by Victor Koman
"I told you I'd give you something to help you reconsider my offer. Shall I take it back?"
That was it, then. I'd never before met someone with an offer I couldn't refuse. I was staring at the ultimate Godfather. If that term could be applied. I wasn't going to give in that easily, though.
"Take what back?" I lit a cigarette and watched the smoke arch upward. I put on my best act of calm assurance. Inwardly, I quaked.
"Come on, Dell. We can play ridiculous head games for hours. The truth is you don't want to die, and I'm offering you a way out."
I moved behind my desk to sit down, dousing the cigarette in a coffee cup. "What's the deal, Zack?"
He sat in the easy chair next to the couch. When he lit a cigarette this time, I tried to see exactly how he did it. I wasn't too sure he used a lighter.
"The project involves a single killing. One being." Waving the smoke away from his face, he smiled calmly.
"Being?"
"He is known by many names. Jehovah. Allah. Brahma. The King of Kings. The First Cause. God."
"I see."
"The All-Powerful. The Creator."
"I get you."
"Yahweh. Adonai. El Elion."
"Check."
"The Lord. The Infinite Spirit. The-"
"All right!" I shouted. "I understand.
Kapish
.
Comprendo
. You want me to bump off the Big One!"
"Uh-no, not really," he said quickly. "Well, yes."
"Zack-I don't believe in God."
"You don't have to. Just assassinate Him."
"You
have
flipped out."
"I have not. He exists just as surely as I do. He threatens my control of this spiritual plane. Kill Him."
I lit another coffin nail, whiffing the smoke carefully to make sure I hadn't been slipped anything funny. The chair creaked as I leaned back in it. "Okay. If I buy the premise, I buy the bit. Say He does exist. What happens if I kill Him?"
"You shall have eternal life. As long as you wish. Youth, health, vigor-"
"I've heard about your tricks. You'd welch somehow. Turn me into a young, healthy, vigorous grasshopper or something."
"No monkey's paws, Mr. Ammo. I promise you."
I had to laugh. "Why should I trust you? Aren't you called the Prince of Lies?"
It was his turn to laugh. "You listen too much to my detractors. Propaganda always paints the enemy as a hideous monster while whitewashing the favored side. I could tell you stories about the last few Creations that would make your hair sizzle."
I poured a final trickle of whiskey from the sack in the drawer, took a deep sip, and considered.
The whole thing stank. He could simply be an agent involved in some intricate scheme that included faked medical reports, mimetic drugs, spying, squealing-and a hell of a lot of gall.
"I doubt that there's anything you can do to convince me that any of this is real. But let's assume it is. What happens if I don't agree to kill Him?"
He stared at me coolly. "You'll be very painfully dead within three months."
"I could always kill myself before then."
"In the opinion of some theologians, that would send you right to me."
"Would it?"
He smiled and tapped his cane against the floor. "Far be it from me to disparage any religion. I'm the Prince of Lies, aren't I?"
I stood and rammed my fists against the desktop. "Listen, Zacharias, you're the one who doesn't want to play head games. Here it is straight. First you have a nervous breakdown on TV and declare yourself Earth's master. Then you come to me and tell me to kill God. You don't even
ask
. It's practically an order. You-or someone-is playing poison with my body. You know damn well that I want to live, so you threaten me with death. You want me to kill something I don't even believe exists. As far as I'm concerned, this is either some trick or you're psycho. But you're a rich psycho. I know what sort of bucks the evangelical racket brings in."
I paused for effect. I didn't have any. He just stared at me with a distant, aloof gaze.
"My fees on the case will be five hundred a day, plus expenses. And I mean five hundred grams of gold. To be deposited in the Casino Grande vault. I'm not taking chances with paper money again."
He calmly said, "Four hundred."
"You want me to kill God and we're haggling over the price?"
"Oh, all right. Five." He removed his glove and extended his hand. "Shake on it."
"Give it a rest."
His hand stayed up. "Really, Mr. Ammo. It's for your own protection."
I'd heard that from enough shysters in my life. We shook. His touch was hot, his grasp firm.
"No contract? No signing in blood?"
"Mr. Ammo." The corners of his mouth turned up like dead leaves curling. "If it is a sin merely to contemplate a venial or mortal sin, then I assure you that the spoken willingness to commit the one
immortal
sin is quite enough for my purpose."
"And what is that?"
"An end to sibling rivalry." He turned to leave the office-by ordinary means.
Before he had walked out of my waiting room, I called after him.
"Hey! Wait! Where do I find God?"
His voice trailed behind him as he spoke without turning. "That is a search many have conducted with much less reason than you, Dell Ammo. Good luck."
His footsteps resounded hollowly on the floor of the corridor. The elevator whined into life.
I wondered whether it would stop at any floor or just keep going...
"Jesus Christ," I said, sliding back in my chair. "Son of a bitch."
4
The Bautista Connection
I had a contract to kill God. And I'd never reneged on a contract before. How hard would it be to kill someone who didn't exist? And how long could I draw pay and expenses before Zack noticed that I hadn't eliminated his imaginary competitor?
I began to understand how seance artists felt about their profession. It's great work while it lasts.
Zacharias intrigued me. He didn't act insane, but then neither did politicians. He just talked crazy. A famous TV evangelist who had preached the word of God for years to the nation via satellite now wanted Him out of the way.
It sounded as if it would be bad for business.
All right. I'd get a cut of it without firing a shot. I had a contract to kill God, and I was going to kill Him.
No matter that it might take years. At five hundred a day.
Plus expenses.
I took a brisk walk the next morning. Down Figueroa to Fifth Street, crossing piles of rubble and shattered glass that spread across the pavement like webbed hands reaching for the opposite sidewalks. The air smelled cleaner, and a smear of blue sky hovered at the zenith. It was a great day to begin my quest.
A couple of blocks down Fifth stood the library. Nearly everyone used the computer plaque for news, information, and entertainment. The same satellites that brought the Right Reverend Emil Zacharias and his Hallelujah House into people's living rooms permitted anyone owning a plaque access to the Smithsonian library computer. Except for the people who liked to collect first editions, or those addicted to the smell of paper and glue, libraries and books were obsolete.
And then there were the old dogs who are slow to change. Count me in. I wouldn't feel as if I were learning anything if I weren't in a library building toting around a stack of ungainly books. It felt cozy.
I had optimistically prepared to spend an afternoon discovering exactly what God was. When I reached the religion section, I realized that I'd underestimated by about three lifetimes.
After an hour of randomly walking about peering at titles, I had a stack of books under either arm that covered each major religion. I felt like a student cramming for finals. I suppose I was.
Hell, I was being paid for it.
The next several hours consisted
of reading one definition after another, either totally contradictory or as clear as the La Brea tar pits. Apparently, God is self-surpassing, an unmoved mover, a standard of reality, the supreme reality, the sole reality, temporal, eternal, infinite, finite, infinite-finite, an object of direct experience (that would be just my luck), one with man, apart from man, apart from
everything
, part of everything, everything. The beginning, the beginingless...
By closing time, my head pounded as if it had been borrowed for a performance of the Anvil Chorus. I left the library knowing less than ever. Before, at least, I'd had some idea of God. He was this hairy thunderer that some people thought was necessary to keep them from bumping into telephone poles. I'd gotten along quite well without Him for fifty-two years. Now I suddenly had to know who He was and the only image I could conjure up was that of some blob of something out somewhere doing somesuch somehow.
Not much to work with. This contract had more false leads than a hooker's smile.
A cold wind from the west blew down Fifth Street, kicking up rubbish and dust. I kept my head down and watched the garbage eddy around my feet with each step.
Kill God.
The idea seemed even more absurd now, away from the calm confidence of Zacharias. Maybe I had been right all along, and this was some sort of plot. Entrapment. Psych warfare. Revenge.
It was all too complicated, though. In my profession, death moved at the speed of a roadster, a bullet, a beam of laser light. No assassin ever received the kindness of an elaborate death scheme, no matter how artistically he conducted his own kills.
No. I knew at the time what I was agreeing to. I hadn't merely sold my soul. Souls he handled like petty cash. I had contracted for the Supreme Patricide.
I should have asked for a thousand a day.
Kill God? What a joke. Do I make it look like an accident? Natural causes? Or just a bullet in His third eye?
I needed a professional opinion.
The wind died down as I walked over the Fourth Street Bridge, to be replaced by a thin autumnal fog. The overhead lamps glowed with the light of another age. My feet scuffed concrete, heels tapping against cracks, soles grinding over rubble. In the distance, traffic roared along the Hollywood Freeway. Only a whisper of engines reached me through the fog. A thin crescent moon rose in the east. It would be morning soon.
At the Fourth Street onramp to the southbound Hollywood Freeway stood the Church of St. Herman of Alaska. Actually, it was a run-down slum hotel that a priest friend of mine had converted into a mission. He usually kept the front door unlocked, so I let myself in.
Father Joey Moreno leaned forward in one of the church's two pews. His thick right hand grasped a bottle of Chianti that he snorted down lovingly. A pink stain colored most of his white collar.
"Hey, Joey. Too much sacrament."
He belched, twisting around to see me. His rust-hued locks blended into his beard to frame his dark face in a soft triangle of frizzy hair.
"Dell! How goes? Come to convert? Or converse?"
I smiled and sat next to him. "I'm looking for God, Joey."
The bottle slid from his fingers into the next pew. He twisted around. "Won't find Him, Dell. Been looking for Him for years."
He peered down at the floor, then stamped his foot. "God's a cockroach, hombre. Split Himself into myriad parts to keep an eye on us."
I could tell this would be a conversation at cross-purposes. "How's the congregation?"
"Sinners still sin. And bingo Saturdays."
"You can't give me a lead on God's whereabouts, though?"
He stood to his full six-foot-two and bellowed, "Go thee forth to the highest, for the highest shall become the lowest and the lowest shall become the highest!"
He dropped to his knees, begging St. Herman to eliminate the liquor tax, compulsory education, and foods fried in Crisco.
I stashed the bottle behind the card table altar and left. So much for the voice of authority.
Sunlight splashed the northern Arco Tower remains with smeared reds and oranges as I returned. Rosy fingered Dawn had not yet touched the streets. I walked in a dreamy morning world where light filtered down indirectly from the sky, softening every shadow. An occasional spear of sunshine lanced into the street, reflected from a high window.
On the corner of Figueroa and Fourth stood a man in a dark suit. He held a bunch of magazines close to his chest like a shield. The covers faced outward. He spoke quietly to the bums that passed him and he didn't seem to mind being ignored. He was portly, short-haired, and a little nervous. I didn't blame him, considering the locale.
I wandered over to him to check out the `zine. Sure enough, it was one of those religious societies. Maybe it was worth a try.
"Say, pal. Know of a way I can find God?" I judged the direct approach to be best.
He wearily handed me a copy of the magazine. "Simply accept Jesus into your life. He is the path from sin to salvation."
Salvation wasn't exactly what I was looking for. "No. Thanks. I mean, I want to
see
God. In the flesh. Or whatever."
He sighed and answered without looking at me. "Give me a break, Mac. I've got a long day ahead of me, and I don't need sarcasm."
I nodded. He was right. A breeze almost tugged the magazine out of my fingers. That was when I noticed it was a Hallelujah House publication.
"Say-this is Emil Zacharias's group, isn't it?"
"Yeah." He didn't seem too pleased by the association.
"Do
you
think we're in occupied territory?"
He shrugged. His gaze never crossed mine for more than an instant.
"You might say that Satan has a foothold in this world. C. S. Lewis thought so too, and you wouldn't call him nuts."
"I wasn't calling anyone nuts," I said. "Do you think God will accept his challenge?"
"Christ the Lord will return to implement the Kingdom of God. It's in the Book." He flinched once or twice while speaking. His gaze darted about to search for someone else to rescue him from the grilling.
I was just getting interested.
"Do you think Zacharias was trying to send an SOS to God? Trying to hasten the Second Coming?"
He slowly shifted from one foot to the other. "Look, brother. I don't know why you're so intrigued, but no man can hasten His return. Not even Emil Zacharias. He flipped out. It happens sometimes. There was a guy twenty, twenty-five years back named Jim Jones. He flipped out lots worse. Everybody's entitled to crack a bit, especially in Southern California. That doesn't invalidate two thousand years of philosophy and prophecy."
He coughed. The eloquence may have been too much for him. "I gotta go now. Quotas and such."
He walked away from me with short, tired steps. It was going to be a long day for him.
I climbed the stairs to my office and spent the next hour pacing around, searching for a lead, some method of bringing me closer to the Supreme Recluse. None of my previous contacts would be of any help. And Zack was unwilling to offer any assistance.
While stretched out on my couch to catch a doze, an idea hit me during that moment between dreamy slumber and drowsy waking. After allowing a minute or two for my sense to catch up with my thoughts, I seized the phone and punched up information.
"City?" a raspy voder asked.
"L.A. I need the number of God Almighty."
The computer searched for a moment, then replied in mechanical deadpan. "Not listed, sir. Would you like an operator?"
"No, thanks. Connect me with the Bautista Corporation on Cordova."
The line rang for a couple times, and a soft voice on the other end answered.
"Bautista Development."
"Ann Perrine, please."
"May I ask who's calling?"
"Dell Ammo."
She put me on hold for a few minutes, then I heard a click.
"Dell?" Even over the phone, her voice reminded me of satin and
soft lights.
"Yeah. Look, I know this is out of line, but you told me to call you if I ever needed help."
"Of course."
"Yeah. Well, this'll sound like a crazy old man talking. I need some... help in researching, uh, religious matters."
Her voice betrayed a sudden interest.
"I minored in philosophy at UCLA. What do you need?"
I tried to ease it to her. "It's sort of nuts, but there's this guy who's offered me lots of money to find God. He's convinced that God exists somewhere and can actually be-hunted down."
Silence shot back and forth over the line for a dozen heartbeats.
"You're looking for god," she said. "For real."
"In the flesh. Or whatever He uses."
"Why?"
"The money."
"And you want me to help you defraud this man?"
She asked the tough ones. She'll either think I'm a crook or a psycho. I preferred the latter. I'd rather be thought of as insane than dishonest. I cleared my throat.
"I don't think it will be fraud. This guy seems convinced that I can find Him." I switched on a gizmo attached to my phone that checks for listeners. The lights flashed green-the line was secure.
"He gave me a contract to track down God and kill Him."
"Kill
god?
"
I gave her credit for not laughing out loud. When I didn't answer, she said nothing for a long time. Convinced that she had hung up, I softly muttered a "damn" and lowered the receiver.
"Dell," said a small voice in my hand.
I raised the horn to my ear. "Yeah?"
"I told you that if you ever needed help, I'd do all I could."
"You will?" It was my turn for incredulity.
"I can't stay on the phone much longer-"
"Meet me at Auberge tonight." My heart pounded faster than the old thing had a right to. "Cocktail lounge of the Hope and Anchor. At eight."
"Right." She hung up without a good-bye.
"I'll be damned." The realization that I might very well be seemed less painful now. Blasphemy loves company.
On the lower levels of Auberge, guards handled trouble from the riffraff. On the upper levels, the guards served the same approximate purpose. The riffraff, however, seldom hung around-the prices were too high. I was reminded of this as I gave the waitress several scraps of orange paper to ransom my drink.