“Of course,” I said. “In fact, I think I’ll wait to tell him my plans until he’s calmed down a bit.”
Gianna turned to look at my friends just as Mephistopheles’s roasted eggplant T. rex swatted Beelzebub’s goat with its parsley tail. A feeble shriek came from Beelzebub’s hand as he lobbed the miniature goat behind the bar, where it rolled under a keg of barley beer.
“Does he ever calm down?” she said.
The bartender arrived with two glasses of what tasted like a cranberry-nutmeg Manhattan. As he or she retreated, I noticed the little goat stagger out from under the keg before it disintegrated in a tiny flame.
17
Redemisti Crucem Passus
The following Sunday, while Gianna attended mass, I roamed the rainy streets of Georgetown and Dupont Circle to collect her Christmas gifts.
At one boutique, I laid a few thousand dollars’ worth of dresses on the counter. A short, middle-aged red-haired woman behind me in line whistled in admiration.
“Is that all for one person?” she asked me.
“Yes, for my girlfriend.”
“Wow, I’d love to see what she’s getting you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’m sure she’s getting you lots of nice stuff.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “She doesn’t have the kind of money I do.”
“Oh.” The woman shifted her packages to her other arm and straightened her glasses. “Is this your first Christmas together?”
“Yes, why?”
“Then you should be careful not to overgift.”
“Overgift?”
“Sir, will that be cash or charge?” said the cashier.
“Hang on.” I turned back to the nosy woman. “What does ‘overgift’ mean?”
“If you get her disproportionately expensive gifts, then she might be embarrassed.”
“Sir, cash or charge?”
“I said, hang on.” I silenced the cashier with a snarl. “Let me get this straight: if I shower her with beautiful, expensive gifts, she’ll actually be unhappy?”
“She might,” said the next woman in line, a svelte young blonde. “But I wouldn’t mind, personally.”
“I’m sure she’ll love all these dresses.” The cashier no doubt sensed an impending loss of commission.
“I never thought it would be so complicated.” I turned to the woman behind me. “What would you recommend?”
“If I were you, and I wish I were,” she said, “I’d get one of these dresses, and then maybe something romantic, like a piece of jewelry. Something sentimental.”
“Yeah, jewelry,” the blonde murmured.
“We have jewelry here!” The cashier’s voice went up an octave as she pointed to the case at the end of the counter.
“Never mind.” From the pile on the counter I pulled one of the dresses, a strapless blue velvet gown with a matching jacket. “I’ll just take this.”
The cashier glared at the woman behind me, so I said, “Put her stuff on my bill, too.”
“Wow, thanks,” said the short woman. “You really are full of the Christmas spirit, aren’t you?”
“Don’t push it.”
I stared past my reflection in the jewelry store window at the tiny silver cross and wondered what the hell I was thinking, spending Christmas with a bunch of Catholics. I pondered the fine line between healthy curiosity and blind stupidity.
“Admiring your handiwork?”
I turned to see Beelzebub standing behind me. He twirled his black umbrella once before closing it with a flourish.
“You mean our handiwork.” I studied the cross again. “Getting him crucified was our greatest triumph—and our greatest mistake. Look what we started.” I gestured to the green garland entwined with red lights framing the store window. “A religious industry.”
“I keep telling you we should start spending December in Beijing or something. You get so gloomy this time of year, surrounded by all the ‘Happy Birthday Jesus’ crap.”
“What kills me about this holiday—and Easter even more so,” I said, “is that it reminds me that no matter what I do, no matter what atrocity I commit, it turns out to be part of his plan. It’s like I’m not really free at all. No one is.”
“You’re free, Lou. We’re all free. He’s just one step ahead of us—if not more. After all, he’s . . . who he is, and we’re not. Not even you, dude.”
“Maybe if I weren’t so powerful,” I said, “I wouldn’t miss all the power I don’t have.”
“Sucks to be second best, doesn’t it?” He held out his palm from under the awning. “Hey, it’s stopped raining. Wanna go down to the Vietnam Vets Memorial and make helicopter noises?”
“Not really.”
“Okay, then how ’bout lunch?”
Beelzebub ate all of his french fries in descending order of size before reaching for his hamburger. As I ate my Greek salad, I watched him pop off the bun lid, grab the ketchup squirter, and go to work. His tawny eyebrows knitted together, and he chewed his lower lip as he meticulously drew a face on the burger’s surface. When he was finished, he spun his plate to show me Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” crudely rendered in ketchup. His teeth flashed in a brilliant smile.
“That’s very nice,” I said. “I’ll stick it on the fridge for the whole family to see, right next to your report card.”
He giggled a little, then smashed the top of the bun down on the patty with a strangled noise. His head bobbed back and forth to a silent tune as he bit into the burger.
Beelzebub’s delight in life’s simple pleasures gave him an air of innocence that was perhaps his greatest weapon. He abused this power, the way a cuter-than-average toddler learns to manipulate with a smile or a pout.
The boyish charm could also disintegrate into demonic fury faster than you could say—
“What the fuck?!”
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“I asked for medium well.” He flung the burger onto his plate. “This is oozing blood. I could get salmonella!”
“E. coli, you mean. And you can’t get it, no more than any other disease.”
“Those dickheads in the kitchen don’t know that. And it wasn’t what I ordered.”
“Calm down,” I said. “Just send it back.”
“I already drew on it!”
“So have them cook you another one.”
“I want this one!” He slumped in the booth and folded his arms across his chest. “Can you fix it for me?”
“Fix it yourself.”
“My aim’s not so good. I might set the table on fire.”
I set my fork on the table with a clang. “Fine.” I stared at the burger.
“Should I get out of the way?”
“Shh.” In a moment the burger sizzled and steamed. Beelzebub picked it up.
“Perfect. Thanks.”
“I didn’t cultivate this power so I could perform parlor tricks,” I said.
Beelzebub resumed his head bob while he chewed. “My brother is so coo-ool, my brother is so coo-ool,” he sang. “So when do you want to take off for Vegas?”
“Ah,” I sipped my iced tea, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. You see—”
“I was hoping we could stay at that circus casino this year, have some fun with the sideshow geeks, maybe get the elephants to stampede over the clowns—”
“I’m not going to Vegas with you.”
His milk shake halted on the way to his mouth.
“How come?” he said.
“I’m going home with Gianna.” He gaped at me, expressionless. “To her parents’ house,” I said. “For Christmas.”
Beelzebub blinked twice, then shrieked with laughter. Several nearby diners turned to watch him pound the table and point at me.
“You almost had me there for a second, Lou. Man, I feel stupid. I believed you. You’re good, really good.” He looked at me and burst into a fresh spate of cackles. “The look on your face, even now, dead straigh
t. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s priceless.” He wiped his eyes and shook his head. “You kill me, man.”
“I’m not joking,” I said.
He laughed again, but not as hard as before. “You are, too. Knock it off now.”
“I’m serious. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.”
His wide blue eyes studied my face. “Shit. You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No.”
“You’re spending Christmas with your girlfriend and her family.” I nodded. “Let me rephrase that,” he said. “You’re celebrating Christmas with your girlfriend and her family.”
“I won’t be celebrating it, but I’ll be there.”
“Why?”
“Call it an experiment, an infiltration, if you will. I want to experience this phenomenon firsthand, try to figure out what makes it so appealing to these humans.”
“The more you know about it, the more you can hurt it.”
“Exactly.”
He pressed his finger down on the tines of his fork and rocked it on the table like a seesaw. “It’s an interesting idea, Lou, but I still don’t like it. You could get sick.”
“I’ll try to stay out of churches.”
“How will you explain that to her family?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet.”
Beelzebub poked the remnants of his burger and scowled.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“What happens if . . . what happens if you like it?”
“Like what?”
“You know . . . Christmas.”
“Why would I?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “You see all those TV shows where people get changed by the Christmas spirit, whatever the fuck that is.”
“Mmm, yes. I can see the TV Guide synopsis now: ‘Curmudgeonly old Devil, trapped by a blizzard with a puppy and an orphan, discovers the true meaning of Christmas.’”
He grinned. “It could happen.”
“I’ll be careful.” I watched him turn his attention back to his appetite. “Bub, you and I haven’t hung out, just the two of us, in quite a while. What do you say we—”
“Yeah! When? Tonight?”
“No.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“How about Tuesday?” I said.
“Tuesday’s great. Tuesday’s great. Cool. Tuesday, then.”
I glanced at my watch. “I have to go meet Gianna now. I’ll see you at my office tomorrow morning.”
Beelzebub peered at my sides as I stood.
“What are you looking at?” I said.
“I can’t wait to see your scars.”
“What scars?”
“From the spurs. Or does she use electrodes to keep you in line?”
My stare penetrated his eyes like ice picks.
“Sorry.” He wiped his mouth. “Um, thanks for fixing my burger for me. It’s really good.”
I continued to glare at him.
“Hey, lunch is on me, okay?” he said.
I left without another word for my brother.
18
Inter Oves Locum Praesta
The setting sun bounced pink off the downtown Baltimore office buildings. Soon the same buildings formed walls of glass and steel around us as we drove eastward through the city streets. Thanks to its sizable Jewish population, Charm City’s Christmas garnishes were more subdued than most. Here was a town where my retinas could rest.
I eased the Jaguar into a tight space on a Fells Point side street near Halloran’s Crab House. Before we turned the corner, Gianna looked back at the car.
“Aren’t you afraid to leave something that valuable on the street like that?” she asked.
“It’s got a good security system.”
The line to Halloran’s stretched onto the sidewalk. A few minutes later, just before we crammed ourselves inside the door, a man hurtled down the street shrieking and clutching his charred, withered hand.
“What the hell was that?” Gianna said.
I shrugged. “He must have tried to steal the Jag.” She laughed, confirming my suspicion that sometimes the best way to lie is to tell the truth.
Inside the restaurant, the savory stench of dead crabs and Old Bay seasoning swam into my nostrils, and my mouth watered at the thought of ripping open their defiant little bodies and scooping out handfuls of sweet, slippery flesh. Unfortunately, health department regulations required the crabs to be thoroughly cooked; when it came to eating animals, even the sharp ones, I preferred them raw and kicking.
“Jesus God, I’m famished.” Gianna rubbed her belly and winced. “If Marc and Rick don’t show up on time, let’s start without them.” She took my hand. “Are you nervous, meeting family for the first time?”
“No. Should I be?”
“Marc’s cool. You’ll like him. That’s why I wanted you to meet him first, so you’d have another ally during Christmas.”
“Why would I need an—?”
“There he is.” She waved through the glass door at a dark-haired man in an Orioles cap sauntering across the street. “I guess Rick’s meeting us here.” She bit her lip. “He’d better be.”
Marc fought a gust of wind to swing open the door. Gianna left our place in line and hugged him at the threshold. When they turned to join me, their physical similarity almost knocked me over. Her brother was taller, with shorter hair, but he had the same quick brown eyes and sharp cheekbones.
“Marcus, this is Louis Carvalho. Lou, Marc.” We shook hands, and I mumbled a nondescript greeting, but couldn’t keep my eyes from floating between their faces.
“You’re that one guy who applauded for us that night at the Grotto,” Marc said. “I’ve been wanting to thank you.”
“I assure you, my applause was sincere. You’re very talented.”
“Notice he’s only looking at you when he says that,” Gianna said to Marc. “So I guess Rick’s meeting us here?”
“Nope,” Marc said.
“Why not?”
“We had a bit of an argument.”
“Again?”
“And I told him to go fuck himself. Instead, he went and fucked somebody else.”
“Oh, Marc, I’m sorry,” Gianna said.
“It’s one thing to be literal-minded, but to be inaccurately literal-minded is more than I can tolerate.” Marc put his arm around Gianna’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, sis, this way you can be the only one bringing a new boyfriend home for Christmas.”
“Were you that serious?” Gianna asked him.
“Maybe. He was good meet-the-folks material. Decent job. Clean-cut. Hardly any tattoos. He was even a practicing Catholic, if you can believe that.”
“Shit. Hey, there’s this guy in my office you might—”
“Don’t even think about it, Gianna.” Marc removed his baseball cap and twirled it on his finger. “Dating’s getting to be too exhausting, anyway. I think I’ll go back to hanging around bus stations and playgrounds.”
“O’Keefe, party of four?” the hostess hollered.
We sat down at a table by the window. It was pockmarked with mallet blows that had missed their crustaceous targets. I sat across from Gianna, who sat next to her brother. “It’s striking how much you two look alike,” I said.
“Thanks for not mentioning that he looks younger than I do,” Gianna said. She turned to Marc. “You should see Lou’s brother Bob. They look nothing alike.”
“How unfortunate for Bob.” Marcus popped his eyebrows up at me. I accepted the compliment with a smile.
A waitress with enormous hair arrived at our table and took our order, then I asked Marc about the nature of his work.
“I work with the local domestic violence agency,” he said. “Mainly I counsel batterers. I try to teach them how to handle their rage.”
“Does it work?”
“Hardly ever,” Marc said. “The recovery rate for abusers is pretty low. Even if they manage to stop hitting, they usually continue the emotional abuse.”
Our pitcher of beer arrived, and Marc poured us each a mug. “In my professional opinion, society’d be better off locking up these bastards like vicious dogs before they kill someone.”
“Sounds like a depressing job,” I said.
“Not always. It’s worth it for the few that turn themselves around. Most batterers watched their own dads beat their moms, so when someone breaks the cycle, I feel like I’ve saved more than one life, like when their kids grow up, they’ll be different.” A sardonic grin crossed his face. “Almost makes up for turning on the news to see one of my clients arrested for bludgeoning his girlfriend with a golf club.”
“It’s not your fault, you know that.” Gianna laid her hand on his forearm.
“If I can’t blame myself for the failures,” Marc said, “how can I take credit for the successes?”
“You could humble yourself a little and just decide that it’s God working through you to help these people.”
“So you think God works through me to let these guys kill the women who love them?”
“No, of course not—”
“Then who, Gianna?”
She glanced at me. “I think Louis and I had a version of this conversation at the Grand Canyon.”
“And how did you resolve it?”
“By having sex,” I said.
Marc laughed. “See, that’s why Thomas Aquinas and the rest of those monks came to so many conclusions. You’ll never get any treatises written as long as she’s around.”
“Who is the wiser,” she said, “the philosopher, or the philosopher’s whore?”
“And which one of us is which?” I said.
“You know,” Gianna said to me, “sometimes you’re sweeter than a big puddle of antifreeze.” She stood up. “I’ve got to pee before the crabs come. Be right back.”
I watched her retreat, then turned to Marcus. “So you’re my practice run, before the big event.”
“You’ll do fine,” he said. “Our family shouldn’t inspire fear. Shock and alarm, maybe, but not fear.”
“I think I can handle that.”
“Sorry I was so obnoxious when we first met. I did it on purpose to make sure you could deal with me.”
“Did I pass the test?”
“A-plus,” he said. “You didn’t even flinch when I flirted with you.”
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