thirteen
leviathan on a hook
AS LATE as I got to bed, as tired, scared, and pissed off as I was, you’d have thought that just this once the universe might cut me some slack. You’d have been wrong. My phone rang again at five-thirty in the morning and, although I ignored it, kept ringing every two minutes until I gave up and rolled onto the floor, then crawled across the unfamiliar motel room on my hands and knees to answer it. It wasn’t a Heaven-related number, so I was even more certain it couldn’t be anything worth waking up for.
“Who wants to die?”
“It’s me, Bobby.” The pig man.
“It’s really, really goddamned early, George, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Nobody knows that better than me. You want to talk about the time? I got about ten minutes left until the sun’s up and then all you’re going to get is oink, oink, oink.”
“Sorry, George. Go ahead.”
“Okay, first there’s ‘Kephas.’ It’s ancient Aramaic and it means ‘rock.’ It’s what Jesus actually named Peter. You know, ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ There’s tons of mentions on various Bible sites but only in that context. I haven’t found anything interesting or out of the ordinary about Magians yet…but you’re hot as a pistol, Mr. D. Lot of people want to know about you. According to my sources, secondary queries with your name in them have tripled in the last few days.”
“What are ‘secondary queries’?”
“That’s someone other than me asking the questions.”
Helplessness tugged at me, the leading edge of panic, and I did my best to slap it away. “Why me, George? What is it that everyone wants to know? And who’s asking?”
“As to who, it’s mostly folks who operate on the edges between the two sides. Information users, mostly. I can’t figure out yet what’s got people so interested except that some folks have been talking about you and others want to know why. There’s a lot of stuff all over .ky.”
It was too damn early. “Dot K Y? I’m big news on a sexual lubricant site?”
“No, that’s just the domain name—means Cayman Islands. Lot of the paranormal folk use their internet domain because the accounts can’t be traced. Anyway, my business is all about information chasing its own tail, but it’s even harder than usual to get hold of anything substantial on this; I’m chasing a rumor without knowing what the rumor is, see? But I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything specific.”
“Thanks, George. You’re a good man. Anything on the monstrosity that’s after me? Tall, dark and horny?”
“Oh, shit, yeah—of course. I’m really sorry you have to deal with that crap, Bobby.”
“Yeah, George, I am too.” I appreciated him, but I wasn’t at my most patient. “Any helpful details?”
“Again, not very much. They’re not common. ‘Allu’ or ‘ghallu’ is the closest match I can find.”
“I’ve got confirmation on that already. Some kind of hireling spirit. Very old, pre-Christian.”
“Yeah. And it’s bad news.”
“I knew that, too.”
“The problem is, they don’t show up very often, so nobody’s got much real information more recent than the nineteenth century. Only somebody with a lot of clout can put one of those babies to work.”
“Damn it, George, I already heard all this—I need to know what to do about it! How do you kill one, or at least dismiss it?”
“I don’t know, Bobby. The last confirmed sighting was back in the nineteen eighties in Syria.”
“Well, I confirmed one trying to set my ass on fire as it chased me down the Camino Real a couple of nights ago, so I think I need a better answer than that.”
There was a long pause. When he spoke again, something strange had happened to his voice. “I…I’m…”
“George? You okay?”
“Unh. Unh.” He was reduced to grunting now. I peered at my window and saw a gray gleam between the curtains. Daybreak. “Unhhh….” The next grunt had a little squeal in it—I guess the last human part of him didn’t like letting go.
“Well, thanks for calling, George.” I hung up and crawled back into bed, which seemed like as good a place to die as any other.
Just to make sure I didn’t get too much sleep, Alice sent me a client at about eight o’clock. I had to scramble out of the motel without breakfast and hurry down to Sequoia Hospital, where I at least had the luck to represent a lovely elderly lady who had spent most of her life going to church and taking care of her family and also most of her neighborhood, like Mother Teresa without the lust for publicity. Seeing her go peacefully and happily into the light reminded me that a lot of what I do is to make sure good people get the reward they deserve.
When I was done it was almost lunchtime. I hadn’t been to The Compasses for a couple of days and I was feeling nostalgic so I called the place. Chico set the phone out on the bar and made it a conference call with the members of the Choir who were there—Walter Sanders, Sweetheart, Young Elvis, and a few others. No Monica, no Sam.
“What’s happening, Bobby?” Kool Filter asked. He had a voice like Louie Armstrong trying not to cough, and he almost always sounded amused. “Heard some ugly old shit is chasing you around.”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” Which was an outright lie, but I hate people feeling sorry for me like a cat hates bathwater. “Seen Sam?”
“He was in last night,” reported Young Elvis. He got that name because of his hair, by the way. I have never seen any living human being spend as much time fucking with his hair as this angel does. There’s a permanent solidified mist of hairspray on The Compasses’ bathroom mirror because of him. It’s a pretty spectacular ‘do, though, I have to admit—like the King in his leather-jacketed prime. Our boy likes to wear that rockabilly shit, too, Spanish heels, the works.
“Hey, do any of you happen to know where I can find the Sollyhull Sisters these days?”
Kool chortled. “Shit, you are a glutton for punisment, B. I think somebody said they were haunting some diner across town.”
“Superior Grill, off the 84,” Walter Sanders said in his sniffy way. “At least they were there a week ago. Ruined my otherwise perfectly mediocre lunch.”
I thanked them and signed off. I missed hanging out with the Whole Sick Choir, but I wasn’t going to see them for at least a few days, that was obvious. If my visit to the Magian Society’s landlord didn’t take too long, and nothing else intervened or tried to kill me, I figured I might be able to consult the sisters that evening. They could tell me things even Fatback couldn’t, and about now I was feeling a desperate need for new information.
As I threw on my jacket to go out my phone rang again. It was Monica.
“Well, hello, stranger,” she said, but if you had licked her tone of voice your tongue would have been frozen to it until the fire department came to get you off. “I just walked in to The Compasses and the boys said I barely missed you. How’s life?”
“Yeah, great, sort of.” I couldn’t avoid it any longer, that was clear. “You have a minute to talk?”
I could almost hear the lifted eyebrow. “A whole minute?” she said. “This is my lucky day.”
I hoped she was sitting by herself instead of in the middle of the Choir. Nothing like a dysfunctional tavern family to make an emotional scene even more embarrassing.
“Look, I know I’ve been kind of distracted lately,” I began.
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Bobby darling. The truth is, you’ve been an utter shit.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then said, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”
“What is it with you?” Now I could hear how deep the unhappiness went. “We had a crazy night—so what? You think that means I expect us to get married or something? Hello? I’m an immortal just like you are. If anybody understands letting someone have their space, I do. Not to mention that you made your need for that space very clear a long time ago.”
/> “I know. I just…” That’s why I hate cell phones. The door to the outside world was only a few feet away but it didn’t make any difference: I was connected and could not honorably disconnect until the conversation was over. And I was too old for the bad reception—I’m losing you dodge. I sighed. “Honestly, Monica, honey, things really have been complicated. With demons trying to murder me and all. But basically you’re right. I did a terrible job. I actually had a nice time with you that night, and the next morning, too…but I got in my own way. I even hope we can do it again sometime. But I was afraid you’d—”
“Take it more seriously than you.” Some of the bitterness was gone this time. “Possibly. But not anymore, now that I’ve seen that you’re still a prick when you get panicky. And any future Naber-Dollar collaborations will go forward only with that in mind.” She took a drink of something, swallowed. “Because I don’t want to lose you as a friend, Bobby. I really mean that. You’ve always been an idiot, but you make me laugh.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either, Monica. As a friend, I mean. Or…or whatever we are, sometimes. So I don’t know exactly what we’re agreeing—but it’s a bargain, right?”
“Right. Just try not to be such an asshole.”
I was still jumpy about everything else but a little less guilty about Monica as I began my research on who owned the 4442 East Charleston property. This was the kind of legwork I could do myself, which was just as well because the Sollyhulls didn’t do real-world stuff, and Fatback wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone except the local sows for another eleven hours or so.
As I suspected, a quick check of title deeds, county tax records, and other fun stuff confirmed what I already suspected: the landlord Grinder Guy gave me was a holding company, just a cutout for the real owner of the property. And that was only the first holding company of several, as it turned out. Somebody had buried the facts pretty deeply, but I’m a curious guy who likes to get answers, so I know my way around a tedious paper trail better than most. An hour of work in the county file dungeons, a few small bribes, and I finally had what I wanted—the identity of the true and ultimate owner of the address listed on Habari’s Magian Society business card. It was a bit of an eye opener.
There was still some afternoon remaining so I headed to the other side of the Palo Alto district to follow up—not the garden suburbs this time, but the tall and shiny buildings of Page Mill Square along the Camino Real, just a little south of the Stanford campus. In only a couple of short decades the office towers there had climbed above even the Wells Fargo building and the other proud stalwarts of Jude’s old downtown, and the one I was headed toward was one of the tallest of them, Five Page Mill, otherwise known as the Vald Credit Building.
The most interesting thing was not that a billion-dollar institution like Vald Credit was the ultimate landlord for a little hole-in-the-wall operation like the Magians, but how much trouble someone had taken to hide that fact in a chain of ownership as long as my arm. I mean, I suppose it could have been coincidental—obviously a business empire that big must own a lot of stuff—but another thing that made it interesting was that Vald Credit was owned by one guy, and pretty much everyone in San Judas knew about him.
It wasn’t that Kenneth Vald had become rich in any unusual way: he had made a little money, then used that money to make some more, and so on and so on. He hadn’t even done anything particularly awful along the way, by billionaire standards, though nobody makes a globe-girdling fortune without stepping on a few toes. No, he was famous precisely because he and his riches were so visible. He was a man who enjoyed being wealthy in the most public possible way: parties, public exposure, expensive toys, and expensive women. Vald acted like someone who’d made a deal with the devil and was going to enjoy every instant of it until the loan came due. My colleagues and I had been convinced for a long time that there was more than a hint of sulphur to Vald’s resumé.
Of course, one of the things about powerful people like Ken Vald is that you don’t just waltz in and get an appointment to see them. In fact, I wasn’t going get an appointment no matter what I did—at least, not as long as I went about it the ordinary way. So I wasn’t going to bother with the ordinary.
Yes, the whole thing was probably stupid from the start. I should have gone back and done a full-scale prep on Vald before I went anywhere near the place. That was what I had been taught, and if I’d sent that along with a full report to Heaven it might even have got me off the hook with my superiors. But right that moment I was curious enough to cut some corners and nervous enough about my current dangerous situation not to care if it was kind of stupid. Plus, there was also the buzz of being on to something: it seemed pretty damn significant that the Edward Walker case, which had put all of Heaven and Hell in an uproar, should be connected, however remotely, to the office of such a very wealthy and seemingly arrogant man.
Actually, that was another reason not to just walk right in, now that I think about it.
A little rain was falling when I left my car in a restaurant parking lot across the Camino Real from Page Mill Square. I knew that the underground parking lot shared by the buildings around the square could be locked down with a single call, and I didn’t want to be stuck in there if I pissed anyone off, because I was already guessing I might piss someone off before the afternoon was over, I just didn’t know yet how many or how badly.
A lot of both as it turned out.
The lobby of number Five was pretty much what I would have expected, workers streaming in and out, messengers with packages, maintenance guys trundling carts. A big guard desk dominated the front end of the lobby with five guys in uniforms; a smaller desk sat at the other end of the lobby, and everywhere I looked I saw security cameras. I also noticed that they weren’t letting anyone go through without an employee badge and a visual inspection. Even the bike messengers had to leave their packages at the desk, probably so they could go through an x-ray machine. Anyway, security was pretty darn tight. I loitered for a while as if I was waiting for someone, checking my watch from time to time, and wandered in and out of the sundries store that sold gum and cigarettes and checked that out too.
Number Five appeared to be your average office tower in most ways, although the employees seemed a little more reserved than what you’d usually see in a big company, more like the kind of vibe you’d expect from workers in a foreign embassy in an unfriendly city. Still, as I’ve mentioned, I was pretty hyped up so I told myself I might be imagining things. Then something happened that I most definitely didn’t imagine: a group of obvious security guys emerged from one of the service elevators in matching dark glasses, ear-pieces, and suits with gun bulges. The desk guards greeted them respectfully as they went past on their way to the main entrance. They obviously worked there and looked like the usual collection of muscle unleavened by sense of humor, but something about the one in front was extremely familiar, especially his unibrow and thick, close-cropped dark hair. He glanced in my direction without seeing me as he led his men through the front doors, and suddenly I recognized him even in his people-skin. He had just too much beast in his face to look one hundred percent human, his hairline too low, his nose too wide across the bridge. It was Howlingfell, the guy who had been Grasswax’s muscle the night Clarence saved the Martino lady from getting sent to Hell. The guy whose neck I had sort of kneeled on.
I watched him disappear out onto the sidewalk and decided that there was no way coincidence could be stretched that far. I definitely needed to learn more about Vald Credit, and the best way might be paying a visit to the executive suite while Howlingfell and his security team were out of the building. I knew it wasn’t the most subtle play, but as I may have told you, when I get stressed I tend to drop back into old habits. I wanted answers, and failing that, I wanted people to know I was pissed.
I decided my best bet would be the smaller guard station at the less-used back entrance, where only two men were on duty. I stood around a few minutes more u
ntil one of the guards had gone off to the restroom, then I walked up to the other one just as he finished running his barcode reader over someone’s badge.
“Excuse me,” I said, “but I think you’d better come look at this elevator. Something’s seriously wrong. Someone could get hurt.”
He hesitated for a second, glancing around to see if his partner was coming back, but then grunted in a bad-tempered way and got up from his booth. He looked like he might have been an athlete about a decade ago, but he’d been sitting down too much since then.
“Which elevator?” he said as he followed me toward the rear elevator bank, one hand resting on the butt of his taser in a very impressive way.
“This one,” I said, punching a button.
It opened, and he peered inside. It was empty. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, pressing the barrel of my .38 against his spine, “it’s going to have your guts all over it in a second if you don’t get in.”
He grunted again, this time in shock. I nudged him forward. As the elevator door closed behind us he said, “What the hell is…?”
I clocked him behind the ear with the handle of my revolver. The butt was rubberized so I hit him pretty hard, and he slumped to the floor without another word, though I did my best not to cause permanent damage on the slim chance he was an innocent patsy instead of accredited Hell-minion—which was far more likely if this place was as important as I was beginning to suspect. I slipped his ID card into the elevator slot, pressed the 40th floor button, and we started up. I looked at his name badge then took the walkie-talkie off his shoulder and keyed it on.
“This is Daley in the lobby,” I announced, trying to sound like an excited nine dollars an hour. “Somebody just ran out the back to the rear parking lot carrying a woman’s purse. I think it’s a robbery! I’m in pursuit!” I keyed it off and attached it to his belt again.
Luckily no one was waiting for an elevator on the 40th floor. I dragged Daley down to the restroom, then into one of the stalls where I propped him up. I dumped his walkie-talkie into the toilet of the next stall so it wouldn’t disturb his slumber, and also so he wouldn’t be able to alert anybody too quickly if he came to before I left. I also checked to make sure he was breathing okay, just in case he turned out to be an actual person. Yeah, I’m that soft—I’m an angel, remember?