Nervously, Kanastorous explained. 'She was with this Aimes character for several hours, and when he was in the right mood, she tried bringing him around to this maseni you're interested in, this Tesserax fellow. His reaction was immediate and antagonistic. He revealed that he had been given special emergency powers for the detention of human and supernatural civilians, and he ordered her to remain on his bed, not to dematerialize and go elsewhere. Then he got on the nether-world communications network, and he called someone.'
'Who?'
'We can't say for sure. But it was someone high up in Satanic rule, someone who could give orders to a demon like myself or a succubus like Gayla. In a minute, Moloch materialized in Aimes' bedroom, in answer to the call.'
'Moloch? Satan's secretary of state?' Brutus asked.
'The same,' Kanastorous said. 'He ordered Gayla to break her contract with me, and with other clients, and to report for special work as Satan's envoy in Japan.'
'They've gotten her out of the scene, then, even though she didn't learn anything,' Brutus said.
'Maybe they're afraid she did know something, from her association with Aimes, something he didn't even realize he'd told her,' the demon said.
'Whatever their reasons for silencing Gayla,' Jessie said, 'they've proven there's something big brewing around Tesserax's disappearance.'
'Maybe too big for you to handle,' the demon said.
'Maybe,' Blake said.
'What will your next step be?'
'I'll have to think about it,' the detective said.
'You won't expect my fee back, will you, old gumshoe buddy?' the demon asked anxiously, leaning toward Blake, his martini glass cautiously clasped in both hands.
'You can keep it,' Jessie said. 'I may not have learned what I had hoped to learn from Gayla — but the incident has taught me other things.'
Their dinner arrived, along with a bottle of wine which Kanastorous was paying for, and they spoke no more of Tesserax or Gayla or the strange situation that Hell Hound Investigations had become involved with. Instead, they drank a second bottle of wine, which Jessie paid for, and they chatted about mutual acquaintances.
By the time they'd finished dessert, Jessie said, 'I'm afraid I must be excused for a moment. I suffer from a condition of the bladder which you people don't have to contend with.'
'By all means, go ahead,' Kanastorous said, letting go of his glass with one hand to wave airly toward the men's room door. His other hand slipped on the wet glass, and he dropped his wine into Brutus' lap.
'You clumsy little creep,' Brutus growled.
'Now, now,' Jessie said. 'It'll be all gone by the time I get back. Zeke can't help that he's got only four fingers a hand.'
'You don't even have fingers,' Zeke told Brutus, petulantly.
As Jessie walked away from the table, the zombie was lumbering toward the scene of the accident, a dish towel draped over one arm.
'Don't be nasty with him,' Jessie told the white-eyed monster. 'He can't help it if he's not got any thumbs.'
'He could drink out of a dish, like that friend of yours,' the zombie said. 'I'm not paid to be a nursemaid.'
'He's a good tipper, though,' Jessie said.
The zombie's expression remained grim, his voice deep and monotonous, but he said, 'Well, I guess anyone can have an accident now and then.' He went on, heavy-footed, for the table where Brutus was barking at the demon.
As Jessie entered the men's room, two of the mythical Italians were coming out. 'Atsa nice-a toilet,' the one Italian said.
The other said, 'Clean. Clean as a baby's bottom, that place.'
'Excuse me,' Jessie said, sliding by them.
'Sure-a, sure-a,' the one Italian said. He had sauce all over the front of his shirt and a strand of spaghetti on his lapel. Poor son-of-a-bitch.
In the men's room, Jessie found the place was as clean as the Italians had said it was, all white porcelain and plastic and polished glass, six stalls off to one side, eight urinals out in the open, half a dozen sinks. He walked to one of the urinals and was about to use it when one of the stall doors opened behind him and someone said, 'Blake?'
'Yes?' he asked, turning.
Medusa stood there, in a toga, her eyes boring into his, her hair not hair at all but a furious tangle of writhing snakes.
'Uh—' Jessie said.
'Not to worry,' she said, moving toward him. 'It's only temporary, darling, until we can get you out of the picture.'
As he turned to stone under the Medusa's awful gaze, Jessie could think only two things: First, if he had not heard the legend of Medusa, didn't know the myth well, she would not have affected him this way — for she only had the power to petrify those who were conversant with her story; second, he wondered what a woman was doing here in the men's room.
Chapter Seven
In the office of Hell Hound Investigations, Helena and Brutus stood in the middle of Blake's private room and watched the company robot move the furniture against the walls. Soundlessly, it hoisted the desk, chairs, the day bed, and shoved them out of the way, then came back to stand dutifully in front of the hound, waiting for further instructions.
'Do you think this will work?' Helena asked.
'It'll work,' Brutus told her. To the robot, he said, 'That's all for now. Please retire to the waiting room — far enough away so your audio receivers can't hear us.'
The robot clanked out of the room, closing the door behind it.
'You don't trust him?' Helena asked.
Brutus said, 'Anything a robot hears is stored in its microdot memories. It can be subpoenaed in court, and that might be disasterous.'
'Is what we're doing illegal?' Helena asked.
'It may be, depending on how it develops,' Brutus said. He looked up at her and said, 'You want to leave, too?'
'Oh, no!' she said. 'I'd do anything to help get Blakesy back.'
The hound tilted its head. 'Blakesy?'
Helena smiled. 'I sometimes call him that, in private, when it's just the two of us.'
'Christ,' Brutus said.
'I didn't know you could use words like that.'
'They don't bother me,' the hound said.
She clapped her hands together as if she were making a starting signal, and she said, 'Where do we begin?'
'I had the robot put all the stuff out for you,' Brutus said, crossing the room to a black, enameled tray filled with instruments. 'First, I want you to fit a piece of chalk to that string compass and draw a big circle in the middle of the floor.'
'How big?' Helena asked, picking up the tool and the chalk, biting her full lips prettily as she tried to slip the white stick into the proper clamp.
'A three foot radius ought to do it,' the hound said.
She got on her hands and knees, her skirt riding up behind, and she crawled around the room, outlining the
