Potato Face sat in the front seat. He looked me over and turned away. He’d caught me, but he didn’t look happy about it.
We pulled away, leaving my car with the money under the floor mats jutting into the street. An embarrassing pang of grief went through me. I’d killed too many people to be moved by the loss of an old vehicle, but I was anyway.
We drove on Beverly Glen Boulevard much too fast. The windows were open, but the freeway air blowing into my face was dry and hot—there was nothing cooling about it. I asked for water, but no one acknowledged me. I was forced to sit quietly and wonder how I was going to track down Ty again, not to mention the others, and how much time I had before he fell out of this world and let more predators in.
We pulled up to Francois’s big white house and parked at the curb. There was a blue panel van in the drive, and its back doors swung open as we got out of the car. Two more meatheads climbed out, with Arne and Lenard at gunpoint.
Arne had a nasty smile on his face. “God, it’s a beautiful day. Am I right?”
Lenard snorted. I wondered why the two of them let themselves be captured. Were they trying to keep their power a secret? I thought I was the only one concerned about that.
The three of us let ourselves be herded up the front walk toward the house.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Each of us had two meatheads assigned to him, with two more in back and Potato leading the way. When we entered the clean white house, the air-conditioning was so startling that I gasped aloud. It must have been 65 degrees inside, and the sweat on my face and back immediately chilled.
Lenard turned toward me, smiling at the way I gasped. “I know, huh? Let’s move in.”
One of the meatheads shoved him roughly, and we ran out of things to say. I could feel my ghost knife nearby, in the pocket of one of the men, but I didn’t call it. If Arne and Lenard were hiding their tricks, so would I.
We were taken to the same room as the last time. The sliding doors were closed, and blinds were drawn across them. The only light came from a pair of lamps in opposite corners, and they cast a sickly yellow tint over the white furniture.
Swizzle Stick sat in a plush chair in the corner. She wore the same purple bikini, but her legs and arms were crossed, and her chin tucked low, as though she didn’t want to be noticed.
Beside her chair, Francois paced back and forth. His suit this time was midnight black—maybe it made him feel tough.
He never took his eyes off Arne. Potato stopped us five feet from him. The meatheads were all around, standing so close together they were practically in one another’s way. There was a door behind Francois, another that we came through, and of course the sliding doors. The meatheads would catch me if I bolted toward Francois, and there was too much heavy flesh to shove aside to get to either of the other exits.
“Well?” Francois suddenly barked.
“Yeah,” Swizzle Stick answered. Her confidence had drained away. “It was the middle one.” She lifted her chin toward Lenard. “He was the sp—”
“Watch your fucking mouth,” Francois said. “Now get your things and call a cab.”
Her crossed arms and legs slid apart. “What?”
Francois spun toward her. “What did you think would happen? Get out!”
She pushed her long, lanky body out of the chair. I stepped to the side to give her room to pass—and to better position myself to rush the door—but the meatheads took hold of me in a very convincing way. Swizzle went out the far door anyway.
“Bad enough,” Francois said to us, “that you steal my fucking car and try to sell it back to me, but you had to put that fucking video on the Internet? And then you tell my wife?!”
Arne was still smiling. “That’s Web two point oh, baby.”
Francois stepped up close to him. “You think I’m being funny?” There was something unconvincing about Francois’s performance. He wasn’t used to threatening people, and he didn’t have the knack. I snuck a glance at Potato Face. His expression was not quite blank, and he had turned his body away from his employer. I didn’t think he’d be murdering anyone for this boss.
Francois shifted his feet. This wasn’t turning out how he’d planned, and he was growing frustrated. “Do you know what I do to people who cross me?”
I said: “You make them leave this air-conditioned room?”
Arne and Lenard both laughed. Francois spun and came toward me. He got very close to my face. “You think you’re someone, don’t you? But you’re nobody, and I’m going to prove it.
“What’s the matter, gallito?” Lenard said. “Are you a man or not? Tell your wife you wanted to fuck somebody new for a change, and if she don’t like it, tough.”
“The only problem with that,” Arne said, “is that most of the money is hers. Right?”
“That’s bullshit! I have my own money. All my own.”
“That’s good,” Arne said, his voice full of bad ideas. “It’s good for a man to have his own.”
“For now, at least,” I said. “I hear your wife is one hell of a lawyer.”
Francois licked his lips. “You guys are nothing. Mosquitoes. You have no idea what kind of enemies I have.”
Arne grinned at him nastily. “Baby, you don’t even know what kind of enemies you have.”
He turned into a silhouette and vanished.
Francois shrieked—actually shrieked like a little girl—in shock. The meatheads shouted curses or little prayers, and suddenly no one was holding me at all. Lenard smiled and shrugged, then he vanished, too.
Potato suddenly grunted and doubled over as though he’d been kicked in the crotch. The door behind me banged open, and I could hear heavy footsteps stomping through it. Potato staggered toward Francois and fell against him, pinning him against the door and shielding him with his body. “Shut that damn door!” Potato rasped, and his heavy, low voice had the authority to stop everyone still. I heard the door slam shut.
My ghost knife was still nearby. I called it and it zipped out of one of the meatheads’ breast pocket into my hand. He gaped at me, but no one else seemed to notice.
There were five of the meatheads left, plus Potato, Francois, and presumably Arne and Lenard. And me. Three meatheads backed against the glass doors blocking them. One stood against the door we’d come in, and the last one kicked the back of my knees and drove me to the floor.
I hated kneeling, but before I could do anything about it, Potato yelled, “Guns!”
The meatheads drew their pistols. Everything suddenly fell silent. We all listened for some sign of Arne and Lenard but couldn’t hear anything. Were they being completely still, or had they already left the room?
Potato fished a Zippo out of his pants pocket and tossed it to one of the men at the sliding doors. “Newspapers,” he said. The meathead grabbed a section off the coffee table and set fire to it, then held it out in front of him.
“Wave it around,” Potato said. “Spread that smoke.” He turned to me. “How the fuck are they doing this?”
“They were bitten by a radioactive chameleon.”
He scowled at me but didn’t press further. He had other problems to focus on.
The smoke filled the room quickly. I stared at it, eyes unfocused to take in as much as possible, looking for swirls that didn’t have any obvious source. I couldn’t see any.
“Let me out,” Francois said, his voice a low, terrified whisper. “Let me out. Let me out.”
“When I’m sure we have both of them trapped in here, I’ll open the door. Until then, shaddup.”
The central air-conditioning suddenly turned on with a low hum. Smoke swirled in every direction, and at the same moment, the guard holding the burning paper grimaced and clutched at his chest. Blood welled up under his left breast, and he collapsed forward onto the carpet, smothering the flames with his body.