“I’ll write it down for you. Just, please, don’t touch anything.”
He moves off to serve other customers. As I nurse my drink, I become very aware that people are sneaking up behind me and taking bloody selfies. A shy girl barely old enough to be in here nervously holds out a coaster and a pen at me.
“If you don’t mind . . . I’ve been coming here for weeks hoping to meet you . . . would you . . . sign this for me? If that’s okay.”
I stare at her for a minute. Every inch of me is sore. The palm of my right hand is sliced open from where I was protecting my eyes. I’m pissed about losing twice in a row to a bunch of dead people too dumb to stay dead. Plus, my coat is ruined. I’m about to tell her no when I get a look at what she’s wearing. It’s a tourist T-shirt with i ♥ hollywood on the front, only she’s used a Sharpie to color the heart black, crossed out the “I,” and written “Fuck” over it. Her shirt is the first thing that’s made me laugh in a while. I push the pen out of the way and take the coaster. Set it on the bar and press my thumb onto it, leaving a big, bloody print on top.
“That work for you?”
She beams at me and speaks slowly.
“That. Was. So. Metal.”
“I’m glad you liked it. Cool shirt, by the way.”
“Yeah? I could make you one.”
I hold up a hand to say no.
“Thanks, but it wouldn’t last long. I’m hard on clothes.”
“Your coat’s kind of fucked up.”
“You noticed.”
She says, “What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know. Throw it away, I guess.”
“Do you think I could . . .”
I squint at her.
“You want my coat too?”
She digs at the floor with the toe of one boot.
“If you’re just going to throw it away . . .”
Over my shoulder Carlos says, “Christ, Stark. Give her the damn coat. At least you’ll be somebody’s hero tonight.”
I look at him, then back to Fuck Hollywood. After a minute, I put the na’at, black blade, Maledictions, and my lighter on the bar. It hurts to get the coat off and Fuck Hollywood reaches out to help me do it. When it’s off, she immediately puts it on. She’s not very big. It hangs off her like a potato sack.
“How do I look?” she says.
“You’re monster movie Miss America,” says Carlos, and Fuck Hollywood beams at me.
“Thank you so much.”
I lean on the bar.
“It’s fine. It’s junk. But if it shows up on eBay we’re going to have words.”
“Never. I promise.”
I nod and she half runs out of the place like maybe I’m going to change my mind and ask for the coat back.
“You made someone’s night,” says Carlos.
I hold up my bourbon.
“And you made mine.”
“Tell me you’re going home after this. You don’t have a date or something stupid like that.”
“That reminds me.”
I check my phone and Janet has returned my call. They want to come over to show me something. I look at myself in the mirror behind the bar as I call them back.
“That might not be a good idea tonight. How about tomorrow?”
They hesitate.
“I can’t. I have a late class.”
There’s something in their voice. Strange micro-tremors. I can’t always tell on the phone, but I think they’re lying.
I say, “Okay. How about the night after that?”
“That sounds great. Around seven?”
“Great. See you then.”
I try to fit all of my gear in my pockets, but the black blade will shred my pants and the na’at is too big. Carlos gives me a canvas community-garden tote bag.
“You garden?” I say.
Carlos makes a face.
“Fuck no. That’s Ray’s thing.”
“Tell him thanks. I’ll get this back to him.”
“You better.”
My lungs suddenly feel too healthy, so I go outside for a smoke. Fuck Hollywood is down by the corner showing off my coat to her friends. She comes over and when I get a cigarette, she whips out a lighter and sparks it for me.
“Thanks,” I say.
“My pleasure.”
I take a good look at her. Her hair is shaved on both sides of her head, revealing matching dragon tattoos. She has a couple of lip piercings. A lot of ear piercings. Still, there’s something innocent about her. Not dumb, just made brittle by this city. A little punk angel. Which reminds me of something.
“Your name isn’t Zadkiel, is it?”
She gives me a crooked smile.
“No. What kind of name is that?”
“Forget it. A friend wants me to help look for her, but I don’t even know where to start. I was hoping I’d get lucky.”
“Sorry.”
We stand there awkwardly for a minute until a couple of limos stop a block or so down. People pile out in evening gowns and tuxes. Some of them limp or have casts or bandages. They have to be the freeway weirdos from the other day.
I start down toward them and Fuck Hollywood tags along.
“Friends of yours?” she says.
“Not by a long shot.”
The rear limo’s license plate reads dethslt.
I say, “What does that mean? Detective somebody?”
“Maybe it’s German. You know, ‘de’ something.”
“Hmm. ‘Deaths LT’? ‘Limited’?”
“‘Death slut,’” says Fuck Hollywood.
“It can’t be.”
Before we reach the limos, the drivers have pried up a manhole cover and the soiree is climbing down into the sewer. We watch the last giggling jackass disappear into the muck below.
I look at Fuck Hollywood and say, “What the hell is wrong with this town?”
She’s beaming again.
“That. Was. So. Metal.”
Too fucking metal for me tonight. I take my tote bag and go home.
I wake up late the next day, sleeping off the cuts and the bourbon. By the time I wake up, all the cuts have healed and my head feels only slightly like a demolition site.
To tell the truth, I’m not motivated to do much of anything at the moment. Candy and Janet are both puzzles. I’m not getting very far with Abbot’s ghosts. I hope if I can’t get rid of them he won’t take it out on Brigitte. Hellion hoodoo doesn’t budge them and Vidocq’s books are useless. And I don’t know if I’m right concentrating on Stein instead of just sneaking into Little Cairo and picking off the spooks one at a time. But I still think I’m onto something. “Forever yours. Forever mine” sure got a reaction. I need to dig deeper.
I read through the Stein file some more, but the hangover makes it hard to concentrate.
What’s going on with Janet? I’m still sure they were lying, but why? It’s not like we’re engaged or something. If they’re seeing someone else, why not just say it? I’ll ask them about it tomorrow face-to-face, when I’ll know for sure if they’re telling the truth.
Some combination of the headache and not getting anywhere with anything right now leaves me tense and nervous. By evening, I’m ready to punch more holes in the walls just for the sheer fun of breaking things.
I go for my PTSD pills in the bedroom, but when I pop the top, the bottle is empty.
Goddammit.
I don’t even know if they’re working, but what if they are and I’ll get worse without them? The last thing I want to do right now is go out, but now I have to. I don’t have a coat, so I just stick the Colt in the waistband at my back and step through a shadow.
I come out in the grubby little mini-mall by Allegra’s clinic. I knock on the door with existential healing on the front. Allegra’s receptionist and assistant—Fairuza—lets me in. She’s a Lurker, one of the many nonhumans who live in secret all over L.A. Fairuza is a Ludere, with blue skin and short horns, a compulsive gambler, and, lik
e all Ludere, constantly in a schoolgirl uniform.
“Hi, Stark,” she says cheerfully. “In for a tune-up?”
I show her the empty bottle.
“A fill-up.”
“Relax. You think you’re the only pill popper around here? I get migraines and have a knee that should belong to an eighty-year-old lady.”
“Yeah, but these are crazy pills. Supposed to keep me from running amok or something.”
“How are they working out?”
“Great. I just saunter amok these days.”
She checks the label on the bottle and goes into the exam room.
“Give me just a minute.”
I drop into one of the plastic waiting room chairs. Skim through a couple of magazines. A sports one featuring ’roid rage all-stars, and a celebrity one with L.A.’s newest power couple on the cover. They look like white bread and mayonnaise sculpted into a focus group’s idea of “attractive.” Safe, boring, and utterly forgettable. Hurray for Hollywood.
They make me feel even twitchier, so I take out a Malediction.
Allegra steps in front of me and says, “Light that and you’re dead.”
I put the cigarette away and get up. She gives me a hug and pulls me into the exam room.
“It’s good to see you. I enjoyed your party the other night.”
“Thanks. Maybe I’ll have another sometime.”
“I hope so.”
“It was nice to see you and Vidocq together again.”
She nods.
“It’s taken some time and a lot of work. I guess you weren’t around for most of it—”
“Because I was dead.”
“Yes. That.”
“Everyone tiptoes around it. I wish people would just say it.”
“Do you? It seems like something that could be very triggering.”
“I’m fine. Really.”
Allegra looks at the empty bottle.
“We’ll leave that for now.”
She goes to a cabinet and refills my bottle with pills. Gets down a second bottle and hands me both.
I look at the new pills. They’re white and tiny. Like something you’d give a sick cat.
“What are these?”
“Lorazepam.”
“Which is . . . ?”
“It’s an antianxiety medication.”
I put my regular pills in my pocket but leave the lorazepam on the exam table.
“No thanks.”
“Stark, stop trying to be such a hard-ass all the time. You need help. These will help.”
I look around the room.
“You know, when Doc Kinski ran this place, he had all kinds of hoodoo meds. Salves and potions, divine light glass . . . Why is it all you ever give me I could get over the counter?”
She gives me a hard look.
“First off, you can’t get any of these pills over the counter. And second, why do I give you these instead of one of Kinski’s wonder drugs? It’s because I think that it’s possible you have enough magic in your life. Maybe you need to forget about Heaven and Hell and monsters and demons for a while and just think about yourself and getting well.”
“And that’s why you give me baby aspirin?”
“You’re an addict, Stark. Something bothers you, you use magic. Something gets in your way, you blow it up or make it vanish. People. Things. Ideas. It’s all the same. You depend on your ‘hoodoo’ for too damn much. So, shut up and let me try to help you.”
Every single molecule in my body wants to leave. Slam the door or jump through a shadow. Get on the Hellion Hog and just go. Never come back. I don’t like these pills. I don’t like this clinic. And I don’t like getting yelled at. Worst of all, I don’t know if she’s right or not. I’m not sure of anything right now. I want to go back to Little Cairo and just start killing things. Yeah, I’m blipping people completely out of existence. But they’re dead, murderous trash, right? Killing ghosts isn’t that bad, is it?
Allegra takes the pills off the exam table and presses them into my hand.
“Please,” she says. “Just try them. You start feeling too down or like you’re going to lose control, take one. I promise they won’t hurt you or make you into a Care Bear. You’ll still be Stark. A pain in everyone’s ass. By the way, where’s your coat? You’re never out of that. It’s your security blanket.”
I hold up a finger. “First off, I don’t have a security blanket. Second, I gave the coat away.”
“Why? You love that ratty thing.”
“A few reasons, I suppose. But mostly because of all the blood.”
She frowns and closes my hand around the new pills.
“Try these. Please. You need them.”
I put them in my pocket.
“I’m only doing this as a favor to you. So you feel like you’re doing your job.”
“Sure,” Allegra says. “I appreciate you thinking of my feelings.”
We both laugh a little at that bit of bullshit.
She gestures to the exam table.
“Sit down for a minute.”
I do and she shines a light in my eyes. Makes me say ah. Does that weird thing doctors do when they feel under your jaw. From a nearby drawer she takes a little gold compass-looking thing with six or eight hands and presses it to my forehead.
I say, “So, you do still use hoodoo.”
“Of course. Where and when it’s appropriate.”
“What does that thing say about me? Do I need more fiber? Maybe trephination? They say it lets the demons out.”
She takes it off me and stares at the twirling hands.
“It says you’re a mess, but basically healthy.”
“Do I still get a lollipop?”
She reaches into a fishbowl on the counter and tosses me a Tootsie Pop.
I unwrap it and stick it in my mouth.
“Blue. My favorite non-flavor.”
She leans back and shakes her head at me.
“I sometimes wonder what you were like when you were a kid. Were you this stubborn? I bet you were a handful.”
“Mom says I was the handsomest boy in the world.”
“I bet you were. But that doesn’t answer my question.”
I shrug.
“I was like any kid. I could just do tricks other kids couldn’t.”
“What’s the first bit of magic you can remember doing?”
“Are you my shrink now, too?”
Allegra says, “Nope. We’re just a couple of friends talking.”
I think for a minute.
“I don’t remember much that far back. I remember Mom being sad all the time. And drinking. I remember my father being gone. Small mercies.”
“No happy memories?”
“My father missing when he tried to shoot me.”
I immediately regret it.
“Sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.”
She purses her lips.
“It’s okay. I shouldn’t have pressed.”
I rub the back of my neck.
“Can we talk about literally anything else in the world?”
Allegra takes a Tootsie Pop for herself, but she doesn’t unwrap it. Just holds it.
She says, “Remember when we first met? Some of the crazy places you took me?”
“That, I remember.”
“We had adventures.”
“I remember that too.”
She unwraps the Tootsie Pop and holds it by the stick.
“I miss that, you know. I love the clinic, but sometimes I feel so trapped here. You and Vidocq and Candy are off fighting monsters and here I am, waiting to bandage you up when you get back.”
“It’s funny. Candy said something like that the other night.”
“What did you say?”
“Let’s go have an adventure.”
“Okay. Let’s.”
She catches me off guard.
“You don’t have patients?”
“Not right now.”
“What kin
d of an adventure did you have in mind? ’Cause I’ve had my ass kicked a lot recently.”
“It doesn’t have to be anything big. Griffith Park.”
“What’s in Griffith Park at night?”
“I don’t know. Coyotes? Owls? Muggers? You want to hit something? Go hit one of them.”
I get off the table. She really wants to do this and these days we never get to talk except for doctor-patient stuff.
“Okay. Griffith Park it is then.”
Allegra goes out and tells Fairuza they’re closing up. Once she’s turned off the lights, I take her through a shadow.
We come out near the old zoo. It hasn’t been in commission for years and is just a lot of empty cages.
She looks around.
“This isn’t exactly what I meant. Who are we going to meet out here? Some fifteen-year-olds with beer?”
I look around.
“I like it here. It’s quiet. The moonlight looks pretty through the bars.”
Allegra puts a hand over her mouth.
“Oh my god. Was that a pickup line you used when you were a kid?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“You tell me. Did it work?”
“Usually.”
She smiles, then points at me. “What are we even doing here? Let’s go to the real zoo. The one that’s not all spiderwebs and leaves.”
I check the time on my phone.
“It’s probably closed.”
“Like that ever stopped you.”
“I’m shocked, doctor. You want to go trespassing on county property?”
“I sure as hell do.”
“Okay. It’s not far from here.”
We walk to the other side of the park, to the side that skirts the Golden State Freeway. It doesn’t take us long, but as I predicted, the zoo is closed.
The front entrance is huge. Maybe fifty feet tall. Across the bottom is a row of barred entrances, like the doors on animal cages. It’s all wildlife and education inside, but the way in is pure showbiz. If it were still fashionable to have dancing bears and elephants doing handstands, they’d have them out front too. Inside the zoo, it’s part Disneyland and part animal jail, but honestly, I think the animals have it easier. Their enclosures keep them a safe distance from frat shitheads eager for a selfie with a lion that’s waiting to disembowel them. And the cotton candy kids. Sticky little demons. They’re protected from them too.
I gesture to the locked gates.
“What did I tell you?”
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