11
“I don’t want to see your face again—unless it’s on a milk carton.”
Lenny Rialto, second generation, Rialto Bros. Circus
You could have knocked me over with a feather. “Huh?” I asked cleverly.
She gave a half-bow from her chair. “I am a direct descendant of Liu Lei.”
“I’m sure that should mean something to me, but I have to confess—”
“Damn Eurocentric country,” Lau said, back to her irascible self as she cut me off. “Liu Lei, the dragon tamer.”
Clear as mud. “Um.”
Lau rolled her eyes. “Reader’s Digest version—Liu Lei, born during the Xia Dynasty with the ability to tame and ride dragons, given charge of King Kong Jia’s four beasts. Unfortunately, one died in his care. Not his fault; if it’s a dragon’s time to go, there’s nothing anyone can do about it. His dishonor was being too cowardly to come forward. Anyway, the family fell out of royal favor”—which I guessed was a euphemism for was forced to flee the country—“but the ability continued to breed true.”
She hadn’t laughed at me—well, okay, she had. Still, I was pretty sure if I laughed back I’d be donkey dust. I looked at Armani to see how he was taking things. Shell-shocked might be understating matters.
“So, you’re a dragon tamer,” I asked, just for clarification.
Lau huffed, sensing the skepticism behind the question. “More like guardian these days. Most of the creatures have their heads in the sand, hoping we’re just an evolutionary mistake that will pass like all the rest. They have a different conception of time, being immortal and all. Meanwhile, they dream of fat prey and no men around to hunt them into extinction.”
“How do you know what they dream?”
“Who do you think spins the fantasies that lull them to sleep? It’s what we do, speak to them in pictures, soothe them mind-to-mind.”
“Uh huh.” I took a seat of my own. “So, ah, where’s this dragon you’re watching?” It was well past breakfast, but I wasn’t sure how many more impossible things I could take. Maybe the caffeine and sugar deprivation actually helped in that department.
Armani cut in before she could answer. “Hold up. What the hell kind of drugs did you give her?”
Great, we were back to that. Feel the love.
“Underground,” Lau said, ignoring him. “Earthquakes are the dragon rolling over.”
I was afraid I was going to break our tentative rapport by bringing up, oh, I don’t know, tectonic plates and a little thing called geology, but Armani beat me to it.
“You’re both insane. Helen, I’m getting you checked out. You,” he said, pointing to me, “are staying right here.”
“Nick,” Lau said, making me bristle at the use of Armani’s first name. “Sit. Before we start talking about crazy, why don’t we let Ms. Gorgonzola here speak?”
So much for rapport.
“Listen, b—”—I caught the word before it actually left my mouth—“babe, you’re starting to tick me off, so unless that dragon of yours is ready to play second, you might not want to issue me a challenge.”
Armani growled to get us back on track.
“Fine. I’m just saying you’ve already seen what I can do. So far, Ms. Dragon Whisperer is all talk.” Okay, the name she’d come up with was way better. So sue me. “Anyway—” gods, where did I start? “—it’s like this …”
I told them. Everything—the attacks, the hints of a divine comeback, old ones like Yiayia’s contact afraid to talk for fear of retribution—everything but the fact that Apollo himself was very likely that Apollo, which I figured was his business. By the end of my recitation, Armani had gone a whiter shade of pale and, lacking a third guest chair or the power to make it to the one at his desk, had collapsed onto his butt in an unceremonious heap. He rallied as I wound down.
“So, to recap, Circe is—or was—a psycho who believed some crazy contract clause prolonged her life. Sierra Talbot may or may not have had a stalker but either way was ready to blow her big break. Apollo believes some psychic when she says to bug out of LA and you and Helen believe gods and dragons walk the earth. Have I got the basics?”
Lau and I exchanged a look. “In a nutshell,” she agreed.
Armani raked a hand through his hair and left it standing straight up.
“What the hell kind of psychoactive chemicals have you two been smoking? I might expect this kind of craziness from Tori, but you, Helen—what the hell?”
Lau stiffened and I could almost see the stick up her butt snap back into place as she rose from the table. “Let’s go.”
“Where?” Armani asked suspiciously.
“A little road trip. I’ll let the evidence speak for itself. In the meantime, you might not want to say anything more you’re going to regret later on.”
I think I could have knocked Armani over with a feather right then, and after his comment about what could be expected from me, I was sorely tempted, but it would hardly have been sporting.
No one spoke as Lau marched us off to her car. Armani took point, leaving me to sit in the back like a prisoner, half wondering if everyone in the world hid behind a façade of normalcy. But no, Armani was way too flummoxed to be hiding a mind-bending secret of his own. I wouldn’t be taking bets on anyone else any time soon.
Tension was our co-pilot for the long, windy trip up Beachwood Drive toward the top of Mount Lee. After a while, Armani reached over to flick the radio on and messed with the knob until he found a classic rock station. Heart’s “Magic Man” filled the silence, but the way my love life was going I didn’t want to think about magic hands or anything of that nature, so I watched the scenery, putting two and two together.
“You’ve got to be kidding me—the dragon sleeps under the Hollywood sign!”
“More or less,” Lau agreed primly.
“Unbelievable.”
“I should have my head examined for not locking you both up,” Armani growled.
Lau took her attention away from the road to cut him a withering look. “Judgment in advance of the evidence?”
“The evidence of my life to date suggests that dragons don’t exist. If they did there’d be reported sightings right along with Bigfoot and UFOs.”
“Are you saying those are real?” she fired back.
They squabbled all the way to the summit—like siblings, I thought. It made me smile. Finally, we pulled off, having gone as far as we could go but still some distance from the Hollywood sign.
“You can’t see him,” Lau explained as we exited the car. “He’s curled up in a hollow within the mountain.”
“Do you have to be this close to, you know, um, work with him?” I asked.
“It’s easier the closer I am, but no. I can’t be too far as the crow flies, within about a ten-mile radius, I’d guess, but I don’t have to be right on top of him. This is for your benefit.”
With that she stalked off across the nearly pristine hillside and chose a nice thick patch of grass on which to strike a meditative pose. Lotus, I thought it was called, but it had been years since my aborted yoga experience. Kickboxing was way more my speed.
Armani alternately prowled the hillside like a great cat on patrol and shot searching glances at his partner. Me he avoided looking at entirely, until the ground suddenly shifted beneath our feet, shuddered, sending rocks skittering and dropping us to our knees before settling to absolute stillness. His startled gaze flew to mine then, as if to assure himself it really had happened.
I was betting my eyes were the size of saucers. I hadn’t had much chance to consider whether I believed she could do it at all, but I certainly hadn’t thought it would be so immediate.
“So?” she asked smugly, still sitting back on her heels amidst the grass.
A weird tremor took hold of me, like an echo of the heaving earth, but it came with an injection of adrenaline. Apollo’s early warning system?
“So?” a new voice echoed Lau, shimmering into view before us like a cartoon mirage. Only the figure before us was never meant to form human speech—a foxlike muzzle, hell, a foxlike body, glowing like golden flame in the sunlight. Only its size, more husky than fox, and its whipcord serpent’s tail indicated that this was something other.
“Hermes?” I asked tentatively.
“Iemisch, actually,” he answered, strutting forward and lashing his tail dramatically. “I wore it just for you, being that you’re looking for dragons and all.”
Heck of an early warning system, I thought. I’d hardly had time to blink before Hermes’s appearance.
I wondered whether it was a flaw in Apollo’s “gift” or a measure of the danger. “Uh huh. Why is it that everyone seems to know my business before I do?”
The fox-thing dipped his head in lieu of a shrug. “Damned if I know. Could be the bugs.”
I couldn’t help it—I immediately ran my fingers over my lapels and jacket seams, looking for odd lumps. I assumed the fox’s bark-chirp was a laugh at my expense.
“Okay, Mr. Smartypants, what’s the story?”
He did another dip-shrug.
“Here Be Dragons.”
“Look, Iemisch, Hermes, whoever you are, I love banter as much as the next gal, really, but we’ve got a case to solve, and I’m pretty sure the detectives here would like to clock out sometime today. So, if you don’t have anything helpful for us, like a treasure map straight to the baddies with evidence tied up in a neat bow, we’ve really got to get going.”
I looked to Lau and Armani for backup, but I wasn’t sure either had heard a word I’d said. Armani had frozen as if he’d just had a Eureka! moment and Lau watched him as if she could rip the thought straight out of his head.
“What?” Hermes and I asked at once.
Armani turned slowly but didn’t say anything for a moment, maybe going over things again. “We don’t need him. I think I’ve got it.”
The fox’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “Do tell.”
Armani looked at me and, as always, my heart gave that stutter-jump it was so fond of. This time because even with the others there it was me he focused the explanation on. “If you were going to stage a coup, why would you do it so far from the seat of power?”
“It depends what kind of power you’re concerned with—the almighty dollar, fame, influence. LA isn’t exactly the back of beyond,” Lau sniped.
But I thought I could see where he was going.
“Because it has to be here, doesn’t it?” he asked the fox.
And all of a sudden all the pieces snapped into place. I called myself a thousand times a fool. “They’re going to flex their magical muscles by dropping us into the drink!”
“I think so. Sierra Talbot’s fear, the Oracle’s warning—it all makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Lau countered, raining on our parade. “Why kill Sierra? Who would have believed her?”
“In these crazy days when we see a terrorist hand in every abandoned bag, you’ve got to be kidding. She wouldn’t have to mention gods, even if she knew what she was dealing with. All she’d have to do is give a credible-sounding tip on a terrorist plot. It’s speculation, sure, but work with me. The fact that rather than move up the plan, someone took Sierra out means they probably had some reason to wait. Maybe a day of significance. Maybe—”
Hermes’s jaws snapped in irritation. “Well, I know when I’m not wanted. That’s the last time I waste a killer entrance.” He turned tail, which whipped angrily behind him.
“Wait!” I yelled, remembering that earlier warning shudder. “Whose side are you on anyway?”
He swung his head back around and fixed his inhuman eyes on mine. “I haven’t decided yet. Whichever wins, I suppose, though with the forces arrayed against you”—he shook his head sadly—“it will hardly make for a decent match.”
“Then tell us something that will even things out.”
“And risk the wrath of my fellows?” He turned away again, this time with an air of finality. “No, you do not seem to be stuck for a solution. I will take my leave.”
He paced away, growing less material with each step until the gently swaying grass could be seen right through his form. Finally, he was gone altogether, though the strains of the Steve Miller Band floated back to me on the breeze, “… and fly to the revolution.”
“I must be crazy. I’m starting to believe this whole thing,” Armani said, staring at the place where Hermes had vanished.
“Just starting?” I asked. “I’d say the mark of a wise, sane man is an open mind willing to adjust as circumstances dictate.”
Lau eyed us sourly. “I hate to interrupt this little love fest, but I have an idea of what might be taking the gods so long to set things in motion.”
“So you’re with us on that now?” Armani asked.
She shrugged. “As a wise, sane woman,” she mocked, “it makes as much sense as anything I can come up with.”
“Okay then—shoot.”
“Explosives. Tori says the gods have lost a lot of their power. What if they need something to start things off with a bang—a concentration of energy they can magically amplify? In any reaction, most of the energy goes into jump-starting the process, so if they can do that artificially …”
“Oh my gods!” I stared at her in horror. “And something like that is going to take time and care to collect without raising any red flags.”
“Bingo.”
“But I know just the man to do it.” Both detectives stared at me. “Hiero Cholas, aka Hephaestus, god of all things technological. How hard do you think it would be for a special effects guru to lay hands on the right stuff?”
Silence reigned.
On the way back to the station we plotted. Armani and Lau were taking point on the explosives angle, since any interest I showed would get me on a Federal watch list, not to mention likely be completely unproductive. They were also going to find some way to get Hiero tailed, even if they had to do it themselves. I had dibs on Sierra’s roommate and Circe’s long-ignored files.
Earlier leap of my heart aside, I still had several bones to pick with Armani, but I was sure right up until the time that he put a hand on my arm to hold me outside while Lau proceeded us in that I wasn’t going to get the chance.
The breeze blew my unruly curls into my face as I stood there waiting for him to begin. He watched the curls, but declined to brush them romantically from my face, preferring to watch me spit hair out of my mouth.
“Very sexy, Karacis,” he commented.
There were days I considered hacking the whole mop to within an inch of its life, but I had a feeling that arming me with shears right now would be a bad idea.
“Just say what you have to say,” I snapped.
“I’m sorry for what I said before.” Points to him for actually holding eye contact and projecting sincerity.
“Which part? The part where you accused me of drugging your partner or the part where you were going to lock me up?”
That made him look away.
“Oh, and what about the part where you investigated me to begin with?”
“I was worried about you. I had no idea Lau was going to call you in for questioning.”
“But you ratted me out.”
Armani’s eyes rose to meet mine again. “I passed on information pertinent to an ongoing investigation, yes.”
“And you’re just a poor automaton, slave to your rules and regulations? That’s some defense.”
“I’m not going to apologize for doing my job.”
“Fine.”
I started to walk past him, but he, thankfully, stopped me with a hand to my arm. “Dinner?”
“Is that your way of dodging an apology?”
“Just answer the question,” he growled.
“Your treat?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Nice place, real utensils?”
I could tell by the look on his face that I was pushing it, but he nodded again.
“One condition, though, that puts us even. We drop the whole thing. Deal?” he asked.
Guess he could see me milking it for all it was worth. Hmm. It was a tough call—a free meal/almost date versus something to hold over Armani. If I really worked at it, I could probably find a way to keep the agreement and still tweak him.
“Okay,” I agreed finally, “but no seafood.”
Circe’s files were a complete waste of time. There were no helpful death threats like: “Dear Circe, It would be my greatest honor to see you dead. If it’s not too inconvenient for you, I’ve chosen the alleyway behind Renee’s, the better to chance witnesses to your downfall. Signed, Third God to the Left.” Oh no, that would have been too easy. If I hadn’t already ruled out a fully human perp, I’d now have a solid list of mortal suspects; A-, B-, and C-list actors who had to be pleased as punch by Circe’s early shuffle off of the mortal coil. However, since I’d seen most of them on screen at one time or another, I was pretty certain they lacked a certain scaly green quality.
I’d left a message for Sierra Talbot’s roommate earlier, but it hadn’t been returned—or if it had, the message had gone to my dearly departed cell phone or my office answering machine. Unfortunately, we still used Uncle Christos’s antiquated model, so there was no way for me to check messages remotely. Since Sierra and Tracy’s apartment was in West Hollywood, a helluva lot closer to Circe’s office than mine downtown, I decided just to swing by and hope Tracy was in.
I sat outside in the Camaro for a minute just getting a feel for the neighborhood, watching the flow. There wasn’t a ton of foot traffic. A young mother in spandex prepared to power walk with her sleeping child strapped to her chest in what looked like a reverse backpack; a twenty-something guy wrestled an oversized package through the front doors. I emerged to help him, but he was already through and gone by the time I reached the entrance.
Once there I was confronted with an entire panel of buttons numbered but with no corresponding names. If you didn’t know the apartment number of the party you’d come to see you didn’t belong. I chose the correct button and waited for a distorted voice to “Yes?” me through the intercom.
“Tori Karacis,” I answered the disembodied voice, “I called earlier about Sierra T—” A buzzer sounded and a click came from the inner door. I took that as my welcome.
The woman who watched me approach from the doorway to apartment 6D was a surprise. For some reason, I’d expected Sierra’s roommate to be another struggling actress, but I didn’t get that vibe from Tracy. She stood all of about five foot two in her bare be-ringed feet, cutoffs and dashiki. Her RuPaul blonde hair hung in dreadlocks halfway down her back. Her bronzed face was unadorned except for bars through her left brow, nose and lower lip.
“Hey,” she said, studying me rather than inviting me in. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you back earlier. I just—couldn’t deal. Plus, I already told the police everything.”
I nodded sympathetically.
“So you, like, have some ID?”
I flashed my PI license and tried not to stare at her hardware while she looked it over.
“Okay then, come on in.” Finally, she stepped aside, admitting me to her inner sanctum, where I nearly choked on the clashing potpourri of scents duking it out inside.
Impressions formed through the haze—artwork on the walls tending toward stark silhouettes and simple but somehow compelling pictures in bold colors. Beyond those minimalist scenes the design seemed like something out of India—sumptuous fabrics, a three-quarters life-size statue of a multi-armed goddess, an elephant-headed god staring down from a bookshelf.
“The motif was mostly Sierra’s,” Tracy said, having turned and noticed my distraction. She ran her hand over a satin pillow on their low-slung couch. “The pictures are mine, though.”
“They’re wonderful.”
Tracy sighed heavily and met my gaze. “Thanks. I don’t suppose you’ve got any connections in the art world?”
“Afraid not.”
“Yeah, well. Have a seat, please. Can I get you anything? I’ve got mango iced tea.”
“That would be great.”
The cloying scents were starting to give me that tickly itchy sensation in my throat that I got in smoky bars. A tingle crept up my nose, and I looked hurriedly around for a tissue. None in sight. As a last resort, I flung my hand up before my face just in time to let out a King-Kong-sized sneeze. I never had been dainty, but thankfully it was more noise than funk.
“Sorry,” Tracy called from the little kitchenette off to the right. “Sierra never would let me burn the stuff inside. She didn’t want the smell—well, reek she called it. But I had to chase away, you know, all the negative energy.”
“Sure,” I said, like I got it. The stuff would sure chase me out.
“I’ll open up a few windows in a minute.”
She came back with two tall glasses of mango iced tea with raw sugar granules still spinning at the bottoms and handed me one. I sipped mine gratefully while she propped a window open with a wedge.
“They fall again the second you let them go,” she explained, relaxing all the way back into a covered chair. “So, what do you want to know?”
“This stalker that Sierra had, what can you tell me about him?”
“Nothing. I’m not even sure there was one. Sierra mentioned some guy early on in the shoot. Strange. Kind of intriguing, but strange was kinda how she put it. Then she’d move on to talk about the film and how the water was so cold that her nipples puckered right up but that she didn’t know how anyone would ever tell them from the goose bumps. Sierra was a chatterer. I’d perk up at words like guy and nipples, weird stuff like that, though mostly—” she shrugged. “You know.”
She said that a lot. Verbal shorthand willing me to agree so she could commute her words. Not a talker like her roommate.
“What about her decision to leave? Did she talk about that?”
Tracy sat up from her slump to wrap her hands around her sweating glass of tea and bring it to her lips. Once she set it down again, she practically burst from her chair to prowl the apartment. I wondered if it was nerves or if she wasn’t a sitter either. More like a perpetual motion machine.
“She did, but she was pretty vague, you know, like a newspaper horoscope. She just kept saying that something bad was going to happen and that we had to get out. LA was a death trap. I asked her what she’d been smoking.” She whipped around to me. “She didn’t, by the way. Sierra was as clean-cut as they come. One of those—oh, what do they call themselves?—straight-edge people. My body is my temple and all that.”
“Go on,” I prodded when she came to an abrupt halt, the suspicion of tears glimmering in her eyes.
“Well, that’s the strange thing. Sierra wasn’t exactly the credulous type, you know. All these statues, she just liked the look of them. It wasn’t a religious thing, but she ranted about the end of LA like she’d just seen the four horsemen of the apocalypse with her own eyes. She even had me spooked. Not that I have anywhere else to go.”
Tracy rubbed her arms vigorously. “I’m going to close that window again.” She stayed at the window even after it was secured, staring out.
I had the feeling she was pulling herself together, but I had to plow on. “She wasn’t suicidal?”
A choked laugh escaped her. “Scared yes, crazy maybe, but not suicidal. She was talking about heading to New York, taking a run at Broadway.”
Tracy’s head fell against the window to rest. A second later her stillness changed, set. “What is it?” I asked.
“Damn freaks.”
Holy non sequitur. “Um, come again?”
“Those smarmy ‘Death Site’ tours. A week dead and they’ve already added Sierra to the route. Some of the freaks come back on their own.”
I joined Tracy at the window and followed her gaze to the man on the street. Fedora pulled low, collar high. A tingle shivered over me; goose bumps raised the hair on my arms. I somehow doubted that was Sam Spade down there keeping the place under surveillance.
“I’ll talk to him,” I promised. In fact, I looked forward to the confrontation now that we were on my turf, terra firma, rather than his. On my way to the door I dropped a card on Tracy’s coffee table. “Call me if you remember anything or if he shows again.”
Adrenaline coursing through my system, I took the stairs rather than wait for the elevator. I still hadn’t practiced my damned stare, so I did what I could in the rush down to focus and hone my anger, the better to whammy him the second our eyes met. I hit the street with a full head of steam, flying at Circe’s killer like a Fury on speed—until his head snapped up and he and his mirrored sunglasses met me head-on.
Instantly, my limbs petrified. The very blood in my veins crystallized; my muscles hardened, going brittle like molten glass cooled too quickly. I fought to keep moving, but my own body had turned against me. The struggle only made me wobble precariously, and the way my body felt I was sure if I hit the ground I’d shatter into a million pieces.
My heart seemed to throw itself against the very walls of my chest, a caged animal frantic for escape. The terror of even my own body out of control had me screaming—but all inside my head, no sound came out. Then that chill stiffness overtook even my thoughts and my mind itself froze.