Текст книги "Kill City Blues"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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I know what she’s getting at even if she doesn’t want to say it. Days like this I can maybe catch a bullet, she can maybe get her laptop murdered, and maybe we can go to Hell, but doing them all the same day isn’t exactly normal, even for someone as fierce as Candy.

I nod. Get a glove to put on over my Kissi hand.

“Okay, country mouse. I guess getting to Mike’s in the next ten minutes isn’t going to save the world. What did you have in mind? Shuffleboard or coupon clipping?”

She pushes me down so I’m sitting on the bed.

“How about sitting still for a whole sixty seconds. I think you have this illusion that you’re a shark. Like you think you’ll choke if you stopped moving all the time.”

“The bullet’s out. I’m all healed up inside.”

“I know that in my head, but it doesn’t feel that way yet. And I see you trying to hide the wound, so don’t bother. Can we please just be here for a minute together without weird weapons or old gods or monsters between us?”

“Come here,” I say, and pull her down on the bed. She curls around me with her leg over mine.

“I know I’m not always easy to be around,” I say.

“No. You’re fine. It’s just everything you do.”

“I should have listened to my high school guidance counselor and studied air-conditioning repair.”

“Then you’d have all those sexy jumpsuits I could wear around the place.”

“Jumpsuits aren’t sexy.”

“They are when you’re not wearing anything under them.”

She gets up and turns off the light, then comes back to bed. A few minutes later her breathing is shallow and regular. She’s asleep. I close my eyes and drift off. In my dream, I’m in the arena in Hell with the mad little ghost, Lamia. We circle each other, looking for an opening.

“Are you here to kill me?” says Lamia.

I tell her the truth.

“Only if I have to.”

Part of me feels like an idiot. Lamia looks like a little girl, nine or ten years old, wearing a blue party dress. She also has a knife as big her forearm. And the only thing keeping her from sticking me with it is that I have the 8 Ball. It’s the only thing that’s ever seemed to scare her.

But this isn’t right. This isn’t how I met Lamia. It wasn’t in the arena. It was in the Tenebrae, the limbo land of lost and desperate ghosts too afraid to move on to Heaven or Hell.

Lamia was there, radiating crazy like a Chernobyl straitjacket and stalking the place like a Sherman tank in kneesocks. She knifed ghosts in the Tenebrae and killed people back on earth, laughing the whole time.

When I asked who she was and what she wanted, all I got was schizobabble about the world before it was the world. Eventually she told me her name.

“I’m Lamia. I breathe death and spit vengeance.”

Try having a ten-year-old tell you that and knowing they mean it. It’s a Hallmark moment.

Father Traven is our resident mystical trivia expert. He used to translate books for the Church, but then he translated the wrong one. The Angra Om Ya’s bible. He got the boot for that. Excommunicated. A one-way ticket to Hell.

Father Traven thinks Lamia is a demon. A “Qliphoth,” he calls them. Not a little imp with a pitchfork and anger-management issues. A real demon is a broken thing. A mindless fragment of the old gods, the Angra Om Ya. But demons are basically morons, with about as much brainpower as an underachieving maggot. Some eat. Others dig. Others curse. But none of them choose it. It’s what they’re programmed for.

What makes Lamia special is that she’s relatively smart and chatty. You might think that’s a good thing, letting us get into a demon’s mind so we can see how the gears work and all that forensic horseshit. But it’s not good news at all.

You don’t want to get anywhere near a smart demon. A smart demon is a bigger, more powerful piece of the Angra. Lamia means that more of the old gods are leaking into our universe. How long until other smart demons break through? How long before a complete Angra?

And even though I know it’s wrong, Lamia and I are back in the arena, only she’s not slashing me. She’s slashing Candy. But I can’t protect her because even though I have the 8 Ball, I don’t know how it works. I’m helpless and useless.

I really want to ask Mr. Muninn about Lamia, but I haven’t figured out where to even start a question like that.

“Hey, Mr. Muninn, back when you were one big God, did you steal the universe from another race of older gods, lock them away somewhere, then pretend that you created everything and proceed to screw it all up for the next few billion years? Was that your plan? ’Cause if it was, mission fucking accomplished.”

CANDY IS STILL asleep when I wake up. I say her name and shake her, but she doesn’t budge. She gets like this sometimes. Some combination of being exhausted and her Jade metabolism. It’s more like she’s hibernating than sleeping. This can go on for hours. I’ll go out of my mind if I sit around that long.

I turn on the light and put on new leather pants and boots. No more button-down shirts for me. I don’t dress up for anyone. The only clean T-shirt I can find has a winking Japanese schoolgirl on the front over “I ♥ TENTACLES.” Guess who gave me that. I also grab my coat. It’s still too hot for it, but after the party at Garrett’s room I’m not going anywhere without my na’at and a gun.

Going to Manimal Mike’s place is a no-sweat trip I can do without anyone holding my hand. I leave Candy a note telling her where I am. She’ll be pissed if she wakes and finds me gone, but it’s better than lying around in the dark or watching Kasabian walk around on all fours like a Hellion windup toy.

I take the fake 8 Ball and go out through the grandfather clock. Take the elevator down to the lobby and wait for a second before going any farther.

The lobby feels all right. No hostile vibes aimed my way. The concierge nods in my direction. I nod back. Still, polite staff doesn’t mean I’m off the hook. They might be playing possum while calling security. There’s only one way to find out if the hotel still thinks that I’m Mr. Macheath, the Devil himself, and the rightful occupant of his gratis suite.

I pull out a Malediction and light it. In California, this is the equivalent of pissing into the pope’s minestrone. But aside from a few dirty looks and make-believe coughs from a family of red-faced tourists going up in the next elevator, nothing happens.

I’m safe. For another day. I’ll think I’ll order lobster and a T-bone tonight.

Time to press my luck one more time.

I go into the bar and tell them to give me a sealed bottle of Stoli. The bartender hands it over without blinking.

“Thanks. Put it on my tab.” Why not? Nothing actually ever gets charged to the Devil’s room.

When the Chateau throws us out one day, will they try to stick me with the charges for the suite and the miles of food and booze we’ve put away? Good thing I’m broke.

Even with a shower and clean clothes, I still feel a little rough around the edges. Candy was right about one thing. Sleep was a good idea even if it brought on fucked-up dreams. The blisters on my side are mostly healed, but the skin is still sensitive. It’s really putting me in the mood to punch something. Where’s a skinhead when you need one?

I go into the garage and spot a cherry-red ’68 Charger. Jam the black blade into the door and it pops opens. Jam it into the ignition and the car starts right up. I drive out into the early-evening L.A. sun, all thought of pain, the Angra, and eviction gone. Nothing improves my mood better than stealing a really nice car.

MANIMAL MIKE LIVES and works in a piece-of-shit garage in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley. Mike does his Tick-Tock Man work in the back while his cousins, a couple of straight-off-the-boat Russian muscleheads, try to look like they know what they’re doing by pretending to fix the same cars that have been sitting in the garage for years. Mike’s cousins are vucaris. Russian beast men. Kind of like what civilians call “werewolves.” Like beast men, they’re not too bright, but with the right motivation they can be trained to fetch or just get out of the way.

Mike’s cousins wanted to gnaw my hide the first time I came here. Now I’m their best friend. I toss them the Stoli on my way in and get a couple of quick spasibas before they have the cap off and are arguing over who gets the first jolt. I leave them to work that out for themselves and head for Mike’s workshop in the back.

The first time I met Mike he was committing slow-motion suicide, getting blind drunk and playing a game called Billy Flinch. It’s basically playing William Tell only you’re trying to shoot a glass off your own head by ricocheting a bullet off the opposite wall. Good thing Mike was such a lousy shot.

Nowadays Mike’s office looks less like a grease monkey’s alcoholic crash pad and more like a professional workshop. I take a little credit for that. I think promising Mike his soul back gave him the kick in the ass he needed to pull himself out of the bottle and do real work. Now I just have to figure out how to wrangle his soul out of damnation so I can give it back to him.

“Hey, Mike. How’s tricks?”

Mike must have been lost in his work. He lurches up from his seat like he wants to jump out of his own skin and into whatever kind of animal he’s building. It looks like a Nerf ball with spikes. Mike has always been high-strung. It takes him a second to catch his breath.

“Shit. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Then he remembers he’s talking to the guy he thinks is the Devil.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell.”

I shake my head.

“No worries. It’s about the nicest thing anyone’s said to me today.”

Mike’s right hand is still sort of attached to the strange Nerf animal by spiderweb-thin filaments that run from a tiny clamp in his hand to the animal’s back. The animal is gently suspended in the air in a larger web strung up between two long, curved pipes bolted to each side of a metal table. The pipes look like they might have come off a car’s exhaust system. Mike’s terrifying tools are spread out on the table. They look like things Hellions would use to perform surgery on people they don’t like very much.

Once Mike has a second to process that this is an unscheduled visit, thankfully, a smaller wave of panic sets in.

“Oh God, don’t tell me. Something went wrong with Kasabian’s hands? His legs? I swear I’ll get whatever it is working again.”

“Attempt to be cool, Mike. Kasabian is fine. What’s the story with your spiny friend?”

“It’s a puffer fish. A fugu. Some famous Sub Rosa sushi chef is in town and one of the families wants to give him a present.”

“A fish. So, if the guy made barbecue, you’d be making him a mechanical brisket?”

“No, man. Fugu is special. Like an art form. It’s loaded with this stuff called tetrodotoxin. A badass neurotoxin. Cut the fish wrong and bam. Everyone’s dead. You need a license to make it and everything.”

I shrug.

“And people pay brisk money for this stuff?”

“ ‘Brisk’ ain’t the word. It’s more like make-you-weep money.”

“I didn’t realize that civilians were as stupid as Hellions when it comes to the shit they’ll stick in their mouths.”

“I wouldn’t know about that and hope I never do.”

Mike detaches the clamp from his little fish and wipes his hands on his dirty rag.

“The commission sounds like a good thing for you. You’re moving up in the Tick-Tock world.”

“Yeah. Things are going okay. You didn’t come by just to check up on me, did you?”

Up until now I’ve been holding the 8 Ball under my arm like a loaf of bread. I take it and hold it up so he can get a good look at it.

“Nothing like that. I was wondering if you’d look at something for me. It’s a fake mystical object I’m guessing someone paid a lot of money for. I was hoping you’d have some idea who made it.”

Mike takes it gently, like he’s handling a baby duck.

“I’ll have a look but I mostly know animals. Those charm– and talisman-making assholes won’t give us the time of day. They talk about Tick-Tock Men like all we make are big-ass Tamagotchis. But we’re artists, you know?”

“I know. That’s why I brought it to you. I figure an artist knows an artist.”

Mike turns the 8 Ball over in his hands, looking over every inch of it. He pulls down a magnifier mounted on the edge of the table and examines every bolt and fastening.

“Beautiful work,” he says. “Incredible detail. And these materials. Brass-and-platinum skin over a core of surgical steel and cinnabar. You see these tiny sapphires by the base?”

He holds it up. There are a few blue specks on the 8 Ball’s belly.

“Someone’s charmed them. That’s what gives it a low-level magic signature. It’s gorgeous work. Does it have a name?”

“Qomrama Om Ya.”

“Never heard of it. I like animals.”

“If it helps, the guy had a raven in his room. Good work. Very convincing.”

Mike looks up from the magnifier.

“You didn’t happen to check under the tail feathers, did you?”

“You mean, did I look at the bird’s ass? No. It never crossed my mind. I’d go back and try, only by now the ass is probably blown halfway to Las Vegas.”

Mike goes back to the 8 Ball.

“Too bad. Lots of people sign their work in places most people don’t look. That way if the bird changes hands and needs repairs, they can find the original builder.”

“That’s truly fascinating. I’ll look under your ass if it’ll help you tell me something I can use.”

“Wait,” says Mike. “Gotcha. Right there.”

He hunches over the magnifier, holding the 8 Ball closer.

“I know who made it.”

“You sure?”

He crooks a finger at me and I go around to his side of the table. The 8 Ball is huge in the magnifier. He uses one of his delicate tools to point to a single sapphire stud.

“You see that little mark etched around the sapphire? That’s the alchemical symbol for verdigris. Only one Tick-Tock Man signs his work with that. You’ll love him. He’s a total asshole. Atticus Rose.”

“Do you have a number for him?”

Mike does a sarcastic little laugh.

“Are you kidding? Rose is a golden eagle riding a gumdrop thermal over Candy Land. On a good day I’m a snail crawling across that grease pit out front. Eagles don’t give their business cards to snails.”

“You’re not a snail, Mike. You’re at least a ferret.”

“Thanks,” he says like he actually means it. “Anyway, like I was saying, we don’t move in the same circles.”

“Who would know him?”

“The high-and-mighties. Someone who can pay the equivalent of a Lamborghini for a parakeet. Someone like Blackburn. Maybe his government or showbiz buddies. You ever party with them? Me neither.”

I take the 8 Ball back from Mike. It’s hard for him to let go. It’s like he’s fallen in love and doesn’t want to see his girlfriend carried off by a highwayman.

“I don’t party with people like that, but I know someone who might. Thanks, Mike.”

I’m halfway to the door when Mike calls after me.

“Hold up. I’ve been thinking about Kasabian.”

“Don’t do that. You’ll get lesions on your brain.”

“I figured it out. If you can get me another hellhound body, then I can modify that and then put new parts on Kasabian’s body without taking him off.”

“Great idea. I’ll stop by Costco on the way home and pick up a new hellhound. Oh, wait. They only have those in Hell.”

Mike frowns.

“It was just an idea. You don’t have to be mean about it.”

“Sorry, Mike. I was just down in Hell and it wasn’t fun. I’ll see about getting another hound, but I have other things to do first.”

“Okay. Make sure Kasabian knows it was my idea.”

“Will do.”

I go out through the garage, wave to Mike’s cousins, and climb back into the Charger. By the time I’m in, I’ve already thumbed Brigitte Bardo’s number into my phone.

BRIGITTE IS MY favorite zombie hunter in the world. Except we killed off all the zombies a few months ago and she’s been kind of at loose ends ever since. She was a big-time, classy porn star in Europe and she’s been trying to get a legit acting career going. With her looks and brains in a town like L.A., she can really work the hell out of a room. Brigitte has more phone numbers and dirt on people in her little black book than Homeland Security.

“Jimmy,” she says in her sweet Prague accent. “How lovely for you to call. How are you? Have you killed anyone interesting lately?”

“Does it count if I just happened to be in the room when the bomb went off?”

“Of course not.”

“Then no.”

She sighs.

“You’ll have to do better. I live vicariously through you these days.”

She’s only half joking. We’re both trained killers. Brigitte was trained for zombie hunting since she was a kid. Being a killer is a hard thing to walk away from and have a normal life.

“Listen. I wouldn’t normally call you with something as boring as this.”

“Boring? How could a task of yours be boring?”

“I’m trying to track someone down, and the thing is, Blackburn might know the guy, but his head of security braced me the last time I was there, so I can’t ask him.”

“So we won’t be fighting monsters or kicking in doors?”

“Right now I’m just looking for a phone number and maybe an address.”

“You were right. This is boring,” she says. “Who is it?”

“A Tick-Tock Man named Atticus Rose.”

“Are you looking for a pet? I can see you strolling down Sunset Boulevard with a lovely poodle. Or perhaps a white cockatoo on your shoulder. A very butch cockatoo, of course.”

“How do you butch up a bird? Get it a little leather cap and chaps?”

“That’s your fantasy, Jimmy. Not mine.”

“Do you think you can find me a number?”

“Of course. I can get anyone’s number. But just remember that everything comes with a price.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll call you later with Herr Rose’s information.”

“What price, Brigitte?”

Too late. The line is dead. Once a killer, always a killer.

I DITCH THE Charger by the Whisky a Go Go and walk the rest of the way back to the Chateau.

When I get back to the room, Candy is just waking up. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and stretches like a panther. She blinks when she sees me.

“Oh. I thought you were off bringing me coffee in bed. What are you dressed for?”

“I was out talking to Manimal Mike. I tried waking you.”

“Try harder next time. Where did he shoot you?”

I hold up my arms so she can see me.

“No blood. See? I made it back unmolested.”

She runs her foot up my leg to my thigh.

“Maybe we should do something about that.”

I close the bedroom door and turn up the new Skull Valley Sheep Kill album on the stereo. Kasabian doesn’t like to listen when we smash up the furniture.

AN HOUR LATER and we’ve only broken one side table. The gunshot and the blast took a little more out of me than I like to admit. I light up a Malediction and look for some Aqua Regia, but the bottle is still in the living room.

Candy is lying next to me in one of the absurdly plush hotel robes.

“So what did you and Mike talk about?”

“The 8 Ball. He says he knows who made it.”

“Great. Let’s go pay Dr. Frankenstein a visit.”

“Can’t. He didn’t have a number for the guy, so I called Brigitte.”

“She knows the guy?”

“No. But she can probably track him down.”

“Clever girl.”

“They’re the only kind worth knowing.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

We wander out to the living room. I pour some Aqua Regia into a coffee mug and Candy picks at the remains of last night’s food. We always order too much and leave the food carts along the wall buffet style. I wish we could squirrel away all the leftovers. We’re going to miss them when they kick us out.

Kasabian calls us from across the room.

“Check it out. My first client.”

“Congratulations,” says Candy.

“I didn’t even know you had the site finished.”

Kasabian is on the landing page for Aetheric Industries Psychic Investigations.

“The wonders of the cyberspace and desperate suckers,” he says. “I put the site up an hour ago and already have three inquiries and one bona fide, already-got-his-credit-card-number customer.”

“Who are you supposed to find?”

“The guy’s idiot older brother. Get this. Big brother was a hoarder and hid their dad’s gold coin collection somewhere in the house. My client doesn’t want to spend the next ten years spelunking under old pizza boxes and soggy newspapers looking for Daddy’s swag.”

Candy says, “I didn’t think you could get that kind of information. All you can do is look at things.”

“That’s right. But get this. My client thinks if I can find big bro in Hell, he can get another psychic to do a kind of Vulcan mind meld and they can talk over old times.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say.

Kasabian nods and smiles.

“I know. Isn’t it great? See, being online so much, I learned that normal desperate people are sad and boring, but stupid desperate people are a fucking riot. And some of them have money.”

“That’s not very nice,” Candy says.

“If my life was any lamer, I would have taken a nap in a trash compactor a long time ago, so forgive me for not farting kittens and rainbows.”

“I didn’t know you were that unhappy.”

“I’m not. I’m realistic about my situation. And I’m honest with my clients. I spell out exactly what I can and can’t do in the site’s disclaimer. If someone comes along and wants to pay me to do what I said I can’t, I’m not turning him down. Stupid people’s money is just as green as everyone else’s.”

“I might have been that desperate after Doc died,” says Candy. Doc Kinski was the guy who took her off the street and gave her potions to calm her Jade bloodlust. I think he was as close to a real father as she ever had. Kind of like Vidocq for me.

“Yeah, well. You might have been desperate but you’re not dumb, so it wouldn’t be the same thing,” says Kasabian. “And goddammit, can I have just one minute of happiness here before one of you points out what a monster I am and tries to shut me down? What do I have left then? I go back to finding weirder and weirder online porn just to keep my brain cells from imploding.”

“Sorry. Of course,” says Candy.

She puts a hand on his hellhound shoulder. Says, “Good luck in the Hellovision business.”

Kasabian’s eyes open a little more.

“Damn. I wish I’d thought of that name. I wonder if I can get that domain?”

“I guarantee you someone else already has it. Someone always has the cool names,” I say.

Kasabian is already typing.

“We’ll see how long they can keep it.”

I say, “Did you find anything else out about Moseley?”

He shakes his head, still looking at the screen.

“Nothing except that he kind of dropped off the face of the earth a few months ago. No employment records. No bills or utilities. Nada.”

“Thanks. Oh yeah. Mike says he has another idea on how to fix you up.”

That gets his attention.

“How?”

“Don’t get your tail bunched up, Old Yeller. It means I have to go back to Hell and maybe steal something with teeth and claws, so it’s not happening this afternoon.”

He turns back to the screen.

“Hurry up and wait. Story of my life.”

Candy looks over Kasabian’s shoulder at the screen.

“What’s the weirdest porn you ever found?” says Candy.

Kasabian gives her a serious look.

“Unless you want to wake up screaming, don’t ever ask me that again.”

“Yes, sir.”

AROUND TEN, MY phone rings. It’s Brigitte.

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself. You have an appointment with Herr Rose at three tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thanks, Brigitte. You’re my hero.”

“Don’t be so hasty. Remember I said that everything has a price?”

“Go on.”

“The price for the address is this. I’m coming with you.”

“You haven’t exactly been in the field lately. What if things get hot?”

“That’s why I’m coming. If I go to another audition without at least the chance to kill something, I’m afraid my behavior will become quite drastic. So you see, Jimmy, you’re not just doing me a favor. You’ll be doing a humanitarian service too.”

“Fine. Come along. I’m sure Candy will enjoy it. You can tell each other stories about your favorite childhood kills.”

A pause.

“That’s the rub, you see. Herr Rose is terribly claustrophobic and only ever sees a maximum of two people at a time. It’s a rule he breaks for no one.”

“No problem. He’ll be tickled pink when he finds you and Candy at his door.”

“And where will you be?”

“Coming down the chimney.”

“Through a shadow.”

“Yeah.”

“I miss seeing that.”

“You can get an eyeful tomorrow.”

“He’ll hear you and throw us out.”

“Hear me? I’ll be as quiet as a cotton-candy mouse.”

“I’m not so sure about this, Jimmy.”

“Sure you are. It’ll be fun. Dress pretty and bring your gun.”

“A man who knows how to speak to my heart.”

She gives me Rose’s address. I repeat it and Candy writes it down.

I say, “See you tomorrow, Brigitte,” and hang up.

Candy beams at me.

“I hope we get to shoot something. I haven’t had a girls’ day out in a long time.”

BEL AIR IS a neighborhood that lies just west of Beverly Hills and sees its neighbor the way that neighbor sees the rest of L.A.: as a wasteland of upstarts, criminals, and wayward teens with their bongos and jungle music. If the sun ever set in Bel Air, no one would notice because its homes and residents are so luminous they’d light the night sky all on their own. It’s a land where the gold standard never died and the roads are so clean you could perform open-heart surgery on any street corner.

Candy and I emerge from the shadow of a lamppost so pristine it could’ve been put there this morning. We’re on North Beverly Glen Boulevard, across the street from the address Brigitte gave me.

The place is called Clear, an old upscale faux-Gothic hotel rebranded by one snotty nouveau chic chain or the other. The residents of these hotels are always the same. Oblivious executives in town for a day to make another billion because the billions they have aren’t enough. Handsome young lovers so bursting with happiness and privilege that you want to punch the DNA that created them. And old long-term residents baffled by the bright lights and excited plastic-surgeried crowds rushing in and out of the place 24/7. Clear reminds me of palaces I saw in Hell, but in worse taste.

Brigitte is in the lobby. She’s a knockout in a short green sequin dress and pearls and a little silver clutch purse just big enough for her CO₂ pistol. She looks like a flapper ninja. Candy is in her usual too-big leather jacket and Chuck Taylors. I’m in a frockcoat with guns. Which two of us don’t look like we belong in the Clear?

Brigitte kisses Candy and me on both cheeks. Candy says something to her that I miss and they both start laughing. They’re giddy at the idea they’re going to see some action. I’m hoping we don’t. And if something happens, fingers crossed that we don’t start it, and by “we,” I mean them.

We ride the elevator to the twelfth floor, go left, and walk almost to the end of the corridor.

“Herr Rose has two rooms, 1210 and 1212. But we’ve been instructed to knock only on 1210,” says Brigitte.

“Easy to remember,” I say. “Twelve-ten. When they signed the Magna Carta.”

Both women look at me.

“Don’t look at me like that. There was nothing to do in Hell but hide and read books. Is that a crime?”

Candy says, “Marcus Aurelius and now the Magna Carta? I’m starting to think that bullet unleashed your inner geek.”

“I had an inner geek once. But a doctor lanced it and it went away.”

“Call an ambulance. It’s growing back.”

Brigitte smiles.

“You two are charming together.”

“I was plenty charming all on my own,” says Candy. “I’m just carrying the geek so he doesn’t cut himself on a bullet and bleed to death.”

“Are you two done? I knew I should never let you near each other.”

Brigitte says, “I think he just called us . . . What’s the word?”

“Brats,” says Candy.

“Yes. Brats.”

“That’s because you are brats.”

“And who’s more foolish? The brats or the man who invites the brats to a gunfight?” says Brigitte.

“No gunfights. I didn’t invite anyone to a gunfight. This is a normal everyday ambush, not the O.K. Corral.”

“If you’re going to be boring about it, at least be entertaining. Disappear into one of your shadows while we distract Rose with our wiles.”

“Yeah,” says Candy. “The wiles girls are in business.”

She loops her arm in Brigitte’s.

I walk into a shadow by a picture window down the hall, surer than ever that I should have worn body armor.

I STILL HATE walking into unknown rooms, but I’ve never heard of a dangerous Tick-Tock Man, so I’m more likely to walk in on a game of Dungeons & Dragons than bearbaiting.

I come out in a room that reminds me of Garrett’s. A generically elegant place, but a little more old school than his was. The wood looks like wood instead of veneer and the paintings look real instead of like overpriced prints.

Rose has two adjoining apartments. One for living and one for a workspace. The guy is either loaded or his rental agreement is so old it’s written on parchment and he pays for it with shells and brightly colored beads.

He must be one of those genius types, like Tesla. Guys who would rather live in a hotel than have their own home. Live somewhere they know the sheets and towels will always be clean and where they can get a grilled-cheese sandwich from room service at four A.M. Because we’re in Bel Air, I want to hate his setup, but the truth is, I understand the addiction. I love squatting in the Chateau Marmont. Plus, I never told anyone, but part of me is happy that so many of my clothes end up burned, slashed, shot up, or generally too bloody to deal with. It’s a great excuse never to do laundry. I can deal with fighting in the arena in Hell, but laundry and dishes put the fear of God in me.

I can hear Rose in his workroom, so I stay out of sight in his living quarters.

At three on the dot there’s a knock. Rose goes to open the door and I get my first look at him.

He’s an older guy but not over the hill. In his early sixties maybe. Long, salt-and-pepper hair combed back from his forehead and over his ears. I see lab coats on the wall, but he knows company is coming, so he’s wearing a pressed, old-fashioned, forties-style high-waisted blue suit and tie with a diamond pattern down the center. He could have stepped right off the set of Out of the Past.

He opens the door and there are Candy and Brigitte, carpet-bombing him with their wiles. Old Rose can’t help but smile.

“Knock knock,” says Brigitte.

“You must Mr. Blackburn’s friends.”

“You bet,” says Candy. “Can we come in? We don’t bite.”

“Of course. Please come in.”