Killing Pretty (22 page)

Just keep cool. See where you land. If you work shit out for Vincent, he's going to owe you. Death can go anywhere at any time he wants. Maybe he knows a trick or two he can pass on, right?

No. That's not the kind of luck I have.

I dream about the White Light Legion and a blond Valkyrie ripping my heart out. It almost means something and I can almost see Sigrun's face. They put my heart in a jar and carry it home. Is it a trophy? An offering? Or just Rover's dinner?

My chest hurts. I'm sweating. I'm back on Wonderland Avenue. Every door to every home is open. Blood trails smear across the welcome mats and driveways, down the street, and into the dark. I see the brand on Vincent's arm and his knife in my chest. I want to choke Tamerlan until all this madness makes sense. I want the Room, but never to have gone to Hell. It's mostly childish noise, I know, but pieces of it are worthwhile. If I get one or two more, maybe things will start falling into place.

I wake up and get out of bed. In the kitchen I start to pour myself a drink. Instead, I go and wash the sweat off my face and sit on the couch. Someone left the Blu-­ray player on pause. I hit the play button and
Nightbreed
starts playing. It's a strangely comforting movie. Monsters living with monsters in a world built just for monsters. Of course, civilians eventually come along and fuck it all up, the way they fuck everything up. I watch for a few minutes, until the cops head out to hammer Jesus and good clean American living into the monsters. Then it gets depressing, so I turn it off. I go to the window and smoke a cigarette. I wish I hadn't given Vincent's knife to Julie. I'd like to see it and feel it in my hand. Now that I've seen where it was used, maybe it would mean more.

I finish the cigarette and go back to bed.

Things are going to get weirder and worse before they get better. I can feel it. Goddamn skinheads are bad enough, but smart skinheads mixed up with hoodoo? That's bad news.

I go back to bed. Candy rolls over and drapes her arm over me, only it's not her arm. It's Chihiro's arm. Things can't stay like this. Things have got to change.

W
HEN
I
GO
downstairs in the morning, I have a headache. Vincent's door is closed, but Kasabian's is open. However, the store is closed and there's nothing playing on the big screen. I go to Kasabian's door and knock. He looks up at me, holding a piece of paper in his metal mitts.

I say, “You have some aspirin? I can't find any upstairs.”

He shakes his head.

“No. What I have is this.”

He hands me the paper. It's on L.A. County Court letterhead. It reads,
Dear Mr. Kasabian, As you may be aware, L.A. County has conducted several studies that will eventually lead to an extension of the 101 Freeway to serve the region and assist our county with economic development. The site portion of the study has recently been concluded, and this letter is to notify you that your property may have to be purchased for the freeway extension.

The rest of it is all a lot of property parcel codes and legal noise. I hand the note back to Kasabian.

“What does that mean?”

He drops the letter on his bed.

“It's called eminent domain. It means that the county can come in and take Max Overdrive and there's not a goddamn thing we can do about it.”

“How is that even legal?”

He shrugs.

“It's the government. They've got more money and lawyers than regular ­people, so they can do pretty much anything they want.”

“It doesn't even make sense. The 101 is like a mile down the road. To bring it out here, they'd have to knock down half of Hollywood.”

“Someone's got a theory,” he says.

Candy comes downstairs.

“What's going on? What's all the whispering?”

“Remember when we got tossed out of Chateau Marmont?” says Kasabian. “Well, it's going to happen again.”

Candy looks at me.

“What's he talking about?”

“We got a letter, and according to Atticus Finch here, it means that the county can come in and take Max Overdrive out from under us.”

“What? What about the store? Where are we going to live?”

Kasabian picks up the letter again, stares at it. I try to read it over his shoulder, but it still doesn't make much sense to me.

“Can't we get a lawyer and fight it?” I say. “This is bullshit.”

Kasabian laughs.

“Look around the room. We're three dead ­people in a store full of movies that doesn't exist. Plus, we're broke. What lawyer is going to work for us?”

“Maybe a Sub Rosa one,” says Candy.

“As I recall, the Sub Rosa like to eat, just like regular ­people,” Kasabian says. “We don't have the money to pay a civilian, a Sub Rosa, a Lurker, or your aunt Sadie.”

I reach over and take the letter out of his hands.

“I know what this is. It's the fucking White Lights. They've been around long enough they probably have all kinds of connections to crooked county pricks and lawyers. If they can't kill us, they're going to ruin us.”

Candy says, “Let's show the letter to Julie. She'll know what to do.”

“What if you're wrong?” says Kasabian.

“How am I wrong?”

“You talked to the Augur, right? Told him you didn't want to work for him.”

“Yeah. So?”

“What if you pissed him off and this is his way of getting back at you.”

That little rat bastard. I hadn't thought of that.

“It doesn't matter. We still have to show the letter to Julie. We can worry about who sent it later.”

I give Candy the letter.

“I don't want to leave,” she says. “The only other home I had around here was Doc Kinski's clinic, and they burned that down. Now someone wants to burn us out of here.”

Kasabian looks past us at the storage room.

“Too bad we can't let Vincent loose on these ­people. We have the Angel of Death in our pocket and we can't even keep the doors open.”

“No one is going anywhere,” I say. “First, we show the letter to Julie and see what she has to say. After that, I'm going to clean my guns.”

“Can't you just talk to the Augur and apologize?” says Kasabian.

“We don't even know it's him. And if it is, caving without a fight doesn't give us anything to bargain with.”

“I'm getting dressed. You get dressed too. We're going to the office,” says Candy, tapping me on the shoulder with the letter.

“Yeah. We can hear what Brigitte found out too.”

Vincent opens his door and comes out.

“Good morning. Is there something wrong? You all sound tense.”

I start back upstairs.

“Nothing's wrong. Someone's just looking for a fight is all. Stay here with Kasabian and open the store. Act normal.”

“I don't know what acting normal means,” says Vincent.

I stop on the stairs.

“None of us do, so just keeping doing whatever it is you do.”

“Maria called,” says Vincent. “She asked if you'd found Dash.”

“Fuck Maria's ghost. Unless he went to Harvard Law School he can fucking hang until we get this shit sorted.”

“I'll just tell her that you're still looking.”

“You do that.”

Upstairs, Candy is already half dressed. She stops when I come in.

“Things are going to be okay, right? We're going to work this out?”

“We're going to be fine,” I say. “But this is what happens when I try to be reasonable. I should be out shooting ­people right now. And you should be next to me tearing up the ­people I don't shoot.”

She comes over and puts her arms around my neck.

“Let's try things this way first, okay? If they don't work out, there's always time to run amok.”

“I'm glad you see it my way. You sure you don't want to tell me where the White Light Legion hangs out?”

Candy gives me a peck on the lips, then goes back to putting on her clothes.

“Reasonable now. Decapitation later. That's the deal,” she says.

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

W
HEN WE GET
to the office, Julie isn't exactly surprised to see us or the letter. She reads over ours, takes an envelope out of a drawer, and drops an almost identical letter on the desk.

“It came yesterday,” she says. “Someone has it in for us. In a way, this is good news.”

“Exactly how is getting evicted good news?” I say.

“Because it means we're making someone nervous and that only happens when you're getting near the truth. We're close to a breakthrough. I guarantee you, we'll know why someone wanted to bind Vincent in a few days.”

“In the meantime, what do we do about these?” says Candy, holding up the letters.

“Sit tight. I'll have some lawyers in the Vigil's legal unit look them over. There's always something to be done.”

I sit down.

“Are you sure? I mean these letters are obviously bullshit. No one is running the freeway through your place or ours. That means these aren't legit and that means whoever sent them might not be in the mood to be reasoned with.”

“It's still a legal proceeding,” Julie says. “Let me handle things.”

I get up and go to her coffeemaker, pour three cups.

“You're the adult in the room. But if legal doesn't work, I'm going to throw a big, bloody tantrum.”

I bring the cups to the desk. Julie takes one and says, “If legal doesn't work, I might join you.”

Someone presses the buzzer on the street. Julie checks the little security cam over the door on her laptop and presses a button to unlock the door. A few seconds later, Brigitte comes into the office. She's wearing a smart, navy-­blue dress with a longer skirt than usual. Conservative business wear for a meeting with the boss. She sets her bag on Julie's desk. There are no more chairs, so she perches gracefully on the edge of the desk like a femme fatale in an old gangster movie.

“Thanks for coming in,” says Julie.

“It's lovely to see you all. How was your walk in the woods?”

“Very interesting.”

“Hot,” I say. “I almost got stung by a bee.”

“You poor dear,” Brigitte says. “How did ever you survive?”

“It was touch and go for a while,” says Candy. “But we poured him into a cold martini and managed to revive him.”

“And they all lived happily ever after,” says Brigitte.

Julie coughs.

“If you three are done.”

“Of course,” says Brigitte.

“How did it go out there? How many of Tamerlan's ­people did you get to?”

“Six in all. It was interesting interacting with real ­people in real places who had no idea they were in my little play.”

I say, “Did anyone give you any trouble?”

She raises a hand to say no. “I was much too charming and needy for that.”

“What did you tell them?” says Julie.

“That I needed to speak to my poor dead mother and get some advice from her.”

“How did they respond?”

“The first two told me to go to an ordinary medium. The rest were all too happy to take my money.”

“Did you convince the others to help you?” I say.

“Of course. I told them that my mother was a bitch, but she knew the whereabouts of a small family fortune. I told them I'd give them a cut if they could contact her spirit and extract the information.”

“Is any of that true?” says Candy.

“Not a word. My mother is a lovely woman, living happily in Prague.”

“What did you find out from Tamerlan's ­people?” says Julie.

“That a smile makes an impression, but a gun and a smile makes even more. I also learned this: that the necromancers who work through Tamerlan's franchises are more afraid of him than a pistol.”

Julie shakes her head, sips her coffee.

“You ­people and your guns.”

“You learn a lot about someone when you show them a gun,” I say. “Like that the ones who still won't talk are worried about something worse than dying.”

Brigitte says, “That's what Tamerlan's ­people are like. Every one is afraid of him.”

“Did you find out why?” says Julie.

“On the surface, Tamerlan appears to be a simple—­though ruthless—­businessman, but there is something else. His lackeys are afraid of him, but none will say why.”

“Did you learn anything useful about his business dealings?”

“He is obsessive when it comes to money. He is bleeding dry the necromancers that work through him. He demands not only money, but favors, though I don't know what kind.”

“So, he's shaking his franchisees down.”

“Not exactly. He never touches the money himself. According to the ­people I interviewed, he seems to have no connection to payments. They all go through a company called Wormwood.”

Julie, Candy, and I look at each other.

“Did I say something interesting?” says Brigitte.

“We heard the name yesterday,” Julie says. “Did they say what Wormwood is or how to find them?”

“Or him or her,” says Candy. “It could be a person.”

“Good point.”

Brigitte shakes her head, picks up my coffee.

“Is this yours?”

“Yes.”

“May I?”

“Of course.”

She takes a sip and sets down the cup.

“What was most interesting,” she says, “is that even when I became quite physically insistent that they tell me about the money, no one would. They are all quite afraid of
both
Wormwood and Tamerlan.”

Julie writes something down on a pad.

“I'll do some research on Wormwood. If they're operating in California, they must at least have a business license.”

“I can help with that,” says Candy.