The Mural

by Michael Mallory

  Fergus shook his head. “Again, no. There can only be one devil.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Fergus dropped the unfiltered butt of his Camel into the jelly glass, where it sizzled when it hit the dregs of red wine. He flipped through his stack and pulled out another clipping and handed it to Howard. That one described a tragedy at a synagogue in Milwaukee, which had caught fire during a temple service, trapping about two dozen people inside and killing them. There seemed to be no connection to either the Saddleback fire or the death fall of the detective-cum-artist, until Howard got to the name of a man who was questioned by the police: Raoul Moeisening, the leader of the local German American Bund chapter, who was on-record opposing the presence of the synagogue.

  Fergus had another clipping ready, which Howard took. That one was about a film made in France had been banned from exhibition by the government after it was claimed that a disproportionate number of people who had viewed it had either committed suicide or gone on to kill someone else. None of the authorities could offer any kind of logically explain it, and the press seemed to treat the entire matter as some kind of bizarre joke, particularly after the film’s writer, producer and director Simon LeGironeau, had ridiculed the decision as insanity.

  Another clipping involved a child prostitution ring in Mexico organized by a man named Luis Ramón Gieno. Still another one described the actions of a woman named Sienna Gourelimo, a high school teacher in Alabama, who encouraged her white students to harass, torture and even kill the black ones.

  Howard upper lip was moist as he handed the articles back. He didn’t need to sit down with a sheet of paper to see what Fergus was showing him, that every name was also made from the same letters that spelled Louis Norman Igee.

  “There’s more,” Fergus went on. “A woman named Imogene Noraulis started a book burning campaign in Topeka. It spread to other American cities. In Havana a man named Romeo Alinguines tried to overthrow the government. In Britain, Sir Noel Augimone—”

  “Okay, Fergus, I get it,” Howard said, weakly. “They’re all anagrams. But why?”

  “I think I’ve figured that out. See, once I caught onto the recurring anagram, I started seeing it everywhere. It’s almost hard to read a stack of papers and not to come with at least one example. There’s a lot of them. A lot.” Reaching down, Fergus Randall picked up same sheet of paper from the floor and quickly wrote something out. “This is who he...they...really are,” he said. “It’s the ultimate anagram.” He turned the sheet around and Howard read:

  OUR NAME IS LEGION

  “I’ve read that before, some place,” Howard said.

  “It’s a reference to a passage in the Bible,” Fergus said. “The Book of Mark, chapter five, verse nine: ‘My name is Legion, for we are many.’ It is the name by which a demon identifies himself to Jesus. In the Bible it’s singular, but I find the plural version even more frightening because that implies there are more of them than ever before.” Fergus lit another cigarette then stood up and started pacing back and forth in the room. “You ever read Edgar Allan Poe, Howard?”

  “Some. I’ve always found him a little gloomy.”

  “Perhaps he had reason to be. He wrote of something he called ‘The Imp of the Perverse.’ That’s an inner force that causes you to do something you know is blatantly wrong. Even though you know in your mind and heart that it’s the worst thing you could possibly do, you can’t resist doing it because of this imp, or spirit, or gremlin, or force, or however the hell you want to characterize it. That, I think, is Legion, and it’s been around for a long time. I wonder if people haven’t been encountering creatures like Igee for thousands of years and have interpreted them as vampires or demons. Hell, maybe Bram Stoker met one and that’s what caused him to write Dracula. Maybe every horror cliché that’s ever been recorded draws its source from Legion.”

  “So what is this Legion up to?”

  “It’s here to stir up trouble, pure and simple. And I think it’s attracted to power. Association with power creates power. Just look at our friend Igee. He spent the night inside the palace of one of the most powerful people on the planet, William Randolph Hearst.”

  “But so did we, Fergus, and we aren’t part of Legion.”

  “Maybe it’s because we rejected the power. Maybe the will still counts for something. But when we were up at that party, did you find yourself tempted at any point?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Fergus sighed. “Tempted, kid. By anything. I was.”

  “Tempted by what?”

  “Do you remember seeing a Giotto Madonna hanging in the hallway right before you went into that massive dining room? That whole goddamned night, I fought off the urge to go and pull that painting down from the wall, march back in and throw it on the fire, just for the sheer destructive hell of it. I’m telling you, lad, I had to fight that urge like nothing I’ve fought before in my life. It’s crazy, wanting to senselessly destroy priceless art like that, but the desire was there. I finally did fight it down, but it was tough. That’s what I mean by tempted.”

  “Okay, Fergus, I’m going to tell you something in strictest confidence. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, but in the middle of that party, I had the strongest urge to...oh, hell. Why am I even talking about this?”

  “Tell it, lad. No matter what it is, I won’t hold it against you.”

  “It’s stupid, really, but I can’t tell you how much I wanted so much to yank down the Renaissance tights I was forced to wear and let my dick hang out for all to see. I almost did it, too! Jesus, I almost exposed little Howard to everybody in the room...Hearst, Marion Davies, movie stars, Althea, everyone!”

  Randall chuckled wetly.

  “I didn’t think it was funny, Fergus. At one point I had to leave the room so I wouldn’t start playing with myself.”

  “Oh, I believe you, lad,” Fergus Randall said, “and I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing because I know that’s just about the last thing you would ever do in a public place. But I think that’s my point. We were both tempted by crazy thoughts and we both resisted.”

  “And you think Igee doesn’t resist?”

  “I think its Igee who does the tempting. How, I don’t know. Maybe he plants thoughts in your head.”

  “And all these other anagram people, they’re also planting thoughts in people’s heads?”

  “Yeah, for lack of a better explanation. But even at that, I think Igee’s different. I don’t think he’s simply a foot soldier in this outfit. I think he’s a general. All armies need a leader, and I think he’s this one’s. And you know why I think that?”

  Howard shook his head.

  “Because the bastard is drawn to wealth like a moth to a lantern and he ends up all the more powerful for it. As soon as Igee left Hearst’s employ he dove right into the welcoming arms of another rich so-and-so, the late Henry J. Breen.”

  “Breen’s dead?” Howard said.

  Fergus handed another clipping to Howard. The one was from a newspaper printed only last week and it reported the discovery of the body of Colonel Henry Jackson Breen, who had succumbed at the site of his proposed new city built to accommodate his lumber mill. A county official who had gone out to the site to inspect the construction work had found Breen, or at least what was left of him. He appeared to have been partially eaten by animals that had gotten inside the city hall building.

  “Good god,” Howard muttered. “So Igee killed Breen?”

  “We both know that Igee was out there at that building site,” Fergus said. “Breen’s own people told us that. Officially, the old sucker died of a stroke, but I think Igee caused it.”

  “Christ, Fergus, this is nuts.”

  Fergus Randall ran his hands through his hair. “You think I haven’t tried to convince myself of that? You think I haven’t come close to having myself committed on a number of occasions? Each time I get to that point, the dreams come back even stronger, assuring me that I�
��m on the right track. Are you religious, Howard?”

  “Not really. I was raised Methodist, but not much of it stuck.”

  “What’s your opinion of holy water? Is it real?”

  “It’s real water, yeah.”

  “You know what I mean. Does it really have special qualities?”

  “I don’t know, Fergus. I’ve never tried throwing it at a vampire, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Fergus nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “You’re going to walk up to Louis Norman Igee, hold up a cross, throw some holy water in his face, and what? Hope he dissolves?”

  “Lad, look at the whole picture for a moment. Let’s say I walk up to the bastard and splatter him water that’s been blessed by a priest, and it does absolutely nothing but dampen his collar and make him mad as hell. What have I done? I’ve made gigantic horse’s ass of myself. Well, guess what, Howard: I’ve done that before and I’m sure I’ll do it again. The sun will continue to rise. But what if I’m right? What if I’m not crazy and I really have tapped into knowledge about a worldwide army of evil, and I’ve got some inkling of how to fight it, but I don’t do it? I can live with being a horse’s ass, but I don’t think I could live very long knowing that maybe I was able to make a difference in the speed with which the human race marches toward the abyss, but I didn’t even bother to try, because I was afraid someone might think I was cracked.”

  Now it was Howard Kearney’s turn to get up and pace the room. After a few seconds, he turned to his friend. “By your coming here, I’m assuming that you are planning on asking me to help you confront Igee.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then you say no. Maybe you’re the type who could continue to live knowing you might have helped, but didn’t. Are you saying no, lad?”

  Howard shook his head. “No,” he said, softly. “I mean, no, I’m not saying no. I’ll probably be sorry, Fergus, but I’m in.”

  “Thank you. Now I’m about to drop, so is there anywhere in here I can bunk for a while?”

  Over the next two days they plotted and prepared, two days in which Howard went out of his way to avoid contact and even communication with Althea, which he hated, but he knew that she could not become involved in this. Fergus tasked himself to track Igee, while Howard’s assignment was to procure the holy water. Taking an empty bottle to the nearest Catholic church, he dipped four times in the font to get the desired amount, and if anyone objected to his filling it, they never presented themselves.

  On Sunday the two re-met in Howard’s flat.

  “He’s out at that city in the woods,” Fergus said. “He checked out of his boarding house a week ago and apparently hasn’t been seen in town since. I guess we’ll have to go confront him at Wood City.”

  “Do you know where this place is, outside of somewhere in the woods?”

  “I found the road that leads to it.”

  Howard sighed. “Okay, when do we need to go?”

  “Tonight might be good.”

  “Fergus, what are we about to get ourselves into?”

  Fergus Randall’s tired face barely managed to muster up a smile. “Lad, I’ve known men who faced the devil every day in a coal mine. Others faced him in a whisky bottle. Seems like at some point, every man faces the devil in his own personal way. What we’re going to do is face the devil, or at least one of his most trusted employees, where he’s least expecting it, right where he works.”

  Howard Kearney wished he could feel reassured.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

  Howard picked up his pen again and once more started to write.

  I hope I’m not boring you with all the details, he wrote in lemon juice, but please know that both Fergus and I had reason to believe that Mr. Igee was up to something not quite right. That is why we went to look for him on that night that was to transform my entire life....

  Howard had no idea where Fergus had acquired the old gray Packard, but it ran well enough so he did not complain. It was nearly nine before they found the road through the forest that would lead them to the so-called Wood City. They drove in as far as they dared, the Packard’s bottom scraping dangerously along the rough, narrow road, and then they got out. The middle of the woods was the darkest place Howard had ever been in his life. They had flashlights, but they were so overwhelmed by the dark that they might as well have tried to make their way through without any illumination. “Turn the headlights on,” Fergus Randall suggested. “It might help a little. You’ve got the sauce, right?”

  “Got it here,” Howard said, clutching the bottle. Then the two set out deeper into the woods. It did not take long until Howard had decided that this might be the single stupidest thing he had ever done. With the sound of every footfall crunching into the gravel and dirt road, he felt a little more childish. How much power did Fergus Randall really have over him to get him to blindly, or nearly so, follow him out into the middle of forest at night to take a stand against someone who may or may not be some kind of earthly demi-devil? How he wished he were back home, or with Althea, or anywhere other than here!

  As they got deeper into the woods they began to see signs of the new city: cabins dotting the sides of the road, cracker-boxes with tall, pointed roofs, all standing empty and dark. “Guess no one’s moved in yet,” Howard commented.

  “People were here, lad,” Fergus replied. “Those in the village confirmed that. But now they’re gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  Instead of answering, the older man pointed toward a strange green glow that was penetrating the darkness up ahead. “Look,” he said.

  “What the hell is that, Fergus?” Howard whispered.

  “I don’t know, but we came here to find Louis Norman Igee, so I have to assume it’s him. Let’s go.” With Fergus in the lead, they trudged through the woods toward the glow. It only took another five or six minutes to arrive at the center of the burgeoning city, a large hollowing in the forest where stood a row of city buildings, the centerpiece of which was the city hall, imposing in his stone façade, if out of place in the middle of the woods. The green glow was coming from inside the building.

  As they approached the building, the glow from within, seen through the windows of the stone building, seemed to pulsate. “I don’t like this much,” Howard confessed.

  “I’d rather be inside a tavern myself,” Fergus replied.

  As they crept up the stone steps toward the door, it opened, as though on its own. The light inside was now insanely bright, though it did not take Howard long to figure out why. “It’s a road flare!” he cried. “A goddamned road flare!”

  “Still, it serves the purpose,” said a voice from somewhere inside. Howard and Fergus spun around into the direction from which they thought the voice was coming, and ended up twirling in circles, which drew a lusty laugh from the voice.

  “Igee?” Fergus called. “Louis Norman Igee? Where the hell are you?”

  “Right here,” the voice said, much more softly, and again the two startled friends spun around to find the strange painter standing directly behind them.

  Howard had never really studied the man up close, and the fact that he was now seeing him in the eerie light of a flare did not present an accurate picture of his face, which appeared a sallowish green. His hair, unkempt at the best of times, now looked like it had been charged with electricity. He was dressed like someone who was not struggling with money; a white silk shirt with an open collar, a pair of gray pinstriped trousers and matching vest, buttoned all the way. And those eyes...those damned slag-black eyes that seemed to repel light and heat. They were disturbing enough from a distance, but up close, Howard now realized why so many people refused to meet the man’s gaze.

  Igee smiled. “Come to admire my work?” he asked.

  “Not really,” Fergus replied.

  Igee studied him. “You’re the tosspot with the idio
tic name. Fungus, isn’t it?”

  “At least my name can’t be made into an anagram,” Fergus countered, and for a second, just a fleeting moment, Howard thought he saw Igee’s smirk weaken a little and his eye twitch. “My name isn’t important, really. Let’s just say I’m a guy who’s curious as to why you murdered your benefactor, Breen.”

  Good old Fergus, Howard thought; always one for approaching a subject carefully.

  “I did not kill Breen,” Igee said, casually. “His own corruption killed him. His inner rot killed him.”

  “But you helped, I’m sure.” Calling back to Howard, he added: “Stay on your guard, lad. The last time I saw this bastard he had a woman with him. She might be around here somewhere.”

  “I assure you that you will find no one here but me,” Louis Norman Igee said. Then he noticed the bottle in Howard Kearney’s hand. “You have come to toast my success, perhaps?”

  “That’s not champagne in there.”

  Igee looked at Fergus like he was an imbecile. “Unbelievable,” he said, smiling. “You’ve got priest water in there, don’t you? Kindly do me the honor of not attempting to play me for a fool. I do not fit that role.”

  That was when it came to Howard Kearney, the epiphany he had been seeking. Holy water, silver bullets, none of that was going to do anything at all; it’s the effrontery of ridicule that this man cannot tolerate. Howard held up the wine bottle filled with the holy water and uncorked it. Before Igee could react, Howard flung the contents at him, but not at Igee’s face; rather his crotch, creating a large, dark stain. “Look, Fergus, Igee had an accident! The great one pissed his pants!”

  Fergus Randall gasped, and then doubled over with long-pent-up laughter.

  As Howard looked on, Igee’s cool demeanor shattered into an expression of inhuman rage, and green glow or not, Howard swore his eyes turned red. Igee lunged toward him and grabbed the bottle from his hand, then murderously swung it at his head. With a cry, Howard threw himself back onto the marble floor, narrowly missing having his temple bashed in. Fergus, handling his flashlight like a club, swung as hard as he could at Igee’s right shin. It did not stop the man, or even cause him to cry out in pain, but it threw his balance off enough to allow Howard to roll out of the way before the bottle crashed down on the floor and shattered into a thousand shards.