Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel (17 page)

Mike holds up the cat.

“Trying to earn a living. Someone’s kitten’s on the fritz. What, you think I only work for live people? That’s racist, man.”

“Calm down, Mike. I was just surprised to see you.”

“Me too.”

His heart is going a million beats a minute. The smell of fear sweat pours off him.

“Is there something you’re not telling me, Mike? Another reason you’re here?”

I let go of his shirt and he shrugs his shoulder back into place.

“Okay. Sure. You still haven’t come across with my soul. These guys. They’re my backup plan. I buy my way in, let one of them bite me, and I don’t die and I don’t go to Hell. And if I’m dead like them, I can still work.”

It actually makes sense, which is more than I expect from Mike.

“I understand. It’s smart to have a Plan B. Just don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone. Don’t let any of these guys put the fangs to you.”

Mike takes the kitten and walks away.

“Give me a reason.”

S
OMETIMES YOU GET
lucky. Or maybe the angel in my head is a little psychic. Though not nearly psychic enough. If it was, I’d see the shitstorms coming down the road and have a chance to jump in a ditch or hide in a little country church. Let the hellfire-and-brimstone preacher cleanse me of my sins. With a little luck maybe it would be near a roadhouse with local swill on tap and watered-down whiskey behind the bar. The kind of place that would at least let me smoke a goddamn cigarette while I have my drink. But with my normal run of luck, I’ll shelter from the storm in a dry county where the only good times are judging the pigs at a 4-H show or chicken-fried steak at a Cracker Barrel. Like I said, my angel might be a little psychic but he’s not psychic enough to do me a damned bit of good. Probably there’s nothing psychic about him at all. Probably it’s as simple as he talked to Tykho, but an hour after I get to Bamboo House of Dolls, Declan Garrett walks in. Candy sees him first. She elbows me.

“Salesman of the year twelve o’clock high.”

He comes right over and starts in. Not even a “Hi. Sorry about interrupting your donut with gunfire.” I wonder if he knows his gunman was a windup toy.

“I heard you wanted to see me.”

“I’m fine, Declan. How are you?”

He’s agitated. This isn’t his turf. It’s mine and he doesn’t like it. Carlos is looking at him. I raise a hand to let him know that everything is all right and he goes back to serving other customers.

“Listen, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot the other day. You’re right: I do have the 8 Ball, and you can have it for the million you promised plus one more thing.”

“What?”

“Who’s the buyer?”

His lip curls at one corner of his mouth.

“What do you care?”

“Indulge me.”

“No,” he says. “You indulge me.”

He sidesteps behind Candy while pulling something from under his jacket. I don’t have to see the pistol to know it’s there.

“Be cool, Declan. Let’s all just be cool.”

“I
am
cool, motherfucker. I’m a snowman eating an Eskimo Pie. You think you can call me here and cheat me out of my sale?”

“That’s not it at all.”

“Then what is it? . . . Oh, wait. I don’t care. I want the fucking Qomrama or I’m going to shoot the pretty lady. Yeah, you’ll get me, but your Charles Bronson act won’t keep lead out of her spine.”

Candy opens her eyes wide at me. It’s not fear. She’s asking me to let her go Jade on this creep and eat his face. I shake my head ever so slightly. She’s mad but she listens.

“Okay, man. You’ve got me over a barrel. I’ll take you to the 8 Ball.”

“Right now, cocksucker. I mean right now.”

“Sure. It’s close by.”

“Then let’s go.”

We go out to a BMW coupe parked down the block. He and Candy get in the back. He makes me drive. I take us straight down Sunset to the Chateau, obeying the speed limit and stopping for every red light. I don’t know who Candy hates more right now, him or me. Given the chance, she’d probably eat us both just on principle. Him for pulling the gun, and me for not taking it from him. I’m going to have a lot of making up to do, assuming we don’t end up all bullet-riddled.

Declan doesn’t like it when I give his keys to the valet at the Chateau, but what’s he going to do about it? We go through the lobby not looking the slightest bit suspicious. Me a few feet in front while a nervous guy is pressed so close to Mr. Macheath’s squeeze that he might be giving her a high colonic.

We take the elevator to the penthouse. Declan gets extra twitchy when we arrive upstairs and he doesn’t see a room right away.

“Ready to go down the rabbit hole?” I ask.

“Don’t try anything cute.”

I open the grandfather clock and step halfway through.

“The 8 Ball is in here, safe and sound.”

He leans over and squints, trying to see past me.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“No tricks. I’m not going to leave something as important as the 8 Ball in the hotel safe, am I? No. I’ll keep it where no one even knows about it.”

I step through the clock. A second later Candy follows, Declan holding on to her like a leech. I take a quick look around. Kasabian’s laptop is open but he’s nowhere in sight. Good. He’s the last thing I want to have to explain to the shakiest gun in the West.

“What is this place?”

“My Batcave, where I keep all my secrets.”

“You people are even weirder than I heard.”

Candy cracks up and Declan tightens his grip on her arm. He doesn’t appreciate her extreme lack of terror. She should probably be a little more concerned. This guy is armed and unstable, and as far as I know, Jades don’t deal with bullets any better than civilians.

“You can put that gun down now. We’re here and I’m going to get the 8 Ball.”

“Qomrama. Show a little respect, asshole. It’s a holy thing and it’s going to get me a holy lot of money.”

“That’s clever. You wait here and I’ll go get it. You okay, Candy?”

She’s stopped laughing.

“Hurry up. I’m hungry. I want to order a lobster.”

I give her another don’t-do-anything look. She narrows her eyes at me. When this is over I’m going to need a thesaurus to show me how many ways you can say “Sorry.”

The fake 8 Ball isn’t in any safe. It’s in the one place no one is going to go pawing around. Under a pile of my dirty clothes, the bloody ones piled on top.

I bring the 8 Ball into the living room, bouncing it in one hand. Declan tenses but doesn’t let go of Candy.

“Good. Now put it on the table.”

“No. Who’s it for?”

“I’ll shoot the bitch.”

“No.”

Candy looks at me.

“The bitch doesn’t want to get shot,” she says.

I look at Declan.

“You could have shot her before and the 8 Ball is right here, so why would you shoot her now?”

Declan’s eyes flicker microscopically. He knows what will happen if he pulls the trigger and he doesn’t want to die. But he also knows that I don’t want Candy shot.

“Heads up,” I say, and toss him the 8 Ball.

He lets go of Candy and lunges for the Qomrama. Catches it with his arms, close to his chest like a football. Candy steps away from him. Declan now has the gun leveled at both of us.

I say, “Who’s it for?”

Declan looks at his bouncing baby 8 Ball and smiles.

“No one. Last time I was buying for a bunch of bankers with their own Angra group, Der Zorn Gottes. The Angra they worship is a fucking flower. Can you believe that shit? ‘Zhuyigdanatha.’ A real mouthful, huh? But his friends call him the Flayed Heart, so it’s okay.”

“But you’re not selling it to them now.”

“Damn right,” says Declan. “Your little blitzkrieg drove the price way up. Now it goes to the highest bidder.”

“That sounds dangerous,” says Candy.

“Nothing ventured nothing etcetera, sweetheart. I saw the light after he killed Moseley.”

“I didn’t kill him. He jumped in front of a bus.”

“Same thing, you fuck. He was a true believer and happy to die for the Angra cause. I’m not. Whoever ponies up can have it. That includes you, you know. You find a buyer and we can do some real business.”

“You suppose your Flayed Heart buddies know how the 8 Ball works?”

“What the fuck do I care? They can give it to their kids at Christmas instead of an Elmo doll.”

I don’t know any other actual Angra freaks. This might be my only chance to meet some real ones.

“I know someone who wants the 8 Ball. You sell it to your people, then put me in touch so I can make a bid on it.”

Declan considers this.

“I don’t know that I’m going to sell to Der Zorn Gottes. Why don’t you tell me your buyer and I’ll sell to him? I’ll give you a ten percent finder’s fee.”

“No. I want to meet your people.”

“I have the Qomrama and the gun. What you want isn’t really relevant to the discussion.”

This is starting to piss me off. Ten more seconds I’ll be chewing his face off myself. I could throw some hoodoo at him, but he still might get a shot off and hit Candy. I’ve got to find another angle.

“I have to make a tiny confession.”

Declan is already edging for the door.

“What?”

“That 8 Ball is a fake.”

He stops and looks at it like maybe he can tell the difference.

“It better goddamn well not be,” he says, and shoots a glass vase holding some long-stemmed lilies. Thank God. I was planning on knocking the ugly thing over myself. Declan shakes the 8 Ball. Uses his gun hand to try to make it do something.

A whirring, clicking noise starts behind me.

“What are you two doing out here? Fucking each other with cannonballs?” says Kasabian, bleary-eyed, creaking out of his room on all fours. He sees Declan with the gun and jerks upright, which, if you aren’t used to it, looks even worse.

“Shit!” yells Declan. He shoots at Kasabian, hitting him in the leg. I pull the Peacemaker from the waistband behind my back and, before he can turn the gun on me, put a hole in the side of Declan’s thick skull. He drops the 8 Ball, but Candy’s Jade reflexes are quick-like-a-bunny fast and she catches it before it hits the ground.

“What the fuck?” yells Kasabian, grabbing his injured leg. “Your fucking hit man crippled me,” he says. He hobbles over to Declan’s body. “This is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. You don’t kill me, so you bring in someone to do it for you.”

“Calm down. I didn’t know he was going to shoot you. I wanted to see if he knew how to use the damned 8 Ball. Someone besides Aelita must.”

Candy sets the Qomrama on the coffee table and looks at dead Declan like she still wants to eat him.

“Fumbling with the 8 Ball, he looked like a junior high kid trying to take a girl’s bra off for the first time.”

I put the pistol back in my waistband.

“Hey, the first time can be confusing. And then some girl fools you with the kind that closes in the front and you start getting worried about how many other ways bras can open.”

“That’s the girl IQ test,” says Candy. “Can the rat run the maze and find the cheese?”

“I knew it was a conspiracy.”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Kasabian drops down into his desk chair. He tries to straighten his bum leg, but can only manage to get it about two thirds out.

“I’m fine over here, Nick and Nora. Thanks for asking.”

Declan has a pretty big hole in his head and it’s bleeding all over the Chateau’s pricey carpet.

I say, “I’m going to dump the body. Why don’t you two clean up the blood as best as you can and cover what you don’t get with a throw rug or the sofa?”

Kasabian shakes his head.

“Forget it. I’m not cleaning up your mess.”

“I kept this asshole from killing you.”

“You brought him here.”

Kasabian and I have ended up here before, but this is the last time.

“You’re right,” I say. “I put you in danger. Maybe it’s time for you to take all that money you have stashed away and find your own place.”

He frowns.

“What?”

I point to Declan’s corpse.

“This isn’t the last time this shit is going to happen. If anything, things are going to get worse as the Angra get closer and people start scrambling for whatever they can grab.”

“See? Looking for any excuse to get rid of me. I told you you’d do this.”

“I brought you here to save your sorry ass, but I guess you forgot that. What we’re talking about right now, though, this is your choice. You don’t want to be a team player? Fine. I’ll help you get back in our old room at the Beat Hotel. But just remember that from now on you’re going to be watching your own back, and if you want any more work from Manimal Mike, you’ll be paying for it yourself.”

“You’re going to let him do this?” he says to Candy.

“Sorry. I’m on the crazy man’s side on this one,” she says.

“This is how it is from now on. Everyone works with everyone else. You want to play lone wolf, you’re on your own.”

Kasabian rubs his chin with a metal paw.

“So what, we’re going all Super Friends now?”

“Something like that.”

“He wasn’t trying to get me shot?”

Candy shakes her head.

“No. The bastard was trying to get
me
shot.”

Kasabian thinks for a minute.

“Okay. You have your demands. I have mine. You drop all the ‘Old Yeller’ stuff. You want me to be a team player, you treat me like part of the team and not the equipment.”

“That’s downright cruel, man.”

He holds up a finger.

“And my leg. I want it no-shit fixed.”

I nod.

“I’m working on that. There aren’t a lot of listings for hellhounds on Craigslist. I’m going to have to go Downtown and beg or steal one.”

Candy clears her throat.

“You know, it might pique someone’s interest if you call the concierge for a bunch of bleach and a body bag.”

“Use the blankets and towels to get up as much blood as you can. Then call down for new ones. If they ask about the old ones, tell them we’re taking care of them.”

“That won’t make them suspicious.”

“I’m Mr. Macheath. I work in mysterious ways.”

Kasabian gets up and whirs and clanks into his bathroom to get towels. Candy gives me some of the cash people have been paying me not to bend them into balloon animals.

“Sorry about making you play damsel in distress tonight.”

“Tell me you didn’t plan it in advance.”

“I was improvising. I promise.”

She looks at all the blood.

“It’s like Sweeney Todd’s rumpus room in here.”

“I’ll be back soon.”

I
FIND AN
all-night market a few blocks from the Chateau. I buy garbage bags, bleach, duct tape, and a shovel. The clerk doesn’t bat an eye. I sneak back through a shadow in the parking lot and come out in the penthouse, my stomach catching a little, not just from the typical nausea of coming through the penthouse’s magic defenses, but from the thick smell of blood in the room.

While Candy and Kasabian pat down the carpet with towels and sheets, turning them bright crimson, I stick Declan’s head in one of the garbage bags, securing it with tape around his neck. I don’t want any more of the red stuff splashing around. I know I should feel bad about wrapping a dead man like pork chops for the freezer, but I can’t work up much sympathy. He was a greedy fuck who was going to shoot Candy. That’s after he almost got her shot at Donut Universe. No. Declan Garrett deserves what he got and what he’s going to get.