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He nods.
“I’m fine.”
Great. That means the fucker is armed. At least now everyone knows. The trick is going to be keeping him in front of us the whole time we’re inside.
WHEN WE REACH Santa Monica I park the van in the back on the top floor of a shopping-center parking lot. Before we ditch it, I wipe down the steering wheel and the front driver-side door, something I don’t usually do. In the past, I just left the vehicle and walked away. But now that LAPD has a file on me, I don’t want to make it too easy for them to track me.
We head for the beach with our bags and packs over our shoulders. Slung low on someone’s back is a kid-size vinyl Kekko Kamen pack, featuring a mostly naked female superhero in a red mask.
“Thanks for being discreet,” I say.
Candy smiles and keeps walking.
“This is discreet. I turned off the red LEDs in her nipples. And speaking of discreet, you have so many gun bulges under that coat you look like the Elephant Man.”
It’s just a few blocks to the beach. We stroll along past cafés and high-priced clubs with doormen in Hawaiian shirts, like just one more group of shitheel tourists.
“What’s so special about this thing we’re looking for?” says Delon. “Tykho says it might be a weapon, but you don’t look like the kind of person who needs more weapons.”
“You can never have too many weapons.”
“It is a weapon, then?”
“I didn’t say that.” I’m not sure how much this asshole knows, but I don’t want him knowing any more than he has to. “I don’t know exactly what it is, if you want to know the truth. All I know is that a very bad person wants it and that’s reason enough to keep it from her.”
“What’s so bad about her?”
“Well, she killed me once upon a time.”>“If I have to twist the head off every Angra freak in L.A., we’re going to make it to Christmas.”
She takes the Colt and levels it at objects around the room. Snaps the gun back each time she pretend-shoots it.
“Head twisting. You know how to sweet-talk a girl. At least give me a hint.”
“It’s red and it doesn’t fit in your pocket.”
“Fuck you. That’s not a clue.”
“It’s all you’re getting.”
“I repeat, you’re a dick,” she says, setting the gun back in the box.
We call downstairs for food. Order a real spread, like we did when we first got to the penthouse. Ordering one of pretty much everything on the menu. But not the duck. The waiters line the food carts along the wall, and because this is the Devil’s room, they don’t ask questions. When I sign the check, I always add a nice tip after one of these blowouts. I still don’t know who pays the bills here, if anyone. Maybe Lucifer having a room on standby is just part of the cost of doing business in L.A. For all I know, there could be other hoodoo penthouses where Odin, the Easter Bunny, and Amelia Earhart are living as large as we are and not paying one red shekel.
PEOPLE START COMING through the clock around three. First Vidocq and Allegra, then Brigitte and Father Traven. I want to grab them and start talking right away, but I keep my mouth shut. There’s plenty of food and wine and beer for everyone, though I notice that Father Traven is just drinking coffee. Brigitte stays close to him. Smiling. Talking to him. Making sure he remembers to eat. She’s not watching him to keep him off the booze. You can see it in her eyes. She’s trying to protect him from the world.
I pass the Tiffany pistol around and everyone tells Candy about what great taste she has. She loves it. Then I can’t stand waiting anymore.
“I’m going on a ghost hunt in Kill City.”
That gets people’s attention.
“I’ve been looking for the 8 Ball for over a month. All it’s gotten me is tall tales that I have the shitty thing. Yesterday, the Dark Eternal told me that there’s a ghost hiding in Kill City that might know where the 8 Ball is, so I’m going in to check it out.”
“Do you believe what they said?” asks Vidocq.
“I have to go in and find out.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean do you trust them? You have not harassed the Dark Eternal the way you have other gangs, but what’s to stop you from doing so?”
