Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“I’ll stay here for a while. You’ll find the Ash clan in the Linda Vista Hospital. You’ll love it. It’s been closed for years, but they still shoot movies and television there. You get into Cabal’s place through the big freezer in the morgue.”

“I’ll come by the hotel after I talk to him.”

“Call first. And take a shower and change your clothes before you come over. Smelling Cabal every decade or so is quite enough. And one more thing.”

“Yeah.”

“Take your new partner with you. Cabal can be difficult, but he’s an important man. Maybe your friend can keep you from shooting his place up.”

“She carries a gun, too, so I wouldn’t count on it.”

Now I’M ON two missions. Three if you break them down the long way:

Weasel information out of Cabal.

Kill Drifters, zeds, Lacunas, whatever.

Get paid. That one’s mine and it gets taken care of first.

I’m in no mood to waste time on door monkeys, so I walk through a shadow and out into the Vigil’s compound. One of the gate guards sees me and starts yammering into a talkie. I give him a friendly wave and head inside. You might be fast on the button, but don’t count on a raise this year, pal.

The warm Jell-O hoodoo barrier at the warehouse door always makes my skin crawl. For the second it takes to pass through it, it’s like you’ve been body-snatched into a German oatmeal-fetish video.

People have seen me here before, so no one bats an eye when I get in. I walk like I’m heading for an appointment in one of the offices at the other end of the building. I almost make it, too.

A gaggle of Vigil hall monitors closes in on me from all sides. They have their guns on me and they mean it, but they’re too disciplined to start blasting. Marshal Julie, the newbie from the Springheel house, is part of the posse. I walk over to her. Her heartbeat goes up, but I keep enough distance between us so she doesn’t get too twitchy and open fire.

“Good to see you, Marshal. Did they let you see any dead bodies yet or are the boys still making you bring them coffee and play junior high drinking games because tough guys think vomit is hilarious and only pussies die of alcohol poisoning?”

“Why can’t you enter a building like a normal person, Stark? It would simplify everyone’s life.”

“My life is simple and getting simpler by the minute. Did you ever wonder if they haze men as hard as they haze women around here?”

“You’re trespassing on a restricted federal site. If you want to get arrested, why don’t you go and do something interesting first?”

“I’m a paid consultant to this organization who took a shortcut inside. Mea culpa. Get Wells down here and he can put a nasty note in my personnel file.”

“You don’t have a personnel file because you’re not a person.”

It’s Wells. He’s behind me.

“You’re an entity. Not the same thing as a person by a long shot.”

“Why don’t you have your crew put their guns down? I have a business proposition for you.”

“That’s funny because I have one for you, too.”

He comes around into my field of vision and stops in front of me. He looks tired. Like he’s been pulling a lot of late nights. He motions for the G-men to lower their guns.

“We’re fine here, everyone. Go back to what you were doing.”

He glances at Marshal Julie as she holsters her gun and walks away.

“Don’t talk to my people like you know them. Especially the new ones. It confuses them. It makes them think you’re on our side.”

“I am on your side when I get paid. I’ve done every job you asked me to do.”

“So does my dog when I tell her to. She does a trick and gets a biscuit, same as you.”