Fool's Gold (2 page)

Near the back of the store, a clean-cut businessman perused shelves labeled “Barely Legal.” If he'd seen me come in, he was doing a pretty good job pretending he hadn't. He pulled a video from the shelf and added it to the three he was already holding.

A red curtain next to the checkout was drawn back and a young guy exited. His hand was busy zipping his fly when he noticed me. His cheeks went red and he scuttled by so fast, he left a breeze in his wake.

Larry looked up from his racing forms as we approached. He ran a thick palm over his greasy hair and straightened his butterfly collar. His eyes groped my body in a way that left me craving a shower.

“Well, if it isn't Sabina Kane. How can I help you, sugar?” He completely ignored Slade.

“Is Zeke working tonight?”

Larry's eyes narrowed. “Sabina, you wound me. I was hoping you were coming to accept my offer to make a fang film.

I leaned back and tried to stifle my grimace. Fang films were fetish videos geared toward the vamp population. The last time I saw Larry, he told me he could make me a star.

“Sorry, Larry, but I haven't changed my mind,” I said. “I'm just looking for Zeke.”

Larry's eyes narrowed. “You and everyone else.”

“What do you mean?” Slade said, leaning in.

“Who the hell are you?” Larry demanded.

“This is my colleague Slade Corbin,” I said.

Larry looked Slade over in what he probably thought was an intimidating stare. Slade simply stared back, cold as ice. I covered my smile with a hand. The thought of Larry intimidating anyone was laughable. The fact he was trying to intimidate a killing machine like Slade was downright hilarious.

Finally, under Slade's penetrating gaze, Larry cleared his throat. “Anyway, Zeke Corbin's dead to me. He was supposed to show up for work two days ago and I ain't heard one word.”

“Any idea where we can find him?” I asked.

The male shrugged. “I think he hangs out at that strip club on Van Nuys.”

“The Tit Crypt?”

He nodded.
Shit
, I thought. So far, all the clues were leading us around in circles.

“Do you have an address for him?” Slade asked.

Larry sighed. “Hold on, I got it here somewheres.” His hefted his bulk from his stool and went to a file cabinet behind the counter. As he rifled through stacks of paper, he muttered to himself.

Slade and I exchanged a look. Chances were good Zeke wouldn't be at home, waiting for us to put a bullet between his eyes. But if we had the address, we could search the place for any clues on where he was hiding out.

Finally, Larry came back over and slapped a coffee-stained job application on the counter. “The address is on that,” Larry said. “You find that asshole, you tell him he owes me two hundred dollars for all the videos he checked out and never returned.”

I nodded and handed the paper to Slade. “Thanks, Larry. I owe you one.”

Larry shifted on his seat and leaned in again. “Let me know if you change your mind about making a movie. I'd love to get you on my casting couch, if you know what I mean.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Slade's mouth twitch. “No, thanks,” I said.

“Aw, c'mon. It'll be fun.” He wiggled his bushy eyebrows suggestively.

“I said no.”
Not just no
, I thought.
Hell, no
.

“Let me give you my card anyway.” He pulled a greasy rectangle of paper from a stack at his elbow. “When you change your mind, call me. There's vamps out there'd pay good money to see a prime piece like you fangin' some pole.”

Slade laughed out loud this time. I turned to him with an eyebrow raised. The porn king wiggled his eyebrows again, pointing a bony finger at Slade. “Don't laugh, good-lookin'. I was talking to
you
.”

One minute, Slade stood next to me with his mouth agape and his cheeks red. The next, the bell over the door rang and I got a nice view of Slade's ass before it disappeared.

Back in the car, Slade's tight jaw hinted he was in no mood to be teased about Larry's parting shot. So, I bit my lip and avoided looking at him while I settled into my seat. He turned on the ignition before he finally spoke.

“I think we should hit Zeke's address tomorrow. I don't want to chance getting caught there near sunrise if shit goes down.”

I glanced at the dashboard clock. It was about two hours until sunrise. Not a big deal for me, but getting caught at sunup would be an issue for my unwilling partner. The only benefit of being mixed-blood was my ability to be in the sun without suffering debilitating pain. Granted, it weakened me, but I didn't have to dive for shelter like every other vamp on the planet. “Makes sense.”

“You hungry?”

“Liquid or solid?” I asked.

Slade smiled for the first time since I met him. “Solid. I fed earlier.”

“Now that you mention it, I could use a burger.”

He put the car in gear. “I know just the place.”

Slade insisted we go to the window to order, instead of using the drive thru. Since I'd never been to In-N-Out Burger before, he insisted on ordering me something called a “Double-Double” with “large fries, well done.” I wasn't sure exactly what any of that meant, but the heavenly aroma of grilled beef made my carnivore's heart go pitter-patter.

The chick in the orange apron handed over a box overflowing with burgers and cardboard boats filled with golden fries. Slade carried the feast to a small sitting area next to the parking lot.

He didn't wait for me to sit before digging into his food. I smiled at the utterly satisfied sounds escaping between his bites. For someone who'd come across so cold all night, Slade seemed to have a passion for food. He finally slowed down enough to notice I hadn't tried mine. He pointed at the box with his own burger. “Dig in,” he said over a mouthful.

I wouldn't quite call the experience orgasmic, but it was a near thing. “Godsdamn!” I said after I'd inhaled half the thing.

“Right?” Slade said, shoving two fries into his mouth.

We spent a few minutes munching companionably, watching cars pass by on Foothill Boulevard. Finally, I washed down my last bite with a gulp of cold soda. I was feeling good. Not just because of the burgers, either. What had started out as a disaster of a first mission—what with Slade being an ass—had turned into a pretty decent night.

“Slade?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“Do you think we should review what we know so far?”

He grimaced, as if I'd just brought up a taboo subject. “Not much to review.”

“But we have Zeke's personnel file. Maybe we should go through it for clues. You know, proof he's the one whose threatening the Dominae.”

Slade raised an eyebrow. “Clues? Sabina, we're not detectives.” He leaned in, whispering so the people at other tables wouldn't overhear. “We're assassins. It's not up to us to prove or deny Zeke's guilt. It's up to us to end him. Period.”

“But the guy on the video was wearing a mask. How can we be sure it's this Zeke guy? After all, the perp could have opened the bank account under Zeke's name to throw us off his trail.”

Slade cocked his head. “Slow down, Kojak. We're assassins, not detectives.”

My face went hot at his dismissive tone. Ignoring him, I opened the file. Zeke's job application was on top. I scanned the page, looking for something. What, I had no idea. I scanned past the work history, since we already knew his last place of employment. Finally, my eyes landed on his chicken-scratched answers to a series of questions.

I snorted. “Listen to this. ‘Why do you want to work at T&A Video?'” I looked up to make sure Slade was paying attention. He was taking a drink from his soda, but his eyes widened in a facsimile of real interest. “Zeke said, ‘Cause I like to watch people fucking.'”

Slade spewed a mouthful of soda across the table. “At least he's honest,” he said once he'd stopped choking.

I smiled and continued. “‘Please discuss your previous experience in the adult film industry.' Zeke put ‘Does whacking off to it three times a day count?''”

We both laughed so loud that the other customers started sending curious looks our way. Finally, I recovered enough to say, “The funniest part is that these answers got him the job.”

Slade smiled and took another sip of his drink. A flash of fang peeked out when he pulled the straw away. “You surprised me tonight,” he said, suddenly more serious.

“I know.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I'm sorry if I was an asshole earlier. I just had a bad experience with the last rookie the Dominae saddled me with.”

“Who was it?”

“Mischa Petrov.”

I groaned and crumpled my burger wrapper, wishing it were Petrov's head.

“I take it you know her?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” In addition to being my biggest competition in assassin school, Mischa Petrov was also my nemesis. She lorded my mixed blood over me whenever possible. And despite my higher grades, my grandmother had chosen Mischa as the
Primora
of the class. The honor ensured Mischa was fast-tracked into getting the plum jobs, unlike the rest of us, who had to serve time collecting tithes and tracking down petty criminals.

Slade laughed. “In addition to being completely incompetent, that female had the worst case of vagina dentata I've ever had the misfortune to experience.”

I grimaced. “You fucked her?” My newfound respect for Slade took a nosedive.

He snorted and shook his head. “Are you kidding? I wouldn't let that she-devil anywhere near my unmentionables.”

I smiled. “Good for you.”

“Anyway,” he said, “after that horrific experience, I didn't expect you'd be a pleasant surprise. Especially since—” He cut himself off and looked away quickly.

I nodded. “Let me guess: the mixed-blood thing?” He nodded, looking sheepish. “Don't worry. I'm used to it.”

He shifted uncomfortably on the small seat. “Anyway, I just wanted to apologize for earlier.”

“Do you feel bad enough to split the take with me fifty-fifty?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “How about eighty-twenty?” His tone made it sound like he thought this offer was magnanimous.

I leaned forward, looking him in the eyes. “Sixty-forty.”

He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at me. Finally, he sighed. “Seventy-thirty. Final offer.”

“Gods, you're stubborn,” I said.

He shrugged. “Despite your luck tonight, I'm still the lead on this mission. When we go in tomorrow, you're going to have to let me call the shots.”

I saluted him. “Yes, sir.”

His lips twitched. “Smartass.”

I let myself into my house and dropped my jacket and gun holster on the side table. After a night spent in the seediest establishment of the San Fernando Valley, it was time for a shower.

On my way past the kitchen, I ducked in to grab a beer from the fridge. I peeled back the tab on the can and chugged half of it before taking an extra for the trip to the bathroom.

The bathroom had pink tiles that I hated but not enough to make the effort of tearing them out.

I turned the water on to scalding and quickly stripped from my clothes. My shirt smelled like the inside of an ashtray mixed with grease and onions from the burger. I tossed it on the ground next to the rest of the week's discarded clothing.

The needles of water hit me between the shoulders. I gritted my fangs and relaxed into the welcome pain. Placing my palms against the tile, I lowered my head and let the heat and the pressure massage away the tension.

It's not that I considered the night's work a failure. Quite the opposite. We'd covered a lot of ground and found some useable clues about Zeke's whereabouts. But I was definitely feeling the pressure of needing to both prove to my grandmother that I could be trusted to work alone, and show Slade Corbin I had the stuff to become a great assassin like him.

I sighed and leaned my head back to wet it. While I lathered up, I thought about ways I could help the investigation move along. My fingers worked over my scalp, as if the massage would make my brain work faster. I rinsed my hair and took a long swig of the beer I'd brought in with me. Surely someone knew where to find Zeke Calebow.

I continued to ponder my options as I completed my shower, dried off, and polished off the first beer. I pulled on a clean
Charlie's Angels'
T-shirt and some cut-off shorts before padding back into the living room.

My stereo sat on a shelf I'd created using cinder blocks and slats of wood. The records I played on it were stored in old milk crates. I flipped past the Clash, Joy Division, and Talking Heads. It was a Blondie night, so I grabbed the
Parallel Lines
album. Once that was on the turntable with the needle lowered, I retreated to the couch.

I found my black book sitting on the coffee table. Instead of being filled with names of eligible bachelors, it was filled with the names of pimps, bookies, loan sharks, and other types no one would want to take home to their mama—unless they wanted to get disowned.

With a sigh, I pondered who might be able to lead us to Zeke Calebow. I'd made it all the way to the Fs when a scratching noise echoed through the room. I cocked my head and looked toward the record player. Another scratch. No, definitely not coming from the hi-fi.

I rose and grabbed my gun from the side table. Keeping toes light on the hardwoods, I moved toward the door.

Scratch, scratch
.

Keeping my gun in my right hand, I stood to the side of the door and reached for the knob with my left.

Scratch, scratch, scratch
.

I pulled open the door. An orange streak flew through the air at my legs. Pain exploded on my bare skin.