Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 9

"All right. Our new consultant and I can do some more exploring. You up for that, Dawn?"

Absolutely. She'd drop from exhaustion rather than blow the chance to get more answers. Boiling frustration was keeping her awake, edgy.

"Ready if you are," she said.

"Good." Kiko smiled. "I've been checking at Frank's favorite hangout every night, just to see who walks in and who's willing to give me some worthwhile information."

"The Cat's Paw," Dawn said. "I picked Frank's drunk b.u.t.t up from there more than once before I left town."

Breisi took an unnecessarily sharp turn onto the 405. Dawn slid to the door, her shoulder banging into it. She gasped but squelched the full yelp of her pain.

"Perdone me," the older woman said. "The Dodgers bleeping lost."

"b.u.mmer," Dawn ground out.

"Would you just drive?" Kiko said, flicking Breisi in the ear like an irritating sibling.

Breisi shot him a hurtful glance, but stuck to her business.

They kept to their own thoughts on the way to Limpet and a.s.sociates, where they dropped off their taciturn driver. During the ride, Dawn had been fending off her disquietude, her body full of fevered wants, her mind conjuring scenarios of what she might find at the Cat's Paw besides information about Frank.

As she took the driver's seat, Kiko gave her a hard look. She blocked him, but it wasn't soon enough.

"We're going to the Cat's Paw towork," he said.

A flare of mortification charred her. "I know that."

"Just making sure you don't have any ulterior motives while we're slinking around the bar, Dawn. After we're done, you're going to need to come back with me, not go home with someone else, okay? Besides, you know there's bad stuff out there-AIDS, hepat.i.tis C, and all that."

He angled away from her, probably antic.i.p.ating a good wrist s.n.a.t.c.hing.

"Is there something wrong with s.e.x?" she asked, unfl.u.s.tered, even if she did want to belt him.

"No, no, you should just watch out a little more, you know? I probably deserve a good hit from you, but your vibes are so obvious that I couldn't shut up." A few seconds dragged by, and he finally relaxed at her stillness, letting down his guard and facing the front window. "We really do need you, Dawn. Be careful with yourself."

She jammed the vehicle in gear and took off, not bothering to answer. Wondering exactly why someone dared to need her.

And not liking it very much at all.

EIGHT.

THEOTHERPI.

NESTLEDon a lonely stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, the Cat's Paw was one of those places that hung rusted license plates on the walls as if they were fine art. It showcased vintage posters with things like 3-D women hefting sledgehammers over their heads, an act that, of course, made their size D b.r.e.a.s.t.s the focal point of every uber-heteros.e.xual male within a mile radius. The walls were planked wood, the chairs high, wobbly, and swivelly. There was a polished faux-marble bar-the owner's pride and joy-and brick pillars reaching up to the ceiling. It smelled of strong alcohol and soured ambitions while a broken-down air conditioner and old Johnny Cash tunes created music.

It was Frank's kind of joint, Dawn thought. And for tonight, it was hers, too.

As "Tennessee Flat-Top Box" chugged along on the jukebox, she held a baggie of ice that the bartender had provided against her left wrist. It was an old injury earned from her second movie, when she'd landed wrong on a padded mat during some flying harness work. Clearly, her wrist had belatedly decided that, along with the rest of her body, it hurt. Since she was fairly new to stuntwork, she didn't have a lot of war wounds yet. Sure, a scar here and there, and a number of close calls, but otherwise, the injuries didn't give her much grief.

Unless she'd been thrown around by vampires.

Across the raised, scarred table, Kiko held his own ice baggie against his shoulder as he stared at the broad-shouldered, front linemaneseque man they were interviewing.

Just having returned from a short engagement at the county clink, Hugh Wayne fumbled off his grimy Raiders cap and cleared the sweat from his forehead, smas.h.i.+ng the hat right back on at a jaunty slant. His dull brown eyes, shot through with red, darted around the room as he slurred, "d.a.m.n shame what happened to Frank. Yeahyeah, d.a.m.ned shame."

"Hey, Hugh?" Dawn said with all the patience she'd been storing up. "You told us that before. Is there anything else? Are you sure you haven't seen Frank around?"

When his eyes focused on Dawn, the pupils expanded, retracted, then expanded again. He was highanddrunk, judging from his Wild Turkey cologne.

"I'm tellin' you, Dawnie, he hasn't been here lately. I'm sorry though. Realreal sorry."

Kiko dropped his ice bag onto the table, disgruntled. They'd already talked to three other patrons, plus Maury the bartender. No one knew anything.

She sat back in her chair, kept her eyes on Hugh. He was one of Frank's bar buddies, but that didn't mean he knew squat about her dad. Boozy relations.h.i.+ps weren't notorious for their longevity or depth. It saddened her to realize that these were the people Frank called friends nowadays.

"Hugh..." She waved her hand in front of his face, attracting his attention again. "That's it. Can you just tell me what Frank was like the last time you saw him? How he acted...if there was anything different about him?"

The drunk reached for his beer again but, automatically, Dawn placed her hand over his. She was used to babysitting adults who drank too much.

Kiko's gaze settled on her hand, a smile on his face. It occurred to her that they were in her arena now, that she had some interviewing skills, too, and that, maybe he was just as fish-out-of-water as she'd been back at the Pennybakers'.

"Actin' different?" Hugh wrinkled his forehead in thought. "Frank sat here gettin' cozy with Jack Daniels, told a few jokes, then left, jus' like any other night. Say, Dawnie, you still doin' movies?"

A drunken tangent. How refres.h.i.+ng. "Yes, Hugh, stuntwork. So Frank was his old self? He never said anything...off...to you?

Nothing about any trips he might be taking?"

"Naw." Hugh used one hand to tip back his baseball cap, leaned forward in his chair, fumigating the area with his breath. "You ever wanted to act, Dawnie? Because I got my hands on a great schrip...script."

The next thing Dawn knew, Kiko was just about dancing on the table to get Hugh's attention. "What kind of script?"

Knowing this was the end of the line for Hugh's interview, Dawn slumped back in her chair. "Kiko."

"Just a sec. What kind of parts you looking to cast?"

Dawn sent Kiko a confused glance. Wasn't this the guy who was so good at reading people? Or maybe he was just playing around with Hugh, wheedling more information out of him. Yeah, of course, that was it.

Then she took another good look at Kiko's energized body language. If she didn't know better, she might've said that he was so much of an acting wh.o.r.e that he couldn't read a scam when confronted with one.

No. No way. Not the guy she'd seen in action tonight. Not Lethal Weapon Daniels, he of the steel-trap bad-cop mind.

Squinting, Hugh Wayne held his hands in front of his face, like he was composing a camera shot. "Picture this...Die HardmeetsMy Big Fat Greek Wedding."

"You know," Kiko said, his tongue practically hanging out, "Icanplay ethnic."

Dawn ran a jaded gaze over his blond hair and blue eyes. Whatever.

Hugh raised his hand to high-five Kiko but lost strength, his palm slapping his thigh. "You got any money to invest, 'cos this's gonna kill at the box office...."

Dropping her ice, Dawn stood, "helping" Kiko out of his chair. "He'll send you his head shot and resume." She fished her business card out of a back pocket. Sure, it was kind of mushed up from all her rolling around and almost dying tonight, but it was legible. "Call me if you remember anything. It's really important."

"I will, Dawnie, I will." Hugh stifled a burp. "I sure am sorry 'bout Frank."

"Thanks." She blinked, held it together. "Me, too."

As she and Kiko left, she caught Kiko holding his fingers to his ear like a phone and mouthing "Call me" to Hugh.

She stopped by the doorway, facing him. "Hugh Wayne is a hustler, man. The only script he has is probably some scribbles on a c.o.c.ktail napkin. He's no producer."

Actually, that wasn't true. Everyone in this town produced. Everyone directed movies. Just because they'd never actually done either didn't provide any sort of hurdle.

It looked like the air had been let out of Kiko's happy balloon. "Are you sure, Dawn? Because I don't want to miss a chance. You gotta grab 'em right away in this town or you find out someone else took the role you were born to play."

Dawn rested her hands on Kiko's upper arms, avoiding his wounded shoulder. "So tell me more about how your psychic powers work. Can you read shysters who're selling beachfront property in Death Valley, too?"

He looked shocked. "You really think he was zooming me?"

"Oh, boy. Yeah, I think so."

As he looked up at her, Dawn realized that she was getting awfully close to being protective. Why the h.e.l.l she wanted to keep a smart aleck like him safe from all the evil producers of the world, she couldn't say. But before she could get too mushy, she dropped her hands from his arms, made a concerted effort to scope out the bar.

When she was done, he was still staring. She fidgeted, playing with her long moon earring, absently drawing his attention away from whatever he might be seeing on her face.

"You might wanna take that off before the next fight," he said. "It'd hurt to have it yanked out."

He was worried about earring yanking. d.a.m.n, and here she'd been focusing on getting her throat ripped out. Her bad.

"The design's cool," he added.

The smooth curves of the moon and the s.h.i.+ft of the tiny hanging rubies and silver felt more real against her fingertips than anything else she'd come into contact with tonight. She kept touching it, unwilling to let go. "A bunch of stunt doubles from one of my jobs, this low-budget horror fest calledBlood Moon, got together one night and bought mementos. The guys got their lobes shot with moon studs but I'd already been pierced, so I got something a little more detailed...."

She trailed off, thinking how irrelevant her old life was right now.

Changing the subject, she asked, "You getting any vibes from this place? Is it worth hanging around?"

When he didn't answer, she glanced at him against her better judgment. Kiko was still watching her, like he was reveling in how she'd gone all mother hen on him.

h.e.l.l, she couldn't return a favor?

"Truthfully," he said, "I don't get even a quiver of humanity in this place, much less thoughts. Just a bunch of emptiness."

"Interesting." She looked away, crossed her arms over her chest, keeping his gratefulness at bay.

"Yeah,interesting."

Did he have to be so bubbly about her being nice to him? "You can stop grinning like a fool now, Kiko."

"I'm going to do that."

His cell phone rang, and he answered it, leaving Dawn to her own devices.

She glanced from table to table, and not entirely because she was searching for more helpful witnesses. No, that s.e.xual stirring- the antidote to a stressful day-was getting to her.

Just something quick and easy, she thought. What would be the harm? If she could find a tourist, a non-regular, someone who'd never come to this bar again....

Kiko flipped his phone shut. "That was Breisi. The boss wants to see us at two a.m., so we've got a couple hours to while away. I vote for going back to the office."

She hesitated. A couple of hours. More than enough time.

"You go on ahead," she said casually. "I have a gut feeling there's something more here. I'll take a cab back."

He paused, threw his hands in the air. "Oh, no..."

At the end of her rope, she turned on him, bending down so they were face to face. "I'm not on the market for a lecture."

For the first time, he lookedather, notinher, and the expression on his face indicated that he didn't understand, wouldn't ever understand.

She was so taken aback by his reaction that she didn't have time to appreciate the fact that he'd kept his promise about staying out of her thoughts.

He shook his head, disappointed in her. Prude.

"Right," he said. "Well, s.h.i.+t, I mean, who am I to think that you have any pride?"

As Dawn stepped back, nicked by his comment, he continued.

"As a big girl, you know how to use that crucifix you stuffed in your boot just in case any more of those fun-loving red-eyes show up. The only reason I'm leaving you here alone is that we've found that they don't like to tangle in public. The boss says vamps value their secrecy too much to open a can of whoop-a.s.s on a crowd. Still, be on your toes. You can't ever be sure about anything." He turned around. Then, shaking his head, he faced her again, skin red. "d.a.m.n it, forget it. I'm just going to wait in the car."

With that, he pushed out the door, leaving her alone.

A whoosh of summer night air washed over her as she just stood there, wondering if she should go after him. But what good would that do? What would be the point? She was what she was, and she didn't have to apologize for it.

Still...G.o.d, was he really going to wait outside as she picked someone up? What, was he going to follow her to a hotel or whatever, too?

Thoroughly annoyed, Dawn strode up to the bar, took a seat. It was midnight, and most of Frank's buddies were either head- down on the table or so tanked that they couldn't see straight. She knew that if he were here it'd be the same story.

The bartender, Maury, appeared before her. He was bald, his two front teeth capped in gold. "What's your pleasure?"

"Just bottled water."

"To flush out those toxins, eh, Dawnie? Comin' up."

As she laid a couple of dollar bills on the bar, Maury served her. She played with her c.o.c.ktail napkin, tearing at the edges until it resembled the blade-saw in Breisi's crossbow. Freaked, Dawn crumpled it up and sipped at her drink.