“Yeah, well, when you get into trouble, it seems like there’s always a motorcycle at the bottom of it.” He indicated the sleek steel-blue Jaguar. “Sure you wouldn’t rather save my heart a little wear and tear and take the Jag?”
She bent, unzipping the bag to pull out her helmet. “If I’m headed to hell, Lymon, I say go all the way.”
“Can I at least finish the valves?”
His heart skipped at the joy reflected in her smile. “Sure. I can even help.” She held up her long delicate fingers, manicured to perfection. “You’d be surprised. These have actually been oil stained. And I helped rebuild the injectors on a Massey Ferguson once.”
“I’m all atwitter.” Lymon smiled and returned to his bucket. God, this wasn’t smart. But when he looked at Sheela, glowing with relief as she bent down to help him with the lock nuts and feeler gauges, he couldn’t help himself.
Shit. I’m completely, totally, helplessly in love with her. “Just like every other red-blooded male in the world.”
“What was that?” Sheela was sorting through the feeler gauges like dealing cards.
“Nothing that couldn’t be cured by a bullet to the brain.”
Christal wound her Chrysler through Brentwood’s curving streets and slowed before a wooded lot. Behind a high wrought-iron fence, and through the trees, she could just glimpse an imposing Tudor-style house. She checked her watch: 8:32.
She pulled up at the curb and slipped the car into park. The last of sunset’s glow was fading in the reddened west. Streetlights were flickering on. Rolling the driver’s window down, she could hear insects and distant traffic on the evening air.
So, what was the right strategy? Drive up to the tall, spike-topped gate and ring the buzzer? Or wait until the designated time and act like a real professional?
She wasn’t sure what the smart move was yet. This was different than working for the Bureau. Here, she had to operate with people’s forbearance.
Her patience wore out at a quarter to nine when she turned the key, brought the Chrysler to life, and drove up to the gate. The metal box perched on a pole on the driver’s side had a speaker, camera, and buzzer. She rolled her window down the rest of the way and reached out to ring long, short, short, long.
Like magic, the gate rolled back on its wheels, and Christal drove up the curving drive toward the imposing house. The tree-shrouded drive ended in a loop that surrounded flower gardens and a central cement fountain. Floodlights cast it all in a yellow sodium glow. A Porsche, a stretch Mercedes, and an Audi were parked at the side of the curve in front. The yards were manicured, and the dark grass looked recently mowed.
Christal grabbed her purse and notebook with its list of names and stepped out into the evening. The house lights blazed as she walked up the steps to the door. She was just about to stab the buzzer when a car door opened behind her. She turned, surprised to see a woman stepping out of the Audi’s driver’s door. She was small-framed, dark-haired, with a narrow face.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, her voice thin. She was standing with her arms crossed tightly under her small breasts. She wore a white shirt and dark slacks. She might have weighed a full one hundred pounds, provided she’d had a big meal and had been hosed down.
Christal turned, stepping down the stone stairs. “Yes, I’m here for an appointment with Manuel de Clerk.”
“He didn’t have an appointment.” The woman looked wary, suddenly nervous, tightening her crossed arms. She was squinting, and Christal realized the light was behind her.
“Excuse me, do you work for Mr. de Clerk?” Christal could feel her instincts begin to prickle. In that instant, she knew that face, had seen it when this same mousy-looking woman had stepped out of a toilet stall at the Wilshire but days past.
“Who are you?” Christal’s tone sharpened. “Do you have any identification?”
The woman’s eyes enlarged, and her thin mouth twisted into a faint smile. “I know you.” Even as she was speaking she unfolded her arms and pointed a small silver revolver at Christal’s midsection. “Just stand very still.”
Christal experienced that electric lightness of the guts as she focused on the dark muzzle of the little snub-nosed revolver. Her skin crawled at the expectation of a bullet.
“Hey,” she whispered, trying to get her breath. “Relax. I’m no threat.”
“Who are you?” the mousy woman asked, her voice turning shrill.
“I’m Christal Anaya. I work for Sheela Marks.” She swallowed hard. Shit, this little short-haired vaina wouldn’t really shoot her, would she?
“What are you doing here?” Mouse’s dark eyes were like stones in her pale face.
“I told you, I’ve got an appointment with Manuel de Clerk.”
“Why?”
“Things for Sheela,” she made up. “They’re shooting Jagged Cat. Look, it’s not worth me getting shot over. I’ll leave.” She took a step back, her arms half-raised.
“Stay where you are. You don’t move.” Mouse held eye contact as she leaned into the Audi, felt about with her other hand, and retrieved something off the dashboard. A little black box that looked like the remote for an automobile’s door lock and security system. When Mouse thumbed the button, Christal heard nothing.
Christal made a gesture of surrender. “Look, this isn’t my concern. If you’re robbing the guy, I don’t want any part of it.”
Mouse smiled faintly. “Just stand still.” She glanced past Christal toward the house, as if expecting someone. Who? Copperhead?
“So, what is it this time?” Christal asked. “I’d almost bet you’re not getting a used tampon from Manny.”
Mouse’s expression reflected amusement, but she said nothing.
“Can I go?” Christal took another step back. “You’ve made your point.”
“I said, don’t move.”
Christal nodded as she took another step back. Her brain was starting to work again, her training asserting itself. She was a good four steps from the front of her Chrysler. Two steps and a leap and she could be at the door. Did that give her time to pull it open and dive inside?
Was that even a smart option? The silver pistol looked like a .38, but it could just as easily be a .357. Maybe one of the compact Taurus or Smith and Wessons. They were building incredibly powerful pistols into small and lightweight packages. A .357 could make chowder out of auto glass.
Think! She studied the woman, seeing how the tendons stood out on Mouse’s hand. She was gripping the pistol like she was squeezing a rubber ball. Christal could see it wiggling in the woman’s overstressed grip.
So, what were the odds? Could the woman really shoot? Or was she the kind who had once emptied a box at the range?
God, what a thing to have to bet on!
Christal was running options through her head when she heard the door open behind her. She turned, seeing Copperhead as she came striding out of the house. The woman was tucking a blouse into the top of her skirt as her pumps tapped the stone steps. Her familiar purse hung from one shoulder.
“What’s the … . ?” Her eyes fixed on Christal; a momentary puzzlement was replaced by a knowing smile. “Ah? I know you. I think we’re going to have a long chat, you and I.”
Mouse had her gaze fixed on Copperhead. Christal bet the farm, spun on her heel, and ran. Feet pounding, arms pumping, she sprinted for the corner of the house, where shadows pooled under a weeping willow.
“Stop her!” Copperhead cried.
Christal couldn’t separate the supersonic crack of a bullet from the report of the gun. She jinked right, took two steps, and jinked right again. She lost count of the cracking shots that split the air around her. Then she was in the shadows, darting from side to side. She pitched herself behind the bole of the tree, gasping for breath, heart hammering.
“What the hell are you doing!” Copperhead was screaming, her face contorted with rage.
“You said, ‘Stop her!’” Mouse cried as she picked at the open
cylinder of her gun.
“Damn! We don’t need a murder! You little fool!”
“She’s the same woman from the hotel! She followed us!”
“Come on!” Copperhead cried. “It’s too late. The police will be here any second!” She was climbing into the driver’s side.
“I think I hit her!” Mouse cried plaintively. “I’ve got to make sure!” She was slipping bullets into the cylinder, glancing back and forth from the gun to the shadows where Christal hunched behind the willow.
“I’m leaving!” Copperhead insisted as the Audi roared to life. “Get in, Gretchen! Or stay here.”
Gretchen snapped the cylinder closed, made a face of indecision, and bolted, bracing herself on the moving Audi as she pelted around the rear and sprinted to pull the passenger door open and dive inside.
Christal sagged in the darkness, gasping for breath. Shit! She’d never been shot at before. Bureau training was one thing. It was another to actually have someone try and kill her!
Her hands trembled as she fumbled for her cell phone. The shakes were so bad it took all of her concentration just to punch 911.
“Emergency response, how can I help you?” a woman’s metallic voice asked.
In the blur of an adrenaline high, Christal sputtered the address, noted that shots had been fired, that the subjects—two females wanted for questioning in regard to an incident at the Wilshire Hotel on Friday—were in a late-model Audi.
“Is anyone hurt?” the voice asked.
“My God, Manny!” Christal’s legs had gone to rubber. She felt wobbly as she ran for the door. Copperhead had left it swinging wide.
“I’m in the foyer,” Christal shouted into the phone. “I’m not touching anything.” She raised her voice. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
A voice, faint, could be heard. “Hey! God! Help me!”
Christal ignored the questions the 911 operator was calling and took the carpeted steps two at a time to the top floor. She hurried down the long hall, past doorways that she assumed were bedrooms, to the final door.
“I’m coming!”
“She cut me!” the panicked voice cried. “God, cut me loose! Help me!”
Christal used her shoulder to push the last door open, taking a good look. She’d found a bedroom, all right. The room was bigger than the entire house she’d grown up in. Expensive white carpeting covered the floor. Most of the walls were mirrored, adding to the illusion of endless space. A huge walk-in closet opened off one side. The master bed was monstrous: a four-poster with a flat wooden canopy that looked like it was carved walnut. She could see the man, naked, spread-eagled. His head was up, the tendons straining in his gleaming neck, and he was staring at his crotch.
Christal’s work at crime scenes caused her to pause, to notice the empty wine bottle on the nightstand, the glasses, one with wine still standing. On the vanity, a mirror was powdered with white and accented by a razor blade. A box of Trojans stood open beside it, with two torn wrappers on the floor beside the bed.
As Christal stepped closer, she could see that Manuel de Clerk was crying, his chest rising and falling with the sobs. Tears trickled down his sweat-slick cheeks. When he looked her way, it was with abject terror.
“She cut me!” he cried. “God, help me! Call an ambulance.”
Christal stopped short. Each wrist and ankle had been tied off to one of the sturdy bedposts with a white nylon rope. His black pubic hair glistened, damp and matted. She winced at the dark red stain that had formed between the man’s muscular thighs. As she watched, another drop of blood fell from the tip of de Clerk’s limp penis.
15
When the light turned green, Lymon toed the shifter into first. The transmission made a metallic clunk, and the big Indian rumbled and shook as Lymon eased the clutch out and accelerated. He rolled the throttle, letting all sixteen hundred and thirty-eight ccs bellow. The Indian wasn’t loud–Lymon hated loud pipes—but it had an authoritarian rumble that sent a tingle up his spine.
The lights on Santa Monica Boulevard seemed to pulse with brighter than usual color. Or was that just part of the high that came out of a nice night and being tuned to the bike and his passenger? He waved at people sitting in a sidewalk pizza place just because it was fun, and they were watching him ride past.
Sheela must have liked it, too; she tightened her hold on his waist. He fought the urge to reach down with his left hand and pat her leg where it rested against his hip.
“We should do this every night,” Sheela called over his shoulder.
“You’ve got a schedule. Rex would go into apoplectic seizures. You’re worth millions. You’ve got to take care of all vour minions.”
“I thought a minyan was ten Jews?”
“If you happen to be orthodox, it’s ten male Jews. But that’s spelled different.”
“Details!” she cried.
“That’s where the Devil is.”
He enjoyed her crystal laughter, and found himself smiling. Using a handful of front brake, he hauled the Indian down for the next red, pulling in behind a Tahoe and leaving himself a bike length for escape as he watched a sedan slow behind him. Only when he was satisfied the car had stopped did he shift into neutral and let the big V twin drop into its rumpity rumpity idle.
Sheela reached up and wrapped her arms around his chest. He could feel her as she hugged him. “Thank you, Lymon. I really needed this.”
“Hey, it’s fun,” he answered, trying to keep his voice light. “It’s what I do for relaxation.”
The light changed, and he accelerated with the traffic. The tranny shifted with a positive click. He was intimately aware of Sheela’s body moving with his. They might have been matched, a curiously symbiotic twin sharing the night, the wind, and the sound. Part of it was the Indian’s saddle. It forced the passenger to sit close. On the BMW she had been back, pretty much self-supported against the tour pack.
Damn his hide! His whole body seemed to be quivering, as if every nerve and muscle were aware of her. Even individual cells were howling out in primitive cognizance of the healthy female pressing against him.
Face it, it’s more than just your hormones. His brain was piqued, too. Sure, she was beautiful, and probably laced with the kind of pheromones his receptors were perfectly geared for, but he liked her. Enjoyed her company. He always had, from the moment he had first taken an interview with her.
It won’t work! he reminded himself sternly. She was a public lady, a superstar in a world where crossing the lines wasn’t allowed. The few who had tried it had ended up as burned wreckage, picked over by the press and left to decompose.
“What?” she asked past the wind. “Did you say something?”
“Not out loud.”
Her laughter was throaty. “Yeah, I can hear your thoughts, Lymon. Scary, huh?”
“Not as scary as the thoughts I was just thinking.”
“About me?”
“You can read my mind.”
He turned his head just far enough to give her a sidelong look. That’s how the magazines should have photographed her, like that, with excitement and deviltry bubbling in her eyes, a natural blush on her perfect cheeks, and a delighted smile.
Dear God, I love you. The words came rolling out of his subconscious. Cowed, he returned his attention to the traffic.
If anything proved quantum uncertainty, Heisenberg, Schrödinger’s cat, and chaos theory, it was LA drivers. Nothing could ever be predicted with any accuracy. Only the constantly wary survived. It was Darwin maxed to the tenth power. He had to concentrate on that. Whatever it took to keep his brain cells preoccupied with anything but the inevitability of biology.
“Now what are you thinking?”
“You can’t tell?”
“Not at the moment.”
“I’m knotting my brain with quantum physics.”
“Why?”
“It’s easier than Buddhism.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment, then propped h
er chin on his shoulder and said, “I’ve been imagining left-handed tantra myself.”
“What?”
“Ever read the Kama Sutra? Not the modern picture books, but the original?”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
To save himself he flipped on the turn signal, leaned into a right, and rolled the throttle, sure enough of the surface to scrape a floor board and the center stand.
Sheela tightened her grip and let out a shriek of delight. As they rolled down Coldwater, he heard his cell phone ring. Pulling over, he toed the bike into neutral and slipped the phone out of his pocket. He asked, “Yeah?” as he killed the bike, trying to hear.
“Lymon?” Christal’s voice was muffled by the foam of his helmet. “There’s trouble. It’s Copperhead.”
“Where are you?”
“Manuel de Clerk’s. The police are here.”
“I know where he lives. I’ve got to make a drop-off, then I’ll be right there.”
“You might want to hurry.”
He thumbed end, winced as a low rider rumbled past with loud exhaust and even louder bass speakers cracking the metallic blue paint off the car’s body.
“You heard?” Lymon asked.
“Everybody in the western United States heard. I hate Tejano when it rattles my teeth. So, what’s the drop-off?”
“You. Before I ride over to Manny’s.”
“I heard Christal say it was Copperhead.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, I’m going.”
“Sheela, I don’t need—”
“Punch the starter button there on the handlebar. That’s the red one just up from your thumb. That’s it.”
The Indian chugged, popped, and rumbled to life.
“You work for me, Lymon,” Sheela added curtly. “Your objections are duly noted for the record. Christal, however, also works for me.”
“Oh, yeah? Who signs her checks?”
“You do, with my approval. I want to see what’s happening. It’s important to me.” She tightened her hold as he found a hole in the traffic and unleashed the big engine’s massive acceleration.
The Athena Factor Page 16