“I was wondering if I could take up the offer of a native guide to Santa Monica?”

“Last time we met you aimed a gun at me, and the time before that you tried to trick me into a porno movie.”

“So? It’s not like it was personal.”

“And that’s why I think Santa Monica is a bad idea.”

“Coward.” He could hear the laughter in her voice.

“Tanya, would you fuck a pony?”

“No. But a centaur might tempt me.”

FATHER HENRY’S LITTLE MIRACLE by Daniel Abraham

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1987

James Spector-Demise-surveyed the carnage. The overhead light fixture had been shot during the attack, a bare bulb left shining from a neck of frosted glass with edges sharp as teeth. A low haze of gun smoke filled the apartment. Three jokers lay on the floor or the cheap kitchen table, red and green and florid purple blood spilling out of them. The Gambione men-both nats-lay among them. One joker moaned in pain, another tried to crawl for the kitchen at the back of the apartment-a dead end, but away from Spector’s slow footsteps. He walked among them, turning the bodies over with the toe of his new leather shoes, staring into the eyes of the dying, adding his own constant pain to theirs, pulling death into them a little faster.

“Could you not do that?” Phan Lo snapped from the front room.

“What?”

“Whistle.”

“I was whistling?”

“The song from I Dream of Jeannie. I hated that show.”

“Sorry,” he said and went back to killing people.

The apartment belonged to Zebra, a small time Jokertown drug dealer who’d thought the gang war was his chance to make it big by selling raw heroin to the Gambiones. But the Shadow Fist had found out about the deal, and Danny Mao had arranged a complication. Spector leaned over, peering into the eyes of a young Gambione. Nothing. The guy was already gone.

Zebra lay on the floor by the table, riddled with Phan Lo ’s bullets. Demise considered the corpse, the last blood blackening on its breast, and snorted. “Hey Phan. What’s black and white and red all over?”

“Go back to whistling.”

“How many you got up there?”

“Two,” Phan Lo said. “Maybe three. One of them looks like he may be-you know-two. One of those conjoined things.”

“I’ve got a five back here,” Spector said.

“Yeah, but you got shot.”

“A couple times,” Spector allowed. The wounds were already closed, and he’d been careful to wear a suit he didn’t care about much. “They all dead?”

The businesslike crack of a pistol split the air. “Yeah,” Phan Lo said. “Yours?”

“Dead as fish on Friday.”

“Great. Let’s get the shit and get out of here.”

“What’s the rush? It’s not like the cops are going to come to this part of Jokertown.”

“The rush is I’ve got better things to do with my life,” Phan said, stepping into the room. He was young, maybe nineteen, perfect skin and black hair pulled into one of those little ponytails in the back. Spector wondered how he’d look with his hair like that. Phan put his gun back into its shoulder holster. The Uzi was slung across his back, magazine empty. “Where’s the shit?”

“Over by the table. Blue duffel has the money. The little suitcase thing has the horse.”

“Where?”

“Right over… um. Fuck.”

The patch of floor was empty, just a dead Gambione leg. Phan walked over to the spot, frowning. Spector stood beside him. Two oblong shapes were outlined in blood, but the bags were gone.

They glanced at each other, Phan remembering at the last minute to focus on Spector’s nose. No eye contact if he wanted to live. Spector suppressed a little smile and shrugged. “It was right there.”

“You take it?” Phan asked.

“No.”

“Well I didn’t take it. Check the bodies. See who’s missing.”

“How would I know who’s missing?” Spector said. “I didn’t take roll call. I just got in the door and started killing them, same as you.”

Phan wasn’t listening. He locked his hands behind him and began walking through the corpses, his lips pursed, his eyes shifting, searching like someone working a jigsaw puzzle. Spector scratched his moustache and sighed.

“The whore,” Phan said.

Spector thought back. He’d come in the room, interrupting the meeting. The bags had been there, by Zebra’s chair. Yeah, there had been a nat girl-black hair, pale skin-rubbing up against the joker. Then Phan had started spraying the room with Uzi fire and the whore had ducked under the table.

Spector hunkered down, peering over the dead bodies, hoping for a thin, pale-skinned corpse with a half-open blouse. He looked up at Phan and shook his head.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Phan said.

“Hey, you were the one in the front room. You were supposed to be watching for people coming out.”

“She didn’t come out the front.”

“Well, there isn’t a back way,” Spector said.

Phan moved back into the little kitchen without a word. Spector followed him. It was small-too small to hide in. But it did have a window; an open one with a thin ledge beyond. Spector poked his head out. It was eight stories down the street, but the ledge-thin as a sidewalk curb-led along the side of the building to a black metalwork fire escape.

“Oh,” Spector said, pulling his head back in the apartment. “Well, that sucks.”

Father Henry Obst watched Quasiman stir the sauce. The steak sizzled on the grill and the scent of the meat and the fried onions in the sauce filled the small kitchen in the church basement. Father Henry’s spiral-bound notebook lay open before him on the table. He tapped the pages impatiently with his pencil.

“I was off my stride is all,” Father Henry said. “I should have come in a day or two earlier, just to get my bearings. It’s long drive from Alabama, and I ain’t the young man I once was. Threw my timing off.”

Quasiman looked thoughtfully over his shoulder as his leg flickered in and out of existence, but didn’t speak. Father Henry took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and thick, pale finger.

“Dammit, though, I have never in my life had anyone boo a homily. It’s rude, sir. It’s just plain rude.”

The hunchback blinked, considered him as if they were meeting for the first time, then smiled ruefully, nodding his head in sympathy. “Jokertown makes for a rough audience, even in church,” Quasiman said.

“I’ll do better next week.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, I will. I’ve got better material. Y’all are always listening to Father Squid. Now he’s a fine man, but somber, if you see what I mean. No sense of humor. I’m pulling out my Age of Empty Miracles sermon. Usually hold that one off for Easter, but I don’t imagine many of these fella’s will be coming down to Selma.”

“He is a killer, risen from the dead,” Quasiman said, his tone light and conversational. “Before that I think he sold insurance.”

Father Henry put his glasses back on and the hunchback swam into focus. His expression was placid and helpful, like he’d just passed on some interesting piece of Jokertown history. Father Henry closed the notebook and considered for a moment what to say to his caretaker and guide.