She smoothed out my collar. “This will have to do.”
“Okay, so I’m supposed to pass as gay, then? What about you? You’re a little… well, a whole lot…” I cleared my throat. “You’re obviously not a dude, is my point.”
“I believe the term is ‘fag hag.’”
“Oh. Right.”
We got out of the car. I took two steps.
She said, “What are you doing?”
“Walking. You know, getting into character.”
“No, what you’re doing is wearing gayface.”
“Gayface?”
“You’re doing a gay minstrel show. You’re one step from full-on mincing and prancing. It’s insulting.”
“Oh. Um.”
“Just walk like a person, please, not a cartoon. You’re probably not going to pass, but we don’t really need you to. We just need you not to attract too much attention.”
“Says the top-heavy redhead,” I muttered.
“You say something?”
“Pointing out irony under my breath.”
We headed around to the front. The bouncer gave us both a look like he was trying to figure out which one of us was doing this on a dare. He checked IDs—I showed him Colin Reznick’s. He gave me another once-over and shook his head.
The Principia Discordia describes a very simple trick known as the Turkey Curse. Now, the book is joking when it tells you to literally gobble like a turkey and wave your arms around like an epileptic with bad depth perception. What it’s actually telling you to do is something completely unexpected. Bouncers expect certain things: attempts to rush past them, the occasional punch, and maybe even a macing. The Principia tells you to short-circuit the other guy’s brain. Do something he wouldn’t expect, that he flat-out couldn’t expect, and watch his brain grope for the neuron that would explain why a person would behave like a one-eyed crack whore at a Shriner circus.
I said, “Look, I need to talk to Julian about the delivery.”
He didn’t react. “No Julian in there.”
“I find that highly unlikely. Look, somebody wanted five tons of saltpeter, and gave this address.”
“Saltpeter?”
“Yeah, saltpeter. It’s in a truck out back, and I don’t mind telling you I’m already out of pocket on the parking.”
His face was starting to go slack: the Novocain of confusion was doing its work. “This is a bar. We don’t need saltpeter.”
“Then what did you order it for? I need to talk to Julian five minutes ago or somebody’s losing his job.”
“Not my…”
I started talking louder. “Saltpeter. You know, the Army puts this stuff in the food so the recruits lose their sex drives. I guess the implication is that Basic would just be one long Madonna concert otherwise.”
“But we don’t need…”
“Then you shouldn’t have fucking ordered it! Either get Julian or let me go in and talk to the man!”
“You’re not…”
“Your problem, I know. I’m Julian’s problem. Haven’t you been listening?”
He blinked, looked at the line growing behind me, then back at me. He waved me in. “Gobble gobble,” I said.
“What?”
“I said thanks.”
I hate feeling out of place, which I suppose is a little ironic. After all, I’ve spent my adult life as an insider, but even within the conspiracies, I wasn’t properly inside. I wasn’t out in the rain, but I was in the foyer dripping wet and looking for a place to put my umbrella. In any case, at this bar, I felt more out of place than I’d ever felt before. There was no way for me to adequately blend. I kept expecting points and laughs, or at the very least some catty comments. Getting outed as a straight guy in a gay bar was the kind of bizarre phobia that would one day get me written up in a psychological journal, alongside that Waco woman who compulsively ate batteries. I wanted to leave as soon as I could, but first I needed to know who Eric was meeting. The music pulsed in my ears, the crowd was wall to wall; finding Eric through the bass beat, sweat, and my nerves was going to be a challenge.
I felt a hand on my arm. Turned. Mina. She nodded at something deeper in the club. I followed her eyes.
Eric was in a booth in the back. I couldn’t ID the man he sat across from. I had to get a better angle. I crossed to a far corner, dark enough to hide me, and I could see Eric’s partner. As I moved, more of the man came into view. First, gray hair. For a minute, I thought it was Stan Brizendine. No, the hair was wavy, and missing on top in a modified George Costanza. Closer, and it was clear this guy was tall, maybe six-three minimum. Thin, too. Had an old-school look to his suit. He could have stepped right off the grassy knoll. His face came into view, and it was like a human caricature of an aging eagle. The guy looked like a poster-grandpa for freelance spooks.
“Who is he?” Mina said.
“I have no idea.”
I brought up my cellphone—Reznick’s specifically. Eric was talking to the guy, making some kind of panicked declaration. I flipped the phone open.
Mr. Old School turned right then. His eyes glittered under the lights. He saw me—saw right through me.
“Fuck.”
I snapped the picture.
Old School was coming through the crowd, Eric trailing after him.
I grabbed Mina’s hand, but she had the same idea and a lower center of gravity. The crowd parted for her. In a flash, we were outside and running. A second later, footsteps echoed behind us. I chanced a look. Eric.
The look on his face: some fear, obviously not of us. Mostly what I saw was a sick need. God, I hated that look.
There’s an old joke. Two guys are hiking through the hills when they spot a bear. At that moment, the bear spots them. One guy is getting ready to run when the other guy calmly sits down and begins putting on a pair of running shoes. The first guy is like, “You really think those shoes will help you outrun that bear?” The other guy responds, cool as a cucumber, “I don’t have to outrun him. I only have to outrun you.”
Which was my dilemma. Mina was in heels—short ones, sure, but heels, and I could tell she wasn’t much of a runner to begin with. She was really just wobbling along in a barely controlled forward fall. I could leave her to Eric, or I could do something very stupid.
We turned the corner, and Eric was barely three steps behind.
I stopped.
Mina turned, wondering why I’d stopped.
I ducked low.
Eric turned the corner and I jumped right at his knees.
One leg hit me on the edge of Mina’s footprint, but Eric went sailing.
It should be said that I’m not much good in a fight. I’ve taken some classes, but I generally learn just enough to override my natural instincts and try for something a little too complicated. So while I’m trying some intricate wristlock, the other guy is using my head like a taiko drum. But a flying tackle? That seemed to work just fine.
I heard a thunk as I got to my feet and started running again. Eric was already shaking the cobwebs from his head. He’d ended up under a newspaper vending box that now had an Eric’s-head-shaped dent in the side. Mina was at my car. I tossed her the keys and the engine was running by the time I jumped in the passenger seat. Eric took a couple of aborted steps, but the car was moving.
Mina let out a whoop. I smiled a little, winced, and touched my jaw.
“You okay?”
“Could be better.”
“I think he saw the license plate.” She paused. “That’s not a problem, is it?”
I shook my head. “It’ll lead them right to a nice taco place in Boyle Heights.”
She smiled at that. “You really don’t know who that guy was?”
I shook my head. “Nope.” I thought about it. “Had you met any Templars before tonight?”
“No. Why would he want me dead?”
“Could be work for hire, I don’t know.”
“How do you advertise for something like that?”
>
“Craigslist.”
“I really should have guessed.”
I tried to trace the connection between V.E.N.U.S. and the Knights Templar, and how it would run through a guy like Old School. “Does V.E.N.U.S. have a dirty tricks specialist?”
“Why?” she asked, her voice tinged with sudden suspicion.
“Someone whose job it would be to steal something like the Chain of the Heretic Martyr.”
“Someone like you?”
“Like me, but competent.”
She thought about it. That wasn’t exactly flattering. “Yeah. You’re talking about Oana Constantinescu.”
Wonderful.
She misinterpreted my look. “Yeah, the Romanian gymnast.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know where she lives, would you?”
“Like an address? No. I’ve seen her around the compound before and I talked to her once or twice, but it’s not like we were in the same position. I’m on the frontlines, Oana is… well, in the shadows, I guess would be the way to put it.”
“She has to have a codename. Something they call her?”
“Tuesday,” Mina said a little too quickly. She didn’t move to cover it, just let it hang there. Was she going to call ahead? Could I let her out of my sight?
“I need to get back into the compound,” I said.
“Are you insane? They’re trying to kill me!”
“Well, technically, I said they might be trying to kill you. Might.”
“Still. Walking right into their place doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but I wasn’t planning on just walking in.”
“They have dogs.”
“That’s okay, dogs like me.”
“Not these dogs.”
“No, those too.”
She wanted to glare, but she was watching the road. “Don’t get cocky.”
“Worried about me?”
“No, when you get cocky, you screw up, and this is my life we’re talking about.”
On the stereo: “Don’t Look Back.”
We moved into Mount Washington and I started getting a little squirrelly. Breaking and entering was one thing when no one was home, but this was a commune. There was always someone home. I had two things I needed. In and out. Then there was the gambit if I got caught. It was a lot to keep in mind.
Mina parked a block away. I would approach the commune from uphill. I thought about demanding the keys back. That way she couldn’t drive off and leave me in there. Then again, it wasn’t like I could take her cellphone. Even if I did, she could always use one of the jillion phones in the trunk to call the hippos inside and let them know I was coming. Besides, it would be nice to know that she was a backstabber before I got too much deeper. Let her keep the keys.
“Pop the trunk. It’s the lever right by… yeah.”
I got out of the car. I lost the tie. The rest of my outfit was dark enough to be black. My trunk probably would have confused most people who didn’t understand what was back there. Why I had seventeen copies of Sandman #29. Why I would need those two-liter bottles of Diet Coke. The makeshift mug book. The changes of clothes, the religious icons, the stuffed alligator. The tire iron was pretty self-explanatory, though.
I lifted out a duffel bag. Leather wallet with picks and files. Check. Bottle of nasty. Check. Flashlight. Check.
She had gotten out of the car and was watching me. “There’s a trellis on the north side that’s easy to get up,” she said. “And, if you get in trouble, ‘Lascaux.’”
“Lascaux. Got it.”
“If you’re looking for the Chain, your best bet is Daphne’s office. Second floor. If you get to the staircase inside, it’s the first door on the right at the top.”
“Daphne. The blonde, right?”
She smiled queasily. “Yeah.”
Probably would be the last time I’d see her. She’d sell me out for mercy and get her skull caved in another day. It wasn’t like you needed to make time for that sort of thing.
The compound was on half an acre, separated from its neighbors by tall eucalyptus trees and high fences. There was no property that looked directly down into it. They wouldn’t have chosen it had there been. The closest neighboring property had a dead zone, a section of densely planted hill bordered on both sides by fences. That would be the best way into the compound.
Of course, that plan sounded all well and good, but the brush was up to my chest in places and felt like walking through a very narrow hall bordered on both sides by angry kittens. I was covered in little cuts before I’d made it five feet. On the V.E.N.U.S. side, there was fence, then a couple feet beyond, a hill that rose up before sloping down into the compound. The section between fence and hill was a perfect dog run.
The fence was seven feet tall and wooden. I braced myself on a tree and scrambled like a drunken monkey, but made it over the other side. I paused. I heard the dogs, still far off, but chewing up ground fast. I dug out the bottle of nasty and sprayed it on the fence.
The problem with this line of work is that occasionally you need disgusting things. Rat feces, insect parts, and, in this case, cat piss. There’s no better way of dealing with guard dogs than cat piss. It would keep them entertained for more than long enough. The problem is, of course, collecting it, which I won’t go into. You’re welcome.
I crept along the side of the hill. The dogs were closing in, their breath coming out in growls. I moved quicker. The hill sloped downward into the commune proper. It was divided into sections of garden, like they were testing to see exactly what California would support. There was a section of neat lawn that, for some reason, felt ironic. There was a cactus garden with groomed sand, almost like a Zen garden. There was a small apple orchard and a vegetable plot. There was even a section that was mostly ferns with a young redwood set in the middle.
I saw the dogs: black and tan streaks in the underbrush. Rottweilers with jaws like backhoes. They were heading to my section of fence.
I moved down past the little redwood, keeping to the sections that would put trees or high plants between the house and me. There was a dirt path all the way around, bordered with even stones. Right next to the house, I found climbing plants. I scanned the area. Mina’s trellis was right in front of me.
I heard a door open. I ducked backward, hiding in the ferns, sticking close to my friend the redwood. One of the V.E.N.U.S. henchmen, yet another reedy bearded man, stepped outside. He was squinting up at where the dogs had gone, an Uzi slung over his shoulder. He started moving.
I kept still. He walked over the lawn and disappeared behind the hill.
I broke for the house. The trellis was no good now. Climb that, get stuck, and the dog man would hose me down before I could say the code word.
I picked a side door. Locked, of course. That wasn’t a problem. The locks in this place were a joke; I picked this one in the dark. Through the door and into the downstairs hall. I was in a living room, all wood and handmade rugs. The whole place had the old-vomit smell of cooked lentils.
I turned right, and through a door, I found a staircase. The kind that creaks. Walking on the edge of the steps, setting my feet before planting my weight—I tried every trick. Still, every creak sounded like an air raid siren. Two steps from the top, I heard a door open and some muttering several rooms away, below me.
Dog man. Fuck.
I took the last two steps with a leap.
First door on the right. Locked. Of course it was.
I heard steps on the staircase. I hoped this lock was a joke, too. Felt it out.
He was halfway up.
The door opened and I was through it. Like I said, I have good hands.
I paused, back against the closed door. I heard dog man outside. Closer.
Then further.
I decided to start breathing again. I clicked on my flashlight. I was in an office, all right. Desk facing the door and a chair big enough for two normal asses. A couch along one s
ide, some small chairs, bookcases, and a picture window that looked down the hill into Highland Park.
I swore at Mina as soon as I saw it: the safe. This was probably what she was talking about when she said that the Chain would be in Daphne’s office. Did she think I could crack a safe with my bare hands?
Instead, I went to the computer and booted it up. Password protected. Damn.
I thought about it. V.E.N.U.S. Lascaux. Could it really be that easy?
LUCY.
The OS unlocked. I shook my head.
I opened everything I could, looking for references to Constantinescu or Tuesday. The key for this sort of thing is filtering out what doesn’t fit. Mention of Tuesday on a calendar doesn’t help too much. Mention of Tuesday as a noun can be illuminating. I found Daphne’s address book. I shouldn’t have been too surprised that the damn thing was in code. The trick would be showing it to Mina. That is, if Mina was still in the car. I dug through the desk drawers, found a CD, burned it, and pocketed the disc.
Might as well search the place. I went deeper into Daphne’s desk. Notes, papers. The woman appeared to be a packrat with a filing system that went past arcane and well into illuminated territory. Receipts, but nothing overly damning. Some notes, nothing that made sense.
I opened the center drawer, checked under the organizer. Jackpot.
I pulled the sheet of paper from underneath and nearly swore out loud.
It read: “Salutations. Your price cannot be paid without delivery. Trust is difficult to come by, but you must trust me. Give me what I ask and you will get what you require.”
The handwriting was block printing, the margins pristine. The same handwriting on the love note in Diaz’s house. Whoever was in love with Diaz, my Manchurian Candidate, was also making deals with V.E.N.U.S. I put the note back where I found it. Now to get back out.
I listened at the door. Nothing.
I opened it. Still nothing. No telling where dog man and his gun were. I locked Daphne’s office behind me. Down the stairs.
The barking and snarling made me jump back. The Rottweilers were on the other side of the door, snapping and yowling. The cat piss probably wasn’t even a memory in their tiny dog brains. I heard swearing again: dog man. Closer than I thought. I had two options. I didn’t like either one.
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