I smoke the cigarette as a highway-patrol car slows down and gives us the once-over. Sally throws the driver a tiny backhanded wave. The patrol cop’s eyes go blank. He turns his attention back to the road and drives on.

“Any thoughts on my problem?” I ask.

“Yes. What you want isn’t all that hard to do, but it isn’t easy if you get my meaning. What you need is a Black Dahlia.”

“And that means what?”

“You’re going to have to die. And not a going-gentle-into-that-good-night death. It’s going to be messy.”

Story of my life.

“I was hoping for something a little more in the hocus-pocus area. Getting Downtown dead and being stuck there kind of defeats the purpose of my coming to you.”

She flicks the Lucky butt out onto the road. It flies in a perfect arc like a falling star. Marking her territory so more cops won’t bother us.

“Silly boy. I said you had to die. I didn’t say you’d be dead. Dying is just the offering you make to gain passage. Once you’re on the other side, the debt is paid and you’ll be you again.”

“How violent are we talking about? I mean is the word ‘entrails’ involved?”

“Your death doesn’t have to be quite as baroque as poor Elizabeth Short’s Black Dahlia. A car accident should do it. At a .do it. crossroads, of course.”

“Is there anything I need to do?”

“You’ll need to carry an item worn by or touched by someone who suffered a violent death. Anything will do. A photo. A class ring. If the friend you want to find died violently, that’s perfect. Get something of hers. Keep it close so it’s touching your skin as you pass through. Love and death. There’s no more powerful combination.”

That’s good news, but which of Alice’s things should I bring with me? Maybe something she’d miss. Or is it too mean to remind her of her life here? On the other hand, it feels a little lame to bring the TV remote or her toothbrush.

“How do I find the right crossroads?”

“Elizabeth Short was murdered near Leimert Park. There was a nice crossroads there, but it’s all suburbs now. Why don’t you try the I-10 underpass at Crenshaw? That’s a decent little crossroads. All you need to do is hit the accelerator and run the car into one of the concrete freeway supports. I’ll be close by to give you a little push to the other side.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

She nods and strolls to her car. I follow her over. She digs through the bag of snacks and comes up with a packet of jelly beans. She rips it open, offers me one, and when I shake my head, she spears one with a fingernail, takes it off with her teeth, and chews. She reaches into the packet, pushing the jelly beans around, looking for a specific one.

She says, “I’m only doing this because while you might be crazy, you’re not stupid. You don’t think you’re Orpheus and can bring your friend back to the world of the living. That means you’re willing to die and cross over to the worst place in Creation for someone you love but can never truly have. That’s the kind of thing that can give even an old thing like me goose bumps.”

“To tell you the truth, I’d rather be back running Max Overdrive.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re like me. One of the night people. I’m the road. I give life and I take it. People like us don’t get to close our eyes to the world and live cozy mortal lives.”

Two men’s faces slide into my memory. My real father, Kinski, a has-been archangel, and the father who raised me. One of the faces fades away. It’s the other, not-quite-human one that stays.

“You make it sound so doomed and romantic. We should all be drinking absinthe as we die of consumption.”

She shrugs her pretty shoulders.

“It’s what you allow it to be. You can find beauty and joy in the dark places just as easily as civilians find comfortikefind co in the glow of their TVs. But you have to allow yourself to do it. Otherwise . . .”

“Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise, ten years from now, you’ll be stopping me and asking a foolish question and I’ll end up sending you to a gas station to buy a map.”

“Ow. When you put it that way, Hell sounds just about right.”

Sally touches my cheek. Her hand is warm, like the furnace burning behind her shades.

“Be a rock, James. Otherwise, you’ll lose everything.”

“How did you know my name was James?”

She swallows another jelly bean.

“It’s just a trick I can do.”

I shake my head.

“You sound like the Veritas sometimes.”

“One of those little Hellion luck coins that insults you when you ask a question? I hope I’m not that mean.”

“No. But what the hell does ‘Be a rock’ mean? It sounds like the kind of hoodoo warning that never actually means what it says.”

Mustang Sally puts the jelly beans back in the bag.

“I always say what I mean.”

She takes the white driving gloves out of her purse and puts them on. “Just like I always signal when I change lanes. I can’t help if you don’t see me coming and end up in a ditch.”

Like a Howard Hawks freeway femme fatale, Mustang Sally slings the little purse over one shoulder and gets back in her car, revs the engine, and peels out. She blows me a kiss as she speeds by.

Aloha from Hell

I DRIVE ACROSS town and beach the Bonneville in a no-parking zone in front of the Bradbury Building, that old art deco ziggurat and one of the few truly beautiful constructions in L.A. A group of schoolkids is on a field trip and I let them pass by before stepping into a shadow. I’m pretty sure a couple of the kids saw me. Good. Kids need their minds blown every now and then. It’ll keep them from thinking that managing a McDonald’s is the most they can hope for.

I don’t come straight out into Mr. Muninn’s cavern. I lean against the wall in the Room of Thirteen Doors. This is the still, quiet center of the universe. Even God can’t text me here. In here I’m alone and bulletproof.

I’ve had one ace up my sleeve since this whole circus with Mason, Aelita, and Marshal Wells began. The kill switch. The Mithras. The first fire in the universe and the last. The flame that will burn this universe down to make way for the next. I told Aelita about it but she never believed me. She couldn’t. I’m an Abomination and I could never get anything over on a pure-blood angel like her. So what good does that make the Mithras? A threat only works if people believe in it, which leaves me alone in this eternal echo chamber, not sure what to do. I can get behind Mustang Sally’s beauty-in-darkness idea. That’s half the reason Candy and I have been circling each other all these months. We’re each other’s chance to find some black peace in the deep dark.

Burning the universe was a lot more fun to think about when Alice was somewhere safe. Some puny hopeful part of me imagined that Heaven would still stand even if the rest of the universe turned to ash. But Alice is Downtown now and I know she was right and I have to let go of her, but I can’t let her die down in Mason’s crazy-house hellhole, and that’s what will happen if I throw the kill switch.

I grab a heavy glass decanter from the floor and step out into Muninn’s underground storeroom.

I yell, “Mr. Muninn. It’s Stark.”

He sticks his head out from around a row of shelves overflowing with Tibetan skull bowls and ritual trumpets made of human femurs decorated with silver. He wipes his brow on a black silk handkerchief as he walks over.

“Just doing a bit of inventory. Sometimes I think I should hire a boy like you to put this all on a computer, but then I think that by the time he’s finished, computers will be obsolete and we’ll have to do it all over again with brains in jars or genius goldfish or whatever other wonders scientists come up with next.”

He sighs.

“I suppose in a place like this, the old ways work best. Besides, I know that while it looks like a jumble to other people, I know where each and every item is. I only do inventory as an excuse to revisit doodads and baubles I haven’t handled in a century or two.”