Richard Kadrey: Hollywood Dead

“I wouldn’t think it matters, seeing as how you’re all going to die.”

“What do you mean?” says Sinclair. “You won’t take the job?”

“Not if you keep lying to me.”

He frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re Wormwood. Why do you need a dead man to do your dirty work? You’re global and yet you can’t find one single asshole who can handle this job for you?”

“I think you might overestimate us at the moment,” says Sandoval quietly.

“The other faction took many of our best and brightest,” says Sinclair. “Or killed them.”

“Besides, you have a unique set of skills,” Sandoval says.

It’s making more sense now.

“That’s why you gave me back the Room of Thirteen Doors. You don’t just need someone who can stop the ritual. You need someone who can get to it.”

“Exactly.”

“That means you don’t know where it will happen.”

“Correct.”

“But you’re absolutely sure it will happen Sunday.”

“On the new moon, yes,” says Sinclair.

I look at them both. They’re still telling the truth.

“What day is it now?”

“Wednesday evening.”

“Wednesday? Why didn’t you bring me back sooner?”

“You don’t just snatch a soul from the afterlife willy-nilly,” says Jonathan Howard, their necromancer. “It needs to happen at the right time.”

He’s taller than me. British, with wire-rim glasses. He carries the weird smell of death that all necromancers have. Rotting flesh. Nasty hoodoo potions. They try to cover it up with cologne, but that just makes it worse.

I walk over to him.

“What about fixing my body? Does that need to happen at some super-special time too?”

He leans back from me a little.

“No. That can happen anytime.”

“You sure?”

“Completely.”

I pat him on the arm.

“You better be, Johnny, ’cause I’m not going back to Hell alone.”

I turn back to Sandoval.

“Let’s hit the fucking road. Where do we go? Who do I kill first?”

“I have no idea,” she says. “We thought we’d leave that up to you. You seem to have a knack for these things.”

I look at Sinclair.

“Is she serious? You don’t have a where or a who?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Okay. How do you contact the faction? A phone number. A name.”

“They’ve hidden themselves well. We don’t have anything.”

“Fuck.”

I look over at the roaches. They’re no help. Not a flicker of intelligence anywhere in the bunch.

“Here I was expecting Lex Luthor and what I get is a bunch of runaways picking pockets at the bus station.”

Sandoval looks at her watch.

“The clock is ticking, Stark. Your body is already starting to break down.”

“A cigarette would really help me think.”

“Tick-tock,” she says.

I take a breath and lean back on the pool table.

“Then we have to make them come to us,” I say. “Make them think you have something they want so they’ll come after it. Maybe a counter-spell that can blow up their ritual. Now, here’s the hard part. Someone’s got to take that fake spell and stroll out of here with it. Let themselves get kidnapped, then bring one of them back here for questioning. Any volunteers?”

I glance around the room knowing the answer but hoping Roger might be enough of a suck-up that he’ll raise his hand.

No such luck.

“I think you win the coin toss, Stark,” says Sandoval.

“I had a feeling I would. I wish you’d told me all this earlier in the day. I can’t really get started until tomorrow, Thursday. That’s cutting things close.”

“I told you. We couldn’t bring you back any sooner,” says Howard.

“You’re lucky you brought me back at all. I was one hot second from being double dead.”

Howard frowns.

“Dying in Heaven?”

“Being murdered, technically.”

“You do find trouble everywhere,” says Sandoval.

“I was just looking for the buffet line.”

“Is there anything we can do to get started now?” says Sinclair. There’s the slightest edge to his voice. He doesn’t like all this chitchat. Yeah, he’s scared, but he knows something he’s not telling me. Probably what’s really going on. I believe that these creeps don’t want to get blown to rags, but I wonder what they do want. I’ll put beating information from Sinclair on my to-do list for tomorrow. For now, I just talk to him.

“Do you have a rat in your organization? Don’t answer. It was a rhetorical question. For things to be this out of control, of course you do.”

“They’re worse than you think,” says Sinclair.

“What do you mean?”

“Assassinations,” says Sandoval. “Slow, but steady.”

Sinclair chimes in.

“Mostly the heads of other offices. Pieter Holden in Vienna was first.”

Sandoval holds up one finger, then two.

“Megan Bradbury in Chicago and Franz Landschoff in Cairo are the most recent.”

I look over at the roaches, then back to them.

“You’re sure it’s the faction doing it?”

“There’s no question,” Sandoval says.

“Not just a rat then. A great big rat.” I go to Sandoval and stage-whisper, “Eva, do you think it’s one of these assholes?”

She looks over at her mute bugs.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I trust all of these people with my life.”

“Good. ’Cause if it’s one of them, we’re completely fucked.”

“What’s your idea?” says Sinclair.

“Put the word out to all of your people. A courier is taking something life-or-death important across town tomorrow afternoon. Make it to one of your other offices.”

“You think the faction will try to intercept the courier?”

“They better or you can relax and eat finger sandwiches until they blow your asses up.”

“And you with us,” says Sandoval. “I take it that you’re going to play the courier?”

“Since none of you stepped up, I guess so.”

She looks at the roaches.

“All right. You know what to do. Spread the word about the courier to all of your subordinates.”

“Make sure they know I’m the only thing between their ass and the next coal cart to Hell,” I add.

“Go,” says Sandoval. “Start making calls.”

I hold up a hand.

“Not yet.”

Everyone looks at me.

“If someone doesn’t give me a cigarette, the deal is off.”

Roger reaches into his jacket and tosses me a pack of Shermans.

“Got a lighter?” I say.

“I thought you were Mr. Magic. Light it your-fucking-self,” he says.

“Thanks, Rog. You’re a pip.”

They all file out.

“We’ll be working tonight, Stark. What will you do to occupy yourself?” says Sandoval. “And keep in mind that you’re barred from the bowling alley.”

“Then I’m going out.”

“Where?”

“Out. I want to smoke. I want to see things. I want to have a drink with people I don’t hate.”

She doesn’t believe me.

“Calm down, Eva. Where am I going to go? I’m in hock to you. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Just make sure your cherubs do their jobs.”

She checks her watch and says, “Two hours.”

“I’m going to need some money.”

“Why?”

“Unless things have changed in the past year, liquor isn’t free.”

She stares at me.

“I don’t carry cash.”

“Of course you don’t, your highness.”

I look at Sinclair.

“How about you? You too good to touch filthy lucre?”

He pulls a wad from his pocket enclosed in a gold money clip. Peels off a twenty.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

He peels off another.