Killing Pretty (23 page)

“Thank you.”

Brigitte says, “By the way, I showed each of them the photo you sent me of the brand on your guest's arm.”

“And?”

“No one was able to identify it. Some seemed quite certain they could, and consulted various grimoires and books of arcana. It was all futile.”

“Are any of those Dead Heads going to remember your face?” I say.

“The ones not staring at my chest.”

“I mean will they be able to identify you if Tamerlan or someone asks?”

“They might know my face, but not my name. And I wore gloves, so there will be no fingerprints or any aetheric residue they can use to find me.”

“You're the best,” says Candy.

Brigitte winks at her.

I look at Julie.

“Any chance I could get Vincent's knife back?”

Julie frowns.

“Why?”

“It's not a very good reason.”

“Then why should I give it to you?”

“Because maybe it will look different after our trip to Murphy Ranch.”

“Is that all?”

“Also, I had a funny dream about it.”

“He has these dreams sometimes,” says Candy. “Sometimes they mean he should have taken an aspirin before bed, but sometimes they mean something.”

Julie goes to a file cabinet, takes out a key, and unlocks it. From the bottom drawer, she removes the knife and brings it back to the desk. I pick it up, turn it over in my hands.

“Well?” she says. “Any vibrations from the spirit realm?”

“Not yet. Can I keep it for a ­couple of days?”

Julie sighs.

“Just be careful with it. Besides Vincent's clothes, it's our only piece of physical evidence.”

“What did the Vigil techs tell you about it?” says Candy.

Julie picks up her coffee cup, sets it down again in a gesture of exasperation.

“Nothing. No one would touch it. They know I'm working with Stark on the case and that makes it too hot for them to handle.”

“You always make an impression, Jimmy,” says Brigitte.

“That's what my mom said.”

I put the knife in my coat pocket.

“I have a question about Tamerlan,” I say. “If he's involved with this Wormwood thing, doesn't it make sense that I was right and he's working with the White Light Legion? It makes sense. He's the brains and they're the muscle. The enforcers.”

Julie says, “Then why wasn't he at the ceremony at Murphy Ranch? From what Varg said, it sounds like the woman, Sigrun, could have been performing the ritual.”

“And he specifically said he didn't see anyone who looked like Tamerlan at the ceremony,” says Candy.

“He's deeper in this thing than we know yet, I'm sure of it. And he's part of what happened on Wonderland Avenue. What if those ­people owed him money, or owed Wormwood, and he sent his thugs to get them? Maybe it doesn't relate directly to this case, but it's something we could use as pressure against him to get some answers.”

Brigitte takes a piece of paper from her purse and sets it on the desk.

“One of the gentlemen I chatted with was good enough to give me Tamerlan's contact information.”

Julie snatches the paper off the desk before I can get near it. Too late, though. I already saw the address. She puts the paper in a drawer.

“I have an assignment for you, Stark,” she says. “Starting tomorrow, I want you to shadow each of Brigitte's necromancer contacts. Maybe one of them will reveal something without meaning to.”

“Stake out six ­people? How am I supposed to do that?”

“One at a time,” she says.

I sit back in my chair.

“This is just busywork, while you and Candy do the big-­brain stuff.”

“We need to keep you from playing in traffic,” says Candy.

“Or getting stung by a bee,” says Brigitte.

“You know, you two should do a ventriloquist act. You can take turns being the dummy.”

Julie says, “It's only busywork if that's what you make it. Real investigative work isn't always exciting, but seeing ­people at unguarded moments can be key to finding out what they're really up to.”

“I suppose you want reports on everyone. Write down everything I see.”

“That would be nice.”

“What if all I see is the idiots reading palms and going to McDonald's for Shamrock Shakes?”

“Then write that down. The smallest thing might be helpful as the case progresses.”

“If I'm right and Tamerlan is at the center of this, you owe me a drink,” I say.

Julie considers it.

“All right. And if you're wrong?”

“I'm not. But if I am, you get free rentals at Max Overdrive.”

“I'm not really a movie person. I'm more of an ESPN person.”

“I used to run Hell and now I'm working for a jock.”

“I used to be a U.S. marshal and now I'm working with a felon.”

Candy raises a ­couple of fingers and says, “Two felons.”

“Two felons.”

Julie looks at Brigitte.

“I don't suppose you're a felon too?”

“No. Merely an ex-­pornographer.”

Julie looks into the distance and sips her coffee.

“It could be worse,” I say.

“How?”

I think for a minute.

“Actually, I'm not sure. But I'll think of something and put it in my report.”

“I can't wait to read it.”

“I can't wait to make it up.”

S
TARTING TOMORROW
I
'LL
be a potted plant. Humpty-­Dumpty sitting in a car, making notes, eating donuts, watching my gut get big, and wanting to blow my brains out. But until then, no one told me what to do.

I leave Candy at home, happily pecking away at the laptop. This is the first time I haven't missed her since we started this case and she decided she liked data better than kicking in doors. She doesn't need to go where I'm going. It's not the worst place in L.A. It just smells the worst.

I drive out to Echo Park and leave the Crown Vic by the arboretum in Elysian Park, a sprawling patch of green near the 5 Freeway. On the east side of the park, just about under the freeway, is a greasy-­spoon diner called Lupe's. Supposedly Lupe Vélez used to eat there in the thirties, back when it was a chic spot for movie stars to slum. They say she ate her last meal here just before she took eighty Seconal and lay down for one last long nap.

Next to Lupe's is an auto wrecking yard with no name I've ever been able to find. Out front is a hand-­painted sign that says
WRECKERS,
and that's it. No hours. No phone number or address. Above the razor-­wire-­topped fences you can see piles of dead, rusting car bodies. Through the fence are wooden bins full of greasy axles, dusty brake drums, carburetors, and a hundred other parts. Everything you'd need to fix or assemble a car. But I've never seen anyone inside, and don't know anyone who's seen a sign of life from the place. No one even knows how long it's been there. As far as anyone can remember, it's always been in this spot, even when they were originally building the freeway. But I'm not here for Lupe's or Wreckers. I'm here for what lies between them.

Piss Alley.

It's exactly as fragrant as its name, but the smell doesn't seep into the street or bother the diners at Lupe's. You have to go into Piss Alley to get a hit of the pure product, and, man, what a product it is. It's like all the toilets in L.A. take a detour through the alley on the way to Piss Heaven. It smells like ammonia and rotten meat. It doesn't matter how many times you go into Piss Alley, it's always a shock. Your eyes water, your nose runs, and your stomach says, “You weren't planning on ever eating again, were you?”

I hold my breath and take a step between Lupe's and Wreckers. I'm nauseous for a second. This is why ­people used to think that smells—­miasmas—­caused disease. If smells could kill, Piss Alley would make a nuke seem like a car backfire on the Fourth of July. There's only one reason Piss Alley is allowed to exist and why morons like me come here.

It grants wishes.

The way I look at it is this: I can't shadow-­walk anymore, but I need to go places, get past doors, guards, and alarms. Even Mustang Sally, the highway sylph who knows every road, turn, and shortcut on the continent, can't help me with that. I need something more direct and desperate. I need Piss Alley.

Asking for a wish is easy. Getting it granted isn't. The Alley has to be in the right mood and you have to ask the right way. But the basic process is easy.

The walls of Piss Alley are covered with scrawls in paint, chalk, pencil, even blood. You just write your wish on the wall and hope for the best. Of course, just like the rest of the world, a bribe helps. There's a '32 black Duesenberg halfway down the alley. The front end is crushed like it was in a head-­on collision, but the passenger compartment and rear are still somewhat intact. The trunk lock is long gone. It's held closed by a loop of rusting wire. I twist it and get the trunk open.

If anything, the trunk smells worse than the alley. A swarm of flies rushes by my head, taking a break from feasting on old food offerings and the animals that dined on them and died in the trunk. I set a bottle of Aqua Regia in a clear spot by a tire well and wire the trunk closed again. Then I start on the wall.

There isn't a clear inch on the bricks to ask for a new favor. No problem. I get out the black blade and carve my message over the old ones.

I want to Shadow-­Walk
.

There's a present on the altar.

I saved the world. You fucking owe me.

Not exactly Walt Whitman, but I think Piss Alley will get the gist. There's nothing to do now but wait and see if it wants what I'm selling.

I go back to the car at the arboretum and drive back home with the windows open, letting my bruised sinuses fill with healing L.A. smog. I stop by Donut Universe to pick up a bag of greasy death. Every time I come here, I think about Cindil. She worked at the place until she was murdered. I rescued her from Hell and I need to give her a call. Adjusting to life back on Earth can be a little . . . well, look at me.

Back at Max Overdrive, I give Candy first crack at the donuts. I take an apple fritter, and Kasabian and Vincent descend on the rest like cruise missiles. They're watching a weird version of
Spider-­Man
I've never seen before.

“It's the version James Cameron was supposed to direct,” Kasabian says.

I watch for a few minutes, but I've never given much of a damn about poor, pitiful me Peter Parker, so I go upstairs to have a drink with my fritter.

“Aren't you supposed to be off playing
I Spy
with Tamerlan's flunkies?” says Candy.

“Not until tomorrow. My job today is to wait.”

“For what?”

“I'll know tonight.”

“What are you doing until then?”

“Eating this donut and drinking this drink.”

She closes the laptop and pinches off a piece of her donut between thumb and forefinger. She chews and swallows it.

“I was thinking of taking a break too. Why don't you pour me a drink and take off your clothes? We can wait on your whatever together.”

“Don't you have work to do?”

“Why do you think I want your clothes off?”

She doesn't have to ask twice.

A
FTER
I
'M SURE
everyone is asleep, I grab my coat, go downstairs, and head out.

I get halfway through the sales floor when Vincent's door opens.

“It's nearly three,” he says. “Where are you going?”

“I just have to check on something.”

“Do you need help? I could come along.”

“Aren't you tired?”

He shakes his head.

“Not much these days. At night, I mostly lie in bed trying to remember the way things used to be.”

“I know the feeling. Look, I'm not going to a nice place. This might be dangerous.”

He cocks his head.

“You mean I might die?”

“Okay, not that. But it's still dangerous.”

“I'll get my coat.”

His coat is a sweatshirt Kasabian loaned him. It doesn't matter. This is L.A., where, if the temperature dips below sixty, we call in the National Guard.

I head out to the car and Vincent follows. When he gets in, he takes out the bottle and pops a pill.

“You should take it easy on those.”

He swallows hard, getting the dry pill down his gullet.

“It doesn't matter. That was my last one.”

“You went through that whole bottle?”

“Yes. Do you think you can get more?”

“We'll let the doctor decide that. I'm sure she'd love to meet you.”

“It would be nice to meet some new ­people.”

I steer the Crown Vic into the light middle-­of-­the-­night traffic and head east. Vincent looks out the window, watching the city roll by.

“I didn't often get to look at places in my work,” he says. “I like it.”

“Enjoy it while you can. We'll have you back with a scythe in your hand in no time.”

“I hate that image. It makes me look like a monster.”

“If they painted you in pink taffeta with fairy wings, you'd still be a monster to ninety-­nine-­point-­nine percent of the human race.”

“I know.”

“The pills make that easy to deal with, don't they?”

“I feel the pull of life. The rejection of limbo and nothingness, and that's what death, unexamined, feels like. Even though I know otherwise, it feels as if my body itself rejected the idea of its end.”

“Survival instinct. I suppose you immortal types don't worry about that much. We deal with it every day.”

“You're part angel, but you still worry about death?”

“Not the death part so much as the stuff I'll leave behind. I lost a lot of years Downtown. I've barely started making up the time.”