And now he was telling people we were friends? “Rob—I mean, Fidel, the last time I saw Wally I tried to kill him.” And I’d try again, as soon as I could.
“Does he know about that? ’Cause he’s still talking about you like you’re his bestest pal.”
“Can I hear that origin story now?”
He sighed, sounding a little irritated, then turned into a silhouette. I caught a brief glimpse of the Empty Spaces, and he vanished. I held myself completely still, listening. What the hell should I do?
Before I could come up with a good idea, he suddenly reappeared in the same spot, but now he was pointing a gun at my face.
I jumped back and ducked low, my heart pounding. The door was too far for me to run to with a gun on me, and there were too many of them for me to start swinging. I had to fight an overwhelming urge to attack! attack!
Fidel laughed and his cousins laughed with him. Summer and Bud watched me quietly from the couch, their expressions closed. The laughter made me furious, made me want to blow myself up like a bomb, but I swallowed it. It was time to stop thinking of him as Robbie, the guy who could never beat me at Mortal Kombat but always made me laugh. This was someone else.
The jeering laughs slowly died down. Fidel seemed sorry they had to end. “Damn, Ray. Living easy up in Seattle has made you soft. You’re jumpy. I was just showing you my new piece. It’s a SIG Sauer, just like those Blackwater guys in Iraq use.” He slid his gun into the waistband of his pants. “But I’m not sure you can really appreciate it from all the way down there.”
I was still crouched down. It took all the willpower I had, but I made myself stand straight. “Guess so.”
“Are you joking about trying to kill your pal Wally? ’Cause I was hoping you could help me out with him.”
It took me a second to catch up. “I get it. You want super powers for your cousins, and you want me to talk Wally into giving them an origin story of their own.”
“Not just that, Ray. I want you on my side. Arne was right about you. You’re a sharp guy. You always got your eyes open. I want you on my team, not his.”
“What about that origin story?” I asked.
Fidel shook his head and came close to me. He still wore that broad, perfect smile. “Didn’t your boss tell you all of that? You came to town and ran straight to him. We saw you there.”
“Caramella contacted me, not Arne,” I said again.
“He was never really your friend, Ray,” he said, as if trying to convince me to stop lying. “You were his loyal guy, and look how he paid you back with Violet.”
I stepped back, startled. Violet and Arne? So Jasmin—
“That’s right, dude.” Fidel stepped close to me, but not close enough to touch. “You did everything he told you to do, and he went behind your back with your girl.”
I flinched. I couldn’t help it—the image of Arne and Vi together in her bed was sudden and sharp. Fidel could have been lying, but I didn’t believe it. Arne and Vi—I knew it was true. It was like a secret I was keeping from myself.
I closed my eyes and imagined Annalise beside me. Would she think this mattered? Those relationships were five years in the past. I’d come out of prison and turned my back on all of it. Did it matter? Of course not. It hurt, yeah, but I wasn’t here to settle that sort of score.
“Fidel,” I said. “Where can I find Wally?”
Fidel smiled and turned sideways. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Ray. You haven’t even signed up with me yet. You’re still on Arne’s side.”
“Sign up with you, Fidel? Wally King already killed you.”
He didn’t like that, but he smiled through it. “I don’t think so.”
“You think I’ve been living easy in Seattle? Wally King put a curse on my oldest friend up there, and …” I wasn’t sure how to say this next part, so I just said it. “And now he’s dead.”
Fidel’s cousins were focused on me. They didn’t like what I was saying, and Fidel didn’t like the attention I was getting. “C’mon, Ray. Don’t try that shit with me. Are you ready to make your choice? Me or Arne?”
I absentmindedly rubbed the back of my hand. The tattoos there made my skin dead to the touch. I had a new boss now, and I couldn’t talk about her. “I’m here for both of you, Fidel. Against Wally King. I’m here to save your life, if I can.” I glanced over at Bud and Summer. “All your lives.”
The short, muscular cousin stepped close to Fidel and said something in Spanish. I couldn’t understand him, but I knew it wasn’t friendly. “No, no,” Fidel said to him, then turned to me. “Ray, why don’t you go visit Arne? Talk to him about Violet and about his plans for the future. Then you can decide if you want to come back to me. Tell me what he has planned, and decide if you want to be safe with him or rich with us. Go ahead, and think about what I said.”
I started backing toward the door. “You should think about what I said, too.”
Fidel watched me with a look on his face that I’d never seen before. He looked confident and wise, like a king sending a messenger on a particularly clever errand. I wanted to hit him. His cousins glared at me, but Summer and Bud had peculiar expressions. Had I gotten through to them, at least?
I backed to the stairs, then forced myself to turn around and walk away. No one shot me. I went outside. It was still cool, and the sun wasn’t up yet, but I could see a faint glow along the horizon. Traffic had already started to pick up.
It was nearly 6 A.M. I should have been tired. It was unfair that I couldn’t drive back to my rented room and close my eyes for a little while. I’d been in L.A. barely a day, and I was already back on a car thief’s schedule.
Where could I go next? Was it late enough to stop at Violet’s place to ask her about Caramella again? Probably not, but I didn’t know where to find anyone else, so I thought I’d try it.
I drove back through the Valley with my windows down. The temperature was perfect, but I knew the heat would roast me later. I had no idea what to do about Robbie—Fidel, I meant. He had magic, almost certainly from a predator—he and Summer and Bud, and probably Arne and Lenard, too.
My boss, Annalise, would know what to do. She would have killed everyone in that room just because they had magic and wanted more. And having worked against her on one incident and with her on two, I could see where she was coming from. People could be crazy about magic. I’d seen it.
But I didn’t want to kill them. Not if I could avoid it. In fact, even if I couldn’t avoid it, I didn’t want to do it. I hoped Annalise would be there to meet me outside the Ralphs tonight, so I could hand off the job to her. Maybe it was unfair, but there it was. I’d done my share of killing in Washaway, and I wasn’t ready for more.
If it was not a predator that gave Fidel his invisibility—if it was just a spell, like the spells on my chest that blocked bullets or obscured evidence I left behind—then I was sure I could take care of it without killing anyone. My ghost knife cuts “ghosts, magic and dead things,” and I could slash it through whatever spell they had on them and put an end to it.
The odds that their magic came from a spell were so low they were practically nonexistent, but I had to have hope, or I wouldn’t be able to keep going.
Aside from that, I’d have to find Wally King. I owed him something, and it was long past due for him to get it. Him, I didn’t feel squeamish about killing. Not at all.
The lights in Violet’s apartment were dark, which didn’t surprise me. I found a parking space just a block away, pulling in behind a woman who was obviously on her way to work, and closed my eyes for a while. I was ready to sleep after all.