Keeper's Intervention, Session 6

Upon their return to New York, they quickly filled Janet in on what had happened and decided to take the rest of the week off to spend with their loved ones.

• Sloane went to the farm where his boy was living, only to get a cool reception from the kid. It took a few days to figure out what the problem was: for the last weeks, the boy was repeatedly having nightmares, in which Sloane was running through a forest, the ground and underbrush covered in blood spats and something like honey. Sloane was bleeding, from a deep cut in his arm. He was chasing a wolf or something, but then the wolf was chasing him. He was running through the woods and ran into the boy and started hacking at him with a large knife or machete. The dream is always the same...
• Black came home to find his wife less than impressed with the state he was in: beaten up, most of his teeth knocked out and full of bruises (his daughter didn't even want to go near him). Though Black did his best to explain to her that what he did was necessary, she kept pointing out to him that that part of his life was behind him. That he had left it so they could get married and live their lives together. That he had a parish now... In the end Black decided it was better to spend some time with Father Gregory. He filled him in about what he had found out.

Afterwards they met up with Janet. It was decided they were heading back to LA to look into a few last things: Olivia Clarendon and the Trammel estate. Sloane hooked up with a few dodgy people from his past and got hooked up with two less reputable guys, one who was pretty good with cars, the other an old (retired) burglar

• They observed the Trammel estate and noticed over the course of the day how a lot of (mainly Mexican) visitors arrived at the mansion, were parking at the coach house (where Walker resided) and how the Captain escorted them into the mansion through a back door. After spending a few minutes in there, they would walk out again and leave the premises.
• Later on they also saw how a few women and a man arrived, parked their car and went into the house. They didn't see them leave.
• In the middle of the night, they saw how one of the doors upstairs opened and a tall man in a bathrobe walked out onto the balcony, smoke a cigar and entertaining himself for a while. This probably was Samson Trammel.
• The next morning, as they left, they were noticed by the neighbors gardener, Genial Brooker. He opened up to them easily, explaining he was happy to finally see someone looking into what was going on next door. He confirmed that he had seen daily lowlifes and foreigners arrive at the house, even that he had seen how they carried something large from the house (a body?) to a car in the middle of the night. He had seen Trammel crawling through the garden naked...
• Brooker also showed them something he had stumbled upon. In the back corner of the garden, under s lush flower patch, there was something like a stone sculpture of a distorted mouth, full of large and crooked teeth. Brooker explained how he heard some noise one night, and tried to figure out what was going on. He found the mouth (a real on, with teeth and a tongue and all), hissing and spitting. Terrified, he threw his mothers crucifix into the mouth. As he explained, the thing turned to stone, leaving it in the state it is now.

After meeting Brooker and reassuring him, the investigators took up residence in the house next door, observing the comings and going for the rest of the day.
They also decided to get Kearns to follow the Mexicans who visited the mansion throughout the day. Afterwards, he reported that they drove around the city, making deliveries at houses. The people receiving them seemed to be a mix of housewives, middle-class users, as well as the occiasional marginal type.
He took them back to one of the latter, and with a bit of pressure, they were able to enter the apartment from Lee Dempsey. Things got a bit out of hand and a scuffle ensued. Black and Sloane were able to overcome  Dempsey, although the threat of violence seemed to have very little effect on the man. He spoke to them about Nectar, and how the stuff that is available in LA is but a weak version of what he used to get in Bangkok.
“It was incredible. These two were just ripping into each other like rabid dogs. Somebody — just some joker standing next to me — throws a knife into the arena, but they were too busy gouging each others’ eyes out with their thumbs to notice.
“Then I got a hit and everything became so much more intense. More wild.Y ou know how the stuff here works on your urges? Well, this does that, but it works on something baser. Fights started breaking out in the stands. That’s how I broke this arm the first time.”

He also suggested that Sloane should go and check out the fights, or even partake in them.  He explained the proper procedure for accessing the fights as a spectator if they choose to travel to Bangkok and told them what denominations of banknotes to rub together at the Fragrant Honey Shop in Phra Nakron while saying “I have come for the exhibition.”