Pay me in flesh, p.2
Pay Me in Flesh, page 2
There was a tap on my door and Nikolas Papadoukis stuck his head in. He’s a shade under four feet tall, has a hook nose, eyebrows like white sand dunes, and knobby hands.
Which would seem to make undercover work pretty exacting.
“Mallory, I must needs your help,” Nick said.
I waved him in. I got the address from Etta Johnson and hung up the phone.
“Nick, I have to—”
“Can you lend me twenty until payday?”
“You work for yourself, Nick. You don’t have a payday.”
“Then until a week Friday?”
I fished in my purse for a twenty. My last. “You need more business, my friend,” I said.
He took the twenty from me. “I don’t know what to do about that! I am good, but I am not good looking. I am cursed.”
“People have overcome worse,” I said.
“I only want what’s coming to me.” He walked to the window and looked out at the city. “There’s something going on out there, and I want in.”
“What do you mean, something going on?”
“Haven’t you noticed? Things are improving. After all these years, we got a mayor and city council doing the right things.”
“Yeah? Like what?” I was skeptical about Mayor Brite-Smile. We’ve had those before.
“Traffic, for one thing. Have you noticed how much better traffic is down here now?”
“You’re joking.” I usually walk to my office. My loft is only a couple of blocks away. Saves gas and parking.
“Just look around you sometime,” he said. “You can feel it.”
He seemed to tremble just then, still looking out.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“I don’t know. I got scared just then.”
“What of, the good traffic?”
He shook his head. “I am a barometer.”
“Barometer?”
“I feel things deeply.”
“Dandy,” I said. “Is it going to rain?”
“This is not a joke,” he said, turning back to me. “Hire me.”
“Nick—”
“You are a lawyer! You defend the criminals! I can find things out. I am a barometer.”
I tried not to laugh. That wouldn’t have done his self-esteem much good. “Nick, what experience do you have in criminal investigations?”
“Like I said—”
“You’re a barometer—”
“Yes! And I can sneak around. I am a good sneak. To be short, it helps. You could try me? And pay me?”
“I have to go now, Nick.”
“You will think at least about it?”
“Sure.”
“You are a lovely woman,” he said, and bowed.
Etta Johnson lived in a little home south of Wilshire Boulevard, off Western. It was one of those small houses built in the 1920s that stand now by the grace of God and a tenth coat of paint.
I parked my convertible Volkswagen Bug—screaming yellow in color, and I call her Geraldine—at the curb and walked up to the green-and-white clapboard home. Inside were a couple of uniformed officers and a plainclothes detective. I knew him. Richards. He was about my height, six feet, and built like a municipal sprinkler box. Behind him was a younger man, wearing the same slacks, white dress shirt, blue tie, and shield on the belt. Twinsies, only the younger one was in shape.
“Well, there she is,” Richards said, giving me a curt nod.
“Nice to see you, Detective,” I said.
“Sure. I know how it is.”
“And how is it?”
“It’s the eternal dance, the forces of good against the forces of defense lawyers.”
One of the uniforms guffawed.
Richards said, “This is my partner, Detective Strobert.”
Strobert nodded at me. He had a full head of brown hair. His eyes looked green from where I was. I don’t trust green eyes.
Etta Johnson came slowly into the living room. She used a walker, which clanked with each labored step. She had bright silver hair done up in curls and wore a housedress the color of summer wheat.
“Don’t let them take her,” she said. “Don’t let them take Traci Ann!”
Richards grimaced. “We got ourselves a situation,” he said.
“I just love it when you talk dirty,” I said.
“Come with me,” Richards said.
“I’m gonna be right behind,” Etta said.
Richards rolled his eyes and led me down a small hallway, past a kitchen that smelled like egg salad, to the bedroom at the end.
The room had a dresser with no mirror, and a coffin. And that was it.
“There’s your client,” Richards said.
So I was supposed to believe that Traci Ann Johnson, a hooker, was inside? I knew Tracie Ann because we worked the streets together, down on Santa Monica.
Oh, yeah, that’s what I do to procure. I have an alter ego, Amanda. Streetwalker. More later.
Traci Ann was young, eighteen maybe. She loved to go vampire, dressing in black. Could it have been more than an act?
Who was I to doubt it?
Etta clanked in. “Don’t let them take Traci Ann! She’ll die!”
“I’m gonna haul this thing downtown, is what I’m gonna do,” Richards said. “Find out exactly what’s going on here.”
“Mind if I have a look?” I asked.
“Be my guest,” Richards said.
“This is my house!” Etta said. “I give the permissions! You go ahead and look, Miss Caine.”
The casket was cherry red wood, but dull of sheen. It was a one door, not a two door—if that’s the right term. I lifted the top and there she was, Traci Ann, eyes closed, hands crossed over her chest.
Her naked chest.
I looked for signs of breathing.
Nothing.
I closed the casket. “Okay. When did this happen?”
“About a year ago,” Etta said.
“This crazy woman says her granddaughter’s a vampire,” Richards said.
“Don’t you dare call me crazy in my own house—”
“And I don’t know what all the legal ramifications are here, but she insisted you be here and you are. So what now, counselor?”
“Well, Detective, it seems to me you have no authority over this body,” I said.
“Like hell,” Richards said.
“Watch your language, young man,” Etta said.
“That’s right,” I said. “You’re not at the station.”
“Spout your case,” Richards said.
“You are empowered by the City of Los Angeles to take persons suspected of criminal activity into custody, if and when you have probable cause.”
“That’s right,” Richards said.
“Persons being the key phrase. Ms. Johnson, as you can see, is not a person, but a corpse.”
Richards scowled. “That’s what I’m gonna find out. We’re gonna take this thing to the morgue and have the coroner look at it. Vampire my . . . Dockers. I want this body officially declared dead.”
“Then you are not placing a person under arrest,” I said. “You are attempting to take a corpse into custody.”
“So?”
“So what you are proposing is illegal. Because now you’re gathering evidence. This casket, with a body inside it, is an item of personal property, under the ownership and control of Mrs. Etta Johnson.”
“That’s right!” Etta said.
“Thus requiring a warrant,” I said. “And I am going to love seeing what you put in your affidavit, and the look on the judge’s face when you present it.”
For a long moment Richards glared at me. “I’m gonna take the thing anyway,” he said, “and sort it all out later.”
“You try it, and I’ll raise the biggest stink since Rodney King,” I said. “The Times is going to love it. Tomb Raiding Detective. Aggrieved Grandmother Sues City for Ten Million. Then I’ll go down to IA and file a formal complaint, with Mrs. Johnson as a witness. You won’t get to hide behind the good faith exception, because you’ve been advised, by me, that you are breaking the law.”
Half of this was bluster, but the other half was sounding pretty darn good. I amaze myself sometimes.
Richards stepped up to my face. “You’re wrong if you think you can play me,” he said.
“It’s your move,” I said.
He kept his eyes on mine. I thought for a second he saw something that made him nervous. Or even scared.
“I will be back with a warrant,” Richards said. “If the body is not here, I will get an arrest warrant for you, for obstruction.”
He turned quickly and walked out of the room. I heard him ordering the uniforms and Strobert to leave with him.
When the front door slammed, Etta looked at me and said, “Thank you, Miss Caine.”
I said, “I want the whole story. All of it.”
“I don’t know, Miss Caine. I don’t know what happened to my granddaughter. I don’t know how. I just know she is what she is.”
“Who is she supposed to have murdered?”
“Oh, it was a terrible thing. Maybe you heard about it. A police detective.”
I lost breath. “You mean the one a couple nights ago? Where a car was set on fire?”
“Yes! That’s the one. They say Traci Ann did it.”
But Traci Ann didn’t do it.
I did.
CHAPTER 3
It happened this way.
After a day in court, I’d gone back to my loft and slept till about eleven-thirty. That’s when I changed into Amanda.
After midnight is when I generally eat.
When I was alive, truly alive, I never would have thought of eating anybody. Not even if I was in the Donner party and hankering for fried chicken.
I did not even like cannibal jokes. You know, where two cannibals are eating a clown, and one says, “Hey, does this taste funny to you?”
Yet now I must eat flesh, especially brain. I must eat brain as surely as I must draw breath. And I hate myself for it.
But in my condition, appetite trumps self-hatred.
So I become Amanda, in purple wig and fishnet stockings. The corner of Santa Monica and Lodi, in Hollywood, is my home base. Lodi’s a little street, lined with tall, skinny palms. It stops cold at the boulevard, its rear end pointed at Ralph’s Used Appliances. Fitting, because that’s what the girls are, isn’t it?
A block away is the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Also fitting. They got Douglas Fairbanks and Tyrone Power there. Also Valentino and Fay Wray. And Florence Lawrence, who was the first silent screen movie star.
I know this stuff because I read their brochure once, on a slow night.
There’s quite a contingent down here after midnight. The trannies prefer the next block west, El Centro, sort of keeping things separate. Like a different section in a cafeteria. If a man is looking for transgendered, he doesn’t want to be over with the heteros, and so on.
Dear God, I’m always thinking, what would my Sunday School teachers think of me now?
This night, after I arrived, I heard a voice call my name and knew it was the new girl, Traci Ann. She came out of the streetlamp shadows near the digital film lab. She’d started working the corner a week earlier and usually dressed in tight, bright colors. Tonight, though, she was all in black clothes and makeup.
“What is up?” I said.
“You like my new look?” Traci Ann said.
“You’re going bloodsucker?”
“The jacks are into it. They want me to bite.” She playfully bared her teeth. I had to admit, in this light, they looked sharp.
“You think that’s wise? I mean, who knows what you get doing that.”
Traci Ann bobbed her eyebrows at me. “What if it’s true?”
“What if what’s true?”
“I’m a vampire.”
“Right,” I said.
“No, really.”
“No such thing. You might as well believe in zombies.”
“Who says I don’t?” Traci Ann asked.
“You be careful now,” I said.
“Do I look scared?”
“No.”
“’Cause I’m not.”
“And that worries me.”
“Why do you care so much?” she asked.
“You think I want vampires in my town?” I said.
Traci Ann laughed. “Oops, here they come.”
The first car that stopped was a Prius. I leaned in the passenger side window and said, “Nice night.”
The guy was a few years older than me. Clean, professional look.
“Yeah,” he said. His voice shook like a 4.5 aftershock. He gripped and ungripped the steering wheel.
A first timer. Good. Your experienced johns carry around a superiority complex. You’re just meat to them. If you make an out-of-the-ordinary move, like requesting a little drive, you might get an argument.
New guys will drive you just about anywhere you say. I liked the fact he drove a Prius. Prius drivers are a little more intelligent than average. Makes for good brain food.
“So,” I said, “where you goin’?”
He looked like he didn’t understand the question.
“Goin’ out?” I said.
“I . . . think so.”
“Okay then.” I opened the door and slipped in.
He trembled like a bird on a live wire.
“You all right, honey?” I said.
“I, um, isn’t there, um, some transaction?” His hands were still choking the wheel.
“All depends on what you have in mind,” I said. “First thing, what school did you go to?”
“Excuse me?”
It’s the question I always ask. I want a quality brain. The nutrients last longer, the cholesterol is less harmful. They even taste better, so long as there isn’t a lot of drug use or alcoholism involved.
I should do commercials. For the discriminating zombie, think Harvard or Yale....
“Where did you go to school?” I said.
“Like college?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you want to—”
“Just tell me.”
“Purdue.”
“Graduate school?”
“Also Purdue. I have a Masters in English.”
My mouth was starting to water.
“You look like a guy I can trust,” I said. “I know where we can go to talk about it.”
“Go?”
“Drive. We don’t want the prying eyes of the law on us now, do we?”
That spooked him. He almost got rear-ended pulling into the street.
“Easy there, slugger,” I said. “The night is young.”
“I gotta say, I’m new at this.”
He chortled. I can take a laugh, a giggle, even a snort. But chortling gets on my nerves.
“Sure, sure. What’s your name?”
“You want to know my name?”
We were passing Vine and the night was alive with light—a blue on white Mobile sign, with the red O. A big orange Yoshinoya. A Coors Light billboard with snow-capped mountains.
“Well, why not?” I said. “I’m Amanda.”
“Oh.” He paused a long time, watching the car ahead of us. “Peter.”
“Nice to know you, Pete. Take the next left.”
He almost missed it. I guided him to a darkened parking lot off Cole Avenue and had him stop near the cinderblock wall. I’ve begun transactions here many times. This is the kill zone.
I reached in my purse for Emily, my ice-pick-with-a-hook, when I heard a sniffle.
The guy had his head on the steering wheel.
This was perfect for me. Emily to the back of neck and into the brain. No problem.
But for some reason I heard myself say, “How many kids?” That freaked me out. What was I doing?
He sniffled. Without moving his head he said, “Two.”
“What kind?”
“Boy and a girl.”
“Under five, I’m guessing.”
He gave a facsimile of a nod.
I was hungry. No, starving. Feeling weak. And weak is the word for what I did next.
“Go home to your wife and kids,” I said. “And don’t ever come back.”
He pulled his head up and looked at me. “But—”
I took out the ice pick. “Did you hear me?”
His eyes went saucer wide. “Yeah, yeah, please don’t . . .”
I got out of the car and pounded my heels back toward the street.
What a lousy zombie I was! I have to eat human flesh. It’s survive or go to hell.
Does hell exist, you ask? What if there’s only a ten percent chance that it does?
I am not taking even those odds. According to The Book of the Walking Dead, translated from the French, this is what is at stake for me.
Plus, I just don’t like the idea that somebody did this to me without getting back at him. Or her.
So I am on a search for who has control of my soul. I have to get it back, but until I do I have to eat.
So what am I doing getting feelings of mercy for prime meat in a Prius?
Before I got back to my corner, a muscle car pulled up. A Dodge Charger, fire engine red.
The music system was blasting gangsta.
I leaned in.
He had a blond pompadour, like he was trying out for a 1950s teen movie. Only he was in his forties from the look of him. The effect was a lonely divorced guy in costume hoping to score at a Halloween party.
Only problem, it was July.
“Hi, honey,” I said. “What’s your sign?”
He smiled. White teeth and dark eyes. “My sign is Benjamin Franklin.”
“That’s a good sign,” I said.
“Hop in,” he said. “We’ll go running with the shadows of the night.”
Pat Benatar now? At least I liked Benatar. “Where’d you go to school?” I said.
“What?”
“Schooling. How far’d you go?”
“You serious?”
“Humor me.”
“Stanford, class of ninety-one.”
“Let’s ride.”
We rode. He tried to put on rap again. I stayed his hand. “Let’s listen to the wind,” I said.
He smiled again. He was a smiler, this one.
“Take your next left,” I said. We were two blocks from where I’d left the crier, but I knew another spot.
