Hollywood Dead

by Richard Kadrey

  The light swings back to my face.

  “License and registration, please.”

  I don’t want to get shot, so I keep my hands on the wheel while I think. I’m in a stolen car and I’ve been legally dead in California for years, so a driver’s license isn’t in the cards. In better times, I could hoodoo up the paperwork. But I don’t know if I can do that and maintain the glamour.

  “Sir?” says the cop.

  Before I begin a whole new string of lies, two more LAPD cars pull up alongside the first two.

  Shit.

  I look at Alessa.

  “This is why I wish you hadn’t called the cops. Now they know you’re home and vulnerable.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I never get to answer because by the time I turn back to the cops, the four new ones—all faction members—are executing them.

  Two to the chest and one to the head each. Twelve shots. Four dead cops.

  I kick open the driver’s-side door and shove Candy out of the way as one of the faction cops opens up on us. I pull her around to the back of the car and grab my na’at. But Candy doesn’t stay put. She leaps and knocks Alessa to the ground. When Candy stands up again she’s turned full Jade. Her eyes are red slits in black ice. Her nails grow into curved claws, and her mouth is full of white shark teeth.

  She jumps across the car like a beautiful animal and rips out the closest faction member’s throat. He’s dead before he drops. I throw out the na’at like a whip, taking out one cop’s gun hand, then whip again, and the tip of the na’at goes into his heart. Candy has another cop pushed up against a squad car, her teeth in his neck. Faction cop number four moves around the Subaru looking for Alessa.

  He’s too far away for the na’at, so I throw the black blade. Let me tell you, being in a severe state of decay doesn’t help your aim. Instead of his heart, the knife lodges in his shoulder. The cop staggers back and fires at me. Gets me once in the side and again in the leg. I stumble toward Alessa, shouting Hellion hoodoo. The street shudders in a mini-earthquake, knocking the cop off his feet. I get in front of Alessa and when the cop hits the ground I put a bullet through his head.

  Keeping Alessa behind me, I drop my hands across the hood of the Subaru, aiming for the last cop. But he’s already sliding down the side of his squad car, his head at a funny angle and Candy wiping blood from her mouth.

  She comes around the side of the car and hugs Alessa. When I try to stand my leg barely holds me upright. I grab the black blade from the dead faction cop’s shoulder and put it in my coat before Candy has a chance to recognize it.

  “Thanks,” she says. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you earlier.”

  I start to say something, but I have to lean against the Subaru.

  Alessa grabs my shoulder.

  “He’s hurt. Should we call an ambulance?”

  “No!” I shout. “No more calls. We can’t stay here. There might be more of them.”

  “Where do you want to go?” says Alessa.

  That’s when I fall over. I’m bleeding again. Hitting my leg was bad enough, but that dead fuck ripped my cling wrap with his other shot. I’m going to be a mess.

  Candy says, “Help me get him inside.”

  “No. We have to go,” I say, but they’ve already pulled me to my feet.

  With Candy on one side of me and Alessa on the other, they walk me into Max Overdrive. Where, once again, I fall on my damn face.

  I point at the door.

  “Lock it and kill the lights.”

  Alessa runs over and does it.

  I crawl into a sitting position and lean against the front counter.

  “Who were those guys?” says Candy.

  “It’s complicated. Now, we have to get out of here.”

  “How? You can’t walk, we don’t have a car, and those cop cars are blocking yours.”

  I hobble to the window and look out. She’s right.

  There’s only one way I can get them out of here.

  I say, “Where’s Kasabian?”

  “Probably hiding in his room,” says Alessa. “I’ll get him.”

  I hobble back to the counter. I have to lean on it, but I can stay upright this time.

  Candy comes over and sets her hand on my back.

  “We have to get you to a doctor.”

  “No doctors. I don’t have time. I can fix this. We just need to get somewhere safe first.”

  “Where?”

  I look at her through the darkness in the store. She’s so beautiful it’s like a punch in the heart. I can just make out her true face through the Chihiro glamour. She looks great and I want to tell her that, but I look away, trying to think of an exit out of here that doesn’t involve shadows.

  Alessa comes back with Kasabian. He takes one look at me and says, “This is exactly what I was talking about. Everywhere you go, it’s a disaster.”

  “Wait. You know this guy?” says Candy.

  Kasabian looks at me, then back to her.

  “No. I’ve never seen him before.”

  Candy pulls me over to the window, where light from a street lamp shines in.

  First she frowns. Then she stares. Then her mouth opens a fraction of an inch.

  From the moment I got shot, I’ve been worried that the glamour wouldn’t hold. I just hoped that being in the dark for a while, I’d figure out how to get everyone clear without them seeing my face.

  “Stark?” she whispers.

  “Hi, Candy. Sorry about all the blood.”

  She grabs me in the kind of hug that under other circumstances I’d cherish. But with a bullet in my side all I can say is, “This hurts kind of a lot.”

  She eases up but won’t let go of me.

  “Where have you been all this time?”

  “Dead. But I’m better now. Sort of.”

  Alessa comes over too.

  “I saw you die. I saw them take your body away,” she says.

  I can hear sirens in the distance. A lot of them.

  “I promise to explain everything, but we really have to get out of here.”

  Candy looks at Kasabian.

  “You knew he was here, didn’t you? Why the fuck didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because the last time he came back from Hell he cut my head off,” he says. “I didn’t know what he’d cut off this time if I said anything.”

  “Can we talk about all this later?” I say. “We need to move.”

  “Where?” says Alessa.

  “To a Sub Rosa hideout. We can’t get out on the street, but I can take us though the Room.”

  “I thought you didn’t have control of the Room anymore,” says Candy.

  “That’s complicated too. Help me to that shadow and let’s get out of here.”

  “What’s the Room?” says Alessa. “Why a shadow?”

  “Just watch,” says Candy. “You’re going to love this.”

  “WHOA,” SAYS ALESSA when we come out. And, “Whoa,” again when she gets a look at the UFO bungalow.

  “You live here?” she says.

  I hobble into the bathroom, trying not to get blood everywhere.

  “Temporarily. Thomas Abbot loaned it to me. It’s a Sub Rosa house. Wormwood—the psycho cops—aren’t going to find you here.”

  Candy follows me inside. I sit on the edge of the tub and wrap a towel around my leaking leg.

  She says, “That was Wormwood outside the store?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did they want?”

  I point to Alessa in the living room. She sees me and comes in.

  “Those guys were there for me?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Kasabian sticks his face in the door.

  “What did you do to get them mad at Alessa?”

  I throw the towel at him.

  “I didn’t do anything. Her name is on a Wormwood kill list.”

  “Why?” she says.

  “Your father works in the prosecu
tor’s office, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s probably something he did. Or he’s going to do. Anyway, it’s the only connection I can figure between you and Wormwood.”

  Alessa holds up her hands. “Okay. Everybody stop a minute. Who is Wormwood?”

  Candy helps me stand up.

  “You explain it to her,” I say. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “You’re shot. You can’t be on your own so soon.”

  There’s real concern in her voice. It’s good to hear after all this time.

  “I’ll be fine. But I’m not healing right. I’m going to need your help bandaging me up.”

  “Okay. I can do that.”

  “One thing. My body. I’m a lot more fucked up than you remember.”

  She smiles. “I’ve seen you plenty fucked up. I think I can handle it.”

  “We’ll see. Just remember I warned you.”

  She helps me up and gets my coat off. The three of them take a good look at my blue-black right arm. Alessa stares at my prosthetic left one.

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  “All of you clear out,” I say. “I don’t need anyone gawking while I get these wounds clean.”

  Candy hustles the others out of the room. Stops at the door.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

  I say, “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “Call me when you get out.”

  “I look a lot worse naked, but I’ll need your help and I don’t think those two are up for it.”

  “I’ll be right outside. Knock when you’re done.”

  “Got it.”

  She closes the door and I strip off the rest of my clothes and the cling wrap. I took a shot on the right just below the ribs. There’s no exit wound, so the bullet is still inside. The second shot hit the meaty part of my leg where it meets my hip. That one went all the way through. The only good thing about being this close to dead is that my sense of touch is pretty dull. Normally, either of those shots would hurt like hell. Now they’re bee stings and my biggest problem is the blood.

  I get in the shower and turn it on hot. At least I think so. Anyway, I stand under the water long enough that I start to feel a little better.

  When I’ve scrubbed the blood off and the wounds clean, I towel off and knock on the bathroom door. Candy comes in immediately. Still bleeding, I get back in the tub.

  “See that cling wrap over there?”

  “Yeah,” she says.

  “That’s what’s holding me together. I need you to wrap my shoulder, body, and leg tight.”

  She says, “Okay,” and gets right to it. No hesitation. I’ve missed her so much.

  It takes a few minutes to get me mummified enough to stop the bleeding. When it’s done, we sit on the side of the tub in the steamy bathroom and look at each other.

  “Hell of a way to let someone know you’re back,” she says. At first, it sounds like she might be mad, but she smiles when she says it.

  “It’s not exactly the grand reunion I’d hoped for.”

  “How long have you been back?”

  “About four days.”

  Now she does look a little mad. “And you didn’t come to see me? Didn’t call or anything? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was fucked up in a hundred ways. I still am.”

  I tell her about Wormwood, how they brought me back, and how Sandoval and Howard wouldn’t finish their end of the deal.

  “That’s why you’re like this? You’re not completely alive?”

  “Worse. I’m dying again. That’s why I didn’t call. It didn’t seem fair to show up just to die in front of you again.”

  She looks at me hard. “I’m a big girl. You could have let me choose for myself.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  We sit there quietly for a minute.

  I say, “You and Alessa look happy.”

  “We are,” she says. “I was in a pretty dark place after you died. She helped me through it. We’ve got a nice life now.”

  “I’m glad. Kasabian tells me that the store is doing well too.”

  “Better than ever. This last year, we’ve really pulled things together.”

  She looks at me. Turns a little white.

  “That sounded weird. I didn’t mean it’s been good because you weren’t there. It’s just, Alessa has a lot of ideas and is good with business.”

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m happy it’s all going so well.”

  “Thanks,” she says, barely above a whisper.

  “I should get dressed.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “No. I’ll be fine.”

  I get up and hobble to the sink.

  “You’re such an asshole,” says Candy. “Come here.”

  I lean on her while she helps me into my pants and boots. I feel a weird mix of happiness and sadness that I’m with her again because the first thing we’re doing together—cleaning me up after I’ve gotten shot—is exactly what Kasabian told me they’d grown past. She goes into the living room and comes back with the other I LUV LA shirt. Helps me put it on. She even slips on my glove and gives my hand a tiny kiss. Dressed and clean, I don’t feel that bad.

  “What now?” she says.

  “I need food.”

  “I could eat too.”

  “I’ll see you in the kitchen in a minute.”

  When she’s gone, I check myself in the mirror. My face and lips are blue, like I’ve been holding my breath since New Year’s. I brush my teeth again and go to the kitchen.

  Candy has laid out what looks like every piece of food in the house on the kitchen island. Alessa is next to her chewing a baby carrot.

  “What will you have, sir?” says Candy.

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t taste anything.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry. Meat. I need protein.”

  She piles a plate high with chicken legs and slices of roast beef. When she’s done she says, “You want it warm?”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  As she carries it to the microwave, I look at Alessa.

  “Chihiro …”

  “It’s okay to call her Candy. She explained everything to me after you … you know.”

  “Right. Anyway, she tells me that you’ve really turned Max Overdrive around.”

  She nods. “I didn’t think I could work at the same place day after day, but it’s kind of our world that we made together. It’s cool.”

  “And Kasabian?”

  She smiles. “He takes a little getting used to, but he’s fun to have around.”

  “‘Fun’ isn’t the word most people use about Kasabian. It’s nice that you get along.”

  “He’s a hoot. And he knows a lot about movies. More than I’ll ever know.”

  “Probably more than all of us put together.”

  She picks up another carrot and says, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s the story with your arm? My uncle had a prosthetic leg, but I’ve never seen anything like yours before.”

  I tear off a piece of sliced chicken and eat it.

  “I lost my arm in a fight. Someone thought it would be funny to give me this ugly one.”

  “Why don’t you just get a regular one?”

  “It doesn’t come off.”

  She looks at me.

  “It’s attached? Like it’s magic?”

  “Exactly.”

  Alessa sighs.

  “I didn’t believe in magic until I met Candy. I don’t mean the ‘Oh, baby, you’re so magic’ kind of thing. I mean real magic.”

  “What convinced you?”

  “All the weird movies the witch brings us. Movies that never got made in this world.”

  “Do you have a favorite?”

  She thinks for a minute.

  “La Femme
Nikita 2.”

  “There’s a second one? I’d like to see that.”

  “Come on by. You know where we live.”

  I can’t tell if Alessa is being casual or giving me a hard time with “You know where we live” and “our world that we made together.” But she might be thinking the same thing about me with Candy dressing and undressing me. Really, neither of us knows the other at all. This is the first time we’ve said more than a few words to each other. However, she’s not shy.

  She says, “So. I guess we’re both in love with Candy.”

  I eat another piece of chicken.

  “I guess we are.”

  “What are we going to do about that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Me neither.”

  I flex my left hand, feeling more than a little self-conscious.

  “Tell me something,” Alessa says. “Why did you jump in front of me back there?”

  “You mean, why didn’t I let you get shot?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I get why you were watching the store. Those guys could have hurt Candy. But why help me?”

  “I don’t let friends die.”

  She sets down her carrot.

  “We’re friends?”

  I really want a cigarette. I wonder if Abbot would mind if I smoked in here.

  “Friends of friends,” I say. “I wouldn’t let anyone Candy cared about get hurt.”

  She grunts quietly, not entirely convinced.

  I take the Shermans from my pocket. Alessa perks up when she sees them.

  “Can I have one of those?”

  I open the pack and look at her.

  “There’s only one left. Want to split it?”

  She really wants to say no.

  “Fuck it. Sure.”

  As we head for one of the porthole windows Candy says, “Where are you two off to?”

  “Smoke break,” says Alessa.

  Candy frowns.

  “You said you were quitting.”

  “I am. But I almost got shot tonight.”

  “Plus, there’s me,” I say.

  “Plus, there’s him.”

  Candy looks at us a little nervously.

  “Play nice. Both of you. We’ll figure things out.”

  “I know,” says Alessa.

  We go into the living room and I pop one of the windows open. Forty-year-old L.A. air drifts in. I wish I could smell it. Johnny Thunders, Nico, and Sergio Leone are breathing that air.

  I light the Sherman, take a puff, and hand it to Alessa.