Richard Kadrey: Kill the dead

As they go out, I hear one of the girls say, "Daddy would say that man looks like a sheep-killing dog."

When they're gone, Carlos curses quietly, so fast I can't tell if it's English, Spanish, or Urdu.

"I hate that shit."

He wipes off the spot where Ziggy was leaning.

"No, you don't. You encourage it. Look at you. You walk in here with that burned-up arm and dried blood all over a monster movie T-shirt and you don't want to be noticed? Normal people bet on football or collect stamps to pass the time. Your hobby is telling people to fuck off, but you can't do that unless they notice you in the first place."

"You understand how being a bartender works, right? I complain and you bring me drinks and sympathy. Don't start trying to get reasonable with me."

"You like these little fights because you don't have any real ones right now, is all I'm saying."

"I'll keep my fingers crossed for Armageddon."

"Don't sweat it. I think your star is beginning to fade. New people keep coming in, but a lot of old ones have disappeared."

"If I take up knitting, think the rest will go away?"

"Louie Toadvine is one of them, which is funny because I owe him money."

Carlos pours himself a glass of seltzer and drops in some of the lime wedges he was cutting.

"Your friend Candy was in here last night."

I dig into the tamales.

"Good for her."

I haven't seen or spoken to Candy more than three times since we saved a bunch of about-to-be-sacrificed angels on New Year's. We killed a lot of people that night, but none who didn't deserve it.

"She's a pretty girl."

"Is she? I don't entirely remember."

Since then I'd only seen her a couple of times with Vidocq and once when I got Doc Kinski to drain the venom from my arm after a Naga purse snatcher went king cobra on me. Kinski is the medical man for a lot of Sub Rosa and Lurkers. Most people think being a doctor is a big deal, but Kinski used to be an archangel, so for him, being a doctor is sort of like flipping burgers at McDonald's after you were president.

"Candy's nice. Asked about business. How is it dealing with the Sub Rosa? When am I ever going to get some new tunes on the jukebox?"

"What do I care about any of this?"

He shrugs.

"I thought you two were friends. More than friends maybe."

"Where'd you hear that?"

Carlos holds up his hands.

"Sorry, man. I didn't mean nothing. It's just something I heard. Anyway, she said she and Kinski had been moving around a lot. That's why she hasn't been around. She's heading back out to wherever he is."

"Did she mention where?"

"Nope."

"She was sick for a while after Avila. It isn't good for her to be around all that blood. It affects her funny."

Candy's a Jade, which is kind of like a vampire only worse. She's trying to lay off the people eating, but dragging her up to a massacre pushed her over the edge and she fell off the wagon for a while.

"I didn't get the feeling she was in here to talk to me. She asked when you usually came in. I had to tell her you come and go and don't keep regular hours."

Was Candy looking for me? It's funny she'd come to Bamboo House. I'd thought about waiting out in the strip mall by Kinski's clinic, but that felt more stalkerish than friendly.

"I'm glad she's feeling better."

"Is she why you're hitting the red stuff?"

"I'm drinking it because you have it. Do you know how rare Aqua Regia is? Rare isn't even the word. It doesn't exist anywhere outside of Hell. I'm going to have to thank Muninn the next time I see him."

"I don't know that it comes from Muninn."

"Who sends it?"

"I don't know. A bottle just shows up every now and then. First time I found one by the door, I tasted it. It's disgusting and you're one sick little pinche for drinking it. And you drink too much of it."

"Sometimes it's nice to know I'm not crazy. You know when you wake up and for a minute you don't know where you are and aren't sure if you're awake or still dreaming? This reminds me what's real. Who I am. Where I've been. How I got these scars. Living up here, sometimes I need that."

"It also gets you hammered fast."

"And it reminds me of… Never mind."

Carlos stabs a finger at me.

"Say it. I've been waiting to hear you say something like that. Go ahead. Say it out loud so everyone can hear you. This poison that comes from Hell reminds you of home. That's what was about to come out of your mouth, wasn't it? Think about that for a minute. How fucked up that is."

"Excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt. One of those men over there said that you were the gentleman they call Sandman Slim."

Carlos doesn't miss a beat.

"Now, why would a nice lady like you be looking for a bad man like that?"

It's so obvious even Carlos, the most unmagic uber-civilian of all time, can see it. The woman isn't Sub Rosa. She's around fifty-five, but picked up a beauty allurement potion so she can tell people she's thirty. She dressed up to come here. She's wearing an expensive Hillary Clinton pantsuit, but it's a little off. The symmetry isn't quite right, but not in a way most civilians could see. It's probably from an outlet mall and it's brand-new.

"He's not Sandman Slim?"

"I didn't say that."

Carlos points to one of the bar stools. The woman sits.

"Would you like some coffee?"

She has dark, pretty gray eyes. Her pupils are pinpoints. This bar isn't where she wants to be.

I push the tamales and rice away. After Ziggy's anger, being jolted by her fear has ruined my appetite. I half turn and do a quick scan of the faces in the room. It's ninety-nine percent Sub Rosa, with a few civilian hangers-on and groupies. If she found me here, she must have asked questions in places she wouldn't normally go. And when she finally heard about Bamboo House of Dolls, people would have told her what happens to strangers who come here to bug me. But she did it anyway.

Good for her.

"Call me Stark. No one calls me that other name."

"I'm sorry. It's the only one I knew."

"No problem. Why are you looking for me?"

She takes a picture from her purse and sets it in front of me. It's a young man, about my age when I went Downtown. He's broad across the shoulders, like a football player. He has her eyes.

"This is my son. His name is Aki. It's Finnish, like his father."

"He's a nice-looking kid. But I don't know him, if that's why you're here."

"You don't know him, but he knows you. Your kind, I mean. He's Sub Rosa, just like my husband's family. Eighteen years ago we lived here, but we moved to my mother's property in Lawrence, Kansas, when Aki was born. We weren't sure we wanted him growing up here…"

She trails off and looks around the room. A bald man in a white silk suit takes what looks like a whiskey flask from his pocket and snaps it open. Inside is damp soil and pale, gray worms. He picks a worm up by its head and blows on it. The bug straightens, and when it's rigid, the man lights one end with a cigarette lighter and smokes it.

"Aki just had his eighteenth birthday and wanted to come back to where he was born. Alone, of course. A young man wants to feel independent. How could we say no?"

A corn-fed Kansas farm boy full of bumpkin magic loose in L.A., what could possibly go wrong with that?

"My husband still knows people, Sub Rosa, in the area. He asked them to keep an eye on Aki, but it's a big city. We haven't heard from him in weeks. I know he knew people out here. He was corresponding with a Sub Rosa girl. I forget her name."

"Do you have the letters with you?"

"No. They're gone. He must have taken them with him."

"Have you talked to your husband's friends?"

"None of them knows anything."

"Why are you coming to me about this?"