“What’s that?” says Candy.
Back by the plants and lab gear is a broken--down Japanese shrine, just big enough to hold a wizened old body. The coffin--size shrine and mummy look hundreds of years old. The body sits cross--legged in a meditation pose. It’s dressed in gold ceremonial robes and a conical monk’s hat, so someone is looking after it. Paper--thin flesh stretches over delicate bones. It almost looks polished. Like the body isn’t a mummy at all, but a statue carved from lacquered wood. There are offerings of mochi, an orange, and incense at the foot of the shrine.
I go over and touch the dried, worm--eaten word on the top of the shrine.
“Don’t know. It looks like Norman Bates’s prom date.”
Wells comes in and sees me.
“Don’t touch that,” he barks.
“What’s the deal with Skeletor here?”
With a creak, the mummy turns its head.
“Me? What’s the deal with you, fatty?”
Slowly, the mummy monk unfolds its arms and legs. It’s so slow and delicate, it looks like a giant stick insect waking up.
I take a few steps back. Candy comes around the table and stands beside me, holding on to my arm. Not out of fright but in a “Holy shit can you believe this shit?” way.
Finally, the mummy is standing. The golden robes hang off him like a layer of extra flesh. He stands up straight, puts out his arms, and stretches.
“Nice nap,” he says, then looks back at me. “You’re the one I’ve heard so much about. You been running around shooting more -people, fatso?”
Dead man or not, Candy steps up.
“Don’t call him names, you bony bastard. He’s skinny as a rail.”
The mummy waves a dismissive hand at her.
“You need glasses.”
“That’s a holy man, young lady,” says Wells. “You do not speak to him like that.”
“Then he shouldn’t call -people names,” she says.
“Stark, let me introduce you to Ishiro Shonin.”
Before Candy can start arguing with Wells, I go over to the mummy, hoping this is all some kind of hazing ritual.
“What’s your story, dead man? I hear you speaking English, but your mouth is doing something else.”
He shuffles to the table with the herbs and lab equipment. Drinks something green from an Erlenmeyer flask.
“Ah,” he says when he’s done. “You have good eyes for a fool. I speak how I like and you hear how you like. Same thing for me. I hear you, so you make sense. Not that someone like you makes much sense.”
“I bet you wow them on talent night at the morgue. Do you do balloon animals too?”
“Fat, and ugly too. Not much for someone like you out in the world, is there? You have to hide and consort with the dead like me.”
“Speaking of the dead, why don’t you get more shut--eye? I need to talk to a dead man before he’s gone completely. You have any crow feathers around here?”
Ishiro Shonin glances over at the ice chest. I don’t have to tell him what’s in there.
“How are you going to talk to him?”
“A messy ritual. But effective. It’s the Metatron’s Cube Communion.”
The Shonin nods.
“That’s why you want crow feathers. You lie down with the dead man and slash your wrists. Lots of blood and all that? Of course you’d choose that one.”
“I’ve used it before. It’s goddamn effective.”
“Watch the blasphemy,” says Wells.
“You like the Cube Communion because you’re in love with death,” says the Shonin. “You die a little and come back. Cheat death over and over like a bad boyfriend kissing another girl.” He looks at Candy. “Is he a bad boyfriend?”
“No. He’s great.”
“Then you shouldn’t let him be so stupid.”
I say, “So what do you suggest?”
The Shonin pokes around the table of herbs with the black bony fingers. Picks up a furry twig dotted with small yellow blossoms.
“Dream tea. I learned it from a moon spirit. You probably don’t believe that kind of thing, but it’s true.”
“Me? I believe in everything. How does it work?”
“You make a tea. You meditate. You enter the spirit realm and find your man before he drifts away. That okay with you, fatty?”
“Great. Brew some up. I’ll try it.”
“You know how to meditate?”
“Everyone in L.A. knows how to meditate.”
The Shonin looks as doubtful as a skeleton can. He puts water on a small flame to boil. Drops the twig into the pot.
“I should do it. I have more experience,” says the Shonin.
“And I have trust issues. I’ll do it.”
“If you get lost and can’t come back, don’t blame me.”
“If I get stuck because of your hoodoo juice, my ghost is going to come back and shit in your skull.”
The Shonin shakes his head. It sounds like twigs cracking.
“No reasoning with some -people.”
“Amen to that,” says Wells.
Candy says, “You’re really going to drink that stuff?”
I take off my wet coat and throw it over the back of a chair.
“If I don’t have to slice and dice myself, I’m willing to try it. Wells won’t let him kill me, will you, Wells? I’m the only one with experience handling the 8 Ball.”
“So far,” says Wells. “But there’s always tomorrow.”
“Maybe not too many,” says Candy. “You might want to remember that.”
The Shonin takes the tea off the burner and pours a brown mess into a small ceramic cup.
“The girl . . .”
“Candy,” she says.