“See anyone unusual? Did anything funny happen?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Nothing.”
“It just went blank?”
“Yes. It was like I was sucked out of myself. Like a seed from a husk.”
I feel the Colt against my back.
“You’re one unhelpful dead man.”
Death looks at Vidocq and then back to me.
“I’m sorry.”
I stare up at the ceiling, thinking.
“Maybe we’re looking at this thing all wrong, making it more complicated than it really is.”
“What do you mean?” says Vidocq.
“What I mean is, Death is stuck in a human body, right?”
“Right,” says Death.
I take out the pistol.
“What if we unstick him?”
Death’s eyes widen and his pupils turn into dinner plates. I wonder if Eric Townsend ever looked that freaked out, like maybe when the market tanked. I doubt it. I get the feeling that Death has found a whole new expression in an otherwise ordinary face.
“I don’t think I like your idea,” he says.
“I think that perhaps you’re getting frustrated and are looking for a quick answer,” says Vidocq.
He puts his hand on the barrel of the gun and points it at the floor.
“You don’t think it’s even worth considering? Maybe we can fix things right here and now.”
“Not all of life’s answers are in guns and na’ats. It just isn’t that simple,” Vidocq says. “Besides, we don’t know what might happen if we damage Death’s body too badly. He might be lost to us forever.”
“I can think of worse things than no death in the world.”
“To spend eternity in a coma like all those poor people?” says Vidocq. “That sounds like Hell to me.”
Very quietly, Death says, “Everyone hates me or is afraid of me or both. Angels, Hellions, humans, Gods. It gets lonely.”
“Then there’s no Mrs. Death, I take it?”
“That’s not funny,” he snaps, and for a second Death isn’t just a sad sack in dead skin. There’s a flash of cosmic fury in his eyes. A power that hasn’t been there before. Then it’s gone.
“Hey, I know what hated feels like, so we’re in the same club,” I say.
Death does a small nod, but I don’t think he’s convinced.
Vidocq finishes his drink and motions for the bottle. I give it to him.
He says, “Some texts claim that death is just a way station on a journey to somewhere else. That to die again in Heaven is a gateway to other planes. Is that true?”
“Ah, that. You people have a lot of ideas about what death is.”
“You ever hear the name Edison Elijah McCarthy?” I say.
“No.”
“What about Tamerlan Radescu?”
“It’s not familiar.”
“Give me your arm.”
He does it, but slowly, like he thinks I’m going to tear it off and use it for an ashtray.
“We know about the tattoo. I want to know what that brand is.”
Maybe to distract himself, Death turns to Vidocq.
“Why have you been looking for me for so long?”
“Becoming immortal was never my choice. Now I would like to be like other men.”
I look at him.
“You want to die? What about Allegra?”
“I didn’t say I wanted to die now. But I would like to know that it’s a possibility.”
“Of course it is,” says Death.
“How would I go about it?”
“You were changed with a potion. The right potion will return to a normal human life.”
“Potions. I’ve tried an endless parade of godforsaken potions.”
“Try more.”
Vidocq frowns and stares at the far wall. I guess that wasn’t the answer he was looking for. I let go of Death’s arm.
“Samael, an angel, says something is trying to take your place.”
Death nods.
“Of course. There must be a Death, therefore there will be one.”
“You don’t seem too concerned.”
“I’m very concerned, but what can I do in my current state?”
“I wonder what would happen if we got you two together.”
“I suspect one of us would destroy the other.”
“You think so?”
“I doubt the universe could survive or would permit more than one Death.”
“Too many yous does sound like a drag.”
Death twists his arm around, looking at the underside.
“I think I do remember something,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about the brand.”
“What about it?”
“I don’t know what it is. But I’m sure I’ve seen it on some souls. Ones that didn’t want to move on.”
“You mean ghosts.”
“Yes.”
“A branded soul?” says Vidocq.
Death nods.
“The mark was only on a few, but it was there.”
Vidocq and I look at each other, neither sure what to make of that information.
Death starts looking uncomfortable. I want a cigarette, but I have a drink instead.
“So, you know any funny jokes or stories?” I say. “Something you and the other angels giggle about around the watercooler.”
Death looks at the floor, then at me.
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Doorbell repairman.”
Vidocq chuckles. I slap Death’s knee.
“Hey, that was funny. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“Now it’s your turn,” he says.
“No. I forgot my jokes during my vacation Downtown.”
“You’re always making jokes. You must remember one.”
“Yes,” say Vidocq. “You must remember one.”
I shoot him a quick “fuck you” with my eyes.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s one. There’s this old preacher home in bed. He’s dying and doesn’t have much longer to go. So he sends a note to a banker and a lawyer that go to his church. They come over and sit in chairs he’s set out, one on each side of the bed. The only thing is, when they get there the preacher doesn’t say a word. He just lies there. Finally, the lawyer speaks up. ‘Excuse me, sir. We don’t seem to be talking about anything. Why did you ask us here?’ ‘Well,’ says the preacher, ‘Jesus died between two thieves and I figure if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for me.’ ”
Death stares at me for a second like I was speaking Urdu. Then his face changes, relaxes, and he laughs.
Vidocq holds out his glass and clinks it against the bottle as I pick it up. What do you know? We had kind of a normal moment there. I look at Death smiling. Guess I’m glad I didn’t shoot him after all.
VIDOCQ LEAVES NOT long after that, still shaken by what Death said about Liliane. Figuring someone to be dead, then finding out they’re still alive and kicking, can be a shock. It happened to me with Mason. Before Christmas I thought I’d gotten rid of him so many times, but the fucker always scuttled out from under the floorboards like an armor-plated cockroach.
Vidocq is luckier than me. At least his nondead pal is someone he liked. Didn’t he? Or did I read it all wrong? Was he upset because he didn’t know someone he loved was still around and lost to him, or did he melt down because he thought he was done with her, but now knows she might be waiting around the next corner? I’ll have to ask him, but not now. He needs to calm down and remember how to breathe. He was so pale when he left he looked like he’d been huffing paint thinner all afternoon.
I guess the movie is over. Kasabia
n has the news on the big screen, so Death and I go over and watch with him.
What do you know? The world is still a big ball of shimmering shit. But before the usual parade of misery detailing all the wars, famines, and atrocities people enjoy so much, we lead in with a long story about the nondead piling up all over the world. In the U.S., they say that civilian and military hospitals are full, so they’re setting up temporary wards in school gyms and empty stadiums. The dreaming dead lie motionless under sheets, like bugs in spider silk, between goalposts and filling the outfields of baseball diamonds. The news hack describing all this says the one bright spot is that suicides are down, since the poor saps know that killing themselves is a ticket to nowhere. I look over at Death. I can’t read his expression. He’s staring at the monitor, big-eyed. He takes long, deep breaths.
I say, “I can’t keep calling you Death. It’s beginning to creep me out. You have any other names we could try?”
“Many,” says Death. “Thanatos. Azriel. Mrityu. Yan Luo. Malak al-Maut—”
I hold up a hand.
“Stop. Most of those are more depressing than Death. But I need something to call you when civilians are around. How about Vincent?”
“Why Vincent?”
“The Masque of the Red Death,” says Kasabian.
I nod.
“Vincent for Vincent Price. Death himself, as directed by Roger Corman.”
Vincent looks back at the news.
“I suppose it’s as good a name as any.”
Kasabian says, “It’s better than Sandman Slim.”
I look at him.
“Hush, Gort.”
Everyone quiets down as the news goes local. There was another massacre in Laurel Canyon. Five dead. All beaten to death. No one saw anything.
What the fuck is wrong with that place?
I should have seen it coming with the Three Stooges the other night. A massacre is nothing new out there. You could fertilize all the farms in the Central Valley with the bodies buried in Laurel Canyon.
In the sixties, when the young and the beautiful from music and movies ruled the roost, they dumped hapless shitheads who OD’d at parties there when it was too risky to call an ambulance. In earlier, classier days—the twenties through the forties—well-connected stars could call a manager or agent who’d arrange a discreet disposal of human waste by studio security. Not that they’d necessarily need it. There was always been plenty of room to bury an unruly spouse with the help of a lover or two.
The Army Air Corps even built a base at the top of Wonderland Park Avenue in 1941. It was transformed from an air defense site into a military movie production house, but rumors still persist that they ran experiments on some of the hippie locals. Mostly MKUltra-style acid tests. Dose enough innocents and you’re bound to end up with a few bodies, and who knows how to get rid of bodies better than the army?
Cops have always loved the canyon. In the old days, they’d drive mobsters high up into the hills and dump them into the ravines. Let the coyotes have them. A lot of gangland hits went down out there too. For a while it was Bugsy Siegel pulling the triggers, then, after a sniper splattered his brains all over his Beverly Hills mansion, it was Mickey Cohen’s turn. He was a professional boxer in his youth and knew how to use his hands. After him, Johnny Stompanato got to run a little mayhem through the Sunset and the canyon. Of course, no one could prove anything. There were accusations of murder, but nothing came of them. In the end, Siegel got shot for his Las Vegas sins. Johnny Stomp was knifed to death by Lana Turner’s daughter. And Cohen was put away for tax evasion.
Laurel Canyon hosted a thousand random deaths over the years. The still unidentified Jane Doe number 59 was found with 157 stab wounds. Aging star Ramón Novarro—“Ravishing Ramón” in happier times—was murdered by a couple of not very bright rent boys. In the late twenties, Samantha Bach, a rising MGM starlet, was wasted by her producer/lover Irvine Lansdale. The killing was a kind of proto–Black Dahlia affair. Like the B movie before the big feature. Bach was found propped up in bed, pale and lovely, not a drop of blood on her, but with her heart and eyes resting on a bedside table.
Laurel Canyon still beckons generation after generation to its promise of the good life, its movie-star frisson, and faux-rural splendor. Most of the current show-business creeps and money-shuffling assholes who roam its hills and trails smile down at the suckers below in Hollywood, never knowing or caring that they’re gazing out over one big graveyard.
And now some New Age Nazis were beating the shit out of the locals. Anywhere else I’d be surprised. But not there.
From outside the store comes a series of pops, like a string of firecrackers, only the sound is too low and flat. I shove Vincent and Kasabian to the floor and yell, “Candy, get down!” before taking a dive myself.
Bullets tear up Max Overdrive’s front wall. One shatters the edge of the big screen. Kasabian squeals “No!,” more afraid of losing his screening room than catching a slug in the face. Vincent is flat on the floor spread eagle, like a pinned butterfly. Not too dignified, but he’s new at the duck and cover game and doesn’t grasp the necessity of keeping some shred of dignity while hunkered down, scared shitless. For example: you don’t want to be found dead, say, head down and ass in the air, ostrich-style. That’s guaranteed to give the crime-scene squad the giggles as they zip you into a body bag, and who wants to leave the world a funny corpse?
Finally, the shooting stops, but not before the last bullet blows apart the Gentleman Jack, an innocent bystander.
When the room goes quiet, I jump up and head to the door. A blue Honda Civic is idling at the curb. I head outside. Reaching behind my back for the Colt, I realize it fell out of my waistband when I hit the floor. Still, I’m mad enough that when the Honda pulls away, I run after it, hoping to catch it before it reaches the corner. I can’t recommend this method of chasing down bad guys. It’s not subtle or a good use of your adrenaline.
Plus, when the banditos decide to back up and run you over—like they seem to be doing right now—you’re standing in the street like a side of beef with a glow-in-the-dark target painted on your brisket. I take a few steps back toward the store, but the car keeps gaining speed.
Gunfire pops over my shoulder and the Honda’s back window explodes. Candy runs up with her 9mm blazing. The Honda squeals to a stop, then takes off in the opposite direction. I grab Candy and pull her into the shadows at the side of the store, hoping the neighbors haven’t moved back to town so they can call the cops on our little O.K. Corral.
I hold Candy in the dark for a couple of minutes. She’s vibrating with animal rage, her body in the transition state between regular Candy and her Jade form. I’ve never seen a full-on Jade with a gun, and I’m not sure I want to. Soon she calms down and folds up the pistol. I let go of her and we walk around to the front of the store. There are more than a dozen bullet holes in the walls, but not a single shot through the glass.
“Here’s why,” Candy says.
Some clever boots has painted ED on the window, so the angel’s tag now reads KILLED. Next to that is a squiggle that looks like a left-handed monkey painted it with his right hand. But if I squint at it hard enough, I can make out the emblem of the White Light Legion. Turns out these guys might be murderous Nazi shitheads, but they’ll need some community-college art classes before they take over the world.
The paint is still wet, so Candy leans on my arm and smears out the letters and emblem with the sole of her boot.
When we get inside, Vincent, always the good guest, is soaking up the spilled whiskey with paper towels. The Colt is lying by the edge of the counter. I pick it up and put it back in my waistband.
Vincent stops wiping the floor and looks up.
“Was all that because of me?”
I look at him on the floor on his hands and k
nees, wet towels in one hand and a confused look on his face. I’ve never seen an angel so out of his element.
“I don’t know. We ran into them the other night. It could be you, or it could be on us.”
“How did they find you?” says Kasabian. “I mean, am I going to have to crawl around the store like a goddamn schnauzer waiting for round two?”
“That’s a good question,” says Candy. “How did they find us?”
“I turned on the car lights the other night. Maybe one of them saw the license plate.”
“That would lead them to Julie, not us.”
“Yeah, but they wouldn’t be looking for her. They’d stake out her place and look for the two idiots that went after them.”
“Still, if they know where to find Julie, that’s bad.”
“Call her,” I say. “And tell her to get out of there.”
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Nothing. I just want you to call. She’ll be nicer to you when you tell her about her maybe getting shot.”
“She knows you attract trouble.”
“We do, sweetheart. We. It was a doubles act the other night, so you get to give her the good news.”
“Lucky me.”
Vincent pops a couple of his pain pills and dry-swallows them. I can’t say I blame him.
CANDY IS STILL doing more computer research in the morning, so I go over to the office alone. Julie is pouring coffee when I get upstairs. She brings both mugs over to her desk. I sit down across from her and take the cup she pushes my way.
“Thanks.”
“Of course,” she says. “I thanked Chihiro for the call about the shooters. I slept with my Glock under my pillow last night.”
“You might make a habit of it for a while.”
“Trust me, I will.”
She takes a couple of sugar packets out of a desk drawer, shakes them, and dumps the contents into the mug.
“You sticking to coffee during working hours?” she says.
“Pretty much. The Augur offered me a drink on his boat. It seemed unwise to turn him down.”
She nods. Sips. Sets down the cup.
“That makes sense. This morning, Chihiro told me more about what happened last night.”