I hit up the payphone calling the client's numbers. Just in case but, yeah figured as much. The number you are dialling is not... Tracking down the client would have been the first move but I never really sweated it. She's got money and fame and resources. Woman like that stays unavailable to guys like me for a living. Hang the receiver up.
Into the new room. Greasy orange carpets. One of those beds you pay two dollars to cripple you with a 'massage'. Fleas in the sheets. Unflushed toilet and uncleaned rubbish and unmade sheets. TV that looks older than God. Flick it to a dead channel. Drop the bag.
Make the tape into a pentagram and light the candles. Hissing static on the TV screen immediately lurches into a different pattern and the candle flames start to bend outwards on the point of the pattern, like each caught in a different breeze.
Yeah. Don't even have to do a rite or finish this operation. It's in here with me.
'I know you're here. Might as well talk.'
The candles stop their swaying.
Shadows form in the corner of the room. Can see a figure stir in the chair. Too dark for details.
'I hate you,' it hisses and it's all cobwebs and toothache. 'Not just you. Your whole kind. Such ugly, petty things. So plump. Your weakness provokes me.'
Felt much the same myself, no faulting that logic, so I just nod.
'When He set me on you, I thought it a burden. I thought there was some divine plan that would unfold over the millennia but now I think He just hates you and longs to see you suffer but refuses to admit He made a mistake.'
Rifle through my last pack. Shit. Only four or five left.
'Well, for one, can't say I disagree. For another, I'm not a believer like that. Save the implications and the metaphysics for someone who believes in truth.'
It hisses and I've heard that sound before. Not a thing a man gets used to.
'I'm not dissing. Just relax. But also, I'm not,' I gesture widely with my smoke between two fingers, 'I'm not some guy off the street, running through his Catholic school stories. We both know whatever you are, it's not the Devil.'
Crossing of the legs. I think it's brushing its lapel.
'Don't you believe in God? That's an unusual take for a magician.'
'Who cares? Find out one day. I kind of take the Plato trip, you know? Something at the centre of everything and we're too far away, we're just shadows of it. But I don't buy him being in our lives. Because, if he is, then he's a cruel sonofabitch. If he's not, who cares about God? All that's beside the point -'
'And what's the point?'
'All that matters if you act like you believe. You get that old time religion? You feel that? It won't mean nothing, it won't have meaning or significance unless you act like it. Bring those things together, feeling, action. Well, then you feel God like you were the Pope.'
'So you think truth, objective truth, about God is pointless?'
'Ah, we're humans. There's no truth for the likes of us. Just a bunch of facts and those don't make no difference to your life. Think there's no God, think there's God, who cares? Wearing a white coat isn't going to give you fundamental knowledge of the universe. Hell, doing magic isn't either. Truth is for amateurs. There's just meaning. Just significance. You believe in the big man upstairs, that makes your life mean something different than if you don't. That's a good a truth as you're likely to get.'
'Ah, then the human endeavour for knowledge is fruitless?'
'Put together a million facts - good for you. That sort of thing, its own reward. But how's knowing how many bones in a frog's face help you get through the day, help you love your husband, help you deal with your mother dying? How's knowing what an X-Ray is get your arse to work day after day? Truth is just what helps you live a life and facts, well, those are good things but all they are just explanations of how things work.'
'So truth and facts are separated?'
'Fuck, I don't know. I hate conversations like this. Here's what I'm saying: don't figure there for being a boss of it all. Don't think the world makes sense. Two seconds looking at the world, show you that it's cruel. But I have a notion that there's something out there bigger. Something we glimpse. Can never prove it. Can never make it a fact. But it feels right to me. Feels true. Won't change the world with that idea. Can't make the kids learn it in school. Don't care to.'
It's amused. 'That's not a very logical position.'
'I'm just a man. I'm just a guy. My private feelings? What's inside? You'd have to be dim, you'd have to misunderstand humans entirely if you figured the kind of hunches move inside us - if you figured how we felt and thought - made any sense.'
Grind the smoke out. Light another.
'Hey, you want one of these?'
'Yes please.'
I cross over. Thin fingers take one out. Hold out the Zippo but his face never lights up. Think I see a tail on the floor, swaying like a snake.
'Do you think your mind could change on that, Lark?'
Shrug. 'Ah hell. Probably not. Get to a certain age, mind gets harder to change. I've thought like that a long time. Magician needs to be able to shuffle the decks. Move from system to system, idea to idea. Well, symbol to symbol, really. I'm not, you know, married to that idea, about truth. Not something I think a lot on. Just keeps making sense, though.'
Both drag in silence for a bit. Watch the smoke gather at the roof.
'I've sat in rooms like this with people like you before. I have no doubt I'll do it again before the whole sorry show shuts down.'
'Yeah. Bet you've got a tale or two.'
'Is that a pun?'
Shake my head. 'God no. I hate that stuff.'
'As do I. And yes. I have a few stories. Would you like to be one of those? One of my stories?'
Think about all the running away I do. Think about Katanya and an afternoon in bed.
'Nah. Bit embarrassing, really.'
He laughs and it’s gentle. 'No doubt. But you were right, I told you before. They're all Faust stories. So, we come to it. What do you want? This is me, offering.'
Ah hell. Bettina, wake up I need your help. But that's not fair.
'Even if I was in the mood to go work for someone - and make no mistake, I am not, I don't think you have anything I want.'
Say that to him, listen to the echoes of it inside myself.
He's right. I want to free Jon but I want to free Jon. Scarlet - I want her to go back in time ten years. Take off her stupid suit and tie and be that voodoo swamp witch with the red hair. But I want her to want it.
'Know what I want? I want a good big book, I want a good stereo playing something that heavily features the Fender Jaguar. I want some good whiskey, one ice cube. I want time and space and peace enough to work my way through some magic. I don't want to know - I want to learn.'
I shrug. 'I want to do alright. By Bettina and Jon. My ambitions - I guess mine aren't as big as some of the guys you've been in rooms like this with.'
'That's not much of a story, Lark. A man in a room with a book.' Doubt in his voice.
'I'm not a story. I'm a man. Sorry, Devil but there's no deal to be had here.'
He goes silent. I hand him another dart. All out now but for one. He starts up again.
'I have always longed for freedom. Even when happiness was in my reach, I worked against it, fearing to be beholden even to joy. I rarely imagine that, should I get it, should I be free as I want, it would be as dull as your ambitions.'
Shrug.
'But I am not free. You... you're not suited to a Faust story anymore. You did your deals long ago. To learn, content, that's what binds you as closely as any compact with the likes of me.
'No, but I am not free. Which means I am going to come at you again and again. Until she stops looking. Until you are gone. You're linked to her as much as to me. My stories are stories of my cruelty. That's how they must be. What else is the Devil if not a story we blame our badness on over and over?'
There's a sudden rush of red light and the shadows
are gone. In place, what looks like an angel, burning forever. Hurting forever.
Leap into the pentagram, start making protective mundras with my hands.
'We will not meet like this again while she seeks me. I will continue to hunt and hurt you. Because that is my story. And I am not free to do anything else. So Lark? Keep running.'
I do.
vi
Sometime after this accident an aspirant presented himself: he was a little man, young, fair, red-haired, well-mannered, and had well-furnished pockets. He had not a single fault, and Mother Holofernes was not able to find any in all her arsenal of negatives. As for Panfila, it wanted little to send her out of her senses with delight. So the preparations for the wedding were made, with the usual grumbling accompaniment on the part of the bridegroom’s future mother-in-law. Everything went on smoothly straightforward, and without a break—like a railroad—when, without knowing why, the popular voice—a voice which is as the personification of conscience,—began to rise in a murmur against the stranger, despite the fact that he was affable, humane, and liberal; that he spoke well and sang better; and freely took the black and horny hands of the labourers between his own white and beringed fingers. They began to feel neither honoured nor overpowered by so much courtesy; his reasoning was always so coarse, although forcible and logical.
“By my faith!” said Uncle Blas; “why does this ill-faced gentleman call me Mr. Blas, as if that would make me any better? What does it look like to you?”
“Well, as for me,” said Uncle Gil, “did he not come to shake hands with me as if we had some plot between us? Did he not call me citizen? I, who have never been out of the village, and never want to go.”
As for Mother Holofernes, the more she saw of her future son-in-law, the less regard she had for him. It seemed to her that between that innocent red hair and the cranium were located certain protuberances of a very curious kind; and she remembered with emotion that malediction she had uttered against her daughter on that ever memorable day on which her foot was injured and her washing spoilt.
At last, the wedding day arrived. Mother Holofernes had made pastry and reflections—the former sweet, the latter bitter; a great olla podrida for the food, and a dangerous project for supper; she had prepared a barrel of wine that was generous, and a line of conduct that was not. When the bridal pair were about to retire to the nuptial chamber, Mother Holofernes called her daughter aside, and said: “When you are in your room, be careful to close the door and windows; shut all the shutters, and do not leave a single crevice open but the keyhole of the door. Take with you this branch of consecrated olive, and beat your husband with it as I advise you; this ceremony is customary at all marriages, and signifies that the woman is going to be master, and is followed in order to sanction and establish the rule.”
Panfila, for the first time obedient to her mother, did everything that she had prescribed.
No sooner did the bridegroom espy the branch of consecrated olive in the hands of his wife, than he attempted to make a precipitous retreat. But when he found the doors and windows closed, and every crevice stopped up, seeing no other means of escape than by passing through the keyhole, he crept into that; this spruce, red-and-white, and well-spoken bachelor being, as Mother Holofernes had suspected, neither more nor less than the Evil One himself, who, availing himself of the right given him by the anathema launched against Panfila by her mother, thought to amuse himself with the pleasures of a marriage, and encumber himself with a wife of his own, whilst so many husbands were supplicating him to take theirs off their hands.
But this gentleman, despite his reputation for wisdom, had met with a mother-in-law who knew more than he did; and Mother Holofernes was not the only specimen of that genus. Therefore, scarcely had his lordship entered into the keyhole, congratulating himself upon having, as usual, discovered a method of escape, than he found himself in a phial, which his foreseeing mother-in-law had ready on the other side of the door; and no sooner had he got into it than the provident old dame sealed the vessel hermetically. In a most tender voice, and with most humble supplications, and most pathetic gestures, her son-in-law addressed her, and desired that she would grant him his liberty. But Mother Holofernes was not to be deceived by the demon, nor disconcerted by orations, nor imposed upon by honeyed words; she took charge of the bottle and its contents, and went off to a mountain. The old lady vigorously climbed to the summit of this mountain, and there, on its most elevated crest, in a rocky and secluded spot, deposited the phial, taking leave of her son-in-law with a shake of her closed fist as a farewell greeting.
And there his lordship remained for ten years. What years those ten were! The world was as quiet as a pool of oil. Everybody attended to his own affairs, without meddling in those of other people. Nobody coveted the position, nor the wife, nor the property of other persons; theft became a word without signification; arms rusted; powder was only consumed in fireworks; prisons stood empty; finally, in this decade of the golden age, only one single deplorable event occurred ... the lawyers died from hunger and quietude.
Alas! That so happy a time should have an end! But everything has an end in this world...
Ten
i
Keep running.
Bettina isn't ready but we pinch a bandage to cover her face. At least I can't see her teeth through her cheek anymore. Pull the hoodie zip up but it's baggy and doesn't cover that ghastly wound in her throat. Weak but she can walk.
Hail a cab. Someone's watching us on a roof over the road. No time to figure that out.
We're gone.
Stories, stories. The Devil doesn't exist. But stories about him do.
Hole up with Lazlo. It's around dawn by the time we pull in and I'm running on empty. The magician is drunk and all but passed out but sure enough, he's safe. Pull him off the couch and leave Bettina there. She looks at Lazlo and there's a predator gleam.
'Bettina...' I warn her. She eases up.
She'll need something alive. Nothing will fix her better than blood and meat. Human, by preference. The sun isn't up yet. We walk, very slowly, up to the roof and I crave a cigarette while I listen to her kill and eat pigeons. All done, chin wet with blood and feathers, like a cartoon cat, I take her down back to the hotel. Lazlo is snoring like a man with pressing health issues.
Brew up some of the bitter coffee he likes. Rifle through his stuff and find ten bucks. Grab a pack of twenties from the bodega downstairs. Back up. Bettina isn't asleep but she's staring up the roof. Her eyes flick to me. Flick back.
Think she's pissed off at me. Imagine that.
City is alive by now. Street sweepers are finished and the suits are coming out. Time for guys like me to be away.
Sip at the coffee.
There's a lot of stories about the Devil. They're not about the same character. We know that.
So who was I sharing my last smokes with? Time to stop thinking on that. No answers now.
What am I going to do about Jon?
Take out those missionary notes but my heart isn't in it right now. Not when, if I listen very closely, I can listen to Bettina's throat bones closing up.
Put them aside.
One other avenue to sort out. The client. Ava. Who is she?
Details about her life are public knowledge. Internet it is. Left school, toured around with some grunge boyfriend. Picked up some modelling jobs. Formed her own band. Split from the boyfriend. Bad blood there but he died in '04 from the incredibly boring overdose. Indie chart success. Small part in a movie. Nothing A-list. Band splits up so she focuses on acting. Dull. But a good story. Romance and glamour but with a gritty root.
Figure I can listen to some songs, watch some movies. If nothing else, drown out Lazlo's choking, get a bead on her.
Nothing.
I type in her name and go to listen to albums. None are listed. I look up her movies and they're online. Cross-referenced with other actors, directors. But you can't buy any in a store. Can't find clip
s or trailers.
Keep digging. There's interviews with her. Gossip rags about her. Co-stars, musicians from her band, discussing her work but - there's no songs she's sung on. No movies she's appeared in. Hell, look more closely and the only photos she appears in are just her headshots. Over and over again.
Ava never made an album. Ava never made a movie.
But the whole world thinks she does.
Wipe my eyes with my fingers. Need some sleep but the only place to go down is Lazlo's bed and, no.
Is this some practical joke? Some show business thing I don't understand? No.
I type some more words into the computer and it spits out some results. There's a website, just one, that has come to the same conclusion. The writer, you can tell by the style, she's a madwoman. But she's seen through it all. Her website has a few comments, telling her she's stupid as well as all the other maggots thing maggots say on the maggot internet.
But whoever this madwoman is, she's right. She's seen through the glamour.
That's what it is. A glamour. A spell powerful enough to get the world to think a person has an entire life.
Serious. Serious hoodoo.
If I wasn't connected to this whole business, I doubt I would have seen through it.
My phone rings. Who’s calling me at this time of day?
After the usual precautions - Scarlet's aunt.
Time to end this.
'Hello Luanne.'
ii
Bettina is asleep again but I don't need her on this. Kind of people who come after me? They're not having breakfast in midtown at seven thirty in the morning. I shower, change clothes. No time to shave.
Why am I doing this?
There she is, big sunglasses, floppy hat against the sun. Red Spanish style dress and bangles at her wrists. She waves at me like I'm a citizen and stands. Luanne. Scarlet's favourite aunt. I stalk over and she goes to hug but I just extend a hand.
Devil City Page 11