Kill City Blues (Sandman Slim 5)

Something crashes to the floor on the other side of the lobby, hitting hard enough to shake the Christmas tree. Candy and Father Traven have their flashlights out and shine them in the direction of the sound.

A hundred feet away, an enormous helmet has crashed to the floor. The ceiling of the lobby is twelve stories high. A mannequin Santa and reindeer, dusty chrome cherubs, and a shooting star dangle precariously on the few support wires that haven’t snapped yet.

“Did anyone see it fall?”

Heads shake and people mumble no or shrug.

“An auspicious beginning,” says Vidocq.

“One of the crazies might have dragged it here from another part of the mall and left it leaning against something,” says Delon. “They used to have a grand bazaar up here once every couple of months. It was supposed to be neutral ground during the market, but someone always violated it. With all the violence, eventually the market died. That’s when things really fell apart. The last vestiges of an organized society. Now when the crazies trade, the groups do it one-on-one and try to avoid each other the rest of the time. They’re about one inch from tribes of jungle headhunters.”

I say, “We should get moving,” to Delon.

He goes to one of the standing mall maps. It’s as tall as he is, upright and square, like one of Kubrick’s monoliths from 2001. Delon wipes fungus from the front of the map with his jacket sleeve.

“I thought you knew the mall by heart,” says Traven.

“I do,” says Delon. “I just want to make sure we’re oriented correctly.”

Everyone gets out their flashlights and clusters around him, reading off the names of the expensive shops over his shoulder. Candy comes up to me and nods at the tree.

“I told you it was Christmas. You should have given me my present.”

“That’s not a Christmas tree. That’s Swamp Thing’s summer home.”

She heads to where the others are standing. I pop the cylinder on the Colt to make sure it’s fully loaded. It is. I follow her over.

“Got it,” says Paul. He points to a “You Are Here” arrow on the map. “I know where to go from here.”

“Which way?” I say.

He points off to the left.

“Up.”

Through the green-tinged dimness I see stairs and, beside them, a two-story-high pile of garbage.

“That way.”

“Let’s get going.”

I hang back and let Delon walk point. Not that he needs any encouragement. I think he’s been looking forward to being in charge. I wonder how his brain works. He’s not a computer. He’s goddamn Stretch Armstrong. It’s not like he’s downloading video to a chip in his brain. All his memories and personality must be hoodoo Atticus stuck in his head when he was screwing the skull shut. What I really want to know is if Delon knows he’s a cuckoo clock or does he think he’s a real boy? Part of it is cheap curiosity and part of it is self-defense. I keep thinking about Trevor stepping in front of that bus. Did he do it because he knew he was replaceable or because he thought he was sacrificing himself for the Angra cause? I’d love to get hold of a Paul or Trevor or Donny Osmond or whatever other names they have and let Manimal Mike take it apart to see what makes it run.

As we climb, I can feel people’s nerves kicking in. Before this, meeting the Kill City crazies was an abstract concept. Now a machine is taking us to a meet and greet with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I have to admit that I’m a little concerned myself. As we reach each floor, I keep an eye open for shadows that might hide an ambush or ones dark enough that I can pull people into.

I say, “How far are we going?”

“Twelve floors. All the way to the top. There’s a hotel up there with views all the way from the ocean to the city.”

He sounds like a fucking real estate developer.

The empty retail spaces don’t look like they were ever stores. More like strange minimalist art. Hard geometric lines and soft fungal patches behind smashed security gates. The funny thing is that the scattered glass and broken fixtures are the only things that make the spaces look like humans built them and that anything with a frontal lobe might have wanted to go inside.

“What do you know about the Mangarms?” says Traven.

“Like I said, they’re Sub Rosa,” says Delon. “Old-world types that specialized in black magic.”

“Baleful,” says Candy.