The Perdition Score

“I know.”

“I know you know, but I just wanted to say it.”

“Thanks. Can I ask you one more favor?”

“What?”

“Can you turn that goddamn surf record over and play the other side. You’ve played this one about fifty times.”

“This is my homework. Alessa is going to teach me surf guitar.”

“I bet there are songs on the other side you can learn.”

“Your wish is my command,” she says, and pads out of the bedroom to the stereo.

When she’s gone, I take a long, deep breath. This thing we have. I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t want to lie anymore and I don’t want a dog. I just want Candy or Chihiro or whoever she has to be next to stay alive. We’re in this together and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who gets in the way. Even if it’s me.

“Did I tell you an angel gave me a birthday present tonight?”

She comes back into the room and flops onto the bed.

“No. Tell me every little thing about it.”

So I do. And we’re okay.

For a while.

CANDY IS GONE when I wake up in the morning. There’s a note on the kitchen counter when I go in to make coffee.

Jamming with Alessa at her rehearsal space after work.

Home late. Be naked.

There are some hearts and she’s taped a press-on tattoo of a sleeping cat at the bottom of the note. I lick a spot on my forearm and press down on the tattoo. A minute later I pull it off. No cat. Just a few frayed lines scattered across my scars. Once again, my stupid body rejects the simplest amusements. So, I make coffee. That’s one bit of pleasure that still works.

I don’t bother going downstairs and bothering Kasabian. He’s even drearier than me in the morning. Before he gets up and turns on the news or does something else to annoy me, I turn on the rest of a movie I started with Candy the other night: Amer. It’s a deconstruction of Italian giallo flicks. The directors tear it down to its essential elements—beats, images, violence, colors, sexual tension—but they do it almost wordlessly, like a silent movie. Just the thing for that time of day when words are still hard to come by.

I sip coffee and smoke, letting the movie run through to its end and one last little shock, then pick up my phone and thumb in Vidocq’s number. He picks up after a few rings.

“James, how nice to hear from you at this early hour. Is everything all right?” His voice is deep, the accent relentlessly French.

“Nothing’s wrong. Sometimes I’m actually up during daylight hours. I just thought if you were going to be around, I’d swing by and show you something that fell into my lap from Heaven.”

“Really? You must come immediately. Do not stop for coffee. I’ve made some better than your vile swill.”

He says it all like the friendliest headwaiter in L.A. See, I always notice the accent because it’s such an accomplishment. Eugène Vidocq has lived in the U.S. for around a hundred and fifty years. Any normal person would lose an accent after all that time. But Vidocq holds on to his like some grandma with the family photos. Nothing in the album means anything to anyone except her, which makes her hang on all the harder.

“I need to get dressed. I’ll be over in half an hour.”

“I doubt that on a weekend,” he says. “Let us say an hour.”

“Don’t rub it in.”

I used to walk across town through a shadow and come out by Vidocq’s front door in ten seconds. It feels like something that happened in another lifetime, but it’s really been less than three months.

I plow through the Hollywood traffic south and get to Vidocq’s place in just under an hour. L.A. people are obsessed with addresses, distance, and times between places. I used to worry about the first two, but now I’m just like every other asshole in this town. A clock watcher, knowing the hour I wasted getting here I’ll never see again. Everyone in L.A. is like this. It’s one of the town’s big secrets. Want to know why people drink and smoke so much weed? They want to wipe out the time slipping away from them. Want to know why people do coke and get on the pipe? They’re trying to outrun the clock. Like Superman at the end of the movie where he flies around the world fast enough to roll back time. That’s all anyone in L.A. wants. To get back the time they lost just fucking being in L.A. I can’t outrun time. I don’t even know if angels or Mr. Muninn can. Gods and regular schmucks, we’re all stuck on the same linear run from here to the end of time. Just some of us get to run a little longer. Like Vidocq. He’s immortal. He doesn’t worry about being stuck in traffic. He could spend a month waiting for a cab and not blink. Me, I have to wait eleven seconds at the bodega to buy coffee and I’m contemplating a murder/suicide pact with everyone in the store.

I take the old industrial elevator up to Vidocq’s floor in his building and knock on the door. He meets me at the door in a robe and slippers, holding a plate of crisp bacon slices. Vidocq has salt-and-pepper hair and a short trimmed beard. I put on actual people clothes and he’s just rolled out of the sack.

“I see why you wanted me to come to you.”

He looks down at himself for a moment.

“I couldn’t bear to dress myself this morning. Do you ever feel that way? One more morning, brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes. It can drive you mad. When I was alone, I went years without cutting my hair or beard. I looked like the Abdominal, Aminal … What do you call him?”

“The Abominable Snowman.”

“Yes. Him.”

“‘Yeti’ is an easier word.”

“Yes, but I prefer the other. It gives him a sinister dignity whereas Yeti makes him sound like just another animal.”

“He probably is just another animal. He’s got to know by now we’re looking for him. Three hot meals and a fresh pile of hay every day has got to beat running away and throwing your shit at hikers.”

“I suppose it comes down to who’s looking for you. Will the hunters study and appreciate you or do they simply want to dissect you? Likely a smart beast, he will be suspicious of us,” Vidocq says.

“Hey, don’t knock it. That’s how I feel every day.”

“As do I.”

“Then give me some coffee and let’s drink to that.”

He hands me a cup full of the black stuff. I hold it up and say, “To freaks everywhere.”

Vidocq holds up his mug.

“May you fly, walk, swim, or crawl for all eternity under the noses of our betters.”

“And if you can’t, at least get your own reality show. Sasquatch Hoarders. Or The Real Housewives of R’lyeh.”

We drink our coffee, satisfied that we’re the two cleverest people in the room.

He sips his coffee. Sets down the cup and the plate of bacon on his worktable.

“As I recall, you have something for me.”

“That I do.”

I set the box on the table near his food. Among his many interests, Vidocq happens to be a world-class alchemist. He was a good alchemist back in the day, but the extra two hundred years since then have given him plenty more practice.

He picks up the box. Looks it over top and bottom, then eyeballs it with a magnifying glass.

“Where did you get it?” he says.

“A dying angel brought it to me. Didn’t say what it is. Said he didn’t know. All I do know is that some angels like what’s inside it. He said the war in Heaven won’t end unless someone destroys it.”

“Dying angels. Wars. This does not fill me with joy.”

He sets the box back on the table and pushes back the lock. When that goes all right, he gets a long steel rod and carefully pushes open the top. I don’t blame him. I’ve been known to bring him things that catch fire.

When nothing explodes, he takes the vial from its padded case and holds it up to the light.

“The fluid is almost opaque, but not quite. As if there is some shifting something inside. I can’t tell what. Some debris? Sediment?”

He looks at me.

“Is it safe to open?”

“I have no idea. But if it blows up I don’t think the angel who gave it to me knew it would.”

“That will be a great comfort to the other residents if I set the building on fire or fill it with poison.”

I hadn’t thought of that last bit.

“You have any gas masks?”

He reaches under his worktable and comes out with something rubbery that looks like it’s a couple of wars past its prime.

“Just the one, I’m afraid,” he says.

“Story of my life. Fuck it. Let’s go. I’ll hold my breath.”

Vidocq gets a small, stumpy candle down from the top of a set of wooden shelves behind the table. He lights the candle with a paper match and the flame flickers a light green.

“As long as the flame stays this color, we’re safe,” he says, and puts on the gas mask.

I lean in close and shout, “You’re still wearing the mask, even though I don’t have one?”

He nods vigorously.

“Thanks,” I say. “It’s good to know you’re always there for me.”

I take the vial and unscrew the top. “The angel called this stuff black milk.”

And suddenly I know why. It smells like the curdled insides of a lizard-skin Hellion bovine with shit for blood and fish guts for bones. Even in the gas mask, Vidocq is choking. I get the top back on the bottle fast. Last night’s tamales are seriously considering making a break for it onto Vidocq’s nice rug.

Vidocq shakes his head. Takes the vial from my hand.

“No.”

He points to the candle. The flame is still pale green.

“See? The smell is unpleasant, but not deadly. We must persevere.”

With his other hand, he opens an old medical cabinet on his worktable. The cabinet doors swing apart like bird wings, revealing racks of potions and drawers for instruments.

He takes off the gas mask and pulls some potions from the cabinet. Pours a little of the black milk into a shallow Pyrex dish and screws the top back on. I put the vial back in the box, hoping it will kill some of the smell.

“Mind if I open a window?”

“Mmm,” he mumbles, already lost in the experiment, barely noticing I’m there. I crack a window, letting in the smoggy L.A. breeze.

Much better.

Vidocq uses a dropper to add tiny amounts of a purple potion to the black milk. I take one of his bacon slices and wait to see what happens next.

After almost a minute, he says, “Interesting.”

I look at the mess on the table.

“What’s interesting? I don’t see any difference.”

“That’s what’s interesting. Look closer. The two liquids remain separate. They won’t mix.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea. Yet.”

He pours the mixture into a flask that’s connected to a series of glass tubes and other glass receptacles. As the liquid moves through the tubes, it separates back into black milk and the purple potion. He pours out the potion in the kitchen sink and swirls the milk in its flask.

“I would like to test it with red mercury,” he says. “But I’m out of it and it’s not easy to find these days.”

“What are you going to do?”

He sighs.

“Make some phone calls. Ask a few favors.”

“Did the test tell you anything?”

He crosses his arms, staring at the mystery goo.

“The potion I used is a very simple one. It separates other potions into their basic elements for study. But instead, the milk repelled it.”

“Meaning?”

“As I said, I have no idea. My greatest fear is that being angelic in origin, it might not react properly with any Earthly chemicals.”

“It could be Hellion.”

“True. But Hellions being fallen angels, the problem remains.”

And here we are again. Back to the same problem. I’m stuck in L.A. with no way to get to Hell, where I might find an angel that I could choke long enough to help me. I need to sit Kasabian down for a more serious talk.

Vidocq puts a drop of the milk on a glass slide and places it under a microscope with a PROPERTY OF UCLA sticker partly scraped off.

Among Vidocq’s other interests is burglary.

“Anything?” I say.

He shrugs.

“There’s movement within the fluid. Perhaps living organisms. Perhaps simply repellent elements. It’s too early to say with any certainty. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I knew it wouldn’t be simple. Nothing with angels ever is. For all I know, this whole thing is just a prank. Now that he can’t get at us, let’s fuck with Sandman Slim. Maybe black milk is just an exploding cigar.”

“Please,” he says. “Until we know what this is, don’t say ‘exploding.’ It’s bad luck.”

“I didn’t know you believed in that kind of thing.”

“I believe in everything. It’s what frequently comes with age. We hope for wisdom, but we just end up with more uncertainty.”

“Well, you’re still the smartest guy I’ve ever met.”

“Merci.”

He stands aside and lets me look into his microscope. All I see is black sludge with tiny dots spinning into and around each other.

“I mean it,” I tell him. “I don’t know if I could make it two hundred years and stay sane.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Vidocq says.

“Are you ever going to tell me how it happened?”

He goes back to the microscope and carefully removes the slide.

“It’s a long and not very pretty story.”

“My favorite kind.”

While he’s pouring the milk back into the flask, I reach for my coffee, but bump into his shoulder. The slide slips from his hand onto the worktable. Most soaks into the wood, but a black drop slops onto the side of the plate with bacon. When the strip of bacon comes in contact with another strip, it stiffens and flips into the air, convulsing when it lands, like a fish dying in the bottom of a boat. Each time the bacon touches another strip, that strip starts writhing and twisting too.

Vidocq slams a bell jar on top of the plate, trapping the meat circus underneath.

I look at him.

“Ever seen that before?”

“No. Never. It’s fascinating.”

“This is truly one of the most goddamned things I’ve ever seen. What do we do with the little bastards?”

“We wait and see what happens.”

“What if they don’t stop? What if we just invented immortal bacon?”

“One mystery at a time, my friend.”

“We can’t exactly Google ‘disposing of zombie thrash pork.’”

Vidocq puts his hands on a pile of old books next to the medical cabinet.

“This is my Google. I’ll find an answer for you. Don’t worry.”

“I know you will. But it’s going to lead to trouble. I can tell.”

He nods. “Profound mysteries have a way of leading to yet more mysteries.”

The bacon strips make little tinking sounds when they hit the glass dome.

“What do we do now?”

“Normally, it would be lovely to have you stay and chat, but you should go,” he says. “I have a lot of reading to do.”

“You sure you’re safe with that stuff around? Maybe I should take it and ditch it in the ocean or something.”

“You’ll do no such thing. It’s not often an old sorcerer gets to explore angelic puzzles. Leave this here with me. I’ll be fine.”

My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Abbot. He wants me to come over tonight. So much for “Take the weekend, Stark.”

“Okay. But call me if things get any weirder. In fact, call me no matter what. If these bastards are still hopping around tonight, I want to know about it.”

“Of course. Of course,” he says, leading me to the door. “But now you must go and I must look for answers.”

At the door I say, “I got some of the milk on your table. I might have wrecked it. I’ll pay for a new one.”

“Perhaps you did and perhaps you didn’t. In any case, I’m the thief, not you. If I need a new table, I will get one like that,” he says, snapping his fingers.

“I at least owe you a drink for killing your breakfast.”

“That I will accept.”

He opens the door and I go out into the hall. I start to leave when something bothers me.

“Seriously, what’s the trick to living two hundred years? How do you do it?”

“It’s easy,” he says. “I’m not two hundred. I no longer believe in the past. Each morning when I awake, I’m newly born. From now until the sun burns out, I will never be more than one day old.”

“I’ll call you about the drink,” I say, and go down to the car, not sure if what Vidocq said was the smartest or saddest thing I’ve ever heard.

“I’M SORRY TO call you in like this,” says Abbot. “But the whole thing fell together quickly.”

“What is it? Some kind of emergency meeting?”

Abbot hesitates.

“More of a cocktail party.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I used to be the Devil, you know. I didn’t have to put up with this kind of shit.”

“Maybe you should have kept that job, then.”

“Nah. I look lousy with horns.”

“Is that really what he looks like?”

“No. He looks more like, well, you.”

“Should I be flattered?”

“Very.”

“Then I’ll take the compliment.”

Abbot ushers me into the living room area on the boat. I was here once before, when I first met him. The room is impeccably decorated—a Southern California manor house—swaying gently on the Pacific. I have a hard time picturing the boat ever moving much, even in a tsunami. Nature wouldn’t dare spill the augur’s coffee over something as silly as a volcano.

“No problem. Chihiro is learning to play ‘Pipeline,’ so I’m all on my lonesome.”

“Playing pipeline. Is that slang for something I should know about?”

I put my hands in my pockets, not wanting to touch anything, afraid I’m going to taint his Beach Boys Taj Mahal with my grubby paws.

“Candy is getting guitar lessons is all. And I’m here when I could be curled up with a good western.”

He points a finger at me.

“Right. But there’s good news. You don’t have to talk to anybody or be nice to anyone.”

“That is good news.”

“In fact, as far as anyone at the party knows, you won’t even be here. I want to put you in the back with Willem, my head of security. You and he will monitor the meeting on the boat’s surveillance system.”

“I came all this way to sit in a broom closet with a hall monitor?”

He comes over and puts an arm around my shoulder, leading me down a deck into the bowels of the boat. The decor is simpler down here since it’s mostly a utilitarian space for the staff, but it’s still nicer than anywhere I’ve ever lived. He takes me forward until I figure that we’re right under the living room. There’s a door with a keypad. The sign on the door says AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

As he punches in a code on the keypad I say, “This is a yacht, right?”

“Right.”

The lock clicks open.

I look around.

“This thing is huge. Is it a boat or a ship?”

“A boat. As far as I know all yachts are boats.”

“Then what’s a ship?”

“A very big boat.”

“But this is a very big boat. Why isn’t it a ship?”

He looks at me for a second.

“I can see how you’d make a good Devil.”

“Sorry. Doors like this just make me nervous.”

Abbot pushes it open.

“You’re not under arrest. You’re with me now, remember? If anything, you get to arrest other people.”

“Terrific. Now I’m a cop. All of my worst fears have come true.”

“You’ll do fine.”

Inside, the room is dark except for a bank of video monitors that ring the walls. I don’t know how many rooms this bucket has, but it looks like Abbot has every square inch of the place covered. I go over to get a better look at the setup.

“You have as many trust issues as I do. I feel so much closer to you now.”

A guy sitting at the control console turns around and gives me the eyeball. He has a cop mustache but a tailored shirt. His gold tie clip has three Greek letters on it. This guy hasn’t been in college in fifteen years, but he still flies his frat colors. Audsley Ishii used to do that. It isn’t love at first sight for either of us.

“Willem, this is Stark,” says Abbot. “Stark. Willem.”

Willem holds out his hand and I shake it. His heartbeat races a little. It’s obvious by his smile that he thinks I’m the scum they scrape off the sides of this boat, but he stays professional and says, “Welcome aboard.”

“Thanks, Willem. I appreciate the hospitality.”

That confuses him. But his heartbeat slows. The guy is the real thing. He gets excited, but has enough training to get it under control fast. I can’t see where he keeps his gun, so my guess is it’s strapped to his ankle and he can get it out as fast as he can corral his heart. He’d be a good guy to have on your side in a fight.

Trouble is, I don’t think he thinks we’re on the same side.

Abbot goes to the monitors and points to a cluster of six that cover the living room and surrounding corridors.

“This is the area I want you to concentrate on. People are coming over for drinks in a little while. Some of them might be Wormwood. I want you to listen in case someone says anything that might give them away. Some are from the council, so you’ll know them. But try to learn as many of the other faces as you can.”

I look at the monitors then at Abbot.

“Down here, I’m useless. Up there, I’d be able to tell you who’s packing, who’s a straight arrow, and who’s lying.”

Abbot smiles broadly.

“They’re all liars. I’m the augur and they want to make me happy. Also, they all want to one up each other’s family. They’ll say anything that suits their interests.”

“Tell me again why you need me when you have Willem over there?”

“You’ve met at least some of Wormwood’s higher-ups. That puts you ahead of either of us. Look for those faces. Look and listen for anything familiar. If nothing comes up, then I wasted your evening and I’ll send you home with some cake.”

“You didn’t say anything about cake earlier. I’m completely on board now.”

“Good. Willem knows the system down here. He’ll be running the electronics. All you have to do is watch the show. I know you like movies. Pretend it’s My Dinner with André or something.”

“I prefer A Fistful of Dollars, but I get your drift.”

“Good. Okay. I have a couple of things to do. You two should get acquainted. The guests will be arriving shortly. If you want anything to eat or drink, you can have something sent down.”

I take the seat next to Willem.

“Very comfy. I love flying first class.”

“I’ll see you afterward.”

He leaves and I watch him go, crisscrossing from monitor to monitor on his way to check on the caviar fountain or corn-dog buffet, whatever it is heavy Sub Rosa clans dine on with their pope.

I turn around and Willem is looking at me.

I say, “You do this kind of thing a lot?”

“Sometimes it’s me on the console. Sometimes it’s someone else. The work gets done.”

“And no one is down here playing Ms. Pac-Man or Tetris while the blue bloods feed at the trough?”

He punches a few buttons, changing angles on some of the cameras.

“No. That’s more your speed, from what I’ve heard.”

“Really? Palace gossip about a small-town boy like me? The folks back in Arkansas will be so proud.”

He keeps at the console, not looking at me.

“No gossip. Just facts. I have friends on the force.”

“LAPD? They practically invented gossip. They’re worse than Hedda Hopper. They’re like the mean girls in a high school lunchroom. If they don’t know the truth, they’ll make something up just to see if they can make you cry.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

I lean my elbows on the edge of the console. Look up at the screens.

“I don’t know what I know sometimes. It’s a funny world. I saw bacon dance this afternoon. You ever see that? A whole plate. They could practically do a Busby Berkeley number.”

Willem draws in a breath and lets it out.