CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
EVEN THOUGH HE knew it wasn’t true, the funny thing about the al-Kalli estate was that it had been laid out as if it
were
designed to withstand an assault. There was only one road that led up to it, it commanded the high ground from all sides, it was surrounded by a stone wall with only one other entrance apart from the main gate. Still, there were plenty of things Greer saw that could use improvement. For instance, there was no reason not to place some razor wire atop the back and side walls; yes, there were all kinds of codes and property restrictions for Bel-Air homeowners, but if you didn’t actually ask permission, it couldn’t be refused, right? And if you concealed the wire with some vines and shrubbery—which wasn’t hard—what was the problem? That back gate, the one where Greer had first penetrated the grounds, also needed some serious attention. It should have had a dual-focus, night-vision surveillance camera mounted above it, and the feed should go either to a control center in the main house or at least to the front gate, which was manned twenty-four hours anyway. Greer had mentioned a few of these things to al-Kalli, who’d simply said, “Do what you think is necessary,” and then kind of brushed him aside. Greer had the sense that something else was really on his mind.
He could guess what it was. It was that weird damn menagerie he kept. The place gave Greer, a guy who had seen plenty of bad shit in his time, the creeps. From the outside, you couldn’t hear or see or smell a thing; it was sealed up tighter than a drum. But at least once a day, Greer felt he ought to look in as part of his routine patrol. This morning, he’d found that paleontologist, Carter Cox, in there with Rashid. Rashid, in his usual white coat, was trying to explain something about one of the animals—the one that had spat the green crap on Greer’s neck—and Cox, Greer could tell, was just waiting for him to finish with the blather so he could tell him what was really up.
“The air,” Cox finally said, “is very pure—I understand that.”
“We have the best filters, imported from Germany,” Rashid rattled on, “they are made for nuclear facilities.”
Cox had glanced over at Greer, nodded, then replied to the indignant Rashid. “The air is too pure,” Carter said. “That’s part of the problem.”
“How can good air be bad?” Rashid challenged him.
“These creatures have very elaborate breathing mechanisms,” he said. “They actually need to act as their own filters, to take in and process the particulate matter. It acts as a kind of stimulant.”
Rashid looked baffled.
“It keeps their airways and lungs clear and operative.”
“The humidity does that,” Rashid said. “We keep a constant level in the facility at all times.”
Cox looked increasingly impatient. Greer had the feeling this Rashid guy was putting up nothing but resistance. “The saichania—”
“The basilisk,” Rashid corrected him.
“Okay, the basilisk is capable of humidifying the air for itself. It needs to do that. If the air comes in too wet, it just gets wetter once the basilisks take a breath, which is why they’re having so much trouble with their respiration.”
Greer wondered how Cox could know any of this. And yet he had the sense that he did. And even Greer could see that these animals were in a bad way. They lumbered around in their pens like they were drunk; they dropped clumps of fur on the carefully raked ground; the bird—if you could call that massive flying contraption a bird—left bright red feathers floating in its wake. Greer could never wait to get back outside again and clear his own lungs; the place smelled vaguely like an animal shelter where he’d worked one summer as a kid.
But those animals had been regularly put down.
When he was done with his rounds of the estate, Greer usually hung out on the grounds for a while; he wanted to look like he was earning his money and not just taking pay-offs to keep his mouth shut. And he thought, if he put his mind to it, he might actually be able to make something of this gig; he had a natural bent for security concerns (having broken into plenty of houses up until now), and if he did this right, maybe he could think about setting up his own kind of Silver Bear operation. He could hire other vets, even a couple of the guys he knew from the rehab clinic, line up a bunch of rich clients, and then just sit back and collect the money. Wouldn’t Sadowski be pissed about that?
He’d been looking for Sadowski ever since those other fine Sons of Liberty—Tate and Florio—had tried to take him down in the parking lot at the VA. And now that he’d done pretty much everything he could do today at the estate, he figured he’d stop off at the Blue Bayou and see if he could stir up a little trouble there. He was dying to show Sadowski that he was on top of his game and not backing down.
The nice thing about the Bayou was that, no matter what time you came in, it was always midnight inside. The lights were low, except on the runway, and the music was loud, and the bartender Zeke always had a wide selection of choice pharmaceuticals. Greer took a stool, ordered a beer, and looked around at the few lame oddballs hanging around at this hour. On the runway, a girl with long blonde hair was down on all fours, with her ass high in the air, swaying to Aerosmith’s “Crazy.”
“Haven’t seen you around as much,” Zeke said, mopping up a wet spot on the bar.
“Been working.”
Zeke laughed. “Yeah, right.”
Why did everybody think the very idea was such a big damn joke?
“Haven’t seen much of your old pal, either,” Zeke added.
“You mean Sadowski?”
“Yeah. Maybe he’s moonlighting somewhere.”
Possible. “He’s got so many talents,” Greer said evenly, “it’s hard to say.”
“Ginger says he’s got something big going down.”
“She does, huh?” That was interesting. “She here by any chance?”
Zeke looked around the place. “She must be in back.” The Blue Room. “With a customer.”
Greer could wait. He drank his beer, watched the blonde girl skillfully play an old man until he’d dropped probably his whole month’s social security on the stage, and wondered what Sadowski’s big operation was. Were the Sons of Liberty planning a Bring-the-Family Fourth of July barbecue?
Ten minutes later, he saw a geeky guy with masking tape on his glasses—what was it with these guys, hadn’t they ever even heard about Scotch tape?—being led out of the back room by his hand; Ginger was wearing an electric blue tube top, a matching thong, and glittering blue platform shoes. She was self-conscious, he knew, about her height and always liked to add a few inches.
She spotted Greer immediately, but she wasn’t done working the geek yet. She held his hand that extra split second, like she just couldn’t bear to let go, then smiled and sauntered away, letting him work himself up for another lap dance later.
“Hi,” she said to Greer, sliding onto the stool next to his. “If you’re looking for Stan, he’s not here.”
“Why would I be looking for Stan when you’re right here?”
She raised a finger to Zeke, who brought her that green drink she favored. “Why’s he so mad at you, anyway?”
“He’s mad at me?” Greer asked.
“You cheat him?”
Greer wondered just how much she knew about their past activities—most notably, the home burglaries her boyfriend had helped set up. Knowing how bright Sadowski was, probably everything. But then Greer could kick himself for ever having told him about the zoo on al-Kalli’s estate; that wasn’t very bright, either. Yeah, he’d sort of been in shock when he first saw it, but that was no excuse. Information was power; never share it unless you have to. Greer knew that he needed to start following his own advice more closely.
“What is that stuff, anyway?” he asked, just to change the subject.
She took the glass away from her lips. “Crème de men-the,” she said. Her lips were still frosted with it. “Want a taste?”
Greer didn’t move, but Ginger leaned in and brushed his lips with her own. He’d tasted it once before, and that time, too, it had been on her lips. It was the last time she’d given him a lap dance. Maybe she remembered, too. Maybe that’s why she’d just done it again.
“Zeke tells me Stan’s got something big going down.”
She made a fake frown, balled up a wet cocktail napkin, and tossed it at Zeke, who was standing down the bar.
“What’d I do?” he said.
“Tattletale.” But she didn’t look as though she really cared. “All I know is, he’s too busy to pick me up after work anymore. He’s too busy to fix the muffler on my car—he’s been saying he’ll do it for me all month. He comes over to my place at around four in the morning most nights, expects me to service him—I told him, there are plenty of girls out there who get paid for that—and he stinks.” She made a face and said, “Phew!”
“He’s been working out at a gym?”
“He’s been working out his trigger finger.” She sipped from her drink while scanning the two new customers who had just let a bolt of late-day sunlight stream into the club. One of them was black; Greer wondered if she’d still risk violating Sadowski’s code and give the guy a lap dance. “All his clothes,” she went on, idly, “smell like gunpowder and that other stuff—what is it?”
“You mean cordite?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Just hunting wouldn’t do that. A couple of shots popped off in the great outdoors was nothing. If your clothes reeked of smoke and cordite, then you had to be in a firing range. And Greer knew which one it would be.
“I told him,” Ginger said, “that a bunch of my girl-friends were going to Las Vegas for the Fourth of July weekend and I told him we should go, too. Elton John’s doing a show there, and I was thinking of using some of his songs in my act; it would be really great for me professionally.”
Greer had to remind himself that Ginger did not consider herself a stripper: she was a dancer and performance artist (who just happened to take off most of her clothes). “You want to go to Vegas,” Greer said, “I’ll take you to Vegas.” What might yank Sadowski’s crank more than that?
“You will?” Ginger said, quickly calculating all the angles. “This weekend?”
“That’s a little short notice.”
“But that’s when Elton John’s going to be there. And Stan said there was no way he could go this weekend. The Sons of Liberty—I call ’em the Sons of Bitches,” she said, with a laugh, “but he hates that. Anyway, he says the Sons of Liberty are staging their big operation, whatever that means. I asked if he meant a circle jerk, and he almost took a swing at me.” She got serious. “I told him, if he ever did hit me, that was it. I’ve been hit before, and I never wait around for the second punch.”
The two new customers had taken a table by the runway and were waiting for the next dancer to come out. Greer could see that Ginger was sizing them up and anxious to get back into action.
“Am I keeping you?”
“Huh?” She turned her face to him. “Oh, yeah, well, the manager gets pissed at me if I sit around too long.”
Greer knew what she was getting at.
“You want to go back to the Blue Room?” she asked with a sly smile. “I could give you my pre-Vegas special.”
“Save it for the Bellagio,” he said, sliding off his stool and giving his left leg that extra second or two to kick back into gear. “I’ve got to be somewhere.”