Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel Page 8

  She loops her arm in Brigitte’s.

  I walk into a shadow by a picture window down the hall, surer than ever that I should have worn body armor.

  I STILL HATE walking into unknown rooms, but I’ve never heard of a dangerous Tick-Tock Man, so I’m more likely to walk in on a game of Dungeons & Dragons than bearbaiting.

  I come out in a room that reminds me of Garrett’s. A generically elegant place, but a little more old school than his was. The wood looks like wood instead of veneer and the paintings look real instead of like overpriced prints.

  Rose has two adjoining apartments. One for living and one for a workspace. The guy is either loaded or his rental agreement is so old it’s written on parchment and he pays for it with shells and brightly colored beads.

  He must be one of those genius types, like Tesla. Guys who would rather live in a hotel than have their own home. Live somewhere they know the sheets and towels will always be clean and where they can get a grilled-cheese sandwich from room service at four A.M. Because we’re in Bel Air, I want to hate his setup, but the truth is, I understand the addiction. I love squatting in the Chateau Marmont. Plus, I never told anyone, but part of me is happy that so many of my clothes end up burned, slashed, shot up, or generally too bloody to deal with. It’s a great excuse never to do laundry. I can deal with fighting in the arena in Hell, but laundry and dishes put the fear of God in me.

  I can hear Rose in his workroom, so I stay out of sight in his living quarters.

  At three on the dot there’s a knock. Rose goes to open the door and I get my first look at him.

  He’s an older guy but not over the hill. In his early sixties maybe. Long, salt-and-pepper hair combed back from his forehead and over his ears. I see lab coats on the wall, but he knows company is coming, so he’s wearing a pressed, old-fashioned, forties-style high-waisted blue suit and tie with a diamond pattern down the center. He could have stepped right off the set of Out of the Past.

  He opens the door and there are Candy and Brigitte, carpet-bombing him with their wiles. Old Rose can’t help but smile.

  “Knock knock,” says Brigitte.

  “You must Mr. Blackburn’s friends.”

  “You bet,” says Candy. “Can we come in? We don’t bite.”

  “Of course. Please come in.”

  Rose stands aside and Candy and Brigitte walk in like they already own the place. Old Atticus looks like he’s about to hand it over to them.

  “Would either of you ladies care for some coffee? If you’d like something stronger, I keep whiskey in the apartment. If you’d like wine I can have some sent up.”

  He speaks in a deliberate flat drawl. Not southern. Maybe Okie. I had some cousins from Oklahoma. All I remember about them was that they pronounced theater with a long a.

  “No thank you. You have a lovely workshop,” says Brigitte.

  That’s an understatement. It’s a little slice of Heaven compared to Manimal Mike’s jerry-rigged setup. The space is clean and stocked with every tool in this world and probably a couple of others. There’s enough room for several people to work at once. Rose must have assistants because there are at least a dozen animal familiars around the room, some fully built and others just steel and gear frames.

  “Thank you,” he says. “May I give you ladies a tour?”

  Just like I thought. Atticus, a professional recluse, can’t help but want to show off his toys. He brings them over to a table where a half-constructed tabby cat lies curled up near unsewn swatches of fur.

  Watching them like this isn’t fun. It brings bad old feelings. This is how my hits in Hell used to go. I’d come through a shadow into someone’s home and wait, sometimes hours, for them to get relaxed or distracted, and then quickly, quietly, I’d cut their throats with the black blade. Things only got messy if they had a bodyguard or a hapless, soon-to-be-dead friend strolled into the slaughter scene. No one ever got away. I was a slave and a killer and I was good at it. I don’t want to be any of those things today, so I stay put and take deep breaths, letting the memories fade away.

  Speaking of people who need to crank things down a notch, Rose’s heart is doing its own tap dance. Brigitte got good information. This boy likes wide-open spaces. Even with two not-very-large women in the room, he’s uncomfortable.

  “Thank you for seeing us so quickly,” Brigitte says to Rose.

  “Of course. Any friends of Saragossa are welcome.”

  “What’s this?” says Candy. She’s across the workroom on her own, lost in Rose’s mechanical zoo. Nearby is what looks like a wild dog with broad stripes down its back.

  “That’s a Tasmanian tiger, young lady. They’re extinct. If you want one I’m the only Tick-Tock Man in the world who can give you an exact copy of an original, capturing both its spirit and its wild soul.”

  “It looks expensive.”

  “Very expensive,” says Rose.

  Candy looks at Brigitte.

  “Mom, can I have one if I’m good?”

  Brigitte laughs.

  “Maybe for your birthday, dear.”

  Candy strokes the tiger’s ears.

  Rose’s breathing and heart spike like someone rigged his scrotum to a 220 line.

  “Please don’t touch that,” he says, and crosses the room in a few strides to where Candy is standing. She backs off and goes back to Brigitte while Rose combs the tiger’s fur back the way it was.

  “Do you ever make anything besides animals?” says Candy.

  She’s setting him up for me to knock down. Rose isn’t relaxed enough to attack, but he’s plenty distracted. I take off my glove and put it in my pocket.

  “Like what?” says Rose.

  I walk into his workspace balancing the 8 Ball on my Kissi hand.

  “Something like this.”

  I toss the ball at Rose. He catches it. Clutches it to his chest like a life preserver.

  “How did you get in here? Get out before I call hotel security.”

  I look at the girls.

  “You know, people used to have pride. They’d keep a baseball bat by the door and hit you themselves. Now everyone has hired goons. What happened to the American can-do spirit?”

  Candy and Brigitte snigger. Rose doesn’t move. He’s looking at my funny hand. I go to the hotel phone on the wall. Pull it out of the wall and crush it like a soda can in my trash-compactor fingers.

  “Sweet Jesus,” whispers Rose.

  I can read Rose like the Sunday funnies. He’s on the edge of panic. There are way too many people in here, but he’s conflicted. Who does he ask to go? The pretty ladies or the crazy man with the mechanical meat hook? He’s afraid of me but he’ll weep bitter tears every night if he passes up the chance to get a better look at my Kissi arm.

  I use it to take back the 8 Ball. Wave it in front of him.

  “Focus. Where did you see the real 8 Ball? Who did you make the fake one for?”

  Candy and Brigitte stroll around the room playing with Rose’s tools. Running their hands over his animals’ fur and feathers.

  “The sooner you answer, the sooner we’ll be gone,” I say.

  He glances at the 8 Ball and shakes his head.

  “I’ve never seen that thing before in my life.”

  “It has your mark on it.”

  “Then it’s a damn fake.”

  Candy tosses Brigitte a wriggling koi. She catches it, laughing as it tries to squirm out of her hands.

  “If you think we’re being unreasonable, think about it from my point of view. Not only did I lose the real 8 Ball, but your goddamn fake almost got me killed. Right now we’re going to play volleyball with every kitty cat and titmouse in here until you fess up and tell me who has the real ball.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who wanted the fake one?”

  “It’s all lies.”

  I stop for a minute. Is there a chance I’m torturing the wrong guy? I’m good at reading people, but Rose’s heart rate and breathing are of
f the chart. His pupils are the size of baked hams. But I’m still not convinced he’s all that innocent.

  “Please. You people have to leave.”

  Reset and try another approach. I pull up my sleeve and show him my whole Kissi arm. Rose’s vitals slow. He’s back in his own zone. He’d love nothing more than to dismantle me piece by piece.

  “I’ll let you look at it if you want. Examine the hell out of it and see how it works. Just tell me about the Qomrama.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  There it is. The microtremor in his lips when I said the 8 Ball’s name.

  “You’re lying. Who was the fake one supposed to kill? Garrett? Or the buyer? Who was the buyer?”

  Candy has a diamondback curling around her arm. It looks delicate and pricey.

  “Declan Garrett,” says Rose.

  The idiot from Donut Universe. Good.

  “And who showed you the real Qomrama?”

  “I never saw it. Just pictures. And diagrams in books they gave me.”

  Shit. Rose is telling the truth. I can feel it. He never saw the real 8 Ball. Maybe whoever commissioned the fake one might never have seen it either. Just knew about it in an old book and had Atticus run him off a mobster clone. If that’s true, then chasing Moseley, getting shot, and almost getting blown to refried beans was for nothing. Still, there might be something to salvage.

  “Who hired you to make the copy?”

  Rose can’t take it anymore. There’s too many of us. We’re too loud. I might kill him with my creepy hand and Candy and Brigitte might fuck up his life’s work. He turns away. I think for a second that he might be crying. But he’s not. When he turns back he’s fished a small box, like a cable remote, from his pocket. He punches in a code with his thumb. A second later Candy slams into one of the worktables as someone blurs by her, heading for me. I step aside at the last second and let Kid Flash fly by. When he turns, color me surprised.

  It’s Trevor Moseley. Upright, clean, and completely uncrushed by a number 2 bus.

  Moseley comes at me like a flat-footed tornado. All fury and power but not really knowing what to do with it. I slip his first couple of punches, then give him a quick pop in the kidneys. The asshole doesn’t even react. He was doped when we danced our first waltz and I guess he still is.

  I go down low, giving him a good target. Moseley takes the bait, and when he throws a kick at my head, I grab his leg and plant a boot into his balls.

  I don’t know what Moseley is on, but I want some of it. I’ve still got hold of his leg when he springs off the other and slams me on the side of the head with his foot. The world spins and I flop down flat on my ass. Moseley grabs something bright and sharp from a worktable and comes at me. I pull the na’at from under my coat, swing it like a whip so it wraps around his arm. Flick the grip so the na’at goes rigid, then twist it to break his arm. It works. A little too well. His arm snaps clean off, spewing blood, hydraulic fluid, gears, and cams all over the floor.

  I retract the na’at and whip it again, this time at his head. Half of his face comes off, revealing polished wood and carved bone underneath. The fucker is one of Rose’s automatons.

  There’s a soft explosion behind me, like a giant snake coughing. I turn and there’s another Moseley on the floor with a big hole in his chest. He’s oozing goo and machine parts. Across the room Brigitte has her gun out and in ready position. I nod a quick thanks for covering my back.

  The other Moseley grabs me from behind. I spin and plant an elbow full force on the side of his head. And the head comes off, rolling like the world’s most surprised bowling ball, coming to a rest at Rose’s feet. At least I know why Moseley wasn’t afraid to step in front of the bus. With all the spare Moseleys around to take his place, why not?

  “You’re a talented prick,” I say to Rose. “Why hire help when you can build your own? Is the real Moseley still around or did you kill him after you copied him?”

  A smile creeps across Rose’s face like a tarantula.

  “Oh, he’s alive, but you’re so dumb I doubt you’ll live long enough to meet him.”

  “Did you tell him to shoot me at Donut Universe?”

  “I don’t ask clients what they do with my creations after I deliver them.”

  “I forget. What was the client’s name?” says Candy.

  “I forget too,” says Rose, thumbing another code into the remote. “Of course, I have confidentiality agreements with all my clients, but now that you know this secret part of my work, none of you can leave.”

  He presses a button on the remote. Closes and locks the apartment door.

  Machines kick into life around us. Saws. Drills. Lathes. Growls, hisses, and birdcalls float on top of the machine rumble. Rose has activated all of the equipment and every one of his mechanical familiars.

  Candy is the first of us to attack. She goes full Jade—nails curved into claws, a mouthful of white shark teeth, and eyes like red slits in black ice—and leaps on top of a jaguar. Digs her teeth into the nape of its neck. Rakes her claws down its side. It makes a grinding, ripping sound.

  Brigitte blows apart a cobra as it leaps for her and an eagle as it dives, talons out and aimed at her eyes.

  Something slams me down on the first Moseley’s busted carcass. Then it roars in my face like a drunken 747.

  A fucking grizzly bear. It rears back, but before it can drop down and crush me, I roll out of the way, pulling the Colt .45 from under my coat.

  On its hind legs, the bear is ten feet tall and half a ton. I wait until it comes down for me. When it opens its big wet mouth, I aim inside and put two slugs through its upper palate. The top of its head pops off like a toaster full of clock parts and it falls.

  I look around for Candy and Brigitte, but a flock of birds—crows, starlings, and buzzards—flies around the room at jet speed, screeching and pecking at everything, including us. The air is a gray blur. I’m blind and deaf in the noise and I can’t see what might be creeping up on me.

  I yell, “Hit the deck,” as loud as I can and bark some Hellion hoodoo.

  The ceiling sizzles with flames. The fire licks down the wall like liquid. I get down on my knees and spin the na’at in circles over my head. It won’t stop the fire, but it gives me something to concentrate on as I try to control the flames so they burn the familiars but don’t get low enough to cook us.

  It gets hard to breathe. The flames are burning off all the oxygen in the room. I bark more hoodoo and the fire dwindles to glowing ghost wisps.

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  Candy and Brigitte get up from the floor. I was expecting the hotel sprinklers to go off until I see that they’re melted and fused to the ceiling.

  Except for us, the room is a charred pile of splinters and crispy critters. I look at Brigitte and nod at the apartment door.

  “You wanted to kick a door in.”

  She smiles and blows the lock off with her pistol. Kicks the door open, throws herself forward, and rolls upright, her gun out. It’s nice when those reflexes kick back in. Not that they’re going to do us much good. The door to the hall is open. I close it and kick a rug against the crack at the bottom so the smoke from the workroom doesn’t set off the hall fire alarm.

  Rose is long gone. My guess is he won’t be coming back. Keeping wild animals and bloody cyborgs in a room charred like a bad night in Dresden might violate the terms of his lease.

  Candy is back to human again.

  “You all right?” she says.

  “Fine. You?”

  “Coolio.”

  “Brigitte. How are you doing?”

  “Lovely,” she says. “I haven’t had this much fun in months.”

  Her necklace is broken, dripping pearls onto the floor. Her face and arms are scratched and bleeding, covered in soot. But she smiles like it’s New Year’s Eve.

  “Thank you for bringing me along, Jimmy.”

  “Thank you for saving my ass back there.”r />
  “That was fun,” says Candy. “Do we get to trash this place too?”

  “No. The workshop won’t do us any good, so look around here for anything like customer records or names or phone numbers. Any papers that look important.”

  After half an hour no one comes up with a single useful thing. Brigitte steals a mechanical parakeet in the bedroom and names it Szamanka. Candy thumbs through a big leather-bound book.

  “I think this is the book Atticus was talking about,” she says. “It has all kinds of drawings of the 8 Ball.”

  She hands it to me.

  I was expecting a moldy, crumbling relic. But the book doesn’t look more than a few years old. I put it under my arm and say, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take this to Father Traven.”

  “I can take it to Liam, if you like,” says Brigitte. “I’ll be seeing him tonight.”

  I look at Candy. She moves her head microscopically. A secret nod. So that’s who Brigitte is seeing. Two nice Catholic kids. A killer and an excommunicated priest. Sounds like a match made in Heaven.

  “You should come and see him soon,” Brigitte says. “The weight of things is hard on him. I think he drinks too much these days.”

  “How about tomorrow?” says Candy. “Perfect. He’ll be happy to see you.”

  “I didn’t just get eaten by a bear,” I say. “I’ll be happy to see anyone.”

  MAYBE HAPPY ISN’T the right word. Maybe relieved is better. There isn’t a lot to be happy about. Yeah, it was fun busting up the Tick-Tock Man’s place, but now I’m back to square one. All my leads are blown up, burned down, run off, or dead, or as dead as a windup toy can be. Declan Garrett is still around, but he was trying to buy the 8 Ball from two different sources, so it’s pretty clear he doesn’t have it. I haven’t even heard anything useful about Aelita or Medea. I think all I’ve really accomplished in the last month is making Mr. Muninn really depressed. I’m nowhere. More wasted time. Why am I doing this? I’m ridiculous. No one cares. Most people don’t even believe the Angra exist much less are coming back. Hell, I’m starting to wonder myself. Am I playing this game because I’ve run out of legitimate things to kill? No. I saw Lamia and I know she was real, so the Angra are real. Still, maybe it’s time to just walk away and let things work themselves out. We die or we don’t. I’ve been there before. Will I have time to shout one last “I told you so” when the Angra burn the world? That’s a hell of a last request. Maybe I should have given Candy her Christmas present after all. I need a drink.