'Skinned and crucified in his apartment, magical ritual. Squeezed.'
Tommy let out a low whistle. 'Damn. Hell of a way to go.'
'Yeah, Tommy, not the best.'
'So what do you want from me? You want me to call it in?'
'No, just report him AWOL the next time he comes up on your schedule. I don't need a police investigation, even if it is half-assed.'
Tommy nodded.
'What I really need is information. I already ran Jamal's homeboys through the paces. They don't know much.'
'Okay,' Tommy said, thinking hard. 'Like what? I was his PO. It was my job to keep him out of Chino. I guess I knew Jamal about as well as anyone.' For once, I didn't think Tommy was exaggerating, at least not much. A probation officer was the closest most outfit guys ever came to a confessional. Jamal probably told Tommy Barrow things he'd never tell his friends or family.
'I need to know if he was up to anything unusual. Maybe he had something going on the side, maybe he made a new enemy.'
Tommy shook his head. 'Far as I know, Jamal was a stand-up guy. The outfit was his life, and he wouldn't try to run something under the radar. He thought he had a future with the outfit…and more to the point, he didn't think he had a future without it.'
That fit with what I knew about the kid. He was smarter than most, and ambitious. It wasn't exactly helping me connect him to Papa Danwe, though.
'Any new habits? New friends?'
'Yeah,' Tommy said, after a moment biting his lip. 'He was hanging out at the Cannibal Club. He had this thing he was trying with bondage and that kind of stuff, to work on his craft. He said it was a good place to find girls who were into that.'
The Cannibal Club was a nightspot in Hollywood that was popular with the black leather and porcelain fangs crowd. It was hard to picture Jamal there, and once you did it was a funny picture. Hollywood wasn't Papa Danwe's turf-none of the outfits controlled it. Still, maybe Papa Danwe had something working at the club. Maybe Jamal had gotten in the way.
'What about family?' I asked. It bothered me that I hadn't thought about it before. Jamal had been a person before he'd been a corpse and a problem for me to solve.
Tommy shook his head. 'You know the story. Father split, mother OD'd when Jamal was fifteen.'
'Okay,' I said. 'You got anything else?'
'I don't think so, Domino. If I remember anything, I'll let you know.'
'Do that. Have fun with Sandy. You make a great couple.' I guess I can be a little catty, too, sometimes. I flipped my cigarette into the street, drawing a contemptuous sniff from a middle-aged woman in a white dress, saucer-size sunglasses and a ridiculous hat. I smiled at her and tapped a little juice, vaporizing the butt where it lay on the asphalt. She didn't even notice.
About eleven o'clock that night, I left my condo and drove into Hollywood. It was a Saturday night, and as usual, traffic was a bitch. Fortunately I have a spell that allows me to weave through even the worst snarls with a little lane-jockeying.
Technically, the incantation I think of as the traffic spell is chaos magic-the old school would call it a luck spell. It's one of my favorites. It's subtle, and practical and complex enough that most sorcerers can't manage it. In simple terms, it isolates and adjusts probability lines such that you just happen to find an open route through even the heaviest traffic. I surfed the probability waves through the Hollywood night and found the club on Sunset Boulevard.
I pulled up out front and spun my parking spell, muttering the words of the incantation. 'Any place worth its salt has a parking problem.' I eased my car into a spot right by the door of the club just as a yellow Honda tuner pulled out. What luck.
There was a line of pasty, black-clad kids winding around the block, but sorcerers don't wait in lines any more than we settle for lousy parking or sit in traffic jams. I walked up to the bouncer and smiled.
'I'm on the list,' I said. I wasn't. I didn't even know if there was a list. The bouncer's meaty, clean-shaven head didn't even budge as he checked me out from behind his wraparound sunglasses.
I reached out and touched the juice, channeling it through my imagination and rearranging it according to the pattern I'd learned.
'I have with me two gods,' I said. 'Persuasion and Compulsion.' I released the magic and let it wash over him. Behind the sunglasses, the bouncer blinked.
'Oh,' he said, stepping aside to let me pass, 'you're on the list.'
I met the chorus of protests from the waiting kids with a smile and a little shrug. 'I'm on the list,' I said.
Metal detector, pat down, cover charge and then I was inside and heading to the nearest bar.
The Cannibal Club was black decor, chain-link fencing, head-splitting techno-industrial you can dance to, blacklight and the smell of sweat and patchouli. It was teenagers and twentysomethings in black leather, black rubber, black nylon, black vinyl and black velvet. It was body piercings and tattoos, black hair dye and white clown makeup. Flat-panel monitors offered a live feed of the writhing, thrashing, swaying bodies on the dance floor. An electronic ticker scrolling at the bottom of the screens announced that sunrise was at 5:41 a.m.
I went to the bar and ordered a beer. I used a little juice, or I'd have stood there for hours without attracting a bartender's attention. I took a lengthy pull from the longneck and scanned the club. I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. I guess I was hoping to spot one of Papa Danwe's guys hanging around, looking suspicious. I didn't see anyone I recognized, but then it was dark as the Beyond and everyone was dressed like the Crow.
After a few minutes of fruitless squinting into the strobe-pierced gloom, I relaxed and tried my witch sight. A few of the kids in the club had a little juice. That was normal for a place like the Cannibal Club. None of them had the kind of juice to be my killer. I sensed stronger magic in the VIP area that ran along one side of the dance floor, but I didn't have a clear view from where I was standing by the bar. I dropped the sight and headed that way.
The guy holding court in the semicircular booth was a prince among the pretenders. His glossy hair flowed to his shoulders and draped his white collar in black silk. He'd elected not to conceal the natural beauty of his caramel skin in the hideous clown makeup that seemed mandatory for most of the club-goers, male and female alike. His dark eyes were at once soulful and boyish, and the combination made my knees a little weak.
I'd been in the outfit most of my life, so I'd run into Adan Rashan on more than one occasion. I'd always thought he was attractive. Cute, even as an awkward teenager when his father had first introduced us. That night in the club, I thought he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
I don't have a spell to counteract the intoxicating effect of a truly gorgeous man. If I did, I probably wouldn't use it anyway. Even if it means I one day get sucker-punched by some seductive creature of the night, I say to hell with it. Some risks are worth taking.
So, yeah, Adan was hot. The Goth posse that flanked him in the booth was pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the crowd, from where I was standing. One long-haired pale face sitting next to Adan stared at me menacingly. He leaned over and whispered something without breaking eye contact with me, and then he sneered. I hated him already.
I went back to the bar, juiced the bartender again and had her send over a couple bottles of Cristal. A waitress delivered the champagne, pointing in my direction. I raised my bottle and smiled, wishing I'd ordered something classier than a beer. Adan recognized me and returned the smile, then waved me over. The Gothtard next to him scowled, which I liked.
The VIP area was roped off, and I gave the bouncer the same Jedi mind trick that got me in the club. I handed him my empty before making my way over to Adan's table.
He stood as I approached. He was wearing a tailored black suit, the ivory shirt unbuttoned at the collar just enough to be interesting. The rich fabric draped his slender frame like…well, like an expensive suit on a young male body that's just about perfect.
'Domino,' he said, 'thanks for the champagne.' He leaned across the corner of the table-and across Gothtard-to give me a hug and a chaste kiss on the cheek. He smelled like musk, and apples and cinnamon-and like sweat and patchouli, but that was just the fucking club.
