Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel (20 page)

In a circular courtyard by the front doors is the sky-blue globe that gave the mall its name. If they reopen the place they might have to call it Bird Shit City. Most of the northern hemisphere is buried under the white stuff and South America isn’t looking so good. It’s like half the world is encased in a gull-crap ice age.

The glass entrance doors are nothing but bent aluminum frames. We step through and into the pool of light on the floor. This mall lobby is pretty intact. The collapsed section is a football field’s length back. The stars shine down on the rubble of a dead indoor garden.

The L.A. heat and wet ocean air have turned the inside of Kill City into a kind of hothouse. The air is warm and thick. Water drips from the ceiling. Green fungus grows on every surface where it can get a hold. The floor is slick with the stuff. Mold leopard-spots the walls and storefronts. In the center of the lobby is a fifty-foot Christmas tree. The outside lights glitter off enormous ornaments almost lost under a layer of furred fungus.

Something crashes to the floor on the other side of the lobby, hitting hard enough to shake the Christmas tree. Candy and Father Traven have their flashlights out and shine them in the direction of the sound.

A hundred feet away, an enormous helmet has crashed to the floor. The ceiling of the lobby is twelve stories high. A mannequin Santa and reindeer, dusty chrome cherubs, and a shooting star dangle precariously on the few support wires that haven’t snapped yet.

“Did anyone see it fall?”

Heads shake and people mumble no or shrug.

“An auspicious beginning,” says Vidocq.

“One of the crazies might have dragged it here from another part of the mall and left it leaning against something,” says Delon. “They used to have a grand bazaar up here once every couple of months. It was supposed to be neutral ground during the market, but someone always violated it. With all the violence, eventually the market died. That’s when things really fell apart. The last vestiges of an organized society. Now when the crazies trade, the groups do it one-on-one and try to avoid each other the rest of the time. They’re about one inch from tribes of jungle headhunters.”

I say, “We should get moving,” to Delon.

He goes to one of the standing mall maps. It’s as tall as he is, upright and square, like one of Kubrick’s monoliths from
2001
. Delon wipes fungus from the front of the map with his jacket sleeve.

“I thought you knew the mall by heart,” says Traven.

“I do,” says Delon. “I just want to make sure we’re oriented correctly.”

Everyone gets out their flashlights and clusters around him, reading off the names of the expensive shops over his shoulder. Candy comes up to me and nods at the tree.

“I told you it was Christmas. You should have given me my present.”

“That’s not a Christmas tree. That’s Swamp Thing’s summer home.”

She heads to where the others are standing. I pop the cylinder on the Colt to make sure it’s fully loaded. It is. I follow her over.

“Got it,” says Paul. He points to a “You Are Here” arrow on the map. “I know where to go from here.”

“Which way?” I say.

He points off to the left.

“Up.”

Through the green-tinged dimness I see stairs and, beside them, a two-story-high pile of garbage.

“That way.”

“Let’s get going.”

I hang back and let Delon walk point. Not that he needs any encouragement. I think he’s been looking forward to being in charge. I wonder how his brain works. He’s not a computer. He’s goddamn Stretch Armstrong. It’s not like he’s downloading video to a chip in his brain. All his memories and personality must be hoodoo Atticus stuck in his head when he was screwing the skull shut. What I really want to know is if Delon knows he’s a cuckoo clock or does he think he’s a real boy? Part of it is cheap curiosity and part of it is self-defense. I keep thinking about Trevor stepping in front of that bus. Did he do it because he knew he was replaceable or because he thought he was sacrificing himself for the Angra cause? I’d love to get hold of a Paul or Trevor or Donny Osmond or whatever other names they have and let Manimal Mike take it apart to see what makes it run.

As we climb, I can feel people’s nerves kicking in. Before this, meeting the Kill City crazies was an abstract concept. Now a machine is taking us to a meet and greet with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. I have to admit that I’m a little concerned myself. As we reach each floor, I keep an eye open for shadows that might hide an ambush or ones dark enough that I can pull people into.

I say, “How far are we going?”

“Twelve floors. All the way to the top. There’s a hotel up there with views all the way from the ocean to the city.”

He sounds like a fucking real estate developer.

The empty retail spaces don’t look like they were ever stores. More like strange minimalist art. Hard geometric lines and soft fungal patches behind smashed security gates. The funny thing is that the scattered glass and broken fixtures are the only things that make the spaces look like humans built them and that anything with a frontal lobe might have wanted to go inside.

“What do you know about the Mangarms?” says Traven.

“Like I said, they’re Sub Rosa,” says Delon. “Old-world types that specialized in black magic.”

“Baleful,” says Candy.

“What?”

“The correct Sub Rosa term is Baleful magic. Not black. He told me,” she says, pointing to me.

“Thank you,” says Delon, trying not to sound too sarcastic. “May I go on?”

“Please do.”

“They were and I suppose still are black potionists. They made poisons and hexes subtle enough to get around all but the most powerful charms. The problem is that their old-school magic didn’t keep up with modern medicine. Antibiotics, transfusions, and stomach pumps put them out of business.”

He looks at Candy.

“The Mangarm term for it is ‘scientificated magic.’ ”

“Cool.”

Glass elevator enclosures run alongside the stairs. It looks like they haven’t worked since the day the place closed down. But someone is using them. Ropes have been strung inside. There are pulleys every couple of floors. My guess is that the setup runs all the way to the top. It’s probably how the Mangarms move swag from the lower floors to home sweet home. It also explains the garbage heap in the lobby. Whatever they don’t want anymore goes over the railing to the floor. I wonder what living over your own garbage dump smells like in high summer.

“Stop!” yells Brigitte.

Everyone freezes where they are.

Brigitte flashes forward and knocks Delon onto his face. Something creaks and blasts by us, swinging from a wire that reaches up into the dark over our heads. It smashes into the railing on the far side of the stairs, taking out a few feet of it, before swinging back and almost clipping Traven. It cracks the opposite railing and gets stuck there. Everyone turns their flashlights on the thing.

It’s smashed to bits, only held together with yards of wire and duct tape. Sharpened metal spikes stick out at all angles. The center of the thing is dull beige plastic with holes in the front where keys might have been.

Father Traven examines it, pushing pieces of crushed plastic back into place.

“It’s a cash register,” he says. “Sharpened rebar wrapped around a cash register.”

Brigitte gets up and goes to him.

“Are you all right? It almost hit you.”

He touches her shoulder.

“I’m fine. Really.”

Brigitte gets on her knees, shining her flashlight on the steps until she finds what she’s looking for.

“You see? Here.”

Her light illuminates several feet of monofilament line stretched across one of the stairs. It hangs loose where Paul stepped on it.

“It’s a trip wire,” says Vidocq.

“Thank you,” says Paul. He looks a little shaken. No. He doesn’t know he’s a machine. He thinks he’s going to live a long and productive life, marry and have a pack of little toasters to bounce on his knee.

I say, “From now on, we don’t all shine our lights in the same spot. Move them around. Look for other traps.”

“I guess we’ve officially lost the element of surprise,” says Candy.

Paul runs his light over the next few steps and starts up again. The rest of us follow.

“Glad you came along, Father?” I say. “What’s the story about Jonah getting swallowed by the whale?”

“I was thinking more about Dante,” he says.

Vidocq says, “But when Dante went up he was ascending to Heaven.”

“I don’t think we’ll find Heaven in here, up or down.”

By the tenth floor we’re sweating like pigs. By the eleventh we’re sweating like filthy pigs. It’s a relief to hit the last staircase until it stops halfway up. There’s at least a fifteen-foot gap between where we are and the top of the stairs.

Lights come on overhead. Flashlights shine down into our eyes with more lights blinking on in the hotel level above.

“Stay where you are.”

It’s a raspy male voice. A whiskey voice or just someone who took a hit to the throat hard enough that it never healed right. There are six other guys behind him. All are armed with homemade blades, morning stars, and slings.

“Who are you?”

Paul takes half a step forward, right to the gap.

“We’re friends. We’d like to speak to Hattie.”

“Would you? Why would Mama Hattie want to speak to you?”

“We have offerings.”

“What kind?”

“Special. But they’re only for Hattie.”

The guy turns and chats away with a couple of other members of the welcoming committee. They’re wearing a ragged assortment of designer robes and furs. From what Delon said, I’d guess a mix of family heirlooms and things they looted from the stores below.

Candy whispers, “Who’s Hattie?”

“The family matriarch,” says Delon.

The group above breaks up. The rasper comes back to the front.

“Go away. We don’t need your offerings. We get what we need just fine.”

“Not this you don’t.”

“What is it?”

“Nehebkau’s Tears.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Shut up, you ignorant boy.”

It’s a woman’s voice, coming from behind the group. An old woman pushes her way to the front.

The whole Mangarm crew is gaunt but the woman looks like a mummy with a hangover. But she’s alive. I can hear her heart and smell her sweat, which isn’t all that pleasant.

She looks at Rasper and shakes her head.

“If you were good for anything besides stealing drugs from college kids’ backpacks, you’d know exactly what Nehebkau’s Tears are.”

She turns and looks down at us.

“Please forgive Diogo. I love my boys, but this one took one too many pretty pills and it’s left him with a skull full of fiddler crabs.”

She scratches the back of his head like he’s the not very bright family dog. She looks Delon over. The woman might look frail but her eyes are bright and hard.

“Let me see the Tears. I’ve handled them before, so I’ll know if you’re lying. If you are, I’m going to have my boys kill you.”

Delon tosses the bottle across the chasm. Hattie catches it easily. I reach up, pull Delon off the top step, and go up there myself. I have one hand under my coat, ready to pull the Colt the moment anyone twitches. A second later Brigitte is standing next to me. I can’t see it but I know she has her CO
2
gun handy. If she can get it out without anyone noticing, Candy will be pulling her 9mm folding pistol. Vidocq will have palmed a noxious potion or two. I hope Father Traven has the sense to stay in the back. I don’t know what Delon is doing, but it suddenly bothers me to have him behind me at a moment like this.

“What are the Tears?” Traven says.

Delon says, “One of the most potent poisons known to the Sub Rosa, mortals, or Lurkers. And it’s undetectable. Worth a fortune.”

Hattie opens the vial and sniffs it. Touches the underside of the stopper to her tongue. I hear Delon gasp. She swishes the stuff around in her mouth for a moment. Then half spits, half coughs it out with a wad of phlegm.

She looks at Delon and laughs.

“Don’t you worry about old Hattie. I’ve been around poisons and potions, elixirs and venoms, every kind of nostrum and bane that you can think of. It’s worn out this old body, but it’s left me immune to about everything made or grown on this earth.”

She looks at the bottle, smacks her lips, and puts it in her pocket.

“Let them up, boys,” she says, then points at me. “But keep an eye on the scarred one. He looks shiftier than a drunken sidewinder.”

Diogo and his boys grab ropes suspended over the stairs and pull. A makeshift ramp made of old pieces of scaffolding wired haphazardly together swings up into place. With a thud, the ramp bangs into the bottom of the steps and Hattie’s boys tie off the ropes.

“You first, Cortés,” I say, and shove Delon onto the ramp. It sways and the ropes creak and Hattie’s boys laugh, but the thing holds together. Delon walks up the ramp like he’s barefoot and stepping on razor blades.

“One at a time,” I say to the others, and start across. I let go of the Colt so I can put out my hands to keep my balance. I don’t bother looking down. I have a pretty good picture in my head of the garbage heap twelve floors below. I don’t want to end up another empty juice box on the pile.

I make it across and Candy stumbles up behind me a second later. Then Brigitte and the rest.

Diogo and his boys take us into the remains of the Blue Pavilion Hotel. The place is in better shape than downstairs but could still use a good hosing down. Hurricane and smaller oil lamps light the lobby and surrounding halls. The lobby furniture is patched with duct tape and random swatches of fabric. Some of the chairs have no legs and sit flat on the floor. All the glass in the panoramic windows is covered with heavy curtains, which makes sense. They don’t want anyone on the beach to see the lights from up here. Duct tape covers slits in the curtain every ten feet or so. Spy holes. It’s a damp, depressing place, but at least we’re high enough that there isn’t fungus and mold everywhere.

“Come sit by me,” Hattie says to Delon.