City of the Lost (15 page)

Instinct’s an important thing
for a guy in my line of work. My gut tells me to duck, I duck. Never done a goddamn thing for my choice in dates, but it’s kept me from getting shot more than a few times.

So when I pull out onto Century, merging with a sea of early evening headlights, and it tells me something’s hinky, I listen.

I don’t notice the Escalade until I’ve turned onto Sepulveda, heading north. At first I don’t think anything about it. It’s the low rent choice in gangbanger transportation. Everybody’s got one. The ones who can’t afford a Mercedes, that is.

Then I remember thinking that the Escalade I saw the other day was following me.

I’ve been with Carl most of the afternoon. Rush hour traffic hasn’t quite started yet, and traffic is lighter the farther we get from the airport. I slow to a crawl forcing the Escalade to match speed, even though it’s in the next lane and two cars back. Horns blare behind me for the sin of me not speeding.

I gun the engine and cut a right into a side street, losing the Escalade if only for a minute. I hang another hard right and watch it pull around the corner after me. If I wasn’t sure before that it was following me, I am now.

We continue this dance for a couple of blocks. I gun the engine, take a turn, let the SUV catch up. Gun the engine again.

Three runs of this, and I change the pattern. I turn onto a quiet side street, the only sounds the hum of nearby traffic. I pull in front of a row of pre-war houses and gentrification Pottery Barn clones. There’s no sign of the car yet, but I can hear it peeling down the street trying not to lose me.

I get out of the car, duck behind a Lexus parked in front of me, and wait. It doesn’t take long. The Escalade takes the turn too fast, tires squealing, car shuddering over a speed bump. I figure with that much mass and that much speed, they’re not exactly able to stop on a dime.

So, I step out in front of them.

I know what’s going to happen next. Know it won’t hurt. Doesn’t make it any easier to keep my eyes open, make sure I’ve got a good grip on my gun.

The windshield’s got a tint, but not so much that I can’t see the look of panic on the two guys in the front. The driver hits the brakes and spins the wheel. The guy in the passenger seat looks like he’s screaming. He grabs the wheel, too. Pulls it the other direction. I love teamwork.

The car careens, clipping me with its front fender. I roll off the hood, bounce off the windshield. Feel a bone crack. It doesn’t last.

The car rocks to a stop. I pick myself up from the pavement, torn skin filling back in. Limp around the side of the car, feeling bone knit with each step. I watch the guys inside have their minor freak-out.

They’re too busy untangling themselves from their seat belts and air bags to notice me at the window until I tap on it with the barrel of the Glock.

I motion them to roll down the tinted window. When it’s all the way down I get a really good look at them.

Three Latino kids in the car. Can’t be more than seventeen. Two in front, one in back. The kid in the back tries to pull a piece tucked in his waistband.

He stops when I press the barrel to his temple.

“You gonna let me in,” I say, “or do I need to make room?”

“Unlock the fuckin’ door, man,” he says to the driver. “Let him in.” The locks pop, and I swing the door open, slide onto the seat next to him. I take the kid’s gun, drop it at my feet, stretch out my legs.

“Roomy,” I say. “Been thinking about picking one of these up. What’s the mileage like?”

They don’t say anything.

I press my gun to the back of the driver’s skull. “I asked what the mileage is like.”

“Pretty crappy,” he says, quietly. The smell of piss fills the car.

“Yeah, well. Cadillacs are crap.” I sit back, light a cigarette. We sit in silence for a long few minutes.

“So,” I say, finally, making them jump. “You want to tell me why you’re following me?”

Nothing.

“Or I can just shoot one of you. Pretty sure the other two’ll tell me what I want to know. I’m good either way.”

“Dude, we’re just supposed to watch you,” the backseat kid says. “Report back what you do. Where you go. That’s it, man.” He looks at the floor. “Fuck. Weren’t supposed to get caught.”

“You working for Neumann?”

The baffled looks on their faces tell me that’s a big no.

“The
Bruja
,” the driver says. You can hear the capital letter.

The others are staring holes into him. He’s probably just committed a major faux pas.

“Go on,” I say.

“She wants to know what you’re doing, where you’re going,” he says.

“What the fuck’s a
Bruja?
”

“Shut up, man,” the backseat kid says. I point the gun at him, and he takes his own advice.

“You were saying?”

“She’s a witch. She’s THE witch. You don’t fuck around with her, man. She tell you to do somethin’, you fuckin’ go do it.”

Interesting. Whoever she is, she’s got them all freaked out. Maybe a little more than I do. “She wants to know what I’m doing?”

The driver nods.

“Well, how about I tell her in person?”

“You don’t see the
Bruja
,” the backseat kid says. “She sees you.”

“Today,” I tell him, “I think we can change the rules.”

First guy I ever killed was an Armenian bagman who’d pissed off a jewelry wholesaler downtown. The bagman was holed up in this broken-down brownstone in the Nickel, on Skid Row, called the Edgewood Arms, with bars on the windows and carpet worn thin from forty years of high-heeled whores, cigarette burns, and bad luck.

Guy had two of his cousins in the room with him. I shot one of them in the leg. The other one tackled me. I beat him to death with a table leg.

Of course, by then the Armenian was running. I caught up with him in the lobby downstairs just as he was heading out the door. I shot him in the back, and gave the guy at the front desk fifty bucks to forget me.

“You believe in coincidences?” I say as we pull in front of the Edgewood Arms.

The driver looks at me. “The fuck you talkin’ about?”

“Probably nothing.”

The Edgewood’s cleaned up its act. At least as much as any Skid Row flophouse can. Same carpet, same tattered couches. I can’t tell if the stain where I shot the Armenian is still there. There’s too much competition. The thing that’s missing are all the whores and junkies shooting up in corners, but there’s something new in the air. Something I don’t recognize.

The driver walks up to the front desk, whispers something to the guy manning it. He’s looking back and forth between us. Not happy.

The phone rings, and the desk clerk picks it up, says a few things I can’t hear, and when he hangs up he’s even more shaken.

“She wants to see you,” he says.

I don’t see any cameras, but I’ve got a gut feeling the
Bruja
didn’t need any to know I’m here.

“Fourth floor,” the desk clerk says, pointing at the elevator.

“Don’t ya want to take my gun?”

“Nah,” he says, laughing like he’s sending a Christian to the lions. “Won’t do you any good anyway.”

A rickety cage, the elevator creaks with the sound of metal too far gone for the task demanded of it. It stops with a brassy lurch a few inches short of my stop, forcing me to step up onto four.

This floor’s a little cleaner but not by much. Half the lights are out, and a couple of the rooms are boarded over. There’s a girl at the end of the hall, Latina, maybe nineteen or twenty, long black hair, tight jeans and boots. A camouflage T-shirt that says YOU CAN’T SEE ME in white letters. Her arms are crossed in front of her, the universal signal for pissed-off teenager.

“Come on in,” she says, voice flat.

I follow her into the room. Done up like an office with a desk, computers and phones, a large map of downtown L.A. on a wall, a bank of filing cabinets. It looks more like a law office than a witch’s room.

Like Neumann’s place, though, there are symbols on the walls, playing cards stuck in doorjambs and windowframes. Must be a theme.

Besides the girl and me, there’s no one else here. I didn’t come all the way out here to talk to the
Bruja
’s secretary.

“So, where is she?” I ask.

She stares at me, hands on her hips, says nothing. After a moment of those soft, brown eyes trying to intimidate me, I figure it out.

“You’re fuckin’ kidding me,” I say. “You?” The hard look on that fresh face doesn’t fit. The
Bruja
’s a little kid trying to look mean. It makes me grin.

“You have a problem with that?” she says.

Whoever she is, she’s got the guys downstairs scared shitless. She’s got some weight. And she obviously knows something about me. Best way to play this isn’t to intimidate her. That will just make things a bigger pain in the ass.

“No. I’m good,” I say. “But seriously. You’re not exactly scary.”

Something in her eases. She shrugs and sticks her hand out to me to shake. “Gabriela Lupe Cortez. I’m the
Bruja
.”

I take her hand. It’s warm, and she’s got a good grip. She might not look mean, but there’s more here than just some little girl playing grown-up.

“You already know my name, I suppose?”

“Joe Sunday. You’re a leg-breaker for Simon Patterson. Recently deceased.”

“Yeah, he had some bad luck.”

“I meant you,” she says.

Her stare down might need some work, but her confidence sure as hell doesn’t. I outweigh her by a good seventy pounds at least. She’s got to know I’m packing. But she takes it all in stride and throws that at me. This little girl’s got brass balls.

“You’re just full of surprises.”

She slips behind her desk, flopping onto the office chair like it’s a beanbag.

I take the chair across from her, pull out my cigarettes and lighter. Conspicuously flash the Glock in the shoulder holster. If she notices she doesn’t seem to care.

“I’d rather you not smoke,” she says. “If you don’t mind.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. “These things’ll kill ya.” I flick the lighter, but before I can bring it to the end of my Marlboro it goes out. I try it again. Same thing.

“I said, I’d rather you not smoke.”

“Fine,” I say, putting the cig and the lighter on the desk. If Neumann can give me a light, I suppose she can put it out. Don’t see much point in fighting it.

“I suppose you want to know why my men are following you,” she says.

“Men? Those kids should still be running around in Underoos. Where the hell did you dig them up, anyway?”

“Locals. I have a reputation around here.”

“So I gathered.” Somebody whose reputation alone can get these little psychopaths to work together has got to have something to back it up. Impressive. Especially from a kid.

“How old are you, anyway?” I ask. “Sixteen?”

“Fuck you. I’m twenty-five,” she says. “And I’ve got a masters from USC in sociology.” She says it like I should be impressed.

“Congratulations. Since you brought it up, why are your ‘men’ following me?”

“What do you know about magic?”

I can tell she doesn’t mean fancy card tricks or guys in tuxedoes pulling doves out of their asses. It’s a word I haven’t let myself think this whole time. Even with Neumann’s tricks, Giavetti’s Lazarus routine, I just can’t. Sure, I can’t explain a goddamn thing, but magic? I’d rather think a virus or a drug or, fuck, something else, even though that all makes even less sense.

But now that she’s said the word, now that it’s in the open . . . no, I still can’t wrap my brain around it. The fuck is it? Might as well have said orgone energy, crystal healing, or angels. It’s just another word for Fucked If I Know.

“At the moment,” I say, trying to light another cigarette, “All I know is that it’s really fucking with my nicotine habit.”

Her face breaks into a girl-next-door smile. Her whole face lights up. This is the woman who’s got gangbangers shitting their pants when she’s not happy? If I were twenty years younger, I might make a play for her on her looks alone.

“It’s a lot more common than you might think,” she says.

Giavetti and Neumann dance in my brain for a second. “I’m starting to get that, yeah. That how you know my name?”

“It helps.”

“All right, you’ve been following me. Obviously you want something from me. What is it?”

She’s playing it off like she planned my coming here. And who knows, maybe she did. “Listen,” she says. “There are a lot of people out there like you, you know. Well, not like you exactly. Others. Paranormals, monsters, whatever you want to call them.”

“Right,” I say. “The vampires are coming for ya, kid. Bleaah.” I cross my eyes and waggle my fingers.

She sighs. “They’re not like you’d think.”

“Wait. Seriously? There are vampires?”