Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“Does Cairo blame you for reality breaking down? Is that what the fight was about?”

“No.”

She gets up and goes for more Aqua Regia. I cut her off and pour regular wine into her glass.

“Ooh. A gentleman.”

“I don’t want you to melt your brain too soon.”

“Whatever, dude.”

She drops onto the couch.

“King wants me to quit or leave town. I tried telling him what I do isn’t a job. It’s like a vocation. It’s what I am. I dream. That’s it. But he says he’s working for people who want to get rid of us regulars. Take over and put in their own dreamers. I thought he was just talking big. He does that sometimes.”

What do you know? Cairo isn’t a complete monster after all. Just a coward.

“Maybe he was trying to protect you by telling you to get out of town. If someone is using a ghost to kill dreamers, when the little girl appeared, he probably knew he couldn’t fight her.”

“He knew she was going to kill me and he left me to that little bitch? That fucker.”

“Who runs the dreamers?”

“Big wheels in the Sub Rosa. Who else?”

“What happens if you stopped dreaming? If all of you in L.A. stopped completely.”

“If we go down, the dominoes start falling. Ping. Ping. Ping.”

She flicks her fingers, knocking over imaginary dominoes in the air.

“I don’t know that the other houses can keep the whole world together without us. Next thing you know, nothing is what it used to be and then I don’t know. Maybe we all just disappear. No one knows because it’s never happened.”

“Who in the Sub Rosa is in charge? Blackburn?”

“Do I look like Google? Go buy a fucking laptop.”

My arm is starting to hurt. I get my own glass of Aqua Regia and walk around until I find some Maledictions. I take the pack back to the table, tap one out, and try to light it one-handed. Patty snickers at me. Takes the cigarette, puts it in my mouth, lights it, and hands it back to me.

“Thanks.”

“No worries. I’d’ve done it for a dog.”

My head is spinning a little. Not with pain or liquor but with all that’s going on. Not to mention worrying about Candy. I check the time. Too soon to call the clinic, goddammit.

“So someone is trying to replace the current dreamers or kill them off. Cairo is working with them but he can’t use his muscle because that would bring down the heat and whoever is running him knows he’d squeal like a piglet. That means whoever is behind all this also controls the girl. You can’t arrest or kill a crazy ghost. She’s a good cover. And maybe you kill a few nondreamers to make the killings look random. It’s all for the greater good, right?”

“If you say so.”

“I say so because I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind this. The question is why does an angel care about our reality? Tell me this. If you’re walking around with your boyfriend, then dreamers must work in shifts, right?”

“Yeah. Two days on and three days off so we get our heads back together.”

“Where do you do your dreaming?”

She sits up, almost spilling her wine. She points to what she thinks is north. It’s not.

“There’s a place in Universal City. Near the movie studio. It looks like a regular office building. Really boring on the outside. Like camouflage, you know? The tour buses go right by it. We’re in there.”