The Perdition Score

“And you being you, you go looking for trouble and you’re going to find it.”

“Finding it’s not the problem. Not looking like I found it is. Chihiro would hate it, and my boss, he wouldn’t be too happy either.”

Carlos opens the cooler under the bar, puts some ice in a clean rag, and hands it to me. I hold it to my bruised eye.

“Then it’s just me that’s amused watching you twist yourself in knots,” he says.

“I don’t like lying to people, but I’m not built to be, I don’t know, a regular person. I was born to break things. Even my father said so.”

“A natural-born killer.”

“That’s what the old man said.”

Carlos pours me more Aqua Regia.

“Your problem is you’re all Koyaanisqatsi. You remember that movie?”

I nod. “A hippie music video ninety minutes too long.”

“The whole thing is only ninety minutes.”

“Yep.”

Carlos uses a finger to draw a shape on the bar in the moisture left from the rag. A little yin yang sign.

“Aside from its virtues as a film, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘life out of balance.’ That’s you, my friend. You go from crazy hit man to a pencil pusher on some board of directors or something with no steps in between. Of course it’s going to make you a little crazy.”

“And I’ve lost the Room. It’s not just that I could travel through it. I used to think that was it, but it’s not. The Room was always my place. Somewhere I could hide from this world, Heaven, and Hell. No one could touch me there. It’s the only place I ever felt …”

“Safe,” says Carlos.

I look at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Of course you know. You lost your happy place and now you’ve given up the thing that kept you alive all these years. Your fists. That’s not the recipe for a happy life.”

“So, what do I do?”

“You got yourself Koyaanisqatsied. Now you have to get yourself unkoyaanisqatsied.”

“Yeah, but how?”

Carlos shrugs.

“Take a pill. Get a cat. Follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know. I’m not a shrink. But this isn’t the first time you’ve come in with bruises on your face or hands and I’ve helped you hide them. I’ll tell you, though: I don’t like lying either. Chihiro is good people. Come to me to talk anytime you like, but me helping you hide your sins? Tonight is the last time. I’ve cut off drunks and junkies and now I’m cutting you off. No more ice after tonight.”

Someone pushes past me and orders shots of bad Scotch. I look at my hands. Some of the knuckles are swollen, but not so much you’d notice if you weren’t looking for it. I hold the ice on my eye. No wonder the pit boss thinks I’m an ex-con. I am. Only I did my time in Hell and I came out with exactly the same problems all those cons have when they get out of federal or state pens. Candy and Julie nagged me about PTSD a few weeks ago. I didn’t want to listen. I still don’t, but maybe they’re onto something. Maybe this fighting on the sly isn’t fixing anything. It’s me feeding whatever is wrong with me. So, what do I do about it? I stop is what I do. No more fights. Carlos is right. I need a dog. I need a doctor. I need something else that doesn’t make me a chump and a liar every time I open my mouth.

Then I remember something. I take out the box and put it on the counter.

“Carlos, you’re a man of spirits and exotic liquids. Have you ever heard of something called black milk?”

He hands the guy his lousy Scotch and thinks for a few seconds.

“Never. What is it?”

I open the box and take out the vial.

“This. Only I don’t know what this is.”

He takes the little glass bottle and holds it up to the light. Shakes it a little.

“Where did you get it?”

“It was a gift. Of sorts.”

“More secrets? Who gave it to you?”

“No one I can talk about this close to such shitty Scotch. You should be ashamed of yourself for selling it.”

The guy who ordered them turns to me.

“Hey, I like this stuff. Who made you king high shithead of Scotch?”

I start to say something, but he backs up a step and his mouth opens like a roast pig waiting for an apple. The guy is slumming it tonight. He tried to dress down because he knew he was coming here, but the manicure and the million-dollar college ring give him away.

“Oh shit,” he says. “You’re him. I heard you hang out here. Can I buy you a drink?”

Carlos waves the guy off.

“Not tonight, man. Come back at Christmas. He’ll be a chipper fucker by then. Won’t you, Stark?”

I look at Carlos, not at the groupie.

“Thanks, but I have a drink.”

“Then, can I get a picture with you?” he says. “I swear it will only take a second.”

“What did I just tell you, pendejo?” says Carlos. “Not tonight.”

Out of the corner of my eye I can see the guy turn from Carlos to me and back to Carlos. He holds up his hands.

“Fine. Be an asshole. You’re not that special, you know. I’ve met lots more cool people here and what do you call them …?”

“Lurkers,” I say.

“Yeah. Lots more interesting ones than you.”

I look at him.

“There’s lots here that love guys like you. Just be sure to check your wallet before you go home.”

He takes the cash for the drink out of his front pocket. He slaps himself on his back pocket, hoping to hit imported hand-tooled leather. By the look on his face I’d say he came up empty.

“Shit,” he says, and checks another pocket, coming up with his iPhone. He looks relieved. At least he can still text his buddies about his night with the wild people on the bad side of town.

He thumbs the phone on and says, “Please. So the night isn’t a total loss. Just one picture.”

“Get out,” says Carlos. “You don’t listen, so you can’t stay. Move. Now.”

I look at Richie Rich.

“Better do what he says or he’ll hit you with a coconut carved like a monkey.”

The guy gives up. Puts his phone in his breast pocket, sadder but wiser.

“I get it. Sorry to have bothered you. I’m going. Besides,” he says, “you look like hell.”

“Now,” says Carlos.

Richie starts for the door.

Carlos shakes his head.

“Some people couldn’t buy a clue with all the gold in Fort Knox.”

I hold up my glass, toast Carlos, and down my drink.

“Thank you, Doctor. I’m feeling much better now. How’s my eye?”

He looks and nods.

“It’s getting there.”

Then he looks up past me.

Someone throws his arm around me and clicks a picture. It’s Trump and his iPhone. I turn just in time to see him scrambling out the front door with my bruised face in his hand.

Perfect.

So, to sum up the evening. A Sherman tank with the brain of an angry hamster gave me a black eye, and now some college boy snuck up behind me and got my picture without me even knowing he was there. I think this is what’s known as a wake-up call. Something has to change. Starting with me.

“You have any food left back there tonight?”

“Some tamales with some beans and rice. You want some to go?”

“Could I get three?”

“No problem.”

He disappears into the back and reappears with a packed paper bag.

I sniff the food and smile.

“What do I owe you?”

“You know you always eat and drink for free around here,” he says.

“Not for the food. The advice.”

“All you owe me is not fucking yourself up anymore. Do that and we’re square.”

I set down the rag I’ve been holding to my eye and pick up the food.

“I’ll work on it.”

“You do that. And tell Chihiro hi for me.”

“You got it.”

I got out to the car and set the food on the passenger seat. Donald Trump is halfway down the block showing his phone to anyone who’ll look. Showing my face to strangers.

I start the car and gun the engine a couple of times. If he moves just a little to his right, I could pick him off without hitting anyone else. The front of this Catalina is solid steel. He won’t even make a dent. I can just hose him off when I get home.

But I don’t do it. It would be too easy. Too Koyaanisqatsi. Something has got to change and it will start with me not killing a rich kid who’ll go on drinking shit Scotch and stealing photos with people because he’ll never know how close he came to frat-boy Heaven tonight.

I pull away from the curb and head home.

“I KEEP TELLING you,” says Kasabian when I come in. “If you just buy the Girl Scouts’ cookies, they’ll leave you alone.”

“That gets funnier every time you say it.”

“It’ll be even funnier next time.”

Kasabian runs things day to day at Maximum Overdrive, the video store where I live with him and Candy. Him downstairs in the back and me and Candy in the small apartment upstairs. This arrangement is best for everyone if for no other reason than Kasabian doesn’t really have a body. I mean, he has one, but it’s not his. It’s a retrofit from a mechanical hellhound body I stole when I could still shadow-walk Downtown.

“Keep going. You’re going to talk yourself out of tamales.”

Kasabian holds up a mechanical hound paw.

“Witness me shutting up.”

The paw creaks a little as he says it. Sometimes he clanks when he walks. That’s the other reason he spends most of his time down here and not upstairs in our palatial penthouse. I set the tamales on the counter.

“Smart man. How’s business?”

“We’re doing all right. Still making bank off the special stash. But we haven’t had anything new in for a while. The requests are piling up.”

The special stash are videos a little witch named Maria gets for us through her ghost connections. Movies that don’t really exist, at least in this time and space. James Cameron’s Spider-Man. Sergio Leone’s The Godfather. Orson Welles’s Heart of Darkness.

“Do you explain that our movies come from another fucking plane of reality? It’s not like we’re rifling the bins at the Salvation Army.”

Kasabian lifts the edge of the tamales bag and looks inside. I close it and move the bag to the other end of the counter. He gives me a look.

“They’re customers,” he says. “They know what they want and they want it now.”

“Next time someone whines, tell them to fuck off home and watch Kindergarten Cop on Netflix.”

He slips a DVD into a case and holds it up in my direction.

“And that’s why you’re not allowed down here during business hours.”

“I have my own work these days. I don’t have to mingle with you rabble.”

He points at my eye.

“Your boss give you that for mouthing off?”

“It’s still noticeable?”

“Like a glazed ham at a bris.”

“Don’t say anything when you see Candy.”

I take the bag and head upstairs.

“Hey. What about the tamales?”

“No one eats until Candy gets home.”

“I admire her work ethic, but tell her to get a day job. I’m hungry now.”

“Didn’t someone say that suffering was good for the soul?”

“Only preachers and insurance salesmen.”

“We’re still waiting. I’ll put these in the oven to stay warm.”

I go upstairs, stash the tamales, and go into the bathroom. In the bathroom mirror, I stare at my face. Yeah. There’s no way she’s not going to notice the bruise. It will be gone by morning, but right now I’m fucked. For a second, I think about more ice, look at myself again, and see how stupid and desperate that is.

I take the angel’s box out of my coat and put it on the bedroom bureau. Maybe Vidocq will be able to tell me what this is. He’s an alchemist. Even if he doesn’t know what black milk is, maybe the box will be in one of his books.

What was it Abbot was talking about at the meeting? The end of the world. Climate change. Charities. Blah blah. Then through the memory of the headache it comes to me: Wormwood. Something is up with them. Those Wormwood creeps I met a few months back hinted they had a branch office in Hell run by Norris Quay. He used to be the richest man in California, but he was dumb enough to follow me into Kill City. Now he’s the richest corpse.

I go downstairs. Kasabian is still putting returned discs back in their cases. I go over and put a few in myself, but he takes them away when I mix up the DVDs and Blu-rays.

As casually as I can I say, “How’s your view of Downtown these days?”

He raises his eyes to me for a second, then goes back to putting away discs.

“You haven’t asked about Hell in a while. Since you went white collar, I thought you’d forgotten about the place.”

“It’s depressing not being able to see the place for myself.”

“You’re the only person who thinks it’s depressing they can’t see Hell. Why do you care all of a sudden?”

“I met an angel tonight. Karael. He said that Heaven is fucked. If it is, that usually means Hell is double-fucked.”

“That’s a distinct possibility,” Kasabian says.

“You still have access to the Codex and the peeper I gave you?”

The Daimonion Codex is basically Lucifer’s Boy Scout manual on running Hell. Once he let Kasabian look inside, he could sneak looks all over Hell. I gave Kas the peeper. It’s a magical eye you can look through and see remote places. Sort of Hellion security cams.

He scratches his nose with a metal claw.

“Your angel is right. Pandemonium is falling apart. Like Berlin after the blitz falling apart. Nothing works anymore but the sewers. The buildings are falling apart. Gangs of ex-Hellion soldiers and some of your less savory damned souls run protection and control everything from weapons to food. Basically, anyone who isn’t going Wild Bunch in the city is going batshit at Heaven’s gates. You said they’re supposed to be open, but I haven’t seen it.”

“I know. Goddammit. I wish I could see into Heaven.”

Kasabian raises an eyebrow.

“You never said that before.”

“I never had a reason. If I knew Karael was telling the truth and angels were fighting each other, it would make it easier to believe him about other things.”

“What do you care what some angel says? They’re all assholes.”

“I met a couple of okay ones over the years. Not many. One or two. Karael gave me something. And he said no souls would get into Heaven as long as the war lasted.”

“What did he give you?”

“No clue. I’m taking it to Vidocq tomorrow. Do you know much about Wormwood?”

“Only what you told me.”

“How about Norris Quay? Do you ever see him Downtown?”

“Now, him I’ve seen,” Kasabian says. “He’s a real player in Pandemonium. Got himself protection. A nice setup in an office building. Norris is doing fine, making bank on everything that goes down.”

“Any new souls hanging around with him?”

“They come and go. You know more Wormwood faces than I do. I just see creeps in tailored suits and limos with Hellion escorts.”

I pick a DVD of David Cronenberg’s Frankenstein and Kasabian plucks it from my hand, slipping it into its case.

“I need to get down there and see the place for myself.”

“I need a week in Fiji with Brigitte Bardot, but that’s not going to happen either.”

“You’re right about that.”

“I’m always right, but you won’t admit it.”

“There’s no Nobel Prizes around here. Just tamales.”

“It’s time for you to call the missus. Tell her I’m going to die sorting discs.”

“Good. More tamales for us.”

“And once again, you’re not allowed down here. Go upstairs and stay out of my way.”

“Yes, boss.”

I go upstairs and pour myself some Aqua Regia.

If Abbot is right and Wormwood is playing games up here and Quay is doing business down there, it makes sense that they’re connected. I wonder if he’s the source of black milk? But how would he make money off it? And who else could be working with him? Maybe David Moore. He’s dead and had connections through a talent agency run by the Burgess family—Wormwood heavyweights. But that wouldn’t help Kasabian. He wouldn’t recognize Moore. Fuck me. I should have brought more peepers with me when I came back from Hell that last time. Just another in a long series of mistakes. Maybe there’s some other way I can see Downtown like Kasabian. Who could help with that? Maybe go back and ask the powers that be in Piss Alley? Maybe not. When they gave me the power to sidestep for a week, it aged me enough that I’ve got a few gray hairs. Who knows what price they’d want next time?

I go into the bathroom, strip off my clothes, and get into the shower. I need to wash the fight and as many lies off me as I can.

When I get out, I can hear Candy and Kasabian talking downstairs. She comes up and the first thing she says is, “Kas says you have a black eye. Are you all right?”

If Kasabian wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him tonight.

“I’m fine. I just bumped my head getting off Abbot’s damned boat.”

“Poor baby,” she says, and drops her vinyl eyeball bag on the kitchen counter.

She comes over and kisses my bruised eye.

“Maybe I can take your mind off all the pain.”

Candy opens the eyeball and pulls out the record Alessa Graves gave her. She puts it on the stereo and cranks up the sound. The trembling rumble of surf guitar fills the room.

Reaching under the towel, she begins to massage my cock, then kisses me hard. I lean against her, smelling her hair and neck. She pulls off my towel and pushes me down on the sofa, keeps pumping me with her hand. I pull her on top of me and start to roll her over when she says, “Wait a minute.” She throws off her short dress and underwear and pulls me inside her.

“Fukaku hamekonde chodai,” she whispers.

I have no idea what that means, but I don’t think it has anything to do with tamales. When she wraps her legs around me, I have the strange feeling it’s the music more than me that’s driving her, but it doesn’t seem like the right time to ask.

THE GOOD NEWS is that we don’t break any furniture we care about, just a secondhand lamp that was here when I moved in. I know that if I get another lamp, Candy will conveniently lose it and replace it with something horrifying. Something that spins and has talking robots or waving tentacles.

Candy crawls into bed and we divvy up the tamales. I take some down to Kasabian, and when I come back upstairs, she’s propped against a pile of pillows digging into her dinner. I take my plate into the room and join her in bed.

“Hey, do you remember me bringing home a folder or packet of some kind when I went to work with Abbot?”

She nods, holds a hand over her mouth, and chews.

“It’s on the floor next to the bureau. You put it there and I’ve been wondering how long it would take you to ask about it.”

“You looked inside?”

She nods, looking a little guilty.

“Sorry. A big envelope from the augur. How could I not look? Besides, knowing you, it was a check for a million dollars and you forgot about it.”

I mix some beans with rice and swallow a mouthful.

“I guess I don’t have a good history with money.”

“It’s not money. It’s authority. Someone gives you a job and you take it, but then they give you an envelope full of stuff to read and it’s like homework. You leave it on the floor hoping the dog will eat it.”

“And it never does.”

“You’re mad at the dog we don’t have?”

“Can we rent one to clean up my mistakes?”

“It would have to be a pretty big dog.”

I poke her in the leg with my fork and she punches my arm. Candy isn’t exactly human. She’s a Jade, which is kind of like a vampire, only worse. It also means she’s strong. Her love taps are like a velvet-covered baseball bat.

“Abbot said there was stuff in the folder about insurance.”

“Mmm,” says Candy around a mouthful of food. She swallows and says, “Yep. Medical and dental. There’s 401(k) stuff in there too.”

“Now he’s just fucking with me. He knows I don’t have any bank accounts.”

“He’s the augur. He has pull. Just because there’s paperwork that says you’re dead, it doesn’t have to always be that way. Talk to him. Maybe the Sub Rosa can resurrect the late James Stark.”

I shake my head and eat my tamales. I’m very hungry and then very self-conscious. We’re in bed naked and I wonder if I have any bruises on my body from the fight. I should have checked myself when I took a shower. It’s a good thing I’m not a spy. I’d blow my cover story two minutes into enemy territory. I change the subject.

“Did Julie tell you about the kid I brought her?”

“Yeah. He’s a friend of the Abbot’s or something like that.”

“Abbot was cagey. I’ve been wondering about that, but I don’t know what to think.”

“There aren’t that many secrets men usually have about a missing kid. The kid is dead. The kid was snatched by the mother and he doesn’t want to say so. Or he snatched the kid and doesn’t want to say. There’s another more common reason.”

“Come on. Tell me.”

“It’s his kid and maybe Mom is married to someone else.”

I try to picture that for a second. I don’t know anything about Abbot’s personal life. He could date women, men, or tentacled elder gods for all I know. I look at Candy.

“You’re getting good at that detective stuff.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m with Julie and you got fired.”

“Thanks for bringing that up again.”

“Blame it on the dog.”

When we finish the tamales, Candy grabs the plates, takes them into the kitchen, and ditches them in the sink. She comes back into the bedroom and crawls onto my lap.

I start to kiss her, but she pulls back.

“What’s wrong?”

“What happened to your eye?” she says.

I reflexively touch the bruise.

“It’s nothing. Like I said, I bumped my head leaving Abbot’s boat tonight.”

“Sandman Slim walks into doors?”

“Hey, a guy snuck up behind me tonight and sneaked a selfie before I knew it.”

“That I can believe,” she says, and rolls off me onto her back. “I know there’s something wrong with you, but I can’t help if you won’t let me.”

“I’m okay,” I say.

“No, you’re not. This isn’t the first time you’ve come home bruised. You’re usually better at hiding them, but I know your body pretty well, so I notice them even when I don’t say anything.”

I put a hand down on the bed and she reaches out and wraps her warm hand around one of my fingers. I don’t want to look at her, so I look at my hand. Old scars gleam white like I stuck my hand into a metal grinder looking for my car keys.

“I’m still getting used to this new life is all. I’m a little off balance.”

She rolls onto her stomach and looks at me.

“Know how we just talked about me being a detective? If you’re doing something to hurt yourself, I’ll find out.”

“Let it go this time, okay? I’m just a little off balance, but I’m getting better.”

“Okay,” she says uncertainly. “But I reserve the right to bring it up again if I suspect you of asshole behavior.”

“Agreed.”

She sits up and kisses me.

“You told me I could tell you anything. You can do the same with me.”

“I’ll remember that. Thanks.”

She puts her arms around me and I just hold her like that for a while. I feel something light slide down my chest. She’s crying or I’m sweating. Probably both. I feel like I’m fourteen, caught in a lie within a lie with no way to get out.

“Do you want to get a dog sometime?” Candy says.

“Not really.”

“Thank God. Neither do I.”

See? The truth didn’t hurt. Now I need to get out of this particular knot of lies by not going back into the fight pit.

“Get whatever kind of lamp you want for the living room. Flying robots. Naked witches.”

“You know I was going to anyway.”

“Yeah, but I just wanted to say it.”

“Thanks. You know if I find out someone’s hurt you, I’m going to eat their fucking heart, right?”