“Please. He’s my brother. I’m very worried.”
She looks from me to the bills and back to me again. I can see the conflict in her exhausted eyes. But this is L.A., and money is the magic that anyone can do and everyone here respects. It takes her almost a full minute to work it out in her brain. Finally, she makes a fist around the bills and shoves them in her pocket.
“What is his name?”
I tell her and she points me to the farthest corner of the waiting room. I go over and lean against the wall. I was right about her. She’s basically honest, so she’s not going to run off with my cash. But after a thousand-hour shift, her nerves are frayed enough that she needs something to break the tension. Since sleep is out of the question, what’s left? Drugs? She’s not the type. A quick sweaty fuck with another intern in one of the empty rooms? Maybe. But how many empty rooms are there these days? No, she needs a release and a little rebellion. And the thousand dollars she has in her pocket will do fine for now.
“I see you.”
I look around for the owner of the voice and lock eyes with another baby Shoggot with a half-scarred face. He’s in a straitjacket and is being held in place by two women. One older and one much younger. Family, probably. He leans forward and gives me his biggest, wildest grin.
“I see you,” he says.
I start to say something back, but the women look terrified of both him and me in my ratty coat and the scars around my eyes. I walk to the end of the line of chairs and wait there.
“That won’t help,” shouts the Shoggot. “I see you.”
I ignore the trussed-up Cary Grant, but I want a cigarette badly.
A couple of minutes later, Maggie comes back into the waiting room. She’s changed her scrubs and tied back her hair. She waves me over and quick walks me down a corridor to a row of elevators.
“Room 312,” she says.
“Thanks, Maggie,” I say.
“I hope your brother pulls through all right,” she says before disappearing back up front into the inferno of meat and crazies.
I go upstairs, find room 312, and look inside—keeping one hand on the na’at.
And there’s Kasabian asleep on his side. He has an IV in his arm and is hooked to some kind of Star Trek machine. There’s a slim breathing tube under his nose. Other than that, he doesn’t look like he’s in bad shape. Getting shot wasn’t lucky, but everything else that happened was. His EMTs were legit. I wonder how many of them are left?
My first impulse is to grab him and run, but I don’t know what kind of shape he’s really in. After him surviving a bullet I’d rather not murder him now. I go around to the head of the bed and look him over. He’s breathing all right and there isn’t any blood anywhere. I wonder where he got shot. While I’m there, Kas’s eyes flutter open and he looks at me like he’s not sure I’m really there.
“Stark?”
“It’s me. How are you feeling, Bruce Lee?”
“I’m gone, man. To the moon and waving back at everyone. Can you see me?”
“I can see you. You’re a fucking hero today. You saved Candy.”
“I did? Oh yeah. She’s okay?”
“She’s fine. The guy who shot you ran away after you went all rodeo clown on him.”
Kasabian bursts out with a drunken laugh.
“Rodeo clown. You’re funny, Jimbo.”
“You’re high. But even high, you don’t get to call me Jimbo.”
“Jimbo. Jumbo. Jimboree. Jiminy Cricket,” he says. Then looks at me excitedly and says, “Oh my god. Is that your secret? You’re a bug in a suit?”
“Where’d you get shot?”
“In the shop.”
“I know that. Where on your body did you get shot?”
Kasabian sings a couple of lines from “South of the Border.”
“In the ass? You saved Candy with your fat ass? Of course you did.”
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“Damn. You did it, Jimbo. I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Maybe it’s time for you to go back to sleep and rest your heroic backside. I’m going to sit over there while I figure out what to do with you.”
“No. Say the other part.”
“What?”
“Say thank you for saving Candy because you love her.”
“Okay, you’re done. Go back to sleep.”
“Nope,” he says. “Say it. I got shot. I’m a hero. Do it.”
“I can’t.”
“It’s just us, man.”
“I can’t.”
Kasabian frowns, like his mom told him his puppy ran away.
“Wow. So you don’t love her. I didn’t know.”
“Of course I love her. I always have.”
He smiles and points a big, stupid finger at me.
“Yes! I knew it. Don’t you feel better?”
“No.”
“Oh right,” he says. “Janet.”
“You really need to shut up before I strangle you with your tube.”
I sit down in a chair near the wall at the end of the bed.
“I love her too, you know,” says Kasabian. “Candy, I mean.”
“I know.”
“You do? And you’re not mad?”
“She’s a lovable person. Why should I be mad?”
“You’re a good friend, Jimbo.”
“Not if you keep saying that.”
“You gave me back my body and now it’s all fucked up.”
He puts up a hand to hide his face as he cries.
I go back to his bed and say, “It’s not that bad. I’ve been hurt way worse. You’ll be back on your feet in a couple of days.”
Kasabian grabs my arm.
“Don’t let the crazies kill me, okay? I don’t want to die like this and have people make jokes.”
“You’re not going to die, Kas.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
“Okay.” He lets go of my arm, then opens and closes his eyes a couple times. “These drugs are really good. I think I need to sleep for a while.”
“I’ll be right over there.”
“You’re a real pal, Jiminy Cricket.”
Lying there high, he warbles his way through the beginning of “Over the Rainbow.”
I say, “Wrong song, asshole. Jiminy sang ‘When You Wish Upon a Star.’”
“Sing it to me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Be a pal.”
“I’m not serenading you.”
“Always with the negative waves,” he says and falls asleep.
Feeling guilty, feeling scared, feeling incredibly uncomfortable after talking about Candy, I get out my phone and call Janet. What am I doing with myself? My life? They don’t deserve this adolescent bullshit.
“Hi, baby. How are you feeling?”
“A little better,” they say. “I’m feeling better and eating some of your lamb chops. I hope that’s okay.”
“Of course it is. Whatever I have is yours. You know that, right?”
“Are you okay? You sound weird.”
“I’m fine. Sorry.”
“Okay. Where are you? Fuck Hollywood and I were getting worried.”
“Well, it is a little weird,” I say. “Right now I’m on a chair in room 312 in the L.A. County fucking hospital watching Kasabian sleep because he got shot this morning.”
“What? Is he okay?”
“He will be. But I don’t want to leave him alone. Hospitals aren’t safe these days. But he’s hooked up to all of these machines. I don’t know what to do.”
“Want me to come over?”
“No. Your immune system is already fucked up and this place is full of sick loons. Besides, you’re safe. I want you to stay that way.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Just stay by the phone for now. If I think of anything clever, I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
They say, “Aww. You said it right away.”
“What do you mean?”
“You usually hesitate a little. I know you’re shy about emotions. It’s okay. Sweet, even. I just like that you said it like that.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“I love you too.”
“Stay safe. Have some more lamb.”
I have to get my shit together. Candy is gone. I shouldn’t have said anything to Kasabian. Now the little prick has something to hold over me. Not that he’d say anything dumb. Probably. This is what happens when you get in too deep with real people. Monsters are so much easier. I understand them. People will probably always be a mystery to me. And that includes me. And now I think I know what I want. Who I want. But it’s all such a train wreck in my head. Sometimes it feels like everything I truly love gets snatched away. Because of Mason, I lost Alice when she died. Because of Audsley Ishii, I lost Candy when I died. What’s worse is that Alice’s death was partly my fault. If I hadn’t gone to see Mason that night, he wouldn’t have sent me Downtown and Alice wouldn’t have been alone.
In a way, I suppose I can say the same thing about Audsley’s killing me. I’d never gotten along with the guy, and never tried. I couldn’t even keep my mouth shut around him. Then I got him fired from the Augur’s security team. If I hadn’t gone to see Mason, I wouldn’t have lost Alice. If I hadn’t goaded Audsley the way I did, I wouldn’t have lost Candy. So it’s not some vast Wormwood-style conspiracy. I’m at least partly responsible for everything and everyone I’ve lost. Am I going to lose Janet too? Maybe I deserve to be alone.
I watch Kasabian’s machines blink, spew out numbers, and draw lines describing the shape of his life at this moment. It’s strangely comforting seeing someone reduced to simple readouts, like running a diagnostic on a car. We should all be so lucky to have our lives read out and tuned up every now and then. Stop by for a soul lube and a heart rotation. Free hot dogs in the parking lot and balloons for the kids.
My mind just drifts for a while. Not focused on anything. Just replaying images of King Bullet’s wretched graffiti and the man himself, just before he shot me. I don’t hate him. I’m not afraid of him. I don’t feel anything at all. Just the weight of his presence in my city. Who the fuck is he and where did he come from?
Are these even the right questions? What does it matter where he’s from? Who he is? How do I kill him—that’s what I need to know. I want to rip out his spine like I’d do to a High Plains Drifter, but would that stop him? I want to know before I get that much blood and gristle on my boots.
I go back to drifting. Candy. Janet. Back to Candy again. I hate my brain. I hate my mind.
When I look up, just over an hour has passed.
Someone knocks at the door and opens it halfway. I pull the Colt and cock it. Then someone—a woman—says my name.
“Jimmy?”
“Brigitte?”
She comes in and I put the Colt away. Her surgical mask is covered with laughing skulls. She stops to touch Kasabian and look at his machines. Then she comes over and hugs me.
“Janet sent me,” she says. “They thought you might like some company.”
Janet looking out for me. How can you not love that?
“It’s good to see you,” I say as she sits on the other chair.
“How is he?” she says, looking at Kasabian.
“He’ll be fine. Sore as hell for a while, but fine.”
“We should all be so lucky.”
“True. Janet tells me that you’re still waiting for a final Immigration interview.”
She nods infinitesimally.
“It’s true. I just want it to be over, one way or another. But with the virus, things just drag on.”
“You know that if they send you away, I can bring you back and throw a glamour on you. No one will recognize you and you can have any life you want.”
Brigitte looks away like she’s contemplating that solution.
“Thank you,” she says. “It’s something to think about.”
“But not what you want.”
“No.”
“Me neither. None of us want it for you. Brigitte—you, just the way you are—is pretty special.”
“Thank you, Jimmy. You take good care of us all.”
That’s not true, of course. I spend half my life getting people into trouble and the other half getting them out of it.
“Speaking of taking care of people, I’ve been here for over an hour and no one has come to look at Kasabian. That’s weird, right?”
“A bit. But things are so chaotic right now. I’m sure they’re monitoring him somewhere.”
“You’re probably right. Still, it would be nice to see someone check his bandages or something.”
“Would you like me to see if I can find someone?”
“Yeah. Why don’t you do that? I’m going to stay here and guard Snow White.”
“Is that why you had your gun out when I came in?”
“Shoggots are in the hospitals. The EMTs. The cops too. I don’t trust anyone I don’t know.”
“I didn’t know it was that bad.”
“It’s probably going to get worse.”
Someone shoves the door open. Me and Brigitte both pull our guns. The nurse in the doorway just stands there with her hands up.
“Oh my,” she says. “I seem to have interrupted something. I can come back later.”
“No,” I say. “We were wondering where someone was. Shouldn’t you be checking on the patient?”
The nurse puts her hands down and glances at Kasabian.
“Can I do it without getting shot?”
We put away our guns.
“Sorry.”
Gently, Brigitte says, “We were just concerned. Given the current unusual circumstances.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” says the nurse. She checks Kasabian’s breathing tube and IV. Looks over the readouts on his machine, then makes some adjustments.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“He’s going to be fine, Mr. Stark. We don’t want him. We just wanted to get your attention.”
Before I can ask how the hell she knows my name, the nurse pulls down her mask to reveal heavy facial scars. The edges of her lips have been sliced and the cuts curl into spirals on her lined and burned cheeks.
Me and Brigitte both have guns out again. I move around Kasabian, backing the nurse toward the door.
I say, “What do you people want?”
She cocks her head.
“Not us people. Just King Bullet. He’d like to come by for a drink.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“I’m not,” she says and reaches into the pocket on her scrubs.
I move fast, knocking her back against the door and not letting her take her hand from her pocket.
“Get that hand out of the way,” I say. “I’ll take out whatever’s there.”
“Whatever you’d like, you nervous goose.”
She stands perfectly still as I reach into her pocket and pull out an envelope. It’s streaked with grime and a couple of bloody fingerprints. I step back so Brigitte can keep her gun on the nurse while I read the note in the envelope.
It’s not long. Just a few words scribbled across a dirty sheet of paper:
The Pleasure of Your Presence Is
Requested Tonight, Monster. 9 p.m.
The handwriting is a childish scrawl. The letters are jagged and boxy, like it was written by someone more used to holding a knife than a pen. The note is on cheap stationery from the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel. I look at the nurse. She smiles as much as all her scars will permit.
I hold up the paper. “Meet him here?”
“You know where it is?” she says.
“I know.”
I look at Kasabian.
“I’m taking him out of here.”
“If that’s what you want.
”
“He’s going to need pain meds.”
She reaches into her other pocket and tosses me a bottle of Norco tablets.
“These will help,” she says. “Don’t worry. They’re not poison and they won’t magically change him into a toad or anything. Like I said, he’s not the one we want.”
I say, “Get out. We’ll handle things from here.”
The nurse opens the door.
“Then I can tell him you’re coming?”
“Hell yes,” I say, without thinking about it.
Before she puts her mask back on, the nurse looks from Brigitte to comatose Kasabian and does a mild snort laugh.
“The King was right. You are predictable. And soft.”
When she’s gone, Brigitte and I put our guns away.
“What do we do now?” she says.
“Help me get him unhooked from these machines. I’ll take him back to my place.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Thanks.”
We grab some extra bandages from a cabinet in Kasabian’s room and I take both him and Brigitte through a shadow into the apartment.
Janet and Fuck Hollywood jump from the sofa when they see us, and Brigitte and I lay Kasabian down there. Quickly sussing out the situation, Fuck Hollywood tucks him in with her blanket.
“What happened?” says Janet. “Is he going to be all right?”
“I think so. But we have to keep him still. Probably the best way is to keep him stoned for a couple days at least.” I give them the bottle of Norco. “This should help.”
“Should we call Allegra?”
“I was thinking that too. She should bring some clothes, because she’s staying.”
“It’s going to get really crowded in here.”
“I know. Think of it like summer camp, only there’re bears and flying monkeys in the trees so the counselors are making you stay inside.”
“That’s a shitty summer camp,” says Fuck Hollywood.
“The worst.”
“All right,” says Janet. “We can move some of the furniture around.”
“Thanks. I need everyone to stay put while I see the King tonight.”
“Why would you do that?” says Fuck Hollywood anxiously. “He’ll kill you.”
“I wasn’t ready the first time. I will be this time.”
King Bullet Page 14