Nocturnal (30 page)

The man had given great info, but now the fear was back in his eyes. What was he afraid of? Bryan looked to Pookie.

“Biz, baby, this is great,” Pookie said. “You gave us a lot, and we thank you.”

Biz-Nass nodded.

“Give us one more thing,” Pookie said. “This thing I ask for, it’s like nothing. You researched this, so I’m betting you know what these symbols mean.”

Biz-Nass thought for a moment, then leaned forward and looked closely at the photos on his table. He used his right index finger to trace parts of the symbol as he talked.

He started with the slashed curve that was part of both drawings.

MMMM THIS IS A SYMBOL FOR THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY. THE TWO LINES REPRESENT THE ENTRANCE TO THE OCEAN BETWEEN THE TWO PENINSULAS
.

He pointed to the symbol that showed a lightning bolt going through a circle, with the two half-circles on either side.

THE CENTER CIRCLE REPRESENTS THE EGG FROM WHICH THE WITCHES WERE SPAWNED—

[
one womb
] flashed through Bryan’s mind

—THE HALF-CIRCLES USED TO BE ARMS REACHING OUT TO PROTECT THE EGG. SOMEWHERE ALONG THE LINE THEY WERE SIMPLIFIED. THE JAGGED LINE REPRESENTS HUMAN BLOOD. THIS IS THE SYMBOL OF MARIE’S CHILDREN
.

Bryan leaned in. “So, the symbol at the site of the murders means Marie’s Children killed the boys?”

THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT IT MEANS
.

“I don’t get it,” Pookie said. “The boys were in a minor gang. Why would Marie’s Children go after them?”

Mr. Biz-Nass shrugged.

“We think the killers might be wearing masks,” Pookie said. “Costumes and the like. That ring any bells?”

STORY GOES THAT MARIE’S CHILDREN DRESSED UP TO LOOK LIKE MONSTERS, TO TERRIFY VICTIMS BEFORE KILLING THEM
.

“I knew it,” Pookie said. “Hear that, Bryan?”

Bryan said nothing. Costumes could explain what he’d seen in his dream, what Tiffany Hine had seen, but could it explain what Robin had found?

Pookie picked up the photo of the lightning-bolt symbol. “Biz, you
sure
this is the work of Marie’s Children? Could someone be faking it?”

MOST CERTAINLY. OR MAYBE SOMEONE THINKS
SHITTYBALLS!
THEY ARE
MARIE’S
CHILDREN
.

Bryan touched the picture of the triangle symbol, the one that scared him so bad it was like touching a blow-up photo of a spider that might
come alive and bite you. He pushed it toward Biz-Nass. “And what about this one?”

MMM FIRST RECORDED INSTANCE IN 1892. CIRCLE REPRESENTS AN EGG, BUT ALSO REPRESENTS THE EYE OF A HUNTER. THE UNFINISHED TRIANGLE IS A SYMBOL OF PROTECTION AGAINST THE DEMONS THAT HUNT MARIE’S CHILDREN
.

“Demons?” Pookie said.

THE SAVIORS. IT IS A SYMBOL OF PROTECTION AGAINST THE SAVIORS
.

Bryan remembered the fear from his dreams, could feel it even at that moment, a cold fist below his heart. “How about that. The killers have a boogeyman all their own.”

I HELPED YOU. NOW LEAVE
.

Bryan started to ask for more, but before he could Pookie shook hands with the fortune-teller.

“Biz-baby, you’re a good man,” Pookie said. “If we have more questions later?”

Biz hesitated, then reached into his jacket and handed Pookie a business card. There was nothing on the card but a number.

THAT IS A PREPAID PHONE. NOT TRACEABLE TO ME
.

“A prepaid phone?” Bryan said. “What are you, a drug dealer?”

IT’S MY BOOTY-CALL PHONE. A LOT OF LONELY HOUSEWIVES COME TO GET THEIR FORTUNES READ, IF YOU
YOU’RE A PRICKER-DICKER-FUCKER-SUCKER
KNOW WHAT I MEAN
.

Pookie nodded respectfully. “A playa’s gotta play, Biz, a playa’s gotta play. Thanks again. We’ll be in touch. Bryan, let’s go.”

Pookie quickly walked to the door and held it open. Bryan hesitated, staring at this charlatan who had surprised him with real information. He knew that Biz had more to share, but maybe Pookie was right — maybe this was all they could get for now.

Bryan walked out the door and headed down the stairs to Columbus Avenue.

Bryan watched Pookie slide a fork into his second piece of yellow Sacripantina cake. He put the fork in his mouth, then hummed as he chewed.

“This is so good,” he said. “It’s like a Twinkie on steroids. Sure you don’t want a piece?”

Bryan still regretted the kielbasa that sat like a sour brick in his stomach. He could smell the sugar, the flour, even the lemon flavoring in
Pookie’s cake. One bite of that and his swirling stomach would rebel. He shook his head. “I’m tripping, Pooks. Our best lead, and what do we have to work with? I mean, a witches’ coven? Mob hit men? A hundred-year cover-up of some kind? Come on.”

“Why not? There’s a reason Oscar and Jay were killed. Some kind of occult connection is as good a lead as anything else. I’ll start digging into the Golden Gate Slasher case. And by
I’ll start digging
, I mean I’ll get Black Mister Burns to do it for me.”

“Do you ever do your own detective work?”

“Yes,” Pookie said. “I can detect cock-knockers. Wait … I detect one sitting across the table from me now. Sure you don’t want some cake?”

“No,” Bryan said. “I don’t want cake. I want to find out what’s going on.”

Pookie nodded slowly. “We’ll get this figured out, Bryan. The dream thing doesn’t make any sense, and I know that’s messing with you, but I need you to try and relax so your brain works right.”

“I don’t want to relax.”

“Come on, trust Doctor Chang. Did you feel better after seeing your dad?”

Yeah, I actually felt sane again
.

“No,” Bryan said. “I didn’t.”

“L-L-W-T-L. Look, man, if there’s a cover-up, and the chief of frickin’ police is involved, then you
know
we need to move carefully. Patience, Daniel-san.”

Patience? Easy for Pookie to say. And yet patience was exactly what they needed — Bryan was a hunter. If he lost his shit now, he might spook the prey.

Someone was responsible for all of this.

Bryan wouldn’t rest until he found out who that was.

A
ggie James picked up the Tupperware container that had been tossed his way. It hurt to do even that. His body ached. He needed a hit. Something. Anything. Drying out sucked.

He opened the container and smelled it. His trembling stomach rejoiced at the scent of the brown stew filled with carrots, potatoes and thick chunks of some stringy meat.

The old lady had come with her cart again. They hadn’t drawn his chain all the way back this time. He could move enough to reach the food. That made him potentially dangerous, he supposed, but the old lady didn’t seem to worry about him. She came close, leaned in, then sniffed.

This time her scarf was pink with big red spots. She wore a brown skirt instead of gray, but the sweater and shoes were the same.

“This stew looks good,” Aggie said. “What’s in it?”

She stopped sniffing him long enough to look him in the eye. “Is good for you. Eat.”

She had spoken to him. It was the first English he’d heard in days. “Lady, what’s your name?”

“Hillary.”

She reached into her cart and threw a sandwich to the Chinaman wearing the Super Bowl XXI shirt. He caught it and ripped open the brown paper. He said something that sounded like
shay-shay
, then shoved a big bite into his mouth as he crawled forward on his knees until his chain pulled taut.

“Please,” he said to Hillary as he chewed. “I no talk. I leave. Please.
Please
.”

His sandwich looked like egg salad. The man was terrified. He had tears in his eyes, yet he still crammed the food into his mouth, chewed and swallowed as fast as he could. Aggie recognized that behavior all too well — if you didn’t know when or where your next meal might come from, or if someone was going to kick your ass and take your food away, you ate as much as you could as fast as you could.

“Please,” the Chinaman said.

Hillary just stared at him.

What a group they were: Aggie the bum, Hector the Mexican and the hungry Chinaman. Hector had two sandwiches lying in front of him. He hadn’t touched them. Hillary had come twice since the masked men had
taken his wife. Hector didn’t move a lot anymore, just lay there in a fetal ball. Aggie couldn’t blame the guy — wife and kid, gone.

And you know exactly what that feels like
.

“Please-please,” the Chinaman said to Hillary. He shoved the last of the sandwich into his mouth, then pushed his fingers and palms together, like he was praying. “I no talk.
Please!
”

Hillary rattled off a sharp, short phrase of what sounded like that chinky-chong talk, and the Chinaman shrank away. He fell to his ass, then back-crawled until he hit the white wall.

“Damn, Hillary,” Aggie said. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him I’ll bring egg rolls next time,” Hillary said without looking away from the man.

“You’ve got egg rolls?”

She looked at Aggie again. “You don’t seem as scared as he does. Why?”

Aggie shrugged. “Doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere unless you let me go. Besides, I got nothing to live for. I’m pretty scared, I guess. If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die.”

And maybe you’ve been trying to kill yourself for years, but you don’t have the balls to do it right
.

“There are different ways of dying,” she said. “Some worse than others. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you.”

Aggie shrugged again. “What’s gonna happen is what’s gonna happen. Maybe I’m a little” — he paused as a shiver ripped him from toes to nose — “a little preoccupied right now.”

“You’re already feeling better, I can …”

Her voice trailed off, but somehow Aggie knew that she’d been about to say:
you’re feeling better, I can smell it
. Had the Mexican woman smelled better, too?

Aggie decided to stop thinking about that. He didn’t want to know if he was right.

“I’d be better still if I could get my medicine,” he said. “How about it, lady? Can I get my medicine I had on me when I came in?”

“No.”

“But I need my medicine. I’m sick.”

Hillary shook her head. “You don’t need it, or you won’t soon. We’ve had many like you here before. You’ll be fine in another day or two.”

Aggie had dried out before. Sure, the shakes would be gone, as would the shits and the pukes, but he’d be far from
fine
. Losing the shakes didn’t help you
forget —
the smack did.

“I need it,” Aggie said.

Hillary smiled. “Perhaps in a few days, this
need
will be the least of your problems.”

The white jail-cell door swung open with its grinding, metallic squeak. Six white-robed men came in, hoods pulled up over monster masks — Wolf-Face, Pig-Face, Hello Kitty, a bug and a demon-face. The last one through wore the black-skinned, red-lined face of Darth Maul.

Wolf-Face carried the pole with the hook. Demon-Face held the remote control.

The Chinaman stared and muttered rapid-fire words that Aggie didn’t understand. The guy had been unconscious when they brought him in — this was his first time seeing the freak show.

The white-robed men closed in on Hector.

Hector didn’t move. He remained in a fetal position.

Demon-Face pressed a button on the remote. The chains started to clank. Aggie hustled back to the wall, scooping up his chain as he went. He rested his neck against the hole, letting the chain play through his fingers so it wouldn’t loop his foot or anything like that.

The Chinaman was freaked, but not so freaked he didn’t mimic Aggie’s actions.

Hector’s chain pulled tight, started dragging him, and still he didn’t react. The monster-faced men closed in. Even as he slid, four sets of hands grabbed at his arms and legs. The wooden pole descended, its metal hook reaching for his collar.

Then Hector’s chain rang with a strange new
clank
.

It stopped retracting.

Aggie looked to the hole that led into the wall. There, his chain was balled into some kind of a knot large enough that it wouldn’t fit through the stainless-steel flange.

The monster-faced men looked too, their black-gloved hands stopping in midmotion around the Mexican’s hands and feet. In the brief, still silence that filled the white room, Hector spoke.

“Ahora es su turno cabrones.”

His hand shot out under a white robe, grabbed a foot and yanked. Pig-Face went down hard, feet pulled out from under him like some cartoon character walking into one of those rope traps, his head
thonking
audibly off the floor’s white stones.

He tricked ’em. He was just playin’ possum
.

Hector moved like a pissed-off street cat fighting a pack of small, slow dogs. He shook off their grip and with the same motion was on his feet.
He kicked out, planting his foot hard into the stomach of Bug-Face. Bug-Face let out a grunt, then dropped.

Two men down in less than a second.