Bad Blood: Latter-Day Olympians (3 page)

I’d fiddled, I’d futzed, but still the envelope called. I knew there was no way short of knockout drops that I’d be sleeping tonight without a peep at the contents. So, I started the coffeemaker up again, this time without grounds, to work up some steam.

In the meanwhile, as penance, I flipped through the Strohmeyer file looking for inspiration. I’d hit a wall in the search for Mrs. S’s missing hound, Honey, which had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth around the same time her husband had jumped ship. When she’d come in a week ago bearing a dog carrier and a, pardon the phrase, hangdog expression, I’d been all ready to tell her I didn’t do missing pooch cases. Unfortunately, pride didn’t cover office expenses. Plus, it might have been just the least big intriguing that she didn’t show any concern over the absent Mr. Strohmeyer and that the carrier was so new it bore the remnants of the sale tag. I wasn’t sure how exactly it added up, but that part of me that had devoured Nancy Drew, Nero Wolfe and everything in between smelled a mystery and, as experience had shown, I was constitutionally incapable of walking away.

Only now that I’d run through the retainer was it clear what I’d let myself in for. Dogs didn’t leave paper trails—at least not the bureaucratically traceable kind. AWOL husbands who might know their hound’s whereabouts were another matter. Or should have been anyway. Only this one refused to be so cooperative. No, he had to be clever and pull a complete Houdini. I was stumped.

I scanned my notes and the photos Mrs. S had supplied, but I just couldn’t seem to focus. Still, I knew there was a part of my mind taking it all in. Processing. Maybe this time something would click.

Backbrain whirring like my computer hard drive, I carried the envelope into the kitchenette to check on the building steam. Water filled the carafe and condensation fogged the glass. We were good to go.

I removed the carafe from the machine and sat it on the counter with the top open to release the steam. Then I held the flap of the envelope above the mist—close enough for effect, far enough to keep away the telltale warpage from moisture. Uncle’s desk was closer and cleaner than mine, so I set the envelope down on the surface, grabbed his silver letter opener and painfully slowly eased it under the flap. Success!

Now the trick was to disturb the contents as little as possible. I fled back to my office for a pair of gloves and my digital camera, just in case the contents were interesting enough to record for posterity. The gloves, which we bought in bulk, were not the sturdier and more expensive surgical models, but cheap plastic disposables that felt, more or less, like wearing sandwich bags. Prepped now, I regained my seat and gently slid the single sheet of paper from the envelope. When I finished reading, I started all over again.

Dear Circe:

Neo Cain here. Excuse the unorthodox communiqué. If only you’d return my calls…but I know how precious your time is, so I’ll get right to the point. I have a proposal: my life for my daughter’s. Despite all my warnings to her, my daughter Elyssa signed one of your damned contracts. I know that I no longer, thanks to my own stupidity and your persuasion, have my own youth and vitality and so I’ll have to offer more to compensate. What I propose is fifteen of my years for ten of Elyssa’s. I know I can’t appeal to your compassion, so let me appeal to your pocket. This will keep my daughter, your investment, young, beautiful and earning you megabucks longer than under your current agreement.

I couldn’t convince her that the Big Break wasn’t worth her life, but I can correct that failing if only you’ll let me. The paperwork is enclosed, lacking only your signature and whatever voodoo you do to enforce it. You know how to reach me with your decision.

Neo Cain

The big quake could not have caused greater shock. Never in a million years would I have guessed that Kasim King and Neo Cain were one and the same. I mean, he’d seemed a bit familiar, but lord he’d gotten
old
. And Circe prolonging her life by stealing years from others in exchange for fame and fortune? It boggled the mind. Was it possible that immortality came free, but youth cost? If so, Circe’s death could only be a boon to society. Presumably, the drain on Circe’s victims would end with her death.

That was an awful lot of motive for murder—salvation or revenge—assuming her victims knew what they were agreeing to. Clearly, Neo Cain had, either before or after the fact. If Circe’s contract spelled it out, why wasn’t she denounced as a lunatic? Was her success enough for people to sell their lives short for the promise of glitz and adoration? Or was it in the fine print, something unread or easily laughed off as an eccentric delusion?

My camera mocked me from the desktop. There was no point in photographing the letter and attached agreement. Who would I show them to? It might make a good case for my client’s insanity should he be implicated, but the police weren’t likely to pursue the whole magical angle.

And there it was, the three-hundred-pound gorilla, glaring me in the face and daring me to look away. One wacko client, a few rantings—oh yeah, and a freakish killer—and I was ready to be fitted for my straightjacket and padded cell.
Magic and divinity time-sharing our mundane little world.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up, only to be instantly squelched by lack of air. I gasped, trying to suck oxygen past the sudden vise around my lungs. A panic attack? Me? Surely I was made of sterner stuff. I fought it down, doing my best to clear my head, slow my inhalations.

I’d been so smug all this time, laughing at my family’s quirks, humoring Yiayia when she talked about the origin of her beard or the power my mother had to stop men in their tracks or how so many famous people were really gods in disguise come to Hollywood to regain a measure of their former adoration, and here it was…

My natural cynicism reasserted itself. None of this could exactly be called conclusive. My client could be passed off as a madman. Circe’s name might be no more than coincidence. And the fish-man? B-movie extra. Sideshow freak—we had several in my family alone.
Yeah, how do you explain being flung into Circe’s minion without so much as a touch?
my inner killjoy asked.
Special effect
, I answered defiantly. After all, this was Holly-weird. Probably all this wasn’t even abnormal. I’d moved here less than a year ago; it wasn’t as if I’d seen all the town had to offer.

It was thin and I knew it, like putting my hands over my ears and la-la-la-ing the nastiness away, but I was able to breathe again. Undoubtedly, there’d be a limited shelf life on my willful ignorance. I needed a serious dose of normalcy to stave off its expiration.

Carefully, I slid the papers back into the envelope and used the lingering steam to moisten the glue so that I could refasten the flap. Then I carried the envelope back to my desk, locked it in the top drawer and reached for the phone to call my best friend, the most normal person I knew, Christie Rostenkowski.

The phone rang just as my hand landed.

“Karacis Investigations,” I answered.

“Ohmagod, did you hear?” Christie gushed without so much as a hello. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “Circe Holland was murdered practically around the corner from me! I literally could have walked right into it. I pass that alley every day. And in broad daylight!”

Christie was like that, phased by all the wrong things, untouched by others. Between her parents’ money and her own blonde-hair-blue-eyed supermodel looks, people fell all over themselves to shelter Christie from reality’s little speed bumps.

That was, in fact, how we’d met, when I’d backed down two bozos who were hassling her in a pizza parlor. She made me think of Cindy Lou Who. Faced with the Grinch himself, she too would have been mollified by a lame story and a pat on the head. I liked her because it was near impossible not to; she got a kick out of me because I was “like, so totally
yourself
”. I never had asked her who else I was supposed to be.

Anyway, she’d paused and needed an answer. “Yeah, I heard.”

“
Well
, isn’t it awful?” she moaned.

“Did you know her?” Christie was an actress/model of the commercial, catalogue and occasional walk-on variety.

“That’s kind of a non sequitur, isn’t it? I mean, is it any less awful if I didn’t?”

Points for her. “No,” I answered, drawing the word out. “I’m just saying that not every death is necessarily a tragedy.”

Christie gasped, and I wondered if I shouldn’t maybe have kept that thought to myself. Moral ambiguity was probably not a common visitor to her world.

“What I mean is, what if cutting short one life prolonged others?” I realized even as I said it that Circe’s scheme had essentially been this in reverse. Was I really on the moral high ground here or had I just argued shades of the same crime?

“You know something,” she accused.

Damn, I had to watch myself.

“I was there,” I admitted.

Immediately, Christie’s voice changed. “Oh, you poor thing. Do you want me to come over? I could bring chocolate or something. I was going to ask if you wanted to come clubbing with me tonight. A friend got me on the list for Ondago’s.”

I grimaced. “I’d be terrible company tonight. I’m sorry. Rain check?”

“Okay,” she said doubtfully, “but when you’re up to it, I also wanted to get your opinion on my new head shots.”

I’m pretty sure I kept my groan internal. As soon as we’d hung up, I realized that Christie never had answered my question about whether she’d known the dragon lady.

Chapter Three

“Gods, like lima beans, should be avoided at all costs—and if unavoidable, taken in very small doses.”

—Avra Spyropoulous, a.k.a. Yiayia

My alarm went off way too damned early Friday morning. Normally, unless I had an appointment, I rolled in somewhere between ten and eleven. Today, though, Neo Cain, alias Kasim King, had said he’d be by first thing for the envelope. I could have let Jesus handle the handoff, but I wanted to—well, in all honesty, I didn’t know what. Maybe ask him some questions to watch for his reactions.

After a quick shower, I ran mousse through my hair, scrunched it a bit and let it be. I had only two options with my hair—fuss way too damned long and look like I stepped out of a Clairol commercial or not mess with it at all and get passable, if irrepressible curls. Anything in between, like blow-drying, and I was frizz city.

My wardrobe was pretty much all variations on a theme—black to which splashes of color could be applied via scarves, camisoles or pins. Easy to mix and match. Not feeling at all sporty today, I chose a black pants suit over a periwinkle silk tank with matching scarf and low-heeled boots. Somehow, looking together made me feel more together, like I was putting on my professional persona. World-weary PI. Yup, been there, done that, perfectly unfazed by psycho killers and crazy contracts.

I’d been in my office all of five minutes when Jesus burst in, literally glowing. Jesus didn’t glow. He sniffed; he raised eyebrows. At most he looked mildly amused at your expense.

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it for support. “Someone here to see you and all I can say is oh. My. God!”

I was dumbfounded. “Well, who is it?”

“If I find out you’ve been hiding him from me—”

“
Jesus
, who is it?” I asked again.

“It’s Apollo-freakin’-Demas. About a
case
, he says.”

Ignoring the lightning bolt of shock that struck me, I opted for infuriatingly calm. “And that’s surprising why? We are investigators—at least one of us is.”

“Honey, stars like Apollo do not shop downtown for PIs. They have their people call someone else’s people who hire some firm at a chichi Hollywood address. They do not appear in person, in the
a.m.
”
As if this was a crime
. “I hear Travolta insists on doing all his business at night, just so he doesn’t get mobbed.”

Put that way…

“Well, we’ll never know what it’s about unless you show him in, assuming stars like him wait around. Go. Oh, hold up.” I unlocked my desk drawer and handed him the envelope. “If Kasim King shows up, give him this.”

Jesus saluted, then turned on his heel and marched sharply out of my office.

I slid my chair back in preparation to rise in greeting, then forgot all about it in the next second when all of a sudden, there he was—Apollo-freakin’-Demas, all six foot two ridiculously ripped inches of him. I had one of those bizarre romantic-comedy moments where the world contracts, spatial relationships are meaningless and he was all there was in the world—just his turquoise eyes meeting my bronze, silently speaking volumes. All those statues carved in his likeness were such pale imitations as to be sacrilege.

Then I shook it off.

“Okay, I
get
it. If I stipulate that you’re a hottie, can we cut the act and move on?”

The look on Apollo’s face was so worth the price of admission.

“How?” he asked.

He was already rebounding with an intimate smile, but at the same time his gaze sharpened, as if he were suddenly really focused on
me
and not just whatever had brought him in.
 

I shrugged. “Cynicism. It’s a gift.”

“And not your only one.”

“Oh. You. Charmer,” I deadpanned, choosing blatant insincerity over the more overt and somewhat-soggier rudeness of a raspberry.

“You think so?” he asked undaunted.

“Isn’t that why you bring in the big bucks?”

“Oh, is
that
why? Nothing at all to do with my talent then,” he shot back.

Damn, he was good at the banter. The more I felt myself responding, the more inexplicably irked I became. “I don’t think you came to me for a critique. Why don’t you take a seat and tell me why you’re here.”

Apollo grinned, as if he could see right through me. He tugged my distressed leather guest chair into a position more to his liking and didn’t so much settle in as take it over. His long legs stretched out before him, his posture relaxed just slightly and his arms curved around the rests. I tried not to notice the way that strained the black silk T-shirt across his pecs or the way the supremely fitted jeans outlined his thighs.