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“Has anyone set odds for me killing all of you?”
He looks up at me with wet red eyes.
“Y-yes.”
“Are they good?”
He shakes his head.
“There are too many of us. You don’t know all—” He doesn’t finish the sentence because I slash his throat with the black blade.
“I could have killed you quick, Charlie. But you’re responsible for those kids in Malibu and I want you to have some time to think about that.”
He holds his throat with one hand and the armrest of the chair with the other. It’s not going to help. He won’t stay upright much longer.
I close the office door on the way out. His keys are in a crystal candy dish on a table in the hall. I have to try several keys before finding the one for the office. Jam it in the lock and break it off. Then go to the garage and get into the Rolls Phantom. The garage-door remote is on the dashboard. I push the button and drive the Rolls gently out of the cul-de-sac. I’ll sneak back in for the bike later.
Repairmen and a couple of rent-a-cops are by the broken gate when I get there. The one working gate is open. The cops wave the Rolls carrying Charles Anpu straight through. I wear his face all the way home.
The Rolls I leave on Sunset so the authorities won’t have any trouble finding it. Before I get out, I think about all that cash in the trunk. Half a million would buy an awful lot of tamales. But it’s Charlie’s money and that makes it Wormwood’s money.
I go across the street and bark some Hellion hoodoo. The Rolls explodes into a million-dollar ball of fire.
It takes a while to get a cab back to the clinic. I want to say that I feel totally righteous and beatific about what I did tonight. But the sad truth is, a little part of me thinks about the money all the way down Sunset.
TURNS OUT CANDY and Allegra never got hold of Kasabian last night. It’s probably for the best. His idea of a crisis is when a c
ustomer is a day late returning a video.
Just before dawn, Allegra and I roll Vidocq to her Prius in a wheelchair she had in the back of the clinic. I move him into the backseat, then back into the chair when we get him home.
Allegra and I lay him out in bed. She stays with him while I help Candy make coffee. It’s a good way to give them some alone time. We hang around in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil.
“Did you find out anything last night?” says Candy.
“A lot, but nothing that’s going to cure Vidocq.”
“Is there anyone else you can talk to?”
“Again, a lot, but after what Charlie Anpu told me, I don’t think anyone in Wormwood is going to come clean.”
She picks up two jars of ground coffee.
“Would Allegra want French roast or Colombian?”
“I don’t think she wants anything French right now.”
“Shit,” says Candy. Then, “What are we going to do?”
“I need to find an angel.”
“How are you going to do that?”
I don’t answer her right away. I wish the goddamn water would boil.
“Stark? How are you going to do that?”
“I wish I knew how to get back the angel that attacked me at Musso’s.”
