The Sandman Slim Series Books 1-4. Richard Kadrey

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      “I can’t make these personal calls all the time,” Lucifer says. “Kasabian here will be my voice when I want to get in touch. Of course, you can also relay messages to me through him.”

      “And the rest of the time he’ll be your spy.”

      “O ye of little faith.”

      Lucifer vanishes from the stairs.

      I can hear Kasabian’s voice from inside the bag. I open it about an inch.

      “Come on, man. You think I wanted this gig? You told me to ask for a job.”

      I open the bag the rest of the way and take Kasabian out. Clear a spot on the table and set him down.

      “Is that a Malediction?” Kasabian asks. “Can I have one?”

      I take mine, put it between his lips, and let him puff.

      “So what’s being dead like?” I ask.

      “Eh. I’ve felt worse.”

      “You know. I thought I’d be dead now. That’s how I always pictured it. When the Circle was gone, I was supposed to be gone, too.”

      “Aw. Dying didn’t work out for you? Boo hoo. Shove your James Dean wet dreams up your ass. At the end of the day, you’re still Sandman Slim and I’m still a head in a bag that smells like someone used it to store an extra ass.”

      “I miss Alice.”

      “I miss my balls.” Kasabian looks around. “Who fucked up my room?”

      “It’s my room now and you did. When you blew yourself up.”

      “Oh, right. That sucked. I heard you got Parker.”

      “Yeah. Back at the old motel.”

      “I haven’t thought about that place in a long time. You think it hurt when you killed him?”

      “Definitely.”

      “Good.”

      I take a puff of the Malediction and let Kasabian finish it off.

      I say, “Maybe us being stuck here isn’t the worst thing imaginable.”

      “No, it is. It really is.”

      “I felt so guilty about everything that’s happened. Then I remembered that half of this shit is just because humans are jokes to Heaven and Hell. We’re the punching bags in their family psychodrama. I know I can’t change that, but I can make it more fun. A mosquito can’t kill an elephant, but it can drive it crazy. Maybe that’s enough. Fucking with Lucifer’s bullyboys and God’s Pinkertons. Maybe that’s a good enough reason not to be dead.”

      “That’s really beautiful. Why don’t you go and knit that on a sweater, Heidi? Here’s an even better idea—don’t talk anymore. Put on a movie.”

      “What do you want to see?”

      “Porn.”

      “There’s no way I’m watching porn with you.”

      “You’re such an old lady. What’s on top of the player?”

      “Master of the Flying Guillotine and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”

      “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly first. Then The Flying Guillotine.”

      I take Kasabian to the bedside table, hit on, thumb play on the remote, and lie back on the bed. The no-copying warning comes up.

      “Can we order in pizza later?” asks Kasabian.

      “Can you eat?”

      “I can chew.”

      “I’ll put a bucket under you.”

      “Shut up. The movie’s starting.”

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Thanks to Ginger Clark, Diana Gill, Emily Krump, and Holly Frederick, and Jack Womack who dodge CHUDs everyday. Thanks to Nicola Ginzler and Pat Murphy, who continue to ignore the missing cemeteries. Thanks to Dino De Laurentiis, Lorenzo De Maio, Ed Wacek, and Igor De Laurentiis, who are the ham in a dinosaur-and-porn-star sandwich. Thanks also to the guys at Night Shade, the Liminals, Gus, and Kathy.

      Thanks especially to Tom Waits for letting me carjack some of his beautiful lyrics. If I die first, you can have my bones for a xylophone.

      Thanks to Sergio Leone, the Shaw Brothers, Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Takashi Miike, and Richard Stanley for killing pretty.

      

       For G and K

       Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds

       Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things

       Abominable, unutterable, and worse …

      – PARADISE LOST, Book 2

       I don’t want to achieve immortality through my

       work. I want to achieve it through not dying.

      – WOODY ALLEN

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Imagine shoving

       A Courier delivers

       I’m sitting in bed

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