Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

"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.