The Lost (11 page)

And she'd probably been beautiful, Kit thought, because despite her humble home—and the wrinkles and the missing teeth—there was something regal about Josepha Baptista. Something her grandson, and life, hadn't yet knocked out of her. Kit recognized it, and liked it.

“I wish I could have seen it all back then,” Kit said. “The fifties is the era I love the most.”

“An era you never lived?” Josepha asked, then laughed at Kit's responding nod. “I suppose that's why it holds sway over you. Illusion is often stronger than reality.”

Kit didn't correct the woman. She had long stopped trying to defend her rockabilly lifestyle. She loved things because she loved them, and that was reason enough.

Instead, she glanced over at the carved statues spaced along the top of a multilevel platform. The altar had been behind her when she walked in, so this was the first opportunity to study it openly. If she'd known she'd be visiting the Baptista family, she'd have brushed up on her knowledge of Afro-Cuban religions.

“Ever see a Santerian shrine before?” Josepha asked, catching Kit's look.

Kit shook her head, studying the lit black candle, the bell and bowls surrounding it, the incense smoking into the statue's unblinking gaze. “I know that's your saint, though.”

“Orisha, yes. That's Chango.”

Chango additionally had bowls of seeds and beads and mirrors scattered at his feet. Kit wanted to ask Josepha about that, but the woman was lighting another candle between them, this one white. Kit would've assumed she was just setting the mood, but it was broad daylight in the middle of summer.

Eyeing the silky flame, Kit said, “The Christian religion ascribes meaning and ritual to almost everything, though this seems different somehow. It's more . . .”

“What?” The word was clipped, defensive. Like Kit's lifestyle, Josepha had likely been forced to defend her religion more than once. Santeria, after all, was synonymous with voodoo.

“It seems more vibrant. Dense. Almost pregnant with meaning.” The shrine was different from any altar Kit had ever seen. It looked the same as a full belly felt, engorged with flavor, tipping into too much.

Josepha laughed. “Of course! The original priests in Santeria were all women, you know. We founded almost all branches of the religion, led all the major ceremonies, carried out all rituals.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I, for example, was named after one of the most famous and most powerful Cuban priestesses. Of course, once there was power to be had, the men took over.” Josepha shrugged, and gazed at the smooth flame between them as she sipped from her mug. “But we originally started out as a matriarchy. Oh . . . hear that?”

Kit turned to the doorway. “I don't hear anything.”

“Exactly. They'll be done soon.” Josepha smiled, yet as they turned back to the table, her smile fell. “Why did you do that?”

Kit stiffened at Josepha's alarmed tone. “What?”

“Why did you blow it out?”

Kit frowned at the white candle, now curling with black smoke. “I didn't.”

Josepha's face drained of color, gaze flicking quickly between Kit and the candle, drawing meaning out of something Kit had never—and probably would never—understand. “Marco!”

Baptista appeared so quickly it was like he'd been waiting outside the doorway. Grif appeared, too, alarm scrambling his features. Josepha and Marco exchanged rapid-fire Spanish and suddenly Kit was being lifted by the arm and dragged to the front door.

“Mr. Baptista,” Kit tried, feeling bruises already forming beneath his grip. “I didn't mean to offend . . . I don't know—”

“Hands off her, Baptista.” Grif was suddenly between them, and Kit thought that if she could see his wings, each blade would be drawn sharp. Marco did release Kit, then, but only because they'd reached the end of the hallway. Behind him, Josepha was still ranting in Spanish.

“Sorry,
cabron,
” Baptista said, holding the door wide. “But you can't stay for
ropa vieja
.”

“That's okay,” Grif countered. “We'll visit Little Havana once it reopens. Like you said, people do come back more than once.”

Baptista just held open the door, hard gaze fixed on Grif. He didn't even acknowledge Kit as she passed. Yet she felt better as soon as she stepped outside. Back, she thought, where she knew the meaning of things. Back in her own country.

“Keep walking,” Baptista called as they passed the litter of weeds and men in the concrete yard. “And good luck getting those Russians outta my city.”

“Your city?” Grif half-turned.

Baptista's outline hardened in the harsh light, and Kit tugged on Grif's arm. “Like you said. My family has been in Las Vegas a long time.”

Grif returned his hand to the small of Kit's back, and tipped his hat. “Good-bye, Mr. Baptista.”

“Adios,
comemierdas
.”

And as the smoky chuckle of a half-dozen dangerous men rose behind them, Grif gave Kit a grim smile. “Remind me to ask Luis what the hell that means.”

W
hat the hell did you say to Baptista's grandmother?” Grif asked, keeping his pace steady. They were still being watched, and by more than one guard dog in the scrappy lot.

“Nothing,” Kit said, digging for her cigarettes. “Her stupid candle blew out and she went crazy. Sometimes illusion is stronger than reality.”

“What does that even mean?” Grif said, squaring on her.

Kit shook her head, lighting up. “Just something Josepha said.”

“So why'd she get so upset about the candle?”

“Gee, I don't know. Let me just check my handy-dandy pocket guide to religious cults.”

“It's not funny, Kit. I get the feeling that if Baptista had waved to his buddies with his right hand instead of his left, we'd be locked in the side yard with that mutt.”

Kit frowned, turning serious as well. “Baptista told you the Russians are dangerous, but so is he. I can feel it.”

“Yeah? Your phone tell you that?” Because pulling Baptista's information up while still in his house had also been dangerous.

She held the damned device up again, where the same stony gaze he'd just faced was frozen again. “Yes. Marco Baptista. Served four years for armed robbery and possession of narcotics. I can't dig deeper until I get back to the office, but I bet there's more on his sheet than that.”

“Do you really think he'd knowingly allow this junk into his own neighborhood?” Because Grif couldn't see it. If Baptista considered Vegas his city, how much more possessive would he be over his personal stomping grounds?

Grif glanced back at Baptista's posse. Dollars to doughnuts, each of them lived nearby. Would they all just stand around and watch their friends and families get strung out on something like
krokodil
?

“No,” Kit finally said, following his glance and thoughts. “But I can't help but think ‘his' city would be a lot better without him, too.”

“Good.” Turning back to her, Grif shoved his hands in his pockets. “Then I won't have to worry about you sneaking down here for more information. Besides, we've got our tie. He knows Sergei Kolyadenko.”

“And?”

“Doesn't seem to like him.”

Kit blew out a hard stream of smoke. “And the woman?”

Grif shook his head. “Same info. Lots of wigs. A new face in the crowd . . .”

And suddenly Kit had flicked her light away, and was crossing to the other side of the car. The pool at the Shangri-La Apartments sat still and clouded behind her, murky enough that even the sun's relentless rays couldn't penetrate more than an inch beneath the surface.

“Where are you going?”

Grif hoped Kit's answer would be one Baptista would like, because Luis was still loitering, listening intently, and Grif had a feeling it'd reach Baptista's ears before Kit was even out of sight.

“If heaven isn't going to help, I will,” Kit called back, not caring who heard. She paused with one foot inside the vehicle, one out. “I'll flush the Russians out like quail in a thicket.”

“How?”

She leaned forward, one arm resting on the soft top. “With words, Grif. I'm going to write it down, then write it up. These dealers might operate in the dark, but I have the power to bring it
all
to light.”

Grif crossed to her quickly, dismayed to note a good half-dozen people staring at them, including Luis. “You sure that's wise, Kit?” Grif said, voice low as he reached her side.

Squaring on him, she lifted her chin. “I don't run away from my problems by sticking a needle in my veins, so I'm not vulnerable to these people. But these kids,” she said, motioning to the trailer where Tim's and Jeannie's bodies had been found, then at Luis and the others gathered on the street, “they are. And no one, including your high-and-mighty feathered friends, is protecting them.”

Grif winced, because she had a point. “Fine, but you are vulnerable.”

“You mean Scratch.” She swallowed hard at his nod. “I can control my emotions, Grif. I'm in possession of myself.”

“I know that.”

“Good. Then let me work on this in the only way I can. I . . . need that.”

Grif shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. Trying to discourage her would only stubborn her up anyway.

Kit bit her lip. “Look, I know there are boundaries you can't cross, that they come with the halo and wings, but don't forget what it is to be human. It's impossible for me to see all that we have and not try to help.”

“I know.” It wasn't in her nature not to help. “And I'm doing the best I can, too, doll.”

She hesitated, then folded into him. Nothing had changed. The world was still hard, the danger still there, but as always, her shape and warmth and softness—her
goodness
—eased the aches of the day. Grif closed his eyes, as she whispered, “I know that, too. And I love you for it.”

Then she slipped from his arms, patted his chest, and climbed into the car.

“Hey,” he said, before she could shut the door. She gazed up at him, and he managed a smile. “I love you, too.”

E
ven before answering the phone, the woman knows who it is. Tomas is watching the Craig woman and her companion, but
she
is watching Tomas.

“Speak” is all she says as she watches the sun set over Naked City.

“I'm watching them now. They're leaving the neighborhood.” He pauses, but the woman only waits for more. “I also know every place the Craig woman visited since this morning.”

“Are you following her now?” The intimation is that he'd better be.

“Yes. Craig's in the car, but it looks like she's leaving the man behind.”

Yes, she sees that, too. “Stay on Craig. She's going to be trouble. And Tomas.” There is a pause. “You did well to see where she was going. I find it very interesting that she tried to visit Little Havana.”

Even from a distance, and as he starts his car and begins to follow the Craig woman, she can see Tomas straighten, and preen. She smiles to herself. It is good that he still desires to prove himself to her. She can still use that. Yet it also emboldens Tomas. “I can take care of her if you'd like.”

It is a thought. That's what he does best, and it is why she's hired him in the first place. Wrapping one arm around her middle, she asks, “You say she left the big guy behind?”

“Yes. But I can take care of him, too,” he says, and she smiles again, and relaxes. He wants so badly to show her what he is capable of.

“Maybe later,” she says, and imagines Tomas deflating a bit. He is gone from view, doing her bidding. “I don't want to risk that kind of attention right now, although . . .”

Tomas waits.

“It wouldn't hurt to scare the girl a bit.”

There is a blare in the background, likely caused by Tomas blowing through a red light to keep up with Craig, but there is also a smile in his voice. “I can find an angle.”

“Good. Make some noise in her life. Nothing direct, though. Be creative. Make sure it can't be traced back to us. Maybe she'll rethink what she's doing. But Tomas?”

“Yes?”

She thinks of Katherine Craig circling, writing articles, questioning people who might eventually lead to her. “Whatever you do? I want her reeling.”

“I'll give her a good scare,” he says immediately.

“Do more than that, Tomas,” she says in a low voice. “Put the fear of God into her.”

Chapter Ten

K
it couldn't sleep. She'd burned up the bulk of her anger doing exactly what she told Grif she would do, going home and pounding the computer keys so hard that she broke a nail. Even amid her moral outrage, she managed to construct a story about a drug that stripped flesh from the bone, and a dealer—faceless, nameless, remorseless—who preyed upon the poor. She'd submitted it electronically, and then had a tense fifteen-minute phone call with Marin before her aunt agreed to approve the story and run it by morning. The only thing Kit left out—in print and in words—was the heartlessness of angels who stood by and watched as man—and woman—fell.

That, the confounding senselessness of it, was what had her tossing and turning alone in the bed she and Grif normally shared. Or maybe her sleeplessness was precisely because she was alone. Sorry she'd run him off, she had called Grif just after nine, but he said he was following “a lead” and would be a while.

A private lead, she added silently.

So, even though it was already late, Kit decided to go out, too, and knew as soon as she was showered, warm, and in motion that it was the right decision. The mere act of stepping into her closet cleared the worry from her brow. She inhaled deeply, immediately feeling more certain, more herself, when surrounded by all her things. She touched a strand of estate pearls, and felt a smile reach the corners of her mouth. She let her fingers roam: Bakelite bracelets, antique brooches, vintage furs, and peacock feathers.

The black-and-white skulls and cherry prints—yards and yards of cherry prints—kept it from looking too much like her grandmother's closet, as did the silk stockings and frilled panties, the colored eyelashes reserved for special occasions.

It wasn't that she was a clotheshorse, Kit thought, sliding on a pair of seamed fishnets. Though that was true, to a degree. But she had specifically chosen every item in this closet. Every single piece had its place. Her entrée into the rockabilly lifestyle had not only come at a time when her life had lacked style . . . it'd lacked
life
. After her father followed her mother into what she now knew was the Everlast, Kit had suddenly, brutally, found herself in a family of one. It took some time before she came around to the idea that she, alone, was enough to build a new family around her.

She'd had Marin, of course. Her prickly and pragmatic aunt had coaxed her from her depression with more tough love than compassion, yet it'd worked, and in her own way, she'd shown just as much love as Kit's mother would have. That was why their relationship was so very complicated. She was not the woman Kit had wanted, yet she was the one Kit had needed.

Still, Shirley Wilson lived on in her daughter, and after reemerging into the world an orphan, Kit vowed to let nothing into her life that didn't make at least one of her senses explode. Every bit of furniture adorning her home was carefully considered—from the vintage record player to her meticulously curated collection of Depression glass. Same went for the clothes she donned, from the corsets to the Mary Janes.

Even the food she put
in
her body had to be wanted more than needed. Kit didn't want merely to be sustained. She didn't want only to exist. If a physical item didn't speak to her in a voice as enticing as a lover's whisper, then it had no place in her periphery.

So what if the majority of people considered the rockabilly lifestyle eccentric or weird? Those who didn't know her thought only that she wanted to live in the past. What they couldn't know was that the rockabilly lifestyle actually simplified things for her in a way that someone driven by the latest fashions and fads couldn't enjoy. Having set lifestyle parameters took the angst out of deciding what car to drive or how to dress. Wouldn't the masses be amazed to learn that, in living an extreme lifestyle, Kit was actually playing it safe?

Which brought her to Griffin Shaw.

Kit sighed, letting her hands fall still and her eyes close. How ironic that even though the man was from the era she most adored, the one that she honestly believed kept her safe, he was the first thing she'd allowed in her life that was decidedly unsafe. With his straight-razored pomp and wingtip shoes, he certainly looked like her kind of extreme. Even strangers commented on what a great-looking couple they were when walking hand in hand. Kit wouldn't argue that, though those same strangers would call him crazy if they heard his claims of being an angelic messenger.

Yet this unsafe man had saved her, the crazy one had actually shown her his wings, and if anything about him was extreme, it was that he brought all of Kit's senses to life at once. In short—in fifties' terms—Kit was completely gone over him . . . and she hoped never to return.

That's why the thought of Grif crying without her there to console him made
her
want to cry. She'd wanted to ask if the tears he'd bottled to banish Scratch had been tears of joy or sorrow, but had been too afraid of the answer. And now she couldn't even think of it. She had to keep her emotions in check—the jealousy she barely acknowledged, the envy she tried to ignore.

The stupidity she felt over playing second fiddle to a dead woman.

Closing her eyes, Kit tried to clear her mind. Then she remembered the way Scratch had looked at her through both Jeap's and Brunk's starry black gazes. A chill broke out along her spine.

You are just some choice bit of beauty that I have not yet broken,
it'd said, branches scratching in Brunk's throat
. I don't want to touch her.

I want to possess her
.

“Shut up,” Kit said aloud, like it could still hear her now. Who knew? Maybe it could.

“Shut. Up.” She said it again, just in case.

Because if she was going to live—and she and Marin had made damned sure of that a long time ago—then she was going to love whom she wanted without fear, and she was going to follow her heart. The loss of the most meaningful people in her life had struck her like a lightning bolt. So why the hell shouldn't the addition of a great love do the same? Passion was a positive emotion, right? And the willingness to be open to another person was a strength, not a weakness.

So, as Kit combed through the carefully edited world of her closet, her mind gradually settled. Outside was a world she couldn't understand, where desperate people injected their bodies with drugs that caused their flesh to rot from their bones. Outside, too, was the man she adored, working alone to avenge the death of a woman he'd loved fifty years earlier. If she'd fallen short in her understanding of that, it was only because that, too, was another world she could never really know.

Yet Kit was well versed in all things rockabilly, and
that's
what she needed tonight. Jiving and swinging to wash away the dregs of the day. The retro-inspired beauty and liveliness of her pinup friends to remind her that this world was also good. Sailor Jerry tattoos would remind her of simpler times, and a greaser with a comb in his back pocket and a naughty gleam in his eye would work wonders on her mood with one spin around the dance floor.

What Kit needed right now, she decided, was to sip an Old Fashioned and smoke a Lucky through a gold-tipped holder.

“And I might as well do it,” she said, holding up a cocktail dress with a built-in bullet bra, “while watching someone shake. Their.
Tassels.
”

T
he dimness upon entering the Bunkhouse—all rockabilly, all the time—was similar to the dive where Kit and Grif had met with Trey Brunk, and yet the two places couldn't be more unalike. The Bunkhouse was a dance hall, spacious and clean, and brightly lit when there was a Lindy Hop, though tonight the stage was set for cabaret. There was a cash bar just inside the door, unnecessary with the cocktail waitresses sashaying about in leopard satin, but it was ribboned in gilt, and added to the feel of a twenties speakeasy.

Outside of early to midcentury, rockabillies weren't particular about their eras. They could mesh the roaring of the twenties with the war-inspired tiki torches of the forties, and top it all off with a cupcake dress from the sixties . . . and the girl inside was the cherry on top. The Bunkhouse did all this and more, so that it was cheery, a bit raucous, and tonight it was teeming with life.

Kit's heart swelled as she crossed the threshold, and handed her vintage mink cape to the coat-check girl, who exclaimed admiringly as she took it. The canister footlights were dimmed at the stage, and the red curtains drawn, but they were backlit so that the next performer's silhouette was purposely displayed, teasing hip swivels combined with a boa to keep the audience in their seats.

Scouring the room for her own seat, Kit blinked in surprise as she caught sight of Dennis from across the room. He stood to wave, but blended well with the other greasers in his bowling shirt and sideburns, and she smiled and waved back, because it was good to see him here. God knew he deserved a break after catching two
krokodil
cases in a row. My fault, Kit thought, with an inner wince.

Then again, Dennis had been dipping his toe back into the rockabilly scene a lot more since the case that had reunited them four months earlier. Before that, he'd believed that donning his uniform meant putting away his alternative tastes. Kit liked to think she'd brought a bit of fun and nostalgia back into his life. More than most, Kit thought, the men in blue needed a good, solid place to escape.

Just then, Kit spotted her own much-needed escape, a bird-bright, long-limbed looker with a crimson hairnet and a wooden parasol . . . one used to casually jostle and jab those who wandered too near her table. Nobody cared, though. The woman was just playing. She was also one of Kit's closest friends, Fleur Fontaine.

“Hello, dolly,” Fleur said as Kit arrived, ruby-red lips wide and smiling. “Thought for a while that you were going to miss the show.”

“Not a chance,” Kit said, plopping down between Fleur and her tablemate, another of Kit's nearest and dearest, Lil DeVille. In contrast to Fleur's retro kimono and finger waves, Lil was wearing a navy-blue sailor shorts suit, probably a thrift-store find, and red pumps that had her towering over six feet. She toasted Kit's arrival with her Schlitz, flashing red fingertips and a long-lashed wink. Kit settled in with a sigh, and signaled to the waitress for her own drink, wondering why she'd ever considered staying home.

“Where's Joe Friday?” Fleur asked, propping her arm on the table so the mermaid inked there flashed its emerald tail.

Grif had called to say he'd gone to a strip club to question Ray DiMartino, the owner, about Mary Margaret and his old case. But Kit didn't say that. She was just starting to feel good and didn't even want to think about it. Placing a cigarette in a vintage holder, she said, “Out gumshoeing the streets alone. He told me to stay home with my hens.”

“Sexist pig,” Fleur scoffed, giggling as she used the tip of her parasol to poke at a passerby in a zoot suit.

“Lovable sexist pig,” Lil added, because they all knew, and approved, of the way he doted on Kit. She just hoped that letting him question DiMartino alone in the bowels of Masquerade would give him the answers he sought. She knew why he'd gone alone. Grif hated taking Kit into that environment, yet as the music swelled throughout the Bunkhouse, and the curtains rose to reveal a platinum blonde covered in little more than glitter and feather fans, she couldn't help wondering what he'd make of
this
one.

Doesn't matter, she decided, as her Old Fashioned arrived and the woman onstage began to flutter her plumes. Let Grif have his haunted past and pedestrian strip club for the evening. This was
hers.

Besides, Kit thought, sipping as the fans fell away and the audience began to whistle and hoot. It wasn't where Grif was that bothered her, or what he was doing. It was what he was
thinking.
About another woman. About that
Evie.

Something of her thoughts must have been revealed on her face, because Fleur turned to her as soon as the act was over. “Spill” was all she said.

Kit looked away. The stage kitten, dressed in fishnets and a bustier, sporting victory rolls, was sweeping glitter from the stage so the next performer wouldn't fall. Lil was flirting with the whole table of swing boys next to them. She could confide in Fleur without interruption. Yet Kit didn't feel like voicing her worries just yet. Voicing them, she thought superstitiously, might make them real.

“I'm just all junked up with this story I'm working on,” she said instead, tapping her cigarette holder against a crystal ashtray. “It's the most disturbing, disgusting, vile thing I've ever seen.”

Lil caught the end of the statement, and leaned close, propped her elbows on the table. So Kit told them both about young Jeap Yang, his addiction to a drug that stripped the flesh from his body, untethering health from the inside out, and about Tim and Jeannie as well. She ended with the new information Marin had shared about him after Kit had submitted her story. “His real name is Juan Pedro Perez. You guys got feelers out in the Hispanic community?”

“Where's he stay?” Lil asked, all of her playfulness gone.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because we're not like you Anglos,
mamita,
” Lil replied, falling into the accent that made her trill. “We stick together.”

“Whether we want to or not,” Fleur agreed, equally serious. “We pile our immediate family atop each other, and pile extended family atop that. And extended includes pretty much anyone we've known since childhood—neighbors, children of neighbors . . . their dogs.”

“I still remember my first pet fish, may he rest flushed in peace.” And Lil lowered her head, closed her eyes, and made the sign of the cross.