City of the Lost (9781101563137)

by Blackmore, Stephen

  “Here we go,” Carl says, turns up the volume.

  LAPD cars, yellow tape. A canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. And a picture of Simon.

  “Fuck.” Of course it would make the news.

  “You knew about this?” Carl asks.

  “What? Fuck no. When did it happen?”

  Carl is silent a moment longer than he should be, and I know I’ve been made. “Cops found them this morning. Whole slew of bodies. Like some Jonestown shit or something.” Interesting angle Frank came up with. Crazy cultists gone bugfuck. Something for the press to chew on.

  “Jesus.”

  “Looks like you’re out of a job.”

  “Looks like.”

  “You don’t seem too broken up.”

  “What? Hell, man, it’s kind of a shock. Gimme some time to sort it out.”

  “Horseshit,” he says.

  “Oh, come on,” I say. “You think I’d be here if I knew this had gone down?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he says. “I know you do more than just rough up people who don’t pay. I’m not stupid, Joe. I know how to put facts together. I’m a fucking reporter. It’s my job. I think you’d just go about your day like you always do. Now, what the hell happened?”

  “Don’t ask me this, man,” I say. “I don’t need more shit in the paper than what’s already in there.”

  His face twists in anger. “Jesus. I’m your friend, you asshole.”

  “And what, nothing’s gonna end up plastered on the front page? I’m not stupid, either.”

  He stands, more pissed off than I’ve seen him in years. “Fuck you,” he says. “This is too big to just go on your fucking day with. You didn’t hear the first part. They found more than twenty bodies in there.”

  “Don’t,” I say.

  He gets into my face. “Why not? You gonna take me out? Is that what you’re all freaked out about? You kill those people? I got a fucking mass murderer in my gym today?”

  I don’t even think about it, I just throw a punch and pop him in the jaw. I don’t think I put a lot of force into it but it knocks him back into the door, a spiderweb crack appearing in the wired glass where his head hits.

  Carl steadies himself, shakes it off. Blood is running down his chin, his split lip already fattening. He makes to come at me, but stops himself.

  “Get out,” he says.

  “Carl, I—”

  “You don’t want to tell me,” he says, cutting me off, “that’s your business. I’ll find out on my own.”

  “Man, you do not want to—”

  “I said get out,” he screams. He throws the door open and steps aside to let me pass. The gym is silent, everyone watching me as I walk out.

  If they didn’t notice me before they sure as hell do now.

  I spend the rest of the day driving around town. Not wanting to go home and look at that goddamn stone again. It’s like it wants me to pull it out and stare at it.

  Everything looks different. Colors are a little sharper, sounds a little more clear. And the smells. Jesus. I can smell everything. I didn’t notice it until after I left the gym, but I’m starting to smell people like they’re bags of meat.

  And I’m getting paranoid. Keep seeing this black Escalade popping in and out of traffic behind me. This is L.A., everybody’s got a fucking black Escalade. After awhile I settle down, stop seeing it.

  My phone rings. It’s Carl. I turn off the ringer. I’m going to have to talk to him soon, though. Tell him something if only for damage control. With Frank covering for me I should be good with the cops for the moment, but I’m going to have to do something to keep Carl from digging too much into this thing.

  Wish I hadn’t lost it back there. Now it’s just going to be that much more difficult to keep a lid on things.

  I finally drive to the coast, up along Pacific Coast Highway, past Malibu, toward the crime scene. News vans are crowded a good mile from it. I hang farther back. Far enough away to be another looky-loo, close enough to maybe actually see something. I strain to see past the crush of reporters. I can see the police, the ambulances. They’ve already hauled the bodies away, but it’s going to be awhile before they’re done here. Coroner’s going to be busy tonight.

  I watch them until the sun goes down and everybody but the hardcore has gone home. I don’t take a breath for four hours.

  I check my phone. It tells me I’ve got three messages. Two from Carl sounding almost apologetic but still pissed off. And one from Frank.

  It’s a simple message. A place and time. Hard edge in his voice that I’m used to. Says he wants answers.

  I’d like a few myself.

  Chapter 7

  I meet Frank at Mel’s in Sherman Oaks later that night. White ceramic mugs of coffee between us, smell of fry grease in the air. A large manila envelope sitting conspicuously on the table.

  The place is overlit with hanging fluorescents, Fifties music piped in over a crackling sound system. Lots of people here. Lots of witnesses. Takes me a few minutes to realize that he’s more afraid of me than I am of him.

  I’ve been avoiding the question, but I can’t anymore. “You said you knew Giavetti wasn’t dead. He get up and start walking around?”

  “If he does we’ll know about it. I’ve got him in the morgue.”

  “Well, that’s something.”

  The silence stretches in front of us. “Everything cool?” Frank finally asks.

  “I’m not gonna eat your brain, if that’s what you’re asking.” I’ve got a burger in front of me, but after a few tentative bites, I’m just not interested. Hungry, though, which I didn’t expect.

  “Good to know.” He hasn’t touched his food.

  “So, is this where the thrilling detective pulls out his whodunit card and fills me in on everything?”

  “Was hoping you’d brought yours,” he says.

  I pat my pockets. “Must be in that other jacket. You know, the one with the big fuckin’ hole in it.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “You asking as a cop?”

  He shakes his head. “No badge. Must be in my other jacket.”

  I have to be careful. Weigh every word. What to tell him, what not to. I’ve never cracked for him before, I’m not about to start now. He’s staring at me, waiting. Not his cop stare. Something more earnest, more pained.

  Fuck it. Everything’s different, now.

  “Dying,” I say finally. “Coming back to life. Fuck, I don’t know.” I tell him about the phone call to Mariel, finding Julio at his home, Giavetti, the strangulation. Coming to in the shower room. He nods to himself like I’m filling in pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I had.

  “And you just woke up? Just like that?”

  “Pretty much. Then he shot me in the head.”

  “That must have sucked.”

  “Not as bad as you’d think. His rant was worse.” Now it’s my turn. “What about you? How’d you find me?”

  “Luck mostly,” he says. “I’ve been keeping tabs on him since I knew he was in town. Tailed him there the other day. Didn’t get a chance to get inside, though. Figured that was the best place to start.” He shudders. “No offense, but I wish I’d never gone in there.”

  “Saw the bodies, did ya?”

  “Fuck. Julio was in that pile, wasn’t he?”

  I nod. “Think so. Thought I saw his tattoos. What’s the count?”

  “Twenty-five last time I checked. They’re still digging through it all.”

  “Got a question for ya,” he says and reaches into the manila envelope, rummages around, and comes out with a photo of the stone. The picture doesn’t do it justice. “When you were in there, you see this?”

  I shake my head. “Should I have?”

  “Don’t know. It was stolen a while back from a guy in Bel Air. Word is that Giavetti hired some muscle through Simon to snag it.”

  “So that’s what all the noise is about,” I say, hoping I’m not laying it on
too thick. I tell him about the bad blood between Giavetti and Simon over the guys who’ve gone missing. I leave out the bits about Simon knowing Giavetti from way back when. “I didn’t know Giavetti’d hired guys to get a stone, though.”

  “You never asked?”

  “I look like the kind of guy who does that?”

  He snorts. “Guess not. You know, it’s funny. I’ve been trying to nail your ass to the wall for years now. Now that I’ve got something I could lay on you, it turns out I can’t do anything with it. You’d probably just yawn through the gas chamber now, wouldn’t you?”

  I ignore him and ask, “So what’s so special about this stone?”

  “Fuck if I know. Was hoping you did.” He gives me a hard cop stare. “You’re not lying to me, are you?”

  “Cross my heart, hope to die.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I love you, too.”

  “Fine.” He’s mulling something over, chewing on his lip. He empties the manila envelope onto the table. Papers, photos. He sifts through them, pulls one out.

  “This is my kid brother, Leonard,” he says. It’s easy to see the resemblance. Younger, thinner. Looks like a happy guy, doesn’t have Frank’s Eeyore face.

  “He got the looks.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it. Brains, too. Valedictorian. Graduate degree. FBI. He’d been trying to put together a case on a group operating out of Chicago. All he could get were small operators. Bagmen, shit like that. But Giavetti’s name kept popping up.”

  “Popular guy.”

  “You’d think, only nobody’s actually seen him. Like he’s Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil. Folks can’t, or won’t, give a description. Like they’ve, I dunno, forgotten what he looks like, where he hangs out. So Lenny digs. Takes him a while but he finally gets hold of a picture.”

  He pulls a copy of an old sepia photo. Older guy, derby on his head. Give him a different haircut and we’ve got the zombie master himself.

  “You’re kidding me,” I say.

  “Big family, the Giavettis. In Italy. In the states there’s maybe a dozen of them left. Lenny scoured every state and federal record he could get his hands on. Every one of them a bust.”

  The waitress comes by, coffee pot in hand. Cute redhead in a bobby sox outfit, hair pulled up behind a little paper hat. Frank puts his hands over the uncovered photos like they’re state secrets.

  “More coffee?” Her Southern accent’s a little too thick for someone who’s been here long. Girl next door look. Actress, most likely. Probably bit parts, if she can get them. Maybe some repertory. If she’s not careful, this place will eat her up.

  “I’m good, thanks,” Frank says.

  I put my cup out. I don’t know why. I’m not interested in the coffee at all. Barely touched it. But there’s enough room to top it off. She bends over to pour. She smells good.

  “Hi,” I say. I catch her eyes. Green like jade. “Nice eyes.”

  She graces me with a dazzling smile. “Thanks.” I watch her as she walks off, a little extra sway in her hips just for me.

  “The fuck are you doing?”

  “What? I just told her I liked her eyes.”

  “You’re hitting on the waitress.”

  I remember the exchange between him and the woman officer back at the station. “You’re fucking another cop,” I say. He pauses at this. Blinks.

  “I’m not dead.”

  Yeah, okay. He has me there. And then there’s also the fact that I don’t normally go after waitresses. Strippers, barflies, sure. One time even a roller derby queen. God, she was fun. But some fresh-faced twenty-year-old? That’s not like me.

  My stomach rumbles loud enough for Frank to hear.

  “You hungry?”

  I ignore the question. “So the picture,” I say, trying to get the conversation back on track.

  “Yeah. So he talks to everybody he possibly can. Background checks. Even taps their phones. Nothing. So he starts from today and works his way back.”

  “And he finds this? What the hell was he gonna do with it?”

  “They’ve got a computer at Quantico that matches faces in photos. Still experimental. Guess part of it’s hooked to the Smithsonian or something. Anyway, he runs it through and gets a whole slew of hits. Only they’re not what he’s expecting.”

  He pulls out a half dozen photos from different eras. Spreads them out in front of me.

  “Jesus.” Giavetti stares at me out of every one of them.

  Frank taps each one in turn. “Abilene, 1875. Chicago, 1902. Tulsa, 1914. Miami, 1928. Sacramento, 1937. New York, 1942.” Hair’s a little different. Going backward he’s a little younger, but not by much. Ten years, fifteen? Sometimes he’s in a group, sometimes alone. But it’s the same guy every time.

  “There’s more, but I think you get the idea. Every decade there’s a guy looks just like him. Little bit younger. Usually goes with a different name, but Lenny was able to correlate some birth and death dates and had a pretty good idea it was all the same guy.”

  “He doesn’t look much different than he did when you shot him.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got some ideas on that, but I’m not sure. So, anyway, when the system gets back online Lenny runs it again and gets this.”

  Hands me a printout of an Illinois driver’s license. Old man Giavetti staring at me over the name Samuel Glen Vetty. Boy’s got no imagination.

  “So how come Lenny’s not sitting here telling me this?”

  “He’s dead. Died a few years ago.”

  “Bummer.”

  Frank’s hand clenches into a fist. If he’s looking for sympathy, he knows I’m the wrong guy to go to.

  “The feds had already dropped the case and he was on to bigger and better things, but he couldn’t get this out of his head. I found all this in his apartment after he died.”

  “Wait a minute. Your kid brother goes all Kolchak the Night Stalker, and now you’re picking up the cause? What gives?” It takes me a second to answer my own question. “Giavetti killed him.”

  “Yeah. He turned up dead in a warehouse run by some guys with connections to Giavetti.”

  It’s sketchy at best. No way he’d be able to prove a damn thing in court, and really, how would you even get it to that point? No, he’s not interested in trying to bring him in. He’s stepped outside the bounds of his badge. It’s weird to see him on my side of the fence.

  “You want to kill him. You sure he’s not already dead? You said his body’s in the morgue.”

  “Please,” Frank says. “The man’s been around long enough, I don’t think a bullet to the head’s going to slow him down too much.”

  I have a sudden thought. “Well, fuck, then why’d you send him to the morgue?”

  “The fuck was I supposed to do? Shove him into my trunk with sheriffs all over the place? Yeah, that’d really work out well. ‘Don’t mind me. guys, just taking this guy in for questioning.’ Fuck you, I’m not stupid. Morgue’s the best place for him. If he’s not really dead he’s gonna be awful surprised when they crack him open tomorrow and scoop his guts out. And if he gets up in the middle of the night somebody’ll see him.”

  He’s right. I don’t like it, but I can’t see what else he could have done. Cops were coming up the canyons as I was heading out. Frank wouldn’t have had much time to move the body.

  I look at the pictures. Giavetti’s old in all of them. “If these are right he’s been around for, what, a hundred-fifty years?”

  Frank shakes his head. “Worse. Lenny thought he’s aging about a year for every ten or so.”

  I do some quick math in my head. I don’t like the number I’m coming up with. “That’s not possible,” I say, knowing how stupid that sounds coming from me.

  Frank looks through the envelope, pulls one last picture out, and lays it face up on the table like a cardsharp at a high stakes poker game.

  It’s Giavetti again. Only he’s younger. A lot younger. And he’s looking out at me from the middle
of a Renaissance painting.

  Chapter 8

  I pull out onto Ventura Boulevard, the neon signs of furniture stores and Italian restaurants lighting up the night in reds and blues.

  Frank’s got no real answers, only more questions. The only way I’ll be getting any is through Giavetti. His body’s cooling in the morgue, but God only knows if he’s coming back or not. I’m still on the fence about this whole living forever thing. But if Frank’s right then Giavetti’s probably going to be up and walking around soon. Gives me hope of getting some answers. And if I have to make Giavetti hurt to get them, so much the better.

  I’m antsy, restless. Like I was when I headed over to Carl’s gym, but there’s something else. Some new edge to it I can’t put my finger on. I drive over the hill into Hollywood looking for something. I’ve gone through half a pack, and I’m not even at Mulholland. My stomach growls at me, but every kind of food I can think of makes me queasy.

  I pass bars on Sunset, long lines of men and women all looking to get laid snaking outside along the sidewalks. Though I’m not in the mood for a drink, every time I pass one it grabs my attention like somebody’s set off a flare. The street corners are brimming with whores. The cops make a sweep every now and again, but they’ll never clear them out.

  I pass a strip bar off a corner of Hollywood Boulevard. The place has really gone downhill, if it was ever up one. Peeling paint, half the flashing bulbs in its sign out or blinking out of sequence. There are a handful of cars in the lot, a couple girls out front smoking. A brunette in a miniskirt and fishnets catches my eye. Waitress or a dancer. But a strip bar’s not what I’m looking for, either.

  Or maybe it is. A few blocks later I make a U-turn and head back. The brunette’s still out front. She’s sharp enough to notice the same car passing by. Really gets her attention when I double back from the other direction.

  I don’t see any cops, though if she is one she’ll have a wire to call a team of guys in a van around the block. I circle the area looking for anything that catches my eye. Nothing.

  I pull into the lot, leave the engine running. Find myself drumming the steering wheel with my fingers. What the hell am I doing here? My thoughts are interrupted by a tap on the driver’s side window. It’s the brunette. I didn’t even notice her come up.