Fuck you, mind, he thought back. What am I guilty of? Doing my job?
“It was Carrie. Carrie Walsh, she killed her own kid. It was disgusting. She’s some kind of psychopath and you should…”
The Devil had pulled back slightly at the name ‘Carrie Walsh’, giving Thomas the impression that he’d been correct, this Devil was here for Carrie. But he seemed almost startled or shocked, as though he’d had no idea that Carrie was nearby. Something clicked and Thomas realized…the Devil was looking for Kelly and there was a certain desperation in his eyes, one that Thomas had seen a thousand times before.
The Devil loved Kelly? Could that be right? Thomas thought so, yes.
“Where has she taken Kelly?” the Devil growled into his face, gripping his arms even tighter.
Thomas’ mind was in a cold whirl of calculation.
“Why do you want to know?” he asked, his voice taking on a slightly belligerent tone.
He expected the Devil before him to fly into a rage. He was ready for a furious tirade against him, but, his mind had calculated, the Devil wouldn’t hurt him as long as he had information the Devil needed.
But the Devil only smiled as the fire left his eyes. It sent a ripple of fresh fear through Thomas the way a rage might not have. The Devil dropped Thomas’ arms and leaned against the wall across from the sink. He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Have a seat, my dear,” the Devil said, indicating the toilet. Sitri twined around Thomas’ legs as he shuffled to the right, nearly tripping him. Once Thomas was seated, Sitri leaped nimbly to the sink and perched on its edge. He looked from the Devil to Thomas with grim expectation, as if this were a highly anticipated sporting event of uneven odds.
Which, in a way, it was. Even Thomas knew that.
“Terms,” the Devil said.
“Huh?”
“Your terms, Thomas, for giving me the information to save an innocent woman’s life. What are your terms?”
Thomas was nodding even before the Devil finished. It was as he thought. They were bargaining. He felt a swaggering, boastful sense of confidence–he could bargain with the best of them. Ego alone kept him from realizing he was dealing with the Devil, but he could hardly be held to fault for that. Ego had tripped up greater men than he.
“Okay, uh…my terms.” Thomas had a bargaining strategy that had served him very well. It was unexpected, and it generally gave him an advantage over his opponent: he asked the outrageous first. “President of the United States. That’s what I want. And um, let’s see…a wife. One who has money of her own. Beautiful, but not bright, not ambitious. Like a Stepford wife…you familiar with that movie? That’s what I want. Oh, and I want to live well into my nineties without discomfort. And when I do die, I want to go in my sleep. And never gain weight, that’s important, too…and not get wrinkly…and my hair can’t go completely gray…and my wife shouldn’t lose her figure even after kids…and um…let me think…”
Thomas had hunched over, his chin in his hand, thinking hard. Rodin would have recognized him.
“I guess uh…just, you know, perfection. That’s what I’m talking about. A perfect life where I get everything I deserve. Everything. Got it?” He looked up at the Devil. His voice had strengthened as he’d listed the components of his perfect life, but when he turned to look to see if the Devil was getting all this, his voice faltered.
The Devil had not changed position, nor had his familiar. The Devil was smiling. A cynical, weary twist of his lips. Something small and long-buried in Thomas tried to worm its way into his consciousness…some deep and ancient part of his brain was trying to sound an alarm, the part that felt compelled to throw rocks at the sun or huddle in terror when thunder crashed incomprehensibly through the skies.
He quashed that part, thinking of it only as cowardly.
“Well?” he asked, forcing belligerence into his tone. “You got it or what?”
The Devil’s smile widened a few degrees more and he nodded once.
“Thomas Evigan, we have a deal.” His tone was mild and he put his hand out, but Thomas shook his head, drawing back. He didn’t want to feel that heat or be assaulted again by that stench.
“Uh, no, thanks, we don’t have to shake on it. I’ll just take you at your word; how’s that?”
“As you wish.” The Devil nodded again. “Now. Where has Carrie taken Kelly?”
“Well, listen,” Thomas stood and edged past the cat on the sink and slid out the bathroom door. He was careful not to make eye contact with the Devil. “Let’s get my car, and we’ll head in the direction they went.” He was patting his pockets. “Keys, keys…oh, here they are…we’ll head in the direction they went. Carrie had to have stayed locally last night, and she mentioned…well, let’s start out and we’ll go from there.” He finished cagily, feeling the weight of the Devil following close behind.
A heavy hand dropped to his shoulder.
“Thomas.” The Devil’s voice was flat. Ominous. Thomas stopped his frantic movements and stood still, listening. The cat twined around his legs as though he were the embodiment of the Devil’s voice.
“Yes?” Thomas said, trying to keep his own voice as neutral as possible. Still, a small quaver shook the one word he spoke.
“If we don’t find Kelly alive and unhurt…” the hand squeezed, sending fingers of heat needling into the muscles of his shoulder and back. “The deal is off.”
Thomas swallowed, feeling the heat nearing his heart and throat, drawing a line of sweat across his upper lip. He nodded. The hand slid from his shoulder. The sinking heat disappeared immediately.
The sweat remained, a salty reminder of the nearness of Hell.
* * *
Carrie had sunk back in the passenger seat, but she kept her head turned toward Kelly. She still held the knife, but had transferred the gun to Kelly’s purse, which she had tucked between her boots for safe-keeping. You can’t carry your purse on your lap–that was practically an invitation to get your ass car-jacked.
“I can’t believe you thought you could get him,” Carrie said. She shook her head, mouth twisted into a disgusted, incredulous sneer. “I mean, have you ever looked at yourself? You’re like, butt-fucking ugly.” Her eyes traveled over Kelly’s plain white blouse and sensible cotton skirt. “And you dress like a fucking nun. Nobody wants that shit, man.” She snorted laughter. She raised one booted leg nimbly to the dashboard. “This is what they want. You think I like these boots? Guess the fuck again, because I don’t. These are for men–for Thomas, I mean, but they all want this shit; they’re all dirty pigs. Think they can suck your tits forever. Whole world wants them to suck your tits.” She sighed. She was looking at the ruined toe of the boot on the dash and her voice had dropped. She was sulking. “They’re all just a bunch of animals, the women, too. They act like they’re not…act like they’re special…fucking whores and bitches, all of them.” She looked at Kelly. “You too, I can tell. You especially!” Now her voice was climbing to a higher register. “How could you think you’d take him from me?”
Kelly did not dare glance at Carrie. She was trying to follow the girl’s train of thought, trying to find an in…a way toward conversation…but Carrie was so disjointed, and so volatile!
But Carrie still stared at her, seemingly expecting an answer. Kelly cleared her throat. She felt the tug of the shallow cut Carrie’s knife had put there.
“I didn’t…I didn’t know…”
“LIAR!” Carrie screamed, lunging across the seats. The car jerked as Kelly’s arms tensed for a blow and she cried out. But Carrie sat back, laughing.
“Scared ya, right?” She laughed again. Kelly felt dazed; punched out and staggering. She glanced to her right. Now Carrie was staring out the window, humming.
Kelly knew she was in deep trouble. She knew she had to try and keep her head if she was to have a chance. Her thoughts went to the Devil. Ambivalent as she felt about him, she still wished he were here. She would have liked to see him again. Before…before anything happened. She thought about her parents, too. How they might have to face losing both their children. That thought encouraged her to try again.
“Carrie, I didn’t…” she paused, seeing Carrie turn toward her. “I didn’t know that you loved Thomas. I didn’t even know you before yesterday, can’t you see that?” She kept her tone reasonable and calm.
“Thomas never mentioned me before,” Carrie said, an edge creeping back into her voice. “Is that what you’re trying to tell me? That I’m just not very important?”
Carrie continued to watch her. Kelly felt she was walking a tightrope over a moat populated with nightmare beasts ready to leap. She thought hard.
“I wouldn’t try to keep you and Thomas apart,” she said. “I would never do that.”
“No, I know you won’t keep us apart,” Carrie said. Her voice was flat. “I’m going to make sure of it.”
A twist of frustration tried to work its way into Kelly’s stomach at Carrie’s deliberate misunderstanding, but she fought it down, maintaining her outward calm. She wouldn’t get anywhere if she fought with Carrie.
She had to find an avenue to her. And she had to find it fast.
Kelly shifted in her seat and Carrie’s head snapped in her direction. Kelly could see Carrie taking a breath to say something, but she spoke over her.
“Carrie, how do you know Thomas?” Her voice was casually inquisitive. They could have been two girls chatting at a cocktail reception, just getting to know each other.
Carrie’s mouth closed and opened again. She turned away from Kelly then turned back. She seemed torn by some inner mayhem.
“He saved me. Saved my life,” she said finally. Her voice was that of a very young girl. Kelly glanced at Carrie in surprise and then masked it by glancing at the rear view mirror.
“That’s…that’s amazing,” Kelly said. “That’s why you love him so much.” She saw Carrie nod in her peripheral vision. Her head was down and she toyed distractedly with the knife in her lap.
“Yeah. He’s my hero.” Carrie sighed and Kelly felt it again: the sense that there were many, many people packed into Carrie’s body. Or, more to the point, many personas. But Carrie wore her guises clumsily, sloppily. It was easy to see behind her makeshift facades once you’d spent any length of time with her.
“How did he save your life?” Kelly’s kept her voice calm but interested. Slightly admiring. She knew instinctively not to lay it on thick…Carrie would spot that as easily as a thief spots the flaw in his own shaky defenses.
Carrie didn’t say anything for a minute or two, but Kelly waited patiently. She knew that Carrie was constructing. Creating what she would say next.
“I was…I was accused of a terrible crime…” Carrie’s voice was soft, hesitant. The voice of someone reluctantly recalling a difficult time. She didn’t want to talk about it, her voice intimated, but she would if she had to…strictly as a favor to her listener…
“Some people were out to get me, and they framed me. Said I committed this really horrible…that I had murdered…someone, and the police, well, I think it might actually have been the police who framed me. And the prosecutor. He framed me, too. Said a bunch of things that weren’t true at all. Perjured himself actually. I think…” Carrie’s eyes had a far-away quality as she fabricated another new past for herself. “I think probably the prosecutor was in love with me, but I had turned him away. I didn’t want anything to do with him. So he framed me. It was horrible. Really, I was in a fight for my life and no one was on my side. Even my parents weren’t on my side. But then Thomas showed up like an angel from heaven, you know? Christ, it was like he’d been put on this earth just to protect me! And we fell in love right away. Of course.” She gave Kelly a shy little half-smile. “We’re here.”
Kelly had been trying to follow the thread of Carrie’s story, but there was nothing to follow. She was a bundle of wishes and delusions incapable of truth. But when she said “we’re here” Kelly was caught off-guard, trying to piece it into the rest of Carrie’s narrative.
She shook her head.
“We’re here?”
“Yeah. Turn right into that parking lot. We’re here.”
The motel was a run-down, one story u shaped building with parking in the center courtyard area. Catching sight of the sign–Red Devil Motor Court–Kelly felt another ache of regret that she might never see the Devil again. She realized she no longer thought of him as her brother…that familial nostalgia couldn’t be what made her wish she could see him just one more time. Did she love him? Yes, she was pretty sure she did, but it wasn’t the yearning, infatuated, sexually charged love you felt at a new relationship–it was the ingrained, time-tested, unquestioned love you have for someone who seems to have always been in your life; whose presence you never question. The kind of love so solidified that you never even had to mention it. It was as much a part of you as your breath and though as little considered, just as sustaining.
She turned into the lot, staring at the sign. The leering, jeering devil face with its fire-engine red horns and nastily lolling forked tongue had nothing whatever to do with her Devil.
Carrie directed her to a space in front of room 215 and Kelly parked. She waited, hands on the steering wheel to see what came next. There was movement in her peripheral vision; Carrie was shaking her head. Harsh sun shone in on her side, highlighting her features. She stared straight out the front window. She looked exhausted.
“You know, I know you’re just trying to suck up to me, keep me talking about Thomas.” For the first time, Carrie’s voice held no particular inflection. There was nothing false in her tone or manner. She was like an actor who has just come off stage from the last show of a play that had had a very long run. “I know why, too. Don’t think I don’t.” She turned her face to Kelly and Kelly shrunk back from Carrie’s glittering, yet somehow dead, eyes. “That waitress last night,” Carrie continued, confusing Kelly again. “She probably didn’t deserve to die. She didn’t do anything so bad, I mean, nothing like flirting with Thomas or anything like that.” She glittered sharply at Kelly again. “But I killed her anyway. Do you know why? Kelly, do you know why I killed that waitress? Do you know why I killed that neighbor that kept complaining about my dog shitting in her yard and that bitch from the park who told me to stop cursing and there was that teenager that was throwing rocks…and my kid…” Her voice trailed away and she looked down and at first Kelly thought it was from shame, but no; Carrie was merely counting them out on her hand. “Yes, that’s right–my son, the teenager, the woman from the park, my neighbor, the waitress…that’s five…” She glanced at Kelly, fingers spread wide. “Do you know why I killed each of them? Because they were bugging me. In one way or another, they were being pains in my ass.” She yawned, putting the back of her hand to her mouth. “I’m really beat,” she said, more or less to herself. “So you see, now, right? Why I killed them?” She looked at Kelly, eyebrows raised. “You see how they were being pains in my ass? Just like you’re being?”