Devil Said Bang (31 page)

“Please don’t shoot me.”

“Are you sure? You can stay here forever with your
drinking buddies.”

“What can I say to make you believe me?”

I lower the gun, resting it in my lap.

“Nothing. You already have.”

There’s no way the girl is one of his. At least if
she is, he doesn’t know.

If she isn’t connected to Osterberg, then I’m back
to nothing and this whole trip has been pointless. Traven ought to appreciate
that. At least one of us will be happy. I should shoot Teddy just for getting in
the way of me getting King Cairo.

“Let’s head back to the homestead, Teddy. All this
fresh air is giving me hives.”

On the way back, we pass what looks like a pretty
ordinary cemetery. There’s only one thing wrong.

“What’s the story with that patch of graves?”

“What do you mean?”

“American tombstones point east at the rising sun.
Those face west. I think your necro-Teamsters blew the gig.”

He shakes his head.

“You have a good eye for someone so . . .
excitable.”

“I’m an asshole. I’m not blind.”

“To answer your question, it’s an English Gnostic
plot. They were contrarians to their very core, rejecting the reality of this
world. When they died they were buried and marked in the wrong direction to
display their disdain for this world for all time.”

“You’d make a billion dollars on
Jeopardy!
if all the categories were ‘creepy facts
about the dead.’ ”

“Would you mind putting your gun away, Mr.
Macheath? I think you can see that I’m no threat.”

“Yeah, but I’m a nervous passenger and it’s kind of
like my security blanket.”

Teddy brings us back to the front of the house. He
parks the cart back in the shade. Gets out and waits for me like an obedient
kid.

“I hope there’s no hard feelings, Ted. After the
ghost went after Saint James, you understand I had to check you out.”

“Of course. May I go now?”

“Sure. Run along, you scamp.”

He doesn’t move until I put the gun back in my
waistband.

“Thank you for stopping by.”

“My pleasure. See you around the afterlife.”

Teddy heads for the house fast. He doesn’t run even
though he wants to. Yeah, someone did a real number on him if he thanked me
after what I put him through.

I take it all back, everything I’ve ever said about
the rich. I love the loud rich. I want the rich to be coked up, ugly, flashy,
and decked in blood diamonds. Teddy’s kind of mousy Emily Dickinson rich is so
much worse. Trying to hate Teddy is like trying to hate wallpaper paste. When I
get home, I’m going to write a love letter to the loathsome rich letting them
know how much I appreciate them. Their glorious excess gives me something
substantial to despise and I love them for it.

It takes twenty minutes to get down the hill. The
sky is blue again when I climb on the bike but the clouds have turned a dull
gray. I swear I can see rivets along their sides like they’re floating islands
of steel.

I’m about to kick-start the bike when my phone
rings. Candy is as bad at patience as I am. But it’s not her.

“Are you settling into your new home all right?
Good water pressure? Is it clean under the bed? I hear the Chateau is close to
all the hot spots.”

It’s a different voice this time. A woman’s voice
but I know who it really is. This isn’t going to stop.

“You again. I know you’re speaking through a
mortal. Why don’t you come over to the Chateau and we’ll talk things over like a
couple of friendly, reasonable monsters?”

“What would Alice say about you settling into
Satan’s residence so quickly and easily? Good thing she went back to Heaven when
she did. Who knows what would have happened to her if she’d stayed with
you.”

“Don’t talk about Alice, you Hellion puke. I know
what you’re trying to do. You want me back down there.”

“Can you see her now? Her pretty face on the wall
with all the other dead you have to account for.”

“You think you want me back but trust me, you
don’t.”

“Speaking of the dead, we’re knee-deep in them down
here. No one thinks you’re coming back. Least of all me. Every burble and bubble
in every sinkhole sounds like doom to the rabble.”

“If I came back, I figure the best way to find you
is to kill every Hellion down there. I don’t know how long that would take but
we’ve got all eternity to try. I hope you have a good call plan.”

“If you think things were falling apart before,
wait until you see what happens this time. Those poor lost souls without you to
protect them.”

“Just because I’m not coming back doesn’t mean I
don’t have plans. They’ll be fine long after you’re drytt food.”

“It’s such a comfort hearing your voice.”

“Yeah. You’re my evil past. All the birds come home
and shit on your head. A dead girl told me all about it. As far as I’m
concerned, Hell can burn to the ground this time. Tell everyone down there I
said it.”

“No matter how far or fast you run, it won’t be
enough. I’ll always be with you.”

I hang up. Immediately, the phone rings but I
ignore it. It keeps ringing all the way through Malibu.

I look for Catalina on the ride back but I can’t
find it. Sometimes the weather hides it. That’s probably what it is.

C
andy
is in the top-floor hall at the Chateau Marmont when I open the grandfather
clock.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Are you going to stay out there or come in and see
for yourself?”

She comes through and stands just inside the
entrance trying to absorb it all. I’ve been here and I’ve lived in Lucifer’s
palace Downtown but I’m not sure she’s ever been in such a conspicuous
consumption situation before.

She puts her hands on my shoulders and turns me
back and forth.

“Nice shirt. You going for your real-estate
license?”

“Baby, the only real estate that counts is the
pretty grave the other guy goes in.”

“I love it when you talk dirty.”

She walks around the main room, running her fingers
over the expensive furniture and paintings.

I say, “Rinko’s doing better?”

“She’s apprenticing with Allegra. Why don’t you let
me worry about Rinko.”

“Okay.”

She circles the room to the area I’ve settled into
near the chocolate-brown leather sofa, low coffee table, and a couple of
overstuffed chairs near the TV.

“This is all yours?”

“I guess so. They keep it for Mr. Macheath. As far
as I know, Lucifer is the only Macheath around.”

“So you can do anything you want.”

“Yeah. But I can’t decide between a gun range or a
macramé studio.”

Candy jumps onto the sofa and bounces up and down
like a kid on a bed, her short hair flapping around her face, her Chuck Taylors
leaving soft footprints in the sofa cushions.

“You having fun up there?”

“This is really well built. They usually collapse
by now.”

As she jumps she takes off her jacket and throws it
at me. Then her shirt. Then her sneakers and her pants.

Still jumping, she says, “Come on. Let’s break
it.”

I catch her on a jump and drop her flat on her
back. Climb on the sofa and kneel over her. She unbuckles my pants while I take
off my shirt.

This time it’s more like when we first stayed at
the Beat Hotel together. We smash the coffee table when I flip her over on top
of it. We knock over potted bamboos and splinter chairs. But we never make a
dent in the sofa.

Later, my phone rings.

“Answer that and you’re a dead man,” Candy
says.

“Since when do you ever not answer your phone?”

“That’s not what I mean. I just don’t want a bunch
of monsters or demons coming over so I have to get dressed.”

“There are robes in the bedroom.”

“Really? I love robes.”

She disappears down the hall. The phone stops
ringing.

She comes out in a maroon terrycloth bathrobe as
thick as the Lawrence, Kansas, white pages.

“Is ‘robegasm’ a word?” she asks. “Because if it
is, I just had one.”

My phone pings. There’s a text from Kasabian.
Someone broke into Max Overdrive.

I pick up the hotel phone and call the front
desk.

“I need a car right now.”

“Of course, Mr. Macheath.”

I put down the phone and start pulling on my
clothes.

“If you want to come along, you need to get
dressed.”

“I am dressed.”

“No, you’re not,” I say, and hand her the folder
pistol.

“What’s this?”

“Push the button on top of the grip.”

The folder snaps open from the bottom, like
bomb-bay doors opening on the jet. Candy puts the rifle stock to her shoulder,
sights around the room, and pulls the pistol’s trigger making
Pow!
noises.

“That’s exactly why I didn’t load it.”

“No fair.”

“Them’s the rules.”

“Killjoy.”

“You can always give it back if you don’t like
it.”

“Are you kidding? This is my new bedtime teddy
bear. You and Rinko can move over. I’m snuggling with this cuddly puppy every
night.”

I don’t bother pointing out that she hasn’t spent
more than a few hours at a time with me, much less an entire night.

W
e
ride in the hotel limo to Max Overdrive. The driver doesn’t talk to us. Doesn’t
even look at the rearview mirror. He must have heard about Lucifer’s last
driver. The one who ended up with his lips sewn together.

The side door at Max Overdrive looks like an angry
drunk beat it to death with a sledgehammer. The store area on the first floor is
as trashed as an empty room can be. Every rack and piece of shelving has been
tossed around and smashed. That answers one question. It would have taken at
least a half hour for one person to do this much damage. So, there was more than
one. How many are left? I take out the Sig and start upstairs.

The door is half open. I push it the rest of the
way with the toe of my boot.

Kasabian sits on the floor sipping a beer, his back
to the minifridge. The bedroom is trashed but in better shape than the store.
Nothing looks particularly broken. Just turned over and dumped on the floor.
When Kasabian moves, one of his leg’s gears scrape and crunch together. His left
leg is bent to the side just below the knee. Hellhounds aren’t dainty devices.
It took a lot of strength to do that kind of damage.

“Goddamn,” I say.

“Careful in case one of them is still around. They
were very picky about blasphemy,” says Kasabian.

“Hey, Kas,” says Candy. “Does your leg hurt?”

“Only when I breathe or think.”

Candy and I sit on the bed. Kasabian holds out a
beer. We shake our heads.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with you and
your beef with King Cairo, would it?”

“I don’t know. Did they say what they wanted?” I
ask.

“There wasn’t a lot of chitchat. Mostly it was
crashing and throwing and then a couple of them that bounced up and down on my
leg asking where it was.”

“Did they say what ‘it’ was?”

“I thought they meant the money. I told them where
it was, and when they found it, they left it and took off. Two hundred grand in
cash and they just walked away.”

A pack of Maledictions lies next to the overturned
desk. I get the smokes and light a couple, passing one to him.

“They’re good Christian boys. Thou shall not steal
and all that Ten Commandments hoodoo. The new Golden Vigil. Smashing the place
and fucking up your leg is for the greater good but taking a nickel is a mortal
sin.”

Kasabian sets down his beer and tries to stand. The
leg collapses the moment he puts weight on it. He lies down on his back.

“Look at me. I should have stayed on my
skateboard.”

“It’s okay. I met a guy and he owes me a favor.
He’ll finish your body.”

Kasabian props himself up on his elbows.

“And then what? I wait around for the next Curious
George to come through the door and break my other leg? Everything was quiet and
boring and fine until you came back, and now it’s all shit again.”

“That’s pretty harsh and it’s not even true,” says
Candy.

“So says the pretty girl with two working legs. If
it wasn’t for you, he would have been here to kick those guys’ asses.”

I say, “Don’t go blaming her. You’re the one who
wanted me gone, Old Yeller.”

“And you’re the one who should’ve ignored me like
you used to. What do I know? I’m a head on a stick. I get emotional.”

The Magic 8 Ball and the singularity are still in
the duffel at the Beat Hotel. I need to move them to the Chateau.

Kasabian tosses the beer can into a small pile
across the room. He opens the fridge and takes out another.

“I’ve been watching Hell on your peeper, by the
way. Without sound I can’t understand everything, so maybe you can help me. Are
burning churches a good thing or a bad thing?”

Shit. Merihim works fast. Deumos isn’t going to
take an attack lying down. I wonder if Semyazah let it happen to lure me back.
That’s not going to happen.

“Anything else?”

“Lots. I keep wondering about the uglies in uniform
kicking the shit out of other uglies in red pants. Are red pants like a
no-white-after-Labor-Day thing down there?”

“I need to get some things from the hotel to a safe
place. If you don’t want to stay here, you can come with us.”

“And be crippled and a third wheel in your little
love nest? No thanks. Cairo’s Muppets know there’s nothing here. They won’t come
back.”

“I hope you’re right. I’m going to put the side
door up and lay down some hexes there and in the alley. You want to leave, you
do it through the front door. I’ll lay down some lighter hexes there.”

“I hope I remember all that when I go to meet the
cool kids at the Viper Room.”