I head to the 405 entrance at Wilshire. There’s less than a mile of freeway left but that’s plenty. I crank the throttle until the bike’s engine glows cherry red. The hellhounds can’t keep up. They begin to fall back. I hear them howling and baying above the noise of the engine. They’ll be okay. They have the run of the palace now, and if no one feeds them, well, they’ll just have to dine on whatever meat they can find.
This is it. The end of the road. A hundred yards ahead, the city spreads out below the thicket of jagged rebar that marks where the freeway has collapsed. I get low in the saddle. Every time we hit a pothole, Lucifer’s armor collides with the gas tank and kicks sparks into my eyes. I’m blasting down a broken road toward the heart of a half-dead city with fireworks burning my face. Whatever happens next, it’s a hell of a trip.
Jetting off the end of the freeway, the universe goes quiet and a ghost melody fills my head. “The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish” by Martin Denny. Carlos’s favorite song on the jukebox at the real Bamboo House of Dolls. I picture home but I’m still in Hell. What am I doing wrong?
The front of the bike noses down toward the rubble.
Did I use up all the armor’s power on Brimborion?
Wouldn’t that be a hilarious goddamn end to everything?
The ground comes up fast. “The Girlfriend of the Whirling Dervish” mixes with the rising sound of the engine. What did I expect? Fucking up is my true home and I’m heading there fast.
I wish I had a cigarette.
Then there’s nothing at all.
Then there’s something.
The front wheel hits pavement. A rush of vertigo. Lights. Smeared and jittering. The nothing parts like heavy curtains. Or a trapdoor.
The rear wheel drops. The impact is like being rear-ended by a battleship. I can’t hold the bike. So I lean it to the side. Lay it down and let it slide. Ten or twenty yards. The asphalt grinds against my legs but the leathers hold. I’m not so sure about the coat. Have I mentioned I’m hard on clothes?
When the bike finally stops, it’s sliced a deep groove in the roadbed. I grab the handlebars, get my weight low, and tilt the bike upright. It’s not even scratched.
Welcome home.
It feels good to say it and mean it. How do I know? The place doesn’t smell like bad meat and misery. The sky is clear and full of stars. Clue number three: the bike’s stopped right in front of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Tombstones never looked so good.
A big screen is set up by the columbarium. People sit and sprawl on blankets among the dead. Movie night at the cemetery. It’s not as weird as it might sound. On Día de los Muertos, families offer food and eat meals with their dead. In Hollywood, we show up with offerings of cowboys and show tunes.
Tonight we’re entertaining our favorite stiffs with a pristine print of The Bad Seed. Pigtailed moppet Patty McCormack just set Leroy the janitor on fire and her mother and best friend watch him burn from an upstairs window. How are you enjoying the movie so far, dead people? We could have shown The Sound of Music but we thought we’d scare the last few scraps of coffin jerky off your bones.
I’m back on the bike when I notice a kid by the cemetery gates. A girl in a frilly blue party dress. Maybe nine or ten years old and she’s all alone. Who brings their kid to a murder movie in a graveyard drive-in and lets her run off alone? Hell, who brings their kid to one of these things at all? The place is half stoners and speed-freak hipsters. The moment the show is over the whole block will turn into one big bumper-car ride.
The kid doesn’t move. Just stares at me until she realizes I’m staring back. Then she turns and runs through the cemetery gates. I can hear her laughing all the way across the street. With an attitude like that, she’s going to grow up and start a mind-blowing band or become a serial killer. I flash on Candy: that could have been her years ago bouncing into Hollywood Forever, a tombstone Disneyland for kids too carnivorous for teacup rides and cotton candy.
I step on the kick-starter and the bike fires up on the first try.
First question. Where’s Candy? No way she’s at the Beat Hotel anymore. What’s the second choice? L.A. is a lot to take in when it’s not on fire. I can’t get used to seeing the sky. I need to get my bearings and screw my head on straight.
I’m starting to feel just a little conspicuous on this Hellion hog, with a headlight that could blind the space shuttle, no driver’s license, license plate, title, or insurance. Not that I ever had any of those things. But now I don’t have them and I’m on an illegally imported foreign motorcycle. Back on Earth thirty seconds and I’m already a felon. Welcome home, shithead. I’ll stick to the side streets for now.
I cross Hollywood Boulevard and pull the bike into the alley next to Maximum Overdrive video, the store where I lived with Kasabian. Kasabian used to be dead. I know because I cut off his head. It’s where I’ve been staying since I got back from Hell the first time, which makes it the closest thing I’ve had to a home in eleven years.
A man and a woman walk by holding hands as I turn into the alley. It looks like they’ve been picnicking by a coal-mine fire. Their hands and faces—every exposed patch of skin—is smeared with gritty dirt, but their clothes are clean and pressed. I’ve never see two dirtier clean people in my life. They catch me looking at them and cross to the other side of the street.
The alley by Max Overdrive is a snowdrift of junk. The Dumpster overflows with plastic trash bags and food cartons. There are enough broken bottles that the alley looks like a salt plain. I don’t think the garbage has been picked up in weeks. I steer the bike and park in the Dumpster’s shadow.
In the old days I’d use the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors to walk into the store through a shadow but Saint James has that. I take the duffel off the bike, get out the black blade, and slip the tip into the door lock. One turn and it clicks open.
Inside, the place stinks of paint. The floors and display stands are covered with plastic drop cloths, but there’s a fine layer of dust on them. No one’s done any work in a long time.
There’s a light on upstairs in the room I used to share with Kasabian. I go up the stairs quietly, knife out and ready. At the top I push open the door with the toe of my boot. It opens on a messy bedroom. There’s a wooden desk where Kasabian used to keep his bootleg video setup. Now there’s a computer surrounded by monitors. I push the door open more. Something is in the room with its back to me. A heavy mechanical body with a human head. It picks up a bag from Donut Universe in its mouth and heads for the desk on all fours like a dog. When it sees me, the head opens its mouth and drops the bag. It raises a paw and points at me.
“Don’t say a goddamn word.”
The last time I saw him, Kasabian was still just a chattering head without a body. Now he’s something more, but I don’t know if it’s an improvement.
I come inside and drop the duffel. My armor is sticking out from under my shirt. Kasabian nods at it.
“Did the Wizard give you a heart, Tin Man?”
“Funny. Careful you don’t pop a rivet, Old Yeller.”
His face is like the couple in the street. Smeared with something dark and coarse, like black sand. He trots to the desk on all fours. Kasabian’s head on a hellhound body isn’t a pleasant sight.
When he gets to the desk chair, Kasabian pushes back with his hind legs until his ass is firmly on the seat. Then he leans the rest of his body back like half of a drawbridge rising. In a second he’s gone from windup toy to Pinocchio on a good day, an almost real boy. He picks up the bag of donuts with his claws and drops it on the desk without offering me one.
“Is that the best Saint James could come up with? It’s better than nothing but it doesn’t exactly look finished.”
Kasabian frowns for a second then gets it.
“Saint James? Yeah. That’s about right. As for this”—he raps a fist against his chest—“your better half never paid off the charm maker reworking it, so he didn’t finish the job.”
“Why not?”
“The asshole disappeared.”
“How did you know it was me and not him just now?”
“He looks like a bathing beauty and you’re the Loch Ness Monster. Seeing you young like that was giving me the heebee-jeebies.”
“You mean how I looked before you sent me Downtown.”
“Something like that.”
With the back of one metal hand, he pushes away an ashtray overflowing with Maledictions. Fidgety jailbird stuff, like now that I’m back he thinks I’m going to steal him blind. I lean in for a closer look at his body.
“So how does it feel?”
He flexes his arms and legs. Stands and starts picking up the beer bottles, pizza boxes, and crusted food containers that cover every flat surface.
“You remember that arcade game where you move a claw around to grab a shitty teddy bear out of a bin? It’s kind of like I’m the claw.”
He flexes his fingers and picks up a Chinese-food container. His hands are the hound’s paws reworked and extended into clawlike hands.
“I know I’m ugly as a spider on a baby but it’s nice to have hands again.”
“Don’t feel so bad. We’re both in gimp club these days.”
I take the glove off and push up my left sleeve.
Kasabian shakes his head in disgust.
“Is that Kissi?”
“Yeah. Josef’s idea of a joke.”
He shakes his head and goes back to picking up trash.
“I get Rin Tin Tin’s gnawed-on bones and you get to look like Robocop. Story of my life.”
I reach over and take the Donut Universe bag off the desk. Kasabian’s eyes flicker over at me but he doesn’t say anything. I take out an apple fritter and bite into it. Fuck me. People food. The day-old dried-out grease bomb is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
“How’d you lose the arm?”
“In a fight.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A lot. Does that make you feel better?”
He moves his head side to side like he’s thinking.
“A little. Not enough. You can go out and pretend to be a person. Me? I’m still stuck in this room.”
“Why? You’ve got arms and legs. Get yourself some clothes and some gloves and you’ll be dancing in the rain.”
He picks up a burger wrapper, sniffs it, and drops it in with the other trash.
“If only. The body works okay dicking around here but I can’t go much further than the corner for beer. The legs won’t hold. Like I said, the guy never finished the job.”
“Take some of the Dark Eternal money and pay off the charm guy yourself.”
After I snuffed all the zombies in L.A., one of the local vampire cohorts, the Dark Eternal, handed me a suitcase full of cash as a reward for saving the city, i.e., their snack supply.
“Saint James took it. Gave it all away.”
“What?”
“Right before he disappeared. Got all pious about it being dirty Lurker money. That kind of bullshit.”
I bite into the donut, talking with my mouth half full.
“I can’t tell you how many ways I’m going to kill that prick.”
Kasabian takes the bulging garbage bag, pushes open the alley window, and drops it into the pile on the Dumpster.
“That’s why the trash is piling up and downstairs isn’t finished.”
“Smart boy. Now tell me what number I’m thinking.”
He sits down at the desk and reaches past the overflowing ashtray to get a pack of Maledictions. Takes one for himself and holds out the pack to me. I take it and light our smokes with Mason’s lighter.
“What are you watching?” I ask.
“The Long Goodbye.”
“Nice.”
“The best movie ever made about L.A. Fuck Chinatown. And don’t try to argue with me ’cause your opinion is going to be wrong.”
We smoke and watch the movie for a couple of minutes. A gangster is starting to strip and he’s telling Elliott Gould to do the same. I want to ask about Candy but the words won’t come out. I had this fantasy that she would have moved in here, taken my place, and be waiting for me. Being alone makes you stupid.
“If the money’s gone, why are the lights on? How do you pay for all this takeout?”
Kasabian blows smoke rings at the video screen.
“Not all the money’s gone. Just what he knew about. I embezzled some. You tried to throw me out enough times, so I set myself up a trust fund.”
“I know.”
He turns and looks at me.
“When?”
“Always. You’re a thief. You can’t help stealing. And I probably gave you some cause to do it. How much did you get?”
“About two hundred grand.”
I cough, almost choking on the cigarette.
“Two hundred grand and you’re still hiding and living off delivery-boy donuts?”
He shakes his head.
“It sounds like a lot but it’s not exactly the rest-of-your-life money. At least the store brought in a little cash but with that gone . . .”
A few months back, Samael gave Kasabian the power to see into the Daimonion Codex, Lucifer’s Boy Scout handbook of clever awful things. Through it, Kasabian can also lurk behind the scenes watching parts of Hell like a surveillance cam.
“Did you ever look into the Codex? Did you see me Downtown?”
“Candy used to come by and ask me that.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“Three weeks. Maybe a month ago.”
“What did you say?”
He takes the Malediction out of his mouth with metal fingers stained yellow with nicotine.
“What I see is kind of erratic. I can’t see everywhere. I could see you on and off for the first few days, then you went off the air.”
“Maybe because of the Lucifer thing.”
“Lucifer thing?”
“Never mind. I killed Mason, by the way.”
“You sure?”
“There was a big hole in his head where his brains used to be.”
“Oh man.”
He leans an elbow on the desk and runs a metal hand over his head.
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. I used to dream about him coming back and finding me all crippled up and not able to run away.”
I say it without giving myself time to think about it.
“Where’s Candy these days?”
Elliott Gould is on a bus to Mexico. His suit is wrinkled and worn and his eyes are dark, like he hasn’t slept in days. He looks like half the population of Hell and most of Hollywood, the half not working out in gyms so they look like lunch meat stretched over Beverly Hills mannequins.
“She didn’t give me her fucking itinerary. The last number I have is for your friend’s clinic.”
He crushes out his cigarette and says, “You’re not moving back in here, are you? I’m kind of used to having the place to myself.”
I stand up, brushing the donut crumbs off my lap.
“Do you know who I am these days? I’m Lucifer, the lord high asshole of the Underworld. I’ll sleep anywhere I want.”
Kasabian tilts his eyes toward me without turning his head from the movie.
“You mean you’re broke.”
“Completely.”
He opens one of the desk drawers and pulls out a carton of Maledictions. Instead of cigarettes, it’s full of cash. He peels off two hundred-dollar bills and holds them out to me. I don’t move to take them. After a minute he peels off a few more bills. I take them and stuff them in my pocket.
“Don’t think I’m always going to let you be so stingy with my money.”
“This is my money,” he says. “You gave your money away.”
I don’t feel like arguing the point. I lift up the mattress and feel around for my guns.
“Don’t bother. Saint James took them when he took the money.”
“Even Wild
Bill’s Colt?”
“All of them.”
The old Navy Colt wasn’t Wild Bill’s actual gun but it was as close as I’m ever going to get and now it’s gone. That’s cold.
I get the Glock and my na’at from the duffel bag. The na’at goes inside my coat while the Glock goes in my waistband at my back.
“I’m leaving the duffel here until I figure out where I’m staying.”
Kasabian tosses me an unopened pack of Maledictions. That’s quite a thing coming from him. He must think it’s my birthday.
“Don’t bother. Pope Joan still works nights at the Beat Hotel. Drop some gelt on her and I bet she’ll give you our old room. I think I might have even hid some money in the air vent.”
I pick up the bag and start out.
“Good to see you on your feet, Old Yeller.”
“Happy hunting, Tin Man.”
I catch a glimpse of Kasabian in the window by the desk. In the glass his face is normal and clean, but the guy sitting in the chair is a grimy mess. That’s it, then. The Devil has special eyes. He can see sin. I wonder what Samael saw when he looked at me.
I get on the bike and drive at an entirely reasonable speed through backstreets to Allegra’s clinic. I use hand signals and everything. Look at me, Mom. A solid citizen at last.
What used to be Doc Kinski’s clinic and is currently Allegra’s is in a strip mall near where Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards meet. There’s a fried chicken franchise on one end of the mall and a local pizza joint on the other, with a Vietnamese nail salon and the clinic in between. The parking lot smells like a high school lunchroom and is one of the top ten last places anyone hunting heavy angelic magic would look.
The blinds are drawn in all the clinic windows. It says EXISTENTIAL HEALING on the door in gold peel-and-stick letters. I take the handle and pull. It’s locked. I raise my hand to knock and lower it. Seeing Kasabian is one thing—we’re both the biggest freaks the other knows—but this will be different. There are normal people in here. Not normal normal people, but ones who act and feel like normal people.
I don’t know what to say to Candy. Three months ago I told her I’d be back in three days. And Allegra. I didn’t even say good-bye to Allegra before I left. She freaked out when I briefly worked as Samael’s bodyguard and things haven’t been right between us since. If Vidocq is inside, that’s another whole complication. The old man is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real father. But he’s also French, and loud when he gets excited. Right now I don’t know if I can handle either one, much less both. Still.
Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim) Page 15
