Innocent Blood

Twenty-Five

After he left Nevile’s house, Frank drove along Franklin Avenue, past The Cedars. Maybe he could make contact with Danny here, where he had breathed his last breath. He parked on the opposite side of the street and climbed out of his car. A demolition crew was bringing down the last of the school library, and the morning echoed with the heavy thumps of falling masonry. It was right here, only two weeks ago, that his life had changed forever.

‘Danny,’ he said, under his breath, and tried to think of Danny swinging his school bag, but he could only picture him lying in his casket, with that creepy center parting and those doll-red cheeks, like one of the kids from Our Gang.

He paced up and down outside the school for almost twenty minutes, checking his watch repeatedly. If Dar Tariki Tariqat were as good as their word, another bomb was due to go off in less than a quarter of an hour.

With a thunderous roar, another wall fell, and the air was filled with dust. A demolition worker appeared through the haze like a ghost, and Frank was reminded of the way that Astrid had emerged from the bomb smoke, limping. In some respects, Astrid had changed his life more than the bomb – more than Danny’s death.

He thought of the feeling she had given him that morning – the feeling that he already knew her, or that he had met her before, and it occurred to him that the woman who had seen her walking down Gardner Street had said the same. Maybe Astrid had one of those faces that remind people of other people. It was a common enough hazard of living in Los Angeles. Frank had been approached in the street two or three times and asked if he was Johnny Depp. It happened.

He stood outside the school for a long time, thinking. Specks of glass still glittered in the gutters, and Mr Loma’s security hut still leaned at an impossible angle, as if it were being blown by a long-forgotten hurricane.

He climbed back into his car and drove south toward Sunset. A few blocks west, he passed Orange Grove Avenue. He slowed. What had Danny said, up on that locomotive footplate in Travel Town? Emeralds and orange groves.

Frank stepped on the brakes, provoking an elephant blast from a Ralph’s truck driver close behind him and an ostentatious fanfare of trumpets from a gold Mercedes convertible. He turned down Orange Grove Avenue and drove very slowly southward, hugging the right-hand lane. He had no idea what he was looking for, but he had the feeling that he was being guided here. He also had the feeling that he was very close to something important. Emeralds and orange groves. Seven thousand and eleven orange groves.

He reached the intersection with Melrose Avenue. The signal was red, so he had to stop and wait. Right opposite stood a derelict church with a flaking, turquoise-painted dome. It was surrounded by corrugated-iron fencing, which was plastered with faded and tattered fly posters for rock concerts and health clubs. But a signboard still stood outside, announcing that this was the Church of St John the Evangelist, 7011 Orange Grove Avenue.

Frank felt the same scalp-shrinking sensation that he had experienced when the image of Danny had first appeared on the patio. Emeralds – the stone of St John the Evangelist. Orange Grove Avenue. Seven thousand and eleven. When the signal turned to green, he crossed Melrose and managed to find a tight parking space right in front of the church, much to the annoyance of the woman driving the gold Mercedes convertible, who had been following close behind him.

‘You couldn’t drive a fucking shopping cart!’ she screamed at him.

He climbed out of his car and walked around the hoardings. On the Orange Grove Avenue side there was a makeshift door, fastened with a padlock. He peered through a triangular gap right beside it, but all he could see was half of the steps leading up to the church door, and a heap of rubbish, including an iron bedhead and several split-open bags of cement.

He took out his cellphone and punched in Nevile’s number. Nevile was a long time in answering and when he did he sounded out of breath. ‘Sorry, I was taking a swim.’

Frank said, ‘You remember at Travel Town, when we were talking about Dar Tariki Tariqat, and where they might meet? And Danny said, “emeralds and orange groves and seven thousand and eleven?”’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll bet you didn’t know that twelve biblical saints have their own stones – you know, like birthstones – and that emeralds are the stone of St John the Evangelist.’

‘No, I didn’t know that. What of it?’

‘Guess where I’m standing now.’

Saturday, October 9, 11:59 A.M.

Frank was sitting in his car waiting for Nevile when he heard the explosion in the distance. A flat thud, over to the north-east. Within two minutes, KRCW reporter Kevin Jacobson had broken into the morning music program.

‘Reports are coming in of a massive explosion on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank. A number of people have been killed and seriously injured. So far we have no more details than that, but we will bring you more news as and when we receive it.’

By the time Nevile’s shiny black Mercedes had turned the corner and parked on the opposite side of Orange Grove Avenue, Frank had heard that at least twenty-five people had died, and scores had been critically hurt. A furious Warner Brothers executive blamed the police and the FBI for their ‘abject failure to protect the entertainment industry.’

Warner Brothers’ French Street set had been almost totally demolished by 1,500 lbs of C4 explosive packed into a van. The director John Portman had been blinded and the actress Nina Ballantine had lost both legs. Five extras had been beheaded by the blast.

Nevile came across the street looking serious. ‘You’ve heard the news, too?’ Frank asked him.

‘Yes,’ said Nevile, ‘and believe me, they’re not going to stop. They’ll go on bombing until they get what they want. It was the same with the IRA when I was working in Northern Ireland – same back-to-front thinking. They feel that they’re totally justified in what they’re doing, and they’re blaming all of the casualties on the entertainment industry, for not giving in to them. It’s a case of “now look what you made me do!” Even worse than that, they believe they have God on their side. I’ll tell you something, Frank: a lot more people are going to die before this is over.’