“There’s no need to act.” I adjusted the crucifix resting at the top of her cleavage. “I can vouch that you are Catholic and very good.”
I walked Olivia to her car, then drove home. I climbed into my coffin: tired, satiated, but still sore from yesterday’s crash.
The chime from my cell phone awoke me. The ringtone-AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap”-told me that I had a message forwarded from my work number. I sat up, feeling refreshed, and realized that the Iraqi girl had not visited my dreams. Hopefully that nonsense was over.
I’d answer the call when I got to my office. There’s always time for work. I headed into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. In the ancient days, long before I was around, when a vampire got hungry, he would go to the dungeon and sort through the menu. I stared with regret at the stacks of 450-milliliter bags of chilled human blood. This was progress?
I grabbed a type B-negative and heated the bag in the microwave. Maybe I ought to convert the garage into a dungeon and keep a chalice. Then I’d have to keep another chalice to clean the cage and the litter box. The arrangement would get too complicated.
My office was in the Oriental Theater at the corner of Tennyson and Forty-fourth, on the second floor behind the big neon sign.
The red light on my office phone blinked. Caller ID gave a restricted number. The voice-mail message sounded like a robot learning how to speak English.
“I’ve found what you wanted on Barrett Chambers. Check your e-mail.”
The zombies were on my endangered list.
The replies from my hacker came back in a series of e-mails from various anonymous accounts.
As I sorted through the e-mails, Phyllis called. She represented the Araneum as my minder (that’s the closest word I could find to describe our relationship). The arrangement was definitely one-sided; her job was to make sure I understood the implications of my actions…and especially of my failures.
“We need to discuss your assignment.” Her tone was as inviting as the teeth on a steel trap.
My kundalini noir displaced uneasily. This was the first time the Araneum had contacted me like this at the beginning of an assignment. Usually I got my orders via the crow and off I went.
I waited for Phyllis and Mel outside Ojo del Azteca, one of the remaining dives in this part of the Highlands neighborhood, also known as the North Side. The dry cleaners next door was replaced by a boutique and the corner space-empty since forever-was an espresso and wine bar. The sky was deceptively bright for such a cold day, a reminder that much in this world wasn’t as it should be.
I kept thinking about the reason for our meeting and I formed the impression that the big thumb of the Araneum was about to press down upon me.
Phyllis turned the corner of the sidewalk from Zuni to Thirty-second Street. Besides jeans and a green jacket, she wore a knit cap the color of a maraschino cherry that emphasized her milk chocolate complexion. False advertising-there was nothing sweet about her.
In one hand she pulled a black rollaway carry-on. With her other hand she held the leash of her dog, a freakish golden retriever/blue heeler mix. The mutt had a long, skinny frame and a blue-gray pelt spotted with black markings. Straw-yellow hair sprouted from around its neck and bony legs. The dog looked like God couldn’t decide how to finish this mongrel before He gave up.
I said hello. Phyllis responded with a nod. She looped the dog’s leash over the metal railing in front of the cantina.
Phyllis removed her sunglasses and put them into a pocket of her jacket. We both wore brown contacts. Her face revealed no hint of her mood. You could read more emotion from a rock.
Phyllis retracted the handle and lifted the carry-on. We entered the bar and proceeded to a table in the back. The owners must have been stingy about paying for electricity because the place was as gloomy as a cavern.
A yuppie Latina in a navy blue power suit-lawyer, I guessed-sat knee to knee with a much younger man. They were tucked in a dark recess where the corner of the bar met the wall. He held her hand. As Phyllis and I passed, the woman lowered her face. The back of his jacket read LARRY’S LANDSCAPING. No question about whose bush he was trimming.
The only other customers-two men who dressed like they raided a Salvation Army donation box for clothes-occupied a table at the opposite corner from us. They fell silent when we entered and stared at their bottles of beer. Both men acted like we’d interrupted a supersecret discussion, probably about the best intersections for panhandling.
Phyllis and I took adjacent chairs facing the front door. She slid the carry-on onto the table, next to my backpack.
The front door opened and a wedge of light sliced across the floor. Mel’s broad silhouette filled the doorway. He did a quick take of the bar and ambled to us.
Mel carried a battered metal lunch box. He unbuttoned his denim work coat. Both his flannel shirt and his jeans were pock-marked with burn marks.
Mel took a seat. Under his bulk, the chair looked like a milking stool. He placed the lunch box on the floor. He smelled of welding flux and charred flesh. That explained the bandage on his left hand. Mel did a lot of welding but he wasn’t good at it.
The bartender left the bar and came toward us. She was a plump woman with a Mayan profile, a Frida Kahlo unibrow, and golden earrings the size of jalapeños. Tattoos peeked around the neckline of her peasant blouse. I ordered a Carta Blanca, Phyllis a Superior, and Mel whatever was cheapest.
When the bartender left, Phyllis glanced at the other customers. They’d forgotten about us and leaned close to one another and whispered.
Ojo del Azteca was a good place to trade secrets.
I looked at the carry-on and wondered what it had to do with our inquiry into the zombie.
Mel fiddled with a zipper pull on the carry-on until Phyllis pushed his hand away.
“It’s your meeting,” I said to her. “Start with the questions.”
Phyllis set her gaze on mine. The heat of her vampiric nature radiated through her contacts. “What have you found out about the zombie?”
I opened my backpack and pulled out copies of the e-mails I’d gotten from my hacker. “Here’s what I’ve got on Chambers. His commercial footprints-use of credit cards, telephone calls, bank activity-stopped six weeks ago, about the time I’m guessing he became a zombie. His last address was in Morada, where I’m headed.”
“Any leads?”
“A couple. His landlord. His ex.”
Phyllis asked, “What do you expect to find?”
“In Morada? What I’d like to find is a big neon sign saying, ZOMBIE LAIR THIS WAY. But what I expect to find is a trail of flimsy clues. The usual.”
Phyllis unzipped the main compartment of the carry-on. “When you get to Morada, you need to consider something else.” She said this like she was about to drop a heavy weight on my shoulders.
Phyllis reached inside the carry-on and withdrew an odd contraption. It was a shiny metallic case the size of a large dictionary. A four-sided pyramid sat on top. The pyramid seemed made of glass triangles about six inches along each side. On closer inspection, I saw the sides weren’t glass but sheets of thin, transparent quartz. A crystal the size of my thumb stood upright in a cup-sized depression inside the square base of the pyramid. The ornately filigreed case, the use of gemstones as rivet heads, and the gold seams along the corners of the pyramid told me this device had most likely been crafted by the Araneum.
An elongated ruby the size of a pen cap angled from a top corner of the case. Phyllis flicked the ruby like a switch. A faint silvery glow illuminated the crystal.