The Devil Will Come (18 page)

“Before the ten years were up?”

“Oh, yes, long before. He’s say he was just checking to confirm that they were receiving what he had promised— and to remind them what the ultimate price would be. Then he’d sit there, looking evil, and wait for them to try to buy their way out of their contract.”

“Oh, my God,” Stone said. “I see what he was doing, the little bastard.”

“Sure. Manny would act reluctant, which would usually prompt the victim to offer even more money, which he would finally accept— in cash, of course. Then he’d make a ritual of tearing up the contract, and go off to spend his loot. It’s a perfect example of the long con, because the mark never knows that he’s been ripped off.”

“Wait a minute— Dunjee never came back to see me. Never!”

“I’m not surprised,” Morris said. “Because Manfred Schwartz was picked up by the FBI on multiple counts of interstate fraud— something like eight years ago.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“Manny never came back to extort money out of you after your life got better, because Manny’s life took a turn for the worse. He’s currently serving fifteen to twenty-five in a federal pen— Atlanta, I think.”

“But I never heard a thing— the feds never asked me to testify.”

“Probably because Manny hadn’t received any money from you yet, so technically he hadn’t committed a crime. Besides, I expect the government had plenty of other witnesses to present at his trial.”

Stone leaned back in the easy chair and appeared to relax for the first time since he had shown up at Morris’s door.

“Feeling better?” Morris asked with a quiet smile.

“
Better
doesn’t begin to describe it,” Stone said. “I feel like… like I can take a deep breath for the first time in ten years.”

“Well, then, I’d say that calls for another libation.”

Morris took their empty glasses back to the sideboard. While pouring Stone another Glenlivet, he unobtrusively opened a small wooden box and removed a couple of capsules. Using his body to shield what he was doing, he popped open the capsules and poured their contents into the drink he was making. He stirred the contents until the powder dissolved, then poured another bourbon and water for himself.

Morris gave Stone his drink and sat down again. The two of them talked desultorily for a while, then Stone said, “Man, I suddenly feel really wiped out.”

“Not surprising,” Morris said. “With the release of all that tension, you’re bound to feel pretty whipped. Anyone would.”

A few minutes later, Stone’s speech started to slur, as if he had consumed far more than two drinks. His eyelids began to droop, and then they closed all the way. Stone’s head fell forward onto his chest, and the nearly empty glass dropped from his fingers and rolled across the carpet, before coming to rest against a leg of Morris’s coffee table.

Morris called Stone’s name at a normal volume, then again, more loudly. Receiving no response, he slowly stood up and went over to the unconscious man. He put two fingers on the inside of Stone’s wrist and held them there for several seconds. Satisfied, he gently released Stone’s arm.

Morris then went into his bedroom and came back carrying a small, square-shaped bottle with a gold stopper. Back at the sideboard, he poured several ounces of a clear liquid from the bottle into a clean glass. He stoppered the bottle, then took the glass back over to his chair. He put the glass on a nearby end table, but did not drink from it. Then he glanced at his watch, picked up the latest issue of
Skeptical Inquirer
from the end table, and settled down to wait.

Morris did not check his watch again, but he knew the witching hour had arrived when a grey homburg suddenly plopped onto the middle of his coffee table. Looking up, Morris saw a small man in an elegant suit and bow tie sitting on the sofa. The man absently stroked his goatee as he frowned in Morris’s direction.

“I was about to say that I’m surprised to see you, Quincey.” The little man’s voice was surprisingly deep. “But, on reflection, I really shouldn’t be. My last client tried to hide out in a cathedral, for all the good it did him. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before one of them came crying to you for protection.”

“I’m surprised you even bothered with this one, Dunjee,” Morris said. “He was contemplating suicide when you showed up to make your pitch, so you guys would have had him anyway.”

The little man shook his head. “Our projections were that he wouldn’t have given in to his suicidal ideations, more’s the pity. Even worse, there was a 70-30 probability that, after hitting rock bottom a year or so later, he was going to enter a monastery and devote the rest of his life to prayer and good works. Ugh.”

Dunjee stood up. “I hope we’re not going to have any unpleasantness over this, Quincey.” He reached inside his jacket and produced a sheet of paper, which he waved in Morris’s direction. “I have a contract, duly signed of his own free will. My principals have lived up to their part of the agreement, in every respect.” He glanced over at Stone, and the expression on his face reminded Morris of the way a glutton will look at a big plate of prime rib, medium rare. “Now it’s his turn.”

“You know that contract of yours is unenforceable in any court, whether in this world or the next,” Morris said. “The only thing you’ve got working for you is despair. The client thinks he’s damned, and his abandonment of hope in God’s mercy ultimately makes him so.”

Dunjee shrugged. “Say you’re right. It doesn’t matter a damn, you should pardon the expression. If it’s despair that makes him mine, so be it. Bottom line: the wretch
is
mine.”

“Not this time,” Morris said quietly.

“Surely you’re not claiming he didn’t accept the validity of the deal. Did he come running to you because he was eager to hear stories about that ancestor of yours who helped kill Dracula all those years ago? I don’t think so, Quincey. He
knew
he was damned, and he was hoping you could find him an escape clause.”

“You’re absolutely right,” Morris told him.

Dunjee stared at him, as if suspecting a trick. “So, why are we talking?”

“Because I found one.”

“Impossible!”

“Not at all. Despair is the key, remember? Well, he doesn’t despair any more. I convinced him that the soul is not ours to sell— which you admit yourself. Further, I spun him a yarn about how you were a con artist planning to come back when his luck changed and extort money from him, except you got arrested before you could return.” Morris shook his head in mock sympathy. “He doesn’t believe in the deal anymore, and that means there’s no deal at all.”

Dunjee’s eyes blazed. “He doesn’t believe?” Before Morris’s eyes, the little man began to grow and change form. “
Then I will MAKE him believe
!” The voice was now loud enough to rattle the windows, and Dunjee’s aspect had become something quite terrible to behold.

Morris swallowed, but did not look away. He had seen demons in their true form before. “That won’t work, either. I slipped him a Mickey— 120 milligrams of chloral hydrate, combined with about four ounces of Scotch. He’ll be out for hours, and all the legions of Hell couldn’t wake him.”

Morris stood up then, facing the demon squarely. “The hour of midnight has come and gone, Hellspawn,” he said, formally. “You have failed to collect your prize, and consequently any agreement you may have had with this man is now void, in all respects and for all time.”

Morris picked up the glass he had prepared earlier. Pointing the index finger of his other hand at the demon he said, in a loud and resolute voice, “I enjoin you now to depart this dwelling, and never to enter it again without invitation. Return hence to your place of damnation, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never quenched, and repent there the sin of pride that caused your eternal banishment from the sight of the Lord God!”

Morris dashed the contents of the glass — holy water, blessed by the Archbishop of El Paso — right into the demon’s snarling face, and cried “
Begone
!”

With a scream of frustration and agony, the creature known as Dunjee disappeared.

Morris took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He carefully put the glass down, then pulled out his handkerchief to mop his face. His hands were trembling, but only a little.

He looked over at Trevor Stone, who had started to snore. He would never know what Morris had accomplished on his behalf, but that was all right. In the ongoing war that Morris fought, what mattered were the victories, not who received credit for them.

He sniffed the air, noting that the departing demon had left behind the odor characteristic of its kind.

Quincey Morris hoped the sulfuric scent of brimstone would be gone from his living room by morning.

* * * * *

Surprise Attack

You know what the writer’s life like. You ought to— you’ve been living it long enough. Some days, you’ve practically got to pull the words out of the Muse’s ass, one after another. And even then, what ends up on the page is usually shit, anyway. Other times, when you’re really cookin’, the words seem to flow like electrical current from your brain, through the keyboard, and onto the screen. And what’s showing up there is pure, solid, gold. Like now.

Don Pietro Abbandando sat back, made a tent of his fingertips, and stared at his prisoner. FBI Special Agent Steve Corrigan was bleeding both from his nose and his split lip, and one eye was nearly swollen closed— all thanks to the Don’s goons.

“‘I admire your courage, Agent Corrigan,’ Abbandando rumbled in his deep, husky voice. ‘But, really, this foolishness has gone on long enough. If you continue to deny me the information I desire, Paulie and Marco here will really have to hurt you.’

Okay, so it’s not
War and Peace
. Big, fat, hairy deal. Your blood-soaked Mafia sagas have racked up big enough sales to buy this big house with your private office in back, to put the Jag in the driveway, and to keep Marcie the Bitch in the style to which she quickly became accustomed, once
The Don
hit the bestseller lists three years ago. Since then, the Mafia’s been very good to you, even if Marcie the Bitch hasn’t.

“Corrigan spat a mixture of saliva, blood, and snot on Don Pietro’s expensive Oriental rug. ‘Why don’t you tell Paulie and Marco to go—”

Then the creak of a floorboard in the quiet room causes you to look up, and that’s when you realize that something is very wrong. Because two guys you’ve never seen before are standing just inside your office door, and they don’t look like they’re collecting for the Red Cross. They’re both late thirties, tall, thick-bodied, wearing sport coats over open-collared shirts.

And here’s the real ass-kicker: the one in the gray sport coat has a gun.

He’s not pointing it at you. Yet. It’s just dangling from his big paw, some kind of automatic made out of that plastic stuff that everybody seems to be using these days.

You don’t know what to say, so you try indignation on for size. “How the hell did
you
get in here?”

The one in the brown tweed sport coat shakes his head. “Don’t matter.” He takes a step forward and gestures back toward the door with his chin. “Come on.”

“‘Come on’? What the fuck do you mean,
‘Come on’
?”

Gray sport coat raises the pistol, and now it
is
pointed at you. “Somebody wants to see you. So let’s go. Quit screwin’ around.”

“
Who
? Who wants to see me? What
is
this crap?”

Tweed sport coat walks over, like he’s got all the time in the world. He puts his big hands on your mess of a desk and leans forward, so that his heavy face, with its hard brown eyes and five o’clock shadow, is less than a foot away from yours. His breath smells like cheap red wine.

“Look,” he says reasonably, “you’re coming wit’ us. That’s a fact. Only question is, you gonna feel okay on the way there, or are you gonna be hurtin’ in three or four different places, maybe bleedin’ a little”? He gives an exaggerated shrug, the theatrical bastard. “So, what’s it gonna be?”

When you haven’t got any cards worth a damn, all you can do is fold your hand. You stand up— slow, so as not to provoke this ape. “All right, okay, whatever. Let’s go.”

Tweed sport coat straightens up and nods approvingly. “I heard you was a smart fella.” He turns and walks toward the door. Gray sport coat gestures with his pistol, indicating that you’re supposed to follow. So you do.

They take you around to the front of the house, where there’s a dark green Olds Cutlass parked at the curb. Gray sport coat pulls out some keys and gets behind the wheel. The other guy opens the front passenger door and motions you inside. Once you’ve got your seat belt fastened, he gets in the back. Right behind you.

Gray sport coat turns to look at you. “Look, this drive ain’t gonna take long. You try somthin’ stupid on the way, you’re gonna get hurt. And Vinnie’s piece’ll shoot right through the back of your seat, comes to that. So you just chill, and enjoy the ride, unnerstand?”

“Yeah, all right,” you say. “But where are we
going
?”

“Can’t tell you that,” gray sport coat says. “It’s supposed to be, like, a surprise.” From the back, tweed sport coat makes a sound that might be laughter.

So the guy starts the car, and all of a sudden you’re thinking about your last novel,
The Capo’s Daughter
, published a couple of months ago. It’s another one of your lurid Mob melodramas, and its portrayal of
Mafiosi
characters was not kind. Some of the wiseguys in the book were cowards, others were drunks or drug addicts, and one debauched
caporegime
was shown sexually molesting his own daughter.

One of your cop buddies, Teddy Scanlon, told you a few weeks ago that he’d heard some of the local wise guys were convinced the book was about them— and they were not pleased. He tells you it’s nothing to worry about. Probably.

It’s all becoming clear to you now: the local mob, feeling insulted, wants you dead. But after a few moments, you realize it’s gotta be worse than that.

They’re not taking me someplace to kill me
.
They could have done that back at
the office: walk in, bang-bang, and leave.
Nobody else is home, they would’ve got away clean.

You’ve been scared ever since these two goons showed up. But now you’re terrified.

These bastards and gonna do me slow— just like that guy in
Left for Dead
who got
caught stealing from the Family. They used pliers and a fucking blowtorch on him. Maybe the Capo who didn’t like my book is gonna watch. God, maybe he’s gonna do it himself….

You would have given in to panic then, begging these Mafia goons not to go through with it, offering them money, the Jag, anything. You’d have cried and pleaded, for all the good it would have done you— if it weren’t for the gun.

When you learned that the local mobsters might have your name on their shit list, you decided to get some protection. Scanlon had told you the simplest way to buy a handgun was at a gun show. No background checks, carry permits, or other bureaucratic bullshit required. He suggested a compact revolver, and said that a lot of cops carry their off-duty pieces in ankle holsters.

Which is how you come to be sitting in that car with a Smith & Wesson Model 642 Centennial Airweight strapped to your right ankle, loaded with five rounds of .38 Special. Nobody, except Scanlon and the guy you bought it from, knows about the gun. Your friends would have called you paranoid, and Marcie the Bitch would have been full of sarcastic remarks about penis substitutes.

You’ve never killed anybody, except on paper. You’ve never shot at anyone, never even fired the damn pistol, except a couple of times, out in the woods, to be sure it worked. You’re not sure you could do it, even now.

A few minutes later, you realize that your time to ponder the issue has just run out, because gray sport coat is making a left turn into the parking lot of a dilapidated warehouse, then slowing to a stop. “End of the line,” he says with a smirk.

You stare bleakly at the deserted-looking building and you
know
the Mafia boss is waiting inside,
know
that these two bastards are going to take you in there to be stripped naked and tied to a chair, then cut and burned and blinded and castrated and killed
and you are NOT going to
let them do that
and as the car stops you unbuckle your seatbelt and lean forward, making a retching sound to cover your movements as you hike up your pant leg, unsnap the safety strap and grasp the revolver.

Now you sit upright and wait, heart pounding like a bass drum in a crazed rock band and tweed sport coat gets out from the back seat and walks to your door, opening it as gray sport coat is exiting on the driver’s side and tweed sport coat is saying something but the Smith & Wesson is in your hand now and you fire point-blank into tweed sport coat’s belly and as the bastard yells and staggers back you scramble out of the car and fire again, this time into his chest then you whirl to look for gray sport coat who’s standing next to the open driver’s door, staring, his mouth open in astonishment and you fire over the top of the car right into the middle of that fat thug face and gray sport coat falls straight back and doesn’t move anymore and now you stand there, huffing like a marathon runner, looking at the side door of the warehouse, knowing they’re inside, knowing that the smart thing is for you to get the car keys and haul ass out of there, but now you’re in a rage over these arrogant
fucks
who think they can kidnap and torture and kill anyone they want and you remember that the holster has cartridge loops and you reload the gun with shaking hands because you’re near-insane with fear that’s turned into a frenzy of hate at the
Capo
who’s ordered this, and you’re going into that warehouse and kill the motherfucker and you don’t care what happens to you after that, you’ve just killed two Mafia soldiers so you’re a dead man anyway and you stalk over to the warehouse door and yank it open and inside you see the place is in near-total darkness but off to the left there’s a weak, flickering light that’s coming from some kind of flame and now you can make out someone standing there, his back to you, and you’re waiting for the bastard to turn and see his death coming but as your eyes adjust you see it’s a woman,
Jesus, it’s Marcie the Bitch
, and the flickering light is from a bunch of little candles and the overhead lights flare into life and even squinting against the glare you see there’s people there, people you know, all grinning and shouting something, and you’re having trouble making it out with your mind reeling and your pulse pounding and your ears ringing from the gunshots, but it sounds like—

“SURPRISE!”

* * * * *