20

“I ALMOST DIDN’T RECOGNIZE YOU,” VERONICA said, smiling, as her eyes executed judgments about my clothes that I assumed were in the affirmative, as her disdain of my earlier suit was now replaced by a quiet note of acceptance. Getting past her class bias was no mean feat. I’d have to send Aaron a “thank you” card. “I . . . also thought you might not . . . accept my invitation.”

“I’m grateful for you checking up on Cactus. And offering to help. That means a lot.” I would have said more, but I hoped that truth was enough to imply I had, indeed, accepted her invitation. Now I was stuck with Veronica Carruthers. “Tell me, do you like perfume?”

A joyous surprise lit her face. “Of course. What girl doesn’t?” I smiled easy. “But I don’t want to interrupt your case.”

I could not blow her off without risking Cactus’s life and my soul. She and Alan were the reason Cactus was getting first-class treatment. Being beholden to the rich was enough reason for me to refuse their tentacles of obligation, but a good man’s life was in the wings. “You’re not. I’m not a classy fellow, but I think a ‘thank you’ is in order. But I need your help. Would you mind escorting me to El Dorado? It will spoil the surprise, of course, but we’ll get to spend time together before I follow my next lead.”

“Is that what the gym bag is for?” she said.

“You study investigative science at Harvard?”

“Cornell, actually. But no. It is just that you’ve already changed clothes.” Her lips parted a bit.

I took a deep breath. Whatever scent she was wearing, it was sweet with a lingering savory note. The kind you wear on first dates when you’re at the country club, or so I’ve been told. “A clean suit is less conspicuous than a rumpled one covered in blood. But I’ve tucked my previous attire into the bag. Maybe a good dry cleaner can get the blood out.”

She smirked, then shook, then stumbled.

I caught her shoulders and held her up. “Veronica?”

“Sorry, I . . . just felt faint. Let’s walk. Walks help.”

Fainting was so common she knew the remedy was walks? I deferred to her expertise, though I wondered if she was faking. Arm-in-arm, we walked under the arch, heading for El Dorado. I ignored what I expected to be Candice’s glare at my backside, and hoped she viewed what was happening as me helping a woman in need. No bad ever came of that, surely.

The beat of her heels was rhythmic but muted. “James,” she said, a little breathy. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

I nodded, as if I knew exactly what she was talking about.

“It was so sudden. How did . . . why did you do it?”

Her weight was a light drag on me, just enough to keep me close but not so much that it would cause anyone to think I was assisting someone who had taken too many Valiums that afternoon. “Instinct. Training. Same as Cactus and every other man in that room. I protected what was closest to me.”

She squeezed my arm as if that had been the most romantic thing she’d heard since reading Byron at Cornell. “You did. I would have been a victim of those freaks if you hadn’t.”

“We don’t know what kind of freaks they were,” I said. “Political freaks. Hippie freaks. Freaky freaks.”

She laughed away my joke. “Is it wrong to want them punished?” “I just catch ’em and release them to the justice system.” “That’s enough for you?” she said, voice soft, as if to slip it in closer.

“There are guys who you could pay for such services, no doubt. But punishment requires a degree of certainty that requires too much work and isn’t that much fun.” I’d known men and women who got off on punishment of all kinds, from the pretend kind you saw in Betty Page’s photos to harder variations that left permanent scars.

Her sharpened tone kept time with the patter of her pumps. “You don’t want the men that put your friend in a coma punished?” “Never said that. But the price of doing it myself—”

“I’d want to.”

I began to realize that, for all the affection of her arm around mine and how tightly she held it, Veronica was in a one-woman play with me as a prop in the shape of both foil and audience. I stopped bothering to answer her questions and focused on what was important.

“Tell me what you’d do.”

She stopped and looked straight at me. “I’d hurt them for trying to hurt me. Like you do with a dog that won’t obey. I’d hurt them worse so, as you say, the price of disobedience would be so high they’d rather be docile at my feet.”

A part of me was very dark; the remaining sliver of the man I used to be. The one who almost believed Edgar’s world view. That sliver flexed when it heard Veronica. A gash of black desire opening so quickly I didn’t realize I’d woven my fingers in hers and that the huge diamond on her finger was leaving a mark. I relaxed my grip.

“Your dogs must be very happy.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “They never complain.”

We walked down the golden-lit hallway. The scent of her perfume gave way to something stronger and sweeter. The store was just ahead—dark brown, almost black—adorned with silver lettering that spelled out EL DORADO above the doorway. The scene refreshed my mind and snapped me back to remembering I had a married woman on my arm, one whose husband was a pharmaceutical kingpin and Vietnam war veteran in a wheelchair.

I straightened up. “Do you know the store well?”

She lifted her head, straightened her spine, and assumed the mien of the Queen of New England. “El Dorado is a retreat for me, a Venetian spa without all the boat people. They take care of you as you should be taken care of.”

My psyche cringed. “Charming.”

We entered a vast store full of golden-silver light. Mosaic flooring reminiscent of ancient Rome, glass shelving and pedestals with sparse goods that spoke of their high cost: creams, elixirs, maquillage, and, of course, perfume—all making the store smell like the sum total of avarice. I tried not to vomit. The place did make me uncomfortable.

“Every breath is like being born,” Veronica said.

To the left were five buttery chairs with stools and towels, like barber chairs without sinks behind them. Two of them were occupied by older generations of Veronica, feet soaking in tubs as two Latinas in black uniforms sat on low stools working on their nails with emery boards. Acoustic guitars and flutes played softly from hidden speakers.

“Isn’t it just perfect,” Veronica said, but it was no question.

“Why don’t you take a seat while I get your present?”

She gave me a dour look. “I don’t mean to be impolite, James, but you can’t afford anything in here.”

I smiled. “You’re basing this on my previous attire?”

“Among other clues.”

She was rapping her heel into my last nerve. “You’d be surprised at what I can save wearing clothes that hobos abandon.” Then my voice hardened, like I was commanding a mutt. “Take a seat.”

She bristled, then smiled, and did as she was told. “I love the scent lounge.”

I wanted to escape, but Cactus was still alive, and that meant I still had a chance not to owe the dead lifelong service. I approached a small desk made of marble pedestals and a glass top that stood before a door. Behind the desk was another dark-haired beauty. This one was regal with almond eyes, high cheekbones, and a long nose. She reminded me of an Argentinean I once knew, a woman who would have still been hot in Antarctica. La Bellaza wore a black blazer over a red silk blouse, her lips a splash of Spanish red wine. “May I help you, sir?”

“I’m looking for Margarita Diaz.”

She smiled with a confidence that almost made me blush. “And you have found her in El Dorado.”

I smiled, nodding my head at Veronica, who was saddling up, stockinged-knees close together. “See that woman? I need to buy her a gift that won’t put me in the poor house.”

Margarita Diaz grinned, started to open her mouth, and I finished my thought. “But I’m also here at the direction of Isabelle Caylao.”

Seamlessly, Margarita switched to a knowing nod. “A friend of Isabelle is family. Which makes you James.”

“She called?”

“No, but she has spoken of you. There are only so many Americanos who fit her description of you. I take it you are looking for something not found in stores?”

“Unless you have a time machine to ancient Sumer.”

Her confident gaze almost shook. “Exotic.”

“And deadly. Black Lotus.”

She nodded if I’d said Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. “Best we talk in the office.” She snapped her fingers twice. The two girls taking care of the three ladies stood and, lifting perfume bottles from trays at the ladies’ elbows, sprayed them each in the face.

And I tasted it.

Magic. Not strong. Not deadly. But real.

“They’ll be no concern to us for a few minutes.” All the woman were smiling. Veronica’s eyes were open, lips twitching.

“Is that real Spanish fly?”

Margarita smiled without showing her teeth, then tilted her head to the door.

The office was small, filled with a more serviceable desk, an ancient Meilink safe (“Guaranteed Fire and Water Proof”), and a brass coat hook. “Tell me, Mr. Brimstone, what do you know of Black Lotus?”

I dug into my pocket and held my specimen before her as she sat, legs crossed, in a plush, cream-colored leather chair.

“First, I have one.”

Her eyes finally betrayed something other than control: wild desire. She didn’t realize her hand had been reaching out until I put the flower back in my suit front pocket. “Now, now, looks are free, but touching is extra.”

She blinked away the bliss. “How do you know it is really Black Lotus?”

“The shape of the petals, the white skull of the center, and the way it tastes.”

She tilted her head. “Tastes? You tasted Black Lotus?”

“Not like regular people.”

“So, you’re not like regular people. No wonder Isabelle finds you amusing. And she’s not alone.” Funny how having something someone values raises your own stock by proxy. “Tell me all you know.”

I gave her the sit-rep of what I’d gathered and where, including the Legion Hall attack, Weasel’s rambles, and Jack Lumber’s death. “Can you tell me how in the name of all the gods and their bratty kids a flower that has not been seen since the days of Gilgamesh could be at in L.A. in the glorious year of Anno Domini 1970?”

She gripped her knee and pulled her leg in so I could see the slit of her skirt pull itself open. “People have searched for it for centuries. The last plant was said to be buried in the carcass of a Cimmerian warrior-king whose name was lost because all of his enemies were murdered, including all their wives and children and parents and siblings. There were no family lines left to immortalize his terror. Mr. Brimstone, this is astounding.”

“I hear that a lot. But I must admit you’re making me sad, Margarita. I thought you’d know more than I did, and it seems I’m the one telling stories of dead muscle men and crazed hippies. I need to know who was responsible for bringing it here.”

“You don’t care about the flower itself?”

“I don’t care about anything other than finding the man or men who did a job on my friend.”

“Then might I have it?” She shifted her knee, then rested it. “Please?”

Then I tasted it. Damn it, with all the perfume in the air, my senses were blinded and my tongue had lost its sense of direction, but there it was on my taste buds, as distinct as rotting gumdrops: deeper magic. Charm magic, no less. It was in the air. Thin and drenched in perfumes that scattered its scent. Smelling it late changed nothing. Thanks to Edgar’s tattooing of my aura with masochistic knifework and old sorcery called Aphrodite’s Tears, the charms here that led to massive sales of junk perfume and overpriced services meant jack shit to me.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun.

“Of course,” I said, and pulled the petals from my pocket, offering it just out of reach. She stood, defiant and smug, as she reached for the Black Lotus.

I palmed it and made the flower disappear.

“Bendejo!” Her hands drew back as if I’d been made out of sparks.

“Lovely scents,” I said as she leaned down with her hands on the desk. “Bet the normal gringos and gringettes are just fools for it. I love it. Please, keep up the work and drain their Fort Knox. Like you, I’m pretty fed up with rich white people.” I leaned down and mirrored her stance. “But try and play me like a puppet and I’ll make sure Izzy knows about your influence among the rich and damned. You know how she loves people who abuse her friends. Hell, there are folk tales in Manila about the little girl with the red left hand.”

Margarita’s hands trembled, once. “I’d very much like to avoid that.”

“Then talk. If I like what I hear, Izzy will have no reason to think you tried to charm her old boyfriend.”

Margarita stood up, head back, arms crossed. “My family has been hunting Black Lotus for generations.”

“The Spanish part of Sumeria?”

“Turks by way of Anatolia,” she said, voice now commanding from a stance of defiance. “Warriors turned herbalists and healers.”

“Every family needs a trade. Could you skip a few centuries so I can leave before my lady’s done in the Scent Lounge?”

“I almost forgot.” She tapped her desk three times, as if steadying her nerves. “My apologies. The trail of the Black Lotus was lost on the Silk Road in the eighteenth century. We hoped to find it when we discovered the research on ley lines.”

I gritted my teeth. “You believe in ley lines?”

“If something’s real, you don’t have to believe.”

“I don’t have time to debate the secret lines of magic that supposedly cross the Earth. Suffice to say I spent two years running around old rocks and desert wadis and found they meant nothing except to those who believe in the Loch Ness monster and that aliens built the pyramids, and some kids who thought Elvis was dead and replaced by a lost god of Egypt. Imagine the king of rock and roll, dead already.”

She sneered. “You never found anything because you don’t know how to look. Only one man did.”

“Oh god, not Alfred Watkins.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to talk or listen?” I shut my trap.

“Watkins was a fool, but he was also right in one regard: Ley lines are real, but they move, as surely as we move through space and time. The only way to find them is with a device of his own making. An encoder.”

I crushed my molars together. “Don’t tell me. You have one.”

“Yes. And it only works with a sample. Hence, it’s been useless.”

“And your price?”

“One leaf. Just one.”

“No chance. You’ll use it to find the plant it came from and I’ll never see either one again.”

“Mr. Brimstone, if you cannot find the Black Lotus plant, you will not find the men using it to hurt your friends. Just allow me to test what you have. If it is true, and you are a friend of Isabella, then you are worthy enough to fetch the plant.”

I felt the itch of having magic in my pocket. “Why do you want the whole damn plant?”

“It is ours by birthright.”

“What will you do with it? New deodorant for maniacs? This stuff is lethal, like LSD mixed with Sterno.”

“It is a great elixir for healing those hurt beyond the reach of common root and herb lore. Who would you rather see have Black Lotus: the men who tried to kill your friend, or little old me, sole proprietor of a perfume shop?”

My jaw tensed, then relaxed. “When can you get me the encoder?”

“After work. Are you at the hotel?”

The weight of the bag in my hand seemed to triple. “I’ll be at the Olympic. I have a show to do.”

She grinned. “Oh, are you a wrestler? Will you be in the ring? I love wrestling. It keeps so many simple people happy.”

“Let’s just say I’m part of the show. Meet me there. Bring the encoder.”

“We have a deal. So long as you give me one petal. Now.”

My lips shook, then I snapped my fingers and made the flower appear between thumb and index as if to say things were okay, which was a lie of epic proportions. She gasped. “A wrestler and a magician. You are, indeed, a jack of all trades.”

I plucked off a black petal. “Swear our deal is jake.”

She put her hands together. “I swear on the graves of my elders.”

I released thumb from index finger and held out the single stygian petal.

She reached into the desk, pulling out tweezers and a small bottle. She plucked the bladed petal and put it in the bottle. When she capped it with a squeeze bulb and tube, I realized it was an atomizer like those used for her fancy perfumes. Well, she had plenty available.

“You should see how your lady is doing, shouldn’t you?” she asked.

“She’s not my lady.”

“Even better.”

What did Margarita mean by that? Puzzled, but pleased to realize I’d soon be getting out of this aromatic emporium, I made my way back to the scent lounge to find Veronica the only woman left sitting. Her knees were together, pumps on the edge of a stool, pressing up and down, handing over a wad of twenties to the woman at her feet. “I cannot fathom how I didn’t buy more of this fragrance before, but I will take whatever you have in stock.” Then she noticed us. “James, you are missing the moment of the century.”

Charming. Veronica equated her vapid, doped joy with the Nineteenth Amendment, passage of the Civil Rights Act, and man walking on the moon. “Seems like you’ve had enough fun for the both of us.”

“Now where is my gift?”

Damn it. I forgot.

“It’s here, Mrs. Veronica.” Margarita had emerged from her office behind me. “A very special blend.” Then she squeezed the bulb of an atomizer she held and elbowed my side. I inhaled out of instinct.

Raw magic hit the air between me and Veronica, who inhaled deeply.

When we exhaled, desire seethed to life like a dormant dragon being electrocuted. This was magic strong enough to affect even me.

Veronica’s wrist was clenched in my right hand and all I could see in her eyes was the mirror gaze of lust that wouldn’t be denied.

“Get up.”

She did.

Margarita said something about thanking her, but all I could feel was a bottomless pit of fucking that I needed to fill.

And the old James Brimstone was back in the saddle like a bandit with a badge.