Authors: Jeffrey Littorno
At that point, Joey’s voice broke in, “Thomas, think about the best dreams you’ve ever had! I mean the most awesome dreams! You drivin’ the hottest, fastest cars. You bangin’ the hottest babes. You kickin’ back on a warm beach. Remember the choice of a few months on Easy Street or a lifetime on a warm beach? You chose the lifetime on the warm beach, remember?” Joey’s face took on a serious expression. “Didja think the beach came without a price?”
Joey’s questions bounced around in my head for a couple of seconds before I answered, “When has either of us thought about the price of anything?” I laughed, but no one else joined me.
“Yuh know I’d be happy to do it if I cud, but the deal is I can’t. It’s not like all those other times. This time you hafta be the one to do the deed.”
“Why?” I asked loudly. “Because he says I have to?” I spun around to look at Stoaffer slumped in one of the recliners. “Why are we following some crazy old man who we grabbed during a robbery? Why are we listening to anything he says?”
“We’re listenin’ to him ‘cuz no one else is sayin’ nothin’!” Joey answered. “Now stop talkin’ and just get this done!”
The gun floated up in my hands on its own. I pointed it at Theresa. The Glock jumped with a violent jolt as a puff of smoke and a bullet blew from the barrel. Everything remained frozen for several seconds. A slow trickle of red from a small circle in the middle of Theresa’s forehead flowed down between her eyes to drip from the tip of her nose. Her lips quivered. In her eyes was a look of shock. All of a sudden, she fell over to her right and was still. I stood with the gun still lifted watching the motionless body in front of me. This was the scene until Stoaffer’s voice yanked me out of it.
“Thomas, all you need to do is pull that trigger and everything of which you ever dreamt will be yours.” Stoaffer’s voice sounded energetic, but his words really caught me off guard.
I rolled my eyes to show the ridiculousness of his statement. I even waved the gun at Theresa’s lifeless body to show him how he ought to pay a little more attention to what was happening. My stomach jumped into my throat as I turned toward her. Theresa stared back at me with her eyes and nose red from crying. She had a terrified expression but no hole in her forehead.
“Please, there is no reason to do this.” She said. “Joey, is it?”
“Thomas,” I answered.
“Uh…Thomas, there is no reason to do this. I haven’t done anything bad to anyone. If it’s just about money, I can get you lots of money. Whatever you want.”
I glanced toward Louis to check his reaction to Theresa’s offer. He flew out of the chair to stand next to me.
“You’re not seriously listening to this crap, are you?” He growled. “Use your head! She’s begging for her life. She will say anything to save herself.” Stoaffer took a deep breath to calm himself and continued, “She promises to get you a great deal of money. Think about it logically, Thomas. Why would she do that? Right now, you’ve got her in your sights. Right now, you own her. But later, who knows? Once we leave this room, she is no longer under your control, and she’s got no reason to keep her promise.”
I felt like a spectator at a tennis match as I turned my head to see how Theresa would respond to Stoaffer’s words.
“Thomas, that is not true. I promise I will get your money, and you can trust me,” she said as she shifted her eyes to Louis. “I still don’t understand what I did to deserve your hatred, Uncle Lou.”
Stoaffer simply ignored her words and kept his focus on me. “There is not time for this. Just finish this so you can start enjoying a new life.”
I knew Stoaffer was right. This was the moment for me to take action. With that thought in mind, I raised the gun and pointed it at Theresa. But as soon as we made eye contact, the thought and my determination was gone. Her glowing innocence made it impossible to even consider harming her. My arms went limp, and the gun fell to my side.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Thomas, you are worthless!” Stoaffer screamed. “Can’t you do anything?”
The words were not much different than those I had been hearing for my entire life. Somehow at that moment, they stung more deeply, and I spun back toward Theresa.
I never had much experience with guns, especially shooting them. This probably explains why the gun fired before I had stopped completely and why my shot missed the mark. Instead of hitting her in the middle of the forehead, the shot struck her in the cheek below her left eye and tore away most of that side of her face. I caught a glimpse of her bright, white teeth. The force threw her body backward and part of her brain splattered on the wall behind. I bent over and threw up on the floor around my shoes.
After a few minutes, my stomach was empty and the dry heaves stopped. I raised my head slowly unsure of what I would see. The room seemed much brighter than it had been. I looked around to see if someone turned on another light. Instead, it appeared each light had grown stronger, and I could no longer stare directly at the lights. I did not see Joey anywhere in the room and wondered where he could be. My gaze eventually settled on Theresa’s body slumped over on the couch. A dark stream of blood was pooling on the floor next to the couch. Stoaffer was half-sitting on the couch leaning over her body and sobbing. His reaction puzzled me as I shuffled over to him.
He seemed completely oblivious to anything other than Theresa’s lifeless body, which he alternated between lifting while hugging and placing carefully back on the cushions of the couch. The sobbing continued for several minutes until I slowly reached out to touch him on the shoulder. At the instant my fingertips touched the old man, I knew I had made a terrible mistake, maybe the worst mistake of my life.
The sobbing stopped immediately. Stoaffer’s head slowly turned toward me. The face I saw had changed from Stoaffer’s. It appeared much sharper, almost jagged. His eyes were almost reptilian, glistening gold with tiny black pupils. His nose was sort of a spike. His mouth was twisted into a shape which was more of a snarl than anything else. The teeth revealed looked yellow and dirty and very sharp. Tears glistened as they ran down his cheeks. His mouth started to move like he was going to speak, but it appeared difficult for him to control his tongue. The thin red tongue darted in and out between his lips as if it had a mind of its own. A string of sounds came from the mouth, but it was gibberish. After a moment, he tried again. This time,
I understood the slurred words.
“You killed her. How could you kill her?” The Stoaffer-thing lisped. “She was so good…so beautiful.” Stoaffer’s yellow eyes did not seem to blink, and I could not interpret his expression.
Now it was my turn to have trouble finding my voice. Killing Theresa had not been something I wanted to do. I had done it only at Stoaffer’s insistence. To hear him now ask why I had done it was too much to bear, and I screamed, “What the hell are you talking about? You know that I didn’t want to do it! Even when Joey agreed to do it, you said it had to be me!”
“No, I said if you wanted to enjoy the good life, Theresa had to die,” Stoaffer hissed. “I never thought you were selfish enough to kill her.”
“You…you… were pushing me to do it! You told me not to listen to anything she said!” I spluttered.
I glared at the face of the Stoaffer-thing as the mouth curled into a smile. “Calm down, Thomas. I’m just messing with you.” A raspy, squeaky laugh erupted from him. “I loved her, but I needed her removed. No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t do it. Thanks a million!”
“I don’t even know what you are!” The strangeness of the situation was beginning to sink in, and I was nearly hysterical. “I want to get out of here! Where’s Joey?”
My question brought another laugh from Stoaffer. “You’re looking for Joey? Seriously, Thomas?”
“Fuck you, Louis! Where is he?” I screamed.
Suddenly, the Stoaffer-thing was quiet. After a moment, he said calmly, “I am certainly surprised that you didn’t figure it out. Joey is not
here
.”
“Louis, I can see he’s not here. Where is he?” I asked struggling to stay calm.
“He is
there
,” he answered and pointed directly at me.
I turned to see if he was behind me. Of course, he was not. I spun back around to find Stoaffer standing near me.
He pushed his finger to my forehead and said, “Not there, but here.”
At the sound of the words a wave of nausea swept over me and the room began spinning. I was in hell and I knew it. Of course, knowing something and accepting something are two very different things. To avoid having to think about it any more, I charged ahead. “Enough of your bullshit! Just tell me where Joey is so we can get our money and get outta here!” I shouted with a lot more courage than I was feeling.
His mouth curled into what was supposed to be a smile as he said, “Are you serious? You still don’t understand? You are not getting any money, and you are not going anywhere that I don’t want you to go. You have been chosen, because you present a unique case.” He stopped for a second to let me appreciate the meaning of his words. “Everyone, excluding the pure psychopath, has internal voices reminding him of what is right or wrong. Like the little angel and devil you see in cartoons. But you ... well, you are special. I have never seen anyone who has created such an independent embodiment of the voice.”
Any delusions of self-control or power were instantly drained from me. I felt completely helpless. As
helpless as a baby
was certainly a fitting description since I found myself bawling and collapsing to my knees.
“I don’t understand!” I cried. “I just want to leave this place.”
The Stoaffer-thing took a step back and regarded me from the distance. After a few seconds, an expression of amused curiosity covered his face, and he said, “This is the part where most folks start begging and trying to make deals with me.”
I looked up at him from the floor and whined, “But I don’t even know who you are.”
In an instant, his face with its snake-like eyes was inches from my nose. “No idea? Come on, Thomas, take a guess! All the clues are right in front of you.”
I looked down and couldn’t force my eyes back up again. “I don’t know,” I sobbed.
He moved back as he said, “You do! Think about it, Thomas. What did that skinny old bitch in Sunday school tell you?”
His insistence that I should know turned my feebleness into anger and forced me to my feet.
“Stop with the fucking games! Just tell me who you are!” I shouted, and my sudden burst of courage and an-ger caught both of us by surprise.
After a moment, the smile of the Stoaffer-thing reappeared, and he said, “Well, yours is certainly an unusual reaction. Most of those with whom I deal never get beyond the bargaining stage. Another way in which you are clearly exceptional. However, Thomas, there is no need to get all worked up about not recognizing me. Just another example of the failing education system, I suppose.” The Stoaffer-thing chuckled at what he thought was a witty observation. “Never mind that. I will tutor you a bit. Why don’t you have a seat?”
He motioned toward a recliner as he sat on the edge of the couch near Theresa’s lifeless body. I stood still for moment contemplating how absurd everything was before giving in and sitting down.
He folded his hands on his lap and took a deep breath as if about to begin a long story. “Where to begin? Oh, I know! Let’s head back to Tabernacle Baptist Church.”
I was beyond the point of being surprised by his knowledge of my life and simply smiled.
In the next instant, we were both standing at the back of that little room where Sunday school took place. From that angle, I was reminded of the story where the ghosts take the old guy to visit Christmas past. The Stoaffer-thing and I watched as the scrawny old woman spoke to the children sitting on the floor in front of her.
“Satan may take many shapes and many names. He does that just to trick unsuspecting sinners.” Her screechy voice grew louder as she forgot about the children listening and appeared to be preaching to a grand church full of people. “He might look like your friend trying to get you to steal candy from the store. Maybe he looks like your neighbor showing you a magazine full of pictures of sinners fornicating like animals! At other times, he takes the shape of a harlot tempting your husband with her promises of sexual pleasures!” Remembering her young audience, the woman stopped to calm herself before continuing, “We have a whole bunch of names for him,” she said brightly. “He is called Satan, Beelzebub, Father of Lies, and Lucifer among other things. But no matter what he is called, be sure that he is an evil so-and-so and will drown you in the lake of fire.” The skinny old woman could not completely hide her smile at the image.
“Well, it is certainly nice to have a fan,” Stoaffer joked.
My vision suddenly became blurred as the meaning of his words became clear. “What are you saying?”
“Use your brain, Thomas,” he smiled broadly. “You know it is true. You have known it ever since you set eyes on me.” We were instantly back in the grocery store where Joey and I had met Louis Stoaffer. “Think back. Remember the first time you saw me?”
It was not hard to remember the first disturbing im-pression I had of the old man. “I remember how disgusted you made me feel,” I spat out.
What I had intended to be harsh insult only served to amuse him, which was infuriating. “Thomas, your hon-esty is so refreshing! I have long been curious just how others felt when looking upon my latest incarnation. So do you remember anything else?”
“I remember that despite my efforts I couldn’t keep my eyes from looking at you,” I answered.
He laughed loudly and said, “Well, thanks very much! It’s nice to hear that I have such animal magnetism! However, I am more interested in your impressions after leaving the grocery store. How did you feel?”