Killing Pretty (26 page)

“I promise to be good,” I say.

“See that you are. Now both of you get out of here. I have a lot of work to do. I have to give my lawyer a call just to let him know what might be coming.”

Julie turns to her computer in such a way that I know it's time to leave. I start down the stairs and Candy follows.

Outside, she walks fast, heading away from me. It takes a few steps for me to catch up.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I didn't mean for you to get caught up in my shit.”

She stops, looks at me, and puts on her black sunglasses.

“But you did. I'm not ready to sit in a car with you all day. I need to walk for a little while. Follow me in the car. Drive around the block. I don't care, but don't talk to me for a while.”

She walks away. I light a cigarette and watch her. I thought today might go something like this, but I didn't want Candy to end up as collateral damage. I don't think even finding her brass knuckles right now would get me back in good with her. And she'd punch me if I bought her flowers or something stupid like that. Better just to keep my head down and my mouth shut. I get in the Crown Vic and follow her down Sunset.

She crosses over to my side of the street at Fountain Avenue and gets into the backseat. I look at her through the rearview mirror. If she's less angry, I can't see it.

“Don't talk,” she says. “Just drive.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Shut up.”

Heading to Wilshire, I'm careful to obey all traffic laws and stoplights. This would be a lousy day to get a ticket.

A lousier day, I mean.

I
PARK THE
car down the block from the Evermore Creatives Group. Far enough away not to be noticed, but close enough to see the main entrance. It's an ordinary office building. A concrete, steel, and glass shoe box tipped on its side along a quiet section of the boulevard. Mostly hotels, drugstores, and lunch joints down here for the tourists who can't afford thirty dollars for a room-­ser­vice burrito.

Candy moved up to the front seat when we parked, but hasn't said much since. She's just been screwing around with her phone. I roll down the window and have a smoke. Couriers with packages and snappily dressed men and women go in and out of the building. A lousy actress from a C-­minus caper movie I saw a while back comes outside, walking a husky on a leash. A FedEx truck pulls up. The driver unloads packages and takes them inside. A ­couple walks by holding hands, eating tacos.

“I don't know if I can do this much longer. The excitement is killing me.”

Candy shushes me.

She likes to play a game on her phone called Mecha Disco. It's sort of like Dance Dance Revolution, but with robots and lasers that blow up the dancers when they can't follow the beat. But she isn't wearing her headphones and her phone isn't beeping and shaking like a Martian vibrator. I lean back in my seat, trying to see what she's doing.

“Stop that,” she says.

“What are you doing?”

“Just 'cause I'm away from the computer doesn't mean I can't do background research on Evermore Creatives.”

“Find anything interesting?”

“Not especially. They've been around since the thirties. They used to handle a lot of musical acts, but couldn't compete with the big agencies, so they went small and boutique.”

“Who do they handle now?”

“Mostly ghosts. A lot of famous ones too. The big agencies worked with them when they were living—­”

“And ECG got them when they kicked. It's a smart deal. ­People are dead a lot longer than they're alive.”

“But they still represent some regular acts too,” she says.

“Probably to keep up appearances. No one wants to be pigeonholed in this town.”

“Get this. They make a lot of money selling wild-­blue-­yonder contracts.”

“Of course. Every star needs one.”

“No. They sell to civilians. It's almost as big as their ghost business. Isn't that a little weird?”

She's right. I puff the Malediction. A guy walking by with a yoga mat under his arm makes a face when he passes through a cloud of my fumes.

“Excuse you,” he says.

I wave to him.

“Have a blessed day.”

“There's something I don't understand,” says Candy.

“Why does a talent agency brand its clients?”

“Exactly. That doesn't sound like a business–client relationship. That's more like . . .” She searches for the right word. “Ownership.”

“Maybe they owned Eric Townsend. I want to know why a talent agency is doing business with the White Light Legion.”

Candy stares at her phone. She's still mad, but at least she's talking.

“We don't know that they are,” she says. “It could just be the one guy.”

“I wonder if that one guy lived with the other zoo animals in Laurel Canyon?”

“Julie might know. I'll e-­mail her.”

“Send her my love.”

“See me typing? That means I'm ignoring you.”

I drop the rest of the Malediction out the window, look around for somewhere to get coffee. If I can't have Aqua Regia, maybe caffeine will help me get my brain around all that's happened in the last few days.

I say, “What do we have? Someone killed Eric Townsend and dragged him and another stiff out to a Nazi condo in the woods.”

Candy sets down her phone.

“One that's not easy to get to. That would be a hard hike carrying two corpses.”

“Right. The White Lights performed a ritual to bind Death to one of the bodies, dumped it, and then went to all the trouble of hauling the first body out of there.”

“Why leave a body behind when you just bound an angel inside?” she says.

“Maybe those kids partying spooked them. Remember, Death was locked in a rotting corpse. He wasn't going anywhere until Varg took the knife out of his chest. What I want to know is why the White Lights were so in love with one body that they dragged it to the ranch, then humped it all the way back out again.”

“And assuming it was magicians from the Silver Legion that did the ritual,” says Candy, “why talk about Wormwood? What does Tamerlan's bank have to do with Death?”

“I'd like to see that other body. I bet it had an ECG brand on it too.”

“There's a lot more we don't know. Who is Sigrun?”

“And who or what is the new Death?”

“I've been looking for actors, singers—­anyone in L.A. involved in show business named Sigrun. I haven't found anything.”

I point at the ECG building.

“I'll bet you a dozen donuts she has a blue-­yonder contract with those creeps.”

“Or she could work there. Or just be a freelancer they brought in for the job, which will make it harder to track her down.”

A seagull circles overhead and shits on the Crown Vic's hood. The bird was probably aiming for me and missed.

“It's no fun going over things if you aren't going to jump to conclusions with me.”

“That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid doing,” Candy says.

I look at her.

“I haven't seen you so latched on to something since Doc Kinski died.”

She flips through screens on her phone, looks up at me.

“I'm liking this private-­eye thing. I like learning things and doing smart work.”

“So, does that makes the work we did before dumb stuff?”

“That's not what I mean. I liked kicking in doors and punching bad guys with you. But sometimes I missed working with Doc. I learned things working at the clinic with Allegra, but it wasn't the same. Now there's this new thing and I think I could get pretty good at it. What do you think?”

“I think you can do whatever you set your mind to.”

“But do you think I'm wasting my time with Julie?”

“You're doing a lot better than I am. And if brainwork is what you want, I think you can handle anything she throws at you.”

“Thanks.”

She smiles.

“Now let's see if you can get me out of the doghouse with her.”

“I'm not sure anyone's that smart.”

She holds up her phone and takes a photo.

“What are you shooting?”

“I'm Instagramming the seagull shit.”

“Good idea. It could be a Nazi seagull.”

“Please. Seagulls are anarchists,” Candy says. “They don't play by anybody's rules but their own.”

I open my mouth to argue with her, but what comes out is, “Oh shit.”

She turns where I'm looking.

“What is it?”

“Lock the back door on the passenger side. I'll be back in a second.”

I get out and walk as fast as I can without attracting attention.

Outside the ECG office, David Moore is having a friendly chat with his phone. I wait until he's facing away, come up behind him, and put the black blade to his back.

“Hang up,” I whisper. “Tell them you'll call back later.”

Without missing a beat he says, “Babe, I've got to call you back. Something's come up.”

I turn off the phone for him and put it in his pocket.

“Let's take a ride.”

“Why can't we talk here? I won't run away.”

“I don't like the sun. My scars don't tan. I end up with freaky white railroad tracks all over my face.”

“Where are we going?”

“Back here for now. Later, who knows?”

I walk him to the Crown Vic. Candy leans over the seats and opens the rear passenger-­side door. I shove Moore inside and get in next to him.

He looks at Candy in her big black shades, black lipstick, and pink hair.

“This is Chihiro,” I say. “She has a gun and a phone, so it's fifty-­fifty whether she'll shoot you or Instagram you.”

“I told you, I'm not going to run.”

“You got that right,” she says.

She crooks her finger at me.

“Can we talk a minute?”

I keep the knife against Moore's ribs and lean up where I can talk to Candy.

She whispers, “This is kidnapping, exactly the kind of thing Julie doesn't want us doing.”

“I suppose you're right. Maybe you should leave that part out of your report.”

“This once, but we seriously need to work on your bedside manner.”

“Good plan. But I already have Moore, so let's see what we can get out him.”

“Fine.”

I swivel around so I'm facing Moore again. He's pressed up against the door, as far from me as he can get.

I say, “You wanted to sell me a wild-­blue-­yonder contract a few days ago. Actually, you lied to me—­said you were with the
L.A. Times
—­then you tried to sell me a contract.”

“So? I embellished a little. Welcome to show business.”

“Why come to me?”

“I told you before, the agency wants A-­listers. You'd fit right into our Smoking Gun department.”

“What's a Smoking Gun department?”

“I think he means crooks,” says Candy.

“Is that what you mean? Who else do you have in there?”

“Client names and affiliations are confidential.”

“But basically you want me to do a dog and pony show with Johnny Stompanato for some rich idiot's sweet sixteen party?”

Moore frowns.

“I don't have to tell you anything.”

“What else do you do for ECG?”

“I just look for clients.”

“For wild-­blue-­yonder contracts.”

“Yes.”

“You must have a lot.”

“Not as many as you might think. We have high standards. Only the right backgrounds get an offer.”

“What's the right background?”

“That's also confidential.”

“Show me your left arm.”

I grab his arm and pull it straight so Candy can hold him by the wrist.

He wiggles and pulls, but she's got him tight.

“Don't hurt me,” he says.

I hold up the knife.

“It'll only hurt if you move.”

Digging the knife into a seam, I slit the sleeve of his jacket and shirt all the way up to his shoulder. Up near his armpit is a brand in the shape of the ECG logo.

“What does the brand mean?” I say.

“That's confidential.”

“You're talking to a bored man with a knife. What will I cut next?”

Moore looks from me to Candy. She shrugs.

“Don't look at me. There's no reasoning when he gets this way.”

I say, “Let me get things rolling. I bet you have a blue-­yonder contract. Is that what the tattoo means?”

He nods.

“Why mark ­people?” says Candy. “Is it to scare off other agencies?”

“Partly,” Moore says. “But it's to let paramedics and morticians know, anyone who might work with dead bodies, about the contract.”

“A blue yonder is about the spirit,” I say. “Why does the body matter?”

“Each brand is a little different.”

“Like a serial number,” says Candy.

“Yeah. They use it to confirm you're dead so the necromancers can collect your soul.”

I tap his leg with the knife, thinking.

“How long does a contract last?”

“Indefinitely,” he says.

“So, basically ECG owns you forever. Who told you to come to me?”

“No one. I'm a salesman. Getting you to sign would have been a big deal for my career.”

I look at his eyes, trying to read him, but he's too scared for me to get anything useful.

“You know you're talking to someone with a history of erratic behavior, right? And I'm holding a knife.”

He looks at the ceiling for a minute. Candy lets go of his arm and he snatches it back.

“It was my boss,” he says.

“Who's your boss?”

“Mr. Burgess.”

“And who told
him
?”

“I don't know.”

“Someone from the White Light Legion? Wormwood?”