Carlos doesn’t miss a beat.
“Now, why would a nice lady like you be looking for a bad man like that?”
It’s so obvious even Carlos, the most unmagic über-civilian of all time, can see it. The woman isn’t Sub Rosa. She’s around fifty-five, but picked up a beauty allurement potion so she can tell people she’s thirty. She dressed up to come here. She’s wearing an expensive Hillary Clinton pantsuit, but it’s a little off. The symmetry isn’t quite right, but not in a way most civilians could see. It’s probably from an outlet mall and it’s brand-new.
“He’s not Sandman Slim?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Carlos points to one of the bar stools. The woman sits.
“Would you like some coffee?”
She has dark, pretty gray eyes. Her pupils are pinpoints. This bar isn’t where she wants to be.
I push the tamales and rice away. After Ziggy’s anger, being jolted by her fear has ruined my appetite. I half turn and do a quick scan of the faces in the room. It’s ninety-nine percent Sub Rosa, with a few civilian hangers-on and groupies. If she found me here, she must have asked questions in places she wouldn’t normally go. And when she finally heard about Bamboo House of Dolls, people would have told her what happens to strangers who come here to bug me. But she did it anyway.>Carlos is a big part of the reason Bamboo House of Dolls is still standing. He didn’t even blink when the crusty half of L.A.’s magic underground dropped in to get shit-faced. If Jesus was a bartender, He would still only be half as cool as Carlos. With all his newfound lucre, all the man has done to the place is get some new bar stools, a better sound system, and cleaned up the bathrooms so they’re a little less like a Calcutta bus station. It’s good to have one thing that hasn’t changed much. We need a few anchors in our lives to keep us from floating away into the void. Like Mr. Muninn said the one time he came in, “Quid salvum est si Roma perit?” What is safe if Rome perishes?
“Swamp Fire” by Martin Denny is playing on the jukebox. Carlos comes over with a cup of black coffee.
“You didn’t have to get dressed up just for me,” he says.
“Like the look? It’s from the Calvin Klein Book of Revelations line.”
“The crispy black arm is nice even if it is shedding dead skin all over my floor, but that burned-up jacket is un pedazo de basura.”
“Time to let it go?”
“One of you needs to be buried and my Dumpster has a lovely lakeside view of the alley. Give it to me and I’ll get rid of it.”
I push the charred pile of leather across the bar.
“Do me a favor and pour some salt and bleach on it when you put it out.”
“Is that a magic thing or a cop thing?”
“Both. Bleach for DNA. Salt for any leftover hoodoo someone can use in a hex.”
He nods and puts the jacket under the bar.
“I’m guessing since you haven’t even looked at that coffee that you want a drink.”
“Some of the red stuff.”
“You sure?”
“Does the pope live in a nice house?”
“At least have some food, too. I just pulled some pork tamales out of the steamer.”
“Maybe that and some rice?”
“You got it.”
“City of Veils” by Les Baxter comes on. Crazy trumpets and drums at the beginning, then it slides into old-fashioned strings and Hollywood exotica. I half expect to see Errol Flynn dressed like a pirate in a corner booth trying to get a hand job from Lana Turner. After some of the red stuff, maybe I will.
I haven’t heard that Alice song again since the night it came blaring out of the jukebox, like nails being hammered into my ears. I had Carlos check and the song wasn’t even on the machine. He had the company bring him a new box, just so I wouldn’t sit at the bar getting twitchy, waiting for it to come up again.
Later I knew that the song had never been on the machine. It was one of Mason’s hexes. He wanted to watch me go crazy. If he’d pumped me full of LSD and locked me in a spinning mirrored room full of rats, he couldn’t have done any better.