suggesting teeth. When I turned my head to point her out to Adan, the makeup job faded and I saw a fleshless human skull beneath the oversize hat.
“There’s our girl,” I said to Adan. “When you look at her out of the corner of your eye, you get the full calavera effect.”
“What does calavera mean, anyway?”
“Look at her like I said and I’ll bet you can tell me.”
Adan looked over at the bar, turned back to me and then did a double-take. “Goofy hat?” he said.
“Try again.”
“Skull.”
“There you go,” I said. “La Calavera Catrina-the elegant skull. What else do you see?” I knew my world better than Adan did, I knew the underworld, but he’d had more experience with this place.
Adan was silent for a moment, watching her intently.
“She’s straight out of the Beyond,” he said. “Not Avalon-somewhere else. She’s a spirit but not born of the earth, like your jinn. An outsider.”
“She’s got juice.”
He nodded and looked around. “You can tell that much even without the sight. Every player in the club is afraid of her. I’ve seen worse, but not usually in the Between. She needs a lot of juice to sustain herself here. She can pull some from the Beyond but she’s got a lot of local sources, too.”
“So this thing with the Xolos, it’s producing for her.”
Adan nodded. “She needs a lot of rackets. And her operations must have taken a hit when Oberon moved into Hollywood.”
“So La Calavera has a beef with Oberon. He’s a threat.”
“Yeah, but you have to look at the other side, too. She’s a threat to him. He’s got a rival gang boss operating just on the other side of the veil.”
“I can’t see a way to connect Oberon to this, but I don’t like the fact I just coincidentally find myself in conflict with one of his enemies. The king should be on this job.”
“You think he played us?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s no reason to think Oberon knew anything about what was causing the zombie problem, or that La Calavera had anything to do with it. It’s just awfully fucking convenient for him and that makes me suspicious.”
“So how are we going to do this?”
“We try to get close. It’s a dogfighting ring, which means there’s wagering. We want in on the action. If we can get inside this thing, that’s our best chance to find the Xolos and free them.”
“And to find out if King Oberon knew about the racket and put us between him and La Calavera,” Adan said.
“Showtime,” I said. The Burning Man had stopped by the bar and was deep in conversation with La Calavera. She looked in our direction and we made eye contact. Just for a second, I saw the naked skull again. Then she smiled.
She stood and took the Burning Man’s arm, and they walked over to our table. “La Calavera Catrina,” he said, “may I present Adan Rashan and Domino Riley.” Under different circumstances it might have hurt my feelings that he introduced Adan first, but I knew his sense of propriety was stuck in 1949, just like the rest of the club.
“Master Rashan,” she said, “your father’s name is well-known here. Welcome to the Mocambo.” Her smile was dazzling.
“Thank you,” Adan said, and gestured to the space beside me. “Would you care to join us?”
La Calavera seemed to notice me for the first time since our little stare down. I smiled and tried to force as much warmth into it as I could, which probably wasn’t much. “I think not,” she said, returning her attention to Adan. “I adore this performer and I would rather like to dance. I’m sure your companion won’t mind.”
I was expecting deer in the headlights, but Adan was smooth. Maybe too smooth. “I’d be delighted,” he said, smiling. At least he slid the other way out of the booth so I didn’t have to get up. They walked together to the dance floor and every eye in the club followed them.
The Burning Man nodded to me once and wandered off. Even without the burning I wouldn’t have wanted to dance with him, but he could have asked. Instead, I got to sit there, alone, with the champagne I couldn’t actually drink because it was probably pureed human soul or something, and watch Adan and La Calavera cut a rug.
The ghost who had taken the stage looked and sounded just like Frank Sinatra early in his career. It couldn’t actually be Sinatra-from what I knew about the guy, he might not be in heaven but he probably wasn’t still playing the Mocambo. He did “Close to You” and followed it up with “Almost Like Being in Love.” There’d been some daylight between Adan and La Calavera when they started, but they were wrapped up pretty tight by the time the blue-eyed bastard got to “Some Enchanted Evening.” I considered whether it would be an unforgivable breach of etiquette to shoot the entertainment.
Eventually, they made their way back to the booth, walking arm in arm and laughing. Adan stood aside and allowed La Calavera to sit first, and then he slid in beside her. She took a long drink of champagne and her shadowed eyes glittered as she watched me over the rim of her glass. She set the flute back on the table and licked her lips.
“What brings you to the Mocambo tonight?” she asked. “Surely, it wasn’t just to share.” I saw her arm move and Adan swallowed hard. She’d put her hand on his thigh. At least I hoped it was just his thigh.
“We heard there was action here,” I said. It probably wasn’t the best choice of words.
La Calavera laughed and leaned into Adan. “More action than you’d like, perhaps.”
I grinned and shook my head. “Okay, let’s get this out of the way. I’m a guest in your club so I don’t want to disrespect you. On the other hand, there is a limit to how much shit I’ll eat just to be polite, and I’m filling up pretty fast. As far as Adan goes? Between you and me, sister, I don’t think he likes it cold. But if he’s buying what you’re selling, by all means, get your nasty on so we can stop pulling each other’s hair and get down to business.”
I got another flash of the bony hag behind the pretty face, and then La Calavera smiled. “I do believe I’m going to like you, Miss Riley.”
“Call me Domino.”
“Very well, Domino. You can drink the champagne, by the way. It’s just juice. You’ll like it.”
I was more worried about where the juice had come from and how it had gotten into the bottle, but I picked up my glass and took a drink. I probably wasn’t going to get an invitation to the dogfights if I was afraid of a little Between-style bubbly. I drained off half the glass and put it back on the table. It was pretty tasty.
“So what business do we have, you and I?” La Calavera had gone from hanging all over Adan to pretending he didn’t exist. For his part, Adan seemed relieved by the abrupt shift in focus.
“We heard you were running a game-not the kind of action we get on our side of the tracks.”
“It’s true,” La Calavera said. “I do provide certain amusements for the denizens of this place. Just as you do, I’m sure, in the mortal city. But I have to say, we don’t enjoy the patronage of humans very often-even of human sorcerers. We play big, as they say, and the stakes can be intimidating to those on a more limited bankroll.”
“Juice,” I said. “You play for juice.”
“Of course. Gold can be useful to those of us with dealings in the mortal world, but juice is the only currency that has real value here.”
“Our bankrolls are petty deep. We run an outfit-”
“I know who you are, Domino, and I know you have the juice to play with us. I simply don’t want there to be any unpleasant misunderstandings later. You’re new here and you might be excused for thinking we run a friendly game.”
“No game worth winning stays friendly very long.”
La Calavera smiled. “Isn’t it so?” she said. “Very well, where do your particular interests lie? Poker is quite popular right now and dice are always in fashion. We do have more…exotic…games, as well.”
“We’re here for the dogfights,” I said.
La Calavera’s eyebrows jumped. “I must say, I’m surprised you’ve even heard of the dogfights. I wasn’t aware your friend the Burning Man knew of them.”
“He’s not my friend, just a guy I went to see about a gun.”
“I have made every effort to maintain a certain exclusivity where the dogfights are concerned. The
