Читать книгу The Sandman Slim Series Books 1-4 - Richard Kadrey - Страница 11

I HEAD BACK to Max Overdrive to change my scorched party clothes. I’m an Evel Knievel doll that a kid lit on fire and tossed on Dad’s barbecue. Good thing I bought the motocross jacket with Brad Pitt’s money. Otherwise, I’d be really pissed off. At least my boots are all right. And I still have the silk overcoat. Thanks, Brad. Hope Avila’s security goons didn’t confiscate your stun gun.

Going through the door at Max Overdrive, even the back door, usually feels good. It’s boring and normal. Burned up like this, I don’t bother. I step through a shadow and straight into my room. For the few seconds I’m in the room, there’s noise coming from behind every door, especially the thirteenth. Something seismic is rippling through the aether, giving the universe indigestion. Good.

I take off my ruined clothes, toss them into the far corner of the room, and dig out a hoodie and pair of black jeans that I picked up with Muninn’s cash. Then I walk the few steps through a dark patch in the wall to Vidocq’s apartment.

I knock and let myself in. Allegra is holding an old book that looks like it weighs more than she does. Vidocq is reading it over her shoulder, with a couple of potion vials in his hands. They look up when I come in. Allegra doesn’t say anything. Vidocq turns back to his worktable. I don’t need super magic sense to figure out that something isn’t right. He takes a set of keys from his pocket and hands them to Allegra.

“Would you take the car and get us some lunch?”

I walk into the room. “You own a car?”

“I own and do many things you don’t know about. You don’t know anyone anymore. You don’t listen. You don’t care.”

Allegra walks to the door.

When she passes I ask, “Cat got your tongue?”

She turns to me. “You fucked up good, man.” When she leaves, I look over at Vidocq, but he won’t look at me.

Quietly he says, “You and your cowboy bullshit. There’s no excuse for what you did today. It was too public and too reckless. You could have been killed. You could have killed others.”

I sit down on the arm of the easy chair. “Right. It’s all my fault because Parker was being so careful not to hurt civilians.”

“You should never have gone after him, Mason, or the others like this.”

“If I didn’t, which one of you was going to? You were a detective once. Why didn’t you track Mason down?”

Vidocq shakes his head, turns away, ands flips pages in the book that Allegra had been holding when I came in. “I tried for a while, but I saw things. I heard things. Don’t ask me what.”

“You people have had eleven years to deal with Mason and, as far as I can tell, you haven’t done a goddamn thing. You think he grabbed all that magical power so he can retire? You should be on my side, trying to snuff him.”

“People were here earlier. Representatives from the Sub Rosa.” Vidocq finally looks at me. “They came to me because they know that you and I are close.”

“Are we still? I can’t tell lately.”

“They’re done with you over that debacle. There were so many people. So many security cameras in the stores and on the street. Tourists with more cameras. There’s only so much they can do to cover it up.”

“They have a story yet?”

“A publicity stunt for a movie. Equipment malfunctioned. There are many Sub Rosa in the film industry. They’ll pay any fines and lawsuits this time. But they won’t next time.” Vidocq makes a face like he can smell two-week-old garbage from the apartment next door. “In this matter, no one is on your side.”

“Are they going to kick me out of the magic union? Take away my 401?”

“This isn’t a joke.” Vidocq slams the book closed. “These are powerful people. Medea Bava was here. She left this for you.” He hands me a small white linen bundle tied with horsehair. Crow feathers inside. And wolf teeth spotted with blood.

“An Inquisitor? That’s a fairy tale. They don’t exist.”

“That lady sure existed,” says Allegra. “Her face was more messed up than yours.”

Vidocq says, “These people can hurt you.”

“Let them try.” I get up and go to the door. “Tell those Sub Rosa and their meter maids that they have three choices if they want me out of L.A. They can help me. They can stay out of my way. Or they can kill me.”

Out in the hall a guy with two overflowing bags of groceries stops dead in his tracks, his key halfway to his door lock. With Vidocq’s apartment being invisible to civilians, it must have looked like I appeared out of thin air.

“Oh. Hello,” says the guy.

“Good-bye,” I say, and disappear through a shadow right in front of him.

CARLOS HANDS ME a plate of rice, beans, and enchiladas in a thick mole sauce. I tear right into them. I’m starving after the fight, and Carlos’s food is so good I want to marry it.

“You been doing your ninja thing again?” Carlos asks.

“What makes you say that?”

“One side of your face and your hands are all red, like a burn.”

I look at my hands. They’re scraped and raw-looking, like I’ve been juggling cinder blocks. “No big deal. They’ll be fine by morning.”

“I have aloe in the back if you want some.”

I shake my head. “Thanks anyway. Another scar or two isn’t going to ruin my pretty face.”

“Right.”

“Carlos, are you being polite? That’s not what I come here for. I know I’m not Steve McQueen.”

“My lady is totally in love with him. Lucky for me he’s dead or I’d be in trouble.”

I hold up my glass of Jack Daniel’s in a toast. “Here’s to all the guys better looking than us. May they all die first.” Carlos picks up his glass, clinks mine, and we drink.

For the first time since I’ve had it, my cell phone rings. I don’t even know what it is at first. It feels like a rat is having a nervous breakdown in the pocket of my hoodie. When I get it out, it takes me a second to remember which button to push to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Jimmy?”

“Who is this?”

“It’s me. Cherry. I heard you were at the store. I didn’t believe her.”

“So, you called someone you didn’t think was alive?”

“I called because if you were alive, I need your help.”

I don’t answer for a minute. I eat a forkful of enchilada.

“Jimmy?”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t like it.”

“What should I call you?”

“The guy you helped send to Hell for eleven years of torture.” I get up and walk over by the jukebox, speaking quietly. “The guy who is seriously thinking about redecorating the inside of that store of yours with your guts.”

Now it’s her turn to not talk.

“I know you must hate it.”

“Hate doesn’t come close to it.”

“I heard about your fight with Parker.”

“Everyone has, apparently.”

“Did you know Jayne-Anne is dead?”

“When?”

“Last night. Parker did it. At least, that’s what I heard.”

“That’s why you need my help. I go after Jayne and Parker kills her because she probably has information that could lead to Mason. TJ and Kasabian are already out of the picture. That just leaves you.”

“Will you help me?”

“Give me a reason.”

“I know where Mason is.”

I walk back to the bar and away from the music. I don’t want to miss any of this. “I don’t believe you.”

“The reason no one can find him is that he isn’t in this reality. He’s somewhere else. But I guess that if you got back here from Hell, you can find a way to get to him.”

“How do I know that Mason isn’t standing next to you right now, telling you what to say?”

“How do I know you won’t shoot me in the back like you did Parker, once I’ve told you where Mason is?”

Mason or Cherry. If she’s telling the truth, it isn’t much of a choice. Especially after today. I wouldn’t mind giving bloody noses to some nosy Sub Rosa hall monitors, but with Parker and Mason dogging me, it’s dumb to go begging for unnecessary trouble.

“Okay,” I say. “It’s a deal. When and where should we meet?”

She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “Someone’s coming. I’ll call you later.”

I put the phone in my pocket and go back to my food. Carlos has already refilled my glass.

“Let me guess. You were talking to a woman. I don’t need to hear the words. It’s all in the tone,” he says. “They call when they want something, then they’re the ones who cut you off.”

“It’s not women. It’s humans. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t kill ’em all.”

I go back to my food, and wonder about Cherry. Her breathing sounded nervous on the phone, but I can’t be sure. I guess my new Spidey senses don’t work over wires. But if she’s setting me up, wouldn’t she have suggested a time and place to meet right away? I can go round and round like this forever, looking for secret meanings in every syllable and pause in the conversation. If I am being set up, I want to go in with an edge so I don’t end up eating one of Parker’s fireballs. Normally, about now, I’d go and ask Vidocq for advice or maybe a protection charm. Today doesn’t seem like the day for that.

It takes me a minute to notice that the music has changed. It’s shifted from tiki drums and bird calls to something more somber. All slow bass and breathy sax. Then a singer.

“It’s dreamy weather we’re on

You waved your crooked wand

Along an icy pond with a frozen moon

A murder of silhouette crows I saw

And the tears on my face

And the skates on the pond

They spell Alice.”

I go to the jukebox to see what’s playing.

“Set me adrift and I’m lost over there

And I must be insane, to go skating on your name,

And by tracing it twice, I fell through the ice

Of Alice …”

“Who put this song on?” I turn and look at the room. It’s early enough that the place isn’t packed yet. There are maybe a dozen people scattered at different tables. “Who put this song on?” Not a word. My heart is pounding. I go back to the bar, keeping an eye on the room, not sure what to do. I want to start throwing furniture and people, but two sets of civilian casualties in one day is probably two too many.

I ask Carlos, “Did you see anyone by the jukebox?”

“Sorry, man. No. I didn’t even know we had the song. Never heard it before. The service guys change the tunes every now and then, when they come in to empty the coin bins.”

“Next time one of them comes in, tell them to take it off.”

“You got it. Here. Have another drink.” Carlos starts to pour me one, sets down the bottle, and grabs a baseball bat from under the counter.

“Get the fuck out of here, rulacho. You got no business here.”

I look at the door. One of the skinheads from the other day is there, black eyes and his arm in a sling. He comes inside and stands by the bar, tall and cocky, but his heartbeat says he’s scared, and he’s keeping an eye on Carlos and his bat.

“The Blut Führer wants to see you,” he says, nodding at me.

“The bloated what?”

“Blut Führer,” says Carlos. “‘Blood leader.’ The boss to these Nazi bitches.”

“Shut up, spick. White men are talking.”

I have one hand around skinhead’s throat and I’m squeezing the juice out of him. This is exactly what I need to work off some tension. When I let go, the skinhead falls on his ass on the floor. So much for tall and cocky.

“The Blut Führer …” he rasps.

“Blood leader?” I say. “When did you guys start playing Dungeons and Dragons? Tell the blood fart to kiss my ass.”

Himmler grabs a bar stool and pulls himself to his feet. “I told him about that black knife you used on Frederic. That’s why he wants to meet you.”

“Why do I care what he wants?”

“The Blut Führer says he knows the original owner.”

Azazel? A third-rate Colonel Klink impersonator knows Azazel?

“How does your boss know the owner?”

“I don’t know. He just said he wanted to meet the man with the power to have that particular knife. He promises you safe passage in and out.”

“Thanks, but I think I can find my own way in and out of your mom’s basement.”

“Don’t trust this little bug,” says Carlos. “Let me call the cops.”

“No. If he knows about the knife, I want to meet the guy.”

The skinhead says, “There’s a car outside.”

When he turns, I wrap my right arm around his neck and squeeze. I have the knife against the side of his throat.

“If you’re lying to me, I’m going to cut out your eyes and cut off your balls. Then I’m going put your balls in your eye sockets and staple your eyes in your ball sac. So, let me ask you one more time, are you absolutely sure you’re telling me the truth?”

The skinhead tries to nod. “He said he just wants to meet you and that no one will bother you.”

I take off the Veritas and flip it. It lands showing a burning cross and Sieg Heil in phonetic runes.

“Okay, Princess.” I put the knife back in my waistband under the hoodie. “But remember—no tongues on a first date.”

THE NEW REICHSTAG is an abandoned furniture warehouse near Sunset and Alvarado. A dozen American junker cars with white-power bumper stickers are parked outside. Another dozen chop-shop Harleys are lined up just beyond the cars. At least now I know who rides in this town.

My Nazi best friend knocks on the door and a girl skinhead with a Luger in a shoulder holster lets us inside the clubhouse.

No one has opened a window in this place for ten years. The room stinks of beer, piss, and sweat. It’s packed with roid rage Hitler Youth, but I can’t take my eyes off the girl who let us in, fierce and skinny, sporting a wife beater, shaved head, and a gun. I want to tell her, Baby, you’re my punk-rock dream date. Let’s get drunk and break stuff. Then I remember that she’s not like the girls I knew way back when. Proud to be scum. She’s waiting to be swept off to Valhalla by goose-stepping Dolph Lundgren look-alikes.

She asks, “What the fuck are you staring at, asshole?” and moves a hand to the gun.

I smile at her. “Spank me harder, Eva Braun.”

She spits at my boots but misses. My Nazi pal says, “Shut up, Ilsa.” He leads me to an office door marked PRIVATE. He knocks twice and we go inside.

While the main room is a piss-soaked junkyard of broken furniture and overflowing garbage cans, the office is as clean and organized as an operating room.

Behind a gray metal desk, a blond man is writing with a fountain pen on a yellow legal pad. High forehead. Sky-blue eyes. Cheekbones like the prow of an icebreaker. A perfect Aryan wet dream. Hell, even I want to have this guy’s babies.

His desk is surrounded by neat piles of white power pamphlets, slim books on how Jews and blacks are really extraterrestrial invaders, event sign-up sheets and CDs with pictures of bare-chested bands covered in swastika tattoos. At one corner is an impressive pile of weapons, knives, knuckle-dusters, and pipes wrapped in electrical tape. Mixed in the pile of metal, I’m pretty sure I see a couple of Hellion weapons that I used in the arena.

He looks up at me and gives me a smile that would melt a car salesman’s heart. “Sorry. Just making some notes for a speech I have to give this weekend. Please, sit down.”

I sit on a padded metal folding chair. My weight makes it squeak. Only the Führer gets the good furniture. I’ve gotten used to being able to read people, their breathing and heart rate, but I can’t get a fix on this guy. He’s not even too calm to read. It’s like he’s not there at all.

“What’s the story, Siegfried?” I ask. “Why are they all shorn sheep out there, but you get to have hair?”

“In the group, I’m called Josef. I’m the face of the movement. It’s all about media these days, isn’t it?” He points to a box of recruitment DVDs and tapes. “Tattoos and shaved heads scare people. Looking like the prom king brings the newspaper and local TV around, and gets our message out to more potential recruits.”

“I know about your message and don’t want to hear more. I’ve had enough crazy talk for this lifetime.”

“I’m sure you have. They don’t think much of the human race down in the pit, do they? I know Azazel doesn’t.” He watches me when he says it, waiting for a reaction. I don’t give him one.

“How do you know what Azazel thinks?”

“Because I’ve talked to him. He’s not happy with you killing him with his own knife. Tartarus is a bleak place compared to Hell.”

“How could you talk to Azazel? You can’t do a summoning on anyone as powerful as Azazel, and only Lucifer can walk in and out of Hell on his own.”

“Who says I’m on my own?” He opens his hands in an expansive gesture, like something a preacher would do. “What’s that old line from Luke? ‘My name is Legion: for we are many.’”

“Who’s ‘we’? Not those idiots out there.”

“Of course not.” Josef gets up and walks around the desk. He’s wearing chinos and a polo shirt. He doesn’t look any more dangerous than a salesman at RadioShack. “Who we are doesn’t matter. You matter. You got out of Hell and that makes you special. But why are you special? You don’t even smell like other humans. What are you?”

“I’m no one. I’m just me.”

“I think you’re being modest. Let’s see.”

Before I know what’s happening, Josef has one hand on my shoulder and the other inside my chest. I’m not bleeding and my bones aren’t cracked. He’s just got his hand inside me. I can feel his fingers moving over my ribs and between my organs. I try to throw him off. Punch or kick him. But I can’t move. He finds one of the bullets. Turns it between his fingers.

“Oh,” he says. “That shouldn’t be there. You should have that looked at.”

Josef’s human facade cracks like old paint, drops in flakes, and peels away in long sheets, falling on the floor. There’s a black void beneath his skin, but the blackness doesn’t hold and I can see what’s inside him. Josef is the hands and eyes of the operation, but he’s not alone. There are other creatures in there, too. Their outlines aren’t entirely solid. They’re vague, like ghosts. Like Josef, they glow from the inside, a pale blue white, like a slug crawling across the bottom of the ocean. They remind me of angels, if angels were candles that you left in a locked car in Texas in August. Their faces are fish-belly white and soft. Half formed. The fact that the creatures are almost beautiful makes them even harder to look at. I can’t read them the way I can a person, but I don’t have to. They remind me of insects. They might pounce on your next move, or they might wait for a million years, until they think the moment is right. It’s all the same to them. They’re patience and hunger with a side of fury.

I’m sick and freezing. It’s like I’m icing up from the inside. There’s a bitter smell and taste. Like a mouthful of vinegar. I want to throw up, but I can’t move.

“What’s this?” The question comes from far away and in a thousand discordant voices.

Josef takes my heart in his hand. His fingers glide through my flesh and touch Azazel’s key. Josef goes rigid.

All those voices again. “What is that? Is that your secret? I want it!” He leans forward and pulls on my heart. This time I scream. He’s trying to pull it out through my chest and it feels like he just might make it. But it’s not my heart he wants. It’s the key inside. He gets his fingers around it and tries to pry it out.

I don’t black out. I don’t scream. My vision collapses to a small point and settles on the floor, which opens up beneath me. I can see the outlines of Lucifer’s palace, Pandemonium, and the city around it. The smaller generals’ palaces and the arena where I fought. Individual Hellions drift up through the chaos at the edges of Hell, flying toward me. I know what this is now. I’m dying. Until now, I wasn’t even sure I could die. Now I know better.

The Hellions are getting closer. Soon I’ll fall right into their waiting arms. I hope they let me fight in the arena again. What else am I good at?

Josef screams and pulls his hand out of my chest. The human fingers are black and charred.

“What did you do to me? What is that thing? I want it.”

The floor is suddenly solid beneath my feet. He’s let go. I’m not dying anymore.

Josef grabs me with his good hand and pulls my face close to his. He looks human again. “A man couldn’t do that. Tell me what you are.”

“I’m the Gingerbread Man. I’ll run and run as fast as I can.”

Josef swings me around and throws me, one-handed, over his desk. Books, papers, and CDs scatter around the room. I slam into the wall. Some of the knuckle-dusters and knives that had been on his desk now dig into my back. I roll over on my belly knowing that I’m useless. I have a demonic knife under my shirt and I’m lying on a pile of shiny killing toys, but I couldn’t go two rounds with a kitten right now.

When I try to get on my feet, my hand comes down on one of the taped pipes. It feels familiar and heavy, like Hellion metal. It’s a na’at. Of course. Josef said that he’s been to Hell. He definitely knows dark magic. He’s the one who gave the Devil Daisy to the skinhead in Carlos’s bar. I stay on the floor, slip the na’at inside my shirt, and wrap my arms around myself so he won’t see it.

I say, “Don’t stop now, sweetheart. It was just getting fun.” Then I puke.

I hear Josef open the door and bark orders at someone. My Nazi pal and some of his friends come inside and haul me to my feet. I stay bent over so that they can’t see the na’at. Not that I can stand up straight yet. I still feel Josef’s fingers inside my chest.

The skinheads perp-walk me to the door, but Josef stops them. He leans over and whispers, “My name is …” and he makes a sound like a snake getting ready to strike. “Remember me. We’re going to meet again.”

This trip through the skinhead’s playhouse isn’t as fun as the first. It feels like every one of them spits on me or bounces a beer can off my head. My punk girlfriend at the door grabs my balls and squeezes until I collapse and get my first chance to admire the warehouse’s lovely linoleum floor.

That’s it, honey. We’ve officially broken up.

The trip back to the Bamboo House of Dolls is a blur of elbows and knees as the skinhead boys play Frisbee with me in the backseat. The good news is that the meth head driving gets us to the bar in record time. The bad news is that he barely slows down when we get there. The boys push me out of the backseat while the car is still going thirty miles per. I land like a sack full of Silly Putty, rolling and bouncing down the street until I hit the curb in the front of the bar.

Before anyone can call the cops, I crawl under a parked car, drop into the shadow, and stumble through the room back to Max Overdrive.

I don’t even get into bed. I lie on the cool floor. Try to catch my breath and shake off the feeling of those fingers scrabbling around in my chest. I take the na’at out from under my shirt, feeling its familiar weight in my hand. If I was a better liar, I’d say that scoring the weapon was worth the beating, but I’m not and it wasn’t. On the other hand, coming away with a working na’at and leaving a demonic skinhead with nothing but a burned hand and a pile of puke can give you a feeling of accomplishment at the end of a long day.

I WAKE UP with Mount Rushmore lying on my chest. My body feels like it weighs about a million pounds and it’s telling me that I shouldn’t move until at least the next ice age. Then I could forget all about L.A., get a job sweeping up Muninn’s labyrinth, and live in the dark and the silence forever. Or, more likely, until Baphomet or some other Hellion redneck finds a loophole in the universe’s cosmological rule book and wiggles his way out of Hell for the simple pleasure of gnawing my head off.

I think I might have gone a little too far down this road to call a press conference and announce my retirement. But what would I say? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m hanging up my key and my guns and will follow my bliss to lead a quiet life, devoting myself to my nonprofit organic-vegetable farm cooperative, where I plan on going slowly out of my mind and strangling every goddamn human being and chicken within one hundred miles. I really hate chickens.