"Are they going to kick me out of the magic union? Take away my 401?"
"This isn't a joke." Vidocq slams the book closed. "These are powerful people. Medea Bava was here. She left this for you." He hands me a small white linen bundle tied with horsehair. Crow feathers inside. And wolf teeth spotted with blood.
"An Inquisitor? That's a fairy tale. They don't exist."
"That lady sure existed," says Allegra. "Her face was more messed up than yours."
Vidocq says, "These people can hurt you."
"Let them try." I get up and go to the door. "Tell those Sub Rosa and their meter maids that they have three choices if they want me out of L.A. They can help me. They can stay out of my way. Or they can kill me."
Out in the hall a guy with two overflowing bags of groceries stops dead in his tracks, his key halfway to his door lock. With Vidocq's apartment being invisible to civilians, it must have looked like I appeared out of thin air.
"Oh. Hello," says the guy.
"Good-bye," I say, and disappear through a shadow right in front of him.
CARLOS HANDS ME a plate of rice, beans, and enchiladas in a thick mole sauce. I tear right into them. I'm starving after the fight, and Carlos's food is so good I want to marry it.
"You been doing your ninja thing again?" Carlos asks.
"What makes you say that?"
"One side of your face and your hands are all red, like a burn."
I look at my hands. They're scraped and raw-looking, like I've been juggling cinder blocks. "No big deal. They'll be fine by morning."
"I have aloe in the back if you want some."
I shake my head. "Thanks anyway. Another scar or two isn't going to ruin my pretty face."
"Right."
"Carlos, are you being polite? That's not what I come here for. I know I'm not Steve McQueen."
"My lady is totally in love with him. Lucky for me he's dead or I'd be in trouble."
I hold up my glass of Jack Daniel's in a toast. "Here's to all the guys better looking than us. May they all die first." Carlos picks up his glass, clinks mine, and we drink.
For the first time since I've had it, my cell phone rings. I don't even know what it is at first. It feels like a rat is having a nervous breakdown in the pocket of my hoodie. When I get it out, it takes me a second to remember which button to push to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Jimmy?"
"Who is this?"
"It's me. Cherry. I heard you were at the store. I didn't believe her."
"So, you called someone you didn't think was alive?"
"I called because if you were alive, I need your help."
I don't answer for a minute. I eat a forkful of enchilada.
"Jimmy?"
"Don't call me that. I don't like it."
"What should I call you?"
"The guy you helped send to Hell for eleven years of torture." I get up and walk over by the jukebox, speaking quietly. "The guy who is seriously thinking about redecorating the inside of that store of yours with your guts."
Now it's her turn to not talk.
"I know you must hate it."
"Hate doesn't come close to it."
"I heard about your fight with Parker."
"Everyone has, apparently."
"Did you know Jayne-Anne is dead?"
"When?"
"Last night. Parker did it. At least, that's what I heard."
"That's why you need my help. I go after Jayne and Parker kills her because she probably has information that could lead to Mason. TJ and Kasabian are already out of the picture. That just leaves you."
"Will you help me?"
"Give me a reason."
"I know where Mason is."
I walk back to the bar and away from the music. I don't want to miss any of this. "I don't believe you."
"The reason no one can find him is that he isn't in this reality. He's somewhere else. But I guess that if you got back here from Hell, you can find a way to get to him."
"How do I know that Mason isn't standing next to you right now, telling you what to say?"
"How do I know you won't shoot me in the back like you did Parker, once I've told you where Mason is?"
Mason or Cherry. If she's telling the truth, it isn't much of a choice. Especially after today. I wouldn't mind giving bloody noses to some nosy Sub Rosa hall monitors, but with Parker and Mason dogging me, it's dumb to go begging for unnecessary trouble.
"Okay," I say. "It's a deal. When and where should we meet?"
She doesn't say anything for a few seconds. "Someone's coming. I'll call you later."
I put the phone in my pocket and go back to my food. Carlos has already refilled my glass.
"Let me guess. You were talking to a woman. I don't need to hear the words. It's all in the tone," he says. "They call when they want something, then they're the ones who cut you off."
"It's not women. It's humans. Can't live with 'em. Can't kill 'em all."
I go back to my food, and wonder about Cherry. Her breathing sounded nervous on the phone, but I can't be sure. I guess my new Spidey senses don't work over wires. But if she's setting me up, wouldn't she have suggested a time and place to meet right away? I can go round and round like this forever, looking for secret meanings in every syllable and pause in the conversation. If I am being set up, I want to go in with an edge so I don't end up eating one of Parker's fireballs. Normally, about now, I'd go and ask Vidocq for advice or maybe a protection charm. Today doesn't seem like the day for that.
It takes me a minute to notice that the music has changed. It's shifted from tiki drums and bird calls to something more somber. All slow bass and breathy sax. Then a singer.
"It's dreamy weather we're on
You waved your crooked wand
Along an icy pond with a frozen moon
A murder of silhouette crows I saw
And the tears on my face
And the skates on the pond
They spell Alice."
I go to the jukebox to see what's playing.
"Set me adrift and I'm lost over there
And I must be insane, to go skating on your name,
And by tracing it twice,
I fell through the ice Of Alice…"
"Who put this song on?" I turn and look at the room. It's early enough that the place isn't packed yet. There are maybe a dozen people scattered at different tables. "Who put this song on?" Not a word. My heart is pounding. I go back to the bar, keeping an eye on the room, not sure what to do. I want to start throwing furniture and people, but two sets of civilian casualties in one day is probably two too many.
I ask Carlos, "Did you see anyone by the jukebox?"
"Sorry, man. No. I didn't even know we had the song. Never heard it before. The service guys change the tunes every now and then, when they come in to empty the coin bins."
"Next time one of them comes in, tell them to take it off."
"You got it. Here. Have another drink." Carlos starts to pour me one, sets down the bottle, and grabs a baseball bat from under the counter.
"Get the fuck out of here, rulacho. You got no business here."
I look at the door. One of the skinheads from the other day is there, black eyes and his arm in a sling. He comes inside and stands by the bar, tall and cocky, but his heartbeat says he's scared, and he's keeping an eye on Carlos and his bat.
"The Blut Fuhrer wants to see you," he says, nodding at me.
"The bloated what?"
"Blut Fuhrer," says Carlos. " 'Blood leader.' The boss to these Nazi bitches."
"Shut up, spick. White men are talking."
I have one hand around skinhead's throat and I'm squeezing the juice out of him. This is exactly what I need to work off some tension. When I let go, the skinhead falls on his ass on the floor. So much for tall and cocky.
"The Blut Fuhrer…" he rasps.
"Blood leader?" I say. "When did you guys start playing Dungeons and Dragons? Tell the blood fart to kiss my ass."
Himmler grabs a bar stool and pulls himself to his feet. "I told him about that black knife you used on Frederic. That's why he wants to meet you."
"Why do I care what he wants?"
"The Blut Fuhrer says he knows the original owner."
Azazel? A third-rate Colonel Klink impersonator knows Azazel?
"How does your boss know the owner?"
"I don't know. He just said he wanted to meet the man with the power to have that particular knife. He promises you safe passage in and out."
"Thanks, but I think I can find my own way in and out of your mom's basement."
"Don't trust this little bug," says Carlos. "Let me call the cops."
"No. If he knows about the knife, I want to meet the guy."
The skinhead says, "There's a car outside."
When he turns, I wrap my right arm around his neck and squeeze. I have the knife against the side of his throat.
"If you're lying to me, I'm going to cut out your eyes and cut off your balls. Then I'm going put your balls in your eye sockets and staple your eyes in your ball sac. So, let me ask you one more time, are you absolutely sure you're telling me the truth?"
The skinhead tries to nod. "He said he just wants to meet you and that no one will bother you."
I take off the Veritas and flip it. It lands showing a burning cross and Sieg Heil in phonetic runes.
"Okay, Princess." I put the knife back in my waistband under the hoodie. "But remember-no tongues on a first date."
THE NEW REICHSTAG is an abandoned furniture warehouse near Sunset and Alvarado. A dozen American junker cars with white-power bumper stickers are parked outside. Another dozen chop-shop Harleys are lined up just beyond the cars. At least now I know who rides in this town.
My Nazi best friend knocks on the door and a girl skinhead with a Luger in a shoulder holster lets us inside the clubhouse.
No one has opened a window in this place for ten years. The room stinks of beer, piss, and sweat. It's packed with roid rage Hitler Youth, but I can't take my eyes off the girl who let us in, fierce and skinny, sporting a wife beater, shaved head, and a gun. I want to tell her, Baby, you're my punk-rock dream date. Let's get drunk and break stuff. Then I remember that she's not like the girls I knew way back when. Proud to be scum. She's waiting to be swept off to Valhalla by goose-stepping Dolph Lundgren look-alikes.
She asks, "What the fuck are you staring at, asshole?" and moves a hand to the gun.
I smile at her. "Spank me harder, Eva Braun."
She spits at my boots but misses. My Nazi pal says, "Shut up, Lisa." He leads me to an office door marked private. He knocks twice and we go inside.
While the main room is a piss-soaked junkyard of broken furniture and overflowing garbage cans, the office is as clean and organized as an operating room.
Behind a gray metal desk, a blond man is writing with a fountain pen on a yellow legal pad. High forehead. Sky-blue eyes. Cheekbones like the prow of an icebreaker. A perfect Aryan wet dream. Hell, even I want to have this guy's babies.
His desk is surrounded by neat piles of white power pamphlets, slim books on how Jews and blacks are really extraterrestrial invaders, event sign-up sheets and CDs with pictures of bare-chested bands covered in swastika tattoos. At one corner is an impressive pile of weapons, knives, knuckle-dusters, and pipes wrapped in electrical tape. Mixed in the pile of metal, I'm pretty sure I see a couple of Hellion weapons that I used in the arena.
He looks up at me and gives me a smile that would melt a car salesman's heart. "Sorry. Just making some notes for a speech I have to give this weekend. Please, sit down."
I sit on a padded metal folding chair. My weight makes it squeak. Only the Fuhrer gets the good furniture. I've gotten used to being able to read people, their breathing and heart rate, but I can't get a fix on this guy. He's not even too calm to read. It's like he's not there at all.
"What's the story, Siegfried?" I ask. "Why are they all shorn sheep out there, but you get to have hair?"
"In the group, I'm called Josef. I'm the face of the movement. It's all about media these days, isn't it?" He points to a box of recruitment DVDs and tapes. "Tattoos and shaved heads scare people. Looking like the prom king brings the newspaper and local TV around, and gets our message out to more potential recruits."
"I know about your message and don't want to hear more. I've had enough crazy talk for this lifetime."
"I'm sure you have. They don't think much of the human race down in the pit, do they? I know Azazel doesn't." He watches me when he says it, waiting for a reaction. I don't give him one.
"How do you know what Azazel thinks?"
"Because I've talked to him. He's not happy with you killing him with his own knife. Tartarus is a bleak place compared to Hell."
"How could you talk to Azazel? You can't do a summoning on anyone as powerful as Azazel, and only Lucifer can walk in and out of Hell on his own."
"Who says I'm on my own?" He opens his hands in an expansive gesture, like something a preacher would do. "What's that old line from Luke? 'My name is Legion: for we are many.'"
"Who's 'we'? Not those idiots out there."