9
“Freakin’ gods, think they own everything.”
Uncle Niko, just before getting fried in a freak electrical storm
A blast of music shocked me awake hours later, kicking my heart straight into high gear. George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers had possessed my laptop.
Not that I realized that’s what it was at first. Oh, no, not the way today was going. No, first I had to destroy my clock radio, thinking it was my freakin’ alarm. It wasn’t until that failed to stop the window-rattling rendition of “Who Do You Love?” that I blearily looked around for the source and discovered a shimmering image whirling ever larger on the black screen of my laptop, which should have been both closed and off.
Great, I thought, none too clearly, now I’ve got a computer virus on top of the rest of today’s weirdness. I stumbled out of bed and over to my desk, hoping somehow to nip this new problem in the bud and discovered two things: the actual words being sung were “Who Do You Trust?” and it was a helluva good Thorogood impression. When the image finally stopped spinning and my stomach stopped trying to rebel, it looked like some kind of animal icon lip-synching to the words—a sort of svelte wolf playing air guitar.
“Coyote?” I ventured, speaking the thought as it occurred.
The figure and sound both halted abruptly. Then the icon seemed to take stock of itself.
“Right,” it said, still in Thorogood’s voice. “Hold on, let me slip into something more comfortable.”
The coyote blinked and, as if changing channels, was suddenly a raven, another blink and then a rabbit, a fox, a man with too many legs, a scrawny old gent and, finally, a youth in a toga and winged sandals hovering mid-screen.
“Ah, that’s better,” he sighed, now sounding more like Zorba the Greek.
“Great, do you do parties?” I asked wryly.
He waggled his brows at me. “Actually, yes, but I prefer the adult kind.”
I groaned. Really, really not in the mood. “Great, I witness one little murder and I get an immortal infestation. Look, you may not be able to tell, but I’m in serious need of my beauty sleep, so if you don’t mind—”
“Hey, hey, hey, far as I can tell, aside from the bed wrinkles,”—he waved an airy hand at my chest/neck area—“sleep’s been good to you. Besides, I’m a busy man. Messages to carry, mischief to make. It takes effort to make an entrance. Least you can do is show some appreciation.”
I sighed. If Coyote, or Hermes as he appeared now, was determined to play his little tricks on me, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, far as I could tell. Maybe if I just heard him out I could keep things short and sweet.
“Okay, so you have a message for me?” I asked.
“Of sorts,” he answered, now studying his cuticles in a pouting sort of way.
“Who do you trust?” I prompted.
He played with a nail that obviously hadn’t met his approval. “Uh huh,” he answered vaguely, as if his full attention were elsewhere.
“Great. Do you think you could be any less helpful?”
He glanced up at me reproachfully. “Do you even have to ask?”
“Okay, well, this has been enlightening. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule—” I turned back toward my nice warm bed, way too tired for twenty questions.
“Let me ask you something,” he demanded casually from the screen behind me. “Do you really think the water divinities give a damn about what goes on in Holly-weird?”
My brain must still have been foggy from sleep. The question didn’t track.
“What?” I asked, turning back reluctantly, only to find his eyes riveted on the spot where my jammie shirt cut off mid-thigh. I defiantly refused to dive modestly for the covers. Sadly, I didn’t think Hermes minded the lack of reaction.
“Hello, they’re called legs. Not like you’ve never seen them before. You were saying,” I prodded.
“Hmm, yes,” he continued, completely unfazed. “I just have to wonder whether they were truly in town to catch the show, you know.”
“Is there a message in here somewhere?” I asked, losing patience.
Somewhere,” he agreed. “At least now you know the questions.” Hermes smacked his lips and finally drew his eyes upward to meet mine. “Well, it’s been, as you say, enlightening, but”—he smoothed down his toga, which, oh looky there, didn’t fit as well as it had previously—“I must away.”
And with the snap of a finger he was whirling around again, shrinking all the while with Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” as his exit music.
All class, that one. I looked toward the bottom of the laptop screen for the time, but it appeared that the power had gone out again with Hermes’s departure. Alarm clock flattened, cell phone flatlined, VCR read-out never set, I was dependent on my microwave clock to tell me that it was already nearly 10 pm.
My stomach gurgled loudly, and I realized that the earlier nausea might not owe to vertigo alone. I hadn’t eaten in hours or had more than a sip of water with my pain meds. I remembered hearing somewhere that swallowing saltwater would dehydrate a person quickly and I was pretty sure fighting for my life had burned a lot of fuel. I needed nutrients stat.
I sucked down nearly half a bottle of vitamin water from my fridge as I waited for some canned soup to heat and unwrapped a package of saltines. It wasn’t gourmet, but it would cover the basics. I barely tasted anything as my brain clicked and whirred over Hermes’s cryptic message and Armani’s hissy fit—or maybe it was my hissy fit. It was all sort of a blur.
The ringing of my landline barely registered, since hardly anybody even used it besides solicitors and public-opinion pollsters. It wasn’t until Christie’s voice poured forth from my answering machine that I lurched for the receiver.
“Well, hey,” she bubbled, as the click of the line gave me away. “I was just saying that your cell phone seems to be off or something, so I dug out your home number. I thought I might stop by on my way to the club to drop off the proof sheet for my head shots, see what you think.”
Bad friend, I scolded myself, bad, bad friend forgetting to return Christie’s call about getting together.
On my behalf, I had been a wee bit busy.
The soup and sleep had perked me up, though. In fact, I felt a second wind coming on. “Christie, I’m so glad you called. You still want company for clubbing?”
Silence resounded. “But you never go with me,” she said finally.
“Not true,” I answered. “There was the Blue Fish.”
“Yeah, like, three months ago.”
Okay, color me baffled. “If you don’t want me to go, why do you keep asking?”
“No, no, no,” she gushed, “I do, but I bumped into Jack last night at Ondago’s and we made plans to meet up at The Kasbah.”
“Oh.”
“See, that’s why I hesitated—I knew you’d give me that ‘oh.’”
“What? I didn’t say a thing.”
“Uh huh. You don’t say a thing like my grandmother doesn’t say a thing, all lips pursed and eyes rolling nearly out of sight.”
“Christie, you can’t see me! You don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Okay, what are you doing?” she challenged.
Damn. “Um, well, maybe my lips are a little pursed, but Christie, Jack? Half the time he doesn’t call. When he does show, he’s like an hour late and then acts like you’re queen bitch if you’ve got a problem with that. I just don’t get the appeal.”
“He can be very charming,” she insisted.
“Great. With some substance and a little fairy dust, he might someday be a real boy,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Besides, you sound like you’ve got a cold or something. You should probably be in bed. I can drop off some chicken soup with the proofs.”
“Christie, I’m not sick and the last thing I need is more bed rest.”
“More?”
“Never mind.”
“Okay, something is up. This is totally not like you. I’m not agreeing to anything until you tell me what it is.”
Leave it to Christie to be on to me but totally clueless about pretty-boy Jack. “I want to schmooze.”
She snorted. I wouldn’t have thought her perky little nose was made for it.
“Really. You’re always in the know on the trendy spots. I thought it might be a good idea to listen in for any theories that might be floating around about Circe’s death, sift through the gossip.”
“Investigate!” Christie breathed the word like it was something wondrous.
“Sort of.”
“That’s great! Only problem is it’s impossible to hear the person across from you, let alone eavesdrop.”
I could almost hear Christie chewing her lip, which she did frequently. I thought it was probably the swelling that gave her that Hollywood pout rather than collagen, but I’d never asked.
“Fine, then I’ll start conversations. Like I said—schmooze.”
“Okay,” she answered doubtfully. Her faith in my social skills was heartwarming. “I’ve just hit your foyer. Buzz me up?”
Foyer, what a nice-sounding word for empty space between doorways. Only Christie, I thought, and maybe Jack when he was being snidely charming would call it that.
I hit the release button for the main door and let Christie in at her knock, using the intervening time to find clothes. My closet was big on business and workout suits with little in between but some tanks, shorts and concert Ts. Oh, I’d get out for a band I liked—Offspring or Gorillaz, maybe—but overall, not a big fan of the nightlife, definitely didn’t like to boogie. And I’d overgrown the mosh pit years ago the first time I got dropped. Not that that crowd went in much for spangles.
Christie took pity on me. “Look, it’s not like we’ve never done this before. Wear something black, which I know you have, with a studded belt. We’ll go heavy on the eyeliner and mascara, your hoochie-mama red lipstick and you’re golden. So the drama.”
So fading into the woodwork, I thought. But what the hell, I didn’t have any better option.
“Christie, you’re a gem. I’ll be ready in five.”
She waved that off. “Take ten. It’s not like anything really gets started until eleven anyway.”
“Hey, when did you start using words like hoochie-mama?” I peeked out of the bathroom where I’d taken my clothes to change.
Christie rolled her eyes upward in thought. “I think I stole it from Jesus. Oh, that reminds me, would you show the proofs to him on Monday? I have to get the pictures ordered soon, but I’d like to get his opinion too. He’s got a great eye.”
I exchanged a look with my reflection in the mirror, nearly freezing myself to stone with mortification. Oh yeah, the Gorgon blood was showing. Having fallen asleep with wet hair, it now stuck up and twisted about like writhing snakes. I wasn’t sure there was enough mousse in the world to tame it. Ironing would probably take too long.
Fifteen minutes later I thought that maybe the club wouldn’t bounce me out on my ass. Christie gave me a thumbs-up, which she would have done in any case, but she looked sincere, so I chose to believe it. Hollywood can have that crazy effect of making you care far more about your appearance than you would anywhere else in the world. Insecurity caused maybe by the plethora of the young and beautiful who flooded the place on a regular basis hoping to live the dream.
Yup, La La Land was getting to me. Next thing I knew I’d be churning myself wheat-grass smoothies and practicing extreme yoga.
“Ready to roll,” I announced.
Christie neatly bypassed the teeming hordes begging entrance at The Kasbah—Ondago’s being so last night—by sashaying up to the bouncer and giving him her name. He checked it against his clipboard, eyed me like something the cat had dragged in and grudgingly held the door for us, as if had the decision been up to him, we’d still be cooling our heels. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy, especially when a cacophony of complaints rose up from the line behind us. Christie smiled graciously at the bouncer on her way past, as if he’d just put her on the path to Oz.
Maybe he had. Even I had to admit that the décor, what I could see of it between bodies, reeked of … well, not the Emerald Kingdom, more jungle cantina. Structural columns looked like trees growing up to the ceiling and spreading into a canopy of leaves that also cascaded down the walls, cut back here and there to expose half-fallen columns, tiki faces and petroglyphs. I half expected to see Indiana Jones come barreling out of the crowd, a rolling boulder of doom bearing down on him.
“Isn’t this great?” Christie asked, nearly yelling in my ear.
“It’s something,” I answered, surprised my throat had recovered enough to achieve volume. “I need a drink. What’ll you have?”
Making my way through the crowd was like weaving through rush-hour traffic on a motorbike. There were occasional paths just wide enough to slip through, but you had to be wary of other travelers changing lanes without signaling. By the time I reached the bar, I’d managed to jostle a Colin Farrell look-alike—or maybe even the real thing—and had nearly caught an arm in the face. Once I reached the bar I found I wasn’t flashing enough cleavage to rate the bartender’s attention until I raised a minor ruckus. I was fully convinced of my own stupidity in coming out by the time I caught up with Christie, who’d waved me over from the midst of a huddle which included, miraculously, Jack I’m-too-sexy-for-my-shirt Moran.
I handed Christie her pink squirrel, which I’d blushed to even order, and slid into the opening that Jack made for me and my already half-finished rum and Coke. The four horsemen of the apocalypse doing water ballet couldn’t have shocked me more. Jack showing consideration?
Then a woman I’d never seen before gushed directly into my ear, moist breath and all, “Did you really fight off Circe Holland’s killer?”
Christie gave a weak smile in response to my hard look. “You said you wanted to ask some questions,” she shouted from across the circle, “so I had to explain about your investigation.”
“What was it like?” Jack jumped in.
Ridiculous as it was, I’d not only become the belle of the ball, but I was getting off on it. Or maybe with my depleted electrolytes it was just the drink going to my head. I realized that as in my fortune-telling persona where I pitched my voice low and mysterious, I needed to play a role—the great detective. I regaled them with my edited adventures and quizzed them about rumors and personal knowledge. The fear that the high and mighty would resist talking with an outsider incapable of giving them a leg up in the business dissipated in the face of the great game. I had insider knowledge of the murder. At the moment, that was currency, which seemed to cash out in the form of free drinks, appearing the second I’d polished off the last.
As a third rum and Coke arrived before me, a hand descended on my shoulder, sparking a burst of ball lightning which crackled through my body. Silence fell on the group. I knew without turning who had appeared on the scene.
I turned anyway and looked straight up into Apollo’s Mediterranean-blue eyes.
“Hello,” he said, imbuing it with enough sexuality to give me aftershocks of electricity. “I wonder if I might steal you away for a minute.”
Just a minute, my animal brain protested, not nearly long enough. Hey, I hadn’t said it out loud; my inner censor had to be back online. Go me.
Apollo gave the assembly his twenty-million-dollar smile—or however much he was making per film this year—to make up for taking me away. Hardly a fair trade, I thought, but no one asked me. Anyway, off I went with him, flashing a lame imitation of the movie-star smile.
And off and off into the deepest corner of the jungle bar. Something inside flashed with both excitement and alarm, but I tamped it down. It was all psycho-chemical, I told myself, nothing that couldn’t be controlled—if I were asleep or otherwise unconscious.
“I hear you were attacked today,” he said, staring deeply into my eyes, radiating concern.
His hands hovered near my upper arms, as if he were about to frisk me to be sure I was intact. “Wow, good news travels fast in this town. Wanna tell me what I had for breakfast?”
His hands dropped and he looked momentarily to be searching for his motivation.
“How can you be so flip with your life?” he asked. “Perhaps I should have left this to the police. It is too dangerous.”
“Is that your way of saying you want me off the case?” I challenged, the alcohol and hormonal imbalance of seconds ago ebbing away.
I studied him for clues but his face had gone still, as if unsure what emotion to show he’d just turned off the projector.
“Look, I’m a big girl. I know when to say when. So, if this is about you wanting to express concern and wallow in some misplaced guilt, don’t bring me into it. I saw the murder. That’s enough to make me a target. On the case, I get to pay my rent while trying to change what is. If this is about the fact that I’m a girl—”
“No one who knows Hera would ever call women the weaker sex,” he said, sardonic humor reanimating his face.
“Good. Then we’re understood. You want to find out what happened to Circe. I want to get paid. It’s a win-win situation.”
Somehow, he’d gotten even closer without my notice so that if I so much as breathed too deeply my chest would brush his. His lips still quirked in amusement, but that come-hither glint I remembered from our first meeting was back as well.
“Tell me,” he ordered, “has anyone ever won an argument with you?”
I thought about it. “Once—”
The word had barely left my mouth when Apollo covered it with his and that torrent of emotion that had earlier ebbed rose up with the force of a tropical storm. Maybe months of deprivation had built my pheromone level to such a point it was bubbling over. It was the only excuse I could think of for my sudden irresistibility. Whatever it was, I was getting swept up in the whirlwind myself. Armani had felt sexy, solid, entirely real. Apollo was like someone else’s wet dream, too hot to even think of claiming for my own.
Later, after I snapped to, I might convince myself that it was a combination of the booze and Armani’s earlier rejection, but right then I didn’t give a damn about anything—the danger of playing with fire, the fact that I was lip-locked in a public place with a very public figure. Nothing but the fact that just being pressed up against Apollo’s sculpted body was foreplay enough. When his hands brushed my ribs, I nearly squirmed to get them somewhere more effective, already so hot and wet that if he’d decided to take me right up against the wall, I’d have been ready for him.
I’d like to say that when Apollo took my hand and led me out through a side door into a low-lit alleyway that I came to my senses, but Yiayia would have to wash my mouth out with soap. The truth was that I was hormone-poisoned to the point that I was barely aware of anything but the urge to continue where we’d left off. It was the howl of a dog that finally penetrated the erotic haze. I don’t know how long the mournful baying had gone on before it registered—a hound dog. Not unheard of, but rare in ultra-urban LA Potentially a precious lead on the Strohmeyer case. Then Apollo shifted against me and I almost didn’t care. Almost. But that brief lifting of the haze was enough to bring me back to myself.
Damn, I had to be thick or suicidal, or maybe all of the above. I knew the stories of Apollo’s conquests—the conflicts, the transformations, the illegitimate children, not to mention the funeral pyres.
I had to go. Apollo protested as I pulled away, looking shell-shocked when I stopped him with a raised hand and a shushing. It was hard to hear over my own still-heavy breathing, so I held my breath, attuned myself to the sound.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, once I had the direction down.
“What, because of a dog? If it’s that damned K—” he bit off whatever he’d been about to say and my knowledge of mythology failed to fill in the blank, but I gave it a pass.
“Look, it’s not all about you. This is another case.”
I took off like the hounds of hell were chasing me rather than the other way around. Melodramatic, I know. Honey was probably a very nice dog, but still there was that sense of having escaped the fire—the very hot, seductive—dammit, I needed to focus.
For the better part of an hour I tracked the baying hound, but either it was on the move or someone was having a lot of fun at my expense. One final wounded yelp and the sound stopped dead just before midnight. My heart sank even as my abused feet rejoiced. The second wind that had propelled me had died out about twenty minutes into the fruitless chase, and I was ready to collapse.
Tomorrow I’d get back on the phone to the shelters and to animal control to make sure they hadn’t forgotten my interest. I’d check in again with the city about new dog licenses. Tonight, I planned to fall asleep in my clothes.
I hailed a cab and kept myself awake with self-flagellation. So far I was batting a thousand on this whole PI thing. No doubt if Uncle Christos had stuck around both cases would already be wrapped up with neat little bows. Apollo would have no reason to stick around tempting me to greater heights of stupidity; the company account would be lush. We’d even have money to remodel. Nights like this I cursed him for running off.