Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim #1)

Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim #1) Page 13

"That's what I figured."

Kinski flicks the remains of his cigarette out into the dark lot and looks at his watch. "Your young lady is probably back on her feet by now."

"What do I owe you?"

Kinski shakes his head. "We'll settle up when you let me take out those bullets. And listen: Candy gets kind of pissy when unexpected calls come late at night. Her people get twitchy after dark. But she gets over it. You have any problems, you need anything and Eugene can't help, you call me."

"You don't even know me. Why would you do that?"

"I was young and reckless and stupid once, too. Maybe between Eugene and me, we can keep you alive long enough to wise up."

"What did you do that was so reckless and stupid?"

"I'll tell you that when you let me get those bullets."

"I was in Hell," I say, and I have no idea why, except that there's something about Kinski that reminds me of my father. He's bringing out some weird, little-kid part of me that wants to confess my sins and ask for forgiveness. Only I don't want forgiveness, from anything or anyone. But right now I can't stop myself.

"I was in Hell for eleven years. Most Hellions had never seen a live human. I was the most exciting thing happened to them seen since they were booted out of Heaven. When they got done with me, when the torture and freak shows and rape got boring, I killed things for them. I was really good at it."

"I knew there was a reason you are the way you are. I guess a season in Hell is a better excuse than most."

"Vidocq told you?"

"Relax, boy. It's L.A. We've all got secrets around here. And we know how to keep them."

"Who are her people?"

"Excuse me?"

"You said Candy gets pissy about unexpected, late-night calls. What does that mean?"

"Oh," he says, and opens the clinic door. "She's a Jade. But we're working on it."

Candy walks Allegra out of the clinic while I open up the Escalade. We both help her get inside and stretched out in the back.

"Thanks," I tell Candy.

"You're welcome."

I start the engine, but she keeps standing there. She gestures for me to roll down the window. I push the button and the glass slides away. She steps up onto the running board and leans into the car, just a few inches from my face.

"Doc told you about me. I can tell. I want you to know you don't have to be afraid of me. Eugene likes you. Doc likes you. That means I like you. We're all family now. All the funny little people who live in the cracks in the world."

People say that Jades are like vampires, but really they're more like human tarantulas. When you get bit, you don't swoon in Bela Lugosi ecstasy; you're paralyzed while something in the Jade's saliva dissolves you from the inside. Then they drink you, leaving you as hollow as a chocolate Easter bunny. I haven't been this close to a Jade in a long time and it's freaking me out a little.

I say, "I used to kill your kind."

She grins.

"I used to kill yours. See? We already have something in common."

"Is the doc a Jade or something?"

"Doc? Wow. In the history of wrong guesses, that was about the wrongest wrong guess since ever."

"You're not like the other Jades I've met."

"What? I'm not all slinky and seductive?"

"No, you're cute enough. You're just not much of a monster."

"That's okay. I think you're monster enough for both of us."

Allegra sits up and looks around.

"Are we home yet?" she asks.

"I should go."

"Yeah, you should," says Candy. She gives me a peck on the cheek and jumps down off the van. Kinski comes outside; she runs over to him and slips under his big arm as he holds it up for her. She waves as we pull out of the parking lot.

I should have known that Candy was a Jade back in the exam room. That trick she did with her voice, almost sending me to sleep on my feet, that's Black Widow 101 stuff. She sure didn't come on like a Jade, except for one thing. That kiss on the cheek came from lips as cold as any dead thing I've ever touched. So, why did I enjoy it so much? After being a monk for most of eleven years, any attention from a cute girl, alive or dead, will get under your skin. There's the good news. The bad news? On top of everything else, I might be turning into a necrophiliac.

WHEN ALICE AND I got together, I wasn't the only one with secrets. One night, after a particularly long evening of bruising sex on the couch in our un-air-conditioned living room, she blurted out, "I'm rich."

"What?"

"I'm filthy, balls-out, stinking rich. My whole family is, though they've probably disinherited me by now."

"So, you might be rich, but you're not sure?"

"No, I'm rich. Even if they forget all about me, I have a trust fund worth more than some Central American countries."

I sat up and reached for the coffee that had gone cold on the table.

"You do not."

"I'm in the DAR. I have my grandmother's gold rings and diamonds in a safe deposit box. Hell, I own a tiara."

"And you've never worn it to bed? You're holding out on me."

She locked onto me with her serious face. I always had to shut up when she used the serious face.

"I never told a boyfriend about any of this before. You're the first."

"Why me?"

She hit me in the stomach, half joking and half annoyed. I almost spilled coffee all over the couch.

She said, "I love you, ass-brain. I want you to know all about me."

"You already know all about me. My family doesn't have any money. But I can make a good chicken-fried steak."

She sat up on one elbow.

"Why aren't you rich? Why aren't all magicians rich?"

I shrugged and lay down beside her.

"Partly it's keeping under the radar. Partly it's tradition. A sort of code or something. What's cool about being rich if you do it by reciting a few words? Most rich Sub Rosa are connected to some kind of legit business. The rest of us just skate by. We just use magic to cut some corners. And that's the point. I'm not rich, but I know I'll never starve because I can order a burrito and make the counter person think I've already paid."

"Aim high, dude."

I kissed her hard and she crawled on top of me.

"So, when do we get to blow your grandma's money on drugs and hookers?"

"That's the tricky part. Grandma was old money. Old money hates rich kids, even rich grandkids. I don't get a dime until I'm thirty."

"Thirty? That's geologic. That's Jurassic Park."

"Anyone can make it to thirty, if they're not a complete dipshit. That's the deal. We're rich and all we have to do is make it to thirty."

I looked away, playing it straight.

"That's a long way off. I don't like making big promises."

Alice sat up on me.

"No, you have to. Promise me."

"Hey, I'm kidding."

"Promise me."

"Okay. I promise not to die until I'm thirty. Happy now?"

"Almost. And you can't die first."

"Jesus. Where's this coming from?"

"My parents. Say it."

I grabbed her arms in my hands and held her tight.

"I won't die first. I'll live to be a hundred and leave card tricks and Japanese cartoon porn on your grave every year on your birthday. Happy now?"

"Completely," she said, and smiled.

"So, when can you bring that tiara home? I've never tied up a DAR girl before."

Parker killed Alice a month before she turned thirty. At least I got to keep part of my promise. I didn't die first.

ALLEGRA'S APARTMENT IS on Kenmore Avenue, just south of Little Armenia. Her building is a converted seventies-era motel called the Angels' Hideaway. Dying palm trees out front and a pool full of black water out back. The management knocked down half the interior walls, turning two dingy motel rooms into dingy, but decent-size apartments. They'd either hired the laziest contractors possible or real style visionaries because they'd left the orange shag carpet on the floor and the glitter stucco on all the walls.

Allegra's keys are in her pocket. She's walking now, but kind of clumsy. I pickpocket her keys, open the door, and find the light switch. There's a dark green sofa against one wall. She walks over on her own and flops down, leaning her head back against the wall.

"You want anything? Water? Coffee? A drink?"

She shakes her head. I want a cigarette, badly, but the room reeks of fresh air and nonsmoking vibes. I give up and sit down next to her on the sofa.

"You said I'd be safe if I stayed."

"I thought you would," I tell her. "You should have been. I fucked up."

I'd meant to get Vidocq to splash around some of his voodoo water and slap a protection charm around the place. But I got so caught up with hunting Mason that I forgot. Simple as that. I let down my guard with Mason before and Alice got killed. Now I'm sitting next to another woman I've let down.

"It's my fault." Now I really want a cigarette or ten. "Sorry."

She closes her eyes and seems to drift away, still flying high on whatever Kinski slipped her in that dried fruit. Her breathing becomes shallow. Her heart slows down. Then it blasts from around sixty up to a hundred and twenty. She looks at me and starts yelling. "My boss's head was talking to me without a body. But when I told you, you didn't even seem surprised. What the fuck is going on?"

"Yeah, that." Suddenly I'm a single dad about to explain the birds and the bees to his kid. "Do you believe in God?"

"Damn. First you say you're an ex-con, now you're Jerry Falwell. Who are you really?"

"Do you believe in God? Lucifer? The afterlife. Any of that?"

"I don't know. My mother used to take me to church when I was little."

"Remember the stories about miracles? Water into wine? Plagues of locusts?"

"'Course. Everyone remembers that. About when all the rules and commandments got boring, someone would walk on water or turn a city into salt. It was cool. So what?"

"What's a miracle but another word for magic?"

"Don't quiz me. Just say what you want to say."

"Magic. I'm talking about magic."

"Oh, man." She stands up, walks across the room, and drops into a beanbag chair held together at the seams with duct tape. "You know, when I first met you, the ex-con thing aside, I thought you might be all right. But you really are just another snake, aren't you? I mean, either you're here to scam me or fuck me while I'm high, or you're just plain crazy. Any way you cut it, goddamn. Me and men." Her voice trails off and she sinks into the chair, nervously rubbing at the bruise over her left eye.

"You just told me that the decapitated head of your dead boss was talking to you tonight. What do you call that?"

"How do you know so much about that stuff?"

"I do magic. Not Vegas magic. The real stuff."

"You're like a witch or a wizard or something?"

"Harry Potter's a wizard. I do magic. I'm a magician."

"This is a really strange night."

"Wait. It gets better. Kasabian's a magician, too. So is Parker. He's the guy I'm pretty sure attacked you tonight."

She sits up and looks at me hard. "Do something. Show me some magic."

"What do you want to see? What will convince you?"

"Blow my mind. Make that table float in the air."

"I'm not a floater. I used to be able to do the cute stuff, but most of the magic I'm good at now isn't furniture-friendly."

"So, what can you do?"

I think for a minute and pull Azazel's knife from my jacket. Allegra's pupils dilate a fraction of a millimeter. I'm getting used to seeing these things.

"Here. It's for you." I hold the knife out to her, hilt first. She takes it tentatively, holding it with both hands like it weighs fifty pounds.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

I go over to her walking on my knees, like a kid. Staying lower than the eye level of an opponent often has a calming effect on them. Maybe it will work on a nervous friend.

When I'm at the foot of the beanbag chair, I hold up my left hand and say, "Try to stab me."

She cocks her head to the side like she's trying to figure out if her cat suddenly started speaking French. "No, I don't think I'm going to do that."

"It's okay. Don't hold back. I know you're pissed at me. Let me have it."

She just stares down at the knife in her hands. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the knee walk made me look too silly to stab. There's a way to fix that.

I lean right into her face and scream, "Stab me, dammit!" as loud as I can. She lunges. And jabs the knife all the way through my left hand.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" she says, covering her mouth with her hands.

What most people don't understand about being hard to kill is that just because getting shot or stabbed or set on fire doesn't kill you, it doesn't mean that you don't feel it. When someone shoves a big knife through my hand, it feels like anybody else's hand getting stabbed. This is a nice way of saying that when Allegra pigsticks me with the bone blade, I want to scream like a little French girl and roll around on my back demanding a thousand cc of Jack Daniel's, stat. But I don't do any of that. I calmly pull the knife out of my hand. I wipe the blood off on my pants leg. I don't want to piss her off more by bleeding on her carpet.