“How do you butch up a bird? Get it a little leather cap and chaps?”

“That’s your fantasy, Jimmy. Not mine.”

“Do you think you can find me a number?”

“Of course. I can get anyone’s number. But just remember that everything comes with a price.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll call you later with Herr Rose’s information.”

“What price, Brigitte?”

Too late. The line is dead. Once a killer, always a killer.

I DITCH THE Charger by the Whisky a Go Go and walk the rest of the way back to the Chateau.

When I get back to the room, Candy is just waking up. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes and stretches like a panther. She blinks when she sees me.

“Oh. I thought you were off bringing me coffee in bed. What are you dressed for?”

“I was out talking to Manimal Mike. I tried waking you.”

“Try harder next time. Where did he shoot you?”

I hold up my arms so she can see me.

“No blood. See? I made it back unmolested.”

She runs her foot up my leg to my thigh.

“Maybe we should do something about that.”

I close the bedroom door and turn up the new Skull Valley Sheep Kill album on the stereo. Kasabian doesn’t like to listen when we smash up the furniture.

AN HOUR LATER and we’ve only broken one side table. The gunshot and the blast took a little more out of me than I like to admit. I light up a Malediction and look for some Aqua Regia, but the bottle is still in the living room.

Candy is lying next to me in one of the absurdly plush hotel robes.

“So what did you and Mike talk about?”

“The 8 Ball. He says he knows who made it.”

“Great. Let’s go pay Dr. Frankenstein a visit.”

“Can’t. He didn’t have a number for the guy, so I called Brigitte.”

“She knows the guy?”

“No. But she can probably track him down.”

“Clever girl.”

“They’re the only kind worth knowing.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

We wander out to the living room. I pour some Aqua Regia into a coffee mug and Candy picks at the remains of last night’s food. We always order too much and leave the food carts along the wall buffet style. I wish we could squirrel away all the leftovers. We’re going to miss them when they kick us out.

Kasabian calls us from across the room.

“Check it out. My first client.”

“Congratulations,” says Candy.

“I didn’t even know you had the site finished.”

Kasabian is on the landing page for Aetheric Industries Psychic Investigations.

“The wonders of the cyberspace and desperate suckers,” he says. “I put the site up an hour ago and already have three inquiries and one bona fide, already-got-his-credit-card-number customer.”

“Who are you supposed to find?”

“The guy’s idiot older brother. Get this. Big brother was a hoarder and hid their dad’s gold coin collection somewhere in the house. My client doesn’t want to spend the next ten years spelunking under old pizza boxes and soggy newspapers looking for Daddy’s swag.”

Candy says, “I didn’t think you could get that kind of information. All you can do is look at things.”

“That’s right. But get this. My client thinks if I can find big bro in Hell, he can get another psychic to do a kind of Vulcan mind meld and they can talk over old times.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say.

Kasabian nods and smiles.

“I know. Isn’t it great? See, being online so much, I learned that normal desperate people are sad and boring, but stupid desperate people are a fucking riot. And some of them have money.”

“That’s not very nice,” Candy says.

“If my life was any lamer, I would have taken a nap in a trash compactor a long time ago, so forgive me for not farting kittens and rainbows.”

“I didn’t know you were that unhappy.”

“I’m not. I’m realistic about my situation. And I’m honest with my clients. I spell out exactly what I can and can’t do in the site’s disclaimer. If someone comes along and wants to pay me to do what I said I can’t, I’m not turning him down. Stupid people’s money is just as green as everyone else’s.”

“I might have been that desperate after Doc died,” says Candy. Doc Kinski was the guy who took her off the street and gave her potions to calm her Jade bloodlust. I think he was as close to a real father as she ever had. Kind of like Vidocq for me.

“Yeah, well. You might have been desperate but you’re not dumb, so it wouldn’t be the same thing,” says Kasabian. “And goddammit, can I have just one minute of happiness here before one of you points out what a monster I am and tries to shut me down? What do I have left then? I go back to finding weirder and weirder online porn just to keep my brain cells from imploding.”

“Sorry. Of course,” says Candy.

She puts a hand on his hellhound shoulder. Says, “Good luck in the Hellovision business.”

Kasabian’s eyes open a little more.

“Damn. I wish I’d thought of that name. I wonder if I can get that domain?”

“I guarantee you someone else already has it. Someone always has the cool names,” I say.

Kasabian is already typing.

“We’ll see how long they can keep it.”

I say, “Did you find anything else out about Moseley?”

He shakes his head, still looking at the screen.

“Nothing except that he kind of dropped off the face of the earth a few months ago. No employment records. No bills or utilities. Nada.”

“Thanks. Oh yeah. Mike says he has another idea on how to fix you up.”

That gets his attention.

“How?”

“Don’t get your tail bunched up, Old Yeller. It means I have to go back to Hell and maybe steal something with teeth and claws, so it’s not happening this afternoon.”

He turns back to the screen.

“Hurry up and wait. Story of my life.”

Candy looks over Kasabian’s shoulder at the screen.

“What’s the weirdest porn you ever found?” says Candy.

Kasabian gives her a serious look.

“Unless you want to wake up screaming, don’t ever ask me that again.”

“Yes, sir.”

AROUND TEN, MY phone rings. It’s Brigitte.

“Hi.”

“Hi yourself. You have an appointment with Herr Rose at three tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thanks, Brigitte. You’re my hero.”

“Don’t be so hasty. Remember I said that everything has a price?”

“Go on.”

“The price for the address is this. I’m coming with you.”

“You haven’t exactly been in the field lately. What if things get hot?”

“That’s why I’m coming. If I go to another audition without at least the chance to kill something, I’m afraid my behavior will become quite drastic. So you see, Jimmy, you’re not just doing me a favor. You’ll be doing a humanitarian service too.”

“Fine. Come along. I’m sure Candy will enjoy it. You can tell each other stories about your favorite childhood kills.”

A pause.

“That’s the rub, you see. Herr Rose is terribly claustrophobic and only ever sees a maximum of two people at a time. It’s a rule he breaks for no one.”

“No problem. He’ll be tickled pink when he finds you and Candy at his door.”

“And where will you be?”

“Coming down the chimney.”

“Through a shadow.”

“Yeah.”

“I miss seeing that.”

“You can get an eyeful tomorrow.”

“He’ll hear you and throw us out.”

“Hear me? I’ll be as quiet as a cotton-candy mouse.”

“I’m not so sure about this, Jimmy.”

“Sure you are. It’ll be fun. Dress pretty and bring your gun.”

“A man who knows how to speak to my heart.”

She gives me Rose’s address. I repeat it and Candy writes it down.

I say, “See you tomorrow, Brigitte,” and hang up.

Candy beams at me.

“I hope we get to shoot something. I haven’t had a girls’ day out in a long time.”

BEL AIR IS a neighborhood that lies just west of Beverly Hills and sees its neighbor the way that neighbor sees the rest of L.A.: as a wasteland of upstarts, criminals, and wayward teens with their bongos and jungle music. If the sun ever set in Bel Air, no one would notice because its homes and residents are so luminous they’d light the night sky all on their own. It’s a land where the gold standard never died and the roads are so clean you could perform open-heart surgery on any street corner.