She picks up the Aqua Regia.
“But what’s this?”
“It’s not from around here. And it’s kind of strong. You wouldn’t like it.”
She sits back in her chair.
“That sounds like a challenge.”
“It isn’t. Trust me. Only very bad -people drink this swill.”
“You talked me into it.”
Julie downs her Jack Daniel’s and points to the empty glass.
“Hit me.”
“Okay. But first I have to piss. Don’t touch the stuff until I get back.”
I give the bottle to Chihiro.
“You’re in charge. Keep this away from her. If she’s going to taste it, I want to be here to see.”
She salutes me.
“I’m on it, sir,” she says. “None shall pass.”
I head to the bathroom in the back of the bar.
Okay. We met. But that’s it for now. It will take awhile to get used to calling her a new name, but I should have guessed that if she had to pick a disguise she’d go for a kogal pinup.
Tomorrow I’ll give her the guitar. That will have to be it for a while. Then, sometime after New Year’s, we can accidently run into each other at the bar and buy each other drinks. Of course, Chihiro won’t be able to use any of Candy’s stuff. She’ll need everything new. Clothes. Music. Lots of Hello Kitty, robot, and anime tchotchkes. It will all cost money. The last thing I want to be is a half--baked Mike Hammer, but until I pay off my debt to Julie for helping me fake Candy’s death, it’s what I’ll do.
I wait until the last guy clears out of the bathroom and shove the trash can under the doorknob, blocking it. I need a moment to myself.
I go into one of the stalls and close the door.
It hurt seeing Candy even playing dead. It’s nothing I ever want to see again. I’m just glad none of the Vigil assholes got close enough to tell that what she was bleeding was blood from my chest wounds cut with some Karo syrup, all taped to the body armor under her coat. It was all so close to falling apart. Mason. The Angra. Tossing Chaya and Deumos. Killing Candy. One wrong move could have brought the whole thing down on top of us. But we got away with everything. For once.
I want to live small for a while. No Gods, good or bad. No angels or Hellions. No ghosts or zombies. Just divorcées and insurance scams. That sounds like paradise. Like two weeks back at the Chateau Marmont with twenty--four--hour room ser-vice.
I light a Malediction and draw the smoke slowly into my lungs. It hurts so good.
There’s a light knock on the stall door. Great. The place wasn’t clear after all.
“Go away. Sorry I blocked the door. Just move the can.”
He knocks again, so light it’s almost inaudible.
“Please go away.”
No one says anything. I wait to hear the sounds of the trash can being moved.
“Mr. Stark?”
“Yeah?”
“May I speak to you for a moment?”
“No. It’s Christmas. Go away.”
“I can’t.”
“Sure you can. Aim your feet. First right, then left. Try it.”
He knocks again.
“What?”
“Mr. Stark. I understand you do investigations.”
“No. That’s my boss. She’s outside. In the back with a drunk Czech and a hot blonde. You can’t miss them.”
He knocks.
“Please, Mr. Stark. I’d rather deal with you. My case is unique.”
“How unique?”
The guy who pushes the stall door open looks like yesterday’s lunch, eaten and thrown back up again. A gray, patchy beard. Hair a terminal thicket of cowlicks. A trench coat that might have been tan once, but is now the color of cold grease and rhino shit.
“Please, Mr. Stark,” he says. “It has to be you.”
“Why?”
He opens his coat. He isn’t wearing a shirt. His chest is a mass of torn muscle and cracked bones. There’s a gaping hole where his heart should be.
“Mr. Stark, I need your help with an investigation. My name is Death. And I appear to have been murdered.”
I hate this job already.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Richard Kadrey has published nine novels, including Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha from Hell, Devil Said Bang, Kill City Blues, Butcher Bird, and Metrophage, and more than fifty stories. He has been immortalized as an action figure, his short story “Goodbye Houston Street, Goodbye” was nominated for a British Science Fiction Association Award, and his novel Butcher Bird was nominated for the Prix Elbakin in France. The bestselling and acclaimed writer and photographer lives in San Francisco, California.
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