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death doesn’t really do it for me. I’ll find the guy on my own.”
    I turn my back to her, walk away. Ignore her. Which is pretty much the biggest insult I could toss at something like her. Whatever. If she wants to take me out there’s not much I can do about it, anyway.
    “A favor then,” she says behind me, “for a clue.”
    I slow my steps, come to a stop. Still not facing her I say, “What sort of favor?”
    “Something small that fits with your particular expertise. I would like you to kill a man.”
    “To ask me to do this must mean he’s not just any man.”
    “He isn’t. He’s a powerful mage. Here in Los Angeles. There is no hurry, though sooner rather than later would be preferable.”
    “What’s he to you?”
    “Nothing,” she says. “I merely want to see if you can succeed against him.”
    “No time frame?”
    “That wouldn’t be much of a challenge,” she says, “would it? Let us say, in a week’s time?”
    Tracking this guy down, figuring out his weak spots. It’ll take time, pull me off focus. But a clue from La Flaca herself? That’s worth considering.
    “I’m not sure I’m up for an assassination,” I say.
    “Come, now,” she says, her voice chiding. “Is this so different from Charles Washington? That was an assassination.”
    “That was a rescue.”
    “And yet, Mr. Washington is dead.”
    “I don’t have anything against killing,” I say. And I don’t, not really. With powers like mine, my relationship with death isn’t exactly the same as everybody else’s. “But murder’s never really at the top of my list.”
    “Would it help if I told you he was a very bad man? Would that soothe the hypocrisy of your conscience?”
    “It might,” I say.
    “Then he is a very bad man,” she says.
    I think about it for a minute. If I accept there’s not much wiggle room. Deals with things like her are deals carved into your soul.
    “This clue,” I say. “It’s not something I already have. And I get it now, not in twenty years. And it’s useful.” One has to be explicit about these things. The simplest contracts are the most easily twisted.
    She laughs. “Of course,” she says. “Death keeps her promises.”
    It’s a tough call. But what’s one more dead mage?
    “What’s his name?”
    “Benjamin Griffin.”
    “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
    “I wouldn’t expect it to.”
    Kill a stranger, get a clue. It’s just another job with a slightly different payment. I turn back to face her and step back startled. She’s right behind me.
    “Deal,” I say. There’s a pop in the air that’s more feeling than sound and the contract’s set. I owe her a dead mage, she owes me a clue.
    We’re both bound to the pact now. Breaking this sort of contract leads to Bad Things.
    “Look for the ghost of Jean Boudreau,” she says.
    Not what I was expecting. “Boudreau didn’t leave a ghost.”
    I know this for a fact. I know this because when I killed him, I tore up his soul into little pieces and tossed them out like chum. I’d have pissed on them if I could have.
    “You’re very sure of that,” she says.
    “I am.”
    The scent of smoke and roses grows to an overwhelming stink. I start to gag, my eyes water. After a moment, the scent disappears as thoroughly as though it had never been there.
    And so has she.
    —
    “Fuck me.” I slam my hands on the Caddy’s steering wheel, slam the horn at some old lady walking across Los Feliz just because she’s there. She flips me the bird.
    My mind is bouncing around like monkeys playing ping-pong. The fuck did she mean look for Boudreau’s ghost?
    I’ve been played. Only I couldn’t have been. But I have to have been. The information had to be useful. It was in the contract. Which means she couldn’t lie to me.
    But she could be cryptic. And I thought this was going to be a step forward.
    Now I have next to fucking nothing and I have to kill a guy in the next week.
    Stupid, stupid, stupid. Goddammit. Here’s me being