by Jason Ridler
“Nico, I’m James. How can I help you?”
Slowly, her hands unclasped her knees and rose to the edge of her hood. Spidery fingers pulled back the fabric as she leaned her head forward.
I killed my wince before it could reach my face.
Scars crisscrossed her face, as if she’d tried to kiss a rabid wolverine. Wild patterns. Not by a knife, nails, or talon. A beautiful face curtained by long dirty blond hair, marred with an attack of something not of this world. I tasted the dirty magic like a bad allergy, then swallowed the itchy flavor.
“Find who did this to me.”
CHAPTER 4
SHE WAS TROUBLE, AND NOT THE FUN KIND.
My interest in Nico evaporated the second I thought past her woe and considered my own. Alicia Price had nearly tanned my hide, and my survival depended on staying out of anything that tasted like magic. Because the more you start dipping back into the world of the strange, the unnatural, and the realm between reality and mystery, the more you’re playing with napalm and pretending it’s silly putty.
And yet that face . . .
“You said the police weren’t interested,” I said, playing with the little green ring on my left pinky. “Did you call them?”
Nico’s knees locked. “Found one in a car. He said . . . I had it coming.” She sniffed, and I could hear the wetness of her cheeks grow as the tears fled down her face and tapped on her lip. “Just because I’m an actress.”
Now, everyone in LA is an actress. Or an actor. Or former actor. Or a deluded soul who can’t understand why the studios haven’t found them yet, despite going to “The Julliard.” I’m the rarest of birds around Hollywood, since I did my performing on the road after I ran away from home to literally join the circus. Having seen the Carney side of success, tasted the spotlight of the three-ring and ten-in-on, I was never pulled into the black hole of the movie business like others in this town. My dream was just to get out of Oakland, and I ran into the infinite labyrinth of the arcane, but I knew everyone in the City of Angles said they were one thing, and were actually another.
Worse, Nico and her face full of feral scars had me curious. Which was an invitation to danger. “What kind of actress, if I might ask?”
“One with a dead career!” she cried.
Indeed. In LA, beauty was the first requirement of just about any job, and the most important quality. Crimson-tinged tears dripped off her chin. God, I just wanted to have that Dubonnet on ice, locked in my office like a Pharaoh’s treasure. I drove my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair, hoping to regain a modicum of composure. “I’m sorry, Nico.”
Her voice was hollow and reedy, the cadence of desperation. “No one believes me!”
Her cry was the subtext of my ad. I wanted what cops wouldn’t touch. Now my first client was crying at my door, Bee was waiting outside for rent, and the one thing I swore I’d never do once I was free of Edgar was to get anywhere near spitting distance of the world of magic . . .
. . . But the scars . . . like slashes. Grooves in rows of two. Not claws. No tiny weasel had ripped her flesh. Too wild to be a weapon in the hand of a junkie or head or drunk with the DTs. The attacker had gotten close. Already had her trust. My words fell gentle. “A friend did this to you.”
Her hands shook in front of her face, quiet blue eyes holding on to the delicate connection I’d made. “Yes.”
“Someone intimate.”
Her hands dropped to cover her mouth, her wounded beauty a relief map of suffering. “Yes.”
The scars didn’t retreat from my mind, but I’d always had an expansive view of beauty and found blemishes to be nature’s way of instilling charm. Without the scars, Nico was what my mother would call “a hell of a specimen.” Gorgeous. The looks to hang a career on before the crow’s feet and lifelines attacked. Thin, sharp nose; thick, soft lips in a gasping pout; bright blue eyes with angled eyebrows so that she looks either game or scared; and rich blond hair that had started to curl in the day’s heat and sweat. She’d fallen out of the pretty tree and hit every branch on the way down, a kid who’d just grown into a svelte but buxom curves that would make her twenties the happiest time of her life.
A life ruined in a day of violence.
“How did it happen?”
Her lips pursed into a sour puss. “You won’t believe it.”
She was my only client and if she walked away, Bee would be driving Lilith to bingo as collateral until I had a dime. “Try me.”
Nico pulled her knees to her perfect bosom, then inhaled hard. “We were on set. Today was the final day of shooting. And everyone was so good to us, made us feel so comfortable.” She blinked as if re-calculating her thoughts, then looked at me hard, the kind of stare that doesn’t want judgment but whose tone is so thin it can’t help but demand it. “It’s an art film.” Then the normal look of a kid at someone who’s seen more than forty winters. “It’s like Andy Warhol. You wouldn’t get it.”
I smiled. “I’m familiar with Mr. Soup Can.”
She exhaled a dismissive sigh. Her painted toes flexed in and out of her sandals. “Octavia wanted us to shoot at dawn, because of the light, but it was so cold it reminded me of Kansas.”
“Hometown?” Nico nodded. Which meant her real name sure as hell wasn’t Nico, not in real life. “And Octavia was the director?”
“No, producer.”
I nodded as if this was normal. But producers in this town never go on set unless there’s a fire, a starlet locked in her trailer, or as a PR stunt because the media is coming. And they sure as shit don’t touch “art” films. “Nico, you were shooting in the San Fernando valley this morning.”
Weak tears plied down her face. “It’s an art film.”
“Easy, Nico. I don’t care if you make space movies with Ed Wood, but I need to know the truth. You were in the Valley. The producer was there, and she wanted the dawn’s early light.”
She nodded. “It was going to be Maxine’s big moment.”
“Maxine . . .”
“Maxine Graham.”
“She was your co-star.”
Nico looked at me as if I’d said the ocean was in the sky. “She is the star.”
If Nico wasn’t the star before these scars, it made me wonder what kind of specimen Maxine was . . . And the thought dropped from my mind when I saw the horror blooming like tiny mushroom clouds in Nico’s deep blue eyes.
And part of me screamed Run, you idiot! Who cares about your tomfool detective agency? You know what you taste here. A whiff of the dark stuff. You wanted lame duck cases, guys cheating on their wives, insurance scams, petty junk you could outthink in a heartbeat and make spare coin and a nice bottle of Dubonnet at the end of the night . . . This kid . . . this case . . . everything says “Danger, James Brimstone!” and you don’t want to be dragged down again into Edgar’s world of true magic and charms and hexes and demons and nightmares. You owe no one anything now. You’re a free man. Don’t go back to prison for some lost girl from Kansas—
I ground my teeth. Nico’s eyes spelled ruin, and I knew it. The next thing uttered from my mush would either sink me or save me. Releasing the lock from my jaw, the words fell out.
“What happened to Maxine?”
Enjoy being late to your own funeral, idiot.
She buried her head in her hands. “She . . . she did this to me.”
The backdoor opened and sunlight turned our shadows into long stalks. As Nico drew her hood, Lace and Magenta strode down the hall, platform shoes thudding, Virginia tobacco and something sweeter in the air. Bee didn’t allow reefer in the club, but Lace wasn’t much for rules and Magenta thought they were safer than cigarettes controlled by a vast conspiracy of power that traced its roots to Atlantis.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her how right she was.
“Hard times, James?” Lace said. “Didn’t realize the hallway was your office.”
“Temporary arrangements. Now, ladies, if you don’t mind, I’d like a littl
e privacy.”
“You don’t control the hallways,” Magenta said. “Hey, girl, what are you trying to hide?”
Nico winced at the hint of conflict. This was a fight or flight moment.
“Easy,” I said, sliding my back up the wall to standing position and taking their soft and stoned eyes off of Nico. “I just want a quiet moment-”
“You won’t keep me quiet,” Magenta said, then poked my already sore chest. “I’m so tired of your voice around here, sounding sweet and doing nothing. You don’t think I know this whole detective thing is a front?” Nico’s hood faced Magenta. “That you’re probably spying on us for the FBI, or CIA, or the monsters at the RAND corporation down in Santa Monica.” Lace was no help, laughing at Magenta’s tirade. “I take orders from nobody, especially not some covert freak!”
Before I could utter a word, Nico was on her feet, running down the hall into the main showroom of the Thump & Grind. She ran with the speed of the terrified, past the dressing rooms, the kitchen, and private bathroom, straight for a beaded door.
Behind that door was the three hundred pound monster known as Jonah, so big you would have thought he’d been the one who swallowed a whale. But the last thing I wanted was Nico grabbed and subdued by our resident monster.
“Nico!” I said, dashing after her. “Stop!”
The screen of beads jangled as she drove through into the freshly polished dance floor, though she turned halfway too late. She was in the main room. Where I wasn’t to bring clients. Ever.
I cut through the curtain and found Nico in Jonah’s arms, mouth covered. Merle Haggard still blasted from the stereo about how “Momma Tried.”
“Staff only,” Jonah said, high and loud. Jonah had a speech impediment on account that he was partially deaf. I pitied anyone who chose to make fun of him, a six-foot-seven, chunky three hundred pounds of muscle stuffed into a tight blue Carpenters t-shirt, denim jeans, and shit-kicking engineer boots. Nico was too scared to move.
“She’s not staff, Jonah,” I said. “She’s scared. I’ll help her back into the hallway.”
“You broke the rules,” Jonah said, as Nico trembled.
“Relax, Jonah. She didn’t know the rules. And it’s not fair to punish someone for something they didn’t know, right?”
He thought about it.
“I’m sorry she came out her, okay? She’s my responsibility. You really want Bee coming in here and seeing you strangling a girl?”
Jonah tipped his head down. “I’m just holding her.”
“She doesn’t want to be held, Jonah. That can feel like being strangled. And the last thing Bee needs is clown car of LA’s finest coming in here because a young lady wished to use the bathroom and got accosted by Hercules.”
I would not say Jonah was slow. He was a fair sight smarter than many gave him credit. And he was not rash.
So it damn near flipped my wig when Nico bit his hand.
The giant screamed. Nico ducked out of his raised mitts, darted past the main stage and headed toward the Gentlemen’s Booths: the alley of sad men and strong memories. And, go figure, it was a cul-de-sac.
I ran after her, Jonah’s long legs on my tail, and slid across the polished floor. Jonah, thank God, followed suit. He shuffled like a tap-dancing spider and slipped so hard he landed on his side. It bought breathing space and a sliver of hope as I caught up with Nico while she gunned it down the hall.
Nico ran to the last door on the right, opened it, and slammed it closed on my wingtip. Pain snapped up my spine, like I’d become one-man Tesla coil, but I managed to wedge myself in and shut the door behind me. She ran to the corner and retook the fetal position. I yanked one of the plush chairs and jammed it under the door handle. Then I cut the distance between us in half. “Look, Jonah’s going to rip open that door like a TV dinner in seconds.” I kneeled, putting the weight on the balls of my feet. “Nico, listen. Something happened to you. Something you can’t explain. Something that isn’t a bad trip. Something attacked your face. Bit it. Repeatedly. Right?”
Her wet eyes glared at me from the maw of her hood. The doorknob shook. Jonah’s shoulder hammered the door and cracked the frame.
“I’ll take your case.”
The chair skidded a few steps.
“But I’ll need a retainer.”
Jonah grunted as his shoulder tackles started to push the chair. Nico’s hand emerged from the kangaroo pocket. Ten hundred-dollar bills were scrunched in her fist. “Is this enough?”
“Bah!” The door sprang open and Jonah was in.
I yanked the cash, pushed it in my lapel like a greenback handkerchief. “Indeed.”
Then I turned to subdue the giant.
CHAPTER 5
“JONAH, SHE’S MY CLIENT,” WERE THE LAST WORDS I SPAT before I was ducking and weaving his giant soup-bone fists.
He was fast for a big man, but all offense, so I kept drawing him into the room so his long reach was extended. My back hit the wall.
Damn.
“Hit the lights!” I told Nico.
Jonah charged. “Rah!”
He jabbed left, and my left palm blocked it as if it were a sparring match: the sting from impact shot through me like moonshine. Then a right cross forged its way through the air with a bull’s eye painted on my jaw, just before the room went dark.
Everything slowed.
I move a tad faster in the dark, as if it were my natural element, courtesy of a dozen wrestlers, prize fighters, and street shooters who would teach me in pre-dawn, when they began their insane training regimes.
My Night Eyes snapped to life. Nico’s form was gently illuminated, but the scratches on her face were a supernatural pox of scars. I hate violence more than anything. It’s the lowest form of entertainment. But it also happens to be ridiculously popular with young angry men, including the one whose right left cross was cruising at me like an ICBM.
I ducked under the blow and heard the crunch of bone against wall. Jonah’s aura was frazzled white, innocent but damaged and manipulated. He was no monster. Which is why I wouldn’t hurt him bad. The big man was just doing his job, playing his part, and didn’t really mean any harm.
Shoulder to his gut, I hooked both tree-trunk legs for a double takedown any beginning wrestler would know, but I was willing to bet the fresh paycheck in my fine attire that this gentle giant had never worked the mats.
Jonah’s back slapped ground, and he turned to his right to get up, exposing his neck. Viper-quick, I snaked my arms around his neck, locked my bicep under his chin, and hooked my right hand on my left forearm as my left hand cupped the back of his head. Everything cinched in what Dr. Fuji had called a “blood choke”: Do it right, and it’s good night, sweet prince. Do it wrong, and it’s ninety-nine-to-life.
Jonah railed against the growing pressure and deepening darkness. He yanked himself to his knees, me riding him like an afterschool piggyback. He tried tossing, flinging, and ditching me with the intent of a career bull who hated the rodeo. Then his chest sagged as the carbon dioxide slipped out of his lungs but no air snuck back in. He tried flipping me forward but I just hung there, a knot on a giant’s back. Meaty digits dug into my forearm, but his strength dipped, and his nails scratched my skin, pulse fading fast.
“Nico! Lights!”
The world snapped back as I released myself from Jonah and slid off his back.
The giant dropped to his knees, rolled on his back, and lay there exposed, right hand swelling into an even bigger, uglier fist.
I exhaled with a whistle, then looked at Nico. “Well, I hope that gives you some faith that I know what I’m doing.”
Nico’s hood nodded, then she shirked away from the door as Queen Bee stood there, a blackjack in her fist and two cooks behind her. “Now what is the meaning of all this!”
“Easy,” I said. “Bee, I told you I had a client.”
She came forward. The cooks, Hector and Ramirez, flanked her with a rolling pin and a butcher knife apiece. �
�You mean you weren’t abusing a private booth and Jonah caught you?” said Bee.
I motioned Nico to my side and, thank Zeus and Co., she followed. “No. Nico’s in a bit of trouble and I’m going to help her out. She just signed on with the Odd Job Squad and thought she could leave through the front door, not knowing our special arrangement. Jonah was doing the right thing for the wrong reason, and now I really must get on to the case. Oh, and I’ve got your rent. So I’d like my car.” I took out eight of the ten bills from my pocket.
Bee grinned. “Plus interest.”
I took out another and waited. Bee could suck me dry of my last Benjamin if she wanted to for the hassles I’d caused.
She laid out her palm and I crossed it with the greenbacks. Her pink talons closed around them. “Wake up my giant, please?” she ordered her two culinary bodyguards.
“Now, that we’re jake,” I said, “I need to take my client to my office so there won’t be any more confusion.”
She snorted. “You’ve paid your abode rental, not your office rental.”
“What?” I said. “That’s shooting dirty pool!”
“And the house always wins. Hundred dollars, Brimstone,” she said. “Or it doubles.”
One Ben Franklin left. And you can’t run a case on charm and empty gas tanks alone.
I inhaled hard and turned to Nico. “I gave you all I had,” she said.
I turned back to Bee. My anger cools quickly, which is one reason I’ve survived forty winters. The logic of my next action fell out pretty simply: it was better to take a case with a hundred dollars and no office than the reverse. I turned with a smile. “I’ll get it to you tomorrow. Right now? I need Lilith.”
Bee dug into her purse, tossed the silver key.
I escorted Nico past Bee. “Tell Jonah I’m sorry for the bad dreams. If he wants, I’ll teach him how to get out of that sleeper.”
