Текст книги "Kill City Blues"

Автор книги: Richard Kadrey

Соавторы: Richard Kadrey,Richard Kadrey
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These four are laughing together at a table, passing around a bottle of expensive bourbon. Old Cold Cases keep a low profile, but these guys are young and out to show off their wealth. Sharkskin suits. Bright ankle-length coats. Italian shoes and enough blood diamonds on their fingers and ears to finance a third-world coup.

“See their belts?” says Carlos. “They carry souls around with them these days. It’s a status thing. Like how crazy GIs used to carry strings of dead enemies’ ears.”

I didn’t notice it at first but he’s right. They’re all wearing skinny belts from which dangle small glowing bottles.

Carlos says, “What they do is bad enough, but flaunting and disrespecting people’s souls like that, it’s a sin, man. A goddamn sin.”

“They good customers?”

“If I lose all my Cold Case trade, good riddance. All they do is complain about whatever I serve them. They want to hang out late at night? Let them go to Denny’s.”

“Okay.”

I down my shot and head for their table, shouldering my way through the crowd. Pushing. Stepping on toes. I want them to see me coming. I want everyone to see me coming.

All four look up when I reach the table, but none of them move.

“Hi. I’m with the IRS. This is just a spot check see if you’ve paid this quarter’s asshole tax.”

I hold out my hand to the one closest. He has a pretty-boy face but bad-news eyes. He’s the one in greenish sharkskin. He has the sleeves of his jacket pushed up to his elbows, eighties’ style. That alone is enough for me to punch him.

I say, “I’m going to need to see some ID, sir.”

His mean little eyes narrow.

“Who the hell are you? There are four of us, faggot.”

I smile.

“Aw, I’m just kidding. You boys look like fun. Is that good? You don’t mind, do you?”

I grab the bottle of bourbon and get a good mouthful. Make a face and spit it all over Mr. Sharkskin’s suit.

“How can you drink that shit?”

I gesture with the bottle like a low-IQ drunk, splashing whiskey all over the table and Sharkskin’s friends. All three get up, kicking their chairs back. I wait for one of them to reach into his jacket for a gun, but it doesn’t happen. They’re so used to being protected they’re not even armed.

I take out a cigarette, spark Mason Faim’s lighter, and let it fall on the table. Spilled bourbon flares up and burns with a pretty blue flame. I grab Mason’s lighter and kick the burning table at the three friends. Grab the sharkskin and drag him to the middle of the bar. The place clears out like we’re a bride and groom about to have our first dance. “Yadokari” by Meiko Kaji plays on the jukebox, all brittle guitar and her sad voice over lush strings.

Thoroughly kicking someone’s ass is a kind of statement, but it’s small-time, like a “Beware of Dog” sign. Sometimes you need to make a point that people can see from space. That kind of point is the opposite of a beating. It doesn’t come from what you do but what people remember, so the less you do the better.

I bark a Hellion hex and Mr. Sharkskin rises into the air, flushed with pus-yellow light so bright you can see his bones. His belt and shoes drop off. Jewelry and bottled souls tinkle to the floor. Another bit of Hellion and his clothes catch fire, flaming off him in an instant, like flash paper.

This is showy arena hoodoo. I used to do stuff like this to opponents in Hell who really pissed me off. It’s supposed to embarrass more than hurt.

Next, his skin does a slow-motion version of what just happened to his clothes. Starting at his hands and feet and moving inward, his skin peels away like a spray-on tan snowstorm. He hangs in the air like a trembling anatomy chart from a Bio 101 textbook.

“Take off your clothes,” I tell his friends. “Or I’ll burn them off like his.”

His friends aren’t dumb. They can’t wait to get bare-assed in front of a bar full of total strangers. The only thing they’re careful with are their own soul bottles. They set them on their clothes like eggs nestled in henhouse nests.

I go back to the floater. I hope people are listening and not just looking. This won’t work if no one hears me.

“I know you have the Qomrama Om Ya. Don’t bother denying it. You have forty-eight hours to bring it to me. If I don’t get it, I’ll peel you down to your bones. And I’ll take my time. You understand me?”

His three friends say, “Yes.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

I pull the floater’s big toe. His shell-shocked eyes turn down to meet mine.

“Do you understand me?”

He nods.

I bark more Hellion and the shreds of his skin float back to his body. But not his clothes. Those are ashes. The rest was an illusion. You can’t really peel a civilian’s skin off. I’ve seen it tried. Their hearts explode or they stroke out. However it happens, they always die, and dying isn’t the statement I want to make today. Today is about wounding. Making the floater’s buddies have to carry him home and explain to their bosses what happened and what I said. The rest of the bar is going to call everyone they know and tell them what they saw and heard. Clever me. I just phoned my demands to everyone in L.A. without using up any of my monthly minutes.

When Mr. Sharkskin looks human again, I drop him. He hits the floor and curls up in a fetal position on a pile of ashes, surrounded by his glowing bottles.

“Hey, Father. Want to save some souls?”

I stomp on a glowing bottle and crush it. There’s a soft sigh as cobalt-blue smoke escapes, rising, spreading, and dissipating. One soul set free.

Traven happily crushes a bottle. Candy throws one against the wall. Brigitte, Vidocq, and Allegra start breaking them, and in a second the whole lousy bar is doing a drunken Riverdance on the rest of the bottles. The place fills with bright blue wisps that rise to the ceiling and vanish.

I burn the rest of the other three Cold Cases’ clothes with a curse. Fish around in my pockets, and between Candy and me we come up with eight dollars. I toss it to the naked idiots.

“Bus fare, assholes. Get out.”

They do. Dragging comatose Mr. Sharkskin off the floor and carrying him outside.

I go to the bar and Carlos pours me an Aqua Regia. I drink it slowly. It gives the Cold Cases enough time to get out and, if they’re lucky, hail a cab that’s going to jack them up for a huge tip.

A good exit is an essential part of making a statement. But you can’t walk out after roughing up just one guy. People might think you had a grudge. To drive the statement home you have to spread the pain. I don’t mean burn anyone else’s clothes off, just make it clear that the statement is for everyone within earshot.

There’s a couple of Foxy Reynards by the door. Hoodoo con men. You ever wonder why tourists on Hollywood Boulevard play three-card monte with guys at bus stops, knowing they’re going to lose? The Reynards’ swindle isn’t the game. Any idiot can learn to palm a card. The Reynards win because they make you want to play even when you know you can’t win.

I collar the older of the two.

“The same goes for you as those other lowlifes. If you know who has the 8 Ball, urge them in the strongest terms to hand it over because I’m coming for you next. Let’s see how many of you bad dogs the city pound can neuter.”

Now it’s time to go.

I wait at the corner and light a Malediction. The others catch up to me a few seconds later. It’s laughs all around. For once, even Allegra doesn’t look mad at me.

I DON’T HEAR a word from the Cold Cases. No one sees any of them for the next few days. Not at any of their usual bars or restaurants or even their Wilshire Boulevard business offices. An entire industry gone to ground.

I’m not entirely surprised they ducked out. If they’re going to try any retaliation, they’re not going to do it themselves. They’ll hire someone and they’ll want a good alibi when it happens. Not that I’m sitting around waiting for a piano to mysteriously fall on my head. I hit gangs every day for the next week, sometimes two a day.

First, a big Nahual smash-and-grab collective. Their clubhouse looks like the dumbest garage sale in the world. Everything from diamonds and gold-plated tire rims to broken clock radios and dusty cassette players that have been sitting around unsold since before Atlantis pissed off to the bottom of the ocean.

I hit a couple of Ludere underground casinos. Besides gambling, they launder money for L.A.’s unsavory Sub Rosa and civilian swells. That one’s sure to come back and bite me in the ass, but it was too much fun flipping the roulette and blackjack tables, like rock-and-roll Jesus versus the moneychangers.

I hit a Wise Blood coven, part of a ring selling bootleg potions. Some stolen but most nothing more than colored water and a little laudanum or strychnine for a kick. Imagine going to some old bruja to cure Granny’s cancer and getting something as useful as a Diet Coke.

I don’t let civilians off the hook. I slap around some ghost agents in the Valley. Third-rate shit birds that buy and sell the wild-blue-yonder contracts of B-list celebrities. Everyone who thinks they’re anyone has a blue-yonder contract these days. It sets up their ghost with a talent agency so they can keep working after they’re dead. If you’re Marilyn or Elvis, it’s a sweet deal. If you’re a presidential candidate who lost, a one-hit-wonder singer, or someone who played the wacky neighbor on a forgotten sitcom, not so much. Your contracts gets sold off to small fries who put your ghost on the carny circuit, starring you in celebrity bum fights or snuff flicks.

I give each gang a different deadline. One day. Three. A week. Confusion is its own kind of statement, whether it’s in the gangs or on the street. Fear and anarchy. Tons of fun. Maybe one of the gangs can put a bullet in me, but they know I’m hard to kill, and when I’m better I can step out of any shadow and hack off a part of them that they like.

I have to admit, it’s fun busting heads. It feels like I’m becoming me again. Playing around with the Mike Hammer sleuth stuff can be fun, but it’s not what I’m best at. Even the angel part of me, the smart and reasonable part, gets sick of it, especially when the clues and rumors don’t go anywhere.

I know letting the arena part of my personality loose in the regular world isn’t a good thing, but sometimes holding it back makes my head fill up with so much poison and fury that I want to rip it off. Candy understands, but being around me makes her all too ready to go Jade and start tearing into people, and I don’t want to encourage that. All the fun and games she plays with the world . . . I know that underneath it all she feels like I do. She needs to let the beast out now and then or she’ll die. It’s why we’re good together. Neither one of us is afraid of the other because looking at ourselves, we’ve seen the worst about what the other can be.

To tell the truth I’m not even sure sometimes if I’m laying into these gangsters to get info on the 8 Ball or just to pay back the world for hiding it from me. I don’t want to be the goddamn savior of mankind. I’m barely over wanting to snuff the world myself. I know where the Mithras is—the first fire in the universe, the fire I could let loose and burn all of existence to ashes. I don’t think I’d ever use it, but it’s comforting to know that if the Angra come back and start tearing the universe apart, I could. I wonder if I’d last long enough in the flames that when the universe is gone I could set off the singularity, Mr. Muninn’s backup plan. It’s a sort of big bang in a box that will trigger a new universe into being. I wouldn’t be there and neither would Candy or Vidocq or God or the others, but it could still be a sweet revenge on everyone. Burn the world. Barbecue Heaven and Hell, the Angra, and everything else, and then start something new. Maybe better. Maybe worse. But something that fucks over every holier-than-thou son of a bitch in existence. Reset creation to zero and let it go again.

The idea that maybe I can save Candy the way I couldn’t save Alice is what lets me sleep at night. My friends are what make me wake up and start punching things because there’s no way I’m going to lie down and let some old gods or whoever is hiding the 8 Ball walk away without a limp. I’ll die and crawl out of Hell and do it again and again until there’s nothing left of one of us. Unto the fucking end of fucking time. Hallelujah.

A COUPLE OF days later, Candy and I are walking back to the Chateau after I ditch the Audi we used to crash a necromancer key party. You haven’t lived until you’ve busted in on a bunch of naked, pasty-ass necromancers going Playboy After Dark on a roomful of reanimated corpses. I don’t have to make any threats at this point. Everyone knows what I’m there for. Candy and I just steal some beers and leave them to their smelly fun.

It’s early evening. The streetlights have just come on. There’s a crowd in front of the Chateau. The police have the front of the place cordoned off. Techs from the bomb squad are packing up and a hazmat team is surveying the area with handheld poison detectors. It reminds me of a Vigil operation.

Someone has staked a nithing pole in front of the hotel, a little up the driveway from where it turns off Sunset.

The pole is ten feet tall, with runes carved down its sides. On top there’s a hog’s head, with the skin from the body draped underneath it. Your usual nithing pole uses a horse’s head. I guess the hog is supposed to be some kind of insult to go along with the curse, but really the little feet dangling in the air, bathed in the blue and red disco lights from the cop cars . . . it’s more funny than it is menacing.

From across the street, Candy and I watch as the hazmat team goes to work. They put up a plastic-wrapped ladder and carefully lift the head off the pole. Put it in a double-thick plastic bag and seal it like the hog is made of plutonium.

“Who uses a nithstang anymore?”

“Seriously. Someone’s in big trouble with PETA,” says Candy.

“There’s symbols carved into the pole. Can you see them?”

“It’s too far away.”

“Damn. I wonder if I can pickpocket a camera from one of the looky-loos.”

“My phone has a pretty good zoom. I’ll try to get some shots.”

We cross the street and blend in with the crowd. Candy snaps away. When she’s done I take her through the shadow at the corner and we come out in the hotel garage.

It’s a long walk through the hotel lobby. I want to slink my way through. No one says anything, but I know the staff blames Mr. Macheath and his weirdo friends for bringing a cursing pole to their front door. I almost want to apologize. Instead, I pull Candy into the first elevator that opens and we head upstairs. I know I shouldn’t order room service tonight, but seeing that hog made me hungry for pork ribs.

As soon as we get in the room Candy e-mails the photos to Kasabian.

She says, “I’m going to take a shower. I need to wash off the smell of lube and dead titties.”

I go over to where Kasabian is working. The big screen is turned to a news channel. There’s an aerial shot of the scene out front. Ghost-suited hazmat workers skulking around Hollywood with ritually slaughtered animal parts. Little starbursts as tourists snap away with phones and cameras. They came here hoping to see some movie stars and now they’re getting a full-fledged L.A. freak show.

“Candy just sent you close-ups of the pole outside. You should get them anytime—”

“I already have them.”

“Can you have a look around online and see what they mean.”

“Don’t have to. I already know.”

He opens up some photos on the screen. The first one is a group of smiling people in what look like shitty homemade Renn Faire robes.

“Recognize anyone?”

“Nope.”

Kasabian zooms in on one of the faces.

“Now?”

He has a beard but I can make him out.

“It’s Trevor Moseley. What’s he got to do with this?”

“Look at his robes, Sherlock. The symbols match the pole.”

“I could barely see the pole.”

“Oh.”

He calls up Candy’s pole shots and puts one beside Moseley. He’s right. A lot of the badly cut and stitched symbols on his cheap robes match what’s on the pole.

“So, what do they mean?”

“I’m not done. Look at this. You’d have saved some time if you’d paid more attention to Traven.”

He pulls up the shot I took of Moseley’s half-crushed corpse. Zooms in on a tattoo half covered in blood. It matches one of the symbols on his robes and the pole.

“Is that what I think it is?”

Kasabian nods.

“Your boy Trevor’s last walk down the Yellow Brick Road was with an Angra cult. It was right there in front of you the whole time.”

“But I’ve only been going after tinhorn bad guys. I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for Angra worshippers.”

“Maybe you spooked them, running all over town pissing in everybody’s dream home.”

He puts the three photos side by side on the screen. The answer was in front of me the whole time. But it brings up another question. Why was a clockwork Trevor Moseley playing footsie with an Angra cult? Maybe the Trevor in the photo is real—I don’t know if an automaton can grow a beard—but now I’m surer than ever that the one that stepped in front of the bus wasn’t any more human than the ones we found with Atticus. It also explains why Samael didn’t see any sin sign on him. He wasn’t human, so technically nothing he did was sinful.

I light a Malediction.

“At least I’m getting through to someone. These gangsters are getting boring. By the way, don’t look for Trevor anymore. He’s not going to be in Hell.”

“Are you saying he’s in Heaven?”

“I’m saying he doesn’t have a soul.”

“Lucky duck.”

I puff the Malediction. Something bothers me.

“When did I send you the shot of Moseley?”

“You didn’t. I took it.”

“You hacked my phone?”

He looks up at me. His hellhound body whirs and clicks quietly when his head moves.

“You ask me to hack things and then you’re surprised when I do it? By the way, your idea of online security wouldn’t stop a mollusk with a TRS-80. If you ever want to get serious about protection, ask me.”

I want to be mad, but stealing the image did answer some important questions. And if I’m going to be pissing people off, maybe I ought to learn more about security.

“What’s going on with your swami gig? You ever track down that guy’s hoarder brother?”

“As a matter of fact I did. He’s with the misers and small-time grifters.”

“Good luck getting any information out of him. Brush up on your sign language.”

“I was going to ask you about that. Seeing as you’re pretty acquainted with Hell—”

“No. I won’t be your carrier pigeon.”

“This isn’t a favor, like you’re always asking me to do. It’s a business proposition. You’d get paid for taking messages back and forth.”

“I don’t think Mr. Muninn would like it.”

“Right. I forgot how sensitive you are to what other people think of you. Having fun breaking thumbs?”

I tap the ash of the Malediction into an empty bottle of champagne I don’t remember drinking.

“As a matter of fact I am. I might have to pencil in a rampage or two a year. It’s like going on vacation.”

“I remember your little moods every time I look down at where the rest of me used to be.”

“You’re the one that blew up your body. I just separated you from it.”

“Right. How uncool of me to be upset.”

Kasabian finishes off a can of beer sitting on his desk. Crushes it in his metal paw.

“You still have all that money you said you hid from Saint Stark?”

Saint Stark is my angelic half. He got loose a few months ago and went around L.A. doing good deeds and generally making himself a pain. Among his many good works was giving away most of the money a vampire collective, the Dark Eternal, gave me.

“If you want it, forget it. It’s still my insurance policy in case you decide to throw me out.”

“Jesus. I saved your sorry robo-dog ass from a hit squad and brought you to the best place you’ve ever lived and you’re still going on about that shit?”

“I’m sorry. Who was the one just talking about going on rampages?”

“I just want to make sure there’s some cash around.”

“You’re not getting it.”

“I don’t need it right now,” I say. “These gangsters keep bribing me not to kill them. I should have started shaking these people down a long time ago.”

“If you don’t want money, why are you asking about it?”

“Just sort of an inventory of assets.”

He turns around in his swivel chair and drops the beer can onto the top of an overflowing trash can.

“Shit. We’re not getting the boot, are we?”

“The hotel isn’t happy having a pig head on the porch swing, but no one has said anything. Yet.”

He turns back to his laptop. Slaps the keys hard and the photos disappear.

“Why couldn’t you be a nice, boring thief like Vidocq? No one ever bothers him.”

“He doesn’t steal that much anymore. And he’s good at it. I’m good at breaking things. The difference is that people don’t always notice when their diamonds go missing, but they know when their legs bend the wrong way.”

“Think about my offer. Make some honest money. You can probably do with some more friends Downtown.”

“You might be right about that part.”

On TV, a reporter is trying to interview a cop, but everyone behind them is pushing up their noses into pig snouts and grunting.

“One more thing. If you ever spot Medea Bava Downtown, let me know. She’s supposed to be hiding with Deumos, but I don’t trust the vindictive hag.”

“She’s the Inquisition. Even the milk on her cereal comes from angry cows.”

“Just let me know if you see her. And stay out of my phone.”

“Don’t worry. I didn’t see any of those private pictures Candy sent you.”

“Fuck you.”

THE HOUSE PHONE rings.

“Hello, Mr. Macheath?”

“Yes.”

“An envelope arrived for you. Should I send it up?”

“You mean an envelope envelope? I don’t want any packages.”

“No, sir. It’s just an envelope.”

“Okay. Send it up.”

I go out the grandfather clock and wait for the bellhop. He comes up in the elevator and gives me the note. I hand him a table lamp.

“My girlfriend has all the money and she’s asleep, but I think this lamp is Tiffany, so Merry Christmas.”

“Thank you, sir,” he says like this happens to him all the time.

I wait until he’s in the elevator before going back through the clock.

In the penthouse, I tear open the envelope. It’s heavy cream-colored paper and lined with thin gold foil. Very pricey. Inside, there’s a note containing three words:

Stop it.

Blackburn

Add him to the list of people who might have put up the nithing pole, though it’s not really his style. That means my game has gotten under the skin of at least two people. That just leaves four million to go.

I GET AN unexpected phone call and head for Bamboo House of Dolls. Go inside for a drink and wait. I drop Declan Garrett’s name a few times. Let people know I’m looking for him. What the hell? It’s worth a shot. Allegra shows up a few minutes later in a jean jacket over her scrubs, looking like she came straight from the clinic. I’m going to need a smoke for this. I head outside and she follows me.

We get to the end of the building by the alley. I light up and Allegra leans against the wall, arms and legs crossed. She’s nervous. So am I. We haven’t been alone together in months. Not since she found out I’d been playing Lucifer.

She says, “Thanks for meeting me.”

“No problem. So, what are we here for? Sorry if I’m blunt, but if you’re going to yell at me and call me evil, maybe you can get started? I hear there’s liquor inside.”

“If I just wanted to yell, I could’ve done that on the phone.”

She gives me a weak smile to say she’s joking, but I don’t smile back.

“I’m just trying to understand,” she says.

“Instead of telling me you have questions, why don’t you ask them?”

“Okay. You were really Lucifer? Tell me about it. What is Hell like?”

“Neither is what you think. Hell is a place like any other. I was mostly in the capital, Pandemonium. It’s a city just like this. Hellions live and work there. There are markets, bars, and restaurants. There are cops and armies. Even a church. The place is on its last legs. The new Lucifer is trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, but I don’t think he’ll make it.”

Allegra crosses her arms tighter against her chest.

“What about being Lucifer?”

“You think he’s all about mustache-twirling evil and temptation? Here’s the truth. He’s mostly a pencil pusher. You think Hell runs on its own? Being Lucifer is more like the universe’s shittiest middle-management job. I spent most of my time in meetings with assholes or hiding from meetings with assholes.”

“Lucifer takes people’s souls.”

I take a drag off the Malediction.

“Most people heading for Hell don’t need his help. Most of the rest are idiots who sold their souls for fame, money, whatever. Anyway, the first Lucifer gave it all up. He’s back in Heaven these days. In the loving arms of your precious Lord.”

“That means there’s another Lucifer, right? What’s he like?”

“He’s nicer than me or Samael. But he’s screwed up. I wasn’t any good at the Devil business and he’s probably only marginally better. But he’ll try harder to make Hell a better place for everyone stuck down there.”

“Who is he?”

I shake my head. Blow out some smoke.

“I can’t tell you that. It’s too complicated. But I’ll tell you this: right now the Devil isn’t the problem. It’s God. He’s not exactly growing old gracefully.”

She looks down the street like she’s trying to get her bearings, then back at me.

“It’s so strange to talk about the universe like Hell is just another little town over the hill. And the good people aren’t that good and the bad ones aren’t that bad.”

“I didn’t say that. Hell is a bad place full of backstabbing monsters that’d kill you as soon as blink. But some monsters are honorable. More honorable than some Heavenly halo jockeys.”

“What you’re saying isn’t anything that I was taught or ever dreamed of.”

“That’s how it is. In the big scheme of things we barely matter. The Devil doesn’t hate us. Neither does God, but in the end we’re just bugs on his windshield. The universe didn’t turn out the way he wanted and now he’s hanging on by his fingernails just like the rest of us.”

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, and closes it. I flick the butt of the Malediction into the alley.

“I’m sorry about getting so mad before,” she says. “It’s hard to take it all in.”

“Forget it. This shit is hard for anyone to understand. I don’t want to.”

“This thing you’re looking for . . .”

“The Qomrama Om Ya.”

“It’s supposed to save the world from whatever’s coming?”

“If we’re lucky.”

“So you’re back to being the guy who saved the world and killed all the zombies.”

“I never stopped being him. But mostly I’m just trying to keep all my stuff from getting blown up. Can you imagine the universe without The Searchers? I can’t.”

She stands away from the wall. Brushes dust off her sleeve.

“You’re going to need help.”

“Probably.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“I’ll help.”

“Thanks.”

What do you know? People can surprise you after all. I wonder if she’s been talking to Candy behind my back. Whatever it took, it will be nice not to feel like we’re enemies anymore. But there’s something else. Something she’s not saying. She’s tenser than before. She rubs a knuckle against her lower lip.

“I have something else I have to ask you.”

“What?”

“It’s awkward. You’re going to think I invited you here and I said I’d help just because I want something.”

“That depends on what you want.”

I tap out another cigarette and light it, waiting for her to collect her thoughts.

“Remember when we first met back at Max Overdrive? I said I wasn’t always a nice person. I had this boyfriend. He was a dealer, and when he went to jail I used his money to go to school because I didn’t want to be in that life anymore.”

“And now he’s getting out.”

She nods.

“He called me.”

She holds out two fingers to ask for my cigarette. I give it to her. I didn’t know she still smoked. She takes a tiny puff and about coughs her lungs up.

“He wants his money?”

“No. Yes. But he wants me too. Only, I love my life. I love Eugène. I can’t go back to the way things were.”

“Where is he?”

“Vacaville. He’s getting out at the end of the week. He knows my old apartment.”

“You still have that place? I thought you’d moved in with Vidocq.”

“I keep things there and we store some of his stuff.”

“The boyfriend knows the address?”

I lean against the wall and she leans next to me. We’re shoulder to shoulder, but not having to look at me makes it easier for her to talk.

“Yes. I don’t even bother locking it. Locks never stopped him before.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She puts a hand on my arm.

“Please don’t kill him. I want him to go away, but I don’t want to feel like I bought a hit on him just so I can hide in my nice new life.”

“I’ll do my best, but some people, they just don’t listen.”

“Please.”

She sounds genuinely torn up asking me. What am I supposed to say to that?

“Okay.”

She turns and hugs me. Talking about Hell and now the admission. It’s been hard on her. I think she’s crying. She sniffles a little.

“Don’t wipe your nose on my coat.”

She laughs once.

“Eugène said you would say yes, but I wasn’t sure.”

A cream-colored Lexus has driven past us twice. Now it stops. The guy who gets out has a haircut that costs as much as an appendectomy. He’s wearing rimless glasses and a sharp but conservative blue suit. He could be an investment banker.

“Mr. Stark. Would you mind taking a ride with me?”

Allegra steps away. I shake my head.

“I’m with a friend.”

He gestures at her.

“She can come too, if you like.”

“Nice car, but we’re fine right here. I’d invite you in for a drink, but I don’t think this is your kind of place.”

The Banker smiles and comes around to our side of the car.

“This isn’t anything sinister. It’s just a meeting to talk about possible employment.”

“With who?”

“Norris Quay.”

“Who’s that?”

“The richest man in California.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Exactly.”

I turn to Allegra.

“Do you want to get in the nice man’s car? He says he has candy and a puppy.”

She shakes her head.

“I don’t think so.”

I shrug.

“You heard the lady. Not interested.”

He takes a couple of steps toward us.

“I assure you, this is for your own benefit. Afterward, if you decide you don’t want the job, you can just—”