Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel

by Richard Kadrey

“Up.”

  Through the green-tinged dimness I see stairs and, beside them, a two-story-high pile of garbage.

  “That way.”

  “Let’s get going.”

  I hang back and let Delon walk point. Not that he needs any encouragement. I think he’s been looking forward to being in charge. I wonder how his brain works. He’s not a computer. He’s goddamn Stretch Armstrong. It’s not like he’s downloading video to a chip in his brain. All his memories and personality must be hoodoo Atticus stuck in his head when he was screwing the skull shut. What I really want to know is if Delon knows he’s a cuckoo clock or does he think he’s a real boy? Part of it is cheap curiosity and part of it is self-defense. I keep thinking about Trevor stepping in front of that bus. Did he do it because he knew he was replaceable or because he thought he was sacrificing himself for the Angra cause? I’d love to get hold of a Paul or Trevor or Donny Osmond or whatever other names they have and let Manimal Mike take it apart to see what makes it run.

  As we climb, I can feel people’s nerves kicking in. Before this, meeting the Kill City crazies was an abstract concept. Now a machine is taking us to a meet and greet with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I have to admit that I’m a little concerned myself. As we reach each floor, I keep an eye open for shadows that might hide an ambush or ones dark enough that I can pull people into.

  I say, “How far are we going?”

  “Twelve floors. All the way to the top. There’s a hotel up there with views all the way from the ocean to the city.”

  He sounds like a fucking real estate developer.

  The empty retail spaces don’t look like they were ever stores. More like strange minimalist art. Hard geometric lines and soft fungal patches behind smashed security gates. The funny thing is that the scattered glass and broken fixtures are the only things that make the spaces look like humans built them and that anything with a frontal lobe might have wanted to go inside.

  “What do you know about the Mangarms?” says Traven.

  “Like I said, they’re Sub Rosa,” says Delon. “Old-world types that specialized in black magic.”

  “Baleful,” says Candy.

  “What?”

  “The correct Sub Rosa term is Baleful magic. Not black. He told me,” she says, pointing to me.

  “Thank you,” says Delon, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “May I go on?”

  “Please do.”

  “They were and I suppose still are black potionists. They made poisons and hexes subtle enough to get around all but the most powerful charms. The problem is that their old-school magic didn’t keep up with modern medicine. Antibiotics, transfusions, and stomach pumps put them out of business.”

  He looks at Candy.

  “The Mangarm term for it is ‘scientificated magic.’ ”

  “Cool.”

  Glass elevator enclosures run alongside the stairs. It looks like they haven’t worked since the day the place closed down. But someone is using them. Ropes have been strung inside. There are pulleys every couple of floors. My guess is that the setup runs all the way to the top. It’s probably how the Mangarms move swag from the lower floors to home sweet home. It also explains the garbage heap in the lobby. Whatever they don’t want anymore goes over the railing to the floor. I wonder what living over your own garbage dump smells like in high summer.

  “Stop!” yells Brigitte.

  Everyone freezes where they are.

  Brigitte flashes forward and knocks Delon onto his face. Something creaks and blasts by us, swinging from a wire that reaches up into the dark over our heads. It smashes into the railing on the far side of the stairs, taking out a few feet of it, before swinging back and almost clipping Traven. It cracks the opposite railing and gets stuck there. Everyone turns their flashlights on the thing.

  It’s smashed to bits, only held together with yards of wire and duct tape. Sharpened metal spikes stick out at all angles. The center of the thing is dull beige plastic with holes in the front where keys might have been.

  Father Traven examines it, pushing pieces of crushed plastic back into place.

  “It’s a cash register,” he says. “Sharpened rebar wrapped around a cash register.”

  Brigitte gets up and goes to him.

  “Are you all right? It almost hit you.”

  He touches her shoulder.

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  Brigitte gets on her knees, shining her flashlight on the steps until she finds what she’s looking for.

  “You see? Here.”

  Her light illuminates several feet of monofilament line stretched across one of the stairs. It hangs loose where Paul stepped on it.

  “It’s a trip wire,” says Vidocq.

  “Thank you,” says Paul. He looks a little shaken. No. He doesn’t know he’s a machine. He thinks he’s going to live a long and productive life, marry and have a pack of little toasters to bounce on his knee.

  I say, “From now on, we don’t all shine our lights in the same spot. Move them around. Look for other traps.”

  “I guess we’ve officially lost the element of surprise,” says Candy.

  Paul runs his light over the next few steps and starts up again. The rest of us follow.

  “Glad you came along, Father?” I say. “What’s the story about Jonah getting swallowed by the whale?”

  “I was thinking more about Dante,” he says.

  Vidocq says, “But when Dante went up he was ascending to Heaven.”

  “I don’t think we’ll find Heaven in here, up or down.”

  By the tenth floor we’re sweating like pigs. By the eleventh we’re sweating like filthy pigs. It’s a relief to hit the last staircase until it stops halfway up. There’s at least a fifteen-foot gap between where we are and the top of the stairs.

  Lights come on overhead. Flashlights shine down into our eyes with more lights blinking on in the hotel level above.

  “Stay where you are.”

  It’s a raspy male voice. A whiskey voice or just someone who took a hit to the throat hard enough that it never healed right. There are six other guys behind him. All are armed with homemade blades, morning stars, and slings.

  “Who are you?”

  Paul takes half a step forward, right to the gap.

  “We’re friends. We’d like to speak to Hattie.”

  “Would you? Why would Mama Hattie want to speak to you?”

  “We have offerings.”

  “What kind?”

  “Special. But they’re only for Hattie.”

  The guy turns and chats away with a couple of other members of the welcoming committee. They’re wearing a ragged assortment of designer robes and furs. From what Delon said, I’d guess a mix of family heirlooms and things they looted from the stores below.

  Candy whispers, “Who’s Hattie?”

  “The family matriarch,” says Delon.

  The group above breaks up. The rasper comes back to the front.

  “Go away. We don’t need your offerings. We get what we need just fine.”

  “Not this you don’t.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nehebkau’s Tears.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Shut up, you ignorant boy.”

  It’s a woman’s voice, coming from behind the group. An old woman pushes her way to the front.

  The whole Mangarm crew is gaunt but the woman looks like a mummy with a hangover. But she’s alive. I can hear her heart and smell her sweat, which isn’t all that pleasant.

  She looks at Rasper and shakes her head.

  “If you were good for anything besides stealing drugs from college kids’ backpacks, you’d know exactly what Nehebkau’s Tears are.”

  She turns and looks down at us.

  “Please forgive Diogo. I love my boys, but this one took one too many pretty pills and it’s left him with a skull full of fiddler crabs.”

  She scratches the back of his head like he’s the not very bright family dog.
She looks Delon over. The woman might look frail but her eyes are bright and hard.

  “Let me see the Tears. I’ve handled them before, so I’ll know if you’re lying. If you are, I’m going to have my boys kill you.”

  Delon tosses the bottle across the chasm. Hattie catches it easily. I reach up, pull Delon off the top step, and go up there myself. I have one hand under my coat, ready to pull the Colt the moment anyone twitches. A second later Brigitte is standing next to me. I can’t see it but I know she has her CO2 gun handy. If she can get it out without anyone noticing, Candy will be pulling her 9mm folding pistol. Vidocq will have palmed a noxious potion or two. I hope Father Traven has the sense to stay in the back. I don’t know what Delon is doing, but it suddenly bothers me to have him behind me at a moment like this.

  “What are the Tears?” Traven says.

  Delon says, “One of the most potent poisons known to the Sub Rosa, mortals, or Lurkers. And it’s undetectable. Worth a fortune.”

  Hattie opens the vial and sniffs it. Touches the underside of the stopper to her tongue. I hear Delon gasp. She swishes the stuff around in her mouth for a moment. Then half spits, half coughs it out with a wad of phlegm.

  She looks at Delon and laughs.

  “Don’t you worry about old Hattie. I’ve been around poisons and potions, elixirs and venoms, every kind of nostrum and bane that you can think of. It’s worn out this old body, but it’s left me immune to about everything made or grown on this earth.”

  She looks at the bottle, smacks her lips, and puts it in her pocket.

  “Let them up, boys,” she says, then points at me. “But keep an eye on the scarred one. He looks shiftier than a drunken sidewinder.”

  Diogo and his boys grab ropes suspended over the stairs and pull. A makeshift ramp made of old pieces of scaffolding wired haphazardly together swings up into place. With a thud, the ramp bangs into the bottom of the steps and Hattie’s boys tie off the ropes.

  “You first, Cortés,” I say, and shove Delon onto the ramp. It sways and the ropes creak and Hattie’s boys laugh, but the thing holds together. Delon walks up the ramp like he’s barefoot and stepping on razor blades.

  “One at a time,” I say to the others, and start across. I let go of the Colt so I can put out my hands to keep my balance. I don’t bother looking down. I have a pretty good picture in my head of the garbage heap twelve floors below. I don’t want to end up another empty juice box on the pile.

  I make it across and Candy stumbles up behind me a second later. Then Brigitte and the rest.

  Diogo and his boys take us into the remains of the Blue Pavilion Hotel. The place is in better shape than downstairs but could still use a good hosing down. Hurricane and smaller oil lamps light the lobby and surrounding halls. The lobby furniture is patched with duct tape and random swatches of fabric. Some of the chairs have no legs and sit flat on the floor. All the glass in the panoramic windows is covered with heavy curtains, which makes sense. They don’t want anyone on the beach to see the lights from up here. Duct tape covers slits in the curtain every ten feet or so. Spy holes. It’s a damp, depressing place, but at least we’re high enough that there isn’t fungus and mold everywhere.

  “Come sit by me,” Hattie says to Delon.

  She perches on a heavy wood-and-gilt chair against the wall. Her secondhand throne. Delon goes over and sits in a smaller chair slightly off to the side.

  Up here, the Mangarms look a little less like the Texas Chain Saw psychobillies I thought they were on the stairs. In here, with their patched robes and mangy furs, they look like sad, faded royalty. The bluebloods of a kingdom as long gone and dead as Atlantis.

  “Tell me why you’re here,” Hattie says. “You didn’t come for potions since it’s clear you have your own. You’re not looking for sanctuary because . . . well, this isn’t the place for it and we aren’t the kind of people likely to give it.”

  Diogo and the boys chuckle and elbow one another. They love their mom. I wonder how long they’re going to last when she finally kicks it. I give them six months.

  “We’re looking for a ghost,” says Delon.

  Hattie leans back on her throne and laces her fingers together.

  “There are many ghosts in here. Are you looking for one in particular?”

  “An old one. A little mad they say. He thinks he knows secrets.”

  Hattie nods.

  “Yes. The old Roman. I know of him. Why do you want him?”

  Delon smiles.

  “We want to know his secrets.”

  Hattie glances back at us.

  “There are six of you. That’s a lot of people for a dead man’s secrets.”

  “Too many people, if you ask me,” says Delon. “I’d prefer to be doing this on my own.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” says Hattie. “No one goes alone here. Especially to the old ghost. He’s at the very bottom of this castle keep, in the old baths in the basement.”

  “You mean a spa?”

  Hattie makes a face.

  “No. Roman baths. Saltwater baths from the sea. Some lunatic’s idea of a health balm. Me, I’d rather bathe with rats than the fetid ocean that surrounds this place.”

  Finally, Hattie and I agree on something.

  The rest of us sit on the patched furniture across the room from Her Royal Highness. Diogo and his crew stand around us. One with close-cropped white hair has noticed Candy’s shiny backpack. He pokes at it with the tip of his sword. Candy pulls the pack onto her lap.

  “We were hoping you might take us to the old Roman,” Delon says.

  Hattie shakes her head.

  “Can’t. It’s not in our territory. It’s the Shoggots’ and we don’t go in there. Hell, we don’t even like to trade with them.”

  Diogo has noticed that Vidocq is still holding a vial in one hand. He points to it with a knife and Vidocq gives it to him with a smile. He shakes it and sniffs. Opens the top and gets a face full of acrid white smoke. We’re all choking and coughing by the time the idiot gets the stopper back in.

  Hattie looks at our gagging group and says, “I was just telling this gentleman how we don’t like trading with the Shoggots, except some of the more gullible among us do, don’t we, Diogo?”

  He waves away some smoke and smiles at her.

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Those swords and knives the boys like to show off. Trust me, they don’t have the wit among them to make something like that. That’s Shoggot work. They’re good makers. Especially sharp things.”

  “Maybe you could take us to meet them,” says Delon.

  She raises her eyebrows.

  “When I called you a fool earlier, I meant it figuratively. Now you’re making me think I might have a been a bit too generous.”

  “But you know how to contact them.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Delon reaches into his bag and pulls out another small bottle.

  “Salt distilled from the River Gihon in Third Heaven, which cures all poisons.”

  Hattie takes it from him and holds it up to the light. Satisfied with what she sees, she puts it in her pocket with the Tears.

  “What else have you got in that bag?” she says.

  “Nothing that would interest a lady like you.”

  “Really? Why don’t I have my boys take it and chuck you all over the balcony.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I say.

  Hattie turns to me.

  “Which one of these assholes do you like the least? I’ll do you a favor and kill him first.”

  Diogo takes a step toward me, but Hattie stops him with a short wave.

  “This one looked like bad news from the moment I saw him. What’s wrong with his face? No one brings a man like that along who isn’t looking for trouble.”

  “Not with you,” Delon says. “Sometimes we don’t get to pick and choose who we deal with, do we? Like you and the Shoggots. He’s my Shoggot.”

  Hattie gives a short, snorting
laugh that ends in ragged coughs.

  “Here I was feeling sorry for us and you’ve got to haul around your own monster. Look at him. He’d like to put a knife into your back right now.”

  I shrug.

  “Nothing personal. I always want to stab someone.”

  “This motley crew looks like more trouble than they’re worth,” says Hattie. “Give them to the Shoggots. May they choke on each other.”

  Hattie gets up and starts down a hall with her boys.

  “You wait here while we prepare. Don’t steal anything. I’ll know if you do.”

  She points to a hotel surveillance camera that hasn’t worked since disco was king.

  Delon comes back to where the rest of us are sitting.

  “Do you trust them?” I say.

  He shrugs.

  “What choice do we have?”

  “That’s not what I asked. Does the family keep its promises?”

  “Tykho said yes, but you’ll notice that she’s not here.”

  I turn to the others.

  “Keep your weapons handy but don’t get itchy and start shooting at shadows.”

  Vidocq looks at the hall that the Mangarms went down.

  “I’d love to know more about their potion making. When this is over, maybe I’ll come back and do some trading of my own.”

  “You do and I’ll tell Allegra,” says Candy.

  Vidocq narrows his eyes.

  “God does not love snitches does he, Father?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said Traven. “We’re no longer on speaking terms.”

  Hattie and the boys come back, but seeing them doesn’t fill me with confidence. They’ve left the robes and furs behind and have armored up in a garbage-dump combination of shoulder pads, padded hockey pants, hard hats, and football and baseball helmets. Diogo is looking particularly proud of his mall-cop shirt and badge. They’ve left their swords behind and are carrying axes and baseball bats.

  “I don’t believe we dressed properly for the party,” says Brigitte.

  “Anyone with second thoughts can still go back,” I say. “After this, I’m not so sure.”

  Candy punches my arm.

  “Stop playing Nick Fury. We’re all on board.”

  “I just want to make sure everybody knows.”

  Brigitte looks at Candy.