“Wonderful, sir. Thank you for asking.”
“Yeah, that’s going to wear off in a while, so enjoy it while it lasts.”
“Thank you. I will.”
I go to the elevator and get out on the top floor. The grandfather clock is where he said it would be. I don’t pick up any hoodoo from it, so I open the front and grab the pendulum.
One. Two. Three.
I push the pendulum to the side and step through.
And come out in a room so big, so stuffed with golden statues, marble, and antiques, that Caligula would think it’s tacky.
“You’re late.”
Lucifer stands by a marble pillar as big around as a redwood. A tailor is marking his suit with chalk, doing a final fitting.
“I would have been here early if you and Kasabian weren’t playing name games with me.”
“You should have noticed that little detail before or factored in more time to work it out when you arrived.”
“Kas said you hated it when people were late.”
“I hate when people I pay aren’t doing their best work. You’re a smarter boy than you act, Jimmy. You need to start taking things more seriously.”
“I’m taking this room seriously. This is what Liberace’s nightmares must have looked like.”
Lucifer turns around and looks at me. He’s an angel, so I can’t read him at all.
He tilts his head slightly and says, “Love the coat. Are you on your way to the O.K. Corral?”
I nod.
“Yeah, it’s a little Doc Holliday, but it’s called a rifle coat for a reason. I can hide a double-barreled shotgun under here. Or do you want me in slippers and a sweater vest, fighting off your enemies with a hot cocoa?”
“Not now, but when you come back down below, I hope you’ll fight that way in the arena.”
“Is that why you’re here? To take me back?”
He frowns.
“No, no. That was just a terrible joke. Forgive me.”
He turns to the tailor.
“We’re done for tonight.”
The tailor gives him a small bow and helps Lucifer take off the half-finished jacket and pants. Suddenly I’m alone in a room with the Prince of Darkness in his underwear. I wouldn’t have pegged him for a boxers guy.
Actually, he’s still wearing a silk maroon shirt and he slips on a pair of pressed black slacks folded over the back of a chair. I can’t get into Lucifer’s mood or mind the way I can with humans, but I can see him move. As he pulls on pants, he makes the tiniest imaginable move with his shoulders. He flinches, almost like he’s in pain. I look over at a statue of a headless woman with wings before he turns around.>THE KISSI I don’t think about much, but I dream about them. Their vinegar reek chokes me while their fingers dig around inside my chest like bony worms.
I PUSH A recessed sci-fi button on the armrest and one of the Veyron’s windows slides down silently, like a tinted ghost. I turn off Hollywood Boulevard onto Sunset, go about half a block, and flip a James Bond U-turn in the middle of the street. Kick the Veyron back into gear and burn rubber to the little strip mall where Doc Kinski’s clinic is located. The Veyron bottoms out as I turn into the parking lot. A couple of local geniuses have broken into the doc’s office and are carrying out armloads of junk. Nice timing. I’m just in the mood to hit someone.
I throw open the door and come around the car looking for which one to smack first and all the fun goes out of it. It isn’t thieves after all. It’s Kinski and Candy. They’re loading boxes of scrolls and the doc’s strange medicines and elixirs. They’re as surprised to see me as I am seeing them. We all just stand there looking at each other for a minute like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I threw a perfectly good cigarette out the window for this. The doc hands a box to Candy. She keeps loading while he comes over to talk to me.
“Nice to see you, doc. I don’t suppose you got any of the like fifty messages I left you? With most people I’d stop calling, but I used to think we were friends. Then after a while I kept calling because I was plain pissed off and thought I’d spread the joy.”
“Things have been a little crazy. Sorry. We’re doing a lot of work away from the clinic.”