Sandman Slim. Richard Kadrey

off. Her middle finger lay inside the box, wrapped in bloody cotton around the bottom. The finger wiggled. Stiffened. She held up her hand so the severed finger flipped me the bird, the cheapest of cheap gags. Of course, she hadn’t chopped her finger off. She’d slid it up through a hole in the bottom of the box that already had cotton and fake blood inside. It was about the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.

      I kissed her and took her inside. We never talked about her moving in. She just came in and never left, because she knew this was where she should be.

      Later, when Alice and I were in bed and still drunk from our one month anniversary party, I told her that I had a dream where we were on a road trip, eating lunch in some anonymous little diner. She told the waitress that we were driving to Vegas to get married by an Elvis impersonator and held up her engagement ring for everyone to see. It was the magic store box, still on her finger. When I finished telling her the story, she bit me lightly on the arm.

      “See?” she said. “I told you I can do magic.”

      Two

      I SNAP AWAKE at the sound of the door slamming downstairs. I sit up, relieved that the pain in my ribs is gone. The good feeling is short-lived, however, when I realize that the room looks like a bad night in a slaughterhouse. The bloody jacket and shirt are still on the floor where I dropped them. I’m covered in dried blood, a lot of which I’ve managed to smear in a crimson Rorschach blot all over the bed while I was asleep.

      I toss the jacket and shirt onto the dirty sheet, pull it off the bed and onto the floor. In the bathroom, I use up most of a roll of paper towels scrubbing the blood off me. The bullet wounds are just black welts surrounded by psychedelic-blue-and-purple bruises. If I twist the right way, I can feel the .45 slugs nestled inside me, like marshmallows in Jell-O salad. I’ll probably have to do something about getting them out, at some point, but not now.

      The wet paper towels I toss on the sheet with the bloody clothes. In a little storage cabinet under the sink, I find a roll of black plastic garbage bags. Tear one off and stuff the bloody remains of last night’s square dance inside.

      It hits me then that I still have a problem. I’ve just thrown away half of my clothes, leaving me with nothing to wear but taped-together boots and scorched jeans, which are starting to crack and come apart in places. For a second, I consider stealing the shirt off Kasabian’s body, but that’s too disgusting even for me. Plus, opening the closet door will just start his head screaming again.

      I toss the room, tearing open boxes, looking for a lost and found or something one of the college kids might have left behind. I hit the jackpot—a whole box of store T-shirts is stuffed in the back, under the worktable. The shirts are black, with MAX OVERDRIVE VIDEO printed in big white letters on the back. Printed on the front is a fake store name tag that says Hi. My name is Max. Cute.

      I stand by the door for a second, listening to Allegra move around downstairs. I can almost see her in my mind’s eye. She’s young. Bored and annoyed at having to open the store so soon after Christmas. I get a sense of brains and something else. Something she’s trying not to think about as she straightens the shelves and counts the cash in the till. Quietly, I open the door and start down the stairs, then turn around and go right back up. The .45 and Brad Pitt’s stun gun are lying on the floor. I stuff them under the mattress, then head back down.

      Allegra is by the door, backlit by the light through the window. She looks to be not much older than I was when I was carried off to Oz. Maybe old enough to drink. Maybe not. She doesn’t wear much makeup. Black around her eyes. Gloss on her lips. She’s thin, with darkish café au lait skin. She’d look like Foxy Brown’s little sister, except her head is shaved smooth. Her coat and skirt are thrift store hand-me-downs, but her boots look expensive. An art school girl with priorities.

      She looks up as I unlock the chain at the bottom of the stairs.

      “Morning. You must be Allegra.”

      Her head snaps up in my direction. “Who are you? Where’s Mr. Kasabian?”

      “Kasabian had to leave town. Some kind of family crisis. I’m an old friend. I’ll be in charge of the place while he’s gone.”

      That wasn’t the right thing to say. Allegra is angry. She tries to hide it with surprise, but doesn’t pull it off.

      “Really?” she asks. “Have you run a video store before?”

      “No.”

      “Ever run any kind of retail operation?”

      I come up front and lean on the counter, checking the floor for blood as I go. Only a few drops that I can spot. I tend not to bleed for very long, and it looks like Brad Pitt’s clothes soaked up most of what leaked out of me.

      “Let me clarify. When I say I’ll be in charge, that doesn’t mean I’m going to actually be doing anything. I’ll mostly be gone or working upstairs.”

      “Ah,” she says, even colder than before. She knows exactly what Kasabian does up there and she doesn’t approve. An L.A. girl with a conscience. They’re about as rare as unicorns.

      “Not doing anything is Mr. Kasabian’s management style, too. You’ll fit right in.” Her heartbeat kicks up and her pupils dilate. Why the hell am I noticing these things?

      She frowns, looks down, then up at me. “Please, don’t tell him I said that.”

      “Your secret is safe with me.”

      Her breathing slows. She relaxes, just a hair. “Can I ask you a question?”

      “Sure.”

      “What the hell is wrong with your clothes?”

      “Yeah. I had a little accident coming into town,” I say, giving her a sheepish grin. It’s a look that girls used to like when I was young and not entirely unhandsome. Talking to a cute human girl that I might have flirted with in my former life, I forget for a second that I’m no longer young or handsome. I shift to what I hope is a more neutral expression.

      “I might need to pick up some new things. What do you think?”

      “Don’t bother. I hear that arson is the new black.” She crosses her arms, giving me her best defiant look.

      “Stark.”

      “Stark. Just the one name then, like Madonna?”

      “Or Cher.”

      “Okay, Mr. Stark …”

      “Stark. No ‘mister.’ Just Stark.”

      “Okay, Just Stark. Here’s the thing—I quit. I can run this place in my sleep, but Mr. Kasabian obviously doesn’t trust me enough, so he brings in some, if you’ll excuse me, thug buddy to keep an eye on me? No fucking thanks.”

      “The last thing I’m here to do is keep an eye on you. The truth is, I don’t have any place to stay and Kasabian told me I could crash upstairs. The running-the-shop thing is purely honorary. As far as I’m concerned, you’re in charge. Run the place any way you like.”

      “You still look like somebody I probably shouldn’t know.”

      “Yeah, you said that.” I take a step toward her, waiting to see if she’ll take a step back. She doesn’t. Nervous, but brave. I like her already. “Listen, a thug is someone who’s out for no one but himself. Me? I take care of my friends.” Alice’s face flashes in my brain, a reminder of how empty a promise like that can be. Good intentions and a dime won’t get you a damned thing in this world. Reluctantly, I push Alice back into the dark. “Stay here and I guarantee that you’ll work in the safest video store in L.A.”

      “Gee, that’s not at all terrifying.”

      “Also, whatever Kasabian has been paying you, I’ll give you a fifty percent raise.”

      Now I have her attention.

      “You