The Sandman Slim Series Books 1-4 - Richard Kadrey

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stand up straight yet. I still feel Josef’s fingers inside my chest.

      The skinheads perp-walk me to the door, but Josef stops them. He leans over and whispers, “My name is …” and he makes a sound like a snake getting ready to strike. “Remember me. We’re going to meet again.”

      This trip through the skinhead’s playhouse isn’t as fun as the first. It feels like every one of them spits on me or bounces a beer can off my head. My punk girlfriend at the door grabs my balls and squeezes until I collapse and get my first chance to admire the warehouse’s lovely linoleum floor.

      That’s it, honey. We’ve officially broken up.

      The trip back to the Bamboo House of Dolls is a blur of elbows and knees as the skinhead boys play Frisbee with me in the backseat. The good news is that the meth head driving gets us to the bar in record time. The bad news is that he barely slows down when we get there. The boys push me out of the backseat while the car is still going thirty miles per. I land like a sack full of Silly Putty, rolling and bouncing down the street until I hit the curb in the front of the bar.

      Before anyone can call the cops, I crawl under a parked car, drop into the shadow, and stumble through the room back to Max Overdrive.

      I don’t even get into bed. I lie on the cool floor. Try to catch my breath and shake off the feeling of those fingers scrabbling around in my chest. I take the na’at out from under my shirt, feeling its familiar weight in my hand. If I was a better liar, I’d say that scoring the weapon was worth the beating, but I’m not and it wasn’t. On the other hand, coming away with a working na’at and leaving a demonic skinhead with nothing but a burned hand and a pile of puke can give you a feeling of accomplishment at the end of a long day.

      I WAKE UP with Mount Rushmore lying on my chest. My body feels like it weighs about a million pounds and it’s telling me that I shouldn’t move until at least the next ice age. Then I could forget all about L.A., get a job sweeping up Muninn’s labyrinth, and live in the dark and the silence forever. Or, more likely, until Baphomet or some other Hellion redneck finds a loophole in the universe’s cosmological rule book and wiggles his way out of Hell for the simple pleasure of gnawing my head off.

      I think I might have gone a little too far down this road to call a press conference and announce my retirement. But what would I say? Ladies and gentlemen, I’m hanging up my key and my guns and will follow my bliss to lead a quiet life, devoting myself to my nonprofit organic-vegetable farm cooperative, where I plan on going slowly out of my mind and strangling every goddamn human being and chicken within one hundred miles. I really hate chickens.

      THE BURNS ON my hands and face are gone, but my chest is a Jackson Pollock mess of black and purple bruises. Every time I take a breath, the tissue around Kasabian’s bullets feels like someone is trying to check my oil level with a cattle prod. If I’m still alive when this is over, I’m definitely going to see Kinski.

      My phone is beside me, blinking. I thumb the on button and find a text message from Cherry, with the address of a little taco place called No Mames on Western Avenue and a time when she wants to meet. The good news is that I have a few hours to get cleaned up and pull myself together. I want a cigarette and a drink, but I can’t smoke in the shower (trust me, I’ve tried), and if I started drinking now, I’m fairly certain that my brain would finally give up, get a new roommate, and move to Redondo Beach without me.

      I can still feel Josef’s fingers inside me. I dreamed about that room in the back of the Nazi playhouse. And the arena in Hell. About the black and empty creature that Lucifer once ordered to leave the arena. For all I know, it could have been Josef or one of the legion I sensed was there inside his body with him. If it even was a body. When he split open, his insides felt more like an empty portal than a real entity. I don’t want to ever meet him or any of his friends again.

      I strip down to take a shower and see that I’ve ruined another set of clothes. This time it isn’t my fault. Those Nazis owe me a new pair of jeans for shoving me out of that car. I’ll have to go collect on that sometime. That will be fun.

      The shower feels so good I almost faint. I can’t get over how these little things still thrill me. If I was the spiritual type, being so pleased by little pleasures would mean that I was one of those penitent saints who live in a cave and only eat gruel once a week. In my case, it’s my secret shame that the most exciting thing I can think of is clean socks.

      After I get cleaned up, I put on the last pair of unshredded jeans I own. I put on the trashed motocross jacket figuring it will keep tourists from asking directions to Disneyland.

      None of my guns will fit under the jacket without sending waves of pain through my body. I don’t think Cherry is going to get cute about anything, but if she does, the knife ought to be enough to take her down. I take off the Veritas and toss it. Should I go? No words this time. Just the image of a winged bug on a small hill. A fly on shit. That’s how I’m attracted to these things. In Hellion speak, it means that the answer to the question is inevitable, so why bother asking? It’s right. Why bother?

      THE GRILLED FISH tacos at No Mames aren’t half bad. The place is minimal inside. A few folding tables and cheap white plastic lawn chairs. It’s a pleasantly anonymous atmosphere. I eat three tacos and drink strong black coffee and wait.

      And wait. When Cherry is officially an hour late, I go outside for a smoke. (I know she’s officially late because Allegra told me that the time on my phone is set by a goddamn satellite thousands of miles up in space. Apparently, while I was Downtown, people decided that they needed to know the exact time on Neptune.) I call Cherry every ten minutes for the next half hour. I text her. Nothing. Finally, I get fed up with the car exhaust and the rancid pot smoke from the dealer by the pay phone. Cherry probably grew some brains in the night and hopped freight out of town. Smart move.

      I was too tired to steal a car on the way over, so I scan the traffic for a cab. A Yellow and a Veteran’s show up a minute later, and I start waving at them. The Veteran’s cuts across two lanes, aiming right at me. When it’s one lane away and about to turn into the curb, three black Ford SUVs come blasting around it from behind and cut it off. The middle one pulls up in front of me and a tall man in a dark blue suit and tie and white shirt steps out, flashing a badge. It’s one of the two men in suits who rode the elevator at the Bradbury Building with Vidocq, Allegra, and me.

      “Excuse me, sir,” he says in a West Texas drawl. “I’m U.S. Marshal Larson Wells. There’s a Homeland Security matter that we need to speak to you about.”

      I should have known something was up when I saw three Ford vans rolling down the street together. Is there any other time you see so many expensive American vehicles in one place? It’s always a presidential motorcade or a bust. Who else would buy those rolling tugboats when they’re so easy to steal? American cars are like condoms. Use them once and throw them away.

      I step back and reach for my knife. The van doors swing open wide. It’s bright out and all I can see inside are silhouettes. There are at least six of them and I bet every one of them has a gun pointed at me. I’m not exactly in shape to get shot fifty times right now. I bring my hand forward and hold it up. Nothing palmed there. Everybody stay cool.

      Wells takes my arm and leads me to the middle van. Just before I step inside, he slaps cuffs on my wrists in one smooth motion, like maybe he’s done this before. He pushes me inside and joins me in the rear seat, keeping himself between the door and me. All three vans shoot straight down Western, turn right on Beverly, and keep going.

      “Is this about those library fines? I swear I meant to pay them, but I was ten at the time and had a lousy credit rating.” The marshals in the front ignore me. Wells checks his watch and looks out the window. I pull on the cuffs. There’s barely any give. I might be able to break them and get them off, but not without shattering bones and peeling most of the skin off my hands. “For a Sub Rosa hit squad, you hide it well. I’m not picking up any magic vibes. I don’t see a binding circle or any killing charms. Did you hide them in the headliner?” I reach up and touch the vinyl, feeling for lumps or ridges that might give away hidden

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