PART TWO
BLOOD LUST
Chapter Twenty-Two
I always liked working tough murder cases with Kyle Craig, so I was glad that he would be joining Jamilla Hughes and me in Los Angeles later that day. I was surprised, however, when I saw him already at the murder scene in Beverly Hills when we arrived. The body had been found at the Chateau Marmont, the hotel where John Belushi had overdosed and died.
The hotel looked like a French castle and rose seven stories over the Sunset Strip. As I entered the lobby, I noticed that everything looked to be authentic 1920s, but dated rather than antique. Supposedly, a studio boss had once told the actor William Holden, If you have to get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont.'
Kyle met us at the door of the hotel room. His dark hair was slicked back and it looked like he'd gotten a little sun. Unusual for Kyle. I almost didn't recognize him.
'This is Kyle Craig, FBI,'I told Jamilla.'Before I met you, he was the best homicide investigator I ever worked with.'
Kyle and Jamilla shook hands. Then we followed him into the hotel room. Actually, it was a hillside bungalow: two bedrooms, a living room with a working fireplace. It had its own private street entrance.
The crime scene was as depressingly bad as the others. I recalled something typically pessimistic that a philosopher had written. I'd once had this same thought at a grisly crime scene in North Carolina: 'Human existence must be a kind of error. It is bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens.' My own philosophy was a little cheerier than Schopenhauer's, but there were times when he seemed on the mark.
The worst of all had happened to a twenty-nine-year-old record company executive named Jonathan Mueller, and in the worst possible way. There were bites on his neck. I didn't see any knife cuts. Mueller had been hung from a lighting fixture in the hotel room. His skin was waxy and translucent and I didn't think he had been dead very long.
The three of us moved closer to the hanging body. It was swaying slightly, and still dripping blood.
'The major bites are all in his neck' I said.'It looks like role-playing vampires again. The hanging has to be their ritual, maybe their signature.'
'This is so goddamn creepy,'Jamilla whispered.'This poor guy had the blood sucked out of him. It almost looks like a sex crime.'
'I think it is,' Kyle said. 'I think they seduced him first.'
Just then the cell phone in my jacket pocket went off. The timing couldn't have been worse.
I looked at Kyle before I answered the call.'It could be him,'I said. 'The Mastermind.'
I put the receiver to my ear.
'How do you like LA, Alex?' the Mastermind asked in his usual mechanical drone. 'The dead pretty much look the same everywhere, don't they?'
I nodded at Kyle. He understood who was on the line. The Mastermind.
He motioned for me to give him the phone and I handed it over. I watched his face as he listened, then frowned deeply. Kyle finally took the phone away from his ear.
'He broke off the connection,' he said. 'It was like he knew you weren't on the line anymore. How did he know, Alex? How does the bastard know so much? What the hell does he want from you?'
I stared at the slowly revolving corpse, and I didn't have any answers. None at all. I felt drained myself.