Kill City Blues (Sandman Slim 5)

“It’s okay,” I say.

Candy and Brigitte get up from the floor. I was expecting the hotel sprinklers to go off until I see that they’re melted and fused to the ceiling.

Except for us, the room is a charred pile of splinters and crispy critters. I look at Brigitte and nod at the apartment door.

“You wanted to kick a door in.”

She smiles and blows the lock off with her pistol. Kicks the door open, throws herself forward, and rolls upright, her gun out. It’s nice when those reflexes kick back in. Not that they’re going to do us much good. The door to the hall is open. I close it and kick a rug against the crack at the bottom so the smoke from the workroom doesn’t set off the hall fire alarm.

Rose is long gone. My guess is he won’t be coming back. Keeping wild animals and bloody cyborgs in a room charred like a bad night in Dresden might violate the terms of his lease.

Candy is back to human again.

“You all right?” she says.

“Fine. You?”

“Coolio.”

“Brigitte. How are you doing?”

“Lovely,” she says. “I haven’t had this much fun in months.”

Her necklace is broken, dripping pearls onto the floor. Her face and arms are scratched and bleeding, covered in soot. But she smiles like it’s New Year’s Eve.

“Thank you for bringing me along, Jimmy.”

“Thank you for saving my ass back there.”

“That was fun,” says Candy. “Do we get to trash this place too?”

“No. The workshop won’t do us any good, so look around here for anything like customer records or names or phone numbers. Any papers that look important.”

After half an hour no one comes up with a single useful thing. Brigitte steals a mechanical parakeet in the bedroom and names it Szamanka. Candy thumbs through a big leather-bound book.

“I think this is the book Atticus was talking about,” she says. “It has all kinds of drawings of the 8 Ball.”

She hands it to me.

I was expecting a moldy, crumbling relic. But the book doesn’t look more than a few years old. I put it under my arm and say, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take this to Father Traven.”

“I can take it to Liam, if you like,” says Brigitte. “I’ll be seeing him tonight.”

I look at Candy. She moves her head microscopically. A secret nod. So that’s who Brigitte is seeing. Two nice Catholic kids. A killer and an excommunicated priest. Sounds like a match made in Heaven.

“You should come and see him soon,” Brigitte says. “The weight of things is hard on him. I think he drinks too much these days.”

“How about tomorrow?” says Candy. “Perfect. He’ll be happy to see you.”

“I didn’t just get eaten by a bear,” I say. “I’ll be happy to see anyone.”

MAYBE HAPPY ISN’T the right word. Maybe relieved is better. There isn’t a lot to be happy about. Yeah, it was fun busting up the Tick-Tock Man’s place, but now I’m back to square one. All my leads are blown up, burned down, run off, or dead, or as dead as a windup toy can be. Declan Garrett is still around, but he was trying to buy the 8 Ball from two different sources, so it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have it. I haven’t even heard anything useful about Aelita or Medea. I think all I’ve really accomplished in the last month is making Mr. Muninn really depressed. I’m nowhere. More wasted time. Why am I doing this? I’m ridiculous. No one cares. Most people don’t even believe the Angra exist much less are coming back. Hell, I’m starting to wonder myself. Am I playing this game because I’ve run out of legitimate things to kill? No. I saw Lamia and I know she was real, so the Angra are real. Still, maybe it’s time to just walk away and let things work themselves out. We die or we don’t. I’ve been there before. Will I have time to shout one last “I told you so” when the Angra burn the world? That’s a hell of a last request. Maybe I should have given Candy her Christmas present after all. I need a drink.

WE DECIDE TO meet at Bamboo House of Dolls. It’s a holy place. My second home. The best bar in L.A. A punk tiki joint. Old Germs, Circle Jerks, Iggy & The Stooges posters on the wall. Plastic palm trees around the liquor bottles. Coconut bowls for peanuts. Martin Denny and Les Baxter on the jukebox. And there’s Carlos, the bartender, mixing drinks in a Hawaiian shirt. I met him my first day back from Hell. Helped him out with a skinhead problem and now I drink for free. Ain’t life grand?

“Sir Galahad returns,” he says when he sees me. “How’s the saving-the-world biz?”

“Slow. But it’s a growth industry. I expect a lot of investors when Godzilla takes a shit on Disneyland.”