Текст книги "The Hell Yo "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

kept agreeing, but he seemed to be on a roll. He assured me that Lisa would never have to

want for aught. But since she didn’t now, I only managed a few polite sounds. He said he

realized that he didn’t need to ask my permission to marry my mother, but that it meant a lot

to both of them if I would give my blessing.

He seemed perfectly sincere. I figured that he might be a throwback, but he certainly

did have nice old-fashioned manners.

“If this is what Lisa wants,” I said by way of blessing.

He nodded. We had more drinks and finished our dinner. See, that wasn’t so bad, I

reassured myself, as Bill appropriated the bill.

But I was kidding myself if I thought the male bonding was over for the night. Bill

offered port and a Cuban cigar by the fire pit out on the patio.

I accepted the port and declined the cigar.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was forgetting. You have a heart condition, I understand.”

“Very mild.”

He nodded politely – Lisa had likely convinced him I would never see forty.

Thanks to a freak bout with rheumatic fever when I was sixteen, the valves of my heart

were damaged. As long as I didn’t do anything too stupid, it wasn’t usually a problem,

although maybe it gave me a different perspective from most guys my age. Getting involved

in a couple of murder investigations had reinforced my conviction that life was short and

happiness pretty damn fragile.

Bill and I drank in silence that was not exactly companionable, but not unfriendly. The

scent of cigar mingled with the fire and the hint of sage from the surrounding hills.

Dauten tapped cigar ashes over the railing, said gruffly, with the air of a bull who

knows damn well it’s in a china shop, “I know that you live a…uh…an alternative lifestyle,

Adrien. I don’t want you to feel that any of us would judge…would feel… We want you to

be comfortable, and of course, any friend of yours would naturally be welcome in our home

at any time.”

I went cold. Had Lisa told him about Jake? Had she named names? Was there any

likelihood that Dauten would bump into Jake in the normal course of either of their jobs?

“Thank you,” I got out.

“You’re one of the family now.”

Talk about cults. “I…yes.”

He held his brandy snifter out, we clinked glasses ever so carefully.

* * * * *

Velvet departed for an early break on Tuesday, Lord of the Rings lunchbox in hand –

what is it with girls and that elf, by the way?

Not long after she’d left, two young females sauntered in. Although there is really no

typical bookstore customer, this pair looked like they would be more at home in a mall in

Hades.

One was tall and blonde. She looked familiar. In fact, she looked a lot like one of my

new sisters tricked out for Halloween – though I assumed she would have mentioned if we

were destined to share ceremonial turkey in the near future. She wore leather jeans and a

black lace T-shirt, through which I saw her scarlet bra. A silver pentagram gleamed on a

chain around her neck (so much for secret signs). The feathery tips of her hair were tinted

black. Her lipstick, eye makeup, and fingernails were all painted a macabre and sooty shade

more suited to a charnel house than a house of fashion.

Her mohawked companion was small, buff. She was dressed in a floor-length black

leather coat that dwarfed her. Pink-tinted heart-shaped glasses and silver-frosted lipstick

completed the ensemble.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch? Again, I had the impression that I knew her from

somewhere, but I couldn’t quite place her. In any case, it was the blonde who held the floor.

“We’re looking for Gus,” she announced, propping one hand on one skinny hip and

tossing her two-toned hair over her shoulder in what was obviously one of her top ten poses.

“He’s not here.”

Her heavy-lidded eyes fastened on me. “Well, like, when will he be back?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

Her lip curled. “Bullshit. You must know.”

I raised my brows. “Why must I?”

“He works for you.”

Here was the born dupe of a yet-to-be-promoted micromanager.

“He’s on his own time now.”

“Are you saying you, like, fired him?”

I grinned. I don’t know why, but that belligerent mix of Valley Girl and Wicked Witch

struck me as sort of funny.

“I’m not saying anything, kiddo, other than that he’s not here, and I have no idea when

he’s coming back.” She opened her mouth, but I added, “I’m thinking that if Angus wanted

you to know where he was, he’d have left word with you.”

She glared ferociously with those Alice Cooper eyes. I studied her. We seemed to have

reached an impasse.

“I want to know where Gus is!” She was louder now. Maybe she thought we didn’t

speak the same language.

“I can’t help you.”

Her skinny chest rose and fell. “Can’t or won’t?”

This kind of stunt was not good for business. I was lucky a customer hadn’t strolled in

yet. I said, to conciliate, “Can’t, if it makes you feel better.”

“I’ll tell you what will make me feel better!”

I waited politely while she trembled with rage. Belatedly, I wondered whether she was

on something. Her eyes did look stoned. My gaze slid to her faithful companion who stood

there wordlessly waiting for…whatever. Behind the pink heart-shaped specs, her eyes met

mine, slid away.

Snowden’s class, I thought abruptly. That’s where I’ve seen you.

I still didn’t think I had a problem. I mean, I was confident I could take Wicked, if it

came down to that. I wasn’t quite sure about the stocky brunette. I was fairly sure that two

healthy, adult-sized, and aggressive femmes would be a handful, even for a guy who didn’t

have a tricky heart. But I honestly didn’t think this was going anywhere I couldn’t handle.

The blonde jerked her head to her trusty sidekick. The dark-haired girl turned toward

the front door, moving to shut it.

Now that, I admit, caught me off guard. I remembered Jake saying once that half the

people who wound up victims simply took too long to assess potential danger or ignored

their own instincts.

As the leather munchkin flipped the “Open” sign over to “Closed,” I started considering

my options.

The blonde turned back to me. “Did you, like, want to change your mind?” she

drawled.

“Like, what about?” Now she had me doing it.

I figured if I reached for the phone I would wind up in a wrestling match with her, and

I wanted to avoid that. It wasn’t solely fear of being beaten up by girls; it was the thought

that they could scream rape or God knows what, and they might be believed. Being gay

wouldn’t necessarily protect me. There are lunatics out there who believe that a gay man is

capable of anything. Even lusting after college co-eds.

She made this minute sound of impatience and fury and shoved the stack of paperbacks

on the counter to the floor.

The situation was fast morphing from farce to felony.

I could always run upstairs, lock myself in my flat, and call the cops. Or I could grab

the antique poker from in front of the fake fireplace and start whaling away with it, but… I

don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t rational, but I had a real reluctance to start crunching skulls and

breaking bones. Nor was I about to leave the shop to their mercy.

She advanced on me. “Listen, queer bait, we want an answer!”

Queer bait?

I contemplated shoving the nearest bookshelf over on her, but that was liable to kill

her. I ducked back, putting the counter between us.

“Why don’t you ask your Ouija board?”

As Jake has frequently pointed out, I have a tendency to shoot my mouth off at the

wrong time. She tried to jump across the counter top to scratch me. I backed out of range of

her ink-tipped claws.

“For fuck’s sake!” observed the brunette.

So now I knew the name of their mysterious deity.

Sabrina the Teenage Bitch wriggled forward on the polished mahogany and spilled

none too gracefully over the other side with sales receipts and assorted invoices. I slipped

around the end of the counter, keeping one eye on the lady with the mohawk.

Sabrina rose, shook her blonde mane out of her face. “I can make you so sorry,” she

whispered. My nostrils twitched as I got a whiff of cinnamon gum and overpowering

perfume. Obsession? Shalimar? Brimstone?

“Likewise,” I said evenly. “And what a waste of both of our time, since I don’t have the

information you need.”

“Kinsey,” exclaimed the second one, nodding at the window facing the street. To my

astonishment I saw Jake striding along the sidewalk clearly making straight for Cloak and

Dagger Books.

The cavalry when I least expected it. I said, “Kinsey, don’t look now, but there’s a

house with your name on it.”

Kinsey and the Poison Dwarf gaped, taken aback by what they seemed to believe were

my psychic powers – or maybe they really thought a house was blowing their way.

Jake looked like the house had hit him first. There was a discreet square of white over

his brow. One side of his face looked bruised. He was casually dressed, jeans and a leather

jacket, so he wasn’t working.

“This isn’t over,” Kinsey warned me, backing away. Her foot slid on a sheaf of papers,

and she reached out to steady herself.

“Snap out of it,” I told her. “The guy’s a cop. And a friend. D’you –”

But they freaked at the word “cop.” The dark-haired girl fumbled the front door open,

and they went hurtling through it, nearly knocking down Jake, who had paused at the sight

of the closed door.

As the glass door settled into place, I heard his muffled curse, one arm cradling what

were apparently sore ribs. Instinctively, he turned to go after them. From my vantage point I

saw him check. He turned back, shoved open the door, and leaned inside the doorway. I

waved my arm to signal that I was okay – and to go after them – but it took him a moment

to pinpoint me in the relative gloom of the shop’s interior.

Then he was gone.

Through the front window, I watched him sprint down the busy sidewalk in pursuit.

One arm was clamped to his side as though to brace himself. He didn’t know what he was

pursuing; it was the same reflex that makes a dog chase a car down the street.

I knelt, gathered the fallen papers and books. My heart was kicking hard with a rush of

adrenaline and tension. I was irritated that my hands weren’t quite steady. I still wasn’t

convinced the whole incident wasn’t mostly ridiculous.

Jake was back in under five minutes. “So…did they see your prices? What was that

about?” Despite the wisecrack, his face was glazed with sweat, and beneath the tan, pale. He

moved like he hurt.

“I take it they got away?”

He glared at me, still breathing hard.

“They came in asking for Angus. They didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t know

where he was.”

“Maybe you weren’t convincing.”

“Jake,” I said hotly. “I don’t know where he is.”

He let that go. “So what happened? They threatened you? What?”

“Yeah. Sort of.” I felt like an idiot. I couldn’t picture Jake letting a pair of girls chase

him around a room. “They got here a couple of minutes ahead of you. Nothing actually

happened.”

Jake scowled. “The goddamn door was shut, Adrien, with a closed sign on it. Something

sure as shit was going down in here. I know guilt when I see it. Those two were guilty as

hell. Did you get a name? Did you recognize either of them?”

“One of them, the blonde, was named ‘Kinsey.’ I recognized the dark-haired girl from

Guy Snowden’s class last Monday.”

All business, he sat on the fat arm of one of the faded, comfy chairs, and took out a

notebook to jot down my information. By the time we finished, his color was better. He had

caught his breath again.

Flipping the notebook shut, he straightened and came over to the counter where I

stood.

“I think I’ll have another word with Professor Snowden,” he said. I didn’t like his

smile. I wondered what the first word had been and decided I’d be happier not knowing.

“So what are you doing here?” I asked. “How are you feeling?”

Our public greetings were always awkward. Occasionally, he’d actually kiss me hello, if

we were well and truly on our own, but generally any physical display of affection had to

wait till we were behind closed – and locked and bolted – doors. Today, in particular there

seemed to be a force field around him.

I didn’t care; I was happy that he was alive and in one piece. And that he’d come to see

me so soon after getting released from the hospital. So, I settled with gripping his arm as it

rested on the counter, giving him a friendly shake. “Nice to see you.”

A weird expression crossed his features. His hazel gaze met mine, swerved away.

“Kate’s pregnant,” he said.

“Oh?” For a second I actually couldn’t think who Kate was. Then it registered. Kate.

The red-haired woman in the hospital. Kate Keegan. The woman he slept with when he

wasn’t sleeping with me.

“Kind of a surprise,” I said neutrally. He seemed shaken, but not upset. Had it been

planned? Was he glad? Was she trying to manipulate him? Trap him?

“Yeah.” He smiled, a goofy smile.

So he was happy about it.

“She’s keeping it – the baby – then?”

He nodded. His eyes met mine. Fell away. “Yeah. That much we’re agreed on.”

“What do you not agree on?”

He wasn’t looking at me. He said carefully, “We’ve talked about getting married, but

this would kind of escalate things.”

I blinked. “Sure.”

“We’re both in a pretty good position financially and with our careers.” He glanced my

way. “But it’s not like we planned for it. It would mean a lot of…adjustments.”

“Right.”

He took a deep breath, then let it out. “Anyway, I thought I’d better tell you.” He

looked at his watch and said with relief, “I’m late. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

He grabbed me around the neck in a quick bear hug and banged his cheek against

mine. Or that was his intention. In fact, he knocked both our heads together kind of hard,

which felt symbolic. He grunted, and I grunted. He let loose and was gone. I watched him go

through the little birdies circling my head.

Chapter Nine

After Partners in Crime broke for the evening, I went upstairs and discovered that Guy

Snowden had left another of those cautious, noncommittal messages on my machine. I

figured if he was still noncommittal, Jake must not have got hold of him. I tried calling him

back, got his machine again, and left a less cautious message of my own.

Still no word from the Dark Realm regarding Blade Sable. My online query lay right

where I had left it. Discussion did not exactly scintillate. Spells were exchanged, political

opinions were exchanged, a video was recommended: Cursed with Christina Ricci. This

triggered an unexpectedly heated debate of the flick’s cinematic merits and Ricci’s physical

ones. I sighed. Signed out.

An evening of surfing the ’Net for information on local Satanic organizations did little

for my nerves, although I thought I had a better understanding of what Satanism was.

As with Christianity, there appeared to be several different religious belief systems and

practices in Satanism. Traditional Satanists worshiped the deity Satan, aka the Christian

Devil. But the majority of Satanists seemed to view Satanism as an abstract philosophy with

Satan functioning as a symbol for pre-Christian life concepts.

Of course, according to the Religious Right, anyone who wasn’t practicing conservative

Christianity was a Satanist.

The ugly stuff, the stuff that got the media attention, seemed to fall into the category of

Satanic dabbling. A mix of everything from Wicca to psychotropic werewolves with, as far as

I could tell, no connection to religious Satanism, this junk seemed to attract the young (pissy

adolescents in particular) and the mentally ill.

I was reading up on the more horrific manifestations of this mystical acting out, when

the phone rang next to my elbow, and I almost went through the roof.

By the time I had regained composure enough to pick up the receiver, I hoped it might

be Jake, but nope, the hoarse whisper on the other end belonged to Angus.

“Adrien…?”

“Angus, speak up,” I said crisply. Hours of reading about the Sign of the Beast, ritual

torture, crazed killers, and equally crazed Christian fundamentalists made me less patient

than usual. “Where are you?”

“I don’t think I should tell you,” Angus mumbled. “It might not be safe.”

Swell. Was he anticipating my being captured and tortured for the information?

I heard a sound like a garbage disposal running in the background, which I deduced

was Wanda, offering Angus guidance. “Adrien, I think I made a big mistake,” he said.

That made two of us. “What mistake?” I asked.

“I think I left stuff at my place that might help them track us.”

“Angus, who is ‘them’? Wait – forget I asked. You’ve got to call Jake right away.”

“I’m not talking to him,” Angus said in perfectly normal and perfectly hostile tones.

“He doesn’t give a rat’s ass what happens to me.”

“Listen to me carefully,” I said. “They dug up a body in Eaton Canyon a couple of days

ago. A kid named Tony Zellig. Jake’s part of the investigation. He wants to talk to you.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said desperately. My heart sank. Not: “I don’t

know anything about any body!” Not: “Who’s Tony Zellig?”

“Adrien, please listen. If they find that letter, they’ll be able to hunt us down.

Adrien…are you there?”

“I’m here.” I rested my forehead on my hand, tried to think. “What letter?”

“The letter from my Grampy. I left it right there on the coffee table. If they find it,

they’ll make the connection…”

His Grampy? How desperate a character could a kid be who called his grandfather

“Grampy”?

“Do they know where you live? Maybe they’ve already found it.”

I didn’t actually believe that. I had trouble with the idea of this vast conspiracy of evil,

but I felt the panic vibrate all the way down the line. He covered the mouthpiece and held a

quick, ragged discussion with Wanda.

“If they –” His voice cracked. He tried again. “If they’ve found out, we need to know.”

The minute hand of the clock on my desk clicked onto the six. Eleven-thirty. I listened

to Angus breathing noisily on the other end. He sounded like he was about to cry.

“How do I get in?” I asked at last.

“There’s a key in the dragon planter on the back porch.”

“Terrific,” I said briefly. “No one will ever think of looking there.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“What exactly am I doing? Retrieving a letter that has the location of your secret

hideout?”

His voice wavered. “Why are you mad at me?”

“Because you knew –” My voice shook. I cleared my throat and said, “Because you

knew about the body in Eaton Canyon. Because you’re involved in a goddamned murder –

and I helped you –”

He slammed the phone down.

I pressed Call Return. The number flashed on the screen. Up north somewhere, judging

by the area code. I scribbled the number. Then I called Jake’s cell. It was busy. I pressed

pound to leave a message.

“It’s me.” I explained briefly, recited Angus’s phone number. “He asked me to pick

something up for him at his place. It’s eleven-thirty now. I should be over there by twelve, if

you want to have a look around without a warrant.” I pulled the address out of my Rolodex,

read it over the phone, and hung up.

* * * * *

The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac. One of those rectangular, L-shaped, ranch–

style fixer-uppers that no one had bothered to fix up. It looked blue in the moonlight. The

peeling shutters were blood-colored – possibly brown in the light of day. The attached

garage sagged wearily on its posts. Apparently Angus wasn’t a big fan of HGTV.

For laughs, I walked to the front and tried the door. It was locked. I decided that was a

good sign. I went around to the side gate. It was also locked, fastened by a padlock on the

other side of the tall wooden gate.

I weighed alternatives while keeping an eye on the neighbor’s house. The windows

next door were dark, so either no one was home, or everyone was in bed. I didn’t fancy

getting snagged for burglary by a Citizen’s Watch zealot. I suspected Angus might not stay

around long enough to back my story.

It was a reasonably sturdy gate. I decided it could likely take my weight. I grabbed the

top board and swung myself up. I balanced briefly, the fence groaning in alarm. I jumped,

landing in tall grass and weeds.