My windows were down. The spring evening was warm and dry. I couldn’t remember the last time we had rain. I liked the rain. Perhaps I liked the rain because I lived in Southern California. Rain here was like the elusive lover who keeps you begging for more. Perhaps if I lived up north I would not like the rain so much. I didn’t know. I’d never lived anywhere else.
I took the 22 East and headed toward the city of Orange. At Main Street I exited and drove past the big mall, and turned left onto Parker Avenue and into the parking lot of the biggest building in the area.
I took the elevator to the seventh floor. In the lobby, I was greeted by a pretty brunette receptionist. Greeted might have been too generous. Frankly, she didn’t look very much like a happy camper. She was a young girl of about twenty-five, with straight brown hair that seemed to shine like silk. My hair once shone like silk; now it hung limply. Her pink sweater knit dress was snug and form-fitting, highlighting unnaturally large breasts. Did nothing for me, but then again, I am not a man. I sensed much animosity coming from her. Waves of it. I think I knew why. She was working late, and I was part of the reason she was working late.
I gave her my most winning smile. Easy on the teeth. The nameplate on her desk read: Sara Benson.
“Hi, Sara. I’m Samantha Moon, here to see Mr. Fulcrum.”
“Mr. Fulcrum is waiting for you, Mrs. Moon. I’ll show you to his office.”
As she did so, I said, “I understand you’re going to help me tonight?”
“You understand correctly.”
“I would just like to express my gratitude. I’m sure you would rather be anywhere else but here.”
“You have no idea,” she said, and stopped before a door. “He’s in here.”
11.
Kingsley occupied a spacious corner suite, filled with lots of dark wood shelving and legal reference books. Had the blinds not been shut he would have had a grand panoramic view of Santa Ana and Orange. Thick stacks of rubberbanded folders were piled everywhere, and in one corner was a discreet wet bar. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s was sitting not-so-discreetly on the counter.
“Generally, the Jack Daniel’s stays behind the bar during office hours,” said Kingsley, moving around from behind his desk and shaking my hand, which he might have held a bit longer than protocol required. Then added, “You keep strange hours, Mrs. Moon.”
I removed my hand from his grip. “And you heal surprisingly well.”
The scar above his eye was almost gone. Indeed, it even appeared to have moved a little—to the left, perhaps—but then again Mom always told me I had an overactive imagination. He saw me looking at it and promptly turned his head.
“Touché,” he said. “A drink to the freaks?”
“This freak is working. No drinking.” Drinking didn’t effect me, but he didn’t need to know that.
“Do you mind if I have one?”
“You mean another one?” I asked. I could smell it on his breath.
“You are quite the detective,” he said.
“Oh yeah, that was a hard one.”
He grinned and swept past me toward the bar. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”
The closest place to make myself comfortable was a client chair that was currently occupied by a giant box. “Would you prefer I sit on a pile of folders or on top of this box?” I asked, perhaps a little snottily.
Behind me, at the bar, Kingsley had started to pour himself another drink. “Forgive me. We’ve been so busy lately; the place is a mess. Let me get that for you.”
“Don’t bother,” I said, setting the heavy box on the floor.
Now back behind his desk, drink in hand, Kingsley watched me carefully. He took a sip from the highball glass. The bourbon sparkled amber in the half-light. I love half-light. I watched him watching me. Something was up. Finally, he said, “That box is filled with four fifty-pound plates,” he said. “Two hundred pounds. And if you throw in the other crap in the box, that’s well over two hundred pounds.”
“I’m not following,” I said, although I suspected I knew what he was getting at.
“It was a test,” he said smugly. “And you passed. Or failed. Depending how you look at it.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t say anything. Instead, I found myself looking at his fading scars. Not too long ago I had stepped on a thick piece of glass; the wound had healed completely in a few hours. Unlike mine, Kingsley’s face had a healthy rosy glow. And he had arrived at my home in the middle of the day and had not worn extra protection from the sun. He was not like me, and yet he had survived five bullet shots to the head.
“Well,” I said, “I would have been in trouble had it been too much over two hundred pounds.”
He pounced. “You only work nights, Mrs. Moon. You wear an exorbitant amount of sunscreen. Your windows, I noticed, were all completely covered. You lift two hundred pounds without a moment’s hesitation. Your skin is icy to the touch. And you have the complexion of an avalanche victim.”
“Okay, that last one was just mean,” I said.
“Sorry, but true.”
“So what are you getting at?”
He leaned back and folded his hands over his flat stomach. “You’re a vampire, Mrs. Moon.”
I laughed. So did he. Mine was a nervous laugh; his not so much. As I gathered my thoughts for a firm rebuttal, I found myself taking a second glance around his office. Behind his desk on the wall, was a beautiful picture of the full moon taken by a high-powered telescopic lens. There was a silver moon globe next to his monitor. Half moon bookends, which, if placed together, would form a full moon. On his desk was a picture of a woman, a very beautiful woman, with a full moon rising over her shoulder.
“You’re obsessed with moons,” I said.
“Which is why I picked you out of the phone book,” he said, grinning. “Couldn’t help myself, Mrs. Moon.”
We were both silent. I watched him carefully. His mouth was open slightly. He was breathing heavily, his wet tongue pushed up against his incisors. His face looked healthy, vigorous and...feral.
“You’re a werewolf,” I said finally.
He grinned, wolf-like.
12.
Kingsley moved over to the window, pulled aside the blinds, and peered out into the night. With his back to me, I could appreciate the breadth and width of his shoulders.
“Could you imagine in your wildest dream,” he said finally, “of ever having this conversation?”
“Never.”
“And yet neither one of us has denied the other’s accusations.”
“Nor have we admitted to them,” I added.
We were silent again, and I listened to the faint hum of traffic outside the window. I spied some of the reassuring darkness through the open slats. I was in uncharted territory here, and so I decided to roll with the situation.
“For simplicity’s sake,” he said, his back still to me, “let’s assume we are vampires and werewolves. Where does that leave us?”
“Obviously I must kill you,” I said.
“I hope you’re kidding.”
“I am.”
“Good, because I don’t die easily,” he said. “And certainly not without a fight.”
“I just love a good fight,” I said.
He ignored me. “So,” he said, turning away from the window and crossing his arms across his massive chest. “How do you want to handle this?”
“Handle what?”
He threw back his head and laughed. It was a very animalistic gesture. He could have just as easily been a coyote—or a wolf—howling at the moon. “This new wrinkle in our working relationship,” he said.
“As far as I’m concerned you are still my client and I’m still your detective. Nothing has changed.”
“Nothing?”
“Other than the fact that you claim to be a werewolf.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“Mr. Fulcrum, werewolves are fairytales.”
“And vampires ar
en’t?”
I laughed. Or tried to. “I’m not a vampire. I just have a condition.”
“A condition that requires you to stay out of the sun,” he said, incredulously. “A condition that requires you to drink blood. A condition that has turned you whiter than a ghost. A condition that has given you superhuman strength.”
“I never said it was a common condition. I’m still looking into it.”
He grinned. “It’s called vampirism, my dear, and it’s time for you to own it.”
“Own it?”
“Isn’t that what the kids say these days?” he said.
“Just how old are you, Mr. Fulcrum?”
“Never mind that,” he said. “The question on the table is a simple one: do you believe I’m a werewolf?”
“No,” I said.
“Do you believe you are a vampire?” he asked.
I hesitated. “No.”
“Fine,” he said. “Is your husband cheating on you?”
“Why would you say that?” I asked.
“I assume he is,” said Kingsley. “I assume he’s terrified of you and he doesn’t know what to do about it yet, especially with the kids in the picture.”
“Shut up, Kingsley.”
“And since you’re not denying it, I will also go as far as to assume he’s a son-of-a-bitch for abandoning you in the hour of your greatest need.”
“Please, shut up.”
“I also know something else, Mrs. Moon. He will take the kids from you and there isn’t a single goddamn thing you can do about it.”
Something came over me, something hot and furious. I flashed out of the client chair and was on Kingsley before he could even uncross his arms. My left hand went straight for his throat, slamming him hard against the wall. Too hard. The back of his head crashed through the drywall. Teeth bared, I looked up into his face—and the asshole was actually grinning at me, with half his head still in the wall. His hair and shoulders were covered in plaster dust.
“Shut the hell up!” I screeched.
“Sure. You got it. Whatever you say.”
We stood like that for a long time, my hand clamped over his throat, his head pushed back into the wall.
“Can you set me down now?” he asked in a raspy voice.
“Down?” I said, confused, my voice still raspy in my throat.
“Yeah,” he said, pointing. “Down.”
I followed his finger and saw that his feet were dangling six inches above the floor. I gasped and dropped him as his head popped out of the wall.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “I was mad.”
Kingsley rubbed his neck. “Remind me next time not to piss you off,” he said, dusting off his shoulders and opening his office door. “Oh, and I’m sorry to inform you, Mrs. Moon, that you are very much a vampire.”
Eyes glowing amber, he winked at me and left.
13.
Sara and I spent the next three hours sorting through files and since Sara was a little on the grumpy side, I did what any rational person would do under similar circumstances. I ordered Chinese. When it arrived she perked up a little. Some people needed alcohol to loosen up, apparently Sara needed fried wontons.
We ate at her desk. Or, rather, I pretended to eat at her desk. We ate mostly in silence.
Interestingly, according to the pictures on Sara’s desk, she seemed to know how to let loose just fine. There were pictures of her in a bikini on some tropical isle, of her hiking along a heavily forested mountain trail, of her viciously spiking a volleyball, of her dressed as a pirate in an office Halloween party, complete with massive gold hoops, eye patch and mustache. In the background was Kingsley dressed as a werewolf. I almost laughed.
“You played volleyball?” I asked.
“Yes, at Pepperdine. I tried out for the Olympics.”
“What happened?”
“Almost made the team. Maybe next time.”
“Maybe next time,” I said. “Is Kingsley a good boss?”
She shrugged. “He’s kind enough. Gives big bonuses.”
“What more could you want?” I asked cheerily.
She shrugged and turned her attention to her food. I tried another approach. “Do you like your job?”
She shrugged again and I decided to let my attempt at idle conversation drop. Maybe she needed more fried wontons.
While we ate, we worked from a long list of all of Kingsley’s closed files from the past six years. Seven hundred and seventy-six in all. Kingsley was a busy boy. From these files, I removed all those Kingsley had personally litigated. Now we were down to three hundred and fifty-three. Still too many to work with. From those, I removed all violent crime; in particular, murder defense cases. Now we were down to twelve files.
I told Sara I would need copies of all twelve files. She promptly rolled her eyes.
While we made copies, Sara decided to open up a little to me. Okay, maybe she hadn’t decided so much as gave in to my constant barrage of questions. Anyway, I gleaned that she had come here to Kingsley’s firm straight from college. Initially, she had loved working for her boss, but lately not so much.
“Why?” I asked, hoping for more than just a shrug. I had the Chinese restaurant’s number in my pocket should I need an emergency order of fried wontons.
Turns out I didn’t need the number. Rather heatedly, Sara told me in detail the story of the rapist who had been freed because Kingsley had discovered evidence of tampering at the crime scene. She finished up with: “Yes, Mr. Fulcrum’s a good man. But he’s a better defense attorney. And that’s the problem.”
I was sensing much hostility here. We were standing at the copier, working efficiently together, passing folders back and forth to each other as we copied them. Sara was very pretty and very young. Any man’s dream, no doubt. She was taller than me and her breasts appeared fake, but in Southern California that’s the norm and not the exception. She, herself, did not seem fake. She seemed genuine and troubled, and I suddenly knew why.
“You dated Kingsley,” I said.
She looked up, startled. “Why? Did he say something to you?”
“No. Just a hunch.”
She passed me another folder. I removed the brackets and flipped through it, looking for papers of unusual sizes, or POUS’s, that would jam the copier. As she spoke, she crossed her arms under her large chest and leaned a hip against the copy machine. “Yeah, we dated for a while. So?”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Ask him. He broke it off.”
“Why?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” she said.
“It’s a compulsion,” I said. “I should probably see a shrink about it.”
Her eyes brightened a little and she nearly smiled, but then she got a handle on herself and remembered she didn’t like me. “He said things were moving too fast for him. That he had lost his wife not too long ago and he wasn’t ready for something serious.”
“When did his wife die?” I asked.
“A few years ago. I don’t know.” She shrugged. She didn’t know, and she clearly didn’t care.
“Are you still angry with him?” I asked.
She shrugged and looked away and clammed up the rest of the night. Yeah, I think she was still angry.
We finished copying all twelve files, many of which were nearly a foot thick. Maybe within one I would find a suspect or a clue or something. At any rate, the files would give me something to do during the wee hours of the night, especially since I had recently finished Danielle Steel’s latest novel, Love Bites, about two vampires in love. Cute, and uncannily dead on.
So Sara and I loaded up the files into a box and as I carried the entire thing out to the elevator, the young assistant watched me with open-mouthed admiration. I get that a lot.
“Jesus, you’re strong,” she said as we stepped into the elevator.
“It’s the Pilates,” I said. “You should try them.”
“I will,” she said. “Oh, and I??
?m supposed to remind you that these files are confidential.”
“I’ll guard them with my life.”
Outside, in the crisp night air, Sara said, “I sure hope you find out who shot Knighty.” She caught the indiscretion and turned beat red, her face glowing brightly under the dull parking lot lamps. “I mean, Mr. Fulcrum.”
I smiled at her slip. “I do, too.”
She thanked me for the Chinese food, seemed to want to tell me something else, thought better of it, then dashed off to her car. I watched her get in and back out and drive away. Just as I shoved the box into the minivan, the fine hairs at the back of my neck sprang to life. I paused and slowly turned my head. My vision is better at night. Not great, but better. I was alone in the parking lot. Check that; there was an old Mercedes parked in a parking lot across the street. A man was sitting there, and he was watching me with binoculars.
I slammed the minivan’s door and moved purposely through the parking lot, crossed the sidewalk, stepped down the curb and headed across the street.
He waited a second or two, watching me steadily, then reached down and gunned his vehicle to life. His headlights flared to life, and before I was halfway across the street, he reversed his Mercedes and tore recklessly through the parking lot. As he exited at the far end, turning right onto Parker Avenue and disappearing down a side street, I was certain of two things:
One: he had no plates. Two: those weren’t binoculars.
They were night-vision goggles.
14.
With the files in my backseat and thoughts of the night vision goggles on my mind, I called Mary Lou around 10:30 to thank her for watching my kids.
“I’m still watching them,” she said sleepily.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Danny never showed up,” she said.
“Did he at least call?” I asked.
“No.”
I was on the 57 freeway, but instead of getting off at my exit on Yorba Linda Blvd, I continued on to Mary Lou’s house two exits down. Yeah, it’s nice to have family close by, especially when you have kids.
“I’m so sorry,” I said when she opened the door. “I didn’t mean to stick you with the kids all night.”
“Not your fault. I love them, anyway. Tell me you at least made some headway on your case.”
“Some headway,” I admitted. I left out the part about Kingsley being a werewolf but did mention the guy in the parking lot.