King Bullet

by Richard Kadrey

  She aims her gun at the ceiling, sings, “Rum-tiddley-um-tum-tay,” and fires.

  The balloon pops and what looks like about a million cockroaches falls out. Maybe she meant for it to happen or she’s just stupid, but the effect of the bug attack is pretty dismal because they’re all dead. Choked on helium.

  Despentes screams one more time and empties the Glock rounds into the bar, not even trying to hit anybody, just leaving her mark on the place. When she’s empty, she takes off outside. There’s the sound of a siren and a car peeling out.

  The moment she’s gone, I jump over the bar and go to Fuck Hollywood. She’s already up and kicking dumb, dead Buzzard’s body over and over again with her big boots. I pull her away and sit her down at one of the tables.

  When I go back to the bar Carlos says, “What are we going to do about all these bodies? LAPD will shut this place down forever.”

  “Let me handle the bodies.”

  “What about them?” he says, looking at the crowd.

  “They just want to go home.” I look at the terrified mob scattered around the room. “Isn’t that right?”

  A lot of nods and murmurs of agreement.

  “Then here’s how it is,” I say. “From now until the sun goes cold, nothing happened here tonight. This is for your benefit. LAPD will never believe you know nothing about how the two real cops in those uniforms died. And they’re not in the mood to be patient or forgiving. Understand me?”

  More murmurs and nods.

  “Now go home and forget everything that happened tonight. But come back tomorrow because everyone here tonight gets a free drink. Right, Carlos?”

  He looks at me for a second, then says, “Yes. One drink on the house.”

  “Now all of you, scoot. Go home and be smart and be quiet.”

  I don’t have to tell them twice. The place clears out in under a minute until it’s just me, Carlos, and Fuck Hollywood.

  Carlos says, “So, what happens now?”

  “First, I get rid of Charlotte and Babadook.”

  “Man. I liked them.”

  “Me too, but focus. While I’m gone, I’ll need you to hose off the sidewalk. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” He nods toward Fuck Hollywood. “What about her?”

  With her traumatized eyes, she looks like she’s gone somewhere far away and might never come back.

  “Leave her for now. She needs to process this. I’ll talk to her later.”

  “Good. I have no idea what to tell her.” He heads out back for the hose.

  Neither do I, which is why I’m dealing with the corpses first.

  Fortunately, when I get out front there’s no one on the street. I drag Babadook’s and Charlotte’s bodies into a shadow and come out in the Angeles National Forest. There are open mass graves ready to be filled in. I lay them out with their heads in place. When I’m done, I stand at the grave rim and say a few words of Hellion hoodoo. They sink into the sod until there’s no trace of them.

  Take care, you two. I’m so sorry things ended this way. But Heaven is open to you now. Go through the gates and don’t look back. We’ll take things from here and make sure the crazy fuckers who did this pay for it.

  I go back to the bar, and I’m not so careful with Buzzard’s body. I drop him down south in the dump. Let the cops or whoever is left for this kind of thing deal with him.

  When I get back to Bamboo House the place is locked down tight. Carlos sits at a table with Fuck Hollywood, a martini and a glass of water sitting between them. Neither has been touched. I pull up a chair and sit down with them. After a moment she looks at me.

  “You killed Buzzy.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you did it.”

  Carlos says, “That guy who was here tonight, he wasn’t the guy you knew. The virus, you know, it messes with some people’s minds.”

  Fuck Hollywood shakes her head.

  “I know. But Buzzy always had a little bit of a mean streak. If he got sick, it just let it out more. That was him tonight.”

  I say, “You still want to do what you told me at home?”

  “Yeah. More than ever.”

  Fuck Hollywood takes the skateboard she stole from Buzzard out of her backpack.

  “I don’t have any lighter fluid, but I have Everclear. That should work,” says Carlos.

  “Okay,” she says.

  He grabs the bottle and we all go to the alley behind Bamboo House. Fuck Hollywood pours Everclear over the skateboard and I hand her my lighter. She holds it to the rear wheels and the board bursts into flames. And the tears start to flow. Sobs and sobs from deep down inside her. Fear and love and anger all mixed together.

  As we watch the board go up Fuck Hollywood says, “I loved you, you fuck.”

  We stand quietly until the board turns crispy at the edges.

  Fuck Hollywood looks at me.

  “You killed him. Kill this for me.”

  I bark some Hellion and the board flares bright as the sun for a second. Then it’s just melted plastic and ashes.

  She says, “I guess I’m free now. Huh?”

  “If you want to be,” says Carlos.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Fuck Hollywood says, “I do. I used to be so afraid of being alone. But then all the guys I was with turned out to be, well—” She looks at me. “You met him.”

  I once had to throw Buzzard out of Bamboo House for threatening her.

  I say, “You were smart to get out. Even if it did hurt.”

  She takes Carlos’s and my hands. It’s technically against epidemic rules, but this isn’t a moment to get fussy.

  “Thanks for being my friends.” And looks up at the drifting smoke. “I like it out here. It’s so quiet and calm. I come out here sometimes when things are too much inside.”

  “It is nice,” I say, even though the place is a garbage-strewn shithole.

  She wipes tears from her eyes.

  “A friend of a friend might have a room I can move into,” she says.

  “Cool,” I tell her. “But there’s no rush. We like the same kind of movies. Stay as long as you like.”

  She hugs me and looks at the ashes of the skateboard one more time.

  “Bye, Buzzy. You know, I thought he was the one.”

  Carlos says, “We all have someone like that in our past. The one who got away.”

  I flash on Candy’s face, but push it away as quickly as it appeared.

  Fuck Hollywood looks up at me.

  “You too?”

  “Me too?”

  “Who’s yours?”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime. But not tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  We all go inside. Fuck Hollywood hugs Carlos and I take her home through a shadow.

  She flops onto the sofa and says, “You going to see Janet tonight?”

  “I was. But are you going to be okay? I can stay if you like.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she says and lies down. “I’d actually like to be alone tonight.”

  “Sure. But call me if you need anything.”

  “I will.”

  I grab a few things and when I go back to check on her, Fuck Hollywood is asleep. Adrenaline crash. It’s going to be a bad few days when she wakes up. I’ll need to keep an eye on her.

  I step into a shadow and come out in front of Janet’s place. Their music is playing when I get up to the apartment. They’re excited and try to pull me into the bedroom. I shake my head and tell them what happened at the bar tonight. We go to bed, but just lie there wrapped around each other, Janet’s movie music playing softly in the other room. We fall asleep that way and I dream about a beautiful black-eyed monster holding my hand and saying, “It’s just us. The funny little people who live in the cracks in the world.”

  In the morning, Janet goes back to work making the final tweaks on her music and I go outside with my coffee to smoke. I finish my second Malediction and get out
my phone. Hit Abbot’s number. It takes a few rings, but he finally picks up. His voice is thin and raspy.

  “Stark. It’s good to hear from you. How are you doing these days?”

  “I’m all right. But you don’t sound so good.”

  “I’m just over a round with the virus. Listen, I’ve hardly seen anyone in weeks. Why don’t you come over and we can talk about whatever you want?”

  “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.”

  I take my coffee cup back upstairs and tell Janet that I’m going out.

  “Will you be okay while I’m gone?”

  “I’m not going out and I’m sure not opening the door for anyone but you.”

  I give them a kiss and head out through a shadow.

  These days, Abbot lives in a broken-down shed on a vacant lot in Westwood. Sub Rosa aesthetics can seem funny to regular people. Civilian blue bloods like to show off their money with giant estates and palm trees that punch holes in the sky. Sub Rosa are the opposite. The more the outside of their place looks like a garbage heap, the classier they are. Abbot’s place looks like a storage crate fucked an outhouse and they had an ugly baby.

  I knock on the door a few times and a bodyguard the size of a pickup truck comes out. It’s Matthew, a guard I met once before. A real tight-ass, but not dumb. He looks me up and down and clearly isn’t impressed with the freshly healed gunshot wound in my face.

  “Where’s your mask?” he says.

  I take it out of my pocket and put it on.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t take it off inside. The Augur still isn’t himself.”

  “Got it.”

  He looks at me suspiciously.

  “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

  “What else do you want?”

  “You usually have some smartass comeback.”

  “I’m too tired for that shit right now. Aren’t you?”

  “Most definitely. You’ll find a chair when you get to the Augur’s room. Sit in it and don’t move it any closer to him. Understood?”

  “He’s still that fucked up?”

  He holds the shack door open for me. “Just follow the rules and everything will be fine.”

  Inside, the hovel changes into something more like a scaled-down Versailles. Marble everywhere. Crystal chandeliers. Classy furniture and a wall of windows that look out over the Pacific.

  Matthew takes me to Abbot’s office and points to the lone chair in the room. A fancy upholstered antique that I’m pretty sure I’ll break just thinking about.

  “Remember what I said.”

  “Don’t get close to Abbot and never bet on an inside straight.”

  “There’s the asshole I was waiting for.”

  The moment Matthew leaves, Abbot looks up from his work.

  “Hello, Stark,” he says. Then waves his hand. “Come closer.”

  “Matthew said to stay over here.”

  “Matthew is a little too protective. Come closer so I don’t feel quite so much like Typhoid Mary.”

  The closer I get, the shittier Abbot looks. His hair is long and he seems weak and frail. He was never a big guy and it looks like he lost twenty pounds and his surgical mask droops on his face. With his bony cheekbones, when he smiles he looks like a well-dressed corpse.

  “I’m glad to see you in a mask,” he says.

  “I’m not. I hate these things.”

  “Speaking as someone who caught the virus and almost died, better safe than sorry.”

  “You look like shit, so I’m guessing it’s as bad as people say.”

  “It’s worse. Not only did I have influenza symptoms, but the fever swelled my brain. I don’t remember much of it, but I had to be restrained and sedated for days. And this was in a private Sub Rosa clinic. I don’t know if I would have survived in a civilian hospital.”

  “Goddamn. But you’re okay now?”

  He leans on his elbow and opens his hands.

  “Finally. It was touch and go for a while.”

  I look at him sitting there like he wants to fall over, but is working to convince himself he’s a whole person again. It makes me want a cigarette. If I was as sick as him, all I’d do is drink and smoke until Samael or one of his flunkies came to take me away.

  “I heard the virus hit Sub Rosa, but you’re the first person I’ve talked to about it.”

  “It’s been a bad few weeks for everyone. We’ve lost some good people.”

  “Months,” I say. “It’s been months.”

  “Yes. Months. God. I hate to think of all the wasted time.”

  I sit back in the chair and cross my legs and say, “Relax. L.A. would be falling apart with or without you. I doubt you could have made much of a difference. There’s just too much happening at once.”

  “I’m not convinced that’s true. I’m convening whatever part of the council is well enough to work and seeing what we can do to pull the city back together.”

  “Let me know if I can help.”

  He looks at me, a little surprised. I’m a little surprised too. But I really hate L.A. on its last legs like this.

  “I’ll remember that,” he says. “But I have a feeling you’re not here to bring me a get-well card.”

  “I had one, but my dog ate it.”

  “You don’t have a dog.”

  “I did, but my other dog ate that one.”

  “And what happened to that dog?”

  “The cat ate it.”

  “Maybe I should send you a get-well card. Why are you really here?”

  I lean forward with both feet on the floor.

  “I want to know everything you know about King Bullet.”

  Abbot raises his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Some of his people. One of them put this hole in my face. Another killed two friends and almost killed a third.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m going to nail his skin to my living room wall when I find him. But first I need to know where to look and what to expect when I get there.”

  Abbot scribbles something with his pen.

  “I’ll tell you what I know, which, unfortunately, isn’t much more than you, I bet.”

  “I’ll take anything you have. Start with a name.”

  “King Bullet. That’s all anyone knows. He’s new to the city and no one has been able to trace his whereabouts before that. Not through fingerprint records or location rituals.”

  “What about the cops? Don’t they have facial recognition tech?”

  Abbot waves a hand vaguely.

  “King Bullet wears a mask at all times. And he changes it often enough that no one local has been able to get a line on him. I even checked with our Federal contacts. They’re not faring any better than we are. One thing he’s become notorious for is stealing the clothes of the people he’s killed and wearing them until he kills again.”

  “That might explain the cops in Bamboo House.” I think for a minute. “Did he really take over the Shoggots and kill the Sub Rosa clan?”

  “Killed them and assimilated their hangers-on. He has a small army at this point and he’s making moves on the rest of the gangs in L.A. Join or die.”

  The word “army” is alarming. I was hoping he wasn’t this organized. It’s one thing to go after a small-time crime boss, but a cult leader is something else.

  “Is there anything else you have that might be useful?”

  Abbot thinks for a minute.

  “Remember the knife Audsley Ishii used to kill you?”

  “Of course. Samvari steel and it hurt like hell. What about it?”

  “Samvari steel is very rare on Earth.”

  “So, where did he get it?”

  “The Shoggots. The original clan, that is.”

  “I sort of felt bad for a minute, but now I’m happy to see them gone.”

  Abbot says, “I only bring it up because if the previous incarnation of the Shoggots
had access to powerful objects like that, they might still have them.”

  “See? Now that’s useful information.”

  “You’re still on salary, but I’ll pay you a bonus if you look into King Bullet for the council.”

  “Why don’t you just send your own enforcers?”

  “We have. But our people have to behave within certain parameters. You, on the other hand—”

  “I get it. How many did you lose?”

  Abbot falls back against his chair. He looks more exhausted than ever. Just talking is taking all of his energy.

  “Three,” he says. “And two are missing.”

  I look at him.

  “Do you think they might have gone bad?”

  “Joined King Bullet’s mob? Don’t tell anyone that I said this, but we’re investigating that possibility.”

  “A friend of a friend, a kid named Buzzard, went a little psycho and joined them. You think that might have happened to your lost sheep?”

  “That’s one avenue of investigation.”

  I wish I had a cigarette more than ever.

  “I’d say tell me what they look like and I’ll keep an eye out for them, but the way Shoggots cut themselves up, I don’t know if a description would help.”

  “Probably not,” Abbot says. He looks at me hard. “Are you keeping safe? This newer strain of the virus is the one that’s affecting people mentally.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’m immune, but I’ve seen the results.”

  Abbot looks like he’s on his last legs, but he keeps going. I generally hate to like bosses, but I like him.

  Abbot says, “But it isn’t just outward violence. It’s self-harm too. The local authorities are keeping the numbers out of the press, but suicides and self-mutilations are skyrocketing. And I know what you’re going to say. That the Shoggots have always mutilated themselves.”

  “There is that.”

  “But this is different. Shoggot scarification is directed and controlled. And limited to their small numbers. This is widespread. And what I’m talking about are dangerous compulsions such as autophagia.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  Abbot has a short coughing fit and gets it under control only after a long sip of water from a glass on his desk.

  “Autophagia is a rare syndrome in which a person develops a powerful drive to consume their own flesh. Often, it will start with the lips. Then they’ll attack their limbs. Then—”