of killing me. Just when my novelty was wearing off, I was interesting again.
“I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
Carlos shakes his head.
“You weren’t strong enough to kill him.”
“How would you know that?”
“Because you told me. We’ve had this conversation about fifty times before.”
“Really?”
“Maybe you should stick with coffee or maybe a beer. You don’t need the red stuff.”
He reaches for my glass and I slide it away from him.
“Yeah, I really do.”
“You couldn’t have beaten him. He was too strong. You knew it, so you did what you could.”
“Yeah, but sometimes it’s not about winning and losing. It’s about doing the right thing. I didn’t do the right thing. I shouldn’t have walked away. Lucifer was right. By leaving Mason in Hell I gave the prick exactly what he wanted.”
“You’re alive and you’re walking around. Long as you can say that, doing the right thing remains an option. Just keep your head down until you figure out the right time and place.”
“Thanks, Carlos. You’re the best dad a boy could ask for. Will you adopt me?”
“I thought I already did.”
Carlos looks past my shoulder and shakes his head. I don’t have to look. I can feel them. Behind me are college girls with pens and paper. They want to stand too close and ask for my autograph in breathy voices. If I’m dumb enough to sign, as dumb as I used to be, I’ll be able to buy my autograph off eBay in an hour. I sip my drink and dig into the tamales with my fork. Pretend I don’t notice as Carlos waves them off.
The real problem with college girls is that they usually have college boys with them.
A second later someone is leaning on the bar to my right.
“You’re the superhero who can do the portaling trick, aren’t you? Let’s see it.”
He looks like Ziggy Stardust on a GQ cover. NASA engineers built his three-piece pinstripe suit. It’s a work of art.
“Are you talking to me?”
“They say you can shadow-walk. I want to see.”
He looks at me with a combination of arrogance and boredom. You never know what a guy like this is going to do. He has one hand in his pocket. What he’s holding could be anything from a joint to a water pistol to a box cutter.
“Sorry. I don’t speak French. Or is it Chinese? I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“You think you’re hot shit because you have a cartoon nickname and the Golden Vigil watching your back? Do you even know who I am? Do you know who my father is?”
“Maybe what you need is an asshole-to-English phrase book. I hear they have some fine bookstores in Kansas. You should start walking.”
“My family owns this place. This city. L.A. to the Valley and out to the desert.”
Carlos gives me a look and I give him one right back. He stays put, but starts cutting up limes so he has an excuse to hold a knife.
“People listen to me when I talk.”
“I guess the rich really are different. Most of us come from monkeys, but you’re giving off a whiff of rattlesnake.”
Ziggy has a friend with him. Not quite as handsome. His suit isn’t quite as nice. He’s trying to maintain his cool in front of the girls, but he’s about sixty seconds from running.
The friend says, “Please just do the trick, man, and we’ll get out of your hair.”
“I just killed five people. I’ll show you that trick if you like.”
I go back to my drink and the tamales. Ziggy is about to make another strafing run, not knowing that when he opens his mouth, I’m going to stick my fork into his eye and make him dance like a marionette. But the girls get on either side of him and pull him to the door.
As they go out, I hear one of the girls say, “Daddy would say that man looks like a sheep-killing dog.”
When they’re gone, Carlos curses quietly, so fast I can’t tell if it’s English, Spanish, or Urdu.
“I hate that shit.”
He wipes off the spot where Ziggy was leaning.
“No, you don’t. You encourage it. Look at you. You walk in here with that burned-up arm and dried blood all over a monster movie T-shirt and you don’t want to be noticed? Normal people bet on football or collect stamps to pass the time. Your hobby is telling people to fuck off, but you can’t do that unless they notice you in the first place.”
“You understand how being a bartender works, right? I complain and you bring me drinks and sympathy. Don’t start trying to get reasonable with me.”
“You like these little fights because you don’t have any real ones right now, is all I’m saying.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for Armageddon.”
“Don’t sweat it. I think your star is beginning to fade. New people keep coming in, but a lot of old ones have disappeared.”
“If I take up knitting, think the rest will go away?”
“Louie Toadvine is one of them, which is funny because I owe him money.”
Carlos pours himself a glass of seltzer and drops in some of the lime wedges he was cutting.
“Your friend Candy was in here last night.”
I dig into the tamales.
“Good for her.”
I haven’t seen or spoken to Candy more than three times since we saved a bunch of about-to-be-sacrificed angels on New Year’s. We killed a lot of people that night, but none who didn’t deserve it.
“She’s a pretty girl.”
“Is she? I don’t entirely remember.”
Since then I’d only seen her a couple of times with Vidocq and once when I got Doc Kinski to drain the venom from my arm after a Naga purse snatcher went king cobra on me. Kinski is the medical man for a lot of Sub Rosa and Lurkers. Most people think being a doctor is a big deal, but Kinski used to be an archangel, so for him, being a doctor is sort of like flipping burgers at McDonald’s after you were president.
“Candy’s nice. Asked about business. How is it dealing with the Sub Rosa? When am I ever going to get some new tunes on the jukebox?”
“What do I care
