In that instant before the dump truck turned my sedan into a heap of crumpled steel and plastic, I undid my safety belt, opened the door, and bolted clear. Even vampires panic, and how fast I had moved surprised even me. Hell, a mongoose would've been impressed.
The cops arrived. A patrol woman asked, "Sure you're okay?"
My kundalini noir settled. "I'm doing better than my car."
Firefighters aimed a hose to wash the fluids leaking from under what was left of my rental sedan. Fragments of shattered glass glittered in the puddles.
The dump truck had struck the left rear door and crunched over the roof. My driver's seat was wadded inside the pile of mangled steel and under the huge tires of this enormous truck.
Four other patrol cars and two motorcycles had arrived. The cops shepherded traffic past the accident scene and through the construction bottleneck.
The homeless bum staggered from the median toward us.
His eyes were wide circles of astonishment on his unwashed, bearded face. He pointed at me with his Styrofoam cup. "I saw that. You… you moved faster than a goddamn bullet."
The female cop looked at him, then at me.
I said, "A regular bullet perhaps but not a goddamn bullet."
The bum stumbled close. He carried a stink like sour milk. He squinted. "Ask him how he done that?" The bum paused for a moment to steady himself. "One second he's in the car, then poof, I seen him standing right there."
The cop waved him back. "I'll get to you in a second, sir." She faced me and shook her head. "Isn't even noon yet and he's beyond shit-faced. Gonna be a long day."
The cop finished taking my statement while her partner interviewed a number of bystanders. No one could verify where the runaway truck had come from. The truck had barreled out of the parking lot, and my vehicle was the only one hit. It had obviously come for me.
The truck had no plate or company markings. The construction crew didn't own it. The female cop guessed the truck was stolen. "Miracle you survived."
Some miracle all right. A stolen truck with no one in the cab just happened to hit only my car.
A black Ford Crown Victoria-all it needed was a banner on the roof that said UNMARKED POLICE CAR-drove over the curb and parked on the sidewalk close to the wreckage. A dark-skinned man got out of the passenger's side. His complexion looked like umber paint right out of the tube. His nappy black Chia Pet head had a reflection highlight at the front of his receding hairline. He wore a shiny gray shirt with the cuffs rolled back, a fashionable tie, and wraparound sunglasses. He slipped an ID tag out of his shirt pocket and let the tag dangle on a cloth neckband. The sun glistened off the police badge clipped to his belt next to a compact pistol.
He brought the vampire equivalent of B.O., a faint cadaverous odor he disguised with Aramis cologne. I read his ID. Julius Paxton. Deputy Chief, Foothills Division. LAPD.
And certainly the beneficiary of Lucky Rosario's largess. Add to that, as a vampire and a ranking officer in the LAPD, most certainly Cragnow Vissoom's head goon.
I didn't need to remove my contacts and sunglasses to study Paxton's aura. He didn't stop by to ask about my health or my opinion of Los Angeles traffic. His frown told me enough. He expected to find me smashed into pulp, and instead I stood here, still definitely upright and undead.
Paxton introduced himself to the patrol cop and told her he'd like a word with me, alone. We stepped away.
"Paxton, I'm honored," I said. "Since when does a honcho like yourself pull traffic duty?"
Paxton's stern face broke into a smile so deep it looked like a chrome radiator grill. "Felix Gomez."
We had never met before, so hearing my name was like an electric jolt.
He knew my name. He knew I was here. He certainly knew my business. Cragnow Vissoom must have told him. I pointed to the wreck under the dump truck. "You seem disappointed that my carcass is not tangled in that mess."
His teeth looked impossibly shiny, as if he buffed instead of brushed them. "Lucky you. Maybe fate's telling you to buy a lottery ticket."
Back at Paxton's car the driver got out and stood behind the open door, as if prepared to reach inside and grab something-perhaps a riot gun loaded with silver buckshot.
If Paxton still wanted me dead, he could've signaled his driver to start shooting. Judging by his stance, the driver was human and I'd beat him to the draw. The other cops were busy with traffic, so he was the only available shooter. I was next to Paxton and wild bursts of fire would get him, too. Plus a shoot-out beside the freeway was something Paxton wouldn't risk. I felt safe for now.
"You got something you want to share with me, Paxton?"
I couldn't see his aura but I could feel it, like the heat from a stalled engine. Paxton was sizing me up, to see what kind of an opponent and threat I was.
"Who sent you?" I asked. "Cragnow?"
Paxton's smile went flat. "Mr. Vissoom doesn't control-"
"Mister? I expected His Highness from you."
That smile with those blade-shiny teeth returned. His expression said: Keep it up, smart-ass, and see where it gets you.
"Since you're here, Paxton, maybe you can help."
His smile dimmed again and he raised an eyebrow.
"Any idea where I could find Katz Meow?"
His eyebrow took a long time to drop. "Who?"
Liar. "A friend of Roxy Bronze's."
"Felix, I don't expect you to do my job, so don't expect me to do yours. Aren't you a PI? Find her yourself."
Paxton started to walk away. He stopped and looked back at me. "In case you don't get it, don't think for a second that any of this"-he meant the accident, his arrival, and his knowledge of me-"was a coincidence."
"You don't need to spell it out," I told him.
"Really? 'Cuz I did figure you to be that stupid." Paxton returned to his Crown Vic.
Stupid or not, I was harder to kill than he thought. Paxton, as a deputy chief, had a lot of authority and with that, plenty of visibility. He couldn't be brash in his attempts to finish me and blow his cover.
Paxton drove off as two wreckers arrived. The bigger one pulled the dump truck off the rental. The other wrecker winched the remains of the sedan onto its bed. I signed a release and wondered how much time I was going to waste trying to sort this out with my insurance company.
I walked up the block and retreated under the shadow of an awning outside a dry cleaner. I could go back to Barrios Unidos. But what kind of impression would that make? I was supposed to be the white knight, and within minutes of leaving Veronica, I all but crawl back, after barely escaping an attempt to crush me like an egg.
I called a cab for a ride back to my hotel. As I waited, I reviewed the in-box of my cell phone and opened the text message from Veronica. It was the number she had forwarded for Andrew Tonic, Roxy's lawyer.
I called him. A woman receptionist answered. When I told her I wanted to speak to Tonic about Roxy, she caught herself in midbreath and immediately switched me over.
I expected his voice mail and was surprised when a man's voice came over the phone.
"Andrew Tonic speaking," he chirped.
I introduced myself as a private investigator looking into the death of Roxy Bronze. "I understand you were her attorney at the hearing before the state medical board."
"I was, but I can't answer any questions about that."
"Of course not," I replied. "Wouldn't dream of asking. I was only hoping that you and I could meet to talk about Roxy in general terms."
"General terms?"
"Her background. Your impressions of her."
"I can tell you that right now. Roxy Bronze-Freya Krieger-was one of the sweetest, most conscientious people I'd ever met. Another Joan of Arc, which in this town meant she had plenty of enemies ready to burn her at the stake. What happened to Roxy was a travesty. It was no hearing but an administrative gang rape." Tonic paused, as if regretting what he had just said. "That was a general term, okay? Don't quote me on it."
"On what?"
He laughed. "What do you need from me?"
"I'm putting together a list of people who might have had a reason to kill her."
"That would be a long list," he said.
"That's okay. I got a new pen and lots of paper."
Tonic sighed.
"Something bothering you?" I asked.
"Yeah. It's a disgrace what happened to her."
"Then why haven't you looked into this?"
"Can I ask you a question, Mr. Gomez?"
"Go ahead."
"Is this a hobby for you?"
"No. It's my job."
"Exactly. If I'm going to defend the moral high ground, I do it for a client and at my hourly rate."
"So you won't talk about Roxy?" I asked.
"I never said that. We agreed that I'd discuss Roxy in general terms. There are plenty of people I wouldn't mind seeing squirm over this."
"People on that long list?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Gomez. You want to talk, I'm free… let me check. Next Tuesday? You know Trixie's Bistro on Wilshire?"
"I can find it."
"Let's say lunch. Noon. A patio table. If you get there first, do me a favor and order a vodka and tonic. Make sure it's Belvedere and Schweppes. Anything else and you're better off letting a skunk piss into the glass."
"Got it. Trixie's. Next Tuesday. Lunch. No skunk."
We hung up. A cab arrived and I took a long, expensive ride back to my hotel in Culver City.
I spent the rest of the day on the phone talking to the insurance and the rental car companies. I argued with some kid, who despite assurances that he was from Ohio, his accent made me suspect he was sitting inside a cubicle in Cennai, India. Too bad we were on the phone; otherwise, I would've put the vampire whammy on him.
"By this evening," the kid kept repeating, "you should have a replacement automobile."
Evening came and went and still no replacement. The hassle with bureaucracy left me more drained than the recent attempt to kill me. I put on my inversion boots and hung inside the closet for the night. Sleep came slowly as I wondered: Julius Paxton had found me before; would he strike again at the hotel?
In the stillness of the dawn, I detected a faint movement. Light appeared as a red glow through my eyelids.
The closet door was open.
I reached for my pistol when a rubber-soled shoe pressed upon my hand. I opened my eyes and stared at a familiar dirty sneaker. Looking up, I saw Coyote's wrinkled face.
"Te canto las mananitas, huevon," he said. I'm singing you good morning, lazy-ass.
"How'd you get in?"
He clucked his tongue, as if the question was too stupid to answer. "Ya levantate." Get up. "Ponte la lisa y los calcos." Pachuco slang for put on your shirt and shoes. "We got some investigating to do, vato."