I turned toward them as Melody stepped out of the way, my hand extended in front of me. For a split second Amanda gawked at me and then I began to rewind her and the backpacker. I stopped them and held their position when they were at the register, Amanda with her hand in the drawer.
Two things happened next. Outside of the diner, a police car came to a screeching stop. Inside the diner, staring out at me through the window to the kitchen was the busboy. His name was Daniel Kim. He was in Melody’s grade.
“Uh, Melody?” I said.
“I’m on it!” She burst through the door to the kitchen. “Come with me,” she said to him. He seemed totally confused, but let her drag him toward the rear of the diner. “You and the cook were supposed to be outside waiting for a delivery!”
I backed into the kitchen, keeping my eyes on the door and lowered my hand as two cops walked through.
“This is it,” Amanda said. “Business isn’t very good in the summer.”
I crouched down next to the wall, peeking through the crack between the door and the jamb to make sure the boy was arrested. I had an excellent one-inch perspective of the crime scene.
“Hold it right there, son. Drop your weapon,” one of the cops said with his gun drawn, the tip of it poking into my field of vision.
I heard the scissors fall to the floor.
“You okay, Amanda? You’re not here by yourself, are you?” the other cop asked, walking around to her, blocking my view.
“No...I thought Zellie and Melody Wells were here before...but, uh, they must have...left? Ramon and Daniel are out back waiting for the produce delivery.”
Good. She remembered but was unsure of herself. My job was done. I crawled to the back door. Checking behind me to make sure no one was watching, I stood and slipped through the exit.
Melody shoved a lit cigarette at me.
“What the hell?” I asked, making no attempt to take it from her.
“Just hold it. It’s the best alibi I could come up with on the fly.”
I took the stupid thing, holding it out from me.
“So,” Daniel said, taking a deep drag from his cigarette, “what’re you gonna do to me?”
“I don’t know. This is kind of Melody’s thing.” What were we going to do with him? Right about now would have been a swell time to have some of Christopher’s mind control powers. So much easier! “Hey, where’s the cook?”
Melody shook her head in disgust. “Ramon’s in the cooler doing ‘inventory,’” she said while making a drinking gesture, “and has been the entire time. He sent Daniel out here to check in the produce delivery, but the driver hasn’t shown up yet.”
The officer who’d asked Amanda how she was doing came out the door. Melody and Daniel both took a drag from their cigarettes. Okaaaaay, Mel? I held mine a little closer to my side.
“Hi. I’m Officer Crawford.” He gave us a disapproving look, his gaze landing on the cigarette in Melody’s hand. “Did you kids notice anything unusual happening in the diner?”
Melody snorted dramatically. “Like anything unusual or interesting ever happens here.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “So there wasn’t anyone in the dining area when you girls were in there?”
“Besides Amanda?” Melody said, sounding incredulous. “Nope.”
The officer shook his head and took a couple of cards from the notebook he was carrying, handing one to each of us. “There was an attempted robbery inside the diner while you all were out here. If anything suspicious comes to mind, you let me know.”
Melody nodded, “Will do.” She dropped her cigarette to the pavement and ground it out with her flip flop. I copied her action. Daniel took another cigarette out of the front pocket of his work shirt and lit it off of the one he’d just been smoking.
Officer Crawford opened the door to the kitchen. “You know, those things will kill you. You should stop now while you’re young, or it won’t be so easy in the future.”
I glanced inside just as Amanda was coming through the swinging door from the front. The boy, now in handcuffs, was staring right at me. I held his gaze. He mouthed something at me and then swayed into the counter like he was lightheaded.
“We only smoke ̕cause we’re bored,” Melody said.
Officer Crawford rolled his eyes and went inside.
“C’mon, let’s go.” Melody grabbed my arm.
“What about him?” I asked, pointing at Daniel.
“I’ll deal with him later. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I promise I won’t say anything. Really.” He nodded toward the highway. “Here’s the produce delivery.”
Melody led me around the side of the building to the front of the diner. As we passed the front door, the cops were bringing the backpacker out. Melody and I stopped to let them go by, and I locked eyes with him again.
This time I understood what he was mouthing at me.
“Zellie. Help me.”
Chapter Two
Ben pulled the car up in front of the mint green bungalow, scraping the front tire against the curb. Whoops! Maybe no one noticed.
Christopher sighed and shook his head. “You are the shittiest driver the state of California has ever issued a license to, and that’s saying something.”
Frank chuckled from the backseat.
“Dude, I learned how to drive in Oregon, the streets are much wider there.” Ben leaned forward, looking past his grouchy passenger. “Is this the right house?”
Christopher opened the manila file folder in his lap and checked the profile page. “Yes. Antoine Barlow. Age 14. 22525 E. 12th St. Long Beach.” He read on, “Mother, Willamina, Father, Antoine Sr., both deceased. Mother killed herself after the father drowned like she’d seen in her vision. Mother was a seer, not a Retro. Antoine Jr. lives here with his paternal grandmother. No contact with his mother’s side of the family.” He flipped to the next page and sighed again. “The last note was made more than six years ago when he was eight. Say it with me now--”
“Suspected homosexual. May have latent powers,” all three men said in unison.
The second page of the male profiles all said the same thing. Ben grinned. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“You realize you sound like a pedophile, right?” Christopher closed the file and tossed it on top of the others in the back seat next to Frank.
Ben snorted. “I’m not the one who was a man of the cloth. Feeling guilty about anything?” Christopher rolled his eyes in that haughty way he always did. “Besides, I was talking about my ability to absorb powers, not my superior gaydar. C’mon, let’s go see if Antoine’s home.” He got out of the car, cramming the keys into the pocket of his skinny jeans.
“Those stupid pants make you look like you have elephantiasis of the hip when you put the keys in your pocket,” Christopher said, holding out his hand.
Ben handed the keys over. He swore to God if Christopher didn’t get laid by an actual living, breathing man soon, he was going to die of bitchery. “But you have to agree, they make my ass look fabulous.”
Christopher stopped, glanced at Ben’s rear end and nodded.
“Ha! Made you look,” Ben teased, bounding up the front steps of the house and ringing the doorbell. Christopher and Frank flanked him on either side.
A plump, gray-haired woman of about sixty, wearing a rose-colored velour track suit opened the front door, but left the screen door closed. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ben said, plastering on his best grandma-pleasing smile. “We were wondering if we could speak with Antoine.”
She narrowed her eyes at them. “What about?”
Christopher spoke up. “My associates and I,” he waved a hand at Ben and Frank, “are starting an enrichment program at Antoine’s school in the fall and we’re trying to enlist student leaders to help us with outreach.”
Ben always let Christopher take the reins if the person that answered the door didn’t immediately respond to his win
ning smile. The guy had masqueraded as an assistant pastor for several years; he could be convincing and charismatic when he needed to.
“You want Antoine to be a student leader?” she laughed. “You sure you got the right house?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Christopher nodded. “The school has given us access to the student files (nope, never happened) and Antoine makes excellent grades (he was totally guessing). Are you unsure about him because he’s shy?”
She studied them for a moment and then opened the screen door. “Come on in. Ant’s in his room, I’ll go fetch him.”
Ben, Christopher, and Frank stepped into the family room. It was decorated in typical grandma style, the walls filled with family photos and potted silk flowers adorning every other doily-covered flat surface. They sat down on the plush beige sectional.
They’d been doing a couple house calls a week since the end of May, starting in L.A. proper and making their way south to San Diego. So far, they were 0 for 8. The Society had kept more meticulous records of the daughters of its members and former members than it had of the sons.
Back in February after their run in with Mildred, the evil and now supposedly dead leader of The Society, they’d combed the Central Oregon wilderness looking for her vanished body. Even Christopher had pulled his head out of his ass and pitched in.
Ben and Zellie both suspected that the dastardly plotting Christopher had thought he’d been doing was really just the universe’s way of getting all three of them in the same place at the same time. Christopher had conceded that this was possibly true and had dialed down the douchery a hair.
Their search for Old Milly was a bust. They’d found squat, not a single lead. There also wasn’t any indication that the spirits of Ben’s mom Laura, Zellie’s grandma Rachel, or Christopher’s mom Rita and his boyfriend Wes, had made it out of the limbo that Mildred had trapped them in.
A week after the showdown, Aunt Hazel had come back to Rosedell with Ashley, a Lookout whose sister had died in the fight with Mildred. She’d also brought along the spirit of the dead sister, Gabrielle, and the girls’ mom, Helene. Hazel had suggested that Zellie and Melody keep looking for Mildred and company in Oregon while the rest of them headed to The Society headquarters in L.A.
After a boring-ass sixteen hour drive they’d arrived at the vacant headquarters, which turned out to be a little peach stucco house in West L.A. He’d been underwhelmed. For Ben’s whole life he’d been fed a steady diet of hatred for the Big Bad Society, and it turned out their West coast office looked a lot like the house he’d grown up in.
However, once he’d stepped inside, his opinion had changed pretty quickly. Hazel had led them straight through the family room and into a small back bedroom. There she’d opened up the closet door and pushed a button on the back wall. The wall had slid open, revealing a circular staircase. As the women went down, Christopher had muttered something about just coming out of the closet.
Hidden deep in the earth beneath the house, there was an enormous and elaborate facility. At the bottom of the staircase they’d walked into a small common area that looked like an ER waiting room. An empty reception desk sat on one side and a guard-less guard station on the other. Directly beyond that was a wide hallway that had branched off in three directions.
Straight ahead was an auditorium where Hazel had said general meetings as well as elections and hearings had taken place. To the left were administrative offices, and to the right were the dorm-like living quarters that had once housed up to forty Society members. Ben had counted seven bathrooms as he’d strolled down the hall. Lady parts central.
He’d peeked into an uninhabited room. The bed had been unmade and two large oil paintings of sunflowers hung crookedly on the walls. Ben had thought it was funny that they were simply signed, “Roger.”
Hazel had pushed past him and gone into the room. After she’d straightened the bed, she’d unclasped a long silver chain from around her neck. With the tiny key on the end of the chain, she’d unlocked a small drawer inset in the top of her dresser. Inside had been a piece of paper. She’d read it and then handed it to Ben.
It was a memo.
Attn: American Society members
Get out now. All of the French and Italian offices have agreed to give you asylum and protect you from M. and her followers. No overseas reinforcements will be sent. The European and Asian headquarters both feel that if the bulk of the American Society members desert, M. will fall from power.
-Vivienne La Fevre, Paris Society Headquarters liaison
Hazel had righted the paintings on the wall and then sat on the bed. Her shoulders slumped.
Ben had never seen her look defeated.
“It’s been a long time since all of these rooms were occupied,” Hazel had said. “After Mildred came into power, more and more women turned away from The Society or went to live at other headquarters.” She’d shaken her head. “I didn’t expect there to be no one here, though.” She’d gestured at the paper in his hand. “They’ve sacrificed us, my family and yours, left us to deal with Mildred or be killed by her. I curse the day Rachel ever joined The Society. I’ve given the best years of my life to this organization and they’ve simply left me here to die.”
She’d stood, squaring her shoulders. That was the Hazel that Ben was familiar with. “Well, pardon my language, but screw that. There are Retroacts and Lookouts all over this country that The Society has shunned that could be of great assistance to our cause.”
“Sounds like you’re gearing up to build an army of misfit ladies and gay dudes, Biggie Z.”
“I so wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Hazel had chided. “But yes, you’re correct.”
After they’d all chosen rooms and gotten settled in, the group’s first priority had been, once again, to look for Mildred. Once again, they’d come up with nothing but dead ends.
Ben and Frank had gone with Christopher to his old hangout, Woodlawn cemetery, to chat up some of his contacts. Unfortunately no one in the spirit world knew where Mildred was, and if she’d had any allies in the living world, in The Society, they were lying low.
They’d began to sort out the files in the jumbled, disorganized records room, separating what they’d discovered into two categories. One was archival stuff, which Christopher had found way more fascinating than Ben had. Ben tried to live in the now.
The other category was recent records, from within the last fifty years, minus the white kids from the decade he, Zellie and Christopher had been born in. Zellie’s grandma Rachel had destroyed all of those, instead of destroying the children like she was supposed to. Next, they’d compiled boxes of files, further categorizing them by decade and sex.
It had taken the group the better part of two months to get the records organized. They’d all put effort into it with the exception of Gabrielle, who continued to interrogate her fellow spirits for information on the whereabouts of Mildred. It wasn’t like Gaby could physically move anything anyway.
Again, Hazel had put herself in charge (not that anyone minded) and decided that she and the other women would track down the daughters that The Society had been keeping an eye on and that Ben, Christopher and Frank would track down the sons.
The women had more people to contact, but their files were more complete. Hazel had thought that trying to retrieve any of the current Society members, who had fled the office when Mildred had almost been defeated, was a waste of time. Better to get new blood on their side, she’d said.
Tracking down the boys had been slow going. Of the ones they’d managed to find, each had been straight and powerless, and had given no sign that they knew anything of their mother’s past. Some hadn’t known their mothers at all.
Secretly, well maybe not so secretly to Frank, Ben had been getting a little bummed out by all the dead and absent moms. It made him miss his own mom like crazy. She’d been his best friend and, he couldn’t care less if that made him a pussy and a mama’s boy. When you were a bisexual dude with
half-assed powers, you got used to people calling you names.
He’d been able to pretend for a little bit with Zellie’s mom, Grace. Had been able to care about her and keep her safe. That had only given him another mom to miss, though.
Antoine’s grandma came back out into the family room, followed by three people, only one of which, Antoine, was actually, physically there.
Christopher squeezed Ben’s knee. He saw them too. Ben glanced at Antoine’s mom and dad and then at the boy. He was a scrawny kid, his hands stuffed deep into his baggy jeans pockets, but Ben could see how he was going to grow up to look a lot like his handsome pops.
His grandma nudged him forward. “Go on now. These men are here to talk to you about an after-school program.”
Antoine dragged his feet as he walked over to the couch and sat as far away from them as possible. “Hey,” he mumbled.
Frank stood and took Antoine’s grandma by the elbow. “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”
“I s’pose. You all right, Ant?”
The boy nodded. Frank led her away toward the kitchen.
When he was sure Antoine’s grandma was out of ear shot, Ben cut to the chase. “Antoine, can you see your parents?”
The boys’ eyes got wide and he sat up straight. “What do you mean?” he asked, cautious.
Ben got up and walked over to Antoine’s mom and extended his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Ben.”
The woman stuck her hand into his, giving him a little buzz. “Nice to meet you,” she said. “You Society?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. Christopher and I,” he pointed to Christopher, “are both Retroacts who have the ability to speak with spirits. Chris has also got some mind control powers.”
Antoine shot his hand out and rewound Ben back to the couch, looking over his shoulder to make sure his grandma hadn’t seen him.
“Nice!” Christopher commented.
Ben rolled his shoulders. “He just rewound me?”
“He sure did.”
Zellie Wells Trilogy Page 34
