Except he looked like Elvis Presley.
Nobody
looks like Elvis. I don’t mean, nobody dresses like Elvis, or apes his hairstyle, or tries to move like Elvis. Because sure, people do.
I
knew
Elvis Presley.
Nobody
looks like Elvis—except his daughter, that is—and nobody moves like him, either.
And
this
guy wasn’t
dressed
like professional Elvi dress. Soft sandy blond hair fell down in his dark blue eyes. Hair not dyed matte black, and not greased into a pompadour. He slunk across the gaudy casino carpet like a panther, total confidence and strength, with the collar of his black leather gothcoat turned up to hide the hammer-edged line of his jaw. He scanned the crowd as if he were looking for somebody, but he didn’t quite know who, and it hit me with the force of a kick in the belly who he was. What he was. Who he had to be.
Elvis. Of course.
I blinked hard.
Which means Stewart is really—
—gone
.
Surreptitiously, I raised my hand to flip the patch off my
otherwise
eye. And blinked harder, because the second I did it I could smell the old blood and the midnight on him, clots of darkness wound through his soul like so many slimy clumps of rotting leaves. Not what I thought he was, then. Not my new partner, my opposite number, my ally.
Oh, Vegas has enough problems this summer without one of those.
Muttering an excuse to the John Henrys, I came around the table on a jagged line to intercept as he made for the casino. I trailed him casually, sidestepping MegaBucks and scurrying around the blackjack tables, trying not to move so aggressively that the eye-in-the-sky would spot me for a threat. I didn’t mean to hurt him any; just warn him off. Tell him to head north for Chicago: the windy city’s animae have always had a habit of taking in strays.
But I saw him stop, intent on something that had drawn his eye—a flash of golden hair alongside a strobing slot machine light—and my eye followed his, and I saw—
“Stewart?”
Walking hunched forward slightly as he made some sort of a point with his hands—
jab, jab, jab
—animated in conversation with three companions, the hairstyle different, longer, but the crooked nose unmistakably the same.
He didn’t hear me. I wasn’t close.
The vampire’s gaze fastened on the four men crossing the casino floor, and he stepped back into the shadows behind a row of video poker machines, obviously eager that Stewart and his three companions shouldn’t see his face. I glanced after the vampire as he faded from view, but Stewart took precedence. And if the bloodsucker chose to stay in my city, I’d run across him again eventually.
I hurried toward Stewart, making a mental survey of his companions as I came, trying to decide if an intercession was in order, or an introduction. Introduction, I decided. By the tenor of the conversation, these were Stewart’s friends. Especially the shorter of the two strong-chinned, slender, black-haired men, who bore a superficial resemblance to one another. The final man was African-American, muscular and athletic, handsome in a rugged rather than a Tiger Woods sort of way. Familiar, too—but everybody looks like somebody famous, in Vegas.
“Stewart,” I called, and held out my hand as the little group drew abreast of me and started to pass me by.
Stewart blinked and turned to me, a thin vertical line between his eyes. “I beg your pardon. Do I know you?” he asked, and my heart thumped once in my chest and went still.
It wasn’t him. It could have been, from fifteen feet. From close enough to shake his hand, however . . . no. Not quite. Not the face, and not the faint European accent and subtle precision of pronunciation.
“No,” I said, and backed away. “I beg
your
pardon. But you look very much like someone I—”
I used to know.
I turned on the heel of my Doc and went back to the restaurant, cursing myself for failing to follow the vampire instead. Cursing myself for the hope I’d felt, however briefly, and for the fresh sharpness of the broken ache in my chest.
I knew who they were now; the penny had dropped.
Not just not Stewart.
Ghosts. More ghosts, summoned up out of the collective unconscious, called up out of the soup of story. I shook my head, sat down in my still-warm chair, and looked up into the eyes of the memory of two dead men.
At least I’d thought of something the John Henrys could do to help until I figured out how to manage Angel, immaterial or not. I bet they could be pretty good at keeping track of a vampire, if they were careful, and stayed out of sight.
Meanwhile, I could try to figure out what it was that I’d summoned home to Vegas. A namesake rite wasn’t supposed to work that way—and I shouldn’t have had the power to do it, even if it did. I was starting to think I’d managed to call home every ghost—media, legendary, and the “little” ghosts, the ghosts of the unquiet dead, like Bugsy out there—with even the vaguest of connections to my city.
That could get confusing.
Especially if two or three Howard Hugheses showed up.
Tribute and the Streetwalker with a Heart of Gold.
Las Vegas, Summer, 2002.
It was full dark by the time I left the mint-green glow of the MGM Grand behind me and walked north, counting the cracks in the sidewalk. The desert itself was my enemy, but at least the mountains ringing the valley gave me a long anticipation of sunrise and cut the sun’s descent short when it slid down the sky in the West. Headed for California and points out to sea.
The skinny kid with the eyepatch troubled me, but I didn’t know why I ran. Hell, I didn’t quite know what I was doing in the MGM to begin with, other than staying out of the sun: they’d be unlikely to hire an Elvis impersonator. I needed a club, a cabaret. Someplace that wouldn’t expect afternoon shows.
I could live by murder and theft. When I exhausted the resources Sycorax had left me.
But that doesn’t put you on a stage, now does it?
But the kid. Thousand-dollar suit jacket bought off the rack, and a cheap high-school dye job. Scarred urban combat zone boots peeking out from under his pinstriped trousers. Hell, maybe he was a rock star. It wasn’t like I’d been keeping track.
Except he’d been sitting at his table pretending not to talk to a couple of mismatched ghosts, and he’d practically leaped over it to give chase when he’d seen me. And then I’d run smack dab into the media ghosts I’d seen earlier, and they’d been all buddy-buddy with
another
pair, who
also
didn’t belong in Las Vegas, all of them dressed as if it were forty years ago and most of the country watching television in black and white.
And I could swear I’d seen that eyepatch kid’s profile somewhere, before.
If I couldn’t have a milkshake, I was ready to kill for an explanation. But since I didn’t see a way to get either, I went out looking for gigs.
I got a little interest, too, even with my shift requirements. It was good to know, after so long, that I could still lay down a tune, and by the time I finished my third cold call I was feeling pretty good about myself. The manager stood me a beer, and I sat down in a booth beside the juke box to pretend to drink it and retie my shoes.
I found myself tidying the saltshakers while I watched a dark-haired girl who was far too young to be in a bar. Any bar, and the guy she was with wasn’t quite old enough to be her father. He didn’t look like anybody’s father, anyway; in fact—
—in fact, he looked a lot like one of the media ghosts I’d ditched in the MGM Grand. The shaggy yellow hair, at least, and his profile when he turned just right. This one looked dazed, though, his eyes not quite tracking as he watched his skinny, no-doubt-about-it-hired-for-the-evening companion play with her French fries.
What kind of a stoner John buys a hooker a meal and watches while she draws in the ketchup?
Maybe she was his kid sister, after all. Even if they didn’t look a thing alike.
“She’s trouble, Ace,” Jesse whispered in my ear. But I ignored him, or pretended to.
I didn’t like him to know how much of a comfort it was, having him there.
She looked up at me and lifted an eyebrow, then, and I saw the glow of city lights in her eyes. “Evening, King,” she said. Soprano, no breath control.
“Name’s Tribute.” I abandoned my beer on the table when I walked over. The blond man scooted away from me at her hand gesture, and didn’t quite offer a grunt by way of acknowledgment. He was all twisted up inside himself like macramé—any fool could tell—but when he tracked me with a scared sideways glance I could see the lights shimmering in
his
eyes, too.
Interesting.
They really didn’t look like they went together, if you know what I mean.
“Funny sort of a name,” she said. “I’m Angel. This is Stewart. He’s a local.”
“And you’re not?”
Her eyes sparkled when she dimpled at me. She reached out and laid one hand on my arm. Her bitten fingernails were painted chipped, glittering green. “I’m from Los Angeles. And I hear you’re looking for a job.”
“I might be.” I was trying to sound casual instead of wary, and I wasn’t sure I succeeded. There were thirteen fries on her plate, and seventy-two sesame seeds on the bun of her half-eaten burger. I looked down and straightened the unused place settings. The last thing I needed in my recently simplified life was to get involved in some sort of a turf war between the genii of cities. My kind generally tried to stay out of the way of their kind. Them, and the media ghosts and race memories and legendary men and critters like the sasquatch and the squonk. I worry about spending time with any creature who is essentially a story made flesh. They change too much, too easily—and too many of them aren’t even aware that a world outside their circumscribed reality even exists.
I ran into Dracula once. I’m hoping I never meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She’d kick my ass. “It would depend on the job.”
“Bodyguard?” She smiled and reached out to take Stewart’s hand when he curled himself back into the corner of the booth, drawing his heels up onto the vinyl like a child. He tugged his hand free and wrapped the arm around his knees, shivering. I couldn’t quite tell if the look in his eyes was beseeching or simply flat blue madness, and I glanced back down at the girl.
“That’s not really my kind of gig, baby—”
“King,” she interrupted, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “Do you want to hustle in a dive like this for people who have no idea what you really were? Who’ll think you’re a
bad
imitation because they’ve stopped seeing how
bad
all the other imitators are?”
It was the wrong tack to take. Or maybe I was just tired of her coy, self-conscious gestures. Girls these days have an edge on them I don’t remember from before; they were like cagebirds then, pampered doves, their naiveté the core of their charm.
Or maybe I’m talking about myself again.
“Take your time,” she said, before I could say no. “Think about it. I’ll find you again and we’ll talk. Come on, Stewart.”
I threw a twenty on the table to cover their tab, and stood up to let him follow her out.
The Russian and the Three Capitalists.
Somewhere in Las Vegas. 1964.
The Russian expected trouble. Which wasn’t unusual: he always expected trouble. Although it was true that conditions for Americans who weren’t white Anglo-Saxon Protestants weren’t
quite
as horrid as he’d been raised to believe, back home, they were bad enough. And Vegas wasn’t called the Mississippi of the West for nothing.
So he was surprised and pleased when they were seated immediately, and not even tucked away in a corner near the kitchen doors.
“Man,” the scholar said as the food arrived, laying his napkin across his lap. “Did we order enough?”
The American grinned as the athlete and the Russian simultaneously reached for the fruit plate. “Have you ever seen my partner eat?”
“No,” the scholar answered, hands deft as he sorted his silverware. “Have you seen mine?” He jerked his head sideways, at the rapidly diminishing pile on the tall man’s plate. “I have no idea where he puts it.”
The Russian, already chewing, kicked his partner lightly under the table. The American’s mouth closed with an audible snap, and he stuffed a bite of bread inside it to keep the words plugged up. “So,” the American said, when he’d washed his mouthful down with steaming coffee, “can somebody explain to me why we think it’s wise for all four of us to be sitting in a public place when we’re on the hunt for a rogue agent?”
“Simple,” the athlete answered, without looking up from his plate. “We’re bait. This Cobb salad is the best. And it’s huge. You should try some.” He leaned back from his dish, raising his fork out of the way as if he expected his tablemates to lunge for the salad like a pack of feral dogs.
“If we’re bait, who’s our backup?” The American leaned forward, interested now. “And how did we wind up drafted?”
“You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, the Department briefed us on New York.” A grin on the scholar’s face as he lowered his voice—not to a whisper that might attract attention, but rather to a murmur. “The backup is classified, but they’re from an agency that has an interest in protecting MI-6’s reputation even if MI-6 won’t do it itself.”
“A team the assassin won’t expect,” the athlete finished for his partner, resuming his relationship with the Cobb salad. “Because he thinks one of the partners is badly hurt.”
The Russian chuckled. “The English girl. It is good to hear she’s on her feet again.”
“We heal fast.”
“So I’ve noticed. That doesn’t answer the question of why we join you in serving as—
bait
.”
The scholar nudged his partner, who gave him a dirty look from under a falling dark forelock. “You’re not going to fit into your tennis whites if you keep eating like that.”
“Perhaps we can play, later,” the Russian said.