Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“I hope I remember all that when I go to meet the cool kids at the Viper Room.”

“Is there any Spiritus Dei around here?”

“There’s a small bottle in the medicine cabinet.”

On the way back to the Chateau, we make a quick stop at the Beat Hotel. I feel bad about Kasabian. If I’m a shit magnet, he’s a getting-stomped magnet. Maybe I should’ve forced him to come with us. He would’ve loved that. One more thing to complain about.

At the Chateau, Candy and I break more furniture and afterward I try to figure out what to do next. The sofa won’t budge. It sits like an iceberg surrounded by a sinking Titanic of broken furniture.

I go to the window to have a smoke. Something that might be an iceberg slides down Sunset Boulevard, tearing up the road, smashing windows in the buildings across the street, and crushing cars. Then it slips silently out of sight. The stars overhead blink on and off like colored Christmas-tree lights. In the distance, there’s the glow of fire and sound of sirens. What’s that line from The Outlaw Josie Wales? “Get ready, little lady. Hell is coming for breakfast.”

It comes to me sometime around dawn. Fuck Saint James. I don’t need him. I want the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors but I’m doing fine without it. It’s sure not enough to put up with this carousel of bullshit. An apple-cheeked ghost that has everyone jumpy as a chicken on an electric fence. A pushy skeleton whining like the clingiest girlfriend since Ophelia. A fruit bat in Malibu who has high tea with skeletons. Downtown is turning to shit again and L.A. is on fire. And I know things are only going to get worse. If Semyazah can’t handle Hell, how am I supposed to? I don’t need any of it. Fuck Saint James. Aelita and King Cairo are the ones I need to worry about and by “worry about,” I mean kill.

We’re sitting in a stolen Ford soccer-mom SUV between a hipster art gallery and a costume store.

“So this is your idea of a double date,” says Allegra.

“You wanted back in the field. Welcome to the exciting world of trench warfare.”

“We’re just sitting here.”

“We’re waiting for the order to advance. Then we run straight into the enemy’s machine guns and barbed wire.”

“But until then, we have teriyaki, gyoza, and miso soup,” says Candy, passing around Styrofoam cartons.

“And sake,” says Vidocq. “I will light a candle for the lovely goddess Matsuo to honor every bottle she has given to us over the years.”

Candy says, “That’s going to be a fire hazard.”

“What’s life without risk?” says Vidocq.

“Long,” says Allegra. “And with a lot of time to be grateful for the stupid things you didn’t do. Like staking out a killer’s apartment.”

“We’re not staking out Cairo’s apartment. I think he owns the whole building.”

“I feel better knowing we’re after a man with real estate. It makes the whole thing seem friendlier,” says Candy.

Allegra dunks a gyoza in soy sauce with her chopstick and feeds it to Vidocq. He smiles and kisses her lightly on the lips.

He says, “The good father tells me that you witnessed the Via Dolorosa yesterday.”

I nod, keeping my eye on a doorway across the street.

“That I did. Traven’s turning into a real bruiser. He’s done that to other people? After Amanda stopped by, he wanted to come with me to meet Teddy Osterberg. That would have been a lot of laughs.”

Vidocq shakes his head. Sips more sake.

“The father is a good and serious man. He would never abuse his power.”

“If you say so. I just hope he isn’t a kid with a loaded gun.”

Candy stops eating for a second.

“Is that crack aimed at me?”

“Your gun is unloaded. I checked.”

She turns to Allegra.