Itâs happening and whoeverâs in charge down there canât stop it. What makes you think I can?â
âYou were the Devil,â says Kasabian.
Itâs true. I got stuck with Luciferâs job for three miserable months. And what do you know? I wasnât good at being a bureaucrat or a diplomat. I fucked Hell up worse than it was when I got there, and barely made it out with my hide intact.
âYou know God,â Kasabian says. âGet him off his backside. Or better yet, hide us in your magic room. Youâve always said that nothing can get in there. Itâs the perfect fallout shelter.â
I puff the Malediction, cupping it in my hand so the rain doesnât put it out.
âSo your solution to the end of the universe is to hide for the next billion years in the Room of Thirteen Doors? A room with nothing in it and nowhere to go.â
âOkay. It doesnât sound great when you say it like that. But we could fill it up with food and water and movies. Everything we need.â
âThereâs no electric outlets in the Room, and more important, no toilets. Get the picture?â
Kasabian comes over to the door and sticks his fat face into the rain, looking up into the black sky like maybe if he stares long enough God will part the clouds and give him a thumbs-Âup.
âIf we canât hide, then fix this shit. My business is going to fall apart when Âpeople realize they donât need me to find their relatives because theyâre going to be Downtown soon enough themselves.â
He wipes the rain off his face with his sleeve and heads to the back of the shop where his rooms are.
âIf anyone wants me Iâll be having a Béla Tarr festival in my boudoir.â
âBullshit. You donât watch gloomy Hungarians when youâre depressed. Youâll be watching porn all night.â
He gives me the finger without turning around and closes the door to his Batcave. I head upstairs.
Yeah, weâre broke now, but it was money well spent. We got Max Overdrive up and running again, at least on a small scale. And we fixed the place up so itâs less like a crash pad for a crazy person and a dead man and more like a place where actual Âpeople might live.
Kasabian has the ground floor, in three small rooms built behind the video racks. Candy and I have the upstairs. Three rooms like he has, with a little kitchen area. When we were building the place, all I insisted on was a bed with an extra-Âstrong frame, the largest flat screen humanly possible, and a dishwasher. I would have been happy eating off paper plates with plastic forks for the rest of my life, but Candy said I should stop pretending that the world is a squat and that Iâm just passing through. Iâve stuck around for almost a year, so maybe sheâs right. After losing room serÂvice and our cushy life at the Chateau Marmont, there was nowhere else for us to go but Max Overdrive. I donât think Candy ever lived anywhere very long before Doc Kinski took her in. She doesnât talk about her life before that. If playing Ozzie and Harriet makes her happy, then itâs all right with me. But Iâm still not folding fucking pillowcases. Good thing for everyone thereâs a laundry down the block.
Why has she been moody and off her feed lately? Today wasnât the first time sheâs been mad enough to snap. What if she feels like she got in too deep with the domestic bliss stuff? She dumped me once before, back when I disappeared for three months in Hell. Wouldnât it be a hoot if after getting sheets and plates and all kinds of kitchen trinkets, she decides she canât handle it? It wouldnât exactly surprise me. Most of my luck revolves around breaking things. If every day was car chases and sawing Âpeopleâs heads off, Iâd be the Pope of Lucky Town.
C ANDY COMES HOME about an hour later. I have Spirited Away going on the big