st hope it’s enough. I’m sure we’ve missed a few things. I hope not so many that anyone is going to notice. I might have to kill them.
I change and go back downstairs, my na’at, knife, and Colt under my coat.
“I’m going to Bamboo House. Want to get a drink?”
Kasabian shakes his head, carefully putting discs in clear plastic cases with the tips of his mechanical fingers.
“Nah. I’m waiting for Maria. She’s coming by with a new delivery.”
“Anything good?”
He looks up and shakes his head.
“Don’t know. She said it’s a western.”
“Fingers crossed it brings some goddamn customers into this tomb.”
“Patience, grasshopper. This new deal with Maria is our stairway to Heaven.”
“It better be. There won’t be room for you, me, and Candy in a refrigerator box if this place closes.”
“Chihiro,” he says.
“Fuck. Chihiro.”
“Later, Mr. Wizard,” he says.
“Yeah. Later.”
Outside, I wonder if I can scrape GODKILLER off the windows with the black blade instead of spending money on paint remover.
A week ago I saved the whole goddamn universe from extinction and now I can’t afford the hardware store. I need to have a serious talk with my life coach.
I LIGHT A Malediction, the number one cigarette Downtown, and walk the few blocks to Bamboo House of Dolls, the best punk tiki bar in L.A. People are hanging around outside, talking and smoking. I get a few “Happy New Years” on the way in. I give the crowd a nod, not in the mood for chitchat.
Carlos, the owner of the place, is behind the bar in a Hawaiian shirt covered in snowmen and wreaths. The little plastic hula girls by the liquor bottles on the wall still wear doll-size Santa hats. There’s a lot of this going on in L.A. I feel it a little myself. Hanging on to the last few shreds of holiday spirit after a flood-soaked, apocalyptic Christmas.
What did I get under the tree? A fugitive girlfriend. An LAPD beatdown. A last dirty trick from Mason Faim. And one more thing: I lost the Room of Thirteen Doors. It’s not gone, but I can’t use it anymore to move through shadows. Now I’m just like all these other slobs. I have to walk or drive everywhere. That’s not such a bad thing considering L.A. is still half ghost town, but what happens when it fills up again? I don’t deal well with things like traffic and other people.
Inside Bamboo House, I head straight for the bar. Martin Denny is on the jukebox playing “Exotic Night,” a kind of gamelan and piano version of “Greensleeves,” like we’re on some mutant holly jolly tropical island.
“Feliz Navidad,” says Carlos.
“Same to you, man.”
I look around the place. It’s a nice crowd. A mix of civilians, Lurkers, and even a few brave tourists.
“What do you think? How long do you figure you can get away with the Father Christmas thing?”
Carlos adjusts a piece of holly on a coconut carved like a monkey’s head.
“As long as I want. My bar. My rules. Maybe I’ll do it all year-round. Crank up the a/c. Rent customers scarves and gloves. It’ll be the holidays twenty-four/seven.”
“I think you shouldn’t put so much acid in your eggnog.”
He raises his eyebrows and points at me.
“That could be the house drink. ‘El Santo Loco.’ ”