Part 8 (2/2)

Ari started to b.u.t.t in, but I silenced him with a scowl. I'd cultivated Sanchez for just this opportunity. I didn't want Ari's lack of manners to spoil it.

”Yeah, 'fraid so.” Sanchez said. ”Report back to me, will you?”

”Of course, and thanks! You know, I'm wondering if they should be kept under surveillance-for their own sakes, I mean. Do you think it's possible that the person Evers met for that drink threatened him somehow? Or frightened him so badly that he thought suicide was his only way out? If so, they might go after his a.s.sociates next. Just a thought on my part, of course.”

”A good thought, though. I'll detail a couple of men to keep an eye on those two ladies, yeah. Especially the one he called Sweetie.” Sanchez suddenly grinned at Ari. ”Not that I know how you got that information.”

”Of course not,” Ari said and grinned in return.

Sanchez went back into the office. We turned down the corridor. Standing by the elevator was a dark-haired young man in a pair of khakis, a white s.h.i.+rt, and a blue tie, an ordinary enough person to be in so large a complex, even on Sat.u.r.day. He glanced at us, then away, in a perfectly casual manner. Unfortunately for the deception, though, a thin line of bluish light outlined his head and shoulders. I sketched a ward and threw. He grunted once like a wrestler slamming onto the mat, then disappeared in a fireball flash of azure.

”What?” Ari shook his head and blinked. ”That light-”

”Was a Chaos illusion exploding,” I said. ”Did you see the guy standing there?”

”No. All I saw was a flash of light.”

”Oh, yeah? There must have been a lot of power behind the critter for you to see anything at all. Tell you what. Let's take that other elevator back at the far end of the hall. I'm getting a strong SAWM.”

”A semi-automatic . . .” Ari let his voice trail away ”Warning Mechanism, yeah. I'd just as soon not be in the same small enclosed s.p.a.ce with whatever's causing it.”

The location indicator over the elevator's bronze doors showed a car coming up to our floor. I never saw Ari draw the gun, but he was holding his Beretta, braced in both hands. He swirled around to aim at the elevator doors with the gun pointing to a spot at the height of a man's chest.

”Get back,” he said. ”Step back along the corridor.”

I did. The car came to a stop. The doors slid open. I heard a faint burbling sound quickly stifled. The closest I could come to identifying it was the sound that an aerator makes in a fish tank. The elevator car looked empty, but my alarm was still going off.

”Do you see anything in there?” Ari said. ”I don't.”

”No,” I said. ”Let's not take chances anyway.”

The doors slid shut, and the car began to descend, just as if an invisible hand had pressed the right b.u.t.tons. Look, O'Grady, I told myself, it's more likely that a person on a lower floor just put in a call for the car. Oh, yeah? myself answered. Fat chance.

”Should we warn Sanchez?” Ari asked.

”It's not after him, whatever it is. Besides, would he believe us?”

”No.” Ari holstered the Beretta. ”Very good, then. Let's go.”

As we walked down the long corridor to the other elevator, Ari kept his right hand hovering above the gun's approximate location. Every now and then, he turned and looked behind us. Maybe because of that, maybe not, we reached the other elevator safely and rode down to the underground garage without incident. I was real glad to drive out into the sunlight.

Since I was carrying my notebook in my shoulder bag, we had the phone numbers of the other two coven members with us. While I drove out California Street, Ari called the first woman on his cell phone and made arrangements to interview Mrs. Celia LaRosa. As always on the steep hills of San Francisco's downtown, the traffic moved so erratically, what with Muni buses and double-parked delivery trucks, that I had to concentrate to avoid being sideswiped. I missed about half of what Ari was saying, though I did hear him mention Inspector Sanchez before he ended the call.

”LaRosa sounds terrified,” Ari said. ”She told me to come straight over, because she and her husband are about to leave for France.”

”A planned vacation?” I said.

”Not sodding likely. I can't say I blame her for wanting to leave town after what happened to Evers.”

”Ah. That's why you warned her to notify the police. Think she will?”

”If she's smart. She didn't sound stupid.”

The LaRosas lived on Was.h.i.+ngton Street, several blocks west of Divisadero, in a restored Victorian house, painted in tasteful greens and grays, and set back behind a luxury in the city: a few yards of lawn. The husband opened the door, a man of about sixty, skinny but not abnormally so, with a thick shock of gray-brown hair and a tidy mustache. He made sure to scrutinize both our IDs before he stepped back and let us come into the wood-paneled foyer.

”My wife's real upset,” he informed us.

”I don't blame her, sir,” I said. ”Evers' suicide must have come as a real shock.”

”It was, yeah. First Elaine, now this! I'm glad they sent a woman officer.”

Mrs. LaRosa received us in the living room directly off the hallway, a long narrow room that, judging from the stillvisible seam about halfway along the pale cream ceiling, had been knocked together from two Victorian parlors. Rose velvet overstuffed furniture sat around an Aubussonstyle flowered rug. At the street end of the room was a bay window and at the other, set back in the pale blue wall, was a niche, tiled in dark green art nouveau tiles, that had originally held a gas heater. On the floor inside it stood a flower arrangement, yellow-and-white blooms around a central spray of red gladiolas.

The fas.h.i.+onably slender Mrs. LaRosa, wearing a pair of beige slacks and a pale blue blouse, perched on the edge of an armchair. Her champagne-colored hair in a perfect short coif and the location of her eyebrows, way too high on her forehead, made her seem older than she probably was. She should have waited a few more years for that first face-lift.

”Come in.” Her voice shook on the words. ”Do sit down.”

Ari and I sat on the rose settee. Mr. LaRosa stood protectively behind his wife's chair. Ari took the notebook out of my bag, a pen out of his s.h.i.+rt pocket, and prepared to act like the a.s.sistant.

”I'm sorry to bother you at such a troubled time,” I said.

Mrs. LaRosa forced out a smile and waved a feeble hand.

”I need to know when you first met William Evers,” I went on. ”And why you joined his occult study group.”

”d.a.m.n nonsense,” Mr. L muttered. Mrs. L ignored him.

”Evers handled my divorce,” Mrs. LaRosa said. ”This is my second marriage. As for the group, Elaine Politt was a good friend of mine. We belonged to the same bridge club. I joined because of her, not Evers.”

”I see. Can you tell me anything about this Brother Belial?”

Mr. L snorted and coughed like a man hoping for an okay to interrupt.

”Very little,” Mrs. L frowned and paused. ”He was very tall and very thin, but he was always robed when we all came into the room, so I never caught a glimpse of his actual face. He always wore a stocking over his face, you see, like the bank robbers do, and then of course he had the hood of his robe pulled forward.”

”Bank robber's about it,” Mr. L put in. ”I'm sorry, my dear, but you know what I thought of those people.”

She winced and twined her fingers together. I figured that I knew, too, and that he'd been right. Aloud, I said, ”Evers mentioned that there was something odd about Brother Belial's voice.”

”Yes, it was very deep and very slow. You know, there were times when I wondered if he were a human being, he talked so oddly.”

In the depths of my mind a little voice whispered, ”Bingo!”

”I suppose that sounds silly,” Mrs. L continued. ”But you know, about his face, at times I wondered if he had one.”

”Can you expand on that?” I said.

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