Killing Pretty (13 page)

“That's exactly what I want to change. This antagonistic attitude. We shouldn't be adversaries. I know what you've done for the city. Hell, the world. When others ran, you stayed behind and fought the Angra Om Ya on your own. If you ask me, those are the actions of a hero.”

“You admire me for that? Let me ask you a question . . .”

“Call me Tommy. That's what my friends call me.”

“Okay, Tommy. If you admire what I did so much, where were you when it all went down? I could have used some help, if not fighting the Angra then in getting LAPD off my fucking back.”

He nods.

“For one thing, I knew you'd win. I foresaw it and didn't want to get in the way.”

“That's a bullshit answer and you know it.”

He leans back, steepling his fingers.

“You're right, it is. As far as the police are concerned, I wasn't Augur yet, so I didn't have the power to deal with them. And as for the fight, I'll admit it in front of both of you. I was scared. Mad gods. Other dimensions. It's a bit out of my experience. But not yours, and when it came time to stand up, you did. I want to acknowledge that. I want to
reward
that.”

“How?”

“I want to offer you a seat on my advisory council. You'd have an important voice in shaping policy where it comes to both the Sub Rosa world and how we interface with the civilian population.”

Okay. He got that punch by me. I was looking for a right cross and he hit me with a body shot. The nicer this guy gets, the less I want to trust him. He oozes sincerity, but so do cave birds Downtown. They look like cute little sparrows. They'll perch in your hand and cuddle right up. Then the stinger comes out and they get you with one of the most noxious poisons in Hell. Lucifer kept a cageful of cave birds in his palace. He'd dip his royal dagger in their poison every morning before staff meetings. Everyone knew it and no one caused trouble. So the question is: Is Abbot the old Lucifer or Samael, the reformed and less homicidal Devil? What if I guess wrong? I want to get out of here, but the whiskey is good. Trust isn't my greatest virtue, but it might be interesting to see how the other half lives. I might be able to get something out of it.

“Does it pay anything?”

“It could. I know you've had some financial problems. I could authorize you a stipend. Say, a hundred thousand a year? It would be steady money to give you breathing room. You wouldn't have to give up the store or your other job.”

So he has been keeping tabs on me. At least he's honest about it.

All this honesty is giving me a migraine.

“What do you know about my job?”

“I know you're working with a respected ex-­member of the Golden Vigil. If she can trust you I think I can too.”

“What if she's wrong?”

“I told you he'd say something like that,” says Tuatha.

Abbot nods at her and looks back at me.

“She's not wrong, Stark, and all three of us in here know it. You come on like you're still the monster you were when you came back from Hell. And I don't use the word ‘monster' lightly. You were a menace. Out of control. But you're not that person anymore, just as I'm not the person I was when I hid from the Angra Om Ya when I should have been right there beside you.”

“What's changed?”

“You. The idea that you might work with us. With your experience and knowledge of the dangers plaguing both civilians and the Sub Rosa, I think we could accomplish great things together.”

“You know, Audsley Isshii still has a hit out on me.”

Isshii had been Blackburn's security chief. When Blackburn was murdered, Isshii decided I did it. He's been after me ever since.

“I do know about that and I want you to know that we're dealing with it. I guarantee you we will find him. In fact, if you wanted, I could assign you and your friends their own security teams.”

“That's very generous of you.”

“It's just partial payment for all you've done for us.”

I look down at my glass and finish the drink.

“I like your whiskey,” I tell him, trying to deflect his bruising sincerity with some of my own.

Abbot gets up, goes to the liquor cabinet, and comes back with an unopened bottle of Gentleman Jack.

“Take it. Please.”

“Thanks.”

I take the bottle and set it on the floor next to my chair. If it's a bomb, I want it out in the open where it will kill all of us when it goes off.

Abbot settles back down into his chair.

“I don't expect you to decide right now. But at least tell me you'll think about it.”

I tap the bottle with my boot. It doesn't explode.

“Sure. Why not?”

Abbot flashes me a Mount Rushmore–size smile.

“That's terrific news.”

He gets a business card from his pocket and hands it to me.

“This has my private number on it. You can call anytime. If you need anything or just want to talk.”

I put the card in an inner pocket of my coat.

It feels like the end of the audience, so I get up. Abbot and Tuatha stand too. It's handshakes all around, a little awkward and self-­conscious, like the end of a mediocre job interview.

“Don't forget your bottle,” Abbot says.

I pick up the Jack and cradle it in my arms like a newborn.

Tuatha says, “I'll see him out, Tommy.”

He nods and sits back down.

“It was great meeting you, Stark.”

“Yeah. You too.”

With a light touch on my arm, Tuatha steers me outside. We walk to the far end of the boat.

“Thank you for coming and for listening. I know this kind of thing is hard for you.”

“Let me ask you something straight. Do you trust this guy? He seems too good to be true.”

“I thought so too when we first met. He does work hard to make a good impression, doesn't he? But over the years I've learned that a few ­people are what they appear to be. Especially the ones with good hearts.”

I look back the way we came.

“But he'd still have a troublemaker killed if he thought it was for the greater good.”

“Of course. Don't take his good manners for weakness. He is the Augur, after all. But I don't think you have to worry. I can tell he likes you.”

“Maybe you're right. I wouldn't give Gentleman Jack to an enemy.”

Tuatha looks at me more seriously than she ever has before.

“Think about the offer. Really think about it. I think you two could do wonderful things together.”

“Thanks, Ms. Fortune. Take care of yourself.”

She goes back to the cabin and Abbot to talk about me. If I could still shadow-­walk, I'd come out behind the drapes and listen to what they really think. As it is, all I can do is speculate. Like, are they setting me up for something or is this a chance to get some real money?

I walk past the bodyguards. They don't show the slightest interest in me.

Back on the deck of the burned-­out boat, I stand and look out to sea, playing the last few minutes over in my head.

I don't know what to think. I want to tell Abbot to fuck off and walk away, but I've played that game so many times before and where has it gotten me? Broke. Almost homeless. With no real prospects and less power than I've had since I went Downtown. Being an Abomination is one thing, but being a loser Abomination is really not acceptable. Still, I can't get past the fact that the James Dean pretty-­boy prick was just too good to be true.

I weigh the bottle in my hand. Cock my arm to throw it out into the harbor. I'm halfway through my swing when I stop.

On the other hand, he could have poisoned me on the boat and dumped my body in the ocean where no one would ever find it. Even if Abbot is a snake, it doesn't mean I have to take it out on an innocent bottle of good whiskey. And being on the outside so long is starting to lose its charm. What's the saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I don't know who Tommy is, but maybe I should be the cave bird in his hand, just for a while. It's something to think about.

As I wander back to the Crown Vic, a stretch limo pulls up a few yards away. Four goons climb out of the back, two from each side of the car. They eye me like a Gucci SWAT team. Unlike the meat pies on the boat, these are Sub Rosa heavies, second-­rate magicians, but with big balls and a lot of dark, baleful magic tricks.

I act like I don't see them, open the car door, toss in the Jack, and slide inside the Vic like any good civilian heading home after a day at the marina. With my left hand, I adjust the rearview mirror so I can see them. I keep my right hand on the key in the ignition just in case. Once the wolves have decided the coast is clear, a squat, older man with a cane climbs out of the car.

His clothes are so out of style, for a second I think he must be a vampire. Some of the slow ones lose track of the decades and fail to notice that not everyone wears zoot suits anymore. It makes them easy to hunt. This guy, however, is out in broad daylight, so he's no shroud eater, meaning his look is deliberate.

He has on a bright red leisure suit, white patent-­leather shoes, with a white belt, like the regional manager of a carpet-­cleaning company in 1974. I only get a glimpse of his face before the goons close in around him, but it's enough.

It's Tamerlan Radescu, the necromancer. He's not just a Dead Head, he's the McDonald's of Dead Heads, the only magician I've ever heard of who's licensed his name to other magicians. Any competent but mediocre necromancer can buy a franchise, use Tamerlan's name and “techniques,” and instantly double his or her income, all while kicking back a percentage to the home office. ­People say Tamerlan himself hasn't done a lick of hoodoo in years. He just collects the checks and buys bad suits.

Tamerlan lets himself through the gate I had to break into and heads down the dock for the Augur's boat. Where else would he be going? Looks like Tommy is still getting acquainted with the local Sub Rosa heavy hitters. Have fun staring at that grisly suit for an hour.

As I start the car I stare at all that money, feeling sorry for myself. Because I have to drive another hour back across town. If I end up taking Abbot's offer, I don't want a stipend.

I want a jet pack.

I
'M BACK ON
the 405, stuck behind a vegan bakery truck with a flat tire. It's not their fault, but now I'm hungry for a plate of
carnitas
. As the traffic in our lane slowly merges into the next to get around the carrot huggers, my phone rings. I answer it and hit the speaker button so I don't have to hold it.

“Stark? It's Julie. Where are you?”

“Stuck in traffic on the dark side of the moon. Where are you?”

“At the office. Can you get over here? I have some information.”

“Me too. I just met the new Augur.”

“Really? Wow. You'll have to tell me about it.”

“Not anytime soon. Seriously, nothing is moving. I'm going to be here for a while.”

“Fine. We'll do it this way. I have an ID on Death. Death's body.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Eric Townsend. A commodities trader at a boutique company called Yaa and Sons.” She spells it out. “It sounds like it might be China-­based. I'm going to check them out.”

The guy behind me honks, an existential bleat in a concrete river of despair. I give him the finger. Fuck you, Jeff Gordon.

“Yaa isn't Chinese. It's an old Indian name for Los Angeles. And I mean old. Like five thousand years old.”

“How do you know that?”

“I'm a magician. We know lots of funny things. And sometimes Kasabian watches
Jeopardy!
”

“Anyway, that's an interesting name for an investment company.”

“No shit. You have anything else?”

“A lot. From all accounts, Eric Townsend was a very upstanding businessman, one of his company's best. That's before he disappeared six months ago.”

“Any idea what he's been doing for all that time?”

Brake lights flash like fireflies up ahead.

“Listen to this,” says Julie. “That tattoo he had lasered off? It's the same emblem that was on the shirts of the three men you and Candy saw on Wonderland Avenue.”

“What does it mean?”

“It's the insignia of the White Light Legion. Ever heard of them?”

“Aren't they some freaky skinhead group? Like religious Nazi assholes?”

“You're partly right, but they're much stranger than that. The Vigil has a whole library on the White Lights and the Silver Shirts.”

“Now, the Silver Legion I've heard of. Local Hitler groupies back in the thirties. They were kind of a big deal at one point.”

“Their leader was a disgruntled screenwriter named William Dudley Pelley.”

“Leave it to a writer to go nuts and think he can take over the world with his Dungeons and Dragons crew.”

“It goes much deeper than that. Pelley didn't want to take over the country. He wanted to pave the way for the Führer in the U.S. when he won the war in Europe. Pelley started the Silver Shirts on January first, 1933, the day Hitler became chancellor of Germany. But he wasn't a run-­of-­the-­mill fascist. Yes, his group attracted the usual bullies and thugs you find in those groups, but Pelley saw himself as a spiritual leader. Call it New Age fascism.”

“What does that mean?”

A Caddy cuts off a plumbing truck to move farther left, so I cut off a Prius to do the same.

“In 1928, Pelley had a ‘clairaudient' event. A kind of out-­of-­body experience that later, in an article, he called ‘My Seven Minutes in Eternity.' He said he was hit by a shaft of bright white light that took him to another plane of existence where he heard voices. He talked with the souls of the dead, even God and Jesus. Along the way, he gained special psychic powers.”

“This guy is starting to sound like every snake-­oil salesman I've ever heard of.”