Dead Souls

by J. Lincoln Fenn

  He makes a sound, but I’m not sure if it’s a word exactly. I shoot her again, in the stomach. Smoke drifts lazily from the barrel, smell of burning cordite.

  She’s not going to die of course. She won’t be eligible for that gift until Scratch calls her favor in.

  Unless this is him calling his favor in.

  She crumples to the floor, kneeling, hand reaching out to the floor. Justin rushes to her side.

  “Holy shit!” he yells. “Holy shit!”

  He’s frantic, looks at her the way he used to look at me. How and when did I lose him so completely? But then it’s obvious what she traded for—his health to return. Who wouldn’t fall in love with someone who’d sell her soul to save your life?

  When he turns to me, he’s all rage and desperate fury, a side I’d never have thought him capable of. Not my Justin, a man who slowed down for pigeons that landed in the street, who kept the fridge stocked with my favorite sodas, who watched TV while I read my focus group reports, my head resting on his lap. Who would stroke my hair gently, idly, loving me even when I was absorbed in other things.

  He grabs the crowbar.

  I shoot him in the leg. Raise the gun and put his head in my sights.

  But no. No, no, no, no. Never.

  Maybe the apple can fall a little farther from the tree.

  EVEN WITH ALL THE POLICE and SWAT and Army Reserves headed deep into the city, I’m sure that three gun blasts reported in a building known for peace and quiet will draw the appropriate law enforcement agencies. Sooner than later, if Scratch’s threat of a digital trail is real.

  God, I could use a Guinness.

  I shut the bedroom door behind me, ignoring the moans. I’m not as worried about Opal tied and gagged on the bed—frankly I don’t give a shit if she’s suffering—but Justin looked pale, and even though I tied a tourniquet around his leg, he is just recovering from cancer. I’m hoping that whatever deal Opal made extends to other conditions.

  I still love him. This surprises me. I didn’t know I’d loved him so much.

  I tie the belt of my terry-cloth robe a little tighter and head for the fridge. The six-pack of Guinness is still missing, but there’s some cooking sherry, an oloroso. What the hell. I pull out the bottle, take a few sips from it, and remember why I hate sherry. But the alcoholic buzz, that I like. I tuck it under my arm. My stomach grumbles. Might be eating prison food for a while. So I put the sherry on the table, then go to the sink to wash the blood off my hands—it does wash off, something Alejandro was right about—and take the roast out of the oven. Pork, nicely browned. Baked beans in the pot Opal had been stirring, and I also discover some freshly baked corn bread on top of the fridge. I pull out a carving knife, a plate, forks and the butter. I set myself a place at the table, using a real placemat from a set Justin had bought from QVC.

  A knock at the door. Not an authoritative, we’ve got you surrounded! kind of knock, not a Gloria imperative knock; it’s more a question, mildly inquisitive. But of course I know who it is.

  I cross over to the door, unlatch the chain lock, open it.

  Scratch, my faceless friend, stands in the doorway, fingers hooked through plastic six-pack rings, although I note there’re only four cans of Guinness left. But then we’d drank the other two at Alejandro’s house. Among other things we did.

  “Something smells good,” he says. “Mind if I join you?”

  And really, at this point, why the hell not?

  SCRATCH TAKES OVER the hosting duties, retrieving the roast from the kitchen counter, placing it on a cutting board, which he then places on the table. His movements are neat, direct, like a professional waiter. He gets himself a placemat, plate, even brings the salt and pepper, a loaf of bread from the cabinet. He’s good with the carving knife too—perfect slabs of meat fall away—but then given the expert flaying I’ve recently seen displayed, it shouldn’t seem that remarkable.

  A muffled yell from the bedroom—Opal hearing another voice, trying to catch his attention, inviting rescue. But he either doesn’t hear or doesn’t care.

  “Nothing I like better than a home-cooked meal,” he says. He pops open the tab to the Guinness, pours as much as he can into a glass. It’s nicely cold—instantly, condensation starts to form. He places it in front of me.

  I pick up the glass, take a deep, appreciative sip.

  He sits in the chair opposite me. “Strange as it might seem, not many like to eat with the devil.”

  “You could force them to.” I pick up a knife to start into the pork on my plate. It smells divine. “Call it in as a favor.”

  “But then it’s not the same, is it? It’s not an act of genuine affection.”

  I take a bite. Wish I hadn’t shot Opal before she’d started the gravy. “Is that what you want, genuine affection? Does that even exist?”

  “Ha!” he says, pointing his knife at me. “People say so. All the time. Please, spare my child, take me instead. Blah, blah, feckin’ blah. When it comes time to collect my favor though, you’d be surprised at who people offer instead of themselves. Other considerations kick in.”

  I reach for a piece of corn bread and slather a good amount of butter on it.

  “Take you, for example,” he says.

  “Me.” The corn bread has actual corn in it. A nice touch.

  “Yes, you. So hot and bothered for a double deal, you fail to see the obvious right in front of you.”

  “Which is . . .”

  “Your very pursuit of it undermined the relationship you were desperate to preserve. Created an opening for someone else to step through. Ms. Opal. Sold her soul to get Justin to love her instead.”

  I take a swig of Guinness to wash the corn bread down. “But his tumor. It’s gone, or almost all gone now. I thought she’d have traded—”

  “No. He traded his soul to save his life.”

  Why am I even having this conversation, breaking bread with him? Where will this ever lead except to unhappy places? But the thought prickles.

  “He doesn’t have a dark shadow though.”

  Now it’s time for Scratch to become suddenly interested in his slice of pork. For a moment he says nothing.

  Sirens. Distant, but on their way.

  He stabs a chunk of meat with his fork. “Why do you think that is?”

  Why indeed? My mind clicks through all the possibilities: A) Scratch is lying, and isn’t he renowned, after all, for being the father of lies? B) Justin found some way to mask his dark shadow, or C) Scratch is telling the truth, in which case Justin has already completed his favor.

  The last thought is like a gut punch, which means it’s probably true.

  “What did you ask him to do?” I whisper.

  Scratch smiles. “He took Jeb and me into Fealtee headquarters, where Jeb was able to directly hack into the NSA mainframe and send me the entire database of information in an encrypted file. But with everything else happening in the area these days, I think agencies will be too busy to notice a little blip of unusual activity.”

  I drop my knife on my plate. Misdirection. Everything he’s done has been to misdirect.

  “Here’s my problem though. What good is dissemination,” he says, holding the fork up to his mouth, “without the right messages?”

  IT’S A JOB OFFER. And maybe this is what was planned all along, why he allowed Alejandro to finally, mercifully die. Because he’d found a replacement.

  A part of me is immensely flattered. The rest, not so sure.

  The sirens now, closer.

  “So . . . are you offering me a double deal?”

  He chews thoughtfully, and swallows. Picks up his glass of Guinness and takes a sip. I let my fork trail through the liquid remains of the beans on my plate, making a kind of rainbow.

  “Not so much a double deal as a choice, one which, of course, skew
s a bit more to my benefit.”

  “Explain.”

  He leans in, rests his lower arm on the table. “Your soul. While I never like to turn down a soul, one more in my collection isn’t going to make a tremendous difference for me. It’s like giving a billionaire a penny.”

  I start to open my mouth to protest.

  “Not that I’m saying there is anything particularly inferior about your soul. But why take one when you can take a hundred million? That’s the kind of number that feels . . . exciting. Fresh.”

  If I could see his mouth, I have no doubt there’d be a grin there.

  I lean back in my chair. Body language is key in any kind of negotiation. It’s important to seem calm, uninterested. “And my role and responsibilities would be . . .”

  “Developing the messaging. Launching the campaign. Metrics and all that good stuff. I’m hoping for big conversions, obviously. Like you said. Scalability.”

  I brush some crumbs off my lap. “So this is the plan that’s to your benefit. What’s in it for me?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . .” He twirls his knife in the air. “Not going to hell for starters. I certainly enjoy it, but few others do.”

  The siren is just outside now; I hear the chirp, chirp as the squad car is parked.

  “Don’t worry,” says Scratch. “I left the door to the elevator open. It’ll take them some time to climb the stairs.”

  Always hated high-pressure salesmen.

  “Plus, if you’re working for me, I won’t call in your favor. Which, in this case, you might really want to avoid. It involves someone I suspect you still have feelings for. Maybe the only person other than yourself you care about. Is it just me, or do you think this would be better as a sandwich?” He reaches out for two slices of bread, drops them on his plate, then stabs another piece of pork, lays it out on the bread.

  “Why, what did you have in mind for my favor?”

  He arranges the pork slices neatly. “You know all the horrors of the world are born of love. Someone loves someone else, they get hurt, they turn their wrath and despair upon the world. Love is a scourge, a disease, a feast for madness. Do you have mustard?”

  “Of course we have mustard.” Easy, Fiona. Don’t let him see you sweat.

  “Real mustard or just the kind you Americans squirt on hot dogs?”

  “What did you have in mind for my favor?”

  “I never reveal proprietary information.”

  “How can I choose if I don’t know what I’m choosing between?”

  He laughs and stands. Heads for the fridge. “Well,” he says. “You know how much I enjoyed that foie gras sandwich. Fond memories of that night.”

  In desperation, I try one last time to ghost. No such luck.

  “Ah, ah, no cheating,” Scratch says. “Oh look, Dijon! You’re rather civilized, after all.”

  The pork suddenly doesn’t feel so good in my stomach. It rumbles, like it might be slightly off. “So you just want me to make you a sandwich.”

  “Exactly.” Scratch plucks the mustard from the fridge, and returns to the table. “Only I thought it would be interesting to mix it up with the ingredients a bit.”

  “In what way?” I wonder how long it will take the officers to climb all the stairs. They have to have someone buzz them in first. That should give me a couple more minutes.

  He dips the carving knife into the mustard, spreads some on the pale, white bread. “I was just thinking . . . we have everything we need right here. Wouldn’t it be fun to make our own foie gras?”

  I don’t know what he means at first—my mind trips to ducks and geese . . . the lake nearby?

  He picks up the sandwich, and I watch as the point where it meets his face blurs slightly. The pork I ate is turning mutinous. I can feel a small rise of vomit at the back of my throat.

  “Only question is: what could we use as a gavage? We’d have to measure their throats to get the right diameter. Maybe take a trip to Home Depot. Although it’s hard getting me out of Home Depot, so many sharp things there.”

  Another muffled yell from the bedroom, louder this time.

  “And look what they tried to do to you. Really, what do you owe them except contempt?”

  Oh dear God. Oh Jesus fucking Christ.

  Scratch picks up a napkin, dabs at where I’m estimating his mouth would be. “Just think, we’d be starting a whole new food trend. One even PETA wouldn’t question.”

  I laugh—God help me it’s funny and I laugh. I laugh so hard tears stream down my cheeks, I laugh until my ribs and stomach ache, I laugh until I’m at the edge of hysteria, and then I’m past the edge into some new territory that is simply beyond—beyond hope, or love, beyond fear, or anger. An empty void where my heart used to be.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  IN THE END, it is Alejandro who guided me. Saul too, in his strange, mad way. And although the weeks that followed were torturous, soul numbing, and bitter, I hang on tight to whatever small glimmer of humanity I have left.

  There is only one way to win when you deal with the devil, which is to never deal with him at all. Every word, thought, action, only leads to a series of interdependent and unknowable consequences, until you don’t even know who you are anymore, until you’re lost in the gray ambiguities. The middle of a blizzard at night. The gray hinterlands.

  So I turn down the offer to be his right-hand woman, even though it would have spared me this favor, my personal immolation. And I do it with no illusions. I’m sure Scratch will easily be able to find a replacement for me—a dead soul willing to sell out millions to save themselves, in which case those millions are doomed anyway. I’m not saving anyone from anything. I know the world I’m in.

  But I also know that here is where I stopped running, where I took some responsibility for my own actions. I had choices in the past; I made the wrong ones. So did Justin. And I’m not going to blow this last opportunity to make a course correction. Just because my hands are bloody doesn’t mean I need to immerse myself completely.

  I do have more compassion for my parents now. I understand that sometimes you only have bad options.

  I get two plates from the cabinet. I set the table.

  I tried to be kind, during. I sat on a chair next to the bed, reading aloud from the different mysteries they’d both enjoyed. I felt compassion for them too when I stuck the plastic oil filter into their throats, and poured a special protein shake enhanced with thick, heavy whipping cream. I cleaned their bodies carefully every day. It took two weeks. Scratch, being Scratch, healed them both from their gunshot wounds, although Opal will linger, alive and suffering for years afterward. She wasn’t able to complete her favor, which was to kill me, so she still carries the burden of immortality, at least unless he decides otherwise. I picked out a nice mausoleum in the cemetery for her. I might be compassionate, but that doesn’t mean I forgive her.

  It did nearly drive me insane, truly, watching Justin’s belly swell again. I had some hard moments.

  I get a loaf of bread from the cabinet. Scratch bought it especially for this day. It’s a nice, thick French loaf, with an amber crust. Slices nicely under the serrated knife.

  I get the tomato from the fridge, a plump heirloom, along with a head of lettuce and specialty mustard that Scratch swears will convert me forever. Lakeshore Wholegrain Mustard with Irish Stout.

  I place the mustard on the table. Go back to the counter to slice the tomato. Wonder what kind of cheese he’s going to pick up. Next I pull off the first leaves of lettuce and throw them away—I always think the outside ones have the most pesticide. Wash the next four off and pat them dry.

  The police are onto me—they questioned me intensely this morning but had to let me go because their evidence so far is circumstantial, digital. I’m expecting a search warrant, but I might have about a week more of freedom.

&nb
sp; I wish though that I’d taken the apartment across the hall a couple of years back when it opened up. Two hundred more in rent, but it had a nice view of the lake. I’ve come to appreciate nature more now that I know I’m going to permanently be separated from it. A hummingbird flew to the windowsill the other day, peeked at me, hovering, and it was so beautiful, wondrous, I was briefly overcome with pure joy. Small things like this mean more these days.

  I place the tomatoes on a white plate. It’s smooth, and white, and modern. Another one of Justin’s QVC purchases. I place the washed lettuce leaves next to the tomato slices, making a fan.

  Then I reach into the fridge for our homemade foie gras. It helps, somewhat, that there’s a French word for it. And I hope Justin is finally at peace.

  I place the two livers on another, longer plate, with the carving knife next to it. I remember something Scratch had said that rainy night in Make Westing, an eternity ago. It’s the suffering that gives it flavor. In which case this should be the most delicious meal ever. Still, it’s hard to ignore the rotting smell from the bedroom. We’ll have to get them both out soon, or the neighbors will get suspicious.

  Occasionally, despite my best intentions, my tenacious will to survive and that fiendish thing called hope, pull at me. It’s not too late, you could still take Scratch’s offer. You could be rich, you could make anyone love you—why not sell the world when no one in it gives a shit about you? I try to push these thoughts away. But I worry how well I’ll hold up in the end. How much I can really stand.

  You can escape everything but yourself.

  There’s a click in the lock, and I pause, holding the plate in both hands, the good hausfrau. I’m even wearing an apron.

  The door opens, and my guest arrives. Time to see this farce to the end.