Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“At least get her to sign these.”

He holds up a couple of DVDs he was hiding on his table.

“I found a couple of her movies from when I was bootlegging discs to make ends meet.”

“Poor you. Forced to steal porn.”

“Hey, there weren’t any American versions. They were all European. PAL format. The wrong region code. By reformatting them, I was performing a public service.”

“For horny old men and bonehead teenyboppers.”

“Who needs more help than them?”

“I’m not bringing her up. But I’ll get her to sign your discs.”

“Have her make it out to ‘Aldous.’”

“You sure you don’t want to go with ‘Alfredo Garcia’?”

“Fuck you. It’s an old family name.”

“That’ll be our little secret.”

“Fuck you twice. I’m not taking name abuse from someone called Sandman Slim. That sounds like a diet shake with roofies.”

I look at him perched on the desk, his little legs on his keyboard. He frowns back at me, a defiant head on glorified skateboard.

I hate it when Kasabian is right. I take the DVDs and put them in a Max Overload bag.

“You’re a cruel man, you know that, Aldous?”

“I’d give a rat’s ass if you weren’t running off with the love of my life.”

“This week’s love.”

“That goes without saying.”

BRIGITTE PICKS ME up in a very new pale blue Porsche Targa. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, plus a leather jacket for protection.

She greets me with a deep kiss when I’m inside. I kiss her back, but keep an eye open. I have to admit that after Lucifer and Wells, I’m starting to feel black helicopters circling. Ritchie seems like the kind of control freak who might have Brigitte followed. Or the Vigil could be back there. I can slap Ritchie into shredded wheat or hex him into a bowling trophy, but if Wells gets a bug up his ass, the world will get ugly fast.

Brigitte uses her thumb to wipe lipstick off my lower lip. Maybe Romany are psychic after all because she says, “Relax. No one is watching. You’re not the only one trained to look for these things.”

“Point taken.”

“Where are we going?”

I read her the hospital’s address on South St. Louis Street off my phone. She punches it into the GPS on her dashboard and we head out. I always thought those boxes were for losers, but it shows us a quick, direct route through the traffic. I make a mental note that in the future I should only steal cars equipped with the boxes.

There are TV trucks parked across the street from Linda Vista. Can you go ten minutes in this town without seeing some idiot running down the street in a Steadicam rig like he has a giant robot hard-on? I hope the hospital is haunted so when the director has the cinematographer zoom in on a really interesting bloodstain on the floor, he gets a late-night Christmas-carol visit from the blood’s owner.

“There will be security if they’re filming. How do we get in?” asks Brigitte.

“I found a map of the place online. We can use a trick I have for getting in places without using the door. But you don’t get to ask any questions about it.”

“Now you absolutely have to show me.”

We walk across the street, pointing at the building like a couple of tourists. I get Brigitte to snap pictures with her phone while I look for out-of-the-way shadows. We find some by the old emergency entrance.