“Fine.”
He puffs on his cigar. A red legger elbows Bill out of the way. Bill elbows him right back. The legger whirls around and grabs Bill’s arm. I reach for my knife but the raider sees the mark on Bill’s arm and backs away.
Bill turns and starts walking again like nothing happened.
“They tell me that back home I’m more notorious than John Wesley Hardin, which is a hoot, as he had more fights and killed at least twice as many men as I ever did. On the other hand, it pleases me no end that Broken Nose Charlie Utter, who so violently disrupted my final card game, is known to very few. Men with restless lives—and I’m including you in this—we don’t seem to get much say in who’s remembered and who’s forgotten and with what amount of affection or derision.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I’m sure you have, Sandman Slim.”
Bill puffs his cigar and thinks.
“The point is, whatever you do, whether you’ll turn out to be the Antichrist, the prince of killers, or perhaps nothing at all, it’s time, not men, that will be the judge.”
He stares off at nothing for a second.
“Sometimes I think that last one might be the most preferable state. To be nothing and erased from eternity strikes me as a fine thing some days. But, of course, that wasn’t offered to me and it won’t be offered to you.
“Where are you going with this, Bill?”
“Where I’m going is that neither of us is predisposed to backing down from a fight, so you need to pick and choose yours better than I did.”
Ghosts trail us on both sides of the street. They’re not threatening, but any more and they’re going to start attracting attention.
“If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that all shed blood, yours or your enemy’s, stains Creation forever and there’s no washing it away,” says Bill. “That lesson came to me too late and I killed at least one good man, a Wichita deputy, because I was too free and easy with others’ lives. If I’m in this wretched place for anything, it’s that.”
I flash on the pictures of dead faces tacked on the walls in Mason’s hidden room. I glance at the ghosts. Dead Hellions used to go to Tartarus but I destroyed the place and released them. Now they have nothing better to do than wander Hell’s streets until the end of time. I was proud of destroying Tartarus. Now I’m not sure I did anyone a favor.
“I’m not really in a position to turn pacifist at the moment. People want to kill me or take over my mind. I’m not going to lie down and let either of those things happen.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is this. This moment right here. People are after you and you’re off to the arena looking for trouble. There’s more than a normal load of troubles on your back, son. You don’t need to go adding to them with this sort of doltish behavior.”
“Goddamn. Are you telling me to take the Middle Way, Buddha?”
“If that’s a fancy way of saying not being a slave to your baser instincts, then yes. Or were you planning on returning here when you’re dead and washing my dirty glasses until Judgment Day?”
I flick the Malediction butt into a puddle.
“If I have to choose between being the Devil and your bar back, I might choose bar back. There’s free drinks and better hours. Besides, no one ever tips the Devil.”
“I thought I just did,” drawls Bill.
I look at him as he puffs his stogie.
“Maybe you did.”
He stops and looks back the way we came.
“I should head back. That donkey of a helper will’ve given away half the liquor and probably set the bar on fire by now.”
Bill puts out his hand. I shake it.
“Take care of yourself tonight, boy. Try not to be too stupid.”
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll see you around.”
He turns and heads back to the bar, the ghosts trailing along behind him. After seeing a damned soul shove a Hellion and get away with it, I think he’s their new hero.
Everything Bill said makes sense but I’m still in the mood to hightail it to the arena and draw blood. So that’s what I don’t do. I breathe. Count to ten and back down again. Over and over. I read about it in one of the Greek books. It’s a kind of meditation to focus the mind, only mine is already focused. What I need is a good, strong unfocuser.
The Devil doesn’t carry cash, so I make a deal to trade my practically new overcoat to one of the hawkers for a beat-up surplus trench coat and a bottle of good Aqua Regia. He looks a little suspicious when I agree to such an obvious rip-off but what do I care? I can have tailors run up a dozen more coats by lunch tomorrow.
It takes a few contortionist twists to get the overcoat off and the trench on without giving the market a full frontal of my prosthetic arm. Scaring monsters with scarier monster parts isn’t the best way to keep a low profile.
When I’m done do-si-doing with myself, I toss the hawker my coat and take the Aqua Regia before he can change his mind. I open the bottle and take a couple of long swigs. I’m being good and I deserve a drink.
I kind of like what Bill said about picking and choosing fights but my fights always seem to have a habit of choosing me. Or is that just an excuse? I’ve been getting and giving scars for so long I don’t know anymore. I need my own surveillance satellite to follow me around for a few months. Hire statisticians to count the punches, bullets, and blades and who blinked first. I don’t want to be a cosmic shit magnet drawing trouble to me, but maybe that’s how it is with nephilim.
In my new old coat and my fake face, I stroll down the long line of stalls checking out the goods. Is the market growing or is it that I never get out to see what’s happening at street level? I take a couple of long pulls on the bottle.
If the market is growing, I know why. I try to count all bottles of black-market potions, ammo, and boxes of food. After a block, I give up and take another pull from the bottle.
Bill is right about one thing. I have plenty to deal with right now. I know his advice makes sense because it’s what Alice would have said. She was always the smart one. Pick and choose the skulls you crack and when you do it. No skulls for me tonight, thank you very kindly. I’m as cool as a cat napping on a pint of Rocky Road. At the corner I’ll head back for the bike.
I keep seeing red leggers in the crowd. That’s new. No way raiders could be strolling around Pandemonium right out in the open without someone getting paid off. I should come down here more often. It’s like a parade of the city’s sins. Kind of like every boutique on Rodeo Drive.
I take another pull from the bottle. I’ve already killed half of it.
This bottle and no more. Cross my heart.
If Semyazah has turned into Scarface, that’s bad news. I need him to keep a lid on things. And to help keep me alive. I have to find out who’s trying to off me or I have to find a way out of here, and I have a bad feeling I’m going to have to do the first before I do the second. If Saint James was here, he’d know what was going on by now. He handles the Mike Hammer stuff and he’s not bad at it. Me, I need crib notes and blueprints to make ice.
I go around the corner and head back for where I left the bike. All of a sudden I feel wobbly on my feet. That Aqua Regia was stronger than I thought. I’ll have to order some for the palace.
I bounce off a hawker’s table. Stepping back, I hold up my hands in apology as the guy calls me an asshole fifty different ways. Hellion might be a simple language, but it can be colorful.
The last thing I want tonight is trouble, so