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.“Have a seat,” said Aybie, and he waved the gun toward a mismatched collection of molded plastic chairs in the corner.The paintings were all brown and green.The floors gray, the walls and ceiling white.The chairs the only smattering of color.I squeezed my ass into a tangerine-colored one and checked out the other party in this little trio.Skinny, dark-skinned, dark-haired.His jeans were denim and worn through use not design.He had no discernible piercings and his hair hung in glossy brown ringlets around a classically handsome face.Long, bulging thigh muscles.A high butt.Under normal circumstances, I'd be more worried about the.45 than whether or not one of my captors batted for the same team as I.But nothing in the past twenty-four hours had even approached normal circumstances, so there I was, letting my gaze travel up the kid's torso, licking my lips when our eyes met.“Who are you?” I asked.“Never mind.” I'd guess Midwest from the accent.I'd guess Crips from the matching tats on his wrists.From the looks he occasionally shot Aybie, I'd guess that his race and Aybie's affiliation with the black-hating Mexican Mafia was an issue.Truthfully, it was a miracle that Aybie hadn't already put one of those bullets into his apparent partner in crime.Who now went to a metal tool cabinet sitting against the wall and opened drawers.He brought out a pair of metal handcuffs—looked like LAPD issue—then came over and gestured for me to put my hands behind my back.When I hesitated, Aybie raised that.45 again.“It's messy but it gets the job done,” he said.I put my hands behind my back and the black kid latched and fitted them with expertise.“So where is this Ozone?” I asked the room.“I've got other meetings tonight, you know.”“No you don't,” said Aybie.“If you do, you're gonna have to cancel,” said Betsy.“Okay,” I said.“Give me a phone and I'll call him.”Aybie looked me up and down.There was something tactile about his gaze.And not in a sexual way.“Sure.And you can invite him here.That could be fun.”The black kid grabbed a chair and sat down across from me.His eyes roved from my toes to my face in a casually interested way.“You wanna fuck while we're waiting?”Betsy stopped plucking at her skirt, her head tilted toward us.“Maybe,” I said.“What's your name?”“The Mexican here calls me Caballo,” he said.And he grinned and spread his legs so that promising bulge in his crotch showed.“You guess why.”“Don't be a pig, Caballo,” said Aybie.“I thought you liked Betsy.”“I do,” said Caballo, and his eyes rolled toward her.“We can all do it together.”Betsy's pale face dimpled when she smiled, showing pointed, catlike canines.It was just a little disconcerting.“Okay.”“Jesus!” exclaimed Aybie, the gun waving around in a nerve-wracking manner.“You fucking niggers are disgusting.”“No, he's not,” said Betsy.She grinned at me, letting her tongue point out a little.“We just fed and we're horny.”“Fed?” I asked.Aybie laughed.His laugh had a little giggle at the end of it that made me think of Norman Bates.“Don't you know?” he said.“Know what?”“You're a vampire, man.Undead.Just like us.”Betsy came around the counter toward me, squatted before me on those platform boots.“He didn't know,” she said, tilting her head and looking up at me through her mascara-coated eyelashes.And then she did something that would flash into my mind's eye again and again over the coming days.Her face morphed, changed.Eyes like a wolf's with yellow irises, cheekbones sharper.Fangs.It was the face of the corpse I'd fought in the morgue.I didn't react outwardly.I guess on some level I already knew, didn't I?Betsy's face morphed back to the Goth chick I recognized.“Isn't it cool?”“Sure,” I said.“Really cool.So what are a bunch of vampires doing in Venice Beach? Shouldn't you be in Transylvania or something? Flying over some old castle?” I tested the handcuffs with a little jerk of my hands.Sometimes amateurs wouldn't make sure they were completely closed.The wrist bracelets didn't loosen, but I thought I felt a little give, as if a link were loose.“He's funny,” said Betsy.She let her tongue touch her lip.She looked at Caballo and they both smiled and looked back at me.“And he's hot.”“You ain't kidding,” said Caballo.“We can do it without releasing the handcuffs.Bring that mattress in here.”I gave him a smile like I liked what he was thinking.“Who did this to me?”Caballo stood.“Does it matter? Now you'll never die.”“What do you mean?”“You're immortal, man.An Evil Dead.You will live forever.”“'Less Ozone says I can dust him,” said Aybie from where he stood.“Evil Dead? Dust?” I said.My eyes were level with Caballo's crotch and that promising bulge just right of the zipper.I let my eyes travel up the expanse of his shirt until I was looking into wicked dark eyes.“You are a very stupid cop, aren't you?” said Caballo.He said it like he liked that about me.With a big white smile on those pretty lips.Okay, I'm handcuffed with a gun to my head and I'm seriously lusting after one of the guys holding me captive.What the fuck is wrong with me? I steeled myself to focus on the immediate problem.“Who is this Ozone again?” I asked Betsy.“I think I should talk to him.” The handcuffs gripped my wrists painfully but I jerked again and felt, surprisingly, something snap back there.My arms almost flew out to my sides as the cuffs separated.I was able to keep my arms in the same position, smiling up at Caballo, who seemed as distracted by me as I was by him.A digital tune played and Aybie flipped open a cell phone.“Yeah?” I saw his gaze slide toward me and then away.“Sure.I can talk.” He strolled across the room and into another room.“Watch him,” he said to Caballo and Betsy, and disappeared into the other room, speaking rapidly in a thickly accented Spanish.I strained to hear his words, but Caballo rocked his chair nosily on the floor and said, “He don't like you, man.”“He doesn't like you either,” I told him.“What are you guys doing working together?”“It's the New World Order,” said Betsy.She had a tiny tube in one hand and a tiny spoon in the other.She was either feeding soup to mice or snorting coke.Caballo rolled his eyes.“Sure, baby.It's all rainbows and butterflies.You”—he pointed one long, well-manicured index finger at me—“would be a shame to dust.”“You too, I think.” I licked my lips.It wasn't a ploy; I was thinking about sucking on that finger.“So what are you doing in SoCal, man? You're not from here.”“I was in Chicago,” said Caballo, rolling his shoulders in an elegant shrug.He stood, stretching long arms and cocking his head to one side with a funny smile.“The winters suck there, man.And the Bloods, they killed my bro.I decided to split.”“And then he met Ozone,” said Betsy.She stuck the spoon in her nose again and snorted hard.I was surprised to not feel a little tug of longing at the sight.“La Eme make the Bloods look like pussies,” I said.Aybie came back into the room then, pocketing his cell phone.“That was Ozone,” he said.“I told him what went down.”Caballo read something in Aybie's expression.And then he and Betsy exchanged looks.“Wait until later, Aybie.”“He said do it now,” said Aybie.The mood in the room changed, drifted from hot and horny to something cool and steely.Caballo's smile disappeared and Betsy stood.“He didn't even ask me.”“He's the boss.” Aybie shrugged, coming around the counter.He stood next to Caballo and regarded me with a little leer.“Was that Ozone?” I asked, stalling for time.I braced my feet on either side of the chair and leaned forward a little [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]