The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

– Cool it. He's right.

He pulled Gabe back to his side.

– Deal with this later.

Dingbang bounced higher.

– 'Bout that? Fuck with the best, get fucked in the ass like the rest.

Po Sin raised his voice over the flames.

– Shut up, Dingbang.

– Bang! Bang!

Morton raised the ax handle over his head.

– You are done, Chinaman. You and your nigger. Gonna squeeze you right out of business.

Dingbang pumped a fist.

– Right out of business! -Motherfucker!

Po Sin started toward them.

– You're a disgrace, Dingbang! -Bang!

– A wart. Your dad is a jailbird, but at least he has half a brain. At least he never let himself get used against his own family by some whiteass motherfucker.

He pointed at Morton.

– Fuck this midget. I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna take the stain off my family. If I got dead ancestors watching, they are gonna be laughing their asses off tonight. I'm gonna improve the gene pool, Dingbang.

– Bangbangbang! -Motherfuckermotherfuckermotherfucker!

He charged, Morton and Dingbang reeling back from him as his shadow fell over them.

Then he stopped, a monster in silhouette against the fire, and his hand came up and he grabbed his left shoulder.

– Oh. Motherfucker.

And he was falling.

Gabe got there first. Then me. Then Dingbang. The Pathfinder squealed away.

Dingbang kneeled and cried.

– Uncle. Uncleuncleuncle.

Sirens on National Boulevard.

EPILOGUE

The ghetto birds are buzzing over Hollywood.

I look up from under the hood and watch two of them as they cut diagonals against the grid of streets below. I set the socket wrench on the fender and walk down to the foot of the driveway and shade my eyes.

One of the LAPD copters freezes. The other tilts slightly into the wind and zips west. Sirens break out on Highland. Glancing down the street, I can see two squad cars run the light several blocks away. I take my new cell from my pocket and make sure it's on. More sirens on Sunset. I look up to where the first copter hovers. Not too far away, no more than a mile. I think about walking over, take out my wallet and look inside and find I have no cards. Crap. I walk back up the driveway. If it's something I should know about, I'll get a call. Deputy Mercer will give me a ring and give the victims a referral. Right now the starter is more important than drumming up business.

I get my head back under the hood and pull the last plug and wipe it clean. I squat and find the gapper in Chev's toolbox and fit the proper hoop of steel into the plug's spark gap. Too wide. Like the others. I press the top of the plug against the pavement, closing the gap, and check it again. The gapper passes in and out of the gap with a slight tug. I rise and replace the plug.

The tone of the helicopter's chop shifts, and I look up again and watch it through a screen of ficus branches as it wheels and heads east toward K-town or Rampart or Boil Heights or Skid Row, where it no doubt has more pressing business than sitting watch on a Hollywood crime scene in the middle of the day.

I mark its path, trace it back to where it had hovered.

There's a ninety-nine-cent store over there. I could take a look. Stop at the store and pick up the stuff we'll need tonight.

I bend and start picking up tools, making a mental shopping list as I go.

Scotch-Brite pads.

Wire brushes.

Paint scrapers.

Large sponges.

And those little nylon scrubbies.

Those are great, the ones that are like little wads of netting. Great for cracks and corners, perfect for snagging bits of skull and brain. Perfect for a shotgun job.

Next day I take the Datsun over the Hollywood Hills.

Just got it running and it's still a little balky, the way only a thirty-six-year-old 510 can be, but I'm not getting on any more fucking buses. Getting better is one thing, but there's a limit to how much healing I'm interested in doing. I was willing to deal with it. Too much to be done to wait for a ride all the time. But it was a white-knuckle job. Sweats. Nausea. Passed out once. That was charming. Passing out on public transportation is like begging the LAPD to give you all kinds of crap.

But riding the bus, I did start to see certain things.

Like the fact that I'm never going to be well. I'm never going to get over it. That there are things you don't get over. And why should you want to? I don't want to. Ride the bus enough, it might make me numb, but it won't make me better.

I don't want to be numb.

I drive up the Canyon, past the turnoff for L.L.'s place. Once every couple weeks over there is plenty. Place is clean enough now. Well, not clean, but not a death trap. As if L.L. gives a damn.

By all means, Web, whatever form of therapy you wish to indulge in, feel free. Yes, yes, certainly, come to your father's house and take away all traces of individuality. Do what you must to abnegate his personality and create a new reality where that man no longer exists. I can't wait to see how you fare with this effort, sweet child. By the way, I had a call from the dear bitch. She seemed to think I wasn't at my best. I wonder where she may have gotten that idea. Asked if I'd like some pies. Suggested I should perhaps drink a little less. All of this accompanied by the gurgle of a hookah. I don't suppose, no, I must be wrong, but I don't suppose you had anything to do with that, you little fucker?

My mistake.

I hadn't meant to tell Mom anything about L.L., but she'd been lucid enough one evening to ask what I was up to, and kept asking more questions, and I kept answering. It took me a half hour to realize it was a hit of X that was making her so avid. I never expected her to remember enough of the conversation to act on it.

She actually did send him a couple pies though.

He refused to eat them.

She'll have baked them full of hash. Or arsenic. In either case I don't care for the effects. Hand me that bottle, Web.

I took them home to Chev. He liked them. So did Dot. That's still going on. God knows why.

North of the Canyon, I hop on the Ventura going east and jump off in Burbank and drive to the far end of Flower and park in front of a long low house with a waist-high stucco wall closing off a yard that's half lawn and half patio.

I get out of the car and walk over and swing my legs over the wall and start across the grass.

Xing looks up from her dolls.

– You have to use the gate and walk on the -path. -I'm in a hurry, Xing.

She stands up and plants her fists on her hips and opens her mouth and emits a sustained shriek that just