The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar (21 page)

She pulled a compact from her purse and gave herself a quick once-over in the mirror. “Don’t know,” she said. “And to be honest, I don’t care, even though I’ve been questioned about it nonstop ever since it happened. I’ve got enough problems of my own.”

“Like what?”

Her eyes flashed, and I’m not saying that poetically: something sparked red in the depths. “None of your fucking business, Dollar.”

“Okay, fair enough. But what about the thing that burned the crap out of my apartment door?”

“It’s a
ghallu
,” she said, sounding like an English Home Counties schoolgirl reciting what she’d learned in a particularly dreary class, “a living piece of Old Night, which is another word for Chaos, in case you crashed and burned your afterlife exams. Expensive to summon, nearly impossible to stop. And, yes, I’ve seen that mark before.”

“Where? And who sent it after me?”

“The answer to the first is, again, none of your business, Dollar. As to the second, I don’t know, but it’s bad news. If you really don’t know what’s going on with any of this, I strongly suggest you get out of the way, as far away and for as long as possible. No good can come of it.”

Now it was my turn to stare. For the first time since the conversation started I didn’t believe what she was saying, at least the part about not knowing who sent the
ghallu
. Still, she had been amazingly open, so I decided not to push my luck. Well, not
too
much.

“Okay, then, Countess. Only one more question, I guess. What about us?”

Her eyes opened wide. “What?” But she sounded more surprised than angry. “What’s that supposed to mean, angel?”

“We’re helping each other, right? Well, what if I find out something you should know? I’m not just going to hang around The Water Hole on the off chance you’ll wander in to pick up a couple of pre-meds to go.”

“Is that really what we’re doing?” She was definitely amused in a kind of biting-something-sour way. “Helping each other? As far as I can see, the only person helping anyone is me. What could you possibly do for me in return?”

“Let’s not rush things. Just in case it comes up, how do I get in touch?”

She laughed, suddenly and with apparent sincerity. “You really are a piece of work, Bobby Dollar. You have a very high estimation of your own importance.”

“Beg your pardon, sister, but it’s your car I’m sitting in, not the other way around. You wanted to talk to me.
And
knock me around a bit.” My jaw was still sore.

“Very well.” She pulled a business card from her purse, wrote something on it with a very nice fountain pen. “Call this in an emergency. Leave a message. I’ll get hold of you.”

“Thank you, Countess.” I still wasn’t quite sure what I had got into, but it was definitely something unusual.

Suddenly a smile, tight and secretive. “Oh, I think you can call me Caz, now,” she said. “Until you get yourself killed, anyway. Sleep tight.”

Which was definitely a dismissal. I slid toward the door, then paused. “I’ve been meaning to ask you—where does your name come from?”

“Casimira? It’s Polish…”

“No, your other name—the Countess of Cold Hands.”

She leaned forward and cupped my face in her slender fingers. The skin was as icy as a fish’s belly. “You know what they say,” she said,
and a strange, sad expression crossed her face. “Cold hands—cold heart.” The door opened behind me as if by magic, but it was only big Candy, who helped me out none too gently.

“Goodnight, boys,” I called as he and his plug-ugly pal climbed back into the black car. “Dream of me.”

The long, low car with black windows rolled silently away and I stumbled toward my car and the drive back to my motel.

A
S LATE as I got to bed, as tired, scared, and pissed off as I was, you’d have thought that just this once the universe might cut me some slack. You’d have been wrong. My phone rang again at five-thirty in the morning and, although I ignored it, kept ringing every two minutes until I gave up and rolled onto the floor, then crawled across the unfamiliar motel room on my hands and knees to answer it. It wasn’t a Heaven-related number, so I was even more certain it couldn’t be anything worth waking up for.

“Who wants to die?”

“It’s me, Bobby.” The pig man.

“It’s really, really goddamned early, George, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Nobody knows that better than me. You want to talk about the time? I got about ten minutes left until the sun’s up and then all you’re going to get is oink, oink, oink.”

“Sorry, George. Go ahead.”

“Okay, first there’s ‘Kephas.’ It’s ancient Aramaic and it means ‘rock.’ It’s what Jesus actually named Peter. You know, ‘You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.’ There’s tons of mentions on various Bible sites but only in that context. I haven’t found anything interesting or out of the ordinary about Magians yet…but
you’re
hot as a pistol, Mr. D. Lot of people want to know about you. According to
my sources, secondary queries with your name in them have tripled in the last few days.”

“What are ‘secondary queries’?”

“That’s someone other than me asking the questions.”

Helplessness tugged at me, the leading edge of panic, and I did my best to slap it away. “Why me, George? What is it that everyone wants to know? And who’s asking?”

“As to who, it’s mostly folks who operate on the edges between the two sides. Information users, mostly. I can’t figure out yet what’s got people so interested except that some folks have been talking about you and others want to know why. There’s a lot of stuff all over .ky.”

It was too damn early. “Dot K Y? I’m big news on a sexual lubricant site?”

“No, that’s just the domain name—means Cayman Islands. Lot of the paranormal folk use their internet domain because the accounts can’t be traced. Anyway, my business is all about information chasing its own tail, but it’s even harder than usual to get hold of anything substantial on this; I’m chasing a rumor without knowing what the rumor is, see? But I promise I’ll let you know as soon as I have anything specific.”

“Thanks, George. You’re a good man. Anything on the monstrosity that’s after me? Tall, dark and horny?”

“Oh, shit, yeah—of course. I’m really sorry you have to deal with that crap, Bobby.”

“Yeah, George, I am too.” I appreciated him, but I wasn’t at my most patient. “Any helpful details?”

“Again, not very much. They’re not common. ‘Allu’ or ‘ghallu’ is the closest match I can find.”

“I’ve got confirmation on that already. Some kind of hireling spirit. Very old, pre-Christian.”

“Yeah. And it’s bad news.”

“I knew that, too.”

“The problem is, they don’t show up very often, so nobody’s got much real information more recent than the nineteenth century. Only somebody with a lot of clout can put one of those babies to work.”

“Damn it, George, I already heard all this—I need to know what to
do
about it! How do you kill one, or at least dismiss it?”

“I don’t know, Bobby. The last confirmed sighting was back in the nineteen eighties in Syria.”

“Well, I confirmed one trying to set my ass on fire as it chased me down the Camino Real a couple of nights ago, so I think I need a better answer than that.”

There was a long pause. When he spoke again, something strange had happened to his voice. “I…I’m…”

“George? You okay?”

“Unh. Unh.” He was reduced to grunting now. I peered at my window and saw a gray gleam between the curtains. Daybreak.
“Unhhh
….” The next grunt had a little squeal in it—I guess the last human part of him didn’t like letting go.

“Well, thanks for calling, George.” I hung up and crawled back into bed, which seemed like as good a place to die as any other.

Just to make sure I didn’t get too much sleep, Alice sent me a client at about eight o’clock. I had to scramble out of the motel without breakfast and hurry down to Sequoia Hospital, where I at least had the luck to represent a lovely elderly lady who had spent most of her life going to church and taking care of her family and also most of her neighborhood, like Mother Teresa without the lust for publicity. Seeing her go peacefully and happily into the light reminded me that a lot of what I do is to make sure good people get the reward they deserve.

When I was done it was almost lunchtime. I hadn’t been to The Compasses for a couple of days and I was feeling nostalgic so I called the place. Chico set the phone out on the bar and made it a conference call with the members of the Choir who were there—Walter Sanders, Sweetheart, Young Elvis, and a few others. No Monica, no Sam.

“What’s happening, Bobby?” Kool Filter asked. He had a voice like Louie Armstrong trying not to cough, and he almost always sounded amused. “Heard some ugly old shit is chasing you around.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Which was an outright lie, but I hate people feeling sorry for me like a cat hates bathwater. “Seen Sam?”

“He was in last night,” reported Young Elvis. He got that name because of his hair, by the way. I have never seen any living human being spend as much time fucking with his hair as this angel does. There’s a permanent solidified mist of hairspray on The Compasses’ bathroom
mirror because of him. It’s a pretty spectacular ‘do, though, I have to admit—like the King in his leather-jacketed prime. Our boy likes to wear that rockabilly shit, too, Spanish heels, the works.

“Hey, do any of you happen to know where I can find the Sollyhull Sisters these days?”

Kool chortled. “Shit, you
are
a glutton for punisment, B. I think somebody said they were haunting some diner across town.”

“Superior Grill, off the 84,” Walter Sanders said in his sniffy way. “At least they were there a week ago. Ruined my otherwise perfectly mediocre lunch.”

I thanked them and signed off. I missed hanging out with the Whole Sick Choir, but I wasn’t going to see them for at least a few days, that was obvious. If my visit to the Magian Society’s landlord didn’t take too long, and nothing else intervened or tried to kill me, I figured I might be able to consult the sisters that evening. They could tell me things even Fatback couldn’t, and about now I was feeling a desperate need for new information.

As I threw on my jacket to go out my phone rang again. It was Monica.

“Well, hello, stranger,” she said, but if you had licked her tone of voice your tongue would have been frozen to it until the fire department came to get you off. “I just walked in to The Compasses and the boys said I barely missed you. How’s life?”

“Yeah, great, sort of.” I couldn’t avoid it any longer, that was clear. “You have a minute to talk?”

I could almost
hear
the lifted eyebrow. “A whole minute?” she said. “This
is
my lucky day.”

I hoped she was sitting by herself instead of in the middle of the Choir. Nothing like a dysfunctional tavern family to make an emotional scene even more embarrassing.

“Look, I know I’ve been kind of distracted lately,” I began.

“Don’t underestimate yourself, Bobby darling. The truth is, you’ve been an utter shit.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then said, “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

“What is it with you?” Now I could hear how deep the unhappiness went. “We had a crazy night—so what? You think that means I expect us to get married or something? Hello? I’m an immortal just like you
are. If anybody understands letting someone have their space, I do. Not to mention that you made your need for that space very clear a long time ago.”

“I know. I just…” That’s why I hate cell phones. The door to the outside world was only a few feet away but it didn’t make any difference: I was connected and could not honorably disconnect until the conversation was over. And I was too old for the
bad reception—I’m losing you
dodge. I sighed. “Honestly, Monica, honey, things really
have
been complicated. With demons trying to murder me and all. But basically you’re right. I did a terrible job. I actually had a nice time with you that night, and the next morning, too…but I got in my own way. I even hope we can do it again sometime. But I was afraid you’d—”

“Take it more seriously than you.” Some of the bitterness was gone this time. “Possibly. But not anymore, now that I’ve seen that you’re still a prick when you get panicky. And any future Naber-Dollar collaborations will go forward only with that in mind.” She took a drink of something, swallowed. “Because I don’t want to lose you as a friend, Bobby. I really mean that. You’ve always been an idiot, but you make me laugh.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either, Monica. As a friend, I mean. Or…or whatever we are, sometimes. So I don’t know exactly what we’re agreeing—but it’s a bargain, right?”

“Right. Just try not to be such an asshole.”

I was still jumpy about everything else but a little less guilty about Monica as I began my research on who owned the 4442 East Charleston property. This was the kind of legwork I could do myself, which was just as well because the Sollyhulls didn’t do real-world stuff, and Fatback wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone except the local sows for another eleven hours or so.