“Soon, you might not have anywhere else to go but with us,” said Beelzebub.
“I’m leaving now,” said Qaphsiel.
“Wait,” said Leviathan, his voice softening. “It really is our first time in L.A. and we really do want to see the tar pits. Is there a bus?”
Qaphsiel pointed to the Bonaventure. “You can catch a cab at the hotel.”
Beelzebub laughed. “A cab? On our budget? Never mind. We’ll just steal a bus. I’m sure someone on board will know the way. Well, see you in another five hundred years.”
Qaphsiel held up his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “I’m this close. You’ll see.”
Leviathan pinched his cheek. “You’re adorable. We’ll tell Lucifer you said hello.”
“You’ll see. All of you.” But Leviathan and Beelzebub were just an old man and woman walking in the sun again.
Do they really talk about me in Heaven? Do they even still remember me? I hope nobody’s touched my stuff.
Qaphsiel took out the map again. It was nothing but snowy static. He put it away. I saw his face. He’s in Hollywood. I’m so close.
He turned from where the box had been and began the long walk across town. There was a bang behind him as the repair truck’s engine fell onto the street.
TWENTY-THREE
BAYLISS, NELSON, AND SALZMAN LEFT THE OFFICE, leaving Coop and Giselle alone. It was the first time Coop had been alone with her in over two years. In fact, it was already the longest time he’d spent alone with any woman since his arrest. Giselle sat on a table near the door where she’d come in. Coop stayed put in his chair. There was a good twenty feet between them. He would have preferred twenty miles, but this would have to do.
“How are you doing, Coop?” said Giselle.
“I’m being blackmailed by the government. How are you?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Trust me. I’m not being melodramatic enough.” He looked at Giselle intently.
“What?”
“It’s funny, just the other day I was telling Morty about how someone stole my Contego stone. Where is it?”
Giselle shrugged and ran a fingernail along a scratch on the table. “I didn’t exactly steal it. I just borrowed it with extreme prejudice.”
“Hilarious. You know, I could have used that stone on some jobs. I didn’t always have a Flasher to open doors for me. You made my life a lot harder.”
“And for that, I apologize,” she said. “But look at it from my point of view. Having it made my life easier.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“Making you feel better didn’t really cross my mind at the time.”
He sighed. “Why did you even need it? You could cloud some slob’s mind and walk into anywhere you wanted.”
“True. But what if there was nobody around? It sped things up.”
“Oh well, as long as it meant you had more time for scrapbooking or whatever it is you do for fun these days, I guess it’s all right.”
Giselle crossed her legs and looked at Coop. “So, word is you did a little time recently. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Coop picked up a pencil from the table and flipped it into the air, catching it as it came down. “Yeah. A little time.”
“How much?”
“You work for Hydra, so I think you already know the answer.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to make conversation. Reestablish communication. That kind of thing.”
Coop tossed the pencil, caught it, and dropped it on the table, where it spun around like he was playing a sad little solo game of spin the bottle. His heart had stopped trying to break out of his ribs, but it still wanted to leave. Preferably with Coop, but it was open to alternatives.
“So, reestablishing communication means sending a hit squad to grab me off the street?” said Coop.
Giselle shook her head. “That was not my idea.”
“But you don’t mind it happening.”
She cocked her head slightly. “Well, I do kind of wish I could have seen your face . . .”
Coop spun the pencil. The damned thing kept pointing to him. “So, what, you’re the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. these days?”
Giselle swung her legs as she talked. “I’m just like you. I blew a job and the DOPS showed up and told me that I could join the party or scrub prison toilets for the next fifty years.”
“Fifty years? I just got threatened with life. They must love you.”
“People sometimes do,” she said.
“Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”
She stopped swinging her legs. “After I left, did you look for me?”
“I would have, but it would have cut into my drinking and lying on the floor in a fetal position time.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I wanted. I just . . . needed to get some space to clear my head.”
Coop thought for a minute. “You know, if someone told me that being kidnapped and locked in a Dr. Who theme park was not the weirdest thing that was going to happen to me today, I might not have believed them.” He patted himself down for a cigarette, then remembered that they were gone with his new clothes. “Wait a minute. When you stole my stone, is that what I was supposed to do? I was supposed to round up a posse and track you down?”
Giselle glanced around the room. “It would have been nice.”
“When you disappeared I was under the impression that you didn’t exactly want to see me. If you wanted me to find you, you might have left a trail of bread crumbs or something.”
Giselle pointed the toe of one shoe at his torn pants. “What happened to your nice clothes? They’re all dirty and ripped.”
“Did you ever see The Great Escape?”
“Sure.”
“I pulled a Steve McQueen.”
She nodded. “That’s why Nelson likes you so much. You almost got away.”
“Almost got away is being generous. But I got to spend some quality time with someone’s pet direwolf.”
“Yeah, I heard potbellied pigs are out and wolves are in. Was it friendly?”
“Most of it. Just not its teeth.”
“I’m sure you could have charmed it if you’d tried.”
“I was too busy trying not to look like a T-bone steak.”
Giselle smiled at him, but Coop didn’t smile back. His face had redeveloped amnesia when it came to smiling.
“What exactly am I doing here?” he said. “What are we supposed to be doing together?”
She came over to the table and sat down a couple of chairs away from him. “It’s like Salzman said. The DOPS wants the box. You need to get it for them. And I’m here to help you.”
“You had a nose transplant? You’re a bloodhound now? Because unless you are, it’s like I told your boss: I wouldn’t know where to begin finding Babylon.”
Giselle wiggled her eyebrows for a second. He’d forgotten she did that when she was about to tell a secret. Coop had a feeling he’d forgotten a lot about her. He’d sure tried hard enough and had the hangovers to prove it.
“I know how to find him,” said Giselle. “At least, I know where to start.”
“Where?”
“You know Jinx Town?”
“No. What’s that?”
“Have you heard of Squid City? Voodoo Beach? Little Midnight? The Fade District? Happy Valley? People call it a lot of things.”
Coop nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of it. My brother used to call it Rancho Weirdo.”
“Charming. How is Nick?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“You’re still not speaking?”
“Yeah. Let’s go with that.”
Giselle waved a hand dismissively. “Forget him. What did you think of Jinx Town?”
“Nothing. I’ve never been.”
She frowned. “Seriously? Why not?”
“Why would I?” He shrugged. “I’m busy. I just never got around to it.”
Giselle picked up
the pencil Coop had been playing spin the bottle with and spun it. It stopped, pointing to him. She reached over and turned it away. “That’s not it,” she said. “It’s because you’re a fuddy-duddy.”
“Excuse me?” Coop spun the pencil and it fell off the table.
“Fuddy. Duddy.”
“No one’s ever called me that before, and I’ve been called a lot of things.”
“Maybe someone should have. You’re a fuddy-duddy, Coop.”
“I am not.”
“If it’s any consolation, you weren’t always. But you turned into one.”
“When? Wait. Don’t tell me. Right before you left.”
“Not exactly. You’d been that way for a while. But your fuddy-duddiness definitely made leaving easier.”
“So happy to make crushing my soul so easy.”
“But that’s what I’m saying: souls mean . . . vibrancy. You were the total opposite of vibrant. Both fuddy and duddy.”
“I was plenty vibrant back then. Vivacious, even. It’s just, when we were together, I had a few reversals. Jobs that should have been cinches but went bad.”
Giselle put the pencil back on the table. When she leaned over to pick it up, Coop got a quick glimpse down the front of her dress. His heart tapped on his ribs again, letting him know it was late to catch a bus.
“You were always good at your job, you know?” she said. “But you didn’t always choose the best partners.”
“You sure got that right,” he said and immediately regretted it. The look on Giselle’s face brought back memories that he’d carefully locked in a steamer trunk, dragged out to sea, and dropped into the Mariana Trench. Now some were floating to the surface like socially awkward jellyfish.
“Look. Sorry,” he said.
Giselle got up. “Forget it.” She smoothed her skirt and headed for the door. On her way over she said, “Take the elevator down a floor and you can get some new clothes at the company store. It’s not really a store. They just call it that. They’ll give you the clothes. It’s a disguise thing. I’ll call and let them know you’re coming.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
She put her hand on the doorknob and turned back to him. “And get something to eat. You look like a whippet in hundred-dollar pants.”
“Three hundred. They were three hundred dollars.”
“Looks like they were nice, too. I guess you still haven’t learned how to hold on to anything.” Giselle left and Coop sat in the empty office alone for a few minutes.
That’s the nicest way anyone has told me to fuck off in a long time.
It was just like Giselle said. When he went downstairs, they were ready for him. A couple of DOPS flunkies measured him and a woman with a beak and spiny feathers down her back threw clothes at him from a rack until he found a combination that fit and didn’t look too much like he’d been bullied by a lady ostrich.
It took him a few minutes to find the employee lunchroom. Brushing feathers off his new clothes, Coop was happy to find he still had a fistful of Babylon’s money, so he ate a vending machine chicken salad sandwich, some chips, and a Coke. He would have preferred a real drink. And a real sandwich. Couldn’t do much about the latter, but maybe if he hadn’t pissed off Nelson so much, he would have shown him where he hid his bottle. Not much chance of that now. Still, he was a thief. If he could find Nelson’s desk, he could probably get into it. Coop found a clipboard someone had left in the lunchroom and began wandering the building. No one paid any attention to him in his company threads. He made it up and down three floors before people started giving him funny looks. At that point, he became extremely interested in the papers on his clipboard and calmly made his way back to the empty office.
The alien gibberish had stopped and the LCD screen on the wall was blank. He found a remote nearby and turned it on. After fiddling with the settings for a few minutes, he found he could get a television feed. He flipped between the news and game shows, not really watching, just appreciating the noise. This wasn’t exactly how he’d intended to spend time with Babylon’s money burning a big hole in his pocket. In fact, being locked in reminded him a little too much of prison. He wondered how Rodney was doing. And more important, how Rodney’s new roommate was dealing with the smell. Coop had asked for a gas mask a couple of times and almost gotten it once. Until the prison shrink took him aside and talked to him at great length about the psychological ramifications of “ostracizing other prisoners olfactorily.” Coop didn’t understand half of what the guy said, but he listened politely and invited the guy back to his cell to meet Rodney. He never got the mask, but at least he had the pleasure of seeing the shrink try not to faint when Rodney held out his moist mitt to shake. That’s how you get through prison, he remembered. It’s the little things. The tiny victories. Like copping an extra apple when the chow line guards weren’t looking or knowing you’d made your psychiatrist throw up on the way back to his office.
Giselle came back in around eight. She wasn’t dressed in red anymore. Sometimes in the past, he’d found her love for the color a little much. Now, he kind of missed it. She was wearing a leather jacket over a white shirt and black jeans. She was even smiling. Coop couldn’t tell if it was genuine or just work related. It made him both sick and hopeful and then sick again, even if a load of emotions were not what he wanted at the moment.
They went back to the underground garage and she drove them in a DOPS Honda Civic—the least conspicuous car currently on the road, she explained—to Hollywood Boulevard. They parked by the Pantages Theatre and walked west, ground zero for tourists.
“Sorry about that thing I said earlier,” said Coop. “I’m not saying I’m not pissed about, well, a lot of stuff, but that was kind of a cheap shot.”
“Forget it,” Giselle said. “And I didn’t just steal your Contego stone because I needed it. I took it because I was mad and I knew you wanted it.”
“I had a feeling it was something like that.”
“Yeah.”
“So, how often do you go to Rancho Weirdo?”
“Not often. Mostly for work these days. And don’t let anyone hear you call it that. You belong there as much as any of the rest of us. Even if you can’t cloud minds or open doors, you’re as magic as anyone else down there.”
“No, I’m not. I’m just immune to it.”
“Which is a kind of magic, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“And this is where I call you a fuddy-duddy again.”
“Oh, good. I was afraid you’d forgotten.”
They reached the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where metal stars were embedded in the sidewalk with the names of old movie, TV, and music stars. Tourists took photographs. Some stood over them or lay down next to their favorites. Coop almost tripped over a couple of the tourists and was extremely over the scene by the time they passed by the Roosevelt Hotel.
“It’s just up ahead,” said Giselle.
“You sure you don’t want to stop for a drink first? I know a couple of places around here.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, sugar. You’re what we call a flight risk, which means you’re on a short leash. Be good and I’ll buy you a Slurpee when we’re done here.”
“Unless that’s code for bourbon, I’ll pass.” He looked around. “And where is ‘here’?”
Giselle stopped walking. Coop went on for a couple of more steps before he realized she wasn’t by his side anymore. When he turned, she was clearing cigarette butts and crushed drink cups off one of the street stars. Coop went over and looked at the name. It was above the outline of a movie camera: CATHERINE MONVOISIN.
“A friend of yours?” he said.
“She acted in the silents. She was gone and buried long before I was born.”
“Live fast, die young, and leave a star where drunks can piss on you. I guess there are worse ways to be remembered, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.”
“An ex-con who blew a promising career because he was
a—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Fuddy-duddy.”
“At least I don’t have strangers peeing on me on New Year’s.”
“When do you have strangers pee on you?”
“Keep your fantasies to yourself, please.”
“Oh, and for your information, Catherine isn’t gone in the ectoplasmic sense,” said Giselle. “If you’re lucky, I’ll get to introduce you.” She knelt down by the star and pressed the movie camera. It sank about an inch into the sidewalk until Coop heard a click followed by distant echoes. Giselle reached down and opened the star like a trapdoor. Coop looked around.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but aren’t you being a little indiscreet, magic-wise? We’re right out in the open.”
“Relax,” she said. “No one’s seen us for a block. I’ve been clouding everyone’s mind for five minutes.”
“So, I could go into one of these stores and steal a bottle right now and no one would know? Think about it. The Roosevelt has a great lobby. We could have a few drinks and go back and tell Salzman we didn’t find anything.”
She looked at him. “Are you afraid to go to Jinx Town?”
“Not afraid. Just cautiously trepidatious.”
“Those are ten-dollar words for ‘afraid.’”
“I’d just like to have a better idea of what’s down there. You never told me.”
Giselle pushed the star back on its hinges until it fell with a thud on the sidewalk. “You want to know? Climb in, cowboy.”
“I didn’t say I wanted to know. I said you hadn’t told me.”
“Seriously, Coop. The quicker we get going, the sooner you can run back home with your tail between your legs.”
He peered down into the hole. “Is that supposed to motivate me? You taking a shot at my male pride?”
She smiled. “Did it work?”
“No. But I do like that idea of this being over with. Let’s go.”
“You first,” she said and pointed down into the sidewalk.
He took a small step back. “I have a feeling I’m not the first to say this at this moment, but no fucking way.”
“One of us has to go first, and it’s not going to be me.”
“Why not?”