A half hour later, the vampire in the Jaguar convertible returned. He paused by the alley entrance. A human female lay in the narrow backseat. Her tranquil red aura said she was either asleep or passed out. Drunk? Drugged? Under vampire hypnosis?
What was he doing? Trolling for another catch?
To watch him more closely I got careless and poked my head too high above the edge of the building. A human wouldn’t have noticed, or a vampire wearing contacts, but my orange aura announced my presence like a Day-Glo banner.
The vampire snapped his gaze upward, his tapetum lucidum reflecting the surrounding neon. His eyes locked on mine. A glow of exhilaration brushed through his aura, as if he’d found a prize. At that instant I knew he was looking for me.
Unfolding a cell phone and accelerating toward Hollywood Boulevard, he tossed one final glance back, as if to confirm what he had seen.
“Who’s he calling?” I asked. “How did he know to look here?”
Coyote ducked low and his gaze flitted about like a real coyote searching for an escape route. “Feels like a trap, ese.”
The Jaguar turned left on Hollywood Boulevard and headed west.
“Trap or no trap, I’ll bet that vampire can answer some questions.” My kundalini noir flexed for combat. Talons and fangs extended. I patted the outline of my .380 pistol. “Traffic’s heavy, so we can box him in.” I motioned to the right. “You follow and come from behind.”
Coyote moved to the edge of the wall. “And you, Felix?”
“If this is a trap, it means trouble. Isn’t that what we came for?”
CHAPTER 24
No time to waste if I wanted to catch the vampire. If I moved diagonally across the block, I’d intercept his Jaguar convertible at the intersection of Hollywood and Wilcox.
I took a running leap and sailed across the alley to the roof of the opposite building. I bounded from rooftop to rooftop and levitated to the sidewalk on Wilcox.
I rounded the corner at a sprint and pushed a couple of pedestrians out of my way. The Jaguar cruised in the oncoming lane of Hollywood Boulevard. I sprang from the sidewalk and headed right for the convertible.
The driver’s aura erupted in surprise, then blazed with anger. He veered out of traffic and gunned the engine. The glare of his headlights dazzled me.
I wasn’t going to step aside and let him get away. I leapt for the driver. The bumper and grille slid under my legs. My talons scratched across the hood and I smashed into the windshield.
The driver’s aura burned incandescent with fury. His Jaguar raced across traffic. Horns blared and tires screeched in a chaotic blur. The Jaguar bounced over the curb and I slapped against the hood but held firm to the wipers. We crashed through the steel barricade locked over a storefront.
Broken metal shutters tore at my back, shredding my clothes. Glass showered the air. Hot steam from the radiator sprayed my ankles and feet. A snarl of pain broke from my throat.
The Jaguar burst through a rack of women’s lingerie and slammed to a halt. Two cash registers catapulted past my head and ricocheted off the windshield, smashing the glass.
Dazed, I lay still on the hood. The back of my legs ached where the metal shutters had smacked them. My hands tingled from holding on to the wipers during the crash. Both of my feet were wet from the Jaguar’s coolant.
Lacy garments fluttered around us like dizzy birds. Remnants of a splintered counter littered the carpet. Overhead banks of illuminated fluorescent lamps hummed, the only noise in the room. Lights at this time of the morning? Inside a shuttered building?
The quiet and my questions didn’t last long.
Naked young women jounced around the room in panic, screeching as if splashing through acid. One dangled in a love swing suspended from the ceiling, wiggling like a snared rabbit. The women stumbled over spilled racks of clothing. Two men with camcorders tripped across electric cables and klieg lights.
They were filming a porn movie? Now? I didn’t know the skin business had a graveyard shift.
The girl in the backseat of the Jaguar sat up, her head covered by swirls of tangled hair. As her gaze swiveled across the room, she brushed bits of glass from her shoulders. With no expression of surprise, she slithered out of the backseat and over the side of the car.
The driver used his talons to tear away the air bag draping his face. Looking about, he seemed as confused as I was.
But only for an instant.
Fangs bared, he lunged at me through the broken windshield, his talons splayed like the tines of pitchforks.
I locked my fingers into his and used his momentum to withdraw over the front of the Jaguar. Bracing my knees against the bumper, I gave a mighty pull and yanked him fully through the windshield.
I squeezed his fingers and hands and cracked bone. When he screamed I gave him a head butt to his face. I let go his fingers to grab his hair and brandish my pistol. He flailed uselessly while I hammered his face with the butt of the gun. Vampire blood spritzed against my fingers.
I beat the vampire and kept beating him out of my frustration with this case. Every strike to his head accompanied a question. What’s going on? What do you know? What can’t I see?
Sparks of pain flashed through the vampire’s aura, marking the tempo of my blows. The sparks faded, and the vampire’s arms fell limp.
I didn’t want to kill him, not yet. When he first saw me on the roof, he called someone to report he’d found me. Why? I brought my face close to his. “Who are you working for? Who did you call?”
His eyes rolled to the left and right and fixed upon me. His aura smoothed for a moment and became tranquil, as if he were grateful for the recess from pain. A flame of bright orange exploded through his aura. He growled, spittle dripping from his long teeth.
“Let me repeat the lesson.” I smashed his face into the hood of the Jaguar like I was working a stapler. His fangs left two crooked rows of punctures and red slobber in the dented metal.
“Again. Who are you working for?” I screwed the muzzle of the pistol into his temple. “Answer me, you stupid bastard, before I ventilate your brain.”
He gurgled through the pink froth around his swollen lips. “Cragnow.”
The name I wanted to hear. “Why?”
“You…you…” The vampire gasped and choked.
“Me what?”
Something pounded on the roof. The lights went out. Panels of acoustical tiles, insulation, and chunks of plaster tumbled to the floor from the ceiling.
The women, who were already screaming at air-raid siren volume, let out a wave of even more deafening shrieks. Their red auras boiled with terror.
I let go of the vampire’s hair. His face thumped the hood. I aimed my automatic at the ceiling. More tiles fell and exposed a black hole. An orange aura appeared in the void.
Coyote.
He floated to the floor, yelling, “La jura.” The cops. “They’re not wasting time getting here. Vamonos.”
I surveyed the damage. The front of the store was demolished. Bystanders peeked through the tangle of twisted metal shutters and their gazes probed the darkness. Several thousands of dollars in lingerie lay about, now useless rags. A totaled Jaguar. One thoroughly battered bloodsucker. I brushed the dust of his dried blood from my fingers.
A public spectacle of vampire-to-vampire combat was a huge no-no. But the problem was Cragnow Vissoom’s. As the leader of the local nidus, his duty was to keep vampire activity hidden from humans. This was his mess to tidy.
“Give me a minute,” I shouted to Coyote. I made for the vampire’s pockets to search for his wallet and cell phone.
A police car skidded to a halt outside the entrance to the store, throwing a frenetic kaleidoscope of red and blue lights.
Coyote jumped and glided up through the hole.
I had to forget about the vampire. If I lingered another second, the cops would be on me.
Limping from the Jaguar, I stashed my pistol in its holster, took a couple of painf
ul steps to build momentum, and hopped upward to follow Coyote. We scrambled across the roof and to the street, where we stayed in the shadows, moving like phantoms back to my car. I smelled of radiator antifreeze. My trousers and shirt hung in tatters.
Dozens of police cars circled the block behind us, their flashing lights making the streets look like a pinball arcade. Spotlights fixed on the shiny, anxious faces of people streaming from the nightclubs. A helicopter whirled overhead, and the shaft of a searchlight stabbed the rooftops where we had just been.
The speed with which so many cops responded astonished me. As Cragnow’s hired gun, Deputy Chief Julius Paxton must have prepared his buddies in Hollywood Station to muster such a force. Some of these cops had to be undead. Meaning they’d use vampire vision to search for auras. The gloom of night wouldn’t protect Coyote, or me.
CHAPTER 25
We snuck to my car. I took Santa Monica Boulevard east to the Hollywood Freeway and straight to Coyote’s home. I checked the mirrors for police. Nada.
My back muscles throbbed from the lacerations. The frustration that overwhelmed me earlier returned and my mind spiraled into a whorl of confusion. The red taillights around me fused into a crimson smear. My thoughts tumbled around the other vampire, as if he and I were locked inside a barrel careening down a hill. What part did this vampire play in Cragnow’s plan? Was he a mere lookout, a guard…or an assassin? How much did he know?
I recoiled, startled by the rank odor of rat chorizo and stale mescal. Coyote chugged from his flask.
The stench yanked me back to the present like a whiff of ammonia. The taillights of the car in front of me snapped into sharp focus.
Coyote lowered the flask and munched on something.
“You had another worm in there?” I asked, wondering what he chewed.
He shrugged. “Worm, cockroach, don’t know.”
Coyote’s aura pulsed with anxiety. He hunched forward and screwed and unscrewed the metal cap of the flask.
“What did that vampire tell you, ese?”
“Not much.” I remembered my hand rebounding from the vampire’s face. My lips curled into a grin. “He said he worked for Cragnow.”
“Surprised?”
I paused. No. “Relieved, actually. Means I’m getting close to my answers. He got on the phone too quickly after he saw me. Like it was part of a plan. That confirms what I’ve suspected.”
“What?”
“Cragnow was behind Roxy’s murder.”
Coyote twisted the cap onto the flask and shoved it back into his jacket. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Felix. It only means Cragnow expected you to visit the alley.” Lights from oncoming traffic cast moving shadows across Coyote’s withered face.
“You’re quick to defend him,” I said.
“Chale. I dream to see you do to Cragnow what you did to his matón.” His thug. “Think about it, ese. Did that vampire tell you anything about Roxy?”
“I didn’t have the chance to ask. But the trail from Roxy’s murder leads to Cragnow.”
“Don’t be too sure.”
“I am sure,” I replied. “Why else would he plant a lookout on the alley?”
“To catch you, ese. Why are you here in Los Angeles?”
Seemed an obvious question. “To find out who killed Roxy Bronze. And investigate vampire–human collusion, which seems as rampant here as chicken pox in a kindergarten.”
Coyote reeled his fingers, as if to draw out my response. “Why does Cragnow want to stop you?”
Another obvious question. “To keep me from finding out who killed Roxy.”
Coyote shook his head in rebuttal. “Let’s suppose, vato, that Cragnow had nothing to do with her death. In that case, why would he care if you solved her murder or not?”
“Explain this. I ask about Roxy and for my troubles I almost get turned into asphalt pâté. Then this goon tonight tried to play bumper tag with his Jag.”
“Cragnow fears you,” Coyote said. “Why?”
“Because I’m a threat to his vampire–human enterprise.”
“Which is not the same as Roxy’s murder, is it?” Coyote grinned expectantly, as if waiting for a dim bulb to light in my brain.
“What about Rebecca Dwelling?” I asked. “Why was she knocked off if not to protect Cragnow? And Katz Meow is still missing. Tell me that’s not a coincidence. What’s the connection?”
Coyote stroked his mustache and massaged his chin. “Good questions.” He touched the button on his armrest and retracted the window. Cool air blasted in and cleansed the interior of rat chorizo and mescal stink. Coyote extended his legs to prop his feet out the window. “You’re the professional. You tell me.”
Tell him what? That the investigation had so far been a knot of clues in a maze of blind corners?
Back at his “palace,” and hungry as always, Coyote poured himself a bowl of pork in chile rojo, the rojo coming from type A-positive stirred into the sauce.
I washed and changed clothes. Four aspirins and a bourbon straight up dulled the sting from my wounds. I’d be fine by morning.
Email waited from my Internet hacker. He—or she—was still working on retrieving Katz Meow’s telephone records.
And I got confirmation that Roxy Bronze—Freya Krieger—had a sister. Lara Krieger, now Lara Phillips, her married name, though recently divorced. The hacker included Lara’s address and a telephone number.
A clue or yet another wrinkle to smooth over?
Tuesday I would have lunch with Roxy’s attorney, Andrew Tonic. He wanted to talk, and I felt certain that he would help me find the link between Roxy’s murder and Cragnow.
And I needed a chat with Lara Phillips. Nothing in the case pointed to Lara about vampire–human collusion or her sister’s murder. A quick visit, a little vampire hypnosis, and that would be the end of my interest with Lara Phillips.
Simple.
CHAPTER 26
The next morning, a Monday, I drove to Glendale and got on La Crescenta Avenue. I endured the bumper-to-bumper crawl by listening to an extended mix of African world beat music on the radio and sipping from my to-go cup—Costa Rican blend with goat’s blood.
My task was straightforward. A talk with Lara Phillips.
Coyote stayed home to fix his truck. I “loaned” him money for a new starter. I didn’t anticipate anything dangerous with Lara, so there was no need for Coyote to watch my back. In case of trouble, I had my vampire wits and a Colt .380 automatic.
My cell phone buzzed, the caller ID announcing Veronica’s number. I answered.
“Hey, lover boy,” Veronica said, her tone playful. “Catch you at a bad time? Just wanted to say I’m still sore from yesterday morning.”
“Sore? In what way?” I asked, worried that I might have been too aggressive.
“A very good way.” Veronica gave a smoky laugh. “Any chance we could get together this evening for dinner or whatever?”
The “whatever” part clinched the offer. “Maybe,” I teased.
She laughed again. “Maybe? Never figured you to be coy.”
“I was thinking about you,” I replied. “Wouldn’t want you to get too sore.”
“Ha. When that happens, I’ll tell you.”
“Six, then? Pick you up at your place?”
“See you there. Ciao.” She hung up.
Now I had two women on my agenda. Lara and Veronica.
I followed La Crescenta Avenue. Considering Lara’s almost inconsequential mention—her name was but a note among the reams of papers in Roxy’s files—I didn’t expect to spend much time interrogating her, as previously mentioned. A quick dazzle with the eyes, a few questions, some answers, and I’d disappear, like a vapor.
Still, she was Roxy’s sister. I wasn’t as thorough a detective as I thought, considering that I stumbled upon this discovery. My inquiry into Roxy’s past told me both her parents died years ago. I hadn’t bothered to find out if Roxy had siblings. Or rather, sibling. Lara.
&
nbsp; A gap opened in the wall of trees along La Crescenta. I took a left to cross over a large concrete viaduct that separated the neighborhood from the rest of Verdugo City like a moat. The street meandered through nicely tended homes terraced on a hill facing northeast.
Lara Phillips’s house was near the top, a cream-colored ranch home with a single-car garage and the ubiquitous red tile roof. A moss-dappled, stone retaining wall held a narrow lawn at hip-height above the front sidewalk.
A small Ford Focus sat in the driveway. Large decals advertising EXPERT MAIDS decorated the car doors.
I parked the big Chrysler in the shade of tall evergreens marking the property line with her neighbor. I removed my contacts and checked the area. For a Monday morning, the neighborhood appeared as it should. Quiet.
I could go to the front door but I preferred to sneak in through the back for greater surprise. I wanted to get in and get out and not leave any impression that I’d been here. Once out of the car, I stayed close to the evergreen trees, my black clothing blending into the shadows.
Peeking over a wooden fence, I saw green umbrellas and patio furniture on the deck. Tall boxwood hedges and honeysuckle along the backyard fence hid me from the neighbors. I hopped the fence and levitated onto the grass as silent as a moth.
I crept across the deck to the rear entrance of the house. The glass door was open. Conversation drifted through the screen door.
A woman spoke, using a peasant’s lyrical Spanish from southern Mexico. Unless Lara Phillips had been raised in Chiapas, I doubted this was her. The woman asked about the next house to clean, so I presumed she was a maid.
I listened for someone else. Nothing. Maybe Lara was in a bedroom. Sliding the screen door open, I scooted into the kitchen, which smelled of Comet cleanser.
The maid, a chubby dark woman in a white T-shirt with matching green sweatpants and apron carrying the EXPERT MAIDS logo, stood on the carpet next to a dining room table.
We were alone.
She wound an electric cord around the handle of a vacuum cleaner and talked into a cell phone cradled between her shoulder and jaw. The maid folded the cell phone and dropped it into an apron pocket. She grasped the vacuum cleaner and looked up.
X-Rated Bloodsuckers Page 15