by J. P. Sloan
I stayed with Abe until the ambulance arrived. The police took statements from Andreas and myself while the neighborhood looked on. I spotted a familiar face beside the chain link fence that separated the tiny lawns between each of the rental properties.
Lakeisha Reames was a single mother who lived next door to Abe. She had a series of boyfriends that occasionally resided there, and from time to time in the past, she would recount her recent sexual history to me when paying rent. Lakeisha was listening to music and watching the scene with enthusiasm.
Once the police were done with me, and I had dismissed Tatopoulos, I wandered over to the fence line and nodded at Lakeisha. She trotted over to me with a bounce in her step.
“Hey, D-Lake. This is some crazy shit right here.”
“You think? What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know. Shit went down and went down hard, ya know?”
“Who was that woman?”
“You don’t know?”
“If I knew, would I ask?”
She rolled her eyes with no small degree of sass and replied, “That’s Old Abe’s girl.”
“I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend.”
She sniffled a poorly contained chuckled and nudged my arm.
“No, his baby girl.”
“He has a daughter?”
“Yeah, she’s all fucked up in the head.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know. She’s not really all here, you know? I thought she was in a home or something, but I guess not.”
I watched as paramedics helped Abe into the back of the ambulance. He paused and looked back at the woman now lying docile on the porch in handcuffs.
“Thanks, Lakeisha.”
“Hey, mind if I get my check to you a couple days late, D-Lake? I have this doctor’s appointment, and I need some money for the prescriptions.”
“That’s fine,” I mumbled, inching back to the car. I held up a hand and asked one of the paramedics, “Which hospital is he going to?”
“St. Agnes.”
“Thanks.”
I got into my car and watched as Abe’s daughter was led to a squad car. Her eyes spun as if following a flock of birds circling the block. Once she was stuffed into the squad car, she shrieked and flailed in the back seat.
After all of the cars had left, and most of the neighbors returned to their lives, I drove around the block and headed for St. Agnes hospital. By the time I found which room Abe was staying in, they had knocked him out with painkillers. It was probably for the best. Abe had a hell of a day. He deserved some rest.
The day’s drama notwithstanding, I had to get back to the task at hand. The replacement soul.
In a moment of intense guilt, I pondered how badly Abe wanted to save his daughter from her own mental turmoil.
Not Abe. He was a good man.
But then again, if I had a daughter who was living in a very real and quantifiable Hell, wouldn’t I do anything to save her? I wasn’t sure. I debated the issue on my way home. Wasn’t it lower than low to prey upon a man in Abe’s situation? Or rather, was it worse not to offer the man an option when he had no other options left?
I nuked myself some dinner and ate with some bossanova playing on the radio. The smooth cheer of the music just made me more depressed. I genuinely liked Abe. Always did. And as much of a prick as I could be to people, I managed to consider myself somehow “good” for him.
As I rolled some refried beans around the plastic tray of my microwave dinner, I squinted and shook my head. What enormous hubris. What was I to Abe? Why did I deign to be the “good” thing in his life? I didn’t even know he had a family. No, I was the condescending punk that he paid rent to. Hell, he was even repairing his own rental because I couldn’t be arsed to see to my own responsibilities.
Guilt consumed me all evening. I managed to slip into bed, but I lay wide awake for hours. I looked over to my dresser, and the picture of Carmen and me. I felt so alone, so lost. I closed my eyes and remembered the way she pressed against me in the hallway at Johns Hopkins. Her hair smelled the same way it had always smelled. Her chin was more angular, but it dug right in the same spot. She was that wonderful being into which I used to curl up and manage to forget everything.
Before she snapped out of it, anyway.
I wanted someone again. Who was I kidding? I wanted her. I needed her back in my life. She had this command, this sense of always putting things where they needed to be. She could get my life straight again, even if I couldn’t manage it.
I slapped the bed with my hand. I was doing it again. I was making everyone else’s life about me and my needs.
Carmen needed help. I offered it. Now, I had to follow through. Abe needed help. I had the means. It would have been selfish to withhold it.
It would have been cruel.
I got up and got dressed. The streets were free of traffic at the late hour, and I made it to the St. Agnes parking lot in no time at all. Visiting hours had long since passed, but I found a clutch of people hanging around the vending machines by the second floor nurse station beyond the emergency room. I slipped into the group and watched the nurses and doctors as they moved in and out of the curtains just beyond.
A woman nearby began retching violently, and everyone turned their heads in reflex. I took advantage of the moment to slip behind one of the curtains. The first bed was filled with an elderly white male who was completely unconscious. I tiptoed around his bed and pulled my way past the back of the adjoining drape. I found Abe lying on a bed, his eyes closed, his mouth bandaged. I leaned over him and gave him a nudge.
“Hey,” I whispered. “You alive?”
His eyes opened, and pulled up at the corners.
Abe responded with fat, distorted words as he spoke around gauze in his mouth, “Yeth thir.”
I pulled a stool up and sat close to his head. “You feeling okay? Any pain?”
“Ah, yeth. Plendy a thad.”
“Need more meds? I can go get a nurse.”
He shook his head and waved his hand in the air slowly. “No more.”
“Any news on your daughter, Abe?”
He closed his eyes, fighting a wave of emotion, then shook his head mournfully.
“Lakeisha told me about her. Abe, I’m so sorry. I wish I knew before, maybe I could have helped sooner.”
“The’s juth thick.”
“I know she’s sick. It’s not her fault. It’s no one’s fault.”
He reached over and grabbed my hand with a remarkable grip.
“Abe?”
“Thir?”
I sighed, and mustered the strength to continue. “There’s something I can do for you. And your daughter.”
His eyes opened again, and he turned his head to me.
I continued, “I don’t know if you know what I do for a living.”
He didn’t respond, just stared.
“I know a man who can make things happen. He can change your fortune. He might even help your daughter. The powers he works with, well. They’re ancient.”
Abe’s eyes narrowed, and he rolled his head back to stare at the ceiling.
“So, I can make a call. Things could change for you.”
“Mithduh Lake? My girl ith da way God made her.” He winced in pain and caught his breath. “The’s livin’ da life He gabe her. An’ when it’th over, the’ll know peath.” A tear fell from his eye. “An tho will I. Thank ya, though.”
The curtain pulled back, and an alarmingly large nurse scowled at me.
“Sir? You have to go.”
I nodded and squeezed Abe’s hand. I scurried past the nurse to the waiting area. The crowd of people had largely settled onto the couches. I wandered to a coffee vending machine, and after swearing at the price they expected for a tiny Dixie cup of candy coffee, I felt a woman’s eyes on me.
She was an older black woman in a modest dress. She furrowed her brow at me.
“Pardon my French
,” I mumbled, hoping to God she would go away.
“You’re Dorian Lake, aren’t you?”
I clenched my jaw. Getting called out by people I didn’t recognize wasn’t doing me any favors lately.
“Uh, yeah?”
“You here to see Abraham?”
“Maybe.”
She nodded slowly and motioned with her head for me to follow. I snatched my coffee cup and took a quick sip, scalding the top of my mouth as I tried to keep up with the old woman.
“My name is Ethyl Myers,” she said once we were out of earshot of the others. “Abraham is my ex-husband.”
“Oh, really?” I chimed in, with perhaps too much cheer. I checked my tone and added, “I didn’t even know he was married.”
“Been a while, Mister Lake.” She glared at me for a moment. “What do you want here?”
“Hmm?”
“With Abraham?”
“Oh, I was checking on him.”
“He’s fine.”
“Yeah. Well, more or less. Still. I was worried.”
“You was worried, huh?”
I had no reply. She seemed to be baiting me, and the way her eyes were boring into me made me feel like retreating at top speed toward the elevator.
“Actually, I came to help. Well, maybe help. I’m not sure, really.”
She shook her head and put hands on her hips. “I know what you do, Mister Lake. We all do.” She stepped in close and whispered, “You’re about the Devil’s business.”
I double-checked the distance to the elevator.
“I’m just concerned, Ethyl. Really.”
“Well, that’s good and fine, but my Abraham doesn’t need your kind of help. He’s been through enough without you adding to his grief.”
“I can see that.”
“No, you can’t. You have no idea.”
I studied the woman. She was fierce, determined, and protective. A lot like Mama Clo, really.
“You’re still very close to him?”
She shrugged. “I only left him because of the drugs.”
“Drugs?”
“It was twenty years ago. He was bad, Mister Lake. Real bad. It had a hold of him and wouldn’t let go.”
“I had no idea he was an addict.”
“Was. Didn’t want to, but I had to leave him. And I took Minerva with me.”
I figured Minerva was the woman I had seen today, but wasn’t prepared to ask for clarification.
She continued, “And for some folk, that would be it. The end. Nothing left. But not Abraham. He took a hold of his life and he got himself cleaned up. Took a long time, but I saw him do it. Year after year until he found a way to live with himself and the rest of us in this world. God had his eye on Abraham, and he brought him to this place. Minerva is a special girl, and she needs watching over. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it gets bad. She sees things. Thinks they’re monsters. Demons. But they’re in her head, and we have to accept that.”
I ventured, “There’s accepting it, and then there’s getting help for it.”
“Where did you think she was for twenty years?” she snapped. “We had her in a home for a long time. But things are hard, Mister Lake. I’m sure you don’t get that, being what you are, where you are. We couldn’t afford to keep her in the home no more, so I kept her until my landlord said she had to go on account of her yelling. So she came to live with Abraham. Two weeks, she had no problems. Then today, well…” A sob caught in her throat.
“I’m so sorry about this. I want to help. Really.”
Her face hardened, and she jabbed a finger into my chest. “We don’t need you or your ways, Mister Lake! God snatched Abraham from the jaws of Hell once this life. He’s not about to let a man like you come in and try to sell it back to him. You should go. Right now. I don’t want to see you here again.”
I backed away from Ethyl, nursing my coffee. I finally turned for the elevator and waited an eternity for the doors to open. I drained the coffee on the way down and tossed the cup into a trash bin just outside the side doors.
I reached my car and sat inside.
And I wept.
My throat tightened, my chest heaved, and I sobbed alone in my car for about a half hour.
I wasn’t sure when or how it had happened, but I had managed to convince myself that talking a good man into selling his soul was virtuous. I even used his troubled daughter to do it.
By the time the tears stopped, I was overcome by a new sense of purpose. I wanted to help Carmen, but Abe had been a soul too far.
I was going to find a way to terminate Carmen’s contract.
And I wasn’t going to play Osterhaus’ game anymore.
n the last week, my core problem hadn’t changed. I lacked knowledge of soul trafficking, and that ignorance of Osterhaus’ system had caused me considerable embarrassment. I had made Carmen’s situation worse. I needed to educate myself.
Syrian or no, I had to get back to the Reading Room to find that book.
I drove down Edmondson and weaved past a city bus to park on the street in front of the shabby brick storefront. I hopped up the sidewalk to give the front door a tug.
It didn’t budge.
I squinted through the filmy glass panes along the lobby front, and found nothing but a dark, empty retail slot. The books were gone. The bookshelves were gone. The microfiche readers and even the front desk were gone. The Reading Room had been completely stripped.
A vinyl sign hung on the corner window mullion… a real estate agent advertising commercial space.
Great.
I had half a mind to go find the president of the Occidental Temple and demand a refund for my bullshit reading fee membership. Just one book. That’s all I needed.
I had books. I had an entire Library. No. I wasn’t going to do Carmen any favors if I lost my sanity trying to solve her problem.
As I returned to my car, I wondered if the Syrian had anything to do with this. A dread filled my chest as I thought about Edgar and Wren. I U-turned back east and fished my phone out of my pocket to call Edgar. The phone rang a gut-wrenching four times before Wren answered.
“Hey, Wren. It’s Dorian.”
“Dorian, how are you holding up?”
That was a curious question, but at least she didn’t sound pissed at me.
“Uh, yeah. Stressed as hell. Anyway, you guys okay?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t we be?”
“No reason.”
“Dorian?”
“Seriously.”
“Right. Should I be warding the shop now or after you arrive?”
“When am I arriving?”
“Tonight, of course.”
“Okay. Did I miss something?”
“No. I’m inviting you for hamburgers, and I’m not going to take no for an answer. So let’s just save time and possibly a kick to your ass and agree that you’re coming. Seven o’clock sound good?”
Actually, it did. It really did.
“I’ll bring some wine.”
“Screw that. Bring some beer! You don’t drink wine with hamburgers, dumbass.”
“Gotcha. See you at seven.”
I wasn’t sure if Wren was worried about me relapsing into my non-existent drug binge, but the thought of a quiet, safe evening in the sleepy town of Frederick sounded like exactly what I needed. It was possible I might pick Edgar’s brain a little as well.
The phone rang again. Edgar often figured out that Wren had taken his call and had already hung up before he got to it. His overblown sense of decency always required that he call me back.
I keyed my phone and said, “Beer. I know. I’ll bring beer.”
“I thought scotch was your thing,” Julian Bright’s voice lilted from my phone.
I really needed to learn how to check my calls before I answered. “Sorry about that.”
“You have a bad habit of thinking I’m someone else, you know that?”
“Yeah, I’m seeing a specialist about it. How
can I help you?”
“Can you meet me today at two?”
I hadn’t figured out my next move yet, so naturally, I was available. Taking time to meet Bright was going to eat into my research time, but at that very moment, I wasn’t entirely sure how to even do my research.
“Yes, I’m free. Where?”
“City Hall, second floor, room two thirty.”
“City Hall, huh? No steak today?”
“Schedule’s tight. Won’t have a lot of time, but I need you to look at something for me.”
“All right, I’ll be there.”
It wasn’t Carmen’s soul, but it was money. And when this business with Osterhaus was over, I’d need to pay the bills. Besides, he was footing the bill for Tatopoulis. He deserved immediate service.
After lunch at a kebab joint downtown, I walked to the City Hall building. Baltimore was a strange town. While you drove through it, you tended only to pay attention to the people driving around you, the lane changes, and the constant road construction. But what you’d miss is that behind each of the sterile, erect skyscrapers could be hiding a marvel of nineteenth century architecture. The City Hall was a magnificent structure, a Baroque revival edifice precisely in the last place you would expect to find it.
I passed through security without a hiccup, and made my way up to room Two-Thirty. A woman sat at a bland laminate desk and blinked at me as I pushed the door open.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Julian Bright.”
“Name?”
“Dorian Lake.”
She stood without a word and disappeared through a door. Besides the desk, the room had no chairs and no table. It was more of a vestibule than anything. I leaned against the wall and waited, wishing I had some kind of plan to take on Osterhaus. I certainly had the will at this point. But in mystical matters, willpower alone is often just enough to get you in trouble.
The door cracked open and the woman returned to her desk mirthlessly.
“He will be out to see you in just a moment.”
She resumed typing at a computer and completely ignored my presence.
I shifted my feet a few times, keeping myself moving a little. I always thought better when I moved around. Perhaps one of the Netherworkers I had encountered in my recent past could be of use? I could look up Annarose. No, that would only end in someone getting a disease, and it wouldn’t be Annarose. She was never a big fan of my particular talents. Hers were the paths of Nature and the old necromantic rituals of Stregheria. She was a terrifying woman. Beautiful, but shit-your-pants terrifying. We had one encounter several years ago wherein several animals had been tortured and killed in Delaware by some rogue clutch of neo-pagans. Since they were using her particular flavor of witchcraft, she couldn’t break through their wards.