Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  “Summon you? Hardly. You came to our valley. You impose upon our places of business, enter, uninvited, into our lives. You demanded this meeting. Best that we cut to the chase.”

  “A good idea.”

  “Dead meat attracts carrion scavengers, predators, and flies. You’ve followed a gamey scent to our doorstep. Conversely, it’s understandable. The ring was removed from your nose the moment you quit the Outfit and so you blunder recklessly. Our house could find a position for you. We could offer you direction.”

  A servant poured more wine. I drank it because I needed it.

  “Hard pass.”

  He smiled pityingly. The Mares smiled cruelly. The Magician sucked and slobbered; maybe he was smiling too. I had a wry epiphany. Amongst the traditional conspiracy theories revolving around faked moon landings, the Kennedy assassination, UFOs, and Bigfoot, a select vintage deals with the conviction that ultrarich folks are a bunch of raving Satanists, mass murderers, and/or closet eugenicists. I’d waded hip-deep into the headwaters of Cuckoo River.

  “I’ve had the dubious honor of mixing in the company of assorted megalomaniacal fuckers,” I said. “Sadists. Button men. Capos with delusions of grandeur. Dons consumed by dope habits and untreated venereal disease. Maybe the don read a history book or watched Caligula and it gave him ideas. Baby psychopaths pull the wings off flies. Babies grow to be indolent pieces of shit surrounded by yes-men and whores. They remain babies and psychopaths under the slick haircuts and fancy suits. Their torments are elaborate to the eye. But if you aren’t distracted by the illusion, it’s only a kid smeared in shit; a brat with a magnifying glass.”

  The Magician, engrossed in making love to the roast bone, laughed. Mandibole’s expression changed for the worse and the Magician shut up.

  “Great, important work proceeds phase by phase in our valley,” Mandibole said. “Pulling the wings off flies constitutes a meager percentage of my free time.”

  “Great, important work. Condos? A business plaza? Your stupid abandoned collider?”

  “The collider isn’t dead. It’s dreaming.”

  “Right on. The Redlicks aren’t guilty of hubris if they can make the magic happen. I guess as long as there’s money and a bunch of rich assholes willing to shovel it, there’s hope.”

  He pointed behind his head at the portrait of Redlick.

  “Shall we be real for a moment? No one cares for your opinions. Your presence is an intolerable embarrassment.”

  “Me, an embarrassment? Pal, that’s the case for somebody somewhere from the moment I put my shoes on in the morning. You guys aren’t special. Oh, hold the phone. You have your great, important work. I almost forgot.”

  “Nature is red of tooth and claw. You are familiar with this idea.” He lowered his voice and said it the way a secret agent might relay a code to his contact, probing for verity. “Terrible outcomes are guaranteed should you persist. Against all reason you are fated to persist.”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Foote? Since you’re in a verbose mood, care to grace us with a pearl of wisdom?”

  The Magician shut his eyes.

  “Rich and poor,” he intoned. “Man and ant . . . Darkness surrounds us. Our atmosphere is a veil. The crust of the earth we walk upon is thinner than an eggshell. It’s quite useless, this struggle. Struggle we shall, for men are beasts enslaved by their wants and their fears.”

  Mandibole appeared satisfied.

  “There you have it from the lips of an ascetic possessed of dreadful knowledge.”

  “Let me recap to be certain I’ve got the gist,” I said. “Thinner than an eggshell and very dark. The woods are teeming with wild beasts. Men are beasts and slaves. Beasts die, men die. Ants. The moral is, I don’t care.”

  “Be that as it may,” Mandibole said. “I’m sure you comprehend. Who among us doesn’t occasionally bow in obeisance to dread and terrible forces?”

  “Namely gravity,” I said.

  The Magician opened his eyes.

  “The Kaleidoscope will revolve, soon revolve.”

  The Mares of Thrace whipped their heads in unison to glare at the ancient. The boys snarled; the girls hissed.

  The Magician winked at me.

  “To Hades with climate change, with asteroids, nuclear holocaust.” His voice began, scratchy and weak. He gained steam. “To Hades with half measures.”

  “Mr. Foote, if you please—” Mandibole said.

  “The Kaleidoscope is the surest method. It will remove humankind from the galactic map and send us back to the Dark Ages. Perhaps a new Stone Age. We would be preserved—”

  Veronica shrieked in rage and raked her cotton-candy-pink nails through the tablecloth and into the hardwood. Wood shavings and sawdust piled around her fingers. Slick and Golf Pro leaped to their feet and onto their chairs, visages twisted in hate, spitting curses.

  “Stifle yourselves!” Mandibole slapped the table, flashing a bestial snarl like Dracula breaking up a catfight in his harem. The Mares subsided with alacrity. The Magician hunched, staring at his plate and the roast bone.

  I gave tempers a moment to cool.

  “What the hell do you want, Tom?”

  Mandibole rubbed his temples.

  “Mr. Foote speaks truly. It is necessary to pay homage to the lesser of evils. Because so much worse is out there in the dark.”

  “I’ll rephrase the question. What do you want, Tom?”

  “I wanted to touch you. To shake your hand. To break bread. To show you the futility of your mission, the fragility of your very hypermasculine existence. To remind you that your instincts are correct, but also futile.” Mandibole scrutinized me. One moment, he was a real boy; the next, plastic. “I must ask. Are you an agent of the Labradors?”

  “The Labradors didn’t send me here.”

  “Good. I don’t know if I believe you. But good. My advice? Hop in your car and drive home.”

  “Trust me, I’d love nothing more.”

  “Once you leave, never come back here. Not for love or money.” He smoothed his pocket square, tracing the letters.

  My head began to throb with the onset of a migraine. The business with my intermittently fritzed hearing was exacting a toll. The sun burned a notch in the black cloud; a red eye. It didn’t brighten the dining room. I glanced around the table at the leering imposters in their high school costumes, at the ancient who’d licked the meat to bone, then gnawed a hole in the bone itself. The bone was the size and shape of a primitive recorder. Polished to a gloss finish and pointy as a spike at one end.

  The Magician put it to his lips and blew a halting, tremulous note. The note gathered power and sharpened to an unbearable pitch that quivered and ceased. He extended his long, gaunt arm and laid the bone upon my empty plate with a soft clink.

  “For when it’s time to face the music,” he said.

  Nausea surged into my throat. I rose, gripping the knife so hard my knuckles ached. Would they really permit me to walk out the door, or would this devolve into a reenactment of Julius Caesar’s infamous last scene? The goons and the Mares were far less of a concern than the master of ceremonies himself. He impressed me as a spider, coiled and alert, poised to spring upon its prey.

  “What lurks in the darkness of interstellar space? The interstellar reaches of our souls? Terror.” Mandibole reclined, motionless, hands in plain view, yet his whisper emanated behind my left ear. Then, louder, “The emotion you’re experiencing. It’s terror. Terror ruled the indigenous tribes of the Valley. Terror motivated the white colonists. Of course, men fear the wilderness, the natural features of the land. That’s why men deface it at every opportunity—burn it, bulldoze it, hack it to stumps, and pound it to gravel. They desire clear lines of sight.”

  I disliked how he said “they” in reference to humanity.

  “Goodbye, Tom. Let’s
do it again in the next life.”

  “Some heroes are compelling because they represent the little guy,” he said to my back. “She or he is the little guy, and everybody roots for him or her to rise up, for the worm to turn.”

  I made it to the door, then wended my way down the intricate maze of passages. Neither Mandibole nor his Magnificent Seven Freaks had moved to pursue, yet his voice carried eerily and slithered after me as I made good my escape.

  “Some heroes are compelling because they’re invincible bad asses,” he said. “Demigods. Both kinds are worthless. Prostrated before the approaching shadow, worms are worms. Demigods are puny, weak, ineffectual. In the face of towering evil, they wither and are consumed.”

  I nearly stiff-armed the valet aside in my haste to get the hell out of there.

  * * *

  ■■■

  Back at the hotel, I guzzled a bottle of the five-dollar water because there wasn’t any whiskey, and stared into my bloodshot eyes in the mirror. My expression was the same as after waking from a three-day bender. I showered with the spray set to strip paint and replayed the events of the day so far. Ventriloquism may as well be black magic to me. I questioned the scraps I did know. When a ventriloquist throws his voice, are you supposed to feel his breath in your ear?

  Standing in the center of the suite, towel wrapped around my waist, slowly coming down from the extreme emotions of the past hour, I contemplated heeding Mandibole’s advice to get out of Dodge. For a bit of perspective, I signed into my bank account and studied the figures, particularly the pending transfer of Adeyemi’s second retainer installment. An eye-watering sum. Adeyemi was moderately comfortable, however by no means wealthy. This financial outlay represented a hell of a noble gesture toward his sister and dead nephew. It irritated me to consider, not for the first time, that the black-hearted sonofabitch secretly hoarded one or two human emotions. I prefer my bad guys to stay in character. They’re easier to sort.

  I lingered over the sum, calculating how many outstanding bills it would erase versus the very real chance I’d have to go head-to-head with that Horseheads crowd sooner or later.

  To paraphrase Beckett, I can’t go on. For this kind of dough, I’ll go on. Money, yes, money. Also, the fuck-you factor.

  Changing clothes, I cleaned out my pockets. The Magician’s bone dropped onto the carpet.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A quarter past eight on Tuesday morning, Lionel walked in and joined my table at the Plowman’s Diner. That didn’t surprise me much. Lionel adhered to strict routines, yet was capable of deviating from the script in surprising fashion. Ezra Bellow, special agent, FBI, slid in beside him. That was unexpected. Lionel wore his safari hat, thrashed camouflage jacket, holey jeans, and Red Wing shoes. He was plainly hungover. Bellow, African American, late fifties, and solemn as a portrait of doomed royalty, wore a gray hoodie and cargo pants tucked into winter boots. Both were carrying.

  Bellow operated out of Maryland and DC, although he went where the job took him. Extraneous circumstances, and his unorthodox philosophy, had led to our occasional collaboration. I’d begun to consider us friends. Granted, a former mob enforcer and an upright, uptight Eliot Ness–loving man of the law made for an odd couple. I harbored the suspicion that Bellow was as close to incorruptible as a cop gets. If a tiny grain of that rubbed off on me, all to the good.

  I finished my plate of scrambled eggs while the waitress poured coffee. Lionel sipped and grimaced. He covered his face with both hands, hunched forward, and sat that way. Bellow asked for a menu. He unclipped a set of reading glasses and pushed them onto his nose. He scanned the menu like he was proofreading a deposition and eventually ordered eggs, hash, toast, and a glass of OJ. I resisted the urge to ask where he got the specs. I wasn’t there yet.

  “Three words,” Bellow said.

  “Go home, Yankee?” I said.

  “Senator Gerald Redlick.” He waited for me to comment. In vain. “Senator Gerald Redlick, owner, CEO, and fifty-one percent shareholder of the Redlick Group.”

  “That’s more than three words. Didn’t he divest, or place his businesses in a blind trust, or whatever politicians are supposed to do while holding public office?”

  “Yes. Very well. Let’s try two words and a sentence. Badja Adeyemi. A friend of a friend heard it from a little bird that Badja Adeyemi, disgraced former cop who kisses Senator Gerald Redlick’s ass and is currently under federal indictment, put you on retainer to dig up skeletons. Corporate skeletons.”

  I nodded. “Here’s a sentence for you: Badja Adeyemi is a client who’s paying me an obscene fee to stumble around with my hands in my pockets and ask people about the weather and if some kid they knew years ago, who offed himself in dramatic fashion, was as squeaky clean as he seems on paper. Spoiler alert—so far, the verdict is leaning toward yes, it was a suicide or an accident, and yes, he was a clean, super-chill dude whose mother loved him to pieces.”

  Bellow pinched the bridge of his nose, a gesture I was positive he’d developed in the company of wet-behind-the-ears agents and recalcitrant grandchildren.

  “He banged on my door at four-thirty this morning,” Lionel said from behind his hands. “I was in bed for half an hour.”

  “You should’ve warned me,” I said.

  “We wanted it to be a surprise,” Bellow said.

  “Are you here to cajole me into dropping the case?”

  “And interrupt early Christmas vacation to come talk to a brick wall? Nah.”

  “FBI dudes get Christmas vacation?” Lionel said.

  “The good ones do,” Bellow said. “SDNY scuttlebutt has it that Senator Redlick’s office is anxious that Adeyemi got rolled up. Nobody in Redlick’s camp wants to see Adeyemi pressured. The senator’s corporation is a safety net for if and when he rolls snake eyes politically. Your poking into its past dealings could be viewed as a threat.”

  “Can’t a guy poke around the tiniest bit without everybody coming unglued? Jeez.”

  They both chuckled.

  “If not to hassle me, why are you here?” I said.

  “Because,” Bellow said, “my antenna received a signal that you’re stepping into trouble. The antenna doesn’t lie.”

  “Your antenna? Meg’s got one of those.”

  “G-man’s sixth sense, or whatever. Years of experience.”

  “Let me get this straight. Your, uh, antenna, quivered and you hopped a plane, rousted Lionel, and tore ass to this scenic rendezvous.”

  “Essentially, yes.”

  “I hope the orange juice is freshly squeezed.”

  Lionel slipped on a set of tinted shooting glasses. He gave Bellow a sidelong glance.

  “Why are you schlepping around in the field? Shouldn’t you be heading a department or some shit?”

  “Fraternizing with us doesn’t help his cause,” I said.

  “My troubles are at an end,” Bellow said. “Mandatory retirement this summer. A plaque, a pension, a good night’s sleep.”

  “Oh, boy,” Lionel said.

  “Oh, boy?” Bellow said. “Why oh, boy?”

  “Statistically, you’ll croak within five or ten years of retirement,” Lionel said. “No reason to carry on the charade.”

  “TV dinners and syndicated game shows,” I said.

  “I might travel,” Bellow said.

  “Cruise ship shuffleboard with complimentary dysentery,” Lionel said.

  “We’ll cry for your exile to sunny beaches and pitchers of margaritas another day.” I inhaled and related my adventures with Mandibole and his ghoulish pals at the Redlick estate.

  “The antenna was homing in on the good shit,” Lionel said.

  “Ye gods,” Bellow said. “We’ve heard stories at the Bureau that beggar belief regarding the Redlicks and the Labradors. The Mares of Thrace never registered a blip on the screen, though t
hat handle is as melodramatic as a Greek youth terrorist group.”

  “Mandibole exercises a tyrannical degree of control over them,” I said. “He may as well crack a bullwhip.”

  “Money and authority can be administered to erode one’s sense of self,” Bellow said.

  “This is Jim Jones and cyanide punch. Bits of the conversation pointed toward a UFO cult. There may be a split personality component. It’s weird. I can’t explain what I saw, although it’s got to be an illusion combined with fanaticism. Feds have task forces devoted to this stuff, don’t they?”

  “Fanatics and crazies are our bread and butter. UFO cults are gaining in popularity.” Bellow rubbed his chin and stared out the window. “You pick the interesting cases.”

  “Mystery cults were the fad back when the Roman and Greek empires owned the world,” I said. “Who could conceive of one arising from a high school in Jerkwater, USA? And there’s more. Seems that about two years ago, Adeyemi hired another detective to manage the case. The detective didn’t make it far before ‘somebody’ ran him down in the street.”

  “Do tell.” He tapped the screen of his phone and listened as I gave him a blow-by-blow of my fracas with the three men in the pickup and how I met them again, or their costumed doppelgangers, at the Redlick estate. “Sometimes the classic methods work best,” he said, continuing to search his phone. “Stage events to mimic a run-of-the-mill altercation that leads to a hit-and-run, or a golf club to the kneecap, and some private dick can’t walk without a limp anymore.”

  “Much less be in the mood to ask awkward questions,” I said. “Bellow, I’ve mixed it up with hired muscle. The Mares are exotic. I saw two more traditional contractors at the house.” The Corsican Brothers, Mandibole called the pair of lugs who guarded the door. “Nothing special, nothing as sinister as the Mares. Any corporate flack with two pennies to rub together retains a few mercs on staff.”

  “The Mares might be specialists Mandibole trusts with personal errands the regular security detail won’t touch,” he said. “They likely did the honors with that other detective.”