“I think it’s a sad story, but there’s nothing here to do with you, or us, or the Black at all,” Jack said. Sure, it was awful that some nutter was ripping babies out of their mothers. But no more awful than the usual sort of awful people could be.
“Oh, come on,” Pete said. “At the very least, somebody
“Thinking and doing aren’t the same thing,” Jack said. “Also, Mayhew’s about as twitchy as a rat on an electric fence. For all we know that case could not even be his. Just a lure to get you where he wants you.”
Pete folded her arms. “Just because you don’t like him, you’re saying there’s nothing to this. That’s a shit way to conduct business.”
“What business?” Jack demanded. He should know better by now than to try and fool Pete. “Pete, at the very least he’s a sad old lush who can’t let go of his big failure. At the worst he’s setting us up to be a snack for something we’ve pissed off that’s been biding its time.”
“Fine,” Pete said. “You can go on, then. I’m going to look into it.”
Jack blinked. “You can’t be serious.”
“I think by now you know the answer to that,” Pete said. “You want to stick your head under a rock until you can crawl back to London, go right ahead. No skin off of me.”
“Well, luv, if we’re shouting uncomfortable truths: You want to take on this stupid errand for Mayhew because you’re pregnant,” Jack said. “I saw your face when that picture came up.”
“Oh,
“Wait!” Jack said when Pete turned to storm inside. The file fell between them and Mayhew’s slaughter porn scattered across his stoop.
Pete threw up her hands. “Why should I? You’re not going to be one bit of help. As usual.”
Stupid. He was stupid, and why couldn’t he have just kept his mouth shut? Now Pete was looking at him like he was less than dog shit on her boot, and he deserved it. “It’s not that I’m unwilling to look into this,” Jack said. “I mean, I still don’t think we should be here, but you can’t run on back to Mayhew on your own.”
“Why not?” Pete snapped. “You afraid I might get used to a man with a job who doesn’t constantly have childish fits at me?”
“He’s a liar, for one,” Jack said. Pete laughed, short and sharp.
“If being a liar was a disqualification, I’d’ve chucked you out years ago.”
“I know you’re angry at me now,” Jack said. “But Mayhew is not on the level, Pete. His office stank of demon.”
Pete stopped with her hand on the door. “You wouldn’t just be saying that to sway me into leaving, would you? Because then I’d have to hit you in the balls.”
“I’m not going to lie about something like that,” Jack said. Lying about demons was just inviting them to show up and make a truth-teller out of you. Anyone who said Hellspawn didn’t have a sense of humor had never met one.
“Why would Mayhew be having anything to do with demons?” Pete said.
“That,” said Jack, “is an excellent fucking question.”
“I still think he’s got something with these dead folks,” Pete said. “Assuming he didn’t just make it up out of whole cloth.”
Jack shrugged. “Easy enough to find out. We can go ask somebody who’s not arse-deep in black magic, for a start.”
“So you’re staying?” Pete said.
Also an excellent question. Pete didn’t want his help, and Mayhew sure as shit didn’t want him around. He practically puffed his chest out like a frog whenever Jack was within ten feet. He should do exactly as Pete expected—go hide somewhere until it was safe to go home. But separating made them both vulnerable. He’d stay —and keep up the line that he was only there until the kid was out, which Pete seemed to have no problem believing. She could take care of herself, then, and the baby, and he wouldn’t be a danger to anyone except himself.
“Yeah,” Jack said aloud. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
CHAPTER 6
In the morning, Jack found Pete and Mayhew drinking orange juice on his small balcony. Mayhew offered him a glass. “Sorry, man. Pete said to let you sleep. Jet lag and all that.”
Jack ignored his offer and pulled up a chair. “Got any food?”
“Yeah, I called out for some breakfast,” Mayhew said. “Didn’t think Pete here would feel like going out.”
He brought Jack a bowl of cereal, sickly sweet with bits of pink marshmallow floating in milk that had just turned. Jack ignored the civilized bachelor’s version of a Fuck You and took the time to size up Mayhew while the detective chattered at Pete about what an absolutely tip-top sort of place Venice was.
If Mayhew was a practitioner, he wasn’t much of one. His talent was barely a flutter, and he didn’t seem to realize that a mage could size him up and ferret out his demon-soaked aura like smelling a dead mouse in your vents.
Aside from his questionable grasp on magic, Mayhew was a sad sight. He’d probably been a big, strong man around ten years ago, but now his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt was taxed to capacity with a round stomach, and his hair was starting to get more salt than pepper, like dirty snow covering dirtier ground. His jowls hung heavy, and when he talked to Pete he stared at her intently with his slightly too-small eyes, a look that Jack recognized well enough. Most straight men looked at Pete that way.
Altogether, Mayhew didn’t inspire any more confidence in Jack that he wasn’t out to bugger them thoroughly and completely, without the benefit of Astroglide.
“My buddy called and said you can pick up your car,” Mayhew told Pete. “Any ideas about the case?”
Pete shoved back from the table. “None I’d care to share. Come on, Jack.”
Mayhew blinked, clearly having expected that their little duo of Bogart and Bacall would continue for as long as he kept grinning and pouring orange juice. “But you’ll need a ride.”
“You said it was nearby,” Pete said. “We’ll manage. People in London walk.”
“Nobody walks in LA,” Mayhew said, and then barked a laugh at his own questionable cleverness in quoting an old-as-the-hills pop song.
Jack followed Pete. “You should try it sometime,” he said. “Your shirt landscape might get a little less hilly.”
“I wish you’d stop that,” Pete said, when they were walking up the hill away from the beach, the address of Mayhew’s mechanic friend tucked into Pete’s pocket.
“What?” He was shit at playing innocent, but he could always try.
“Your life would be much easier if you just quit taking the piss for no good reason,” Pete told him.
“I have a good reason,” Jack said. “Mayhew’s a slimy git. If that’s not a reason I don’t know what is.”
The mechanic’s shop was tucked into a side street a few blocks beyond the top of the hill. Here, the ocean was a sound, not a sight, and the glaring green-yellow sunlight was even more revealing, giving unfavorable clarity to the faded boards and the sad, sagging sign proclaiming SAL’S AUTO R PAIR.
The garage door was open to emit exhaust fumes, Black Sabbath playing on a tinny radio propped on top of a toolbox, and the shriek of metal on metal. Sal was bent over a fender, sanding off blue paint to reveal the primer beneath.
Jack didn’t care much about cars—they got you from point A to point B and beyond that, blokes used them as a way to extend their cocks, or to fuss over them incessantly, the way people more in line with his way of thinking obsessed over original pressings of the Sex Pistols’ EMI release.
