Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  Sheldon grinned as though he sincerely enjoyed the sentiment behind that special delivery. “This isn’t the first time this has happened, you know.” Sheldon looked around as though he was nervous that prying ears might be somewhere in the deserted shrubbery. “Last time it was right after I made a tank delivery, and I got hauled in by the police.” He shook his head.

  Joshua felt a chill on his neck like a layer of Tiger Balm over a sunburn, and he shifted closer, pretending to inspect the gush of water coming from the release valve at the bottom of the tank.

  “Who was it?”

  “Phil Kershner. Had a place on the corner of Mount Gleason and the highway.” From the corner of his eye, Joshua watched as Sheldon looked pointedly at Larry.

  “You mean, where those condo-looking houses went up?”

  “Yep.”>

  With a rush of recognition, Joshua realized that he meant Rowland Hughs’s fifteen-house project that he and Simon had been working on. Joshua hadn’t lived in the area before their construction had begun.

  Sheldon glanced around again, this time flicking his eyes toward Joshua, who pretended he could hear nothing over the flowing water. Then he muttered something about “that developer” and something that Joshua thought was “don’t trust him,” before raising his voice to a normal level and saying, “Okay, let’s check the level. Should be near empty.”

  Feeling it was safe now to look directly at him, Joshua turned to watch as Sheldon climbed the metal ladder to the top of the water tank. When the fluttering in his chest began, Joshua knew he was about to see one of those somethings that no one else could.

  Turning, he saw that Tyler had come back out of the house and was standing behind him watching. And over him was the waiflike child, and she was motioning from Tyler to the water truck and shaking her head firmly.

  And Joshua found himself wondering whether it was Rowland Hughs who was not to be trusted, or Sheldon Tucker.

  Chapter 34

  When Joshua and Greer returned to their house, they noticed Simon sitting on the porch steps. He was on the top step, in the shade, leaning against the thick, square stone pillar, his head at an awkward angle, his mouth open. It was only as their tires crunched the gravel that he startled, and Joshua realized he had fallen asleep in that uncomfortable position. He wondered why Simon hadn’t opted for the far-more-inviting porch furniture.

  “Hi, Sy. What’re you doing here?” Joshua asked as he got out of his mom’s car. He kept his voice friendly, but the fact that Simon must have walked over six miles from the closest bus stop in the hottest part of the day was not lost on him.

  Greer had come around the car and was standing near the base of the steps. “Hi there,” she said to him. “You must be Simon. Why don’t you come in?”

  “Yeah, uh, okay. Thanks,” Simon muttered as he got to his feet.

  “So, what brings you by?” Joshua tried again as they went up the steps together. He was also wondering how Simon had found the house. That was cleared up a minute later when Luke came out his front door and said, “Oh, good, you’re here. That young man was wandering around, said he was looking for you, and I told him he could wait on the porch. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure, that’s fine. Thanks,” Joshua called to him. Luke grunted a reply and went back into the relative cool of his home.

  “You want something to drink?” Greer asked both boys.

  “I’ll get it,” Joshua said, noting Simon’s red, overheated face. He quickly poured two sodas over ice as his mother gave him an understanding look and disappeared upstairs.

  Joshua handed over the soda and Simon gulped it down eagerly. “What’s up?” he tried for the third time.

  This time, after a glance at the stairway up which Greer had disappeared, Simon shrugged, and said, “I wanna talk atcha.”

  “Sure,” Joshua told him. “You want to sit down?” Simon’s eyes cut around the room again. “Can we talk somewhere private?”

  “We’ll go up to my room,” Joshua suggested, and led the way up the stairs to his room in the back. As a matter of habit, he looked across the space between his house and Luke’s and into Joy’s bedroom window. She was seated at her desk with a textbook open in front of her. He had to smile at the picture; ten months ago she would have set herself on fire before she spent a Sunday afternoon hitting the books.

  Simon was standing in the doorway, taking in Joshua’s room with an expression of envious disbelief. Joshua wasn’t so oblivious that he didn’t realize how lucky he was to live in such a nice house, to have a stereo and expensive furniture, but he had grown up privileged enough to feel like what he had was the norm. Looking at it now from Simon’s point of view, for the first time it seemed excessive, and for some reason that he didn’t really understand, Joshua felt a wash of shame heat his face.

  “Have a seat.” Joshua gestured to the bed, and he took the chair at the desk.

  Carefully, as if he thought he might break it, Simon sat at the very end of the bed, stroking one hand surreptitiously along the faux suede coverlet. Then after another look at the room, he fixed his eyes on Joshua. They were tense and fatigued.

  “I think I’m in trouble, and I didn’t do shit, I swear.”

  Simon’s hands had landed on his knees, where they clutched at his dirty jeans.

  Thrown, Joshua wasn’t sure what to say. So he just waited.

  “They’re gonna think I did it. I didn’t like the motherfucker, but I didn’t do it.”

  “Do what?” Joshua asked. A sneaking suspicion that he probably should be very cautious about believing anything that Simon said came forcibly to him; he tried to quell the as-yet-unfounded distrust.

  “Shit, you know. The police came and talked to you—they said they did.”

  “Oh, you mean the fire at the store?”

  Simon did not answer him, just watched him with a combination of suspicion and neediness.

  “But it wasn’t you, right?” Joshua asked, and was surprised by his own calm.

  “No fucking way, man. It wasn’t me.” Simon’s pupils were so large they were almost indistinguishable from his dark brown irises. “I’m not retarded; I know they’d come looking for me.”

  For a long moment, the two young men looked at each other across the room. Though the distance was only a few feet, their backgrounds might have made it a continental divide, but Joshua knew that Simon was reaching out to him and somehow that lessened the gap.

  “I believe you,” Joshua said, though a section of his brain dropped to its knees, praying he wasn’t being a complete sucker.

  The three words seemed to release Simon from some kind of brace that had been holding him up, and he crumpled forward, resting his elbows on his thighs and his face in his hands. “I’m so fucking tired, man. I can’t sleep.”

  “Why not?” Joshua asked him automatically.

  For a moment it looked as though Simon was going to tell him, his face crumpled the way his body had, and then he seemed to catch himself. But when he spoke, his protective shell had returned and he was evasive.

  “Don’t know. I have bad dreams sometime. It’s stupid, I know.”

  “No, it’s not stupid,” Joshua said heatedly. He was almost irrationally pissed off that someone would have spent their life being told they could feel nothing, fear nothing. “Dreams can be scary as shit. I had one the other night that woke me up; I was sweating and, well, hell, I was scared.”

  Simon turned to look up at him, the faintest hint of a smile on his face. He glanced around the well-appointed room in the strong-walled house. “What were you scared of?”

  Joshua returned the smile somewhat sheepishly. “Fire. It was a dream about fire, and it was scary.”

  Simon looked away quickly, but he didn’t altogether change the subject as Joshua had suspected he would. Instead he said, “I don’t dream about that.”

  Sensing that to ask what he did dream about would be tantamount to screaming, “Shut up!” at Simon, Joshua waite
d, and when Simon said nothing more, he tried another tack. “How come you tried to save that dog?”

  Simon’s eyebrows shot up in bewildered surprise before he could stop himself. He clearly had not been expecting that question. Then his left shoulder twitched forward, and he shrugged as though to cover the involuntary action and said, “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me about the dog you had,” Joshua prompted.

  A flash of affection crossed Simon’s face but was quickly clouded by pain, like a momentary patch of blue sky bullied away on a stormy day. “He died.”

  A thought came to Joshua. “Did he get hit by a car?” “No.” Simon’s mouth had tensed to a thin line. Joshua thought he wasn’t going to say any more, but then Simon said, “My old man shot him.” Again the unconscious tic, again the masking shrug.

  “Wow,” Joshua said softly. “That sucks.”

  Simon looked Joshua briefly in the eyes. It was a questioning, slightly suspicious look, as if to see whether Joshua was mocking him. Seeming reassured, he added, “He was a fucker.” Tic, shrug.

  “He die too?” Joshua picked up a small stone bear fetish that he kept on his desk and pretended to examine it to move his focus off Simon.

  “Yeah,” Simon half laughed, half snorted, but Joshua had never heard anything less amused in his life.

  “Not a real great dad, huh?”

  “You could say that.”

  Joshua was thinking hard and fast. He was almost sure that the malignant male figure he had seen over Simon was his father, but he was unsure why the image seemed so intent on evil for Simon. His brain was racing to find a way to ask Simon all the things he wanted to know without revealing why.

  “Can I ask you something?” Joshua said, still as conversationally as possible.

  Simon nodded.

  “Why did your father kill your dog?”

  Joshua was sure he knew the answer. But when Simon answered in a flat, detached voice, it surprised him.

  “He used to beat me up a lot, and one time Spike tried to stop him, so he shot him.”

  In spite of all his efforts to remain outwardly unaffected, Joshua’s mouth fell open and he spat out, “He shot your dog because the dog tried to protect you from him?”

  Simon was staring at the floor near his feet. “Yeah,” he said as though that kind of thing happened every day. Maybe it did where he came from.

  “You know what?” Joshua asked, and waited for Simon to look up at him. “You’re right. He was a fucker.”

  Simon couldn’t suppress a little laugh, but it didn’t last long.

  “So what happened to your father?”

  Simon’s eyes dropped again, his shoulders drooped, and he looked infinitely exhausted. “Somebody killed him.”

  “Bummer.”

  Slowly, Simon’s eyes came up and met Joshua’s again, and this time, even through the fatigue, Joshua could see the hatred and the fire. “He had it coming,” he said.

  Trying to stay cool and at least pretend he could converse offhandedly about what to him were unthinkably appalling events that were Simon’s life, Joshua nodded. “Sounds like it.” And with that small gesture of commiseration, it seemed that the last of Simon’s energy left him in a single exhalation. His body slumped farther forward, like a children’s blow-up party jumper that had been unplugged, and his features sagged as though he were decades older.

  Concerned, Joshua said, “Listen, you look ripped, man. Why don’t you catch some z’s? I got some stuff to do; I’ll wake you up in a little while. You want to have dinner with us?”

  The look of relief on Simon’s face was intense. He nodded, mumbled a thank-you, and fell backward onto the bed, feet still on the floor.

  Joshua turned away and pretended to be busy at his desk. He flipped through the leather-bound notebook in which he kept his observations and read through a few of them without absorbing anything. In a few minutes he stole a look back at Simon and let the book lie open on the desk. The boy had curled up on the foot of the bed in a fetal position. He was out.

  Joshua turned his chair to face Simon with the utmost care to not make any noise. Then he took a few deep breaths, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the sensations in his body, searching for the warm tingling, trying to call it up.

  And it answered. With a prickling heat this time that seemed unique to Simon and his visitors. Opening his eyes, Joshua could see the image of the man hanging over Simon, glaring down at him with such intense malice that Joshua felt a jolt of fear. “No,” Joshua whispered, “you can’t have him.”

  The figure turned his opaque black eyes on Joshua, and he felt the gaze land on him like the sights of an Uzi. He imagined the white light around him and forced danger back away from him. “No,” he repeated, “you cannot have him.”

  The man’s face, so devoid of the light and bliss that Joshua had always previously seen around those who had moved on, turned again to Simon with such a dismissive disinterest in Joshua that it filled him with outrage. As the figure fixed its vapid gaze on Simon again, the boy shifted and moaned in his sleep.

  “No,” Joshua said again, “you cannot have him.” But even as he watched, he could see the impressions of darkness that were emanating from the male figure toward Simon. Joshua focused hard on the black ropes of energy, but he could think of no way to sever their connection; they seemed immune to his fledgling efforts to affect them.

  A sound from below broke through Joshua’s concentration, and as though waking from a deep sleep, he suddenly became aware of the room, of the sleeping Simon, of the absence of the otherworldly figure, and of the fact that he was drenched in sweat.

  “Joshua?” he heard his mom call from the bottom of the stairs, and when he didn’t answer right away, he heard her start up.

  Rousing himself, he moved to pick up a towel he’d dropped on a corner of the bed. He was wiping the perspiration from his face when something arrested his attention. In his uneasy sleep, Simon had shifted onto his stomach and his shirt had separated from the top of his jeans, exposing a strip of skin around his midsection. There, near his waist, Joshua could see the inky stain of a rough homemade tattoo. It looked like some kind of bug—no, a spider. His mother called out again and he went to the door, exiting quietly so as not to wake Simon.

  “Yeah?” he answered his mom in a whisper. Noting her raised brows, he explained, “Simon fell asleep. He’s really exhausted from walking here in the heat.”

  Greer narrowed her eyes at him but only said, “I don’t blame him. Detective Sheridan is downstairs; he wants to talk to you.”

  Before he could stop himself, Joshua asked in a raspy whisper, “Does he know Simon is here?”

  Greer’s brows darted up again, but she shook her head no. “He asked to see you. I told him you’d be right down.”

  Nodding, Joshua passed his mom, who turned and followed him down the stairs.

  The solid detective was standing in the living room near the dark fireplace. His partner was nowhere to be seen.

  “How can I help you, Detective Sheridan?” Joshua asked politely as he came into the room and sat down on one of the armchairs. His mother crossed to the sofa.

  “I’ve got a favor to ask you,” Detective Sheridan said. “First, I have to tell you both something that is not yet public knowledge, so I’m going to ask you not to repeat it to anyone until I say so.”

  “Sure,” Joshua said, not at all sure if that was the correct answer. He felt like maybe he should raise his right hand or something. Greer nodded solemnly.

  “We’ve got an ID on the body from the fire up by the development. It’s a man, a local merchant named Armen Farrad.”

  The name, though fairly new to Joshua, had become familiar. He was the head of the citizens’ committee, the man who owned and ran the little Eastern European grocery on Foothill. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Joshua said, and he meant it. “He always seemed like a genuinely nice person whenever I went in there.”

  “He was also the
man who put Simon Gomez in probation camp,” Detective Sheridan said grimly.

  It took Joshua a full three seconds to put together what Sheridan was suggesting. “You think Simon killed Mr. Farrad?” he asked, shocked. “I can’t believe he’s capable of that.”

  The corners of Sheridan’s mouth flickered upward a fraction in a rare display of either emotion or amusement; it was impossible to distinguish which. Joshua realized that winning an argument with a homicide detective about what people were or were not capable of was like betting on a horse that wasn’t even running. “We’ll see” was all the detective said in rebuttal. “But I need to talk to Simon Gomez, and I can’t find him. I’ve been to his aunt’s, and he didn’t come home last night. You said you saw him on Friday?”

  “Yes.” Joshua shot a look at his mother; she was watching him calmly. To his relief, her expression revealed nothing.

  “There was something else.” Sheridan took out his notebook and flipped through it, though Joshua was sure he didn’t need to. “On the wall of the store, after the fire, someone had spray painted a spider. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Through Joshua’s head a succession of rapid images passed. The rough spider, carved into the ravaged oak; the spider tattoo that he had just seen on Simon; and a quick flash of something he had never seen before, the painted shape of a spider on a door, the black paint dripping in long, careless streaks. Sterling had showed the spider on the tree to the fire captain. Had the captain forgotten about it, or had he told Detective Sheridan?

  From the corner of his eye, he saw his mother move, and so did Detective Sheridan, apparently, because he quickly asked, “Ms. Sands?”

  Greer shifted and thought before she answered. “It’s just that recently I saw an image that contained a spider’s web. I don’t know if it has any bearing on that or not.”

  “You saw it?” the detective asked speculatively.

  Greer sighed and smiled patiently. “In a vision, yes.”

  Joshua could see the big man struggling to keep an open mind. He’d had experience with Greer’s visions once before and been unable to deny their validity. Still, it hadn’t been easy for him. “And in what form?”