Т Паркер - Where Serpents Lie

I wanted to go live because I needed the girl in the picture. I needed her to tell the truth about what didn’t happen.

Mal: Such is the power of your work, Shroud. Dream girl to real girl. I stand humbled and desiring.

I. R. Shroud: Rule One of the Live Feed: Flesh disappoints.

Mal: Rule of Mal: better disappointed than eternally un-cum.

I. R. Shroud: Flesh is risk; image is answer.

Mal: But image has inflamed. Only flesh will immolate. You have my humble request. Make real the angel you pictured with me.

I. R. Shroud: Shroud needs to consider. Mal needs to consider considerable expense. Mal must now be considered by most an unreasonable risk.

Mal: But consider Mal’s record to date. A more forthright partner none could find. Test Mal. He will be found neither tightfitsted nor wanting.

I. R. Shroud: What if he wants the item to disprove the image?

Mal: Experts will exonerate. Image damage is done in public eyes. Reality of dream is all that can move me now. I inhabit the lower depths.

I. R. Shroud: Back in ten.

I knew that the odds of Shroud coming back online were small indeed. Yes, he was arrogant. Yes, he felt secure in the ether of his computer. Yes, he wanted my money along with my soul. But he had gotten his whiff of Terry the cop, and he was going to play it safe. I looked at the blank screen.

Then, to my genuine surprise, he was there.

I. R. Shroud: Mission feasible. Object obtainable. Must vet you closely now, Mal. Reasonable and customary fee is ten. You will be asked to perform. Problems?

This was a very real ten thousand dollars that was being asked of me. And after I gave it up, there was no guarantee The Horridus would deliver the girl, no recourse if he failed.

Mal: Punishingly extravagant.

I. R. Shroud: Worth every penny?

Mal: Will need time to gather.

I. R. Shroud: Follow, then this simple formula: Walk the serpent field, Moulton at Laguna Hills Road, 10 AM. tomorrow. Hug the water. Be in possession of half. Rep. will instruct.

Mal: Five, then, for faith and action?

I. R. Shroud: Correct.

Mal: Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I. R. Shroud: Down, Mal. Talk 2 P.M., PST. Start at Fawnskin to find new room. Will need balance shortly after. And out.

Shroud vaporized. I lurked for a while, listening in, while the deviants whispered about their needs. No gossip about Mal and Shroud. They had heeded his warning, or were at least not talking about us.

Now that I had The Horridus talking again, I needed a way to catch him in the act. Any act would do. Crossing a street would be just fine. Vinson Clay could do it. And maybe, with luck, so could L

I made careful note of the hour and minute my conversation with I. R. Shroud began, and when it ended. I put it in my little blue notebook, right below the other live chats we’d had.

Donna stole into the apartment just before 1 A.M. I heard her key in the lock, then the vibrations of her feet on the carpet, then the sharper report of shoes on the parquet wood of the kitchen. I walked into the darkened living room. Moving in the half light of the open refrigerator she looked half real, half there. She poured herself a glass of wine, put the bottle back, then turned to look at me.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Terry,” she said. She came over and leaned her face against my chest. “I feel like I’ve been in bed with the devil himself. I’ve never, ever felt what I felt today, when I stood in that little guest house and smelled that smell. And later, when Sam showed me her... Mary Lou’s... head. ”

“A long shower might wash him off you.”

“A long shower with bleach and a wire brush. Two gallons of wine and ten years of sleep. And I’d still wake up with the smell of the devil in my pores.”

“I talked to him tonight. The Horridus. On the Web.”

“Is he going to procure for you?”

“Yeah.”

“The girl?”

“That’s the deal.”

“Can you get him?”

“I will get him.”

“How?”

“I’ll see the first link of his chain tomorrow when I make a downpayment. In some field down in the south county. One link leads to the next.”

Donna sipped her wine but she didn’t let go of me. Her back felt tight to my hand, and the hand she held around my back was filled with the wadded material of my shirt. Her hair covered her face from me, but I was sure she was looking out the window toward the bean field and the freeways.

“I don’t like the ugliness of all this. Children and monsters. Pictures and snakes. It makes me feel unclean and far from any God I ever knew.”

“It does me, too.”

“Will Melinda help you?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because she’s the expert on the computers, isn’t she?”

I thought about her question for a while. “I’m on my own there, except for Johnny, and what I can squeeze out of Vinson Clay. Mel might help. I mean, she’ll always do the right thing, because that’s Mel. But she’s not going to do much for me. I kind of ruined her life, more or less. Humiliated her.”

Donna broke away from me and stood back.

“Does she know about us?”

“I meant, the pictures humiliated her.”

“But I meant, does she know about us? ”

“No.”

“How sure are you of that?”

“I’ve told you a million times, Donna — she doesn’t know. And at this point, what would it matter?”

“Things like this always matter.”

“She never knew. She doesn’t now.”

Donna looked at me in the near dark.

“Well, Jordan Ishmael does.”

I waited, a cold wave of nerves breaking over my scalp.

“We talked. He talked, mainly.”

“Explain.”

“Said he wanted to confirm his suspicions about us. Said he was acting on a tip. And, thus confirmed, he wanted to know... if... I needed help.”

“It was a bluff and a come-on. He doesn’t know anything about us.”

“Well, when he said that, he was standing about where you are now. He knocked. He identified himself. I’ll give him that. It was my fault, Terry. I’d come over from Tonello’s. He just followed. Or maybe he did get a tip — I don’t know. I denied you even knew about this place, but it didn’t help much. Not with two mugs on the counter, and that bottle of tequila, and your Sheriffs windbreaker over the chair.”

My skin rose up and crawled. “When?”

“Three days ago. You were still in jail.”

“Arrested by Ishmael.”

She said nothing.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“It didn’t make sense to. I thought you might... do something you’d regret.”

“So, what did you tell him?”

“That you were a good man and that someone was framing you. And if he wanted to help me, he could do it by helping you. And if he saw fit to speak of our arrangement I’d burn his ass on the news, sooner or later.”

I couldn’t speak just then. All I could do is feel the blood pounding against my eardrums, a rush that felt like a river.

“He offered to show me the pictures of you and the girl. Girls. If I had any doubt.”

“Did you take him up on it?”

“Of course I did. I’m a reporter. They’re you, Terry. I know you didn’t do what they show you doing, but they’re you. They’re good.”

“But what did he want? ”

Donna sighed, then turned to face me. I could see the small light reflected by her eyes. “Terry, I honestly believe all he really wanted was to help me. His concern seemed genuine. And he wanted to rattle your cage, too. One accomplishes the other, doesn’t it?”