Sandman Slim with Bonus Content

  “Not anywhere good, I am sorry to say. You’re an Abomination. You’ll always be an Abomination. Hell hates you for being more than a human and Heaven hates you for being less than an angel.”

  “No wonder I couldn’t get a date for the prom.”

  “There’s something else you need to know.” He looks at his watch. “I should call Candy soon. See how she’s doing. I have her on double doses of the blood substitute.”

  “Is she going to be all right?”

  “Hard to say. It’s hard to fight your own nature. I couldn’t do it. Angels are creatures made to love and protect humanity, only we weren’t supposed to fall in love. But I did. Candy’s a predator. A killer through and through. She’s trying to change that and I’m trying to help her. Maybe that’s a mistake.”

  “I thought it was you who was making her give up the kill.”

  “No. She came to me.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

  “Like I said, I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing by helping her. There’s something else you ought to know about the nephilim. Not all of them were killed off by God’s hit squads. Your kind is mostly gone because you tend to kill yourselves. You’re not the most stable being, but I guess you knew that.”

  “Is that how you got that wound on your arm? Those guys who tried to shove you into a car. Those were angels trying to kill you?”

  Kinski laughs.

  “No, boy. Heaven doesn’t worry about me anymore. Those were Kissi. They were shopping for one last angel for their New Year’s party.”

  I look at him hard, trying to read him. Wanting a final, for-real take on him. But he’s a blank wall.

  He smiles at me.

  “I know what you’re doing. You can’t read angels like regular people. Even angels can’t always read other angels. Otherwise we would have never had that little dustup with Lucifer in Heaven.”

  “Can you read me?”

  “Of course.”

  “What am I thinking?”

  “You’re afraid I’m crazy because that’s one more person you can’t count on. And you’re afraid I’m telling the truth ’cause that means you were screwed before you ever drew your first breath.”

  That’s exactly what I’m thinking.

  “Will I be like you? Will I be able to read you someday?”

  He shrugs.

  “It’s hard to say. With nephilim, it’s always different. Some are more human and some are almost angels and can do almost anything angels do. You’ll know what you can do when you can do it. That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Let’s say I believe this story. Could you fix me up with a cocktail like Candy’s? Make me like a regular person?”

  “I wouldn’t even try.”

  “Why not?”

  “You always had magic, but you came into your real power in Hell. You were running wild, not holding yourself back like the nephilim that grew up around humans. You found yourself and accepted what you could do without all the angst and bullshit that they went through.”

  “And what is it I can do?”

  “Warrior is the nice word, the traditional word, but that’s just a polite way of saying that you’re a natural-born killer. You’re Sandman Slim, the monster who kills monsters. I’m not going to drug you up to change that.”

  “Even if I wanted to change it?”

  “Especially then. How many angels showed up to save the world the other night? Did Aelita and her little quilting bee conquer the evil at Avila’s heart? No. It took a monster to walk between all the forces massed there and to beat them all. No one else could have done that.”

  “There were two monsters there,” I remind him.

  He nods.

  “Right. Two monsters.”

  The pizza delivery boy brings out a second pile of pizza boxes, loads them in the van, backs up, and heads into the afternoon traffic. He gives us the finger on the way out of the parking lot.

  “I can feel a lot of stuff pinballing around in your head. You want to tell me what you think about all this?”

  “If your story is true, then one of my parents fucked an angel. Which one?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “It doesn’t, but I want to know.”

  “Your mother.”

  “I thought so. My father was gone a lot on sales calls. Mom was lonely and pretty. I guess that explains some things about my father.”

  “If you say so.”

  “He knew I wasn’t his.”

  “But he still raised you. Give him credit for that.”

  “He wanted me dead.”

  “Hell, boy. At some point, all fathers want to kill their sons. Just like all sons think about killing their old man. They’re too much alike or the’re not enough alike. It doesn’t matter. What’s beautiful is that they don’t do it.”

  “Are there other nephilim around?”

  “It’s not like there’s a newsletter or anything, but as far as I know, you’re the only one.”

  “I used to worry all the time about being boring. Suddenly boring looks pretty good.”

  “Try not to sing too many sad songs for yourself. The universe already hates you. Self-pity isn’t going to help.”

  Whenever the hammer has come down in my life, I’ve always wondered what my father would do. Then I usually do the opposite, but I still always think of him first. But now I’m seeing my mother’s face instead of my father’s. And I’m thinking about Alice. And Candy. And Allegra breathing fire into Parker’s eyes. And Vidocq, who isn’t a father, but who makes being a man easier than any of the men in my family.

  I flick my cigarette butt at a rat that’s stalking a couple of pigeons in the parking lot.

  “You know what I’m thinking right now?”

  Kinski is silent for a minute.

  “That you really want a drink.”

  “Yeah, but that’s too easy. I always want a drink. Guess again.”

  “You’re back wondering if I’m crazy or not and leaning toward crazy.”

  I nod and take few steps in the direction of the Mercedes.

  “Actaully, I’m not. I’m leaning toward I don’t give a goddam. I’m sick of Heaven and Hell and angels and nephilim and all the rest of it. I knew what I was doing there. And no one told me that I’m not who I am. Be a fallen archangel if you want, but leave me out of it. I don’t want to be part of your soap opera. I don’t want to be mythological.”

  I start back for the Mercedes, but it looks ridiculous to me now. A brain dead cross between a giant grasshopper and a Cubist Corvette. I walk past the car and into the shadow of a lampost at the corner of the lot. Kinski watches me go. As I slip into the Room of Thirteen Doors, for just a second, some annoying part of my brain whispers, “You know that thing that you’re doing right now, going from a parking lot to the center of the universe and out again? That’s pretty seriously mythological.”

  THERE’S ONLY ONE problem with L.A.

  It exists.

  L.A. is what happens when a bunch of Lovecraftian elder gods and porn starlets spend a weekend locked up in the Chateau Marmont snorting lines of crank off Jim Morrison’s bones. If the Viagra and illegal Traci Lords videos don’t get you going, then the Japanese tentacle porn will.

  New York has short con cannibals and sewer gators. Chicago is all snowbound yetis and the ghosts of a million angry steers with horns like jackhammers. Texas is crisscrossed with ghost railroads that kidnap demon-possessed Lolitas to play strip Russian roulette with six shells in the chamber.

  L.A. is all assholes and angels, bloodsuckers and trust-fund satanists, black magic and movie moguls with more bodies buried under the house than John Wayne Gacy.

  There are more surveillance cameras and razor wire here than around the pope. L.A. is one traffic jam from going completely Hiroshima.

  God, I love this town.

  I NEED FOOD. I need booze. I need to smoke a cigarette outside a bar where you can hear people dry humping in the al
ley behind the Dumpster.

  I walk from Max Overdrive to the Bamboo House of Dolls, sucking down stage-six smog-alert air and lingering over a sunset as bloody as the fall of the Roman Empire.

  People stare and point at me as I go inside. For a second I have that anxiety-dream paranoia that I’m not wearing any pants. But no one’s laughing and I’ve got a pocket full of money and a knife tucked in the back of my jeans, so I think I’m covered on the pants thing.

  More girls smile at me going into Bamboo House than have smiled at me in my entire life. There must be a scar-fetish convention in town.

  An older guy in a purple velvet Edwardian jacket holds the door for me when I go inside. Scratch the scar convention. We’ve been invaded by Renn Faire rejects on acid. I stand for a minute in the alcove. Let my eyes adjust to the dim inside.

  The place goes dead silent. Carlos even kills the music. My balls shrink up inside my body and my hand sneaks back for my knife. I open my eyes and about a hundred schizophrenics start applauding. In a minute, they’re all chanting “Sandman! Sandman!” There’s a banner over the bar. In silver glitter it says DING DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD. There’s a framed picture of Mason with a black wreath around it on the bar. Someone’s drawn a mustache and devil horns on him in Magic Marker.

  People rush forward and start shaking my hand. Patting me on the back. Women kiss me. Guys with funny accents kiss me, too. Some are dressed like ordinary businessmen and women, students, hipsters, and adolescent neopunks. Others look like they’re on a weekend pass from an asylum in Oz.

  Holy shit. The Sub Rosa have taken over my bar.

  Word must have gotten around about my cage match with Mason and the Kissi.

  Fuck me. I’m a rock star. And all I really wanted was a burrito.

  I belly up to the bar and Carlos beams at me.

  “Your friends are a blast!” he yells over the din. “Why didn’t you bring them in before?”

  “I didn’t know they were my friends.”

  He keeps smiling. He can’t hear a word I say. He motions me to get closer so he can whisper something to me. I get right up to him and he says, “Some of these people, no shit, can do magic.”

  “Can you magic me some rice and beans? I’m hungry enough to eat Orange County.”

  Two minutes later, Carlos brings me enough food to feed the Pacific Rim. I hold up my tumbler full of Jack and Carlos and I toast each other. He looks extremely happy. The Sub Rosa might be a bunch of lunatics, show-offs, and bureaucrats, but they’re a big part of the underground economy that keeps California afloat. And they’re not shy about splashing around cash. If the Bamboo House of Dolls stays Sub Rosa central, Carlos will have enough money to retire by Friday.

  I try to eat, but people keep coming up and introducing themselves. If I need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call. About fifty different women slip me their phone numbers. So do at least that many guys. I don’t remember anyone’s name. It’s one big lovefest blur, and as nice as these people are being, it’s really getting to me. I pretend that I’m going out for a smoke, but what I really need is a shadow to disappear into.

  On the other hand, I really need a smoke, too.

  I light up by the side of the bar. A woman walks over to me. She’s dressed like Stevie Nicks in her how-fast-can-I-burn-out-my-nose-with-coke period. When she gets closer, she becomes really interesting. She has the whitest skin I’ve ever seen. And there’s something strange about her face: it moves whether she talks or not. Her face is like the phases of the moon, going from a gorgeous bride-to-be to an old woman with a face like shattered granite.

  “Are you having fun inside?” she asks.

  I shrug.

  “It’s nice, but it’s a little much. I’m going to finish this and sneak off.”

  “I’m glad I caught you then. I’m Medea Bava. Did you get the package I left with your friend Vidocq?”

  Feathers. Wolf teeth. Blood.

  “I got it. And it was after Christmas, but you still cared enough to get me something.”

  The young woman’s and the old woman’s faces turn serious.

  “You might be a hero to those fools inside, but you’re not to me. To me, you’re a dangerous man. A criminal for sure. Possibly a wild dog that needs to be put down.”

  “You’re from the Inquisition, aren’t you?”

  She laughs.

  “My boy, I am the Inquisition. And from this moment onward, I will be watching every move you make.”

  “Isn’t that a song by the Police?”

  “That’s exactly the kind of thing that will get you another package. Only this one will be a bit more, let’s say, lively.”

  “Lady, I’ve seen Hell and I’ve seen Hollywood and I have a pretty good idea what Heaven looks like. So, take your threats and shove ’em straight up your deviated septum. For me to worry about your finger wagging, I’d have to give a damn about something, and I’ve pretty much reached my limit there. Anytime you want to get all junkyard dog, give me a call. You might kill me, but trust me, you’re going to have a limp and that face of yours isn’t going to move so easily anymore.”

  She keeps looking at me. No reaction. Nothing. Just her stare shifting through the phases of the moon.

  “Have a nice party, young man.”

  “Leave a light on. Maybe I won’t wait for you to come after me.”

  That makes her laugh. A high titter, like crystal wine-glasses tinkling together.

  That’s enough fun for one night. I throw my cigarette into the gutter and look around for a comfy shadow.

  “Littering is a crime, even in L.A.”

  I’ll be hearing that drawl in my dreams for the next hundred years.

  “U.S. Marshal Wells. Come to party with the pixies?”

  “Don’t be obscene,” he says. “I can smell the crazy on these people from here.”

  “Don’t knock it. You might get lucky. Some of them inside are going to love a man in uniform.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I don’t like wasting my time talking to people too crazy or stupid or addled to understand what I’m saying.”

  “Then maybe what you were going to say, it’s not worth saying.”

  “No. It is. You did a good thing the other night. I don’t know that we could have stopped the ceremony without you.”

  “And Candy.”

  “Yes, your sidekick monster. So, are you Batman and Robin now?”

  “I think that was our first and last date.”

  “Too bad. You might have been good assets.”

  “I’ll tell her we have Homeland Security’s blessing. And you can hire us, if you want. I’m sure for the right price, I can get her out of retirement.”

  “Aelita told me about your business proposition. I’ll never understand people like you. You respect nothing. You value nothing. But you went out of your way to take on the biggest evil this city has seen in a good long while.”

  “I value plenty. Probably just not things you’d care about.”

  “You might just be surprised.”

  He looks away. His heartbeat is up. He’s hiding something.

  “It’s okay to be in love with an angel. Trust me. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  He nods, but he still won’t look at me. There’s a package under his arm. He holds it out for me.

  “I thought you might want this. We found it when we were searching Avila. There was a whole room of similar items. It’s your girlfriend’s ashes.”

  And there goes L.A., dropping down fifty thousand feet right under me. Swallowed up by the San Andreas fault. My head swims, but I don’t want him to see that. I start to say thank you, but nothing comes out.

  “Don’t say anything. It’s okay even for an asshole to get choked up. Trust me. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  He walks away and gets into one of his blacked-out vans. I step into the first shadow I can find.

  I WANT TO steal a car. Something big. Something ugly. A Hummer or
a director’s decked-out Land Rover. Reinforced suspension, emergency winch, and self-sealing tires, like he thinks he can four-wheel his way out of the Apocalypse. I want to steal something bright and shiny and stupid and expensive, set it on fire, climb into the driver’s seat, and pile-drive it into the ocean at a hundred and twenty. Feel the windshield cave. The crack as the safety glass pops out, hits me in the face, and snaps my neck. I want to feel the cold black water swallow me up and spit me out on the sandy bottom of the world. Just blind crabs and bone-white starfish down here. I don’t want death. I know what’s waiting for me when I die, and Hell is too bright. Too loud. I want oblivion. I want to not exist. I want to feel something that’s not pain.

  I want Alice.

  But Alice wouldn’t want me to disappear. She didn’t like me stealing or breaking other people’s things, so I won’t do any of that tonight.

  See? Even dead she makes me a better whatever-the-hell it is I am. A less stupid person. A more considerate monster.

  I step out of a shadow and onto Venice Beach. Alice is under my arm in a brown plastic box. There are bonfires fifty yards down the sand. A boom box pumps out something that, at this distance, is just beats and the buzz of overloaded speakers. People cop drugs on the street behind me. Couples grope and sweat in the dark.

  I knew a drug dealer from Marin County. A hippie, but the kind who slept with a .45 under his pillow. When he got into organic pot farming, he stopped using the toilet. He’d shit on a black plastic tarp behind his house, staked out in the sun, so his droppings would dry out and he could use them to fertilize his plants. He told me that he got the idea from a friend who made sun dried tomatoes.

  He did the fertilizer experiment for a year. Collected each dried-out nugget after a month in the sun. He told me that at the end of that year, everything he dropped on the tarp fit inside one shoe box.

  I don’t know why I think of that, except that the only person I ever loved now fits into something about the same size as that dead hippie dealer’s shit box.

  There’s a crescent moon out. Does that mean it’s a good night to let Alice go or a bad one? If I was better at magic than murder, I’m sure I’d know.

  The water is cold and calm. Low tide. I have to walk out a good ten or twenty yards to feel the waves on my legs, boots sinking into the wet sand all the way out. I wade into the sluggish waves until I’m in waist deep.