She sips and rolls her eyes. Just holding a glass in her hand relaxes her.

“Don’t be stupid. I’m King’s girlfriend. If you can call it that. When he’s not playing Gene Simmons and trying to fuck every other girl in the room. I think he’s doing that Aelita bitch.”

I wasn’t expecting that. Her face is smudged with a moderate amount of sin signs but nothing special. A lot less than I’d expect from someone involved with Cairo.

“What were you arguing about?”

She shakes her head. Stabs the air with one finger.

“Fuck him and all his coked-up crew. They’re disgusting. Have you met them? They’re like animals.”

“They can’t help it. He’s taking a drug that drives them insane. What were you and Cairo arguing about?”

“My job. What drug?”

“It’s called Dixie Wishbone. Try to concentrate.”

She finishes the glass and gives a little shiver.

“Sorry. I might be in some kind of shock, you know? Post-traumatic stress. That prick saved his own skinny ass and left me hanging, didn’t he? Fuck that guy. Okay. Ask me anything you want. If it’ll hurt that feather-wearing pussy dickbag, I’ll tell you. You know, he has the tiniest balls of any guy I ever dated. Isn’t that weird? Tiny balls.”

“That’s not really the information I was looking for. What were you arguing about?”

“I told you. My job.”

“What’s your job?”

“I’m a dreamer.”

“What is that?”

She looks at me.

“You’re that Sandman Slim guy, aren’t you? I’ve seen you at Bamboo House of Dolls.”

Blood trickles down my arm. I rewrap the towel and lean on the wound. It really should have started healing by now. Goddamn ghost wounds.

“You’ve been to Bamboo House? Do you like the jukebox?”

“Yeah.”

“Who do you like better, Martin Denny or Arthur Lyman?”

“Martin Denny.”

“Yeah. I’m Sandman Slim. What’s a dreamer?”

“I thought you were supposed to be some hot-shit rock-star superhero. How is it you don’t know about us?”

“Just because you know my name doesn’t mean I’m on the Sub Rosa clubhouse mailing list. I spent my whole life running from that world.”

“Looks like it did you a lot of good. You’re bleeding and you don’t have a clue how anything works.”

“Figuring out Hell was easier than figuring out L.A. What’s a dreamer?”

She waves her hand. Picks up her glass and goes back for more Aqua Regia. It’s impressive.

“Stuck-up old people call us a real, real old name. Surgeons of the Night Sky. You know what we call ourselves?”

“Tell me.”

She flops down on the couch, grinning. The Aqua Regia is hitting her hard.

“The Mile High Club.”

“That’s great, but I still don’t know what you do.”

“We dream. We make reality with our dreams.”

Outside, smoke is blackening the sky from what I swear is the cone of a small volcano. Ash falls from the sky like dirty snow.

She raps her knuckles on the table. She pats the couch.

“See this? And this? We did this. There wouldn’t be anything here without us.”

“You’re telling me you’re God.”

“Don’t be stupid. Okay. We don’t actually make reality. We just dream the forms and give them substance so they don’t blow away.”

A jet turns from the volcanic plume, heading out to sea, trailing thick smoke from one engine.

“You’re telling me that the world is run by a bunch of catnapping party girls and club boys?”

She sets down the glass and lets her head loll back.

“Not all reality. And some of the dreamers are old. There’s houses all over the world. But ours is the biggest. Duh. Hollywood. The big dream machine. This is where the world’s imagination lives. The power spot for collective unconscious. All that crap. Anyway we’re here and it works, so why fuck with it, you know?”

“I’ve never heard of you. Does everybody know?”

“Of course not. Just the right ones.”

“How long have you been around?”

“How many birds on a wire? That long.”

I hate these grade school history lessons. They’re embarrassing and they’re my fault. I didn’t want to know how the world worked when I was young. Didn’t want to know about the Sub Rosa or anything they cared about. Then, when I wanted to know, it was too late and I was busy just trying to stay alive Downtown. I’ve been playing catch-up ever since. Probably always will be.

“Okay. You’re a dreamer and there’s other dreamers and the whole nondreamer world will lose its Rice Krispies if you stop dreaming. Why were you arguing with Cairo about the job?”

“ ’Cause we’re dying. That crazy little ghost bitch has something against us.”

“The Sub Rosas being killed are all dreamers?”

“Mostly.”

“You’re why the sky is like a broken kaleidoscope and Catalina went AWOL.”

She rolls her eyes, trying to be sarcastic, but she just looks drunk and scared.

“Now you get it. Murder is a downer and people get scared. Sometimes there aren’t enough of us in any one place to hold reality together right.”

“Does Cairo blame you for reality breaking down? Is that what the fight was about?”

“No.”

She gets up and goes for more Aqua Regia. I cut her off and pour regular wine into her glass.

“Ooh. A gentleman.”

“I don’t want you to melt your brain too soon.”

“Whatever, dude.”

She drops onto the couch.

“King wants me to quit or leave town. I tried telling him what I do isn’t a job. It’s like a vocation. It’s what I am. I dream. That’s it. But he says he’s working for people who want to get rid of us regulars. Take over and put in their own dreamers. I thought he was just talking big. He does that sometimes.”

What do you know? Cairo isn’t a complete monster after all. Just a coward.

“Maybe he was trying to protect you by telling you to get out of town. If someone is using a ghost to kill dreamers, when the little girl appeared, he probably knew he couldn’t fight her.”

“He knew she was going to kill me and he left me to that little bitch? That fucker.”

“Who runs the dreamers?”

“Big wheels in the Sub Rosa. Who else?”

“What happens if you stopped dreaming? If all of you in L.A. stopped completely.”

“If we go down, the dominoes start falling. Ping. Ping. Ping.”

She flicks her fingers, knocking over imaginary dominoes in the air.

“I don’t know that the other houses can keep the whole world together without us. Next thing you know, nothing is what it used to be and then I don’t know. Maybe we all just disappear. No one knows because it’s never happened.”

“Who in the Sub Rosa is in charge? Blackburn?”

“Do I look like Google? Go buy a fucking laptop.”

My arm is starting to hurt. I get my own glass of Aqua Regia and walk around until I find some Maledictions. I take the pack back to the table, tap one out, and try to light it one-handed. Patty snickers at me. Takes the cigarette, puts it in my mouth, lights it, and hands it back to me.

“Thanks.”

“No worries. I’d’ve done it for a dog.”

My head is spinning a little. Not with pain or liquor but with all that’s going on. Not to mention worrying about Candy. I check the time. Too soon to call the clinic, goddammit.

“So someone is trying to replace the current dreamers or kill them off. Cairo is working with them but he can’t use his muscle because that would bring down the heat and whoever is running him knows he’d squeal like a piglet. That means whoever is behind all this also controls the girl. You can’t arrest or kill a crazy ghost. She’s a good cover. And maybe you kill a few nondreamers to make the killings look random. It’s all for the greater good, right?”

“If you say so.”

“I say so because I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind this. The question is why does an angel care about our reality? Tell me this. If you’re walking around with your boyfriend, then dreamers must work in shifts, right?”

“Yeah. Two days on and three days off so we get our heads back together.”