I step on the kick-starter and the bike fires up on the first try.
First question. Where’s Candy? No way she’s at the Beat Hotel anymore. What’s the second choice? L.A. is a lot to take in when it’s not on fire. I can’t get used to seeing the sky. I need to get my bearings and screw my head on straight.
I’m starting to feel just a little conspicuous on this Hellion hog, with a headlight that could blind the space shuttle, no driver’s license, license plate, title, or insurance. Not that I ever had any of those things. But now I don’t have them and I’m on an illegally imported foreign motorcycle. Back on Earth thirty seconds and I’m already a felon. Welcome home, shithead. I’ll stick to the side streets for now.
I cross Hollywood Boulevard and pull the bike into the alley next to Maximum Overdrive video, the store where I lived with Kasabian. Kasabian used to be dead. I know because I cut off his head. It’s where I’ve been staying since I got back from Hell the first time, which makes it the closest thing I’ve had to a home in eleven years.
A man and a woman walk by holding hands as I turn into the alley. It looks like they’ve been picnicking by a coal-mine fire. Their hands and faces—every exposed patch of skin—is smeared with gritty dirt, but their clothes are clean and pressed. I’ve never see two dirtier clean people in my life. They catch me looking at them and cross to the other side of the street.
The alley by Max Overdrive is a snowdrift of junk. The Dumpster overflows with plastic trash bags and food cartons. There are enough broken bottles that the alley looks like a salt plain. I don’t think the garbage has been picked up in weeks. I steer the bike and park in the Dumpster’s shadow.
In the old days I’d use the Key to the Room of Thirteen Doors to walk into the store through a shadow but Saint James has that. I take the duffel off the bike, get out the black blade, and slip the tip into the door lock. One turn and it clicks open.
Inside, the place stinks of paint. The floors and display stands are covered with plastic drop cloths, but there’s a fine layer of dust on them. No one’s done any work in a long time.
There’s a light on upstairs in the room I used to share with Kasabian. I go up the stairs quietly, knife out and ready. At the top I push open the door with the toe of my boot. It opens on a messy bedroom. There’s a wooden desk where Kasabian used to keep his bootleg video setup. Now there’s a computer surrounded by monitors. I push the door open more. Something is in the room with its back to me. A heavy mechanical body with a human head. It picks up a bag from Donut Universe in its mouth and heads for the desk on all fours like a dog. When it sees me, the head opens its mouth and drops the bag. It raises a paw and points at me.
“Don’t say a goddamn word.”
The last time I saw him, Kasabian was still just a chattering head without a body. Now he’s something more, but I don’t know if it’s an improvement.
I come inside and drop the duffel. My armor is sticking out from under my shirt. Kasabian nods at it.
“Did the Wizard give you a heart, Tin Man?”
“Funny. Careful you don’t pop a rivet, Old Yeller.”
His face is like the couple in the street. Smeared with something dark and coarse, like black sand. He trots to the desk on all
