“Leave it to L.A. to turn vampires into twelve-steppers.”
I go inside the club. And am instantly rendered deaf by Totalitarian Chic doing a hard techno version of “A Fistful of Dollars” at a hundred decibels.
Years ago, Death Rides A Horse was an upscale Hollywood cowboy joint, meaning it was about as country as Lawrence Welk’s massage therapist. The DE kept the cowboy theme but added the leather-and-latex aesthetic. The dance floor alone must keep half the fetish shops in L.A. in business. A cowgirl vampire rides her bouncing-pony boy minion around the edge of the dance floor. I have no idea how either of them keeps their balance. It’s an impressive achievement. I have to give the DE credit. The self-conscious decadence is a lot easier to take than a bunch of middle-aged businessmen chewing Skoal dressed up like Hopalong Cassidy.
A blond kid good-looking enough to be a Michelangelo model crooks his finger at me. I push through the crowd over to him.
He doesn’t say a word, just loops his arm in mine and pulls me to the back of the club.
Even in the noise and chaos, it isn’t hard to spot Tykho.
Her table is in the far back, under dim lights and crowded with admirers, both dead and alive. Since she doesn’t have to show off, she’s in a simple black corset with a brocade dragon pattern. Her skin is full-moon white. Her spiky blue hair matches the color of her lips. The real giveaway is her eyes. The pupils are long and horizontal. A birth defect from when her mother tried to chemically abort the pregnancy after she’d been bit. Mom blew it and gave birth to a bouncing baby vampire with octopus eyes.
She waves me over and dismisses her entourage with a single elegant wave. I take her hand when she offers it. It’s cold enough to chill champagne.
“Stark. How nice of you to come.”
“Like I was going to turn you down?”
I sit down and a waiter bustles over to take the entourage’s drinks away.
“Some of my people thought you might be too afraid to come.”
“I just didn’t want to ugly up your joint.”
“Trust me. We get uglier faces in here every night. Fear. Greed. A civilian’s terrible hope that she or he can cheat us. These do worse things to a person’s face than a few scars.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
She gestures to a waiter. He comes over and sets something on the table in front of Tykho. A dried and preserved human heart.
“And for you, sir?” says the waiter.
“Whiskey.”
“Any brand?”
“Whatever costs the most.”
“Of course.”
Tykho stares at me like I’m the unlucky one in a “choose-your-own-lobster” tank.
I say, “Your boy Jimi Hendrix last night seemed to think you had something for me. I don’t suppose it’s another suitcase full of money.”
She starts to reach for the heart and stops.
“You spent it all?”
“Remember when there was that other me running around the city?”
“Yes. The Mouseketeer.”
“He gave most of it away.”
She leans back in her seat, knuckling her upper lip, trying to cover a laugh.
“How awful for you. Betrayed by your own doppelgänger. Does that make him the evil twin or you?”