Richard Kadrey - Killing Pretty

“Not necessarily,” says Vidocq.

Smoke rises from the boiling metal. It shudders. Turns yellow, then deepens to black. The mercury cracks like a broken roadbed, silver veins of the knife blade visible beneath the charred metal crust. A few seconds later, the black fades and the mercury turns back to its original shimmering form, flowing off the tip of the blade. When it falls on the worktable, it spreads and burns a poker-­chip-­size hole in the wooden surface, sending up a ribbon of gray smoke.

Like me, Allegra leans in to watch.

Vidocq pushes us both back.

“Don’t inhale the vapors,” he says.

The smoke stinks. I go to a window and open it.

“I’m guessing that hasn’t happened before.”

“What did we just see?” says Allegra.

Vidocq rubs his chin with the knuckle of his thumb.

“I don’t know. It’s never reacted so violently before.”

I reach for the knife and Vidocq pushes my hand away.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says.

He takes a dark, ragged chamois from a drawer and wipes down the whole knife, holding it in a set of heavy pliers that look like they came from a yard sale at Hannibal Lecter’s. I point at the chamois.

“What is that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“I might need one later.”

Vidocq wipes every inch of the blade, not looking at me.

“It’s the skin from a Hand of Glory, purified and loosened from the bones by soaking it in holy water.”

A Hand of Glory is the left hand of a hanged man. Powerful hoodoo. Not something you find at Pier 1.

“I thought you got rid of that thing,” says Allegra.

“As you see, I need it for my work.”

Vidocq wraps the knife back in the red utility rag and hands it to me.

“Where does a person get something like that? I could use it to clean up after Kasabian.”

Allegra shakes her head.

“Bad ­people,” she says. “Dangerous ­people.”

Vidocq picks up his coffee.

“What safe life is worth living?” he says.

“What are you going to do with that knife?” says Allegra. “You can’t take it home with you.”

“I’m not letting that thing out of my sight. I want to know exactly what kind of power is in there.”

“As do I,” Vidocq says. “Perhaps we should take it to a Fiddler.”

A Fiddler is a nice resource when you have a troublesome toy, like a nerve-­gas-­pissing knife. Their hoodoo lets them tell you about an object just by touching it. Not all Fiddlers are on the up-­and-­up, but I think I can tell the grifters from the real ones by now.

I put the knife in my pocket.

“You sure you want to do that?” says Allegra.

“I have other coats. Besides, I always have you if it sets me on fire.”

Allegra pushes a test tube back from the edge of Vidocq’s worktable.

“I could use the distraction. I’ve been going a little stir-­crazy since the clinic closed.”

A clusterfuck of cops and vigilantes torched Allegra’s clinic right before Christmas. The fire took down the whole mall, killing off a nail salon and a pizza joint too. Some ­people have no respect for the finer things in life.

“Have you had a chance to treat any patients?”

“I’ve done a few house calls. Ever since the Lurker roundup, things have gotten progressively quieter. I suppose if the clinic was open and empty I’d be even more depressed.”

“We’re looking for somewhere she can open a new clinic,” says Vidocq. “But it’s a slow process.”

“I don’t know if it’s any help or not, but I’ll pay you for running the tests.”

Vidocq rubs the chamois over the burned spot on his table.

“We have no use for your money.”

“It’s not mine. It’s the PI agency’s.”

“In that case,” says Allegra, “we’re happy to accept.”

“I’ll probably have more work for you as business ramps up.”

“Good. It will be nice to be working again.”

“Speaking of which, do you have any painkillers for the guest? Whatever he is, I don’t think he’s used to having a body, and it hurts.”

Allegra goes to a kitchen cabinet and comes back with a plastic aspirin bottle with the label scratched off. The pills inside are small black ovals.

“These should help. I’ve used them on both Lurkers and humans for pain.”

“Thanks.”

I put the pills in the pocket with the knife.

“Bill me for these, too. One more thing: Does either of you know where I can find some brass knuckles?”

“That’s more your thing than ours,” Allegra says.

“I know. I just thought I’d ask. I’ll bring these pills back to Sleeping Beauty.”

“He has a name, you know.”

“I’m sure he does. I’m just not sure we know it yet.”

I GET IN the Rover, head back up the Hollywood Freeway, and end up getting caught in a traffic jam while trying to get onto Sunset. This is my future. Brake lights, angry lowriders, stoned jocks in a party van, frustrated soccer moms, and sweating salarymen fumbling for their heart pills slow-­rolling on and off freeway ramps until one of us snaps and opens fire on the rest. Even dead we’ll be stuck in traffic, our corpses pickled in fumes and lit by the glare of light bars on squad cars. We’ll make the evening news, and be talked about at work the next day. Cars, guns, cops, and gossip. Reality-­TV immortality. Show biz and murder. That would be a good name for a drink. I’ll have to remember to tell Carlos about it.

I ditch the Rover by Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, where Candy and I tried to have a sort of first date. Naturally, it all went wrong. A phone call from a demon got in the way. I promised to take her back. Did I ever do it? So much has happened in the last year, a lot of it is a blur. Shuttling between Earth and Hell, cutting off heads, getting shot, playing Lucifer, dying a ­couple of times. Even if I did take her back, it’s time we went again. Just a ­couple of monsters out for dinner, clogging our arteries with gravy and not giving a damn because this is California, where everyone lives forever.

I go down Sunset, cut up Ivar, and walk into Bamboo House of Dolls a few minutes later.

When Carlos sees me he holds up a shot glass and a coffee cup.

“You on or off the clock?”

“A little bit of both, but I’ll take a drink.”

“Thank you, Jesus. I don’t need you in here sober and sad. It bad-­vibes the room.”

“Then give me a double and let’s spread the Christmas cheer.”

“Ho ho ho,” Carlos says as he sets down a double Aqua Regia.

“I can’t remember, are you married?”

Carlos smiles.

“Happily divorced five years now.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“It just happens sometimes, you know? You start out young and a certain kind of person, then you grow up and you’re not that person anymore. Sometimes the ­people you become just shouldn’t be together. You stick around that shit long enough, you end up hating each other. My ex and me, we stuck it out too long. By the end, our differences got damned irreconcilable, so instead of torturing each other anymore, we finally called it quits. Why are you asking?”

“I don’t know exactly. I’m just trying to figure some things out.”

“Losing someone is never easy,” he says. “If it was, I’d be out of business.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening.”

“Drink up,” he says, pours us another round, and holds up his.

“To other ­people’s misery.”

We clink glasses and drink.

He pours us one more.

“To Candy. A great girl.”

I look at him. He waits for me. After a few seconds of thinking, I drink and he does too. Carlos knows that Candy is Chihiro, but he’s right about losing ­people. I didn’t really lose Candy, but she’s still gone.