Devil Said Bang (21 page)

She throws off her jacket and shirt and unzips my
pants. I pull off my shirt, pants, and boots but not the armor.

“Um. You keeping that on?”

“I’m not sure what’ll happen if I take it off. I
know I’ll just be a regular mortal and die if someone slips in here and shanks
me while I’m asleep. Or I might choke to death from all the Hellion muck I’ve
been eating and breathing.”

She raps on the armor with her knuckles, takes my
arms, and pins them down to the bed.

“That’s cool. I’m into cosplay. Between the armor
and the arm you can be both brothers in
Full Metal
Alchemist
.”

“So, we’re having a three-way with only two
people.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

When Candy and I were alone together, we had a
habit of wrecking rooms. Once upon a time we practically tore the walls down in
here. Tonight isn’t like that. It’s slower and a lot more tentative, like Candy
is still trying to convince herself I’m real.

Later, when we’re lying around and the sweat is
cooling under my armor, Candy says, “This is weird.”

“Sleeping with a guy again?”

“Don’t be stupid. I keep waiting for someone to
yell ‘April fool’ and for you to vanish.”

“The only joke in all this was me leaving. I’m not
sorry about why I left but I’m sorry I didn’t come back. Before I left, I should
have thought of a way to let you know I was all right.”

“There’s that. So how was it down there?”

“Mean and sad and strange and it ends with me being
crowned prom queen of Hell.”

“Sure it does.”

She leans up on one elbow and looks at the clock
radio.

“Shit. I should get back. Rinko will be waiting up
for me. You know how girls are.”

“Don’t keep her waiting. That doesn’t turn out well
for anyone.”

She runs a hand through her messy hair.

“Listen, Rinko is an old friend
. . .”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. Not now,
not ever. Whatever you do is okay by me.”

She smiles, gets up, and gets dressed. At the door
she tugs up her pants leg and slides my black bone knife out of a sheath on the
side of her boot.

“You gave me this to hold for you. Now that you’re
home, I suppose you’ll want it back.”

“I stole Mason’s. Why don’t you go ahead and keep
that one.”

She smiles.

“For real? No take-backs?”

“No take-backs.”

She slips the knife back into its sheath and pulls
down her pants leg.

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Talk to you then.”

She blows me a quick kiss on the way out.

Once upon a time I saved the world and lost a girl.
Then I saved Hell and lost another girl. This is getting to be a bad habit.

T
he
hotel phone rings.

“Candy?”

The line crackles.

“That was a hell of an exit, Lord Lucifer. I wasn’t
sure you were going to make it.”

It’s a man’s voice.

“Were you relieved or disappointed?”

“Relieved. Thrilled even. The worlds below and
above would be much more boring without you.”

“Who is this?”

“Not Vetis. But you knew that.”

“You’re not speaking Hellion. You’re either a
possessed mortal or a damned soul. I don’t think a soul could call up here even
with heavy hoodoo, so my guess is a mortal.”

“Listen to you go, Deep Blue.”

“Did the hounds make it back all right?”

“The ones that didn’t follow you over the edge.
More blood on your hands. You’re like death on a bender.”

“Your voice is familiar but so what? You’ll be
someone different next time.”

“Chances are.”

“Then what do we have to talk about? Fuck off.”

I slam down the receiver and rip the plug out of
the wall.

I should have known the moment I decided not to go
back Downtown. I don’t have to. Hell will follow me here.

I
n the
morning, when I start to go out, I reach for a gun and remember that all I have
is the Glock. A sleek manly gun. Guys who love Glocks love Corvettes because Dad
had one and they’re still trying to crawl out of the old man’s shadow. Glocks:
the only guns that come with a side of daddy issues. I hate Glocks. But I take
it anyway.

I spend the day just walking around breathing in
the perfume of car exhaust, dry air-conditioned air, and greasy Mexican food. I
buy a fish taco from a van on the street. It looks like the
Mona Lisa
and tastes like God’s own Lunchable.

I’m still getting used to a sky. And lost and
frantic civilians piling up on the street corners, fidgeting, waiting for the
green light. Running at the wrong time on the red and almost getting hit by a
bus. They gasp like they’re all gut-punched, never catching their breath from
the endless running. If they knew they had a billion billion years of Heaven or
Hell to look forward to after their measly eighty on Earth, would they slow down
or would they get even more wired?

No one thinks of L.A. as ever being cold, but when
it’s winter and the clouds roll in and the temperature drops to sixty or below,
it can feel downright chilly. But the armor doesn’t notice. It has its own heat
gauge set at body temperature. I could probably go to Antarctica and feed the
penguins in nothing but flip-flops and a serape and not shiver once.

O
n the
dying edge of Hollywood Boulevard, another tourist trap is going out of
business. I buy a couple of black button-down shirts with
HOLLYWOOD
spelled with palm trees over the breast
pocket. They’re loose enough that they hide the armor without making me look
like the Michelin Man.

Back at the Beat Hotel, I take the one peeper I
kept with me out of its saline-filled container, pop out my eye, and put the
peeper in. Nothing happens. I can’t see into Hell. Not the library, the grounds
outside the palace, or through the peepers I put into the hellhounds. Lucifer is
blind up here. Something else Samael kept to himself. I take the peeper out and
put my eye back in.

Back when Samael was in L.A. and I was playing
bodyguard, he told me that he had very little power on Earth. That’s probably
why he gave Kasabian access to the Daimonion Codex. Lucifer can’t see it from
here but half-dead Kasabian can.

I spend the rest of the afternoon playing around
with the armor, seeing what Lucifer tricks I can pull up here. I find a few but
nothing that’ll get me a Nobel Prize. As usual I’ve timed things perfectly. I
hang around Hell long enough to get all of Lucifer’s power and then come home
and lose most of it.

In the afternoon, Candy calls. She wants to meet at
the Bamboo House of Dolls around ten. Why not? It’s that or more
Brady Bunch
reruns, and that’s goddamn depressing for
the Lord of the Underworld, even when he’s only operating at half speed.

Before I leave, I unscrew the air vent with a dime.
What do you know? Kasabian wasn’t just shining me on. There’s a carny roll of
twenty hundred-bills inside. The day just suddenly got brighter. What’s
ridiculous is how easy I am to buy off. Two grand out of two hundred and I want
to kiss the sky? Don’t let it get around but it turns out Lucifer is the
cheapest date in Hell.

N
ow,
this is something solid and real. It smells like beer and whiskey and the sweat
of the patrons and the cigarette smoke blown in through the doors by the
trailing edge of a Santa Ana, which is just how it should be. It’s a bar’s job
to be unambiguous. In a sea of troubles, you can hold on to a bar. The Bamboo
House of Dolls is my Rock of Ages.

Everything is where it should be. Old Iggy and the
Stooges and back-in-the-day L.A. punk-band posters. Behind the bar, it’s all
palm fronds, plastic hula girls, and coconut bowls for the peanuts. The jukebox
chips and coos as Yma Sumac warbles through a spooky “Chuncho.” Carlos the
bartender is pouring shots of Jack for everyone bellied up at the bar and mine
taste best because they’re free. I hold up my glass to toast him for the third
time tonight and he holds up his. It’s that kind of night. I’m in my bar with my
friends. Now I’m really home.

Vidocq has his arm around my shoulders. He’s hardly
taken it off since he got here, like if he lets go I’ll blow away on the
breeze.

“At least it wasn’t eleven years this time. You’re
doing better,” he says.

“Maybe you should try not going back at all,” says
Allegra.

“I signed up with Monsters Anonymous,” I tell them.
“Trying to kick the Hell habit one day at a time.”

“I’ll drink to that,” says Vidocq. He holds up his
empty glass and Carlos comes over and refills it.

Carlos says, “I wasn’t sure if it was you when you
walked in. Even with that fucked-up face, I’m still not a hundred percent.”

He starts to pour me my sixth Jack of the night. I
put my hand over the glass.

“Let’s surprise everyone. Why don’t you give me a
cup of coffee?”

“See? I knew it wasn’t you. Look at this place.
It’s like a wake for someone no one liked. Your
pendejo
brother just about drove me out of business.”

He’s right. The bar is maybe a third full. It used
to be packed every night before I took off. Civilians and Lurkers like hanging
around places with criminals, even if a few of them get chewed up, like the
night a handful of zombies wandered in. What’s funny is that’s exactly why
people come to places like this. They want to get close enough to death to smell
the graveyard dust, as long as it’s someone else’s name that gets chiseled on
the gravestone.

“I’ve been drinking almost nothing but Aqua Regia
for three months. I want something a human being might drink. And that little
darling with my face is no brother of mine.”

Carlos nods. Looks over the crowd.

“Maybe things will pick up when people hear the
real you is back.”

“If it helps, you can pour the coffee in six shot
glasses.”

“Great idea.”

He goes away to get the coffee and glasses.

Candy comes in just as he sets them down. She takes
one, throws it back, and makes a face.

“What the hell is this?”

“Coffee.”

She slams the glass down.

“You’re such a pussy.”

“Yeah? Pick any random stranger and I’ll punch them
if you’ll stay the night tonight.”

Her posture changes. She tenses up. Looks over her
shoulder to a table where Rinko sits alone.

“Don’t. I can’t. It’s complicated.”

“Sorry. That was stupid.”

“No. It’s all right.”

Candy catches me looking at Rinko.

“She said she wanted to come.”

“She wants to keep an eye on you.”

“More like she wants to keep an eye on you. I guess
I talked about you a lot. You know, when I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“You talked about me?”

Carlos brings Candy a shot.

“De nada,”
she says,
and downs it. “I told her what an old fart you are and how you have rotten taste
in music.”

“Skull Valley Sheep Kill is the best band in L.A.
these days.”

“If you’re an old fart. Anyone who doesn’t drink
Geritol for breakfast knows that Asaruto Gâruzu is the only band that
matters.”

She’s wearing another shirt with the same band and
Japanese characters.

“If I’m an old fart, you’re a rice queen.”

She puts on her robot sunglasses. The ones with
pictures from some anime TV show I’ve never heard of on the frame. When she
presses a button between the lenses, the glasses sing the show’s theme song in a
tinny voice.

“What makes you say that?”

The civilians all have dirty faces streaked with
sin but the Lurkers are clean. I guess Lucifer isn’t in charge of them. My
friends aren’t any exception when it comes to sin signs. Most of their faces are
smeared, but not like Kasabian’s. Allegra and Carlos aren’t too bad. Vidocq is
the dirtiest among my friends. His signs reach from his face to his hands, but
I’m not surprised. I know he killed some guys in France a hundred years back.
Like LAPD says, there’s no statute of limitations on murder, even if someone
deserves it. I checked my own face in the hotel mirror. No sin signs at all. Is
that because I’m Lucifer or because I’m still not entirely human?

“I missed you, you know. I wrote you notes and left
them around hoping Kasabian could see them and tell you.”

She glances back at Rinko.

“Yeah. I missed you too. A quarter of a year’s
worth.”

She’s plenty pissed at me. Not as pissed as Rinko
but pissed. I can’t blame her. I promised her three days and gave her a hundred.
This is going to take a time to pass. If it ever does, now that she’s moved on
to someone else. Still, she went to the hotel with me last night. Was that a
welcome home or a good-bye fuck? I guess I’ll find out. I’m so fucking good at
being patient.

“I should go see how Rinko is doing,” she says.

She takes her drinks and starts back to the table.
She stops and turns.

“You were going to tell me something about Lucifer
last night. What was it?” she asks.

“Nothing important. Go see Rinko before she eye
snuffs both of us.”

She goes and Allegra follows her over. Vidocq and
Father Traven are together at the end of the bar, so I head down that way. When
I get there, Vidocq drops his arm on my shoulders again. Damn French.

“Hey, Father. When did you get in?”

I put out my hand. When Traven shakes it, he lays
his other hand on top like I’m the pope or Little Richard. Liam Traven is my
favorite priest. Partly because he was excommunicated, which means he doesn’t
take corporate shit, and partly because he’s nuts. He reads, writes, eats, and
breathes ancient languages no one has ever heard of. He knows the names of more
old gods than the Vatican and every Dungeons & Dragons player in the
world.

“I just walked in,” he says. “When Eugène called
me, I wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. And here you are.”