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“Not really.”

“Thank God. Neither do I.”

See? The truth didn’t hurt. Now I need to get out of this particular knot of lies by not going back into the fight pit.

“Get whatever kind of lamp you want for the living room. Flying robots. Naked witches.”

“You know I was going to anyway.”

“Yeah, but I just wanted to say it.”

“Thanks. You know if I find out someone’s hurt you, I’m going to eat their fucking heart, right?”

“I know.”

“I know you know, but I just wanted to say it.”

“Thanks. Can I ask you one more favor?”

“What?”

“Can you turn that goddamn surf record over and play the other side. You’ve played this one about fifty times.”

“This is my homework. Alessa is going to teach me surf guitar.”

“I bet there are songs on the other side you can learn.”

“Your wish is my command,” she says, and pads out of the bedroom to the stereo.

When she’s gone, I take a long, deep breath. This thing we have. I don’t want to fuck it up. I don’t want to lie anymore and I don’t want a dog. I just want Candy or Chihiro or whoever she has to be next to stay alive. We’re in this together and I’ll kick the ass of anyone who gets in the way. Even if it’s me.

“Did I tell you an angel gave me a birthday present tonight?”

She comes back into the room and flops onto the bed.

“No. Tell me every little thing about it.”

So I do. And we’re okay.

For a while.

CANDY IS GONE when I wake up in the morning. There’s a note on the kitchen counter when I go in to make coffee.

Jamming with Alessa at her rehearsal space after work.

Home late. Be naked.

There are some hearts and she’s taped a press-on tattoo of a sleeping cat at the bottom of the note. I lick a spot on my forearm and press down on the tattoo. A minute later I pull it off. No cat. Just a few frayed lines scattered across my scars. Once again, my stupid body rejects the simplest amusements. So, I make coffee. That’s one bit of pleasure that still works.

I don’t bother going downstairs and bothering Kasabian. He’s even drearier than me in the morning. Before he gets up and turns on the news or does something else to annoy me, I turn on the rest of a movie I started with Candy the other night: Amer. It’s a deconstruction of Italian giallo flicks. The directors tear it down to its essential elements—beats, images, violence, colors, sexual tension—but they do it almost wordlessly, like a silent movie. Just the thing for that time of day when words are still hard to come by.

I sip coffee and smoke, letting the movie run through to its end and one last little shock, then pick up my phone and thumb in Vidocq’s number. He picks up after a few rings.

“James, how nice to hear from you at this early hour. Is everything all right?” His voice is deep, the accent relentlessly French.

“Nothing’s wrong. Sometimes I’m actually up during daylight hours. I just thought if you were going to be around, I’d swing by and show you something that fell into my lap from Heaven.”

“Really? You must come immediately. Do not stop for coffee. I’ve made some better than your vile swill.”