“How would you know, retard?”
“Whatever you say, Charlie Brown.”
“I am not Charlie Brown.”
“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, Chuck.”
“Did I ever tell you I thought I saw an angel when I was a kid?”
“What happened?”
“I’d left my bike on the lawn again and the old man yelled at me to move it. I went outside and there was a woman staring at me from across the street. Really intensely. She had dark skin and bright green eyes. For a second I thought that I’d died in my sleep and she was there to take me to Heaven, but she just shook her head, turned, and walked away.”
“Why did she do that?”
“I think she knew what I was and was there to tell me that no matter what I do, Heaven isn’t interested.”
Alice shakes her head.
“What a morbid little bastard. Your poor mother.”
“Mom was worse than me. She saw angels everywhere. She looked for them like other women in the neighborhood looked for two-for-one sales at the booze warehouse by the freeway.”
“Charlie’s Angels.”
“Forget it. Charlie’s Angels is three people and none of them are Charlie.”
“I was going to say your girlfriend Mason is Charlie Manson, but that’s too good for him. He’s Charlie Douche-bag.”
“That’s exactly who he is.”
She kisses me. I can taste the cigarette and her lips and tongue.
“When you thought you saw Mason the other night, it wasn’t him. But he’s still looking for you. You should find him first.”
“Am I really talking to you?”
“I doubt it. Not with the whole being-dead thing and all.”
“Yeah.”
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell you real things.”
“Like what?”
“That something bad is coming.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something really bad.”
“She’s right.”
Brigitte is sitting in the doorway of the bedroom on one of Carlos’s bar stools and cleaning her gun with one of my old T-shirts.
“Something bad is coming,” she says.
“What do you mean?”