The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(19)
She looked at me. Her gaze slid down to where the talisman lay hidden under my shirt, cold pewter pressed against my skin. A reptilian smile played on her painted lips.
“Do you require service?” she asked Artie, her voice tinged with a Scottish burr.
“Yeah, yeah, beers for me and my new friends here.”
She turned to leave. Paolo rubbed his eyes, making sure they were working right. “Goddamn,” he said, “did she come with the house?”
“She’s all right,” Artie said, turning on the flatscreen and filling the room with the sounds of ESPN. “Trust me, man, in my line of work, especially when you’re as pro as I am? Chicks are falling all over themselves just to get near me.”
Somehow I doubted that. We sat down, watching last week’s basketball highlights, while I tried to center myself and figure out what had just happened. My magic was worthless with my soul still trapped in the Eye’s straitjacket. Just trying to stretch out my senses pushed me to the edge of panic. I counted my breaths and pretended to care about the show, making small talk I could barely hear over the roaring of blood in my ears.
Keep it on, I told myself over and over again. Just until we leave. Just in case Nicky and Kaufman are connected. Count your breaths and don’t blow this.
The woman returned with a tray and three long-necked bottles of beer, so cold that little volcanoes of frost vapor spilled from their open mouths. I don’t drink beer, but I supposed Peter Greyson would, so I took it with a nod of thanks and pretended my heart wasn’t pounding against my rib cage. Her fingertips brushed mine as she stepped away, a tiny spark jumping between us and stinging my skin. I wanted more.
“So, Peter,” Artie said, “Paolo tells me you’re a bit of a collector.”
I smiled. He couldn’t wait to get right down to business. Even knowing the risks involved, talking to a perfect stranger on a casual acquaintance’s say-so, he could barely hold himself back. I figured some natural suspicion would set in sooner or later, but I’d come prepared to deal with that.
“I am,” I said. “I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of rare erotica. Real erotica.”
Ten
“Real?” Artie asked. “Like none of that airbrushed Playboy shit, right?”
I’d rehearsed my lines all night, having conversations with my mirror. Learning how to sell myself as Artie’s kind of scum. The words curdled on my tongue, but I smiled when I said them.
“Real,” I said, “as in the reality of men, and the reality of women, and their places in the world. Like your films. And…others.”
Artie moved closer to the edge of the sofa.
“That’s a bold statement.”
“I’m not some beta male who’s going to tuck his tail between his legs because he has to be politically correct to get laid,” I said with an indifferent shrug. Artie laughed, walking over to sit next to me, clinking his bottle against mine. Paolo just tried to make himself invisible, keeping his eyes on the TV.
“I hear that, bro. This is why I love my fans, you know? You really get how the world works. No pretense, no bullshit.”
“How it should work,” I said, lifting my bottle in salute.
“Right, right. So, uh, you mentioned ‘other’ films.”
I grinned. “So I did. Mind if I use your bathroom?”
“Yeah, sure, just up that hall on the left, far end.”
As I stood up I dipped my fingers into my pocket, quietly sliding out my wallet and letting it tumble to the sofa as I rose. It would look like it fell out by accident. I was counting on Artie’s curiosity to do the rest.
I had two aims, and giving him a chance to rifle through “Peter’s” business cards was the first. The second was recon. If Artie drowned Stacy, he would have kept the recording. Evidence of a capital crime or not, he wouldn’t be able to part with a treasure like that.
The idea of killing Artie sounded good to me. The idea of sending him to prison for the rest of his life and getting some public justice for Stacy sounded even better.
Out of sight of the living room, I poked my head into every doorway. He had a spacious home gym, a couple of guest bedrooms that looked like they’d never been used, and then I hit pay dirt. Artie’s bedroom was just down the hall from the bath, his king-sized bed buried under a swamp of garish red satin sheets and a pair of samurai swords mounted to the wall. Classy. I searched his drawers as fast as I could, sliding my hand under his clothes and feeling for anything out of place, like maybe an unmarked DVD case.
I came up empty, but a more thorough search would have taken too long and I didn’t want to leave anything out of place. The last thing I wanted was for him to come looking for me and blow the entire scam on the spot. I pulled open the door to his walk-in closet, resolving to go back empty-handed if I didn’t find any evidence.
It wasn’t a closet. It was a magician’s shrine.
Books and candles weighed down the wraparound shelves, along with a smattering of wooden beads, tiny brass idols, and eclectic trinkets from half a dozen ancient cultures. The entire unfocused mess screamed “talented amateur,” the kind of sorcerer who knows just enough to be a danger to himself and others.
Artie’s actresses had their own shelf. A publicity photo of each one lay pinned under magnetic stones, their glossy eyes and mouths stitched over with mortician’s thread. I smelled the residue of an anointing oil, something like ginger root and gunpowder. A binding spell, crude but effective.