Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

I HIT ALLEGRA’S number and she picks up on the second ring.

“Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“Hell no. With a friend like you, no one expects to sleep more than a few hours a night.”

“Is Brigitte under yet?”

“Yeah. Eugène is watching her. Making sure the potion took and she’s doing all right.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. But you owe me a story about how you hooked up with Pussy Galore.”

“Sure. Listen, I need to read someone’s meter. Do you have an animascope?”

“A couple of different kinds. But I thought you were off chasing zombies. Why do you need the scope?”

“I’m meeting someone new and I need to know if he’s dead or alive. If I have the scope, you don’t need to come along. It’ll be safer that way.”

“Fuck that. You and Eugène are going to protect me to death. If you want the scope, I’m the one who’s going to work it. That’s the deal.”

“Okay, but you have to tell Vidocq. And don’t leave out the part where I said you could stay home.”

“When should I expect you?”

“I’m supposed to meet the contact in Hollywood at nine-thirty this morning. I’ll come by a few minutes before that.”

“I’ll be ready.”

The Grand Central Market doesn’t open until nine, which is still a few hours away. I lie back on the bed, close my eyes, and sink back down into the angelic dark. It already feels like home. The place I should have been my whole life. If I’d seen and felt like this when I was a kid, I wouldn’t have grown into someone who let Mason play him for such a fool. I wouldn’t have lost a third of my life in Hell. I wouldn’t be living with a dead man in an attic and covered in scars. Normally, going over all the ways I’ve fucked up my life turns my brain to swamp gas and bleeds my vision red. I need a cigarette and a drink to keep my heart from gnawing its way out of my chest. But now my heart beats fine. I don’t want a glass of the red stuff or a smoke. The world is a perfect white diamond. Transparent. The facets glowing with internally reflected light. And it takes just one tap in the right place to shatter the whole thing.

I GET UP a few minutes before nine and walk through a shadow to come out in a corner of the Grand Central Market. I haven’t seen the place since that day with Eleanor. It looks a lot nicer when it’s not on fire.

I buy a Styrofoam cooler and dry ice at the liquor store where Eleanor torched herself. I have to stop at three different butcher stalls to make sure I have enough pig guts to bribe Johnny. At a Filipino market near the Hill Street entrance, I pick up pork blood to fill out the feast.

Of course, if I’d felt this way earlier and hadn’t fucked up in just the right way so I landed exactly where I was at exactly the right time and place, I might never have met Alice. Without that, why would I be doing anything at all?

I pick up a couple of pound bags of jelly beans and step into another shadow.

And out into Allegra and Vidocq’s living room.

They’re sitting around the kitchen counter drinking coffee. Allegra is dressed, but there’s something wrong with her proportions.

“Did you gain twenty pounds since I’ve been gone?”

“Ask him,” she says, and nods at Vidocq.

“I simply want her to be well padded if your friend should try to make a snack of her.”

“I’m wearing like three shirts, a sweater, and a coat.”

I look at the Frenchman.

“You couldn’t have just sprinkled her with holy water or shark repellent or whatever it is that scares off Drifters?”

“I did that, too. But spells can be broken. Potions counteracted. I would rather she didn’t look so pretty for a while if it means she comes home.”

Allegra smiles and leans across the counter to kiss him on the cheek.