“Yes! Rogaine for the soul. It restores and replenishes the user’s original umbra. A re-souling will last him a year or two I hope. Buyers can become testy when they want a new soul and you have to tell them that the cupboard is bare.”
“Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about my life.”
Vidocq says, “If you feel so good, why not come take a trip with me tomorrow?”
“Another job?”
“That’s for you to decide. I sometimes do work for a private investigator. Today she called and asked about you. She has a job that she believes you would be perfect for.”
I finish my drink and smile.
hat="0">“Get mixed up in a total stranger’s problems for no good reason? Sounds like a scream, but I think I’ll pass.” “Maybe doing something for a stranger will settle down your angel,” says Muninn.
The moment he says it, the haloed bastard starts squirming around. It tickles the inside of my skull and not in a good way. I try to push him back into the dark, but he smells a hero moment and won’t budge.
“And there’s my poor, abused knee,” the old man says, patting his leg. “You owe me for tossing me through a window tonight.”
I turn from Vidocq to Muninn.
“Never save a Frenchman’s life. He’ll hold it against you for the rest of yours.”
I look at Vidocq and screw up my face into the least sincere smile I can make.
“What the hell? I haven’t done anything truly stupid in weeks.”
THE BEAT HOTEL is in a typically glamorous area, near the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and North Gower.
Across from the hotel is the Museum of Death, a fenced gray bunker with a ten-foot painted skull out front. Next to it is the long-dead Westbeach Recorders, an empty studio local acts used to record and where Pink Floyd recorded part of The Wall (I believe that like I believe Jesus invented chili dogs). Down the street a car dealership is dying in the desert sun, the parboiled cars like beached fish carcasses slowly cooking to squid jerky. A couple of strip malls and empty parking lots on the corner. The front of the Beat Hotel is painted a pale industrial green. Maybe green paint was on sale that day or maybe it’s supposed to be ironic. I’ve never been sure.
If any of this makes you think I don’t like the Beat Hotel, you’re wrong. It’s like a cross between a seventies swingers no-tell motel and the kind of hipster hot spot where rock stars stay when they don’t want to be seen bringing home good smack or bad strippers. The rooms are comfortable in a Zen halfway-house kind of way. But the kitchens are decorated in bright primary-colored vinyl like a Playboy-chic burger joint. The place looks like where David Lynch would meet Beaver Cleaver’s mom for secret afternoons of bondage and milk shakes. I love it.
Kasabian and I have been there about three weeks. I rented us a room for the month. At the end of the month I’ll probably do it again. You’re not supposed to stay for more than a week, but I pay the right people to change my name on the registry so it looks like someone new moves in every Saturday.
I had to get out of Max Overdrive for a while. All the rebuilding going on after the zombie riots—the saws and hammers and especially the stink of new paint of new was making me feel kind of stabby. None of it bothered Kasabian, of course. He’d put on headphones, crank up the volume on Danger: Diabolik, and peck away on his computer. The smell didn’t bother him because he doesn’t have lungs, so he doesn’t breathe.
Kasabian and I have a lot in common. Like me, he’s a monster; only he wasn’t born that way. I made him one when I cut off his head with the black bone knife I brought back from Hell. The blade that didn’t let him die. Now he’s a chain-smoking, beer-stealing pain in my ass. To get specific, Kasabian is a head without a body. And he won’t shut up about it. He gets around on what to a civilian would look like a polished mahogany skateboard with a couple dozen stubby brass Jules Verne legs underneath. Really, it’s a hoodoo-driven prosthetic for a guy who’s wandering around with nothing but a bad attitude below his neck. It’s his own fault. When I came back from Hell, the idiot shot me, so I cut off his head. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I’m stuck with him. We’ve gotten as used to each other as a couple of monsters can be. But I’ll never get used to a roommate surfing around on a magic plank like a beer-swilling Victorian centipede.
And that’s the other reason we’re at the hotel. I don’t want some schmuck carpenter wandering upstairs and getting an eyeball-ful of Kasabian’s disembodied cranium. When the guy’s brain explodes, our insurance would go through the roof.
I go right to the game room set up for the guests. There’s an “Out of Order” sign outside. I rap on the door using the secret knock Kasabian insisted on. (He’s been watching too many spy movies.) Knock. Pause. Knock. Knock. Pause. Knock. A second later I hear something scrape behind the door and it opens a few inches. I look around to make sure no one can see me and slip inside. When I get in, Kasabian uses his little legs to wedge a wooden chair under the doorknob, then tells me to throw the lock.
I say, “You’re riding the paranoia pony pretty hard today, Alfredo Garcia.”
“Blow me, biped. I have to be security-conscious or I’ll end up freak of the month on YouTube.”
“Don’t sweat it. We’re both going to end up a couple of pickled punks in the Museum of Death someday.”
“Yeah, but I’m not looking for it to happen tonight.”
He clambers on top of the pool table and gives me a sometime-today-asshole look. I roll the cue ball and we lag for break. Kasabian wins. I rack the balls and step back to light a Malediction, Lucifer’s favorite cigarette. You can only get them Downtown, and since I haven’t seen Lucifer in a while, I’m running low. It might almost be worth chancing going back down to snatch and grab a pack or three. Almost.
Kasabian shooting pool is as graceful as a lobster playing soccer. He scuttles around the green felt tabletop, lines up his shot, and kicks the cue ball with his stubby metal legs. I’m not sure if him playing like that is fair, but y">
“What’s that smell?” he asks.
“Me. I got parboiled by a demon when I was out with Vidocq.”
I shrug off the rifle frock coat Muninn gave me and show him the burns on my arms. I’m doing my best to ignore the pain, but I’m going to need a drink soon. Getting tossed in a meat grinder every now and then is part of what I do. I came back to earth to kill things, so I have to expect things to fight back occasionally.