Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

One more thing to worry about. One more reason to punch someone very hard.

“I’ll go through the staff offices with hellhounds and a flamethrower. I bet that will turn up the bottle. Hell, maybe the Holy Grail and Amelia Earhart’s bones too.”

Bill looks past my shoulder as he lights another cigar. I half turn and see legionnaires staring at us. I slap the cigar from his mouth, grab him, and push him hard around the side of the building.

“Move, drytt!”

When we’re in the dark, I let Bill go. He shoves me with his free hand and balls the other into a fist.

He yells, “What the hell are you playing at, boy?”

“We were being watched. Hellions and damned souls don’t have heart-to-hearts in public.”

He lowers his hand and uses it to rub the arm I grabbed, more out of annoyance than pain.

“I suppose you’re right. Still, I don’t care for being roughhoused.”

“Would you rather I shoved you and stopped or that one of those other assholes who’d mean it did?”

“I suppose you have a point. But it don’t make me any less aggravated.”

“So what did the letter say?”

He leans his back against the bar and feels around for another cigar. Pulling one out, he lights it and glances back at the one I knocked to the ground. Cigars and cigarettes aren’t easy things for the damned to come by. I’ll send him a box in the morning.

“It wasn’t much of anything,” he says. “You’re always concerned with how the local populace regards you. From what I’ve seen, the rabble takes you as the grand exalted master of the infernal hindquarters just fine. Though your boisterous days as Sandman Slim have left a deeper impression. You’re credited with every cutthroat murder and cracked skull in town, of which there are more than a few.”

“Lucky me. Most people don’t get hated for one life. I’m hated for two. If I get a part-time gig as a meter maid, I can probably make it three.”

I find Mason’s lighter in my pocket but nothing to smoke.

“Do you have any cigarettes? I left mine back home.”

Home. That’s a bad habit. Stop thinking that way.

“Sorry. My last smoke went down the shitter when you knocked it out of my mouth.”

“Liar.”

He half smiles and pulls a pack from another pocket. Bill’s been in enough saloons to know that a well-timed cigarette can calm an argument quicker than an ax handle.

“Was there anything else in the note?”

Bill takes a while tapping the Malediction out for me. At first I think it’s just how a man who spent decades rolling his own smokes handles premade cigarettes. Then it hits me that he’s stalling.

“No. I don’t suppose there was anything else that mattered in there.”

I check both ends of the alley for movement. Nothing.

More secrets. Just what I need. Is he changing sides? Bill isn’t the happiest saloonkeeper in the universe. Taking orders and abuse from drunk Hellions isn’t what he’s built for. Maybe someone made him a better offer. Is there anywhere in this fucking town I don’t have to look over my shoulder? Do I have to fill the Bamboo House with peepers now?

I turn and start away.

“I shouldn’t keep you from your bar, Bill. Thanks for the information.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I’m thinking about getting drunk and seeing if I can pick a fight at the arena. I still want some carnage tonight.”>I go to my eye and start the projection over again in case I missed something the first time through.