before we hit the bottom of the stairs, I can see where we’re headed. It’s huge. Like Texas huge. I can see the cavern’s ceiling, but not the far walls. There’s a junkyard of old tables, cabinets, and shelves at the bottom of the stairs. About fifty yards beyond that is what looks like a stone labyrinth that twists, turns, and snakes away into the distance. Can’t see the end of that, either. It’s like standing on the beach at Santa Monica and trying to see to Japan.
“Where did all this come from?” I ask.
“Oh, here and there. You know how it is when you stay in one place too long. You tend to accumulate things.”
Shelves, dressers, and old tables are piled with books, old photos, jewelry, furs, false teeth, pickled hearts, and what might be dinosaur bones. Those are the normal bits. Sticking up over the top of the labyrinth’s walls are parts of drive-in movie screens, the masts and deck of an old sailing ship, a lighthouse, and strange carnivorous trees that snap at the flocks of birds circling the ceiling.
“How long have you been here?”
“Forever. I think. It’s hard to be sure about these things, isn’t it? I mean, one ice age looks pretty much like another. But I’ve been here a long time and that’s why everyone comes to me. I have all the best things. For sale or for trade. Buyer’s choice.”
“That’s why we’re here. I used up some of Vidocq’s Spiritus Dei and need to pay him back.”
Muninn glances over at Vidocq.
“Eugène, I didn’t know that you knew the sultan of Brunei.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“You’re not the sultan? Perhaps you’re Bill Gates or the czar of all the Russias?”
“No.”
“Then trust me. You can’t afford Spiritus Dei.”
The little man wanders to a nearby table and picks up a wooden doll that looks like it was pulled out of a fire. He winds a key at the doll’s back. It stands up and begins to sing. The song might be a hymn or an aria from an opera I’ve never heard of, which is all of them. The doll’s voice bounces off the walls, high, perfect, and heartbreaking. With a soft click, the key in its back stops moving and the doll falls over. Its voice echoes for several minutes, bouncing off the labyrinth’s thick walls.
“Of course, we might be able to do a trade,” Muninn says. “There’s a certain someone who would like a certain something in the possession of certain other people in our little town. I would like you to help Eugène procure this item for me. If you’re successful, I guarantee you a flask of Spiritus Dei and a not inconsiderable amount of cash. Eugène told me that you’d like money to be part of your payment. Is that right?”
“Money is good.”
“Money I have.”
Muninn brings over a set of blueprints he’d hidden behind a collection of canopic jars. He spreads the blueprints on the only relatively uncluttered table in the room, first pushing animal teeth, Mayan vases, and a box of lenses and prisms out of the way.
“The place you are invading is called Avila. It’s a gentleman’s club in the hills.”
“What does that mean, ‘gentleman’s club’?”
“Just what I said. A gentleman’s club. In the old sense. A place to drink, to eat, and to gamble with friends. It’s also the most exclusive and expensive bordello in the state. Perhaps the country. Avila’s clients are film producers, software billionaires, local politicians, and foreign heads of state. Only the highest of the high can get inside. Except for you two, of course. You’ll be the rats in the walls.”
The building on the blueprints is round and the interior is laid out in concentric circles.
“While Eugène is an accomplished thief, Avila is heavily guarded. It might take days or even weeks for him to figure out how to penetrate the defenses. However, I understand that you can easily get him inside and out again.”
Avila is laid out with the offices in the outside circle. Food and a bar one circle in. Gambling one more level in, and the bordello one after that. The center of the blueprints is blank.
“At this time of year, there are parties every night, leading up to their New Year’s Eve party in a couple of days. You’ll want to go in there as soon as possible. Now, there will be enough chaos to make your work easier, but on New Year’s there will be too much.”
I point to the building’s blank center.
“What’s in there?”
“No one knows. Perhaps you’ll find out.”
“Does it pay extra?”
“Let’s see what you bring me.”
I’m trying to keep my mouth shut, but it’s really pissing me off that I have to give up the hunt for Mason so I can play cat burglar for an Oompa-Loompa. But that’s exactly what I have to do if I want to keep Max Overdrive open and have a place to live. I don’t have a choice. I don’t think Vidocq would be happy having me planning mass murder at his kitchen table.
“I’m in,” I say.
“Good boy,” says Vidocq. “I’m in, too.”
“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
