Song’s baby made a weird face, and she quickly held him over the bowl again as he ejected an alarming quantity of yellowish--brown goo from his bowels. This was clearly my punish-ment for staying to argue about the phone.
“Do you need anything else for your room?” Song asked.
I considered asking for a bowl to poop in, but restrained myself. “I’m all right for now,” I said, already backing out of the room, “but phone coaching is part of my therapy. If you could at least let Caryl know next time you talk to her, I’d appreciate it.”
Out in the living room, Gloria’s alleged lover was sitting at the grand piano. Not playing, just sitting, staring at the keys. I pretended not to see him and hurried up the stairs toward Teo’s room.
When I knocked, I heard Teo saying, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” to somebody as he approached the door. He opened it and stepped away to allow me inside without even looking at me. From downstairs I heard the gentle opening chords of something familiar—Chopin?
The one-eared cat was perched alertly on Teo’s loft bed, watching him pace. I noticed Rivenholt’s drawing on Teo’s desk and eyed the cat warily as I picked up the paper. It was still a spare, skillful piece of work, but this time it didn’t give me the same rush of feeling.
“The magic’s gone from the drawing,” I told Teo once he had hung up and stuffed his phone back in his pocket. Even that slight weight seemed to endanger his jeans’ purchase on his skinny hips.
“Nuh-uh,” he said. “Charms last for months, years even.” He snatched the paper from me and stared at it. “Huh. I guess he really sucks at it.” Carelessly he set it back on the desk.
“Isn’t that a clue or something?”
“Why would a faded charm be a clue?”
“Well I don’t know. It could mean he died or something.”
“That’s not how charms work,” Teo said. “They’re like paintings. They don’t care about the painter once he walks away, they just . . . are. Until they’re not. Anyway, Regazo de Lujo put me through to a room when I asked for Forrest Cloven, which was Rivenholt’s first alias with us. I hung up as soon as they transferred; I’d rather he not know we’re coming.”
“Nice work,” I said. I meant it, but it came out sarcastic somehow.
The cat made a sound like a rusty door hinge, and Teo grabbed him to set him down on the desk. “We’ll have to get Caryl’s approval to go up there,” he said as he scratched behind the cat’s missing ear. “She’s not answering right now, but I’ll keep trying.”
“Where is this place?”
“Santa Barbara, just inside the Project’s perimeter. Couple hours’ drive.”
Fantastic. A four-hour round trip in the tobacco-mobile with Mr. Grouchy.
“What’s the deal with the cat?” I asked. “Caryl told me not to touch him, but he seems nice enough.”
“Monty belonged to our last boss, and that . . . bugs Caryl. Long story. But he likes me. He’s attracted to angst.”
I guess I was angsty enough for Monty too, because he let me run a hand down his back. His fur was softer than it looked, but I could feel his ribs under it.
Downstairs, I heard a cascade of spiraling eighth notes from the piano. I thought of my father for a moment, his straight back at the baby grand in our foyer. The pain wasn’t as fresh as it ought to have been; we’d been distant for years before his suicide.
“You know,” I said, “since we have time to kill anyway while you keep trying Caryl, why don’t we look into why Rivenholt ran off? If we know what made him run, we might have better luck getting him to come back.”
Teo looked annoyed, but he did seem to think it over. “We could snoop around some of his hangouts, see if anyone heard anything. Maybe the Seelie bar.”
“The what now?”
“Oh. Um, so to go along with the fairy theme, London HQ calls the rival fey kingdoms the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. It breaks down to ‘pretty’ versus ‘scary.’ Mostly it’s the pretty Seelie that come to this part of the country looking for their Echoes, and they have their own little watering hole out in West Hollywood.”
I opened my mouth.
“Don’t even think of making a fairy joke; it wasn’t funny the first dozen times somebody said it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, boss.”
11
There’s a saying that somebody tilted this country on its end, and everything that wasn’t securely attached fell into California. I think it’s the main reason I feel at home here. But when Teo and I started hoofing it through the very gayest part of West Hollywood late that afternoon, I discovered that even in Los Angeles it is possible to feel like a freak.
I think some of the more hostile stares were rooted in jealousy. Teo was a nice piece of ass, and the fading light suited him, making him look brooding and mysterious.
“Are you gay?” I asked him.
“I dunno,” he said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Do you like guys or not?”