Killing Pretty

by Richard Kadrey

  I pick up a paper clip from her desk. It’s an odd shape. Round, the metal spiraling down to a point. I start unwinding it.

  “I wish I could have gotten my hands on those White Light pricks.”

  Julie says, “Has anyone ever talked to you about PTSD?”

  “No. What’s that?”

  “Don’t play coy. You know exactly what it is. In this case, it’s you running after a carful of ­people with guns.”

  I stop fiddling with the clip.

  “At the time, I didn’t know I was unarmed.”

  “The point still stands. Your reactions aren’t always those of a normal person.”

  What the hell did Candy tell her? I go back to tormenting the paper clip.

  “Exactly which normal part of my life are you talking about? The normal part where I spent eleven years in Hell? Or the normal part where my father told me I wasn’t even a human being, right before he was murdered by an angel. Maybe it’s the part where I live with a dead man’s head and I have to beg for my cigarettes from the Devil. Or maybe it’s how I can’t even look at my girlfriend without seeing a stranger’s face. Which of these normal things in my life are you referring to?”

  Julie takes her coffee cup in her hands and leans on the desk.

  “All I’m saying is that your fight-­or-­flight response is dialed up a little high and it’s something you might want to look into.”

  “You mean I need a shrink. No thanks.”

  She takes a sip of her coffee.

  “Aren’t you going to drink yours? It’ll get cold.”

  I set down the paper clip and pick up the mug, but I don’t drink.

  “Consider this,” Julie says. “If you’d finished your psych evaluation forms when you worked for the Golden Vigil, they would have paid you what they owed and you’d be a wealthy man right now. But you didn’t do it. I wonder why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I was busy saving the fucking world.”

  “You’re always saving something or killing something or chasing cars. You scare ­people, Stark. You scare your friends. You scare me sometimes. You scare Chihiro.”

  I thought the two of them were talking about the case this morning. Is this what’s going on behind my back?

  I set down the mug.

  “Thanks for your concern, and don’t take this the wrong way, but there are two things in this world I don’t respond well to: threats and interventions.”

  “This is a conversation over coffee, not an intervention. And don’t go looking for threats where there aren’t any. That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

  The only thing worse than being threatened is being told you’re not being threatened. No way I’m drinking my coffee. There could be Prozac in there or an evil Vigil feel-­good powder. I don’t want some psych poison telling me how to think.

  When I stay quiet, Julie says, “You’re going to burn out and you won’t be good for anyone, including yourself.”

  “I handled the arena. I can handle this.”

  “What about Chihiro? Do you think she’s all right with you just handling things?”

  “Did she say something to you or is this just coming out of your own skull?”

  “Human beings are capable of doing more than just existing. They can be happy.”

  I pick up the mangled paper clip from her desk and toss it in the trash can.

  “But I’m not human, am I? I’m not a Hellion or an angel or a person. I’m not anything except maybe, as angels like to remind me, an Abomination. Try explaining that to a shrink.”

  Julie picks up her mug, starts to take a sip, but sets it aside.

  “All right. Let’s forget this for now. I didn’t mean to upset you. But you need to know that there are ­people worried about you and that they have your best interests at heart.”

  “Noted. Now can we get back to work?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know all about these White Light clowns. Where are they and how are we going after them?”

  Julie shakes her head.

  “We’re not going to, and when we do, I’ll be the one doing the legwork. I don’t want you running in cutting off any heads.”

  “It gets ­people’s attention.”

  “Chihiro is doing some background work on the Legion for me. Right now that’s more important than you skulking around, looking for revenge.”

  “Just to be clear, as my boss, you’re officially telling me not to go after them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what exactly am I supposed to do?”

  Julie picks up a pen from a pad sitting next to her laptop. She taps it on the paper.

  “I agree with you about looking into Tamerlan Radescu, but we have a problem. You’re too well known to do it discreetly.”

  “I’d say let Candy—­Chihiro—­do it, but ­people will have seen us together. If they know me, they’ll know her.”

  Julie looks away, thinking.

  “I suppose I could call some old colleagues from the Vigil and see if they want any after-­hours work.”

  “I have a better idea. Brigitte Bardo can do it. She’s an actress, so she can look and sound like anything you want. Plus, she’s a trained zombie hunter, so she can handle herself if there’s any problems.”

  Julie sits back in her chair.

  “I don’t know her that well. I’d have to interview her before I can agree to anything.”

  “I’ll call and get her over here today.”

  “All right. Do that.”

  “You know, one thing I could do is talk to some Cold Cases. They keep tabs on the dying and the recent dead. Maybe one of them has heard about some necromancer badassery.”

  “That could be a good idea, but don’t you have a history with the Cold Cases. Didn’t one try to have you killed?”

  I wave it off.

  “Who hasn’t tried to have me killed? We’ll have a chat over tea and cakes. It will be fine.”

  “Keep it civil. No fighting. No guns. At the first sign of trouble, you excuse yourself and report back to me.”

  “Got it. I wonder if I should talk to some ghosts.”

  Julie frowns.

  “You can do that?”

  “I don’t see why not. I saw a witch do it at Max Overdrive. It didn’t look all that hard.”

  “Once again, I don’t know if you’re joking. But if that’s something you can do, hearing from the dead might be helpful.”

  “I know a ­couple that will probably talk to me. All it’ll cost is some coffee and donuts. Maybe a sandwich.”

  “Don’t forget to get receipts.”

  “Right. Receipts. Sure.”

  “I’m serious—­if you want to get paid back I need paperwork.”

  “No problem. I’m on it.”

  Julie picks up her mug and takes a swig of coffee.

  “Are we going to be all right working together?” she says. “You were pretty upset earlier and I need to know that it’s not going to affect things.”

  I touch the cigarettes in my pocket, wanting to get outside and have a smoke.

  “We’re fine. I’m sorry I flew off the handle. I know you were trying to help, and I’ll take what you said under advisement.”

  “Good.”

  “I can head over to Bamboo House later and see if there are any Cold Cases around. And I’ll call Brigitte.”

  “Good. Chihiro and I have a meeting later. She’s doing a great job.”

  “She’s a smart girl. Smarter than me.”

  “I’ll have to tell her you said so.”

  “She already knows.”

  I take off, stopping in the stairwell to light a Malediction.

  Outside, I draw the smoke in and let it out slowly, pacing up and down the
block, checking the parked cars. I don’t see any Honda Civics, blue or otherwise. Anyway, most of the what’s happening is on the sidewalk or in the street. Not many ­people hanging out in parked cars or loitering on the block. No one obviously casing Julie’s office. I check the door to her building, making sure it locked behind me.

  I think about Candy, but I call Brigitte and tell her to make time between auditions to come by the office. She sounds happy. I think I made her day.

  At least someone in L.A. is happy.

  “A LITTLE BIRD told me you’ve been talking to Julie about me.”

  Candy glances up, then back to the laptop. She reaches out and half closes it.

  “Just about the other night.”

  I dumped the Crown Vic a few blocks away on Hollywood Boulevard so I could walk off some anger.

  “But you did it in secret. I thought we weren’t supposed to have secrets.”

  She shifts around on the sofa.

  “Everyone has secrets.”

  “You think there’s something you can’t tell me? You think I’m that shockable?”

  She looks up at me, two sets of eyes—­Candy’s and Chihiro’s—­nervous and wounded.

  “Don’t make this into a bigger thing than it is. I only talked to her because she can say things to you I can’t.”

  “Like PTSD. Because you probably have it too after Doc Kinski and all the shit that went down at Christmas. Are there other things you haven’t told me about?” I don’t want to sound angry, but I am even if I’m not sure it’s fair.

  She shakes her head, the expression on her face changing.

  “Nothing I want to talk about now.”

  “But sometime.”

  She puts her hands together and nods.

  “Probably sometime.”

  “I guess that’s the best we can hope for in this life.”

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not. Just defensively curious.”

  “You still trust me?”

  “Who else am I going to trust? Kasabian? He’d sell me for a dozen glazed if he thought he’d get his body back.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.”

  “You don’t know him like I do.”

  “And you don’t know him like I do.”

  Downstairs, Kasabian and Vincent are watching A Hard Day’s Night. Vincent was singing along when I came in through the store. The sound comes up through the floor. I want to choke him.

  “This stuff you can’t tell me . . . is it Jade stuff?”

  “Some is. Some isn’t.”

  “So there’s that much. Does this have anything to do with Rinko? She came by the other day, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still in love with her?”

  Candy leans back on the couch, crosses her arms.

  “I was never in love with her. But if you’re asking me the bigger question, yes, sometimes I miss dating women.”

  “That’s not something you have to hide from me.”

  “There’s just been so much craziness and now I’m not even me anymore. I don’t know what I want.”

  “I’m not about to stop you if you want to be with Rinko or anybody else. Just be honest with me.”

  She frowns.

  “Hey, why is this only about me? This was about you trying to get shot the other night.”

  “I’ve been shot plenty of times. I’m not that afraid of it. Not when it’s important.”

  “What about me? I’m afraid. Do I get a say in you putting yourself out as a target all the time?”

  The back of my neck itches. Can’t tell if it’s real or just nerves. I rub it with the palm of my hand, thinking.

  “Okay. Point taken. I was just mad then.”

  “You’re always mad and then you can’t think. That’s what I mean. Maybe you should talk to Allegra about it.”

  “Not now. Not when I’m being pushed. I won’t push you about your secrets and you won’t push me on this. All right?”

  “Yeah. Okay,” she says quietly. “You are mad at me.”

  “A little. Don’t talk about me behind my back anymore, even if it’s for my own good.”

  “I can do that.”

  Candy opens the laptop again and bookmarks the page on the screen, keeping her eyes down.

  “Are you going to go out now?” she says.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. This just seems like when you’d leave and go to Bamboo House for a drink.”

  “We have booze here. I can drink fine at home.”

  “You want to have a drink with me?” she says.

  “Sure. I’ll have a drink with you. But make it coffee. I’m on duty.”

  She gets up and goes to the sink, takes a ­couple of cups from the drainer, and turns on the coffeemaker. She talks without turning around.

  “You’re always so ready to run away. It’s like you still have one foot in Hell and you’re ready to go back there forever. Just don’t ditch me, okay?”

  I walk up close behind her.

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She leans back against me as the coffeemaker gurgles, the noise mixing with the music coming from below. I put my arms around her. We stay that way for a few minutes, no one talking, just letting the sound hang around us in the air.

  WHEN I GET to Bamboo House of Dolls, there isn’t a single Cold Case inside, which is lousy. I was hoping to see them on my turf. Now I have to go to theirs.

  When the young ones aren’t slumming it at Bamboo House, there’s only one Cold Case hangout in L.A. It’s a West Hollywood club called simply Ibis . . . but not the word. On the front of the place is a skinny, stylized long-­legged bird in an Egyptian cartouche. You either recognize it or fuck you. It’s funny. With their sharkskin-­suit aesthetics, I never thought about the Cold Cases as giving much of a damn about ancient mythology. Maybe they don’t. The ibis and other glyphs on the façade are always a hot sell to spiritual tourists. Egyptians believed in five parts of the soul. I wonder how many Cold Case drinking games have been invented around that?

  There’s a line outside Ibis, even in the crushing afternoon heat. But it isn’t like most L.A. club crowds. It’s quiet and orderly. No pushing or shoving. No one harassing the doorman. Everyone is on their best Miss Manners behavior because no one wants to get bounced. These sorry suckers are all looking to buy a clean soul or to sell theirs, hoping it’s untainted enough to be worth some filthy lucre. Most of the sellers will be turned away. The buyers, on the other hand, are always welcome. Metaphysical capitalism at its finest.

  I park the car on La Cienega, facing south. In case things go sideways, I can jump in and hit the freeway. If there’s a problem getting on, I can always keep heading down toward to LAX, all the way to the La Cienega oil fields. Maybe lure whoever is following me out among the derricks. Sure, there’s a lot of traffic nearby, but no one ever goes into the fields themselves. It wouldn’t be hard to hide a body behind the big pumps sucking dirty crude from the ground. But we’re far from that right now, and anyway, I’m trying to play nice with others now that I’m a working stiff.

  I walk back along Sunset and turn up a side street that lets me circle around behind the club.

  From the back, the Ibis looks like any other drink factory. A blank back wall. Locked delivery door. A line of Dumpsters. Floodlights, turned off during the day. A fire escape leading to the second floor. The whole back area is covered by a ­couple of security cameras. The good news for me is that I only have to take out one.

  I run down the alley next to the club. I’m fast when I have to be. Fast enough, I hope, to be not much more than a blur on the club’s low-­res cameras. When I’m under the fire escape, I get out the black blade and throw it, aiming high up on the wall. I wait around the side of the b
uilding for a minute to see what happens.

  When nothing does, I go back around the club and push a Dumpster under the fire escape. It’s just tall enough that I can jump, grab the bottom of the ladder, and pull it down, all the while hoping that my aim was good and the knife sliced through the cable of the nearest security cam. No one tries to stop me as I climb, so I guess I got it. On my way up, I grab the knife out of the wall and climb onto the roof.

  There’s not much up here. Vents for the air-­conditioning. Some abandoned furniture and fixtures baking in the sun. A small satellite-­TV dish held in place with a ­couple of cinder blocks. On the side of the roof is a closet-­size structure with a metal door. My way inside.

  None of this Man from U.N.C.L.E. cat-­burglar bullshit would be necessary if the Cold Cases didn’t hate me quite so much. It almost makes me want to be nicer to them in the future. Almost, but not enough.

  I try the knob on the door. It rattles in its collar but the damned thing is locked. It’s not much of a lock, though. Who’s stupid enough to climb up here when all the action is downstairs? I slide the black blade between the door and the frame and cut straight through the latch. Abracadabra, it opens, nice and quiet.

  I walk carefully down a steep wooden staircase, trying not to make noise. I’m doing a pretty good job of it too, until some asshole comes around the corner carrying a case of champagne.

  He’s your typical pro bouncer/bodyguard type. A mountain of meat and muscle. The idea of a guy like this isn’t to protect you or your property. It’s to scare ­people stupid so they don’t even think about getting out of line in the first place.

  The beefsteak is wearing a parka, which seems a little odd until a breeze hits me coming up from the club below. Guess that means the stories are true. If I’m going to find out for sure, I’ll have to get past Gorilla Monsoon here.

  I reach for my na’at. He drops the champagne and pulls a goddamn machete out from under his parka. This fucker thinks I’m a baby seal. He smiles at me, but I can tell there’s something wrong with him. It’s all on his face. The guy acts normal enough, but his eyes are dead and glassy. He reminds me of some of the more pathetic souls I met Downtown. As he raises the machete I know that’s kind of what he is.

  This double meat patty is one of the truly desperate or epically stupid who’ve sold off their souls to the Cold Cases. I’d bet you a dollar he’s working here cheap to get in good with the bosses, hoping they’ll cut him a deal on a new soul. Not quite a person, not a zombie—­or a ghost or anything else you’ll ever see on a normal day—­he’s almost a living jabber. A sad husk clinging to a body because he has nowhere else to go. I’d feel sorry for him, except he’s waving a machete for his masters down below, bastards every one of them, living off ­people’s desperation and misery worse than any smack dealer or pimp in town. I’d like to cut this fucker down just on general principles, but a fight would be noisy and draw more chuck steaks up here.