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“Sorry. I’d like to go back and get it, but I have things I need to do.”
“I understand,” he says. He looks at me like I’m ice and someone is about to toss boiling water on me. Will I explode or just melt?
He says, “We all heard what the demon said back at Avila. Don’t do anything insane based on the word of a creature like that, Jimmy. They are masters of lies.”
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I shake my head.
“That wasn’t the demon talking. That really was Mason. And he has Alice. I’m not going to do anything crazy. I’m going to do what I should have done all along.”
“What?” he says, but I ignore the question.
“Call Hunter’s parents,” I say. “Tell them he’s all right and give them the address. I need to go.”
I catch Candy’s eye and she follows me out into the parking lot.
“Where are you going?” she asks. There’s a little catch in her voice.
I get close and say, “I know this is the most fucked situation I could have dragged you into, but I need to talk to someone. Please trust me. I’ll meet you back at the hotel as soon as I can.”
She looks up at me.
“You’re coming back, right?”
“Of course.”
“Promise.”
“I promise.”
She kisses me. I kiss her back, though in the back of my mind I’m already going to do what I have to do.
She takes a step back.
“You’re going back, aren’t you? Back to Hell.”
“I don’t have any choice. They snatched Alice out of Heaven because of me. I can’t leave her down there.”
Candy nods.
“I know. You have to do the right thing. Ride into the sunset and do your Good, the Bad and the Ugly thing. I think that’s why I like you. You do the most fucked-up things for the best reasons.”
“I’ll see you back at the hotel. Scout’s honor.”
“Where are you going?”
“I need to talk to Mustang Sally.”
BY THE TIME I make the corner, my hands are shaking. Even the angel is pissed, and that’s not easy to do. I want someone to try to pick my pocket or pull a knife. I want an excuse. All I need is an excuse.
No one comes near me. Iof near mex2019;m somewhere south of sanity right now and people can tell. Fuck it. I let the angel’s senses reach out and read the street until they zero in on exactly the right car. It’s stopped at a red light in front of me. Second from the front. A couple of gangbangers inside. They’re either on their way to a drive-by or coming back from one. They’re too high for the angel to be sure. That’s good enough for me. I step into the stopped traffic and go around to the gangbangers’ car, a red midfifties Bonneville lowrider. I put the .460 to the side of the driver’s temple.
“Do you want to keep the car or your head?”
There are two tough guys in the back. Real bruiser types. As big as linebackers. One of them wants to go for his gun. He stinks of coiled tension. I cock the .460 pressed against the driver’s head and pull him out through the window. Toss him one-handed onto the hood of the car next to us. He leaves a nice dent as he hits and slides off. By the time I swing the gun back to the two toughs, they’re scrambling out the passenger side. I get in and rev the engine.
I don’t care that it’s broad daylight, that a hundred people are watching, and that the traffic cams on the stoplights are recording everything. I want witnesses. I want them to see so that when I drag them from their cars, put a bullet in the gas tank, and let the explosion torch the street, they’ll understand.
