He humored her with a smile. He knew words like “harridan” were retrograde, but sometimes the right words were necessary. “I’m looking for Duckie.”

The woman bellowed to a chunky teenage boy dusting off revolver-shaped candybars at the back of the store.

“Zeke? Would you go and tell Duckie that her boyfriend’s here?” The boy nodded and lumbered to an Employees Only door. “My daughter will be with you in a minute.”

On the wall behind her were dozens of faded celebrity photos, eight-by-tens like the ones displayed braggingly at dry-cleaning establishments all over Los Angeles. But these were entirely of children. Little girls, in particular.

“Customers?” he asked, while he waited.

“No, no. See here’s Tracey—and her big sister Missy. They peaked in the early eighties. Missy made it first, then Tracey won that part on Growing Pains. But they were both cursed with what I call ensemble face.” She sighed. “Here’s Jodie, circa Taxi Driver, look at those cute little freckles! . . . And here’s Heather, remember her? She was the little one in Poltergeist. Passed away when she was twelve . . . Well, she watches over me now.” She trailed off on that note. Raymond privately noted the bottle of Jack Daniel’s behind the counter. “They’re all my children. My little babies.”

“How exactly are they your children?” He tried not to sound too judgmental.

She bristled. “What d’you mean how are they my children? I watched them grow up before my very eyes. Followed their ups and downs through the years.”

A teenage girl with magenta hair ambled over unhurriedly. She wore her stars and stripes tank top with great significance, but Raymond couldn’t tell how ironic it was supposed to be, if at all.

“Bryce? I’m Duckie,” she said to him. “Follow me.”

In the dank stockroom behind the Employees Only door, Duckie pulled out a metal briefcase and opened it out to Raymond. In a dell carved out of gray foam was a pistol engraved with clichés—roses, vines, thorns. He flinched when she took it out and pointed it at him.

“Relax, man!” Harridan-in-training. She clicked open the cylinder for his inspection and spun it. “Just letting you see this beauty from every angle.”

Six empty chambers, making it a handsome holder for cigarillos. There was something about this thing that made it too unserious for the business of bullets.

“Pretty, huh?” She pulled out a thick catalog, opening it to a dog-eared page. “It says here that this is modeled after the pistols used by real vampire hunters in Transylvania.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“I’ll give it to you for a thousand bucks, fully loaded.”

In the kitchen, Mrs. Park slid over something slick that sent her tumbling on her ass. The puddle was clear and thick, like mucus, and she gasped in recognition.