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“Much better. He can go home tomorrow.”
“Good for him.”
“Is there anything I can do to help besides tape things?”
I get a pen and paper off Kasabian’s desk and scrawl lines and shapes. My memory isn’t a hundred percent on how the seven symbols Alice was writing looked, but I draw them as well as I can. I hand Traven the paper.
“Do you know what these are?”
He carries the paper over to a lamp and stares at it for a minute.
“This is a very rare script. It’s a kind of cipher combining pictograms and letters. Each letter has a numeric value, but their meaning changes in relation to their position in relation to the other characters. Where did you see this?”
“A friend showed it to me. What is it?”
“It’s the secret language the fallen angels used to plan their rebellion in Heaven.”
“Do you know what it says?”
“May I borrow your pen? I’ll need to do scenneed toome calculations.”
I toss it to him and he starts scribbling on the paper.
I’m on my knees next to Candy with Alice’s life spread around me on the floor. It’s like I’ve fallen into a Hank Williams song. I push the T-shirt, underwear, jewels, and address books around like I’m looking for the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. Candy upends a pair of green dress shoes with one broken heel and something falls out. It’s a small toy, a plastic rabbit with beard stubble and a cigarette jammed between its lips. Candy holds it up.>“Is this my going-away party or a wake? ’Cause if it’s supposed to be a party, you’re doing it wrong.”
“We knew that you being you, you would just creep off into the night like a thief,” says Vidocq. “So we decided to force our company upon you for a little while before you left.”
I look at Vidocq.
“Yeah. You’re right. I would have—so you don’t have to watch me twitch until sundown.”
“What happens at sundown?” asks Allegra.
“I make like Robert Johnson and go down to the crossroads.”
Candy says, “Is that what Mustang Sally said?”
“Yes. I can find a back door to Hell there.”
“Who’s Mustang Sally?” Allegra asks.
“The patron saint of road rage.”
Vidocq puts a hand on her arm.
“A significant local spirit. I’ll tell you about her later.”
I’m standing in the middle of the room like an idiot. They’re all gawking at me like I’m made of peanut brittle and might fall apart any second. I want to toss everyone out. I need to get my brain wired tight for Hell. And the Black Dahlia. I’m trying not to think about that. I’ve been nearly killed a hundred ways, but never in a car, and I never had to actually die to pull off any hoodoo before. What if it all goes wrong? What if I end up just another tangle of ground meat and chrome on the side of the freeway? I’d get a great obituary. “A suspect in the murder of his longtime girlfriend Alice, a man who was declared legally dead seven yeredead seears ago, finally turns up really and truly dead in a stolen car wrapped around a freeway support while rushing to have tea with the devil.”
Mason would love to have me stuck in Hell. Just another damned dead asshole. So would all the generals and aristocrats I didn’t get a chance to kill and the friends and families of all the Hellions I did kill. If I end up dead down there, it’ll be one long endless Dante gang bang. Get out the chain saws and pass the mint juleps. It’s party time down south.
“Why don’t you sit down for a while?” says Candy.
Allegra chimes in, “Even Sandman Slim can’t make the sun go down faster.”
“I was going to stamp my feet and hold my breath, but you’re probably right.”
I sit down on the small bed.
