by John L. Monk
“Wait a minute,” I said, “slow down—how sick are you, anyway? Have you seen a doctor?”
With some heat, the minister said, “Do you want to hear what I have to say or don’t you?”
“Fine,” I said, “but I thought we’d gotten past the whole you’re a demon explanation. Hold on a second, I’m driving.”
I put the phone down and negotiated a tricky lane change to avoid a caravan of slower traffic. When I picked back up, the minister was talking.
“… powerful Watcher, a Chief of Tens, one who lusted after women and helped unleash the nephilim into the world. Daniel comes from Danel. Daniel, in ancient Hebrew, means judgment of God. What have you been doing all these years if not that very thing?”
I rolled my eyes. “There’s a billion other people named Daniel. Where’s all this coming from?”
“Shortly after we first met, I had a strange dream. A wizened man approached me with an ancient scroll and compelled me to read it. It was the Book of Enoch. Until then, I’d always considered it apocryphal. Now I feel otherwise.”
That got me laughing. “I dreamed I was chased by shoes once, but you don’t see me making a big deal about it.”
“In the Book,” the minister said, “Azazel taught mankind the secret of weapons, and he spoke to the prophet Enoch in a dream. He beseeched Enoch to intercede with God on behalf of the fallen, but Enoch refused. He ended up trying anyway, but to no avail. There were other Watchers, many innocent of wrongdoing, but they swore an oath to Shemyazaz, the leader of the two hundred, and—”
“Wait a minute, hold on,” I said. “So now you’re a prophet?”
In a quieter, arguably humbler tone, he said, “How do you think I found my way to St. Stephens? I had a dream, just like Enoch did thousands of years ago. I followed my interpretation, applied for the job, got hired despite having left the church, and then you showed up—right in time to pass judgment on that sex maniac you possessed.”
The minister’s breath wheezed in and out loudly over the phone. The flu sucked, sure, but normally it didn’t drive a person crazy. He really believed this stuff.
“Do you really think you’re a prophet?” I said.
“If I’m not, what am I?”
That was an annoying thing about the minister. He always made everything about him. Now he thought he was a hairy prophet from the age of smoke and mirrors.
“I know you’re not a believer,” he said quietly, “but surely you know the power of dreams. You said as much in that story you sent me, years ago.”
When I’d first run into the minister, I was so happy to find someone I could finally talk to I’d sent my entire story to him in an email. Looking back, I’d come to regret it, given how pushy he could be.
“You really had a dream telling you to go to St. Stephens? And all this Enoch stuff, too?”
Wearily, as if shouldering the world’s sins on his frail shoulders, the minister said, “Yes, Dan, I really did. Now please, I’m very sick—despite that useless flu shot they stuck me with last month. We’ll talk more on this later. Goodbye.”
He hung up before I could ask him when.
Chapter Four
“Danel?” I said to no one visible.
When nothing sinister happened, I laughed.
In retrospect, it was interesting how the minister and I had reconnected that time in Toledo. But it was a big country, and coincidences did happen. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the 4th of July, and nobody said they were possessed by demons. In 1895, Ohio only had two cars in the entire state, but the drivers somehow managed to crash into each other. The world was like that sometimes. Even if there was a supernatural explanation for the minister’s career decisions, did it have to involve escaped demons from the Book of Enoch?
“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” I said, but again nothing happened.
In time, my mind wandered from regions biblical to topics culinary. One great thing about the South: they have awesome barbecue. I stopped at several places along the way, comparing as I went along. My favorite dish? Burnt ends, hands down, followed by my favorite dessert. They say Eve tested Adam with a pink Cadillac, but it was really peach cobbler, one of the few foods I look forward to eating with a spork.
As I closed in on South of the Border—a massive tourist attraction—I knew I’d have to buy fireworks. Preferably ones that shot so high they posed a risk to Russian spy satellites. Mom and Dad never let me have fireworks as a kid, and I had catching up to do.
“That’ll be a hundred and ninety-two dollars,” the friendly old man working the register said.
I paid him in cash and left the shop with a boxful of rockets and a bag of what may have been depleted uranium planet crackers.
* * *
Even at night, Savannah’s gorgeous. Lovely streetlights and beautiful antebellum architecture. I’d been there once, as a teenager, and had the city’s perfectly organized system of garden squares memorized from a tourist map. But all the maps in the world couldn’t have helped me avoid the speed trap shortly before the turn to my hotel.
“Speed limit’s thirty-five along this stretch,” the officer said.
“But my car goes up to a hundred and twenty,” I said. “How’s that fair?”
The cop stared evilly down at me from behind his thick mustache. Such a waste. If I had a mustache like that, I’d only use it for Good.
“You smart mouthing me, boy?” he said, creatively putting two syllables into the word boy.
“Just worming my way into your good graces, sir.”
The cop grunted, took my license and registration, and went back to his cruiser. Ten minutes later, he tapped on the window and handed me my copy.
I beamed up at him. “I’m just glad you stopped me before someone got hurt, officer.”
“Keep up the attitude,” he said. “See what happens.”
Despite the ticket, it had been a fun trip—and long. When I got out of the car, I was achy and stiff all over. The air felt hot and humid and smelled kind of bad: a little like raw sewage, with a whiff of something chemical in the air. Not overly strong … but it was there. If the minister was around, he’d probably claim it was Satan.
I’d chosen the same hotel as the one on the back of the woman’s picture.
“What’s that smell outside?” I said to the man working the hotel check-in.
“Which smell, sir?” he said politely.
“Uh … kind of a … Well actually, it’s more like…”
“Ah, that,” he said, smiling. “That’s the smell of money, as we say in Savannah. We have a paper mill. The other smell is the river.” He chuckled. “When the breeze picks up, it’ll die down.”
I requested a room to last me through the weekend, with a checkout day of Monday. The desk clerk said I was in luck. They were hosting a conference and only had a handful of rooms left.
He gave me my room keys and wished me a good night.
The suite was beautiful, and it smelled great. Somehow, I’d found the only fresh-smelling hotel in the United States. Almost like they were making up for the smell of all that money outside.
After a great shower to wash away the dust from the road, I turned on the TV and lay back on the bed flipping channels. There were movies that looked interesting, but I was too tired for anything interesting. Then one thing led to another and I found the channel that let guests order adult videos right to their rooms. There was a beautiful woman embracing another beautiful woman, both of them wearing lingerie and cowgirl hats, telling me with their eyes: Hey there, cowboy, whatcha’ gonna do with that rope?
Occasionally, I’ve come back to the world in the body of someone so obnoxiously healthy that every moment is a distraction—particularly at times like these. But the Great Whomever has a sense of humor, and he’s always watching, like a great omniscient Peeping Tom in the sky. The last thing I’d do was make with the rope tricks with all that snickering going on up there.
I changed th
e channel to one of the regular movies and wished I’d brought a book. Tomorrow, I’d find a book store.
* * *
The next day, I ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant. And what a breakfast! Pure bliss. The pancakes weren’t just fluffy, they were fluftastic. Helium and a tiny pinch of morphine in every bite.
After finishing my second stack, I flipped through the cartoony map of Savannah I’d found in my room, looking for things to do.
The date on the back of the woman’s picture had her arriving tomorrow, so I spent the day riding tour buses and browsing bookstores. No, I didn’t pull any super-memory stunts to get attention. I simply bought a book. Then I found a beautiful garden square to while away the afternoon.
That night, I went to a fancy restaurant called the Pink House and ordered three different meals all for myself, because everything looked so good. I also ordered three desserts. The waiter didn’t ask me to pay first—it wasn’t that kind of place. But he did smile through veiled disapproval when I told him I couldn’t be bothered with the enormous amount of leftovers.
“But there’s so much food,” he said. “You don’t want us to just throw it away, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said in my best Thurston Howell. “Give it to the poor!” I laughed out loud when his lips pressed together, the closest to a frown I’d seen from him all night.
I tipped him three hundred from Andre’s blood money, then left and hailed a cab.
My confused waiter didn’t realize it, but I’d just made his life suddenly more interesting. After he told everyone about the obnoxious tourist (me), he’d instantly become the delight of the kitchen staff for the remainder of the evening—and flush with cash. If he had anything like a conscience, he’d feel weirdly uncomfortable. My guess was he probably wouldn’t know why. Very hard to reconcile hating a callous jerk (also me) if you’re grateful to him at the same time. Maybe he’d donate it somewhere and remain pure. Or maybe he’d spend it as quickly as possible to get it out of his life, thereby bringing him back into alignment with his sense of self. Or a thousand other things that hadn’t been possible until I’d shown up and made an ass of myself. Looked at in the proper light, I was sort of a hero.
I almost took a ghost tour that night, but chickened out at the last minute. Too spooky. Also, I felt bloated and tired, and weirdly anxious about tomorrow. Resigned to being a fuddy-duddy, I returned to the hotel, watched TV, and tried to relax my nerves in anticipation of the big day.
The big day started with another great breakfast, but that’s where the fun ended. Thank goodness I had my book with me, because I spent the morning sitting in the lobby watching the automatic front doors swish open and closed ten times a minute. About an hour into it, I realized most people wouldn’t start showing up until the civilized check-in time of 3 p.m.
I didn’t want to miss the woman’s arrival, and didn’t want to get sidetracked by something else, so I sat there reading, occasionally getting up for coffee or those terrible pre-packaged sandwiches they sold in the hotel store. Sometimes I looked at the woman’s picture. There was a darkness around her eyes I couldn’t put my finger on. She looked so serious. Great hair. Lovely lips. Something about her, standing there in that crowd of reporters … Clearly an important woman.
When the guests started arriving in larger numbers, I replaced my book with a magazine someone had left out, then put it down after a quick skim. The lobby TV was tuned to the hotel channel. Event listings, guest services, and special deals appeared and disappeared in an endless stream. I wondered what would happen if I changed the channel, then got up to find out. Apparently nothing. The news was a predictable variety of politics, war, people interrupting each other, and people rolling their eyes while waiting to talk. I changed the channel again, found a Spongebob marathon, and left that on.
As I turned to sit back down, that’s when I saw her.
She swept into the lobby through the automatic doors pulling a medium-sized black suitcase behind her on wheels. She walked boldly, cutting an imposing figure in a snug black business dress. Big black sunglasses, long glossy brown hair clipped with a barrette on one side. Gold bracelet. Red shoes. Pearls. She looked like a million bucks during the gold standard. With legs.
I watched as she talked to the check-in clerk. Her voice carried to where I stood, but I only caught one or two words. Her manner was friendly and direct. With legs.
When I edged closer, she turned and looked at me, eyes widening in surprise. Then she waved.
Automatically, I raised my hand to wave back. Then a woman rushed past me and said, “Rachael, you look wonderful! How have you been?”
Rachael said she was fine and asked her something about her caseload. Then they stepped off a ways and spoke too quietly for me to hear. A few minutes later, they embraced, and the woman rushed off to greet someone else.
Rachael grabbed her suitcase and made her way to the elevators. I moved to follow—and then stopped when someone blocked my way.
“Where the fuck you think you’re going, pal?” the man said under his breath.
Ricky.
Chapter Five
“Well, if it isn’t my own personal Mussolini,” I said, staring down at the smaller man. His eye was puffy and black from where I’d struck him two days ago.
“I should shoot you right now,” Ricky hissed. “You son of a bitch. Now where’s the girl?”
He didn’t seem like the joking sort, wasn’t smiling or anything. But somehow, in his hatred for me, he’d missed seeing Rachael walking by not twenty feet away.
“Nice shiner you got there,” I said. “Does the stinging keep you up at night?”
Ricky’s hand inched toward his waistline.
I smiled.
He jerked his hand away and looked around. I also looked around—no one was paying attention to us at the moment, but they would if he pulled a gun. He’d spend a long time in jail if he indulged that hot-blooded Italian temper he was cultivating.
Leaning forward, Ricky said, “Lenny says don’t come back to New York. But I hope you do. You ain’t so tough. Easiest thing in the world to shoot somebody. You got lucky and sucker punched me once, but—”
Quickly, before he could react, I sucker punched him in the other eye and walked briskly toward the elevators. My back itched in anticipation of gunshots. Getting shot in the back feels like a hard hit with a baseball bat. So does getting hit with a bat.
“Goddammit!” Ricky shouted, causing several people in front of me to startle and turn.
When I got to the elevators, a sign I hadn’t seen on other trips to and from my room read, ABA SUMMER CONFERENCE. Underneath it, an arrow pointed away from the lobby, deeper into the hotel.
Now that I thought about it, Rachael’s dress and manner struck me as just the type to attend ABA Summer Conferences. I wondered what ABA stood for. American Bacon Association? I sure hoped so.
Glancing back at the lobby, I saw Ricky had disappeared. If he was staying in the hotel, that’d be a pain. But the clerk had said there weren’t many rooms available. That was two days ago.
I followed the arrow down a wide hallway past roped-off ballrooms and smaller rooms on the left, and eventually arrived at a table covered in name tags. Two women worked the table, handing out tags and checking off names.
I walked along, looking at everything, and immediately saw it was an American Bar Association conference. Each doorway had a placard with names and times on it. One of them had a blown-up picture of “Queens District Attorney Rachael Anderson.” Under her name, the placard read: “Organized Crime and Underground Economies.” She was supposed to speak tonight at 7:30 p.m. There were other names beneath hers, each with different times next to them.
If I could just keep Ricky from shooting Rachael before, during, and after her appearance, everything would be all right. Andre’s freedom was a fair trade for that. Even his life.
I went back to my room, grabbed Andre’s gun, and secured it in a special holster h
e used for concealed carry. Very comfortable.
Properly armed and dangerous, I took the elevator down.
When the doors opened, I saw Rachael and a group of women talking nearby. I loitered there a bit, pretending to look at my cellphone—briefly marveling at how easy it was to loiter these days so long as you had a phone. A minute later, Rachael and the women headed off in the direction of the conference. I almost followed her, but held off. I’d only draw attention to myself. Besides, my place was near the entrance, guarding the door in case Ricky returned.
Hopefully I wouldn’t encounter him again until I’d warned Rachael the Mob was after her. My plan was to tell her after the presentation, so she’d do a good job and not worry someone wanted her dead. After that, I’d finish Ricky, then go back for Lenny in two weeks. Bang bang, he’s dead, then pizza and soda and a short wait for the cops. Easily the best plan I’d ever come up with.
The hotel store had paperbacks, magazines, and plenty of snacks, and I loaded up with enough to last the next four hours.
At one point, a member of the hotel staff came by and said, “Sir, are you a guest at this hotel?”
“At this hotel?” I said, peering around suspiciously.
“I’m afraid I need to see your identification. There’ve been complaints.”
“Complaints?” I said, scratching my head. “About my identification?”
The man rolled his eyes, then caught himself. “You’ve been sitting here for an awfully long time. Sir.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I can always involve the police, but I’d rather handle this in-house.”
My guess was Ricky had spotted me from outside and called it in, hoping to roust me out. Probably didn’t realize I had a room here.
I took out Andre’s wallet, removed his license, and handed it over. The man raised a radio to his mouth and read off the name.
Seconds later, a woman reported back: “Yes, Alex, he’s a guest.”