Devil Said Bang (20 page)

I say it without giving myself time to think about
it.

“Where’s Candy these days?”

Elliott Gould is on a bus to Mexico. His suit is
wrinkled and worn and his eyes are dark, like he hasn’t slept in days. He looks
like half the population of Hell and most of Hollywood, the half not working out
in gyms so they look like lunch meat stretched over Beverly Hills
mannequins.

“She didn’t give me her fucking itinerary. The last
number I have is for your friend’s clinic.”

He crushes out his cigarette and says, “You’re not
moving back in here, are you? I’m kind of used to having the place to
myself.”

I stand up, brushing the donut crumbs off my
lap.

“Do you know who I am these days? I’m Lucifer, the
lord high asshole of the Underworld. I’ll sleep anywhere I want.”

Kasabian tilts his eyes toward me without turning
his head from the movie.

“You mean you’re broke.”

“Completely.”

He opens one of the desk drawers and pulls out a
carton of Maledictions. Instead of cigarettes, it’s full of cash. He peels off
two hundred-dollar bills and holds them out to me. I don’t move to take them.
After a minute he peels off a few more bills. I take them and stuff them in my
pocket.

“Don’t think I’m always going to let you be so
stingy with my money.”

“This is my money,” he says. “You gave your money
away.”

I don’t feel like arguing the point. I lift up the
mattress and feel around for my guns.

“Don’t bother. Saint James took them when he took
the money.”

“Even Wild Bill’s Colt?”

“All of them.”

The old Navy Colt wasn’t Wild Bill’s actual gun but
it was as close as I’m ever going to get and now it’s gone. That’s cold.

I get the Glock and my na’at from the duffel bag.
The na’at goes inside my coat while the Glock goes in my waistband at my
back.

“I’m leaving the duffel here until I figure out
where I’m staying.”

Kasabian tosses me an unopened pack of
Maledictions. That’s quite a thing coming from him. He must think it’s my
birthday.

“Don’t bother. Pope Joan still works nights at the
Beat Hotel. Drop some gelt on her and I bet she’ll give you our old room. I
think I might have even hid some money in the air vent.”

I pick up the bag and start out.

“Good to see you on your feet, Old Yeller.”

“Happy hunting, Tin Man.”

I catch a glimpse of Kasabian in the window by the
desk. In the glass his face is normal and clean, but the guy sitting in the
chair is a grimy mess. That’s it, then. The Devil has special eyes. He can see
sin. I wonder what Samael saw when he looked at me.

I get on the bike and drive at an entirely
reasonable speed through backstreets to Allegra’s clinic. I use hand signals and
everything. Look at me, Mom. A solid citizen at last.

W
hat
used to be Doc Kinski’s clinic and is currently Allegra’s is in a strip mall
near where Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards meet. There’s a fried chicken
franchise on one end of the mall and a local pizza joint on the other, with a
Vietnamese nail salon and the clinic in between. The parking lot smells like a
high school lunchroom and is one of the top ten last places anyone hunting heavy
angelic magic would look.

The blinds are drawn in all the clinic windows. It
says
EXISTENTIAL HEALING
on the door in gold
peel-and-stick letters. I take the handle and pull. It’s locked. I raise my hand
to knock and lower it. Seeing Kasabian is one thing—we’re both the biggest
freaks the other knows—but this will be different. There are normal people in
here. Not normal normal people, but ones who act and feel like normal
people.

I don’t know what to say to Candy. Three months ago
I told her I’d be back in three days. And Allegra. I didn’t even say good-bye to
Allegra before I left. She freaked out when I briefly worked as Samael’s
bodyguard and things haven’t been right between us since. If Vidocq is inside,
that’s another whole complication. The old man is the closest thing I’ve ever
had to a real father. But he’s also French, and loud when he gets excited. Right
now I don’t know if I can handle either one, much less both. Still.

I knock on the door.

It opens a crack and a heavyset blonde with blue
skin and horns peers out at me. She’s a Ludere. A kind of Lurker. The whole
tribe are compulsive gamblers. Probably the only reason she works here is so she
can run a line on which patients are going to recover and which are going to
die.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Everyone thinks I’m dead, so probably not.”

She reaches out through the open door and shoves a
business card into my hand.

“Call and Dr. Allegra will see you when she
can.”

She starts to close the door. I grab the edge.

“Is Candy inside?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Does that mean she’s in there?”

She points to the card.

“Call and make an appointment.”

“Why don’t I make one right now? My name is Stark
and in thirty seconds I’m coming inside. You have ten seconds to write it in
your book and twenty seconds to get out of the way before I kick the door
in.”

She leans to one side so the light from the clinic
lobby falls across my face.

“Are you him or are you the boring one?”

“Do I know you?”

“I used to hang out at the Bamboo House of Dolls.
Till he came around.”

“Princess, did the boring one go around kicking in
doors?”

“It sounds like you. Wait here.”

“Twenty seconds.”

Twenty seconds come and go. Too bad. I always liked
this door with the gold letters flaking off. But never make a threat you’re not
willing to go carry out. I step back a good kicking distance. The door doesn’t
look like much, so there’s no need to get dramatic. Just bring up a leg to kick
out the lock. I draw it up and for a second I’m standing on the street like a
leather flamingo. The door swings open and Candy is standing there. She looks at
me on one leg, in dirty leather and a road-rash coat. I look at her. The same
ripped jeans and Chuck Taylors. She has on a T-shirt covered with Japanese
writing. Looks like it’s for an all-girl band I never heard of. Then we’re both
looking at each other. Then it occurs to me to put my leg down.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hi.”

She looks at me like I’m a ghost or trick. Saint
James must have done a number on these people if no one trusts their eyes. A
minute later a grin spreads across her face. She comes out and throws her arms
around my shoulders. Jumps and wraps her legs around my waist. She stays that
way for a minute before climbing down. And John Wayne roundhouse punches me in
the face. I put up my arms to rope-a-dope her in case she decides to punch
again. She does, throwing haymakers to my body every couple of words.

“You asshole. You stupid goddamn dumb motherfucker.
I fucking hate you and how fucking stupid you are.”

There’s a second of quiet and then a painful,
“Ow.”

She reaches inside my coat and pulls open my shirt.
Looks at the armor and then at me.

“What the hell is that?”

“Protection from crazy girls who say hello with
their fists.”

“I have not yet begun to kick your ass. You run off
for a weekend in Hell and don’t come back and we don’t hear anything. Then who
shows up but some baby-face hippie version of you who’d rather save the whales
than have a drink with me?”

“So you met the prodigal asshole.”

“And then we figure it out. He’s some kind of
Hellion practical joke. A monster sent here to take your place. That’s when we
know you were dead.”

I try to put my hands on her shoulders but she bats
them away.

“I’m sorry about everything but this is me and I’m
not dead.”

“Well, fuck you and your good news. You’re probably
just a different stupid monster they sent up. What’s your gimmick? You going to
macramé us to world peace?”

“I’m my own monster and I sent myself up.”

“Why?”

“To find you.”

She looks away. Digs the toe of her Chuck Taylor
into a squashed piece of gum by the door, trying to loosen it. Inside, the
Ludere and a couple of patients watch us like a flesh-and-blood reality
show.

She says, “I let Stark go because he was being all
noble and I wanted to be noble too so he would remember me when he found Alice.
Dumbest thing I ever did.”

I get closer.

“How could I forget about you and you torturing me
with those stupid robot sunglasses? If you think I was playing house with Alice
all this time, you’re wrong. I sent her home the day I found her. It’s me here.
Not that other guy. Alice and Hell and all the rest is over and done with.”

She crosses her arms.

“How do I know it’s you?”

“When I said I came back to find you? I lied. I
came back for the knife I loaned you. Hand it over.”

She looks at me and furrows her forehead. Her eyes
get a little red. Not like “Oh, my God. Godzilla is going to step on me.” More
like tears red. But she doesn’t actually cry. She’s a monster and a killer like
me. We sometimes tear up but leave the crying to the suckers we hit.

She comes over and puts her hand on my chest. Then
slides it over to hug me. Through the armor I feel her body as she lays her head
on my chest. She punches me in the side. Lightly this time, so it’s barely a
punch at all.

“You ever take off like that again, you take me
with you.”

“Deal.”

She takes a step back, looking at the armor.

“What’s the story with the Iron Man gear?”

Then she smiles.

“Oh my God. Stark. It all makes sense. You’re
really Tony Stark. You’ve been Iron Man all along.”

“Oh God. I can see this joke isn’t going to die
anytime soon.”

“You can count on that.”

I put my arms around her and just hold her
there.

“Things got weirder Downtown than I ever counted
on. I got hurt pretty bad. The Pat Boone clone you met is a part of me that
escaped. And he took some of my strength with him. The armor belongs to Lucifer
and brings some of it back.”

She looks up at me.

“Hurt like how?”

“If you’re not sure which Stark you’re talking to,
ask him to show you his arm.”

I push up my sleeve.

The Ludere and patients peeking over Candy’s
shoulder make little gasping sounds. Candy is the only one who doesn’t look like
she’s going to be sick. She touches my robot bug hand and runs her fingers up
the length of my sleek black arm until she gets to where it attaches to my
shoulder.

“This is so fucking awesome.”

If you ever need to confirm that a girl is worth
coming back from Hell for, show her your monster arm and see what she says.

Allegra comes out of the treatment room with a
bunch of purple plant bulbs in her hands. She smiles in a kind of rueful way
when she sees me and comes over and gives me a hug. Unlike the others, she knows
it’s me right off.

“I’m sorry about that stuff that happened before.
Please tell me there’s no hard feelings. I’m just glad to see you alive.”

“No hard feelings at all. I’m just happy to be
back. You know, on the way over I was going to ask you to look at my jaw ’cause
it hurt. Then I remembered I’ve been speaking nothing but Hellion for three
months.”

“You’ll get plenty of practice at people talk when
you tell us everything that happened.”

I’m not talking to anyone about everything that
happened, but that still leaves a lot to tell.

Candy turns and steps away from me. I hear her
heart rate jump. Smell the faint beginning of tension sweat.

“Stark, this is Rinko.”

Rinko is a couple of inches taller than Candy. Like
her, Rinko is pretty, with dark almond eyes and black hair down to her waist. On
her right shoulder is a tattoo of a rainbow-striped Oni. Lower down she has
Astro Boy wearing a leather biker cap and chaps.

At least Candy hasn’t been alone all this time.

Candy motions Rinko over and I shake her hand.
There’s a certain coolness to her skin.

“You’re a Jade,” I say.

Her eyes get hard.

“Something wrong with that?”

“No. I just never met any besides Candy. It’s funny
finally running into one.”

“Hmm.”

If Rinko could breathe fire I’d be crispy bacon by
now. The girl can’t stand the sight of me. It’s probably how I would have been
around some of Alice’s exes.

Candy takes Rinko by the arm and walks her to the
back of the waiting room. They have a fast, intense conversation. All stage
whispers and hand waving.

Inside the clinic it’s both familiar and not.
There’s the same cheap plastic chairs in the waiting room but the walls have
been painted a pale blue. The same overflowing bookcase. The rickety old desk
has been replaced with a shiny IKEA one.

Candy’s conversation ends with Rinko throwing up
her hands and stomping away into a back room, keeping her eyes down and away
from me. Candy gets a jacket off the desk chair and says to Allegra, “I’m gone
for the rest of the night. That cool?”

“Très cool,” says Allegra. She gives us a little
wave on the way out.

“Let’s go,” she says. “Are they still holding a
room for you at the Beat Hotel?”

“I doubt it but cash is the magic anyone can do,
and tonight I’m Houdini.”

She stops when she sees the Hellion hog.

“Yours?”

“Yep. Like it?”

“It’s almost as cool as the arm.”

A girl to come back from Hell for.

T
urns
out Kasabian was right and Pope Joan is on duty. It takes $200 to get the old
room but I’d rather get inside than haggle, so I give her the money and get the
key.

Inside, Candy pushes me down on the bed and climbs
on top.

“On the way over, I wasn’t sure I was going to fuck
you but then I thought that Rinko is going to be mad at me no matter what, so
I’d rather get blamed for doing something than doing nothing.”