“That takes backwash to a whole new level.”
“I always considered it an honor to be offered manioc beer, knowing the work that goes into the making of it.”
“I don’t think I could be phlegmatic like you.” I emphasized the word “phlegm.”
“I suppose I could say it all comes out in the wash.”
“If I’m going to swap spit, I want to do it the old-fashioned way.”
“And what-to use your words-stumbling block occurred that’s preventing you from doing that?”
I took a swallow of my drink and considered what to say. “She-Lisbet-wasn’t happy that I involved her in a newspaper article I wanted done.”
“Was there a reason for Lisbet being unhappy?”
“She knew I was hoping to flush out a suspect through the article and didn’t approve of my tactics.”
“And let me guess: you thought the end justified the means.”
“I am trying to catch a murderer.”
“You’re talking about the mother of the abandoned baby?”
I nodded.
“Was she right about your using her for your own purposes?”
“The article would have served her purposes as well.”
“In retrospect, do you wish you had consulted with Lisbet before giving her name to the reporter?”
“I was doing my job.”
“Inspector Javert thought he was doing his job.”
“Who is Inspector Javert?”
“He is a man who understood the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.”
“Understanding the spirit of the law is above my pay grade.”
“How did you and Lisbet leave matters between the two of you?”
“I’d say we finished our last conversation on a strained note.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Right now I’d rather not think about it. With everything that’s going on, I don’t have time for a personal life anyway.”
Even to my ears that sounded lame, but Seth didn’t push me. Instead he spent a few moments studying me. “You look even worse than you did on Friday night. Since that time your bruising has truly blossomed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that shade of purple.”
“I am just a canvas for art.”
“You didn’t tell me what happened.”
I hadn’t wanted to, but now I did. I described the attack and my strange assailants and their mumbo jumbo, and how Sirius had saved my bacon.
“Right now that’s all I can tell you,” I said. “Another detective is working the case and is trying to track down my attackers based on their tattoos. It’s possible they’re not in any police database, though.”
“Do you think Ellis Haines sent them to attack you?”
“They seem to have bought into Haines’s gibberish and wanted to do something for their guru. I wouldn’t be surprised if Haines was somehow acquainted with them, but I don’t think he put out an order for a hit on me.”
“Manson might not have ordered the Tate-LaBianca murders, but even if he didn’t say the words, he was found to be guilty. It sounds as if Haines’s followers were trying to please him in much the same way. In a messianic situation there exists an environment of proba te dignum-prove yourself worthy.”
“When they’re caught they can prove themselves worthy with a long stretch in the pen.”
“Is that imminent?”
“The tattoos were distinctive-symbols for end-of-the-world stuff. And Sirius did some serious chewing on one of them. We’ll get them, but I am not sure if it will be sooner or later.”
A sudden gust of wind shook the windowpanes and made me start. “Damn Santa Ana,” I said.
“There’s a big fire in the Angeles National Forest. The winds are making it impossible to fight.”
“I’d hate to be a firefighter. I’d hate to be told to go take on an inferno in seventy-mile-per-hour winds.”
“It’s not a job I’d want either, but neither would I want to do your work. You’ve had to confront two very difficult homicides this week. That has to have taken its toll.”
“They get their hooks in you,” I admitted. “I purposely skipped Rose’s autopsy. Unfortunately, I had to spend a lot more time with Paul Klein’s body. He is going to be my ghost for as long as the case goes unsolved, and probably for a long time after that. Seeing him nailed to the tree is a sight I’d just as soon never have seen. I can’t get the image of his body out of my head, even though for the sake of the case I need to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to get beyond his crucifixion. I need to see as the killer saw. I have to look at the staging that was done, and I have to understand the hate. When the killer staged Klein’s body, it was almost like he was saying, ‘Look, everyone, here’s a false prophet.’ Klein was crucified because the killer needed him exposed. I have to ignore the violence of the image to read the message there. The killer wanted to show what a bad guy Klein was.”
“You said Klein was a bully. Was he a terrible human being?”
“He was arrogant and full of himself, but it’s hard to imagine that he deserved to die like he did. That’s why I need to understand the killer’s hate. What makes someone hate with such virulence?”
“Hate is arguably the strongest of all the emotions. It is nourished in the darkness of the human soul. Hate is fueled by anger, whether it is rational or not.”
“The killer’s hate was personal.”
“If that’s the case, then there might have been pathology involved.”
“Meaning what?”
“The perversion of love is hate. One of Newton’s Laws of Motion is that for every reaction there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”
“There’s something to that, but I still can’t put my finger on it.”
“Did you ever hate anyone?”
“I hated myself.”
“And why was that?”
“I could have saved Jenny’s life. I could have insisted that she go see a doctor earlier than she did. I could have been less absorbed in my own work and seen how sick she was.”
“You blamed yourself for her death?”
“Sometimes I still do.”
“You punished yourself. I know that. Did you ever think about killing yourself?”
“I tried to do it indirectly.”
Seth nodded. He had been there and knew that I had. Sirius stirred and sat up, and then put his head in my lap. My guardian spirit wasn’t going to let me brood.
We sat in companionable silence. Outside, the wind was gusting and swirling. I did my best not to listen to its echoes. I reached the bottom of my glass and Seth went and got us both refills. When he came back, there was a fresh worm in his drink. We began talking about less weighty subjects, and our conversation and the drinks took the edge off of the night even while the Santa Ana winds howled.
Seth noticed my wince as he consumed another gooey maguey. “It’s just a worm,” he said.
“You remind me of a character from the original Dracula film with Bela Lugosi,” I said. “Ever see it?”
“I vant to suck your blood,” Seth said in a bad Hungarian/ Transylvanian accent.
Instead of telling him that Lugosi never uttered that line I said, “Anyway, this poor guy Renfield is bitten by Dracula, which causes him to lose his mind and get locked up in an insane asylum. And because he was bitten by a vampire, Renfield starts getting some strange cravings, so when he’s in the asylum he takes to eating creepy-crawlies.”
“And I’m supposed to be this Renfield?”
“If the insect fits,” I said. “One of the film’s classic scenes is when the guard at the asylum stops him from eating a fly and Renfield indignantly says, ‘Who wants to eat flies?’ And the guard says, ‘You do, you loony.’ Then Renfield tells him, ‘Not when I can get nice, fat spiders.’”
“You actually memorized that dialogue?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t, what with Renfield being your role model.”
“I wasn’t the one bitten by a vampire.”
I ignored the Ellis Haines reference. I didn’t want to talk about him anymore.
Outside the wind howled.
“It’s playing my song,” I whispered.