We charge inside, ready to blast at anything with too many heads. Nothing does because there’s no one inside . . . except for a depressed one-headed bastard behind the bar. He sets down the Hellion newspaper he’s reading and glances over at us.
“If you’re looking for trouble,” he says, “take it down the street. We’re closed.”
I put the Colt back in my waistband.
“I thought you were a better businessman than that, Bill. From what I hear, Armageddon is a thirsty business.”
He squints through the gloom. Walks slowly to the end of the bar.
“You silly son of a bitch,” he says, and comes over. He catches me in a big bear hug, something he’s never done before. Times change, even in Hell.
He takes a step back and looks me over.
“Ugly as ever, I see.”
“Even got a few more scars since we saw each other last.”
“Me too, son. Me too.”
He glances at Candy.
“That’s a handsome street sweeper you have there, miss. Mind if I have a closer look?”
Candy looks at me. I nod.
She hands Bill the Benelli. He takes it over into the light of the nearest candle.
“This is another one of your fashionable modern shooters with too many shots and no way to keep track of them.”
“It’s called a Benelli. It’s Italian.”
He turns the shotgun over. Tries it against his shoulder. Studies it with the interest of a man who appreciates guns and has been bored out of his mind for some time.
“I knew some fine ladies with Italian frocks, but I never took those fellers for gunsmiths. Live and learn,” he says.
He hands the Benelli back to Candy.
“Is anyone going to introduce the young lady or am I expected to spend the rest of eternity guessing her name? Not that I have fuck else to do these days. Pardon my language, miss.”
That makes Candy smile.
She slings the Benelli back over her shoulder and extends her hand.
“Hi. I’m Candy.”
They shake.
“Sweet to the ear and the eye,” he says. “Well, come on, you two. Belly up to the bar.”
We drag a couple of stools down to where Bill left his newspaper.
The shelves behind the bar, which normally hold rows of liquor bottles, are empty.
“Business a little slow?”
Bill raises his eyebrows.
“You could say that. I ran out of the good stuff a few months back. Sold it or traded it away for this and that. Mostly, and it shames me to say it, protection. I ran out of bullets before I ran out of liquor, so I had no choice. Bands of scoundrels ran wild in the streets. Looted and banditized the market. Back then, I could buy patrols from Hellion Legionnaires with hooch. Now both the scoundrels and the Legions have pissed off into the wind like everything else.”
“I’m sorry, Bill. This is my fault. If I hadn’t talked Upstairs into opening Heaven and then the deal falling apart, none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t fret,” he says. “You did your best and with good intentions. That’s all a man can do. If the world is determined to go bad, it will find a way.”
Candy says, “Stark has told me a lot about you, Bill. You’re one of his heroes.”
“Is that right? Well, you must take good care of him if he has time to contemplate such things as heroes.”
“We take good care of each other.”
“And yet you still call him ‘Stark.’”
She looks at me.
“It’s how I first met him and the name kind of stuck.”
“I understand,” he says. “Most strangers who met me toward the end of my days only knew me as Wild Bill, an adequate moniker at one time. But tiresome at the end.”
“What should I call you?”
“Since you haven’t used up ‘James’ on that obstinate creature next to you, that’ll do. Or ‘Jim.’ Some ladies called me that.”
“‘Jim’ it is, then. Did anyone ever call you ‘Jimmy’?”
“Not twice.”
“Stark is the same way. Except for some ladies.”
I lean on the bar.
“Brigitte picks up bad habits fast. And she enjoys tormenting me.”
“Buck up, boy. That means she likes you. The respect of men is important, but women, in my experience, usually have a truer sense of a man’s character. They see through the veil of horseshit we build around ourselves. Pardon me again.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Jim,” says Candy. “You should hear Stark at home. One little annoyance and he’d make a pirate blush.”
“You must be a good woman to put up with the likes of him.”
“She is,” I say. “Better than I deserve.”
Candy does a theatrical eye roll. Says, “Don’t fish for compliments in front of family, dear.”
Bill laughs.
“As charming as this reunion is, will one of you explain to me what you’re doing in this godforsaken pig wallow?”
“We’re here to fix things, Bill. Or try to. There’s trouble back in the world and some of it comes from here. If I can stop what’s wrong in Hell, maybe it will help both of our worlds.”
“Will it get folks into Heaven?”
“That’s what I hope.”
Bill holds up the newspaper he was reading when we came in.
“You see this? I’ve been reading this damned thing over and over again for months. It’s a dismal pastime and I’m ready for a fresh venture. So, how can I help?”
“We need to find a man named Norris Quay. Ever heard of him?”
Bill thinks for a minute.
“Can’t say that I have. Are you saying this Norris feller is the source of this affliction?”
“No. That’s a bunch called Wormwood.”
“Haven’t heard of them either. Damn. I thought a man would hear every kind of secret running a saloon.”
“Quay isn’t the source of the trouble, but he’s the man in the center. If we can get to him, maybe we can shut the whole thing down.”
“Well, I’m game,” says Bill. “Where is the son of a bitch?”
“That’s the problem. We don’t know,” says Candy.
“That a bit constraining. Hell’s a big place to wander with no sure destination.”
A candle at the end of the bar gutters out. Bill takes a box of similar candles from under the bar and lights a replacement. Putting the box back, he says, “This is currently my sole and most prized possession. Some days a little light is all that keeps a body’s spirits up.”
I take out the Maledictions and offer one to Bill.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he says.
He lights us up with one of the candles and takes a long puff.
“Like smoking skunkweed. But if skunkweed is what you have, be grateful for it.”
Candy looks at us. “You’re both going to get cancer from those things.”
“I’m beyond that, ma’am. But this young fool, who knows.”
I blow smoke rings at the ceiling.
“I’m not a person. I don’t get sick.”
“How do you know?” she says.
“Jade intuition.”
“Very funny.”
I look back at Bill.
“When he was alive, Quay lived in an underground mansion in Griffith Park. Maybe we should start looking there.”
“I don’t know about any underground lairs,” says Bill. “But a few months back, a whole load of Hellions built a big house in the park, way up by the barbican.”
“Then let’s definitely start there,” says Candy.
I flick some ash off the Malediction.
“Let’s.” To Bill I say, “Do you have any weapons at all?”
“I always have a weapon around.”
He takes an old but serviceable-looking bowie knife and sets it on the bar. Follows it with a well-worn sapper, a heavy weight the shape of a truncheon wrapped in leather.
&nbs
p; “Never without them,” he says.
I take the sapper with my Kissi hand and rap it against my human one. Just once.
“You could crack some skulls with that.”
“Can and have,” he says.
“You’re going to need more firepower than that if you’re coming along, though. Here.”
I take the Colt from my waistband and set it on the bar. He picks it up, admiring the engraving along the body and barrel, then pops the cylinder. Spins it and slaps the gun closed. Sets it down again.
“Some admirable iron you have there.”
“Candy gave it to me.”
He looks across the bar at her.
“I’m liking you better all the time.”
“You too, Jim,” she says.
I take out some of the speed loaders and set them next to the pistol.
“These will help you reload faster. You open the cylinder and—”
“Boy, I was shooting the eyes out of eagles in full flight before your sorry ass was conceived of. I think I know how to load a pistol.”
“Sorry. And don’t worry about the ammo. They’re special. They’ll kill anything that comes at us.”
“I never doubted it.”
“Play with your popguns, boys,” says Candy. She pats the Benelli. “Mine’s bigger than both of yours put together.”
“I’ll drink to that,” says Bill.
He kneels and pulls up a couple of floorboards, digs around until he finds a dirty bottle, and sets it on the bar.
“The last man standing.”
“What shall we drink to?” says Candy.
Bill gets three shot glasses from a shelf behind him and wipes out the dust.
“To the end of tumult and the resurrection of delight.”
He pours three shots.
“I don’t see much down here to be delighted about,” says Candy.
“True. But there’s always hope for better days.”
Candy holds up her glass.
“Better days,” she says.
“Better days,” me and Bill say together.
We down our shots. I don’t know what the stuff is. It’s not quite as rough as Aqua Regia, but just barely. More like sweet red wine and motor oil.
Candy makes a face.
“What is this?”
“Hair of the dog,” says Bill. “’Course the dogs down here are mighty homely.”
“Remind me not to kiss any dogs while I’m here,” says Candy.
Bill gives a slight laugh and pours himself another.
“Shall we get moving?”
I look back, thinking about what’s beyond the door.
“I don’t suppose you have any wheels?”
“A motorcar? No. Never cared for ’em. But there’s plenty in the streets. Maybe one will work.”
“Let’s find out.”
There are hundreds of abandoned cars along Pandemonium’s version of Hollywood Boulevard. Some parked and some just ditched at crazy angles in the street. Any of them that look intact, I try. Jam the black blade in the ignition and turn. Candy does the same thing with her knife. We must try twenty cars without a single engine turning over. Then there’s a roar.
Candy got one of the Legion’s big Unimogs running.
“Woo-hoo!” she yells from the cab.
Bill and I run over and get in with her.
She guns the engine and I check the fuel gauge. Almost half a tank.
“You know how to drive one of these?”
She gives me a look.
“If you’re asking me, ‘Can the girl drive the truck?,’ you can get out and walk, Tiny Tim.”
“You might shut your yap, before you get us both booted,” says Bill.
I nod.
“My apologies, ma’am. Drive on.”
Candy grinds the gears a couple of times before gritting her teeth and finding first. We lurch forward, then move smoothly, weaving around the abandoned cars.
“Call me ‘Tank Girl,’ motherfuckers,” she shouts.
Bill and I don’t dare say a word.
WE TRAVEL WEST for maybe twenty minutes, then north on Los Feliz Boulevard into the park. Back home, they have kiddie pony rides around here. I don’t know what they used to keep in the fetid, boiling pits in these ruined Hellion stables, but I don’t think it was ponies and I don’t think they were for granola-and-kale-fattened L.A. cherubs.
The drive through the park skirts the crumbling 5 freeway, then turns inward, bringing you past the park’s famous merry-go-round. The ride is a gruesome thing in L.A., the way all merry-go-rounds are. They’re the definition of both staggering boredom and ruthlessly enforced merriment. They’re the amusement-park equivalent of sticking your hand in fire as a kid. You have to try it once, just to see what it’s like. After that, you never want to do it again. All those prancing, leering horses, with their frozen rictus smiles are most kids’ first introduction to Hell. Those horses, they think, must have been some murderous bastards to be captured and displayed in such a humiliating way. The wee ones picture themselves in the horses’ place, skewered through the gut by a brass pole and yanked up and down—suspended between Heaven and Hell—for all eternity. Parents who’ve forgotten or repressed their own terrifying merry-go-round memories snap shots of the kiddies in their torment, passing their traumas on to the next generation. Merry-go-rounds are a great shared lie of childhood. Cruelty masked as fun. Tedium cloaked as adventure. A great spinning vessel of torment getting the tykes ready for the damnation most of them will richly deserve, all because their minds were permanently twisted by this parade of pony horrors. I bet Charlie Manson and Ed Gein loved merry-go-rounds. In some weird way, I bet Wormwood was born around here. There is where all those tots first developed a taste for death, and their crimes were just them inflicting their memories of that eternally spinning Perdition on the world.
Luckily, Candy drives us straight past the ride and I don’t have to explain my amusement-park terrors.
From there, it’s just a few more minutes to the grounds of the old park zoo.
Bill was right. Where empty leaf-and-weed-filled animal cages once stood, is a sprawling Spanish colonial mansion. The moment it’s in sight, Candy pulls the Unimog off the road and into a thick grove of moss-heavy trees. Now we just wait to see what happens.
A smart guy once said that war is boredom punctuated by moments of terror. Stakeouts are like that, only they’re boredom punctuated by moments of ennui, monotony, and finally, an utter indifference to your own survival. If death was any less awful than a stakeout, there would be about six cops left on the planet.
Maybe an hour later, something comes over the rise from where we’ve driven up. Bill takes out a collapsible telescope and aims it at the road.
“Got a whole caravan coming this way,” he says.
“Can I have a look?” says Candy, and Bill hands her the telescope.
“It looks like three SUVs. I can’t see who’s inside them.”
The vans spread out across the grounds of the old zoo. Out of the first van, six Hellion Legionnaires emerge with weapons. Three angels step out of the second van. Out of the last van come six humans.
I put out my hand.
“Bill, let me see the telescope.”
He gives it to me and it takes a second to adjust.
I don’t recognize everyone from the lead van, but I know enough of them.
“See anyone you like?” says Bill.
“Not a single one. But I see a bunch I want.”
“Is that Quay feller there?”
“Yeah. And Geoff Burgess and Charlie Anpu. A couple of other men I don’t recognize. Probably more Wormwoods I never met.”
“I think there’s a woman down there,” says Candy.
“There is, but I don’t recognize her either. She looks cozy with Quay.”
They mill around the zoo for a few minutes, then the men go into the mansion. The woman talks to the angels while the Hellions fan out around the grounds. br />
The jabbering goes on for a few more minutes, until the woman heads inside the mansion and the angels spread their wings and swoop into the sky.
“How about that?” says Bill. “In all my years down here, I’ve never seen such a sight.”
I take out a Malediction.
“Yeah. Someone ought to do a fucking painting.”
“What’s your problem?” says Candy. “You wanted to see the place and we’ve seen it.”
Bill puts out a hand.
“Maybe you oughtn’t spark that right now. There are still guards around the front of the house.”
I put the smoke away.
“So? What is it?” says Candy.
“The six Hellions don’t worry me. We can handle them. They probably have a few more like them inside, but it’s unlikely to be more than what’s on the outside.”
“And how do you know all this?”
“I used to sneak into Hellion palaces and murder people.”
“Right.”
“That’s twelve guards in total. Anything else we should be worried about?” says Bill.
“They might have wards on the place, but I think that with a setup like this, they won’t. They’re Wormwood. They own this burg right now and no one is going to fuck with them.”
“Then what’s got your panties in a twist?” says Candy.
“The angels. Three warrior angels is a lot bigger problem than twelve Hellion mercenaries.”
“You’ll notice they didn’t go inside,” says Bill. “That woman talked to them and they flew away, peaceful as doves.”
“The question is, how often are they around and how many of them are here at any one time?”
“What you’re saying is that we have to stay here and see who comes and goes,” says Candy.
“I’m afraid so.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. A day maybe.”
“Makes sense to me,” says Bill. “But no use all of us staying up, getting in each other’s way the whole time. We can watch in shifts. Two hours each while the others rest. With three of us swapping turns, time shouldn’t pass too disagreeably. You two rest up. You had a long journey. I’ll take first watch.”
“Thanks,” says Candy.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
There’s a small storage area in the cab behind the seats. It’s just big enough for Candy to lie down. I shift over to the driver seat and lean it back a few inches. Bill scans the grounds with his spyglass. I close my eyes, trying to relax, and eventually drift off into a light doze.