Ballistic Kiss (Sandman Slim 11)

I get on the Hog and blast across town to Chanchala Abodes.

I don’t bother knocking this time. I just get out the Colt and check the

front door. It’s unlocked.

The front reception area looks the same as when I was here last. But the door to Chanchala’s office is open. Someone as precise as her doesn’t get sloppy like that, so I level the pistol in front of me and go in.

The spare Japanese-style room is mostly the way I remember it, except for the long trail of blood spatter on one wall.

Chanchala’s body is faceup on the floor, and aside from the slash of red on the wall, it looks like every drop of her blood has soaked into the carpet. I put the Colt away and kneel down. Her throat is slit in a single, precise cut that goes from ear to ear. But that wasn’t enough for whoever killed her. Like with Danny Gentry, they had to add a little flourish to make the murder just a bit more awful. They filled her mouth with sand from the miniature Zen garden and stuck in the tiny rake by the handle so it sticks up like a flower on her grave.

Someone is definitely trying to cover their tracks, but they’re also having fun doing it.

There’s nothing I can do for Chanchala, so I get on the bike and head for Benedict Canyon as fast as I can.

I leave the bike a hundred yards or so down the hill and sprint the rest of the way to Lisa Thivierge’s spook house. I know I’m too late the moment I see the place.

The front door is wide open and when I stick my head into the foyer, it must be over eighty degrees inside. Someone has turned off the air conditioner and cranked the heat up all the way.

I run to Thivierge’s airlock garden room. Along the way, I trip over Maggie’s body. She has a knife in her back. There aren’t any extra flourishes to her murder, so she wasn’t the target. Just someone in the way.

When I open the door to the garden room, the first thing that hits me is the stink. It’s like an old slaughterhouse that closed shop with meat on the hooks and blood in the sluices.

Thivierge’s body isn’t hard to find. She’s still in her wheelchair, only now her arms and legs are tied to it. There’s a space heater at her feet, tilted upward, blasting out a steady stream of scorching. Her underlying flesh is bright red, but over that is a crust of blackened skin. Her tongue hangs out and her eyes are gone. Burst sometime before or after she died. After, I hope. I’ve seen a lot of vicious torture Downtown, but not so much up here. Whoever is committing these murders looks like they’ll have a successful career in a Hellion welcome committee.

It has to be Samantha. She’s what all this has been leading to. And I have to find her fast or I get the feeling more people are going to die.

There’s nothing I can do for Thivierge or the others, but maybe I could stop Samantha if I knew who the hell I was looking for. The only thing I can do now is find out everything I can about the mystery girl. And that starts with finding Thivierge’s photo albums. But the mansion is huge and I have no idea where to start looking.

Not that I get the chance.

When I start out of the garden room I hear people in the house. I get behind a pillar, hoping that Samantha might have come back to check on the carnage. No such luck.

A gaggle of L.A.’s finest are coming in through the front door, pistols drawn. I don’t wait for them to find me. I jump through a shadow, get back on the Hog, and head back to Hollywood. More squad cars pass me as I go down the winding hills. I’m careful to obey every goddamn traffic law in existence all the way back to Hollywood.

My first stop is Donut Universe, but Janet isn’t there, which is probably for the best. Right now, I don’t need a screaming argument with someone I care about. I just grab a fritter and some coffee and hunker down in the back of the place to think things over.

All of my questions led me to Samantha. My guess is that she’s the one who killed Gentry, Chanchala, and Lisa Thivierge. That’s not a question. What I can’t understand is how did a sixtysomething rich lady find out? And where did she get the skills to murder in such bloodthirsty ways? I know she had the money to hire a hit man to do it, but they’re not exactly on Yelp. And would a straightforward killer murder three people in such baroque ways?

The murders look very personal. The killings took time and even a little skill. What the hell has Samantha been doing all these years that she’s become so good at that kind of slaughter? And if it was her, maybe I’m wrong about Zadkiel’s being involved. If Samantha is capable of these murders, she could have easily turned Stein into a Black Dahlia.

I wonder if I can do location hoodoo on all the Samanthas in L.A. based on age and income and . . . who the hell am I kidding? That’s not what I’m good at. And I get the feeling if I ask Abbot he’ll laugh in my face and pull the trigger on his own murder squad. There will go all the Stay Belows in Little Cairo, along with how many civilians? No. I’ve got to work this out on my own, and do it fast. Too bad I don’t have a single idea on how.

I shove the uneaten fritter and coffee out of the way and am about to leave when my phone goes off. I don’t recognize the number, then the digits begin to move and rearrange themselves. They spell out answer me jimmy.

I thumb the phone on and say, “Who the hell is this?”

“Oh, come on. Don’t get dull on me. You know who this is.”

I instantly get a headache.

“Hello, Samael. Look, I don’t have time for you or your angel rescue mission right now.”

“But I have good news. The week I originally gave you? Father has agreed to hold off on waving the white flag for a few more days.”

I sigh and say, “I honestly don’t care right now.”

“I understand,” he says. “You’re guilty about all the mayhem you’ve instigated. Three dead already, and how many more to come?”