“I’m not sure if I should let you in,” Cohen said, but it was already too late. Caxton was inside. The room beyond the door was a kitchen, with a dented and scorched countertop and badly painted cabinets. The refrigerator was decorated with a poster for an organization called NORML, which showed an oversized hemp leaf. She came around the side of the counter and saw a framed M. C. Escher print on the wall. The rest of the lower floor was taken up by a spacious living room with a tan shag carpet. Numerous spots on the carpet had been burned down to round, black-?edged holes, perhaps by dropped cigarettes. There was a gigantic sofa, on which a boy who had to be Murphy Frissell lay passed out or sleeping. There was a forty-?inch flat-?screen television, switched off. On a coffee table sat a collection of glass and plastic bongs, as well as numerous butane lighters and mini blowtorches of the kind used to make crème br?lée—or to keep a crack pipe lit.
Caxton scanned the corners of the room looking for shotguns or pistols or, for that matter, swords—she’d seen enough residences exactly like this one to expect the bizarre. There was no sign of any weapons, however.
Cohen had followed after her like a puppy, his hands up in front of him as if he were surrendering before she’d even charged him with anything. “Where is he?” she demanded. Before Cohen could ask who she meant, she said, “Arkeley. Simon Arkeley.”
The boy looked around the room, his face scrunched up. “He’s not here,” he said, and Caxton’s heart fell. Then his eyes opened wider. “He must be upstairs, then. Is he upstairs?”
“Let’s go see,” Caxton said, and nodded at Lu. “Scott, you stay here.”
The boy looked at her very hard. “Okay,” he said.
Caxton wondered what on earth Simon could be doing with these losers. He hadn’t struck her as a serious drug user when she met him. Still, that encounter had been very brief and she supposed she could have been mistaken.
The stairs were at the far end of the room. She mounted them slowly, unsure what to expect at the top. She could see a wisp of smoke curling around the light fixtures up there and she drew her weapon. If Simon was up there smoking pot he might react badly to sight of law enforcement. He solved that problem for her by coming out of the door at the top of the stairs and glaring down at her. Simon was alive, she saw at once. Alive and unhurt.
It wasn’t too late.
“Mr. Arkeley,” Lu said, “I hope we’re not disturbing you, sir.”
“Not at all,” Simon told him. “Hello, Trooper.”
Caxton gritted her teeth. “It’s Special Deputy now.”
Simon nodded. “I suppose we have to talk. Come on up.”
Vampire Zero
Chapter 40.
Caxton turned to Lu at the top of the stairs. “Keep an eye on the two down there. They’re probably out of commission, but I don’t want them leaving until I say it’s okay.”
Lu nodded, but he grabbed her arm before he went back down. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he said, frowning.
Did he expect her to beat information out of Simon? Or maybe just violate his civil rights some other way? For the moment she didn’t feel the need to break any laws. Not as long as Simon was still okay. She followed the boy down a short hallway to a bedroom.
Two mattresses lay in opposite corners, lying on the floor with no frames to support them. The walls were covered in posters for jam bands and deceased rock stars. Clothes were strewn around the floor and a pile of pornographic magazines was stacked neatly in one corner. Blue, slow-?moving smoke filled the ceiling and made all the objects in the room indistinct. It came from a silver mixing bowl full of smoldering herbs on the floor.
Simon sat down on the carpet next to the bowl in an easy lotus position and gestured for her to do the same.
She preferred to stay standing. “We figured out the trick you pulled with Linda, obviously,” she said.
“I figured you would, given your reputation. I just wanted enough time to escape. Of course, that was hours ago,” Simon said. His eyes were closed and his head tilted slightly back.
“I got a late start this morning and just got into town. So you’re not going to help me out, are you?”
His shoulders rose a fraction of an inch. “I’ve done some research. Law isn’t my thing, normally, but when your underlings showed up to harass me I looked into my options. I can’t actively interfere with your investigation. Beyond that you have no power over me—I don’t even have to answer your questions if I don’t want to.” He opened his eyes. “And I don’t want to.”
Caxton smiled. “Why not?”
He only smiled in return.
“I could bust you. I could drag you down to the local station house and have them book you,” she threatened.
“Really? On what charge?”
She waved a hand through the smoke that filled the room. “Drugs.”
Simon turned his head from side to side. “Actually, no, you can’t. No one in this house has broken any kind of drug law. I see by your face you don’t believe me, but if you search this place from top to bottom—and I don’t doubt you would—you won’t find so much as a stem or a seed of any illegal drug. This is where I come when I want to smoke Salvia divinorum—the sage of the seers. Which isn’t illegal at all.”