“He wants his money?”
“No. Yes. But he wants me too. Only, I love my life. I love Eugène. I can’t go back to the way things were.”
“Where is he?”
“Vacaville. He’s getting out at the end of the week. He knows my old apartment.”
“You still have that place? I thought you’d moved in with Vidocq.”
“I keep things there and we store some of his stuff.”
“The boyfriend knows the address?”
I lean against the wall and she leans next to me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, but not having to look at me makes it easier for her to talk.
“Yes. I don’t even bother locking it. Locks never stopped him before.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
She puts a hand on my arm.
“Please don’t kill him. I want him to go away, but I don’t want to feel like I bought a hit on him just so I can hide in my nice new life.”
“I’ll do my best, but some people, they just don’t listen.”
“Please.”
She sounds genuinely torn up asking me. What am I supposed to say to that?
“Okay.”
She turns and hugs me. Talking about Hell and now the admission. It’s been hard on her. I think she’s crying. She sniffles a little.
“Don’t wipe your nose on my coat.”
She laughs once.
“Eugène said you would say yes, but I wasn’t sure.”
A cream-colored Lexus has driven past us twice. Now it stops. The guy who gets out has a haircut that costs as much as an appendectomy. He’s wearing rimless glasses and a sharp but conservative blue suit. He could be an investment banker.
“Mr. Stark. Would you mind taking a ride with me?”
Allegra steps away. I shake my head.
“I’m with a friend.”
He gestures at her.
“She can come too, if you like.”
“Nice car, but we’re fine right here. I’d invite you in for a drink, but I don’t think this is your kind of place.”
The Banker smiles and comes around to our side of the car.
“This isn’t anything sinister. It’s just a meeting to talk about possible employment.”
“With who?”
“Norris Quay.”
“Who’s that?”
“The richest man in California.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Exactly.”
I turn to Allegra.
“Do you want to get in the nice man’s car? He says he has candy and a puppy.”
She shakes her head.
“I don’t think so.”
I shrug.
“You heard the lady. Not interested.”
He takes a couple of steps toward us.
“I assure you, this is for your own benefit. Afterward, if you decide you don’t want the job, you can just—”
A bullet hits the wall, then two more. I push Allegra into the alley. The Banker crouches by his car and starts duckwalking around the front.
The shots come faster. Maybe three or four guns. AKs by the sounds of them. Wild shots spray cars and the wall behind me, sending other smokers screaming back inside the bar.
I’m kneeling on the sidewalk. I try to make it into the alley, but there’s too many bullets flying. Same thing when I try to make it back into Bamboo House. The Banker is back inside the Lexus. He opens the passenger door. There’s nowhere else to go. I dive headfirst into the passenger seat.
I wait a beat, expecting the Banker to get us out of there. But he’s paralyzed, staring at the shooters in his rearview mirror. They’re aiming at the car now. Bullets tear through the trunk and rear window. I duck and grab the wheel, stomping the accelerator. I hope no one is in the street because I can’t see a damned thing.
Half a block on, the shooting stops. I hit the brake and the Banker and I bounce off the inside of the car.
I raise my head just high enough to see the shooters’ car, a white Miata, smoke its wheels as it does a one-eighty and drives like hell away from us.
I look at the Banker. He’s resting his head on the steering wheel, breathing hard and trying to get his breath. It doesn’t help any when I pull my gun and put it to his head. I glance through the front and back windows to make sure no one is coming up on us.
Pressing my gun harder into the Banker’s temple, I say, “Did you just set me up? Create a little drama so I’d get in the car?”
He gasps and holds up his right hand. It’s covered in blood. His ring finger is gone.
“I wish we were that clever,” he says.
I put my gun away and open the passenger door.
“I’m driving. Slide over here.”
I walk around the car and get into the driver’s seat.
“You’re taking me home?”
“No. I’m going to meet the richest man in California. What’s the address?”
The Banker tells me. He takes a handkerchief from his breast jacket pocket and wraps it around his bleeding hand. There’s blood all over the steering wheel. It sticks to my palms as I drive.
“Is Norris Quay Sub Rosa?”
He shakes his head and tries to work the seat belt with his left hand. He fails miserably and gives up.
“No. He’s just a regular person.”
“I doubt that.”
How many times in my life am I going to get an invite from the richest man in California? Why does someone like that want to hire me? I might as well have a look. It’s not like I’m going back to Bamboo House right now. If someone is going take another shot at me, I’d rather it be in a car with a stranger than in the bar with people I know. Plus, I want to see Quay. Lay my eyes on a real, honest-to-goodness billionaire. Is someone like that even human? Does he sleep on a pile of vestal virgins? Does he fly to the bathroom with a jet pack? Does he sprinkle his food with gold dust and platinum the way regular people use salt and pepper? And what the hell kind of a name is Norris?
QUAY MIGHT BE a civilian, but money is the magic anyone can do. He’s bought himself a Sub Rosa mansion.
We’re at the abandoned zoo in Griffith Park. After a short walk we go through an old concrete enclosure. It’s large and heavy, like something for big cats or bears. The interior walls are covered with graffiti. Teenybopper lovers and no-talent taggers. The Banker walks to a random crack in the floor and presses several points in the concrete, like a masseur doing acupressure. The crack creaks open on hinges like a trapdoor. He looks bad. Pale and sweating, but he minds his manners. He puts out his good hand, letting the guest know that he gets to go in first. Why not? I walk into trapdoors every day.
It’s a marble staircase and for a minute I think we’re back in time to ancient Athens. Underneath the zoo is where I imagine an old Greek king living. Marble everywhere. Ionic pillars supporting high ceilings. Light and dark marble squares form checkerboard patterns on the floors in the halls. Towering statues of gods and goddesses are crammed in every nook and cranny. I won’t be surprised if Quay shows up in flowing purple robes and a laurel wreath on his head.
The Banker keeps his cool, but he’s fading fast. He leads me into an office done up in the same Greek style, but there’s a phone, a computer, and a lot of prescription pill bottles on a carved mahogany desk. Three plasma-screen TVs are mounted on the walls, all tuned to different business channels. The picture window looks out over L.A. but not this L.A. The tallest building is maybe ten floors. It’s L.A. from a long time ago. Maybe from the thirties, when a lot of the big zoo enclosures were built.
A minute later someone comes in. It’s almost funny. I recognize him immediately. It’s Trevor Moseley, but Moseley with a good fifty more years on him. Norris Quay.
He’s slightly stooped and walks with a cane. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt, cream-colored slacks, and soft black slippers. This wouldn’t be interesting except that everything in this place screams Grecian formality and here’s Grandpa ready for an afternoon of checkers and pudding at the old folks’ home.
“Ronald, you look like death,” Norris says to the Banker. “Go see my doctor.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ronald says, clutching his bleeding hand. He still has it together enough to give me a nod before leaving.
Besides Quay, the only people in the room are two bodyguards. Massive, steroid-stinking sons of bitches. They wait in opposite corners of the room, not moving or speaking. They look rooted to each spot, like statues of Titans. But I bet they can move pretty fast when provoked.
I say, “So, how many of you are there?”
Quay hobbles to a deep blue-and-gold velvet sofa and takes his time lowering his bones onto the cushions, in no rush at all to answer me.
“You mean my simulacra? Generally no more than two or three at a time on each continent. Except Antarctica, of course. I don’t collect penguins.”
He smiles. The lines on his face remind me of the splitting roads in Pandemonium after an earthquake.
I shake my head.
“You’ve got your numbers wrong. I met three of you in just the past few days. One with Declan Garrett and two more with Atticus Rose.”
“Yes. Atticus always keeps a few extras around for when one has an accident.”
“The ones in Rose’s workshop both had accidents. I burned them.”
Quay purses his lips.
“What a waste. Never mind. I’ll have Atticus run off a few more.”
“You know where he is?”
“I know where everyone is.”
Quay crosses his long legs and picks some lint off his trousers.
“What’s the story with your clone called Trevor Moseley? He runs through every religion there is and ends up hanging out with Angra Om Ya nutcases?”
“My little Trevors, Fredericks, Pauls, Williams, and the others have insinuated themselves in various groups around the world. Groups that possess or might come to possess things I want.”
I knew it.
“You want the 8 Ball.”
“The Qomrama. Yes. Trevor was going to buy it from them or, if need be, take it. Then he . . . that is, I found that they didn’t have it. In fact, like me they were looking for it, and all signs pointed to you having it.”
“But I don’t.”
“Much to my dismay.”
Quay makes an exaggerated sad face.
“Were you doing business with Declan Garrett? You should be more careful. He tried to blow you up.”
Quay waves a dismissive hand.
“I would never do business with Declan. He’s a crook. Anyway, I knew he didn’t have it.”
“How?”
“Because he offered it to me at a good price. He would never have done that if he’d had it.”
Quay leans on the cane and the arm of the sofa and slowly pushes himself to his feet. I almost want to help the old creep, but I have a feeling if I moved an inch, I’d have a bunch of cracked vertebrae courtesy of the two meat mountains in the corners.
Quay makes it over to his desk. There’s a bottle of brown booze on the far end.
“Have a drink with me, Stark.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“I don’t care if you’re thirsty. We’re going to do business and business is done over drinks.”
“You don’t have any Aqua Regia, do you?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then Jack Daniel’s.”
He laughs.
“Of course that’s what you drink.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s what you drank as a young man, but because of your unique circumstance, you never had the chance to grow out of it.”
“I guess you could call Hell a unique circumstance. But like everything, it gets boring. I mean you can only be terrified for so long, right?”
He pours himself a drink in a heavy crystal tumbler.
“I wouldn’t know. I’m never scared. My obscene wealth insulates me from that kind of thing.”
“Is that why I’ve never heard of you?”
He sips his drink.
“Some people use their money to get on the Forbes list of richest people. Others use it to stay off.”
“It must be fun having options like that.”
“It is,” and he gives me a smile that makes him look twenty years younger. “Get Mr. Stark his Jack Daniel’s.”
One of the Titans steps away from the wall and leaves the room.
I say, “Do you know what the 8 Ball is?”
“I don’t care what its function is. It’s an ancient object of great beauty and that’s all I care about. I have the largest collection of so-called death and apocalyptic religious artifacts in the world. This isn’t just morbid curiosity. It’s a public service since changing government alliances and rival religious sects would have destroyed many of these objects. From time to time I’ve even opened my collection to museums and academics. Perhaps your friend Father Traven would like to have a look around? I’m sure he’d find my collection interesting. He’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement, of course.”
“It’s a weapon.”
Quay swirls the liquor in the glass.
“And it’s magic, and to you Sub Rosa anything magic is beyond us mere mortals to comprehend. Well, son, I’ve seen magic. Hell, I live in magic and I’m just not that impressed.”
I get tired of standing and sit down on the sofa. I wanted to see what this much money looked like, but now I’m annoyed by the mansion and Quay’s absolute certainty in his bulletproof life.
“But you can see how I might be reluctant to sell a weapon to a stranger.”
