'I'm working another angle. I got a witness who puts Terrence at a club in Hollywood where Jamal was hanging out. Only thing, Terrence says he's never been there. Plus, there's a vampire I can connect with it. Terrence seemed to think the vampire might be working for the unknown player.'
Chavez didn't say anything. Maybe he was waiting for me to say something that made a little sense. I couldn't think of a good way to tell him I was going on a date with Adan Rashan.
'I'm just playing a hunch, Chavez. I can't see what it is yet, but I think there's something there.'
I could almost hear Chavez shrug. 'Not much for you to do here anyway, boss. We're pulling it together.'
'Just make sure no one gets trigger happy. I don't know what Terrence is going to do, but I want to give him a chance to walk this back.'
'I'll make sure everyone knows the rules of engagement.'
'Let me know if anything changes. And keep an eye on the Jamaicans, just in case. This shit in Crenshaw is bad enough. I don't want to get sucker punched by someone sneaking up from behind.'
Miss American Pie is one of the only places in town where you can get a five-hundred-dollar Bordeaux with your pizza. There are fifty-one different pies on the menu, and each one is named after one of the States, plus the District of Columbia.
'What do you think about Maryland?' Adan asked, studying the menu. 'It has crabmeat.'
'So does Alaska,' I said. 'I guess it's a different kind.'
'Hey, Washington has cinnamon apples.'
'Sounds like dessert. How about New York? It's got pepperoni.'
Adan laughed. 'You can get pepperoni at Pizza Hut.'
'Yeah, it's a classic.'
Eventually we settled on Louisiana, with Cajun blackened chicken. I insisted on the house white, and Adan's wallet breathed a sigh of relief.
'What shall we drink to?' Adan asked, after the waiter filled our glasses.
'To your father,' I said. 'He introduced me to gainful employment, and he introduced me to you.'
Adan smiled. 'To my father.' We touched glasses and drank.
'So tell me all about how my father gave you a job,' Adan said.
'I grew up in East L.A. My mother still lives in the house where I was born. She's Mexican and my father was Irish-that's how I got the funky name.'
'Dominica Riley. I think it's an excellent name.'
'Yeah, well, the kids in the EasLos barrios didn't think so. Anyway, you know how the story goes. I grew up hard and fast on the street.' I made a face, feigning nausea, and winked at him.
'Yes, but you were different. You could do magic.'
'Yeah, there's that.' I laughed. 'It saved me a lot of ass-kickings.'
'When did you know?'
'I've always known. I can't even remember a first time, because I was doing stuff, little things, long before I even realized it.'
'But how did you learn the spells?'
I shook my head. 'Mostly I didn't know any spells. This was spontaneous stuff-that's why it was always little things. I was walking home from school and it was hot, so I made myself a little cooler. I didn't do my homework, so I told the teacher the dog ate it and she gave me an A. That kind of thing.'
'And other things?'
'Yeah. Some older kids ran a dice game in a vacant lot near my house. I could almost always get my number when I wished for it hard enough. I'd just visualize it, you know, and it would happen.'
Adan laughed. 'You must have been the richest kid in elementary school.'
'Yeah, but it wasn't always funny. The winning led to fights, and I started using magic to win those, too. I'd throw a punch and put a little juice behind it. Or I'd make the gun slip out of a kid's hand.'
'And eventually my dad noticed you?'
'Yeah, that was later, when I was fourteen. I'd picked up some craft by then.'
'How? You didn't have anyone to teach you.'
'Some on the street. There were a couple guys in the neighborhood with a little juice-small-time stuff, but it was a start. I watched how my mom did it, too. That gave me enough of the basics that I could teach myself.'
'Your mother is a sorcerer?'
'Fortune-teller, psychic, bruja, whatever. Tarot cards, palm readings, seances, stuff like that. She doesn't have a lot of juice, but she worked it in with the usual hustle and managed to keep food on the table. So I just watched what she did, and I figured out pretty quick that the cards and crystals were just props. They're just different kinds of containers to pour the juice into. I started doing the same thing with my spells.'
'Famous quotations?' he asked, smiling. 'I recognized one from the club, when you threw Manfred into the street.'
I laughed. 'Yeah. I think Mom owned three books-the Yellow Pages, the Bible and Collected Quotations.'
'Why not the Bible?'
'It was a lot easier to look up good spells in Collected Quotations. And Mom would have kicked my ass for blasphemy if I'd used the Bible.'
'So you were already casting spells when my father found you.'
'Yeah, I was pretty far into the life, too. You name it, I was probably doing it-shoplifting, some burglary, rigged games like the dice.'
'You were a total delinquent.'
'Yeah, I was a thug. Really, I just wanted to learn more magic. And that's where it was happening, out on the street. I wasn't going to learn anything in a classroom.'
'Did you drop out?'
'No, your dad made me finish. He said he wouldn't hire a dropout. It was bullshit, of course. Most of the guys in the outfit couldn't pass the GED if you gave them the answers.'
Adan laughed. 'He knew you were different.'
'I think he just wanted to teach me how to finish something. It was a good lesson.'
The waiter arrived, setting our pizza in the middle of the table on a family-size can of tomatoes. We stopped talking long enough to put away a slice.
'And then?' Adan asked. He reached across the table and pulled a little strand of mozzarella off my chin.
'And then, I'd probably still be out on the street if it weren't for your father. He brought me in, gave me a life.'
'He trained you himself.'
'Yeah. I already knew a lot of spells-I can memorize quotations all day long. But they were crude, clumsy, and I had a lot of ignorant ideas about how it all works. He didn't make me relearn everything. He just worked with what I already had and helped me put it all together.'
'And then you went to work for him.'
'And then I went to work for him.' I spread my hands. 'And here we are.'
Adan laughed. I leaned across the table and opened my mouth, and he gave me a bite of his pizza. He sat back in his chair and smiled as he watched me chew. It was probably cute enough to make the other diners lose their appetites.
'And what about you?' I asked. 'Who is Adan Rashan?'
He waved away the question. 'You know, spoiled, lazy, rich kid who makes absolutely no contribution to society.'
'I mean besides that.'
Adan threw his napkin at me. 'Well, I have a bachelor's degree,' he said, with mock pompousness.
'What did you study?'
'I can't say. You'll laugh.'
'No, I won't. Promise.'
'Criminal justice.'
I laughed. 'Studying to be your father's consigliere?'
