The Athena Factor

  Sheela whooped in delight, tightening her arms around his chest. Then she propped her chin on his shoulder again, saying, “Here’s the way it lines out. You’re driving this thing, Lymon, so you could take me home. It’s your motorcycle, so I couldn’t do anything about it. Then, once you’d dropped me off, I’d just have to drive over to Manny’s myself.”

  He gave her that half glance again, just to make sure she wasn’t kidding. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  “Just make it easier on both of us.”

  “You win,” he relented, pulling into the left turn lane at Sunset.

  As they waited at the light, she said in a soft voice, “Thank you, Lymon. You really are a sweetie, did you know?”

  “Yeah. All sugar and honey, that’s me.” But his stomach was flipping like Mary Lou Retton on the uneven bars.

  16

  “God, it was weird!” Manuel de Clerk repeated in a half-panicked voice. He was sitting in one of the hulkingly plush leather chairs placed randomly in the great room downstairs. A white terry cloth bathrobe was wrapped around him and belted snugly at the waist. It covered his bandaged penis.

  “Look, Mr. de Clerk,” one of the cops was saying, “we don’t know what we’ve got to go on. So, you’ve got a nick out of your dick? Big deal. Sometimes you play a little rough, shit happens, you know what I mean?”

  Christal stood against the wall, arms crossed as she listened. The room contained a knot of officers, most killing time as they enjoyed a glance around Manny’s opulently furnished house and considered the implications of the small wound to his most private. All but a few of them managed to keep from snickering out loud, but it was in each officer’s eyes.

  The cop shrugged. “You picked the lady up, you let her into your house. Maybe she snagged a tooth on your dick, huh? The thing we do have a problem with is the cocaine on your nightstand. Now, it’s not much, be we can’t just ignore that.”

  “My client doesn’t have to address that at this time,” Vincent Quill, Manny’s lawyer, said from the side. He was a middle-aged man, balding. He wore a casual brown jacket and pressed cotton slacks. “He has already informed me that the woman brought the cocaine.”

  “The woman did?” The cop glanced at his companions, who shrugged.

  “Hey, I told you.” Manny dropped his head into his hands. “I just met her. She showed up at my table at lunch. Said her name was Lily Ann Gish. That she’d met me at a party at Bernard’s. Didn’t I remember her?”

  “And you just invited her home?” the cop asked.

  “Well, hey, she was …” He looked around, aware of the skepticism. “She was cool.” It sounded really lame.

  “So you let some woman you didn’t know into your house. You let her tie you up for sex. Then you say she whipped out a little knife and cut off a piece of your dick. After that, she just got dressed and walked out?”

  Manuel nodded sickly. “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “End of story.”

  “End of story.” He looked up. “But for the buzzer. The buzzer went off in her purse. She said, ‘Sorry, Manny. Something’s up. And it ain’t you anymore.’ And … she reached in her purse, pulled out that little knife, and …” He swallowed hard. “I thought she was going to castrate me! You wouldn’t believe the look in her eyes.”

  “Triumphant?” Christal asked from the side.

  “Yeah, God.” Manny was running his hands through his sweaty black hair. “I asked her what she was doing. Shit, I was scared, you know? She just smiled, grabbed me, and sliced a piece off.”

  “Then what?” Christal asked. “Think about it. What did she do with the piece?”

  The cops were giving her questioning looks. She raised a hand, stalling any outburst.

  “Weird.” Manny looked up, a slight frown on his handsome face. “She dropped it into one of the rubbers. She took both of the used rubbers, knotted them, you know? Like tying them off. And flipped them into her purse.”

  “She took the used rubbers?” the cop asked, glancing at the recorder.

  “Yeah. I was screaming, telling her to let me loose. She just got dressed, never looked back, and walked away.”

  “Did you hear the gunshots?” Christal asked.

  “Bang. Bang. Bang.” Manny nodded. “Yeah.”

  Christal took a deep breath. Copperhead took a piece of Manny—and two used condoms. Chock up another bizarre twist.

  “Do you need me anymore?” Christal asked.

  “We have your statement,” the cop told her. “You’ll have to fill out the paperwork if you still want to press charges against the woman.”

  “Yeah,” Christal said woodenly. “The bitch was trying to kill me.”

  “Do you think you can prove that?” Manny’s lawyer asked unexpectedly.

  Christal stared at him. “Granted, I’m new here, and as people have been reminding me, LA isn’t the East Coast. But doesn’t the discharge of a weapon when it’s pointed in the direction of a fleeing human being indicate intent to you?”

  The lawyer watched her flatly as Christal walked out of the room, found the front door, and stepped out into the night. She took a deep breath of the cool air and realized that a small crowd had gathered in the drive. Most were police; others, she suspected, were Manuel de Clerk’s staff: managers, publicists, and the rest of the cadre that A-list stars seemed to require. Three guys she immediately recognized as security were standing on the other side of the yellow tape, looking particularly sheepish.

  At the corner of the house, two of the crime scene specialists were looking for bullet holes in the weeping willow’s thick bole. Evidently Gretchen-Mouse hadn’t dropped any of her spent brass.

  “Christal!”

  She raised her eyes, seeing Lymon and Sheela standing off to one side beside a big-fendered motorcycle. She pursed her lips and descended the steps before walking along the edge of the drive to the tape. She nodded at the cop there, ducked it, and walked over to where Lymon and Sheela waited.

  “What the hell happened in there?” Lymon gestured at the house.

  “How’d you get this far?”

  Lymon grinned. “Connections with the department That, and having an employee as a material witness helps.”

  Christal related the entire story, glancing curiously at Sheela when she got to the part about Copperhead. Sheela fixed on it like a terrier on a rat.

  “Jesus,” Lymon wondered. “She cut off Manny’s dick and …”

  “A small piece of foreskin actually,” Christal corrected. “It bled like sixty, but the guy will hardly have a scar once it heals. The nutty thing is, she took two used condoms. What do you do with two used condoms? The sperm dies when the temperature drops.”

  “Souvenir?” Sheela asked, as if she didn’t believe it.

  “Witch,” Christal blurted, hardly aware she’d spoken.

  “Ah, here we go again.” Lymon lifted an eyebrow. “We’re back to broomsticks and black cats.”

  Christal flashed a self-conscious smile. “As in take a piece of your victim to focus the evil on his body or soul.” She shook it off. “It’s nothing. Tales of my childhood.”

  “Mouse shot at you?” Sheela stepped closer, worry on her face. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Christal shrugged. “Hey, it was the first time. Shots in anger, and all that. God, Lymon, if I’d had my pistol with me I might have brought this whole thing to a conclusion.”

  “Killing Mouse would have landed you in a pile of shit.” Lymon pointed a hard finger at her. “Don’t even think it!”

  “I wouldn’t have killed her. Not if I could help it. Hey, I maxed the qualification. They were talking about the FBI pistol team. Maybe even the national pistol championship at Camp Perry. If I could have anchored Mouse, taken out two of the Audi’s tires, we’d have them.”

  “You’d have what? A gunfight over stolen rubbers and a tampon?” Lymon gestured with his hands. “Christal, this isn’t the Bureau. We’re not a law enforcement agenc
y. Are you getting this wedged into your hard little head? We provide security … protection. Period! We don’t take offensive actions. If you can’t begin to think in terms of cover and evacuate instead of attack and subdue, you’re going to have to look for another line of work.”

  Christal winced at the censure in his voice. “Yes, sir.”

  Sheela stepped close, taking her arm. “It’s all right. You’ve done a super job so far, Christal.”

  “Have I?” she asked bitterly. “Doing what? Copperhead’s still a jump ahead of us.” She cocked her head, hearing the voices whispering from her subconscious.

  “What?” Lymon read her sudden confusion.

  “I don’t believe in witchcraft, do I?”

  “Why would you ask that?” Sheela was watching her, a faint frown on her smooth brow.

  “I don’t know. But something clicked somewhere. I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out what it is.” Yes, she could sense that she was on the verge of making the connection.

  “Are you ready to head for the barn?” Lymon asked.

  Christal gave him a deadpan glare. “Sorry, boss. I’ve got to make an appearance at the station to file a complaint. I have paperwork to do.”

  “Pressing charges?”

  “I’m going to be running into them again.” Christal raised her arms in surrender. “And you’re right. I heard you. We’re not the cops. But, Lymon, if something goes wrong, I want it on the record that, one, there was trouble, and two, they were the aggravating party.”

  “It was probably just coincidence that they were here.” Sheela didn’t sound sincere. “In the weeks ahead we’ll all wonder what happened to them, what it was all about.”

  “No, I’ll be seeing them again.” Christal squinted into the darkness. She studied the bright lights at the end of the drive. The press was waiting like hungry lions. “Trust me. I can feel it.”

  The place was called Dusty Stewart’s Santa Fe Grill. Christal had seen the sign as she drove down Sunset Boulevard and thought it was worth a try. Now she watched as the waitress placed a heaping plate in front of her. She thanked the woman and picked up her fork as she studied the steaming meal. The odor of corn tortillas and cumin had her salivating as she reached for the side of diced jalapeño peppers. She scooped them out over the enchiladas, creating a pattern of green accents on the melted yellow cheddar and red sauce.

  The sounds of the restaurant covered Lymon’s approach as he walked up, pulled out a chair, and plopped himself down beside her. He was wearing a brown blazer, sharply creased cotton pants, and a professional button-down shirt with a tan tie. His craggy face was creased with a smile, and his sandy hair looked unkempt.

  “Good evening,” he greeted, rearranging his blue paper napkin with its silverware. He glanced around at the piñatas, guitars, and Mexican pottery that decorated the painted stucco walls. Diluted strains of mariachi drifted down from the speakers, competing with the clatter of plates and the mumble of conversation.

  “Hi, boss.” Christal reached for the El Yucateco sauce in the centerpiece.

  “You get a good day’s sleep?” He gave the waitress a high sign. She was Hispanic, wearing a frilly white blouse, low cut, and a black Mexican-style wraparound skirt. “Smothered burrito,” he told her, “and a Carta Blanca to drink.”

  Christal told him, “Yeah, I slept like a rock. Even when the yard crew was mowing the grass under my window. I finally woke up at five-thirty.” She made a face. “I think I’m turning into a bat.”

  “Glad to see you’re breaking into the job. The schedule can take over your entire life.” He hesitated. “Did you get my message?”

  “That we’re leaving for New York at midnight? That’s for real?”

  “Yep.”

  “This is kind of last-minute, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “Get used to it. It’s the way Hollywood works. The bigwigs at the studio really want Sheela to attend a preem in New York. Her presence will bring certain benefits to the studio. Ergo, we leave at midnight.”

  “What’s a preem?”

  “A premiere showing of a new movie. It’s a publicity thing where they bring in all the stars, the director, the producers, and lots of the film critics. The idea is to butter up the critics with hype, let them get chummy with the actors, and they’ll write a good review of your movie.”

  “Right. Why am I going? I’m the new kid on the block.”

  “Because whatever it is that you’re doing, you’re kicking results out of the weeds. Maybe you’ll see something in New York that we’d miss.”

  She poked her fork into her enchilada. “Excuse me, I’m starting my breakfast.” She took a taste and nodded. “Not bad.”

  “Dusty Stewart’s, huh? I’ve never been here before.” He glanced around. “You can never tell about Mexican.”

  “Sure you can.” Christal gestured with her fork. “Call ahead. If they have fresh jalapeños—like right off the bush—you’re usually safe. If they say they have them in the cans, blow it off.”

  “That’s the truth? Really?”

  “Trust me. I’m one of the few New Mexicans who survived DC gustatorially unscathed.”

  He watched her just long enough to make her nervous. “Yes, boss? You want to ask me something?”

  “You’re from New Mexico.”

  “Right. I just said that. Born and bred. Who knows how many generations? I’m pure one hundred percent Southwestern mongrel: Indio, Mexicano, and Anglo all rolled into one.”

  He indicated her enchiladas. “Not everyone can eat that stuff with fresh peppers like that.”

  “Does this have a point?”

  “Tell me more about your grandmother.”

  That stopped her short. “Why on earth would you ask about her?”

  “You said she was a witch.”

  “Grandma was a curandera, a healer. Not a witch.” She paused. “Well, ok … maybe not a witch. She was into the old folk remedies. You know, herbs for pains and aches. Taking sweat baths to purge evils from the blood. And, well, sometimes some things that were a little off the wall for the twentieth century, let alone the twenty-first.”

  “Such as?”

  “She cured a guy of stomach cancer once.” Christal balanced her fork in emphasis. “The doctors in Albuquerque told the guy that the cancer was too far gone. Told him to just go home and die. He didn’t have anything left, so he came wandering up to Grandma’s house one day. She lived in a little adobe off the road on the way up to Nambe. Had a garden, a ramada, the whole bit.”

  “And she cured him?” Lymon was looking skeptical.

  Christal chewed, took a swig of her Coke, and shrugged. “The guy was a walking scarecrow—brown skin over bones. You kind of expected him to snap in two at a loud noise. But getting back to the story, Grandma did some things. I didn’t understand the what or why of them. She walked around him, chanting in the old tongue, shaking a rattle and swatting him with a wand she’d made of sage, chamisa, and manzanita. She made him swallow some kind of concoction she’d brewed and sent him home.”

  “And that cured him?”

  Christal shook her head. “No, she told him to eat rattlesnake.”

  “Rattlesnake?”

  “Yep. And the guy did. He was all over that country looking for rattlesnakes. Offered five dollars apiece for them. I guess he ate rattlesnake fried, broiled and boiled, baked, fricasseed, smoked, steamed, microwaved, and every other way you could imagine.”

  Lymon made a face. “And that cured him?”

  “He lived for more than five years after that. What the cancer failed to do, a Ford truck did. He was hit on his bicycle one Friday night by some kids who had been swigging their beer in quarts.” She arched a challenging eyebrow. “The thing is, he’d gained weight, straightened out, and could ride all over the country on his bicycle. The physicians were mystified by his recovery. But for a pickup weaving out of its lane, who knows? He might still be pedaling around looking for rattlesnakes.”

/>   Lymon said nothing as his food arrived. He sipped his beer, then picked up his fork. “Did they do an autopsy?”

  “What for? Cause of death was pretty straight forward. The guy had the letters F-O-R-D stamped into his chest.”

  Lymon gave her an amused look. “What about this witch stuff?”

  “Some people called her a witch,” Christal corrected. “It depended on if she liked you or not. Truth is, at times she scared the living bejesus out of me. The upper Rio Grande country is a funny part of the world, and Grandma was old school. I think she considered the 1846 American occupation of New Mexico as a passing inconvenience.”

  “So, why did you think of Copperhead as a witch last night?”

  Christal scraped up a forkful of refritos. “I’ve been wondering that myself.” She chewed for a while. “It’s nothing I can say outright. I mean, these celeb hits, they’re after a piece of the person. Does that mean I think that Copperhead and Mouse are locked away in some basement apartment, drawing pentagrams on the floor and repeating spells from The Necronomicon? No.”

  “So, what? What can a person do with Sheela’s tampon?”

  “Or a slip of de Clerk’s foreskin?” She shrugged. “I don’t know. They took Julia Roberts’ sheets and garbage. Someone nabbed Sandra Bullock’s dirty hankies; Mel Gibson lost the head of his razor. Those things are different than a small patch of foreskin.”

  “Are they?” Lymon hacked off a forkful of burrito.

  “Bed linen isn’t in the same league as part of a man’s most precious.”

  “The press is all over this. The studio canceled shooting today.” Lymon sipped his beer. “Manny is said to be a little distraught.”

  “If you think he’s distraught now, you should have seen him staked out on that bed.” She paused. “What are we missing here? They keep getting pieces of men. John Lennon’s hair, Manny’s foreskin, Mel Gibson’s razor scuzz. With women, it’s sheets, tissues, tampons, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and fluids.”

  “It can’t be to turn a buck. The bad guys walked right past a lot of stuff that would have fenced for a bundle.”

  “You know, Lymon, they’re taking the kind of stuff that crime scene guys consider pure gold: DNA, HLA, hairs, blood type, fibers, lots of things.”