cuticle and meduellan index are identical. I'd say these hairs probably came from the same animal."

"Was that one tested?" Doug points to the first vial.

"Yes, but only for what it isn't. It was matched with all the common animal hair, including others at the scene, and it's definitely not any of the normal animals found in that locale."

"Not from a dog?"

" Nope, the lab is sure."

"Mind if I check those vials out?"

"All yours."

***

Dr. Anita Lemberg holds both vials to the fluorescent light and squints at them, turning the tiny hairs this way and that. Finally, she places the vials on her stainless steel exam table and shrugs her shoulders. "No clue, Doug. I could guess, but your guess would be as good as mine. I would normally say this looks like a dog hair—a husky puppy or an Alsatian. But that's already been disproved by the lab. They say it's not a dog. So my wild stab is that this is some kind of exotic animal."

Doug raises a brow. "Meaning?"

"Meaning I'd head to the LA Zoo and inquire there."

***

"I'm sorry Detective, the Chief Veterinarian's been called over to the giraffe compound," the sympathetic receptionist explains. "A Masai baby is birthing, and the mother's having a hard time."

"Is there anybody else who might—"

A quick intake of breath. "I just got it! This isn't about Sherryl Lynn Hastings is it?"

"No, it's about an animal hair analysis."

"Ooooh! You know, before Napoleon died, he wrote down that the English holding him in captivity were poisoning him. When he died, a valet saved a lock of his hair and it got passed down and down, and the hair was kept safe until neutron activation analysis developed and it got tested. Know what they found?"

"Ya got me."

"He had been poisoned. With arsenic. Over a four-month period!"

"Do you think there might be anybody else who could give me a visual—"

"Ooooh! I know, the Chief Vet's assistant is over at the Dragons of Komodo habitat." She pointed a long, white-tipped nail. "Go that way, past the Aviary. I'll page him and tell him you're on the way."

She's already texting her friends before he's out the door. Insta-news, insta-gossip.

The flock of pink flamingos hardly notice Doug as he goes by. Some of them are resting on one leg, bathing in their pool and slow-stepping on their stilt-legs around the water. He catches up with the number-two man at the African wild dogs.

"I'll tell you one thing, Detective," the Chief Vet's assistant says, turning the vial in his palm. "I'd classify them as simian."

"As in monkey?"

"I see that one of the hairs has a follicular tag, meaning that it was pulled out by the root. You've got a good test sample there for a macaca, a marmoset, a capuchin; something like that."