Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

Hollywood Boulevard is long and the side streets aren’t always well lit. You’d be surprised how cheap rich people can be when it comes to parking. They’d rather leave a half-million-dollar Lamborghini in a drugstore parking lot after hours than pay a valet fifteen bucks. Their car insurance payments are what most people put out for a mortgage, and they pay them for the privilege of being stupid, so they can leave their car on the street alone and unprotected, like a four-wheel Red Riding Hood waiting for a wolf like me. I’m doing people like that a favor when I take their cars. Every time stupid rich people get ripped off, it makes them feel better about hating poor people. All they did was leave the equivalent of a big pile of cash by a parking meter, and when they came back, they were horrified to find it was gone. Leaving their stuff out for people to steal proves to them that people want to steal their stuff. Fear is like curling up under a warm blanket for some people, especially the rich.

Something evil and full of testosterone must be smiling down on me tonight. About half a block from Sunset on Cahuenga Boulevard, parked right out in the street like Grandma’s Camry, is a silver Bugatti Veyron 16.4. An easy two million dollars in precision engineering and eyeball kicks. If Hugh Hefner designed the Space Shuttle, it would look like the Veyron. Luke Skywalker would be conceived in the backseat of this car, if it had a backseat.

The Veyron is stuffed with more tech than a particle accelerator, so the black blade won’t get me through the electronic lock without alerting every screaming bit of it. Fortunately, this isn’t the first time the genius who owns the car has left it out in the open. A thin layer of dust covers the top. Just enough for me to draw in. I face west and move my finger slowly over the swept-back plastic roof, trying not to trip the alarm. I finish with a counterclockwise twist on Murmur’s sigil. Murmur is a big-mouth Hellion prick with a voice like a 747 engine, but when you reverse his name, you can hear a pin drop from a mile away. When I’m done, I give the car a good shove. It rocks for a second, the lights flutter as the alarm tries to activate, but it gives up and dies. I slip inside through a shadow, jam the black blade into the ignition, and start it up. There’s something very satisfying about stabbing two million dollars in the heart.

Murmur’s silence fills the car inside and out. My brain starts to untangle after a long, weird day.

Which is good and bad. It leaves me asking the big question I need answered: Why is Lucifer in L.A.? There’s nothing I’ve picked up from Kasabian that gives me a clue, and he can’t lie as well as a five-year-old. Have I done anything to piss Lucifer off or make him especially happy lately? Not that I know of. I haven’t done anything for him at all except take his cash. His retainer checks are a decent amount of money, and if I didn’t piss it all away on the big black money pit that is Max Overload, I’d be doing all right. If I was a regular desk monkey with a regular apartment and a used Honda Civic, I’d be living pretty well. But I like my little tree fort. Any more room and I’d get lost. Vidocq would find me a week later, starving and hallucinating in the breakfast nook. Max Overload is all I need or want. There’s a bed, a closet, a bathroom, and a million movies downstairs. I didn’t crawl out of Hell to hit the pillow sales at Bed, Bath & Beyond. I have a hard enough time keeping clothes for more than a week.

So, what the hell does Lucifer want? I don’t have my gun or the na’at with me, which is probably just as well. I have the black knife and the stone Lucifer gave me the last time we saw each other. I tested it. I’ve thrown every kind of magic I can think of at it and it seems to just be a rock. I don’t know why I carry the damned thing around. Superstition, maybe. When the devil tells you you might need something someday, I figure it pays to listen. Between the rock, Azazel’s knife, the na’at, Mason’s lighter, and Kasabian’s head, I’m starting to feel like a Gnostic junkyard.

As I cruise the streets, my mind wanders. Never a good idea. An image of Alice tries to form in my brain, but I concentrate on the lights, the billboards, and the other cars and it goes away. I spend a fair amount of time and energy not thinking about Alice these days. On the other hand, I think about Mason all the time. I know Kasabian knows more about Mason than he’s telling me. I’d love to get some alone time with the Daimonion Codex, but I’m not willing to get my head cut off for the privilege.

THE KISSI I don’t think about much, but I dream about them. Their vinegar reek chokes me while their fingers dig around inside my chest like bony worms.

I PUSH A recessed sci-fi button on the armrest and one of the Veyron’s windows slides down silently, like a tinted ghost. I turn off Hollywood Boulevard onto Sunset, go about half a block, and flip a James Bond U-turn in the middle of the street. Kick the Veyron back into gear and burn rubber to the little strip mall where Doc Kinski’s clinic is located. The Veyron bottoms out as I turn into the parking lot. A couple of local geniuses have broken into the doc’s office and are carrying out armloads of junk. Nice timing. I’m just in the mood to hit someone.

I throw open the door and come around the car looking for which one to smack first and all the fun goes out of it. It isn’t thieves after all. It’s Kinski and Candy. They’re loading boxes of scrolls and the doc’s strange medicines and elixirs. They’re as surprised to see me as I am seeing them. We all just stand there looking at each other for a minute like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. I threw a perfectly good cigarette out the window for this. The doc hands a box to Candy. She keeps loading while he comes over to talk to me.

“Nice to see you, doc. I don’t suppose you got any of the like fifty messages I left you? With most people I’d stop calling, but I used to think we were friends. Then after a while I kept calling because I was plain pissed off and thought I’d spread the joy.”

“Things have been a little crazy. Sorry. We’re doing a lot of work away from the clinic.”

“So I noticed.”

Candy is carrying smaller and smaller boxes one at a time to the car so she doesn’t have to come over. I give her a big talk-show smile.

“Hi. How are you?”

She stops loading for a second, but stays by the rear of the car.

“Okay. How have you been?”

“Getting my arm about burned off and the rest of me beat to shit by vampires. I was hoping maybe one of you would return my call and help me out with that since that’s what I thought you did for a living. Don’t worry, though. I got some Bactine.”

“Problem solved, then,” says Kinski.

“I hope you’re doing some superfine doctoring wherever it is you’ve been going. You better have figured out how to cure cancer with ice cream or something ’cause your reputation is going to shit around here.”

Kinski takes a step closer, speaking quietly.

“There’s a lot going on in the world that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you’re always going to get burned up. Or your ass kicked by vampires. Sinatra sings ‘My Way’ and you crack your ribs. You’re a walking disaster area and I can’t fix that for you.”

“Thanks all to hell, doc. You’re a real chip off the Hippocratic oath. I’d ask you for a referral to another doctor but L.A. is full of assholes, so it shouldn’t be hard to find one.”

“You want some advice? Start stealing ambulances instead of flashy cars. Allegra can take care of you until we get back. That’s all I can do for you right now.”

“Where is it you need to be so fast? Are you two okay?”

“Candy and I need to be elsewhere. We need to be there soon, and standing here talking to you isn’t getting us any closer.”

Kinski goes to his car and Candy gets inside. I walk around to the passenger side and look in the window at her. She looks at me, away, and then back. There’s something in her eyes that I can’t quite figure out. It’s more than being uncomfortable about when we kissed at Avila, but I can’t tell what. Did she fall off the wagon again and kill someone?

Kinski starts the car and guns the engine. He takes the brake off, and I step out of the way so he can line up the car for the street. I’m getting back in the Veyron when I hear a car door open and slam shut. A second later Candy is next to me. She grabs me around the neck.