The Hell You Say (26 page)
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 The Hell You Say
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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.”
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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.
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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.
* * * * *
“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…”
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“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?”
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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.
* * * * *
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!”
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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 à 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.”
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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?”