Free Devil Said Bang by Richard Kadrey Page B

go through the staff offices with hellhounds
and a flamethrower. I bet that will turn up the bottle. Hell, maybe the Holy
Grail and Amelia Earhart’s bones too.”
    Bill looks past my shoulder as he lights another
cigar. I half turn and see legionnaires staring at us. I slap the cigar from his
mouth, grab him, and push him hard around the side of the building.
    “Move, drytt!”
    When we’re in the dark, I let Bill go. He shoves me
with his free hand and balls the other into a fist.
    He yells, “What the hell are you playing at,
boy?”
    “We were being watched. Hellions and damned souls
don’t have heart-to-hearts in public.”
    He lowers his hand and uses it to rub the arm I
grabbed, more out of annoyance than pain.
    “I suppose you’re right. Still, I don’t care for
being roughhoused.”
    “Would you rather I shoved you and stopped or that one of those other assholes who’d mean it
did?”
    “I suppose you have a point. But it don’t make me
any less aggravated.”
    “So what did the letter say?”
    He leans his back against the bar and feels around
for another cigar. Pulling one out, he lights it and glances back at the one I
knocked to the ground. Cigars and cigarettes aren’t easy things for the damned
to come by. I’ll send him a box in the morning.
    “It wasn’t much of anything,” he says. “You’re
always concerned with how the local populace regards you. From what I’ve seen,
the rabble takes you as the grand exalted master of the infernal hindquarters
just fine. Though your boisterous days as Sandman Slim have left a deeper
impression. You’re credited with every cutthroat murder and cracked skull in
town, of which there are more than a few.”
    “Lucky me. Most people don’t get hated for one
life. I’m hated for two. If I get a part-time gig as a meter maid, I can
probably make it three.”
    I find Mason’s lighter in my pocket but nothing to
smoke.
    “Do you have any cigarettes? I left mine back
home.”
    Home. That’s a bad habit. Stop thinking that
way.
    “Sorry. My last smoke went down the shitter when
you knocked it out of my mouth.”
    “Liar.”
    He half smiles and pulls a pack from another
pocket. Bill’s been in enough saloons to know that a well-timed cigarette can
calm an argument quicker than an ax handle.
    “Was there anything else in the note?”
    Bill takes a while tapping the Malediction out for
me. At first I think it’s just how a man who spent decades rolling his own
smokes handles premade cigarettes. Then it hits me that he’s stalling.
    “No. I don’t suppose there was anything else that
mattered in there.”
    I check both ends of the alley for movement.
Nothing.
    More secrets. Just what I need. Is he changing
sides? Bill isn’t the happiest saloonkeeper in the universe. Taking orders and
abuse from drunk Hellions isn’t what he’s built for. Maybe someone made him a
better offer. Is there anywhere in this fucking town I don’t have to look over
my shoulder? Do I have to fill the Bamboo House with peepers now?
    I turn and start away.
    “I shouldn’t keep you from your bar, Bill. Thanks
for the information.”
    “Where are you headed?”
    “I’m thinking about getting drunk and seeing if I
can pick a fight at the arena. I still want some carnage tonight.”
    “I’ll walk with you.”
    I stop and look back at him.
    “You can do that? Just walk around?”
    He holds out Lucifer’s mark.
    “This keeps me out of all kinds of trouble. These
pig fuckers might stab each other over a nickel’s worth of beer, but they aren’t
about to break the Devil’s toys.”
    “Come on, then.”
    “Give me a minute. I got saddled with a dim Hellion
for help. Boy’d be a good thief if he ever actually took anything instead of
losing it. He’s too dumb to steal and too clumsy for the legions, so they made
him a barman, which, sadly, in my experience is just about right.”
    I light the cigarette and watch Bill go inside.
Johnny Cash singing “Ain’t No