Devil Said Bang (26 page)

“Oh. That guy. Yeah, I heard about him. What do you
want to know?”

“Where I can find him.”

Mike shakes his head.

“If I tell you, I get my soul back?”

“No, Mike. It’s not that easy. First, the
information has to be real and worth my time. I won’t know that until I check it
out. Second, you’re not going to get your soul for a lousy address. I got your
address for nothing.”

Mike takes a shop rag from his back pocket and
nervously wipes his dirty hands.

“What else do you want from me?”

“Watch your tone, pony boy,” says Candy.

Mike looks like he’s about to keel over.

“Blue Heaven,” he says.

“What’s Blue Heaven?”

Mike shrugs and sits down behind the worktable.
Picks up the bottle of vodka and takes a pull.

“I don’t know a lot about it.”

He starts to offer me the bottle but takes another
look at the generic label stained with greasy fingerprints and changes his
mind.

“All I know is it’s a bitch to get into. Like the
most exclusive after-party in the universe. You have to know someone.”

“Sounds like a good place to hide from killers,”
says Candy.

“Or the girl,” he says. “She’s killed like a dozen
Sub Rosa. She tried to cut your angel. That’s when he disappeared. She’s scarier
than anything else around here.”

He smiles at me hopefully.

“Except you, of course.”

“Don’t suck up, Mike. Not until you’ve had a
shower. You say the ghost tried to kill Saint James?”

“If that’s the angel, then yeah. Went for him on
Sunset in front of a whole tour bus full of witnesses. She got a piece of him
too. The girl isn’t subtle.”

“Why would she be? She’s dead.”

I turn my back on Mike and whisper in Candy’s ear.
Mike looks nervous. He takes big gulps from the bottle.

“I’ve heard of poltergeists that can toss cups and
saucers around, but never one that hacks people up like Jason Voorhees. Have
you?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Remember when the girl came into Bamboo
House?”

“Yeah.”

“I tried to grab her and missed. She could have cut
me but she didn’t. She said something funny.”

“What?”

“ ‘You’re not one of his.’ ”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Not a clue. Maybe Saint James? Maybe
Blackburn?”

“Maybe Colonel Sanders.”

“Yeah. There’s an annoying number of
possibilities.”

Mike is on his feet when I look back at him, the
vodka cradled in his arms like a newborn baby.

“Let me get this straight. All you can tell me
about Saint James is that he’s someplace you don’t know about and that you don’t
know how to get to. A dead girl tried to kill him but you don’t know why or who
the girl is or where she’s from. Does that sum things up?”

“That’s everything, man. I swear. Can I have my
soul back now?”

“That’s not even a postcard, Mike. That’s not even
a phone number scrawled on a cocktail napkin. Do you really think that’s worth a
soul?”

Mike shifts his weight from foot to foot like he
has to go to the bathroom. By now he probably does.

“Yes?” he says.

“Wrong,” says Candy.

“Wrong. It’s worth shit. The closest thing you can
get to nothing without being nothing.”

Mike shrugs.

“Sorry. I mostly deal in gossip. Stuff like Blue
Heaven isn’t my specialty. Hell, I didn’t even know how to get in touch with you
to sell my soul.”

No. A guy like Mike wouldn’t, would he? He’d have
to go to someone. A name pops into my head.

“Do you know Amanda Fischer?”

“That Hollywood devil-worshipping bitch?” says
Mike. “I mean. Sorry.”

“Forget it. So you know her.”

“I built her a peacock and a Persian cat. One of
her crowd did my soul conjuration. It cost me a wolf.”

Mike takes an anxious sip from the bottle.

“I want to get in touch but I lost my address book.
Do you have her number?”

Mike goes to a desk as filthy as the sofa and as
crowded with junk as the worktable. It reminds me a little of Mr. Muninn’s
cavern, full of centuries of obsessive collecting. Mike finds an old gray metal
Rolodex, pulls a card out of it, and brings it to me. It says
FISCHER, AMANDA
.
Below
that is a Beverly Hills phone number.

“Nice work, Mike. You pulled things out there at
the last minute. I thought I was going to have to feed your bones to my
associate but you came through.”

“So now I can have my soul back?”

“Not a chance. But I’ll tell you what you can do to
get it back. I have a friend, really just sort of a yammering bastard. He’s
stuck on a mechanical body, only it’s not finished. You finish him off and
you’re halfway home.”

“What’s the other half?”

“I need you to build something else. A
Hellion-to-English translator. And it needs to read lips.”

Mike sits on the sofa and sets the bottle between
his feet.

“Is that all?”

“You do that and you can have your soul back.”

He looks up at me. Big fat tears in his dumb, red
eyes.

“You promise?”

I take out a pack of Maledictions and tap him out
the last one.

“If you can’t trust a man who gives you his last
cigarette, who can you trust?”

He takes the smoke and I light it with Mason’s
lighter. Mike nods.

“What choice do I have?”

“None. I’ll be in touch with the details.”

Candy starts out. I follow but stop at the door to
put on my glove.

“What’s the story with the vucari out front?”

Mike shakes his head. Wipes the tears from his eyes
with the heel of his hand.

“My cousins. From the old country. Fucking
Cossacks.”

“But you’re not a Lurker.”

“It was a mixed marriage,” he says.

“I see why you made the deal. If I had to work with
family, I’d prefer Hell too.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll sell you my soul back,” he says.
Then quickly, “I’m only kidding.”

“I know, Mike. I know.”

W
e go
back to the Porsche. Mike’s cousins beat on the dead car, smiling at us like
they’re tenderizing steaks for our dinner.

I get out my phone and dial Amanda Fischer’s
number. She answers on the fifth ring.

“I don’t recognize your number. How did you get
this one?”

“Don’t you know me, Amanda?” I say in my spookiest
Hail Satan voice. “It’s Mr. Macheath.”

The line goes quiet. I hear breathing, then, “This
doesn’t sound like Mr. Macheath. How do I know it’s you?”

I try to remember what happened when I met her and
her Devil toadies at the Chateau Marmont with Lucifer 1.0.

“I have the lovely pyx you gave me on the mantel in
my library.”

“Master!”

“New rule. Don’t call me ‘master.’ Lucifer will
do.”

“Yes, Lucifer. What can I do for you, Master?”

This shit again. Why are all Hellions and devil
worshippers bottoms?

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“It’s quite all right. Now I need you to do some
things for me. I need some information.”

“Yes, Lucifer. What kind of information?”

“I want everything you can find about a place
called Blue Heaven. Where it is. How you get in.”

“I didn’t think anywhere was barred to you.”

“You’ll notice that part of the name includes the
word ‘Heaven.’ All Heavens have a waiting list to get in and my name is at the
bottom.”

“Of course, Lucifer. Sorry.”

Candy looks bored. She gets out of the car, goes
back to the garage, and starts talking to the shorter vucari. By her body
language she’s flirting.

“What do you know about this ghost girl running
around town?”

“Our mediums say she’s a hungry ghost. A spirit
that will never be satisfied no matter how much she devours. She’s killed a lot
of people.”

“I know. A lot of Sub Rosa.”

“Not just Sub Rosa. Ordinary mortals too. In fact,
she’s killed members of our temple. When I knew it was you, I was hoping you’d
returned to save us.”

Now Candy is flirting with the taller vucari. She
glances over her shoulder at the shorter one and she and Ivan laugh together.
The short vucari isn’t pounding on the car anymore.

“Of course I’m here to save my followers. But I
have to know which of my flocks are worthy of saving. Yours isn’t the only
temple in California, Amanda.”

“Of course. We’ll prove ourselves worthy of
you.”

I doubt that.

“I’m sure you will. I’d like all information you
can find as soon as possible. Let’s say tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? That’s hardly any time at all.”

“Then you’d better get started.”

Candy steps out of the garage, running her hand
down Ivan’s arm and holding his pinkie for a second. She blows the short vucari
a kiss and comes back to the car.

I put my hand over the receiver when she gets
in.

“What was that all about?” I whisper.

“Watch,” she says.

In the garage, the vucari cousins are shouting. The
little one pokes Ivan in the chest with the wooden handle of his mallet. Ivan
swings and clocks the little guy. But he doesn’t go down. He crouches and slams
his shoulder into Ivan’s belly. Ivan falls on the shorter vucari and they end up
in a pile of flailing fists and feet, rolling around the garage floor like a
spider having a seizure.

I mouth, “You’re evil.”

Candy shrugs and mouths, “I was bored. And I love
messing with dumb guys.”

“One more thing, Amanda. I’m going to need guns.
Pistols. I’m not sure what I’ll be in the mood for, so bring an assortment. Like
teacakes to a party. All right?”

“My pleasure, Lucifer. I live to serve you.”

“Of course you do.”

“Where shall I get in touch with you? The usual?
The Chateau Marmont?”

Goddamn. I forgot about that place.

“Yes, the Chateau. My usual suite.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Lucifer.”

“Ciao.”

I put the phone away and Candy leans back like
she’s never seen me before.

“You have a suite somewhere? You’ve been holding
out on me.”

“I don’t have one yet but I think I will when we
get back to town.”

“Is there room service? I like room service.”

I put the black blade in the ignition and start the
car.

“How does Rinko feel about you spending time with
me? She knows about us, right?”

“She’s not brain-dead, so yeah, she knows. I told
you before, Rinko and I aren’t married. She knows you and I have something and
you know she and I have something. No one has to be here who doesn’t want to be.
I mean, there’s nothing that’s stopping you from seeing someone else.”

“I’m not interested in anyone else.”

“Really? Is that why Sasha Grey had her tongue down
your throat last night?”

“Brigitte? That was nothing. Just a couple of old
zombie slayers who haven’t seen each other in a few months.”

“Another month and you two would have been
dry-humping on the bar.”

“And spill our drinks? Against the bar maybe, but
not on it.”

“Keep talking and I won’t go back to your suite
with you.”

“You started it.”

“Did I? I don’t remember. Home, Jeeves.”

I pull a U-turn across four lanes of traffic and
head for the freeway. When we pass the garage Ivan and his pal are still
wrestling.

W
e’ve
been on the freeway maybe five minutes when I spot the pickup truck. It’s not
hard. It’s been on our tail since we got on the road. It’s white like a rental
but the windows are tinted opaque black. There aren’t many rental companies that
do that, and by “not many,” I mean none.

“We’re being followed.”

Candy turns and looks out the back window.

“Which one?”

“The white pickup.”

“Are you sure?”

“Let’s find out.”

I stomp the accelerator and the Porsche tears a
hole in the traffic ahead. I squeeze between two SUVs as they’re changing lanes
and cut off a cable-company truck trying to pass a wrecker on the shoulder.
Candy turns and looks out the back.

“The pickup is still there.”

“Put on your seat belt.”

“You always sound so serious when you think we’re
going to die.”

“I have an allergy to being dead.”

“I didn’t say I minded. I like it when you talk
butch.”

“Good. Shut up and keep an eye on the truck for
me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Of course the truck can keep up with a Porsche.
It’ll be some of King Cairo’s crew in a pickup souped up with Aelita’s Golden
Vigil tech. Outrunning the asshole isn’t an option. The only thing I can do is
stay clear of it until one of us grows wings or runs out of gas.

I let the wrecker pass and when the traffic thins
for a second I jerk the steering wheel, blasting the Porsche across all six
lanes to the far side of the road. A second later the truck follows. I cut back
a couple of lanes.

“They’re still on us,” says Candy.

There’s no way they think I’m Saint James. The
first attack might have been a mistake but this is a straight-up hit.

I try to charge back over the way we came but we’re
trapped between a lunch truck and a chop shop Camaro, the body covered in primer
and all the doors different colors.

The pickup accelerates and rams us. I can’t hold
the wheel. I sideswipe the lunch truck. We bounce off and tag the Camaro before
I get control again. I floor the Porsche and we shoot ahead to an open spot in
the traffic.

“Still there,” says Candy.

I aim the Porsche all over the road, changing lanes
like I’m drunk, seasick, and snow-blind. The goddamn pickup stays on our
tail.

I cut back to the slow lane and slide in between
two sixteen-wheelers, drafting off the first. Bad idea. The pickup pulls
alongside us and the front and rear windows roll down. I know what’s coming and
don’t want to see it.