Текст книги "The Hell Yo "

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He smiled gratefully.

I let him drink a while before asking, “When you understood what was happening,

why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“No one would have believed me. I didn’t have any proof. Not real proof.” At my

expression, he said defensively, “I tried to quit. You know that. But they don’t allow it. They

can’t allow it.”

I wasn’t buying. I wanted to. I would have felt a lot better about everything if I

believed that Angus was truly an innocent.

“You could have talked to the police. You should have talked to Jake.”

“He thinks I’m a freak.”

And your point is?

But I didn’t say that. I said, “When did you realize what was really going on?”

“Really going on? I don’t know what’s really going on. I never have. I thought we

were…” He did it again, tailed off before he actually revealed any useful information.

“You thought you were what?”

At my tone his face quivered. Tearfully he said, “It was very powerful, very spiritual, so

don’t make jokes about it. Don’t mock what you don’t understand.”

“I won’t. I’m not.” I thought it over. “I mean, it’s not like you actually sell your soul to

the Devil, right?”

“Adrien!” he shrieked, jumping to his feet and knocking over his glass.

I jumped too. “What? For Christ’s sake!”

“Don’t make fun of it!”

My jaw dropped. “Are you telling me…?” I couldn’t complete it, it was so ridiculous.

“It isn’t how you make it sound. It’s a commitment, a pledge, an oath of honor.”

Beer dripped onto the hardwood floor. I grabbed a towel and began to wipe the table.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. And in return for selling your soul?”

He said huskily, “Whatever you want. Whatever you need.”

“What does that mean? What did you get out of it?”

“You don’t get it immediately. You have to…you have to pay your dues. You have

to….”

“Work for it?”

He glared at me. “Someone like you can never understand.”

“Help me understand. Are you telling me you joined this group and you…sold your

soul to Satan?”

“No. Of course not. We all made a pledge to serve His Grace. In return, He will grant

us whatever we want. Money. Great jobs. Beautiful women.”

Angus got Wanda and ten dollars an hour at Cloak and Dagger. Maybe he should ask

for his soul back.

“When you say “His Grace,” are you talking about Satan or a person?”

“His Grace,” Angus snapped. “My Lord Gremory, the fifty-sixth Duke of Hell.”

Ah, yes. The house demon. “Gotcha. But there must be someone in charge. Someone

human.”

“Each Blade has an Adept. Only the Adept can know the Master.”

I felt a tingle of alarm. “How many Blades are there?”

“Three Blades edge the Scythe of Gremory,” quoted Angus mechanically. “Sable is the

blade of the first cut. Silver blade cuts deepest. Scarlet is the blade that deals the death blow.”

The smell of burning steak broke the spell. I muttered an imprecation and grabbed the

pan off the burner.

Three blades. Whatever happened to Flower Power? No, it had to be knives, blades,

scythes. What was with kids these days?

“How many members per scythe?”

Behind me, Angus said, “Thirteen.”

“Do you know the members of the other blades?”

“That’s not permitted.”

“So thirteen of you took part in killing –”

“No! Adrien, I keep telling you I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was a rumor that

got started within the group.”

“It wasn’t entirely a rumor. Bodies are turning up.” I set his steak in front of him, and

after a moment’s hesitation, dug a fork and knife out of the silverware drawer.

“But we weren’t all involved in it. We aren’t all on the same level, you know.”

High school, college, the office, evil cults, everywhere you go, there’s that social

hierarchy to contend with.

“But you know who’s behind it.”

He began to carve his steak. “I don’t know who’s behind it. I’m not even sure who all

took part in the sacrifices. I know that I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t be a part of that. I wanted

to resign, but they wouldn’t permit it. They told me I was a traitor. Even the other ones who

wanted out called me a traitor.”

“Then why –?”

“I made a pledge. In blood. My blood,” he hastened to add at my expression. He rested

his utensils on the table edge, gazing at me earnestly. “Adrien, they think I’ll return to the

fold. I won’t. But I can’t break my oath.”

“Why would they think you might return to the fold?”

“That lawyer. Martin Grosser. He’s part of it. He’s the one who got me off.”

“How do you know that? Did Grosser say so?” I tried to picture that conversation.

“Not in so many words.”

“How many words did he use, and what were they?”

Angus shook his head, chewing ferociously.

“Who paid him?” I asked. “Do you know that? He must have told you.”

“Pro bono. He said he was doing it as a favor to me. A favor to a brother of the Blade.”

“But the Blade set you up.”

“Blade Sable set me up. He’s not with Blade Sable. He must be with one of the older

Blades. Maybe even Blade Scarlet. That’s where all the bigwigs are supposed to be.”

I recognized that they might have a certain amount of success if they ran their group

like a fraternal organization. Networking for Evil. Why not? The older, established members

could help the younger to find those dream jobs and social connections. The younger

members could provide whatever they had to offer: sex, drugs, cheap labor…their weekly

allowance.

Angus drained his beer. “Adrien,” he said tentatively. “Do you think you’d be able to

pay me my last paycheck?”

I thought of the eight hundred dollars I had already shelled out for the privilege of

involving myself in another murder case.

“Er…yeah. Sure. When did you need it by?”

“Tonight.” He turned back to his dinner. “I’ll try to be gone by the time you open the

shop.”

I thought that was probably a good idea.

When Angus finished his meal, I pulled out the inflatable mattress I kept in the disaster

area I fondly called my store room. I removed a stack of blankets from the linen cupboard,

following Angus as he walked none too steadily downstairs.

He chose to sleep in the back of the store deep in the canyons of bookshelves.

“I won’t forget this, Adrien,” he said, building a nest of blankets for himself.

“It’s okay.” I hesitated, then had to ask. “Is Guy involved with the Scythe of Gremory?”

“What guy?”

“Guy Snowden.”

He shook his head. “A couple of us met during his courses, but I don’t think…” He

stopped.

“You don’t think what?”

“I don’t think so, but I guess he could belong to one of the other blades. I kind of

wondered about that myself.”

“Did you ever hear of anyone named Oliver Garibaldi?”

He snickered. “No. Sounds like a spaghetti sauce.”

“I’ll leave the bank draft on my desk in the office.”

“Okay.” He wrapped himself in the blankets, set his glasses carefully to the side. He

blinked at me. “Thank you, Adrien. For everything.”

“Uh-huh. Sweet dreams.”

Chapter Twenty-one

I made sure to get downstairs early next morning. Even so, Angus was already gone. He

had made himself coffee in the office, and taken the check from the desk. The blankets he

had used were folded on the chair.

I tidied away all traces of his visit before Velvet arrived.

As disloyal as it seems, I hoped he did not come back. I was sorry for him. I didn’t want

him punished for something he hadn’t done, but I couldn’t understand or reconcile myself to

his moral apathy. Oh, I understood that he was afraid, and I believed what he had told me

about not actively participating in murder. I could cut him slack for being young and being

(as Guy had pointed out) a follower rather than a leader. I knew it wasn’t fair to judge when

I didn’t know what in Angus’s past might have knocked his moral compass so far off-kilter. I

knew – but the simple truth was, I was appalled.

I pulled out the pictures from Gabriel Savant’s signing that I had started to sort through

days ago. One by one, I flipped through them, scrutinizing each glossy candid. The place had

been wall-to-wall Goth princesses and Stevie Nicks clones. So much for celebrating the

individual.

I paused at a picture of Savant giving his talk. In the background was a girl with blonde

hair, feathery tips tinted black. She had turned her face at the moment the shutter clicked. I

examined the next photo. A slice of her two-toned hair had made the frame, but next to her

was a now-familiar mohawk and pugnacious face behind heart-shaped glasses.

Betty Sansone.

I laid the photo aside. Studied the next one. Well, well. A Kodak Moment.

Kinsey Perone alive and in the flesh. A lot of flesh, as a matter of fact. It’s a wonder she

hadn’t died of pneumonia.

So, even if Betty and Kinsey had not been part of the Savant entourage, they had been

at the bookstore that evening – the evening the disk disappeared. The evening that had

apparently sealed Gabe’s fate.

I reached for the phone, then stopped.

Did this prove a connection between the two cases? If the police went to Bob

Friedlander, he would show them a postcard from Gabriel Savant, claim that Savant was fine

and that I was the wacko. Hundreds of people had been at the bookstore that evening. Betty

and Kinsey’s presence might have been a coincidence. Not that I believed that, but the police

would if Bob chose to play it that way. After our last conversation, I couldn’t imagine Bob

playing it any other way.

The desire to talk it over with Jake was nearly irresistible. But I couldn’t do that. Even

if Jake and I had still been on those terms, it wasn’t his job to fix my mistakes, to absolve me

of responsibility. Especially when he had been warning me from day one to stay out of it.

I shuffled through the photos once more. Did Kinsey and Betty’s involvement

automatically intimate Guy’s guilt? Jake believed that Guy was involved. Maybe Jake was

right; certainly the Amazing Kreskin had nothing to fear from my batting average.

But Jake had been skeptical when I’d told him about Blade Sable, and I didn’t think I

had learned anything that would change his mind. He would say Angus was playing me, and

he could be right there too. No, I didn’t believe what I had discovered would justify the risk

of contacting Jake.

Besides, Jake might believe I was using Angus’s story as an excuse to see him again.

If I was going to pursue this any further, it would have to be on my own. The question

was, did I want to pursue it any further?

“Hello?” called Velvet from the front.

I shoved the photos back in their envelope, put the envelope back in the file cabinet,

and relocked it.

* * * * *

I hadn’t put a lot of faith in Paolo’s promise to get me Peter Verlane’s private number

in exchange for being allowed to texturize my hair, but midmorning he called.

“Are you enjoying your hair, sweetness?”

“Uh, sure.”

“I have Peter’s cell number. Do me a favor. Don’t tell him you got the number from

me. He’s…quirky that way.”

“Fair enough.”

He quoted the number, and I wrote it out. “One other thing, sweetness. Don’t leave

your wallet lying around. Not that he’s not worth every penny, but…”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“You enjoy yourself, sweetness. You so deserve it.”

I hung up. Stared at the number. Swell. The guy was a hustler?

Assuming it was the right Peter Verlane, wasn’t he in Germany, sharing schnapps and

strudel with the folks? There probably wasn’t any point in calling.

Unless Guy had lied.

Did I want to know? Did I want to take this any further? It’s not like my sleuthing had

resulted in universal happiness so far.

I was still trying to come to a decision, when I realized I had dialed the number.

“Yeah?” a young male voice inquired.

“Peter?”

“Yeah.”

“I got your name from a friend. I wondered if maybe we could get together sometime.”

Silence.

“What friend?”

“Does it matter?”

He chuckled. “Maybe not. What did you have in mind?”

“Sex magick.”

I felt surprise in the static between us.

“You mean an initiation?”

Is that what I meant? “Right,” I said, with a certainty I didn’t feel.

Warily, he asked, “Are you craft?”

What did that mean? Was that like, are you a Top or a bottom? Did I see myself as an

Art or a Craft? Or was he asking whether I was a witch? Or maybe he wanted to know if I

was pro cheese-macaroni?

I fought a nervous desire to laugh and said, “No. I’m curious, and willing to pay to have

my…itch scratched.”

I thought of Jake’s face if he were to overhear this conversation, closed my eyes to

block the image.

“Wow,” Peter said. He sounded like he might laugh too. Probably not the desired

reaction. “Well, I’ll tell you what. I’m booked through the holidays, but maybe I can fit you

in after Candlemas.”

Candlemas? Wasn’t that in February? Maybe this kid really was worth pursuing.

I said, “That’s quite a wait. I’m impressed. I’m also impatient. Can you recommend

someone else?”

Silence. He said at last, “Perhaps we can work it out. What did you say your name

was?”

Good question. I opened my mouth. “Oxford,” I said at random. “Avery Oxford.”

“Where can I reach you, Avery?”

Another good question. Maybe I should have taken half a minute to inspect for rocks

before I dived in head first. “I’ll call you,” I said curtly, and rang off.

“What an idiot!” I announced to the room at large. Shaking my head, I tucked the

number in the Rolodex on my desk. I happened to notice the business card I had received

from the Wiccans at Dragonwyck. I inspected the silver scripted numerals. Dial M for

Magick.

Hadn’t I embarrassed myself enough for one day?

Any more of this and I’d believe some unseen hand was trying to give me a shove in

the right direction. I practically felt the palm print between my shoulder blades – or maybe

that was the lingering bruises from my visit to Hell’s Kitchen.

Which reminded me. Guy had lied about Peter Verlane being out of town.

* * * * *

I was having a BLT at Johnny Rocket’s when I happened to notice Jean Finch peering

in the front window. When she saw me gazing back at her, she ducked away. Then she

appeared in the window again, waved at me with frantic friendliness, and walked off

hurriedly.

Holy moly.

Leisurely finishing my sandwich, I paid the bill and stepped outside into the gloomy

afternoon. No sign of Jean. I started walking, stopping every so often to glance into a shop

window.

I finally spotted her, lingering several yards behind me.

I started back toward her. She froze in panic, then looked around as though planning to

flee. She didn’t flee, however; she stood her ground, practically trembling in her little white

trench coat.

“Jean, what are you doing?” I asked as I reached her.

“N-nothing. I was Christmas shopping. I saw you at Johnny Rocket’s. Is the food good

there? I’ve never been.”

“Where are your packages?”

“I haven’t bought anything yet.”

I met her gaze. She looked away. Now certain, I said, “You were following me.”

“I wasn’t!”

But she was. It was in her tone of voice, in her facial expression. If she wasn’t following

me, she was sure guilty about something.

“Jean,” I said, “come off it. You’ve got a character in your book who looks like me and

talks like me and dresses like me. Tuesday you had Avery Oxford following someone to the

Biltmore Hotel. That’s a hefty coincidence. Next week are we going to read about Avery

having lunch at Johnny Rocket’s and chasing someone through the Paseo?”

She shook her head, the black curls bouncing. She looked like a kid caught stealing the

shoes off a rival’s Barbie. “We keep getting rejected,” she said disconsolately. “Agents,

editors, even the writing group doesn’t like our book.”

I bit my lip.

She raised her eyes to mine. “I only thought…everyone you talk to, agents or

publishers, they all want you to have a platform, and I thought…” she swallowed hard. “I

thought our platform could be that our gay sleuth’s adventures are based on the real-life

adventures of…you.”

My jaw dropped. “Are you out of your mind?” I got out at last.

“But you don’t understand, Adrien –”

“You’re right.”

“This kind of thing is so big right now, the novelization of people’s real-life

adventures.”

If she said “real-life adventures” one more time, I was going to put her under the next

passing bus.

“Jean…”

“Sherlock Holmes’s adventures were inspired by a Dr. Joseph Bell. And did you know

there actually was a Gidget? All those movies and TV shows were based on the real-life

ad –”

“Jean.”

She stopped, swallowing hard.

“Jean, you can’t follow me around. I don’t want you to write a roman a clef based on

my life. Or what you imagine is my life.”

“But maybe I could help you,” she said eagerly. “I know you’re working a case. You’re

trying to find out if Angus did kill those other students, aren’t you?”

I had this sudden vision of how Jake must have felt when I kept insisting on helping

him.

“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m leaving this to the police. You need to do the same.”

She looked away from me. “Okay.”

“I’m serious, Jean. This stuff is too dangerous.”

“Okay.”

I studied her mutinous profile.

“Okay,” I said. “But if I catch you following me again, I’m telling Ted.”

I had one fleeting look at her outraged expression before she stalked away down the

street. I sighed and headed back for the shop.

The rest of the day passed in sales receipts and register rings.

At last I sat down at my desk, thumbed through my Rolodex, and removed the card the

Dragonwyck proprietress had given me.

“A specialist,” she had said.

Would it do any harm to call?

I contemplated the silver numerals. The area code was 661. What was that, Bakersfield?

Wasco? I didn’t think of Bakersfield as being a spiritual center.

I dialed the number, tried to imagine myself explaining my dilemma.

On the second ring, the phone picked up. A low, rather melodious voice spoke.

“Hello.”

Hello? I was expecting a “Merry Meet,” at the very least.

“Uh, hi. I got your number from the…ladies at Dragonwyck.”

“Yes?”

I couldn’t tell if that untroubled voice was male or female. I guess it didn’t really

matter.

I took a deep breath. “I’m having this problem with…uh…well, it has to do with a

demon. I was wondering if I could make an appointment?”

Chapter Twenty-two

Selene Wolfe lived in Palmdale.

To be exact, she lived in the Angeles National Forest on the Palmdale side of the San

Gabriel Mountains. The light was failing by the time I left Pasadena. I did not look forward

to the night’s return drive, dipping and winding through miles and miles of dense chaparral

that slowly gave way to pine-studded peaks.

The traffic was surprisingly heavy, cars whipping around the narrow road with scant

regard for the tumbling slopes below. For a time, I found myself one of a long line of cars

trapped behind a yellow Celica with the bumper sticker VISUALIZE WORLD PEACE.

I missed the turnoff and had to find a safe place to pull over, then double back. By the

time I found the stone cairn mailbox with the correct house number, it was dark, and I was

late.

The long dirt road had been graded, but that was the sole sign of civilization as I rolled

cautiously along, the headlights of the Forester occasionally pinpointing gleaming eyes in the

darkness.

At last I saw lights. I pulled into the front yard of a small stone cabin. I parked and got

out. Wood smoke drifted from the chimney. The night air was spicy with pines.

An old-fashioned lantern hung above the door. A dog barked from inside the cabin.

I knocked. Moments later the door opened. The woman who answered my knock was

taller than I, lean, with a riot of salt and pepper hair. She wore jeans and a flannel shirt; she

was barefoot despite the cold. A three-legged dog stood beside her, still muttering under its

breath.

“Blessed be,” she said in that sexless, but soothing voice.

“Hi. I’m Adrien English.”

She moved aside. I stepped into a rustic, but comfortable-looking cabin. Nothing

particularly weird or witchy about it. If there was a cauldron bubbling, it was being used for

chicken soup.

“Would you like tea?” Selene Wolfe asked.

“Thanks. Yes.”

She gestured for me to sit at the table, and I did while she went into the kitchen. The

three-legged dog planted himself between the two rooms, clearly determined to keep an eye

on me.

One wall had been given over to bookshelves: Frazier’s Golden Bough, Buckland’s

Complete Book of Witchcraft, the Farrars’ Witches’ Bible. All the woo-woo classics as well as

a lot of books on psychology and sociology. There were cheerful sprigged curtains covering

the windows, thick woven rugs covering the stone floor. Fur brushed against my ankle. I

glanced down to see a large white rabbit hopping beneath the table.

Selena returned carrying a tray with an earthenware teapot and mugs. She sat across

from me. “Sugar? Cream?”

“Black.”

She nodded. Poured the tea, passed me the cup with a smile. “How can I help you,

Adrien?”

I don’t know if it was that smile, which was warm and reassuring and genuinely

interested, or the worn beauty of her face, but for the first time in a long time I felt myself

relaxing.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t think there’s much you can tell me about this that I

don’t already know.” I offered the well-handled photos of the inverted pentagram. “I have a

feeling this is not your line.”

She took the photos, going through them slowly, without expression. Then she set

them aside. “No, they’re not my line. Tell me what you know about them.”

I can’t explain why – maybe it was the profound peace of that isolated cabin or the

grave serenity of the woman herself – but I found myself pouring out all my troubles.

I told her about the Scythe of Gremory and the three blades. I told her about Angus. I

told her about Guy. I even told her about Jake. I probably would have blabbed all night if she

hadn’t finally said, into one of my rare pauses for breath, “What do you think is behind these

murders?”

“What or whom?”

“What.”

“You mean the motive?”

She smiled a little. “If you want to call it that.”

I stared at her bleakly. “I think Kinsey was killed because they wanted to frame

Angus.”

“But to kill one of their own?” She spoke gently.

She was right. I hadn’t given much thought to motive – partly because Jake always said

that if means and opportunity were there, motive would turn up. And partly because I had

spent all my energy chasing demons, but the real demon of this case was named MacGuffin.

“She did something to turn the others against her,” I said slowly. What had Angus’s sin

been? By attempting to leave the club, he had threatened disclosure, exposure, revelation.

What he had threatened, Kinsey had unwittingly accomplished. “She came to the bookstore

that day and tried to intimidate me. Until then, I didn’t know who any of them were. After

that I had names, faces.”

Selene nodded, sipping her tea. “And so did the police – through your friend Jake. That

was a serious miscalculation on her part. Whatever her previous ranking, and I imagine it

was quite high for her to persuade the other girl to follow, she would have lost favor

following her visit to you. Remember, in these groups there’s a good deal of rivalry and

competition.”

“So someone aspiring to her position as…Adept…might have been willing to silence

her?”

Her expression was grave. “It wouldn’t be the first time, would it? That’s what

frightened your young assistant. Murder.”

I nodded. Drank more tea. It had an odd aftertaste, but it was good. I felt less weary,

less depressed.

“The other two murders…” I had been thinking aloud. Selene was silent. “One kid

disappeared in October. One kid disappeared in May. Those correspond with witches’

Sabbats, right?”

“Samhain and Beltane both fall in those months.”

“How many Sabbats are there?”

“Eight.”

“How many of the Sabbats require human sacrifice?”

She opened her mouth to object, I said, “I realize that Wicca doesn’t follow these old

traditions, but you share the same Sabbats with the Satanists.”

“The four major Sabbats are Imbolc, Beltane, Lammas, and Samhain.”

“So there could be more deaths.”

She nodded.

“There might be more bodies out there.”

“It is possible.”

I reached for the photos. “Was this meant to scare me, or was this an actual death

threat?”

“I think it was intended to frighten you. I can’t be sure. In any case, you’re more of a

danger now than you were then.”

I considered this from a tired distance. It occurred to me that if I didn’t hit the road

soon, I’d be asking for a place on her sofa.

I stood. “Thank you for your time. This was helpful.”

Selene rose also. The three-legged dog, still watching us from the doorway, made a

determined hopping effort to get to its feet.

She walked outside with me, her bare feet seemingly impervious to the frost on the

ground.

As I opened the car door, she touched my arm. “Adrien, you’re very tired. Be careful

driving back.”

I looked at her in surprise. Took the hand she offered.

“Can I ask you a question? Do you make a living at this?” I gestured to the cabin,

outlined in silver moonlight.

“You mean do I have a day job? Yes, I’m a criminal psychologist.”

She chuckled at my expression. I climbed into the Forester.

I caught a final glimpse of her standing in the cabin doorway, the dog beside her. The

firelight seemed to form an aureole around her.

The next bend in the road took the cabin from sight. It was dark out here, deathly

quiet. The headlights picked out the sign leading back to the main road.

High overhead, a wicked crescent moon shone like a crooked smile over the waves and

waves of black pine trees. I clicked my high beams on.

After the earlier workday traffic, Angeles Crest Highway was startlingly empty. Miles

ahead, I spotted a single pair of headlights winding their way toward me.

As I drove, the winding highway seemed to pick up a kind hypnotic rhythm.

Accelerate in, decelerate out, the road looped and rolled around the mountains, narrowing to

a pass between hills that looked more like rockslides and then widening deceptively.

I passed the car I had seen miles below me, dimming my high beams briefly as we

flashed past each other. Then nothing more but a long empty stretch of invisible road.

Selene Wolfe was right. I was tired. I had been sleeping badly. It was harder to avoid

demons in dreams – especially when they were your own.

Shortly before he died at age eighty-one, Joseph Hansen started a blog called

Lastwords. I’d found it once, surfing the ’Net. Three posts filled with the loneliness of having

outlived pretty much everyone and everything that mattered. Three posts and about as many

replies.

If Hansen was that forsaken at the end, what chance did the rest of us have, especially

those who had never quite managed to find someone to share their life? I tried to cheer

myself by reflecting that with my heart there was no way I’d make it to eighty anyway. The

problem was, I couldn’t imagine feeling much more alone than I did right then.

I blinked. My eyelids felt weighted. How could eyelashes be so heavy? I blinked again.

The smart move would be to pull over and nap for five minutes, but I wanted to get home.

My God, it was a long way away. A long, unraveling way that kept rolling, winding

through the empty blackness. On and on and on.

Easiest thing in the world to stop fighting sleepiness, to close my eyes for a moment, to

let go.

It would be all over in two minutes. Slam. All she wrote. The end. Nobody left with

anything to regret or be guilty about because anyone could have an accident on this road.

They probably wouldn’t find the car for days. The trees were so dense down that

mountainside. Maybe they’d never find the car.

Wouldn’t it be a kind of relief? No more struggling against the tide. No more dead of

night fears about winding up ill and helpless and alone. No more anything.

Gravel spat under the tires. I corrected quickly, instinctively.

As I merged onto the I-210 East heading toward Pasadena, I thought, I wish I’d known

about the blog, Joe. I’d have written you .

Chapter Twenty-three

“Can I get off early tonight?” Velvet asked on Saturday morning. “I have a big party to

go to.”

Bad timing. I had been hoping to slip out of there early myself, to get ready for Lisa’s

shindig at Mondrian’s. But considering how much time Velvet had put in covering for my

extracurricular activities, I could hardly say no.

Though this was the busiest shopping weekend before Christmas, the day passed

without incident, which was saying something these days.

Velvet took off about three, and by the time I had dealt with the last customer, I was

running late.

I went upstairs and dusted off (literally) the tuxedo. That’s one of the advantages of

having a society dame for a mother: you don’t have to rent the monkey suit.

I showered, shaved, and spent about ten minutes chasing shirt studs. And another five

minutes swearing over cufflinks. This is where another guy would come in useful. Or maybe

just a valet.

I drove over to Mondrian’s, left the Forester with the usual aspiring model-slash-valet,

and made my way to the SkyBar, which was already packed with a well-dressed older crowd.

Big Band music floated from the clouds. Candles twinkled in trees.

I was instantly snared by Lisa, looking bridal in white silk. She had Dauten in tow.

Dauten made the tuxedo look like a monkey suit for real.

“Darling.” She offered a scented cheek and whispered, “You’re the handsomest man in

the room.”

Dauten offered a beefy hand. “Adrien.”

“Bill.”

We shook.

Lisa frowned. “Is Jake with you?”

“No.”

That posed a dilemma for her. She wasn’t keen on Jake, but she wasn’t keen on being