“Go around to some of the universities and put those up on the bulletin boards. The last time we put an ad on Craigslist, all we got were weirdos and Frank, and we know how that turned out.”
“Yes, sir,” said the acolyte.
The Magister said, “Anything else?”
Adept Six pointed a finger. “Yes, you might want to move—” He never finished the sentence. The change from the bake sale collapsed the golden TV tray. The rolls of change mostly survived the fall, but fish and chips were scattered all over the sacred chamber. The Magister wiped his hand on his napkin and tossed it onto the floor with the rest of the mess. “Get out the bleach, boys,” he said. “We have a room 8 situation in the making.”
The Magister started to get up, but a back spasm dropped him back onto his lounger. He sighed. The goddamn end of the world better happen goddamn soon, he thought. If it wasn’t exploding acolytes decorating his rooms with meat wallpaper, it was Red Lobster horning in on his damned fish business. He made a silent prayer to Abaddon that the Caleximus bunch weren’t quite the fuckups he’d always told his flock they were. Just let them find this Coop asshole. That’s all I ask. Then rise from the ocean and drown the world, Abaddon. Starting with San Diego.
The Magister watched the acolyte and the adept picking the food and money off the floor, counting the rolls of pennies and quarters in his head. There had to be twenty pounds at least. A nice haul, he thought. They’d go well in the seat cushions with the other Lodge funds, all of which he’d converted to coins. The Magister calculated that his chair weighed more than four hundred pounds these days. When Abaddon returned and the floods came, he wasn’t taking any chances on floating away. He, his throne, and his lousy back were going down when the first waves hit the land, and there was nothing those assholes in San Diego, Caleximus, Red Lobster, or any of his dumb-ass flock could do about it. The Magister closed his eyes and crossed his fingers.
Find Coop, you sons of bitches. Find Coop.
It was eight in the evening. The two women sat across from Mr. Babylon in his favorite booth in Týden Divu, the Jinx Town bar so recently and rapidly exited by Coop and Giselle. The women—Giselle and a somewhat nervous Bayliss—were sipping Manhattans. Babylon was drinking a Roy Rogers with obvious distaste.
“I hope you don’t mind me not joining you for real drinks, ladies,” said Babylon. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Not at all,” said Giselle. “We’re just happy you could meet us on such short notice.”
Babylon swirled his drink, giving it a look of curdled loathing. “My pleasure. I’m always open to business opportunities. Though this one will, I’m afraid, cost more than many.”
“The good ones always do,” said Bayliss.
Good for you, thought Giselle. Get her away from Nelson and get a couple of drinks in her, and she takes off. I’ll have to remember that. Giselle took a quick glance around the bar. No one was paying them the slightest bit of attention. She had to concentrate hard to cloud so many minds and make sure they wouldn’t remember her, but that and her blond wig seemed to be doing the trick. She just had to remember not to drink too much.
“How did you find this place?” she said. “Are you a fan of the dark floors?”
Babylon looked over at the gaming tables, then back at the women. “I’ve always enjoyed them. Much more peaceful than the wet or dry ones, and away from the hustle and bustle of the light floors.”
“Unless you’re looking for shoes. Then I love the light floors,” said Bayliss. Giselle had briefed her on the layout of Jinx Town, but now wished she’d do a little shutting up about it. No more drinks for her.
“Don’t discount the dark floors for shopping,” said Babylon. “There are some exceptional places nearby. I get most of my suits here.”
“Thank you. Maybe I’ll take a stroll later.”
“Just take a clove or two of garlic with you,” said Babylon. “The exsanguinator riffraff can be a bit annoying.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve worked with vampires before,” Bayliss said.
Reel it in, thought Giselle. She kicked Bayliss lightly under the table.
“Really? Where?” said Babylon.
“Oh, here and there,” Bayliss said. “You know how it is. Business takes you all sorts of places with all sorts of people.”
“Indeed,” said Babylon.
“Would you mind telling us a bit more about the box?” said Giselle before Bayliss could cram her foot in her mouth again. “Is it everything I’ve heard it is?”
Babylon finished his drink and held up his glass for another. A waiter nodded in his direction. “It depends on what you’ve heard. There are a lot of rumors and tall tales.”
“Since we’re the buyers, if you don’t mind, we’d like to hear it from you,” said Giselle.
“The box, to put it simply, is an edge,” Babylon said. “Nothing less than luck incarnate. It’s what every entrepreneur needs. A constant and reliable edge on the competition.”
“There are stories floating around that it’s something else, too,” said Bayliss.
Babylon shrugged. “Stories about the box are as numerous as Scheherazade’s thousand and one tales. Recently, an associate of mine plucked it away just as a couple of low-rent doomsday cults tried for it. Each thought they could use it to set off their rival Armageddons. Have you ever heard of something so silly?”
“Lucky you found it before they had a chance to test it out. Then we might not have had the pleasure of meeting you.”
“To Apocalypse averted,” said Babylon. He held up his glass in a toast.
“And new business ventures,” said Bayliss.
“Always that.”
Gisele smiled. While she concentrated on clouding the room, she was giving special attention to Babylon. There wasn’t any liquor in his drinks, so she was loosening him up a little herself. Not too much. A couple of Scotches’ worth. Just want him friendly and happy. Not stupid and horny.
She sipped her drink slowly and fantasized about cutting through the crap and beating Babylon on the head with a bottle of grenadine until he just gave them the damned box. Coop better be on the job, she thought. I don’t want to spend the whole night entertaining this bloated Scrooge McDuck.
Her phone rang. She excused herself and glanced at the number, quickly pressing the button to send the call to voice mail. The moment she did, Very Important People jumped into action doing Very Important Things.
Two floors below Týden Divu, Salzman sat in the mook bar and watched his call go to voice mail. That was the signal. He dialed another number and it only rang once before someone picked it up.
“Babylon’s distraction is in place. Are you ready?” he said.
“No,” said Coop.
“Let me ask that another way. Are you prepared to keep your part of our bargain?”
“As much as I’ll ever be.”
“You have your team with you? Including what’s-his-name?”
“Yes. Morty is here.”
“What about Phil Spectre? Safely ensconced in your noggin, is he?”
“Yeah. He’s already whining to get out of my head. He doesn’t like the idea of playing earthworm,” Coop said.
“Tell him to shut up and do his job.”
“That’s pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with him.”
Salzman cleared his throat. “Once again, I have to remind you that the DOPS makes no guarantees for your safety. If you or the team gets caught or killed, it’s on you.”
“I never thought it would be any other way,” Coop said.
“Are you comfortable in the crawler?”
“I’m not so wild about being an earthworm, either. But I’ve been worse places for smaller payoffs.”
“Good luck,” said Salzman. “Don’t disappoint me.”
“Actually, you’re somewhere near the bottom of the top hundred things I’m worried about right now.”
“Call me the moment you’re clear.”
&nbs
p; “You just make sure you take care of Giselle and Bayliss.”
“They’re doing fine. Just bring me the box.”
“And I’ll get you a Kewpie doll for your collection.”
Salzman turned off the phone and put it back in his pocket. He sipped his martini and thought about the things he’d do to Coop if he failed. No jail for that boy. There were more interesting and surgical things he could arrange for a fuckup that big.
Salzman looked around the bar, hating the other mooks, but himself most of all. Everything he’d done and everything he wanted was in the hands of a jackass, a civilian, and a paranoid ghost. Or, to be more accurate, a jackass, a jackass civilian, and a jackass paranoid ghost. If he weren’t already dead, he’d be worried. As it was, what he felt wasn’t dread, but more a dire fear of sameness. That tomorrow would be no different from today. He couldn’t even get drunk. His physiology wouldn’t let him. Maybe he’d go out and kill somebody. That was always fun. A random stranger. Maybe at a highway rest stop. Toss the body in a Dumpster. Blow off a little steam and get back to the office in time for Coop’s report. He checked his watch and got up. He’d have to get going if he wanted to beat the traffic.
At Týden Divu, Babylon was looking a little more drunk and restless than Giselle liked. Time to move, she thought.
“So, Mr. Babylon. How much money are we actually talking about for the box?”
“One hundred million,” he said without missing a beat.
Bayliss sat back in her seat. Giselle gave her a light rap on the foot with her shoe.
“Considering everything you’ve told us about it, that sounds like a reasonable price,” she said. “But, unless you’re ready to accept a personal check, it will take us a day or so to put together that much cash.”
He smiled. “As lovely as you ladies are, yes, I’m strictly a cash man. When can you get your finances together?”
“How’s Friday?” said Bayliss.
Babylon gazed at his disgusting drink like he was trying to channel Jesus, not to turn his water to wine, but his Roy Rogers to gin. “That’s reasonable,” he said. “Let’s say ten o’clock in the evening at the Bonaventure Hotel? I have a room on perpetual reserve.”
“Perfect,” said Giselle. “Now, I noticed you eyeing the gaming tables earlier. Fancy a game of something? Our treat, of course.”
“Do you play roulette?” he said.
“No. Maybe you could teach us.”
“I’d be delighted.”
“I’ll settle up our drinks and meet you over there,” said Bayliss.
When Babylon was on his feet, Giselle offered him her arm. He took it and they headed for the roulette wheel. She prayed that Coop was already on the move. Even with all the risks, she was a little jealous of him. He got to play Indiana Jones while the DOPS had her on a budget. If Babylon sucked at roulette, she might have to dip into discretionary funds, and the paperwork on that was murder. Better to be digging through Laurel Canyon’s sewers with a ghost in your head than worrying about this particular kind of crap.
THIRTY
THE ROAD CREW DIGGING UP THE STREET A HUNDRED yards from Babylon’s hilltop mansion was making a hell of a mess. At least the locals thought so. What with all the bulldozers, backhoes, dump trucks, and things with claws that no one had ever seen before but people were sure that, like the road, had been paid for with their precious tax dollars, the workers should really obey their commands, starting with “Get the hell out of the way.”
The crew had the road down to a single lane, and whoever was directing traffic didn’t seem to know or care what he was doing. Plus the hole they’d dug, you could lose a Hummer, an Escalade, and one of those demented stretch limos made from Mini Coopers down there and no one would ever know. None of the drivers suspected that that was exactly the idea.
Nelson hated this evening with a furious passion. Standing on the road in a stupid orange vest wearing a stupid hard hat, directing stupid people around the stupid goddamn hole the crew had dug for Coop. He was sure the whole thing was a put-up job. That Coop’s plan was either a crooked gambit to escape or part of his conspiracy with Giselle and Bayliss to waste the DOPS’s time, and his in particular.
They’d been working on the road since six, getting the hole into the local sewer system wide enough to hold the Stink Missile. That part at least delighted Nelson. Coop sailing through a tidal wave of shit and hopefully meeting a colorful and agonizingly awful fate at the other end. When traffic let up for a minute, Nelson pulled out his flask and had a drink. That part also delighted Nelson. It was almost time. The hole was wide enough and the flatbed with the Missile was ready to go. Nelson signaled for other DOPS agents disguised as road workers to hold traffic below the crest of the hills in both directions.
“You’re up, hotshot,” said Nelson into his vest mic.
“I just got a pep talk from Salzman. I don’t need another from you.”
“But I’ve got a load of sweet nothings to whisper in your ear.”
“Did I tell you you look great in that vest? Orange is really your color,” said Coop.
One of the men on the flatbed truck made a circular motion in the air and Nelson nodded.
“Get ready to get flushed, genius. Oh yeah, did anyone mention that there’s a bomb on board the Stink Missile? If you’re not back in two hours, chunks of you are going to be flowing to the Pacific with the organic lentils these canyon fruit bats flush down their solid-gold toilets.”
“Nelson, if I can’t finish the job in two hours, I’m tunneling right under your ass and you can join me in shit Valhalla.”
“Keep dreaming, sunshine. They’re getting ready to insert you. That pal of yours know how to run the Stink Missile yet?”
“You ready?” asked Coop.
“Yeah,” Morty’s voice said. “It’s just like driving a big truck. I’ve done it a million times.”
“We’re ready.”
“Strap in, smart-ass,” said Nelson. He signaled to the flatbed, and it began to tilt upward. It took a good thirty seconds to get the bed at a high enough angle that the Stink Missile slid off the back into the canyon sewer system. There wasn’t another vehicle in the world like the Missile. It moved at a staggering two miles an hour and resembled a matte-black stealth lobster with a titanium drill at the front and little pushing feet at the back.
All with three trapped rats in the middle.
Once it settled, Morty hit the power and the Missile ground forward. He bounced off the tunnel walls a few times before he got the hang of the controls, but then they smoothed out and crept along at a steady clip.
“How are we doing, Morty?” said Coop.
“Piece of cake,” he said. “Now that we’re moving, all I need to do is watch the screens. Most of it’s running on GPS autopilot.”
“Where do we start tunneling?”
“Here,” said Morty, pointing to a sewer map. “The pipe narrows as it gets near Babylon’s place. We punch through the sewer wall and dig our way straight through to his basement. Good plan, Coop. Simple as apple pie.”
“Of course, it sounds simple,” said Phil Spectre in their heads. “All plans sound simple at first, then shit hits the fan. Or in this case, us.”
“Hey, Phil,” said Morty. “I didn’t know the ride came with in-flight entertainment.”
“Don’t get him started,” said Coop.
“I’ve got one for you,” said Phil. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” said Morty.
“Stephen Hawking.”
“Stephen Hawking who?”
“Stephen Hawking who, if he was here, would be smart enough to steer us away from those DOPS cocks to somewhere safe and warm.”
Morty looked at Coop. “You’re right. He’s a riot.”
“You heard the man, Phil,” said Coop. “We’ve got a bomb on board. We can’t run very far underground in two hours.”
“Are you happy with yourself right now? Proud of your life choices?” said Phi
l. “You know what they call this thing we’re in?”
“Nelson said Stink Missile,” said Morty.
“That’s the nice name. It’s usually Turd in a Tube. The Brown Bullet. Mocha Express. I can go on if you like.”
“No, thanks,” said Morty.
“Ignore him,” said Coop. “He probably made up most of those himself.”
“Supersonic Suppository. The Flying Nun.”
“Okay. You definitely made up that last one,” said Morty.
“But it’s a good one. Admit it.”
“It’s all right. I might have gone with Roto-Rooter Rocket.”
“Not too awful. You’re more fun at this than Coop.”
“Pipe down, both of you,” said Coop. “How much farther to go?”
Morty looked at the GPS. “We’ll be at the cutoff point in another minute. You might want to strap yourself in. We’ll be digging through rock soon. It might get a little rough.”
Morty was right about most of those things.
The Missile turned on its own when the GPS indicated that it had reached the end of the usable tunnel. From its front end, the Missile extended a plasma cutter and activated its massive drill bit to begin cutting through the pipe and into the earth. When they’d made a large enough hole in the sewer pipe wall, insectlike scooping arms extended from the Missile’s front end, moving away the dirt the drill loosened. The Missile shook, gyrated, and shuddered. It was like riding a carousel made of jackhammers. For the first time in his life, Coop wondered if Phil was right and they should be tunneling away from here.
“This is nice. I’m glad you brought me along, Coop,” said Phil. “Anyone fancy a sing-along?”
Morty looked at Coop. “Is he serious?”
Coop nodded. “It’s what he does when he gets nervous, but he’d never admit it in front of you.”
“Like hell I won’t. Of course, I’m nervous,” said Phil. “I’m as stuck down here as you meat sticks. If you both die, without somewhere to jump to, I get to haunt this tuna can for the next few centuries. How does that sound to you? Scaring earthworms and prairie dogs? That is not what I aspire to. I’m a professional.”
“How did you end up with the DOPS?” said Coop, hoping to distract Phil.