I turned back and put on my best smile. “Should she be?”
“Well, gee, I don’t know,” Tiny began, then continued quickly when she saw I was about to walk away. “It’s about that man, isn’t it?”
“You’re very good,” I said non-committedly.
“Watched him sneaking around,” she said, glancing around in her best conspiratorial pose. “He gave me the creeps.” She shuddered dramatically.
I nodded. It’s hard to miss Benny, though how he got past security is another question; maybe I’d have another chat with the guard, or with Benny. “When did you last see him? Was he with anyone?”
“He was here a couple of days ago. It was early. We had a five A.M. call and I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be on the lot at that hour if they didn’t have to be. Sun wasn’t even up yet.” She shuddered again. “I thought he was a ghost with that white skin.”
“Early riser” and “white skin”: two phrases I don’t associate with Benny. “Describe him.”
Tiny chewed and considered and then chewed some more. She was about to blow another bubble and then thought better of it. “He was thin,” she said finally. “Thin and ugly.”
She wasn’t giving me a lot to go on. “What about his beard?”
“Oh, no beard. And you know something else,” she added. “He smelled. Just like he’d been dipped in shit.”
“Thin. Ugly. Smelly.” I wrote it down, just in case I forgot the detailed description.
“And he was bald.”
“Bald?” Benny was many things—including thin, ugly, and smelly—but bald he was not.
“Bald and white,” Tiny added.
“A Caucasian male,” I added to my notes.
“No, white. I mean really white, white skin, no color. An Albanian.”
“An albino?”
“No, no, a white guy. Only really white, like that guy in Powder. Did you see that flick? Boy, that director did a great job.”
“Thanks, Tiny,” I said, “you’ve been a real help.” I turned and headed for the No Exit door, leaving Tiny to get back to the set. First Biblical Benny and now a bald albino; Eva Casale keeps very strange company.
The Nissan hut was set apart from the main studio, a slightly battered long metal rectangle that wouldn’t have looked out of place in any WW II movie. If Ovsanna Moore was putting money back into the company, she wasn’t spending it on the facilities. Maybe the hut had once been green, but decades of L.A. sunshine and Santa Anas had scoured it to that peculiar color men’s magazines like to call taupe. I’ve a pair of jeans in that color: I never wear them. The original tin structure had never been painted, but it was covered with Magic-Markered autographs from actors who’d filmed on the lot. My mother would have a field day on eBay if they ever demo’d the place and she got her hands on the pieces. I had a sudden image of her slicing it into irregular little chunks with a jigsaw.
The door was open and I could feel the frigid air blowing from massive air conditioners positioned on metal girders above the huge expanse. I stepped into a nine-year-old’s dream come true. The long rectangular building was crammed with dozens of monsters in various stages of construction. Bits of human bodies, really good work, hung on the walls, alongside an assortment of bladed weapons that would have made Kurosawa drool.
My mother would have been in eBay heaven.
There was a large, chest-high worktable in the center of the room, probably ten feet wide by twenty long. It had been divided into four sections with three-inch black tape and each section was covered with what looked like prosthetics and effects items from different movies. A mangled Santa torso lay on its back, sliced almost in half by the chef’s knife stuck in its liver. There was even an accompanying odor, sort of sweet and cloying. I didn’t know effects wizards went to such trouble; maybe it was a joke for their own enjoyment. Except the odor wasn’t coming from Santa. Crucified to the end wall of the hut was the amazingly lifelike body of a young woman. Her throat had been cut so deeply that her face was resting against her shoulder; she had a hole clear through her stomach right to the knotted white of her spine. A heap of offal on the ground represented the internal organs and that’s where they’d spilled whatever stench they were using to represent death. This Casale woman was good!
I took a step closer and the smell got stronger. And more recognizable.
Then I saw the flies.
And then I heard the sticky dripping of bloody fluids.
This wasn’t a special effect I was looking at. I had a good guess it was Eva Casale. Someone had just cast her in her own horror movie.
Chapter Nine
We were standing on the sidewalk outside my office, waiting for Jesus to bring the car around, when Maral’s phone rang. My kind don’t have premonitions—well, no more than humans do, I suppose. But when you’ve lived as long as I have you do develop your sixth sense: I knew it was trouble. Maral slipped her Bluetooth receiver over her ear as she glanced at her phone screen. “It’s the production office,” she murmured, “Bobby Wise’s line.” Bobby is the unit manager on Hallowed Night. “This is Maral, Bobby, what’s up?”
The last time I’d seen the color drain from someone’s face like that was when I was feeding and lost track of time. I love the description, though; it’s so apt. At moments of stress blood is drawn away from the non-essential parts of the body and pushed to the extremities, readying to fight or flight. The face pales. Maral’s face turned waxen, her eyes and lips bruise purple. She pulled the receiver off her ear and closed the phone.
“Eva Casale was found dead in the effects hut,” she said.
“Murdered?”
“She was nailed to the wall, partially decapitated, and her insides scooped out.”
“That’s murder, all right,” I said grimly. Maral didn’t respond; she knows my gallows humor.
We didn’t speak again until we were in the car. Without asking me, Maral headed back towards the studio. We drove in silence for a few minutes; then, sitting at the light at Sunset and Coldwater, she finally said, “I think we need to talk about this.”
“About Eva?” I asked, though I knew that was not what she was talking about.
“About Jason and Mai and Tommy. And now Eva.” A frown creased her unlined forehead. “But Eva’s different, isn’t she? She’s not part of the pattern, is she?”
“The pattern?”
“Jason, Mai, and Tommy were your…creations,” Maral said flatly. It wasn’t a question.
“They were.”
Maral knows what I am, and accepts it. But she’s never questioned my past; what she knows about me and my kind she’s picked up over the past ten years of our association. We don’t discuss it. Maybe that’s why we’ve been together for so long. She knows that I have what might be called Creations. I call them kin—though never children—but she’s never exhibited any desire to be one of them or enquired into the actual process of creating one. She also knows that everything she’s seen on the screen or read about my race is just so much bullshit.
“Eve was not one of yours.” Again it was a statement, not a question.
“No, not one of my kind.” Most of my kind are in front of the camera, although I make it a rule never to have more than two in any one movie. For purely selfish reasons. If I’m starring, I want the audience looking at me.
The light changed and we pulled away.
“So why was she killed?”
“Two possibilities—accident or design,” I said quickly.
“This was no accident. You don’t get nailed to a wall by accident.”
“So it was planned. Again, we’re down to two choices: is this murder a coincidence or somehow connected to the other deaths?”
Maral glanced sharply at me. “It has to be connected.”
I nodded, absently picking strips of polish off my abused nails. I knew damn well it wasn’t a coincidence.
“Maybe someone mistook her for one of your…kin,” Maral suggested.
&nbs
p; “Unlikely. Whoever picked off the other three knew what they were and knew the tried and trusted methods of killing them: impalement, decapitation, dismemberment, and drowning. We don’t die easy, you know.” Something icy and old ran down along my back, a bitter memory of another place and another century.
“Well, her neck was cut almost clean through—that’s close to decapitation. Maybe someone’s trying to let you know they know what you are. Maybe Eva’s death was meant to frighten you.”
I laughed, a sharp barking sound. Even to my own ears, it sounded ugly. “Death does not frighten me. You would not believe the number of deaths I’ve witnessed,” I said. “I’ve survived wars, famines, plagues, and persecutions. Even the Crusades—all sixteen of them. All death does is make me angry.”
“So it has to be a warning.”
“Oh, of that I am sure.”
“But what does it mean?” Maral asked, as we turned into the studio.
“It means that there’s a Vampyre Hunter in Hollywood,” I said grimly, “and he’s just made his first mistake.”
We made the rest of the drive in silence until we got to the gate and Officer Gant waved us through. God damn it, you’d think with a murder on the lot, he’d learn his lesson and stop the car.
“What mistake?” Maral asked finally.
“I’m not the only vampyre in Hollywood, you know that, but I was the first to come here and that makes it my domain. I am the Chatelaine. A few others came after me, and went into the business. Charlie and Rudolph, of course, and Douglas and Mary and the outrageous and dangerous Theda Bara. We created very few kin. We were careful, very careful. Except for Theda. She nearly brought us down, taking chances like making A Fool There Was. She played herself, a vampyre, for God’s sake. She delighted in the image and the notoriety. We were forced to destroy her entire clan one bloody night in 1919. She hated California anyway, so she was more than happy when we suggested she retire. By then I’d introduced her to one of mine, silent film director Charles Brabin, and they married and moved to New York. But the others still have kin in and around the city. What’s interesting is that this killer has targeted only my Creations.”
“And now your employee.”
There was fear in her voice. I laid my hand on Maral’s pale flesh and allowed a little of my energy to flow through my hand, bringing my fingers to glowing light. She moaned as the white energy coursed through her body. “I will allow no one and nothing to harm you,” I said formally. “You may not be of my blood, but you are my family, and therefore under my protection.”
As I got out of the car, I silently vowed to do a better job than I had with Tommy, Mai, and Jason.
I disliked the cop on sight.
A ninety-dollar haircut and designer jeans. Cocky and overconfident. He probably drove a Hummer to make up for the size of his cock. And I’ll bet he watched reruns of Miami Vice. A Don Johnson wannabe.
He was standing outside the effects hut, making notes in a small spiral notebook, while white-suited CSIs moved in and out around him. Through the door I could see the flashes of a camera as someone recorded the close-up details of Eva’s butchery.
Even from outside the hut I could smell the meat and blood of her, and it was taking an enormous effort to keep my fangs in place. I didn’t need to see her; I needed to get away. I saw the cop look up, hazel eyes widen as he recognized me just as I turned my back to leave.
I heard his footsteps behind me as I strode toward the set of Hallowed Night. I was going to have to shut the set down; I couldn’t ask Eva’s crew to keep working without some downtime, and I didn’t even know if they could handle the rest of the film without her to run things. I’d have to meet with them immediately.
“Miss…Ma’am…Miss Moore.”
“Yes, Officer.” I struggled to keep my voice neutral.
“Detective Peter King, ma’am, BHPD.”
He didn’t offer his hand but I put mine out anyway, and after he’d surreptitiously wiped his palm on the leg of his trousers he reached for it. I try to avoid physical contact with strangers whenever possible because I don’t need to be bombarded with unwanted impressions, but this time I welcomed them. I wanted to know how to handle him. They were a jumble of visual and physical sensations…
…curiosity…anxiety…a poster from one of my films…the merest hint of awe…a filthy man in a preacher’s collar…anger and disgust…Eva’s body crucified against the wall…a Jaguar XKE.
Well, no Hummer, at least.
“Are you all right?” He was staring at me with concern. I ran my tongue over my teeth to make sure I wasn’t losing control.
I nodded, saying nothing. I’m not sure what I’d learned from the contact—more than I anticipated certainly, and enough to revise my initial impression. Maybe he wasn’t a complete asshole after all.
“Is there someplace we can talk?” he asked.
“We can go to my trailer.”
We cut through the set of Hallowed Night. I saw King glance at it—and suddenly the severed head on top of the Christmas tree didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“I thought it was a special effect,” he said suddenly. “The body on the wall,” he explained, catching my look. “When I first saw it, I thought it was just another special effect. It’s so hard to tell what’s real anymore.”
“Especially in this city,” I agreed.
Chapter Ten
SANTA CLARITA
3:30 P.M.
All I could think was she must use a great cinematographer or a really fine makeup artist because up close and personal, she was older than I expected. Still hot, but older.
She didn’t look like she’d had any work done, either, which, in this town, almost puts her in a category by herself. Women don’t get older in Hollywood; they get freakier. Between Botox, laser peels, liposuction, and that stuff they shoot into their lips, there’s not a real face walking Rodeo Drive. And that’s before the cheek implants and the lunchtime thread-lifts. My tenant, SuzieQ, is a Nip/Tuck fan—well, the first two seasons, at least—and she keeps me up-to-date on all the available procedures. Whatever happened to a good old-fashioned nose job like my sister had in the sixties? Although, come to think of it, that wasn’t too successful, either.
And it’s not just the women.
I’ve never been tempted to go under the knife myself, not yet anyway, but when the time comes and there’s more gray than black in my hair, I’ll get Enrique, my barber over in Los Filez, to start adding a little color. Not too much, though; there’s nothing worse than an older man with jet-black hair. I had my eyes lasered a while back, but that was practical; I’ve got to be able to see. And I use those teeth-bleaching strips from the drugstore, but in this town that’s also practical—nobody wants to see a Beverly Hills cop with yellow teeth. But that’s where I draw the line. I don’t want to end up looking like David Gest.
I couldn’t guess Ovsanna Moore’s age from looking at her. Could be at least a decade older than me. No doubt it was listed in IMDb; I’d check when I got back to the office. There were the faintest traces of lines on her forehead and around the edges of her eyes, but as far as I was concerned, that only enhanced the package; everything else looked real and natural, moving and swaying in all the right directions. Ovsanna Moore looked like she’d been a few places, seen a few things, and maybe even done a couple of them. I’d have said mid-forties, but I could have been off by ten years.
The girlfriend, however, had to be at least fifteen years her junior. I say “girlfriend,” but no one introduced her that way. She was waiting in the trailer with the door opened as we approached, a cell phone in one hand, folded laptop under her arm.
“Allow me to introduce Maral McKenzie, my personal assistant and right hand. Maral, this is Detective King, from the BHPD.”
The assistant looked at me as if I was something she’d scraped off her expensive shoe. She didn’t extend her hand.
McKenzie was a knockout. Ash-blond hair tumbling down her ba
ck, gray eyes behind black-framed Buddy Holly glasses, not enough of a rack to draw attention, but no question she was a girl. She was wearing some sort of strangely cut black and white suit that looked like high-end Rodeo Drive.
As Ovsanna stepped into the trailer a look passed between them.
I knew immediately there was something going on between these two that was more than professional. You can’t spend fifteen years on the force and not read between the lines. Maral McKenzie had a personal stake in protecting Ovsanna Moore. And something to be afraid of. At that moment, it seemed like it was me. As we stepped into her boss’s trailer, I watched her insinuate herself between the movie star and me. She almost bristled as I deliberately moved farther into the room. Then she turned away from me, stared into Ovsanna’s eyes for a beat too long, and without a word went to the fridge and pulled out a White Ginkgo Tea. Another look passed between them when she handed it to Ovsanna. And a touch, fleeting and if you blinked you missed it, but it was there, nonetheless. I wasn’t sure what the deal was between this pair, but with “personal assistant” as Maral McKenzie’s job title it was pretty obvious the accent was on “personal.” I’ll bet the job covered a lot of ground.
I had three dead movie stars, all of whom had worked for Ovsanna Moore; a dead special effects supervisor, also working for Ovsanna Moore; and a personal assistant with an agenda—maybe she didn’t like anyone coming between her and her sweetheart, or maybe she had something bigger to hide. Whatever was going on, Maral McKenzie was involved.
My dad told me four things when I joined the force: never go out without your vest, make sure your underwear is clean, buy comfortable shoes (preferably with steel toe caps), and never get involved with another officer (but if you do, wear protection). So far I’m good on all four counts. He also said that there are lots of reasons for crime—social deprivation, rage, anger, fear, societal factors—but at the end of the day it usually comes down to sex and money. People who haven’t got either, want one or the other, or both. I used to think it was a simplistic, even anachronistic, point of view. Then I started clocking up the years. Now I think he was right.
Vampyres of Hollywood Page 6
