The monster picked Effrom up and shook him like a rag doll.
“Where is your wife, old man?”
Effrom could almost hear his brain rattling in his head. The monster’s hand squeezed the breath out of him. He tried to answer, but all he could produce was a pathetic croak.
“Where?” The monster threw him on the bed.
Effrom felt the air burn back into his lungs. “She’s in Monterey, visiting our daughter.”
“When will she be back? Don’t lie. I’ll know if you are lying.”
“How will you know?”
“Try me. Your guts should go well with this decor.”
“She’ll be home in the morning.”
“That’s enough,” the monster said. He grabbed Effrom by the shoulder and dragged him through the door. Effrom felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and a grinding pain flashed across his chest and back. His last thought before passing out was, God help me, I’ve killed the wife.
21
AUGUSTUS BRINE
“I found them. The car is parked in front of Jenny Masterson’s house.” Augustus Brine stormed into the house carrying a grocery bag in each arm.
Gian Hen Gian was in the kitchen pouring salt from a round, blue box into a pitcher of Koolaid.
Brine set the bags down on the hearth. “Help me bring some of this stuff in. There’s more bags in the truck.”
The genie walked to the fireplace and looked in the bags. One was filled with dry-cell batteries and spools of wire. The other was full of brown cardboard cylinders about four inches long and an inch in diameter. Gian Hen Gian took one of the cylinders out of the bag and held it up. A green, waterproof fuse extended from one end.
“What are these?”
“Seal bombs,” Brine said. “The Department of Fish and Game distributes them to fishermen to scare seals away from their lines and nets. I had a bunch at the store.”
“Explosives are useless against the demon.”
“There are five more bags in the truck. Would you bring them in, please?” Brine began to lay the seal bombs out in a line on the hearth. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
“What am I, some scrounging servant? Am I a beast of burden? Should I, Gian Hen Gian, king of the Djinn, be reduced to bearing loads for an ignorant mortal who would attack a demon from hell with firecrackers?”
“O King,” Brine said, exasperated, “please bring in the goddamn bags so I can finish this before dawn.”
“It is useless.”
“I’m not going to try to blow him up. I just want to know where he is. Unless you can use your great power to restrain him, O King of the Djinn.”
“You know I cannot.”
“The bags!”
“You are a stupid, mean-spirited man, Augustus Brine. I’ve seen more intelligence in the crotch lice of harem whores.”
The genie walked out the door and his diatribe faded into the night. Brine was methodically wrapping the fuses of the seal bombs with thin monofilament silver wire designed to heat up when a current was applied. It was an inexact method of detonation, but Brine had no access to blasting caps at this hour of the morning.
The genie returned in a moment carrying two grocery bags.
“Put them on the chairs.” Brine gestured with his head.
“These bags are filled with flour,” Gian Hen Gian said. “Are you going to bake bread, Augustus Brine?”
22
TRAVIS AND JENNY
There was something about her that made Travis want to dump his life out on the coffee table like a pocket full of coins; let her sort through and keep what she wanted. If he was still here in the morning, he’d tell her about Catch, but not now.
“Do you like traveling?” Jenny asked.
“I’m getting tired of it. I could use a break.”
She sipped from a glass of red wine and pulled her skirt down for the tenth time. There was still a neutral zone between them on the couch.
She said, “You don’t seem like any insurance salesman I’ve ever known. I hope you don’t mind my saying, but usually insurance men dress in loud blazers and reek of cheap cologne. I’ve never met one that seemed sincere about anything.”
“It’s a job.” Travis hoped she wouldn’t ask about the details of his job. He didn’t know a thing about insurance. He had decided on the career because Effrom Elliot had mistaken him for an insurance man that afternoon, so it was the first thing that came to mind.
“When I was a kid, an insurance man came to our house to sell my father some life insurance,” Jenny said. “He gathered the family together in front of the fireplace and took our picture with a Polaroid camera. It was a nice picture. My father was standing at one side of us all, looking proud. As we were passing the picture around, the insurance man snatched the picture out of my father’s hands and said, ‘What a nice family.’ Then he ripped my father out of the picture and said, ‘Now what will they do?’ I burst into tears. My father was frightened.”
Travis said: “I’m sorry, Jenny.” Perhaps he should have told her he was a brush salesman. Did she have any traumatic brush-salesman stories?
“Do you do that, Travis? Do you frighten people for a living?”
“What do you think?”
“Like I said, you don’t seem like an insurance man.”
“Jennifer, I need to tell you something…”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry, I got a little heavy on you. You do what you do. I never thought I’d be waiting tables at this age.”
“What did you want to do? I mean, when you were a little girl, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to have a family and a man who loved me and a nice house. Pretty unambitious, huh?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with that. What happened?”
She drained her wineglass and poured herself another from the bottle on the coffee table. “You can’t have a family alone.”
“But?”
“Travis, I don’t want to ruin the evening by talking more about my marriage. I’m trying to make some changes.”
Travis let it go. She picked up his silence as understanding and brightened.
“So, what did you want to do when you grew up?”
“Honestly?”
“Don’t tell me you wanted to be a housewife, too.”
“When I was growing up that’s all any girl wanted to be.”
“Where did you grow up, Siberia?”
“Pennsylvania. I grew up on a farm.”
“And what did the farm boy from Pennsylvania want to be when he grew up?”
“A priest.”
Jenny laughed. “I never knew anyone who wanted to be a priest. What did you do while the other boys were playing army, give last rights to the dead?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. My mother always wanted me to be a priest. As soon as I was old enough, I went away to seminary. It didn’t work out.”
“So you became an insurance man. I suppose that works. I read once that all religions and insurance companies are supported by the fear of death.”
“That’s pretty cynical,” the demonkeeper said.
“I’m sorry, Travis. I don’t have much faith in the concept of an all-powerful being that would glorify war and violence.”
“You should.”
“Are you trying to convert me?”
“No, it’s just that I know, absolutely, that God exists.”
“No one knows anything absolutely. I’m not without faith. I have my own beliefs, but I have my doubts, too.”
“So did I.”
“Did? What happened, did the Holy Spirit come to you in the night and say, ‘Go forth and sell insurance’?”
“Something like that.” Travis forced a smile.
“Travis, you are a very strange man.”
“I really didn’t want to talk about religion.”
“Good. I’ll
tell you my beliefs in the morning. You’ll be quite shocked, I’m sure.”
“I doubt that, I really do… Did you say ‘in the morning’?”
Jenny held her hand out to him. Inside she was unsure of what she was doing, but it seemed fine — at least it didn’t feel wrong.
“Did I miss something?” Travis asked. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“No, why would I be angry at you?”
“Because of my faith.”
“I think it’s cute.”
“Cute? Cute! You think the Roman Catholic Church is cute? A hundred popes are rolling in their graves, Jenny.”
“Good. They aren’t invited. Move over here.”
“Are you sure?” he said. “You’ve had a lot of wine.”
She was not sure at all, nevertheless she nodded to him. She was single, right? She liked him, right? Well, hell, it was started now.
He slid down the couch to her side and took her in his arms. They kissed, awkwardly at first; he was too aware of himself and she was still wondering if she should have invited him in in the first place. He held her tighter and she arched her back and pushed against him and they both forgot their reservations. The world outside ceased to exist. When they finally broke the kiss, he buried his face in her hair and held her tight so she could not pull away and see the tears in his eyes.
“Jenny,” he said softly, “it’s been a long time…”
She shushed him and dug her hands into his hair. “Everything will be fine. Just fine.”
Perhaps it was because they were both afraid, or perhaps it was because they really didn’t know each other; it might even have been that by playing a role they would not have to face anything but the moment. The roles they played throughout the night changed. First, each gave when the other needed, and later, when need was no longer an issue, they played their roles out to felicity. It progressed thusly: she was the comforter, he the comforted; then he was the understanding counselor, she the confused confessor; she became the nurse, he the patient in traction; he took the role of the naive stable boy, she the seductive duchess; he was the drill sergeant, she the raw recruit; she was the cruel master, he the helpless slave girl.
The small hours of the morning found them naked on the kitchen floor after Travis had played a rampaging Godzilla to Jennifer’s unsuspecting Tokyo. They were crouched over a cooking toaster oven, each with a table knife loaded with butter, poised like executioners waiting for the signal to drop their blades. They polished off a loaf of toast, a half-pound of butter, a quart of tofu ice cream, a box of whole wheat cream-sandwich cookies, a bag of unsalted blue corn chips, and an organically grown watermelon that gushed pink juice down their chins while they laughed.
Stuffed, satisfied, and sticky-sweet they returned to bed and fell asleep in a warm tangle.
Perhaps it wasn’t love that they had in common; perhaps it was only a need for escape and forgetting. But they found it.
Three hours later the alarm clock sounded and Jenny left to go wait tables at H.P.’s Cafe. Travis slept dreamless, groaning and smiling when she kissed him good-bye on the forehead.
When the explosions started, Travis woke up screaming.
PART FOUR
MONDAY
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
23
RIVERA
Rivera came through the trailer door followed by two uniformed officers. Robert sat up on the couch and was immediately rolled over and handcuffed. Rivera read him his Miranda rights before he was completely awake. When Robert’s vision cleared, Rivera was sitting in a chair in front of him, holding a piece of paper in his face.
“Robert, I am Detective Sergeant Alphonse Rivera.” A badge wallet flipped open in Rivera’s other hand. “This is a warrant for your and The Breeze’s arrest. There’s one here to search this trailer as well, which is what I and deputies Deforest and Perez will be doing in just a moment.”
A uniformed officer appeared from the far end of the trailer. “He’s not here, Sergeant.”
“Thanks,” Rivera said to the uniform. To Robert he said: “Things will go easier for you if you tell me right now where I can find The Breeze.”
Robert was starting to get a foggy idea of what was going on.
“So you’re not a dealer?” he asked sleepily.
“You’re quick, Masterson. Where’s The Breeze?”
“The Breeze didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s been gone for two days. I took the suitcase because I wanted to know who the guy was that was with my wife.”
“What suitcase?”
Robert nodded toward the living-room floor. The Haliburton case lay there unopened. Rivera picked it up and tried the latches.
“It’s got a combination lock,” Robert said. “I couldn’t get it open.”
Sheriff’s deputies were riffling through the trailer. From the back bedroom one shouted. “Rivera, we’ve got it.”
“Stay here, Robert. I’ll be right back.”
Rivera rose and started toward the bedroom just as Perez appeared in the kitchen holding another aluminum suitcase.
“That it?” Rivera asked.
Perez, a dark Hispanic who seemed too small to be a deputy, threw the suitcase on the kitchen table and opened the lid. “Jackpot,” he said.
Neat square blocks of plastic-covered green weed lay in even rows across the suitcase. Robert could smell a faint odor like skunk coming from the marijuana.
“I’ll get the testing kit,” Perez said.
Rivera took a deep sniff and looked at Perez quizzically. “Right, it could be just lawn clippings that they weighed out in pounds.”
Perez looked hurt by Rivera’s sarcasm. “But for the record?”
Rivera waved him away, then returned to the couch and sat down next to Robert.
“You are in deep trouble, my friend.”
“You know,” Robert said, “I felt really bad about being so rude to you yesterday when you came by.” He smiled weakly. “I’ve been going through some really hard times.”
“Make it up to me, Robert. Tell me where The Breeze is.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then you are going to eat shit for all that pot over there on the table.”
“I didn’t even know it was there. I thought you guys were here about the suitcase I took. The other one.”
“Robert, you and I are going to go back to the station and have a really long talk. You can tell me all about the suitcase and all the folks that The Breeze has been keeping company with.”
“Sergeant Rivera, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I wasn’t quite awake when you were telling me the charges… sir.”
Rivera helped Robert to his feet and led him out of the trailer. “Possession of marijuana for sale and conspiracy to sell marijuana. Actually the conspiracy charge is the nastier of the two.”
“So you didn’t even know about the suitcase I took?”
“I couldn’t care less about the suitcase.” Rivera pushed Robert into the cruiser. “Watch your head.”
“You should bring it along just to see who the guy was that it belonged to. Your guys in the lab can open it and…”
Rivera slammed the car door on Robert’s comment. He turned to Deforest, who was coming out of the trailer. “Grab that suitcase out of the living room and tag it.”
“More pot, Sarge?”
“I don’t think so, but the whacko seems to think it’s important.”
24
AUGUSTUS BRINE
Augustus Brine was sitting in his pickup, parked a block away from Jenny’s house. In the morning twilight he could just make out the outline of Jenny’s Toyota and an old Chevy parked in front. The king of the Djinn sat in the passenger seat next to Brine, his rheumy blue eyes just clearing the dashboard.
Brine was sipping from a cup of his special secret roast coffee. The thermos was empty and he was savoring the last full cup. The last cup, perhaps, that he would ever drink. He tried to call up a Zen calm, but it was not forthcoming and he berated himself; trying to think about it pushed it farther from his grasp. “Like trying to bite the teeth,” the Zen proverb went. “There is not only nothing to grasp, but nothing with which to grasp it.” The closest he was going to get to no-mind was to go home and destroy a few million brain cells with a few bottles of wine — not an option.
“You are troubled, Augustus Brine.” The Djinn had been silent for over an hour. At the sound of his voice Brine was startled and almost spilled his coffee.
“It’s the car,” Brine said. “What if the demon is in the car? There’s no way to know.”
“I will go look.”
“Look? You said he was invisible.”
“I will get in the car and feel around. I will sense him if he is that close.”
“And if he’s there?”
“I will come back and tell you. He cannot harm me.”
“No.” Brine stroked his beard. “I don’t want them to know we’re here until the last minute. I’ll risk it.”
“I hope you can move fast, Augustus Brine. If Catch sees you, he will be on you in an instant.”
“I can move,” Brine said with a confidence that he did not feel. He felt like a fat, old man — tired and a little wired from too much coffee and not enough sleep.
“The woman!” The Djinn poked Brine with a bony finger.
Jenny was coming out of the house in her waitress uniform. She made her way down the front steps and across the shallow front yard to her Toyota.
“At least she’s still alive.” Brine was preparing to move. With Jenny out of the house one of their problems was solved, but there would be little time to act. The demonkeeper could come out at any moment. If their trap was not set, all would be lost.
Practical Demonkeeping pc-1 Page 14