“Her maiden name. She told me she never got married,” he said.
The waiter asked if we wanted coffee or dessert. I turned down both. As Jarret and I rode the escalator down to the parking lot I wondered if Gretchen had an interest in the occult. What if she knew Margaret Smith?
“Does Gretchen ever ask about your game-day superstitions?”
“Hell, no. My rituals are sacred ground. You’re the only person who knows what I do,” Jarret said. “Gretch and I talk about the old times, baseball, and my plans after I retire. She’s interested in my career. She thinks I’d make a good TV sports analyst.” He checked his reflection in a slim metal strip on the wall. “What do you think?”
Chapter Twenty-three
To dodge the Friday-night restaurant and nightclub traffic on the boulevard, I took back-street shortcuts through Studio City to Nick’s bungalow in North Hollywood. All I wanted to do was take off my clothes and get into his bathtub, preferably surrounded by bubbles, ideally joined by Nick. My fantasy dissolved as soon as I pulled up at his house and saw Robin and Dave through the picture window, standing behind Nick at his desk.
I climbed the porch steps and opened the door to a screechy blast of haunted-house organ music. I cupped my hands to call out over the noise, “Hello? Anybody home?”
“Come here.” Robin waved me over to the desk. “You have to see this.”
“Hey, babe. How was dinner?” Nick said without turning around.
“Eventful. Forrest Huber attacked Jarret and nearly got himself carted off to jail.” The comment failed to draw attention. I edged between Robin and Dave, and rested my hands on Nick’s shoulders. “What are you watching?”
“My friend at ATTAGIRL messengered me a DVD of the only TV special Billy Miles ever produced,” Robin said. “He blew almost a million dollars on the production, a Halloween special on nightmares. It never aired.”
“Why not?” I said.
She smiled. “Watch. You’ll see.”
Dave shushed us. “Here comes the good part.”
Six figures with heads and bodies covered in hooded black robes, stood in a half circle in a dark, forestlike clearing lit by torches. Each character held a tall staff with a shrunken head at the top. A procession of men shuffled onscreen—feet dragging, eyes straight ahead in a daze—carrying a woman tied to a plank by chains and wearing a collar of thorns. The camera zoomed in on her eyes, fixed in a trancelike stare. Cheesy organ music swelled from the speakers.
The procession halted center screen. The black-robed half-circle parted for a bald, horned, muscular actor in a loincloth with his body painted dark red. He raised his arms and wagged his long tongue at the camera. Proceeding with dramatic, overacted strides to the side of the plank, he said to the woman, “I take you for my bride to live forever in the bowels of Hades.”
She lifted her face toward him and waggled her tongue.
The four of us broke out in laughter.
“Seriously?” I said, wincing, “A million dollars? This is beyond bad.”
“I am everywhere, in every shape,” the onscreen devil said to the faceless robed figures surrounding him in a circle. “I am your lover, your nightmare, your demon, your sins, and your savior.”
“Why is the devil always a man?” Robin said.
“Not always,” Nick said. “She-devils are scattered throughout history. The most famous is the legend of Lilith, Adam’s first wife, a character from Jewish mythology. Lilith appears in several forms with different names as a seductive spirit over many cultures dating back to late Antiquity. She—”
“Fascinating,” Dave said. “Save the rest for the classroom. Here comes the scene.”
The hooded figures onscreen circled the devil, chanting, “Hail, Satan.”
The devil figure turned, sweeping his curled tail and bare backside toward the camera. He reached for a lit torch, bent over the woman, and drew a flaming inverted pentagram on her stomach.
“The pentagram.” I squeezed Nick’s shoulder. “Billy used the inverted pentagram.”
“He copied most of the scenes from H?xan, a 1922 Swedish film about medieval sorcery. The original version used an eight-pointed star instead of a pentagram,” Nick said.
“Liz is right,” Robin said. “This proves Billy knew the pentagram—what if he killed Laycee?”
“Why?” Dave said. “For offending him at a party?”
“After seeing this film, I doubt if Billy has the ability to be offended,” Nick said.
“Maybe Laycee saw the video and gave him a review,” Dave said, laughing.
“Yuk it up, kids,” I said. “I’ll think of you while I’m at the police station to—” The camera panned in close on the devil’s face. “Nick, pause the screen. Quick.”
The face froze on the monitor. The actor’s shaved head was painted red with pointed black eyebrows drawn in—but close up, the small eyes and thin mouth were unmistakable.
“That’s Kyle Stanger. I’m sure of it.”