The Dirty Streets of Heaven

hard for her to find out-lots of folks knew about the pig man and his grudge against Hell. Still, it was a matter of principle. Yes, I do have a few. “What’s the big deal?”

“Because, you pillock, I told you already that I gave the…thing to Grasswax. To hide. He owed me and I knew things about him, things he didn’t want known by the powers above him. But somehow I didn’t hear he was in debt to Prince Sitri. The slimy little bastard!”

“Sitri or Grasswax?”

“Grasswax! He must have been more afraid of Sitri than he was of me.” She got up and began to pace. “What’s Sitri’s interest in all this?”

I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of me enjoyed watching her walk back and forth in front of me. She had kicked off the slippers she’d donned to pick me up, and watching her pale calves, ankles, and feet was mesmerizing. Distracting, too.

“Hang on, I don’t get any of this.” I looked at something else for a moment to regather my thoughts. “You must have taken a big risk stealing something from Eligor. Why would you give it to a weasel like Grasswax?”

“Because I was being followed, and I had to get rid of it! Because the…the thing…”

“You can go ahead and call it ‘the feather’ now.”

This last shot had been fired somewhat offhandedly, just to see the effect, which was pretty impressive: Her eyes widened in what I almost could have sworn was helpless fear. “How did you find out?”

Since I didn’t want to get Edie Parmenter in trouble I only said, “A little bird told me-but that’s not the issue. I know all about it.” Which was one of the least truthful things I’d said all day. I still had no idea what a golden feather might be and why Eligor or anyone else should be so worked up about it, but just then I wanted her to think I knew more than I did. “I need to know everything else. Come on, Countess, help me fill in the details. You were being followed. You had this incredibly valuable thing-so you gave it to Grasswax? A lying, treacherous bastard who’s not only a demon from Hell to begin with but also a lawyer? Why would you do that?”

“Why? Because I thought I had a hold over him. I promised that if he’d keep it safe, I’d destroy some evidence I had on him.”

“Why did you have something on him? What was it?”

She was clearly getting frustrated with me. “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you understand, you idiot? Where I come from, everybody has something on everybody. That’s how we survive. Everyone spies on everyone and cheats on everyone, and everyone makes deals. That’s how we climb up out of the mud and the shit and the molten lava and make a little freedom, create a little life for ourselves….”

“Like here in San Judas,” I said. “Where you’ve created this pretty little pied-a-terre for yourself.”

“This place?” She looked around with scorn on her face. “One of a dozen. I used to have houses all over the place. Not just in California, either.”

“So what happened?”

She looked at me like I was not just an idiot but the intentional kind, although there was also something strange beneath it, a simmering anger I hadn’t seen before. “You haven’t figured it out yet? Some gumshoe you are, Dollar.”

“I’m not a gumshoe, I keep telling you that. That’s your fantasy. I’m just a guy trying to do his job and stay alive. Right now, staying alive is my job. Yeah, I think I know what happened. Because it isn’t just blackmail that can buy freedom is it? It’s also doing favors-all kinds of favors- for the right people. Important people, like Kenneth Vald, otherwise known as Grand Duke Eligor. Your sugar- daddy.”

She tossed her head and her white-blonde hair fanned and then fell straight again. “You can put it that way if it makes you feel good. I’m sure you wouldn’t believe I actually fell for him.”

“Yeah, you’re right-I wouldn’t. But I’m a big boy, so I understand. He’s powerful. He’s very powerful. Rich as Bill Gates but probably a lot more interesting, what with the eternal damnation and the sixty legions in Hell and all that. Yeah, I can definitely understand why a tough, smart little cookie like you set your sights on someone like that. What I don’t understand is why you decided to steal from him. That’s just asking for trouble. And why a golden feather?”

She stopped pacing then and stared at me with such cold fury that I swear I could feel myself crystallizing from the cellular level out. “Stole from him. Oh, yeah, I decided that instead of staying the contented mistress of one of the most powerful creatures on this whole green earth, I’d just rip him off. That’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from a nasty little thing like me, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” I said. “But I do want answers.”

She turned away from me then and walked to the antique desk, yanked out the drawer and began rummaging in it. “I should have known,” she said, but in a low voice that sounded strangled and odd. “I should have known. Should. Have. Known.”

“Look, spare me the Snake Pit act, or Lady Macbeth, or whatever you’re doing here,” I said, walking up behind her. “I don’t care why any of it happened, and I’m certainly not judging you. If I’d been condemned to Hell I don’t think I’d be worrying a lot about what I did afterward either. But I still need to know what you did and why, since I seem to be on the hook for it with your boyfriend.” I put my hand on her shoulder, but even through the robe the chill of her skin was startling enough to make me pull back, and that was what saved me. She whirled. The huge, curved knife in her hand hissed past my jugular, nicking me despite my reflexive lunge backward. The weapon was one of those long Gurkha blades called a kukri, and little Casimira clearly knew how to use it.

I reached up to my throat just in case I had underestimated the damage and was bleeding to death, but when I took my hand away there was only a thin smear of blood. “What the hell…?”

“You bastard,” she said in the strained voice of someone talking to herself. “Not judging me, are you?” She took another backhand swipe, this time at my belly, and I jumped away just in time, but as soon as I landed she was on me again. I grabbed at her arm but she slipped under it. She actually got the point of her knife against my gut but a kukri is much better for slashing than stabbing and I managed to spin away to the side, suffering nothing worse than another shallow cut. Still, I was already in bad shape from my multiple run- ins with the ghallu, and I knew this was not just a squabble with an unhappy female-the Countess was as strong as I was, a lot angrier, and she was the one holding the sharp object.

“Stop now,” I said. “I’m not kidding!” I was looking around for something to defend myself with, but in this Turkish boudoir of an apartment I couldn’t find anything more useful than a chair, so I promptly grabbed one and held it before me. It occurred to me that if I’d also had a whip I might have a chance of taming this tigress, but I didn’t feel I could do much with a heavy piece of furniture except what I was doing-clumsily trying to keep her at bay.

She came after me again, low and with her hands wide, starting with a feint at my face. When I lifted the chair to block her she kicked out and got me in the shin hard enough to make me lose my balance and stumble sideways. She was right on top of me as I fought to regain my footing but I hammered her small pale foot with the leg of the chair, then as she hissed and took her weight off it, I managed to keep the chair from overbalancing me long enough to sweep her other leg out from under her. As she tumbled to the floor I very briefly considered hitting her with the heavy piece of furniture, but even though she’d just tried to slit my gorge, I sensed there was something strange going on: She fought like someone defending herself, even though she was the one who’d attacked me. Her eyes were distant, too, even desperate, full of what a more poetic angel might call resigned horror. Not the emotions you expect from a veteran hell-beast doing her best to exsanguinate you.

As the Countess hit the floor I leaped on top of her, paying close attention to the long-bladed kukri that for the moment was under her. As she rolled away and slashed at my face with it, catching my cheek and ear, I managed to grab hold of her knife-arm and carry it past me. I slammed it against the floor and promptly threw my body on top of it, pinning her wrist so that she couldn’t reach me to slash me-at least not with her knife. She managed to give me a good scratching with her other hand, then half an instant later, she somehow pulled her legs up and threw them around my neck. Despite the slenderness of those smooth white pins, within seconds she managed to cut off most of the blood trying to get to my brain. Things were going black, and everything that was Bobby Dollar began to disappear down a tunnel into roaring depths. I wasn’t entirely certain what was going on with the Countess and her crazy attack, but I had a strong feeling that if I passed out I