Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“Want to get some breakfast at our place?” she asks.

“We have a place?”

“Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, stupid.”

“How’s Carlos? Can I see him?”

“Allegra worked him over pretty good last night. He’s sleeping it off. You can see him this evening.”

“Cool. Let’s forget breakfast. Want to go with me and hassle people?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

There’s no way I’m taking the Hellion bike out in broad daylight. I use the black blade to pop the lock and ignition on a Porsche Boxster Spyder and pick up Candy at the clinic. When I open up the car on the 101 North I can’t help but smile. There’s something about driving a pretty girl somewhere potentially dangerous in a stolen car that just makes you feel good.

We drive to the address in Chatsworth that Lula Hawks gave me. It might be a waste of time but it’s the only waste of time I have right now.

The address is a grease-caked car repair place that’s such an obvious front they might as well put up a “Not a Real Garage” sign out front.

“Before we go in, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you but it was never the right time.”

“Let me guess. You’re the Lindbergh baby.”

“I’m the Devil. Lucifer went back to Heaven and stuck me with the job. I’m the new Lucifer. I just thought you might want to know who you’re hanging around with.”

She looks at me, her eyebrows slightly raised like she’s waiting for me to say something else. She cocks her head when I don’t.

“You thought I’d have a problem with you being devilish? Do you know me at all?”

“With things between us being complicated, I didn’t know.”

“Come here,” she says, and gives me a good long kiss. “There’s complicated and there’s complicated. Wanting to kiss you isn’t complicated.”

“Just everything else?”

“Just everything else.”

We walk over to the garage. When it’s clear we’re coming inside a couple of Lurkers drop their magazines and grab rubber mallets to start beating on the engine of a car that hasn’t moved in a good ten years. The Lurkers are vucaris, Russian beast men. Mostly wolves. They’re kind of like Nahuals, the local frat beasts. Like Manimal Mike’s half-assed front job these two look don’t look like much in the brains and ambition department.

“Is Mike around?”

“Who vants to know?” asks the taller of the two in a deep Boris Badenov accent.

“The Devil.”

Ivan the Terrible considers this for a minute.

“He’s busy.”

“Tell him I might be willing to do a deal where he gets his soul back.”

Ivan stares but the shorter vucari stands on tiptoe and whispers something in his ear.

“Vait here,” says Ivan.

“That’s okay. We’ll come with you.”

He weighs the rubber mallet in his hand but the little vucari says something else and Ivan backs down.