The music was like hitting an invisible wall. The DJ was on a nest-like stage of sorts overlooking the main floor. I recognized him. He went by the handle DJ Tamure and he was the reincarnation of a Polynesian sorcerer. I think I owed him money for some hash oil. He was playing a dance mix cover of Devo’s “Going Under.” We descended the winding staircase to the main floor below, and Tamure waved when he saw me and then gestured with his fingers to the side of his head for me to call him. I heard the undercurrent of conversation all aimed at me and saw the looks, from excitement, like they had just seen an A-lister, to heads shaking and worried looks at me just being here. It’s always good to have a diverse fan base.
“Well, another subtle entrance,” Vigil said, taking a few steps ahead of me and opening a wedge for us through the crowd.
“Look, everyone in here’s in the Life,” I said. “Supernatural beings, magicians, entourages, tourists, or wannabes. I’m, you know, kinda famous with this demographic. What can I do?”
“Don’t tempt me to answer that,” Vigil grumbled. I saw more familiar faces at a corner booth. I had been wanting to chat them up since Meat had mentioned they might have some information about Crystal. I diverted toward them. The Weathermen were holding court and it was, as always, a beautiful thing.
Okay, a quick test: name for me one TV weatherman that isn’t a little … odd. Every weatherman I’ve ever known has had some sort of quirk, some kink, some weird-ass hobby, and, oh, they all love the booze and the drugs, all of them. You party with a weatherman, you best be at fighting weight or you’ll find yourself in a hospital ER, an adrenaline needle in you and having your stomach pumped. I guess if your life was all about standing in front of a green screen and pretending to be moving cold fronts around, you’d hit the sauce and the party favors pretty regular too.
One night at a very insane party, four L.A. weathermen discovered over a case of bourbon and a kilo of Peruvian flake that they had something in common besides a love of soothing baritone voices, a perverse sex act called a “monkey face,” and El Niño; they could do magic together. I’m talking real, powerful, high-order magic, and they could do this miracle as easily as cutting a ribbon at the opening of a new Dollar Tree. Thus, one of the Life’s oddest cabals was born. Oh, and don’t mention Ron Burgundy around them; they are really sensitive about that shit.
I hung at the fringes of the crowd surrounding the Weathermen’s table. They had groupies, and their parties were legendary, so they attracted lots of lampreys. Stan Sweetenburg, the oldest of the Weathermen and the reigning U.S. quick-draw pistol champion, was telling a story about literally running into his idol, Johnny Carson, in the middle of an LSD-fueled daisy chain at a swingers party in Burbank, circa 1979. Most of the kids in the crowd had no idea who the fuck Johnny Carson was, but Stan didn’t let that get in the way of a good story.
“So there I was,” Stan said in his best broadcasting voice, “with the king of late-night television’s balls right in my … Sweet Mary! Laytham Ballard, you old salty dog! Get over here! Guys, it’s Ballard!” I waved at Stan and his fellow Weathermen and moved through the parting crowd to embrace the snow-white-pompadoured gunslinger.
“Still getting mileage out of Carson’s junk, I see, Stan,” I said as I hugged him. “How you guys doing? This is Vigil Burris.” Vigil nodded but kept scanning the crowd. Stan laid his palm out to give Vigil five, but the knight frowned and left the old man hanging. The seventy-five-year-old reddened and refocused on me.
“How long you in for this time? We’re having a little camping trip set up for this weekend, and Clive found some primo mescaline. We’re going to trip balls, open a gate to the Chinvat Bridge, and do a little limbo dancing. It will be cra-cra, man!”
“It’s good blue cap, Ballard,” the wooden ventriloquist dummy on the lap of a redheaded, bushy-mustached man said. The dummy was dressed like and had the same hair and mustache as the redhead. The ventriloquist’s name was Chet Webley, KTLA Action News Team chief meteorologist, who always did his broadcast with the help of his constant companion and wooden doppelganger, Clive Owen. Chet insisted that he had given Clive his name long before that johnny-come-lately actor showed up and saw no reason to change it.
“I wish I could, guys, but I’m on a clock,” I said as I sat at their table. Vigil remained standing and kept scanning. “I wanted to ask you a question about one of your parties.”
“Fire away, Laytham,” Red Blazer said. Red was big, balding, and black, the only one of the cabal that wasn’t painfully white. Red, of course, was wearing his trademark fire-engine-red sports coat. He was a Gulf War vet and his thing was Mongolian throat singing.
“You had an industry girl at one of your do’s a few years back,” I said. “She goes by Crystal Myth. I’m looking for her. I’d owe you guys a solid if you could help me out.”
“Oh, yeah!” the final member of the cabal, Gustav “Gus” Gilwaski, said. “I remember her. Sweet little PYT. She was Fae, one of Roland’s party girls, just breathtaking. You guys remember her! It was at Juan’s speculum and fondue party.”
The other three Weathermen and Clive Owen all said, “oh, yeah.” Gus smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. Gus was unhealthily skinny and had a thick mop of prematurely gray hair and equally thick, shaggy, black eyebrows. Gus was the closest thing the cabal had to a leader. He was well known locally for his inexhaustible repertoire of card tricks and his devotion to animal rights causes. He
