Someplace to Be Flying (51 page)

This was a Cody that Dominique neither recognized nor understood.

“So I wanted to put an end to it,” he went on. “Get things back to a time and place when things could be good again. I thought that was what you wanted, too. To get your people to stop playing all their little hoodlum games and regain the dignity they had in the long ago. But you know, when I look back in my head to that time, the corbæ are there. Truth is, I’m not all that sure there’d still be a world, you take them out of the equation.” Dominique’s lip curled in a sneer. “You’re pathetic.”

“You’re not the first to call me that, darling, but the funny thing is, it almost feels like a compliment, coming from you.”

“I won’t let you stop us.”

“I’m not even trying. This is between you and the corbæ. Me, I’m heading back out into the high country to wait for the fallout to settle down. Maybe we’ll see each other again, but I’m doubting there’ll be much of you left to sweep up once the crows get done with you.”

“How charming,” Dominique said. “Go then. But not before you explain how the pot works.”

Cody shook his head. “Maybe you’ve got the genuine article there, and maybe you don’t. But there’s one thing you have to know about the pot, darling. Everybody’s got to figure out on their own how it can work for them.”

“It wasn’t a request,” she told him.

She knew Armand had been listening. Now the door connecting to her room opened silently and Armand stepped through.

“You see,” she began. “We can’t simply let you-“

She blinked in sudden shock. One moment Cody had been empty-handed, now he stood with that pearl-handled .45 of his in his hand, the muzzle of its long barrel pointed at her head.

“I guess you don’t hear too well,” Cody said. “When I told you I was out of it, I meant it. Now I’m no corbæ, so I figure that little jackass boy of yours might put a couple of shots in my back and do me in, but I’m still going to live long enough to kill you and probably him. So what’s it going to be? Am I walking out of here, or are we all leaving in body bags?”

Looking into that flat dark gaze of his, Dominique knew he wasn’t bluffing. She found herself thinking of how only moments ago she’d called him pathetic for being afraid of Jack Daw. But now, with death staring him in the eye, he seemed, from the twitch that now touched his lips, to be almost amused.

She swallowed dryly.

“Is that a clock I hear ticking?” Cody said.

“Maman?”
Armand asked.

“Leave us,” she told her son. “Everything is under control.”

“But-“

“Do as you are told.”

When the door clicked shut behind Armand, Cody’s .45 vanished back under his jacket as magically as it had appeared.

“I’ll be going now, darling,” he said. “Can’t say it hasn’t been fun.”

“The blackbirds …”

“I told you, I’m out of this.”

“You won’t warn them?”

Cody tipped a finger against the brim of his hat. “You have my word on that.”

“Then there will be peace between us,” she said. “If you keep your word… .”

Cody smiled. “I’m like the devil, darling. I always keep my word-right to the letter.”

When he left, she turned to look at the chalice once more, troubled by Cody’s parting comment, though she didn’t know why.

Crossing the foyer of the hotel, boot heels clicking on the wide expanse of marble floor, Cody spotted Gerrard glaring at him from a chair by the door. Cody knew all about cuckoo pride, but he couldn’t stop himself from making a gun shape with his fingers and pointing it at the man. He made a firing motion with his thumb as he went by.

“Bang,” he said.

Then he went out the big oak-and-brass doors, tipped the doorman a ten-spot, and got into his long white Lincoln.

He hadn’t lied to Dominique. He
was
finished here-let the crows and cuckoos sort it out while he headed straight for the high country. And he’d keep his promise, too, just like he said he would. He wouldn’t be talking to any crows on the way out of town-not that they’d listen to him anyway. But that didn’t mean there was nobody else he could talk to.

Picking up his cellular phone, he flicked it open with one hand, then pulled the short antenna out with his teeth and hit the speed-dial for Ray’s number. He was a little surprised when Ray actually answered. Cody’d thought for sure Ray would have thrown that phone away by now.

“It’s Cody,” he said into the mouthpiece.

“I told you,” Ray replied. “I’m out of it.”

“Now, Ray. Is that a friendly way to answer the phone?”

“What do you want?”

Cody touched the control for the driver’s seat window and stuck his elbow out the open window.

“Funny thing,” he said. “Turns out, I’m out of it, too.”

“So why’re you calling me?”

Cody could hear the suspicion in his voice.

“Well, that’s the other funny thing,” he said. “I’m just on my way from Dominique’s hotel room and you’ll never guess what she’s got in there.”

“I’m in no mood for games,” Ray said. “Just tell it straight.”

“Straight it is. She’s got herself something she thinks is Raven’s pot. Looks like a crystal chalice, but I didn’t put my hand on it so I can’t say for sure.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Well-and this is something you might want to share with Jack, you two being so chummy and all lately.”

“I’m hanging up, Cody.”

“You’ll regret it.”

He heard Ray sigh. “Okay. What’s this big news?”

“She’s also got one of your granddaughters up there with her and her boys.” “She’s got-“

“Don’t say I never did you any favors, Ray,” Cody said. He touched the “End” button and tossed the phone out the window. “Maybe now you’ll know we really were friends,” he added as he headed for the freeway.

Kerry could feel her newfound confidence begin to wane as they crossed the long stretch of empty lots that lay between the school bus where they’d met Paris and the junkyard she was leading them to. It was hard to feel self-assured, let alone bold, right about now. She hated to be the center of attention and wasn’t especially comfortable meeting new people in the best of circumstances. Knowing that Paris’s friends would probably greet her with the same animosity Paris had at first only made her feel worse. But it was too late to back out now.

They walked three abreast, the tattooed woman on one side of her, Rory on the other, the dogs ranging ahead of them. When they approached the front gate that appeared to be the only break in the chain-link fence enclosing the junkyard, a larger pack of dogs appeared and the two groups barked at each other from either side of the fence, snarling, jaws snapping against the links.

Kerry moved a little closer to Rory. The dogs sounded so fierce her pulse had begun to race.

“Don’t worry,” Paris told her when she noticed Kerry’s nervousness. “They just like to carry on. It’d be different if you were trying to break in or something, but you’re perfectly safe with me.”

She pushed open one half of the gate and the dogs that had accompanied them slipped through the widening gap, immediately beginning to tussle with the ones that had been inside. Kerry let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding when she realized that there was no real animosity between them. More importantly, none of them appeared to be all that interested in taking a bite out of her.

Paris waved them through ahead of her and then she and Rory were being introduced to her friends.

Everybody only seemed to have one name. There was the grizzled old man simply called Moth who owned the place. He merely nodded at them when he was introduced, regarding both Rory and especially herself with a suspicious eye. Much friendlier was an older woman named Anita in grease-stained overalls, her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Kerry noted the same recognition in her face as there’d been in Paris’s when they first met, but it wasn’t followed by anger.

“I can’t believe how alike the two of you are,” she said after wiping her palms on her jeans and then shaking hands.

Kerry couldn’t suppress a shiver. After having finally convinced herself that Katy was only a figment of her imagination, it was awful to discover that her twin actually did exist. What made it even more distressing was that she herself was responsible for Katy’s current disappearance. She should have welcomed Katy when her twin had appeared in the new apartment, instead of turning her away. Having come to understand that she’d been lied to about so many things in Baumert, why should she have believed them when it came to Katy? Whv couldn’t she have accepted what her own senses were telling her?

When she put it to herself like that, Kerry thought she deserved Moth’s animosity. She didn’t much like herself right now.

She forced herself to concentrate as Paris’s introductions continued. Anita had been working on a car with a man named Benny who looked more like an accountant than a mechanic so far as Kerry was concerned. He gave Kerry a shy nod, then immediately returned back under the hood of the car.

Last was Paris’s brother, Terry, a very good-looking Oriental man about Kerry’s age with none of his sister’s tattooing-or at least none that Kerry could see. He didn’t get up from his lawn chair, but he had a ready smile and flashed her a peace sign.

It didn’t take Kerry long to see what Paris had meant about her family. While it was obvious that none of the people sitting around in the junkyard were blood-related, there was still far more of a connection among them than she’d ever felt with her own parents.

“So you’re saying the crow girls are vouching for her?” Moth asked after Paris had finished explaining what had brought Kerry to Jack’s bus.

“You mean they’re real?” Tern? said, sitting up a little straighter. “I always thought they were just something out of one of Jack’s stories.”

“We only know them from the stories,” Paris explained. “They must be so awesome.”

“Actually, they act like little kids,” Kerry said.

But then she reconsidered, remembering the touch of Maida’s fingers on her brow, how they’d pulled the anxiety attack right out of her to help her face her problems the way normal people did. She made herself focus on the flicker of that candle, deep inside. While it didn’t ease the guilt she was feeling over having chased Katy away, it did make it a little easier for her to deal with all these strangers.

“But they’re pretty magical, I guess,” she added.

Tern? shook his head. “You guess? Man, that’s like saying you just met Elvis and he’s not so bad a singer for a guy who’s supposed to be dead.”

That woke smiles from everyone except for Moth. He wasn’t ready to be sidetracked.

“So you’ve only been here a few days, is that what you’re saying?” he asked.

Kerry nodded.

“Which is when all the trouble began.”

Kerry gave him a nervous look. This man didn’t like her at all.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Moth,” Anita said to him. “Will you stop glaring at her like that. None of this seems to be her fault.”

“She says.”

Anita gave Kerry a reassuring look. “Don’t mind him. There’s been a lot of strange things going on for the past week or so and everybody’s a little on edge.” She turned back to Moth. “Give me that phone of yours. I want to see if I can catch up with Hank.”

“Who’s Hank?” Kerry asked.

“He works for this lawyer named Marty Caine,” Rory said, speaking up for the first time. “And apparently here as well.”

“How do you know that?” Moth asked.

“I worked with him in Caine’s office.”

Moth nodded. “I remember you now. You’re a journalist, right?”

“Some of the time.”

“What do you do the rest of the time?”

“I’m a jeweler.”

That made Paris perk up. “No kidding? What do you work in?”

“Gold, silver-when I can afford it. Whatever comes to hand when I can’t.”

“I’d like to see some of your stuff.”

“Drop by the apartment sometime.”

The small talk was driving Kerry crazy. They should be out looking for Katy. Instead she felt like they were sitting around in some sort of bizarre combination of a kangaroo court and an afternoon social, junkyard style.

“Okay,” Anita said. She had walked a few feet away from where they were all sitting in front of Moth’s trailer to make her call. Rejoining them, she tossed the cellular phone back to Moth and sat down once more. “He was still in Caine’s office, but I was able to leave a message.”

“Hank’ll be able to straighten everything out,” Paris said, obviously confident in his abilities.

But when Hank did arrive, he was no more able to help her than the others had been. Jack was still missing, Katy was still missing, and Hank’s animosity level lay somewhere between Moth’s and Anita’s, a slow distrustful burn, which only added to Kerry’s feelings of guilt and left her no closer to making some sense out of this confusion. Adding yet more to her discomfort was that Hank seemed to be having his own problems.

Kerry supposed he was nice enough and might have liked him under other circumstances. But in this place, he was a little scary, a little too tough-looking for her to feel entirely at ease with him. When he started talking to Moth about some man named Eddie putting the arm on the D.A.‘s office and how Moth was going to have to have a talk with him, she began to feel as though she’d stumbled onto the set of some gangster movie.

Why are they talking about this kind of thing in front of us? she wondered.

The same thought must have occurred to Hank for he suddenly broke off? and an uncomfortable silence settled over them all. Finally Kerry stood up. There was no point in her staying here. While Paris and Anita had been friendly enough, it was obvious that she and Rory weren’t really welcome. Hank had been surprised to find Rory here, but it hadn’t felt like a nice surprise-more an intrusive one.

“We should be going,” she began.

She was interrupted by the arrival of another car, which pulled up beside the black VW bug Hank had arrived in. “Hey, Lily!”

Rory and Hank called out a greeting at the same time to the woman as she stepped out of her car. Then they looked at each other. “We go back a long way,” Rory said. Hank only nodded.