“A few months later stories started popping up on TV about arms smuggling along the Burmese border and how there must have been a bad accident. Like a big ammo dump or even a small tactical Chinese nuke had gone off. The land in one area was fried. And part of a mountain was gone, like it was scooped out with an ice-cream scoop. The funny thing was no one saw or heard any explosions. It all got hushed up pretty quick by the local government because whatever happened had wiped out an entire rebel army along with their village, their families, their crops, and their animals. There was nothing but ashes for miles.”
Kasabian finishes the beer and tosses the empty into an overflowing trash can.
“Mason went to Hell all right, but he got his revenge. That’s why I’m sure what Mason wants is to be in charge. This time around he’s not going to be dragged into the jungle while his family is chopped into dog food. He’s going to be the dragger, not the draggee.”
What do you know? Mason isn’t Dr. Doom after all. He’s Bruce Wayne, pining away for his long-gone Partridge Family lifestyle. I have no way of knowing if everything in Kasabian’s tall tale is true, but he got at least one thing right. From the moment we met, I don’t think it ever occurred to Mason and me to do anything but go at each other. It’s not that we hated each other. It’s more like how some people can’t help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they’re a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can’t help needling them. From day one Mason and I were playing King of the Hill. It all makes a sad kind of sense now. Sending me Downtown wasn’t just Mason’s play for power. It was his way of finally winning the stupid game we’d been playing since we met. Kasabian nailed it. Mason and I aren’t anything special. Just a couple of angry toddlers out to crack the world over a playground punch-out.
“You okay?”
I look around. Kasabian looks concerned. Somewhere along the way I’d gotten to my feet. I guess I’ve been standing here for a while.
“I’m fine. Thanks for laying it all out for me. At least now I know why Lucifer thought Mason was the only other candidate to take his place.”
“Maybe you ought to sit down and finish your drink.”
“Good idea.”
I’m feeling a little dazed. A little high. Mason and I are connected at the hip and the brain stem. Isn’t that goddamn hilarious?
“Just be cool. You wanted to hear the story. Don’t go getting mad at me.”
“Don’t sweat it. I’m glad I know.”
I pick up my coat. Finger the bullet hole. It’s not bad enough to throw the coat away. Besides, I heard that blood is the new black.
My cigarette has gone out. I drop it in a half-finished drink by the bed and light another.
“I get it now. Why Mason wants Heaven and Hell.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to do it again. He doesn’t want to be God. He wants to burn us like he burned that mountain.”
“Why would he do that?”
I look at Kasabian. He’s as mad as any human or Hellion I’ve ever met. Why can’t he see it? It’s because he’s a lousy magician. Third rate when he gets a good tailwind. He never learned to dream big.
“Because the universe abandoned him. Mason was scared. He’d seen his family butchered. He needed help. He begged and groveled and prayed, but nobody came. Not his parents. Not the Sub Rosa. Not the army. Not God or Lucifer or one lousy angel. The little boy got tossed out like the trash and now he’s going to burn the universe because when he was lost and pathetic and needed help the universe turned its back and took a planet-size dump on his head.”
“How do you know this sick shit?”
“Because it’s exactly what I was going to do. When I got back from Hell, I traded Mr. Muninn for something I have hidden in the Room of Thirteen Doors. Something that can fry every atom in Creation. Turn this whole peep show to dust. I thought that killing the Circle and sending Mason to Hell was going to fix me and the world would be full of sunshine and pretty girls and bluebirds that shit cold beer. But it didn’t. Alice was still dead. God and Lucifer still gave me the silent treatment. And Wells, Aelita, the Golden Vigil, and everyone who worked for them still walked the streets.”
I open my left hand. It hurts from being balled tight into a fist.
“So what changed your mind?” Kasabian asks. “From where I sit, the world is exactly as shitty as it was when you left.”
“It was that night I killed the Drifters. It would have been so easy to sit down and have a cigarette and let them eat the city. But when it came right down to it, I didn’t want to. It’s as simple as that. I wanted to live and I wanted Vidocq and Candy, Allegra, and Brigitte to live. And if I murdered the world, I’d be Mason and I didn’t want to be him.”
“You’re quite the humanitarian. By the way, thanks a fuck of a lot for leaving me off your who-to-save list.”
“You’re on it, Alfredo Garcia. I just didn’t want to say it out loud and have you call me Nancy or Tinker Bell.”
“Yeah, I would have done that.”
“Behave yourself, and when I’m Downtown maybe I can find some Hellion alchemists who can stitch you onto a new body. You can have Mason’s after I kill him.”
Kasabian snorts.
“Yeah. That’s what I want. Every time I pee I can look down and see Mason’s dick in my hand. That won’t give me nightmares.”
“But think how upset the dick’s going to be when it looks up and sees you.”
IN THE MORNING Candy, Vidocq, and I head back to Studio City in Allegra’s car. Vidocq borrowed it. He’s on a kick about not riding in stolen vehicles all the time. For a people who invented absinthe and blow jobs, sometimes the French can be a drag.
After hearing Kasabian’s story last night, I was itchy to talk to the Sentenzas and didn’t want to wait until the A.M., but they have a skull-fucked-by-evil kid wandering the streets and I didn’t want to have to haul them to an emergency room with matching coronaries.
Candy is a lot more of a morning person than I am, which is easy since I refuse to believe in the existence of a 10 A.M. But she’s insistent enough and strong enough to drag my ass out of bed and pour me into some clothes. She even found a coffeemaker in the kitchenette that wasn’t broken. Coffee isn’t the perfect morning drug, but it’ll do until someone invents French Roast adrenochrome.
What’s pissing me off is that I’m going to have to dance around a lot of what I’ve learned about Hunter and his pals. K.W. and Jen aren’t going to want to hear how close Hunter was to some really nasty drug peddlers. And I’m sure as hell not going to tell them about Aelita. I still don’t know why she’d go after TJ’s brother. It’s not like driving the kid crazy threatens anyone I care about. Me included. I could walk away from this anytime and it wouldn’t change a damn thing in my life.
We get to the Sentenzas’ place around eleven. Their car and truck are both in the driveway. Nothing surprising there. K.W. seems like a real worker bee, but a missing kid will dull your work ethic. The three of us go up the stone walkway and I ring the bell.
A minute or so later Jen opens the door. She’s in a red silk robe. Her hair is a mess and her eyes are red. She’s been crying and it looks like she just got up. She doesn’t say anything. She just stands aside and lets us in.
“This isn’t good news, is it?” she asks.
“Why do you say that?”
“Hunter isn’t with you and you don’t look much better than I feel.”
K.W. comes down the stairs. He’s in a blue tracksuit. It looks like he slept in it.
“Have you found him?”
“I’m afraid not,” says Vidocq. Bad news sounds better with his accent. “But we know a lot more than we did when we left here yesterday.”
I say, “What happened to Hunter wasn’t his fault. It was done to him. That might sound bad, but it’s actually good news. If he was
set up for the possession, it means someone wanted to make a point, one that hasn’t been made yet. That means whoever did it still needs him. Wherever Hunter is, I’m sure that he’s still alive.”
Their bodies change when they hear that. I can feel their nervous systems unknot. Their breathing and heart rates get somewhere in the neighborhood of normal. K.W. even manages a minuscule smile.
“That’s great news. So, why are you here? Do you need something else from us?”
Jen breaks in.
“Who would do something like that to Hunter?”
No way I’m answering that.
“We’re not sure,” says Candy. “That’s why we’re here. We need to ask you a few more questions.”
“I’ll put on some coffee,” says Jen, and heads for the kitchen. K.W. nods in her direction and we follow.
The kitchen is big and spacious. Spanish tile and copper pans. It’s flooded with light from a row of French doors that open onto a huge backyard with neat trees and a pool. We sit on stools at a serving island in the middle of the room. I doubt I could even afford the coffee filters Jen is fitting into an expensive German contraption. It looks more like something that fell out of the space station than a coffeemaker.
“What do you need to know?” asks K.W.
I figured out one thing last night. If Mason and Aelita are mixed up in this thing, then not only do they want the kid found, but they want me to find him. That means there’s information I don’t have yet. Since I don’t know where to look, there’s nothing to do but go back to the beginning.
“Was Hunter in touch with any of TJ’s friends who were into magic?”
Vidocq and Candy look at me.
Okay, I’m starting somewhere a little self-serving. I want to know if the Sentenzas know that TJ and I are connected. And it’s a legit question. TJ might have known some Sub Rosas outside our Circle. I doubt it, but you never know. Like I said, I’m grasping at straws and crabgrass.
“Not that I know of,” says K.W. “Jen, do you know anything?”
She stands where she is by the coffeemaker. She’s a long way down the counter from us, like she’s afraid of catching a flesh-eating virus.
Jen shakes her head.
“Not that I know of. If he knew any of them, he was keeping it a secret.”
“Was it his habit to keep secrets?” asks Vidocq.
“No. That was more TJ. Hunter is a good kid,” says K.W.
“He was on the debate team at school one semester,” says Jen, like it’s proof that Hunter is an angel and that none of this is happening. “But he had to quit to go out for track.”
I ask, “Did he do all right in school? No changes in his grades?”
“He was a hard worker,” says Jen.
K.W. smiles ruefully and nods.
“He did all his homework and his grades were decent, but there wasn’t much danger of him becoming a Rhodes scholar.”
While the coffee burbles away Jen starts getting cups down from the cupboard. She puts one down and stops. Her body has gone rigid again. Her heart rate is climbing fast. She’s trying not to cry. Probably doesn’t want to look weak in front of a bunch of strangers talking about her missing son like he’s a stolen dirt bike. K.W. gets up and walks over to her, puts his hands on her shoulders.
“Why don’t you go sit down? I’ll get the coffee,” he says.
She doesn’t reply, but comes over and sits on the stool K.W. just vacated. Her arms are crossed and she’s looking down at the counter.
Candy reaches out and touches Jen’s hand lightly.
“We’re very sorry to have to ask you all these questions.”
Jen nods, still staring down.
This is bullshit. The kid was a jock with ambitious parents. They’d lost their smart son, TJ, and hoped that Hunter would take his place. But Hunter isn’t TJ. If he joined the debate team, it was only to make his parents happy, and when he wanted off, he found a good enough reason that they couldn’t get mad.
K.W. puts down cups for everyone. I sip mine.
“This coffee is good,” I say to no one in particular.
K.W. nods.
“Yeah. It cost enough.”
“You have a coffeemaker this good at work?”
“That’s a funny question.”
“It is, isn’t it? But do you have a good coffeemaker at work?”
He shakes his head, still looking puzzled.
“Not this good, but the one in the office is okay. Most of the guys I work with wouldn’t know good coffee from kerosene. They’re the types who put on a pot on Monday and are still drinking it on Friday.”
“What kind of guys are we talking about?”
“Construction mostly. I’m a property developer. Someone has a piece of land and wants something on it, they call me.”
Makes sense. I remember seeing mud and cement around the wheel wells on the pickup in the drive.
“I have my own company. Some days I wear suits and some I’m out on the sites making sure the floor tiles are going in the right way up.” He smiles like we’re supposed to laugh. It’s a joke he’s used on a lot of clients. Now it’s just a nervous tic.
“Depending on business, I’m either out in the field most of the time or back in the office having meetings.”
“What kind of real estate do you develop?”
“Whatever a client asks for. Shopping malls. Business parks. Apartment buildings. Whatever a client wants.”
“Is business good?” asks Vidocq.
K.W. shrugs.
“With development, it’s always feast or famine. No one wants anything new. All they want is new electrics or pipes in old structures. Then someone wants a new hundred-apartment complex up in two weeks. And there are ten other companies behind that one who want the same thing.”
“Was Hunter going to work for you when he finished school?”
“I don’t know. We talked about it.”
“Did he spend much time at the building sites?”
K.W. sips his coffee. Puts his hand on his wife’s hand. Squeezes. She squeezes back.
“Not particularly. He liked the big construction machines when he was little.”
Fucking fascinating. This family is in training for the Tedious Olympics.
“Are you developing anything new? Anything unusual?” asks Candy. Nice. She has good instincts for this Sherlock Holmes stuff. Me, I’m about ready to take her back to the hotel and break more furniture.
“What do you mean ‘unusual’?”
“You’re the builder,” I say. “We don’t know a dump truck from the Batmobile. You tell us.”
K.W.’s eyes unfocus. Make microscopic movements back and forth in their sockets. It’s an involuntary thing. The brain trying to access memories. If he was lying, his eyes would favor his left side, but they don’t.
K.W. shrugs.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. We’re finishing a housing development. Upgrading the fixtures in a strip mall. We’re about to break ground on an office park near the 405.”
“Okay, the jobs are boring. Are your clients? Any eccentrics? Odd requests? Anyone paying you in magic beans?”
He thinks again. His eyes stop and hold steady.
“There’s only one thing I can think of and it’s not really odd. It’s just not something that happens every day.”
“Tell us,” says Vidocq.
“A client called for a fix-up on a business property. What was unusual was that I never met her or a rep in person. We did everything on the phone. It was like she was one person handling everything herself. That’s unusual in this business.”
“What was her name?” I ask.
He frowns.
“I can’t remember. My secretary would know.”
“What did she hire you to do?”
“She wanted us to renovate and restore an old commercial site in the Hollywood Hills. It was a big job, too. There was extensive fire damage, but she wanted us to fix it rather than tear it
down. It was something historic. An old gentlemen’s club. That I remember. It’s not a phrase you hear too often these days.”
I put down my coffee and Vidocq picks up his. Candy and I look at each other.
“Did she tell you the name of the club?”
“Maybe. I don’t remember.”
“Was it Avila?”
K.W. smiles.
“Yes, that’s it. How did you know?”
The human brain is a very funny thing, and because of that, it can do very funny things to the human body. Take mine right now. My heartbeat just doubled. All my senses are cranked up to eleven. Even the angel in my head feels it. I hear Jen’s breathing change. She knows my question and K.W.’s answer are important. I smell K.W. starting to sweat. He gets it that something he’s said is connected to Hunter’s disappearance. Vidocq and Candy are plain excited and trying not to show it. I’m as excited as any of them, but I feel cold, too. Like someone cracked open my chest and dumped a bucket of ice inside. But I don’t show any of it. This is basic stuff. I could have had this information yesterday if I hadn’t let the TJ thing get to me. But I guess getting to me has been the idea all along.
“How did you know the club’s name?”
I sip my coffee. The room is practically vibrating from the tension. Candy is a furnace. She wants to run out and start gnawing on bad guys or the coyotes in the hills. Something.
“A lucky guess.”
“I’ll call the office and get you the woman’s number.”
I shake my head.
“Don’t bother. It’ll be turned off and she won’t use it again.”
Jen says, “You know who it is, don’t you?”
“No,” I say. It’s the truth. I don’t know. But yes, I know.
“I have an idea, but I don’t want us to start getting ahead of ourselves.”
The three of us get up and head for the door. The Sentenzas don’t show us out this time. They stay in their bright and familiar kitchen, huddled there like the house is the Titanic and the serving island is the last lifeboat afloat.
Aloha from Hell (Sandman Slim) Page 13