City of the Lost

by Stephen Blackmoore

  “Of course. He’s not stupid. That’s what finally made me leave him.”

  “What happened?”

  She gives me a look like I’m dense, and when I figure it out, I realize I am.

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “How old do I look?”

  “About twenty-three.”

  “I’m hurt,” she says with a little pout. “When he murdered me I was nineteen.”

  Chapter 21

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  She gives me a sly smile. I follow her back into the living room. “I need something stronger than tea,” she says. She pours brandy into a glass, curls up on the couch. The way she drapes herself, curling up against its back, she might as well be a cat. I never really had a good idea what “lithe” meant. Now I know.

  I flop into the chair opposite her. The silence stretches out. I’m the one who finally breaks it.

  “He brought you back,” I say. “Like me.”

  She shakes her head. “Not quite.” She sets down her drink, reaches over the coffee table between us to take my hand. Compared to my room temperature mitt, her hands are burning up.

  “You’re still warm,” I say.

  “I’m still alive.” She turns my hand in hers, her fingers delicate against my wrist. “Does it hurt? Not having a heartbeat? Not breathing?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t feel a thing.”

  She lets my hand fall, and a look of something passes her face. Is it envy?

  “I got the immortality Sandro wanted for himself,” she says. “He made a deal with something in East Africa,” she says. “I was never very clear on what. And if he’d trusted it, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he decided to try it out on me first.”

  “And he had to kill you to do it?”

  She nods. “It was … unpleasant. And when he tried to do it again on himself, the thing he’d bargained with told him it was a one-shot deal.” She laughs. “He slit his throat like he’d slit mine. Took him three days to come back from that one. He’d wasted his chance at living forever on me. Last I heard, the thing he’d bargained with wasn’t returning his calls.”

  “So you can’t die?”

  “Not permanently. A day, maybe two at most. It’s like waking up from a bad dream, and I go on about my day.”

  “Must be nice.” I wouldn’t mind the whole living forever thing if I wasn’t rotting once a day.

  “It’s been useful a time or two,” she says.

  “You know, you still haven’t told me how old you are.”

  “Nobody’s ever told you it’s rude to ask a lady that question?” When I don’t answer the glib pretense falls away. She closes her eyes, almost as if she’s ashamed.

  “I’ll be four hundred eight in January,” she says. “At least, I think it’s January. We weren’t quite as big on calendars back then.”

  That’s what it is. All of her charm and poise is well practiced, but it’s like she’s going off a script. It’s slightly unnatural.

  After four hundred years, she’s forgotten how to be normal.

  She gets up, moves to the open French doors facing away from me. “I knew you were going to ask that,” she says. “But I still wish you hadn’t.”

  I come up behind her. She leans back into me, all warm and soft. I put my arms around her, not sure what I’m doing but knowing that it feels right.

  “I’m sorry,” I say and mean it. And I’m even sorrier for my next question. “What’s your angle in this? Neumann I get. Giavetti I get. But what about you?”

  “Sandro is about seven hundred years old,” she says. She lets me chew on that one for a moment. I knew he was old, but seven hundred years is a number that doesn’t fit in my head. Four hundred is bad enough. It’s good information to know. Fucking frightening, but still. I nod, and she continues.

  “I met him when I was eight,” she says. “He protected me, raised me. When I was old enough to not be a child to him anymore, he was my lover. You don’t know this yet, but living this long is a special kind of lonely. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been married. How many lovers I’ve had. There’s only one man I’ve known almost my entire life. I can’t turn my back on him. Everyone I’ve known has died or will die. Everyone but me and Sandro. And now you.”

  “I’m not sure I’m up for four hundred years,” I say.

  “Do you think I am? It’s not like I’ve had much of a choice. I’m going to live forever whether I want to or not.”

  Suddenly it makes sense. “Giavetti came to you for help.” Of course. Who could he trust with his search to become immortal except the only person he knew who wouldn’t need it.

  “Yes,” she says. “I hadn’t seen him in a long time. He was so old. He knew the stone was here and had some ideas how to get it. But he needed cash. So I helped him out. He came to Los Angeles because he heard someone here had it. I leant him some money. All of his assets are tied up in companies like Imperial Enterprises. He’s got no liquidity. When I heard things fell apart the other night, I needed to know what happened to him. I wasn’t entirely sure he’d be back. He’d always managed to before, but I’d never seen him so old before. I just wasn’t sure.” She shudders. “It scared me. I don’t love him, haven’t in a long time. But I can’t just let him die.”

  “And that’s where I came in. You’re playing me to find him.”

  “No,” she says suddenly. Her eyes earnest. “Yes. I mean—I was. Before I talked to you. Before I knew what had happened. You’re going to live forever, and I know how lonely that is. And I thought… .” Her words hang in the air.

  “You know I need the stone, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m tied to it or something. I’m not real clear on how. But if I’m away from it too long I start to … fall apart.”

  “Oh god. I had no idea. You have it, right? I mean, you’re okay?”

  I shake my head. “I did. But somebody stole it.”

  “But you look fine.”

  “It’s temporary. I have to—well, the less said about that the better.”

  “That’s why you’re looking for Sandro? You think he has the stone?”

  “I did. But after last night I don’t know.” I pull out the blood-spattered note I took from Carl’s room and hand it to her. It’s a quick read.

  “So it’s still out there,” she says, eyes thoughtful.

  “He’s been asking around for it.”

  “If he finds it, you’ll never see it again.”

  “Probably not.”

  She touches my face, caresses my cheek. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I can do. I just met you and now—”

  “And now?”

  She answers by kissing me. She’s warm, burning hot, and her lips taste like cherries.

  I could fall into her. She’s got eyes like an angel or a devil, but I can’t tell which. I’m not sure I care. I imagine waking up to her wrapped around me, sheets tangling us together.

  Then I remember I don’t sleep anymore.

  I push her away. “I don’t trust you,” I say. And I don’t, but I want to.

  “You will.”

  “We can’t,” I say. “You said it yourself, I’m not like you. I’m dead.”

  She gives me the wickedest grin I’ve ever seen. Probably give Darius a run for his money. “Young man,” she says. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.” She slides up against me, her heat warming me through.

  I step back. “No. Who the fuck’s got the stone? You? How much of what you’re telling me is bullshit? I can’t tell if you’re yanking my chain. I can’t tell a goddamn thing with you.”

  “Trust,” Samantha says. “You come in here, grill me about my life. Accuse me of, god I don’t know what. I open up and tell you everything. You have no fucking idea how hard that is.” Her eyes go from ocean blue to pale ice.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” she says. “Get out.”
<
br />   I stalk past the security guard downstairs. He’s smart enough to give me a wide berth.

  I should go back up there. Beat what I need to know out of her. It wouldn’t do a bit of good. What’s the worst I could do to her that she hasn’t seen in four hundred years? Or lived through?

  But that’s just a rationalization. Truth is, I don’t want to. I’m really not sure what I want.

  I drive north along the coast to clear my head, turn my thoughts toward Giavetti.

  So he made a deal with a devil, and he got screwed. I wonder if Darius knows anything about that, but push the thought away. It’d be like asking some random guy if he knows your cousin who happens to live in the same state.

  My phone rings. I answer it before seeing that it’s Danny’s cell. “The fuck do you want?”

  “Look, I know we got off on the wrong foot the other night.” He sounds wrong. Tentative. That’s not the Danny I know.

  “Quit groveling. It sounds weird coming from you. What do you want?”

  “Dude, I’m just trying to make amends.” His voice is definitely shaky. Whatever the deal is, he’s freaked.

  “Which means you want something. Get to it or I hang up.”

  “I don’t want anything. I just—Look, that old crazy guy? The one that killed Simon? He’s not dead.”

  Yeah, no shit. “You saw him?”

  “Fuck, did I see him. Comes looking for you last night out behind the club. I tell him I’m not your secretary, and he pulls a fucking dog out of thin fucking air. Goddamn thing tore Bruno’s face right off. He’s sitting in Cedars with tubes in his head.”

  “A dog?”

  “A mastiff or something. But bigger.”

  Bigger than a mastiff. Big enough to maybe tear Carl’s arm out of its socket?

  “Okay, calm the hell down,” I say.

  “Fuck you. I am calm. What the hell is going on? You know something, don’t you?”

  “It’s complicated,” I say. “He say anything else? Where he’d be?”

  “Said he’d be at the club tonight. Dude, he’s looking for you. If you don’t show, he’s gonna send that fucking dog after me. You gotta be there.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “No, seriously—” I hang up on him.

  Giavetti at the club tonight. He thinks I’ve got the stone. I don’t know why he thinks Danny and I are friends.

  Much as it would be fun to let Giavetti’s dog eat Danny, I’m going to be there. It’s too good an opportunity.

  I need to get him off my back. Killing him might buy me some time, but who knows how long? All that would do is piss him off, and there’s no guarantee that I’ll have the stone before he comes back at me. And if he’s got a giant dog with him, now, that might be too hard to pull off anyway.

  An idea slowly builds in my head. It’s probably bad, and I don’t really want to do it, but the more I think about it, the more I think it might work.

  If I can get it to work.

  I punch in Frank’s number. It rings a couple times before he picks up.

  “The fuck do you want?” he says with that same tone of contempt I had with Danny. His voice is more haggard than before. A little slurred. Dammit.

  “Are you drunk?” I say. “It’s not even eight a.m.”

  “Fuck you.” I can tell he’s about to hang up the phone.

  “Hang on,” I say. “Sorry. None of my business. Look, I got a bead on Giavetti,” I say. “If you want him.”

  That gets his attention. “Yeah? Where’s he?”

  “You know Simon’s old club? In Hollywood?”

  “Place near, what, Cherokee? Yeah. I know it. He there now?”

  “Tonight. Don’t know when, but they don’t open until ten. He’s looking for me and threatened to kill somebody if I don’t show up.”

  Frank laughs. “He doesn’t know you very well, does he? So the fuck do you want me to do about it?”

  “Thought you’d like to know where he’d be. Was kind of thinking that if you could bring some of your fat cop buddies with you, you could get him locked up for a few days until you figure out what to do with him. No chance of him just walking out of County. Not with L.A.’s finest watching him.”

  Silence. He’s thinking about it. “You gonna be there?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’ll get him inside. Stall him. You do whatever cop shit you need to do and get him in a cell. Or into an abandoned warehouse. Or wherever. You’ll think of something creative to do to him, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  “He killed your brother,” I say. “Look, shoot him for all I care. Throw him in your trunk and wait for him to come back to life. I’m just trying to help you out. Jesus, this isn’t rocket science. Just lock him up.”

  “And get him out of your hair?” he says. “That’s what you want, right? He’s looking for you, isn’t he?”

  No sense in lying to him about that. “Yeah,” I say. “Get him to leave me the fuck alone for a few days. Alive. I don’t need to be worrying that he’ll wander out of the morgue again.”

  “Fine. I’ll be there tonight. See what I can do.”

  “Good. Best chance you’ll have at him, buddy.”

  He’s already hung up.

  Chapter 22

  The Edgewood Arms is just as ugly in the daytime. I wonder what Gabriela sees in the place.

  I park across the street, passing a couple of old Mexicans sharing a can of Colt 45. Classy.

  The old Latino guy at the desk glares at me through yellowing eyes. “She’s in the bar,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  He laughs. “Don’t thank me, pendejo.” He covers his ears with his hands. “Enjoy the noise.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about until I open the door to the bar and run into the screaming.

  This isn’t just regular screaming. This is cats-being-fucked-in-the-ass-with-a-two-by-four screaming.

  The bar has been replaced with what looks like a World War I-era field hospital. Sunlight streams through windows that aren’t there. A cool breeze blows down from lazy ceiling fans. Young men, bandaged, bleeding, or missing limbs lie on beds behind mosquito netting screaming for their mothers.

  “The fuck is all this?” I say over the noise, spying Darius and Gabriela at the end of a long row of beds. Darius is dressed like an old-time doctor in a white lab coat and a headband reflector. He waggles his eyebrows at me like Groucho Marx as I come near.

  Gabriela has a look of disgusted exasperation. She points at Darius. “He won’t shut them up.”

  “I just thought your friend might feel solidarity among these honorable wounded,” he hollers over the sound.

  It’s then that I realize they’re both standing over Carl’s bed. He’s only vaguely conscious.

  “I doubt all this noise is helping him.”

  Darius waves it off. “Oh, hell, he can’t hear ’em. I’m just doing this for verisimilitude.”

  “See?” Gabriela says. Clearly, she doesn’t have any actual control over Darius. If she’s at all worried about that, she doesn’t show it. I try a different tack.

  “Would you mind dropping the volume a bit?” I say. “Please?”

  “For you, sahib, anything,” he says and bows to me with his hands together. The room falls silent except for Carl’s low moans.

  “You couldn’t have done that sooner?” she asks Darius. “Thank you,” she says to me, not waiting for the demon’s answer.

  “How is he?”

  “He’ll live,” Gabriela says. “But he’s a mess. Darius has him stabilized.”

  “I live to serve,” Darius says.

  The stump of Carl’s arm is neatly bandaged. He’s been strapped down, but even so he’s thrashing about on the bed.

  “Can he talk?”

  “Not so far,” Gabriela says. “Somebody really did a number on him.”

  “You can help him, though. Right?”

  “That’s what we’re trying
to find out,” she says. “We’ve managed to block the link between Neumann and that eye on his forehead, but that’s all. I’m having a problem.”

  “The thing that kept him in the room or made him forget?”

  “Neither, actually. I think I know how to get rid of those. Problem is that although I’ve altered Neumann’s work, I don’t know how to reverse it. As long as it’s there it’s in the way. I can’t do anything about the other spells until I take care of what he did.”

  “Not as easy as pulling a plug?”

  “Sure, if I knew where the plug is. Sometimes it’s obvious, but, and I hate to say this, he’s good. Better than I thought, actually.”

  “So you need Neumann?”

  “I think so, yeah,” she says. “Think if you ask him nice he’ll take it off?”

  I don’t answer her.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Didn’t think so.”

  Where the Edgewood Arms is just as much a shithole in the daylight, Neumann’s mansion is radically different. It looks deceptively normal.

  Archie’s waxing the Bentley when I get to the gate. He sees me and comes over, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tattooed arms that would put the Yakuza to shame. They’re all patterns and words, none in English as far as I can see.

  “Mr. Sunday,” he says behind steel bars, gritting his teeth. “We weren’t expecting you.”

  “Nice shiner you got there, Arch,” I say pointing at the purple and black ring around his eye. “It looks really painful.”

  “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Yeah, I need to have a conversation with the old man. Neumann in?”

  He stares at me, like he’s trying to read my soul. Good for me. Pretty sure I don’t have one anymore.

  “I’ll see if he’s available.” The tone in his voice said “fuck you.” He turns and heads toward the house.

  “Hey,” I say. “Where’s the midget?” I thought those two were inseparable.

  “Eating squirrels,” he says over his shoulder, disappearing into the house. I don’t think he’s joking with me.

  There aren’t any security cameras that I can see, but I don’t doubt that Neumann has eyes everywhere—certainly if Carl’s anything to go by.