The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) (16 page)

Several of the floor lamps had been moved into the room, banishing all shadows, and leaving things best cloaked in darkness, bare. The stark light accentuated the dilapidation and decay of the room. It also brightly illuminated the stark white, nude form of Old Josh as he stood on a ladder with a bucket of plaster working on one of the statues which held up the ceiling. It was not a sight for the faint of heart. Although Josh's hands were rock steady, he was waving his butt back and forth to the amazingly loud music coming from the television. The wrinkles covering Josh's face and his hands extended to every part of his anatomy while his privates flapped back and forth to the beat.

The music was obviously turned up to be heard over the sound of the tank vac, which sat next to Max's only end table. The hose traveled from blower side of the vac, dangled down, then went up through the center of the table. Sitting on top of the table on one ear was Old Bone. The vacuum hose came out from a hole drilled into the top of the table and ended at the base of his neck. It was attached there with a very large amount of duct tape.

Horrified, Max ran over to the vacuum and turned it off, picked up the remote sitting next to old bone and turned off the TV. The sudden silence seemed to ring through the house, until Mike said, “Oh, my eyes! I'm blind! I'm scarred forever, Max!”

It took a few moments for Josh to realize that the music was gone, but when he did, he turned and saw Max and his companions. Josh's face lit up. He said, “Hey, dudes! How's it hangin'? Heh, heh. Not as low as me, I bet.” He waggled his danglies and laughed outright. “Maxy Man, I hope you don't mind, I've been working on the place. It really needs some lovin' ya dig?”

Max wasn't paying much attention to Josh. He was busy checking on Old Bone. When Max picked the head up, the hose pulled up through the hole in the table easily, and he turned the head to face him. “Old Bone, are you alright?”

Old Bone's eyes were bloodshot and seemed to be vibrating. His lips were flaccid in his face like they had been stretched by the constant stream of air that the vacuum had been pumping through them. His mouth moved up and down, but, of course, made no appreciable sound other than the creaking of his jaw as it moved. Max whirled back to Josh. “What the hell were you doing to him?”

Josh, still standing on the stepladder put his hands out. “Hey, it's cool dude, chillax man. I started running out of breath so Vlad could talk to me, so I rigged him up with the vacuum blower. It doesn't work so good, cause it's hard to hear him over the noise of the vacuum cleaner. We need to get a fan or something.”

Exasperated, Max said, “If you can't hear him, why did you leave it turned on and let him fall over like that?”

Josh flung his arms out. “Sorry dude I just got dis....” Josh lost his balance and fell to the floor with a solid thunk. Max yelled to Mike, who had stopped whimpering when he realized no one was listening, and had come up behind Max. Max handed Old Bone to a surprised Mike and rushed to Josh's prone form. Max knelt down, cradled Josh's head in his hands, and called Josh's name. Josh opened up his eyes. “Hey Maxy, what are you doing in Sweden? I thought you lived in Kathmandu.”

“Josh, you're in Mississippi...”

Mike’s scream behind him overrode everything else. Max turned to see Mike drop Old Bone off the side of the table and then run out the door screaming wordlessly. Since the head was still attached to the hose, it hung off the side of the table, swinging back and forth, occasionally smacking against a table leg.

Max dropped Josh's head back onto the floor, ran to the table, and rescued Old Bone. He slid the hose back into the table and sat the base of Old Bone's neck on the tabletop so he wouldn't fall over again. Max called to Mike, “Mike! Come back! It's alright! He can't hurt you!”

Max ran past Paul, who seemed utterly unfazed by anything he had seen in the room. Paul followed Max back out the front door. Mike was already fifty yards down the road and showing no signs of slowing down. Max turned to Paul. “Can you stop him?”

Paul held his wristwatch up to his mouth. “Rick, panicked individual headed your way. Intercept and retrieve.” Max didn't hear a response, but Paul seemed satisfied.

Max looked at Paul's calm demeanor. Perhaps his smile was a bit bigger than usual, but it was hard to tell. Max said, “Paul, you don't even look the least bit disturbed by what you saw in there.”

Paul looked at him, and simply said, “I've seen worse.”

***

After Rick had returned with a weakly struggling Mike slung over his shoulder, Mike and Max had sat down on the steps of the center fountain, enduring the heat and the stink. Once Mike had a chance to recover, Max tried to hide his smile as he said, “Sorry Mike, I should have warned you, but I wanted to see how you reacted.”

“Max, you handed me a living head attached to a vacuum hose! How did you think I would react?”

“Well, he's harmless. You'll get used to him after a while.”

Mike looked sincerely at Max. “Max, that is too freaking weird for me. I'm not going back in that house!”

That worried Max. “Mike, you have to! You have to help me fix that place up! You're the only one I trust to do it right.”

Mike shook his head, “Nope, sorry Max. Nothing could get me to go back in there and face that thing.”

Max looked at him slyly. “Not even if I pay you a million dollars?”

Suddenly, the certainty left Mike's face. He was a little unsteady when he said, “A million dollars?”

Max considered how much he was worth, grinned. “Okay, you drive a hard bargain. Ten million dollars.”

Mike goggled at Max, “You're shitting me, aren't you?”

Max shook his head. “We'll, consider it combat pay. As I said before, the place is haunted, too–with real live... er... dead, ghosts.”

Mike's refusal collapsed, and he said, “I hate you, you bastard.”

Max gave him a wide grin. “Did you ever consider trying out for the Olympic track team? I think you would have outrun a six-foot-tall Jamaican back there.”

“Bastard.”

Max awoke the next morning in a panic. The dinner party was one day away, and he had no clue what would be expected, how to dress, or how to act. Maybe he could call in sick, or break his leg, or something. It wasn't until he was in the blessedly vigorous hot shower that he thought about Alice. Maybe she could save him. He hopped out of the shower and picked up his cell phone to call her, and then he remembered that he didn't have her phone number. Hastily, he looked up the hospital on his phone and dialed their number. When a female voice answered, Max said, “Hi, Alice? This is Max.”

“I'm sorry sir. This is Annette speaking. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Uh, yeah, I need to get hold of Alice. Do you have her phone number?”

“Sir, I do apologize, but I cannot give out that number.”

“Oh right... When is she coming in today?”

“Thursdays and Fridays are her day off sir. She will be in on Saturday evening.”

Max barely withheld a curse and instead said, “Thank you,” and hung up the phone.

Damn, he didn't even know her last name. He would have to go to her house, and hope he could catch here there.

He threw on some clothes and almost bowled over Mike on his way out the door.

“Whoa,” said Mike. “Slow down! Where's the fire?”

Max backed off. “Sorry, I've got to go see this woman I know, to see if she will go to this Mayor's party with me.”

“Okay, so what should I be doing while you are off chasing tail?”

“Mike! It's not like that, she's a nice lady. She's got three kids.”

Mike leered. “That's just proof she knows what to do.”

Max rolled his eyes. “You’re such a pervert. Come on, move, I've got to go.”

“Well, what am I going to do while you are out chasing Amy?”

“Her name is Alice, and you should go out to the house and start figuring out what needs to be done with it.”

“Oh, no. I'm not going out to that house alone, Max.”

“Don't be a baby, Mike, there is nothing dangerous there.” He guiltily thought of the fire-starting ghosts, but decided it would be counterproductive to mention them to his friend. “Go on, just keep repeating to yourself, ‘ten million dollars, ten million dollars.’”

“Can I at least throw out that creepy dude?”

“Please do. Wait a minute. We are talking about Josh and not Old Bone, right?”

“How about I throw them both out?”

“No, Old Bone stays, but Josh should go. If he's passed out, just shovel him into a wheel-barrow and take him out to the road.”

Mike asked, “Why do you want that creepy mummy head hanging around your house anyway?”

“I don't know, I guess I just feel sorry for him.”

Mike looked at him in disbelief, “You feel sorry for a head?”

“Well yeah. Think about how rotten it would be if you were stuck as a head.”

Mike shuddered. “I think I'd want you to shoot me.”

“I don't think that would do it with Old Bone, since I found him in a water-filled coffin in a secret cellar that has been flooded since the hurricane.”

“Okay, then toss him into a trash compactor. Or better yet, a bonfire!”

Max controlled his exasperation. “Look, I'm not asking you to kiss him or become best pals, just leave him alone. Now, I've got to go, you little wimp.”

Mike gave Max a glare, but stepped aside to let him leave and head to the car.

Max headed out, followed by a black sedan driven by a grim-faced man in a black suit. Mike shook his head and headed out to his waiting truck.

After the short drive, Max pulled in front of Alice's modest house.

He got out and went to the door, followed closely by his bodyguard Nunzio. Once there, Max hesitated. He hoped he wasn't breaking some southern rule of hospitality by showing up in person, but there was nothing for it. This was an emergency. He knocked lightly at the door and cringed at the chaos of barking dogs, running feet, and screaming children it sparked. Max could hear one of the children yelling above the others, “Mom, someone's at the door!...It looks like a tax collector!” After a short wait, the door opened up, but it wasn't Alice. It was a small girl, maybe seven years old in nothing but bikini bottoms.

She looked up at Max with big gray-green eyes (just like her mother's) and a dirty face that begged to be cleaned. She waited without saying anything, while the yelling and barking continued on behind her.

Max felt acutely uncomfortable looking at the little girl standing with fearless curiosity in front of him. He had no clue what to do, so he tried the obvious. “Hi, I'm Max. Is your mother here?” The little girl solemnly nodded yes without saying anything. When it became apparent that was all he was going to get, he said, “Could you go get her for me? Tell her it's Max?”

She shook her head and said in a sweet little voice, “We're not supposed to wake her up.”

Max was startled. He said, “Oh. Well, uh, could you tell her Max stopped by when she gets up?”

Apparently a child of few words, she nodded her head and closed the door on Max. He grimaced and turned to go. He hadn't gotten more than a few steps when he heard the door behind him open up followed by Alice's groggy voice. “Max?”

Max turned to see a tired and worn looking Alice peeking out the door. Her long hair was tangled and disheveled. She was wearing a canary yellow bathrobe, which had obviously been well loved by children with sticky little fingers.

Seeing the state she was in, Max stammered out an apology, “I'm sorry Alice! I didn't even think! I didn't mean to wake you up.”

She squinched one eye closed momentarily, then tried to wiggle some mobility back into her face. Holding her eyebrows up high, perhaps in the hope that her heavy eyelids would follow, she said, “No, that's all right Max.” She looked at the black suited Nunzio standing behind him and the eyebrows came back down in concern. “Are you in trouble or something?”

Max glanced back at his bodyguard, whose name he couldn't remember. He turned back. “Uh, no, that's just my bodyguard.”

The eyebrows went back up, and she said, “Bodyguard? Why would you need a bodyguard, for heaven's sake?”

Max was embarrassed about the topic. “Uh, it's a long story. I, I should go.”

“Well, you've already gotten me up, why don't you tell me what you came for?”

“Oh, sure! Uh, well, the Mayor invited me to a small dinner party tomorrow night and I was hopping maybe you could come with me?” His uncertainly made the last words rise a half octave in pitch and drop in volume considerably.

She did the eye squinch again. “Oh, well, I don't think that would be such a good idea. I don't get on so well with the Mayor.”

Max panicked, he begged, “Oh please! I have no idea what I'm doing here. I need a native guide: someone to help me dress properly and make sure I don't do anything stupid, and you are the only person I know here. Please?”

She seemed swayed, but she threw up her next objection. “Well, I'd have to get a sitter for the girls...”

“I'll pay for the sitter! I'll buy you a new dress!” He added an afterthought. “Just as friends?”

Alice snorted in laughter. “You are such a lost little boy.”

Max brightened. “So that means you'll go?”

She laughed again, and the tired lines in her face became warm and alive. “Okay, pick me up tomorrow at seven. It never pays to get to these things early.”

She started to close the door. Max almost shouted, “Wait! I need a suit or something! I have no idea what to wear, could I get you to help me pick something out? We can buy you your new dress then too.”

She laughed. “I don't need a new dress, silly man, but come back this afternoon at a decent hour, and we can go shopping for something suitable for you. I'm going back to bed.”

Max's relief was clearly visible in his stance. He said, “Okay, thanks! I'll see...” He didn't finish because Alice had already closed the door. He wondered if that meant she was still angry with him, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He turned back to his car humming a little tune, considerably lighter of heart – until his phone rang.