to pick up.
It was nearly 6 A.M. I should have been tired. It was unfair that I couldn’t drive back to my rented room and close my eyes for a little while. I’d been in L.A. barely a day, and I was already back on a car thief’s schedule.
Where could I go next? Was it late enough to stop at Violet’s place to ask her about Caramella again? Probably not, but I didn’t know where to find anyone else, so I thought I’d try it.
I drove back through the Valley with my windows down. The temperature was perfect, but I knew the heat would roast me later. I had no idea what to do about Robbie—Fidel, I meant. He had magic, almost certainly from a predator—he and Summer and Bud, and probably Arne and Lenard, too.
My boss, Annalise, would know what to do. She would have killed everyone in that room just because they had magic and wanted more. And having worked against her on one incident and with her on two, I could see where she was coming from. People could be crazy about magic. I’d seen it.
But I didn’t want to kill them. Not if I could avoid it. In fact, even if I couldn’t avoid it, I didn’t want to do it. I hoped Annalise would be there to meet me outside the Ralphs tonight, so I could hand off the job to her. Maybe it was unfair, but there it was. I’d done my share of killing in Washaway, and I wasn’t ready for more.
If it was not a predator that gave Fidel his invisibility—if it was just a spell, like the spells on my chest that blocked bullets or obscured evidence I left behind—then I was sure I could take care of it without killing anyone. My ghost knife cuts “ghosts, magic and dead things,” and I could slash it through whatever spell they had on them and put an end to it.
The odds that their magic came from a spell were so low they were practically nonexistent, but I had to have hope, or I wouldn’t be able to keep going.
Aside from that, I’d have to find Wally King. I owed him something, and it was long past due for him to get it. Him, I didn’t feel squeamish about killing. Not at all.
The lights in Violet’s apartment were dark, which didn’t surprise me. I found a parking space just a block away, pulling in behind a woman who was obviously on her way to work, and closed my eyes for a while. I was ready to sleep after all.
The sun woke me around 8 A.M. I rubbed my face, climbed from the car, and rang the doorbell.
Jasmin answered. I introduced myself again, reminding her that I’d visited the day before, but she buzzed me in before I could finish.
It wasn’t Violet who answered the door; it was her mother. “Raymundo,” she said, squinting at me from behind her drugstore glasses. “Vi isn’t here. But come in! Come in! Have a cup of tea.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. I’d love some.”
I followed her into the kitchen, where Jasmin was sloppily spooning cereal into her mouth. Mrs. Johnson put the kettle on the burner. “Please,” she said. “Call me Maria. You are a grown man now. You can talk to me like one. I don’t mind.”
“Thank you, Maria.” I was careful to keep my tone respectful.
She leaned against the cutting board and looked me over like an unexpected second chance. “So how have you been? Where are you working?”
“Things have been difficult,” I told her. That was true, but the next thing I said was a white lie: “I got laid off from one job and haven’t been able to find another.” She looked disappointed at that, and I suddenly remembered that she could talk about jobs and the finding of them endlessly. I changed the subject. “How have you been? How is Mr. Johnson?”
“Oh,” she said, and waved my question away. “I’m the same as always, but older. Mr. Johnson, he is off in Florida now, fighting for the unions. I tell him, ‘Why go there? They hate unions!’ but he don’t listen. So, Ray, can you tell me what happened to my Tommy?”
That startled me. “Vi said he left town, although the way she said it made me think there was more to the story. I’m sorry, Maria. I haven’t heard a thing about him.”
“Can you ask around for me? I tried, but nobody does anything for an old Mexican lady. You’re the only one who ever showed me any real respect. And Tommy … He don’t call me or his father. Mr. Johnson, he blames me. He thinks I drove Tommy away from the family. You went to jail for Tommy, yes? You’ll do this for me?”
“If I can, I will,” I said. “But I’ll need to talk to Violet again. Where—”
From the other room, Jasmin shouted: “
I hadn’t realized she’d left. I rushed into the other room, Maria close behind me. Jasmin was kneeling on the couch, looking down into the space behind it.
“Jazzy! You come away from there and finish your breakfast. Then we can go to the park. And stop this foolishness about ghosts.”
I went close to her. There was nothing behind the couch except dust bunnies. “What kind of ghost is it?” I asked. The window was right beside us; I glanced through it and saw a man in a red shirt with long camo pants standing on the sidewalk, looking up at the building.
“It’s a fire ghost,” Jasmin said. “It burns you if you touch it.”
I knelt on the cushion beside her and reached into the space between the couch and the wall. I touched something wet and sticky that I couldn’t see. Almost immediately, my fingertips began to burn. I yanked my hand back and pulled the little girl off the couch. “Hold her,” I said to Maria, and the tone of my voice surprised her. She took the little girl in hand.
I rushed to the kitchen and ran my fingers under the tap. The pain washed away quickly, leaving my skin a little red. I filled a tall glass with water and went back into the living room.
Maria had pulled the couch away from the wall. “Go to your room, Jazzy,” she said, but she didn’t object when the girl ignored her by jumping onto the couch and peering over the back.
Maria reached into the space in front of the wall. “Ah! Holy Maria!” She held up her fingers, trying to see what had hurt them.
