The Getaway God (Sandman Slim 6)

Julie says, “I promise you I’ll find her. Give me twelve hours.”

I get out my phone and set a timer.

“Twelve hours. After that, he’s mine and I’ll hurt anyone who gets in my way.”

Julie nods.

“Okay. Let me go talk to Wells and tell him what’s happened.”

I nod and start for a shadow.

“Twelve hours.”

“Don’t come back unless I call you,” she says.

I GO HOME, fire up the Hellion hog, and head out again. But I don’t need a bike. I need a goddamn ark to get around. On some of the side streets off Hollywood and Sunset, the water comes up to the hubs. Even a Hellion bike starts getting pissed off after a while at that kind of thing. The Hellion hog was built for Hell’s heat, not L.A.’s Titanic-­on-­its-­last-­legs act. The bike coughs and threatens to tap out a ­couple of times, but it keeps going. I lose track of time in the empty streets.

Here and there, stop lights work. A single streetlamp glows. Every now and then I see another vehicle in the street. Whenever I do, it veers off onto another street. Looters probably, afraid I’m out scouting for LAPD. Take it all, you soggy bastards. I’d love to know who you’re going to fence it to. There’s something almost comforting in the fact that even at the end of the world, there’s always going to be one guy ready to pick your pocket.

I go by Bamboo House of Dolls first. Then Vidocq and Allegra’s place. Nothing. I call Brigitte. She hasn’t heard from Candy. Where else would she have gone? Maybe to be with other Jades? Do I know any other Jades? Just Rinko, Candy’s ex-­girlfriend. I’m the last person on the planet she wants to hear from and the last she’d tell anything to. What an idiot scene this is. Me driving in circles in a monsoon like the Flying fucking Dutchman hoping to spot one lone girl on a million square miles of Southern California roads. It’s my fault and a little Candy’s, I guess. We’re both so closemouthed about our pasts. I keep waiting for her to tell me about the Jade world when she’s ready and she wants me to talk about Doc and that whole mess. Tonight’s lesson, class, is—­assuming we live through this—­to ask more questions. Man, I hate the sound of that. I just want to go back to the Chateau Marmont, order room ser­vice, get drunk together, and break all the furniture in the master bedroom. Is that too much to ask?

After the bike finally stalls a ­couple of times and the rain is coming down so hard I can’t see more than five feet ahead of me, I turn back for Max Overdrive.

I’m putting on dry clothes when the phone rings. It’s Julie.

“Have you found Candy?”

“Not yet, but we’re following up on leads.”

“Why did you call?”

“Wells wants you to come in. It’s about Saint Nick.”

“Stop calling him that. His name is Mason Faim.”

“How do you know?”

“Because back when he was a person I killed him.”

“You know a lot of dead ­people.”

“What does Wells want?”

“Saint Nick, Mason Faim, whoever, won’t talk to him. He wants to talk to you.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I get a dry coat and a gun. I step through a shadow.

THEY HAVE MASON in a cell with walls thick enough to stop a meteor. They’re covered from end to end, top to bottom, in a hasty scrawl of protective wards and crosses. It’s like they let a gang of junior high taggers go at the cell with a copy of The Little Wizard’s Handbook of Scary-­Looking Shit.

Inside, Mason is seated at a metal table bolted to the floor. The walls are covered in binding hexes. Mason is cuffed hand and foot with cold iron shackles and dressed in orange coveralls. The zipper on the front of his jailbird suit is pulled down low enough that everyone can see the sutures holding his chop-­shop body together. All that and his mismatched eyes make him look like a garage-­sale-­love-­doll-­at-­Hammer Studios Frankenstein movie.

There are guards outside, but the room is empty. Julie follows me in. I pull up a chair and sit down across from Mason.

“Where’s Candy?”

“It’s good to see you too, Jimmy.”