Devil Said Bang (Sandman Slim 4)

“Has anyone been attacked around there?”

“No.”

Good. That means the building has good protection against spirits.

“You should go there and stay and get the others to do the same. As long as you’re inside, the girl can’t get you or she would have done it already.”

“Anything you say, Sir Galahad.”

“Goddamn arm.”

I need both hands to tie the towel tighter, but if I hold the cigarette between my lips, the smoke goes straight up my nose and I can’t set it down now because the towel will come off completely.

Patty comes around the table.

“Let me help you. Goddamn men. They can tie you to a bed but you can’t do up your own shoes.”

“Thanks. I’m usually a fast healer. It should have stopped bleeding by now.”

“Shoulda woulda coulda,” she says. “Since like you said we’re all BFFs now and I can ask things I always wanted to know, what the hell kind of name is Sandman Slim?”

“Well, I’m not fat.”

“I grasped that.”

She gets the knot good and tight. Then sits back to admire her handiwork.

“They used to watch a lot of old movies in Hell before the cable went out. A Sandman is an old B-movie word for ‘hit man.’ ”

“Oh. Okay. Wait. They have cable in Hell?”

“Now they do. It was out but we got it working again.”

Patty doesn’t hear or has lost interest in what we’ve been talking about.

She says, “This looks like a nice hotel. Don’t they have a doctor or something?”

That’s what happens to you when you spend eleven years in the arena tending your own wounds. When you’re hurt, you look around for rags and string to hold whatever part of you is falling out on that particular day. A doctor is way down on the list of things you think about when you’re a gladiator slave. Lucifer, on the other hand, wants a whole team of neurosurgeons flown in from Switzerland and he wants them now.

I dial the hotel phone.

“Yes, Mr. Macheath.”

“I need the hotel doctor. Do you have one?”

“Not one to tend your, um, special needs.”

“I’ll take a seamstress and a nurse right now. Send up whatever you’ve got. Tell them to keep their eyes closed. I’ll bring them in the clock.”

“Very good, sir.”

I’m bleeding all over the nice furniture and Candy is hurt and L.A. is being buried in volcanic ash. I wonder what’s going on in the rest of the world. I’m formulating a new mantra. WWWBD. What Would Wild Bill Do? I can’t burn down Cairo like I did when I set Josef and the skinheads on fire. I’ll have to kill him later. And I don’t know where Aelita is. The little girl is the only clear line to anything I’ve got, and if she isn’t out slicing and dicing, I know where she’ll be. That’s what Bill would do. If he couldn’t find the head of the bad guys, he’d find the arms and break them. It’s time to say hola to the Imp of Madrid.

“When the doctor leaves, we’ll get you to the dreamer safe house.”

“Okay. Is it all right if I take a nap while we’re waiting?”

“I’ll get you some aspirin. You’re going to need them.”