Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim 1)

He shrugs. Looks down. Shakes his head.

"Come on, man. That's not even a real question. Going against Mason feels like you're going against the devil."

I can't read a dead man like a living one. No heartbeat. No breath. Fixed pupils. But I don't need any of that now.

"I believe you," I tell him. "And Mason isn't the devil. He just likes to play dress-up. Tell me where he is and I'll get him for both of us."

"I don't know where he is exactly. It was sort of like here. Spooky and wrong, but a lot weirder. Somewhere far away and dark. Not regular dark, either. Dark like it had no idea what light even was. Like light was Kryptonite to the place. There was no one there, but it wasn't empty. In fact, it was crowded. But it was full of nothing." He holds up his hands in frustration. "If any of that makes sense."

Thunder rolls down the mountains again. A dot of light appears at the base of one a couple of miles away. A door has opened. I take Kasabian by the arm and start walking him that way.

"Listen, when you get to Hell, look up a guy named Belial. He's one of Lucifer's generals. Tell him I sent you and ask him for a job. Tell him I said not to send you to the pits."

"The pits?" asks Kasabian. "What pits?"

"When you tell him who sent you, make sure you tell him it was Sandman Slim. And remind him that the Sandman knows where he lives."

Kasabian gives me a look.

"What the fuck is Sandman Slim? It sounds like a Japanese cartoon."

"Just tell him," I say, and let go of his arm. "This is as far as I go. I have things to do back in the world."

Kasabian looks at the door and then at me.

"I know," he says. He turns and heads for the mountain. "I'll see you around."

"Probably."

Flat on my back again. I gulp and the crow feather almost goes down my throat. Rolling over, I spit it onto the floor. Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

I'm not bleeding anymore, but I'm a mess. Again. Besides getting my ass kicked, my main accomplishment on this trip has been to massacre an incredible number of completely innocent clothes. I'm the Joseph Stalin of laundry. I take off the shirt, toss it onto a pile of other junk, and slip on the silk overcoat.

My ears are still ringing, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any sirens headed this way (the crackheads aren't going to call it in and who else hangs out here at night?). But some passing Joe Citizen could call in the noise. And the morning crew will be opening the place at eleven tomorrow. I can't leave Kasabian's corpse lying here. First, I have to find something.

I find it under the splinters of the bedside table. Alice's magic box. It's been crushed a little by the blast. Inside, the bloody cotton has come loose, but it's still in one piece. I put it under the bed, near the wall.

I pull the blanket off the bed, roll up the body, and use some duct tape I get from behind the counter to hold the blanket tight. I take Kasabian downstairs and out the back way. Also grab a couple of cinder blocks that the day crew uses when they're on a cigarette break. I'm trying very hard not to think about anything I'm doing. Of all the iffy things I've ever done in my life, I've never had to ditch a body before. While it's giving me a migraine right now, I think the fact that I'm not an expert on corpse disposal says a lot of good things about me and my life choices.

About a block away, I find a shiny new BMW SUV, which is way too many random letters strung together. It makes me feel less guilty about stealing it.

I drive it around the block, pull up to Max Overdrive, and load the body and the cinder blocks in the back. Then I drive to Fairfax and turn south. At Wilshire, I make a left and hit the gas until I see mammoths.

Animals have been falling into the La Brea Tar Pits since the last ice age. Not so much recently, since the pits are fenced in and part of a pretty slice of upscale urban green called Hancock Park. There's a big museum. A lot of wolf skulls and bird bones. A gift shop. And, soon, a dead video store-owning ex-magician.

There's not a lot of traffic on this part of Wilshire late at night. I hop the curb and pull the van up onto the brick walkway that leads to the museum. When I figure out which light pole I want, I gun the engine and smash the BMW into it at full speed. The van's windshield and front bumper are totaled. Steam billows from under the hood. The good news is that the pole with the surveillance camera is now a big aluminum toothpick by the museum's front door.

If you ever need to weigh down a dead body, remember that it's not hard duct-taping cinder blocks to a stiff, but it is hard getting them balanced right. I'm sure that with enough time and practice, I could come up with a corpse-cinder-block arrangement stable enough that a tightrope walker could use it, but I don't have time for that now. I'm parked on a major thoroughfare in a stolen van. I have no shirt, an expensive overcoat, and fresh scars on my wrists. And I'm dragging around a dead guy accessorized with building materials. This is not a precise or subtle situation. This is a situation for mindless violence and brute force. First good news I've had all day.

I get Kasabian's weighted body onto my shoulder and haul it out of the van. I drop him on his back a few yards outside the fence. I stoop and grab the body by the ankles, then I start spinning, holding the body like the hammer in a hammer throw. After a few revolutions, I'm dizzy, but have a pretty good head of steam up. When I release him, Kasabian goes flying. He sails through the air end over end, like some long-forgotten Russian space probe returning to Earth, off course and out of control.

The body hits the tar with a thick, dull thunk. At first, it doesn't move. Kasabian floats on the surface defiantly, a corpse burrito refusing to sink. Demanding to be eaten by one of the local dinosaurs lying at the bottom of the pit. Finally, he realizes how unreasonable he's being, and starts to go under. Slowly. Very slowly. Kasabian's head disappears. Then his gut. When all that's left of him above the surface are his shins and feet, I leave. Even if the surface of the tar lake is disturbed in the morning, I think the police will be more interested in the stolen van.

It's a long, exhausting walk back to Max Overdrive. When I get back to the room, all I can do is flip the mattress clean side up. I don't bother taking off the overcoat. I lie down in it and get some clean towels from the bathroom to use as a pillow.

All night long, the song someone played once at the Bamboo House of Dolls loops in my head.

"Set me adrift and I'm lost over there