Hollywood Noir (Angel) - Softcover

Chapter One

Angel was restless.

He sat behind his desk in his inner office, staring into space. In the front office, Cordelia and Doyle were talking, laughing, moving about. Cordy was a stunning former cheerleader who had moved to Los Angeles from Sunnydale and created a position for herself in Angel's business. Doyle, half demon and half human, conveyed messages from the Powers That Be. They were both invaluable aides to Angel. But at that moment they were only at the periphery of his awareness, and he wasn't part of their conversation.

He thought about getting up, going out to the front office, sitting down on the couch, and taking part. He also thought about going outside to see if anything was going on in the city that he ought to be aware of. Each thing he thought of doing superseded the one he'd thought of before, and he ended up doing nothing.

What's the matter with me? he wondered

He stayed in his seat, gaze fixed on nothing in particular.

"What's Angel's problem?" Cordelia Chase asked. She twirled her long brown hair around two fingers as she spoke. "I poked my head in there a couple of minutes ago to listen for his breathing, just to see if he was still -- well, not alive, but you know what I mean. But then I remembered, there's no breathing either. Finally he blinked, though, so I guess there's no need for vampire CPR or anything."

"I reckon he's bored," Doyle said, running a hand through his black hair. "We were talkin' last night, and he said he thought it was comin' on again. Said he gets in these moods."

"Angel said that?"

"Well, you know, I had to read between the lines a bit."

"Well, we all get moods, but some of us can, you know, go shopping, or take Pamprin or something. Hasn't he ever heard of getting over it?"

"You've known him longer than I have, Cordy," Doyle replied. "But you gotta figure he's been around for, what, almost two hundred and fifty years now. Talk about 'been there, done that.' If there's anything he hasn't done, especially in the first hundred years or so of his misspent youth, I don't want to know about it. He said sometimes it just sneaks up on him, this feelin' of havin' done it all and seen everything."

Cordelia stood up from her desk and walked over to the couch where Doyle sprawled. His shirt was bright blue, making his piercing blue eyes seem to sparkle even more than usual. He wore a dark leather jacket, unbuttoned, and dark pants. He wasn't a bad-looking guy, and except for the fact that he never seemed to have any money, she might have let him ask her out sometime.

"Sounds like you two had quite the male-bonding session." There was more than a trace of sarcasm in her tone.

"Oh, we bonded all right," Doyle replied in his distinctive Irish brogue. "There was serious conversation, there were manly punches to the arms, there was even the consumption of liquids. Pig's blood, in his case, but still...There was everything except testosterone-fueled hugs at the end of it."

Cordelia rolled her eyes. "Must have been quite the spectacle. Was this in a public place? I guess not, with the blood-drinking and all."

"The blood was only for him, I wanna remind you. My beverage came from a bottle, not a butcher."

"Right." She sat down next to him and continued in a hushed voice. "So with all this bonding and beverages, why is he still bored? I hate to say it, considering I wasn't invited along, but it sounds as if you had a fun evening."

"One night of carousin' with your chums -- or chum, as the case may be -- don't necessarily overcome a coupla hundred years of same-ol'. He said when we started the detective agency -- "

"You mean the one I pressured him to start," Cordelia said proudly.

"The very one. Anyhow, he said that he thought it'd keep him interested. You know, each new person through the door'd be a new and different kind of case. He'd see the whole range of human existence, right here in his own foyer."

"Is that what this is, a foyer?"

"I'm paraphrasin', all right?" Doyle snapped. "But instead, his last three cases have been, what?"

Cordelia thought about it for a moment. "Let's see," she said quietly. "That runaway cat, Mr. Stripey. The guy with the hardware store who thought he was being overcharged by his suppliers -- paperwork, big yawn. Oh, and then Mr. Stripey ran away again." She glanced through the office window at Angel, still sitting in the same position, a glazed look in his eyes. "Okay, point taken. And maybe we should send Mrs. Finnegan a fake change-of-address notice, so next time Mr. Stripey runs away she won't be able to find us."

"That's what I like about you, Cord," Doyle chuckled. "Your utter lack of a conscience."

"I have a conscience," she protested, sounding somewhat hurt. "Well, when I want to. Anyway, I think they're overrated, unless there are talking crickets involved. I mean, look at Angel. Think he'd just be sitting there in his office letting moss grow on him if he didn't have a conscience? No, the old Angelus would be out biting, killing, maiming, having a great old time."

"Right," Doyle agreed brightly. "And he'd start with those closest to him -- like us."

"Another good point. Maybe he's better off this way. Better bored Angel than Angel amok. Still, I wish we could think of something that would pep him up, get him -- "

She stopped in midsentence. Doyle had suddenly sat bolt upright and clamped his hands over his head. "What is it, Doyle? Do you have an idea?"

But Doyle shook his head, writhing in what looked like incredible pain, and she knew it wasn't an idea -- it was a vision.

Doyle's visions, sent to him by the Powers That Be, were always of someone in trouble. Which meant there was something for Angel to do, she realized. Something to snap him out of his funk.

"A vision?" she asked. "Make it a good one, Doyle."

A moment later it passed, and Doyle released his head with a moan. "Oh, man, that hurts," he complained.

"Yeah, but could it have been any more nick of time-ish?"

Angel was suddenly in the doorway, looking at them.

"It walks," Cordelia said in a hushed voice.

"Did you have a vision?" Angel asked.

"A doozy," Doyle said. "Not a lot of detail, but plenty of background agony."

"I've rarely seen him looking quite so miserable," Cordelia added cheerfully.

"What's up?"

"I don't really know." Doyle massaged his own neck as he spoke. "Mostly what I got is a name and an address: Betty McCoy, 20047 Sunset, number 819."

"But you don't know what her problem is?" Angel asked.

"Not a clue," Doyle replied.

Angel glanced out the window and saw that it was growing dark outside. "Guess I'll go find out." He scribbled the address on a scrap of paper and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Anything you want us to do?" Doyle asked.

"Not till we know more about what's going on with Betty McCoy," Angel said flatly. "Just wait here. I doubt I'll be long."

He went out the side door and through his downstairs apartment to the carport where his 1968 Plymouth Belvedere GTX convertible was parked, and climbed in without opening the door.

At last, he thought, a goal. An objective. Something real.

Things had been quiet lately. Angel was torn between not wanting to wish something really bad on poor Betty McCoy, whoever she was, and hoping that her case was at least something interesting. Something to occupy his attention for a while. Even -- though he hardly dared to hope it -- something different.

He knew Doyle and Cordy thought he was bored. That wasn't the problem, really, but it was easier to let them think that than to try to explain what was actually getting to him. Sure, he was tired of the same old thing night in and night out. There wasn't much a person couldn't see and do in just over two hundred and forty years on the planet. The names and