“Do you have copies of these threats?” asked Grissom.
“You’d have to ask Paul-oh, God! ” She started weeping again. “How am I going to cope without him? He handled that kind of thing…”
They waited until she got herself under control. “Do you have a chief of security?” Grissom asked gently.
“Yes. He’s with the hotel. I don’t remember the name, though.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find out and I’ll talk to him,” said Brass. “If his staff has intercepted notes or calls, there may be something we can use.”
Grissom’s phone vibrated. “Excuse me,” he said. He rose from his seat, took a few steps away, and answered. “Grissom.”
He listened intently, then frowned. “David, calm down. Where is he now? All right, good. I want you to meet me outside the morgue, all right? Don’t let anyone else in.”
He snapped the phone shut and headed for the elevator. “I have to go, Jim.”
Brass had been a cop for a long time, and he recognized the tone in Grissom’s voice instantly. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Al,” said Grissom. “He’s in the hospital.”
7
GROUPS THAT CAME TO Black Rock City organized themselves as theme camps. A theme camp could be as small as one person operating out of the back of their vehicle or number a hundred people or more and involve a structure the size of a circus t ent. Theme camps could be based on literally anything, though in recent years the festival had announced an overall art theme to lend some direction; people were free to embrace or ignore the theme as they chose. There were camps that gave away food, massages, costumes, alcohol, haircuts; camps that offered dating services, minigolf, tea, floggings, live music, swing dancing, trapeze lessons, or meditati o n circles. There were hundreds. Each had its own identity, was run entirely by volunteers, and was responsible for packing out every single scrap of material it brought in.
Doozer’s crew was an art collective who called themselves the Phyre Brigade. They were hard-core pyromaniacs, building vehicles and sculptures that played with flame the way a fountain played with water. The group’s base of operations was an old garage on the outskirts of town, its use donated by a fellow Burner who had no current plans for the property.
Greg pulled up next to the rusting spots where the gas pumps had once stood. He could see sparks and the ultraviolet glare of a welding rig inside, through the narrow glass panes of the rolling panel doors. It was late, but Glowbug had told him Doozer preferred working late.
The front entrance was unlocked; a stuffed deer head gazed at the ceiling from the spot on the counter where the cash register had once stood. A door beside that sto od open, leading to the garage; Greg stood in the doorway and called out, “Hello?”
A man in blue coveralls turned off his welding torch and turned around, flipping up the smoked glass visor. His face was as greasy as his clothes, and a cinder smoldered in his heavy black beard.
“Hi,” said Greg. “You’re, uh, on fire.” He pointed.
The man reached up and snuffed out the cinder by pinching it with two fingers. He didn’t say thanks, and he didn’t flinch. “Yeah?”
“I’m Greg Sanders, Las Vegas Crime Lab. Doozer, right? I’d like to talk to you about Hal Kanamu-Kahuna Man. ”
Doozer snorted. “Let me guess. He ODed.”
“Not a surprise, huh?”
“No. He was headed there in a hurry-only a matter of time.”
“You don’t seem real upset by that.”
Doozer glared at him. “Hey, it pisses me off, okay? Every time some sponge brain with no sense of judgment and a death wish kills himself through sheer stupidity, it makes everyone else look bad. And by everyone else, I mean anyone who might like to indulge in a little chemical recreation now and then.”
“Okay, I get it. He was irresponsible. But if so, why let him be part of your camp?”
Doozer studied him for a second before responding. “That’s just it-we didn’t. Turfed him a few weeks ago. He’d show up to planning meetings so wired you could have hook ed him up to a klieg light. Rambling on and on about all this Hawaiian stuff he was into. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good rolling tiki bar as much as the next guy, but he was trying to convince us to change our plans for next year. We’re already halfway done-no way we’re gonna suddenly shift to some half-baked tweaker idea.”
Greg had to admit the vehicle Doozer had been working on was impressive: a gigantic metal scorpion on wheels, the articulated tail ending in a flamethrower. It looked skeletal at the moment, the metal segments that would make up its armor leaning against the wall like a knight’s inventory of shields.
“So this is it, huh? Pretty damn cool.”
“Thanks. Gonna outline the whole thing in electroluminescent wire-either blue or red, not sure. Thing’ll kick some serious ass after nightfall.”
“So what did Kanamu want to build instead?”
“Ah, he kept changing it. Some kind of giant volcano goddess one week, then a fire-breathing shark the next. He was all over the place.”
“You hear about his gambling win?”
“Yeah, everybody knew about it. Only reason we didn’t tell him to take a hike sooner-kept saying he’d finance the whole trip, you know? But there was just no way. Black Rock’s not about money, anyway-it’s about self-suffiency. Find yourself relying on a junkie, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
“ Anyone try to get him to straighten out?”
Doozer shook his head. “Yeah, a couple people talked to him. But he was just as high on the money as the meth, you know? Didn’t want to come down.”
“When was the last time you talked to him?”
“Couple weeks ago. Heard he hooked up with another artist, was gonna pay him to build something and take it to the playa himself.”
“You have the artist’s name?”
“Sorry, no. And Kahuna Man kind of dropped off the radar after that.”
“Okay, thanks.” Greg took one final, admiring glance at the scorpionmobile. “Have fun.”
“Always do.”
“Slow down, David,” said Grissom. “Take a deep breath. Now let it out.”
They were in the hall outside the autopsy room. Grissom had rushed over after a panicked, nearly incoherent phone call from David. “Good. Now tell me again what happened.”
David swallowed. “I was just outside. I heard Doc yell-not like he’d dropped something and was angry, more like something had scared him. I ran in there.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw… I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“It was as big as my hand. Tan colored. It was sitting on the thigh of the body and waving i ts front legs in the air. Doctor Robbins was on the ground, not moving. I didn’t know what to do, so I grabbed a chair and sort of waved it at the spider. It jumped off the table and ran away, I think under one of the shelves. I grabbed Doctor Robbins and pulled him outside, then called the paramedics. He was in a lot of pain-”
“Were its fangs red?”
David frowned. “I-yes. Yes, I think so.”
“All right. Call the hospital and tell them he’s likely been bitten by a Brazilian wandering spider. Its venom is neurotoxic, not necrotic. Got it?”
“I-yes, yes, I’ve got it. Is he going to be all right?”
Grissom hesitated. “Less than one percent of those bitten by this spider die. I’m sure he’ll be fine-just make the call.”
Grissom left David guarding the door while he made a quick trip to the supply closet, returning with a pair of heavy gloves and a large plastic jar.
“I told them,” said David. “They said they had the antivenin.”
“Hopefully they won’t need it. Don’t let anyone else in, all right? This species is highly aggressive-it’s one of the few spiders in the world that will pursue and attack animals much larger than itself.”
“You’re-you’re going in there?”