CHAPTER 20
You walk down the streets of L.A. at night and the ghosts of the past are with you, around you, watching you sometimes. Here on Broadway, walking home, I sense the ghost of Pantages. Alexander Pantages had been the most powerful theater owner in the 1920s. He’d also been a known womanizer. In 1929 a seventeen-year-old dancer came screaming out of his office, her dress torn, claiming she’d been raped. Pantages was defended by the man who became the most famous lawyer of his day, Jerry Giesler.
Pantages was convicted, but Giesler got it reversed on appeal. He was acquitted the second time. The supposed victim, Eunice Pringle, admitted on her death bed that it had all been a set up by a man who’d wanted to bring Pantages down and take control of his chain.
The name of the man was Joseph P. Kennedy.
So when I walk these streets at night I am never at perfect ease, even though I am already dead. It’s just the collective fog of uncertainty that seems to hover over everything. And now more than ever because Lucifer is somewhere near, doing his thing.
I was a block away from Angels Flight now, on Broadway, which is not well lit. I thought I heard the sound of a Crown Vic coming my way.
If so, it might contain a detective named Strobert . . .
But it was not.
It was something in the dark, following me. I caught it darting into a building’s doorway as I looked quickly behind me.
Okay, if it was a man I could let him come. I had Emily at the ready. An alcoholic can choose not to buy a bottle, but what if the bottle follows him home and clonks him over the head? Then I say he has every right to drink it. And if a brain comes at me with ill intent, then I’m justified in ingesting it. Such is the natural law according to Mallory Caine.
But there was also the chance it was a creature of the night, and my instinct told me it was probably a werewolf.
Could it be Steve Ravener? Was he following me for some strange reason of his own?
Or was it one of those wolves from the Sajak pack? One of those who’d shouted “Meat!”
If so, I didn’t want any part of it. Because while he couldn’t kill me, he could do some major-league ripping, and I am kind of particular about my looks. I prefer to have both arms and legs attached, thank you very much.
But I was ill equipped to fight a werewolf without some weapon or protection.
I couldn’t run. A wolf would jump me in no time.
Why hadn’t he?
How I wish I had Max with me now. Max, my guide, who had protected me at my birth and given me invaluable advice at crucial times in my recent existence. As annoying as his voice had been, he’d been a friend indeed.
I was only two blocks from my loft. Just two. If I could make it there . . .
Taking a step backward, I watched for movement. All I saw was the drift of some cross traffic on Third Street.
For a long moment nothing moved.
And then he came at me.
He was on two legs, pants but no shirt, his hairy body and face only slightly less dark than the encroaching night.
I had exactly one second to move.
Street fighting instinct took over.
What I did was duck the moment he leapt, then shoot my shoulder up. Bam. The howling thing went tail over muzzle, took one roll, and hit a wall.
In a normal street setting you’d take off running once the opponent was down. You don’t stick around like some Charlie’s Angel thinking you can kick butt. You get the hell out of there.
But he was up as quick as a cat, snarling.
“Enjoy this,” he said.
I reached in my purse for Emily.
And I counted it a small victory that the wolf did not immediately spring again. He was thinking now, wary of me.
“That’s right, wolf,” I said. “You better be scared.”
“Not scared!”
He came at me again, leaping from a distance of about ten feet. I anticipated this, dropped to one knee, and thrust out with Emily.
The point got him on the inside of the right thigh. It was a nice score, but it came with a cost. He bit a chunk out of my left arm.
That made me mad. But not as mad as he was, the crybaby. He started howling like his paw was caught in a bear trap.
Jeez, what was it with werewolves?
Emily, dear Emily. I rolled in my pain and jabbed the wolf’s other leg. He screamed twice as loud as before.
My arm did not bleed, as that’s something I thankfully don’t do, but it was going to leave an ugly scar. I have knife wounds and bullet holes in me. I was like a barroom dartboard in some places.
Anyway, I started running, hoping that my two nicely placed pokes would take away some of his own running ability.
No such luck.
I heard him snarl and chuff and come at me again.
I might’ve been killed, if it weren’t for the woman with the killer Chihuahua.
There is some dispute about where the Chihuahua came from. Was it Mexico? Or Europe?
Some say the dog originated on the Island of Malta. But have you ever heard of The Maltese Chihuahua? Sam Spade would not have bothered.
Most likely the Chihuahua emerged from Aztec culture, bred to be part of ritualistic sacrifices. Where the ancient Jews used lambs and doves, the Aztecs used little Chihuahuas as expiation for sins and sometimes for going along with the dead as spirit guides.
I think this one on the L.A. street had been bred from the souls of ancient warriors, because this little guy took on wolfie with an abandon that Genghis Khan would have cheered. With little barks and growls it jumped from the woman’s arms to wolfie’s neck and bit down. Wolfie howled and spun around and slapped at the giant rodent.
The woman, who had hot pink hair and was corpulent and dressed in clothes that were much too tight for her girth, screamed, “Carlos! Carlos!”
I would’ve stood there and cheered, or run away, but something about the little dog inspired me. So I went up to the distracted werewolf and kicked him right in his lupine jewels. As he doubled over, I whipped Carlos off his neck and tossed the little sausage to the woman. “Get him out of here, now!”
The woman held the killer Chihuahua at arm’s length and ran off into the night.
A Hyundai was cruising to the corner. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had rolled-up windows and gave me an idea.
I only hoped the passenger door was unlocked. It was. I jumped in and closed the door. The car smelled of egg salad.
Behind the wheel was an older man with old-fashioned, owl-shaped glasses and a bow tie.
“What are you doing, young lady?” he said.
“Shh,” I said. “Drive.”
“I am not going to drive. What do you want? I’m not interested in buying sexual favors.”
“Do I look like a hooker to you?”
“I don’t know what a hooker is supposed to look like, and I—”
At that moment a giant, growling wolf face slammed into the man’s front windshield. It snarled and drooled and clawed at the window.
The man screamed. It was a low, rather tepid scream, but it did the job under the circumstances. It got his heart thumping, I’m sure.
“Hit the gas!” I said.
The bow tie man did as he was told, and the Hyundai lurched forward. The werewolf rolled off the hood.
“God help me!” the man said.
“Sorry, Jack, I’m the closest you’ve got. Just don’t crash.” I looked behind and saw the wolf running after us. “He’s coming.”
“Oh my God!”
“Look out for the truck!”
The bow tie man swerved and almost nicked a truck going across Broadway. We were now getting into some light traffic. I wondered if the wolf had enough cheek to keep pursuing us. That was a silly question. Werewolves don’t do much thinking when they’re in this state, smelling blood, hunting prey. But when I looked back again I didn’t see him.
“If you keep driving,” I said, “you’ll be fine. Just don’t hit any red lights.”
“What was that?”
“Oh, you know people in L.A. Probably on drugs.”
“No, he had a hairy face. He looked like a monster.”
“I don’t believe in monsters,” I said.
The lights stayed green and we went about four blocks before coming to a stop. The bow tie man was breathing hard.
“Easy,” I said. “We’re out of harm’s way now, I think.”
“Who, may I ask, are you?”
“Thanks for the ride. Drop me off.”
“Let me at least buy you a drink.”
“You’re a sweet guy, but I’m not interested.”
“Suppose I make you interested.” He said it in such a way as to pretend menace.
“Suppose I eat your eyes?”
He slammed on the brakes. “Get out!”
“You don’t know how lucky you are,” I said. And got out.
Back home, back to my loft, back to my safe haven. I went into the bathroom and checked out my arm. The werewolf had taken a bite out of my tricep area. The underside of my arm looked like the Apple logo.
I dressed it as best I could.
I was just about to settle in for a look at what was on TCM. They were having a Marx Brothers marathon. Duck Soup, Horse Feathers, Monkey Business, A Night at the Opera. Nice. I could settle in with Groucho and Chico and Harpo. I wouldn’t even mind a little Zeppo. I just wanted to laugh and they were the perfect vehicle for it.
But then the air became eerily still. I have a calm-before-the-storm sense, and was definitely feeling it now.
Through my open window came the werewolf.
All I could grab was a softball bat. When I was with the PD’s office I’d played on the office softball team, but hadn’t picked up a bat since my re-upping. It was always in the corner, though, as a hopeful sign I might be able to play again someday.
Now it was for my survival as a normal-looking zombie. I did not want to be one of those helpless heads, like Mickey Cohen.
How had he managed to climb the building and burst in like this?
“Zombie!” he growled.
“We’ve established that,” I said. “And unless you want me to hit your head for a triple, you’ll get out.”
“Zombie!”
“Yes! Good one! Who sent you?”
“Dead,” he said. He started to circle around my sofa, looking for an opening.
“I hit .627 at the PD’s office,” I said. “This is going to sound great on your melon.”
He kept coming, slowly, as I moved at the same pace, keeping the sofa between us. I knew he could spring over it at any moment. I held the bat in hitting position. I just kept thinking of his head as a slow-pitch softball.
He made his move, and I hit a solid double with his head. Then whacked him in the ribs. He doubled over. I dropped the bat and pushed his shoulders and he fell backward out of my window.
It was fifteen floors to the street.
Thinking clearly, I closed my window and pulled the blind.
I went through the garage and emerged on Main Street, then walked around the block as if I were returning home. A small crowd was gathered there now. Police had cordoned off the scene.
“What happened?” I asked a patrolman keeping watch on the crowd.
“Please move along,” he said.
“But I live here. This is my building.”
“Oh, then please wait. The detective would like to speak to the residents.”
“Which detective is it?”
“His name is Mark Strobert.”