Caitlin Kittredge - Devil's Business

“Yeah,” Jack said aloud. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

In the morning, Jack found Pete and Mayhew drinking orange juice on his small balcony. Mayhew offered him a glass. “Sorry, man. Pete said to let you sleep. Jet lag and all that.”

Jack ignored his offer and pulled up a chair. “Got any food?”

“Yeah, I called out for some breakfast,” Mayhew said. “Didn’t think Pete here would feel like going out.”

He brought Jack a bowl of cereal, sickly sweet with bits of pink marshmallow floating in milk that had just turned. Jack ignored the civilized bachelor’s version of a Fuck You and took the time to size up Mayhew while the detective chattered at Pete about what an absolutely tip-top sort of place Venice was.

If Mayhew was a practitioner, he wasn’t much of one. His talent was barely a flutter, and he didn’t seem to realize that a mage could size him up and ferret out his demon-soaked aura like smelling a dead mouse in your vents.

Aside from his questionable grasp on magic, Mayhew was a sad sight. He’d probably been a big, strong man around ten years ago, but now his ridiculous Hawaiian shirt was taxed to capacity with a round stomach, and his hair was starting to get more salt than pepper, like dirty snow covering dirtier ground. His jowls hung heavy, and when he talked to Pete he stared at her intently with his slightly too-small eyes, a look that Jack recognized well enough. Most straight men looked at Pete that way.

Altogether, Mayhew didn’t inspire any more confidence in Jack that he wasn’t out to bugger them thoroughly and completely, without the benefit of Astroglide.

“My buddy called and said you can pick up your car,” Mayhew told Pete. “Any ideas about the case?”

Pete shoved back from the table. “None I’d care to share. Come on, Jack.”

Mayhew blinked, clearly having expected that their little duo of Bogart and Bacall would continue for as long as he kept grinning and pouring orange juice. “But you’ll need a ride.”

“You said it was nearby,” Pete said. “We’ll manage. People in London walk.”

“Nobody walks in LA,” Mayhew said, and then barked a laugh at his own questionable cleverness in quoting an old-as-the-hills pop song.

Jack followed Pete. “You should try it sometime,” he said. “Your shirt landscape might get a little less hilly.”

“I wish you’d stop that,” Pete said, when they were walking up the hill away from the beach, the address of Mayhew’s mechanic friend tucked into Pete’s pocket.

“What?” He was shit at playing innocent, but he could always try.

“Your life would be much easier if you just quit taking the piss for no good reason,” Pete told him.

“I have a good reason,” Jack said. “Mayhew’s a slimy git. If that’s not a reason I don’t know what is.”

The mechanic’s shop was tucked into a side street a few blocks beyond the top of the hill. Here, the ocean was a sound, not a sight, and the glaring green-yellow sunlight was even more revealing, giving unfavorable clarity to the faded boards and the sad, sagging sign proclaiming SAL’S AUTO R PAIR.

The garage door was open to emit exhaust fumes, Black Sabbath playing on a tinny radio propped on top of a toolbox, and the shriek of metal on metal. Sal was bent over a fender, sanding off blue paint to reveal the primer beneath.

Jack didn’t care much about cars—they got you from point A to point B and beyond that, blokes used them as a way to extend their cocks, or to fuss over them incessantly, the way people more in line with his way of thinking obsessed over original pressings of the Sex Pistols’ EMI release.

“Oi!” he shouted, and Sal shut off the sander, raising his goggles.

“Hey,” he said. “You Benji’s buddy?”

“Wouldn’t go that far,” Jack said. Sal grinned. His teeth were even and startlingly white, considering how ugly the rest of his face was. Sal looked as if his features had been dumped into a sack, and then his maker had slammed the sack sharply against a cement wall a few times before letting things settle. His nose was a monument to how not to take a punch, and his cheekbones were uneven. A slick black pompadour, dented by the band of his goggles, topped off the look and added a touch of absurdity.

“Benji doesn’t have a lot of interpersonal skills,” Sal said. “Probably why he’s shit broke most of the time.” He winked at Pete. “Only giving you the car because he did me a favor a few months back. Some fuck rented one of my gals and returned her with the grill and bumper banged all to hell. Come to find out, asshole was in a hit and run out on Hollywood Boulevard, put some wannabe actress slash hooker in the hospital, all kinds of crap. I could’ve been liable.”

“Sounds like he’s a veritable superhero,” Pete said.

Sal’s grin widened until it was practically pornographic. “Love your accent, doll.” The grin abruptly ceased. “You do know what side of the road we drive on in the USA, right?”

“I’ll manage, although being a woman, the very idea of a combustion-operated vehicle frightens and confuses me,” Pete said. Sal laughed, and then coughed, and then pulled a Marlboro from a pack and lit it.

Jack took it out of his mouth. “Not in front of the lady,” he said. Sal sized him up for a second, and Jack stared right back. Sal considered for a minute longer, then shrugged.

“Sorry. Anyway, she’s out back.”

He led them down a narrow hall lit by a single bulb, and back into the hard-hitting sun, which now gleamed on a host of finned, chromed, detailed beasts that looked like nothing so much as a flight of especially decorative UFOs.

“Wow,” Pete said. Jack had to admit, the collection was impressive. Cherry red, powder blue, wasp yellow, the cars were all perfect, and all different. He recognized a few that aped famous sorts from films—James Bond’s Aston Martin, Steve McQueen’s Mustang, and the white Challenger from Vanishing Point, which was one of his friend Lawrence’s favorite films.

“I was going to sling you into whatever I didn’t have rented out today,” Sal said. “Paramount is eating up most of the fleet for this period movie they’re shooting over by the boardwalk. But you two need something special.” He considered, tapping one sausage finger against his troll jaw. His hands could have easily palmed Jack’s head, and Jack was glad he hadn’t pressed the cigarette issue. Too early in the day to get his face broken. You needed to at least have lunch and a proper drink first.

Sal led them between the rows until he came to the far back corner of the lot. “This one’s my baby,” he said. “Great gal, she’ll do whatever you need her to do. She’s famous, too—she was in Christine. ”

“Great,” Jack said to Pete. “Fucking demon car to find a nonexistent demon spree killer.” That sounded about right.

Sal handed Pete a keyring with a grinning Dia de Los Muertos skull for a fob. “Be nice to her, and she’ll be nice to you,” he told Pete.

Jack looked at the crimson Plymouth Fury. “Fuck me,” he muttered, sliding into the leather bench seat.

Pete took it slowly until they were headed away from the beach. “It’s not so bad,” she said. “Handles nicely. It’s not the Mini Cooper but it’ll do.” Jack saw the huge grin on her face, and even though the windows were open and the LA air made him even more short of breath than inhaling an actual lungful of smoke, he had to return it.

“So, what’s your mad plan?” he said.

“Mayhew’s old partner from the LAPD agreed to meet with me and show me the crime scene,” Pete said. Jack whistled.

“How’d you manage that?”

“I think it’s my accent,” Pete said. “People around here listen to it and practically fall over their own feet.”