Hell You Say

by Josh Lanyon

  I found #1209B without a problem. Slipping inside the dark classroom, I took a seat in the back row. It was one of the few empty seats in a room that looked like it seated about two hundred, indicating Professor Snowden was either popular or an easy pass. At the moment, he was showing a videotaped Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon on a pull-down screen at the front of the class.

  Every so often Professor Snowden’s tall silhouette loomed menacingly on the screen in front of Yugi and the gang, as he skewered the notion that occult elements in the popular kid’s cartoon were dangerous. He had an attractive speaking voice with a hint of a British accent.

  “The Religious Reich takes the view that despite overt themes of friendship, loyalty, and courage, Satan is using Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, and Harry Potter to prime innocent minds for occult suggestion and demonic influence. The idea being that if your brats are going to be brainwashed, it should be by Pat Robertson.”

  The class rumbled into laughter.

  On the video, a girl cartoon figure said, “It’s a symbol of our friendship. So when Yugi’s dueling, no matter how tough it gets, he’ll know that he’s not alone!”

  Snowden drawled, “Not that Yugi is ever alone, as he’s possessed by the spirit of Yami Yugi, the ancient Egyptian pharaoh.”

  More laughter. Nothing like a captive audience.

  There was a smattering of discussion before Snowden turned off the video. Someone in the back row hit the lights.

  The lecture concluded, students rose, talking, gathering books and papers, shuffling off to the next dog and pony show.

  Snowden stood at the front surrounded by a flock of the faithful, mostly female, vying for the final crumbs of his attention. I made my way down the aisle watching him dispatch them with smooth ease.

  He was medium height, lean, with long, loose silvery hair and a haughty world-weary face. He reminded me vaguely of Alan Rickman’s Professor Snape, except that he wore Levi’s and Birkenstocks and a T-shirt that read, I’m not Satan, I’m merely one of his highly placed minions.

  When he smiled, which seemed to be rarely, it transformed his face, and I had a hint of what the attraction was. I stayed on the outside of the circle until the last little bird, a chickadee with a black mohawk, pink heart-shaped glasses, and an upside-down crucifix necklace departed with a final curious look at me.

  The professor was ejecting the video tape from the VCR as I approached. He looked up, his eyes brilliantly green in the artificial light. Contacts, I thought. Nobody’s eyes were that color.

  “I enjoyed your lecture,” I said. “Is it your opinion, then, that the media don’t have any particular influence over the young and suggestible?”

  “That would be an indefensible position,” Snowden replied in that lazy public-school accent. He tilted his head. “You arrived toward the end of my lecture. I prefer observers to ask permission before they sit in.”

  “Do you take a lot of heat over your curriculum?”

  “This is UCLA,” he said. “I’m expected to be controversial. And you are —?”

  “Curious.”

  He arched a querying eyebrow.

  I introduced myself, explained my relationship to Angus. I said all the usual stuff about hoping I wasn’t catching him at a bad time and could I have a moment.

  He was very brown and very muscular, like polished teak — but he exuded energy, a virility that was anything but wooden. “So you’re Adrien English,” he murmured. “Well, well.” He looked me up and down with a certain appraising glint that you generally don’t get from straight guys. “Angus has spoken of you.”

  I didn’t doubt it, since I’d had to read Angus the riot act on more than one occasion when he’d blamed Snowden and the demands of academia for not getting his job done. No stretch to think he’d used me and the bookstore in reverse circumstances.

  “Have you seen Angus lately?”

  He looked…guarded. Or maybe I was reading into a natural reservation about what concern of mine it was. He said finally, “He missed class Friday and again today. No word of explanation.”

  “There may be extenuating circumstances,” I said. “Were you aware that he was being harassed by former classmates?”

  Once again Snowden raised the most supercilious eyebrow this side of the royal family. “I was not,” he said finally.

  “Apparently Angus and some other kids took a course with you called ‘Practical Magic.’ Witchcraft in modern society. Anyway, the enterprising little tykes went off and started their very own coven — but I imagine you already know that.”

  “Ridiculous,” he said sharply.

  “What is ridiculous?”

  “Why, the idea that a student — my students — would attempt to put into practice —” He stopped.

  I shrugged. He smelled a bit like pipe tobacco, which I like, and Masculine, which I wear myself on occasion. I found it just the least bit distracting.

  “You think these…classmates are harassing Angus? Exactly what do you mean by harassing?”

  “Curses — I don’t mean cussing, I mean threats — I’ve heard a few of the phone calls. Alexander Graham Bell would not be happy.”

  The green eyes narrowed. I had to admit that expression was not quite as enjoyable as the way he’d originally looked at me.

  When I failed to be razed to cinders, he asked, “What is it you think you can do about this?”

  “Well, I can start by talking to you. If you have any influence over the little shits, perhaps you can warn them off. Maybe they don’t get that making threatening phone calls violates both state and federal law.”

  “And if I don’t…if I am unable to influence them?”

  “Then I’ll talk to them.”

  He spluttered. “Talk to whom? What makes you think I know who these…these juvenile delinquents are?”

  I’d figured this was likely a waste of time. If Angus trusted Snowden, or believed Snowden could help him, he would have gone to him himself. But I was working at a disadvantage. Snowden was the single lead I had. I said, “If you didn’t know, I think you probably would have said so up front.”

  His eyes flickered, acknowledging the truth of this. He either knew or strongly suspected who these assholes were. “How are you qualified to deal with this sort of thing? What makes you imagine you won’t make it worse by butting in?”

  “It’s my experience this kind of thing thrives on secrecy. When you drag it into the light, when you make it public, it tends to shrivel up and blow away.”

  “Had a lot of experience with cults, have you?” he asked sardonically.

  I said evenly, “We’ve all had experience with bullies. You can dress this in black and teach it to quote bad poetry, but it’s still the same animal.”

  His turned off the television set. Back to me, he said quietly, “I have no proof, but I have my suspicions. Will you allow me to deal with this in my own way?”

  “If you truly will deal with it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his smile askew. “Word of honor.”

  He offered a well-shaped, strong hand.

  We shook on it. His grip was warm, just the right amount of pressure. I wondered how far I should trust to the honor of one of Satan’s highly placed minions.

  * * * * *

  Bob Friedlander was waiting for me at Cloak and Dagger.

  “We wanted to stop by and thank you for Friday night.”

  We, White Man? Maybe he meant the publishing house; there was sure no sign of Gabriel Savant.

  “The pleasure was ours,” I said. “We had a great turnout. One of the best ever.” Angus was the fan. He had pushed for that signing — and he had been right. It had been a success. The shame was that Angus hadn’t been around to enjoy it.

  “I hope you sold a lot of books?”

  “We did very well.”

  Friedlander appeared to be perusing the bookshelves behind the desk where Gabriel had signed books.

  Curiously, I inquired, “Was that announcement at the end for
real? Is there a cult exposé in the works?”

  He spared me a harassed look. “No. I can’t imagine what Gabe was thinking.” He stood on tiptoe to examine the shelf above his head.

  “So there is no book planned?”

  “Absolutely not. It was a publicity stunt. A dumb stunt.” He removed a couple of books from the shelf.

  “What did you lose?” I asked.

  His heard jerked my way. “Huh? Nothing. Well, actually…yes. You didn’t happen to find a…a disk, did you?”

  “What kind of a disk?” I was thinking favorite CD.

  Friedlander looked flustered. “A floppy. It has research notes on it.”

  “You think you lost it here?”

  “I didn’t lose it,” he said irritably. “Gabe thinks he lost it. He’d had a lot to drink Friday night, in case you didn’t notice.”

  And he was walking around with a floppy disk stuck in his skin-tight leather jeans? “I’m pretty sure I would have noticed a loose disk by now,” I said. “I can keep an eye out for it.”

  This must be some valuable disk if Savant was afraid to go anywhere without it — in which case, how had he managed to lose track of it?

  Reluctantly Friedlander turned back to me. “That would be great,” he said without enthusiasm.

  “This research,” I said, “would it have anything to do with the book Savant isn’t writing?”

  The glasses glinted blindly. “There is no book.”

  “But maybe there should be?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “And Savant apparently had no idea what he was talking about, so that makes it unanimous. All the same, this isn’t idle curiosity. I’ve heard rumors of a group here in LA.”

  Friedlander stared at me. “My advice to you,” he said. “The next time you hear rumors? Cover your ears.”

  Chapter Three

  Toward the end of Saturday’s brunch, Lisa wrangled a promise from me to meet “our new family” for dinner Monday night. When I questioned the urgency, she had blushed, said that she and the councilman were considering a winter wedding.

  “You mean…this winter?”

  She nodded eagerly. “If we can pull it off.”

  Having spent years watching Lisa organize all kinds of last-minute emergency fund-raisers and charity functions, I figured she could have marshaled a full-scale military campaign in less time. I had no doubt the “golden, mellow wedding bells would be ringing through the night, ringing out in all delight,” or whatever the hell it was Poe said in “The Bells.”

  “How extended is our new family?” I’d inquired cautiously.

  “Bill has three lovely daughters.” She gave a long, sentimental sigh. “I never had a daughter, and now I’ll have three.”

  “You don’t even like girls.”

  She looked indignant. “Of course I like girls!”

  “You sure never liked any girl I brought home.”

  “None of those girls was right for you, Adrien.”

  She had a point there.

  I figured the least I could do was keep the English end up — in a manner of speaking. I closed the shop as soon as I reasonably could, showered, shaved, and hauled the charcoal gray Hugo Boss suit out of the back of my closet. The last time I’d worn it had been to Robert Hersey’s funeral. My mood wasn’t a lot more cheerful that evening.

  I brightened a bit driving the Forester. Nothing like a new toy. I did a kind of Car and Driver interior monologue — smooth ride with decent acceleration…light but responsive steering — as I pulled onto the freeway. Thoughts of battling the forces of evil temporarily took a back seat.

  We were meeting at Pacific Dining Car on West 6th Street in Los Angeles. Starting out as a railway dining car parked on a rented lot in downtown Los Angeles, the legendary family-owned restaurant has been around since 1921. This was the place where the city’s bigwigs, politicians, lawyers, and businessmen broke bread and cut their deals. It was pricey, but unpretentious. The food (and wine list) was excellent. I thought it was a good sign that we were dining there rather than at another overpriced, trendy eatery.

  Our party had already been seated by the time I arrived, but Lisa came to meet me as I made my way across the dining room. She looked radiant in something blue and beaded. Her eyes were shining, her cheeks were flushed; she didn’t look a day over forty.

  “Oh, darling, you look so handsome,” she whispered before hauling me off to meet the Gang of Four.

  Dauten rose from the head of the table to meet me. I’ve got to admit he was not at all what I expected.

  “Adrien.” He gave me a curt nod, though his handshake was hearty. He was big, bigger than Jake even, though soft around the middle. Big and bald. His eyes were a shrewd Dutch-Boy blue in his darkly tanned face. He would never have been good-looking, and I didn’t get the impression he wasted a lot of time being charming. But he had a definite air of authority. The aura of power. It would have been hard to find anyone more unlike my slim and sophisticated father.

  “Sir.” I tried to apply the right amount of pressure returning his handshake. Did these people know I was gay? Was that going to be a problem? Not that I gave a damn what they thought, but if Lisa had her heart set on this, I sure as hell didn’t want to be the deal breaker.

  “Call me Bill.”

  Thank God, because I was never going to call this guy Pop.

  “And here are the girls,” fluted Lisa, sounding nervous.

  There seemed to be a mob of them. Lisa was right; they were lovely. I was briefly enveloped in a butterfly swarm of scented breasts and long legs and silky hair as the girls maneuvered around each other, hugging and bussing cheeks with me, smiling meaningfully at each other, and changing their seats for some unfathomable reason.

  Once we were all seated, I realized there were only three of them. The eldest, Lauren, looked about my age. She wore a wedding ring, though there was no sign of a husband. The youngest, Emma, was twelve.

  Their drinks arrived. My order for a double was taken by a sympathetic-looking waiter. Everyone proceeded to talk at once.

  “Adrien writes murder mysteries as well as owning a bookstore,” Lisa was explaining to Dauten. I wondered if she’d waited till five minutes before dinner to break the news that she had a grown son. “They’re terribly clever and terribly malicious, which is so surprising, because he was always the most gentle little boy.”

  “Her accent is too adorable,” Lauren said of my English-born mum, mercifully breaking my concentration. “I just love to hear her talk.”

  “Oh, me too,” I said. “Especially right now.”

  On my right, the kid, Emma, giggled. I grinned at her.

  Lauren and the middle girl (what the hell was her name?) were tall, willowy blondes, good-looking in an All-American, Ralph Lauren advert way. The kid was thin and lanky with glossy black hair and rosy cheeks. She had inherited the family blue eyes, which were striking with her dark hair. She looked a lot like Lisa. She could have passed for her daughter — or my sister.

  “We adore Lisa,” the middle one (Nancy? Natasha?) reassured me. “She’s so good for Daddy. He worships her.”

  I saw Dauten patting Lisa’s hand with his giant paw as she chattered away. He wore a gold signet on his pinky finger. The backs of his hands were covered in black hair. I reached gratefully for the double Chivas Regal the waiter appeared with and knocked half of it back in one gulp.

  “Was the traffic awful?” Lauren asked sympathetically.

  “We’ll all have to come to your bookstore,” the Middle One told me. “I love mysteries! That’s all I read. We’ll tell everybody. We’ll get all our friends to go. You know, I always wanted to work in a bookstore.”

  The kid, Emma, who had been eyeing me steadily, said all at once, “You look like someone. I know who. You look like the actor in that movie. Red River.”

  “John Wayne?”

  She giggled. Yeah, she was
a cutie.

  The Middle One, Natalie — Natalie — said proudly, “Emma likes black-and-white movies,” as though the small fry had just received her Mensa card in the mail.

  “What movies do you like?” I asked Emma.

  I never heard her response, because Lauren leaned across the table, whispering like the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. on duty, “So, what do you think about this plan for a New Year’s Eve wedding, Adrien?”

  “Uh…”

  “It doesn’t give us nearly enough time,” Natalie put in, equally covert ops. “We’ve got to stall them.”

  “We’ve still got to get ready for Christmas,” Lauren told me. “Oh, by the way, you’re having Christmas with us this year, did Lisa tell you?”

  “I’m going to be a junior bridesmaid,” Emma piped next to me.

  “You’re going to give the bride away,” Natalie told me.

  I signaled for another drink.

  * * * * *

  We said our good-byes in the restaurant parking lot, Lisa and the other girls piling into Dauten’s Jag as the rain began to patter down. The Jag sped past, a blur of waving hands and smiling faces. I pulled off my tie, tossed it on the passenger seat.

  The misty rain got heavier as I turned onto the 110 freeway. I popped a CD in the new player: Patty Griffin’s 1000 Kisses. The melancholy opening notes filled the silent car in time with the swish of the windshield wipers.

  Of course, the perfect finishing touch would have been getting pulled over for a DUI, so I was very careful driving home. Careful and depressed. I think it was hearing all the details of the forthcoming Christmas extravaganza that sent my emotions into a tailspin.

  I like Christmas. Not as much as I liked it when I was a kid, but I do enjoy it. Yeah, I know it’s become cheapened and tawdry and commercialized, but that doesn’t change the reason for the season. And, of course, it’s absolutely the best time of year for Cloak and Dagger Books.

  The problem I have with Christmas is the problem most single people have with Christmas, which is that, if you’re single, it is absolutely the loneliest time of year.

  It would have been a lot lonelier if I hadn’t had Lisa and a handful of good friends. And this year I had Jake. Sort of.