Chapter Eighteen
“There’s something living under the building,” Mariposa said.
Vish squatted beside her and squinted into the darkness of the crumbled corner. “I don’t see anything,” he said. “Is it what you thought you saw before?”
“It’s still there. It’s just a shadow, nothing else. But it moves.” She placed a plastic bowl beside the orange safety cone marking the hole. The bowl was filled with what looked like mineral oil and a handful of leaves.
“What’s that for?” Vish asked.
Mariposa shrugged. She seemed embarrassed. “Something I learned about from a girl at my job. She said it’d protect us.”
He leaned down and examined the contents of the bowl. It smelled good, citrussy and astringent, reminiscent of Troy’s perfume. “Do you mean like… magic?”
She scowled and shook her head. “It’s not magic. And I’m not really doing it right. I’m supposed to use this little cauldron thing, but it was too expensive, even with my employee discount, so I figured the bowl would work okay. If there’s something bad in the hole, this should keep it in there.”
He stared at her for a moment. “Where do you work?” he asked.
“Luisa Botanica? It’s near downtown, on Union,” she said. “You know what a botanica is?”
“A plant store?”
She rolled her eyes. “Santeria supplies. Charms and candles and stuff. You know what Santeria is, right?”
“Sure. I mean, I don’t know much about it, but I know what it is.” Vish squinted into the hole. Whatever Mariposa was talking about, whatever she thought she saw, he couldn’t see anything but darkness. “So you’re into that kind of thing?”
“No. I don’t know. I mean, it’s just my job. But it’s good to keep an open mind, you know?” She shrugged. “I figure it might help. Couldn’t hurt, right?”
“Probably not,” he said. He looked at the bowl. Santeria. Huh.
She threw him a sidelong glance. “I have to go to work now,” she said. “If you want to see the place, you could come with me.”
He considered. He had no plans, and it sounded like it could be interesting. “All right,” he said.
She grinned at him. “Cool. Don’t tell my mom, though. No boys in the car, right?”
Mariposa drove too fast, zipping down the freeway, weaving in and out of traffic. All the windows were down, and the radio blasted some relentlessly upbeat pop song. Vish was much too old for this kind of thing, but it was fun to lean back in the seat and watch the downtown skyline drawing closer. He liked downtown Los Angeles, the skimpy cluster of skyscrapers exploding up from the surrounding blocks of smaller historic buildings. Nice to have an excuse to visit.
Luisa Botanica took up the ground floor of a run-down building in a neighborhood that had seen better days. It wasn’t any rattier than Venice, really, though it was a lot more crowded. Lots of activity, plenty of people on the street. Central American restaurants, discount stores with their signs in Spanish, doughnut shops, street vendors presiding over folding tables loaded with t-shirts and leather billfolds.
Inside, the botanica looked much like an ordinary drugstore. Fluorescent lights, dull white walls, peeling linoleum floors, rows of cheap metal shelves laden with goods. The merchandise, though, was decidedly different: Vish looked at racks of scented oils, at clay pots, at hammered metal crowns, at carved wooden figurines of voodoo deities. Religious texts in Spanish and English, seashells and bangles and beads and bottles. One entire aisle was devoted to candles, colorful ones housed in tall glass jars painted with vivid images of saints.
Mariposa nudged him in the side. “What do you think?”
“It’s huge.” Vish looked around. “I didn’t know this sort of thing existed here, at least not on this scale.”
“They’re all over the city,” Mariposa said. “You see them all the time if you’re looking for them.”
She beckoned him over to a shelf. “Look at this. Love charms. If you want to get your girlfriend back, you could use one of these.”
Vish looked at a collection of small drawstring pouches, each one claiming to contain a spell to rekindle lost romance. Impossible to imagine winning Troy back this easily. Then again, she’d fallen for him almost at first sight, and when she left him, she’d acted like a spell had been broken…
He shook his head. Stupid to even indulge that kind of thinking.
“Who’s your friend, Mariposa?” Vish turned to see a middle-aged woman glaring at him. Her expression was openly disapproving.
She looked elegant, yet severe. She wore a burgundy suit with a double row of gold buttons down the front. Dark hair anchored back into a tight chignon, gold-framed eyeglasses, chunky gold earrings shaped like rope knots. Her black stiletto pumps gave her a few inches on Vish.
“Hey, Isabella. This is my neighbor, Vish. I was just showing him the store. Isabella owns this place,” Mariposa explained to him.
“I own the building,” Isabella said. “Someone else owns the store and rents this space from me.” When she looked at Vish, she didn’t seem pleased with what she saw. “Vish, was it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.” He extended a hand. Isabella shook it. Firm grip. Her eyes never left his face.
“I wonder if I might borrow you for a moment, Vish. I’m rearranging some furniture in my office, and I could use an extra pair of strong hands.”
“Of course. No problem.”
“I need to punch in. You can get home from here okay, right?” Mariposa asked Vish. “Because otherwise I can drive you back on my lunch break, but I don’t know if you’re still going to be around then.”
“I’ll take the bus. Don’t worry about it,” Vish said.
Mariposa threw him a quick goodbye wave and headed for the counter by the front door. Vish followed Isabella out the emergency exit in back, which led into a short hallway. A nice old building, really, with small black-and-white tiles forming intricate geometric patterns on the floor and bronze pendant lamps shaped like fans drooping from the ceiling.
Isabella stopped in front of an office door. Gilt letters were painted on the frosted window: Isabella Madre, with a couple sentences of Spanish-language text beneath it. Vish managed to decipher a single word. Notario. “You’re a lawyer?”
She nodded once, curtly, and unlocked the door. It opened into a waiting room that was only slightly roomier than an airplane lavatory. One folding chair, a wire display rack of brochures in Spanish, a potted palm wedged beside the door. Just beyond it was her private office. It was similarly tiny, with room for her desk, two client chairs, and a skinny metal filing cabinet. She had a framed diploma from Stanford Law and a calendar from the American Bar Association hanging on her wall.
Vish looked around. “What did you need me to move?” he asked.
“Nothing. I lied. Sit down, I want to talk to you.” She closed the door and settled behind her desk, then pointed at one of the client chairs. Surprised, Vish obeyed.
“You’re Mariposa’s neighbor.” It wasn’t a question, but Vish found himself nodding.
“She lives in the apartment right next to mine,” he said.
She stared at him over the rims of her glasses and said nothing. She’d be a demon in the courtroom, reducing witnesses to wrecked piles of nerves with little more than stern glares and well-timed silences. “You’re much too old for her.”
Vish gaped at her for a moment. “Oh,” he said at last. “Oh. No. It’s not like that. I’m just her neighbor. That’s it.”
Another hard stare. Vish wanted to fill the silence with more denials, but there was nothing more to be said—he didn’t have improper designs on Mariposa, there was nothing to suggest he did, and it wasn’t his problem if Isabella had misinterpreted the situation. Even still, he felt guilty and furtive, like he was trying to withhold secrets that she’d winnow out of him through icy stares and razor-sharp questions.
Isabella sat back in her chair. “She looked at you lik
e she thinks you’re more than a neighbor.”
“I have no idea why she would,” Vish said. “There’s nothing between us.”
“Then why are you hanging around her workplace?” she asked.
Well, good question. “I’d never heard of botanicas before Mariposa mentioned this place. I was curious.” It was clear from her expression this wasn’t enough of an answer, so Vish kept going. “She thinks something is living in the ground under our apartment complex, so she did… I don’t know what you’d call it. I guess it’s some kind of protection spell or something, though she says it’s not magic.”
Isabella nodded slowly. “And you? Do you think your building needs protection?”
“No, but…” Vish inhaled, shook his head. “No. I don’t.”
“But you need protection, don’t you?” Isabella pointed a burgundy nail at the fading bruise on his forehead. “It looks like you found some trouble recently.”
“I was mugged,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” Another long silence, and then she spoke: “I think you came here because you’re searching for some help. Trouble has found you, and you don’t understand why. Am I close?”
Vish didn’t answer. He rose from his chair. “I’m sorry. I should get going.”
“Just a moment.” It was a command. “Wouldn’t you like to know why?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Vish said.
“There’s a mark on you,” Isabella said. She shook her head. “That’s not accurate, but it’s a simple way to explain it. Someone marked you as someone of importance, and it’s attracting the wrong people. I like Mariposa. She’s a smart girl and a good kid. If she’s hanging around you, she’s in danger.”
“A mark?”
“It’s nothing visible. Nothing, really, that I can describe, either. It simply exists.” She thought for a moment. “I sensed it as soon as you walked into my building. My eyes hurt a little just from looking at you, like the beginnings of a migraine headache.” She smiled for the first time. “It’s making me snappish. That’s not your fault. I apologize.”
“I’m not following this,” Vish said.
“It’s confusing, I know.” Her expression softened. “I imagine this is already more of an explanation than Sparky has bothered to provide.”
Vish stared at her. “Sparky?”
“You’ve been spending time with Sparky Mother. You have his mark on you, and it’s getting you into trouble.” She raised her eyebrows over the rims of her glasses. “You don’t have to confirm or deny that. I don’t need details.”
“I’ve met Sparky Mother twice, very briefly. He didn’t mark me.”
The icy stare bored into him once more. “He gave you his phone number, didn’t he? And you called him. And when you did, a connection was established between you. You became important.” She almost seemed to be speaking to herself. “Someone else knew about that call, someone who wants what Sparky has.”
“And what’s that?”
“Hollywood.” She smiled. “Isn’t that what most people in this town want? Glamour and power and fame? Sparky’s the key to all that.” A shrug. “It often comes with a cost, of course. I imagine you’ve found that out for yourself already.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Because Mariposa thinks something is living under your building.” She glanced at him over the rims of her glasses. “Something crawled up from the earth and found you when you dialed Sparky’s number. The ground shook, and everything changed.”
It was weirdly hypnotic, listening to her talk. Nothing she said made much sense, and yet…
“How do you know Sparky?” he asked.
“We’re very old friends.” A smile, so cold it took his breath away.
“Can you tell me who he is?”
“No. I don’t mean I won’t. I mean quite literally I can’t. I don’t have the words to describe who or what he is. I’m not sure Sparky himself could tell you.”
“You’re talking about something supernatural, aren’t you?” he asked. He didn’t recognize his voice, which sounded odd and distant.
She didn’t answer. She picked up a small notepad and scribbled something on it. She tore off the sheet and handed it to Vish. A few words in Spanish that meant nothing to him. “Give that to Mariposa and tell her I said to get it for you.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“Protection. Something to hide the mark.” She considered. “Did you ever have warts as a child?”
A confusing shift of topic. “Ah… once. On my knee,” he said.
“How’d you treat it?” she asked.
“My mother was a doctor. She put some purple stuff on it and covered it with a bandage. After a couple of weeks it went away.”
“Purple dye,” Isabella said, nodding. “Iodine, probably, though what it really was doesn’t matter. Simple food coloring would’ve worked just as well. Many parents did that, doctors or not. I’m sure some still do. Warts are a weak infection, and it often takes very little to make them go away. If you believe the dye is medicine that will make the wart disappear, it probably will.”
Vish was about to respond, but the sound of the outer door to the hall closing startled him. Isabella glanced at her watch and frowned. “That’s my next appointment. Give that to Mariposa. She’ll know what to do.”
She rose from her chair and moved toward the door. Relief that this strange and awkward encounter was over trumped Vish’s desire to learn more about Isabella’s connection to Sparky. He followed her out of her office.
A young couple, probably husband and wife, hovered anxiously in the tiny waiting area. Isabella shook their hands and spoke a few crisp words to them in Spanish, then led them into her office. She glanced back at Vish once, nodded at him, and closed the door.
Vish was tempted to just flee, walk out of the building and catch the next bus home, but he went back into the botanica anyway. Mariposa stood behind the cash register; he handed her the paper from Isabella. “Hey. She said you’d be able to get me this?”
Mariposa glanced down at Isabella’s notes. “Yeah, sure.” She pointed at a jewelry rack propped up on the counter. An array of bracelets dangled from it, colorful wooden beads strung on elastic string. “Pick your favorite color.”
“Does it make any difference?” Vish asked.
Mariposa shrugged. “It’s not like they do anything,” she said. “They’re just supposed to help people feel safe.”
Vish picked out one with gray beads. It cost two dollars. Mariposa rang up the sale and handed it to him. “Here you go.” She frowned. “Why’d Isabella want you to get one?”
“I couldn’t really tell you.” He slipped the bracelet around his wrist. With a wave goodbye to Mariposa, he left the store, feeling like an idiot.