The Boys from Santa Cruz

7

The answer is in the Book.

Asmador opens his eyes. The light in the tumbledown barn is dim and fawn-colored; dust motes dance in columns of sunlight shining through holes in the riddled roof. He unzips his sleeping bag to the waist, then reaches in and feels around at the bottom of the bag until his fingers brush the familiar, nubbly-textured faux-leather cover. He opens the Book at random on his lap, positioning his magnifying glass between the page and a pencil-thin shaft of sunlight. Even with the glass, the microscopic text is difficult to decipher-Asmador’s low forehead is furrowed in concentration-but luckily he only needs to make out a few words to fill in the rest from memory.

And at the bottom of the imaginary shoe box, reads the illuminated paragraph, there’s one last, dim snapshot of the traitor Epstein waving good-bye as they drag me away…

Epstein! A younger man than Brobauer, presumably with a stronger heart. Maybe this time the vultures can be tricked or persuaded to tear off a hunk of some living flesh-that’s a little wrinkle Asmador came up with all on his own, for extra credit with the Infernal Council, as it were; just thinking about it energizes him, motivates him out of his sleeping bag.

He stumbles outside, his joints still stiff from sleeping on the dirty wooden floor, and relieves himself against the side of the barn, then hurries back inside to get dressed: denim shirt, jeans, denim jacket. He peels a dozen or so bills off a brick of twenties from under the floorboard of the abandoned van to replenish his roll, checks to make sure the.38 is loaded and ready in the glove compartment of the BMW.

It takes half an hour to drive to the Marshall City Public Library. The librarian behind the checkout desk glances at Asmador disinterestedly as he enters, then turns away. His senses on full alert, he heads directly for the wall of yellow-and-black California telephone directories in the back. Having neglected to bring the Book along with him, he closes his eyes to visualize it, then mentally flips through the pages until he finds the part he’s looking for.

…a skinny guy with fading reddish brown hair…two buddies cruising the Golden State…a private investigator from San Francisco.

San Francisco it is, then. Taking the appropriate directories down from the shelf, Asmador checks out the white pages first. There are dozens upon dozens of listings for Epsteins, but no Skip. So he flips to I for Investigators in the yellow pages, and hot damn if there isn’t a quarter-page advertisement for Epstein Investigative Services, featuring a photograph of the proprietor, captioned “David ‘Skip’ Epstein, Licensed Private Investigator.”

Asmador quickly memorizes the address on Buchanan Street, then turns back to the residential listings. There he finds an entry for one Epstein, David, on Francisco Street, which he also commits to memory. Then he flips to the map section of the directory, traces out a route with his fingertip.

Good job! thinks Asmador triumphantly as he reshelves the directories. And what’s more, you did it all by yourself.

“Oh, did you?” whispers a voice in his ear. “Did you really?”

Asmador whirls around, but there’s no one there. Just a faint whiff of demon-they smell like burned matches, in case you’re interested-and the echo of Sammael the Red’s mocking, sac-shriveling laughter.