City of the Lost (28 page)

I don’t know how long I’ve been out. Long enough to grow everything back. Legs, hand—I check the inside of my mouth. Yep, even tongue. I take an experimental breath, pull air into my lungs, waiting for that rush that tells me everything’s fine, that this was all some kind of bad dream.

But it’s just like inflating a balloon. I’m still dead.

I pull myself up. My clothes are shredded rags, my pants in particular. They look like bad cutoffs from the seventies. Parts of me are covered in thick slime, a holdover, it seems, from my rotting spell the night before. I stink like a fucking slaughterhouse in summer.

Where Giavetti should be, splayed out on the roof of the Volvo beneath me, there are just bones and scraps of meat. And I thought I went to town on Neumann. There’s hardly anything left.

But it might still be enough. I gather up the bones and put them into an empty oil drum. Pour gasoline over them. Light them on fire. Let them cook.

I find some old work overalls in the junkyard’s office and put them on in place of my torn up clothes. They’re not great, but they’re better than walking around in blood-soaked Daisy Dukes.

I cut Danny down. His wizened body is light as a child’s. Poor bastard. I lay him down on the ground and go out front to bring in his car. Park it far in the back and pull the plates. Nobody will find it. No one will come looking.

Danny’s featherweight corpse goes into the car compactor, a couple hundred pounds of scrap on top of him. It grinds him into paste.

Giavetti’s charred bones get the same treatment, but only after I’ve broken them into as many small chunks as I can.

It takes awhile. I run the compactor half a dozen times, adding more scrap each time. Whatever’s left of Giavetti is sandwiched between broken headlights, radiator grills. I’d piss in there, if I could.

If that doesn’t keep him dead, I don’t know what will.

The drive to downtown is short. No one’s on the road. It’s nine in the morning, and the freeways should be packed. Something monumental happened last night, and it’s almost as though the city knows it. The storm has passed. It’s a fragile feeling. If you look at it too hard, it will pop like a soap bubble. I wonder how many people actually felt it, or even knew what it was.

I pull off the freeway and have to double back through side streets to get to the hotel. The police have set up a webwork of crime scene tape, official looking sawhorses.

The radio paints a scene of intense, if short-lived, insanity last night. The official body count’s still coming in, but it seems there were riots from Pasadena to San Pedro. Looting, arson, murder. The usual.

There’s a story about some guys in gorilla suits running rampant through Griffith Park and killing the horses at the equestrian center. Another of a mob of homeless in Santa Monica killing half a dozen people on the Promenade and trying to eat them.

And then it all just stopped.

Not sure how I feel about that. I’m the one that did it. Does that make me a hero? Did I save the day? I decide I’m not the hero type and shut off the radio.

At Gabriela’s hotel the bar is back. The red leather door in the wall just as out of place as it was before.

“Welcome back, Dead Man,” Darius says as I step inside. He’s got a tall Bloody Mary sitting on the bar in front of him, a lone celery stalk in the glass. “Slew the dragon, saved the fair maiden. You deserve a celebratory drink.”

The band is playing some Glenn Miller tune. His phantom dancers are spinning each other slowly across the floor.

“What is it?” It doesn’t smell quite like a Bloody Mary.

“Mostly V-8,” Darius says. “Some tabasco. Some pepper. Other stuff.”

Other stuff. “That’s what worries me.”

Darius laughs. “This is a gift. Gabriela managed to secure a line of hearts from a boy down at USC Medical. She had hoped to get it to you earlier, but the boy couldn’t deliver until today. So drink up. It’ll cure what ails ya.”

I look at it. Think about it.

“Where is she, anyway?” I assumed she made it out all right or the guy at the front desk would have said something.

“Out tending to her flock. Lots of folk hurting out there this morning. Like suffering from the mother of all hangovers. She’s making sure things are okay. So, whatta ya say? Partake of the kindness of the
Bruja?
”

“No,” I say. “I didn’t keep my end of the bargain. She only owes me this if I deliver the stone. I haven’t delivered the stone.”

“Ah,” Darius says. “You know, bargains are funny things. You have to look at the wording. For example, she offered to find a way to keep you from rotting that didn’t involve eating human hearts.” He points to the drink. “That, my friend, is made out of human hearts. She didn’t keep her end of the bargain, either.”

“Of course, it’s not like you need it.” He reaches over and taps me on the chest with a wink.

I learned the hard way that a safe isn’t very safe. Before I left the junkyard I tore a hole into my chest with a chunk of metal and shoved the stone up behind my sternum. It’s sitting there nice and comfortable, and I’ve felt better with it there than I’ve felt the entire time I’ve been dead.

“Maybe you and I ought to talk about this,” I say.

“Maybe we should. You know, that thing there’s not exactly hidden. But at the same time, only some of us can actually see it. So, I have a proposition for you. Interested?”

“I’m all ears.”

“I don’t talk about your, ah, inside jewelry. But one of these days, I just might want to. And when that day comes, well, the only thing that’ll keep my fool mouth shut is an incentive. Like, maybe a favor. Are you following me, Dead Man?”

“I’m following you. You say nothing. Tell no one. Don’t even fucking hint that it’s there. Ever. And you get one favor. That about the gist of it?”

“Oh, that’s it exactly. Do we have a deal?” He puts out his meaty paw.

What’s the big deal? Really? I don’t want anyone knowing I’ve got this thing on me, not even Gabriela. It’d just cause problems I don’t need.

And I do a job for Darius. I do jobs all the time.

“Deal.” We shake on it and there’s that weird non-pop sound in my ears that seals it.

“You might want to drink the drink, anyway. Looks less conspicuous that way. And I wouldn’t want to tell our young miss that you didn’t. She might get suspicious.”

Good point. I down the drink. It’s not bad.

Darius hands me a napkin. “You got a blood mustache,” he says. I wipe my face.

“Thanks. I think.”

A couple of Darius’ phantom patrons cozy to the bar, order sidecars.

“Friendly advice,” Darius says, shaking up nonexistent cocktails for nonexistent customers. “Get to know your new people.”

“My people?”

“You know who I’m talking about. This here’s a community, like it or not. It’s bloodier than most, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to handle. Things are different now. You got yourself some breathing room. Take in this brand new world. See what you can do with it.”

“What’s that friendly advice gonna cost me?”

“Friendly means free. Take it when it’s offered. Doesn’t happen often. Besides, I’ve taken a shine to you, Dead Man. I’d like to see you around. And Gabriela could use a hand. Coked-up vampires and sketchy gangbangers don’t make for the most stable support system for a young lady.”

Maybe he’s right. I’ve jumped down the rabbit hole and, for the moment at least, Wonderland’s not trying to kill me. Best I get the hang of it before it gets me.

“What about you?” I ask. “You work for her. What does she need me for?”

He laughs. “Oh, you don’t get how this works, do you? No, no, no. I work for myself. I’m here because I like it here. It’s nice and cozy. And the
Bruja
’s not the only game in town. No, I have my iron in a lot of fires. Never know which way the day will take you.”

He reaches under the bar, pulls out a small envelope. My name is written on the front in a flowing script that looks disturbingly familiar. “Speaking of which,” he says, “this is from a mutual acquaintance.”

He slides the envelope over to me. I open it and pull out a note that reads, “I couldn’t have done it without you. Love, Sam.”

I stare at the note. There’s a faint scent of perfume on it. The same scent she was wearing last night when she shot herself.

“When did you get this?”

“Oh, ‘when’ is such a subjective idea. Why be so linear about things?”

“Okay,
how
did you get this?” I thought I’d had it all figured out. Samantha dead, Giavetti gone. Now I don’t know who’s playing who.

Darius slides a scotch neat in front of me. “Have another drink, Dead Man,” and gives me an inscrutable smile. “Enjoy it. You’ve earned it.”