Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 4

"At least you made it into the office."

"Yeah, barely." A phantom throb started between her legs again. G.o.d. "By the way, it was a really...I search for the word...

differentexperience talking with him."

"Oh? Oooohhh." Kiko nodded. "He put you under. You know, you didn't look like you were that far gone when Breisi and I came into the room. I'll betyouwere a hard customer."

Dawn was still back at "put you under." As in "hypnosis"? It would go a long way in explaining her inability to stop revealing personal tidbits to The Voice. What an a.s.shole.

Kiko pointed to his head. "Now, I'm no slouch in the mind-over-matter department myself, but the boss...He's the best at hypnosis. I've already learned a ton of things from him, but I'm stuck at where you initially read people. That's my forte, I guess-reading. Maybe I'll never go as far as the boss-you know, where he uses his voice to get what he needs, toreallygo inside. Not that it matters. He says the two of us brainiacs have different talents anyway." He donned a worshipful grin. Aw, The Voice's pet acolyte.

"The boss says," Kiko added, "that mind skills are a good tool against bad guys who're being stubborn or defensive about giving up information."

Her? Stubborn and defensive?A bad guy?

She crossed her arms over her chest, as if to block out more attempts at the mind games she'd been subjected to tonight, courtesy of Kiko and the freakin' Voice. "I recall that he asked questions that had nothing to do with Frank."

"Maybe they did and you don't know it."

"You'd better be right, because you know what? I don't like anyone in my head or pulling words out of me."

She didn't add anything about how the apparent hypnosis had affected her body because, truthfully,thathad been the highlight of her day. It had offered a measure of comfort, pleasure. Calm. But that's just how she operated, no apologies necessary. s.e.x was her balm, dignified or not.

But had The Voice "read" this about her and used it as a means to relax her?

Anger twisted in her chest. It was an invasion, she thought, and she didn't appreciate it one d.a.m.ned bit.

Kiko was raising an eyebrow, probably knowing exactly what was going through her head. "He was testing you, I'll bet. Seeing how much you'd be able to take on the job. Seeing if you'd measure up."

Bulls.h.i.t. "I'm warning you, if anyone tries to go where no man has gone before on me again, I will tear you apart. I will draw and quarter your a.s.ses. Relaythatto the boss."

He shrank away from her, clearly knowing she wasn't kidding. "Don't get uppity. He would never go in uninvited. And once he's inside,youdecide how he's going to function."

"Say what?"

"You..." Kiko paused, then shrugged fatalistically. "You have to leave some kind of door open for him to get in, a willingness, whether it's conscious or unconscious. That's what he uses to enter, then to take control. I don't know exactly how it worked with you, but-"

"Unbelievable." Okay, so this meant s.e.x was her doorbell. She was well aware of that. The Voice had just better keep it cla.s.sified information. "What kind of business do you chuckleheads do, anyway?"

Kiko paused, then lifted his dimpled chin. "We help with life's strange emergencies."

"Which means...?"

"Well, it means things like 'how did Robby get into that movie?'" Kiko hesitated. "I don't know. I could be wrong about you.

Still, I really feel it's going to take more than explanations to bring you into Frank's life."

He stopped and turned around, leaving Dawn with a thousand more questions she didn't really want to ask.

A few seconds pa.s.sed.

Dawn couldn't stand it anymore. "So the agency is..." She used her hands to search for a description.

"Paranormally inclined?" Kiko smiled. She just stared at him. There was no way Frank would've been into this junk.

"I'm not some naive client who needs entertainment as a side platter to a main course of case solving, so just give me real answers."

"I'm trying."

What a drama queen, she thought. There's got to be a logical explanation waiting right around the corner.

But he wasn't giving it to her yet. "The boss is being cautious about taking you on because I think, deep down, he hates having you walk in your dad's footsteps. But he knows I'm always right in the end. See, that's another thing-I can sometimes grasp the future, and that's just as useful as hypnosis, he says."

Touching. The Voice cared for her. A lot of good that would do Frank. "Kiko, I can look out for myself. And, I swear, Limpet doesn't have to hire me on, not after I find Dad. I'll be going back to regular work."

"I'm sure."

"I will."

"I know you think so. But, in the meantime, a consultation fee wouldn't come amiss for you. Am I right?"

d.a.m.n it, it was a b.i.t.c.h to be broke, especially when her dad constantly made so many bad investments with the residuals from her mom's legacy. And if Dawn was going to desert her job back in Arlington in order to find Frank, her pockets would be even lighter. "I suppose I could get paid for my time and effort."

"Good."

Pride stinging, she shut her mouth.

Kiko glanced over his shoulder at the GPS device Breisi was using to get to the Pennybakers', then back at Dawn. In the meantime, Breisi uttered a victorious "Yesss!" while pumping her fist by her side. Score for the Dodgers.

"If we're done with Boss Talk," Kiko said, "it looks like we've got a few minutes for me to catch you up on what's happening with this case."

Good. The nitty gritty. Maybe now Kiko would drop the ghost c.r.a.p and get down to bra.s.s tacks.

"Shoot," she said.

"Okay. The boss approached Marla Pennybaker, Robby's mom, after the publicity hit about her 'dead' son being inDiaper Derby. The Internet is what started it all. All the film geek chat rooms were buzzing about the sighting, calling Robby's appearance 'the ultimate Easter Egg.'"

"Ah." An Easter Egg was code for an inside movie joke, usually a scene that's tucked away on a DVD as a bonus. "You told me that Robby's mom said special effects weren't the reason her son appeared in the movie. Why's that?"

"Because about four months before Robby's death, he dropped out of the movies, went through a phase where he refused to work. We'll see why with further investigation, I'm sure. He hid inside the house, even while his mom and dad tried to get him out, but Robby was adamant about not making any public appearances at all. Then he did something out of character: he had someone come in to pierce him, and he grew out his hair so he looked like a little punk. There were no pictures, no recorded images of him during that time."

Dawn sighed and glanced out the window. "I remember Robby in the movies. He was so clean-cut. So cute." "Right. That's why Mrs. Pennybaker believes something is off. Robby's long-haired, pierced image couldn't have been spliced intoDiaper Derbybecause it isn't available."

Her mind wasn't quite wrapping around all of this. It didn't want to. "So, somewhere, heisalive?"

But that didn't sound right. She thought about how Robby hadn't aged in twenty-three years.

Don't even think "paranormal," Dawn. Don't.

"I have my doubts about him actually 'being alive.'" Kiko actually used air quotes for that last part.

"Then how can you explain him showing up in the movie with his altered appearance?"

He lifted a heavy eyebrow, all serious. "There're a world of explanations out there."

Okay. Back to the ghoulie talk.

Or were ghosts the reason Kiko and Breisi had traded meaningful looks back at the office when Dawn had commented about the kid's image in the window?

Not surprisingly, Kiko picked up on the negativity.

"Guess I'll talk about what we do know," he said, a patient slant to his mouth. "The kid's sadly legendary for dying from a drug overdose when he was twelve."

Even though she'd heard the story a million times, Dawn still couldn't get over the thud of shock. Twelve. A boy who'd partied and pierced himself. Had Robby been chafing at strict parents? Or had they indulged their little star, justifying his behavior by thinking that kids didn't remain kids for long in Hollywood-especially back in the eighties? Drew Barrymore had gone down the same road: drinking by nine, taking drugs by ten, rehab soon afterward. In this city, children grew up at warp speed, and Dawn hated parents who allowed it to happen. And every once in a while it still did, even in today's more conservative environment.

Kiko had started talking again, watching her closely. "Because his body disappeared from the morgue, there were a lot of different rumors about the CIA killing him or terrorists making a statement about our depraved society by murdering Robby.

Maybe he's just a f.u.c.ked-up Hollywood child who started partying too early, or..."

Or maybe he was a spirit come to haunt the earth? she silently added for Kiko's sake. Yeah, right.

Hollywood was full of legends, movie stars who'd expired in spectacular, newsworthy ways, many of their deaths unsolved.

Conspiracy theories surrounded every one of them, resurrecting their spirits as urban myths or cautionary tales for the dreamers of tomorrow.

Robby Pennybaker, Jayne Mansfield, Jesse Shane, Marilyn Monroe...Dawn stopped there, unwilling to go any further.

Legend or not, Robby Pennybaker was dead. It was ridiculous to think he was out there and somehow ready to return to his mother. There had to be some logic to his appearance in the movie clip.

"You don't have to give me details of Robby's demise." Dawn's chest fisted at her next thought. She concentrated on blocking the memories, mental Polaroids that left her drained and stunned. "He died almost a year after my mom. They were costars in her biggest movie, so it's easy to remember."

Her own words echoed in the car, and suddenly it hit her. Duh. No wonder The Voice had started to quiz her about how well she knew Eva Claremont's films. He'd been trying to ready her psyche for the shock of seeing Robby's image again.

"Ah, Eva's biggest movie." Kiko's gaze had gone goofy. "Daydreamer. I still remember her in that one scene, where she was standing on the top of a gra.s.sy hill and the sun was lighting the back of her so you could see through her dress. She had flowers in her blond hair. She looked like something out of a dream, all right."

Dawn's heart clenched with the fondness in his recollection. Lots of people loved that scene; it had been the instigator of a hundred thousand crushes. It was the definitive moment of Eva's career-the one shot that encapsulated her flower-child perfection at the start of the Me Decade. She'd been a symbol of more ideal times, a beautiful ghost that slipped through everyone's fingers, no matter how hard they tried to hold on.

"Kiko," Dawn said softly, not wanting to shake him out of the o.r.g.a.s.m he was having.

He jolted, then sent her a sheepish grin.

She didn't react. She was too used to random strangers and their impossible love for Eva. The problem came when they wondered why Dawn wasn't anything like her mother.

"Sorry," he said. "Where was I?"

"Robby's legend: The Death of a Rising Wastoid."

"Got it." He sighed, then went back to being Kiko-whatever that meant. Version 1.0, 2.0...Dawn wasn't sure who she'd get this time. Happy pup? Sad clown? Rude b.u.g.g.e.r?

"From talking to Marla Pennybaker," he said, slipping into Serious Kiko, "we have an idea of what happened after Robby's death. Their home life broke down. The housekeeper committed suicide. His dad moved out of the country because he couldn't handle being around anything that reminded him of his son."

"I've heard of Nathan Pennybaker. He was a failed child actor himself before he became Robby's manager."

"Uh-huh. And he was devastated when his son died, so he went to Europe to search his soul, to 'rebuild his life.'"

"Sounds like the mom is the strong one, toughing it out here, even if she did mess up the kid's formative years."

"I'm not sure if she was blissfully unaware of Robby's 'dark side' or not. She indicated she wasn't, but my readings weren't clear.

I think her big crime was not being more involved with Robby's day-to-day activities because she was so into her own stuff-a Red Cross volunteer back in the day. A real bleeding heart who devoted time to the less fortunate.Unfortunately, she now regrets not spending more precious moments with Robby. She beats herself up daily about that."

"And how about the dad?"

Breisi turned onto Cliffwood Avenue, slowing their speed. Everything pa.s.sed in a dense blur: thick foliage hovering over high walls, iron gates, long drives snaking up to stately homes, red-tinged security signs staked into perfect lawns.

"We haven't talked to Nathan Pennybaker yet," Kiko said. "He only came home a few hours ago. It's the first break we've gotten in this case, because, Lord knows, nothing else we've done has turned up anything. Not interviews with all the conspiracy theorists, not scouring the soundstage whereDiaper Derbywas filmed, or even going over that celluloid a thousand times-nothing has mattered. Too bad Mr. P. doesn't feel up to seeing us. When Breisi called Marla Pennybaker to request an interview with her husband tonight, he shied away."

The psychic strikes again. "Youreadthat from him."

"Well...no. I get my readings from proximity, unless I dream a prediction. That means I have to be in the same general area as the mind or items I'm trying to go on, and even then it doesn't always work. People can unconsciously block my efforts-just likeyou-or maybe there's nothing there to read. Sometimes I have to use touch-" When he reached out a hand to Dawn, just as an example, she held up a palm to keep him away. "-in order to go deep inside my subject, to really focus. Like with that rapist d.i.c.k's jacket." "Don't you go crazy with all those voices in your head?"

"Nah." Kiko shrugged. "I don't pick up on everyone's every vibe, you know. I'd go bonkers if I did."

He wasn't all-powerful, she thought. Thank G.o.d.

"So you're guessing that Mr. Pennybaker doesn't want to see us," she said, slightly more at ease now, but not by much.

"I'm making an educated estimation since his wife was trying to get him to come to the phone and he wouldn't."

"Got it. And you didn't actuallyseeNathan Pennybaker's homecoming?"

"No." Kiko shrugged. "But Breisi had him under watch."

Dawn must've looked confused because Kiko shot a glance to their driver, who was still immersed in her baseball game. Then he leaned toward the backseat, lowering his voice.

"It's something we call a locator," he said.

"And...?"

"It's only totally brilliant and much more efficient than audio taps. All Breisi has to do is run a sample of someone's clothing-or something that holds their scent-through the machine, plant a sensor in the place they're expected to show up and bingo, we know when Mr. P.'s in the house, whether he wants us to realize it or not. And based on how he likes to run away, we guessed we'd need the insurance with him."

Ap.r.o.n technology. Now Breisi's downstairs room was making sense. Sort of. "That's illegal. An invasion of privacy."

"They won't ever know, so we really don't give a c.r.a.p. So, when we get into the house, don't be surprised if Breisi takes a bathroom break."

"She'll be retrieving the locator?"

"You bet. That sensor ain't no trinket."