35

CACTUS HUNG IN SUSPENSION, AS IF FLYING ABOVE the world that was trying to get rid of him. Tube in his mouth making him breathe. Swathed in more, and cleaner, bandages than Karloff’s mummy. Under the linen I knew his back side was a model of No Man’s Land, littered with torn flesh instead of shrapnel and barbed wire.

“Hey, Sarge.” I said, knowing he’d hate it, but he said nothing. I still wore the shredded wrestling costume, but I’d acquired a white doctor’s coat to complete the ensemble. It was a good compliment to his own. “Sorry about the duds, but you hated my fashion sense anyway, and are probably glad that I showed up without a clown suit. See, I had to sweet-talk a nurse to get me in—she got me the lab coat—and I have a meeting to attend, so this will be quick. It is close to noon, which is the time they have scheduled to pull your plug. But I got the guy. The real pusher behind the attack. He’s charred in an amusement park attraction’s basement. So, my promise has been kept. If you died now, you wouldn’t haunt me.”

Okay, I was stretching the truth. There was so much more to it. Maybe I’d explain it all to Cactus one day, but for now it was enough for him to know that Sonny, the no-good bastard whose hand had thrown the grenade, was dead. I fulfilled my promise to Cactus. Besides, he wasn’t going to die.

I checked the door. “But I’m going to do you one better.”

With the deft hand of a career card sharp, I took out the tube and placed it on the bed. Then, I unscrewed the encoder’s compass, took out its petal of Black Lotus, and placed it with the remaining petals I’d had in my wrestling boot. “Good enough to heal Sumerian warriors, so I suspect it will do in a pinch for a real Apache warrior.”

I placed the leaf in his mouth and closed it.

And waited.

And waited.

“Not sure about the dosage, Sarge, but that’s eight times the amount that sent Kodiak over the edge.”

I waited.

The door opened and a doctor wearing wire-rimmed glasses looked at me like I’d fallen out of a ZAP! comic. “What the hell is going on here? Who are you?”

I kept my hand clamped on the old soldier—and then his lips twitched. I raised my hands in surrender. “I’m the trustee of Cactus’s estate.”

“Nurse,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Where’s that lawyer who’s been hovering around?” A reply from outside the room I couldn’t make out. “Then find him!”

The doctor turned back to me. “This man’s wishes are to be carried out, whoever you are.” He noticed the tube. “You took that out? Are you a doc—” He noticed the name embroidered on the coat. “What the hell? That’s MY coat. I’ll have you—”

Cactus’s eyes snapped open. “You touch that man,” he said in dusty gasps, “and I’ll have you up on charges of medical misconduct for letting an idiot like this anywhere near me. Now get out! GET OUT! I am alive and will kill you!”

He left.

Cactus’s body sagged. “I can’t believe it.”

“What, that you’re alive?”

“That you did it.” And for the barest of moments, Cactus smiled. “You did good, Brimstone. Now let me rest.”

I smiled. “You’re welcome, Sarge.”

I opened the door and he snickered. “And you’re right. You do have the worst taste in clothes for any man on two legs.”

“Ain’t that a fact.”

I exhaled a day’s worth of hellish worry, mouth so dry I could drink the Amazon without quenching my thirst. I dragged myself to the “quiet” room I’d been allowed to use, thanks to a sweet nurse.

Inside was a man in a blue double-breasted blazer with immaculate salt-and-pepper gray hair. “You must be Mr. Brimstone,” he said, annoyed and unimpressed.

“You must be Foster Carruthers. Alan’s big brother. The head banana at Caruthers and Caruthers Pharmaceutical.”

“Please make this short,” he said. “I was intrigued by the message you left with my secretary, about this case, but I’m a busy—”

“Yes. This case,” I closed the door. “See, I know it’s you who’s behind it all. Oh, not directly. Hitler never signed anything saying ‘I am the one behind the death chambers.’ Plausible deniability, and all that jazz. But your company is fucking around with something far more dangerous than you can imagine. And you’re using the good people of L.A. as lab rats. It stops here.”

“Your allegations are as ludicrous as your attire.”

“But no less honest,” I said. “I’m wearing the gear of a man’s whose heart exploded because of you. I rescued a bunch of kids who would have died under the supervision of your guy, Sonny. See, I asked Alan about his lighter. Really nice. He said people only get that if they’re long-term and loyal.”

“I suppose you have proof of this man having one of our lighters? Because, even if you did, it’s meaningless.”

“Oh, in a court of law? Absolutely. But I don’t do court cases. Too much ink. And no, Sonny’s arson left nothing to salvage but his bones and those of some of your victims. Couple of dozen in the basement, anyway. I’m sure there are more.”

“You are talking nonsense.”

“You did a fun trick with the attack on the veteran’s hall. Your operatives did a clumsy job of making it look like bikers were infiltrating the hippies. Using protests to cause havoc. That’s where the cops went, no doubt figuring they’d always be able to pin something on the Angels or the freaks.”

He stood. “You are a fool, talking idiocy, and wasting my time.”

The door behind me opened.

Kevin stood in it.

In his hands was a large desiccated root, or what was left of it. It stank of smoke. Black Lotus smoke.

Foster couldn’t disguise his recognition completely. His jowls shook.

“Now, I don’t know how you got hold of Black Lotus, let alone got it to California. Maybe somebody discovered it somewhere and sold it to your people. Maybe they stole it from Mick Butler, another man you murdered. It doesn’t matter, because it is gone. All of it. Every bud. Every leaf. Every petal. And we’re going to the incinerator in the basement to finish the job right.”

“You . . . you have no idea what you’ve done,” Foster growled. “We were . . . Alan was going to walk again.”

I swallowed. “Sorry. Your brother’s a good man, but his life shouldn’t be built on a pile of corpses.”

“Ants,” Foster said, reaching for the roots, then pulling back. “You people, all of you, you are ants. When the time arrives, you won’t even see us coming before we squash you out of existence.”

“Fleas,” Kevin said, catching the guy off guard. “We’re fleas, Mr. Carruthers, not ants. You see, fleas go where you can’t. You can’t really protect against us until you start scratching where we have bitten. By then it’s too late. We will have spread disease that we’re immune to. Try it again, Mr. Carruthers. Try using the people of Venice or Santa Monica. Try, and see how we bite back.”

Apoplectic, purple-faced, with eyes nearly spinning, Foster yanked open the door and stormed off just as Veronica arrived pushing Alan in his wheelchair.

“Foster?” Alan said. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ll talk at home,” he said, and shoved by his brother, then continued his storm, leaving with the kind of impotent rage that leads to an early heart attack—even if you’re not a wrestler.

“Thanks for the gardening work,” I said to Kevin. “Mind polishing it off?”

“They’ll never even find one ash,” he said. “I hope your friend is okay.” Kevin nodded at Veronica and Alan, turned a corner, and was gone. I felt a tad bit better about the future of the country.

“Friend?” Alan said. “Oh god, are we too late?”

“Easy,” I said. “Cactus woke up about five minutes before they were going to yank his cord.”

Alan smiled. “You must be relieved. Did you ever find out who was behind it? Is that why you called Foster?”

Veronica was in a lovely green outfit, including a designer scarf that covered the damage that I’d done to her neck. “No. Whoever did it was smarter than I was. Foster didn’t like hearing the confessions of a loser detective. Suspect he’ll pay someone far better than me to get to the truth.”

And that word punched my guts so hard. I wasn’t telling Alan and Veronica the truth about his brother’s evil or the nefarious deeds he’d ordered, but that wasn’t my job. There was another truth hanging around us like a bad smell. Looking at Alan in his chair, his face still bandaged from the shrapnel he’d taken, that I couldn’t help what happened next.

I went to one knee.

“Alan? I have something to tell you.’

He nodded, seriously, and Veronica clutched her scarf.

“I’m sorry.” I gulped. “I’m sorry for fucking your wife.”

His face went blank.

“Oh?”

I blinked. “Yeah. Uh, this would be where you punch me.”

He smiled. “She didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“That she told me. It’s fine. James, really. You both almost died. You saved her life. Hell, if I was you, I would have done it.”

Veronica scoffed. “Don’t talk like that! He’s just trying to be modern about such things.”

He laughed. “Come on dear, we need to speak to the doctor about my physio.”

They rolled away, leaving me shattered, surprised, and unnerved.

Veronica looked back, once, sizing me up, then sighed as if bored with a toy she’d outgrown overnight.

I stood in the hospital hallway, what was left of Herc’s shirt falling at my feet with every move, Jack’s trunks and boots smelling riper than hell. I fell down laughing.

“You finally gone mad, Jimmy?”

Above me was Detective Dix, and I put out—well, up—my wrists. “How about some silver bracelets, Dicky? I think I need some time on the county.”

He shook his head and stuck out his hand. No handcuffs hung from his fingers.

“Get up. We need to talk. And not here.”