Page 35
“I’m fine. Really,” I lie.
No one talks for a minute, then Candy says, “We should get together. Just the two of us.”
“For high tea and crumpets?”
“No, dummy. A date night. You and me.”
“Alessa is all right with that?”
“She knows you and I still have a connection. We can talk about the details on our date.”
Half of my brain wants to be happy but the other, more rational, part is wary of getting kicked around again. Still, I say, “That sounds great.”
“Cool. What do you want to do?”
“Want to come on spook patrol with me? Abbot wants me to check out some ghosts in Little Cairo.”
“Oh. An adventure,” she says. “Just like old times.”
“Just like old times.”
“When?”
“Around seven thirty. Before the sun goes down and things get hopping.”
“This is exciting. I’ve missed this.”
“Me too. I’ll come by the shop.”
“See you then.”
I go into the kitchen, pop one of my PTSD pills, and pour myself a bourbon, trying to drink away my nervousness.
It looks like I have a date.
I call Janet and we talk for a while. They want to get together, but I tell them I can’t and about the job I’m doing for Abbot. But not about Candy. It’s just all too complicated. I tell them we’ll meet for coffee the next day and hang up. It feels like I’m experiencing some kind of slow-motion whiplash. First, I have a love life with Candy. Then she’s with Alessa and I don’t, so I don’t have anything. Then I meet Janet and it might be something. And now Candy wants to be alone with me. I haven’t felt this popular since I was everyone’s favorite punching bag Downtown. I hope I don’t end up as bloody as I did then.
The sun is starting to dip in the sky when me and Candy enter Little Cairo.
With its pyramid and Sphinx-shaped houses, the neighborhood was wildly popular with Hollywood types in the thirties and forties, but the Egyptian fad faded by the early fifties, so the fashionable set moved on. In the midfifties and sixties, Little Cairo became a hipster and hippie hangout. The place was a dump by the late sixties, which made it even more popular with the groovy people. Charlie Manson and the girls lived there for a while. Blasted on acid, Jim Morrison climbed to the very top of the Great Pyramid and promptly fell off. He didn’t get a scratch. Little Cairo was remodeled in the ironic eighties and made a modest comeback. Now the neighborhood is mostly a curiosity stop for tourists, like Chinatown or snaky Lombard Street in San Francisco. Right now, Little Cairo looks like a drunk tornado stumbled through the place, tossing around cars and trees, peeling the skin off the pyramids and obelisks, and just generally shitting up the place quite nicely.
After a short look around, Candy says—in her best Bette Davis voice—“What a dump.”
We stroll to the edge of the neighborhood and I do a little hoodoo to reveal the wards and charms shutting Little Cairo off from the rest of the city. Abbot’s crew did a good job. There’s nothing getting in or out of here, and from the outside, the place looks normal, except for the police barricades and quarantine signs.
Candy and I sit on a curb. I take out a Malediction and she hands me a flask. I drink and pass it to her before lighting up.
She leans back on her hands and looks around. “I was wrong before. It’s not so bad here.”
I almost choke on my cigarette.
“Are you kidding? This is where junkyards go to throw their junk.”
She looks around.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Fresno?”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35 (Reading here)
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169