• • •
I read up on the Elizabeth Atell Stanford Museum of the Arts. It was named for the second wife of university founder and all-around rich important guy, Leland Stanford. The university itself had taken a rather dark turn in architecture and landscaping after Stanford’s son and first wife had died, and there had been no shortage of people even in the early part of the Twentieth Century who thought that the Gothic look of the school had been inspired by Elizabeth Atell, who began keeping company with Stanford after he’d spent almost ten years as a widower. The second Mrs. Stanford was quite a bit younger than her new husband, a woman of many interests, including spiritualism and the occult, which were both pretty common and socially acceptable in those days. Not only did Leland’s second wife have a lot to do with the design and building of the museum, but she was rumored to have used the place at night for seances with her like-minded friends. One source even claimed she had meant the whole place to be a monument to Spiritualism, but I never saw anything to confirm that.
Whatever its original inspiration, though, the Museum of the Arts had been thoroughly revamped a few times, like in the nineteen-thirties and the early seventies, but only once since Yours Truly appeared on the scene in San Judas. That refurbishment of ten years or so back, which included the new wing so important to Donya Sepanta, had added an entire section on Western Asia to the Asian Arts display, including a huge Persian exhibit. I’d been to the place once or twice myself, before all this Anaita stuff came along, but had never noticed anything unusual about any of it, although the sculpture garden was famously odd—full of grotesque stuff Elizabeth A. Stanford brought back from Europe in the twenties, a modern-day magnet for goth tourists and other seekers of the weird.
• • •
I had been waiting in my cab in a parking lot on Bloch Drive for almost two hours, scribbling notes to myself and reading when I got bored. (It was a Jim Thompson book, in case you wondered.) I waited so long that I began to get worried visions of the Amazons and little Edie Parmenter being interrogated in some kind of sub-museum dungeon. I was about two minutes away from crashing into the museum like the U.S. Cavalry when I saw them trotting toward me along Campus Drive. They piled into the cab. Edie was the last and she looked a little pale.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Just drive, Mr. Dollar.”
Halyna opened her bag and spilled a bunch of maps and other tourist information onto the front seat beside me. “The guards don’t like us. They always watch us. We had to stay so long because then they think we are serious about being there.”
“Yeah, but did you find anything?”
“There’s something in there, Mr. Dollar,” said Edie from the back seat. “Something super strong! It kind of made me feel sick.” She made a face. “I can still almost taste it!”
“Taste it? What are you talking about? Did you guys spend the whole day in the food court?”
“There was food court?” asked Oxana.
“No, that’s just how it feels when I get near something powerful.” Edie rolled down the window, although it was getting dark outside and pretty cold. “Like . . . I don’t know, have you ever licked a battery?”
“I’m not allowed to discuss that with a minor,” I said. “Court order. Now, this powerful thing, Edie, did you see it?” I waited, engine idling, until the bored guard at Teller Gate finally decided to wave us through. “Is it in a case or something?” I was getting excited—maybe I wouldn’t have to arrange anything more complicated to recover Eligor’s horn than a smash-and-grab raid.
“ ’Fraid I can’t say, Mr. Dollar. I didn’t actually see anything. But I can tell you, there’s something down at the end of the Asia wing, and the energy is so scary. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything that strong. I still feel like I kind of have a fever.”
On the way back to Edie’s place, north of downtown, she and the Amazons told me how they’d wandered around for a long time on the main floor, drawing pictures and making notes of various exhibits. When one of the guards had stopped to make conversation, they’d told him they were doing it for their college art history course.
“But it was in the Asia part on the third floor that I really started to notice something,” Edie said. “What is it, exactly, Mr. Dollar? I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
No, you probably haven’t, I thought. Even a sensitive as talented and in demand as our Edie wouldn’t have run across many authentic grand-ducal devil horns. “Better you don’t know. What did it feel like?”
“I’m not sure. Just . . . strong. The farther we went in that part of the museum, the stronger it got. I even asked Halyna and Oxana if they felt anything. I thought maybe somebody was, I don’t know, drilling the street outside or something. It made my teeth hurt.”
“And that’s all you could tell? Just that it was strong?”
“It got a lot stronger in the West Asia part, down at the end. That’s where it was so bad I couldn’t even stay there for long, but I couldn’t locate a source. I mean, there wasn’t anything that made the feeling, it was, like, all around.”
Which probably meant that, unfortunately but unsurprisingly, the horn was hidden somewhere, maybe in one of the back rooms.
When we dropped Edie off, I slipped her an extra fifty as hazard pay. Bad enough exploiting a kid’s supernatural gifts without compounding the sin by underpaying her.
• • •
So, the museum. Donya Sepanta, aka Anaita, Angel of Moisture, was a regular visitor. She’d apparently met Eligor there when they were beginning their partnership—the partnership that led to all the crazy, dangerous stuff that had been happening to me in the last year. That partnership had resulted in the exchange—her feather for his horn. And now Edie Parmenter had told me that something extremely potent was hidden in the Asia Wing that Anaita had helped build. That meant the boring part was over. Now it was time to start thinking about how to rob a powerful angel of something she very much did not want to lose.
The thing was, though, after taking days to lay the groundwork properly, I really couldn’t afford to wait much longer, and my hurry didn’t have anything to do with the Christmas shopping season that had descended upon us, or the red, black, and green Kwanzaa banners hanging over the main streets of the Ravenswood district near Caz’s place. I’d started the snowball rolling and now it had a momentum of its own. I didn’t know how much longer I could stall my bosses with my “leave of absence”, and I had already alerted Anaita that I was onto her. Not to mention that the Black Sun Faction, if they’d been the ones who burglarized George (as I was pretty sure they were) knew that I was interested in Donya Sepanta and her doings and holdings. So it was now only a matter of time until one of these houses of cards I’d built caught an unexpected gust and collapsed.
• • •
I initiated Phase Two the day after the museum visit.
The Amazons had brought back Junior Burgers and onion rings, two things they had both developed a passion for, so I let them finish their lunch before announcing, “Okay, folks. We’re going out shopping again.”
“Frozen pizza,” said Halyna. “Here in America the frozen pizza is good. In Ukraine, only frozen, not really pizza.”
“I’m a little worried about you two and your dedication to the Scythian cause,” I said. “You seem to be spending a lot more time trying new kinds of junk food than recruiting little American Amazons.”
“We not recruit,” said Oxana seriously. “Only take who come to us.”
“And it is a long walk to our camp in the mountains,” said Halyna, chomping on an onion ring. “Most turn back. That way we know they are not true Scythians.”
I wasn’t sure I’d want to hike through the cold, snowy Carpathians with only a vague hope that there would be friendly folk waiting for me in the woods somewhere, but I wasn’t going to argue with them. “Anyway—no, w
e are not buying more frozen pizza already. It’s not my fault you bought those horrible yuppie ones you don’t want to eat now. There are many things that do not belong on pizza, and Kung Pao chicken, squid, and tandoori lamb are three of them. No, don’t argue. Today we’re shopping for weapons.”
This proved to be even more popular than buying pizzas. Since we were going to Orban’s I didn’t even bother to suggest the Amazons change clothes. In fact, I was interested to see what the bearded militia-types who worked there would make of my young Ukrainian friends and their lesbian-anarcho-feminist punkitude. After I’d loaded the stuff I wanted to take with me into the trunk, the women piled into the back seat of the taxi. I sat in the front. For the fortieth or fiftieth time, I refused to play Lady Gaga—I’d finally found a jazz station I could get on the cab’s ancient radio—so they sang “Poker Face” the whole way, loud enough to drown out Oscar Peterson and the rest completely.
Because Amazons are assholes.
Surprise number one: The women and Orban’s gunsmiths loved each other. I mean, you would have thought I had brought in a basket of puppies. It helped that the Amazons loved guns, of course, and immediately let themselves be lured off to the firing range to try various small and large arms.
Surprise number two came when Orban, who was standing next to me watching them all trot off like a bunch of Oxford students and their dates going punting, suddenly said, “I am worried about you, Bobby.”
After “I love you, Bobby, and I want to make romantic sex with you,” this was one of the things I least expected to hear from Orban. His normal conversation is so gruff you could use it to clean bathroom tiles, and the only time I ever remember him saying anything else about my health and safety was the time he’d loaned me a machine-pistol and reminded me not to accidentally shoot my dick off with it.
“If you’re concerned about me being screwed to death or something, relax. Those two ladies and I have a strictly platonic friendship based around blowing the shit out of some people we both don’t like.”
“No, not them. Them I like okay. They seem too smart to have sex with you unless they are sleeping or drunk. I am worried because I hear things. Sometimes. About the place you work.”
This was interesting, because although I always assumed Orban knew everything about everything, he only gave out information in tiny, constipated episodes that lasted a few seconds and then were usually denied afterward. I was careful not to scare him off. “And . . . ?”
He inclined his head. “Come on. We talk in my office.”
Orban’s office was a room largely decorated with firing buckets full of sand to shoot into, but he also had a desk, a safe, and an old-time adding machine. He poured himself a glass of wine and offered me one. I wasn’t certain I actually wanted any, but I didn’t want to break the mood. I took a sip and said, “So?”
“So I hear things, like I say. And I hear a lot of things about how bad you are.”
I was puzzled. “Bad?”
“Yes, bad. Like, ‘That Bobby Dollar, always in trouble. I hear he is mixed up in something bad.’”
“Who told you that?”
He shook his head. “I will not tell you. It is not important. It is not someone who knows you, only someone who knows about you a little bit. But he is not the only one. I hear from another one, ‘Bobby stole something important, and now bad guys are after him and Heaven is angry.’”
“Well, both those things are partially true, but leaving out the stealing part you could have said that about me for most of my career.” I laughed, but it didn’t convince Orban. “Come on, people who get things done get talked about, Orban. People talk about you, too.”
“Because I let them. Because I have no use for secrecy. Anybody wants Orban, here Orban is.” He stroked his shrublike beard for a moment, probably thinking about what interestingly painful things he would do to anyone who showed up “wanting Orban.” He took a drink, long enough to finish the glass. “But you, I think, you don’t want everyone to know your business. And people who truly know your business, they aren’t talking. But others are.”
I nodded my head, although I wasn’t sure where he was going. “And that means . . . ?”
“That means someone talks bad about you on purpose. Someone is trying to take you down, Bobby. Maybe they even make up a story so nobody is surprised when something happens to you.”
I already knew it was happening, because just about everyone else in Creation, including an albino fox-fairy who haunted downtown, my boss Temuel, and every single angel I could call a friend, had made it clear to me already. But for some reason hearing it from Orban, the most stolid, stoic guy I knew, gave me a real chill. If it was Anaita, she wasn’t in a hurry. She wasn’t just going to reach out and swat me, she was going to make sure everyone knew that I was a dangerous pest first. Then, not only wouldn’t anyone ask questions when she finally did it, they’d probably give her a medal for erasing me.
“I appreciate it. I really do. But I’m kind of on the road now, full speed ahead. I can’t turn back.”
“Then be very careful.”
I wasn’t used to Bleeding-Heart Orban. It made me nervous. So I changed the subject. “Did you sell my car?”
“Found a buyer, yes. A very nice fellow, a collector in Seattle. He will take good care of it.”
Like I cared. “The Arab sheik we sold your daughter to is a very nice fellow”—yeah, that would make you feel great. But me losing the Matador wasn’t Orban’s fault. “Thanks,” I said. “And now some other business. Can you figure out a way to make a pressurized spray of silver nitrate?”
He looked at me like I’d just started shouting monkey noises. “A what of what?”
I explained. He frowned. That made me feel better—it was a much more familiar look for him. “I don’t know until I try. Research and development cost extra, you know. I should have just kept all the money I gave you.”
“Yeah, you’ll probably get most of it back by the time I’m done.” Still, I had a plan (well, I was planning to have one, which was practically the same) and I was ready to start outfitting myself and the others to make it happen. That was what was important. Yes, I had lots to worry about, but I had work to do. “But that’s life, right? You can’t be rich and happy, too.”
Orban snorted. “That is a lie. I have been both.”
“Yeah, well, you’re Hungarian.”
While he was searching for a hidden insult, I led him back out to find the women so we could decide what kinds of guns they were going to need. They were whooping it up with Orban’s engineers, getting the full guided tour of the mayhem factory, and they were loving it.
“Bobby!” said Halyna. “They have a tank! It is Russian. We should get it!”
“That is good fun,” Oxana agreed. “Then we smash right into that—”
I cut her off before she started talking about blowing up the Elizabeth Atell Stanford Museum. I trusted Orban with my life, but I didn’t know his workers that well. In fact, some of them looked like the kind of guys who might have a sneaking fondness for the Black Sun’s way of looking at the world. I know, I’m a bigot, but tattoos that say, “White Power” encourage jumping to conclusions.
“We’ll need to be a little more discreet than that,” I said. “But I think we can spring for at least one flamethrower. How’s that?”
“You are serious?” said Halyna. “Hah! That is for me!”
“You have to share.” Oxana sounded like the kid who’d just received a toothbrush in her Halloween treat bag. “What do I get?”
“Guns,” I said. “And probably some kind of pressurized silver nitrate sprayer, too.”
“Does it make burning?”
“Sadly, no,” I said, then leaned close to whisper in her ear. “But it will make those nasty-ass Nightmare Children bubble like salted slugs.”
“Okay, I guess,??
? Oxana said with a tragic look. Beside her, Halyna was making whoooosh noises, pretending to torch the engineers as they wandered back to their workbenches. “I guess I can do.”
Kids today—am I right? You can never give them enough.
twenty-seven
another death threat
I KNOCKED ON the door and one of them said “Come in.” So I went in.
Both of the Amazons were in Caz’s expansive tub. Naked. Slick and wet and covered in suds, tattoos gleaming. There was water all over the tiles. Halyna had made little pasties for herself out of soap bubbles that bobbed up and down as she rubbed shampoo into her red hair. Oxana hadn’t bothered, but she had a dollop of soap froth on top of her wet head like she was a cappuccino. Lots of lean, muscular, young body, two women’s worth, dripping and soapy. I saw all that in about two seconds, then I jumped back and slammed the door.
“Jesus Henry Christ!” I said. “What are you doing? Do you want to kill me?”
“What is wrong, Bobby?” Halyna called from the other side of the door.
“What’s wrong? You two are nude. I am fucking celibate and not liking it at all. You are either monsters or dumb-asses or both.”
I could hear them both giggling. I never knew Ukrainian dykes could make that noise—like evil Campfire Girls. “But you are angel, Bobby!” called Oxana. “That means you are like doctor.”
“No. No, it doesn’t mean that at all. And do you get naked and lathered up to go to a medical appointment? I hope not. Seriously, don’t do that shit to me.”
“Sorry, Bobby.” But they didn’t sound sorry at all. I hate it when people take advantage of my kind nature, because I never fucking wanted to have a kind nature in the first place. “I was going to tell you the boys are here. Come on out so we can get to work.” I paused, realizing I’d left them a loophole. “Come on out with clothes on that cover all the important bits. Clarence and Wendell may not care, but I’m wired differently than they are.”