the illegal commerce that keeps the juice flowing in the boss’s neighborhoods. Sometimes they’re even legitimate.
Terrence owned about a dozen Laundromats in South Central, and I met him at the store on Normandie the next morning. The business shared a battered, peach-colored concrete building with a tiny storefront Baptist church and a check-cashing joint. There were tags on the walls but they were defensive wards-Terrence wasn’t getting any juice from it when people fed quarters into his machines. Of the three businesses, the Laundromat seemed to be doing a more robust trade, but that may have been because it was a Tuesday.
Once the muscle out front passed me through, I found Terrence in the back working on a seventies-era dryer. The venerable machine was partially disassembled, and Terrence knelt on a drop cloth on the stained, concrete floor, pounding on something with a crescent wrench.
“Seems like you could find someone else to beat on your washing machines for you,” I noted.
Terrence jumped and banged his head on the edge of the access panel. He swore impressively and wiggled back a ways on his knees so he could turn around. He wasn’t exactly the right size to get inside most home appliances.
“It’s a fucking dryer, Domino. And I do it because it relaxes me. All of a sudden, I ain’t too relaxed, though.” He rubbed the back of his head and winced.
“What I need to say isn’t going to make you feel any better,” I said. I found a folding chair and turned it around, straddling it and crossing my arms on the backrest.
Terrence got up and smeared the grease into his hands with an old rag. He nodded and leaned against the dryer. “I guess I wasn’t expecting good news,” he said.
“Mobley gated the demon in. It wasn’t a summoning spell. We don’t know how he controlled it, or even if he controlled it, but he can probably do it again.”
Terrence didn’t say anything for a while and I could tell he was turning it over in his mind. Finally, he lifted his eyebrows and nodded his head once. “You got to throw me under the bus.”
“God, I’d like to shoot whoever came up with that saying. Seems like everyone’s getting thrown under a fucking bus every time they’re a little inconvenienced or get their feelings hurt.”
“I ain’t complaining, Domino. Seems like that’s the only thing you can do. You got to look at the big picture, and that means you can’t go after Mobley until you’re ready.”
“I’m not happy about it, Terrence.”
“I know that. This is a war, Domino. You made it pretty clear it wasn’t going to be much fun.” He shrugged. “We’ll do our part.”
I didn’t deserve the respect Adan had shown me for giving Terrence this raw deal. But Terrence deserved a hell of a lot for manning up and accepting it with grace. I hoped he could see it in my eyes, the way I’d seen it in Adan’s.
I nodded. “We don’t need you to be a hero, Terrence. You go to the mattresses. You have to let Mobley come after you, but you don’t have to stick your neck out. Stay alive and when we get in front of this thing, we’ll put that motherfucker down together.”
“Wasn’t planning to stick my neck out. I was planning to let Simeon Wale stick his out. Plus, we got Anton’s crew. He already growing that motherfucker, Domino. Got Zeds hooking up with him that ain’t even in our game.”
“Zeds?”
“It’s what they call the zombies. Anyway, maybe it’s just that Anton knows more about eating than anything else but he makes a pretty fucking good zombie. They turning Mobley’s hoods into a slaughterhouse and Anton’s keeping the peace with the civilians. I figure Mobley will need a couple demons just to keep Anton’s hands off his fucking brains.”
I chuckled. “Maybe he’s found his calling.”
“Yeah. The rest of it, we’ll lock this shit down and see how it goes. I got some of my guys working on wards, maybe give us a couple safe houses the demons can’t get to.” He looked at me and cocked his head to the side. “Maybe you got some assets could help with that.”
“I’ll send you some warders and I’ll get some taggers working so you can draw juice from our blocks. You should be able to keep at least some of the demons out of some of your juice boxes. Truth is, Oberon could have kept the demon out of his club if he’d been thinking ahead. It’s kinda nice to know you can catch the motherfucker off guard, I just wish we hadn’t been there at the time.”
“Yeah, Mobley can still bring them in somewhere else and put them on us, but it be nice to know a demon won’t show up in my bathroom while I’m taking care of my business.”
I stood up and swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Just stay alive, Terrence. I’m going to make this right.”
“I know you will, D.” Terrence walked over to me and we clasped hands. Then I pulled him in and hugged him. Just a couple slaps on the back, but I had to do it. I wasn’t sure I’d ever have a chance to do it again.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Special Threat Assessment Group had purchased an ashram just east of San Bernardino when the resident guru had been convicted on multiple counts of tax evasion, fraud and sexual assault. The compound was nestled at the base of the mountains, a hidden oasis of landscaped lawns and gardens and brightly painted cottages and bungalows built in the forties and fifties. At one time, before the lawsuits and criminal charges, the ashram had been a favorite destination for spiritualists and New Agers from all walks of life-as long as they could pay the price of admission. Now it had been turned into Area 51, Southern California style.
When I’d called Agent Lowell and told him what I was after, he’d seemed pleased. Maybe it gave him some sense of affirmation in his career choices, or maybe he figured I’d be easier to control if I actually needed him for something. Either way, he was probably kidding himself. But the fact that the Ashram-the Feds were nothing if not creative-was a black operation with no official oversight or budget meant Lowell could extend an invitation to a gangster on nothing more than his personal authorization.
I checked in at the front gate and a soldier in black fatigues with no insignia or identification handed me an access badge. The badge was just a white plastic card with a barcode on it-no name, no photo. It did have some juice, though, and I could smell Lowell on it. I drove the Lincoln along a winding road and parked in a gravel parking lot.
Lowell and Granato had set up offices in a yellow building with white shutters and trim, and flower gardens flanking the wide porch. The whole compound had a Dharma Initiative vibe I approved of, but maybe with a little more style. I slapped the access badge against the card reader by the front door and walked in. Lowell saw me through the open door of his office and waved, and he and Granato both came out to greet me.
“Couldn’t you have found something a little closer to civilization for your secret hideout?” I always felt an irresistible compulsion to annoy Granato, and his scowl didn’t let me down. “Malibu Canyon is nice. You could probably pick up something on the cheap, with the foreclosure crisis and all.”
“We had specific requirements for the work we do here,” said Lowell. “And the isolation is convenient.”
The truth was, it had taken me less than an hour with my traffic spell. There was no getting around the fact it was San Bernardino, though. “You can skip the nickel tour,” I said. “I hope you’ve got something for me now that I drove all the way out here. You mentioned something about zombie experiments.”
“Let’s go,” Lowell said, and he and Granato escorted me back outside and along a narrow path that wound its way deeper into the compound. We walked in silence and arrived at a cluster of cottages arranged in a semicircle around a small duck pond. “This is where we’re doing the CMI research…uh, that’s Critical Metaphysical Instability.”
“I remember,” I said.
“Okay, let’s go to Building Thirty-four,” Lowell said, and led the way to one of the cottages. He swiped his badge and then hesitated. “What you’re going to see isn’t pleasant, Ms. Riley. It’s not pretty but it’s necessary. We’re doing what we have to do to protect the city.”
“I guess I wouldn’t be here if I thought otherwise,” I said. “And most of the shit I see from day to day isn’t all that pretty, either.”
Lowell nodded and pushed open the door, and we went inside. The interior of the cottage had been remodeled in sanatorium chic. The front door opened into a small viewing area where a young woman in a white lab coat sat at a metal desk and occasionally tapped on the touch screen of a tablet computer. She looked bored.
