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“No. He’s just a regular person.”
“I doubt that.”
How many times in my life am I going to get an invite from the richest man in California? Why does someone like that want to hire me? I might as well have a look. It’s not like I’m going back to Bamboo House right now. If someone is going take another shot at me, I’d rather it be in a car with a stranger than in the bar with people I know. Plus, I want to see Quay. Lay my eyes on a real, honest-to-goodness billionaire. Is someone like that even human? Does he sleep on a pile of vestal virgins? Does he fly to the bathroom with a jet pack? Does he sprinkle his food with gold dust and platinum the way regular people use salt and pepper? And what the hell kind of a name is Norris?
QUAY MIGHT BE a civilian, but money is the magic anyone can do. He’s bought himself a Sub Rosa mansion.
We’re at the abandoned zoo in Griffith Park. After a short walk we go through an old concrete enclosure. It’s large and heavy, like something for big cats or bears. The interior walls are covered with graffiti. Teenybopper lovers and no-talent taggers. The Banker walks to a random crack in the floor and presses several points in the concrete, like a masseur doing acupressure. The crack creaks open on hinges like a trapdoor. He looks bad. Pale and sweating, but he minds his manners. He puts out his good hand, letting the guest know that he gets to go in first. Why not? I walk into trapdoors every day.
It’s a marble staircase and for a minute I think we’re back in time to ancient Athens. Underneath the zoo is where I imagine an old Greek king living. Marble everywhere. Ionic pillars supporting high ceilings. Light and dark marble squares form checkerboard patterns on the floors in the halls. Towering statues of gods and goddesses are crammed in every nook and cranny. I won’t be surprised if Quay shows up in flowing purple robes and a laurel wreath on his head.
The Banker keeps his cool, but he’s fading fast. He leads me into an office done up in the same Greek style, but there’s a phone, a computer, and a lot of prescription pill bottles on a carved mahogany desk. Three plasma-screen TVs are mounted on the walls, all tuned to different business channels. The picture window looks out over L.A. but not this L.A. The tallest building is maybe ten floors. It’s L.A. from a long time ago. Maybe from the thirties, when a lot of the big zoo enclosures were built.
A minute later someone comes in. It’s almost funny. I recognize him immediately. It’s Trevor Moseley, but Moseley with a good fifty more years on him. Norris Quay.
He’s slightly stooped and walks with a cane. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt, cream-colored slacks, and soft black slippers. This wouldn’t be interesting except that everything in this place screams Grecian formality and here’s Grandpa ready for an afternoon of checkers and pudding at the old folks’ home.
“Ronald, you look like death,” Norris says to the Banker. “Go see my doctor.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ronald says, clutching his bleeding hand. He still has it together enough to give me a nod before leaving.
Besides Quay, the only people in the room are two bodyguards. Massive, steroid-stinking sons of bitches. They wait in opposite corners of the room, not moving or speaking. They look rooted to each spot, like statues of Titans. But I bet they can move pretty fast when provoked.
I say, “So, how many of you are there?”
Quay hobbles to a deep blue-and-gold velvet sofa and takes his time lowering his bones onto the cushions, in no rush at all to answer me.
“You mean my simulacra? Generally no more than two or three at a time on each continent. Except Antarctica, of course. I don’t collect penguins.”
He smiles. The lines on his face remind me of the splitting roads in Pandemonium after an earthquake.
I shake my head.
“You’ve got your numbers wrong. I met three of you in just the past few days. One with Declan Garrett and two more with Atticus Rose.”
“Yes. Atticus always keeps a few extras around for when one has an accident.”
“The ones in Rose’s workshop both had accidents. I burned them.”
Quay purses his lips.
“What a waste. Never mind. I’ll have Atticus run off a few more.”
“You know where he is?”
“I know where everyone is.”
Quay crosses his long legs and picks some lint off his trousers.
“What’s the story with your clone called Trevor Moseley? He runs through every religion there is and ends up hanging out with Angra Om Ya nutcases?”
“My little Trevors, Fredericks, Pauls, Williams, and the others have insinuated themselves in various groups around the world. Groups that possess or might come to possess things I want.”
I knew it.
“You want the 8 Ball.”
“The Qomrama. Yes. Trevor was going to buy it from them or, if need be, take it. Then he . . . that is, I found that they didn’t have it. In fact, like me they were looking for it, and all signs pointed to you having it.”
