The Perdition Score

Alessa looks up and smiles, glad I figured out what’s what.

“Nice meeting you, Stark,” she says.

“You too.”

I head to Julie’s office. The moment I’m gone they’re digging into their food, Candy talking excitedly through a full mouth. Alessa laughs at her and hums a staccato surf melody.

I knock on Julie’s door. She looks up and nods. I go in.

“How’s it going?”

Julie shakes her head.

“I’m glad I got myself a door. The Bobbsey Twins out there have been yammering for an hour.”

“Chihiro gets a little nuts when the subject of music comes up.”

“‘Nuts’ is the nice word for it. What are you up to these days? If this is a social call, I have a lot of work I have to do.”

I take Abbot’s folder out of my pocket and drop it on her desk.

“Be happier to see me. I’m bringing you business.”

She opens the folder and picks up the photo.

“Is he missing?”

“That’s what Abbot said.”

“Abbot? Thomas Abbot?”

I look at her.

“Happy to see me now?”

“Happier. Do you have any background information on the kid?”

“There’s some stuff on the back of the photo. His name is Nick, Abbot says. It might be a parent abduction, but I don’t know.”

Julie turns the photo over and scans the information.

“You don’t think he’s telling the truth?”

“I don’t know that either. I just know that he went out of his way not to say what his relationship was with the kid or his parents. He just kept saying ‘my friend’ wants me to get you to look into it.”

She turns the photo over and looks at Nick’s face.

“Normally I’d be reluctant to go with a case with so little information and a cagey client, but—”

“Yeah. It’s the augur asking. He’s got money and he’s got pull. It seems like one to take.”

“And so we will. Thanks, Stark.”

I always feel funny when Julie thanks me. She’s the friend who helped keep Candy out of that Lurker relocation camp so she could become Chihiro. Then she gave her a job. We’re both a long way from paying her back for that. Any case I can throw at her, I will.

From the other room we can hear Candy and Alessa laughing. Julie holds a hand off in their direction

“Can you have a word with her? I mean, this is supposed to be a place of business.”

“Looks like she’s on her lunch hour to me.”

“Lunch hour and then some.”

“Look, you made it clear you didn’t want me involved with the agency. I’m not about to go out there and scold Chihiro for a noodle break.”

“Point taken. Just do me a favor and look at your watch on the way out. Maybe she’ll take the hint.”

“I don’t wear a watch.”

“Right. Well, pretend. Stare at your wrist for two seconds.”

I get up.

“I’ll wrestle them to the ground and give them detention.”

Julie gives me a curdled smile.

“Late at night, if you ever wonder why you don’t work here anymore, remember this moment.”

I open the office door.

“I’ll tell Abbot you’re on the case when I see him Monday.”

“Tell him to call me. It would be nice to discuss a fee.”

“I’ll give him your number.”

“Good night, Stark.”

“Good night.”

I walk over to Candy’s desk and make a big show of looking at my wrist.

“What are you doing?” says Candy.

“Looking at my watch.”

“You don’t have a watch. You barely have socks.”

“I’m supposed to be hinting about the time. Julie’s request.”

“Oh.”

Candy glances at Julie’s office.

“I guess I lost track of time.”

“It’s cool,” says Alessa. “I don’t want to get you in trouble with your boss.”

She gets up. Candy comes from around the desk and gives her a hug.

“Call me tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Let’s figure out a time to get the whole band together.”

“Great.”

Alessa tosses her noodles into the trash and heads for the stairs.

“See you around, Stark.”

I give her a wave.

“You too.”

Candy comes over and kisses me hard.

“Isn’t this the best thing ever? We might be an actual band with an actual guitarist.”

“You’re a guitarist.”

“I’m a guitar player. I know three chords. Alessa is a guitarist. Big difference.”

“Well, I hope it all works out and you get to work together.”

“Me too.”

“You need a ride home?”

She shakes her head.

“I have tons of reports and paperwork to do. I’ll be here late.”

“Okay. I might stop by Bamboo House myself. I’ll see you at home.”

She sits down at her desk.

“Tell Carlos hi for me.”

“I will.”

I start for the stairs and she blows me a kiss. I wink at her.

I head for the Catalina parked around the corner and see Alessa smoking a cigarette on the corner. She turns and sees me.

“You need a ride or something?” I say.

“No thanks. I have a cab coming.”

“Okay. Chihiro is pretty excited about working with you. I haven’t seen her this happy in a while.”

“Chihiro’s cool. And her band is all right. I can work with them.”

“Good luck. They’re a handful.”

She takes a drag on her cigarette, blows out the smoke.

“So am I.”

“I don’t doubt it. Well, I’ll see you around.”

“Good night.”

I go back to the Catalina and get in. Candy is working late. My head is mostly better, but not one hundred percent. I can get drugs for it or I can do the other thing. A stab of guilt gets me in the gut. I don’t like keeping secrets, especially from Candy, but I don’t know if she’d understand this and I need it right now. Just until I can get myself together again. I’ll stop by Bamboo House later and bring home some food so the evening won’t be a total lie.

In the rearview mirror, I watch Alessa get into a cab. It swings around and its headlights reflect into my eyes. Icepicks again.

That settles it. I start the car and wait for whoever is hiding in the backseat to do something. When they don’t, I pull out and head south.

About two blocks on, I hear a moan and pull over into the parking lot of a Spanish Evangelical church. I don’t say anything, waiting for the moaner—it sure sounded like a guy—to show himself. He doesn’t and I slip the black blade out of my coat.

“Anytime now, sunshine. Kill me or get out.”

Someone rustles around and slowly sits up. I turn halfway in my seat.

He’s pale. Thin. Unshaven. Three days or more. He doesn’t smell that great either. He leans against the side of the door where his face falls into line with the blinking sign in front of a bodega. There he is, yellow one second, then swallowed in black the next.

“How long did you know?” he says.

I hear it in his voice. Now that I’m looking for it, I can smell it under his stink. “Fuck me. You’re an angel.”

He purses his lips, half smiling and half embarrassed.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Get out.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m a nephilim, pal. Half angel and half pissed off. I knew you were there the whole time, but I was waiting for you to do something interesting.”

“Why not attack when you saw me?”

“I was bored.”

“You wanted me to attack you.”

“That would have been more fun than this.”

The angel shakes his head.

“You’re not what I was expecting.”

“How’s that?”

“I came looking for an Abomination. A monster that acts violently on instinct.”

“You came looking for Sandman Slim.”

“Does he still exist?”

I take a pack of Maledictions from my pocket, tap one out, light it, and blow toxic smoke rings in his direction.

“If you came looking for Jack the Ripper, you came a couple of months too late. I’m a solid citizen now. Got a job. Eat my vegetables. Hell, I didn’t even steal this car.”

“I came here for … would you mind rolling down a window?” he says.

“Sure. How rude of me.”

I roll down the driver’s side, letting the fogbank drift away to kill the weeds in the parking lot. Whoever he is in the back seems harmless enough, but I keep my knife ready.

“What was it you were saying?”

He coughs a couple of times. Winces. Drops his weight back against the seat and looks at his hand. There’s blood there.

“If you’re going to bleed to death, please don’t get it on the upholstery. I just had it cleaned.”

He points a bloody finger at me.

“That’s more who I came looking for.”

“For what?”

He’s wearing a dirty trench coat. It looks new, but also like it’s been dragged behind a car. Sort of like the angel himself.

“Who are you?” I ask him.

“Karael. I came a long way to find you.”

“Why?”

He reaches into his dirty coat and I get the black blade ready. From an inside pocket, he pulls out a small ornate box. He leans forward to hand it to me, then falls back against the seat.

“Have you ever seen one of these before?” he says.

I glance at the box.

“It’s very pretty. If it’s a hope chest, you’re one depressed fuck.”

“Look closer.”

I hold it up to the light coming in from the parking lot lights. The box is lacquered black wood rimmed with gold and ornate flourishes that I recognize instantly.

“It was made in Hell. That doesn’t mean I know what it is.”

“Open it.”

I set the box on the passenger seat, well away from me. Pop the latch and push the top back with the tip of my knife. Nothing explodes. No poison gas or hungry ghosts. Inside the box is a padded compartment holding a glass vial full of a watery black substance.

“Okay. I found it. What is it?”

He leans forward again, groaning.

“They need it.”

“Who?”

“The rebel angels.”

I put the vial back in the box and look at him.

“That makes you one of the good guys. How do I know you’re not gaslighting me?”

“Listen,” he says. “I’m dying. There are many of us loyal angels left, but I’m not sure enough. If we fall, the rebel angels will bar all human souls from entering Heaven.”

“What about the ones already there?”

“I doubt they’ll last long.”

“And this black ink is supposed to mean something to me?”

“Black milk, it’s called. No human will enter Heaven as long as they have it.”

The angel looks at his hands. They’re shiny with blood.

“We’re near a friend’s clinic. You should let me take you.”

“It’s too late for that.”

I’m not going to argue. Angels don’t take it well. “What am I supposed to do with this stuff?”

The angel shakes his head.

“I was hoping you’d recognize it. Find out what it is. Find out how to destroy it.”

“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t get to Hell anymore. I’ve lost the Room. I’m as landlocked as any of these other mortal assholes.”

He frowns at me.

“You can’t travel to Hell. You can’t find the secret of the black milk.” He drops his head. “We were so afraid of you once. Abomination, we called you. Now look at you. When you were a monster at least you were good for something. What good are you now?”

I ask myself that every night I get into bed with Candy. But I’m not going to tell this halo polisher about it. When I look at him, he’s staring straight at me.

“Where are you going tonight?”

“None of your business.”

“You used to be an honest monster. Now you keep secrets from your friends. Your lover. Probably from yourself.”

“If you know me so well you know I don’t take advice from angels.”

“Not advice. Merely an observation. Before I came here, Father—Mr. Muninn—wanted me to tell you to follow your instincts. But do you have any left I wonder.”

The clown is getting to me. I want to kick him out, but I remember being bloody and ready to die in the arena. And I can’t kick an angel out in the street, especially not near a church. For all their God talk, the last people alive who want to meet an angel are church types. Show them that Heaven isn’t all gossamer robes and harp recitals and they’ll hallelujah their lunch right into the toilet.

“Look. I’ll get this stuff checked out, but I don’t know what you or Muninn expect me to do after that.”

But when I look up, Karael is gone. Angels do that when they die. Blip out of existence like they were never there. I look at the box, close it, and put it in my pocket. Asshole angel that he was, he died to bring me this sludge. Black milk. I’ll show it to Vidocq tomorrow. Right now I have to get across town. I’m late and I can’t afford to miss tonight. It’s funny, though. Arguing with an angel, my headache disappeared. Now that he’s gone, I can feel it crawling back behind my eyes.

I need the cure and I need it soon.

For a second, I wonder about Alessa waiting for her cab. Could she be in on this? Was she there to distract me from Karael in the backseat? If there’s something more going on with her—more than playing guitar with Candy—I’m going to find out what. Until then, it’s time to get on the road. I start the car and head back into traffic, hoping that whatever kind of ectoplasm Karael leaked onto my seats will come off with soap. Heaven might be at war, but that doesn’t mean angels get to fuck up my car.

HE COMES AT me low, puts his weight behind the punch, and slams it in under my ribs. I let him do it. I like the feel of the blow, my muscles screaming, the breath rushing from my lungs. I relax into the pain. It’s something real and tangible, and unlike the headaches, these punches, elbows, and kicks deliver a completely different kind of pain. The headaches make me weak at the knees. This Hulk Hogan stuff, I can grab on to and choke the life out of.

The guy coming at me is built like a battleship welded together from fat and blind fury. Whatever he does for a living, he needs a new job. Whoever he’s married to needs to get a ticket back home to Mom because the SS Shithead here is not fit for human company. I guess that’s why he was the only one who wanted to fight me tonight. There are a couple of dozen other guys in the abandoned high school, but none stepped up. I’ve beaten most of the others down here in the fight pit. No one knows who I am down here, but I’ve laid out enough of them that it’s mostly the new guys and the crazy ones who want to go at me. I’m not exactly a big guy—people call me Slim for a reason—but most of the weekend gladiators down here are scared off by my scars. But the ones who step up—the crazy ones—they’re the cure for a sane life. My best friends and the only elixir for a Trotsky headache.

The only thing I worry about is my left arm. The Kissi one, an inhuman prosthetic that looks more like it belongs on a Terminator insect than a person. That’s a problem.

My buddy Manimal Mike makes mechanical-animal familiars, though. He’s good with fake skin and made me a sheath so my freak-show left arm matches my right. As far as anyone here knows, I’m just ugly, scarred meat that, like them, is looking to blow off a little steam.

I let the battleship thunder a right cross into my chin. It’s gorgeous. A work of art. For a second, I see stars and choirs of angels. The harder he hits me, the more he loosens the icepicks behind my eyes.

Unfortunately, right when I’m having fun, the big guy decides to get stupid. I’ve let him hit me enough that he thinks I’m out on my feet and his mean streak is kicking in. When he punches my face he sticks out his thumbs, hoping to gouge out an eye. I shove him back a few feet to get his attention. He thinks it’s just muscle memory. That I’m punched out. I give him one more chance to fight like a human being.

But he does it again. I feel his thumbnail catch skin and tear open a slit over my eye. The sight of blood turns him from asshole into animal and he rushes me, hoping to rip the cut open more so the blood blinds me. It’s a decent strategy, but he’s too big, too dumb, and too slow.

When he swings, I duck his first punch, then block the jab he throws with his other hand. While he’s still surprised I give him a shot in the Adam’s apple. Hit there hard enough and you can collapse someone’s trachea and they’ll choke to death, spitting blood the whole time. But I just hit hard enough so that he won’t be able to breathe for a couple of minutes.

The battleship staggers back and I close on him, jamming a fist into his gut, then an uppercut when the first punch bends him over. He falls to his knees and I hope he’s going to stay down, but the dumb animal doesn’t know he’s beat. He pushes himself up and runs at me like a bull with a bottle rocket tied to his balls. I wait until he’s almost on me, then jump, slamming my knee up into his jaw. This time when he goes down his eyes are pinwheels and his brain is on a train to Cincinnati. He doesn’t get up.

The room is quiet for a minute, then a whoop goes up. Two dozen shirtless attack dogs—the other fighters—cheer me on, except for a few I beat as badly as this guy. The pit boss, the closest thing we have to a ref, comes over and checks the battleship’s eyes and breathing. He waves his hand in a circle, signaling that the guy is alive, but he’s not getting up. A couple of the boss’s flunkies come over and haul the guy off the fighting floor like a pile of bad meat. I don’t see where they take him. Supposedly, there’s a volunteer doctor down here, but I’ve never seen him.

The fighting pit is really an empty swimming pool in the old school gym. I climb the few steps up to ground level. Guys pat me on the back and call me “killer,” tell me what a champ I am. Who fucking cares? All I know is Trotsky is out of my head and I can look at the gym lights without running into the dark like a bug.

Part of the gym roof is down. The floor is warped in places, collapsed in others. Filthy clothes and food cans lie scattered around the walls. The place must have been a homeless crash pad before the amateur brawlers took over. For all I know, one of the other fighters owns the property. I’ve seen some flash shirts and designer shoes around the pit during the fights. Maybe here is the real estate agent for his family’s property. What would Daddy and his money think if they knew what junior was up to?

As I put my shirt and boots back on, the pit boss comes over. He’s an older guy with a few scars of his own. He has one cauliflower ear and nicotine-yellow teeth. I never did learn his name. He stands there a minute waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, he starts in.

“You ever fight professionally?”

“Nope.”

“You interested?”

“Nope.”

I touch the heel of my hand to my eye. It comes back with a streak of blood and the cut hurts from the salt in my sweat.

“There’s good money in it,” continues the pit boss. “I have connections. I could put you in the ring tomorrow. Strictly underground, you understand. A grand in your pocket guaranteed. More if you win.”

I pick up a piece of broken glass from the floor and check my reflection. I heal fast and the cut is already beginning to close, but I’ll have a bruise until morning.

The pit boss is still standing there. I want him to go away before he sees me heal too quickly for an ordinary person. I turn around and give him a friendly half smile.

“Let me think about it.”

“Sure,” he says. “We can talk about it next time. You can sure handle yourself out there and, if you don’t mind me saying so, you look like you could use some walking-around money.”

“You think so?”

He comes closer and speaks quietly.

“I know an ex-con when I see one. From your clothes, I’m guessing with your record you can’t get a decent job. I understand. I’ve been there. I can help.”

I look at my coat and boots. I’m not a fashion plate, but what the hell about them says con? Or is it just me?

Probably me.

Glancing at my crooked fairy godfather, I say, “Thanks. I’ll talk to you next time.”

He claps me on the back and shakes my hand.

“Tomorrow?” he says, anxious enough that it’s annoying.

“I’m not sure. It depends on when I can get out.”

“I understand. I have an old lady too. Well, you know where to find us. See you soon.”

He bobs his head and goes back to the fight pit, where men are stripping off shirts and shoes for the next bout.

I have an old lady too. Is that the kind of vibe I’m giving off? An ex-con with a shrew at home checking my breath for booze and my wallet for what little pay I can scrounge? I picture Candy, the very opposite of all that, and feel like more of a heel than ever. I can’t keep this up. I hate lying and I hate these people. But this regular life …

Sometimes it makes me want to cut my throat and head down to Hell forever. At least I understand the rules down there. But I’m not the suicide type, especially knowing how it would hurt the few people I care about.

I grab my ex-con coat and head out. When I get back to the Catalina, I check under the seat for the angel’s box. It’s right where I left it. I look at it again. Open it, take out the vial, and shake it. Black milk. It sounds charming. What every good boy and girl needs for a growing body. I put it back and slip the box back under the seat. The cut over my eye has stopped hurting. I run a finger over it and don’t find any blood. That’s good news at least. I start the car and head back into Hollywood. I need a drink to wash the taste of cheap lies out of my mouth.

A LITTLE EAST of home is Bamboo House of Dolls, the best punk tiki bar in L.A. Old Cramps and Germs posters on the walls. Plastic hula girls and palm trees behind the bar. An umbrella in your drink if you ask nicely. There’s also a brilliant jukebox. Martin Denny. Arthur Lyman. Meiko Kaji. I don’t think there’s anything on there less than forty years old.

Carlos, the bartender, laughs when he sees me.

I sit at the bar and he pours me a glass of Aqua Regia, the number one booze in Hell.

He says, “What happened? The bigger kids took your lunch money?”

I touch my eye.

“It doesn’t look that bad, does it?”

He steps back, cocking his head from side to side like he’s trying to find the naked lady in a Picasso.

“I’ve seen you worse. The scab is almost gone, but you’ve got a nice bruise over your eye.”

“Goddammit.”

“Let me guess. You ran into a tall midget with an iron hat. Or a small giant carrying a lunch box.”

“The truth is more embarrassing, so let’s go with that last one.”

“Please tell me you at least won the fight.”

I sip the drink. It tastes like gasoline and burns just right going down.

“I won, all right. But I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.”

He picks up and tosses a couple of drink coasters some customers left behind.

“Then why were you there? I thought your looking-for-trouble days were behind you.”

“That’s the problem. They are most of the time. I want them to be, but sometimes … it feels like if I don’t hit something my brain will go nuclear and run out my ears.”

Carlos gives the bar a quick wipe-down and pours himself a drink.

“I know your problem. Seen it a thousand times before. Before I bought this place, when I was a little niño, I barbacked at a cop bar over by Rampart. The ones still working, most of them had their heads wired on right enough, but the old-timers? The retired ones or the bad ones that were exiled to desk duty? They could chew their way through steel. You killers, you men of action, take you out of the game and you’re always a month from eating your gun.”

I swirl the Aqua Regia around in the glass.

“Thanks for your concern. It’s touching. Really.”

“Don’t be so sensitive,” says Carlos. “Those guys, they didn’t have your advantages.”

“Such as?”

“The things you can do. The places you can go.”

I finish my drink.

“That’s the problem. I can’t go places anymore. I can still do everything I used to, but I don’t have anywhere to do it.”