"Me, too," says Allegra.
"Forget it. No amateurs on this bus. Only criminals."
Allegra starts to say something, but Vidocq cuts her off.
"He's right, even if he's rude about it. What we're doing is criminal and dangerous. This isn't the time or place for you to learn about such things."
"Fine," she says. "Have a boys' night out. I hope you and your dicks will be very happy together."
I look over at Muninn and he has two tuxedos on hangers.
"Gentlemen's disguises for a gentleman's club."
WE STEP FROM the room and into Avila without anyone noticing, which is something I've always wondered about. How can you see two guys dressed like ushers at Liberace's funeral walk out of a wall and not react? My guess is that no one sees us or remembers us. The room or the key or some combination must temporarily blind or switch off the memories of anyone nearby. Otherwise how could I have sent so many of Hell's A-team killers down to Tartarus, the special Hell for the double dead. Avila is a palace designed by Martians. A rip-off of a rip-off of a rip-off of a Victorian men's club that some set designer saw in a Sherlock Holmes movie when he or she was six. Still, the scale of the place is impressive. They must have cut down half the Amazon rain forest to get the dark wood for the bar. The Rolexes in this one room could pay off the national debt.
The place is full of sloppy, well-dressed drunks laughing and screaming in a dozen languages. Happy hour at the United Nations of Money. Half-naked and just plain naked hostesses serve drinks and tapas and hold out silver trays piled high with white powder, syringes, and glass pipes, whatever the partiers want. Perfect. Who needs magic to sneak around when you've got Caligula's bachelor party going on down the hall?
Vidocq's thief instincts are cranked up to eleven and he finds the office in the time it takes me to stop looking at the girls. He's no fun at all when he's in business mode. He pushes me into the office ahead of him and closes the door.
After all the rumpus-room fun, the office is kind of a letdown. It could be the office of a bank president or a Beverly Hills real-estate tycoon. There are lots of awards on bookshelves. Lots of celebrities smiling down from the walls. Some of their eyes are so glazed it looks like you could go ice skating on them. Over where Vidocq is working on the safe is an oak desk the size of a Porsche and probably more expensive.
"How's it going over there?" I ask.
Vidocq is rattling little bottles together as he pulls potions from the pockets of his tux.
"It's as I thought," he says. "The safe is ordinary, but it's protected by a number of protective spells."
"Want me to help? I'm good at breaking things."
"Be quiet. I have to understand exactly what's at work here and eliminate the spells one by one and in the proper order."
I'm already bored and annoyed by Avila. It's not that I have anything against bad behavior. I'm all for it. But this incestuous, backslapping, heavy-money-party cabal scene is everything I hate about L.A. in particular and human beings in general.
Those pricks down the hall, flying high above it all on this hillside, they're the kind of people whose faces end up on money or a new library so that kids will have a new place to hang out while realizing that no one ever taught them how to read. Their wealth doesn't insulate them from the world. It creates it. Their bank statements read like Genesis. Let there be light and let a thousand investment banks bloom. They shit cancer, and when they belch in a bowl valley like L.A., the air turns so thick and poisonous that you can cut it up like bread and serve it for lunch at McDonald's. A Suicide Sandwich Happy Meal.
There must be a hundred of them just ten steps away. I wonder how many I could kill before the cops got here.
Vidocq is mumbling over his vials and potions across the room. I drop down into the desk chair and look through the pile of envelopes in front of me. Aside from a few charity begging letters, suck-up notes from politicians, and more bullshit awards, the rest is just bills and ads. What do you know? Even the gods get junk mail.
I toss the pile back on the desk and pick up a photo in a silver frame. From TV, I recognize one guy as the current mayor of L.A. and the other as a guy who was almost elected president. There's a woman standing to one side and the governor is handing her yet another award. All three beam from the picture, showing their teeth. A pack of happy wolves.
Something fun must have just happened at the party because the crowd suddenly got loud and then died down again. I bet I could take out everyone in that room and be gone before anyone figured out what's happening.
A little switch clicks in my brain. I pick up the framed photo and show it to Vidocq.
"Recognize anyone here?"
He shoots me a look.
"What? Oui. Politicians. Fuck them. Let me do my job."
"Not them. The woman."
He looks again. Then gets more interested.
"I know her. Is that your friend Jayne-Anne?"
"Yeah. This must be her place. She was always a crazy social climber. Avila is her gift for standing by Mason."