LITMIR.BIZ

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the meeting. I’ll give it to her then.”

      Abbot’s face relaxes. I hadn’t registered the worry until it wasn’t there anymore. I also notice that he’s gone far out of his way to not say who his friend is.

      “Thank you. That means a lot to us.”

      Okay. The friend is someone close, not just one of the council members trying to hide a family scandal. So, who is it? A childhood pal? A lover? Is Abbot married? I can’t see his ring finger, but that’s also a pretty Judeo-Christian tradition—not so much among the Sub Rosa types.

      I focus back on the missing child.

      “How many times has this kid run off? He looks like he’s maybe twelve.”

      Abbot picks up the picture, looks at it, and sets it down again.

      “Yes. He’s always been precocious. With luck, this is nothing. But there’s some worry that his father might have abducted him.”

      I flip the picture over. There’s information on the back. Eye color. Hair. Height. The only contact number is Abbot’s. I close the folder and put it in my coat pocket.

      “I’ll give it to Julie. She runs the agency and decides who gets what cases.”

      “That’s great.”

      “So, what time are we doing this charity vote thing tomorrow?”

      Abbot laughs.

      “Stark, it’s Friday. We don’t meet again until Monday. Take the weekend. Get your head fixed.”

      “Right. Friday. How about that?”

      Where the hell did this week go? I swear, it was Tuesday just yesterday.

      “Okay, then. I’ll see you next week, boss.”

      “See you Monday,” says Abbot.

      I leave and walk back to the dock as sunset comes down over the docks. From here, Abbot’s floating Xanadu looks like a burned-out garbage scow. Sub Rosa chic. They love their mansions to look like ten-week-old shit from the outside.

      One okay thing about being on the council is that I get a stipend (and apparently an expense account—really need to look at that packet Abbot talked about). Since I can’t use the Room of Thirteen Doors anymore, and since the last car I borrowed got burned by a psycho named Audsley Ishii, I got one of my own. A black ’68 Pontiac Catalina fastback. Actually bought it. Inside, the previous owner put a rebuilt 455 V-8 under the hood. Outside, it looks like a hearse and a cruise missile had a bullet-nosed baby. I get in, turn the key, and make the monster roar.

      THE DRIVE FROM Marina del Rey to Hollywood isn’t as hideous as it could be. The 405 tonight is a plodding lava flow instead of a graveyard. Abbot’s gerbil-food pill tuned down my headache, but the headlights on other cars still hurt my eyes. I can’t believe I almost missed Friday. My head will be shaken back into place soon enough. I swear, having a job is half of what’s wrong with me.

      I never liked being an employee. I tried it before. Signed on with the Golden Vigil—basically, a government antihoodoo spook force. It didn’t work out. The bosses—Larson Wells in particular—and I didn’t exactly get along (I fought the law and the law won). Then they threw Candy in jail and would have shipped her to a Lurker Alcatraz in the desert if I didn’t get help from a friend. Then they screwed me out of my paycheck. Then I tried playing private detective.

      Don’t bother asking how that worked out.

      Even though the council gig is a pretty cushy job, being a salaryman grates on me in a very basic way. It reminds me of working for Azazel, a Hellion bigwig Downtown. The relationship was simple: he was the boss and I was his slave. Pull the plow or get sent to the glue factory. This job isn’t as bad as that by a long shot, but being under the thumb of anyone who can burn down your life with a phone call makes me, let’s say, uneasy. Maybe that’s why my sleep has been shit.

      I can’t help wondering what Abbot does and who he talks to when I’m not there. Does he discuss me with whoever his personal friends and advisers are? No, that’s not really in doubt—of course he does. The question is what he says and why. I mean, he’s the augur. He’ll play whatever angles he needs to stay who he is. That means he’ll use me against the blue bloods, the blue bloods against me, then he’ll turn around and use us all against each other. None of this automatically makes him a bad guy, just a politician. For now, I’m going to assume he’s on the level with me. But if I get one whiff of nefarious unpleasantness, I’ll dump him in one of the open graves in Teddy Osterberg’s cemetery collection in Malibu and bury him alive.

      Right now, though, I need to get off the road as soon as possible. The headache wants to come back down on me. It tightens the back of my skull like an anaconda wrapped around my head. But Abbot’s flower-power pills keep it at bay. I just need it to work for another hour or so. Then, depending on how things shape up, I’ll go to Allegra’s clinic or the other place.

      The one I really want to get to.

      BUT FIRST, MORE work.

      Julie’s detective agency is on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. I push the button on the front door and get buzzed in.

      The office is up a flight of stairs. She’s fixed it up a bit over the last couple of months. Built herself an office with a door at one end of the space. I tap the glass gently and she gives me a quick wave. Candy’s desk is in the large open space so she can greet potential customers when she isn’t working her own cases. Small-time stuff mostly, but she’s only been at it for a few weeks. Julie fired my ass after just one case. A case I solved, I’d like to point out.

      One more indication of what a great employee I am.

      Candy in her Chihiro drag doesn’t look like her old too-large-leather-jacket-and-jeans self. She’s dressed in a short, tight black dress with skeleton bones printed on the front and back. Her stockings say BITCH on them about a thousand times and her bag is a bloodshot vinyl eyeball. Her only concession to her old look is that she still wears Chuck Taylor sneakers.

      Candy is at her desk laughing with a redhead I haven’t seen before. Each of them has a Styrofoam tray full of noodles. Candy puts down her chopsticks and comes over to me. Gives me a big kiss and takes me by the arm to her friend.

      “Stark, I want you to meet—”

      “Alessa,” I say.

      Alessa, the redhead, opens her eyes a little wider.

      “Alessa Graves. How did you know?”

      I shrug.

      “It’s just this funny trick I can do.”

      “See?” says Candy. “Didn’t I tell you he knew cool stuff?”

      Alessa nods.

      “Cool doesn’t cover it,” she says.

      “Fairuza introduced us. Alessa plays guitar. Like real guitar,” Candy says.

      “Nice to meet you, Alessa,” I say, holding out my hand like a gentleman or a Realtor. She takes it and we shake briefly.

      Alessa looks to be in her late twenties. She’s pretty. Her red hair falls just below her shoulders. She wears a lot of kohl around her eyes, probably trying to hide the lines at their edges, lines she’s too young for. My money says she had drug problems in the past. Meth, I’d guess. Fucked up her skin some, but the addiction wasn’t so bad she lost teeth. I can tell by her smell that she’s clean now. Her heartbeat kicks up a little when our hands touch, but it’s not that she’s all excited to meet me. She’s here to see Candy and talk music. They’re just getting to know each other and suddenly the boyfriend walks in and crashes their guitar geeking. That’s easy enough to fix.

      “You should hear Alessa play sometime,” Candy says. “She’s awesome. Her old band toured with Skull Valley Sheep Kill. That’s Stark’s favorite band,” she says, leaning confidentially in Alessa’s direction. She smiles.

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