“And you think a movie deal is more important than your soul?”
Chatty-Spencer laughed. “Hell, what are you gonna do with a soul? I figure in Hollywood, you’re a nobody if you still have one. Amirite?” He elbowed me jovially, and I imagined myself crushing his skull. It was a sweet thought. I also set my mental clock for six months, a year at the outside. Viljo’d be getting an e-mail from this idiot, I just knew it, wanting one of us to come save his ass.
“But I won’t have to sell my soul or anything. This thing I’ve got, it’s gonna be huge. Nobody’s got anything like it.” He patted his laptop like a cherished puppy, and I had to wonder what would happen if I “accidentally” spilled my complimentary paper cup of water all over it later.
“Well, good luck to you.”
To me, that sounded like a conversation ender, but the man just kept talking! Four hours of unrelenting drivel, and I couldn’t even say for sure that the guy stopped to take a breath.
I found out all about his super-secret movie idea, because he could tell I was a trustworthy sort. (And I’ve seen the same plot done at least four other times; trust me when I say it was not as groundbreaking as the guy wanted to think.) I learned where he went to college, about the crazy ex-girlfriend he’d left behind in Chicago, all about the online video game he played fanatically. He told me about his friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend inside studio connections, which basically boiled down to a janitor for Someone Important’s intern. He confessed that he only had a hundred bucks in his pocket and no idea where he was going to stay once the plane touched down, but he had a cousin who promised to get him a job somewhere with lots of celebrity interaction.
Part of me had to wonder just how many people every year headed out to California with just the change in their pockets and dreams the size of Canada. How many of them had those same dreams crushed and went crawling home, broken? How many of them stayed past the point when they could go home, unwilling to admit to anyone else that they’d failed in an industry where success was the rarity, not the norm?
See, that’s the problem with having a philosophy degree. I have a crappy job, and my brain works way too much.
I almost cried from happiness the moment the wheels touched down. At that point, I was dangerously close to selling my soul for a moment of peace and quiet.
“Aw, man, here already? And we were just getting to know each other.” Spencer gathered up his stuff, carefully putting his laptop back in its bag. “We should totally keep in touch, man. You on Twitter?”
I wasn’t even sure what the hell a Twitter was. But something told me this guy was gonna need help in the near future, and even if I planned on retiring, I could still direct him to the right people. “Here.” I handed over one of my self-printed business cards. It was plain white card stock and said simply JESSE DAWSON, CHAMPION. My cell phone number was printed beneath it.
I squeezed past him and down the aisle, ignoring the puzzled “Champion?” behind me.
I’d never been to Los Angeles before. Typically, the entire west coast fell into Avery Malcolm’s territory, the champion based out of San Francisco. I mean, I’d seen pictures on TV, like anybody, but we all know how true-to-life those can be.
People rushed around me, greeting loved ones with squeals and kisses, or just hustling off to the next stop on the journey of their life. Christmas travelers, I decided, just coming home after the festivities. Things looked off for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, until I realized that no one was wearing a winter coat. Light jackets, yeah, but nothing like the parkas we’d been bundled up in at home. Winter in California, I guess.
Standing in the midst of the human flood was a man in a dark suit jacket over a white T-shirt and blue jeans. The crowd parted around him, I think because running into him may have caused bodily harm. Dude wasn’t tall really—no taller than my six foot one—but he was solid muscle and the nice coat did nothing to disguise the breadth of his shoulders. In fact, if he flexed, I bet he’d shred that nice jacket right in two. Black hair, the kind with natural blue undertones, caramel-colored skin, and most notably a stark black tattoo down the right side of his face. Oh, and he was carrying a sign that said J. DAWSON. Since my name happened to be J. Dawson, I walked over and introduced myself. “I am J. Dawson.”
“Taiaho Otimi. You can call me Tai.” He offered me a handshake and the foreboding expression morphed into a genuine smile. I mentally took about five more years off his age. Mid-twenties, if I had to guess. His friendly grin was only slightly marred by the tribal markings from his forehead to his chin. I stared at those black marks, waiting to see if they would move under my gaze, until the guy gave me an odd look.
“Sorry. Jet-lagged, I guess. Call me Jesse.” The second his hand touched mine, I felt a jolt all the way through my arm into my neck. Like whizzing on the electric fence. I jerked, breath hissing between my teeth, and he looked at me strangely. “Old carpal tunnel injury. It flares up when I fly.” When he glanced away, I shook the numbness out of my fingers.
Cheezus Christ on a piece of freakin’ toast! That jolt had been pure unadulterated magic, and if my hair were shorter it might have been standing straight on end. He’s Maori. I’d heard about it, sure. It was one of those subjects Ivan covered in Demonology 101, but I’d never seen it in practice before.
The Maori were one of those few remaining peoples of the world who, through some quirk of genetics or culture, had innate magic coursing through their veins just as a matter of common birth. And despite the influence of the outside world, they’d managed to hold on to most of their old legends and stories. Magic was not as unbelievable to them as it was to pretty much the rest of the world.
This Tai, though…he didn’t know. He had no idea he’d just zapped the living shit out of me. “Do you have luggage?”
“Um…yeah. One.” I fell in behind him as we headed for the baggage pickup, letting him clear a path through the crowd. “So you’re Maori, right?”
He gave me a surprised glance. “That’s right. Most people guess Samoan, ’cause I played football. Like only Samoa has big, dark-skinned dudes that play football, right?”
That small fact clicked in my head, and I realized why he looked vaguely familiar. “You used to play for USC, right?”
“Yeah, ’til I blew out my knee. That’s the breaks, I guess.”
We found a place surrounded by everyone else waiting for their luggage, Tai clasping his hands in front of him casually. His shoulders strained the cloth of his suit jacket, but the fact that it didn’t just rip right in two proved that it had been tailored expressly for him. Tailored so well, in fact, that it almost hid the outline of a shoulder holster rig across his back. Damn. I was starting to wonder if maybe limo drivers in L.A. had New York taxi drivers beat.
“So you’re a limo driver now?”
“Sometimes. Mostly, I’m a bodyguard who also drives.” Okay, then the shoulder rig made a bit more sense, I guess. Though I now had Whitney Houston stuck in my head.
“You often find use for a gun in your limo driving-slash-bodyguarding?” Maybe I really am from some kind of backwater hick town. Aside from the president, I’d never met anyone who warranted a bodyguard, let alone an armed one. Even my wealthier clients hadn’t been that far up the fame scale.
“Not yet. But the world is full of crazies. Stalkers and stuff, y’know?” He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“I assume you’re working for Miss Keene?” He grunted an affirmative. “So who’s watching her while you’re here?”
“Other guard. His name’s Bobby. You’ll meet him when we get to the hotel.”
We stood in semiawkward silence for a bit. But I couldn’t help but notice that there were three teenage girls standing off to one side, giggling and pointing at me. Great, did I have toilet paper on my shoe or what? Finally, I sighed and looked at them. “Is there something I can help you with?”
They whispered among each other, finally poking the bravest one until she stepped
forward. She kept glancing back at them for support, giggling like a lunatic. “You’re him, right? That guy?”
“What guy?” I mean, I know I’m a legend in my own mind, but this was ridiculous.
“From that show. With the island and the polar bear.”
“Um…no. Sorry. You must have me mistaken for someone else.” You’d have thought I popped their balloons or kicked their puppy or something. Instantly they deflated with a chorus of “aaawwwws” and wandered off.
I glanced at Tai, who gave me a thoughtful look. “You do kinda look like him.”
“Like who?”
“That guy. But I’ve seen him in person. You’re taller.”
“Well, I’m not him. Whoever the hell he is.” I don’t watch a lot of TV. I had no idea who they were talking about. An island and a polar bear? Sounded lame. I spotted my suitcase forlornly circling the baggage carousel and moved to grab it. “Are we far from the hotel?”
“You’ve never been to L.A.?” I shook my head to the negative. “Well, you’ll get to do a bit of sightseeing on the way there, then.”
I grinned a little. “I get the dollar guided tour?”
Tai smiled again. The small gesture seemed bigger on his tattooed face. “Yeah, I guess I can do that. Come on, let’s get outta here.”
6
Tai led me to a silver Lincoln Town Car in the parking lot, and after some internal debate, I tossed my luggage in the backseat and climbed into the front. I don’t do well with a chauffeur, okay? It’s just not natural.
“Excuse me.” Tai leaned over to reach for a black box under my seat. Fishing a silver key out, tiny in his large hands, he unlocked it to reveal a handgun, which he quickly slid into the holster under his arm. “Can’t take it into the airport, obviously.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Okay, coming from the land of deer hunters and gun racks, maybe I shouldn’t have been so concerned by the sight of the weapon, but really, I didn’t know anyone who openly carried a sidearm. Except my brother, the cop. He doesn’t count. “You all go armed like that?”
“No, most don’t. Bobby and I do because…well, Gretchen had some nasty stalker stuff a few years go, so now we just don’t take chances.”
I vaguely remembered hearing about that in the news. The dude went to jail, maybe? Celebrity gossip wasn’t something I kept up on really. “You been with her long?”
Tai nodded as we drove through a tunnel leading out of the airport. “Couple of years. Bobby’s been with her a little longer. We’re kinda the rarity. She goes through staff pretty quick.” He darted a glance at me. “To be honest, I’m not sure why you’re here, other than Reggie said you were coming.”
“Reggie?”
“Her agent.” Oh great. Another agent. I didn’t have a good history with agents. “So, you don’t know Reggie?”
“Guess my people talked to her people.” If this Reggie knew I was coming, that meant he knew Axel. I had to wonder if that made him another demon, or one of Axel’s demon-sworn, or maybe just Axel himself, in disguise. Should be interesting to find out.
“So…why are you here?”
“I’m a specialist.”
“In what?”
“In the kind of problem that Miss Keene may or may not have.” Yeah, that sounded suitably vague. I was actually kind of proud of my evasion techniques. “Somebody asked me to come check on things, so I am.”
The bodyguard eyed me up and down. “No offense, but you don’t look like much.”
Couldn’t argue with the guy there. I mean, I was six one, yeah, but the Maori masher sitting next to me outweighed me by a good seventy-five pounds. Probably more. A heavy hitter I was not. “I’m wiry.”
Tai snorted his laugh, and shook his head in amusement. “’Kay, man, if you say so.”
The drive into L.A. wasn’t nearly as interesting as I’d hoped it would be. The sun was shining brightly, which was nice after the overcast Missouri winter. But whatever highway we were on, it seemed to be just another gray stretch of pavement looming over the streets below, like every other gray stretch of pavement I’d ever seen. What local color I could see involved a few scraggly palm trees (not nearly as many as TV would have you believe), some other spindly trees I couldn’t name, and nondescript buildings that occasionally sprouted tall enough to be seen over the sides of the guardrails. Really, it looked remarkably like Johnson County, back home, only with more lanes and fewer cows.
The only point of curiosity was the elevated train running down the middle. When I expressed interest, Tai identified it as “The green line. Rapid transit.”
Once the loops and turns of the highway got us headed in the right general direction, Tai also pointed out a gray smudge in the distance. “That’s downtown, where we’re headed.”
I squinted a little. “Is that the smog?”
“Yeah. It’s lighter in the winter. In the summer, you can’t even see the mountains.” That was light? Ugh. “Not as much traffic, this close to the holiday.” I eyed the lanes and lanes of cars streaking along beside us and decided I never wanted to see actual traffic. There seemed to be more of the iconic palm trees, but when I remarked on how pretty they were (’cause isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?), the big man next to me just wrinkled his nose.
“Giant rats live in those trees.”
“Seriously?”
“Dead serious. I saw one the size of a cat once.”
Well, isn’t that…special. I made a mental note to be on the lookout for any giant rodents, especially any of them with glowing red eyes. I didn’t trust Axel not to check up on me, and that’d be the perfect hiding spot, given his predilection for small vermin disguises. “So…any local points of interest I shouldn’t miss while I’m in town?”
Tai chuckled again. “Aside from the usual touristy stuff? Not really. I imagine we’ll get dragged to a few parties in the next week or so, hitting up the New Year’s celebrations. Might see some interesting places then.”
Mentally, I started planning how to actually guard someone’s body in a room full of Hollywood’s elite. It would be easier if I had the foggiest idea what I might be up against. And why couldn’t this be Halloween instead, when I might get away with carrying my sword in public? “She go to those kind of things a lot?”
“When she’s not on set somewhere, yeah. Usually, security’s pretty high at the big-name shindigs, so we mostly just stand against the wall and talk among ourselves. Not a lot to do, and the food is pretty good. Hot girls there too, sometimes, if you’re interested.”
“Nope. Married.” I waggled my fingers to show off my very plain wedding band.
“Oh yeah? Got any kids?”
“One. Little girl. She’s six.” One so far, anyway. I added calling Mira to my mental to-do list, once we got to the hotel.
Forty minutes of idle chitchat, several harrowing turns down side streets to avoid traffic, and a few cuss words I’d never even heard before, we arrived in front of the Masurao Grand Hotel.
As I stepped out of the Town Car I had to chuckle, looking up at the elegantly designed sign. Tai gave me a curious look, so I pointed up at the name. “Masurao. It means warrior.” The guy gave me one of his “oooookay” looks and grabbed my suitcase out of the backseat. Guess I was the only one interested in Japanese trivia.
More precisely, masurao meant warrior with the connotations of a gentleman, a hero. I chose to consider it a good omen. Tai tossed the keys to the valet, and I was about to follow him inside when a strange figure accosted me.
“And he shall come forth from the land of bread and honey!” It was impossible to tell if the man was old or young, but if I had to guess, I’d say he was more than sixty. Steel-gray hair hung from his head in long dreadlocks, interwoven with bits of brightly colored yarn and string. His clothes were thrown on with no rhyme or reason, in equally garish hues, in more layers than the mild California weather warranted. His skin was dark in a way I’d come to associate with Haiti and Jamaica, though he had no
accent that I could discern.
The old man caught my hand before I could react, just holding it between his palms, patting gently. His skin was leathery and dry, but not in an unpleasant way. “He shall walk the earth, and he shall know no rest, so long as steel is in his heart.”
“Um…yeah, thanks for the tip.” I carefully extracted myself from his grasp, and just then the doorman noticed my predicament.
“Felix! Go on, get out of here. I told you yesterday you can’t bother the guests!” The man gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that. He’s one of the local eccentrics, always spouting mixed-up proverbs and stuff. He’s harmless, really.”
I watched the strange fellow shuffle off down the sidewalk, muttering to himself. Mixed-up proverbs, indeed. Sounded like he’d confused the Bible with the old Kung Fu series. Walking the earth…Felix, hm?
Tai came back to see what was keeping me and frowned when the doorman explained. “Crazy old man. They need to put him in a home somewhere. Come on, we’re late and she’ll be pitching a fit.”
The interior of the hotel was stunning, every bit worthy of the moniker “grand.” The lobby had been done with a nod to Asian flavor, bamboo and paper screens abounding, but it was done subtly, fitted in between modern lighting and furniture.
We passed through a circle of flickering light on the elegant tile floor, and I looked up to find myself beneath a skylight, many floors above. The light danced and moved, and it took me a moment to realize that there must be water on the glass, breaking the sunlight into tiny rainbow bits.
“It’s a reflecting pool,” Tai offered, seeing my interest. “There’s a big garden on the roof, with waterfalls and everything.”
“Wow.” What else could I say? I was impressed. Hell, even my luggage felt shabby, compared to this place. “Oh hey, I shipped myself a package here. I need to make sure the desk is expecting it.”
“Yeah sure, this way. We gotta get you on the approved list anyway.”
A Wolf at the Door: A Jesse James Dawson Novel Page 7