"He's got money; he doesn't need friends."
"Did you have the hots for Roxy?"
Rosario pushed the recoil plug over the spring under the barrel of the pistol. The plug popped free and ricocheted off his forehead. He blinked in surprise. His free hand chased the plug rolling on his desk. "You ever meet Ms. Bronze?"
"Never heard of her until after she was dead."
"Choice piece of tail, that one. If Helen of Troy had half the snatch on her that Roxy did, then the Trojan War would've been worth the slaughter." Carefully, he replaced the plug.
"What about Project Eleven?"
Rosario's gaze cut to me.
I would've liked to read his aura. But if I didn't hypnotize him again, he'd remember my eyes and that I wasn't human.
"I understand her involvement against Project Eleven cost you money."
"Cost me my goddamn ass. I lost out on my share of three hundred million."
"Over or under the table?"
Rosario's lips curled in scorn. "What's it to you?"
"Maybe it had to do with Roxy's interest in Project Eleven."
"You'd have to ask her, but you can't, can you?" he replied. "Roxy had another side to her besides being primo trim. She fancied herself a crusader. She joined up with that meddlesome bitch, Veronica Torres, and the two of them undermined Project Eleven."
Veronica Torres was the activist who spearheaded the neighborhood attacks against Project Eleven, claiming it was nothing but a piggy bank for the well connected.
"And this crusading is what got Roxy killed?"
"Wouldn't know 'cause I had nothing to do with it."
"You don't buy that she was the victim of a robbery gone bad?"
Rosario hesitated. He lay the pistol down. His nostrils widened and contracted like bellows as his gaze flitted about the room. He set his elbows on the desk and folded his hands together in front of his chin. His eyes swiveled back to me and he gave a subdued, "No."
"Why?" I asked.
Rosario cocked a thumb toward the picture window behind him. "I didn't get this view being an idiot." The bluster returned to his voice. "The police report was the biggest piece of fiction since the president's last State of the Union address."
"Why?"
"You mean why did I vote for the Ivy League bastard?"
"No," I replied, '"the biggest piece of fiction' part."
Rosario said, "Rumors."
"What kind?"
"The cops lost the investigation files. Blamed it on a computer glitch. What's been reported is based on conjecture. Bullshit guesswork, in other words."
"What about the original reports? Evidence? The bullet, for example?"
"You'll have to ask the police," Rosario replied.
"Who exactly?" I asked.
"Deputy Chief Julius Paxton of the LAPD. Good luck talking to him."
"Are you and Paxton good chums?"
"Good enough," Rosario said. "I'm a generous contributor to the police benevolent fund."
I tucked Paxton's name into my memory.
Rosario added, "Didn't help speculation that Roxy's death was convenient for a lot of people."
"You included?"
"I got some satisfaction reading that she got whacked." Rosario panned a quizzical look across his desk, then to the floor. He struggled to lean to one side to retrieve the two bullets that had fallen.
"Then why are you talking to me? I mention Katz Meow's name and you unfold like a dinner napkin. Why?"
"Because I'm getting the willies." Rosario collected all the bullets into his hand and began feeding them into the pistol magazine. "Someone's going through a lot of trouble hiding the truth about Roxy's murder."
"That's got you worried?"
"Of course, Sherlock. I don't know who killed Roxy. Or the reason. Now you come with the kind of questions I've been asking myself and I realize that I'm not nuts for sleeping with a forty-five under my pillow."
First Cragnow. Now Rosario. What could make these two crap their pants?
Rosario inserted the magazine into the butt of the pistol. He had a loaded gun in his hand, but I wasn't worried. Rosario hadn't assembled the pistol correctly, and the only way he could hurt me was to throw it.
"What's your impression of Cragnow?" I asked.
"You've met him?"
"Briefly."
"Watch him when he gets shit-faced, which is often," Rosario said. "He starts ranting about taking over Southern California. Not in a business way. But about lifting humanity to a new partnership with the unseen realm. About the next step in social evolution. His crazy talk, not mine."
My fingertips tingled and my legs tensed. Though he didn't realize it, Rosario referred to Cragnow's alleged plan for vampire-human collusion.
"Then why do business with him?"
"You kidding? Ain't you got a dick between your legs? The pussy at Gomorrah is like free bonbons."
"When was the last time you saw Katz?"
"Two weeks ago." Rosario wiped the pistol with the rag. "Maybe three."
"How close were you?"
"You mean, did we screw? Once. I doubt she'll ever forget me." Rosario racked back the slide of the .45. The barrel jutted out like a small metal penis.
"Then you haven't seen her lately?"
Rosario raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like you haven't either. Is she missing? And you're wondering why I'm looking over my shoulder." He propped his right elbow on the desk and pointed the pistol straight up. "You packing heat?"
It was none of his business that I was. "No."
"Then start." Rosario released a catch. The slide snapped forward, then tumbled loose and clattered against the desk.
"What did you do in the marines?" I deadpanned. "Force Recon?"
"I was a stenographer." Rosario tugged at his necktie. Wet spots blossomed from his armpits. He wrapped the pistol and the slide in the rag, which he dumped into a desk drawer. "Give me your card, Felix."
I gave him a business card, curious about his desire to cooperate. "We talk again, what do you get out of it?"
"Peace of mind."
Good idea. At least I could handle a gun.
Rosario palmed a cell phone. "If that's all, I've got business waiting."
I thought about zapping him again and decided against it. Rosario didn't act as if he had lied. Plus he had shared a lot, and I had to sort through that information first. I rose from the chair and left. His receptionist sat at her place and rubbed her neck. She gave me a perplexed "Where did you come from?" look as I went past.
Down in the garage, I started my car and drove out into the sunlit pavement. I didn't have a single answer to show for my work so far. As of now, conspiracy outfoxed vampire prowess.
I pulled onto the street when my door locks clicked. The front passenger door jerked open. A scruffy, slender man jumped in, moving too quickly for any human.
Vampire.
My kundalini noir buzzed like the tail of a rattler. I turned toward him, fangs and talons extended.
He raised a scrawny hand in a gesture of appeasement. "Calmate ese, relax."
I grabbed the front of his worn denim jacket and pushed him against the seat. "Who are you?"
He made no effort to resist and tipped a stained ball cap back from his face. A wispy mustache and soul patch above his chin accented his brown, leathery skin.
"Felix, I'm the one who sent for you." He offered his hand. "I'm Coyote."
Chapter Eight
Coyote. The one Katz Meow mentioned when she had come by my office in Denver. The one who had summoned me.
Coyote held up his empty hands, his thin wrists extending through the frayed cuffs of the threadbare denim jacket. He smelled like he'd been sleeping in an onion shed. "Well? Aren't you going to ask me questions?" He tapped his temple. "Or are you a mind reader, ese?"
I let go of his jacket and eased the sedan against the curb. I removed my sunglasses and contacts. Coyote's aura surrounded him like a calm orange penumbra.
"How'd you unlock the doors?"
"I've been around." His eyes reflected a lupine shine. He spoke with a thick Chicano barrio accent. "Gave me time to learn some tricks."
Since Coyote pronounced his name as if it were in Spanish, I did the same.
"Coyote, how do you know me?"
"I've heard about you, Felix Gomez." He drawled my name. "Vampire detective. Military veteran. Killer." Grinning, Coyote narrowed his eyes. "The only one chingon enough to handle this."
Chingon, that meant I was a bad mo-fo. "You said I could handle this. Which is?"
Coyote swept a hand across the urban landscape and the dark shadows cast by rows of old buildings with rusty fire escapes. "This. Los Angeles."
"Meaning?"
"First we go, vato." Coyote flicked his hand to the front, motioning that we move back into traffic. His fingernails were greasy like a backyard mechanic's.
"No. Answer my questions, then we go."
"Vamos a comer." He rubbed his belly and smacked his lips. "If you're not hungry, then you can watch me. We'll talk then." His fangs extended, meaning a blood meal.
Coyote directed me south on San Pedro through the Jewelry District, which despite the name was a shabby place populated with cheap stores whose signs alternated between Spanish and Chinese.
"You've seen him, no?" Tentacles snaked from Coyote's aura.
"Who?"
"Cragnow." The end of each of the tentacles on Coyote's aura sprouted spikes. The spikes curled onto themselves like fingers making fists. "He's a scary dude."
"I gathered that."
"Be careful. You're not the first to have come here."
"Are you talking about the agents from the Araneum?"
"Simon. They didn't last long." Coyote extended a thumb and pressed it against his sternum. He then drew a finger across his throat. Meaning, they were impaled and decapitated. His aura tentacles stiffened and trembled.
"How many agents?" I asked. "When?"
Coyote shrugged. His aura tentacles formed question marks. "Quien sabe. Four. Maybe five since last year."
"How do you make your aura do that?" I asked.
"You like, huh? It takes practice."
"I'm sure. Why did you send for me? Are you from the Araneum?"
Coyote laughed, a guffawing that turned into a series of howls. His dirty sneakers beat against the floor as his aura pulsed in tempo to his hearty convulsions. He stopped laughing and wiped his eyes. "That's a good one, vato."
"I didn't realize I was a comedian. What's the joke?"
"The Araneum won't have anything to do with me. We don't see ojo a ojo." Coyote used his fingers to spread his eyelids. "They think I'm crazy."
We drove under the concrete tangle of the freeway exchange.
"Really?" I nudged him away and wondered if the Araneum was right. "Why did you send for me?"
"Because Cragnow is messing with catastrophe. He and humans have made a pact."
Vampire-human collusion. The real reason for my mission. My kundalini noir buzzed with anticipation for the fight before me. "Describe this pact."
"There are humans close to Cragnow. Humans who are not chalices. He doesn't bother to hide his true nature from them, and they don't fear him."
I remembered Rachel, the receptionist at Gomorrah Video. She knew about family, meaning us vampires.
Rosario's conversation came back to me.
… taking over Southern California…lifting humanity to a new partnership with the unseen realm… the next step in social evolution…
My kundalini noir coiled tightly, as if to protect itself against a chill.
"Felix. What's up, bro?" Coyote's gaze traced around me as he read the state of my aura.
"Coyote, why do you care what Cragnow does? Has he wronged you? Is this about vengeance?"
"I want to get back at Cragnow, I'll put a dead catfish inside the hood of his Hummer." Coyote's aura made undulating stink lines. He held his nose and waved away an imagined odor.
"Then explain your motive."
"Because, vato, I've seen what humans can do. We can't underestimate their viciousness and ingenuity. Cragnow may think he controls them-I don't know what bargain he's made-but it is a marriage with doom."
"Sounds like you're speaking from experience."
"Too much experience." The points of Coyote's aura trembled like reeds before a wind. His expression melted into a somber mask. "Our best defense is not supernatural powers but remaining unseen. Cragnow has compromised that. Our hope, my hope, is that you and I can stop the damage. Porque, si no"-because, if not-"we vampires are destined for extinction."
"Is this your quest?" I asked. "Are you Don Quixote?"
"If I am, then you're my Sancho Panza, and you're too skinny to be him."
"You summoned me through…"-I had to think of her name-"Katz's friend. Rebecca Dwelling. Human."
"That was the best way," Coyote replied. "Rebecca knows about vampires. She's a chalice. I told her that you could help Katz."
"How do you know Rebecca?"
"Wait and I'll show you, vato."
"As a chalice Rebecca is forbidden from revealing her awareness about the undead," I said. "If the nidus leader won't enforce that, the Araneum will."
"The local nidus no longer fears the Araneum."
"I've figured that out. So, did Cragnow kill Roxy Bronze?"
Coyote shrugged. His aura dimmed. "That's a big question, no? Answer that and you'll start to solve everything."
The twin mysteries of my trip-the conspiracy behind Roxy's death and vampire-human collusion-remained parallel yet far apart.
"Why didn't you contact me directly, Coyote?"
"Because I needed to slap you in the face to get your attention. Would you have listened to a loco vampire like me? Or to a beautiful woman describing the great secret?" Coyote wagged a finger. "I know you like the ladies, Felix."
"And the L.A. nidus?" I asked. "Don't any of them care about what's happening?"
Coyote glanced to the outside mirror. "If you know about Cragnow's plan, you're either with him or you're ash."
"Why aren't you ash?"
"To the L.A. nidus I'm as invisible as a bum on a street corner. They don't see me because they don't want to. Sometimes being crazy and looking down-and-out is the best way to hide."
"Maybe you're not so crazy, Coyote."
He clicked his tongue. "Maybe not, Felix."
"How many vampires in the nidus?"
"It's not like I've taken roll." He straightened and raised a hand like a schoolboy. "Coyote. Present." He settled back. "I'd guess maybe a couple thousand. Hard to say. Many are just passing through."
A huge nidus, regardless. "How many work for Cragnow?"
"Maybe three hundred. More than enough to be dangerous. And they're all over, with the police, the government."
I needed an ally in this wilderness, and Coyote's frankness made him the best candidate. I offered a handshake. "So we're partners. You got a last name, or is it just Coyote?"
His hand was bony, like a paw. After releasing my grip, he closed his eyes and began to howl.
"Okay wiseass," I asked, "how do you spell that?"
Coyote barked for several seconds. He gave a smile of yellowed teeth. "Don't quote me. I could've been speaking Doberman."
"What's your last name in people talk?"
"Malinche," he said.
"As in the Malinche?"
"La Malinche," he corrected. "My mother."
"Dona Marina?"
"You know of another one?"
La Malinche. The Aztec maiden who served as translator and concubine for Cortes. The woman lauded by the Spaniards for her help in conquering Mexico. And reviled by many Mexicans as a traitorous whore. Yet others found her a compromised woman who had kept history from getting worse.
"She's your mother? Then you must be five hundred years old."
"Like I said, I've been around."
"So your father was
the devil himself, Hernando Cortes?"
"Chale"-no way. Coyote recoiled from me. "Rather than settle down with her, after all she had done for him, Cortes kicked my mother out of his house, porque he already had a wife… imagine that? Cortes was not only a rapist, looter, and murderer; he cheated on his woman. Que verguenza."
"A real shame," I agreed.
"Before my mother was married off to Cortes's lackey, Don Juan Xamarillo, she had another boy."
Coyote let silence fill the void between us until I understood.
"You?"
"Simon."
"And your father was?"
"One of Cortes's soldiers." Coyote raised his hand in a mock toast. "L'chaim."
I had to think about his reply for a moment. Was he Jewish? Some of the Conquistadors had been Jewish. "You want me to believe that you are the son of a Jewish Conquistador?"
"I'm not asking you to believe anything. I'm only asking that you listen."
"Your father?" I asked. "A Jew?"
"Si. Many became Conquistadors to escape the Inquisition. Many still hide out of custom, pretending to be good Catholics in public. For some reason they call themselves marranos, though I don't understand why Jews would want to be known as pigs."
Coyote snorted like a hog, the nostrils of his thin nose twitching.
"When did you become vampire?"
"That was a long time ago, hermano." Coyote cupped his crotch. "About the time hairs sprouted around my chile. I sought a vampire to escape the torment of being the bastard son of a gauchupin." A Spaniard.
Coyote sighed in a way that made me pity him. Half a millennium had not been enough time to dilute his grief.
"There were legends of a jaguar man living in the jungle. He preyed on the lost and drank their blood. There was no one more lost than me, so I looked for him."
"Obviously you found him," I said.
"I wish I hadn't, carnal. There are agonies worse than dying." Coyote's talons and fangs shot out and his aura burned like a bonfire. He was vampire, the tormented drinker of blood, doomed to prowl the earth forever.
"I understand," I said.
"Consider, ese." Coyote's aura settled. His talons and teeth retracted. "When my mother was big and pregnant with me, before she was hitched to that buey Don Xamarillo, Cortez figured that Xamarillo had sampled her wares, while Xamarillo thought that Cortes had left her with a souvenir. These murderers were each too much the gentlemen to question the other's integrity. Had they known she bore the bastard son of a heathen Jew, they would have burned her alive. My mother could not keep me, the evidence of her sin. At my birth, she switched me with a stillborn baby. I was given away and raised by the poorest of the defeated indios. Even among them I was a pariah, an omen of what the future held for Mexico."
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