by John Farris
“After I reassured the other sisters that I would be perfectly okay. I’d never been on a bike that size, with so much power. I really enjoyed it.”
“Did you know what they could have done to you, on a whim?”
“Sure.”
“You weren’t afraid?”
“No. Because just a few miles down the road to Arroyo del Cobre something amazing happened. Let me call it what it was: a miracle straight from Heaven.”
She smiled, thinking about it. I sneaked another glance at my wristpac. I wanted to be with her, to hear everything she had to say, but a foreknowledge of big trouble ahead had me jumpy.
“Elena?”
“Oh, I’m sorry—”
“About that miracle.”
“Well, we must’ve been clipping along at close to a hundred miles an hour on a straight stretch of road with not much traffic. I know that we came up very fast on a truck hauling a double trailerload of scrap metal: old machinery, irrigation pipe, that sort of thing. Someone coming the other way must’ve had a blowout and veered into the path of the truck. The driver hit his brakes and then it was just a mess all over that two-lane highway, trailers flipping and the air filled with rusty flying stuff and nowhere to go.”
“I get the picture,” I said.
“There was no time to think about being killed. I was crouched down behind Ortega, wearing a helmet, of course, but if he had gone off the side of the road like the other bikers with us did, we probably wouldn’t have survived. One of them didn’t.” Elena crossed herself. “Instead Ortega rode through the accident and tumbling chunks of metal and we came out on the other side without being struck. There wasn’t a scratch on his bike. Do you understand? We were literally inside a hailstorm of flying metal for a few seconds and nothing touched us.”
She looked at me triumphantly.
“God is my witness.”
“As for Raoul Ortega,” I said. “Is he a changed man?”
“I wish. But godless men—and women too—are often deeply superstitious. He does believe that he’s alive today because I was with him on his motorcycle. It’s no use trying to tell him otherwise. He doesn’t want to hear it. Ortega calls me his ‘amuleto’ “
“Lucky charm,” I said. “Cute.”
She made a wry face at me. “We go riding together three or four times a month now. That has its uses, R.”
“I’m surprised Mother Mary Aquinas is letting you hang with a known scumbag.”
“We aren’t cloistered. And as I’ve said, I haven’t taken my vows. Reverend Mother doesn’t disapprove of the relationship because—well, I kind of brokered a deal between the Diamondbackers and the order.”
“What was that about?”
“Before I joined the order, there had been a lot of incidents at the mission. Diamondbackers harassing the sisters and terrorizing the Lycan girls. They’re notorious Lycan haters, as you well know.”
“Yeah.”
“Ortega makes the rules. They leave us alone now.”
“He also knows you’re a Lycan,” I said.
“We’ve talked that out. He accepts me.”
“Big of him. He was the one who—”
“Don’t, R,” she said, with a weary shake of her head. “It’s behind me.”
“But still front and center with me,” I said. “Elena, how did you find out about Bucky Spartacus?”
“I overheard Raoul on his bike phone talking to someone.”
“Do you recall his exact words?”
“I can come close. He was like, ‘Bucky, don’t anybody know yet, but he’s a fuckin’ werewolf.’ I suppose he was asked how he knew this. He said, ‘I can always tell. Be watching what happens at the fund-raiser, Bucky, he gonna have a million new fans when he hairs-up.” She looked hopelessly at me. “I didn’t understand how that could happen, out-of-phase. But I—I felt like I had to do something.”
“Where’s Mal, Elena? She’s running out of time.”
Elena stepped back awkwardly as if I had raised a fist to her face.
“But I don’t know! I couldn’t find out where she is. I thought if Mom saw Carlotta, maybe—it didn’t do any good. Car’s been in and out lately, you know the state she was in today.”
“There’s a way. Get Miles Brenta to call off the mal de lune.”
“That’s why I asked him to meet me this afternoon! What happened? What did you tell him about Francesca?”
“That she’s dangerous. Just try to think of some way to get hold of Brenta. A cell number only a few others may have. Anything.”
“But what if I don’t speak to him in time?”
“Elena, what have you waited for?” I said, in a tone of voice that made her flinch.
“I thought that you—”
“I’ve got a couple of my top teams working on it. So far, nothing. Okay, Brenta’s unavailable but there’s another possibility. Your weird friendship with Ortega. Talk to him. He just might be willing to pull Mal out of the shoot.”
Suddenly Elena was in tears, shaking her head.
“I don’t know where Ortega is either! He comes around when he feels like it. But if I do say anything to him about a mal de lune and let him know about Mallory—you know how his mind works. He’ll think if I know about the shoots he arranges, then maybe I know things about his other businesses I shouldn’t know.”
I hated the way that sounded. “Do you? Come on, Elena! Talk to me.”
“There’s something—I’ve been trying to find out for Miles,” she said very quietly. She wiped her eyes with a paper napkin from the buffet cart. She was still breathing hard after her outburst. But she couldn’t make herself look at me. “It was because of a remark Ortega made. ‘If you have the gold, you make the rules,’ he said. ‘But if you control the werewolf, then you own the world.’ I didn’t know what he meant. But I told Miles. He was very upset.”
“So Brenta has been using you to spy on Ortega? Is he out of his mind? Ortega and his kind feed like piranhas on suspicion. Amuleto or not, one little slip on your part and he’ll have your throat cut, then shrink your pretty head and wear it on his key chain.”
“Don’t. I know I was wrong to—”
My wristpac was vibrating again. I’d been out of touch from everyone for more than five hours. Not a good day for that. I 3-D’d my e-mail for easier reading. It was from Bea, originating from her own wristpac.
PLEEZE!! NEED HELP!!
“Is it about Mal?” Elena said.
I glanced at her. “No. But I have thirty hours left and I will find her.” I double-tapped the H box on the black screen of my pac and brought up Bea’s hologram, showed it to Elena. “This is somebody else who I want to keep warm and breathing.
“Yes, I know,” she said with a slight, sad inflection.
“Elena, I have to go. Stay here at Villa Brenta. If he comes back or calls, let me know immediately.
She nodded.
“Good seeing you. Let’s do it again sometime.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Elena said spiritedly. Her eyes were dry and lively again. She was smiling.
I had given her reason to hope. I wished there was some left over for me.
18
ne of Miles Brenta’s security force, a middle-aged woman with wide shoulders and a personality like blunt trauma carted me up to my helicopter while I called Bea.
“R!” she answered. There was too much daylight and I couldn’t receive her hologram. “Thank God! Where have you been all afternoon?”
I thought “unconscious” called for too much explanation. I heard music at her end, a Latin band with mucho gusto. If she was at a party, why the urgency? I didn’t rumba.
“Doing my job,” I said gruffly. “Mal Scarlett is still missing.”
“That’s why I have to talk to you! Ida is meeting someone here, I’m sure of that, and she’s going to give him money, so I think it must have something to do with Mal. She won’t tell me anything, but Ida has a big tote with her, and R, it is bulging with cash! I
had a peek after she came out of the bank with Duke and got into the backseat of the car with me. The money is all in gold certs from the Bank of Beverly Hills. Large denominations. It just isn’t safe for her to be carrying so much money around with her even though Duke is probably wearing a gun—” Duke Sanborn was Ida’s longtime houseman and chauffeur.
“Bea, hold it right there!” I yelled.
I waited a few seconds until she caught her breath.
“Now back up. What are you doing with Ida Grace?”
“Oh. Well, after I woke up I was starving. So I fixed a huge lunch but had second thoughts about eating it all by myself. So then I thought, why not invite Ida to share it with me? That’s what I did. I walked next door and—”
“Bea, get this jalopy into gear. Where—”
“No, wait, wait, this is important! She accepted my invitation but while we were eating—Ida seemed nervous and didn’t have much of an appetite—she had two calls which she took where I wasn’t supposed to hear her. But I have ears like a bat. I heard her say, ‘That is all I can come up with on short notice.’ She must have struck a deal, because then she said, ‘No, not there. Do you think I’m a fool?’ Pause. ‘Not there either.’ Long pause. Finally she said, ‘That is agreeable. Five-thirty this afternoon at the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“That’s where you are now?”
“Uh-huh. Poolside. There’s a really groovy fashion show. Priority hunk. They have one every month. By invitation only. It’s a big social thing in the Privilege.”
“I know. Bea, where is Ida right now? Nowhere close, apparently.”
“Ida had to go to the ladies’ room. Again.”
“She took the money with her?”
“No, I have it. Her tote, I mean. I’m not supposed to know what’s inside. There’s a little gold padlock, even if I was feeling snoopy. What I’m doing is sweating, with this tote between my feet. My pulses are going like those castanets. Could this be for real? Someone knows where Mal is and is trying to sell her back to Ida?”
“Ida would have to have good reasons for going along with it. Evidence that she’s not being jobbed. A show-and-tell featuring Mal. Or a partial satellite map. The money buys the map coordinates.” I checked the time as we came to a stop beside the helo. “It’s twelve minutes to five. I can be there before five-thirty. Whoever has approached Ida won’t advertise himself in a crowd. But he’s watching.”
“You had to say that.”
“If anybody comes too close to your table, throw a drink in his face. By the way, where’s Duke?”
“He’s at the bar. Probably fifty feet away. Just watching.” She hesitated, lowering her voice. “Can we trust him?”
“I’ve known Duke all of my life. He’s honest and loyal. He’s also getting close to seventy.” I was pouring sweat myself. As Johnny Padre might have put it, I was loving this like sex with a small amphibian.
“I have my knife with me,” Bea said stoutheartedly.
Christ.
“You won’t need it. It’s strictly a cash transaction. There won’t be any rough stuff. Tranquila, Bea,” I pleaded.
The mechanic who had been keeping watch on the ILC helicopter got out of his van. He had been pumping the interior full of cool with a mobile auxilliary power unit, which he disconnected as I climbed aboard.
“Couldn’t find a thing wrong up top, sir. You’re preflighted and good to go.”
The monthly high tea and fashion show at the sine qua non watering hole known as the Beverly Hills Hotel was, as Bea had reminded me, always a hot ticket. Booth Havergal made a point of attending with his wife Cerise. While I was flying back from the desert I received by e-mail a guest list from the hotel’s social director. There were about two hundred names on it: High Bloods from the entertainment and fashion industries, a mélange of politicians, financiers, sportsmen, and a good many people who spent their lives doing nothing more strenuous than dressing for dinner.
Miles Brenta and Francesca Obregon were on today’s list. I knew that NANOMIM retained a very luxe bungalow at the hotel for certain business meetings and intime arrangements.
I was happy to see their names on the list. Maybe the day would turn out to be a winner after all.
Before I had reached cruising altitude I sent Lew Rolling and Ben Waxman to the hotel to clear a helo pad for me in air-taxi parking.
I touched down behind a windscreen of old cedars on the far side of the century-old hotel’s gardens at five-eighteen. Lew and a security guard met me for the short trip by electric cart to the pool area.
I called Bea.
“I’m here,” I said. “Do a good job of pretending you don’t know me. Is Ida still at your table? Just say yes or no.”
“Yes.”
“Be cool,” I said, and cut her off.
The theme of today’s show was pre-World War II, with styles mimicking those of the period. The shake-and-bake Latin band was big and loud: when I walked through a gate at the northwest corner of the colonnaded cabana terrace the models were doing the boneyard shuffle on the runway to the tune of “She’s a Latin from Manhattan.” There was applause. The guests were basking in the first flush of a Southland sundown, the unclouded sky turning a deeper shade of blue. The fronds of tall palms around the pool area had begun to stir in a mild breeze. Everyone was keeping cool in drifting clouds of vapor from refrigeration units. The models wore pencil suits with very wide shoulders and skirts below the knee. They wore pillbox hats with peek-a-boo netting. Or they wore dresses with splashy flower prints and floppy hats, the brims as wide as beach umbrellas.
Everyone seemed to be having a good time pretending it was ninety years ago. When, except for a lingering economic malaise and a Teutonic paranoid-schiz with a bad haircut who was in Middle European real estate the way Dillinger had been in banking, things looked pretty nifty to the hoi polloi.
In about fifteen hours (I didn’t bother to touch the appropriate key on my wristpac that would give the exact time of peak full moon) the world these people actually lived in would begin fearfully to lock down. Some of the fashion-show guests might then be back here to drink their way through yet another Observance, in a werewolf-free zone, safety guaranteed by the wall around the Privilege and in-house protection on the order of TRADs and AUGIEs. If those babies ever did have to be put to use it would be hell on the guests as well. But then nothing compared to a werewolf attack, and more often than was commonly known they did show up, Privilege be damned. It was just a highly catchable disease, and social rank had nothing to do with it.
I made my way around the terrace perimeter behind pool lounge chairs and geraniums in massive pots. Waiters in mess jackets and hickory-striped pants hustled to and from the long bar with deftly balanced trays of drinks and mounds of minced-olive finger sandwiches. I checked the crowd for either Brenta or Obregon. Didn’t see them. But the gloves-wearing woman and her associate or consort Paulo were at Booth Havergal’s table. That was interesting.
Beatrice was throwing glances over her shoulder at me until I gave her the cut sign. Ida sat opposite her at their shaded table, her face turned toward the runway; I couldn’t read her expression. The tote full of gold certificates wasn’t visible either.
There were standees at the bar, most of them men, some in tennis whites. I edged in next to Duke Sanborn. He was wearing a medium gray suit with a black bow tie and a look of acute anxiety. He jumped when I touched the elbow that wasn’t propped on the deeply lacquered, ebony surface of the bar.
“Mr. Rawson!”
“It’s okay,” I told him. “I’ll take it from here.”
There was a gleam of relief in his eyes before he said cautiously, “Well, I—I don’t zackly know what you mean, sir.”
“Yes you do. How long has it been since Ida attended one of these soirees? A year or two? She’s here to pay off someone who could be conning her. Do you know what he looks like?”
Duke shook his head nervously.
“No, sir. Neither one
of us knows. He never come to the house at all. Only sent video of Miss Mallory to prove she was alive.”
“What else is he selling?”
“Well, he—he give to Miss Ida a location where she can find Mallory ‘fore it’s too late. But what he wrote was—”
“In code,” I said. “Sure. Ida hands over the money, she gets the key to solving the code. Sounds jailhouse to me. How much does the perp want?”
“Fifty thousand,” Duke said miserably. “At five-thirty, he said. Here at the hotel.”
I checked the time. We had five and a half minutes. I looked at Ida again.
She was doing a lot of fidgeting in her chair. She glanced at the bar and was not happily surprised to see me next to Duke. She had the good sense to look away quickly. Bea leaned across the small table and spoke to her.
The girls of the runway, and a few well-bronzed guys, were showing off the latest in sportswear. The bandleader, a suave number with a hairline mustache and ravishing eyes he kept dancing toward the audience, kicked up the tempo a notch. A girl singer in a blouse with big ruffled sleeves and hips in overdrive launched into “Enjoy yourself—it’s later than you theenk.”
I wondered how the guy planned to collect his money.
Odds were he’d give Ida a call soon, have her walk into the hotel. The exchange, if there was going to be one, wouldn’t happen in the lobby. Ida would never agree to meet him in a room upstairs. The way it would work best, he’d tell her to take an otherwise empty elevator, stop at the second or third floor, leave the tote and send the elevator to the service basement or VIP parking. Where he would be whistling and waiting near a convenient exit.
Once he was in the clear and if he was on the level, he would then call Ida and tell her where to pick up the code-break info, which he’d left for her in a will-call envelope at the front desk, probably hours ago when there was a different shift on.
But they were so seldom on the level.
I called Lew Rolling and told him what was going down.
“Grab yourself some hotel security and cover all sublevel entrances and exits. I’ll take the lobby in case he’s bold enough to stroll out through the front door.”
