The Hollywood Spiral by Paul Neilan

Author:Paul Neilan [Neilan, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781538736678
Google: FIEGzgEACAAJ
Amazon: B08KQ3R6Z4
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2021-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

I waited under an overhang, looked at the map CMB Roach had drawn. By midnight the mansion at 6765 Franklin was completely dark, fvrst chvrch mvlTverse shut down for the night. I’d been there almost an hour. There were no lights, no activity. The spires loomed ghostly in the dark.

I gave it more time. Listened to the rain fall, spattering the overhang. Then I went to the service entrance around back and punched in the code CMB Roach had written, 2584. The gate clicked open. I went down the sloping drive, around the corner. At the next keypad I punched another code, 3455. The door opened. I slipped inside.

I shut it quick behind me, waited for my eyes to adjust. There was a dull glow from the tessellated floor. I heard a low hum, droning. It wasn’t an insect chorus. This was mechanized. I knelt down, laid my hand flat on the swirling tile. I felt a vibration, coming up through the floor.

I crept down the hallway, listening. Through a doorway and down another hall, into the darkened atrium. I saw the bronze curves of phi, gleaming in the dark. The birds were all asleep. I went through the archway, took a right at the corner, followed CMB Roach’s map to a steel door, unlocked. A set of stairs, leading up.

I took them to the third floor, the hum growing faint and disappearing below. I followed the map to a door at the end of the hall. At an oblong keypad, I punched the number, 10946. It opened on the circular Records Room, housed in a turret, file cabinets built into the rounded walls. The drawers were all numbered. 17711, 28657, 46368 in random leaps. There was no order to any of it. I tried the first one.

It was full of building schematics. Blueprints of the surrounding neighborhood, the Hills, topography surveys.

I tried another.

Invoices from different companies. Apex Data Molding, Deeptech Info Systems, Carlsonic Solutions.

None of it meant a thing to me.

I tried the third drawer. Didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until it was too late.

A thick arm closed around my neck like a python. I didn’t struggle. There wasn’t much point. The blade of a butterfly knife glinted close to my eye.

“You fucking punks,” the guy behind the knife said. “Method acting your breaking and entering when you don’t know shit about either. It’s a fucking craft. Treat it with some respect.”

He dragged the blade slow down my cheek.

“Go turn on the lights, Boo,” he said. “I wanna see this prick’s face when I carve him up.”

“I have to hold him, Sal,” Boo said.

“Let him go,” Sal said, fluttering the knife, rolling the blade over his hand like he’d been practicing. “He moves, I’ll gut him.”

The thick arm slackened and released. Boo went back to the door, flipped the switch. The lights came up.

“Let me count the ways I’m gonna cut you,” Sal said, spinning the blade. “Say goodbye to your leading man days.”

“I’m not an actor,” I said, watching the knife.

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