“Was the head mailed to you personally?”
“It said the Fox Family on the address label.”
“It could have been sent to your mother or father.”
“But why?”
Nick shook his head, baffled. “Did you call the cops?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know if my parents did.”
“Do you have any idea who did it?”
“Only the lesbo Barbara. I know she hates me.”
“That’s gotta be illegal. Killing someone’s pet dog and sending its head through the mail . . . I don’t even want to think about it.”
He lay back on the bed.
Valerie thought she could hear rapping on her closed bedroom door all but drowned out by the rock music blasting on her stereo. Maybe she was hallucinating, she decided.
“Valerie?”
It was her mother’s voice, Valerie realized.
She leapt off her bed and wiped off what remained of the cocaine powder on the coffee table into her cupped hand. Nick swiped the two razor blades from the tabletop.
“Did you lock the door?” whispered Nick.
“I can’t remember,” she answered, closing her coke-filled hand, her heart racing.
She saw the door swing open. She told herself to calm down.
“Could you turn the music down, honey?” said Deirdre, poking her head around the door.
“Yeah, sure.”
“The walls were vibrating.” Deirdre paused, looking at Valerie. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. Nick,” said Valerie, motioning for Nick to turn down the stereo.
Nick strode over to the stereo and turned it down.
“That’s better,” said Deirdre. “Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Fine.”
“Sorry to interrupt you.”
“Did you find out who killed Busby?”
“No. We don’t know.”
“What about the other thing we got in the mail?”
Deirdre sneaked a glance toward Nick and shook her head.
“No. I’ll leave you two alone,” she said, shutting the door behind her.
“What other thing?” said Nick, returning to the bed.
“Nothing,” said Valerie, deciding not to tell him about the human head or the obscene volleyball.
“Do you think she knows we’re doing blow?”
“How could she? There’s none on the table.”
Valerie opened her fist and poured the blow back onto the glass top of the coffee table.
“Now there is,” said Nick with a smile and, pinching the razor between his fingers, used it like a crumber to prepare another line.
Valerie cast her mind back to the human head made up like a two-bit streetwalker stuffed in the cooler and felt queasy. She needed another line.
Chapter 65
Marcello rode in a taxi down Sunset Strip in Hollywood, peering out the window at the signs. He saw the words Highland Avenue printed on the sign up ahead.
“Signs,” he said, smiling.
“What?” said the cabbie, a twentyish black guy with a head full of dreadlocks.
“Signs,” said Marcello, and nodded at the upcoming sign.
The cabbie gave him a weird look, wondering what kind of a nut he had picked up for a fare. “Are you trippin’?”
“Trippin’?”
“Yeah, you be trippin’?”
In response Marcello looked blank.
In San Luca, where Marcello had grown up, there were no signs. The addresses were painted in black on the sides of houses. Marcello found it odd to see so many signs everywhere in Hollywood.
The vibrating of his satphone jerked him out of his reverie. He had no intention of answering it in the cab, where the hack could overhear him.
“Pull over,” he said.
“But you said you wanted to go to—”
“Pull over now,” Marcello said, glaring at the hack.
“Sure, boss. You’re the boss. Whatever you say.”
Seeing no parking spaces along the side of the road, the hack pulled into a parking lot in a strip mall and found a space in front of a massage parlor, where a twentysomething blonde dressed in an amethyst organza bathrobe was standing in translucent pumps and taking a break smoking a cigarette, her elbow cupped in one hand, her naked ivory thigh thrust in front of her.
The way the sun caught the organza Marcello didn’t think she was wearing anything beneath the robe except skimpy underwear. The image of Botticelli’s painting of St. Sebastian pierced by arrows flashed through his mind at the sight of her thigh.
The woman picked up on his stare and retreated into the massage parlor, clicking her heels on the sidewalk on her way, her hips grinding under her robe in invitation.
Marcello clambered out of the cab, paid the hack, and hustled to a vacant quadrant of the parking lot to answer his satphone, hoping the mastro di giornata wouldn’t hang up before he answered.
“What took you so long to answer?” said the mastro di giornata.
“I wasn’t alone.”
“It’s time to go after the target.”
“Who?”
Marcello listened intently and terminated the call.
Chapter 66
Sitting at his mahogany table near his pool at his hacienda, Gaetano spoke to Arturo, who was sitting at his side.
“My papa was a farmer,” said Gaetano. “I grew up in poverty. But my family was proud. Farmers are proud people.”
“Sí, patrón,” said Arturo.
“One of the things he taught me was never to let an enemy get away with disrespecting you.”
Arturo nodded yes. “Good advice. Your papa is a wise man.”
Gaetano shrugged. “Wise and proud, but not wise enough. He was broke all his life. Poverty is not a desired goal in life.”
Gaetano took a slice of cantaloupe from a plate on the tabletop in front of him and, holding the scabrous rind in his hands, began eating the sweet orange melon.
“Paupers have no control over their lives,” he went on between bites.
“Where is your papa?”
“He’s in a wheelchair. He fell off a horse and broke his neck, paralyzing him.”
“Qué lástima, patrón.”
Gaetano waved Arturo off. “He’s in good hands. I pay for his medical bills.”
“Family is the most important thing.”
“No, Arturo. Remember what I’m about to tell you,” said Gaetano, putting down his cantaloupe and wiping its juice off his hands onto his pants. “Power is the most important thing. You will not live well in this world without it.”
“My men found a Zeta skulking outside the hacienda.”
“Teach him a lesson. We don’t allow Zetas to trespass.”
“We’ll make him walk the plank, patrón.”
“Bueno.”
Arturo motioned to three of his armed men who were approaching the poolside with a teenage Zeta member, AK-47s in their hands. The teenager wore a wife-beater, baggy jeans, and a leather necklace with a miniature plastic human skull dangling from it.
“Make him walk the plank,” said Arturo.
The CJNG men ushered the Zeta to the twenty-foot-high diving board at the end of the pool and told him to climb it. He shook his head.
The CJNG men prodded the Zeta with their gun barrels, pushing him toward the ladder to the diving board.
Grudgingly, the Zeta climbed the ladder to the diving board, fear in his eyes.
One of the CJNG men retrieved a gallon can of gasoline from the shed near the pool, approached the pool, and started pouring gas into the water until the can was empty. The two remaining CJNG men each retrieved two of the cans of gas from the shed and repeated the process, a can in each hand.
Finished pouring the gas out, the trio of CJNG men cried up to the Zeta to jump.
The teen shook his head, as he stood on the wobbling diving board looking down at them goggle-eyed.
“Jump,” said the men, louder this t
ime.
The teen shook his head no.
“Maricón,” said Arturo. Fag.
The teen didn’t move.
Gaetano signaled to his men.
The CJNG men raised their AK-47s and fired at the base of the diving board, their bullets scything through the board until it cracked, broke off, and fell into the water with the teen screaming as he plowed into the water. He flailed around in terror.
A picture of nonchalance, one of the CJNG men flicked his lighter on and tossed it into the pool, igniting the gas-laced water, which burst into flames.
The teenager screamed and swam for the edge of the pool to escape the flames. Arturo hoisted a flamethrower that was canting against a leg of the mahogany table and approached the blazing pool.
“We shoulda used more gas,” he said.
Amidst the flames, the teenager scrabbled up the edge of the pool, grimacing as the fire licked his red flesh. As he was about to get to his feet on the pool deck, Arturo fired the flamethrower at him.
Whooshing, a flame shot out of the end of the flamethrower and engulfed the teen, who was fixing to run for his life when the flame spewed at him arced across the width of the pool and consumed his flesh.
Arturo’s crew guffawed at the sight of the teen burning like a torch on the pool deck.
Gaetano’s father Javier wheeled into view from the hacienda and steered his battery-powered wheelchair toward his son. His full head of white hair seemed to turn whiter and his jaw dropped at the sight of the ghastly spectacle of the teen burning alive at the other side of the pool.
“It’s all right, Papa,” said Gaetano. “He’s an enemy Zeta,” he went on, indicating the burning teen.
Troubled, the flamethrower in his hands, Arturo strode toward Gaetano. “Is your papa all right?”
“He’ll be OK,” said Gaetano. “He has Alzheimer’s. Some things confuse him.”
Javier tried to speak, but he couldn’t get the words out.
“Maybe he should go back inside,” said Arturo.
“He understands that the enemy must be destroyed,” said Gaetano. “He needs to watch what we do to our enemies who attack us.”
His screams dying out, the teen’s smoldering, charred body crumpled into a heap.
The cackling flames burning on the surface of the pool’s water winked out, producing an eerie silence.
“Does your papa know what you do for a living?” Arturo whispered to Gaetano so Javier couldn’t overhear them.
“I don’t think so,” said Gaetano under his breath. “I never told him. I never talk business in front of him. But he knows I have enemies.”
“Can he understand us?”
“I think so. He doesn’t speak much. He has trouble forming words.”
Gaetano thought he could see tears in his father’s eyes as Javier gazed at the blackened lump that used to be the Zeta. Gaetano couldn’t understand why. Sympathy for the enemy was sympathy for the devil, as far as he was concerned. It must have been a trick of the light, he decided. Or maybe the gasoline fumes were irritating Javier’s eyes. That must have been it. Javier wouldn’t waste tears on the devil. Of that Gaetano was certain.
Chapter 67
Brody got on his laptop in his apartment and logged into the Elysian Fields chat room.
Myshkin: Do you ever think your job makes you believe there is more evil in the world than there really is?
Teddy Roosevelt: That’s a heavy question. I’m a paramedic, and I see a lot of pain in my job. I don’t think people in pain are necessarily evil.
Margaux Hemingway: A sick person isn’t evil. Disease or accidents or old age are parts of life. I don’t think you can characterize them as evil.
Myshkin: I feel like I see criminal behavior wherever I look.
Margaux Hemingway: Not everyone is a criminal.
Myshkin: Sometimes I wonder.
Teddy Roosevelt: Are you saying people act like criminals around you because of your condition?
Myshkin: I don’t think it has anything to do with my epilepsy. I just encounter criminal behavior wherever I go.
Margaux Hemingway: How awful. Are people that mean to you?
Myshkin: I see evil everywhere. It’s like it’s following me around.
Teddy Roosevelt: Like a curse or something?
Myshkin: I don’t believe it’s supernatural.
Margaux Hemingway: Then why do you encounter only evil people? I don’t. I meet good people, too.
Teddy Roosevelt: So do I.
Margaux Hemingway: Maybe it’s because of your job, Myshkin.
Myshkin: That’s what I was thinking, but then again maybe most people close their eyes to the evil around them because they can’t stand looking at it.
Teddy Roosevelt: Sometimes people are mean to me when they find out I’m an epileptic. It’s not that they’re mean outright, but they deliberately shun me when they find out. It’s like they don’t want to associate with someone who falls down and has convulsions.
Myshkin: But not everyone knows I’m an epileptic. I encounter evil people even when I don’t tell them I’m an epileptic. There’s no way everyone can know I’m an epileptic. People aren’t aware of it unless I have an attack, and I don’t have them often.
Teddy Roosevelt: That’s true. How would they know otherwise?
Margaux Hemingway: Maybe you’re too sensitive, Myshkin. Maybe you’re picking up evil vibes where there aren’t any.
Teddy Roosevelt: Maybe you should quit your job, whatever it is. It could be affecting your outlook on life.
Myshkin: Quitting my job wouldn’t change human nature.
Margaux Hemingway: This is getting too heavy. It’s turning into a philosophy rap session.
Teddy Roosevelt: You’re taking your job too hard, Myshkin. You need to get away from it more often. You’re letting it take over your life. Take a vacation.
Margaux Hemingway: You should consider getting married. If you were married, you wouldn’t take things so hard. You’d have somebody to fall back on for emotional support when you’re feeling down.
Teddy Roosevelt: That’s it for me. I gotta run. I hear my wife calling. She who must be obeyed.
Margaux Hemingway: Even a pet dog might help you, Myshkin.
Myshkin: I should be working.
Margaux Hemingway: Not if it’s going to mess up your head.
Myshkin: I need to do my job, or I’ll go nuts.
Caligula: Your job is the most important thing in life. It defines who you are.
Teddy Roosevelt: I disagree. Family is the most important thing in my life.
Caligula: I thought you left, Teddy.
Teddy Roosevelt: I had to put in my two cents. Au revoir.
Myshkin: I live for my job. I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t do my job.
Margaux Hemingway: You’re playing with fire, if you ask me.
Myshkin: In my line of work, fire can’t be avoided. I’m like a moth. I gravitate toward it.
Margaux Hemingway: Do you have a death wish?
Myshkin: I don’t think so. Does a moth have a death wish?
Margaux Hemingway: Do you hate yourself?
Myshkin: Hate myself? You think I hate myself? I see evil all around me because I hate myself?
Margaux Hemingway: What I’m saying is, you need to step away from your work once in a while and get your bearings.
Brody logged off. He couldn’t step away from his job. He couldn’t leave Deirdre Fox in the lurch. The only time he stepped away from it was when he logged onto the Elysian Fields chat room. Otherwise, his job demanded all of his attention. It had to, or his clients might end up killed on account of his neglect.
Chapter 68
Brody called Terri Symonds of Sugar Babies International to arrange a meeting at a place called the Convent in West Hollywood. He had questions about her. Could she have anything to do with terrorizing the Fox family? From what Terri had confided in him, she had reason to hate Lyndon Fox.
T
he Convent turned out to be a strip joint.
A prominent sign jutted from its façade with a color photo of a woman’s full lips glistening with scarlet lipstick as they hung open with a silvery strand of saliva dangling between them.
At the entrance the bouncer, a thirtysomething Middle Easterner who looked like Saddam Hussein with his bushy black mustache, must not have liked Brody’s looks because he patted Brody down before granting him admittance. Suspecting he might get frisked Brody had left his SIG and shoulder rig in his Mini.
“You liked that too much,” said Brody.
The bouncer shot him a dirty look.
Brody swaggered past him and paid the cashier the cover charge.
The round tables in the joint were half full. Brody scoped out the dim-lit interior in search of Terri through the haze of unfurling cigarette smoke.
Brody wended his way around the scattered tables to a table near the proscenium where Terri was sitting alone in a yellow robe. On the stage a stripper was getting down to her bare essentials flinging various items of clothing on the stage as Aerosmith vibrated the stereo speakers.
“Why did you want to meet me here?” said Brody, taking a seat opposite her and placing a hand on the tabletop.
“You were the one that wanted to meet me.”
“I know. But why here?”
“I have to go back to work soon,” she said, nursing a drink on the melamine tabletop. “And nobody’ll be able to hear us here.”
“I can barely hear you myself,” he said, deafened by wailing electric guitars and thumping bass drums throbbing through the speakers and pounding in his ears. He could feel the tabletop shuddering with the music. “You work here?”
She nodded yes.
A cocktail waitress in a string bikini maundered up to him and asked him what he wanted to order, her flesh shiny smooth beside him.
He ordered a root beer.
“What do you want to know?” said Terri, after the waitress left.
“I thought you were an actress.”
“I am.”
“Then why are you working here?”
“Actors are unemployed a lot of the time. You must not know much about the Business.”
“Is getting raped part of contract negotiations, too?”
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