Killing Pretty

“The poison Mason gave me made me crazy and paranoid.”

“See, Mason said the drug was like liquor. It loosened ­people up so they said things they wouldn’t normally say. Truths they were afraid of.”

“Mason was a monster and a liar.”

“Not about everything. That’s why he was so good at it.”

She crosses her arms.

“So, you believe him more than me? Why don’t you just shut up and listen when I say I’m fine. I’m here ’cause I want to be.”

I shrug.

“Okay. Maybe I’m pushing things a little harder than I should. But another woman I cared about got killed because of me. I’m not letting anything like that ever happen again.”

She pats me on the arm.

“You need to calm down, drink some tea, and hug a teddy bear.”

“I’m serious. No one else gets hurt.”

“Everyone gets hurt around you, but we stay anyway.”

“And sometimes I wonder if that’s a mistake.”

She puts up a finger and aims it at my chest.

“You know, there’s a fine line between caring and pissing ­people off. If I say I’m okay, I’m goddamn okay. Stop playing Mr. Sensitive and trust me. You want to see things get fucked up between us? Keep not listening to how I feel.”

I look away, then back at her.

“I see your point.”

“Smart boy. Stop worrying about all this relationship stuff. You’re really bad at it.”

“You’ve got to give me points for thinking about things.”

“You’ve got to give me points for kicking your ass if you don’t believe me again.”

“Done.”

She rubs her chin with her index finger.

“One thing. Your friend in the closet, he could see me through the glamour. What do you see when you look at me? Candy or Chihiro?”

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous of yourself.”

“Put a sock in it, Jack Benny. Can you see me?”

“I see both of you. Sort of a ghost hovering over another ghost. Chihiro is in the foreground, but I can see you just fine.”

That seems to satisfy her, but she’s still frowning.

“You know what I’m really afraid of? Meeting new ­people. You and Brigitte and our friends know who I am under all this magic, but when I meet someone new I’ll just be Chihiro. That means the first thing that person knows about me, the first thing I tell them, will be a lie.”

“I thought about that. But consider the alternative.”

She taps her round sunglasses against her knuckles.

“Yeah. I wonder if there’s a statute of limitations or anything on assault. Maybe I don’t have to hide forever.”

“I don’t know. I’ll ask Julie. But, you know, the law might not be the same for Lurkers. The government was already throwing you in internment camps. I don’t think forgiveness is high on their agenda.”

She slips on the glasses. Does an unhappy half smile.

“Then, I’m Chihiro forever.”

“We don’t know that. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“Okay.”

“I should get going. I don’t want to leave you alone with that guy any longer than I have to.”

“Don’t rush. The way he looks, if I speak harshly he’ll faint.”

“I won’t be long. I’ve just got to find a car.”

“Don’t steal anything boring,” she says as I start away.

“I just need to find something with an engine that didn’t die in the flood.”

She points to Hollywood Boulevard.

“There’s a Range Rover around the corner. It might work.”

“Thanks. I’ll look for it.”

“I’m going to get drunk with Kasabian.”

“I’ll join you when I get back.”

I head down the street, but she yells after me.

“Where can I get brass knuckles?”

“Why?”

“I want a set.”

“Why? You don’t need them.”

She runs a hand through her short hair.

“Candy doesn’t need them. I think Chihiro would look fetching with a pair.”

“Christmas is over, you know.”

“It’s the first I’m hearing of it. Maybe they should be pink to match my hair.”

“No. They’ll be brass or black.”

She opens the door to Max Overdrive.

“If you love me you’ll find me a pair.”

“I think regular ­people refer to this as emotional blackmail.”

She starts inside.

“I can’t hear you. I’m going now.”

“You’re a horrible person.”

“Find me a pair or learn to love fucking your hand.”

I walk down to the boulevard, and sure enough, there’s a Range Rover Defender near the end of the block. I slip the black blade into the driver’s-­side lock and the door pops open. When I jam the blade into the ignition, the Rover starts on the first try. I pull out into the sparse traffic wondering who I know who deals in knuckle-­dusters.

I GET ON the 101 south to the 10, get off and head north on Crenshaw to Venice Boulevard, and pull up by an old battleship of a building. They used to manufacture safes inside, back when there were only three TV channels and everyone dreamed of L.A. in black and white.

I go inside and take the battered industrial elevator up to the third floor. I lived here twelve years ago, before Mason sent me Downtown and Alice was still alive. Vidocq took over the apartment after I disappeared. Used some of his alchemical tricks to make the door invisible and, better yet, make everyone in the building forget there was ever an apartment here. He’s lived in the place rent free ever since.

I knock on the door and Allegra opens it, hugs me, and invites me inside. Vidocq smiles from his worktable. He’s in a stained lab coat, boiling red gunk in a beaker so that it condenses and trickles down a glass tube and drips into another beaker, clear now and full of what look like small spiny fish swimming around in slow circles. It looks like he’s either just created life or is making dinner. He’s well preserved for two hundred (though he doesn’t like to admit to being over a hundred and fifty). Close-­cropped salt-­and-­pepper hair, nice clothes, and a trimmed beard. A mad scientist by way of GQ.

“How’s life without whooshing in and out of shadows?” says Allegra.

“Slow. Terrifying. I’m more like regular ­people every day. I’m going to end up wearing Costco suits and going to cupcake stores.”

Allegra’s hair is jet black and shorter than Chihiro’s. Her café au lait skin is paler than when we first met. She’s spent a lot of the last year indoors at the clinic looking after sick and injured assholes like me.

“You could do with a little more real life in your life,” Allegra says.

“As long as I don’t need an accountant or a résumé.”

Vidocq leaves his hoodoo table and goes into the kitchen.

“Your scars are your résumé,” he says. “What sensible employer would ask you for more?”

It’s the truth. After eleven years in the arena in Hell my body looks like it was run through a wood chipper and put back together with a hot glue gun.

“Would you like some coffee?” Vidocq says. “I just made it.”

“It doesn’t have little fish swimming around inside, does it?”

He glances back at his worktable.

“That’s an interesting project. I’m experimenting with blood and blue amber to reanimate fossilized animals.”

“Whose blood?”

“Mine, of course.”

“Why?”

“To understand life, why else?”

“I’m not sure it’s working that well.”

Allegra goes over and stares into the beaker.

“He’s right. Your critters have refossilized.”

Vidocq sighs.

“We learn as much from our failures as our success.”

“Then I’m a goddamn Rhodes scholar.”

I take the coffee he offers. He hands the other cup to Allegra.

“You inspired the experiment, you know. Or your guest did,” she says. “Ever since he showed up it’s life this and the nature-­of-­death that.”

“What about you? He set off any new thoughts for you?”

She blows on her brew.

“You’re the only angel I’ve treated extensively, and you’re only part angel. I’m curious about what a full angel might be like.”

I sip Vidocq’s coffee. It’s good and strong.

“Which brings me to the subject at hand: How do you know he’s an angel?”

The day after Candy and I brought the guest home, Vidocq and Allegra came over and took hair, sweat, and saliva samples while he was asleep.

Allegra taps the side of her mug with her index finger.

“Technically, we don’t. I’m just hoping.”

Vidocq comes in with his own cup and sits on their sagging couch.

“The body we examined is that of an ordinary man,” he says. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Except that he’s missing his heart and, I’m guessing, most of his blood,” I say.

“Yes. Whatever is in the body is clearly not human.”

“Could he be a new kind of zombie?” says Allegra.

“I doubt it, but maybe I should have Brigitte look him over. She’s the Drifter expert.”

“He could be exactly who he says he is. I mean, no one has died since he appeared.”

I nod and lean against the kitchen counter.

“Julie mentioned that. Okay, let’s say he’s the real thing. What am I supposed to do with him?”

“What would you do if he was just an ordinary man who came to you for help?” says Allegra.

“Buy him a drink and give him cab fare to the next bar. I almost died wrestling the Angra Om Ya. Don’t I get a day off?”

“Maybe not.”

“Maybe time off is not your fate, Mr. Sandman Slim,” says Vidocq.

He smiles like he’s being goddamn witty. Maybe from his point of view he is.

And maybe what he said hits too close to home.

“Fate is what happens when you don’t run fast enough. Keep moving and fate gets dizzy.”

“Looks like you didn’t run fast enough this time,” says Allegra. “So what would you do if someone came to you for help and you did decide to give it to them?”

I look at the coffee. Sip it, but suddenly don’t want it anymore and set it down.

“I’d find out who he was.”

“You’re already doing that. What else?”

“I’d find out where he came from and backtrack from there. Maybe look for some physical evidence. All Mr. D had on him was a coat and a knife.”

“What did the knife look like?” says Vidocq.

I take it from my pocket wrapped in a red utility rag I found in the Rover and hand it to him. He carefully unwraps it. Picks it up with his fingertips and turns it over.

“Do you recognize it?”

“I’m afraid not,” says Vidocq.

“Me neither,” Allegra says.

“Do you mind if I run some tests?” says Vidocq.

“Please do.”

He takes the knife to his worktable, sets it on an iron disc the size of a dinner plate, selects a green bottle from a jumble of similar bottles at the back of his table. He gives it a shake and unstoppers it. I leave my coffee and go over.

“What is that?”

Allegra stands on his other side.

“My own invention. A personal amalgam of quicksilver, sulfur, and other rarer elements I’ve gathered in my travels.”

“What’s it going to do?”

“It reveals the history and composition of any object. Its true nature. Let’s see what it tells us about your knife.”

He puts an eyedropper into the bottle and suctions up a small potion of shimmering silvery metal. Holding the tip over the knife, he lets three drops fall.

The mercury slides down the length of the blade, making it look soft and liquid. A few seconds later, it begins to sizzle like someone frying an egg with a blowtorch.

I lean in for a better look.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

“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.

I look around the bar for familiar faces among the twinkling Christmas lights. I find one at a nearby table: Brigitte is drinking wine with a handsome trio—­two men and a woman—­laughing and talking loudly, having a fine old time. She spots me and I invite her to the bar by pointing to my drink. She excuses herself from the table and walks over.

She kisses me on both cheeks and I say, “At least someone’s having a good time tonight.”

“Yes. They’re from Prague. From the old days, when I was still a killer like you. It’s good to see old friends.”

“That must be nice.”

“It is. And I so seldom get to speak Czech anymore. It makes me feel more at home here.”

“I felt the same way speaking English when I was Downtown.”

“Did it make things better?”

“A little. Sometimes during the holidays I feel very far from the things that made me happy.”

“Like hunting Drifters?”

She smiles.

“I came here to destroy revenants and become a real live Hollywood actress. The first is done, but no matter what I do, the second feels as if it’s barely begun.”

Brigitte used to do artsy porn flicks back in Europe. I never saw any, but Kasabian worships her as a goddess. A producer brought her to L.A. with promises of big roles in big movies. He croaked and Brigitte has been trying to get a foothold in the business every since.

“All our apocalypses keep getting in the way of work.”

She slowly shakes her head.

“You’d think someone was conspiring against our happiness.”

“The universe hates happy ­people, that much I’m sure of. You need to cultivate a taste for colorful misery.”

“Like you and your Aqua Regia.”

We both drink. I finish mine, but don’t ask for a refill this time.

“Maybe things will settle down awhile, end-­of-­the-­world-­wise. Once the movie moguls slink back into town, you’ll be rolling in work.”

She pushes a stray strand of hair out of her face.

“You haven’t said anything about my voice. I’ve been taking lessons, trying to lose my accent. How do I sound?”

“Like the queen of the county fair. What do you think?” I say to Carlos.

“You sound like Angelina Jolie. Kind of husky. Kind of silky.”

“You’d think I was American?”

“Absolutamente,” he says.

“I think you’re both being kind. Nevertheless, I’ll take the compliment.”

I take her arm to pull her in closer so we can talk quietly.

“You haven’t heard any talk about High Plains Drifters, have you?”

“No. Nothing. Is this about the man Chihiro talks about? Do you think he’s a revenant?”

“To tell the truth, no. I just don’t want him to be who he says he is.”

“You’re afraid of another apocalypse.”

“No. Just a lot of goddamn trouble. If this guy is Death, the ­people who killed him aren’t going to be hard to find, and I guarantee they’re going to be unsympathetic.”

“How do you know it’s more than one person?” says Carlos.

“I don’t, but I also don’t see someone pulling off this kind of hoodoo all on his lonesome. You’re talking about capturing an angel in a human body . . . and that’s after you find the right body. Then you need to know the hexes and magicians who can pull them off. Then you need a weapon that can kill him. On top of that, you need a motive. Why kill Death? There are potions that will keep you going for a hundred years. Yeah, they’re expensive, but it’s easier to rob a bank than shanghai an angel.”

“How does one kill an angel?” says Brigitte.

“With this.”

I take the knife from my coat and unwrap it on the bar.

“It looks quite ordinary,” she says.

“It’s not. It was thinking seriously of burning down Vidocq’s place.”

“It looks Roman,” says Carlos. “Like an antique Roman dagger. See the silver eagle? Legions used to have those on their standards.”

“How the hell do you know all that?”

He clears away some glasses and pours Brigitte more wine.

“My brother-­in-­law. Ex-­brother-­in-­law. He’s crazy for old weapons. He has something like that. I can send him a picture if you want and see what he knows.”

“This brother-­in-­law of yours, is he the person who’s been slipping you potions?”

Carlos tries to suppress a smile, shrugs.

“He dabbles in a lot of things.”

“He’s a magician, isn’t he? You married into a Sub Rosa family.”

He nods.

“She kept it from me most of the time we were together. Her family thought I wasn’t worthy and I think maybe she did a little too. You were the first person I met who did real magic right out in the open. After seeing that, I knew I’d been right to leave.”

“If she hid it, was she into baleful magic?”

“Baleful?”

“Black magic,” says Brigitte.