Surprise, surprise. I get Kinski’s voice mail.
“Goddamn it, doc. Where are you? I’m bleeding to death and all I’ve got here is Lucifer, a stapler, and a couple of cocktail napkins. You said to get help from Allegra, but she doesn’t know how to handle stuff like this. Please call me back.”
I go back and drop down onto the couch.
“Did you have a nice chat?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I have a general idea, but he’s a powerful fellow. Angels are very good at not being seen or heard when they don’t want to be.”
“Then what use are you?”
“None. We angels have outlived our time. We’re superfluous. But I thought you already knew that.”
“The pyx is gone. It’s back in the limo. So much for my bonus.”
I pick up my drink. Something reflects off the glass and for a second I see Alice’s face. I turn quickly and the pain in my side is blinding. There’s no one there.
Why can’t I forget anything like regular people? Is it because I’m a nephilim that my brain hasn’t dissolved by now? I’ve swallowed an ocean of the red stuff and Jack Daniel’s, but I still remember everything. Every woman looks like Alice and every cigarette smells like my skin burning down below.
Memories are bullets. Some whiz by and only spook you. Others tear you open and leave you in pieces. Someday the right one will catch you in between the eyes and you’ll never see it coming. There’ll just be a flash of a face or a smell or her touch. Then bang, you’re gone. The only rational thing to do is kill memory. Get it before it gets you. One more drink should do it. It hasn’t worked before, but what the hell, maybe I’ll get lucky this time. I finish the Aqua Regia.
“I don’t want you to worry, James. I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of. I know with the way your mind works, that must sound sinister, but you’re just going to have to live with it.”
“You’re only worried ’cause I owe you money.”
He ignores this and points to my stomach.
“You’re still leaking. You need to keep pressure on the wound.”
“I’m not made of rubber. I’ve got the front, but I can’t reach the hole in back.”
He gets up and comes around the table.
“Turn around so I can see your back.”
I slide around and feel him press one of the throw pillows against the wound.
“I’m bloody and drunk and a strange man is holding a pillow over me. It’s like summer camp all over again.”
“You did a good job tonight. You saw the attack coming before I did. I hope you know how embarrassing that is for me.”
“It’ll be our little secret.”
“A century ago, I wouldn’t have missed it.”
“A century ago, they’d have been coming by steamboat and horse-drawn buggies. Helen Keller wouldn’t have missed it.”
Someone steps through the clock with a leather satchel in his hand. It’s an old man in a wrinkled shirt and a severe case of bed hair.
Lucifer barks at the old man.
“You took your time, you old fool.”