The Athena Factor (17 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

BOOK: The Athena Factor
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“I'm
leaving!”
Copperhead insisted as the Audi roared to life. “Get in, Gretchen! Or stay here.”
Gretchen snapped the cylinder closed, made a face of indecision, and bolted, bracing herself on the moving Audi as she pelted around the rear and sprinted to pull the passenger door open and dive inside.
Christal sagged in the darkness, gasping for breath. Shit! She'd never been shot at before. Bureau training was one thing. It was another to actually have someone try and kill her!
Her hands trembled as she fumbled for her cell phone. The shakes were so bad it took all of her concentration just to punch 911.
“Emergency response, how can I help you?”
a woman's metallic voice asked.
In the blur of an adrenaline high, Christal sputtered the address, noted that shots had been fired, that the subjects—two females wanted for questioning in regard to an incident at the Wilshire Hotel on Friday—were in a late-model Audi.
“Is anyone hurt?”
the voice asked.
“My God, Manny!” Christal's legs had gone to rubber. She felt wobbly as she ran for the door. Copperhead had left it swinging wide.
“I'm in the foyer,” Christal shouted into the phone. “I'm not touching anything.” She raised her voice. “Hello? Is anyone here?”
A voice, faint, could be heard. “Hey! God! Help me!”
Christal ignored the questions the 911 operator was calling and took the carpeted steps two at a time to the top floor. She hurried down the long hall, past doorways that she assumed were bedrooms, to the final door.
“I'm coming!”
“She
cut
me!” the panicked voice cried. “God, cut me loose!
Help me!”
Christal used her shoulder to push the last door open, taking a good look. She'd found a bedroom, all right. The room was bigger than the entire house she'd grown up in. Expensive white carpeting covered the floor. Most of the walls were mirrored, adding to the illusion of endless space. A huge walk-in closet opened off one side. The master bed was monstrous: a four-poster with a flat wooden canopy that looked like it was carved walnut. She could see the man, naked, spread-eagled. His head was up, the tendons straining in his gleaming neck, and he was staring at his crotch.
Christal's work at crime scenes caused her to pause, to notice the empty wine bottle on the nightstand, the glasses, one with wine still standing. On the vanity, a mirror was powdered with white and accented by a razor blade. A box of Trojans stood open beside it, with two torn wrappers on the floor beside the bed.
As Christal stepped closer, she could see that Manuel de Clerk was crying, his chest rising and falling with the sobs. Tears trickled down his sweat-slick cheeks. When he looked her way, it was with abject terror.
“She cut me!” he cried. “God, help me! Call an ambulance.”
Christal stopped short. Each wrist and ankle had been tied off to one of the sturdy bedposts with a white nylon rope. His black pubic hair glistened, damp and matted. She winced at the dark red stain that had formed between the man's muscular thighs. As she watched, another drop of blood fell from the tip of de Clerk's limp penis.
W
hen the light turned green, Lymon toed the shifter into first. The transmission made a metallic clunk, and the big Indian rumbled and shook as Lymon eased the clutch out and accelerated. He rolled the throttle, letting all sixteen hundred and thirty-eight ccs bellow. The Indian wasn't loud–Lymon hated loud pipes—but it had an authoritarian rumble that sent a tingle up his spine.
The lights on Santa Monica Boulevard seemed to pulse with brighter than usual color. Or was that just part of the high that came out of a nice night and being tuned to the bike and his passenger? He waved at people sitting in a sidewalk pizza place just because it was fun, and they were watching him ride past.
Sheela must have liked it, too; she tightened her hold on his waist. He fought the urge to reach down with his left hand and pat her leg where it rested against his hip.
“We should do this every night,” Sheela called over his shoulder.
“You've got a schedule. Rex would go into apoplectic seizures. You're worth millions. You've got to take care of all vour minions.”
“I thought a minyan was ten Jews?”
“If you happen to be orthodox, it's ten
male
Jews. But that's spelled different.”
“Details!” she cried.
“That's where the Devil is.”
He enjoyed her crystal laughter, and found himself smiling. Using a handful of front brake, he hauled the Indian down for the next red, pulling in behind a Tahoe and leaving himself a bike length for escape as he watched a sedan slow behind him. Only when he was satisfied the car had stopped did he shift into neutral and let the big V twin drop into its
rumpity rumpity
idle.
Sheela reached up and wrapped her arms around his chest. He could feel her as she hugged him. “Thank you, Lymon. I really needed this.”
“Hey, it's fun,” he answered, trying to keep his voice light. “It's what I do for relaxation.”
The light changed, and he accelerated with the traffic. The tranny shifted with a positive click. He was intimately aware of Sheela's body moving with his. They might have been matched, a curiously symbiotic twin sharing the night, the wind, and the sound. Part of it was the Indian's saddle. It forced the passenger to sit close. On the BMW she had been back, pretty much self-supported against the tour pack.
Damn his hide! His whole body seemed to be quivering, as if every nerve and muscle were aware of her. Even individual cells were howling out in primitive cognizance of the healthy female pressing against him.
Face it, it's more than just your hormones.
His brain was piqued, too. Sure, she was beautiful, and probably laced with the kind of pheromones his receptors were perfectly geared for, but he liked her. Enjoyed her company. He always had, from the moment he had first taken an interview with her.
It won't work!
he reminded himself sternly. She was a public lady, a superstar in a world where crossing the lines wasn't allowed. The few who had tried it had ended up as burned wreckage, picked over by the press and left to decompose.
“What?” she asked past the wind. “Did you say something?”
“Not out loud.”
Her laughter was throaty. “Yeah, I can hear your thoughts, Lymon. Scary, huh?”
“Not as scary as the thoughts I was just thinking.”
“About me?”
“You
can
read my mind.”
He turned his head just far enough to give her a sidelong look. That's how the magazines should have photographed her, like that, with excitement and deviltry bubbling in her eyes, a natural blush on her perfect cheeks, and a delighted smile.
Dear God, I love you.
The words came rolling out of his subconscious. Cowed, he returned his attention to the traffic.
If anything proved quantum uncertainty, Heisenberg, Schrödinger's cat, and chaos theory, it was LA drivers. Nothing could ever be predicted with any accuracy. Only the constantly wary survived. It was Darwin maxed to the tenth power. He had to concentrate on that. Whatever it took to keep his brain cells preoccupied with anything but the inevitability of biology.
“Now what are you thinking?”
“You can't tell?”
“Not at the moment.”
“I'm knotting my brain with quantum physics.”
“Why?”
“It's easier than Buddhism.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment, then propped her chin on his shoulder and said, “I've been imagining left-handed tantra myself.”
“What?”
“Ever read the
Kama Sutra?
Not the modern picture books, but the original?”
“We're not having this conversation.”
To save himself he flipped on the turn signal, leaned into a right, and rolled the throttle, sure enough of the surface to scrape a floor board and the center stand.
Sheela tightened her grip and let out a shriek of delight. As they rolled down Coldwater, he heard his cell phone ring.
Pulling over, he toed the bike into neutral and slipped the phone out of his pocket. He asked, “Yeah?” as he killed the bike, trying to hear.
“Lymon?”
Christal's voice was muffled by the foam of his helmet.
“There's trouble. It's Copperhead.”
“Where are you?”
“Manuel de Clerk's. The police are here.”
“I know where he lives. I've got to make a drop-off, then I'll be right there.”
“You might want to hurry.”
He thumbed
end,
winced as a low rider rumbled past with loud exhaust and even louder bass speakers cracking the metallic blue paint off the car's body.
“You heard?” Lymon asked.
“Everybody in the western United States heard. I hate
Tejano
when it rattles my teeth. So, what's the drop-off?”
“You. Before I ride over to Manny's.”
“I heard Christal say it was Copperhead.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, I'm going.”
“Sheela, I don't need—”
“Punch the starter button there on the handlebar. That's the red one just up from your thumb. That's it.”
The Indian chugged, popped, and rumbled to life.
“You work for me, Lymon,” Sheela added curtly. “Your objections are duly noted for the record. Christal, however, also works for me.”
“Oh, yeah? Who signs her checks?”
“You do, with my approval. I want to see what's happening. It's important to me.” She tightened her hold as he found a hole in the traffic and unleashed the big engine's massive acceleration.
Sheela whooped in delight, tightening her arms around his chest. Then she propped her chin on his shoulder again, saying, “Here's the way it lines out. You're driving this thing, Lymon, so you could take me home. It's your motorcycle, so I couldn't do anything about it. Then, once you'd dropped me off, I'd just have to drive over to Manny's myself.”
He gave her that half glance again, just to make sure she wasn't kidding. “You would, wouldn't you?”
“Just make it easier on both of us.”
“You win,” he relented, pulling into the left turn lane at Sunset.
As they waited at the light, she said in a soft voice, “Thank you, Lymon. You really are a sweetie, did you know?”
“Yeah. All sugar and honey, that's me.” But his stomach was flipping like Mary Lou Retton on the uneven bars.
“
G
od, it was weird!” Manuel de Clerk repeated in a half-panicked voice. He was sitting in one of the hulkingly plush leather chairs placed randomly in the great room downstairs. A white terry cloth bathrobe was wrapped around him and belted snugly at the waist. It covered his bandaged penis.
“Look, Mr. de Clerk,” one of the cops was saying, “we don't know what we've got to go on. So, you've got a nick out of your dick? Big deal. Sometimes you play a little rough, shit happens, you know what I mean?”
Christal stood against the wall, arms crossed as she listened. The room contained a knot of officers, most killing time as they enjoyed a glance around Manny's opulently furnished house and considered the implications of the small wound to his most private. All but a few of them managed to keep from snickering out loud, but it was in each officer's eyes.
The cop shrugged. “You picked the lady up, you let her into your house. Maybe she snagged a tooth on your dick, huh? The thing we do have a problem with is the cocaine on your nightstand. Now, it's not much, be we can't just ignore that.”
“My client doesn't have to address that at this time,” Vincent Quill, Manny's lawyer, said from the side. He was a
middle-aged man, balding. He wore a casual brown jacket and pressed cotton slacks. “He has already informed me that the woman brought the cocaine.”
“The woman did?” The cop glanced at his companions, who shrugged.
“Hey, I told you.” Manny dropped his head into his hands. “I just met her. She showed up at my table at lunch. Said her name was Lily Ann Gish. That she'd met me at a party at Bernard's. Didn't I remember her?”
“And you just invited her home?” the cop asked.
“Well, hey, she was …” He looked around, aware of the skepticism. “She was cool.” It sounded really lame.
“So you let some woman you didn't know into your house. You let her tie you up for sex. Then you say she whipped out a little knife and cut off a piece of your dick. After that, she just got dressed and walked out?”
Manuel nodded sickly. “Yeah, that's it.”
“End of story.”
“End of story.” He looked up. “But for the buzzer. The buzzer went off in her purse. She said, ‘Sorry, Manny. Something's up. And it ain't you anymore.' And … she reached in her purse, pulled out that little knife, and …” He swallowed hard. “I thought she was going to castrate me! You wouldn't believe the look in her eyes.”
“Triumphant?” Christal asked from the side.
“Yeah, God.” Manny was running his hands through his sweaty black hair. “I asked her what she was doing. Shit, I was scared, you know? She just smiled, grabbed me, and sliced a piece off.”
“Then what?” Christal asked. “Think about it. What did she do with the piece?”
The cops were giving her questioning looks. She raised a hand, stalling any outburst.
“Weird.” Manny looked up, a slight frown on his handsome face. “She dropped it into one of the rubbers. She took both of the used rubbers, knotted them, you know? Like tying them off. And flipped them into her purse.”
“She took the used rubbers?” the cop asked, glancing at the recorder.
“Yeah. I was screaming, telling her to let me loose. She just got dressed, never looked back, and walked away.”
“Did you hear the gunshots?” Christal asked.
“Bang. Bang. Bang.”
Manny nodded. “Yeah.”
Christal took a deep breath. Copperhead took a piece of Manny—and two used condoms. Chock up another bizarre twist.
“Do you need me anymore?” Christal asked.
“We have your statement,” the cop told her. “You'll have to fill out the paperwork if you still want to press charges against the woman.”
“Yeah,” Christal said woodenly. “The bitch was trying to kill me.”
“Do you think you can prove that?” Manny's lawyer asked unexpectedly.
Christal stared at him. “Granted, I'm new here, and as people have been reminding me, LA isn't the East Coast. But doesn't the discharge of a weapon when it's pointed in the direction of a fleeing human being indicate intent to you?”
The lawyer watched her flatly as Christal walked out of the room, found the front door, and stepped out into the night. She took a deep breath of the cool air and realized that a small crowd had gathered in the drive. Most were police; others, she suspected, were Manuel de Clerk's staff: managers, publicists, and the rest of the cadre that A-list stars seemed to require. Three guys she immediately recognized as security were standing on the other side of the yellow tape, looking particularly sheepish.
At the corner of the house, two of the crime scene specialists were looking for bullet holes in the weeping willow's thick bole. Evidently Gretchen-Mouse hadn't dropped any of her spent brass.
“Christal!”
She raised her eyes, seeing Lymon and Sheela standing off to one side beside a big-fendered motorcycle. She pursed her lips and descended the steps before walking along the edge of the drive to the tape. She nodded at the cop there, ducked it, and walked over to where Lymon and Sheela waited.
“What the hell happened in there?” Lymon gestured at the house.
“How'd you get this far?”
Lymon grinned. “Connections with the department That, and having an employee as a material witness helps.”
Christal related the entire story, glancing curiously at Sheela when she got to the part about Copperhead. Sheela fixed on it like a terrier on a rat.
“Jesus,” Lymon wondered. “She cut off Manny's dick and …”
“A small piece of foreskin actually,” Christal corrected. “It bled like sixty, but the guy will hardly have a scar once it heals. The nutty thing is, she took two used condoms. What do you do with two used condoms? The sperm dies when the temperature drops.”
“Souvenir?” Sheela asked, as if she didn't believe it.
“Witch,” Christal blurted, hardly aware she'd spoken.
“Ah, here we go again.” Lymon lifted an eyebrow. “We're back to broomsticks and black cats.”
Christal flashed a self-conscious smile. “As in take a piece of your victim to focus the evil on his body or soul.” She shook it off. “It's nothing. Tales of my childhood.”
“Mouse shot at you?” Sheela stepped closer, worry on her face. “Are you sure you're all right?”
Christal shrugged. “Hey, it was the first time. Shots in anger, and all that. God, Lymon, if I'd had my pistol with me I might have brought this whole thing to a conclusion.”
“Killing Mouse would have landed you in a pile of shit.” Lymon pointed a hard finger at her. “Don't even
think
it!”
“I wouldn't have killed her. Not if I could help it. Hey, I maxed the qualification. They were talking about the FBI pistol team. Maybe even the national pistol championship at Camp Perry. If I could have anchored Mouse, taken out two of the Audi's tires, we'd have them.”
“You'd have what? A gunfight over stolen rubbers and a tampon?” Lymon gestured with his hands. “Christal, this isn't the Bureau. We're
not
a law enforcement agency. Are you getting this wedged into your hard little head? We provide
security … protection. Period! We don't take offensive actions. If you can't begin to think in terms of cover and evacuate instead of attack and subdue, you're going to have to look for another line of work.”
Christal winced at the censure in his voice. “Yes, sir.”
Sheela stepped close, taking her arm. “It's all right. You've done a super job so far, Christal.”
“Have I?” she asked bitterly. “Doing what? Copperhead's still a jump ahead of us.” She cocked her head, hearing the voices whispering from her subconscious.
“What?” Lymon read her sudden confusion.
“I don't believe in witchcraft, do I?”
“Why would you ask that?” Sheela was watching her, a faint frown on her smooth brow.
“I don't know. But something clicked somewhere. I'll let you know as soon as I figure out what it is.” Yes, she could sense that she was on the verge of making the connection.
“Are you ready to head for the barn?” Lymon asked.
Christal gave him a deadpan glare. “Sorry, boss. I've got to make an appearance at the station to file a complaint. I have paperwork to do.”
“Pressing charges?”
“I'm going to be running into them again.” Christal raised her arms in surrender. “And you're right. I heard you. We're not the cops. But, Lymon, if something goes wrong, I want it on the record that, one, there was trouble, and two, they were the aggravating party.”
“It was probably just coincidence that they were here.” Sheela didn't sound sincere. “In the weeks ahead we'll all wonder what happened to them, what it was all about.”
“No, I'll be seeing them again.” Christal squinted into the darkness. She studied the bright lights at the end of the drive. The press was waiting like hungry lions. “Trust me. I can feel it.”
 
 
The place was called Dusty Stewart's Santa Fe Grill. Christal had seen the sign as she drove down Sunset Boulevard
and thought it was worth a try. Now she watched as the waitress placed a heaping plate in front of her. She thanked the woman and picked up her fork as she studied the steaming meal. The odor of corn tortillas and cumin had her salivating as she reached for the side of diced jalapeño peppers. She scooped them out over the enchiladas, creating a pattern of green accents on the melted yellow cheddar and red sauce.
The sounds of the restaurant covered Lymon's approach as he walked up, pulled out a chair, and plopped himself down beside her. He was wearing a brown blazer, sharply creased cotton pants, and a professional button-down shirt with a tan tie. His craggy face was creased with a smile, and his sandy hair looked unkempt.
“Good evening,” he greeted, rearranging his blue paper napkin with its silverware. He glanced around at the piñatas, guitars, and Mexican pottery that decorated the painted stucco walls. Diluted strains of mariachi drifted down from the speakers, competing with the clatter of plates and the mumble of conversation.
“Hi, boss.” Christal reached for the El Yucateco sauce in the centerpiece.
“You get a good day's sleep?” He gave the waitress a high sign. She was Hispanic, wearing a frilly white blouse, low cut, and a black Mexican-style wraparound skirt. “Smothered burrito,” he told her, “and a Carta Blanca to drink.”
Christal told him, “Yeah, I slept like a rock. Even when the yard crew was mowing the grass under my window. I finally woke up at five-thirty.” She made a face. “I think I'm turning into a bat.”
“Glad to see you're breaking into the job. The schedule can take over your entire life.” He hesitated. “Did you get my message?”
“That we're leaving for New York at midnight? That's for real?”
“Yep.”
“This is kind of last-minute, isn't it?”
He shrugged. “Get used to it. It's the way Hollywood
works. The bigwigs at the studio really want Sheela to attend a preem in New York. Her presence will bring certain benefits to the studio. Ergo, we leave at midnight.”
“What's a preem?”
“A premiere showing of a new movie. It's a publicity thing where they bring in all the stars, the director, the producers, and lots of the film critics. The idea is to butter up the critics with hype, let them get chummy with the actors, and they'll write a good review of your movie.”
“Right. Why am I going? I'm the new kid on the block.”
“Because whatever it is that you're doing, you're kicking results out of the weeds. Maybe you'll see something in New York that we'd miss.”
She poked her fork into her enchilada. “Excuse me, I'm starting my breakfast.” She took a taste and nodded. “Not bad.”
“Dusty Stewart's, huh? I've never been here before.” He glanced around. “You can never tell about Mexican.”
“Sure you can.” Christal gestured with her fork. “Call ahead. If they have fresh jalapeños—like right off the bush—you're usually safe. If they say they have them in the cans, blow it off.”
“That's the truth? Really?”
“Trust me. I'm one of the few New Mexicans who survived DC gustatorially unscathed.”
He watched her just long enough to make her nervous. “Yes, boss? You want to ask me something?”
“You're from New Mexico.”
“Right. I just said that. Born and bred. Who knows how many generations? I'm pure one hundred percent Southwestern mongrel:
Indio, Mexicano,
and Anglo all rolled into one.”

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