LITMIR.BIZ

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like hell. The Scandy girl hasn’t moved an inch. Her eyes are fixed on the broken windshield. She doesn’t say thanks when I go past, but I don’t expect her to. Between the Nahual and me, she’s too shell-shocked to say anything at all. Welcome to L.A., darlin’.

      As I carry Kasabian upstairs he says, “That’s exactly what I was talking about.”

      IN THE MORNING it feels like my brain ran away to join the circus, got mauled by a lion, and rolled over every bump and boulder coming home. The pain juice Vidocq gave me doesn’t mix well with Jack Daniel’s, unless you enjoy feeling like someone parked a Saturn V on your eyeballs.

      Weird whiskey dreams last night. I dreamed about the old Faces of Death movies. Sideshow pseudo-documentary mash-ups of real and obviously fake footage of people being killed in interesting and creative ways. A real carnage rodeo. And each of my dream segments starred Alice being mangled in wide-screen Technicolor.

      After all this time I still don’t know how she died. I know that Parker, a magician, professional asshole, and Mason’s favorite hoodoo thug, murdered her and that Mason ordered it. But I don’t know how Parker killed her. The question always hovers at the back of my mind whenever I think of her. When I’m asleep my dreams play out different scenarios. Everything from a quick bullet in the back of the head to being stabbed and bleeding out. Her death scenes get mixed up with dreams of being back in the arena. Whatever beast I kill morphs into Alice dying at my feet.

      I know it’s a kind of betrayal to hide from the truth of how she died, but I know Parker’s mind and I doubt that he made it quick. Parker’s the kind of guy that makes you want to believe in reincarnation. I already murdered him once, but if I had the chance I’d never stop killing him. Killing Parker would be my circuit training. My racquetball game. I could build a whole new healthy lifestyle running him to the ground and snapping his neck three times a week.

      VIDOCQ COMES BY with a cab around ten. On my best days, the sun isn’t my friend. This morning, hungover and still wearing yesterday’s clothes, all I can do is cover my head and run from shadow to shadow like a vampire that forgot to wind its watch.

      When I get to the cab, Vidocq is waiting by the front passenger door, which is weird. We usually ride in the back so we can talk. I look through the window into the back and see why he’s up front. Candy is inside.

      “What, are you playing matchmaker?”

      Vidocq grabs the door and starts into the cab.

      “Oui. You need to talk to someone besides me and that chattering jack-o’-lantern in your room.”

      Vidocq slides in next to the driver. I get in the back with Candy.

      She’s in her usual ensemble of white T-shirt, a beat-up and just a little too big leather jacket, Chuck Taylors, and black jeans about to completely give up at the knees. She looks like Joan Jett’s little sister. She’s got on a pair of kid’s sunglasses, like something you’d pick up in Little Tokyo. The frames are white with blue flames and there are flying robots down the sides. When I sit down she doesn’t say hello. She touches the middle of the frames just above her nose. The sunglasses start singing the theme song to some Japanese kiddie cartoon in a tinny robot voice. It makes my skull throb.

      “Did you wear those just to torture me?”

      She touches the frames and the robot song starts again.

      “Not everything is about you, but yeah, pretty much. And I always wanted a robot sidekick.”

      “Can it be a quiet robot?”

      The song stops. She holds a finger over the frames.

      “Don’t make me use my super-awesome robo powers on you again.”

      Candy is like me. A monster. Specifically, she’s a Jade. Jades are sort of like vampires, only worse. They dissolve your insides and drink them like spiders. But she’s a good girl and is trying to kick the human milkshake thing with a special potion. Blood-and-bone methadone. Besides being cute and dangerous, she saved my ass from joining the living dead after a Drifter bit me. I was far gone and didn’t want to take the cure, so she stabbed me with a knife coated in the stuff. Yeah, it hurt. And yeah, I’m glad she did it.

      I throw up my hands.

      “You win. Take our lands and gold but leave me my virtue.”

      “Those are my only choices?”

      “If you’re going virtue hunting, you better bring a backhoe and dynamite. You’re going to have to dig deep.”

      “I’ll bring a strap-on.”

      I look at Vidocq in the front seat.

      “Make her stop. I’m hungover and she has a robot. It’s not fair.”

      “Life is fair only in the grave and in the bedroom. This, you will notice, is neither.”

      “That’s why I don’t take cabs.”

      I look out the window. The cabbie takes us down Hollywood Boulevard for a few blocks and then U-turns on Sunset and heads back the way we came.

      “Where are we headed?”

      “The Bamboo House of Dolls.”

      “What the hell, man? It’s just a few blocks. We could have walked.”

      “But then you might have walked away. You’ll notice I told our driver to take the long way so that I could talk to you. The woman we’re going to meet thought you’d be more comfortable discussing business there.”

      “What woman?”

      “Julia Sola.”

      “Never heard of her.”

      “Marshal Julie, you used to call her. One of Marshal Wells’s agents. You liked her. You said she was the only one in the Golden Vigil who treated you like a human being.”

      I sit up.

      “Are you fucking kidding me? Just cause she didn’t icepick me doesn’t mean I want to work with her. Or any other Homeland Security. Stop the car. I’m getting out.”

      “Keep going,” Vidocq says to the driver. He turns back to me.

      “Stop behaving like a child. The Vigil is dead and Homeland Security isn’t here anymore. You know that. Julia has opened her own private investigation business. Trust me. Do you think I’m so stupid that I would work for someone without investigating them?”

      “With who? Your little thief pals?”

      “Who better to know who works for law enforcement and who is a free agent?”

      I’m not sure what to think. Vidocq has a nose for cops. He knows how they think, how they work. A hundred years ago he taught the French police forensic analysis techniques he’d picked up from his science and alchemical books, and transformed them from a bunch of medieval thumb breakers into actual cops that could do real criminal investigations.

      The cabbie has the radio on. Patti Smith is singing “Ask the Angels.”

      Pounding devotion, armegeddon, and rock and roll. A song to die to.

      “This situation is total bullshit.”

      Candy looks at me, presses the button, and her robot glasses are singing over the radio. I’m back in Hell.

      WHEN WE GET to the Bamboo House of Dolls, Vidocq comes around to my side of the car and opens the door fast like he thinks I’m going to bolt. Hands the driver a twenty and doesn’t wait for change. The three of us go inside, where it’s dark and cool. Carlos is behind the bar setting up glasses for the night’s business. He nods at me when we walk in. It’s weird seeing the bar at this time of day with no music playing. The tiki dolls and coconuts look as bleary as I feel.

      Carlos says, “Funny seeing you awake. I thought you’d melt like the Wicked Witch if someone tried to wake you up before dark.”

      “You,

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