"You just told me that the decapitated head of your dead boss was talking to you tonight. What do you call that?"
"How do you know so much about that stuff?"
"I do magic. Not Vegas magic. The real stuff."
"You're like a witch or a wizard or something?"
"Harry Potter's a wizard. I do magic. I'm a magician."
"This is a really strange night."
"Wait. It gets better. Kasabian's a magician, too. So is Parker. He's the guy I'm pretty sure attacked you tonight."
She sits up and looks at me hard. "Do something. Show me some magic."
"What do you want to see? What will convince you?"
"Blow my mind. Make that table float in the air."
"I'm not a floater. I used to be able to do the cute stuff, but most of the magic I'm good at now isn't furniture-friendly."
"So, what can you do?"
I think for a minute and pull Azazel's knife from my jacket. Allegra's pupils dilate a fraction of a millimeter. I'm getting used to seeing these things.
"Here. It's for you." I hold the knife out to her, hilt first. She takes it tentatively, holding it with both hands like it weighs fifty pounds.
"What am I supposed to do with this?"
I go over to her walking on my knees, like a kid. Staying lower than the eye level of an opponent often has a calming effect on them. Maybe it will work on a nervous friend.
When I'm at the foot of the beanbag chair, I hold up my left hand and say, "Try to stab me."
She cocks her head to the side like she's trying to figure out if her cat suddenly started speaking French. "No, I don't think I'm going to do that."
"It's okay. Don't hold back. I know you're pissed at me. Let me have it."
She just stares down at the knife in her hands. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the knee walk made me look too silly to stab. There's a way to fix that.
I lean right into her face and scream, "Stab me, dammit!" as loud as I can. She lunges. And jabs the knife all the way through my left hand.
"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!" she says, covering her mouth with her hands.
What most people don't understand about being hard to kill is that just because getting shot or stabbed or set on fire doesn't kill you, it doesn't mean that you don't feel it. When someone shoves a big knife through my hand, it feels like anybody else's hand getting stabbed. This is a nice way of saying that when Allegra pigsticks me with the bone blade, I want to scream like a little French girl and roll around on my back demanding a thousand cc of Jack Daniel's, stat. But I don't do any of that. I calmly pull the knife out of my hand. I wipe the blood off on my pants leg. I don't want to piss her off more by bleeding on her carpet.>"That's what I figured."
Kinski flicks the remains of his cigarette out into the dark lot and looks at his watch. "Your young lady is probably back on her feet by now."
"What do I owe you?"
Kinski shakes his head. "We'll settle up when you let me take out those bullets. And listen: Candy gets kind of pissy when unexpected calls come late at night. Her people get twitchy after dark. But she gets over it. You have any problems, you need anything and Eugene can't help, you call me."
"You don't even know me. Why would you do that?"
"I was young and reckless and stupid once, too. Maybe between Eugene and me, we can keep you alive long enough to wise up."
"What did you do that was so reckless and stupid?"
"I'll tell you that when you let me get those bullets."