"I didn't," she said. "I got a letter back home that she'd been offered a small part, and she was terribly excited. That was two months ago. When the letters stopped, I came here. I also started looking for work, hoping I'd run across the person who'd done her harm. That's when I met Mr. Mason."
"And the two of you shacked up to open a home for wayward zombies?" I dragged and felt the smoke scald the still-raw parts of my lungs.
"Mr. Mason told me where she'd been staying, and when I went there I discovered the poor creatures," Marie said.
I took out my notebook and pen, poised, while she looked me over. "You're not the usual sort of thug, are you, Mr. Grey?"
"What tipped you off?" I said. "Surviving a slug to the chest, or my rugged good looks?"
She sniffed. "The Deluxe Hotel on Fountain Avenue."
I put the notebook away without writing anything and stood, causing a horde of flies to swarm along with me. Marie frowned. "Don't you want to make a note of that?"
"No need," I said, going and retrieving my hat from the living room floor. I swiped a hand through my hair and clapped it in place. It'd been a lot of years since I'd needed to wear one to keep desert dust and sun out of my eyes, but I felt a little naked without it.
"I know the place," I said to Marie, going back down the creaking porch steps to my car.
I changed out of my shredded, blood-soaked shirt and replaced it with a fresh one I kept behind the seat before I pulled up at the Deluxe Hotel. My jacket was done for, which meant I had to leave my shoulder holster behind, too. I shoved my automatic into the back of my waistband and hoped I wouldn't shoot myself in the ass.
The Deluxe had drapes shut tight across every window, but knowing what went on there, I was glad. Whorehouses are all the same, really--dress them up however you want, change the time and the place, but they all smell like desperation and dead dreams. And a few other things I preferred not to think about.
In the lobby, I loitered for a minute before I started walking the halls. It was quiet. The kind of quiet that only comes right before lightning strikes.
A scream wavered from down the long hall behind me, tinkling the dusty crystals in the lobby chandelier.
I pulled out the automatic and moved without thinking--the part where I go toward the monster was second nature. Thinking about how rotten this situation was was a newer thing. I was just muscle. My days of saving people were a long way back on the road.
Plus, Marie's innocent sister working in one of Hollywood's biggest whorehouses? Her just happening to be there when I busted in looking to rough up Mason?
No. Something else was up here. I took aim as the door in front of me burst open, and a man in a cheap suit stumbled out, going down hard. It was one of the bouncers who should have been in the lobby, scrambling along the ca
rpet like a crab at low tide. The guy collapsed with a soft sound, like air escaping from an inner tube. I put my gun away and turned him over, but it was too late. His throat was torn, and ruby-red arterial blood dribbled down his neck and over my hand, a warm brook soaking the carpet.
It distracted me, I'll say. That's my excuse for how the thing that had killed him landed on my back, nails scraping across my cheek, sour body odor overpowering the coppery blood.
The zombie hooked one finger in the corner of my mouth, letting out the kind of moan that only trapped, hungry animals are capable of.
I spun around, slamming it into a wall, which had all the effect of slapping the thing with a rolled-up newspaper. Teeth sank into my shoulder through my shirt, and I tripped over the dead bouncer and fell.
I prefer when I don't see my death coming, like when Mason shot me. The first time I'd died was slow, had left me plenty of time to stare the reaper down, and now I threw up my arms to try to knock the zombie away. It had been one of the girls, and she was bloated and blue, like she'd been floating in the LA River for a night or two.
A shape the size of a steamer trunk flew at the zombie and took it to the ground, snarling and shaking it by the neck until I heard a snap. A giant goddamn dog, twice the size of the wolves that prowled the Superstition Mountains back home. Black as coal, with red eyes. It let out a snarl like a motorbike backfiring, and with a final rip, the zombie's head came off.
I pulled myself up the wall, feeling all the places I'd hurt tomorrow. The air around the dog shimmered, a bare second of heat rising off a desert floor, and in its place a woman stood. I stiffened, fighting the urge to reach for my gun. It wouldn't do any good, much as I wanted to put a bullet between her eyes.
That wasn't my job anymore, I reminded myself. I was calm, steady. I didn't give a shit about monsters, unless they cut me off in traffic or tried to unionize Mr. Montrose's production company.
"You all right, mister?" the woman asked, smoothing a hand over her hair. Her accent was pure hill country, and she wasn't dressed like the city was her natural habitat, either.
I examined the bloody hash marks in my shoulder. "I'll live."
She looked me up and down. She had the sharpest gaze I'd encountered in a long while, predator eyes that didn't miss anything. "You a cop?"
"Nope."
She pointed at my waist. "Then why the piece?"
"You ask a lotta questions for a lady who just turned from a giant dog," I said. She tilted her head, running my accent through her head to try to place it, no doubt.