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At one time, Quay was the richest man in California. He probably has a whole stack of Gutenberg Bibles lying around this dump. It wouldn’t be a big deal for him to sacrifice one.
Sure enough, the whole last half of the Bible is gone. What’s left is a compartment carved out of the heavy pages. Lying inside is a little 1908 Colt .25 pistol and a vial of black milk. But poor, poor Quay didn’t live long enough to get one of the syringes. He was that close to immortality, but because he wanted to hedge his bets by following me into Kill City, he was never able to use the one potion that might have saved him.
I pocket the pistol and take the black milk to a bathroom off the bedroom. Pour the vial down the sink, then burn the rest with the Gladius so there’s nothing left for anyone to scrape out. That’s one less dose of black milk in the world. One baby step toward ending the war in Heaven.
There’s an adorably gruesome little bronze Kali on one of Quay’s bookshelves. I pocket it with the pistol. On the way out—partly to keep his other trinkets away from Wormwood and partly because it seems like fun—I drag the Gladius across Quay’s bed so it bursts into flames. Do the same thing to the paintings and drapes on the way out. The sprinklers kick in while I’m going up the marble stairs to the zoo. That’s fine. I never intended to destroy the place, just char it up to mess with the snoops whose job it is to figure out why someone broke in.
On my way to the bike, a whole gaggle of private security storms past. None of them looks at me twice, just another asshole having a cigarette by the FIRE HAZARD signs.
I get on the bike and make one quick stop before heading out of Hollywood. The drive down Highland is a lot faster than it was with Quay or when me and Bill had to walk home. I blow past the I-10 and the 105 in record time.
Security around this treatment plant is just a wee bit tighter in L.A. than it was in Hell. There are no guards, but a lot of security cameras and KEEP OUT signs. That’s okay. I don’t need to go inside.
I leave the roses between the links in the hurricane fence by the gate. A couple of guys in vests and hard hats give me funny looks, but none of them bothers coming over. Good. I’m not in the mood to explain the situation. “An angel died in here to save your shitty souls. Touch the roses and I’ll come back and saw your arm off. Have a nice day.”
That’s what’s been bothering me since I got back. The final good-bye I never got to say Downtown. It’s stupid and pointless and sentimental, and if anyone I knew saw me doing it, I’d say it was a gag. But sometimes we have to do pointless things because that’s all that’s left for us. It’s a ritual. Something an angel would understand perfectly.
When I’m sure the roses won’t blow away, I kick the bike into gear and head back to Max Overdrive.
It hasn’t been a long day, but I’m tired all the same. Not like I was when I was sick. It’s more like the weight of what happened Downtown is back on my shoulders. But it won’t be there for long. With that last good-bye, I’m done with this part of the story and ready for the next. I wonder if Abbot will fly me first class when I James Bond around the world, strangling Wormwood hotshots in their sleep. I like those little airline liquor bottles. They’re like the fun-size candy bars you get at Halloween. I’ll be treat-or-treating at six hundred miles an hour and eight miles high.
Made it, Ma. Top of the world.
IN THE EVENING, I take Candy to Musso & Frank’s for martinis. I feel a little guilty for drinking somewhere that isn’t Bamboo House of Dolls, but there will be a lot of nights to make up for it.
I can’t remember how many drinks we have, but it’s too many, which is just the number we came for. We even find a cab to take us home. Maybe Heaven has been keeping tabs on me after all. Decided to throw me a bone when they knew I was disastrously incapable of walking home in a dignified manner.
Thanks for the ride, Mr. Muninn. I’ll be seeing you around, but not for a while, okay?
Back at Max Overdrive, me and Candy tear each other’s clothes off on the way up the stairs to the apartment. We make it as far as the sofa, fully intending to wreck a lot of furniture, but we’re too drunk and ridiculous to get very far.
We wake up around ten in the morning still on the sofa, with gin headaches and surf music blasting from the stereo. Our clothes aren’t piled by the door so much as they’ve been hurled with great force, no doubt by Kasabian when he found the evidence of our indiscretion while opening the store. Candy makes coffee while I carry our wrinkled rags into the bedroom. I think I fall asleep again because when I sit up, the coffee by the bed is cold and Candy has gone to work. I take about fifty aspirin and head downstairs to shelve discs. It’s the least I can do after forcing Kasabian to handle our delicates.
“You planning to pull that stunt often?” he says when the there’s no one in the store.
“Sorry for the inconvenience. But we were suffering from an acute case of martini poisoning.”
“Just make sure to clean up after yourselves next time. I’m going to need psychiatric help after finding all that crap on the stairs. I thought you’d done some of your half-assed magic and disappeared like the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“I’m melting. I’m melting.”
“Yeah. That.”
I carry a pile of discs to the racks. The most famous movie David Lynch never made, Ronnie Rocket, has been a popular new title this week. I haven’t even had a chance to watch it yet. Maybe tonight.
“I’m starting to feel guilty about not paying royalties on all these movies. We need to send some anonymous money to the AFI.”
“Sure. Bankrupt us. Good plan.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m ignoring you.”
I go over to the counter.
“Are you and Fairuza talking?”
“Yeah,” Kasabian says. “Thanks for scaring the holy hell out of her, then throwing her at me. There’s nothing better than your ex calling you at three in the morning with night terrors.”
