Kill City Blues: A Sandman Slim Novel (14 page)

A minute later someone comes in. It’s almost funny. I recognize him immediately. It’s Trevor Moseley, but Moseley with a good fifty more years on him. Norris Quay.

He’s slightly stooped and walks with a cane. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt, cream-colored slacks, and soft black slippers. This wouldn’t be interesting except that everything in this place screams Grecian formality and here’s Grandpa ready for an afternoon of checkers and pudding at the old folks’ home.

“Ronald, you look like death,” Norris says to the Banker. “Go see my doctor.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ronald says, clutching his bleeding hand. He still has it together enough to give me a nod before leaving.

Besides Quay, the only people in the room are two bodyguards. Massive, steroid-stinking sons of bitches. They wait in opposite corners of the room, not moving or speaking. They look rooted to each spot, like statues of Titans. But I bet they can move pretty fast when provoked.

I say, “So, how many of you are there?”

Quay hobbles to a deep blue-and-gold velvet sofa and takes his time lowering his bones onto the cushions, in no rush at all to answer me.

“You mean my simulacra? Generally no more than two or three at a time on each continent. Except Antarctica, of course. I don’t collect penguins.”

He smiles. The lines on his face remind me of the splitting roads in Pandemonium after an earthquake.

I shake my head.

“You’ve got your numbers wrong. I met three of you in just the past few days. One with Declan Garrett and two more with Atticus Rose.”

“Yes. Atticus always keeps a few extras around for when one has an accident.”

“The ones in Rose’s workshop both had accidents. I burned them.”

Quay purses his lips.

“What a waste. Never mind. I’ll have Atticus run off a few more.”

“You know where he is?”

“I know where everyone is.”

Quay crosses his long legs and picks some lint off his trousers.

“What’s the story with your clone called Trevor Moseley? He runs through every religion there is and ends up hanging out with Angra Om Ya nutcases?”

“My little Trevors, Fredericks, Pauls, Williams, and the others have insinuated themselves in various groups around the world. Groups that possess or might come to possess things I want.”

I knew it.

“You want the 8 Ball.”

“The Qomrama. Yes. Trevor was going to buy it from them or, if need be, take it. Then he . . . that is, I found that they didn’t have it. In fact, like me they were looking for it, and all signs pointed to you having it.”

“But I don’t.”

“Much to my dismay.”

Quay makes an exaggerated sad face.

“Were you doing business with Declan Garrett? You should be more careful. He tried to blow you up.”

Quay waves a dismissive hand.

“I would never do business with Declan. He’s a crook. Anyway, I knew he didn’t have it.”

“How?”

“Because he offered it to me at a good price. He would never have done that if he’d had it.”

Quay leans on the cane and the arm of the sofa and slowly pushes himself to his feet. I almost want to help the old creep, but I have a feeling if I moved an inch, I’d have a bunch of cracked vertebrae courtesy of the two meat mountains in the corners.

Quay makes it over to his desk. There’s a bottle of brown booze on the far end.

“Have a drink with me, Stark.”

“I’m not thirsty.”

“I don’t care if you’re thirsty. We’re going to do business and business is done over drinks.”

“You don’t have any Aqua Regia, do you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Then Jack Daniel’s.”

He laughs.

“Of course that’s what you drink.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s what you drank as a young man, but because of your unique circumstance, you never had the chance to grow out of it.”

“I guess you could call Hell a unique circumstance. But like everything, it gets boring. I mean you can only be terrified for so long, right?”

He pours himself a drink in a heavy crystal tumbler.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m never scared. My obscene wealth insulates me from that kind of thing.”

“Is that why I’ve never heard of you?”

He sips his drink.

“Some people use their money to get on the
Forbes
list of richest people. Others use it to stay off.”

“It must be fun having options like that.”

“It is,” and he gives me a smile that makes him look twenty years younger. “Get Mr. Stark his Jack Daniel’s.”

One of the Titans steps away from the wall and leaves the room.

I say, “Do you know what the 8 Ball is?”

“I don’t care what its function is. It’s an ancient object of great beauty and that’s all I care about. I have the largest collection of so-called death and apocalyptic religious artifacts in the world. This isn’t just morbid curiosity. It’s a public service since changing government alliances and rival religious sects would have destroyed many of these objects. From time to time I’ve even opened my collection to museums and academics. Perhaps your friend Father Traven would like to have a look around? I’m sure he’d find my collection interesting. He’d have to sign a nondisclosure agreement, of course.”

“It’s a weapon.”

Quay swirls the liquor in the glass.

“And it’s magic, and to you Sub Rosa anything magic is beyond us mere mortals to comprehend. Well, son, I’ve seen magic. Hell, I live in magic and I’m just not that impressed.”

I get tired of standing and sit down on the sofa. I wanted to see what this much money looked like, but now I’m annoyed by the mansion and Quay’s absolute certainty in his bulletproof life.

“But you can see how I might be reluctant to sell a weapon to a stranger.”

He sets down his drink and thinks.

“Just because a collector buys, say, an antique Gatling gun, does that mean he intends to rob a bank? Of course not. He admires the object for itself.”

“And yet.”

“You said you didn’t have it.”

“It means if I do, it’s not for sale.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry not to get paid the fortune you were going to offer me, but there we are.”

“I’m starting to think that perhaps you do have it.”

I lean forward.

“By the way, what you said about not being afraid? It’s bullshit. I can read people. You’re lousy with fear. You’re like Hitler in his bunker just waiting for the commies to storm Berlin and kill him dead. And all those Trevors or whatever you call them, you didn’t make them just to collect death art for fun. You’re looking for a way out. You don’t want to die.”

He leans back in his chair.

“What man isn’t looking for a way out from death? However, I assure you I’m not going to die. But the art is nothing more than appreciation for the forms. A bit morbid to most people, I suppose, but we can’t deny our true natures, can we, Sandman Slim?”

His heart and breathing don’t change. He’s a really good liar if he’s telling the truth. He really thinks he has death beat and he’s just a compulsive collector. I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Is it worse to want the 8 Ball because you think it has the magic to make you immortal or because you want to put it on a shelf with your bowling trophies?

“Let me say it one more time and for the record. I don’t have the Qomrama.”

Quay sighs. Picks up a pen and doodles on a pad for a few seconds.

“I’m afraid I believe you. Were you another sort of man, I’d have Sean over there in the corner hurt you or hurt one of your friends until I was entirely convinced.”

“Lucky for you you have an open mind. You touch my friends and I’ll kill you.”

“Naturally. As I was saying, I know it’s pointless to threaten you, and anyway, I don’t want us to be enemies. Do you know who has the Qomrama?”

“I know who had it.”

“That’s better than nothing. Let’s leave things like this. If and when you recover the object, promise me you won’t sell it to anybody else and we can part on amiable terms.”

“I don’t want to sell it to anyone.”

“Excellent. We can work from there.”

“Stay away from my friends.”

Quay stands, but faster this time. He’s excited to be just a little closer to the 8 Ball.

“If you do your best to find the device, I’ll do my best to remain patient. We’re done now. I’ll have someone drive you home.”

“You know where I live?”

“At the Chateau Marmont, of course. Lovely place. I fucked many a charming starlet there back in my prime.”

“Thanks for sharing. The driver can drop me off where I got picked up.”

“If that’s what you want.”

A flunky comes in with my drink and a piece of paper. He hands it to Quay, who scans it.

“Just set the drink down, Jeffery. Mr. Stark is leaving.”

Quay stares at the paper for a few more seconds. I don’t like it.

Finally he says, “You’re probably wondering who that was shooting at you a few minutes ago.”

“You have your cars monitored?”

He raises his eyes to mine.

“Naturally. How else would I have the license plate of the car that shot at you? The car was allegedly stolen from a used-car lot near LAX.”

“Allegedly?”

“Before that, it was a rental car in the City Runaway fleet. City Runaway is owned by a small company in San Francisco which itself is owned by a much larger transportation conglomerate in Zurich, mostly investing in air and sea transport companies.”

“Thanks. I’ll call my broker.”

“A principal shareholder in their sea freight division is Nasrudin Hodja.”

Oh, shit.

“The Cold Case kingpin?”

The way Quay laughs I know that it is. He folds the piece of paper and hands it back to the flunky who brought it.

“A bit of trivia that might interest you is that Zurich is also the birthplace of our own illustrious Saragossa Blackburn, though he likes to play down his international origins.”

“Is he part of the company too?”

“Not that I know of.”

“And you would know if he was.”

“Oh yes. Good-bye, Mr. Stark.”

I’m walking out with one of Quay’s Titans when he says, “Of course, there are things that get by even me. Even I don’t know everyone Saragossa knows.”

I turn around.

“Now you’re just fucking with me.”

Quay smiles.

“Have a nice evening at the Chateau. If you haven’t tried the duck, do. It’s to die for.”

The Titan drives me back to Bamboo House of Dolls in a Mercedes SUV. He turns a classical station on the radio loud so he has an excuse not to talk to me. I go inside the bar and get very drunk. A Lyph in a Hollywood Walk of Fame T-shirt asks for an autograph. I’m too tired to refuse.

So Nasrudin Hodja wants me dead. Get in line, pal. But was Quay telling the truth about the car? He strikes me as a guy who’s always playing six angles at once. He could just as easily be trying to provoke me into killing Hodja. I wonder if that’s what Blackburn was doing when he sent me to Brendan Garrett. I think I get the money clip now. The symbol on the clip. It’s not the Golden Vigil. It was Aelita’s personal spin on the design. The design she made all of Blackburn’s bodyguards wear when she worked for him. That means Brendan Garrett probably worked for Blackburn at some point. He would have sent some of his people over to clean Brendan’s clock, but then big dumb me walks in and practically begs him to send me. He probably figured that Brendan would pull a gun and I’d have to kill him. He read Brendan’s tea leaves and saw that he was going to die and wanted to speed it along. I can understand him wanting me to do his dirty work for him, but did he know about the bomb in the case? Was he so pissed that I turned him down that he hoped to get rid of two disloyal assholes at one time? If he did I’m in trouble. If he didn’t it’s good news for me. It means that since I’m part angel, he can’t read my future, at least not clearly. That might come in handy sometime.

A
ND HERE
I
was under the impression we had a truce.

That’s what I think when I come out of Donut Universe with a bagful of greasy death. My last trip to the Universe was interrupted by gunfire. This one is topped off by vampires waiting for me in the parking lot.

I guess the lesson tonight is to never trust a bloodsucker. Still, it’s disappointing. We’ve stayed out of one another’s way for months, and now suddenly we’re in
West Side Story
. I set the donuts in the bed of a pickup truck and consider my options, which doesn’t take long. I’m surrounded. It’s all of them against me, and nowhere to run. Fight or die. And here I was thinking that no one could shovel more bullshit into a day like this.

There’s four of them. Two male and two female. They form a loose circle around me and walk in a slow spiral, tightening the circle with each step. Trying to psych me out. It might work too if two of the bloodsuckers weren’t so nervous. An older woman and a boy with acne scars. It’s obvious they’re new to the vampire game. They probably tagged along to get some street experience.

One of them moves with predatory calm. He’s the leader. He has a young face, with his hair frizzed out in a white-boy ’fro. He’s wearing a red military jacket with shiny satin pants and pointy boots. The kid’s got a serious Jimi Hendrix complex. One of the women is decked in expensive custom-tailored Goth gear. The older woman and the acne kid are strictly thrift store. Note to self: the Goth girl has sharp steel tips on the toes of her boots.

I’m waiting for the gang to make a move and they’re waiting for me. Weird. They should be all over me by now. I’m not going to give them any satisfaction by throwing the first punch. As long as the donuts are safe, I can take my time.

The older woman comes at me first, hands up like claws, hissing like she’s watched too many late-night monster movies. I sidestep and kick her in the ass as she goes by, sending her sprawling into a Prius. The alarm goes off, which is really annoying because it covers up the sound of feet coming up behind me.

Goth girl comes at me next. Like I thought, she’s more experienced than the kid and the other woman. Her nails are sharpened, so she does the claw thing too, but comes at me low and fast, aiming for my gut. Trying to disembowel me like a cat. When I move to block her, she tags me in the thigh with one of her pointy boots. It hurts like a son of a bitch. I think she drew blood. Dumb of me to let her do it.