The Perdition Score (Sandman Slim 8)

“That’s all you’re going to tell me, isn’t it?”

“There are rules to these things. Heaven and Hell are well off my roads, but if you’re determined not to die to get there, it’s the best I can do.”

She strolls back to her car and I hold the door open for her as she gets in. The backseat of the Porsche is completely full of burger bags, candy wrappers, and empty cigarette packs.

I look down at her.

“I hope the snacks and smokes will hold you until I get back.”

She reaches up and pats my cheek.

“Just make sure you come back, Mr. Stark. You owe me a car.”

“I’ll always come back for you, Sally.”

“And I’ll always be here for you.”

She blows me a kiss, finds an opening in the traffic, and peels rubber out into the night.

I sit there on the shoulder for a while. I’m not a goddess. I can’t flit my way through traffic like a heavy-metal butterfly and nobody is going to slow down to let someone like me in front of them.

Muninn is in Heaven. And what the hell does “Sometimes the most complicated way is the easiest” mean?

I just traded away my car for a fortune cookie.

Finally there’s an opening. I gun my way onto the freeway and pick up Candy at Vidocq and Allegra’s. Brigitte is already there, wearing her pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Are you two going to be all right?” Allegra says.

“Right as rain,” says Candy.

Allegra hugs her.

Brigitte doesn’t say anything. Just kisses both of us on the cheek. She’s a killer. She knows what’s what and how badly this could go.

Allegra gives us little waves as we leave.

Candy waves back. I give them a wink. Bullshit confidence on a bullshit night.

We get on the bike and head home. Neither of us is wearing a helmet, but I plan to blast out the tires of anyone who tries to stop us. Knowing I might get to shoot something, and with the warm spring night, it’s a nice ride back to Max Overdrive.

THERE’S ONLY ONE thing Sally could have meant about Muninn helping us. There must be something in his old shop that we can use to get Downtown.

We arrive at the Bradbury Building at around ten in the morning. Not so early that people will notice. A good time of day to blend in with the crowd.

We spent the night going through my guns, dipping everything in Spiritus Dei. Candy dipped her black blade in the stuff, so I dipped mine for luck. I packed the Colt and put a handful of speed loaders in one pocket. Put a stolen Glock in an old holster I cut from a leather tool belt. Candy got the Benelli shotgun I took off a dead Nazi piece of shit last Christmas. It fits nicely under the old coat I wore when I first got back to L.A. It’s big on Candy, but there are motocross pads in the sleeves and sides, so it should protect her if things get physical.

We’re not exactly inconspicuous when we walk into the Bradbury, but enough movies and TV have been shot here that people are most likely going to take us for a couple of eccentric show-biz nitwits location-scouting the place.

It’s a few minutes of milling around on the first floor before we can get on one of the metal art deco elevators alone. We take it up to the fifth floor, but when it stops we don’t get off. I press the one and three buttons simultaneously and the elevator starts down again.

When it stops, we get off. The thirteenth floor is completely dark. The first time I was here, the shop we want at least had candles in the window. Now it looks like the whole floor has been deserted since Mr. Muninn left.

“Where are we?” says Candy.

I point to a dusty shop ahead that looks like a cross between a Beverly Hills Pier 1 and the back room of the world’s saddest auction house.

“This used to be Mr. Muninn’s shop. Once upon a time, he was a kind of antiques dealer.”