TEN MINUTES LATER I’m talking to Carlos at Bamboo House of Dolls. Tak Shindo’s “Bali Hai” is on the jukebox.
“On a scale of one to ten, how evil do I come off? Let’s say one is Santa baking cookies for orphans and ten is Hitler eating babies with Freddy Krueger.”
“You’re sure not Santa. But I don’t see you dipping babies in ranch dressing. To me how evil you are depends entirely on how much blood you track on my floors.”
“You don’t think I’m trying to trick you into becoming a serial killer or working for the IRS or something else horrible?”
“No. You just need to remember to wipe your feet sometime between when you kill things and when you come in here.”
“That’s good to hear. I trust you because you’re a businessman and I know you wouldn’t want Hannibal Lecter hanging around your bar.”
“What do I care? ’Cause of the business you bring in, I’m going to be able to retire early. If you have to eat a few people to make that happen, I’ll turn my back.”
“You’re a saint. You’re Mother Teresa with a happy hour.”
“I just call ’em like I see ’em. You might be crazy, but you’re just not that evil, bro.”
“Thanks. I just wanted a second opinion.”
“Want something to eat?”
“Maybe just some black beans and rice. And I’m going to need a burrito to go. Spicy enough to melt an engine block. It’s for a friend, not me, so I’ll give you cash for that.”
Carlos shakes his head.
“Don’t be stupid. You want some of the red stuff?”
“A double. I’m drinking for two today. My scars and me.”
Carlos brings the bottle and a glass and pours me two healthy shots. I take out the apothecary bottle and look through the amber glass.
“What’s that stuff?”
“Medicine.”
“You sick?”
“Not for long.”
I upend the bottle and pour the whole thing into the Aqua Regia.
“L’Chaim,” says Carlos.
“De nada.”
I knock it back in one gulp. My mouth, throat, and stomach are very unhappy about that. I squeeze my lips together to make sure I keep it all down.
“That good?”
“Worse. It’s like a dog with cancer ate a rat with leprosy and shit it down my throat.”
“I had one of those in El Paso once. You’re supposed to chase it with goat piss, but I’m fresh out.”
“Next time.”
“That old lady is back.”
“Which old lady?”
“The one with the missing kid.”
“Aki.”
“Yeah, that’s him. She’s over with Titus. I hope he’s not stealing all of that lady’s money.”
“He always leaves them enough to cover his drinks.”
“Seriously, I don’t like people messing with old ladies. Mi madre had cancer and gave all her Social Security money to a faith healer.”
“What happened?”
“He gave her a homeopathic cure and she felt better. Of course, the homeopathic cure was just sweet wine with ginger and some low-grade morphine. When she ran out of money, the cure stopped coming. She went back to the regular doctor, but by then the cancer was everywhere. Let me tell you, having cancer sucks, but being broke and having cancer is the shittiest fate that can land on a human being.”
“I’m sorry, man. You want me to go over and have a word with Titus?”
“Don’t sweat it. I’m just talking out loud. I’ve got my eye on him.”
“Titus might string things out a little, but he’s good at what he does. If the ring is real and the kid’s here, he’ll find him.”
“He better get his bloodhounds barking if he wants to keep drinking here.”
Carlos goes off to serve other customers. I can see a few of them staring at me in the mirror behind the bar. It’s a good crowd tonight. No one tries to talk to me.
I drain the dregs of the dog shit cocktail and set down the glass, feeling queasy. The things we do to stay ugly. I check my hands hoping that maybe I’ll be able to see the scars grow back in front of my eyes like Lon Chaney Jr.’s hair in The Wolf Man. Nothing. I can’t live without scars. I bet if I asked nicely, someone around here would tie me to their back bumper and drag me a few blocks. I’m like a marathoner coming off an injury. Only I need to get my wind back by peeling off a few layers of skin. Is that too much to ask? Where are Mason and Aelita when you need them? They’d drag me to Alamogordo and back.
Enemies kill you with a knife in the back. Friends kill you with kindness. Either way you’re dead.
I didn’t need to stomp out on Allegra like that, but I couldn’t just stand there after she opened her mouth. There are things you think and things you say out loud and they’re very different things. You’d think someone like her, six months into hoodoo lessons, would know that. You don’t ever say “The devil is your daddy” out loud. It doesn’t matter if you and everyone else in the room are thinking it. You don’t say the words. Words are weapons. They blast big bloody holes in the world. And words are bricks. Say something out loud and it starts turning solid. Say it out loud enough and it becomes a wall you can’t get through. The last thing I need is a big brick Lucifer in my way.
What kind of kid would want Lucifer for a father? He’d give you the shittiest Christmas presents ever. On the other hand, he’d throw great Halloween parties.
Carlos comes back with the bottle.
“You want another one to wash the taste out of your mouth?”
“Just a half. Thanks.”
A woman says something to the guy on the stool next to mine.
“That pretty redhead in the Gucci blouse? She’s been looking at you the whole time I’ve been here. Why don’t you go and say hello?”
This guy looks around and gets up. The woman slides into his seat.
I know that accent. I turn and look at her.
“Brigitte?”
“I wanted to tell you that you’re not an easy man to find. That I had to scour the back streets of Los Angeles to track you down. The truth is that you’re ridiculously easy to find. All of Simon’s friends know where you drink.”
“But do they know where I get my donuts?”
“I’m not sure I know exactly what those are.”
“Frosting and grease with a little cake in between. Sometimes chocolate on top. Sometimes they put in industrial waste that tastes like cherries or apples. They’re like eating sugar land mines.”
“Ah. You mean koblihy. Yes, I’m fond of them.”
“No. What you ate back home probably resembled food. You’re not in America until you’ve eaten an American donut.”
“Then I’ll have to try one. You’ll take me?”
“If you promise not to tell Ritchie’s friends. I don’t mind if they know about Carlos’s place. It’s more money for him. But a man should be able to enjoy a fritter in peace.”
“It will be our secret. Is that red wine? I’m famished. Do you mind?”
“It’s not wine.”
She sputters and spits it out. Curses in Czech.
“What awful thing is that?”
“Aqua Regia. It’s an acquired taste.”
Carlos appears with a glass of water.
“Drink this or you’re not going to have any taste buds by morning.”
“Brigitte, this is Carlos. Carlos, Brigitte.”
“Nice to meet you, Brigitte. Have we met somewhere?”
“She’s in the movies. Maybe you saw one of them. She goes by the name of Brigitte Bardo.”
“Oh yeah.”
He nods. Half smiles, apparently not sure what to do with his face.
“Sure. Okay.”
Another customer flags him down for a drink.
“I think you made him blush,” I say.
“That’s sweet. I didn’t think California people could blush.”
“They’re an endangered species. The government tags them like condors and pandas.”
“You’re not what I expected. You’re a very silly man, James.”
“I come from a long line of tall-tale talkers. Our family crest is bullets over crossed fingers and underneath it says, ‘Bullshit Über Alles.’”
She takes cigarettes from her purse, but Carlos stops her.
“Sorry. You can’t in here.”
“I’m in a bar full of vampires and witches, but what people are afraid of is my cigarette.”
“Welcome to America, where everyone lives forever and everyone is beautiful if you have the money.”
“Why do you drink that horrible drink?”
“It’s a bad habit I picked up along the way.”
“When you were gone?”
“Gone, yeah.”
“And you still drink it? I’d think you’d want to forget about that place.”
“No. I don’t want to forget anything. Not one second of it.”
“Why?”
“Because someone owes me for it. Every second I was there. Every beating. Every bad habit and every shitty dream. And for Alice.”
“There you are. That’s the man I was looking for. He was hiding in your eyes. A killer’s eyes.”
“What are you doing down here, Brigitte? Shouldn’t Ritchie be buying you France or something?”
“Simon is with Mr. Macheath just now. I don’t expect him back for some time. He says they’re discussing the movie, but I think he’s lying.”
“He’s trying to renegotiate his soul deal? I’d love to hear that conversation.”
“Simon can be very persuasive.”
“That I believe.”
It bugs the hell out of me how beautiful she is. I’ve seen friends go through this. Falling for porn girls can be like mainlining Twinkies. It’s usually more about addiction than nutrition. Both are sweet and oh so irresistible because they can’t help it. Then you get jealous or she gets bored and the sugar rush ends. The crash hits and there you are, depressed, toothless, alone, and with crumbs in your sheets. I don’t need to take Brigitte to Donut Universe. She is Donut Universe.
Or maybe I’m just full of shit, spooked by her ballistic beauty, and looking for an excuse to run away like a kid who’s never figured out how to talk to girls.
“You still haven’t told me why you came down.”
“I wanted to see more of L.A. than the inside of a limousine. And our conversation was cut short at the party. I heard that I missed all the fun when you and Mr. Macheath left.”
“Fun like a bullet hole in my side.”
Her eyes widen.
“Really? Let me see.”
Okay. Maybe I was too harsh. Maybe she’s more than donuts after all.
I stand and pull up my shirt. She gets off the stool and squats on her haunches so she can get a better look at the damage. We’re getting a lot of looks from around the bar and this time I can’t blame them. This crowd probably thinks I get medical exams from porn stars every night. It’s better than them knowing most of my social life is drinking and watching The Killers with a dead man’s head.
“Do you always heal that quickly?”
“Not lately. But I’m hoping that’s fixed.”
“So do I.”
“Do you know anything about the guy they were talking about at the party, Spencer Church?”
“Why do you want to know about him?”
I shrug.
“Because I’ve been drunk and out of touch for a long time and I’ve missed a couple of hundred things. A woman came in here asking me about her missing kid. Then I hear that other people are turning up missing. The truth is, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Spencer Church, but someone tried to make my boss disappear the other night and I got shot for it. If Church did disappear, I want to know who took him or if he did it on his own.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t know him well. I know that some of Simon’s friends bought drugs from him.”
“Did he burn any of them? Take their money and not deliver?”
“Not that I know of.”
“I never heard of a Sub Rosa dope dealer before. I guess they had to be there, but I never thought about it till now.”
Carlos sets down two glasses of brown beer nearby and comes over to us.
“Did I hear you talking about Spencer Church?”
“You know him?”
“Hell yes, I know that prick. He’s an ice-cream man and a bad one. He used to sell his shitty product out of my bar, meaning when people came back to complain, I’m the one that had to hear about it, not him. He is totally, one hundred percent banned from any building I happen to be in.”
“Good policy.”
“Except that that ratfuck concha piece of shit just walked in.”
“Spencer Church is here?”
“A couple of minutes ago. He’s at the end of the bar. You can’t miss him. Skinny blacked-eyed junkie that looks like a scarecrow with a migraine.”
I look at Brigitte.
“I’m going to go talk to this guy.”
“Do you think he will tell you anything?”
“Ritchie isn’t the only one who can be persuasive.”
I push through the crowd to the end of the bar. It’s not hard to spot Church. He’s taking up a lot of real estate. No one wants to get near him. Once upon a time his clothes were nicer than Cabal Ash’s, but he smells worse and he looks like he’s been sleeping under freeway overpasses for a week. Both of his hands are flat on the bar. His nails are long, dirty, and broken. He’s got a thousand-yard stare aimed at the far wall. Between a hundred voices yammering and the jukebox, he doesn’t hear me coming. I motion for Carlos to come get his attention.
I’m right behind Church when Carlos eyeballs him.
“What the hell are you doing here, man? I told you you weren’t welcome here.”
Church doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. He just stares straight ahead. I nod to Carlos to try it again.
“Hey, asshole. You need to get out. Like now. Like five minutes ago. And don’t come back.”
This time Church seems to notice he’s being yelled at. He slowly raises his head, like a Sphinx waking up after a thousand-year nap. He moves his lips and makes a small sound.
“What?” Carlos asks. He moves closer. “What?”
Church growls and half leaps across the bar, grabbing at Carlos with his filthy claws. His mouth is open and he’s craning his neck like he wants to bite him. Carlos is yelling and bracing his arms against the bar. Church makes a gurgling growl. The floor clears as people try to get away from the chaos.
Church snaps black teeth at Carlos’s face, missing it by an inch. I grab the back of Church’s head and smash it down on the bar. I can feel his jaw crack, but it doesn’t even slow him down. He turns and lunges at me. He’s growling and biting the air, only his mouth isn’t working too well anymore. His shattered lower jaw flaps around like a baggie full of oatmeal. His teeth and tongue are black as tar. Someone must have slipped something interesting into his syringe. But even meth won’t rot your mouth that fast. What’s he on?
Church grabs my arms and opens his black pit of a mouth. He’s strong for a skinny guy. Must have pumped out a year’s worth of adrenaline in the last thirty seconds.
Cue my own little panic attack. What if Church only seems strong because I’ve got a Samson hair thing going on and I’m getting weaker as my scars fade?
His teeth snap next to my ear.
One way to find out.
I grab Mr. Oatmeal Jaw’s shoulder, spin, and toss him like a bag of trash. He flies the full length of the bar and smashes into the back wall, leaving an extremely satisfying dent in the plaster. While I’m admiring my work, feeling a warm, giddy sense of relief that I can still do unreasonable amounts of damage to my fellow man, Church rolls onto his side and stands up. He’s holding his body at a funny angle. It looks like his back cracked when he hit the wall. His left arm is badly dislocated. It hangs by his side, as limp as his jaw. If he’s in pain, he doesn’t show it. He teeters, gets his balance, and rushes me.
His head jerks back and then explodes. Not all of it. Just the back. An exit wound.
I spin around to see who fired and there’s Brigitte, up on the bar, kneeling and holding a weird little pistol in a double-hand cop grip. A white wisp of CO2 curls out of the gun barrel.
I’m thinking When the hell did you turn into Emma Peel? but before I can say it, two more hungry-black-mouth scarecrows come stumbling in. Brigitte turns and blasts one before he gets more than three steps inside. The other one lunges for a woman by the jukebox. A blond civilian wearing her girlfriend’s oversize leather jacket. Lucky for her that her girl rides. Scarecrow Guy latches onto her shoulder, but can’t bite through the thick leather. The blonde’s girlfriend pulls her one way while I get an arm around the guy’s throat and pull him the other. It doesn’t help. He’s not choking and he won’t let go of the jacket.
“Break his neck!”
It’s Brigitte.
“Don’t let him scratch her! Snap his neck!”
I slip my arm from around his throat, grab his jaw and the back of his head, and twist sharply. You can hear the crack of vertebrae and his spinal cord snapping over the music. I know this because everyone in the bar groans at exactly the same time. He drops to the ground near the scarecrow Brigitte shot. The crying blonde falls back on her girlfriend, who pulls her away. They bump into a table and a bottle smashes on the floor. The sound is like a starter’s pistol going off. Everyone in the bar decides to go batshit simultaneously and stampede over each other trying to get outside. In less than a minute it’s just Brigitte, Carlos, the corpses, and me. Except for a couple of drunk Deadheads slumped at a corner table in their purple necromancer robes.
The less drunk one shakes his head at us.
“Big deal. The soccer games at necromancer school were rougher than that.”
“We’re closed,” says Carlos.
The Deadheads stagger out while Brigitte and I drag the corpses into the back. Carlos goes to the doors and locks them.
“Can one of you tell me what the goddamn hell just happened?” I ask.
I look at Brigitte.
She says, “Don’t worry. Whatever you think you saw, no one died here tonight.”
“You’re saying Church and the others were already dead?” asks Carlos.
Brigitte nods.
“You’re saying they were a bunch of High Plains Drifters?” I ask.
“High Plains?”
“Zombies.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know Church and his friends were going to be here?”
“I didn’t. I came here looking for you.”
“You go everywhere with that gun?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“It’s part of why I came to Los Angeles. My real work. I kill the dead.”
Carlos is leaning over Church’s body.
“Your friends are starting to leak on my floor. Should I be worried?”
“Is the back door unlocked?”
Carlos nods.
I grab Church and one of the other Drifters by the ankles while Brigitte grabs the third. We drag them into the alley behind the bar. The Dumpster is about half full, but I can make them fit if I push hard enough.
“Don’t bother,” says Brigitte.
“Why?”
Brigitte walks to the next building. Water is leaking from an outdoor spigot. She turns it on harder and washes her hands. I follow her over and put my hands in when she’s done, letting the frigid flow rinse black gunk from my palms. When we’re done, I wipe my hands on my jeans. Brigitte is wearing a red T-shirt with the name of a Czech band, a black miniskirt, and boots.
She gives me a questioning look.
“Go ahead,” I tell her.
She’s not shy. She happily wipes her hands all over my jeans and even kneels down so she can use my cuffs to clean between her fingers. Wish I’d thought of that.
“I take it that you don’t know a lot about revenants?” she asks.
“I’ve never even seen one until last night.”
“Do you know how to kill one?”
“I thought I just did.”
She shakes her head.
“We haven’t killed any of them. Just their brains. The rest of them is still alive and will awaken soon. That’s why it’s pointless to put them in the trash. They will just crawl out. A revenant without a brain can still hold you while others attack and kill. Or bite or scratch you, passing on their disease.”
“Okay. How do you kill it?”
“The nerves are the key. You must completely destroy its nervous system by ripping out its spine.”
I should have stayed home and watched Bedazzled with Kasabian.
“I did that to a Hellion once. It peeled all the skin off my fingers and knuckles, and really hurt.”
Brigitte makes a “why bother teaching a retard to juggle?” face.
“Don’t be stupid. There are tools for it. I don’t have mine with me, but look here.”
She takes a broken slat from an orange crate and draws something on the ground. It’s like a spear, but with a kind of claw and long backward-facing barbs on one end, like a hand with the fingers pointing the wrong way.
“The Hellion weapon you use. A na’at? Can you shape it into something like that?”
“I’ve never tried, but probably. Give me a couple of minutes.”
“Don’t take long. Depending on their injuries, revenants will revive in five to ten minutes.”
She paces back and forth while I rework the na’at. The clicking of her boots echoes down the alley. She isn’t like the woman I was talking to in the bar. More like a tiger waiting to eat an antelope it took down.
“What kind of gun was that?” I ask.
“Compressed CO2, like at an amusement park. Mine is more powerful and fires sharpened silver-coated stainless-steel bolts.”
“Why silver?”
“It’s not necessary for revenants, but the silver allows you to also use them against verdilacs, beast men, and other undesirables.”
“You’ll have to let me try it sometime.”
“After you take me to your donut shop.”
“Are you really here to get into the movies?”
“Of course. I’ve wanted to come to Hollywood for a long time, but I was needed at home. My erotic career was going well. I made money and had ample time to do my family’s real work. Now, though, I’m needed here. It wasn’t hard to get Simon to invite me. I’m going to be in a big-budget Hollywood movie and still have time to do my other work. This is what you call a win-win, yes?”
“You think there’s more Drifters out there?”
“If there are three here, there are many more. How many is the question. We believe the numbers must be dealt with now before things become intolerable.”
“How do you know about all this?”
“My family has done this work for centuries. In the old world and the new. I’m Roma.”
“Gypsies.”
“My grandfather would shoot you for using that word.”
“I’ve been shot for less.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Let me make sure I have this straight. The cavalry just now rode into town and it’s a Czech Gypsy porn-star zombie killer. Have I got that right?”
She crosses her arms and looks at me like if we weren’t on a timetable she’d kick my ass.
“Forgive me. I didn’t think my life would seem so strange to Lucifer’s alcoholic cowboy assassin.”
“I wasn’t criticizing. I’m just trying to get everyone’s résumé straight. Last night you were a pretty girl at a party and tonight you’re Catwoman.”
She shrugs.
“Secrets quickly revealed often seem more profound than they really are.”
“Everything’s profound when there’s guns and zombies.”
She taps her wrist.
“Ticktock, Wild Bill.”
“Done. How does that look?”
I hold out the na’at to her. She takes it and spins it easily, making thrusts, jabbing the air. She drops into a strong forward stance, mimes pushing it through a body and yanking it back out. Whatever else she is, she’s comfortable with weapons.
“Church will revive first. Bring him to me and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
I kick the other two aside and pick up Church. He’s already starting to twitch.
“Lean him against the wall, facing away from us.”
I do it and get behind her.
“Your weapon isn’t perfectly designed yet, but you’ll fix it when I show you a real one. It’s best to go in through the back so you aren’t forced to rip out the rib cage and organs. Thrust the weapon at heart height through the back with an upward motion so you slide between the ribs. Try not to pop it out the front of the body. The blades will expand inside the body and grip the spinal column. Spin the blades to cut away connective tissue and pull sharply using your body weight. Only when the spine is out is the revenant dead.”
Church groans. His body straightens as much as it can, but stays facing the wall. Without its brain it doesn’t occur to it to turn around.
“You can do the next one,” she says.
Brigitte collapses the na’at as small as it will go. Stands at a forty-five-degree angle to Church’s body, resting most of her weight on her back leg, and then swings the na’at over her head. On the third rotation, she snaps the na’at out like she’s throwing a blade. The weapon extends in a second, spearing Church in the back. That wakes him up. He groans and wiggles around like a fish on a line, reaching back with his one good arm to grab at the na’at. Brigitte gives the na’at a sharp snap to the right. Church stiffens. The blades are a Veg-O-Matic in his dead guts. Brigitte crouches and jumps, not an easy thing in her boots. When she comes down she shouts something in Czech and drops her weight back. Church’s back splits open and his spinal column pops out like the handle on a one-armed bandit. This time he goes down and stays down.
“Now you.”
Brigitte retracts the na’at and hands it to me.
The second Drifter is dressed in brown shorts and shirt. Some kind of delivery guy. He’s pulling himself to his feet hand over hand, using the Dumpster like a ladder. His back is to me. When he’s upright, I spin the na’at and toss it.
It goes all the way out his front and one of the barbs hooks on the edge of the Dumpster.
When I pull the na’at, the Dumpster moves, too, and the Drifter has to do a little soft shoe to stay upright.
Brigitte sighs and walks to the Dumpster. The Drifter lunges for her and she calmly spins and catches him with a roundhouse kick to the head. While it’s dazed, she climbs onto the Dumpster’s lid and kicks the na’at free.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t talk. Kill it.”
That might be the sweetest thing a woman’s ever said to me on a first date.
I snap my wrist the way she did, but the barbs are still out the front of the guy’s body. The spinning helps dig through his chest, but I get stuck on his rib cage. I’m pushing and pulling the guy all over the alley, like I’m the worst puppeteer in the universe.
“You’ve shit it all up. There’s no finesse here. Use your strength. Just rip it out.”
I take half a step forward and then snap back, using all my body weight to pull. The Drifter’s back explodes as its rib cage, lungs, heart, and spine spill out onto the alley floor. The stink is worse than a Hellion outhouse.
“Now you know why we try not to do that,” Brigitte says.
“Thanks, Nurse Ratched. Haul up the other one. I’m getting a feel for this.”
Brigitte sets the third one upright. It takes one drunken step toward her. As she steps back, her left boot heel comes down on a chunk of the delivery guy’s liver. Brigitte wobbles for just a second, but it’s just long enough for the Drifter to lunge forward and grab her wrist.
She lays into the guy hard with fists, knees, and elbows, hammering him and twisting her arm to break his grip. A living guy would have let go just from the pain. The problem is that Drifters don’t feel pain and none of her shots are quite hard enough to lay him out because she’s still ice-skating on the guts of the other Drifter.
I swing the na’at and throw. It hits the Drifter square in the back and this time it stays inside. Wrist snap and pull. His spine pops out of his back like a bony jack-in-the-box.
I run over to where Brigitte is leaning on the Dumpster, scraping pieces of lungs, muscle, and who knows what else off her boots.
“I’m really sorry about that.”
“Do you know what these boots cost? Of course you don’t because if you did you’d be shitting yourself.”
“Sorry. I don’t have money, but I can walk into any store in the world and steal you another pair.”
“I’m not worried about the boots. Simon will buy me all the fucking boots I want. I’m worried about what I’ll tell him happened to them.”
“He doesn’t know about your hobby?”
“Simon can be a sweet man, but ninety-nine percent of his IQ is in his cock. I’m his trophy fuck and he can’t conceive of me as anything else.”
“Too bad. He’s missing out.”
Brigitte looks around at the gore-filled alley.
“I’ve seen neater kills, but I’ve also seen worse.”
“I need to call someone about this. I can’t leave a bunch of corpses lying around Carlos’s back door. I know some people, the Golden Vigil. They have all kinds of resources. They can handle this kind of thing.”
“I have people, too. They know how to dispose of revenants. Besides, I don’t much like your Vigil.”
“What do you have against them?”
“They’re the government. They’re police. That’s enough.”
Can’t argue with that. I let her call her people.
I go back into the bar. Carlos is closing up, putting glasses in the washer, dumping ice in the sink, and wiping down the bar top.
“Brigitte is finishing up out back. The bodies will be gone soon.”
“I never thought I’d see anything in here scarier than those skinheads that used to come in, but you always manage to surprise me.”
“Don’t worry. We’re going to check this out and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Está chido. I’d appreciate that.”
“This is probably a bad time to ask, but can I still get a burrito to go?”
Carlos looks at me for a second.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
I go into the men’s room and check myself in the mirror. I don’t look too bad, but there’s more blood spatter than I’d hoped. I slip off my shirt and hang it on a hook on the back of one of the toilet stall doors. I turn on the spigot in one of the sinks and wait for hot water.
A minute later, Brigitte comes in, slapping her cell phone closed.
“My people are on their way.”
“Who are your people?”
“Friends.”
“Roma?”
“Some.”
She goes through the same routine I just did. Looks in the mirror. Doesn’t like what she sees and turns on the water in the other sink.
“Where did you hang your shirt?”
“There’s hooks on the toilet doors.”
She takes off her blouse and comes back to the sink in just her bra and skirt.
I keep my eyes to myself, scrubbing the last drops of dead guy off my arms and face. I should probably do something about my boots, too, but I’d feel kind of stupid shining my shoes next to a half-naked woman. I can wait until I get home.
Brigitte dries her face with a paper towel.
“How do I look?”
“Like thrill-kill Mona Lisa.”
“No, you fool. Look close. Is there any blood? On my neck? My arms? Check my back.”
“You’re fine.”
“Good,” she says, and pushes her hair back with her wet hands.
“Now I’ll do you.”
She turns me into the light and inspects my face.
“You missed a spot.”
“Where?”
“Lean down.”
She uses her thumb to rub something off my cheek. Then my forehead. Her fingers move around and hold the back of my head. Her arms ripple where the muscles work underneath her skin. So different from the pretty girl at the Geistwalds’ party. And the rancid meat we just left in the alley. Her heartbeat and breathing are up. She runs her other hand over my chest.
“I like your scars.”
And just like that, we’re kissing.
My hands move down her back and up her sides. I can barely remember what it’s like to be this close to another body without trying to punch or stab it. Brigitte’s skin is smooth in a way that feels brand-new. Is all skin like this? Have I really forgotten everything about bodies that isn’t about killing them?
I run my hands up Brigitte’s belly to cup her breasts. She reaches back to undo her bra and tosses it on the sink. We catch ourselves in the mirror and how ridiculous we look. Making out in a bathroom. Tracking gore on the floor. Brigitte smiles up at me and pushes me back with surprising strength into the stall where I hung up my shirt.
