He sets down his drink and thinks.
“Just because a collector buys, say, an antique Gatling gun, does that mean he intends to rob a bank? Of course not. He admires the object for itself.”
“And yet.”
“You said you didn’t have it.”
“It means if I do, it’s not for sale.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sorry not to get paid the fortune you were going to offer me, but there we are.”
“I’m starting to think that perhaps you do have it.”
I lean forward.
“By the way, what you said about not being afraid? It’s bullshit. I can read people. You’re lousy with fear. You’re like Hitler in his bunker just waiting for the commies to storm Berlin and kill him dead. And all those Trevors or whatever you call them, you didn’t make them just to collect death art for fun. You’re looking for a way out. You don’t want to die.”
He leans back in his chair.
“What man isn’t looking for a way out from death? However, I assure you I’m not going to die. But the art is nothing more than appreciation for the forms. A bit morbid to most people, I suppose, but we can’t deny our true natures, can we, Sandman Slim?”
His heart and breathing don’t change. He’s a really good liar if he’s telling the truth. He really thinks he has death beat and he’s just a compulsive collector. I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Is it worse to want the 8 Ball because you think it has the magic to make you immortal or because you want to put it on a shelf with your bowling trophies?
“Let me say it one more time and for the record. I don’t have the Qomrama.”
Quay sighs. Picks up a pen and doodles on a pad for a few seconds.
“I’m afraid I believe you. Were you another sort of man, I’d have Sean over there in the corner hurt you or hurt one of your friends until I was entirely convinced.”
“Lucky for you you have an open mind. You touch my friends and I’ll kill you.”
“Naturally. As I was saying, I know it’s pointless to threaten you, and anyway, I don’t want us to be enemies. Do you know who has the Qomrama?”
“I know who had it.”
“That’s better than nothing. Let’s leave things like this. If and when you recover the object, promise me you won’t sell it to anybody else and we can part on amiable terms.”
“I don’t want to sell it to anyone.”
“Excellent. We can work from there.”
“Stay away from my friends.”
Quay stands, but faster this time. He’s excited to be just a little closer to the 8 Ball.
“If you do your best to find the device, I’ll do my best to remain patient. We’re done now. I’ll have someone drive you home.”
“You know where I live?”
“At the Chateau Marmont, of course. Lovely place. I fucked many a charming starlet there back in my prime.”
“Thanks for sharing. The driver can drop me off where I got picked up.”
“If that’s what you want.”
A flunky comes in with my drink and a piece of paper. He hands it to Quay, who scans it.
“Just set the drink down, Jeffery. Mr. Stark is leaving.”
Quay stares at the paper for a few more seconds. I don’t like it.
Finally he says, “You’re probably wondering who that was shooting at you a few minutes ago.”
“You have your cars monitored?”
He raises his eyes to mine.
“Naturally. How else would I have the license plate of the car that shot at you? The car was allegedly stolen from a used-car lot near LAX.”
“Allegedly?”
“Before that, it was a rental car in the City Runaway fleet. City Runaway is owned by a small company in San Francisco which itself is owned by a much larger transportation conglomerate in Zurich, mostly investing in air and sea transport companies.”
“Thanks. I’ll call my broker.”
“A principal shareholder in their sea freight division is Nasrudin Hodja.”
Oh, shit.
“The Cold Case kingpin?”
The way Quay laughs I know that it is. He folds the piece of paper and hands it back to the flunky who brought it.
“A bit of trivia that might interest you is that Zurich is also the birthplace of our own illustrious Saragossa Blackburn, though he likes to play down his international origins.”
“Is he part of the company too?”
“Not that I know of.”
“And you would know if he was.”
“Oh yes. Good-bye, Mr. Stark.”
I’m walking out with one of Quay’s Titans when he says, “Of course, there are things that get by even me. Even I don’t know everyone Saragossa knows.”
I turn around.
“Now you’re just fucking with me.”
Quay smiles.
“Have a nice evening at the Chateau. If you haven’t tried the duck, do. It’s to die for.”
The Titan drives me back to Bamboo House of Dolls in a Mercedes SUV. He turns a classical station on the radio loud so he has an excuse not to talk to me. I go inside the bar and get very drunk. A Lyph in a Hollywood Walk of Fame T-shirt asks for an autograph. I’m too tired to refuse.
So Nasrudin Hodja wants me dead. Get in line, pal. But was Quay telling the truth about the car? He strikes me as a guy who’s always playing six angles at once. He could just as easily be trying to provoke me into killing Hodja. I wonder if that’s what Blackburn was doing when he sent me to Brendan Garrett. I think I get the money clip now. The symbol on the clip. It’s not the Golden Vigil. It was Aelita’s personal spin on the design. The design she made all of Blackburn’s bodyguards wear when she worked for him. That means Brendan Garrett probably worked for Blackburn at some point. He would have sent some of his people over to clean Brendan’s clock, but then big dumb me walks in and practically begs him to send me. He probably figured that Brendan would pull a gun and I’d have to kill him. He read Brendan’s tea leaves and saw that he was going to die and wanted to speed it along. I can understand him wanting me to do his dirty work for him, but did he know about the bomb in the case? Was he so pissed that I turned him down that he hoped to get rid of two disloyal assholes at one time? If he did I’m in trouble. If he didn’t it’s good news for me. It means that since I’m part angel, he can’t read my future, at least not clearly. That might come in handy sometime.
AND HERE I was under the impression we had a truce.
That’s what I think when I come out of Donut Universe with a bagful of greasy death. My last trip to the Universe was interrupted by gunfire. This one is topped off by vampires waiting for me in the parking lot.
I guess the lesson tonight is to never trust a bloodsucker. Still, it’s disappointing. We’ve stayed out of one another’s way for months, and now suddenly we’re in West Side Story. I set the donuts in the bed of a pickup truck and consider my options, which doesn’t take long. I’m surrounded. It’s all of them against me, and nowhere to run. Fight or die. And here I was thinking that no one could shovel more bullshit into a day like this.
There’s four of them. Two male and two female. They form a loose circle around me and walk in a slow spiral, tightening the circle with each step. Trying to psych me out. It might work too if two of the bloodsuckers weren’t so nervous. An older woman and a boy with acne scars. It’s obvious they’re new to the vampire game. They probably tagged along to get some street experience.
One of them moves with predatory calm. He’s the leader. He has a young face, with his hair frizzed out in a white-boy ’fro. He’s wearing a red military jacket with shiny satin pants and pointy boots. The kid’s got a serious Jimi Hendrix complex. One of the women is decked in expensive custom-tailored Goth gear. The older woman and the acne kid are strictly thrift store. Note to self: the Goth girl has sharp steel tips on the toes of her boots.
I’m waiting for the gang to make a move and they’re waiting for me. Weird. They should be all over me by now. I’m not going to give them any satisfaction by throwing the first punch. As long as the donuts are safe, I can take my time.
The older woman comes at me first, hands up like claws, hissing like she’s watched too many late-night monster movies. I sidestep and kick her in the ass as she goes by, sending her sprawling into a Prius. The alarm goes off, which is really annoying because it covers up the sound of feet coming up behind me.
Goth girl comes at me next. Like I thought, she’s more experienced than the kid and the other woman. Her nails are sharpened, so she does the claw thing too, but comes at me low and fast, aiming for my gut. Trying to disembowel me like a cat. When I move to block her, she tags me in the thigh with one of her pointy boots. It hurts like a son of a bitch. I think she drew blood. Dumb of me to let her do it.
The acned kid is next. He leaps in the air and comes down like a fucking banshee, his heavy work boots aimed at my face. The circle is tight enough now that I can’t easily sidestep him. I have to slip him at the last minute, let his feet sail by but catch some of his weight on my chest, throwing me onto my back. He tries to jump me again and I catch him with my boots and flip him over, right into Goth girl. I wait for Hendrix to make his move, but he just gives me a white-fang smile.
When he’s just out of my peripheral vision, he tries to jump me. Like the Goth girl, he’s more experienced. I throw a back kick and he spins around it with incredible vampire speed. But I’m fast too. When I see him spin, I duck and put my shoulder into him, right about in balls territory.
This is the weirdest gang fight I’ve ever been in. I think they’re playing with me. Instead of rushing me all at once, they’re coming in one at a time like we’re in an old Shaw Brothers movie. Maybe this is someone’s idea of a good time, but it’s not mine.
The older woman rushes me again. I imitate her boss and spin out of the way. Normally, this is something I never do. Don’t turn your back on the enemy. But some rules are made to be broken. The spin covers my hand going into my coat for the na’at. It shoots it out like a qiang spear, and she’s moving so fast she steps right into it. The blade splits her face open. She screams as her lower jaw wobbles in the breeze, hanging on by a few strands of gray meat.
Maybe the woman is the acne kid’s aunt or something. He comes at me in a blind fury. Perfect. Dumb. His gives me the chance to do something I haven’t done in months. I put the butt of the na’at into his chest, just hard enough to stun him for a second. When I step behind him, I stab the na’at so the tip goes all the way through his back and comes out between his ribs. When I twist the grip, the end opens in three backward-facing hooks. I lean my weight into it and snap the na’at back as hard as I can. The kid is still pawing himself as I rip out his spine, a trick Brigitte taught me back when we were hunting zombies. The kid has just enough time to reach back and touch his bare vertebrae before his torso collapses and he falls to ashes, kicking up a spray of fine powder. I cough up a lungful of the toothy bastard.
“Whoa,” yells Jimi Hendrix. He raises his hands, the bottom one straight up and the other across the top like a T.
“Time out, man. Time out. What the fuck did you do to Phil?”
“I killed his dumb dead ass.”
“Why?”
“Golly, Mr. Rogers. A bunch of bloodsuckers kick and punch a guy long enough he starts to think he’s being attacked.”
“You are such an asshole. We were just fooling around.”
The Goth girl holds a lace-gloved hand close to her mouth. She says, “We’re in trouble, man.”
“No shit, Sherlock,” says Hendrix.
“You kids want to clue me in on what just happened?”
Hendrix puts his hands on his head and does an exasperated three-sixty turn.
“Fuck. We were supposed to deliver a message and just thought we’d have some fun first.”
“And I spoiled things. Sorry. What’s the message?”
“Nnnhhnn,” says the older woman, trying to talk while holding her broken jaw in place.
“The message?”
Hendrix looks at me like he’s bouncing back and forth between totally panicked and numb.
“Tykho wants to see you at the club tomorrow night.”
Tykho is the new boss of the Dark Eternal. I heard a freelance Bela hunter staked Jaime Cortázar, the old boss. Too bad. He once gave me an attaché case full of hundred-dollar bills. I gave him free movie rentals at Max Overdrive. But Tykho’s okay. Smart too. Like Cortázar, she once assured me that “Dark Eternal” sounds a lot scarier in Latin.
“If Tykho is summoning me to demand to buy the 8 Ball, she can kiss my ass and your ass, and she can dig up Gary Cooper and kiss his ass too.”
“She didn’t say anything about wanting to buy anything. It sounded more like she has something for you.”
Interesting. Vampires aren’t the giving type.
“Okay. What time?”
“Midnight.”
“Seriously? A vampire queen wants to meet me at midnight?”
Hendrix shrugs.
“She likes to watch Leno.”
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
“ ‘Fine. I’ll be there,’ ” says the Goth girl in a high, mocking, nasal voice. She shakes her head while she talks. “I’m not telling Tykho about this. She told you to give the creep the message. I’m not even supposed to be here.”
“Are we done?”
Hendrix shoots me the finger.