Angel checked her.45 and walked toward the building. “Do what you want, Jack. Just remember that you’ve been on television all week long. Anyone with an IQ above plant life is bound to recognize your face, even an idiot who makes porno movies for a living.”
Jack pulled on the stocking. Man oh man, he could hardly breathe-
Angel angled toward the door, peeking through a window, her gun raised.
Jack adjusted the stocking, smiling as he filled his lungs with nylon-filtered air.
Calvin Klein’s Obsession.
Angel Gemignani. She was something.
When it came to perfume, she had really nice taste.
As the sun settled low in the sky, Eden finished peeling the tattoo from Tony Katt’s shoulder The heavyweight champion of the world was unconscious, his body a study in sunburned flesh and spilled blood. So too were the heavens, violent shades of red staining the horizon the color of a dark bloody smear.
Eden entered the chapel. Daddy lay on the altar. Oh, but his expression was so peaceful. She brushed flies from his wounds and straightened his arms. She opened his hands and pressed them together at waist level, palms facing upward, gnarled fingers slightly bent.
Two hands. Daddy’s right hand. The Devil’s left hand. And now they were one. A callused cup that lay open and waiting on Daddy’s belly.
Eden laid the tattoo in Daddy’s palm. An odd-looking man, staring at her from a patch of singed flesh. And those words below his face:
Yes. These words were indeed true. Eden recognized that. For she was much stronger now.
But not nearly as strong as she wanted to be.
Eden opened the old spell book. It was written in the last century by Estrellita Dolores Refugio Cavendish, a blind witch of some notoriety who had spent her last days in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
She had Harold’s thumb. It would do.
Eden had a lock of Tura’s hair, fragrant with coconut shampoo. She’d bought the green pear at a grocery store on her way to kidnap Tony Katt.
Daddy’s shelves were jammed with elixirs and nostrums and potions of every description. Magical ingredients gathered from the four corners of the earth stood next to prosaic products such as Ban Roll-On, Del Monte Prunes, and Poligrip. A wide assortment of prescription drugs filled one shelf. Daddy had stolen these from sacrifice victims, hijacked truckers, and other unfortunates who had crossed his path over the years.
Eden ignored the drugs. Impatiently, she sorted through jars and phials and cruets until she found the magical ingredients she wanted.
Baboon fat and hyena tongue. Daddy had them both, two small jars jammed in a small wooden casket bearing African stamps.
Eden sliced the pear into small bits and laid it on the face of Friedrich Nietzsche. She added her sister’s hair, powdered hyena tongue, and baboon fat. Gripping Harold’s thumb tightly, she mixed the ingredients in Daddy’s weatherbeaten palms.
Eden glanced at the yellowed page. One last time, just to be sure.
She was sure. Tonight, true strength would be hers. Satan’s strength would protect her forevermore. No one would ever hurt her again.
She closed the book and left the chapel, but she took the witch’s words with her.
The place was a warehouse filled with sets for porno movies. B amp; D stuff. . a trapeze. . lots of couches with peculiar stains. Jack didn’t
The guy was holed up in a little office the size of a broom closet. He wore black Armani slacks and a shiny Lurex shirt, the kind you could use to wrap leftovers if you ran out of plastic wrap.
He didn’t even look up when Jack and Angel entered the room. “No more auditions today, Sheri,” he said. “Tell ’em I’m too tired.”
Jack said, “I think Sheri went home early.”
Angel nodded. “She looked kind of tired herself”
The guy looked up and saw their guns.
“Oh, Jesus. Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
Jack tossed the
The guy stared at the box. “I made this one last year. The girls have moved since then. They’re sisters. I know that much.”
Angel laughed. “You’re telling us that you don’t know where they went?”
“Yeah. . that’s what I’m saying. Jesus, they were a weird bunch. It wasn’t like I was going to send them Christmas cards or anything.”
“Weird how?” Jack asked.
“Every which way. The two older sisters were gun nuts. Real
Jack laughed, and so did Angel. She said, “Do you believe this?”
“Not hardly,” Jack said.
The guy threw up his hands. “It’s true! I swear to God! Every word!”
“I don’t know.” Angel looked at Jack. He hardly recognized her with that stocking pulled over her head. Her features were all mashed up. She kind of looked like Ellen Barkin.
Angel said, “I guess we’re wasting our time. You want to go?”
“No.” Jack shook his head. “We’d better kill him first.”
“You want to do it?” Angel asked.
“No. I killed the last one.”
“No, you didn’t,” Angel insisted. “You killed a Komodo dragon. That doesn’t count. I killed the redhead.”
They looked at the guy. He was all thawed out under that plastic-wrap shirt, sweating like he’d just stepped out of a microwave.
Angel pointed her gun at the guy’s head. Jack aimed for the heart.
The guy nearly sprang out of his chair. “They live out in the fucking desert, okay? I’ve never been there, okay?”
“Never?” Jack cocked his Colt Python. “You sure about that?”
“Okay!” The guy sputtered. “Okay! I took Eden’s boyfriend some money one time. His name is Harold Ticks. I met him at this highway off-ramp. I got there early. He drove down this dirt road. He said that Eden and her sisters lived on some kind of ranch or something about forty miles out. Maybe fifty. But he didn’t invite me for a fucking visit. . Okay? I’ll draw you a fucking map if you want.”
Jack turned to Angel. “What do you think, partner?”
She smiled. “A map would be good.”
The sun was down, and the woman was gone.
And Tony Katt was conscious again. The doped-up feeling was almost gone. He had sweated it out or bled it
