The Kill Society (Sandman Slim)(59)
“Please do.”
I take out the Maledictions. Alice shudders.
“I heard you smoked those things these days.”
“I don’t have to if it’s going to bug you.”
“No. Go ahead if it’s going to calm you. That’s what you need to be for a while. Calm and boring. Let this whole angel murder episode fade from people’s memories.”
I light up and take a puff.
Alice waves the smoke away.
“Oh God. It’s like you’re smoking a pig’s ass, and the pig isn’t well.”
I blow smoke in the other direction, and then say, “Not that I particularly care, but how do people feel about me Upstairs? I suppose in some ways the war is my fault. I thought opening Heaven would fix things, but it just made everything worse.”
“You’re right about that,” she says. “But you’re also not Einstein.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means you’re hardly the first one who thought about opening Heaven. It means the war would have happened sooner or later.”
“Then everyone doesn’t hate me?”
She waggles her hand up and down a few times.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“I don’t. And most angels can still kiss my ass.”
“Say that louder. I’m not sure Vehuel heard you.”
“I always wondered, do you have movie nights in Heaven?”
“All the time.”
“Damn. Good ones or just Shirley Temple stuff?”
“Every movie ever made. And some new ones. We have a lot of actors, writers, and directors up there. I got to be an extra in Sam Fuller’s new movie.”
“Samuel Fuller? How did he end up in Heaven?”
“A lot of artists make it. Contributions to humanity count for a lot.”
“So everything would be different if I’d listened to Mom and took accordion lessons.”
“Yes. Your life would be completely different and you’d be fluttering around a cloud jamming with Django Reinhardt.”
“See, now I think you’re fibbing.”
“We are who we are, Jim. There’s no changing that, back in the mortal world or here.”
“You mean there are miserable, depressed assholes in Heaven, too?”
“Of course.”
“A lot?”
“Enough.”
“And they piss everyone off?”
“They sure do.”
“Good.”
She bumps her shoulder into mine. “It’s nice to see you.”
“You too. You look good with a couple of scars.”
“By the time this is over I might look like you.”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”
She puts her hands on her knees and leans back.
“You’re going to protect me? The guy who couldn’t even manifest his Gladius a few minutes ago?”
Shit. “You saw that?”
She pats me on the arm, a mischievous grin on her face. “It’s okay. It happens to guys sometimes. No one thinks any less of you.”
“Oh, man.”
Alice stands and brushes off her armor.
“Come on. Bring your stupid cigarette and show me around this Popsicle stand.”
The repairs go quickly with five angels working wrenches at light speed, but the work still takes all night. Alice doesn’t know a damned thing about engines, so she’s a kind of unofficial angel ambassador to the havoc, answering people’s questions about Heaven, God, wing maintenance, and settling bets over whether or not angels shit (apparently, it’s their choice, which is weird even for angels). Traven, on the other hand, tries to quiz her on obscure theological arguments. French hermits in caves versus traveling German Flagellants versus a day trader from upstate New York who had a vision of the Virgin Mary at the Strawberry Panda strip club in Vegas. She took all his money, but later at his hotel he found a gram of coke in the back of a Gideon’s Bible and declared it a miracle. Alice answers each of his questions with Groucho’s lines from old Marx Brothers movies I made her watch.
“Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.”
“I once shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I’ll never know.”
By the time she starts singing “Hooray for Captain Spaulding,” he catches on that she’s not revealing any deep, dark secrets and settles for trading stories about their favorite L.A. bookstores.
Cherry has been keeping a low profile since Alice blew her cover. All the windows in the ambulance are covered and smoke curls from a vent in the roof. She’s locked herself up doing her swami bit, trying to get back in good with the Magistrate.
But even with the angels’ help, the havoc loses more vehicles. When I came along, there were twelve semis and several pieces of construction equipment towing the flatbed. Now there are four semis, a dump truck, and the AAV we took from the dead Legionnaires. Members of the havoc and the conscripts have to squeeze into buses and the smaller trucks together, which puts everyone in an even better mood.
Before we move out, the Magistrate leaps on top of his Charger and addresses his increasingly restless flock.