His gaze flicked down at my trousers and buttoned-up blouse. “My mistake,” he said at a normal volume before getting all shouty again. “Repent nonetheless, sinner!”
“I’ve done nothing but repent since I got here, and a fat lot of good it’s done me. God doesn’t give a shit about anybody in this city.” I pressed ten bucks into his hand. “You don’t need to punish yourself. Lost Angeles does it for you. Do yourself a favor when you wake up and buy yourself a decent meal.”
He stared at the money, face contorted with longing as his stomach rumbled. He balled up the ten spot, dropped it, and began punching himself in the traitorous gut. He continued to do so as he weaved away through traffic to harass the last of the crowds.
Soon enough, the streets were empty. I couldn’t see the tower from where I lurked, but when the last ray of light had slid off the facade of the Lucky Deal, I heard the thrumming of wings. Sid fell to his knees and crossed himself. I’d never taken him for a religious man. It was a bit late anyway. Hundreds of Torments thudded onto roofs, ledges, and sidewalks. They perched above and around like crows, flicking their wings out of existence, and then melted through whatever obstacle stood between them and their targets. My heart lurched as one dove in my direction. For a moment, I cursed Laureen for a welcher, but the creature turned in an arc halfway down and landed in front of Sid. His eyes were squeezed shut, his lips moving as he recited a prayer. Sid’s reflected face oozed out of the tar, lips moving in synchronicity. The Torment stalked forward until it came nose to nose with the praying man. Then, like two reflections melding in a funhouse mirror, the Torment oozed into him and was gone. Sid toppled sideways and lay still.
After a few minutes, I stuck my head out and looked up, like a woman sheltering from a thunderstorm checking to see if the rain had passed. The sky was clear. Laureen had kept her side of the bargain. I wanted to yell my freedom at the top of my lungs, but Cajetan was eerily quiet, the screams that had heralded the approach of the beasts now stilled. It felt wrong, almost sacrilegious, to break the silence—so much so that I tiptoed over to Sid’s prone form. Every muscle on his face lay slack, and his chest appeared still. When I leaned in to check for breath, wondering if the Torments tore our souls out of our bodies and left them lifeless for the duration of the punishment, his eyes snapped open. Black viscous fluid, seething like boiling oil, coated the eyeballs. Images formed in the shifting, shining surface: a cramped basement with a single foldaway chair and a low table, one man looming over another, a tight huddle of three figures pressing in behind. As I leaned closer, a black tendril wavered out as though searching for me. I leaped back, and the questing strand collapsed into Sid’s hideous black gaze.
His hands flexed as he whispered, his voice racked with pain, “I’m sorry, Petey. I got no choice. You know that, right?” Then his voice grew loud and strong, full of forced bravado. “Tie him to the chair real tight. He’s gonna squirm some.”
I backed away. Sid was trapped in there, reliving his worst sin, the one that filled him with shame and regret. I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to hear, didn’t want to watch his face writhe in sorrow as he went through it all again. It felt wrong, like eavesdropping at a confessional. I knew I wouldn’t want anybody to stand over me and watch as I suffered. I’d been considering wandering the city for the next four hours to take it all in, but I’d already seen enough. I rushed home, ignoring the few other twitching bodies caught outside when the storm came. Voices mumbled and shouted from my neighbors’ apartments as I took the stairs two at a time and fumbled to unlock the door. I dropped onto my bed and wrapped a pillow around my ears. Broken and shattered shrieks, a hundred times worse than those that emanated when the Torments first made their approach, began to echo around the city.
Every city has its own character and energy—its own soul, if you want to get all philosophical—charged and kept alive by the thoughts, dreams, and actions of the residents. In most places, the basic goodness of ordinary folk outweighed the darker desires and acts of the few, and so you got a good vibe. In some cities, where crime and vice proliferated, you felt a shadow that told you not to let your guard down, although never anything strong enough to overwhelm the spirit. But sin defined Lost Angeles; it soaked into every stone, vibrated in every molecule, and tainted the air. The appalling weight of the sin, concentrated by the simultaneous torture, pinned me to my mattress.
I needed to escape, to drown out the screams somehow, but I could barely lift my hand to wipe the sweat from my brow. Had I owned a record player, I could have turned it up full blast and smothered the worst of the anguished cacophony. But like I said, music wasn’t readily available in Lost Angeles, save for the ropy bands who played their homemade instruments in the casinos and clubs. I hurried to the toilet to pry up the loose tile and retrieve The Big Sleep. Back in bed, I tried to focus on the words and conjure up the comforting spirit of my father. For once, it didn’t work.
9
I rolled down Providence at one in the morning, heading for the dingy underpass that led to the other side of Route 666 and into Astghik. My vision was blurry, my mouth was parched, and my chest was tight after hours of listening to the fractured howl of a city under the thrall of the Torments. In some ways, I felt worse than I did after emerging from killing Danny. At least that was a familiar pain, one resulting from my actions alone. I owned it, and it owned me. What I felt now was a psychic hangover induced by the collective bludgeon of millions of living nightmares of violence, treachery, greed, and sorrow. I concentrated on the simple act of driving in an effort to clear my mind. I would need to be focused when I spoke to Alexis. If her boyfriend had been involved in the robbery and had gone into hiding to avoid repercussions, she would be reticent to talk. I would have to find the correct angle of approach and be charming, which wouldn’t be easy in my current black humor.
Once through the underpass—which was littered with the tattered bedding and cardboard lean-tos of the homeless—Providence turned into Chanchanian Way. Hrag was no shrinking violet, so when he took over the sex trade, he set about changing the names of the district and its streets. As Hrag was fond of telling anybody who would listen, he’d renamed his district after the Armenian goddess of love. God knows why he chose her, as there was precious little love on show around Astghik. Maybe there wasn’t a goddess of panting perverts in Armenia.
This was a conceit not uncommon among the Trustees. Before Yama’s time, Diyu was known as Swedenborg, thus named by the maniac of Swedish descent who’d run it until he’d joined the list of the missing. The Seven Gates, where Adnan al Kassar dealt in guns, bombs, and other assorted weaponry aimed at turning people into gloopy piles of flesh, was once named Irkalla. Under the control of Sofia Busco, the district that handled the city’s food supplies became Il Terzo Livello. The financial district, where Wayne Beat ran everything from small-time moneylending concerns to big banks, was once called Mammon. He changed it to the FD, presumably to add some gravitas and make him seem less like the grasping swine he was. Two of the seven Trustee-run districts—Eleutherios, where Jean-Paul Guyot took care of the booze, and Cajetan, named after the Catholic patron saint of gamblers—had retained their names for the duration of my stay. Only Tyrell Jackson, who controlled the gas trade, didn’t have his own turf. He didn’t need one, as gas stations had to be spread geographically.
The perverts were out in force already in Astghik, drooling in lines outside the brothels, cinemas, and peep shows that screamed their wares in multicolored neon lights: bondage, orgies, gang bangs, torture, necrophilia (you had to be quick on the draw, as the object of lust didn’t stay dead for long), and pretty much any peccadillo money could buy. The customers were mainly male, which meant the few women seeking pleasure spent much of their time fending off sleazy propositions. Hrag’s boys kept the most persistent johns in line—the women’s money was as good as the men’s, and he wanted all his customers to feel comfortable. One of them was busy dragging a red-faced and yelling octog
enarian in erection-tented sweatpants away from a stunning blonde dressed in a long overcoat that didn’t quite hide the fringes of her black leather S&M outfit.
Hrag, who fancied himself a fashion designer, decked out his crew personally. Around their uniformly bulky necks, they sported heavy faux-gold chains, which also served well when somebody was in need of a punitive choking. They wore black leotards, ideal for fighting, as the tight fabric gave nothing to grab onto. Mercifully for my eyes, metal codpieces obscured their groins. Knee-high purple boots added a splash of color to the ensemble, and the pierced left ear of each contained a wide stud upon which a portrait of Hrag’s mug grinned. The outfits were so farcical, like pimped-up versions of Alex’s gang from A Clockwork Orange, that anybody who saw them should have laughed. Nobody did.
The studio was set off from the main hub of sexual affray, but some johns were lined up outside. Hrag never passed up a chance to make cash, so those who liked to watch their sexual violence in the flesh could pay to spectate from the peanut gallery. I lashed out ten bucks for the privilege of mounting a narrow set of metal stairs to the rows of benches overlooking the bright studio lights. I selected a spot in the far corner at the front and gave it a good inspection for sticky patches before gingerly lowering myself to a seated position.
Hrag sat in the director’s chair, his blond hair gelled up into spikes so it looked like a crown. He was bawling into a megaphone with such venom that his tattooed neck had turned scarlet. On set, amidst bales of hay and makeshift wooden stalls, a makeup artist was putting the final touches on a slender woman with copper-red hair. She had a creamy complexion and a natural blush to her cheeks. The makeup artist was applying white powder and smudging mascara around her eyes. The actress wore a matching lacy black bra and panties that showed off her athletic body. I dreaded to think what flimsy plotline Hrag had concocted to bring about such a state of undress. Offstage, a hulking brute in dungarees, an obviously fake hunchback, and a clown mask was preparing for his role, rolling his neck and theatrically brandishing an axe. Finally, everything was ready, and the crew scuttled off to their places.
“I want real emotion,” Hrag shouted. “Fear. Rage. Lust. Nail it into the motherfucking ground. Make my guts churn. Alexis, remember this is sexy time. I want every paying customer rigid.”
“Hunchbacked Axe Clown Rape-Murder Gang Vengeance, scene sixteen, take one,” a flunky yelled and snapped his clapboard.
I grimaced. Hrag was as subtle as a bull in a red-cape factory, so I hadn’t been expecting much in the way of nuance and sparkling dialogue. The title suggested the film would be worse than I’d thought.
Alexis explored the fictional barn, looking for places to hide in a way that involved lots of bending over. She finally settled on one of the hay bales and crouched behind it, a tuft of hair sticking over the top. Somebody snapped a piece of wood offstage, a pitiful attempt to simulate a door being kicked in, and the killer clown blundered onto the set. He slung the axe over his shoulder and undid the catches on the dungarees.
“I gots me a big old present fer ya, girly,” he cooed, hamming up the country bumpkin accent as his dungarees fell to the floor to reveal his bare ass. He’d obviously been hired for his size, not his acting skills.
I got up to leave, feeling nauseated. Now that I knew what Alexis looked like, I didn’t have to witness whatever horrific scene was about to unfold. When I reached the back of the gallery, however, the door was locked. A light above the exit glowed red. I turned around, looking for another way out, as the clown sneaked up to the hay bale behind which Alexis was so ineptly hiding. The perverts were leaning forward, all pink and sweaty. If I’d had the axe, I would have used it to detach some genitals. The sick bastards were all hot and bothered at the thought of seeing a beautiful young woman raped and chopped to pieces.
As I was about to squeeze my eyes shut and put my fingers in my ears, Alexis somersaulted out from behind the hay bale, sailing clean over the axe clown’s head. In her hand flashed a wicked steel hook of the kind country folk leave lying around in barns for no discernible reason other than to provide handy weapons for B-movie plots. Alexis landed in a stance of perfect poise and grace and swung the hook into the clown’s meaty calf. Blood spurted, and he let out a roar of pain far more convincing than his dialogue, largely because it was real. Alexis yanked the hook out, bringing a fresh red spray. He flailed at her with the axe. She swayed, all lithe and sinuous muscle. The blade whispered past her ear. The hook flashed again as she buried it in his wrist. The axe fell to the floor. She kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling onto his back.
“Your gang of hunchbacked axe clown rapists done raped and killed my sister,” Alexis spat, bending over to pick up the axe. “Now I’m gunning for all y’all. I’m gonna make me a necklace outta your dicks.”
“Please!” the clown yelled, arms crossed in front of his face. “I gots me a family!”
Alexis turned side-on, giving the camera a lingering look at her heaving, blood-smeared cleavage. “Not for long,” she said, advancing.
Now I did close my eyes. The meaty thuds and screams were almost as bad as watching.
“Cut!” Hrag yelled.
The crowd cheered. I opened my eyes to see that they were on their feet and applauding. Down below, Alexis was now wearing the clown mask and holding the axe aloft, her firm thighs spread-eagled into a killing stance. Once she’d milked the applause, she bowed to her fans. I blinked in unison with the rest of the spectators, and the axe clown gasped back to life. Alexis bent over to help her fellow actor, gore-splattered and groggy, to his feet.
“Brutal work, people,” Hrag shouted into his megaphone. “Take thirty while we change the set.”
The door clicked open, and the audience filed out, chatting happily amongst themselves and pulling out notebooks. Autograph hunters. It seemed Alexis was as big a name as Enitan had said. I tagged along with the throng, down the stairs and up a corridor until everyone butted up against one of Hrag’s toughs, who looked like he’d pumped enough iron to build the Empire State Building.
“No autographs at the moment,” he said, prompting a murmur of disappointment. “Ms. Black needs to rest before her next scene.”
The starstruck crowd trooped away. I stayed put. “I need a word with Alexis.”
“No autographs, I said.”
I pulled out a twenty. He shook his head. I sighed and added a second. This job was going to end up costing me. I should have haggled for expenses too. He glanced up and down the corridor, magicked the money into his codpiece, and waved me through. “Ten minutes, then you need to beat it.”
I knocked on the door of Alexis’s dressing room and went in without waiting for an answer. She had one long leg up on the table and was massaging her calf.
“No, you can’t buy my panties,” she said without looking up.
“I was thinking of a swap.”
She looked up, eyes narrowing as she took me in. “You’re not one of the usual droolers. What do you want?”
I hadn’t been able to think up a soft approach, so I jumped right in. “I’m looking for Sebastian.”
She whisked her leg around, so fast that I had no time to react, and landed a ferocious blow on my temple. She took advantage of my stagger to sweep my legs out from under me. I had barely landed before she was sitting on me. She wrenched my arm up my back to the point of breaking. “You idiots don’t give up, do you? I told your pals I don’t know where he is.”
“Lay off,” I said, keeping my voice low. The last thing I needed was Hrag’s guy busting in and joining the party. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“That’s good, because you’re very bad at it. Tell your boss if he sends anybody else, I’ll set Hrag on him. He doesn’t like anybody messing with his star. Now get the fuck out of my dressing room.”
She released my arm and stepped on my head on the way back to her dressing table. I rolled over to rub my aching shoulder.
“I get the feel
ing Hrag sets you on people who mess with him,” I said, clambering to my feet and backing off to a safe distance. “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“Hrag talent spotted me in the Colosseum, which I tell you by way of giving you another reason to get lost.”
“You’ve got me all wrong. I’m a private investigator. My name’s Kat Murphy.” Now she looked up. “You know Enitan. He told me I should come see you about Sebastian.”
“And he told me where I could find you. Seems we were meant to be. Why didn’t you come? Too busy cracking heads?”
“Something like that. Are you here touting for work?”
I was about to say no, but I realized this, bless Enitan’s cotton socks, was my angle. Getting her to hire me would be the best way to make her talk. Plus it would cover some of my expenses for the many more bribes I would likely have to pay as I searched for Laureen’s box. “If you want him found, I’m your woman.”
“How much do you charge?”
I looked around the dressing room. It was spacious, with a big silver mirror and a leather sofa. A bottle of champagne sat on the table, and the dresses hanging in the wardrobe looked plush. “Five hundred bucks a day,” I said, quoting her twice my usual Lost Angeles fee.
“At that rate, I’d have thought you could afford better clothes.” She hesitated. “Are you as good as Enitan says?”
“Worth every cent and then some. Tell you what. Since you gave me such a warm welcome, I’ll give you a free consultation in return. Then you can decide if you want to engage my services.”
She slipped into a fluffy dressing gown and cinched the cord. “Okay, hotshot. Strut your stuff.”
“When did Sebastian go missing?”
“A few days ago.”
“Any sign of struggle at the apartment? A ransom note, maybe? Any floozies he may have been kicking around with?”
“Nobody cheats on me,” she said, turning to face me and letting the robe fall open to display her credentials.
Hell's Detective Page 8
