SANDMAN SLIM

After all the rumpus-room fun, the office is kind of a letdown. It could be the office of a bank president or a Beverly Hills real-estate tycoon. There are lots of awards on bookshelves. Lots of celebrities smiling down from the walls. Some of their eyes are so glazed it looks like you could go ice skating on them. Over where Vidocq is working on the safe is an oak desk the size of a Porsche and probably more expensive.

"How's it going over there?" I ask.

Vidocq is rattling little bottles together as he pulls potions from the pockets of his tux.

"It's as I thought," he says. "The safe is ordinary, but it's protected by a number of protective spells."

"Want me to help? I'm good at breaking things."

"Be quiet. I have to understand exactly what's at work here and eliminate the spells one by one and in the proper order."

I'm already bored and annoyed by Avila. It's not that I have anything against bad behavior. I'm all for it. But this incestuous, backslapping, heavy-money-party cabal scene is everything I hate about L.A. in particular and human beings in general.

Those pricks down the hall, flying high above it all on this hillside, they're the kind of people whose faces end up on money or a new library so that kids will have a new place to hang out while realizing that no one ever taught them how to read. Their wealth doesn't insulate them from the world. It creates it. Their bank statements read like Genesis. Let there be light and let a thousand investment banks bloom. They shit cancer, and when they belch in a bowl valley like L.A., the air turns so thick and poisonous that you can cut it up like bread and serve it for lunch at McDonald's. A Suicide Sandwich Happy Meal.

There must be a hundred of them just ten steps away. I wonder how many I could kill before the cops got here.

Vidocq is mumbling over his vials and potions across the room. I drop down into the desk chair and look through the pile of envelopes in front of me. Aside from a few charity begging letters, suck-up notes from politicians, and more bullshit awards, the rest is just bills and ads. What do you know? Even the gods get junk mail.

I toss the pile back on the desk and pick up a photo in a silver frame. From TV, I recognize one guy as the current mayor of L.A. and the other as a guy who was almost elected president. There's a woman standing to one side and the governor is handing her yet another award. All three beam from the picture, showing their teeth. A pack of happy wolves.

Something fun must have just happened at the party because the crowd suddenly got loud and then died down again. I bet I could take out everyone in that room and be gone before anyone figured out what's happening.

A little switch clicks in my brain. I pick up the framed photo and show it to Vidocq.

"Recognize anyone here?"

He shoots me a look.

"What? Oui. Politicians. Fuck them. Let me do my job."

"Not them. The woman."

He looks again. Then gets more interested.

"I know her. Is that your friend Jayne-Anne?"

"Yeah. This must be her place. She was always a crazy social climber. Avila is her gift for standing by Mason."

"It's a very funny coincidence that we're here."

"Isn't it just?" I get up and walk around the desk.

"Where are you going?"

"To kill someone."

Vidocq comes over to me and grabs my arm hard. Two hundred years of work has given him a strong grip.

"Don't you dare. Be a man! Hold your temper and do the job you agreed to do. You know where she is now and you can come back for her another time."

"You're right. Sorry. I just lost it there for a minute."

"Stay there and make sure no one comes in."

"Got it."

The second Vidocq turns his back, I'm out the door.

A few minutes ago I was feeling like an idiot in the tux, but now I'm glad Muninn insisted that Vidocq and I tart up like a couple of players. No one looks at me twice as I plow like an icebreaker through the crowd, just another horny drunk, bumping his way through the human waste, running down his rightful share of first-class drugs and free pussy.

I didn't have much of a temper before I went Downtown. Maybe I never needed it up here. The first time I felt it was a few weeks after I got tossed into the arena. I kept winning fights. Barely, but I won. This surprised me as much as it did the crowd. Azazel was my owner by then, but he didn't pay much attention to me. My novelty had worn off and waiting for me to get beaten to death was the only amusement I had left to offer. Every time I didn't die it seemed to piss off the handlers Azazel had sent to keep an eye on me.

They always walked me out of the arena in chains, on my wrists, ankles, and neck. It was a joke. I could have just killed some poison-spitting sphinx thing, but I was the wild man-beast that had to be leashed. Hellion humor. Big laughs every time the chains went on.