"Don't do anything stupid," I said evenly.
Daniels looked like he did in his photos. Late twenties. Blue eyes empty of deep thought. An impossibly smooth forehead, probably from overdoing Botox.
He was shorter than me. Very tan. His brown hair was gelled into spikes with blond highlights. A cream-colored linen shirt sagged over his lean torso. In his pictures he flashed a smile; here he threatened with a scowl and a 9mm pistol.
The muzzle of the Beretta and the gold links of his tennis bracelet trembled. With his left hand, Daniels picked up a glass tumbler from the bar. I smelled the lemonade and rum.
Keeping his gaze fixed on me-a gold piercing cinched over his eyebrow-he brought the tumbler to his lips and gulped nervously. Lemonade dripped down his chin and to his shirt. He set the tumbler down, and the ice tinkled. He wiped his chin and rubbed his fingers against his shirt. The trembling of his hand eased and the black malevolent hole of the gun barrel held steady on me.
I calculated my options.
Daniels stood about thirty feet away. Too far to zap with hypnosis even after I removed my sunglasses. I could try and rush him, but that would risk getting shot. Or I could draw my pistol and start blasting. But I needed to ask questions. Better that I let him drink until Dutch courage turned into a drunken stupor.
Daniels kept the muzzle trained on my chest. "How'd you get in without tripping the alarm?"
"I opened the door. If that's a problem, talk to your security company."
"Unless I shoot you as a trespasser. Then it'd be your problem."
Cheeky dipshit had better mind his manners.
In my short stay so far in L.A., pistols seemed as ubiquitous as sunglasses. "You always keep a gun handy?"
"Cragnow warned me."
That double-dealing undead son of a bitch. He wanted my help and then alerted Daniels to meet me with a pistol at the ready. What was Cragnow's agenda? What didn't he want me to know?
"Warned you about what?" I took a step toward Daniels.
"Don't come closer. Cragnow said to tell you that he gave me special bullets. I don't know what's so special about them, but he said you'd know what he meant."
Damn right I did. Silver bullets. Probably painted to look like regular steel-jacketed slugs. I could take several hits to my body with conventional bullets; one silver bullet in the right place would leave me flopping on the terrazzo like a speared fish.
The afternoon sun reflected off the pool and into Daniels's face. The gold hoops of his earrings glittered. He squinted, and his free hand groped for the Ray-Bans lying on the bar. Daniels put the sunglasses on. Now if I wanted to hypnotize him, I'd have to get close enough to knock off his shades.
He hadn't shot me yet, and the way he held the pistol signaled that he wasn't comfortable with violence.
"What now, Lone Ranger?" I asked. "You going to use those special bullets?"
Daniels relaxed. "Look man, I just want to be left alone."
"I got no problem with that." I kept my arms loose and gestured with my hands, palms up. "How about we just talk about your ex."
"What for?" The edge in his voice returned. He steadied the pistol. "The police know everything. You could wallpaper the city with what's been printed about me and Roxy. There ain't nothing more to say."
"I'm not convinced of that," I replied. "Every time I mention Roxy's name, people act like roaches about to scatter."
"Why don't you scatter?"
I couldn't wait to hurt this douche bag. Fist, then fangs.
Where was Coyote? I could use him to distract Daniels.
"You know where I could find Katz Meow?"
"Ask Cragnow. She worked for him."
A cell phone resting on the bar chimed.
"Step back," Daniels said.
I didn't.
The pistol went off. The bullet ricocheted between my legs. Daniels seemed as astonished as I was.
The phone kept chiming.
Daniels's surprised expression turned into a sneer. "Hey, that wasn't hard." His grip tightened on the Beretta. "Now get back."
Luckily, the last shot was low. The next one might hit my belly, or worse. I took a step back.
His eyes remained fixed on me and he picked up the phone. "Yeah I know exactly where he's at." Daniels smirked. "Right in front of me."
He folded the cell phone and his shoulders relaxed. "Cragnow's men are on the way." His smirk deepened. "Maybe they can help you find Katz."
Why did mention of Cragnow's goons sound like bad news?
Coyote stumbled out of the kitchen. Daniels swung the pistol toward him.
"Don't shoot," I yelled.
Coyote spit an ice cube and tipped the empty pitcher of lemonade over his upturned face. "Estoy bien pedo." I'm really shit-faced.
Daniels stabbed the Beretta toward me, then to Coyote, and at me again. "Don't move."
Coyote lurched to the edge of the pool, teetered, and dropped the pitcher into the water.
"What the hell you doing?" shouted Daniels. "Get against the wall, the both of you."
"Good idea," Coyote mumbled. He staggered close to the wall and unzipped his jeans over a row of potted flowers. "All that lemonade has gotta come out. Might as well make it now, bro."
"Not on my plants," Daniels whined. He stepped from behind the bar. "Get back from them, you drunken wetback bastard."
I lunged forward. Daniels jerked his gun toward me and popped a round that zinged past my ear.
"?Al la Madre!" Holy Mother! Coyote jumped from the wall. A stream of fire shot from his crotch onto a big chrysanthemum. "?Auxilio!?Auxilio!Llamen los bombaderos." Help! Help! Call the fire department.
Flames rolled against the stucco wall and turned into black smoke that curled back on us.
Daniels started shooting again. The bullets peppered the air. One of those bullets was bound to hit Coyote or me.
I grabbed Coyote by his collar and yanked him into the kitchen.
Bullets cracked against the sliding glass door.
A wall of fire erupted across the kitchen threshold behind us.
I ran out the front door and dragged Coyote along. His feet slammed against the furniture. Fire dribbled from his open fly. We got into my car. Smoke mushroomed over the roof of Daniels's home like it had been hit by artillery.
Once the engine kicked over, I stomped on the accelerator. My tires screeched like banshees with hemorrhoids. Coyote fumbled with his zipper.
My kundalini noir settled enough for me to finally speak. "How'd you do that?"
"Facil, vato." Easy, dude. "I had to pee really bad."
"I mean pissing fire."
Coyote sucked air through his teeth and appeared contrite. "My fault. I keep forgetting that I shouldn't drink rum." He cupped his balls. "Next time I might end up with huevos flambe."
"Stay away if you decide to fart," I said. "That would be another Hiroshima. Anyway, thanks for saving me."
"Don't mention it, carnal."
I headed south on the freeway.
Fred Daniels was the weasel I expected him to be. Trouble was, he acted like a cornered weasel-holding a gun loaded with silver bullets. At least he was alive. For now. Which meant I could get to him later.
And Cragnow? He was hiding something. Why else would he ask me to help him, then turn around and warn Daniels? And he gave him the deadly bullets, meaning that if all went to shit during my visit, the chances were good that I'd be the one full of holes.
"If all my leads are going to be so much trouble," I thought aloud, "this is going to be a long investigation."
"Felix, no te preocupes," Coyote said. Don't worry.
"Are you talking in a general sense or is there something else?" I replied.
He shrugged.
"Don't play games, Coyote."
He grasped the door handle. "Too bad, vato, because that's all I know."
Coyote pushed the door open. Traffic was heavy and moved at a steady clip of forty-five miles an hour. He tumbled out. The door slammed shut and the lock snapped closed.
Astonished by his departure, I tapped my brakes and looked into the mirror, but as a vampire, Coyote wouldn't show. I craned my neck, expecting to see him dodging cars that swerved and were panic-stopped.
Nothing. Just lines of automobiles rolling in long, impatient columns.
Coyote was gone. Quick as a blink.
Don't worry, Coyote had said. What did he mean? Would I see him again?
The car behind me blared its horn. I resumed speed and headed for my hotel and a much needed rest. Thinking that I might have trouble finding a coffin to sleep in, I had brought inversion boots and planned to relax hanging upside down in a closet.
Back in my room, the red light on the telephone flashed. I retrieved the message.
"Felix Gomez, my name is Veronica Torres."
Roxy's partner in their campaign that undermined Project Eleven. A sworn enemy of Lucky Rosario and councilwoman Petale Venin, among others.
How did Veronica know I was here?
She spoke crisply, with an intriguing lilt to her Chicana barrio accent. Puerto Rican? Central American? "I got a text message asking me to call you…"
Message from whom? Coyote?
"… something to do with Roxy Bronze. If you can, let's meet tomorrow morning. Here's my number…"
When I called Veronica back, I asked if she knew who had left the text message. She didn't and told me caller ID said the number was unknown.
I asked if she knew anyone named Coyote. She didn't know that either. Finally I asked, "Don't you think it's strange you got an anonymous message to call me?"
She replied, "There's a lot of things about Roxy's death that are strange. An anonymous message to call you is the least of them."
We made an appointment to meet at 9 A.M. at the Barrios Unidos center in Pacoima.
I rigged a chin-up bar inside the closet. After I undressed and put on my pajamas, I latched the inversion boots around my shins and hooked the boots over the chin-up bar. Vampires can defy gravity but only through conscious effort. If I planted my feet against the ceiling and dozed off, gravity would pull me down.
I put my cell phone and the loaded Colt pistol on the floor within arm's reach. As I hung there, waiting for sleep, I worked the investigation over in my head.
Until now, I had thought of only three motives for Roxy's murder: revenge for thwarting Project Eleven; interfering with Cragnow's scheme of vampire-human collusion; and leaving Gomorrah Video.
Perhaps I overlooked an equally compelling and sinister motive. Who else would profit from her death? I stuck on the word profit.
Profit as in money.
My hacker told me Roxy Bronze had a million-dollar insurance policy that paid out to two parties. Half of the million dollars went to Barrios Unidos. The other half went to the Open Hand in Reseda, a nonprofit medical clinic for porn actors and other sex workers.
Could someone at either of these places have put the bullet in Roxy's skull?
The idea was almost too fantastic to contemplate. Nonprofits were always scrambling for money. Murdering someone for the insurance payout was a dangerous scheme as a fund-raiser. Then again, it was half a million dollars.