Violets Are Blue

bad today and every day it will get worse, until the worst of all happens.” My own philosophy was a little cheerier than Schopenhauer’s, but there were times when he seemed on the mark.
    The worst of all
had happened to a twenty-nine-year-old record company executive named Jonathan Mueller, and in the
worst possible way
. There were bites on his neck. I didn’t see any knife cuts. Mueller had been hung from a lighting fixture in the hotel room. His skin was waxy and translucent, and I didn’t think he had been dead very long.
    The three of us moved closer to the hanging body. It was swaying slightly and still dripping blood.
    “The major bites are all in his neck,” I said. “It looks like role-playing vampires again. The hanging has to be their ritual, maybe their signature.”
    “This is so goddamn creepy,” Jamilla whispered. “This poor guy had the blood sucked out of him. It almost looks like a sex crime.”
    “I think it is,” Kyle said. “I think they seduced him first.”
    Just then the cell phone in the pocket of my jacket went off. The timing couldn’t have been worse.
    I looked at Kyle before I answered the call. “It could be him,” I said. “The Mastermind.”
    I put the receiver to my ear.
    “How do you like L.A., Alex?” the Mastermind asked in his usual mechanical drone. “The dead pretty much look the same everywhere, don’t they?”
    I nodded at Kyle. He understood who was on the line. The Mastermind.
    He motioned for me to give him the phone, and I handed it over. I watched his face as he listened, then frowned deeply. Kyle finally took the phone away from his ear.
    “He broke off the connection,” he said. “It was like he knew you weren’t on the line anymore. How did he know, Alex? How does the bastard know so much? What the hell does he want from you?”
    I stared at the slowly revolving corpse, and I didn’t have any answers. None at all. I felt drained myself.

Chapter 23

    IT WAS already Friday and we were in the middle of a nasty, sordid mess that wasn’t going to be over soon. In the afternoon I had to make a tough phone call home to Washington. Nana Mama answered after a couple of rings, and I immediately wished that one of the kids had picked up instead.
    “It’s Alex. How are you?”
    She said, “You’re not coming home for Damon’s concert tomorrow, are you, Alex? Or did you forget all about the concert already? Oh, Alex, Alex. Why have you forsaken us? This isn’t right.”
    I love Nana tremendously, but sometimes she goes too far to make her point. “Why don’t you put Damon on the phone?” I said. “I’ll talk to him about it.”
    “He’s not going to be a boy for very much longer. Pretty soon he’ll be just like you, won’t listen to a word anybody says. Then you’ll see what it’s like. I guarantee you won’t like it,” she said.
    “I feel bad enough already, guilty enough. You don’t have to make it worse, old woman.”
    “Of course I do. That’s my job, and I take it as seriously as you obviously take yours,” she said.
    “Nana, people are dying out here. Someone died a horrible death in Washington to get me involved in this mess. It keeps happening. There’s a connection I have to find, or at least try to.”
    “Yes, people are dying, Alex. I understand that. And other people are growing up without their father around as much as they need him to be — especially since they don’t have a mother. Are you aware of that? I can’t be mother and father to these children.”
    I shut my eyes. “I hear what you’re saying. I don’t even disagree with you, believe it or not. Now, would you please put Damon on?” I asked again. “As soon as I get off the phone, I’ll go out and see if I can find a mother for my children. Actually, I’m working with a very nice female detective. You’d like her.”
    “Damon’s not here. He said if you called and weren’t coming home to tell you
thanks a lot
.”
    I shook my head and finally smiled in spite of myself. “You got his inflection down perfectly. Where is he?”
    “He’s playing basketball with his friends. He’s very good at that too. I think he’ll be an outstanding two guard. Have you even noticed?”
    “He has soft hands and a quick first step. Of course I’ve noticed. You know which friends he’s out with?”
    “Of course I do. Do
you
?” Nana shot back. She was relentless when she was on the attack. “He’s with Louis and Jamal. He picks good