Angel of Vengeance E-Book

Trevor O. Munson

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Seitenzahl: 273

Beschreibung

The novel that inspired the TV series Moonlight puts a twist on the classic Dracula vampire tale and blends it with Chandler hardboiled P.I. detective fiction. LA-based P.I. and vampire Mick Angel has been hired by a beautiful red-headed burlesque dancer to find her missing sister. But the apparently simple case of a teenage runaway is soon complicated by drug dealers, persistent cops, murder and Mick's own past. Mick must learn the hard way what every vampire should know - nothing stays buried for ever, especially not the past.

Leseprobe

AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS:

THE SUPERNATURAL SERIES:

HEART OF THE DRAGON Keith R.A. DeCandido

THE UNHOLY CAUSE Joe Schreiber

WAR OF THE SONS Rebecca Dessertine & David Reed

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:

THE VEILED DETECTIVE David Stuart Davies

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

Manly Wade Wellman & Wade Wellman

THE ECTOPLASMIC MAN Daniel Stashower

THE SCROLL OF THE DEAD David Stuart Davies

THE MAN FROM HELL Barrie Roberts

THE STALWART COMPANIONS H. Paul Jeffers

THE SEVENTH BULLET Daniel D. Victor

SÉANCE FOR A VAMPIRE Fred Saberhagen

DR JEKYLL AND MR HOLMES Loren D. Estleman

THE WHITECHAPEL HORRORS Edward B. Hanna

THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA Richard L. Boyer

THE ANGEL OF THE OPERA Sam Siciliano

THE RUNESCAPE SERIES:

BETRAYAL AT FALADOR T.S. Church

RETURN TO CANIFIS T.S. Church

ANGEL

OF

VENGEANCE

TREVOR O. MUNSON

TITAN BOOKS

ANGEL OF VENGEANCE

ISBN: 9780857685377

Published by

Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark St.

London SE1 0UP

First edition: February 2011

10 987654321

Copyright © 2010 Trevor Munson

Cover images © Shutterstock.

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

To my parents, Tom and Sharon, whose love and encouragement has always served as the light that allowed me to chase my dreams to whatever dark places they might lead.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

Black doctor’s satchel clutched tight, I stop beneath the naked bulb that burns next to a chipped paint door marked 3B. It’s late for a house call, but then I’m no doctor.

Knock-knock. I wait.

3B swings open and a scrawny white guy blinks out at me. With his oversized Adam’s apple, thinning blond hair, and wire-framed glasses, he looks like a mild-mannered accountant. He smiles at me friendly-like. It’s a sweet smile. A smile you can trust. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that looks can be deceiving. I should know.

“Michael Ensinger?” I ask, and watch as a look of suspicion creeps across his bland features.

“Who’s askin’?”

“My friend here,” I say, showing him the pearl-handled .38 revolver I’ve taken from the satchel.

“Woah, hey. Hey,” Michael says. I enjoy seeing the sullen look depart as he puts his soft, never-seen-a-hard-day’s-work-in-his-whole-life hands up in front of him like a bank teller in an old western. “What is this? What’s goin’ on?”

“We need to talk.”

“’Kay. S’talk.”

“Not here. Inside. Can I come in?”

Scared, he nods nervous consent.

“No. You have to say it. Can I come in?”

With only eyes for my gun, he says, “Yeah, yeah. Come in.”

Green light. I back him inside at gunpoint. I close the door behind me, spin the bolt lock, look around. The place is run down, but neatly kept, everything in its place.

Behind him on the tube, a bound-and-gagged naked blonde is being dragged across a room by her hair by a guy in a black hood. Looks like I interrupted Mikey in the middle of a little sadistic jack-off session.

“Nice show. Find it on PBS?”

“Screw you, man. What d’you want with me?”

My lack of response makes him more nervous and he swallows. I watch that huge Adam’s apple bob up and down inside his Ichabod Crane-neck. Best not stare too long.

“A-are you okay?” He has seen something he doesn’t like in my dark crystal-ball eyes. Something that doesn’t bode well for a long, healthy future.

“I’m fine. Where’s your bathroom?”

He gestures vaguely. “D-down the hall.”

“Let’s go.”

“What? Why? I mean, I thought you just wanted to talk.”

“I do. In the bathroom.”

Ensinger looks like he wants to argue the point, so I cock the gun. It dummies him up nice and I follow him down the short hall and into the ugly tile bathroom. I pull the door shut behind us and inspect the facilities. The tub is filthy. It will have to be cleaned.

Keeping the gun on him, I root under the bathroom sink and come up with a scrub brush and a can of Comet. I hold them out.

“Clean the tub. It’s disgusting.”

He looks at me like I must be joking, gives me a smart-ass smile. “So what, you go around breaking into places and force people to clean?”

I smack the grin right off his face. His glasses go flying. He crumples by the tub. It’s all the answer he gets. “Get to it.”

Cowering, he fumbles for his glasses, puts them back on. Then, with jittering hands, he runs the hot water, sprinkles the Comet and begins to scrub like a good boy.

Behind him I carefully remove my tailored suit jacket and roll up my sleeves. Noticing my increasing state of undress from the corner of his eye, Ensinger stops and looks at me nervously. I point to the tub. “Focus.” He goes back to it. The rhythmic scrape of the brush against the porcelain sounds like a train locomotive picking up speed for a long uphill haul. Seems appropriate.

“What’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on,” he says, sounding like a scared nine year-old boy.

“What’s going on—” I explain as I remove my fedora and set it beside the sink where it will be safe and out of the way, “is I’ve come to see you on behalf of someone you know real well.”

“Who?”

“Elizabeth Lowery.”

His eyes go wide at the mention of the name. The brush stops. He turns and looks at me. “N-no. I didn’t—That wasn’t me. The—the cops, they had the wrong guy. That’s why they let me go. They had the wrong guy.”

“Uh-uh. They had the right guy. They only let you go because Elizabeth was too scared of you to testify. Isn’t that right?”

“No.”

“Way I heard it, when you were done with her, the docs had to sew up parts that shouldn’t have to be sewn up.”

“No. You got it wrong. I swear to God you got it wrong.”

“You’re not working,” I say. I set the gun down—I don’t really need it, it’s more for effect than anything else—and light a smoke.

Nearly done now, he goes back to it, scrubbing away as he tries to work it all out.

“So what, she—she hired you to come here?”

“No. I’ve never met her. This was my idea. Call it a hobby,” I say, doing my best impression of a smokestack.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. It was wrong and—and I’m sorry,” he mewls.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

“Y-you do?”

“Sure. You like to hurt girls. I used to know someone like you. He liked to hurt women too. Only difference was he was my old man and the woman he liked to hurt was my mother. He beat her to death and went to jail while I was still too young to stop him... ” I shake my head, blow smoke. “Regret like that, it stays with ya.”

The scrubbing stops again. Beside the tub, Ensinger turns and looks at me as I loosen the knot in my tie, take it off. “Of course, now, my mom, she chose him. Elizabeth Lowery didn’t even get that chance, did she? She never got to make the decision one way or the other because she didn’t know you existed. And if she had, she wouldn’t have given you the time of day, would she, Mikey? That’s what really gets you, isn’t it? That’s why you pick the ones you pick.”

Ensinger just stares at me, the truth of things frozen on his face.

“Rinse it,” I say.

I extinguish the butt in the drip from the sink faucet and drop it into a ziplock bag I keep among the other items—glass vials, funnel, ball-gag, hacksaw—in the satchel.

Hands trembling, Ensinger spins the knobs and turns the showerhead on, rinsing the frothy gray bubbles down the drain. Finished, he sits with his back against the tub and looks up at me.

“Nice job.” I pick up the gun and gesture with it. “Get in.”

“Please—please don’t hurt me.”

“I don’t like to repeat myself. It makes me sore. Real sore, if you want to know the truth. Get in the tub.”

He sees in my eyes that there’s no room for argument. He gets up and gets in.

“Lock the drain.”

With a sob, he pulls the metal drain tab up, and looks up at me with the same feverish, glassy-eyed stare I imagine a cow must give the butcher just before the stropped blade is dragged across its neck.

“I’ll never do it again. I swear to God I’ll never do it again.”

I let go now. I’m over the brink. The change has begun and just as with the moment of release during orgasm, Moses himself couldn’t hold it back. The pain of transformation is as awful as it is sweet. Bone is displaced as my brow wrenches forward. My face elongates. My fangs grow. My jaw comes unhinged. My eyes grow black as they fill with blood.

Seeing it happen, the look in Michael’s eyes tells me he’s just now realizing how much more there was to learn about the reality he thought he knew. I don’t feel the least bit bad for him. Predators like him are a waste of skin in my book, which is why I only hunt predators like him. No women. No children. No innocents. Those are the rules. I’m no hero, but the way I figure it, if I’ve got to kill people—and I do—might as well be ones who deserve killin’. It’s how I live with myself, so to speak. It’s how I deal with what I’ve become.

“I know you won’t,” I say.

1

Nightfall comes with an ache. I feel the sinking sun deep in my bones the way old people sense a coming storm. My thirst awakens like the first signs of narcotic withdrawal. Parched with a sandy desert thirst, I rise.

I push open the lid of the industrial-size deep freeze that serves as my coffin. The freezer preserves me; slows the cancerous rot that gnaws me from the inside out during my waking hours. Though vastly slower than normal decomposition, the ever-constant stink of decay is an ugly truth about being undead. One of those little tidbits no one tells you about before you become a vampire.

Frostbitten air trails me like a cape as I step naked into the dark confines of my North Hollywood digs. The place isn’t much to look at, just a shabby two-bit office with a kitchenette and half-bath, but it’s home.

I don’t have much in the way of furniture or appliances; I’m not what you’d call an acquirer. I can list all my major possessions in twenty-five words or less: desk, chairs, answering machine, phone, filing cabinet, mini-fridge, freezer, fedora, five suits, two pairs of shoes, a car. Oh yeah, and a gun. The adjectives’ll cost ya extra.

I move out of the kitchenette into the office proper. The freezer motor hums dully in tune with distant traffic noise from the 101. There is a numb, mildly pleasant pain as my frozen limbs begin to thaw. I barely notice. I have bigger concerns. Shivering, not with cold but with thirst, I stiff-leg it over to my desk and twist the light on. I punch a button on my answering machine. No messages while I was on ice. No nothing.

My trembling fingers tug a side drawer open and fumble with the zipper of my worn leather kit. In the light, I notice that they are coated with a fine layer of dust from the graveyard dirt that pads the bottom of my cold-storage coffin.

Time to fix.

I go to the small refrigerator that sits on the floor just below the office’s single aluminum foil-covered window. The neighbors probably think I’m running a meth lab, but the fact of the matter is the sun and I aren’t exactly on what you’d call speaking terms. Haven’t been for a while now.

I kneel. My frozen knee joints pop with the force of a twenty-two caliber pistol. I open the refrigerator door to find only five crimson glass vials remain. Damn. I thought there were more. I grab one and hold it up to the refrigerator light, enjoying the brownish-red tint of the liquid that hugs the vial walls. Except for red, vampires see the world in only black and white. So all things red are to be savored. Adored.

Eager for my fix, I hurry now. I carry the vial back to the desk. I take an old-fashioned, sawbones-style needle from the sterilizer and assemble it, screwing the tip and casing together. I pop the cap from the vial and poke the gleaming tip into the ichor. I pull the plunger back, drawing a good portion of the thick blood into the casing, before carefully replacing the cap on the vial, saving the remainder for later. Then I strangle one ice-cold bicep with a rubber garrote, pulling it tight with sharpened teeth.

Over the years, mainlining has evolved as my favorite way of taking blood. There is a comfort in the ritual that I have grown to love. A holdover from my days as a smack addict. Any junkie will tell you that the effects are stronger and the relief more immediate and a little goes a lot longer when you shoot it. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

I smack my arm, searching for a non-recessed vein. Finding one, I jam the needle home before it can slip away on me like a snake in water. I have to jam it hard to break through my permafrost skin. I depress the plunger. Goddamn but it feels good. Even old blood. Fresh is best, but any blood will do. Just so long as it’s human.

I withdraw the needle, lick the tip clean. Tasty. My jangling nerves recede with my teeth. My thirst abates.

As always, the initial high makes me sleepy. I drowse in my chair, staring from under half pound lids at the framed black-and-white photograph perched on one corner of my desk. It’s a snapshot of me posing with my old band mates, taken after a show at the Million Dollar Theater on Third and Broadway in late ’43. Good guys all of them. And me the only white boy in the bunch.

I reach out with sandbag arms and take the frame in both hands for a better look at the me I used to be. Tall and too thin; almost sickly. Probably from the drugs. Dark hair. Darker eyes. Wise-guy grin. A chin in constant need of a shave. Good looking but not too good looking, if you know what I mean.

I shake my head. I barely recognize that kid. With all I’ve seen and all I’ve done, I feel I must look different, but I probably don’t. Hard to know for sure.

Despite rumors to the contrary, vampires do have reflections. The random observer would see my human image in a mirror, but when I look I can only see the monster inside; the way I look when I transform. When every day’s a bad day in the mirror, eventually you just stop looking.

The black phone in front of me rings shrilly. Enough nostalgia. I set the photo down and pick up.

“Yeah?”

A smoky female voice blows over the line. “Mr. Angel?”

“Speaking.”

“My name’s Reesa Van Cleef. I have a job I’d like to discuss with you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d rather talk about it in person. Would it be possible to meet?”

“Anything’s possible. When’s good?”

“I’m free tomorrow during the day. I could come by your office—”

“No good. I’m busy tomorrow.”

“The next day then.”

“Actually, Ms. Van Cleef, I prefer to work at night. I’m a little funny like that. Call it a quirk.”

“Oh, I see...”

“Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just that—well, I work nights too. I’m a performer; a burlesque dancer. I do a retro lounge act at the Tropicana five nights a week.”

“I see.”

“Would it be too much trouble to ask you to come to me?”

Normally it would. Normally if a client wanted my help they could damn well come here. But seeing as I could use the work and being as this particular client was a burlesque dancer, well, I figured I could make an exception just this once.

“Sure. When?”

“How ‘bout tonight? My first performance is at ten. It’s a little racy, but if you’re not the type whose sensibilities are easily offended why don’t you come see it? We can grab a drink at the bar between shows.”

“Sure,” I say again. It’s a long time since I’ve been out on the town for anything other than work or blood.

“Great. I’ll put your name on the list,” she says in a voice as playful as a tongue on an earlobe. “You’ll know me. I’ll be the one in the red feather boa and not much else.”

“I’ll be the one in the fedora.”

2

I pull my vintage, blood red Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Roadster into a metered slot just up the street from the Tropicana. I bought her new back in ’57 and it’s a love affair that has stood the test of time. Ain’t love grand?

I’m early so I take my kit out and go through the familiar process of fixing. I assemble the needle, tie off my arm, draw the blood. Because my skin is almost translucent in its alabaster whiteness I rarely have trouble finding a vein. Even the recessed ones. I slip the tip in, depress the plunger and... everything’s Jake.

Settling back into the Benz’s loving embrace, I let myself drowse in my euphoric state for a few minutes, enjoying my high. Lids at half-mast, I watch the red taillights of cars as they motor past on Melrose. When I slowly rise to full awareness fifteen minutes later I see it’s ten-o-five. Now I’m late. Swell. I shake my head to clear it, get out, head back up the street to the club.

I move past the long losers’ line at the door and walk right up to a pony-tailed doorman with a chest like a beer keg. I tell him I’m on the list. Turns out I am. He unhooks a purple velvet cordon and lets me in.

The small dark forties-style lounge smells of beer and cigarettes and betrayal and sex. Old pick-up lies hang faintly in the air. The joint hasn’t changed a bit, which I take to mean the owners are either visionary about the cyclical nature of trends or just cheap. Maybe both. Small, intimate candlelit tables punctuate the room. On one side, a small thrust stage takes up the entire west wall. Big bare glowing light bulbs stand like soldiers at attention along the perimeter of the stage, as if protecting the six-piece swing band from the riff-raff. Aside from me, the members of the band are the only ones in the place dressed the part.

I look around for the bar. I find it set back into the wall opposite the stage. The band plays me over the shoe-worn carpet to a tall stool. I order a Scotch on the rocks from a bartender with a thin moustache and watery eyes that remind me of two black pearls sunk deep in oysters. Judging from the gin-blossoms in his cheeks, slinging drinks isn’t the job for him. Kind of like a pill-head working the counter at a pharmacy. But that’s his problem, not mine.

I swivel around on the stool, eyeing the people that take up the seats at the tables scattered about. Reesa draws an eclectic crowd. Mostly gay couples of both sexes, but thrown in among them are tie-loosened Hollywood types, horny college students, and a few leering Persians.

All eyes are directed at the stage where the white-tuxedoed bandleader tempos the Cole Porter down and takes to the mike to introduce the delightful, delicious, de-lovely Reesa Van Cleef. Cheers, applause, whistles, and hoots follow the introduction, growing in volume and intensity as the lady herself, veiled behind a wall of red feathers, takes center stage.

She’s gorgeous; stunning in that golden era Hollywood screen siren way, when women carried an alluring air of mystery about them. When they all seemed to know something you didn’t, and found the fact amusing. She might have walked right out of a frame of an old black-and-white Bogart flick. The only tip-off that she is not a product of my own bygone day is the fact that her hair, which she wears in a forties-style forward-curled pompadour, is brilliant Kool-Aid red. My favorite color. I’m not much for smiling, but I smile now. I didn’t think they were making them like her anymore. Glad to see I was wrong.

Somewhere a bubble machine works its magic. The band dusts off an old tromboney ditty and Reesa glides into motion. Her bright eyes flirt as she teases the crowd, giving us titillating peek-a-boos of her moon-pale skin, racetrack curves, and full Jane Russell bosoms with small rosebud-pink nipples. Call me old-fashioned, but this is what a strip show should be. The term striptease suggests nudity with a sense of fun and playfulness. There’s none of that in the way the strippers of today ply their trade. It’s all just gyrating, g-string-in-your-face, mercenary flesh for hire. Ugly. A show like that leaves you feeling low, like you’re lesser for it, like you’ve been conned. Not that I don’t ever go. I do. Joints like that are open late and I’m a late-night kind of guy. But watching Reesa do her red-feather shimmy reminds me of something I’ve almost forgotten. It’s as if her seductive movements are capable of weaving a spell and casting me back in time. I feel transported. I feel like a kid again.

I feel alive.

The show goes by faster than summer vacation. When it’s over I blink and look around feeling like I’ve come out of a trance. My highball of McAllen, which was delivered unbeknownst to me, sits melted and untouched at my elbow. I shake my head to clear it. I need to get a hold on myself. I’m here on business. It won’t do to come across like some drooling schoolboy.

To have something to do, I shake out a butt, light it. The bartender is instantly on the spot to play the ever-popular game of fuck with the smoker.

“Sorry, you’ll have to put that out, sir. There’s no smoking allowed in the Tropicana,” he says.

He doesn’t sound too sorry. In fact, he sounds like he enjoys spoiling my good time. I lock eyes with him, my hypnotic stare as impossible to resist as a Star Trek tractor beam, and tell him, “I’m not smoking.”

A glazed cow-dumb stare comes over his ruddy face. “You’re not smoking,” he repeats.

“That’s right. Now you’re going to give me an empty rocks glass to use as an ashtray.”

He nods, says nothing, just does it.

“Now you’re going to leave me alone until I call you.”

“I’m going to leave you alone,” he murmurs.

Being undead has a lot of drawbacks, but it’s got its advantages too. The hypnotic gaze is one of them.

Grinning, I blow a cloud of secondhand smoke in the guy’s face as he goes to stand over by the cash register, which seems to serve the additional purpose of propping him up.

Intermission. The lights come up. Patrons—fags and dykes and Persians alike—file out. I smoke, trying to ignore the butterflies that flop like dying fish in my stomach as I await Reesa’s company. I reassure myself that she’s probably not half as attractive up close. Can’t be. I only ever met one other dame who was. This was all just a trick of the distance, the makeup, the lights. Up close I’ll see the flaws; the chinks in her Venus di Milo complexion; the cracks running through her Mona Lisa smile.

I check my watch and toss back my drink and signal for another, a double. Why the hell not? I can’t get drunk unless the alcohol has already been absorbed into a victim’s blood, and besides it gives me a prop; something to do with my hands. I mash my smoke out, light another.

“How do you do it?”

I swivel around to find her standing there in a red silk kimono embroidered with dragons. Immediately I realize I couldn’t have been more wrong about her looks. She’s the real deal; every bit as lovely up close as she appeared on stage. Lovelier. I feel a strange disappointment. A noticeable flaw would have been a welcome thing; would have put me back in control of myself.

“What’s that?” I ask, glad at least that I don’t sound like a nervous schoolboy. It’s about eighty years too goddamn late for that.

“Get away with smoking. I can’t believe no one’s said anything to you yet. Usually they’re real pricks about it. Won’t even let me do it in my own dressing room.”

“Yeah, well, we came to an agreement. Would you like one?” I say, picking up the pack and shaking one out.

Reesa hesitates a moment, but finally takes it, game if I am. Red manicured nails carry the butt up to a mouth like a Christmas bow. I’ve never felt jealous of a cigarette before. Guess there really is a first time for everything. She waits for me to light it. Her wish is my command.

“I hope you’re Mick Angel,” she says, drawing in a lungful. “Otherwise I’m gonna feel real silly.”

“That’s me,” I say. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“I drink free here, but you can order me one.” There is a whisper of silk on vinyl as she slides onto the stool next to me. Now I’m jealous of the stool.

“All right. Let me guess—you look like a martini kinda gal.”

“Good guess. And I bet you’re having Scotch.”

We smile. Kindred spirits.

“Vodka?” I ask, hoping it’s not.

She shakes her head, electric-red curls bouncing around that lovely face. “Gin. Three olives. Dirty.”

“Dirty huh?”

“The dirtier the better.”

I call the bartender over and order her drink. He notices Reesa smoking and starts to put the kibosh on it, but I cut him short, telling him he’s got it all wrong again. This time a flicker of doubt crosses his face. That’s the problem with the hypnotic gaze. It’s a nice tool to have, but some people are more receptive to it than others. It usually correlates with intelligence. I wonder if I’ve already over-used it with this fella, and if the situation is about to become awkward, but then the troubled look in his eyes disappears and he goes to mix the drink.

“So, you’ve been here before?” she asks.

I nod. “But it’s been a while.”

“Ever catch my show?” she asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t think you were doing the show last time I was here, but I’d’ve been back sooner if I’d known what I was missing out on.”

She likes this. It earns me a smile.

“This seems like your kind of place.”

“Yeah?”

It’s her turn to nod. “I mean, this place is old school and you seem like an old school kinda guy.”

I smile wryly. “Old school. That’s me all right.” Emphasis on the old.

“I like old school,” Reesa assures me. “It’s a compliment.”

“Then that’s how I’ll take it.”

We smile. The drinks come. I enjoy seeing the perfect imprint her full bottom lip leaves on the rim of her martini glass.

As much as I’d like to make this about pleasure, it’s about business, so I get to the point and ask her how I can help her.

“I want you to find my fourteen year-old sister, Raya. She’s gone missing.”

“How long?”

“A couple months now. She was living with me and my boyfriend, but she ran away.”

I smell a lie in there somewhere, but I let it go. Everybody lies. I’m more disturbed by the fact that she has a boyfriend, if you want to know the truth.

“And no one’s looking for her?”

“The cops say they’re looking, but they haven’t found her. What’s one more teenage runaway to them?”

“Why was she living with you instead of your parents?”

“If you knew my family you wouldn’t have to ask. Let’s just say my dad put the fun in dysfunction and let it go at that.”

I nod. “So she was living with you and your boyfriend?”

“Ex-boyfriend. I left him a week or two later.”

Hearing it does my heart good. “Mind if I ask why?” I’m prying. So sue me.

“You want the short list or the long?”

“Just gimme the highlights.”

“Well, on top of being a complete shitbag of a human being, it turns out he was fucking everything he could get that little pecker of his into.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk like that. It’s not ladylike.”

“No one would ever mistake you for anything but a lady,” I say, cashing in on another smile.

“Anyway, it’s my own fault. I broke my rule about never dating anyone with anything to do with Hollywood. I know better. Of course the icing on the shit cake was his endearing meth addiction.”

“He was a tweaker, huh?”

Reesa nods, absently pulling a red curl out and letting it spring back into place as she speaks. “We both were. That’s part of why I left. I was sick of it. I hated living that way. I wanted to clean myself up. So I left. Went into rehab. When I got out six weeks later I tried to find my sister, but... ” She shrugs helplessly, shakes her head.

“No dice,” I finish for her.

She shakes her head again. “So, do you think you can help me, Mr. Angel?” Holding her martini glass in both hands, Reesa drinks, watching me with big gorgeous doe-eyes as she does it.

“I could, but I’ll be honest, I don’t come cheap. I charge five hundred a day plus expenses.”

“Money I’ve got. A girl can make a pretty good living taking her clothes off, or hadn’t you heard?”

I match her smirk for smirk and take my notepad out and flip it open to a blank page. “Have you talked to your ex since you left?”

“Do you call the warden after you break out of prison?”

“Good point. But I should talk to him. Your sister lived there with you. Maybe she forgot something when she left and went back for it. Maybe she’s tried to call and get in touch with you. Anyway, it’s a place to start. What’s his name and number?”

Reluctantly she gives them to me. I chicken-scratch the name Vin Prince and two numbers in my pad—one for a cell, the other for his production company. “Address?”

“I don’t know,” she tells me. “We lived in Los Feliz when we were together, but last I heard he’d moved to some fancy-schmancy place up in the Hills I’m sure he can’t afford.”

“I’ll find it,” I say. Then I ask for the names and numbers of anyone else who might know something about where I can find Raya, along with the addresses of places she frequented. Reesa’s embarrassed at how little she can come up with, proving once and for all that the best parenting doesn’t get done on crystal meth. In the end I’ve got the name of an eighteen year-old boyfriend of Raya’s and the name of a Hollywood Goth club they went to together, and that’s all I’ve got. It’ll have to do.

The last thing I ask for is a picture of Raya; something I can show around. Reesa says she thinks she has one in her dressing room and goes to get it. I watch her go. I’m reminded of the ocean. I light a cigarette. I wait.

When she comes back she hands me a snapshot of an attractive fourteen year-old girl with dyed black punk-cut hair caught in the act of rolling her eyes at the camera. The resemblance to Reesa is undeniable. I pocket it.

Though I want to linger, my own addiction is tightening the leash, so I tell Reesa I will look into it, drain my drink, and stand to go.