What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [45]
Liam slept, sprawled out on an extra large bed – his long arms and legs extending at odd angles from beneath piles of sheets – blissfully, pharmaceutically unaware that Alexander Graham Bell’s ghost lurked just off-stage.
His bedroom was simple, if a bit Spartan: a bed, a table, a lamp, and stacks of books piled here and there. He’d left the windows open to try to take advantage of the cool nighttime air, finally falling asleep to the shimmery, almost rhythmical sound of the breeze playing in the leaves of the trees outside.
He’d stayed up too late. Again. Flipping channels, trying and failing to read books, pacing. He’d felt disconnected; out-of-sorts. There seemed no point to anything. No point to watching television. No point in trying to eat the dinner he’d microwaved after the weird date with that woman, Lola. No point to reading. No point to sleeping. It had taken a third sleeping pill before he’d been able to set aside his angsty malaise and finally get some sleep.
Alexander Graham Bell’s cold, dead hand reached out and touched him.
“Mmmmmmrrrrhhhghghgh.” Liam rolled over.
The phone continued to suck.
“Mmmmmmmm!!” he insisted. In his dream, angry ducks with klaxon bills squawked at him.
“MMMMmmerrrrrrraaaaaaguuuggghh ducks!” Something crashed and he was awake. He realized that it was the phone that was ringing, and that there were no tornado-siren-billed ducks anywhere. He grabbed the handset, banging the receiver into his eye.
A man’s voice said, “Liam? Liam McEwen?”
“Ow, fuck,” said Liam, rubbing his eye. “Yes? Who is this? Why are you calling me now?” He considered smashing the phone on something as punishment for, well, for being a phone. And for ringing. The bastard. But then he remembered that he was more mature than that these days. He took a deep breath, muttered an extra “fucker” at the phone for good measure, and carefully replaced the receiver against his ear. “What?” he barked.
“Liam, it’s Cas Boehner.”
Boehner had been Liam’s first boss back at the CIA Special Activities Division. He was the man who had called the shots back in Washington while Liam was off in the Third World doing all sorts of things that fall into the category of “Don’t Try This at Home.” Liam wondered why the hell he was calling now, five years after he had retired, and at ass-o’clock in the morning? Clearly, the man was looking for trouble.
What the heck time was it anyway? Liam searched for his alarm clock. It was gone. He reached up and turned on the lamp. The clock was in pieces on the floor, the unfortunate victim of his anti-duck rage.
“Liam?” Boehner was apparently still on the phone. Such a persistent wanker. “I’m not calling at a bad time, am I?”
“It’s still dark outside, Cas. So yeah, I’d say it’s a bad time.”
“It was a rhetorical question,” said Boehner, confirming that he was, in fact, a dick.
Liam imagined Boehner smiling to himself at the stupid joke. He remembered how Boehner’s smile was basically an annoying smirk, exacerbated by a stupid head waggle. “I’m going to hang up now, Cas,” he said, and started to put the phone down.
“Liam, wait.” Boehner sounded worried. Apparently he’d learned to simulate human emotions since the last time they’d talked. “Something has come up.”
“No kidding? I figured you were calling in the middle of the night just to catch up on old times.” He wondered whether Boehner had also learned about sarcasm.
“I need your help.”
“Okay, the shop will be open tomorrow.”
“I don’t need a damn guitar.”
“Then I can’t help you.” Liam sat up on the side of the bed and put his bare feet on the wood floor. He was waking up now, passing beyond the point where he’d be able to roll over and fall back asleep. He thought about what an asshole Cas was for calling in the middle of the night, and then he thought about the box of microwavable egg