Innocent Blood

‘Will you get a load of that old geezer?’ Smitty remarked. ‘He must have X-ray vision.’

But without a word, Frank stood up, put down his napkin, and walked out through the restaurant door. Outside it was hot and glaring, not thundery at all, although a fresh breeze made the old man’s shorts flap around his skinny, scabby knees.

‘Hello, Frank,’ the old man grinned. ‘How’s it going? I was real sorry to hear about your friends.’

‘Tell me what I’m supposed to do now,’ said Frank.

The old man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do what you damn well like, that’s my suggestion.’

‘No, no. You seem to be the expert when it comes to my destiny. You tell me.’

The old man shook his head. ‘You’ve already decided, Frank. You crossed the street and here you are on the other side. There’s no going back now, you know that. But watch your step. You never know what’s going to hit you next.’

‘Like what?’

‘You ever see those cartoons, Frank? Like you’re strutting along the street in your natty suit with a flower in your lapel, doing the double shuffle, when a safe drops off of the top of a building and flattens you? Or you’re sitting at home with a six pack, watching the old TV, and there’s a knock at the door, and when you open it, it’s a Union Pacific locomotive, complete with cow catcher, coming toward you at full pelt?’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘All’s I’m saying is, take good care. Look up, as well as ahead, and look behind you, too. And always say “who is it?” before you open that door. Well, I think you learned that particular lesson already.’

‘Is this a warning?’

‘Let’s just put it this way: somebody once told me that you can drop a toaster in the bath and that, contrary to expectations, it won’t electrocute you. But I never took the chance by trying it.’

Frank was about to tell the old man that this was self-evident, since he smelled as if he hadn’t taken a bath since he was born, but at that moment there was a loud, dull explosion from the east, probably no more than three miles away. Everybody who was crossing the plaza stood stock still, their heads raised, their mouths open in shock. There were five seconds of utter silence, and then the explosion echoed from the mountains.

‘At a guess, that sounds like CBS Television City,’ said the old man, and sniffed.

Smitty came out of the restaurant, closely followed by Carol, and six or seven other diners, and three Japanese waiters.

‘Jesus Christ!’ said Smitty. ‘That was another bomb, wasn’t it? I thought you said this was over.’

Frank checked his watch. It was one minute after twelve. It looked as if Dar Tariki Tariqat were going to go on blowing themselves up until the last of them were dead.

Behind him a woman started to wail, as if she were a mourner at a Middle-Eastern funeral. There was nothing else that anybody could do. Frank looked around for the old man, but he had gone. All he could see was his dog, trotting off around the corner, and then it, too, disappeared from sight.

Frank dumped all his suitcases on to the bed at the Franklin Plaza and closed the door behind him. A message was already waiting for him on his answering machine. He pressed the on button then rummaged in the brown paper sack he had brought back from the supermarket, trying to find a beer.

‘Mr Bell, this is Lieutenant Chessman. I tried your cellphone but you were busy. I thought you’d like to know that I talked to Charles Lasser this morning. I have to tell you that he was very co-operative, but he totally denied any knowledge of any woman called Astrid. In fact he denied mistreating any woman of any name.’ (Cough, shuffle of paper.) ‘He’s . . . ah . . . he’s prepared to accept that he might have called you “vermin,” but he says that he is constantly pestered by the media and by people attempting to extort money or favors from him, and that he was . . . er . . . under the impression that you were one of these. After all, you did push your way into his office uninvited, true?

‘Mr Lasser has been unfailingly helpful in our efforts to put an end to this bombing. I told him of the valuable part you played in finding Dar Tariki Tariqat’s cache of explosives and he seemed to be very gratified. If we succeed in getting convictions for the people we’ve arrested, you could be looking at a very substantial reward.

‘I’ll call you later, Mr Bell. But in the meantime, I wouldn’t concern yourself with Mr Lasser any further. Believe me, he’s one of the good guys.’

The call was timed at eleven forty-eight A.M., only thirteen minutes before the last bomb had exploded. The old man had been right: they had targeted CBS Television City. The death toll was seventeen adults and five children. Over thirty more had been critically injured.

Frank unlocked the sliding door and took his beer out on to the balcony. In the distance he could hear dozens of sirens warbling, and there was still a genie-like smudge of smoke hanging over Beverly Boulevard. Apart from the sirens, however, Hollywood was unnaturally quiet, as if people were afraid to go out, or even to speak. But then the phone rang.

‘Mr Bell? It’s Marcia, from reception. There’s a woman down here, asking for you. She’s in pretty bad shape.’

Frank hurried down to the lobby. A woman was sitting on one of the chairs by the front door, her head in her hands. The receptionist was bending over her, dabbing at her forehead with a bloodied tissue. A Mexican cab driver with a droopy moustache was standing close by, looking fretful.

‘What’s happened?’ Frank asked.

The woman looked up. It was Astrid. Her hair was spiky with blood and it looked as if her nose had been broken. She was wearing a pale-green blouse that was drenched in blood, and her cream-colored Dockers were spattered, too.

‘I picked her up outside Star-TV,’ said the cabbie. ‘I wanted to take her straight to a hospital but she said she had to come here to see you.’

Frank said, ‘That’s OK. That’s fine. You did the right thing. Astrid, tell me what happened? For Christ’s sake, Astrid, did Lasser do this?’

‘I wanted to take her to the hospital,’ the cabbie repeated. ‘She just wouldn’t let me. She said, “Franklin Plaza, take me to the Franklin Plaza.”’

‘That’s OK,’ Frank told him, and gave him two twenties and a ten.

‘I’m not asking for no money,’ said the cabbie. ‘I was trying to act like the good Samaritan, that’s all. None of the other cabs wanted to pick her up. She look like Friday the Thirteenth, you know what I mean?’

‘Do you want me to call for an ambulance?’ asked the receptionist.

‘No, not yet,’ Frank told her. ‘Let me take her up to my room and get her cleaned up. Thanks for helping her out.’

‘Looks like she picked a fight with Godzilla, and lost.’

‘Something like that, yes.’

Astrid blinked up at him. ‘Frank?’ she said, thickly. ‘Is that you?’

‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you upstairs. Do you think you can walk?’

Frank put his arm around her and helped her to her feet. She lost her balance, and almost fell, but the receptionist grabbed her sleeve. Frank coaxed her to walk two or three steps, but her knees gave way, and in the end he had to pick her up. She was surprisingly light, not much heavier than a child, and he had no trouble in carrying her into the elevator.

‘Please call me if you need anything, sir,’ said the receptionist.

‘You bet. And thanks again.’

Astrid snuffled against his shirt. ‘Never thought I’d find you,’ she mumbled.

‘Well, you’ve found me now. Everything’s going to be fine.’

‘He’s such a bastard,’ she said, and coughed, and couldn’t stop coughing.

He carried her into his apartment and laid her down on the tree-patterned couch, propping her head up with cushions. Then he went into the bathroom and came back with a cold, wet facecloth. He cleaned the blood from her face, dabbing the facecloth very gently around her nostrils. Then he rinsed it out, folded it up, and laid it across the bridge of her nose.

She stared at him with those washed-out eyes, not blinking.