by Riley, A. M.
his family? Walking home from the 7-Eleven.”
I couldn't respond. My throat was closed and my mouth was dry.
“I'm thinking of moving to Europe,” said Alli. “Some place north, maybe.
But if you found a way to stage your own death—”
“It wasn't exactly like that,” I interrupted her. “It was more an accident.”
“Oh.”
Alli had had a boyfriend when we'd first brought her into the operation.
She had an impressive record with the ATF, but needed more field creds.
Toward the end of the first year, she'd told me that the boyfriend had had
enough.
“He knew what it would be like, and he was all right with it?” I'd said,
refilling her drink.
“He knew everything I knew. He knew I'd be living with another agent. He
knew I wouldn't be able to receive calls or see him as often as I'd like. That's not
the problem. He says I've changed.”
“What, it's about the clothes?” We both had adapted a little. I'd stopped
cutting my hair and wore it in a ponytail. Peter hated the thick mustache that
covered my upper lip. After I'd shown up at his complex in Mongol colors, a
couple of his neighbors had complained about his visitors. Alli dressed, quite
honestly, like a slut. Tight T-shirts, low jeans that exposed her rear. High-heeled
boots and so much eyeliner she looked like a panda “I thought all men secretly
wanted their girlfriends to dress like that.”
“You don't know a lot of normal men, do you?” she'd said. “But it's not the
clothes. He's right. I have changed.”
She hadn't seemed too broken up about it. But, with a twinge, I knew that
I should have checked up on her before this. I'd had Peter to talk to. Who had
she had?
“Listen, would you like to meet and talk?”
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“Adam, it's three o'clock in the morning.”
“C'mon, Alli, no way you're asleep this early.”
A sigh. It always amazed me how long it took for people to get fed up with
me. Apparently Alli had not yet reached her limit because she said, “Where
were you thinking? Our old place?”
“Too risky,” I said. “We might be recognized. How about the Hollywood
coffee shop. You remember? The one we met at the first time?”
“I remember,” said Alli.
“In, say, half an hour?”
“We'll see,” she said. And hung up.
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Chapter Twenty
An hour later I was watching the clock on the wall and starting to worry
about where I'd spend the daylight hours. Alli had possibly decided not to
show, after all, and dawn was approaching. I hadn't slept in a couple of days,
either. So a dark, safe place with a bed and maybe some blood? Would have
been heaven.
While I was stirring my sixth cup of coffee and actually daydreaming
about the open faucet of willing “blood cows” at Ozone's, a familiar young Goth
chick came through the glass doors at the front of the restaurant. Rather, she
banged against the door, causing it to open, and staggered through. A very
young child followed, probably because she had hold of his upper arm. He was
struggling.
I was behind her in two seconds. “Let him go, Betsy.”
She jumped and squeaked but did not release her apparent dinner. “If I
do, he'll run away again.”
I grabbed hold of her small hand and attempted to pry her fingers loose
from the boy's arm. She resisted me. We struggled in the aisle of the restaurant
while the surrounding patrons blithely continued eating. Good old Hollywood.
Finally, I freed the boy's arm; he dashed for the doors.
“No, stop him,” cried Betsy, taking off after him.
I managed to hold onto her until we saw him outside, hanging a right and
running, disappearing beyond the bushes bordering the restaurant parking lot.
Betsy slumped against the tiled wall, looking like she might cry. I knew
how she felt. I was pretty fucking hungry myself and the smell of the blood of
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all the humans in the restaurant was starting to gnaw at me inside. “It'll be
okay,” I said.
“You fucking jerk,” she said to me, slapping at my chest.
“I know. I know.”
“No, you don't know. He's running right back to the same son of a bitch, I
bet.” A fat tear rolled down Betsy's face. She scrubbed at it angrily, leaving a
black mascara smear across her cheek.
“What?”
“I'd finally gotten him away and…and now…” She sank into a booth.
“Damn.”
“Got him away?”
“You stupid cop,” she wept. “Why are cops so stupid? Do they give a
stupidity test before they let you join or something? And what are you doing
here anyway? I thought they'd dusted your stupid cop ass ages ago.” She wiped
at her face some more. Now the mascara streaks were an op artist painting
across her cheeks.
I dipped a napkin in water and clasped her chin. “Hold on.”
While I scrubbed the makeup off Betsy's face, she said, “I thought I could
do something, you know? Finally. I thought, well this is why this happened to
me. Now I can do some good. But it doesn't matter. I can't help anyone.”
I stopped my motions and looked hard at her. “Do some good?”
She leaned across the table and said, “Look at us; we're like superheroes,
aren't we? So, I figured I could save all of the other kids.”
“We aren't superheroes,” I told her.
“Don't you get it, cop? We're gonna live forever. Doesn't that mean
anything to you?”
Come to think of it, well, I hadn't thought of it. “No?”
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“We are as gods. I remember, Freeway used to tell me that to be a Mongol
was to be special. Maybe he'd die but somehow he'd also live forever. And that
meant everything to him. It gave him purpose. I felt a little jealous sometimes
when he'd talk about it.”
Belonging to the club could make you feel like that. It was dangerously
seductive. “And now you've found your purpose?”
“There's monsters and then there's monsters. I free the kids and…take
care of their abusers.”
“So, that's how you solve the blood issue. Clever.”
She caught my sarcasm and her face changed just a little. Distant and
careful. “What do you do?”
“I don't know. I hooked up with Ozone for a while.”
“Then you can't judge.”
“No, you're right, I can't. Betsy, have you heard from Freeway recently?”
The odor of Coco by Chanel and the click of high-heeled boots.
“Christ, Bertoni, can't a girl be a few minutes late without you picking up
some bitch off the street?”
An arm draped around my shoulders; long, silky dark hair swept into my
face as Alli's cool soft lips pressed against my cheek. “Hello, lover,” she said,
dark eyes three inches from mine, mocking. She turned her head and said to
Betsy, “Who's this?”
“Alli, this is Betsy. She and I have been working together.” I watched them
size each other up.
“You called a cop?” said Betsy.
“Alli's an old friend.”
“Right.” Betsy popped out of the booth and started walking for the exit.
“Wait a minute.” I intercepted her, but she slid under my arm like a
greased pig.
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“Later,” she said, pushing her way through the glass doors. I followed.
“Betsy, we aren't through talking.”
“I am.” She turned around, walking backward, to say, “Caballo says hello.”
“What? Hey, wait a minute.”
But she had turned and was gone in a blur. I thought, for a second, of
giving chase. But Alli was still waiting in the restaurant and, while Betsy's
activities were of interest to me, they didn't seem immediately related to a
pending gang war.
“So it looks like you really are alive,” said Alli, chin lifted in a considering
manner as I rejoined her at the table. “Though somewhat the worse for wear.”
My hand went to my cowlick. “What do you mean?”
“Jesus, Bertoni, sit down.” I sat and she reached across the table to do
some collar straightening, hair pulling and, as I had with Betsy, she wetted a
paper towel and dabbed at my face. “Looked in a mirror lately? You're a sight.”
“No, actually, I haven't really had time—”
“You said on the phone. Something going down?”
“It sounds so cracked I have trouble believing it and I was there. I know
there's at least one undercover agent, but I don't know who the agent in charge
is, or even if he knows what just went down…”
“Stop,” said Alli. “Start from the beginning.”
“There's a new OMG in town,” I said. “Big as the Mongols. Maybe even
bigger. And they are determined to start a war. Last night a fight erupted in the
ranks and now the lot of them are scattered all over the LA basin.”
“Christ. Did you call the gang unit?”
“Well…” I hedged. “That's the thing. Legally I'm still dead.”
This is too weird for the straightforward, pragmatic woman who partnered
with me for three years. “What the hell are you up to, Bertoni?”
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I brought out my wallet and extracted the piece of paper with my notes on
it. “Just get someone to check out this address. I don't think they've been there
long. There must be something you can dig up to give reasonable cause for
search and seizure.” I wrote out the address on a napkin and she took it from
me.
The waitress came by and refilled out coffees. “Are you ready to order?”
The clock on the wall was approaching five a.m. “I can't, sorry. I've got to
find someplace to crash and…and…” I had to find some blood soon. Alli was
exuding a rich odor like Kahlúa and crème. Every time she shook that glossy
hair behind her shoulders and licked her lips, I wanted to lunge across the
table and sink my teeth into her throat.
“I've got a bottle of Johnnie Walker and the latest Harley catalog back at
my place.”
“Oooh, biker porn,” I replied. “You temptress.”
“I'll open up the sleeper sofa,” she said. “C'mon, it'll be like old times. We'll
stay up all night talking guns and hogs and planning what to do next.”
It was the best option, I thought. “Okay.”
“You ride here?” she asked, standing.
“Of course.”
“I'm the black Sportster in the parking lot. My place isn't far from here.
You can follow me.”
* * * * *
“Christ, you could always drink me under the table.” Alli wove across the
floor, miraculously keeping her glass upright, and then surprised me by
planting her well-shaped fanny on my knees. “Oops, am I too heavy for you?”
she said.
“Only your ass,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to move her off of me.
“Freeway said you have nalga de angel.”
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She leaned back, batting thick black eyelashes up at me, her eyes
sparkling. “You think he'd be my boyfriend, Snake? Because, damn, I could
use one lately.”
“C'mon Alli, slide over.” I pushed her off of me. Alli was just joking around,
I hoped. But I was still relieved when my cell phone rang.
“Yeah.”
“Adam? Thank God,” said Albert.
“Albert? Fuck. I thought you were done for. Where are you?”
“The Flaming Tart on Vermont. It's an hour to sunrise,” said Albert.
“Where are you?”
The last time I'd seen Albert, he'd been trying to cut my head off with a
sword. I wasn't giving him Alli's home address. “I'll meet you at the Tart,” I
said.
“Who was that?” asked Alli as I pocketed my cell phone, standing and
picking up my jacket.
I should have been warned by her expression, but I was too edgy from
hunger and the impending sunrise. All of my nerves were jangling. “I've got to
meet this guy.”
The sparkle in her face immediately fell flat. “Of course.”
“Alli, I meant to call you before this. And I'll call you again soon. We'll have
a drink or something, I swear. But this connection might know something that
could help me stop the war.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “The supposed OMG war, which prompted you to
call me at three a.m. And then, true to form, chicken out.”
“Chicken out?”
Alli followed me to the door. “Give me a call when you make up your mind,
Adam.” And she shut it in my face.
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Chapter Twenty-one
Okay, I know what she's talking about but that's not the issue here. I had
had to come up with something when Alli and I were living in the same house.
Our friends and family drifting away. A beautiful, sexy woman walking around
in her Victoria's Secret underwear, giving me those looks.
So I developed a crippling fear of commitment. Which also helped explain
my infrequent but necessary forays over to Peter's. I was a real slut, is what I
was. Horrible boyfriend material. I had thought that had cooled her ardor
somewhat, but I guess not.
But that's not the issue, as I said. What's at issue is I've been trying to
ring the bell, sound the alarm, and rally the troops. And I'm left feeling like the
proverbial twat that cried wolf.
Nobody believes me. Wait, Adam, maybe that's because you've been lying
to them for years? Self-examination was creeping around the corner and
coming at me again.
So I outran it. I climbed on my bike and peeled out down Sunset, hung a
left and then another onto Santa Monica, so that I could approach the Flaming
Tart from its back alleyway.
Nothing looked amiss at first glance so I tried to enter through the back
door. I was repelled by a man with shoulders broader than mine wearing high
heels and a tight leather miniskirt who informed me that I had to pay at the
front to get in.
Albert was waiting for me at the door, though.
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He embraced me as if he hadn't tried to kill me and said, “This is the only
bar I know we won't see any OMG.”<
br />
The Flaming Tart was a drag bar during working hours. A cute little
neighborhood drag bar where the “girls” put on a show that was more an
homage to the concept of drag. Most of them barely concealed their masculinity
and a few even brought girlfriends to see them perform.
Albert was right about bikers. You'd have to dose them with GHB and hold
a revolver to most of their heads to get them to even walk into a place like this.
It was long after the bar must legally close, and the Tart had devolved to
its other identity. An all-night diner. So Albert ordered some kiddy cocktail that
was an unnatural shade of pink and I ordered a Coke. “Unopened,” I told the
waitress.
“Sure, honey,” she said, batting thick fake eyelashes at Albert; a luscious
meal practically thrusting her silicone bosoms in his face. She was a
temptation to me, hungry now to the point of near insanity, but Albert
appeared calmly oblivious.
Albert looked good. Plump, pink, and rested.
“Where are you getting your blood?” I asked when the waitress had left.
He looked mildly surprised. “Blood banks. Their security sucks, 'mano.
Listen, I'm leaving town.”
“Good idea.” The waitress returned and plunked a cold, wet can of diet
Coke down in front of me. She placed a strong, brown hand on one narrow hip
and said to Albert in a sultry falsetto, “My shift's over in five minutes. Can I get
you anything else?”
Albert looked her up and down. His expression was insulting. “No sé.”
After our angry server had stomped off, I said, “Where are you staying?”
“Anyplace I can find, 'mano. You?”
“I might know a place,” I said. “You turn me on to blood, I'll share a
mattress in the dark with you.”
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“Sounds sexy, you fucking marcena. Don't get ideas.”
“In your dreams, asshole. It's almost sunrise; let's get out of here and you
can tell me what you have planned.”
“I'm thinking you might be up for it too.” He threw down a wad of money.
