chapter EIGHT
I considered spirit traveling to scout out Rhonda’s store. But I didn’t want to waste the mojo, and I was scared of getting sucked into another magical dimension or psychic world or whatever I was supposed to call them. I also didn’t trust my little posse in the Grand Prix to deliver on their end of our deal if I zoned out.
So instead, I had them drive around a little while I hunched down low and looked out the window. Eventually I spotted a guy loitering in the mouth of an alley, where he could watch one approach to Rhonda’s place. Like with some of the people on the Tuxedo Team, you couldn’t point to any one feature that marked him as absolutely, positively not human. But put them all together, and the effect just wasn’t right. He had too much face from the nostrils on down, and not enough above.
I had the kids drop me off by the other end of the alley. “Good luck, man,” said the one with the star. He’d figured out that I was involved in something serious.
“Thanks,” I said as I climbed out. “Don’t do drugs. Stay in school.”
He snorted a laugh, and then he and his buddy pulled away.
I waited a few seconds in case the sentry heard the low-rider and glanced around. Then, wishing it wasn’t still broad daylight, I sneaked down the alley, past loading docks, dumpsters, and a couple parked cars.
I told you, I’m good at sneaking. The sentry didn’t hear me until I said, “Don’t move. I’ve got a gun.”
He froze, and I patted him down with my off hand. I may have been kind of awkward about it. But the Army had also taught me the basics of securing a prisoner, and I found the Baby Glock 27 in his pocket. First Georgie, now him. I wondered if Frodo would have made it to the volcano if the orcs had been packing heat.
“Okay,” I said, backing up a step, “turn around.”
He did. I studied his face. He was pissed off and scared. I couldn’t tell which feeling was stronger.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“Go to Hell,” he answered. His voice was less human than his face, or at least it had no business coming out of a grown man. High-pitched and rhythmic, it reminded me of a little girl singsonging a jump-rope rhyme.
“Where’s the hostage?”
“I’m not telling you anything.” Like before, he sang soprano and gave the words a beat.
“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you, your lord, or anybody. I just want to get the girl and go. But I will shoot you if you don’t help me. You Old People keep telling me you don’t give a damn what you do to humans, and, the day I’m having, I’m ready to turn that around.”
He tensed up, and I could tell he was about to rush me. It was an idiot move, and never mind that I’d made it myself when it was Lorenzo holding the gun. I like to think that at least I didn’t telegraph it.
We were far enough apart that I could have shot him easily. I jumped out of his way and tripped him instead. As he toppled forward, I lashed the barrel of the Model 439 against the back of his head. He finished falling on his face, and then he didn’t move anymore.
I dragged him out of the middle of the alley and over behind some trashcans. Then I checked the mag in the Glock. It was full, which gave me fourteen rounds, nine in this gun and five left in the Smith and Wesson. Yippee. With all that firepower, what was there to worry about?
Well, lack of intel, for a start. I still had no idea what I was walking into. But I did know which approach to the store the soprano had been watching. If nobody else was covering it, maybe I could get up close without being spotted. I tucked the guns away and headed forward.
Rhonda operated out of a ratty little crafts store on the ground floor of an old redbrick building. The mouth of the alley was thirty feet away on the other side of Seventh Avenue. Just close enough for me to make out the samples of needlepoint, beading, macramé, jewelry, and other hobby projects behind the dirty windows.
A small parking lot separated the place from the bank next door, and gave me access to the side of the building. Where there was a fire escape. I stared up at the ladder, threw the Thunderbird at it, and willed it to drop.
It didn’t. Even though the damn thing was meant to fall when somebody released the catch, I couldn’t make it happen. It was another reminder—like I needed one—of just how limited my magic really was.
But then I saw an answer. Hoping it was safe to leave my body for just a couple seconds, I flew up out of the top of my skull onto the second-story platform and willed some solidity into my ghostly hands, like I’d needed to do to drive the T-bird. I jerked the lever, and the ladder fell with a rattle. I dropped and beat it back to my body. It was all pretty slick, except that the flesh-and-blood part of me had already started to lose its balance. I had to stagger and windmill my arms to keep from falling.
I climbed up onto the lowest platform and hauled the ladder back up after me. There was a fire-exit door, but it was locked. I risked another little hop out of my body to get on the other side of it and push it open. Then I just had to jump back in time to catch it before it swung shut again.
That got me into a hallway with a linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting, like you’d find in most any aging office building. Judging from the little white plastic signs sticking out from the wall beside their doors, a few of the offices had tenants. Most didn’t.
I had a hunch Rhonda owned the whole building. And if Vic was being kept here—a big if, but I had to start someplace—it might make more sense to stash her in an empty office than anywhere down in the crafts store, where there’d be customers coming and going.
I prowled along listening at the doors with no signs. Then I cracked them open and peeked in at the sad-looking empty spaces on the other side, all dull pastel paint, and industrial carpeting with dents to show where furniture used to be.
Eventually I came to one that wasn’t quite as empty as the others. A guy in a blue shirt sat in a metal folding chair by a window, where he could watch Seventh Avenue. Even from behind, he didn’t look quite right. Maybe it was the shape of his shoulders.
I was lucky he hadn’t spotted me crossing the street. Maybe he’d been looking elsewhere. Or maybe the marijuana shirt had thrown him off, since I hadn’t been wearing it back at the hotel.
Whatever. I pulled the Smith and Wesson out of the back of my jeans, tiptoed over to the guy, and said, “Don’t move.”
His head snapped around. Then he screamed. The sound was loud and shrill enough to make me flinch, and had a warbling beat to it, like a siren. He tried to jump up and reach into his pocket.
This made two times in a row that my gun hadn’t gotten any respect at all. Maybe the sopranos just never backed down for anything. Or maybe they were under a spell that made them love their boss more than their own lives. Which was another reason to think their boss was Leticia.
I stepped in and whipped the Model 439 across the screamer’s face, then banged him over the head with it. He fell back into the folding chair, which overturned underneath him. I watched him for another second, and he didn’t move.
But if his buddies had heard him howl—and there wasn’t much doubt about that—they were probably coming, and I wanted to be gone before they showed up. I hurried back out into the hallway.
When I turned the next corner, it was just in time to see Raul and Pablo Martinez dragging Vic through the door to the service stairs. Her face was bruised, with a black eye, and full of fear.
I yelled,” Stop!” and aimed the pistol. As usual, nobody cared. Pablo raised a new damn tire iron and charged me. It blocked my shot at his brother, who dragged Vic out of sight.
So I shot Pablo instead.
I didn’t like doing it. I came back from Afghanistan knowing I didn’t want to shoot people anymore, not even ones as mean and stupid as him. And I was pretty sure he was only rushing the gun because Leticia had turned him into one of her love monkeys. But I didn’t feel like giving him the chance to rearrange my head, either.
The bullet hit him in the belly like I wanted. He pitched forward. The tire iron tumbled from his hand and clanked on the floor. He tried to lift himself up, but couldn’t do it. Then the rage and determination drained out of his face, and pain and fear rushed in.
“It wasn’t a kill shot,” I said. “Keep pressure on it, and you’ll be all right till somebody comes to help you.” I wasn’t sure if that was true, but I hoped so.
I edged around him, headed on toward the stairs, and wondered if somebody was waiting to shoot at me from below. Then the phone in my pocket rang. I pulled it out and flipped it open.
“You’re still with us,” Leticia said. She sounded happy about it, and even now, that sexy purr made me catch my breath.
“So far,” I said.
“You can have your friend back,” Leticia said. “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”
“That’s interesting. Because it kind of looks like you set up the whole thing specifically to kill me.”
“That was Gimble’s contribution.”
“And he’s not here now?”
“No. Poor thing. He’s so big and conspicuous that it’s a lot of trouble for him to go among the humans.”
“So what’s your offer?” I glanced around to make sure nobody was sneaking up behind me.
“Surrender, and no one else gets hurt. My people will simply hold you and Victoria until midnight, then set you free.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said.
“What?”
“It sounds like bullshit, too.”
“I’ve got nothing against you, Billy. I just want to win. But I want it badly enough to hurt Victoria to get it. Should I hold the phone where you can hear her scream?”
“Should I come in shooting with all my magic cranked up to eleven?”
“I don’t think that would work out well for you.”
“You didn’t think I’d come out of the flashbacks with my mind in one piece, either. You didn’t think I could get inside this building without you knowing it. You don’t know what I can do.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m afraid of you.”
“Look at it this way. There are normal people here. Some of them must have heard your sentry scream. Some of them probably heard me fire a shot, too. Somebody probably called 911. If not, I can make sure somebody does.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice sweet talking the police.”
“I’ll bet. But do you want to try handling them and a standoff with me at the same time?” I glanced over my shoulder again. The hall behind me was still clear. Pablo had taken my advice, rolled onto his back, and planted his hands on his wound. “Won’t it be easier if Vic and I are gone before they show up?”
Leticia thought if over for a second, then said, “What’s your offer?”
“I take Vic and go, and you and I will see each other back at the hotel.”
“Can you guarantee that she won’t tell anyone about us?”
“Yes.”
“Then come get her.”
“I’ll be coming with a gun in my hand. I’d better not see one in anybody else’s. If I do, I’m going to shoot, and I’ll start with you.”
She laughed. “You’re sexy when you talk all rough and tough. No weapons in anyone’s hand, I promise. Just a couple friends standing by to make sure you don’t put me out of the tournament.” She hung up.
I cracked open the door to the stairwell. No bullets blazed up at me, so I crept on down.
By the time I got there, the door to a stockroom was open, and so was the one leading out into the public part of Rhonda’s store. I crossed the stockroom glancing this way and that, waiting for someone to pop out from behind the stacks of cardboard cartons. Nobody did. I started through the other door.
That was when I realized it might have been a whole lot smarter to demand that Leticia send Vic up the stairs to me. But I was stressed, and that can screw with your judgment. Or maybe Leticia had slipped a little persuasive magic past my guard. Either way, it was too late now.
The back of Rhonda’s store was an open area with long newspaper-covered tables where people could sit and do crafts. Painted plaster molds hung all around the walls. Most were religious—praying hands, Bibles open to the first verse of the Twenty-Third Psalm, the Virgin Mary—and painted sloppily in the bright crayon-box colors a little kid would pick. Rhonda made those herself while inhaling one Virginia Slim after another, trusting God to protect her from the Florida Clean Air Act. As a result, the smell in the air was a mix of cigarettes, paint, and potpourri.
Rhonda was sitting in her usual spot. She didn’t look good. Pushing three hundred pounds, with a brassy, spiky, brittle dye job that was usually black at the roots, and paint stains all over her meaty hands and smock, she never did. But now she was trembling, and her round face was sweaty and green, like she might throw up. She looked at me like she wasn’t a hundred percent sure who I was.
Raul was standing near her, and Leticia and two sopranos were along the walls. There could be a dozen more hiding in the aisles between the tall racks of arts-and-crafts supplies. I just had to hope not. Vic sat handcuffed to a wooden chair. Her face lit up when I came in.
Leticia waved a hand at her. “You see, she’s all right.”
“Get the cuffs off her,” I said, aiming the Smith and Wesson at Leticia. Then I noticed a faint whine in the air. Maybe something in the AC, or noise outside on the street.
One of the sopranos pulled a key out of his pocket and dropped to one knee beside Vic. The whine kept whining.
I glanced at Raul. “Pablo’s shot in the stomach. You should help him.”
The eyes widened in Raul’s ugly, pimple-dotted face. He turned toward the stockroom door.
“Please wait,” Leticia said. “I need you here just a tiny bit longer.”
“Right,” said Raul. “Sorry.” He turned back around.
“You can let him go,” I told Leticia. “I really don’t want to kill you.”
She shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”
I realized the soprano in charge of getting the cuffs off Vic was taking his time about it. I started to tell him to hurry up, and then, although that little background noise still seemed as faint as ever, it suddenly spooked me in a way it hadn’t before.
I visualized the Thunderbird. The sound jumped, except that really, it had been loud all along. It was just that magic had kept me from hearing it that way.
There was another soprano near me, and he was singing up a storm. I spotted him out of the corner of my eye at the same instant that I really heard him. I felt the charge of mojo in his voice, too, like an itch inside my ears.
I guessed his song hadn’t made him extremely invisible. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have needed to creep up on my flank. But it got the job done. It got him close.
When he popped into view, it startled me, and I may have hesitated for a split second before following through on Plan A. At any rate, by the time I fired, Leticia was already diving out of her chair onto the floor, and the love monkeys were scrambling to put themselves between her and me. I didn’t hit her or anyone.
Vic screamed. Then Mr. Invisible grabbed my arm and jerked it sideways so the automatic wasn’t threatening anybody. I used the palm of my other hand to break his nose, then wrenched myself free.
He took a swing at me, and I jumped out of range. And bumped into the wall. Something hard and heavy slammed down on my head, then crashed to pieces on the floor. It was a plaster Jesus. I’d jolted Him off his hook.
And He’d gotten even by knocking me slow and stupid for a couple seconds. Seconds I didn’t have to spare. Before I could get my shit together, the sopranos were all over me, holding me while Raul hammered punches into my ribs and guts. He kept it up until Mr. Invisible twisted the Smith and Wesson out of my fingers.
Then, standing up, Leticia said, “That’s enough. Search him.”
Raul did, and even a hypnotized bulked-up gorilla couldn’t miss the Baby Glock when it was right there in my pocket. Both guns ended up on one of the tables beside a glass jar full of paintbrushes.
“Good,” Leticia purred. “Now Billy and I can have a nice conversation. If you wouldn’t mind.” Raul stepped back to give her room, and she glided forward. Vic watched with her bruised face full of despair.
Leticia got right up close to me. Close enough for me to smell her perfume and feel the cool brush of her breath. “I know I said I like it rough,” she said, “but actually shooting at me was a little much.” She smiled. “I guess we should have had a safe word.”
By that time, the pain from the beating had faded a little, and I could wheeze out some words. “You win. I won’t go back to the hotel.”
“Oh, of course you will,” she said. “But from now on, you’ll play to help me.”
“Fine. Just don’t hurt Vic.”
“Oh, Vic, Vic, Vic! I think you need a more positive motivation. I’d like for us to be partners and friends, not just for the length of the tournament but forever.”
I realized she was talking about turning me into a slave.
She laughed at whatever it was that came into my face. “I promise, you’ll like it, and we don’t even need another drop of your blood. There are better ways.”
She shifted in even closer, so that the whole length of her body was touching mine, and moved a little to the side. She ran the tip of her tongue around the inside of my ear, then gently sucked and nibbled at the lobe. And my God, it felt good. It didn’t even matter that I’d just taken a beating, or that I understood she was trying to cripple my mind. I started drowning in it right away.
The sopranos and Raul stared at us, fascinated, wanting what I was getting, but not pissed off about it. Apparently the hex they were under kept them from being—or at least acting—jealous, no matter what—or who—the boss lady did.
Not that I was giving a lot of thought to their reaction. Like I said, what she was doing felt too good.
In between licks and nips, she told me she loved me, and whispered all the dirty, wonderful things she wanted me to do to me, and for me to do to her. I could have it all, if only I’d love her back.
A part of me was trying to. More than that, to adore her and go down on its knees to her like she really was some kind of goddess. I still knew she’d tried to drive me insane and kill me, that she was trying to break me now, but with every moment, it got tougher to remember what any of that meant or why it mattered.
I called up the Thunderbird. I looked past Leticia to Vic’s raw, puffy tear-streaked face. Both things helped, but I was only putting off the inevitable. Leticia was still going to take control of me.
We were just about there when I made the only move I could think of. I pictured the silver bird one last time. But instead of imagining it hanging like a shield between Leticia and me, I threw it on top of Rhonda.
I figured Leticia’s mojo worked best on people who liked girls. And I’d always had a hunch that Rhonda fell in that category, but maybe not. Maybe she didn’t like anybody. Maybe she got off rolling around in money. At any rate, unlike the sopranos and Raul, she didn’t look like a happy slave. She looked like she was fighting it, and maybe my power could help.
It did. She screamed and jumped up out of her chair. Raul spun around in her direction. She grabbed a half-painted cherub, threw it, and clocked him right on the nose. He staggered back and clapped his hands over the damage. Those plaster molds were deadly.
She scrambled around the end of a table and snatched up the Glock.
By that time, everybody around me, Leticia included, was turning to see what was happening. The sopranos’ grips loosened as they tried to figure out how to hang on to me and put themselves between the pistol and the boss lady at the same time.
I stamped on feet and kicked shins. I slammed in elbow strikes until nobody was holding on to me anymore. Then Mr. Invisible sucked in a breath and started to sing.
I couldn’t let him throw any more magic. I lunged at him, tackled him, and dragged him down to the floor. I pounded him twice in the face with the bottom of my fist. Each time bounced the back of his head against the linoleum. The second one stunned him.
I rolled over onto my hands and knees. The other sopranos were reaching into their pockets or inside their jackets. So was Raul. Screaming “Bitch!” over and over again, Rhonda shifted back and forth, trying for a clear shot at Leticia. Still using the love monkeys for cover, Leticia matched her step for step and stared in her direction. She was probably trying to recast the spell I’d broken.
I jumped up and rushed Leticia. A soprano started to turn toward me. I straight-armed him and knocked him staggering, grabbed hold of Leticia, and kicked her feet out from underneath her. She fell down hard, and I dived on top of her.
There was a broken, jagged-edged piece of Jesus lying right beside us. Maybe He was on my side after all. I snatched it up and put the sharp side against her throat. “Everybody stop!” I yelled.
An instant later, the Glock banged. The round thumped into stuff on one of the shelves.
“You too, Rhonda!” I snapped. “God damn it!”
“Yes!” Leticia called. “Stop, please!” She squirmed and ground against me. It sent a thrill through me, but it wasn’t enough to start me slipping back under her control.
“That’s enough!” I said. “Of all this shit. You tried, it didn’t work, now you’ve got to clean up your mess. First off, your people need to put their guns on the floor.”
“Do it,” Leticia said, and her stooges obeyed.
“Now,” I said, “get Vic out of the cuffs.”
One of the sopranos took care of it. Eager to reach me but smart enough to stay out of arm’s reach of everybody else, Vic scurried along the wall.
“Now,” I said, “release everybody from your power. Raul, Pablo, and your own guys, too.”
Leticia scowled. It was the first expression I’d seen on her face that made her look like anything but a teasing nympho or a nympho who was worried I was sick. She was still gorgeous, but now, somehow, she reminded me of a dog if you were trying to take a bone away.
“I’ll release the brothers,” she said. “The others are mine. And will still be mine, whether they carry my mark or not.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but I bet they won’t have as much ‘positive motivation’ to protect you or screw with me.”
“No one can tell a noble how to rule her own people!”
It was pure instinct that made me do what I did next. I moved my chunk of Jesus from Leticia’s neck to her cheek. “Would your magic work even if you didn’t look like a movie star?” I asked.
“All right!” she snarled. “I’ll do it.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again.
The sopranos blinked like they were waking up from a dream. Blood running from his nose, Raul started toward Leticia and me.
“Pablo,” I said.
He stopped short. Then he turned and ran for the stockroom and the stairs beyond.
I looked at Rhonda. “If Vic and I take off, will you be okay?”
She smiled a nasty smile. “I’m the only one who’s still got a gun.” And it was a pretty good point even if she was a lousy shot.
“And you and I are square?”
“Yeah. The piteog with the fingernails brought the money.”
“Then I’ll see you around.” I climbed off Leticia, and then Vic and I headed for the front door.