Coyote walked to the Dumpster. He levitated to stand on the rim by Rebecca's feet and stared at her. He turned his ball cap backward, bent forward, and grasped her ankles. "Watcha." Look.
He lifted her body. A dozen flies took to the air and buzzed around us. "There are no wounds. No blood."
Coyote shook the body. Her ponytail and hands brushed across the garbage. "See how her head wobbles? Whoever attacked Rebecca twisted her neck like a bottle cap."
Even though she was dead, the way she dangled looked humiliating. "Do you have to do that?"
"Why?" Coyote answered. "If she starts complaining, that would be a good thing, no?"
Coyote let go of her ankles. Rebecca's head settled into a pile of juice cartons. Her legs doubled over so that she rested butt up in a perverse yogalike posture. Flies landed on the insoles of her feet. I wanted the toes to twitch, but of course, they didn't.
Rebecca's neck had been broken. I reached down and lifted her hand. I didn't see any hair, skin, or blood under the fingernails. There were no marks of a struggle on her or the surrounding ground. Which meant she was attacked with such surprise she didn't have a chance to defend herself.
She hadn't been dragged out here. Inside the Majestic Lanes, there had been no commotion. Rebecca must have known and trusted her vampire attacker.
My gaze returned to Rebecca's trim body and the still rosy skin. What a pity. Had I been more alert and less careless, I could've prevented her death. Here she was in her youthful prime, cut down to feed maggots.
Rebecca had been casually tossed into the Dumpster, which meant her killer wasn't worried about the police finding a corpse behind the Majestic Lanes. Maybe this happened often. After all, we were in L. A.
We were alone, but I figured not for long. To reassure myself, I touched the Colt pistol hidden under my shirt. "It's best that we leave." I didn't want to risk gunplay, not until I learned more.
Coyote turned his cap around. "I'm still hungry. Those nachos weren't much."
"After seeing Rebecca like that, you wanna eat?"
"Vato, no matter what happens, the world keeps spinning and your appetite returns."
I couldn't argue. We headed back to my car.
Coyote recommended a dive in Watts. Since I was the only one with money, I paid for the meal. We ate outside under a tattered picnic umbrella. Coyote had five beef and red chile tamales to my two. We smothered the tamales with blood from a bag I had stashed in my car.
I sipped a Carta Blanca.
Why was Rebecca killed? And why now? I assumed it was to keep her from talking to me.
The next question: what did she know?
I asked Coyote, "Why did you tell Rebecca about me?"
Coyote pushed a hunk of tamale through the blood on his plate. "Because, carnal, she was friends with Katz Meow. I knew Katz was looking for someone to solve Roxy's murder."
"How did you know that?"
"Vato, I listen to chisme, rumors. Roxy's death was suspiciously convenient for a lot of rich people."
"Like Cragnow?"
"Especially ese culo vampiro." That vampire asshole.
"Did you know Roxy?"
"We never met."
"How did you know about Rebecca being friends with Katz?" I asked.
"I followed Katz around. She and Rebecca hung out together. I eavesdropped on them."
"They didn't notice?"
"No, but I was right there in plain sight." Coyote extended his index fingers, as if they were antennae sprouting from his forehead. "Como una mosca." Like a fly.
"Katz needed help," he continued. "I recognized Rebecca from the Majestic Lanes. That's where I told her how Katz could find her champion."
"Champion? Me?"
Coyote licked a dollop of blood clinging, like sauce, to his mustache. He grinned. "Simon. Who else?"
"Rebecca was murdered just before I had a chance to question her. Who knew I was here? Katz. Cragnow and his goons. Lucky Rosario." The next name was difficult for me to say but I had to. "You, Coyote."
His eyes turned toward mine. He lapped blood from his fingertips and waited a moment before answering.
"Hermano, I knew you'd get around to that question. I should be offended but I'm not. You at least have the cojones to ask me to my face."
"What do you care about Roxy?"
"Maybe I don't. What's another dead human among the billions already here? But what I know is that Cragnow and his buddies who run this nidus are setting us vampires up for a disaster. This deal with humans, whatever it is, is a countdown to catastrophe."
"Why doesn't Cragnow see it that way?"
"Because he's blinded by arrogance and his thirst for power. Vato, I can't stop him alone."
Coyote took a swig from his beer and belched. "Felix, do you trust me or not?"
"I have to."
"Good, because I'm still hungry and I need to borrow something for a burrito."
I gave him a five. "Make it to go and keep the change." I heaped my bottle, plate, and napkins together and shoved them into an overflowing trash can. "There are others we need to question. Like Councilwoman Venin and Roxy Bronze's ex."
Coyote held up his plate and licked it clean. "Who'd be easier to get to?"
"Let's try the ex. Fred Daniels."
From Watts we took the Long Beach Freeway north toward Rosemead. I followed the directions from MapQuest on my wireless laptop. Coyote peeled back the aluminum foil of his burrito and ate.
I told him what I'd learned about Roxy from my research before leaving Denver. She had been married to Fred Daniels, who introduced her to the porn business. Together they were to be the first couple of smut. Daniels took the screen name of Peter Pipe.
A year later, Peter Pipe and Roxy Bronze quit billing themselves as a couple. Except for gay porn, the business was all about women, unless the guy had a prodigious pipe, which Daniels didn't. He worked as her manager and, like his on-camera "acting," failed at that. Daniels occupied himself with booze, cocaine, and the easy pickings around porn sets. Roxy was Daniels's meal ticket until she jettisoned him after a nasty divorce.
I found the address and parked against the curb.
"Que bonito chante," Coyote said. What nice digs.
The house was a fine example of midcentury Atomic Ranch: a big picture window, long horizontal lines, and plenty of ochre-colored brick. The garage doors were closed.
I removed my sunglasses and sat in the car for a moment. I studied the well-kept neighborhood and scanned for suspicious auras. Coyote and I then got out. The lawn smelled freshly watered.
The front door was tucked into an outdoor foyer paved with flagstone. A decal to an alarm company decorated the glass bricks around the main entrance.
I looked through the window in the door and saw the alarm on the opposite wall. It read: SET.
"Let's go around back," I said.
Coyote brushed past me. "Pa'que?" What for?
He touched the door handle. The alarm flashed DISABLED, and the dead bolt snapped. He pushed the door open.
Coyote gave a broad, ragged-toothed smile. "I can do more than look handsome."
Ugly, tricky bastard.
The air inside was cool and moist. A welcome relief after the rush-hour drive under the sun's punishing glare.
Lounge music drifted from the stereo receiver on a buffet table. I couldn't detect the presence of anyone in the house.
Coyote walked across the front room to check the hall. I went into the kitchen.
A glass pitcher with iced lemonade and a half-empty bottle of white rum rested on the counter. The sliding glass doors at the back of the kitchen opened to a fenced yard with a swimming pool.
I stepped around the counter and paused at the threshold to replace my sunglasses to temper the harsh sunlight. A terrazzo walkway surrounded the pool. The only sound was the gurgle of the pool filter.
Beyond the pool was a strip of lawn bordered by rosebushes and boxwood shrubs. White plastic chairs sat on the grass.
I was sure the house was Daniels's divorce settlement. Probably the only smart move in his life was that he married an ambitious porn star and mooched off her for all he could get.
Where was Daniels? The way my case was going, I wouldn't be surprised to find his drowned corpse lying on the bottom of the pool. I walked to the water's edge, expecting to find his bloated and dead face.
"Don't you move."
I turned to the left.
There was a stainless steel outdoor bar at the corner of the yard, under the shade of two magnolia trees.
Fred Daniels rose from behind the bar and aimed a Beretta pistol.