Circle of Enemies: A Twenty Palaces Novel

by Harry Connolly

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s our understanding that nothing was taken?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well, as I told the cops, if I’d been robbed, there’d be someplace to put down a drink. But it’s not just that. I double-checked against the list.”

  “The list?”

  “The list of antiques,” Lino said, waving reluctantly toward the room as though he was obligated to show it. “It’s what I do.”

  “What do you mean?” Talbot asked. “How is it what you do?”

  He folded his hands over his little paunch as though holding his guts in. “I’m something of a curator—a historian by training. I earned my Ph.D. at a little Texas college you probably never heard of, then fell off the tenure track. I came to L.A. for … actually, I’m not sure why I came. Hope, I guess. Hope for something better. Not that I found it. I was about to take a job teaching for the L.A. Unified when I noticed an ad in the paper for this place.

  “This is my home, but I don’t own it. It’s the official residence of another man—I just live and work here. His inheritance is in the form of a trust—it’s a great deal of money, but to access it, he has to maintain this family antique collection in his own home.”

  “He lives here, too?” Talbot asked.

  Lino looked a little uncomfortable. “As I mentioned, this is officially his home. In reality, he spends three hundred sixty-five days out of the year traveling, often to his vacation home in Bel Air. The trustee turns a blind eye to it, if you understand my meaning. The owner visits once a month to check on things. It’s my job to keep the house and make sure the antiques are maintained.”

  “That’s it?” Talbot said.

  Lino spread his palms as though he couldn’t believe it, either. “The terms of the trust require my services, so I am here. I’m not paid very much, but my duties give me ample free time to work on personal projects—”

  “That’s what you do for a living?” Talbot let his scorn show. “Dust all this shit and play the latest Splinter Cell?”

  “Talbot,” I said, trying to cut in.

  “Oh, I’ll bet the chicks just love you, Mr. Inheritance—”

  Lino sprang to his feet, and so did Talbot. I found myself between them, right in Talbot’s face.

  “You get out of here right now,” I said. My voice was low, but every other part of me was burning adrenaline. Did he have a gun? A spell like my ghost knife? I imagined myself going for his eyes and balls—hell, I had golem flesh now. I could lean in to his throat and start chewing. Anything—anything—to get him to shut up and back off.

  “You don’t scare me.” He tried to stare me down. There was something odd in his expression. He seemed angry and confused, as though we were doing something dangerous he didn’t understand.

  “You are fucking this job up,” I said, “and you don’t even know why. Get out of here. This part isn’t for you.”

  He stepped back and held up his hands. “You know what? You’re right. Sitting around chatting isn’t what I’m on this job for. I’ll leave that to you.”

  He walked out of the room. I followed him into the hall and watched him slam the door behind him.

  He was gone. I took deep breaths, trying to pull in my anger.

  “I do not have an inheritance!” Lino said. “No! I worked very hard for my degrees. Many hours! Many late nights! I still work hard on other work!” He waved at the desk in the corner. “Is it so wrong to have a good job? I’m asking you. Is it wrong to have a good job and to own a game console?”

  “No,” I said. My voice sounded strangled. Lino’s raised voice was making my adrenaline pump harder. It took all my concentration to not punch him in the mouth so he would shut the fuck up. But I couldn’t do that, because I needed information from him and because he had a right to be angry.

  “Yes, I play games sometimes. It’s a very relaxing thing to shoot zombies in the head.” A note of humor came back into his voice as his anger subsided. I kept my mouth shut. I kept my control. “What I shouldn’t do is jump from my chair when I’m insulted by someone bigger, fitter, and fifteen years younger. Thank you for getting between us. I think you saved me from a thorough beating.”

  “I’m sorry for bringing him here. I didn’t know.”

  Lino looked at me and his whole expression changed. “Are you all right? Do you want a glass of water?”

  I said yes, so he would leave the room for a couple of moments while I got myself together. When he returned with a tall glass of chlorine-scented water, I took a long pull. He gestured for us to return to our seats, and I made a point of using the coaster.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And thank you for not throwing me out.”

  “You’re welcome. We were talking about the list, weren’t we? Would you like to see it?”

  “I don’t know yet. I don’t think so. Did the burglar take any money?”

  Lino sighed heavily. “I wish I had money to take.”

  He had gone right back into the interview, which helped me steady myself again. I was grateful. “Does a woman live here with you?”

  “What?”

  “You know that some of these … odd break-ins have been attacks on women.”

  “Rapes, you mean.” He said it with the air of a man who didn’t like comforting euphemisms. “No. There are no women here. The trust has provisions for spouses and such, but I live alone. I’m an introvert and I find the quiet soothing. I don’t even open the curtains that often. I do have a partner, but he doesn’t like the collection. He finds it unsettling.”

  That made things clear enough. “Does the owner ever have people stay here? Friends or relatives visiting from out of town, maybe?”

  “Not here. Mr. Francois doesn’t even bring his wife here. He has nicer accommodations across town.”

  “Wait. What was that name?”

  Lino stood and crossed to the mantel. “Mr. Steven Francois,” he said. He took down a framed photo and handed it to me. “That is him there, with his wife. He keeps personal items here as part of the ruse that this is his home.”

  The photo showed Linen—Steve Francois—on a beach somewhere with a towel over his bony shoulder. The woman beside him, his wife, was tall, thin, and blond, with a Doris Day haircut. Her smile had the cool superiority of self-righteous affluence.

  “I don’t know where that was taken,” Lino said as he returned it to the mantel. “I don’t like to ask personal questions of my employer. His manner doesn’t encourage it.”

  I tried to imagine how Swizzle Stick fit in. “Do they travel together a lot?”

  “Sometimes. Not always.” Lino shrugged. “They are both quite rich—her more than him, even. They live unusual lives.”

  I gestured toward the picture. “She looks tough. Are they having any problems? Money or marriage?”

  He gave me a look. “I don’t pry into his personal life.”

  “I have to ask,” I said. “If she wanted to hurt him, could she do something to violate the terms of the trust? Hire someone to steal something and break up the collection?”

  “I don’t believe so, but I don’t know all the details of the trust. Also, I don’t see why she’d bother. Her family runs a successful law firm, and she is one of the top litigators in the country. If there was a problem between them, it would be played out in a courtroom, I think. Not here.”

  I could see that he was uncomfortable with the subject, so I changed it. “What about the video? I saw the marks on the door out front and the camera.”

  “Yes.” He sounded grateful to talk about it. “The police collected the disc and the machine as evidence. The camera isn’t plugged into anything anymore. Sorry. I did watch the video before I reported the break-in, obviously.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing to tell. I came home from my trip. I was surprised to see the front gate standing open. I didn’t even realize it had been broken until later; I thought I’d for
gotten to lock it. The door was open slightly. I saw the scratches and pushed it wide. When I walked in … it felt weird, you know? I was suddenly really afraid, as if I would find a burglar waiting for me. I went inside anyway. Only one … nothing was missing. I checked the security camera, and it had been turned off. I played the last fifteen minutes that it had recorded and …”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing. The video showed the front stair and front walk, but there was nothing to see. After a while, the door burst inward suddenly as though it was hit by the wind. A minute or so later the video ended.”

  Something was off about this story, but I couldn’t figure what. “Can I see where the machine was set up?”

  Lino shrugged and led me into the hall. On the other side of the house was a small library, although it had more knickknacks than books. He opened a little closet and showed me a bare shelf with a bundle of wires running out of the wood. “The insurance company lowered the rates when the trustee put this in, for all the good it did.”

  “Could someone have been standing to the side when—”

  “No,” Lino answered, as though he’d answered that question many times. “The video showed the whole door. You saw how the camera was placed. I haven’t moved it since it was installed.”

  “What did you see that made you afraid? Why did you say ‘Only one’?”

  He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then shuffled his feet. “Come with me.”

  He led me to the dining room at the end of the hall. There were cupboards along each wall, with more plates and odd objects displayed on shelves. There was a place setting at the table, with a bowl of pita chips sitting out. Lino snacked on one as he walked by.

  “See this?” He indicated a not-quite-square mirror about two feet wide. “The frame is walnut with gold leaf.”

  I expected him to tell me he had seen a reflection in the mirror, but it wasn’t positioned where he could see it from the front hall. Next he showed me a surgeon’s kit—a wooden case filled with knives, saws, and needles. Then he showed me a battered copper kettle, a drum with an eagle on the side, an apothecary balance that predated the Revolutionary War, and a daguerreotype of a husband and wife who had been friends of the owner’s great-great-grandfather.

  Why was he giving me the tour? I leaned close to the picture and studied the faces. I half expected to recognize them. “They don’t look like anyone’s friends.”

  “Dour, aren’t they? And over here—”

  “Lino, you were going to show me something.” He was standing next to a wooden object that I could never have guessed the purpose of. He looked both confused and secretive. He glanced down at the shelf beside him, and I followed his gaze.

  There was a little metal sculpture on the shelf near the items Lino had been describing to me. It showed a seated man with an open book in his lap, while a second man behind him chopped off his head with a sword. In fact, the figure was in midstroke, and only a little bit of the seated man’s neck still connected his head to his shoulders.

  I leaned in close, even though it seemed like an unbearable imposition on Lino’s privacy to do it. The swordsman didn’t have a face—was he wearing a hood? It didn’t seem so. The seated man’s face looked serene. I guessed he’d finished the book.

  “When I came into the house after the break-in,” Lino said, “this little statue had been moved into the hall. Someone had taken it off the shelf and set it down right in the middle of the floor over there.”

  Lino offered me another glass of water, and I gratefully accepted. I wasn’t thirsty, but it felt good to follow him into the kitchen away from the statue—it felt profoundly wrong to pay attention to it.

  This had happened to me before, I suddenly realized. Some kinds of magic—very powerful magic—could make you think certain thoughts. Every time I looked at that statue, I felt like I was intruding on someone’s privacy, and it was unbearable.

  Which was ridiculous. I used to be a car thief, after all. I’ve intruded on quite a few private spaces in my time, and I never gave a damn. I’d also spent time in prison, where guys did every private thing you can imagine in full view, from crying like a baby over a letter scrawled in crayon to beating off to rape. Now that I was outside, I was protective of my privacy and happy to let others have theirs, but I didn’t have shame. Not that kind, anyway.

  Which meant I was being magically controlled. I reached up and touched the space under my right collarbone where Annalise had put an iron-gate spell. It was supposed to protect me from mental attacks, but it hadn’t even twinged. I didn’t know what that meant, but it made me nervous.

  And it told me that damn statue was important.

  “Tell me about the statue,” I said. It took an effort.

  Lino turned away from me and picked up a little pot on the stove. He moved to a makeshift plastic funnel by the side window and emptied the pot into it. I heard the water run through the pipe and out the window.

  “There’s a drought on,” he said. “I have a rain barrel in the back and a drip irrigation system for the plants. All my tea, pasta water, and such flows into the yard. Very water-efficient. I even have a pump for the bathtub.”

  “Lino,” I said, keeping myself focused and my gaze direct. “Tell me about the statue.”

  Lino glanced at the door, as though the little statue might be standing there watching him. “It’s part of the collection.”

  “Nothing unusual about it?”

  “I don’t like it,” he said. “Some of the antiques are gross or disturbing. There’s a room in the upstairs back that has some ugly stuff in it: pictures of lynchings, heads in jars … weird, awful stuff. I enter that room only when the maintenance schedule requires. This statue … I would have put it up there, too, but it fits better where it is.”

  That was it. We talked about his friends, whether he thought the statue was put there as a threat, who might want to threaten him, new people he’d met recently, and so on. It was all an excuse to find out if he’d met Wally King, and what he might know about him, but he never mentioned Wally, and with the way Wally looked, he would have. He did admit that he wondered if the statue had been moved to frighten him, because it had worked. He couldn’t imagine who would do that, though.

  I thanked him for his time, and he led me out. As I passed the statue, I wondered why it was so heavily enchanted, but really, that was none of my business, was it?

  Outside in the car, Annalise was still sitting in the back, with Talbot behind the wheel and Csilla beside him. I had the impression they had been silent for a long time. At least they had air-conditioning.

  Talbot pulled into the road before I could buckle up. Annalise turned to me. “Well?”

  I almost said I didn’t learn anything, but the way Annalise was staring at me let me know that was a bad idea. And that was the enchantment at work, still controlling me. I didn’t like to be controlled. “Steve Francois has a little statue with a spell on it. Actually, I should say I noticed one statue with a spell—the spell may be on his whole collection. You know I’m no expert, boss, but it seemed really powerful.”

  Csilla turned to look at me, then at Annalise. She seemed impressed. Annalise said: “That’s right, but not everyone makes note of it. We’ve known about that statue for years, but there isn’t a lot we can do about it. It can’t be stolen, bought, or given away.”

  “How did you get him to talk about it?” Csilla asked.

  “It wasn’t too difficult,” I said. “He was nervous about it. Someone had moved it during the break-in.”

  Csilla and Annalise looked at each other, and I could tell I’d just said something important.

  No one spoke for a while. Csilla seemed to drift off into her own thoughts. Finally, Talbot said: “Where do I go?” No one answered. “Ms. Foldes?”

  Csilla didn’t answer him. She just stared at a spot on the dash. Annalise spoke up. “Back to the hotel.”

  I stared out the window while we drove. Steve
Francois was mixed up in this mess, and I didn’t think he knew it. Just before the gunshots started in Wally’s motel, Arne had said, By the time Luther came to us, his debt was paid in full. I asked him what he’d done, and he took me to the—

  Took him where? It had to have been Lino Vela’s house. Before Wally even offered the predators to Arne and the rest, he’d sent Luther into Lino’s house to shut off the video surveillance system, then he’d tried to steal that statue. Tried and failed.

  Later, Luther had brought Arne to the house. They probably saw Francois show up in his damn Bugatti to check on the break-in, and Arne, buzzing with the idea that he was about to get a super power, threw away all his usual cautions and went after him.

  In the underground hotel parking lot, Talbot had to help Csilla out of the car. She didn’t seem infirm, but she moved like a sleepwalker. Annalise hung back and so did I.

  “What’s going on with her?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” Annalise said. “Not really. She’s just very old. Peers that survive a long, long time sometimes begin to withdraw from the world. She has lucid moments and can still do magic—I couldn’t have laid golem flesh on you; it’s not in my book and it would have been such a weak spell that it would have been useless. But it’s hard for her to stay engaged. I don’t know if it’s because of the spells or because they’re centuries old, but it happens.”

  “Should she even be out here?”

  “No. I’d planned to ask her to help clean up Hammer Bay, but now that I look at her …”

  Uh-oh. Hammer Bay was the first job Annalise and I had ever gone on. She’d been injured and I’d been forced to leave a huge, scary predator alive, trapped in a circle, because I had no way to kill it. That was nearly a year and a half ago. “Boss, what needs to be cleaned up in Hammer Bay?”

  “The predator there is still alive, obviously. No one in the society is quite sure how to kill it without a risk of escape.”