As he scanned the room, he noticed a woman at a table by herself. A blonde. Not usually his type, but at least she didn’t look like the funeral home had burned down and taken Daddy’s corpse with it. She looked back at him and smiled. Coop tried smiling back, but the more he tried, the more self-conscious he became, until he realized he didn’t quite remember how smiling worked. It was like his face had developed amnesia. Finally, he forced the ends of his lips upward in what he thought might be an approximation of a smile and looked back at the blonde.

She picked up her bag and walked out the door.

Coop got up and went to the bar.

“I might have to leave town soon. Maybe the state,” he said.

“Why?” said Morty, alarmed.

“I have a feeling that blonde is going straight to the police and tell them I’m a serial killer.”

Morty looked around. “What woman?”

“She left. I scared her away. I’m officially woman repellent.”

“Maybe you got lucky,” said Morty. “Maybe she was a serial killer.”

Coop thought about it for a minute. “Unlikely. But thanks.”

“Any time.”

“I’m not sure I should smile at people anymore.”

“Yours is a little strained these days,” said Morty.

Sally came up with a drink in each hand. “Definitely don’t smile at people. You do look like you wonder what their liver tastes like.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded. “Any time. Get laid, Coop. Don’t smile at a dog until you do.”

“Unless it’s a really cute dog,” Tintin suggested.

“Not even then. It would be cruelty to animals,” said Sally on her way to their table. The others followed her. The fact that none of the others said anything told him everything he needed to know.

When he got the bartender’s attention he said, “Whiskey. Neat.”

“A shot? A double? How much?”

“All you’ve got.”

FOURTEEN

THE ANGEL QAPHSIEL AND A MAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF simply Frank were sitting at a card table in room 8 at a hotel on East Sixth Street in L.A.’s Skid Row district. The bottom floor of the hotel housed an extremely questionable fish-and-chips joint (the question being the composition of the fish. It was, in fact, fish and not some clever scientific construct, like flounder-flavored packing peanuts. The chips were generally considered all right, even if their age bordered on the Jurassic). The room smelled like old grease and a chemical forest, probably from all the pine-scented deodorizers that hung from every vertical surface. It was like Eden, Qaphsiel thought, if Eden had been dipped in batter and Kentucky fried by the banks of a chemical plant. Still, even in such dismal surroundings, Qaphsiel was excited.

“So,” he said.

“So,” said Frank.

“Thanks for meeting me.”

“I’m always happy to meet another seeker of the truth.”