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I look at Candy and back to them.

“You’re saying I’m a ham sandwich?”

“Exactly,” says Brigitte.

“I can live with that.”

Vidocq comes over and Carlos follows with something in a rag. He holds it out to me.

“I guess we got a little distracted. We forgot your stuff in your coat.”

“The scroll too?”

“Yeah. Sorry, man. This is all we could salvage from the fire,” he says, handing me the rag.

It’s the black blade, and it’s perfect. No fire on Earth, even a hoodoo one, was ever going to hurt it. I wrap it back in the rag.

“Thanks a lot for everything. Really. Everyone.”

People nod and murmur.

Flicker taps me on the shoulder.

“So, Stark, that really is Mustang Sally over there?”

“Yeah. I’ll introduce you.”

Sally drops her cigarette and stubs it out as we go over.

She looks me up and down in my bare feet and my stolen robe.

“You look like a rakish hobo,” she says. “It suits you.”

I put a hand on Flicker’s shoulder.

“Sally, this is Flicker. This is her place.”

Sally smiles at her.

“Nice theater you’ve got here. There aren’t enough driveins left in the world.”

“I totally agree,” Flicker says. “You’re welcome here anytime, Sally.”

Flicker pulls some theater passes out of a pocket in her overalls.

“These are for you. Please come back. Whatever you want to eat or drink, it’s on me.”

Sally looks the passes over.

“I might just do that. What’s playing here next?”

I say, “It’s seventies week, right?”

“That’s right,” Flicker says. “Starting with Foxy Brown and The Getaway.”

Sally thinks about it.

“I might just come back for that.”