The crew cut gives him back the bottle and waves him through, saying, “You want to use that stuff tonight, you take it outside.”
“Of course,” Vidocq says.
Crew Cut has a good time giving Candy and Allegra a thorough going-over. They deal with his bullshit without a word, but it’s obvious they’d like to pull out the guy’s guts with a boathook. I keep my eyes away from his while he gives me the once-over. The fucker reminds me of someone, but I can’t quite place him. On the wall above the door is the White Light Legion sigil. The crew cut isn’t in uniform, but he has the Legion’s tattoo on his right arm. It makes sense. Hold the fights at the Legion’s compound. Let them work security and keep all the cash in-house. They’ll skim from the profits, but letting them handle the muscle work leaves Evermore Creatives to deal with the talent and the public.
It’s stiflingly hot inside. I don’t think the warehouse’s old air-conditioning unit was meant to deal with a crowd this size. We’re on the top floor. There’s a walkway all around that looks down onto a large ring in the center. Down there, close to the ring action, the crowd is really packed in. There are good seats, up front, close to the ring, and cheaper ones behind, separated from each other by a tall barbed-wire fence. Uniformed Legion members patrol the area. They keep the peace just by staring people down.
They’re packed two deep against the guardrails up here. It’s hard to see anything, so we go around the walkway to check if we can get a better view. There’s a bar in the corner where the well-heeled smart set can rub elbows with colorful ruffians and share a glass of watered-down Jack. It’s a real meeting of the minds in here. The UN if it was run by sadistic morons.
I get next to Vidocq and say, “What do you think?”
“I don’t think they’re observing the fire codes,” he says.
“Anything else? Come on. You’ve been around and seen some shit.”
“We had places like this in Paris in the old days. There were dog fights. Men would fight. Even women. I once saw an exhibition where a disreputable sideshow impresario set his charges against one another. Men with no legs fighting men with no arms. Bearded ladies and . . . what’s the word? Pinheads? It seemed like a vision from Hell.”
“Did you do anything about it? Tell the cops?”
“Who do you think kept the peace during the exhibitions?”
Allegra stays close to Vidocq, her arms wrapped around one of his. When we find an open spot along the rail, I let Candy get in front.
There are three ghosts in the ring downstairs. Two of them are working over a third. I recognize the duo act from some old books. Manny King and Joey Franco. A couple of enforcers back when Bugsy Siegel was still big man on campus in the forties. They’re going at the other guy with heavy wrenches and baseball bats. I suppose it could be worse. One side of the ring is like a murder wholesale house. It’s full of heavy tools like you’d find in a garage—chains, crowbars, and even some torches. Kitchen knives and cleavers in another area. Old weapons like something from the Crusades. Swords, morningstars, bell hooks behind them. With all the blood in the ring, it’s hard to remember that all three of these guys are already dead. Yeah, ghosts have a kind of ectoplasmic blood. You cut them just right and they gush like anyone alive. They can even die. Blip out of existence like they were never even here.
It seems like the fight has been going on for a while. The crowd is getting restless. The guy on the floor won’t die and the two bully boys can’t or won’t finish him. The loser is flat on his stomach. Manny, with the pipe wrench, stands over the guy’s back with the weapon over his head, going for a kill shot. Before he makes him move, the guy on the floor finds a small cleaver and swings it back into Manny’s leg. Manny lets go of the wrench and falls over. Now he’s the one screaming. Joey laughs at him and kicks the guy on the floor over on his back.
It’s Dash, Maria the witch’s lost ghost. His face is a pulpy mess, but I still recognize him. So does Candy. She grabs my hand, pulls it down to her side so that no one will see her reacting.
I still dream about the arena Downtown, though not as much as I used to. But I don’t go for more than a day or two without recovering some tasty bit of memory in which I’m either slaughtering or being slaughtered. Unfortunately, it’s usually the second thing. I don’t twitch and punch the air like I used to, but I remember what every blow felt like. That kind of thing never leaves you. But I made it out alive and sane, more or less.
I don’t give Dash such good odds.
The kid has shed more than a few pints of ectoplasm all over the ring. His eyes are almost swollen shut and one of his legs is bent like something that would look better on a flamingo. He punches and grabs at Joey’s legs as he stands above him. But the blows are marshmallows. Joey lets him punch himself out. When Dash gets so tired he can’t lift his arms anymore, he drops them. He doesn’t move or make a sound. He’s a man who’s seen the future and can’t wait for it to come. Joey doesn’t make him wait long.
He lifts the bat over his head and brings it down hard. It only takes one shot from the Louisville Slugger to crack Dash’s skull. They crowd goes wild. They can’t get enough of this shit. I’m not sure even Hellions enjoyed watching us beat each
other bloody as much as these assholes.
Joey raises the bloody bat in the ring—King Arthur pulling the sword out of some poor slob’s brains. He does a turn while Manny struggles to his feet. Him stumbling around gets big laughs, but the big cheers go to Dash as his spirit goes transparent and fades away, like an image on a dying TV set. A lot of cash changes hands when he’s gone. Joey helps Manny to his feet. There are necromantic physicians backstage who’ll patch him up so he can do it all again tonight or tomorrow, whenever Evermore Creatives and the White Lights want to see those particular monkeys dance again.
I won’t be telling Maria the witch about any of this. She doesn’t seem the type to take it well. Honesty can be very overrated, while a good lie can give someone peace of mind when there isn’t a goddamn thing they can do about the awful shit at the center of the truth.
“What did you bring us to, Stark?” says Allegra.
“I told you what it was.”
“Yes, but I didn’t think it would be so . . . this.”
“Neither did I. How do you feel about being in the field again?”
“I’d be more comfortable going after Drifters, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”
“No, they can’t. Did I tell you that Julie’s building has a downstairs no one is using?”
She looks at me.
“Really? Do you think she’d rent it out?”