Pacific Fire (21 page)

“Cass … I don't know what to say.”

“Just say thanks.”

He couldn't. The word was too small.

“How'd you find him unguarded?”

“Got a tip.”

“Argent?”

She scoffed. “I'd never deal with Argent. I know Otis's locksmith. I could have taken him years ago. Just didn't have a good enough reason.”

“Let me take him off your hands.”

She didn't consider the offer for a second. “I can take care of your dear old uncle. You've got your own stuff to deal with.”

“You just made my stuff a little easier.”

She frowned at him, the distinct frown she used whenever she thought he was being stupid. In the old days, it used to put him on defense, but now it just made him miss her. “Just because I've got him trussed up in my van doesn't mean he's out of the picture,” she said. “He's already set things in motion. He's still dangerous.”

“I know, but at least now he can't improvise. This is big, what you've done for me. And for Sam.”

“You really like that kid, don't you?”

“He's my kid. I love him.”

“Weird world.”

Fireboat sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer, and Cassandra took that as her cue to depart. She climbed into the van and shuffled over to the driver's seat.

“Am I going to see you again?” Daniel asked, hand on the door.

“Probably. Good luck on Catalina, D.”

“You should really kill that son of a bitch.”

“We'll see,” she said.

“Oh, and Cass … Thanks.”

He was right. It was just a tiny word.

He moved his hand away. The sirens came closer and closer, and he watched her motor down the canal until she turned a corner and left Daniel behind.

 

FOURTEEN

Sam chose the Ships Coffee Shop on La Cienega because he and Em needed to steal a boat and the diner had a great window view of the docks across the canal. But as soon as he saw the mint-green tabletops and the battered toasters bracketed to each table, he realized he'd been here before. This was the first place Daniel took him after killing the Hierarch. He'd set Sam up at the counter with a bowl of tomato soup and a glass of milk, and that small act of kindness meant nearly as much to Sam as saving him from the Hierarch.

The waitress brought Sam soup and milk and coffee. Em got pancakes and hash browns.

“So what about the black one?” Em said, looking out the window.

“The forty-footer?”

“Yeah, it's a bateau. Should be seaworthy.”

Sam shook his head. “Nah, something smaller. Sneakier. Faster.”

“The red Stiletto?”

“Well, it's fast.”

The docks were part of an all-day marina stretching half the length of the block. The day price was low but the hourly rate was high, which meant people who left their boats there weren't planning on coming back for a while. There was a single dock attendant who hadn't strayed from his little booth for as long as Sam and Em had been watching her.

Sam blew on his coffee. “Oh, check out the purple Baja Jumper.”

“The pimp ship with the sparkles?”

“Why not? Those can hit fifty knots.”

“Unless we hit rough seas, in which case we'll be at the bottom of fifty fathoms.”

A woman slipped into the booth next to Sam. She had eyes tattooed on the sides of her shaved head. A man as thin as a flagpole took the seat next to Em.

“Twelve-foot seas, wind gusts up to forty miles an hour,” the hound said. “That's the forecast for tonight.”

Sam slurped his tomato soup. “How'd you find us?”

“Is that a trick question? I'm a hound. I smelled you.”

“Out of all the millions of people in Southern California, you tracked me to this city, to this neighborhood, to this diner.”

“What can I say? You stink good.”

Em brought a forkful of hash browns to her mouth. “Can we at least finish breakfast before you start bothering us?”

The hound leaned back in the booth, relaxed. “Take your time. You're not going anywhere. I didn't bring cannon fodder this time. I brought Bennie.”

The thin man carried a certain nonspecific lethal aspect about him.

“Who's Bennie?” Sam asked.

“Bennie's my gun. Say hello, Bennie.”

Bennie made a pistol with his thumb and forefinger. The nail of his index finger was a black, gleaming, corkscrew-shaped thorn. It looked like the tip of a manticore spine.

“Remember, I'm a hound. If I smell you start to use magic, the girl's life is over.”

Bennie pointed his finger-gun at Em's head. “Boom.”

Em made a shadow-puppet rabbit back at him.

The waitress came to the table. “Can I get you anything, hon?” she asked the hound.

The hound's smile was thinner than a paper cut. “No, thank you. I'm perfectly fine.”

Sam took a huge swig of coffee. “I could use a refill when you get the chance.”

“Sure thing, hon.” The waitress pocketed her pad and pencil and went off.

“Now, I've gotten to know you two a bit over the last couple of days,” said the hound, “and I know what a tremendous mess you're capable of making. I don't like messes. So I'm going to offer you a deal.”

“What do you say, Em? Are we interested in a deal?”

“Absolutely, considering Screw Finger's scary manicure is pointed at my head.”

Sam set his mug down. “What's the deal?”

“You come with me, and I conduct you safely to my employer. Your girlfriend goes free. Simple as that.”

“Otherwise?”

“Bennie spills her brains all over your breakfast.”

“Simple as that,” Em said. “Who are you working for?”

“My employer wishes to remain anonymous.”

“It's Otis Roth, isn't it?” Em said. “Come on, just tell us.”

The hound sighed.

Em nodded. “Ha, yeah, I saw your head-eyes flick. It's Otis.”

“Wasting time.”

The waitress came with her coffee carafe, and a few things happened.

She leaned over the table to fill Sam's cup.

Sam grabbed her wrist, snatched the carafe from her hand, and splashed scalding black coffee in the hound's face.

Simultaneously, Em threw her arm out like a crane flapping its wings. Her wrist made contact with Bennie's, and then she drove her elbow into the inside of Bennie's elbow. She used her other hand to control Bennie's finger-gun, turning it toward his own face. With a soft pop, the manticore nail shot away from his finger, embedding itself in his forehead.

Meanwhile, Sam drove his fork into the side of the hound's head, right in the pupil of a tattooed eye.

She shrieked.

The waitress screamed.

And Bennie's face turned to liquid, melting away like hot candle wax.

“Call the cops! Call the cops, Lloyd!” the waitress hollered, running into the kitchen.

Sam scrambled over the back of the booth seat and Em shouldered their bag of gear and scooted under the table. With every customer in the diner gaping at them, they bolted out the door.

They'd left the dinghy in the small slip yard behind the restaurant. Just the tip of the prow emerged from the water. The hound had taken the precaution of sinking their boat.

A police siren wailed.

“How fast can you hotwire a boat?” Sam asked.

The siren sounded very close.

“Not fast enough. Hoof it.”

They walked down La Cienega at what Sam hoped was a brisk city pace and not a guilty-looking sprint. With luck, the cops would stop at the diner, and he and Em would have time to steal a boat or wave down a taxi. But the sirens kept coming. Someone must have told the cops which way they'd gone.

A yellow speedster with chrome pipes and pontoon stabilizers pulled up alongside them. The boat was so glossy Sam could see his own face reflected in the finish. A blacked-out window whirred open, revealing a guy with blond curls at the wheel. He looked about Sam's age, but they might as well have been from different planets. He was magazine-cover handsome, the sort of looks one is born with and then improves upon with money and expertise. He was cool.

He smiled, showing teeth so finely sculpted that Michelangelo would have been proud of them. “You guys need a ride?”

The police sirens were getting closer.

“Yes,” Sam said. “Yes, we do need a ride.”

“Mi barco es su barco.”

“We're being chased by cops,” Sam said, hating himself for the weakness of honesty, but it wasn't long ago that he'd built Sofía Bautista's cairn, and he didn't need the guilt of more collateral damage.

“I get it,” the guy said. “Hop in.”

“We're being chased by other people, too,” Sam added, hating himself even more. “Really dangerous people.”

“I eat danger for breakfast.” He seemed really excited.

A pair of gull-wing doors lifted and Sam wasted no more time diving into the front seat. Em tumbled into the back. The doors shut, and with an alarming but satisfying engine roar, the boat reentered traffic.

“Hold on,” the guy said. He throttled up, swerving around slower boats and sending a wake splashing against the canal wall. The traffic buoy ahead changed, and he gunned through it.

“I think you ran a red there,” Sam said admiringly.

“Oh, whoops.” His laughter was the sound of childhood delight.

He maintained the boat's speed, sometimes straying into the opposite lane. There was a moment of terror when Sam was sure they were going to be sideswiped by a gondola bus, but the guy acted like he drove this way all the time. Strangely, Sam felt himself relax as they tore along the canals. The sirens faded in the distance, and there were nothing but civilian boats behind.

“I think you lost them,” Sam said.

“Well, this one goes to me. They do catch me sometimes, which is why I don't have a license. Technically, I'm a criminal.” He grinned those magnificent teeth and laughed again.

“So you do this a lot.”

“It's not always running from cops. Usually it's paparazzi.”

“You're a … celebrity?”

The guy blinked, surprised. “Well … yeah.” Then, the laugh. “You really don't know who I am? You got in a boat with a complete stranger? I
like
you guys.”

“His name is Carson,” Em said. “He used to be in Boysquad, but now he's solo.”

Carson looked back at her in the rearview mirror.

“Are you a fan?”

“No,” she said, but Sam could tell by how vehemently she denied it that she was.

“Okay, I really do like you guys. So, what's your story? Runaways? You steal something?”

Em just looked at him.

Carson slowed to a more reasonable pace, though it was still above the speed limit. “That's cool, you don't have to say. Sorry to be nosy.”

“Why did you pick us up?” Sam asked.

Carson made a
pff
sound. “Cops,” he said, as if that was all the explanation anyone could need. “So, where to?”

They'd come to the split of Wilshire and Santa Monica canals in Beverly Hills. Across the canal, a cop dismounted his canal skimmer, but he didn't look up at Carson's boat, only got out his ticket book and walked toward a bank of docking meters. Still, Sam didn't feel comfortable here.

“Look, why don't you hang with me for a while. We can grab a bite, maybe smoke a little griff; no one will bother us.”

“Why are you being so nice to us?” Em said.

“I don't really have much else to do today.” For just a moment, Carson's confident élan fell away, and Sam caught a shade of loneliness. He was probably a skilled enough performer that he could draw on that aspect for breakup songs, but it seemed authentic enough.

Carson's winning smile returned. “But it's not like you're my hostages. I can let you out wherever you want.”

Sam and Em exchanged a look. Carson had money, access, and shelter.

Best of all, he had a boat.

“I guess we can hang for a while,” Sam said.

*   *   *

Carson kept rooms at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a complex of pink Mediterranean bungalows and birds of paradise and attractive invasive plant species and a swimming pool filled with water the color of blue mouthwash.

“I'm renovating my house,” he explained, leading the way down a red carpet flanked by potted palms to the main building. “I can't create with hammers banging in my skull, so I come here to relax when I'm in town. I just finished up my Asian tour, and before that was Oceania, and before
that
was South America, so I need a lot of relaxing. God, São Paolo.”

Sam shook his head in commiseration. “São Paolo.”

The only thing Sam knew about São Paolo was that a lot of Andean wolf bone got trafficked through there.

Carson hadn't gotten more than three steps into the lobby before a managerial type in a good suit rushed out to greet him. He nodded graciously at Sam and Em without registering visible distaste or disapproval, but he was clearly dazzled by Carson's glamorous photons.

Sam had stayed in plenty of motels. He had cataloged sixteen distinct shades of mysterious brown stains peculiar to such places. He doubted he'd find any brown stains here. When the manager opened the door to Carson's room, the very first thing Sam noticed was the baby grand piano. Sam had never before seen a baby grand piano, much less one in a living room. Some distance from the piano was a marble fireplace. There were couches that looked like Greek monuments outfitted with pillows. There were tables that existed only to support a single statue or bouquet of flowers. There were chairs placed throughout the room, presumably in case you wanted to sit next to the wall, far away from other people.

Carson asked for a tray of “snacks and drinks and stuff” and passed the manager some paper money in a secret handshake.