What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [84]
Eli seemed to deflate. “What?”
But Satan’s attention was now focused entirely on the old man, who sat on the little porch of the apartment building, next to his wife. Satan squatted down and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. The old man shuddered a little at the touch, but looked up into the Devil’s eyes, unafraid.
“It’s okay,” said Satan. “Everything will be just fine.” But the old man looked confused, and maybe even a little bit angry. It wasn’t okay. Everything, apparently, would not be fine.
“I appreciate...” He waved his hand in the general direction of the pile of now-empty track suit. “But the landlord is going to be really upset that you … you ... evaporated his man. He’s going to be pissed off.” He shook his head, simmering. “And what about our rent? What are you going to do about that?”
Satan leaned over and picked up a length of pipe that was lying on the ground.
The old man continued. “This is a fine mess. A real fine mess.” He pointed an accusing finger at the Devil. “You tell those boys at the KW that this isn’t what we agreed to.”
“What?”
“You’re with the KW, aren’t you?”
“What? What on Earth are you talking about?”
“The KW.” The old man turned his liver-spotted, jowly face to Satan. “Aren’t you with the KW?”
Satan struck a pensive pose and scratched his chin. “I don’t think so.” With that settled, he moved on to bigger, brighter, and less boring things. “Regard this,” he said, wielding the pipe, “this simple pipe.” He waved his hand with a flourish and the pipe ignited. “Now, regard this flaming pipe of divine justice!” He wafted the fiery implement back and forth a couple of times.
The old man glared at Satan, evidently not impressed, and still very pissed.
The Devil let the hand holding the pipe drop by his side. “You shouldn’t be ungrateful,” he said. “The Almighty gets very upset when people are ungrateful. Very upset. You could even say, I suppose, that it irks Him.” Satan held up the fiery pipe again, and was just about to administer some fiery, Divine retribution when he was interrupted by the sound of squeaky brakes.
Satan turned to see an enormous Town Car roll to a stop. Almost every part of it – even the windows – was black. And the bits that weren’t black were brilliantly-polished chrome. It was immaculate, and – to Satan – beautiful.
He turned to Eli. “Ooh,” he said, pointing his fire pipe back at the car. Behind him, the old man and his wife stood, removing caps, patting down skirts, fixing mussed hair, and otherwise making themselves presentable for their overlords.
Eli shuffled over to Satan’s side in a hurry, apparently anxious about something. “Put that thing out,” he said, waving his hands. “Put it out.”
“What?”
Eli pointed at the car. “It’s the KW!”
“What’s that?”
“Kind of like the ... the mob. Or what’s that Japanese thing? The Yakuza. Bad news. Very bad news.”
“Oh,” said Satan lightly. He extinguished the flaming pipe of Almighty Vengeance and tossed it aside. “Should we run away?”
Eli stopped, turned, and straightened up as best he could. “No,” he said. “It’s too late for that.”
Chapter 31. Hells Bells
Bill Cadmon entered his office to find that the ratio of hot, young assistants to old, fat guys had got completely out of whack. The usual compliment of buxom, college-age blondes was present, of course, but there were far too many corpulent, middle-aged men – which is to say that there was one old, fat guy sitting in Bill Cadmon’s $3,000 chair, which was parked behind the preacher’s 125-year-old, $25,000 desk.
“What are you doing here?” asked Cadmon.
Dick Whitford ignored the question. Dick Whitford did not answer questions that did not serve his purposes. “You didn’t get him, did you?”
“What?”
“The body,” said Whitford.
“Oh, I—”
“You didn’t.”
“—don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to ask.”
Whitford raised his eyebrows in the way that Big Deals sometimes do when they want to signal that all questioning, gainsaying, or other forms of uncooperative conversational behavior should