“How awful,” I said. “He did work for me until just recently.”
“Let me talk to him!” Belial said.
“Would it be okay if I put him on the phone?” Russert asked me. “You don’t have to speak to him if you don’t want to.”
“Put him on.” I gestured to Beelzebub and Mephistopheles.
“Congratulations, Lucifer! You’re the proud recipient of my one phone call.”
“Uh . . . Bill, is that you?”
“No, it’s Belial! Have you forgotten one of your favorite Hell’s angels already?”
“Bill, what happened?”
“I had an epiphany,” he said. “Hey, is Beelzebub there, too?”
“Uh, Bob’s here, if that’s who you mean. So’s Malcolm.”
“Whatever. Put me on speakerphone so you can all hear this.”
Reluctantly, I hit the speaker button and returned the phone to its cradle. “Okay, go ahead.”
“You remember how Saul of Tarsus had a conversion on the road to Damascus? I had one, too, except mine was in front of the Sizzle Steak. I can’t explain it. Even I can’t find the words to describe it.” His voice lost its characteristic smoothness. “Lou, I’m sorry. But I can’t serve you anymore. I can’t bear the killing and the cheating and the lying. Especially the lying. That’s why I have to tell everyone who I really am, and who you really are. Maybe then God will forgive me.”
“You’re crazy,” I whispered.
“That’s what they tell me. So I wouldn’t worry if I were you. No one believes in us anymore. As long as no one believes, you’ll be safe.”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” I said. “They’ll lock you up.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been imprisoned by my pride for ten billion years. The flimsy walls of a funny farm are nothing compared to that.”
“Tell them this is a joke.”
“It’s not a joke, Lucifer. I can’t lie anymore.”
“Do it!”
“Don’t bother giving me an order. I quit.” He hung up.
The room was silent except for the dial tone coming from the speaker. My back was to Beelzebub and Mephistopheles as I stood in front of the phone. I could feel them staring at me, waiting for my reaction. It seemed as if our future rested on the strength of my composure.
I pressed the phone line to silence the speaker, took a deep breath, and turned to them.
“We’d better get started,” I said.
“Started with what?” Beelzebub asked.
“Cleanup. We need to disown him before he drags us down with him. Mephistopheles, change William Hearst’s medical records to show an extensive family history of schizophrenia. You can use the terminal in my library.”
“Right. Good idea.” Mephistopheles dashed into the other room.
“Beelzebub, I need you to recruit Belial’s replacement.”
“Replacement?”
“We need someone to head marketing and public relations. Maybe someone from Belial’s crew, someone who learned from him. It can be a human, for all I care. PR people aren’t exactly loaded with moral misgivings. Until then, I’ll take care of the media.” I stopped pacing. “The media. I almost forgot.” I grabbed the remote control and turned on the television. “His little episode might make the evening news.”
Mephistopheles appeared in the library doorway. “Hey, Lou, what about Belial’s health benefits? Should we maintain them or cut him off?”
I paused. Without health insurance, Belial would be placed in a bleak state-run mental institution instead of a posh private psychiatric hospital. My choice meant the difference between giving Belial a prison sentence or a vacation.
“Cut him off.”
“Whatever you say, Lou.”
“I mean everything. Evaporate all his accounts, all his holdings. He no longer exists to us.”
My brothers gaped at me.
“Do it,” I said.
Mephistopheles nodded silently and turned to enter the library.
“And I want a complete media watch for the next two weeks. Monitor the newspapers, Internet newsgroups, Web sites, anything that mentions this incident. If anyone on this planet speaks, writes, or even thinks about it, I want to know.”
“Okay, boss,” Mephistopheles said.
The local news broadcast began. The theme music blared over a wide camera shot of the Potomac Mall.
“Uh-oh,” Beelzebub said. “That’s where the dolls were.”
“The Christmas shopping season got off to a blazing start today at two local malls,” the newscaster’s voice-over said. “Good evening, I’m Marianne Wilkinson.”
“And I’m Rob Chandler. Welcome to Channel 11 news at six.”
“Two freak fires occurred within minutes of each other in the metropolitan area today. First we take you to Potomac Mall, where a blaze began to rage around three o’clock. It began in this store, Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. Our correspondent Mickey Seaver is with the manager now. Mickey?”
“Thanks, Marianne. I’m standing here with Tom Wilson, the manager of Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. Tom, can you tell us what happened?”
The manager, a short, chubby guy in a too-tight navy turtleneck, glanced at the camera. “Yeah, I was in the storeroom trying to dig up more of those talking Christmas trees—they’re a big hit this year, and we have them at a real reasonable price—when suddenly I hear a sound like whoosh!” He threw his arms above his head. “I come out into the store and our huge nativity scene display was on fire, just like that, like someone had thrown gasoline on it and lit a match.”
“How perfect,” Beelzebub said.
The camera closed in on the smouldering, charred remains of a large ceramic nativity scene.
“Do you realize how hot that flame had to be to burn ceramic?” Mephistopheles said. “Belial’s an idiot to turn his back on that kind of power.”
“Firefighters arrived on the scene within minutes,” continued the correspondent. “No permanent damage to the store occurred, and the store’s owners say they hope to reopen on Sunday, with a new and even bigger nativity display. In the meantime, the Montgomery County Police Department has dispatched its arson squad to sift through the evidence of this bizarre event. I’m Mickey Seaver, in Potomac.”
“Thanks, Mickey.” Rob Chandler turned to the camera. “And we’ll be sure to keep you up to date on the investigation as it unfolds. In a seemingly unrelated story, a nearly deadly grease fire erupted at the Sizzle Steak in the Lafayette Mall downtown.”
The news program depicted the incident and Belial’s heroic act in much the same manner as Beelzebub had, but without all the whimpering. The correspondent tried to tie in some bullshit about the Christmas spirit overtaking this “angel,” de-emphasizing his apparent psychosis, but the newscasters couldn’t resist a quip or two at Belial’s expense.
“Nothing like a good Black Friday sale to bring out the humanitarian in a decent demon, huh, Rob?”
“Yep. Those low, low prices’ll give anyone second thoughts about being evil.”
I glanced at Beelzebub and Mephistopheles, then gestured at the newscasters.
“Have them killed.”
12
De Profundo Lacu
On Sunday morning, I had to circle the Union Station parking garage five times before I found a space. I arrived at the gate, red-and-white rose in hand, just as Gianna’s train was pulling into the station.
She staggered down the hallway, her travel bag slung over her shoulder. A tired smile passed over her face when she saw me.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said. I kissed her and offered her the flower. “Thank you.”
I took her bag from her shoulder, and we began to wind our way through the crowd and out of the station. “How was your trip?” I asked.
“Excruciating. I had to stand the whole way from Philadelphia because there weren’t enough seats, and all the assholes from New York wouldn’t get up for any of us. Then this annoying little kid kept running up an
d down the aisles like a wild dog. He did this for about an hour, then he threw up all over the floor. He spent the rest of the trip crying, probably because he knew how much everyone wanted to kill him.”
“Sounds magical,” I said.
“How was your weekend? Anything exciting happen?”
“Oh . . . nothing much. The usual.”
“I’m afraid to ask what the usual is.”
“My car’s over here.”
Once we were winding through the streets of Washington towards her apartment, I said, “Gianna, I was thinking . . . let’s take a trip together, just you and me.”
“You mean like a vacation?”
“Yes. Wherever you’d like to go, I’ll take you. Anywhere in the world.”
“Anywhere?”
“Anywhere.”
“I want to go to the Grand Canyon,” she said.
“The Grand Canyon? Not Paris or Rome or Istanbul? Somewhere exotic like that?”
“What could be more exotic than the Grand Canyon? That’s where I want to go.”
“Then we’ll go,” I said. “Let’s leave tonight.”
“No way. I’m too tired.”
“Tomorrow morning, then.”
“What’s the rush?”
“No rush. Let’s just be spontaneous. If you dare, that is.”
“I get it. Testing my sense of adventure,” she said. “Okay, let’s do it. Can we stop by my office? I just need to organize my desk.”
“Your desk is probably already organized. This is a ploy for you to do work, work that can wait until you get back.” I couldn’t risk her reading about Belial’s episode in the newspaper. Maybe she would accept the schizophrenia story, but it could lead to questions and more lies. “If you really want, I’ll take you to your office, but you look like you could use a hot bath and a massage.”
She leaned back against the headrest. “I’d be a masochist to choose work at this moment, wouldn’t I?”
“Whatever your pleasure, darling.”
“Take me home,” she said.
“Good choice. I’ll call my pilot and make the arrangements.”
“No. We are not taking your plane.”
“Why not?”
“It’s so . . . you know . . .”
“Rich?”
“Lou, I’m not comfortable with doing something so wasteful. I know it sounds insane, and any other woman would probably tell me to shut up and let my gorgeous wealthy boyfriend sweep me off to Paris or wherever he wants to go in his private jet, but please respect my feelings about this.”
“Then we’ll at least fly first class. I’m not cramming these legs into a coach seat for five hours.”
“Okay.” Gianna clapped her feet together. “Wow, it just hit me. I’m going to the Grand Canyon! This is so cool.” She cleared her throat. “You are aware, of course, that taking a trip together is a pretty serious thing in a relationship.”
“No, actually, I wasn’t aware of that. All I was aware of is the fact that I want to spend lots of time with you far away from our everyday lives, to offer you new and exciting experiences, and for us to get to know each other at a more profound level. I guess you might call that serious.”
“Sounds good to me.” Gianna tapped her fingers on her knee. “Did I just refer to you as my boyfriend a minute ago?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Oh.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her studying my face for a reaction.
I reached for her hand. “You’re my first girlfriend.”
“That’s a scary responsibility.”
“You have no idea.”
Every time the flight attendant brought us something, Gianna would glance back at the curtain separating the cabins.
“What’s wrong?” I said finally.
“How come we get served first?”
“Because we’re in first class. If we weren’t served first, it would be false advertising, or at least heavy irony.”
“And we get real knives and forks,” she said, “not those disposable ones. Nothing on our trays is wrapped in plastic.”
“Wrapped in plastic?”
“Haven’t you ever flown coach? Never mind, I don’t want to know. But why do we get special treatment? We’re not any better than the people back there.”
“We paid more.”
“So?”
“So you get what you pay for. It’s a choice. Those people in coach chose to save their money for something else.”
“Yeah, like food or rent.”
“Gianna, why can’t you just enjoy it?” I put my fork down, took her hand, and kissed it. “When will you realize that you deserve the best?”
She drew her fingertip across my cheek. “I already have that.”
The flight attendant placed a headset on each of our trays. “The movie will be starting in five minutes,” he said. “Can I get you anything else?”
How about some fucking privacy? I shook my head at him and sighed. If we were on my jet, Gianna and I would be having sex right now.
The in-flight movie served its purpose in passing the time and limiting my awareness of being boxed in a crate with 144 strangers. The film was some kind of tragic love story, or perhaps a comedy, I don’t remember, but one scene in particular struck me:
The lead couple was standing on a balcony by the sea with the sunset behind them. They bantered for a few minutes about the difficulties of modern relationships, then the man suddenly cut her off in mid-sentence by saying, “I love you.” She melted into his arms, and within moments they toppled onto the closest bed, tearing at each other’s clothes. At this point, to maintain appropriateness for an airline audience, the film cut to the following scene, with the couple on the balcony again, this time eating breakfast.
I glanced at Gianna, whose eyes were riveted on the screen, then turned my attention back to the film.
“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this to me.”
Gianna sat blindfolded in the passenger seat as I drove into the Grand Canyon National Park’s West Rim Drive.
“I wanted you to have the most intense experience possible, Gianna. Now would be a good time to tell me if you have a weak heart.”
“As if I could survive going out with you for a month if I had a weak heart.”
“We’re almost there,” I said.
“Is it still snowing?”
“A little. Don’t peek. You’ll regret it.”
I pulled into the turnoff for the Abyss, in my opinion the most breathtaking view accessible by vehicle on the canyon’s South Rim. I helped her out of the car, and we stood in the empty parking lot.
“There’s ice and lots of rocks,” I said, “so it would be better if I just carried you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake . . .”
“What are you complaining about? This is the moment you’ve been waiting for all your life.”
“That’s the problem,” she said. “With all this buildup, it can’t possibly be that great.”
“Trust me, it will be. Here, climb on my back.”
I carried her along the path to the overlook. When we reached the edge, I let her down and guided her to the railing in front of me. “Ready?”
She clutched the railing and nodded. I took off her blindfold. She squinted, then her eyes widened as they adjusted to the light. Her knees started to buckle, and I wrapped my arms around her waist to steady her.
“Jesus God . . . it’s so . . . it’s . . .”
“Don’t even try,” I said. “Words are too feeble. Just look.”
She put her knuckles to her mouth. “This isn’t real. How can this be real?” We stood there for at least a quarter of an hour before Gianna said, “I need to sit down.”
I led her to another vista a few yards away that offered a slightly different angle of the Abyss. We sat on a flat boulder. Gianna gazed out and down at the canyon.
“Beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it. A flower is beautiful. But this is beautiful the way
that a person is beautiful—terrifying with its jagged edges, yet seductive with its crevices that hide so many secrets.” She put her hand to her throat. “Wow, where did that come from? I’m waxing weird all of a sudden.” She turned to me. “Thank you for bringing me here. You’ve given me a tremendous gift.”
“It’s the least I could do, Gianna, in return for what you’ve shown me.”
“What do you mean?”
“For the first time, I—”
“Wow! Check it out!”
We turned to see a young couple with small twin boys in matching orange coats. The kids pushed each other as they ran down the trail, each trying to get to the edge first.
“Hey, watch out!” the father called. “I’m not climbing down to pick up your dead bodies if you fall.”
“Jack . . .” his wife said. “Good morning,” she said to us as they passed. “Chilly weather, huh?”
Gianna smiled and nodded to the couple, then turned back to me when they had moved on. “So what were you saying?”
“Nothing.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, then the boys careened past us on their way back to the car. They leapt and batted at the falling snowflakes. Their parents shuffled behind.
“Can you buckle them in while I take one more look?” the woman asked her husband. She moved to the edge of the next boulder and faced into the Abyss. “This place deserves more reverence than those boys will ever possess. It’s one of God’s masterpieces.” She zipped up her jacket. “You two have a good day. Enjoy your solitude while you still have it.”
Gianna gazed into the canyon as if she were peering not into the creation, but into the face of the creator himself.
“She’s right,” Gianna said. “You could cure a lot of atheists by bringing them here.”
I picked up a tiny shale fragment and chucked it over the edge.
“But I don’t think God created the Grand Canyon,” she said. “The Earth created it. But you could think of it as a temple, except it makes all manmade temples look vulgar and reaching. Perhaps the Earth created the Grand Canyon in praise of God.”
“Or, perhaps, in fear,” I said.
Gianna turned and looked at me with that same curious, understanding gaze I’d seen when I showed her the feather from my wings. She touched my hand.
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