Lizard Men of Los Angeles | Page 7

asked intently. "These lizard men, how do we
find them?"
"To...the tunnels...from...the tunnels..."
Cairo looked to Mrs. Lockhart. "He's making no sense. If you'd be so
kind as to get his feet, perhaps we--" He broke off as waves of heat
began to pour off of Bruno's body.

"Lizard!" Bruno screamed. "Queeeeeeeeeeeen!"
"Oh no," Cairo sighed. "Not again."
Flames leaped out of Bruno's clothing and the glass of his spectacles
melted and ran like tears. The skull inside Bruno's head seemed to glow
as if made of molten lava.
"Your hands," Mrs. Lockhart said sharply. "Where you touched him."
Cairo looked down. Smoke was already rising from his skin.
"I'll get ice," Mrs. Lockhart said, moving swiftly to the icebox in the
kitchen. Cairo ignored her. He backed away from Bruno's furiously
burning body and lowered himself into a cross-legged posture on the
floor. He closed his eyes. Flames flickered between his fingers and then,
just as suddenly, died out. A moment later Cairo opened his eyes and
inspected the hands he held out in front of him, unharmed.
"There's no ice," Mrs. Lockhart said, returning. "Are you all right?"
"Perfectly," Cairo assured her.
"How...how..." Mildred stammered.
"It was no worse than the hot coals I used to walk upon in India. Any
fakir could have done the same."
"You...you were faking it?" She burst into sudden tears. "I don't
understand any of this! This is all so horrible! Poor Bruno, and poor Mr.
Rosenberg! And that monster, Crowley, who wanted to have relations
with anything that moved! I wish I never came to California! I wish
none of this had ever happened!"
"Listen to my voice," Cairo said. He held up his hand, palm first, with
the middle finger bent again. "I will not command you to forget,
because if you forget you will only make the same mistakes again. And
I cannot undo the things that happened tonight. I can, however, make
you able to remember them without much pain, or fear, or curiosity, so

that you can go back to Missouri and be Mildred Davis once again. Do
you understand?"
Mildred nodded and Cairo lowered his hand. "Do you have any
money?" he asked her. She shook her head. Cairo reached into the limp
blonde hair behind her ear and produced a small, tightly folded piece of
paper. He carefully unfolded it to reveal a twenty-dollar bill. "That
should get you home," he said.
Mildred wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "How can I ever
thank you?"
"Help me search for another map," Cairo said, "before we take you to
the train station."
*
Dawn was a pale gray promise in the eastern sky when they pulled up
in front of Union Station on Alameda Street. Even at this hour the
sidewalks teemed with well-dressed travelers, while children sold
newspapers and fresh fruit. The smell of oranges blended with the scent
of orange blossoms in the air.
They had searched Bruno's apartment top to bottom and found no other
maps than the ones on the drafting table. Cairo had appropriated those,
along with a massive battery-powered miner's lamp they'd found in
Bruno's closet.
They got out of the police car. "Thank you so much Mr. Cairo, Mrs.
Lockhart," Mildred said. "I don't know how I could ever pay you back."
"Just take care of yourself," Cairo said. He reached into thin air and
pulled back a business card. "This is the address of our manager. Write
us a letter when you're safely back in Missouri."
"I will."
"A moment," Mrs. Lockhart said suddenly. "Mildred, what's that?"

She was pointing to a ramp, paved with cobblestones, that led down
into the ground. "That?" Mildred said. "Why, that's just a walkway, for
people and horses to cross the street."
"Are there many of them in the city?"
"Maybe a couple of hundred."
"As many," Mrs. Lockhart pressed on, "as there were little marks on
the top sheet of Bruno's map? Cairo, would you be so kind?" He
nodded, reached back into the police car for the map, and unrolled it on
the sidewalk.
"You're right," Cairo said. "It's a map of the pedestrian tunnels. Very
astute, Mrs. Lockhart."
"There's more," Mrs. Lockhart said. "Note how these pedestrian tunnels
connect with a longer tunnel that goes under the park? That park right
behind us?"
"By heaven," Cairo said. "I think you're on to it." He rolled up the maps
and exchanged them for the miner's lamp. "What did Bruno say when I
asked him how to find the lizard men? Could it have been that he meant
us to get 'to the tunnels'--meaning the tunnels of the lizard men--'from
the tunnels'--meaning from the pedestrian tunnels?"
"Let us find out," Mrs. Lockhart said. "Mildred, can you make your
way to your