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She seems a little preoccupied, but with her rehearsals and a full-time job, she gets tired early. Working on the council doesn’t take that many hours a week, and Kasabian hates having me in the store, so normally I have nothing but time. The big skeleton in my closet is that sometimes I pray for maniac angels and bastards like Wormwood to come after me. I think I’m a crisis junkie. Between holocausts, I watch movies, listen to music, and work a few hours downstairs. I have no idea what the hell else I’m supposed to do the rest of the time. I’m like a college pothead slacker, zoned out on the sofa, then panicking because I have to write a book report on Silas Marner. Candy thinks it’s all PTSD blowback. Maybe she’s right. I don’t know what I’d do right now if I didn’t have clowns like Charlie and Burgess to go after. My nightmares have gone away and even the headaches are better. Maybe my best bet for staying sane is to get Jason Voorhees to chase me with a machete the rest of my life.

We order Thai food and listen to some of the records Candy and Alessa have been learning songs from. After we’re done eating, Candy settles down against me for a while. I tell her about meeting with Liliane and Vidocq about black milk and the drill, but I don’t go into anything of them mooning over each other. It’s just too weird and it feels like gossip. Besides, if Vidocq pulls his shit together it won’t mean anything in the long run. Candy asks to see the drill. I get it and she plays with it for a few minutes before losing interest and setting it on the table.

&n

bsp; “Abbot’s got you running around all over the place. I’m glad you could make a few minutes for me,” she says.

“Excuse me, ma’am. You’re the one who’s been missing in action. I’m out chasing international jewel thieves and you’re playing bongos with your beatnik friends.”

“You know it, daddy-o,” she says. Then, “Hey, that thing with Nick and Geoffrey Burgess. That was a big coincidence you being there, right?”

“Yeah. The kid was the last thing I was looking for. Why?”

“It’s nothing. I just wondered if it had anything to do with Elsabeth.”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s Burgess’s wife.”

“Why would I care about her?”

“Abbot told you about Nick. I thought he might have heard about it from his sister.”

I look at her.

“You’re sure about that?”

“Julie stumbled across it and had me double-check. Elsabeth Abbot has been Mrs. Elsabeth Burgess for three years now.”

Fucking Abbot. What kind of games has he been playing with me? I knew I should never trust that blue-blood fuck.

“I need to go out.”

I start to get up, but Candy grabs my arm.

“Don’t go running off yet. Please. I shouldn’t have said anything about Abbot. I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I was putting off something else.”

I sit back down.

“What have you been putting off?”

She sits back, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“You remember a while back, you got mad when I talked to Julie about you maybe having PTSD?”

“Yeah.”

“And then you asked if I was upset about Rinko coming by.”

Candy and Rinko got together when I was stranded Downtown last year and everyone thought I was dead. She’s never forgiven me because, after an ultimatum, Candy decided to stay with me.

“I remember.”

“You asked if I still wanted to go out with Rinko, and I said no. But I also said that I sometimes miss dating women.”

“Did you change your mind about Rinko? I told you to do what you wanted. I’m not going to lock the doors or tell you how to live your life.”

“It has nothing to do with Rinko,” she says.