City of the Lost Read Free

looks. Thinning hair. Likes boiled British food a little too much for his doctor’s comfort, but he doesn’t care. Man’s got so much money he’s immortal. He can afford to live large.
    He claps a thick hand on my shoulder. “You all right, lad?”
    “Yeah,” I say. “Just been a long day.”
    He hangs his head, nods. “It has been at that,” he says, peers up at me. “Going to be longer still. This isn’t over yet, Joe.”
    “What’s not over, Simon?” Something in me threatens to snap. I don’t get angry. It’s unprofessional, gives the other guy an advantage. I force myself to relax as best I can, but it leaks out the edges, anyway.
    “Do you know why he did this?” I step in closer, show him my hands. Julio’s blood still under my fingernails. “He tore his own fucking throat out.”
    Simon steps back slowly, and it’s then I realize he’s got a blade millimeters from spilling my intestines to the floor. It’s easy to forget how fast he is with a knife.
    “Calm yourself, Joseph. That’s what we’re here to discuss, innit?” He looks around, peering into the hazy shade of blue that passes for a dark night in Los Angeles. “But not out here.” He heads back into the living room. I hang back a moment to pull myself together, then follow him in.
    He slides the door closed. Locks it. Draws the curtains. “I don’t know if that’ll help,” he says, more to himself than to us. Danny hands him a scotch and soda. He tosses it back like water, throws himself into one of the leather Manhattan chairs.
    “Give us a rundown on what happened,” Simon says.
    I give them the details. But when I get to the part about Julio going to retrieve the stone Simon gives me a shut-the-fuck-up look, and I bounce past that detail.
    Danny doesn’t seem to notice the omission. I wonder if Simon’s told him about it. And wonder why he wouldn’t.
    “Giavetti killed Julio,” he says. Holds up a hand when I open my mouth. “Let me finish. Please. I don’t know how, but I know he did it. Me and him, we go back quite a ways. When he came in to see me I nearly shat myself. I’m sixty-four now. Met Giavetti when I was eighteen. He looked just as old then as he does now. You following me?” He pauses to let it sink in. It doesn’t.
    “I saw the guy when he first came to see you,” Danny says. “He’s got to be in his eighties.”
    “I said the same thing back in 1959,” says Simon.
    “You sure it’s the same guy?” I ask.
    He laughs. “Oh, yes,” he says. “Man like Giavetti, you never forget. Did odd jobs for him. Had his hands in a couple of brothels in London, horse racing, poker clubs.”
    He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Bloody queer thing. Spent a lot of time at libraries.
    “One night,” he says, “pal of mine gets the bright idea to bump him off. We’d been drinking, and we both knew Giavetti was loaded. So we figure we’ll hide in a closet, strangle him in his sleep. My job was to get him in the house. I’ve got keys, I know when the ol’ bugger goes to bed.”
    “You tried to kill him?” Danny asks.
    “Not tried. Tied him up good, beat him to death with a cricket bat. Let him bleed out on his Persian rugs and laughed the whole time. Stuffed our pockets with as much as we could carry. Set the place alight. He was dead, all right. I watched him burn.”
    I look over at Danny to see if he’s buying any of this.
    “Bullshit,” he says.
    “I’m with Danny on this one,” I say. “You’re saying Giavetti’s ghost is back, and he somehow got Julio to kill himself? Come on, Simon. Don’t lose it now. You killed Giavetti, what, almost fifty years ago? It’s somebody else. What about your partner?”
    “Lost his nerve,” he says. “Talked about going to the police.” Knowing Simon that means he’s at the bottom of the Thames. Scratch that lead.
    “Who else knew?”
    “Besides you two, I’ve never told a soul. Back then Giavetti had connections. Word got out we’d done the