She looks at me. “Did you know Eleanor?” “No, ma’am. Mr. Macheath made a mistake. I didn’t.” It’s true enough. I didn’t know her at all. I just put her down. Sorry, Eleanor. I’m ignoring your last request. No way I’m telling your mommy you stole whatever it was ’cause you wanted to make her mad. Not this woman. Not here. “Is Jan around?” “He’s helping Simon find his Prague whore.” “They make some awfully good ones,” Lucifer says. “Better than the French make their damned golems, I hope.” Koralin accepts the cigarette Lucifer hands her. “You must be the little monster I’ve heard so much about. The one who tried to burn Beverly Hills to the ground.” “Just Rodeo Drive. And it wasn’t my fault. The other guy shot first. Sorry if I messed up any of your friends’ thousand-dollar jeans.” “Fuck those hausfraus and their witless rent boys. I’m sorry I missed the fun. The next time you’re feeling genocidal, you must call me before acting on it.” “It’s a date.” I look at her gold eyes, but I can’t read them. Can’t hear her heart or get a feel for her thoughts either. Some Sub Rosa keep a kind of antihoodoo cloak over their homes. It keeps hexes and general magic mishaps to a minimum. I bet the Geistwalds have it cranked to eleven tonight. The most excitement we can hope for is Cabal getting drunk enough to pick a fight with Bruce Lee’s ghost. “Here come the boys,” says Koralin. “And they found the little slut. I wonder how many dicks she’s sucked tonight?” I look at Lucifer, but he’s ignoring me and the remark. Jan Geistwald is as dark as Koralin is light. He has a dark olive complexion and a deeply lined face like someone who’s spent too much time in the desert squinting at the sun. Ritchie has his arm around a woman’s shoulder and he’s smiling like he just won the lottery. The woman is brunette and her dark pupils, within the bright whites of her eyes, look like bullet holes in the snow. She has the perfect bird-bone cheeks you see on French girls, but her non-plastic-surgery nose and full lips look more Italian or Greek. Hollywood beauty can make your IQ drop, but there’s that other kind that’s like the end of the world. Armageddon gorgeosity. She walks in the room like the Angel of Death in a miniskirt and all you can think is, If I got shot in the head right now, I’d die smiling. The brunette gives me a crooked smile. I was staring and she caught me. Outdrawn already. “You found your way home,” says Koralin. “She gave us a good chase, but we tracked her down,” says Jan. “Poor Simon was almost in tears.” “That was sweat, not tears. I usually make other people hunt-and-gather for me these days,” says Simon. The brunette holds out her hand to me. “Hello. I’m Brigitte.” “Stark. Nice to meet you.” “And you.”
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