The stakeout. The least glamorous and yet often the most valuable activity in investigations. To endure the agonizing boredom and forestall restlessness, I slowed my metabolism into near rigor mortis until I was nothing more than a pair of eyeballs fixed on the area around Dr. Niphe's car.
The sun arced overhead and began its gradual descent over the San Fernando Valley. People came and went. A praying mantis climbed over my face and perched on my nose, where it snagged little bugs trying to fly up my nostrils.
At last the cool veil of night fell upon us. The praying mantis went wherever insects go to sleep. I sped up my metabolism, flexed my cramped joints, and blinked to moisten my eyes. Nine o'clock approached. Still no Dr. Niphe.
I heard slurping from behind. Coyote sat on the fork of two branches and sucked on the neck of what looked like a large headless rat.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
Coyote wiped blood from his mouth. "Es una zarigueya." It's an opossum. "Want some?"
"No thanks."
"It's fresh."
"Not anymore, it's not."
I called Katz Meow on my cell. Still nothing but her voice mail. I feared this was all I would ever get from her now.
At a quarter to midnight, Dr. Niphe and a group of other people came out of the hospital. Their glowing red auras bobbed in the darkness. They clustered around his car. A security guard watched from the hospital entrance.
"Coyote, it's time."
My initial plan was to intercept the doctor here and zap him. But with all those people around, I'd have to stalk him and pounce somewhere else. That meant following him. In what?
All we had was Coyote's wreck on wheels.
Keeping in the shadows, Coyote and I shimmied down the tree and snuck back to his truck. The straight six in the old Ford did a good job of wheezing and groaning but little else.
Cursing my luck, I pushed the truck away from its parking spot. When Coyote had the front end pointed north, I held on to the tailgate, ran, and pushed.
Up ahead, Dr. Niphe started his BMW. With a cell phone pressed to his face, he backed up and maneuvered toward the exit. His aura burned hot as a flare. He obviously still had a lot of business on his mind.
Coyote's truck acted as if it never wanted to get going. "C'mon, you pile of junk," I said. "If you don't start, I'm going to turn you into a box of nails."
Whether or not the old Ford understood my threat, I don't know, but the engine did crank over. I dashed beside the cab and jumped in. I held back the urge to punch Coyote for putting me through this hassle.
He kept his attention on the truck, as if driving this heap was as difficult and delicate as piloting a nuclear submarine.
Niphe drove his BMW like he intended to flog every horse under the hood. He rolled through stop signs and barreled down the streets. Good luck keeping up with him.
"What's the itch in his pants?" I asked.
Coyote doubled-clutched and winced when he mashed the gears. He had a bad case of opossum breath. "Algo vergonzoso." Something scandalous. "Tiene que ser por dinero o una vieja." Has to be for money or a woman.
Niphe aimed his BMW onto the Glendale Freeway and headed north. Once on the freeway, Niphe zipped around traffic like he was in a fighter jet. In Coyote's beater we'd lose him for sure.
Fortunately, Los Angeles traffic rescued us. The freeway slowed to a near stop. We joined the other cars bunching around Niphe. Everyone's aura brightened in agitation, Niphe's more than anyone else's.
Traffic crawled forward and separated. We followed the doctor when he merged into the lanes going west on the 210 toward Pasadena.
Something under our truck rattled loose and clanged onto the road. Coyote tipped his head out the window to see what had fallen off. "I hope you're wearing comfortable shoes, vato."
Niphe exited and headed uphill on Lincoln Avenue. We followed him through northern Pasadena and then Altadena. The trees and rooftops of the neighborhood were silhouetted by a white glow coming from uphill.
Niphe turned east on Loma Linda Drive, which ran parallel to the steep foothills of the Angeles National Forest.
The glow came from light reflected off a huge white obelisk fixed atop an octagonal plinth. The plinth sat on a truncated pyramid that straddled the intersection of long four-story buildings set at right angles. The predominant architectural theme was acres of glass and chrome siding. Under the glare of dozens of spotlights the building complex looked like a gigantic piece of costume jewelry.
Coyote let his pickup coast to a halt.
His lupine tapetum lucidum reflected a surreal glow. He whispered, "Me voy a pegar ciego." I'm going to go blind. He rubbed his eyes and blinked as if in disbelief, then put on his sunglasses.
"Whatever you do," I said, "don't stop the engine."
Too late. The six-banger coughed and sputtered. Coyote pumped the gas and slid the choke, but all went quiet. Both Coyote and I hung our heads and sighed.
Niphe's BMW turned off Loma Linda and onto the wide driveway flanked by a simple Christian cross about ten feet tall. Standing next to the cross was a granite marker the size of a garage door. Engraved on the marker was: WELCOME TO THE HOME OF THE JOURNEY WITH GOD™ MINISTRIES. REVEREND DALE JOURNEY, PASTOR.
I'd seen snippets of Reverend Journey on his television show in between the channels presenting bass fishing and how to get rich selling distressed real estate. Journey bagged souls for Christ and evidently made a handsome living off his finder's fee.
The driveway led to two terraced parking lots, both of which were gloomy and empty. Niphe paused at the west end. The dim light of a cell phone outlined his face. Who was he talking to? And why was he waiting here?
The growing smell of deceit and conspiracy was enough to drive the needle on my internal stink-o-meter into the red.
We had a megachurch that looked liked it was designed for the fat Elvis. Then there was Dr. Mordecai Niphe, chief inquisitor and author of Freya Krieger's demise. As far as I could tell, the medical community considered Niphe an upstanding doctor. So why was he-a Jew-driving like a demon in the middle of the night to one of the largest Evangelical ministries in the country? How did that fit into his palling around with the porn mogul Cragnow Vissoom? Did Niphe know Cragnow was a vampire?
Under hypnosis, what would Niphe reveal? From where I sat in Coyote's truck, the distance to Niphe was about two lengths of a football field. His aura looked fuzzy from the tendrils of anxiety and wariness that writhed about him. Other than the cross and granite marker, there was no cover between the doctor and me. Moving even at vampire speed I doubted that I could cross the openness and surprise him.
Coyote took off his sunglasses and pulled his arms out of his denim jacket.
"What gives?" I asked.
Coyote began unbuttoning his shirt. "He'd be expecting a man."
"So you're going to transform into a…"
"They don't call me Coyote for nothing."
A coyote would be a surprise but not unusual here along the foothills.
"Good," I said. "Distract him enough for me to get close."
"Vato, if he gets out of his car, you'd better bring a shot for rabies."
Niphe closed his cell phone. His aura's undulating tendrils calmed. The BMW coupe continued up the driveway, past the upper tier of the parking lot, and disappeared behind the main building.
Now my stink-o-meter was at full tilt.
Who had Niphe come to see? Maybe they had something to do with the death of Roxy Bronze and vampire-human collusion, or maybe they didn't. There was one way to find out.
I would ask.
Politely.
With my talons around their necks.
Chapter Eighteen
Coyote and I stepped out of the truck and trotted toward the church.
Halfway across the lower parking lot, Coyote stopped. He began walking backward toward his truck. "Vato…"
A searchlight from uphill bore upon us. The light hurt my eyes and I brought m
y hand up to shield them.
A voice yelled through a megaphone. "This is private property. You are trespassing."
Two red auras moved behind the glare of the spotlight. At our far right, two more red auras sat in a vehicle with the lights dimmed. The vehicle rolled down the driveway on the eastern side of the parking lot. Yellow lights suddenly flashed and rotated on top of both vehicles.
Security guards. Armed perhaps. But no matter, subduing them wasn't worth the risk of blowing our cover.
The second vehicle hit us with another spotlight. Scissored between the two intersecting shafts of light, Coyote and I skulked back to his truck. To add to the humiliation, his Ford wouldn't start and I had to push.
A guard taunted us through his megaphone. "Next time get a truck with a motor, you stupid bastards."
Asshole.
When we rounded the turn and headed down the slope on Lake Avenue, the spotlights went off.
For all my street smarts and vampire cunning, we were driving down the road to nowhere. "What the hell is with this goddamn investigation?"
Coyote shifted gears and the truck lurched forward. "Simon. It's confusing."
"More than confusing. What do you think is going on?"
Coyote's expression became uncharacteristically serious. He tipped his ball cap back. A wispy tuft of hair curled free. "Don't put me on the spot, ese. I'm not much in the 'think' department."
"Let's start at the beginning. Interrupt when you have something to add," I said. "Freya Krieger rats on Dr. Mordecai Niphe for botching an operation and killing the patient. Niphe gets his revenge by destroying Freya's medical career."
"And she comes back as Roxy Bronze, the porn star working for that pinchi Cragnow Vissoom," Coyote said. "I'm with you."
"Then for reasons I still don't fathom…"
"Fathom?" asked Coyote.
"It means 'understand,' " I explained. "Roxy teams with Veronica Torres at Barrio Unidos to stop Project Eleven-the plan to redevelop Pacoima. Which they do."
"And that pissed off a lot of rich people because they lost money," Coyote said.
"One of those people is Lucky Rosario, who it turns out has been siphoning…" I waited for Coyote to interrupt again.
"I understand siphoning," he said. "That's how I get gas for my ride."
"Rosario funds Cragnow's movies and in return gets to play with some porn tail. Now it turns out that Dr. Mordecai Niphe is sending thank-you gifts to Cragnow."
"Let's not forget the dump truck treatment, ese."
"I haven't."
"l Porque?" asked Coyote. Why?
"Don't know," I said. "Does it have to do with money? Sex? Or something else? If that's not confusing enough, now we've got Dr. Niphe sneaking off to meet with the Reverend Dale Journey."
Coyote slowed at a traffic light and gunned the engine to keep it from stalling. "You sure, vato?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dr. Niphe only went to Journey's church." The light turned green and Coyote let the truck jerk forward. "We're not sure who he went to see."
"True. But I'll bet that Niphe wouldn't have been invited unless Dale Journey knew about it. Notice that the security guards didn't show up until we got there."
Coyote frowned. "Vato, that's too much shit for me to think about. And you still haven't gotten to why Katz Meow is missing or why someone killed Rebecca Dwelling."
Or mentioned a lot of other people I knew wanted Roxy dead.
"Don't forget the real reason you're here, raza…"
I hadn't been called raza in a while. Short for La Raza-the race-meaning us mestizos.
"… to find out what this has to do with vampires and humans."
Whatever had been going on in L.A. was serious enough to alarm even the Araneum. They expected me to infiltrate the suspected vampire-human collusion and bring the offending bloodsuckers to undead justice. Trouble was, I hadn't done much so far except practice push-starting Coyote's wreck of a pickup.
Discussing the investigation with Coyote should have helped. Instead, reviewing the details of the case and coming up with zip made me feel like one big dumb ass.
Coyote grasped my shoulder. "You okay, Felix?"
I brushed his hand off. My aura should've told him how pissed I was. Plus I hadn't eaten anything since morning, so I was cranky with hunger.
Working in the daytime, no matter how much we vampires tried to adjust to the cycle, left us with perpetual jetlag. After a few days of having the sun leach psychic energy from our bodies, we needed a nice blood meal and a good nap in a coffin to refresh us and smooth the kinks out of our attitudes.
"Relax, ese," Coyote said. "We'll go to my place, get something to eat, and take a snooze." He circled a finger next to his temple. "Mientras"-meanwhile-"you get those gears turning in your head and see what we have to do next."
I had plenty of gears to turn; problem was, I couldn't get any two of them to mesh.
One traffic light from the freeway on-ramp, a red Ferrari rumbled beside us. The young man at the wheel looked up at Coyote's truck and sneered. He gestured to someone beside him, and a woman's face appeared in the driver's window, laughing no doubt at the heap Coyote and I were in.
Bad timing on the part of these two yuppies. I was pissed at the world and hungry. Might as well get these two birds with one stone, or rather one stare.
I turned my face to them and flashed my fangs.
Chapter Nineteen
The two yuppies in the Ferrari responded with slack-jawed, blank-faced stares. In their red auras they looked as if they had been dipped in sweet-and-sour sauce.
"Coyote," I said, "time for dinner."
He smiled with anticipation.
"Just me. You've already snacked. Follow me and wait until I'm done." As I was about to get out, I clutched Coyote's thin, sinewy arm. "And for God's sake, if this truck stalls, I'm not pushing it again. I'll make you carry me piggyback to your house."
"Vato, I got a bad hip and-"
"Try me." I let go of his arm and got out of the truck.
I told the driver of the Ferrari to unlock his door. I swung the door up and pushed him over the center console to jam him on top of his stylish female companion.
I settled into the driver's seat, snapped the door closed, and reflected on how low the rumbling Ferrari sat against the road. I examined the controls and instruments. Detecting a whiff of cocaine, I searched about and found a vial of the white powder in the console.
Naughty yuppies.
Grasping the steering wheel, I released the clutch and eased the gas pedal. The rear tires spun out, and the car swerved through the intersection. Regaining control, I veered into an alley, scraping the bottom of the Ferrari, and halted next to a brick wall and a Dumpster.
Since the guy was on top, I fanged him first. He was bulky and firm-obviously a muscle head-and his blood luxuriously tasty. Male blood had the full-bodied richness of testosterone. I detected notes of gin, dry vermouth, anabolic steroids, and cocaine.
To get to the woman, I had to reach over them and fumble for the release catch to fold the passenger's seat down. I wrestled with their bodies, as if rearranging sacks of potatoes. When I finally had her on top of the pile, I stretched her neck back and feasted like an undead king. Little Miss Nordstrom also enjoyed the nose candy.
I relaxed against the driver's seat and burped. The traces of booze and dope gave me a nice buzz, and suddenly the world and my problems appeared much more tolerable.
I had lapped plenty of saliva into the fang punctures to accelerate the healing, so by morning, when these two yuppie coke heads came to, there would be nothing but faint yellow bruises on their necks. To give them something else to think about, I got the vial of cocaine and dusted their rumpled forms with the white powder. If finding themselves disheveled and tangled like this wasn't enough to get them both into a 12-step, then they were beyond my magnanimous help.
Coyote's truck rattled beside the curb outside the alley. I got in and s
louched on the bench seat.
Coyote narrowed his eyes. "?Somos amigos, no?" We are friends, no? "You should've shared."
"You can share this." I gave him the bird and motioned to get going.
The old Ford sputtered onto the freeway. The jostling of the truck and the dreamy haze from dinner made me sleepy. I remembered the woman's trim body under mine. I could've had my way with her. The longing for the heat of female skin turned my thoughts away from the yuppie woman and toward Veronica.
Her ripe body was more delectable by comparison. An affair with Veronica could seriously complicate my investigation.
A worthwhile risk.
We arrived at a confusion of concrete and asphalt where the Santa Monica, Golden State, Santa Ana, and Pomona Freeways tangled together. We exited and clattered down Whittier Boulevard through a neighborhood marked with signs in Spanish. Young people clustered under streetlamps or in the doorways of the tienditas-small, corner markets. Spray-can graffiti murals declared the area as Atzlan.
"Where are we?" I asked. "East L.A.?"
"Technically we're in Boyle Heights."
A homeless man pushed a shopping cart heaped with his junk possessions.
"More upscale, vato."
We turned on Euclid and after a few blocks headed onto a short street that dipped into a wash. Coyote halted at the top of the incline.
He pointed. At the bottom on the right, past the other ramshackle houses, was a sagging chain-link fence along the cracked sidewalk. Behind the fence and next to a ravine was a small home cobbled together from discarded materials.
"Your palace?"
"Simon, ese. The queen of England once asked to stay, but I had to turn her away. We're not zoned for royalty."
Coyote shut the engine.
"Why are we stopping up here?" I asked.
Coyote pointed down the hill. "You wanna push again?" He meant letting the truck coast to start.
"What if it stalls out and we're stuck at the bottom?"
"Then we push uphill, pendejo."
We dismounted. The one streetlamp was broken but no matter, with my vampire vision I had no problem seeing through the darkness. Shoes dangled from the power lines.
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