feel a fuck of a lot better. Everything feels better. We’ll see how good it feels in a couple days, if I’m still alive and haven’t scored. I toss the empty into the biohazard bag and close up.
In the can I give my face a good splash, wash away the last bits of scab clinging to the inside of my mouth. Some of Vandewater’s blood is on my shoulder. I towel it off. I see the hole she ripped in the collar of my jacket. I stick my finger in it. Gonna take a pro to make that look OK again. I put the jacket back on. I toss all of Shades’ sun-gear in the trash and dig out my own, tired of the stink of someone else’s sweat in my pores.
I slam one of the beers and put the rest in my normal fridge, the one with actual food in it, or stuff with mold growing on it, anyway. I grab my picks and I stick a couple extra packs of smokes in my pockets. Wishful thinking on my part, hoping I might actually get to smoke all of them. I leave.
The Count’s place is where I left it. I could lurk outside, wait ’til someone goes in and slip in behind them. But lurking and the sun don’t go together. Instead, I go next door to the El Iglesia de Dios.
Churches don’t bother me. Some guys, they do. Some make a big show of it, avoiding places like this, part of the scene they think. Some are genuinely freaked out. Those are the ones that are sure we’re all cursed. They may not say it out loud, but they think it. Most of those kind, they don’t last. Who can last walking around thinking their immortal soul has been consecrated to damnation? Except the folks who think that way and really dig it. Those ones are out there, too. They bug me. Who’m I fooling? They give me the willies. But churches don’t bother me one way or another. Just four walls and a roof. And maybe a big wooden cross with a guy nailed to it. Nothing I haven’t seen before.
I go into the church. There’s a couple old ladies in there, kneeling, heads bowed on folded hands. Could be praying. Could be junkies on the nod. Churches are good for that also. I walk past them, right up the aisle and through the door behind the altar. There’s a corridor. At one end an office door, at the other a stairwell. I take the stairs.
I run into a guy in a coverall. He’s carrying a toolbox. He gives me and my ski mask and sunglasses a look.
I point up the stairs.
– All done?
He looks blank for a second then nods, hooks his thumb back up the way he came.
– Yeah, yeah, all set. Where’s the?
– In his office. He’ll have your check.
– Oh. Really? OK. Thanks.
We edge around each other and I keep climbing, going past a couple landings and whatever he may have been repairing in here. The door at the top is padlocked. I don’t bother with the picks here, just grab the lock and give it a good yank and the screws holding the hasp fast to the door frame tear loose. I push the door open. Jesus, it’s bright out there. I go out on the roof and close the door behind me.
There’s a gap of about six feet between me and the fire escape next door. I jump it. I don’t need a running start. I come down on the escape, making a lot of noise, and have clambered up the iron ladder to the roof before anyone can peek out their windows.
No shade at all. I scoot around on the verdigrised copper sheeting. I find a window that looks in on darkness. I break it and go in. It’s some kind of hut, a storage and service unit of some kind. Cobwebs and boxes and gardening tools, of all things. But no door into the building.
I sit in the darkness and smoke. I drop the spent butt and stomp on it. My foot lands on a trapdoor. Fuck, Joe, take a better look around next time. It’s one of those spring-loaded jobs. I give it a push. No luck. It’s locked on the other side. I stomp on it. Something gives. I stomp again. Something rips loose and the trap swings down and a ladder unfolds and bangs into the floor. Subtle. I go down. Just a tiny landing at the top of the stairs. One door. No one looks out of it to see what the noise is about. Lucky them. I fold the ladder and close the trap and go down a couple floors.
The Count’s door is locked. Well, no shit. I take out the picks. They’re good locks. It’s an expensive building, they should be good locks. But I’m up for the game. Fresh pint just down the hatch, I can feel and hear every pin as I tease them into alignment. I pop the first. I pop the second. I draw my gun and go inside.
They’re all on the nod, heaped half naked or more in Poncho’s door-walled room. If they hadn’t been high when they crashed, they would have woken up the second I came through the door. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe when you live like this, with people, lovers, maybe when you have a Clan to watch over you, you sleep easier. Maybe I’m the only one whose eyes snap open five or six times a day, when a car with an odd sounding engine drives past or a rat rustles the garbage out front or a kid laughs on the sidewalk. Maybe that’s it. Maybe my life sucks just a little more than everybody else’s. But I doubt it. I think all our lives suck about the same amount. Just in different ways. I look at The Count, Poncho’s legs wrapped around his, Pigtails and PJs jumbled next to them.
This guy, I’m about to make his life suck in all kinds of brand new ways.
I nudge the sole of his foot with the toe of my boot. He stirs, they all stir, but only his eyes open.
– Wha? Hunh?
– Morning.
– Whan? Joe?
– Yep.
– Hey. What’s up, man?
– You.
He cracks a tired smile.
– Not really, man.
I show him the gun.
– Count. Get up or I’m gonna start shooting your girls.
Poncho’s eyes fly open at that.
I level the piece at her face.
– Stay there.
She stays there. The Count gets up. He’s wearing blue and white briefs and a girl’s T-shirt that rides too high on his skinny belly, Buffy silkscreened on the front.
I point at the girls, all of them stirring now.
– Tell them to stay put.
He runs a hand through his tangled hair.
– Yeah, no problem.
He looks at them.
– Chill, ladies. This is cool. Just a misunderstanding. Nobody lose it. Me and Joe are gonna figure this out.
He looks at me.
– Right, man?
– Sure.
I let him lead the way over to the kitchen. Behind us, the girls press their eyes against the cracks between the doors that screen Poncho’s room.
The Count points at a coffeemaker.
– You want some?
– No.
– Cool if I make some?
– No.
– OK. OK. So what’s the deal?
He leans his skinny butt against the counter, arms folded, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
– This a jack? You after my stash?
I point at his shirt.
– That supposed to be funny?
He looks down at the picture of the vampire slayer on his chest, shrugs.
