What Would Satan Do? (18 page)

Cadmon looked up, right in Whitford’s eyes.  “How do you know—?”

“Oh—well, I assume—I mean, he’s an angel, right?  And angels have wings.”  Whitford smiled.  “So anyway, is that all you came here to tell me?”

Cadmon didn’t answer immediately.  “What are you going to do now?” he asked.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do now?” 

“You now control more than 50% of the country’s refining capacity, and three of the four main oil pipeline entry points.  That gives you a lot of power,” said the preacher, an exaggerated smirk on his face.  “Just imagine what you could do.”

“Is that why you’re here?  To play ‘what-if’?”  He glared at Cadmon.  “You came to me with this idea.”

“I know I did.  Of course I did.”  Cadmon sat, looking a little sullen.

“Remember?”

“Yes, Dick, but—”

“But what?”

“Well, you can’t just stop.  You have to keep going.  Move on to the next state; the next conquest!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on, Dick!  You know what’s at stake!”

“No, I don’t,” he said. 

“It’s—”  Cadmon laughed, shaking his head.  “Jesus Christ, Dick.  Don’t you get it?  It’s Judgment Day.  Armageddon.  That’s why the angel is here.”  The preacher looked as if he might cry.

“Don’t give me any of that mystical ‘It’s the End Times’ crap.  I want to know what the hell is going on!”

“That
is
what’s going on.  That’s what the angel is doing – getting the ball rolling to bring about Judgment Day.”

Whitford sneered, but didn’t say anything.

The preacher continued.  “I’ve been asked to help facilitate.”

The governor let out a loud guffaw.  “So, let me get this straight,” he said.  “An angel came down from Heaven and somehow got you involved in – what, exactly? – bringing about the end of the world?”

Cadmon stared, a defiant look on his face.  This was more like the reaction he’d expected.  “Yes,” he said.  “Well, no.”

“Which is it?”

“I’m supposed to find people.  People to play certain roles.”

“And I’m one of those people?”

Cadmon looked sheepish.  “Yes.”

Whitford sat, apparently mulling it over.  “What,” he said finally, “is my role, exactly?”

“Well,” said Cadmon, “you were supposed to take over the State of Louisiana.”

“Yeah, I got that.  Thanks.  Now tell me
why
I’m supposed to take over Louisiana.”

“It was supposed to be a starting point.  And now you’re supposed to move on to other states, and eventually…”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“Well, you know—”

“I don’t know.”

Cadmon sighed.  “In the Bible,” he said, “there are certain roles prophesized.”

“Roles?”

“Yeah, the four horsemen,” he said, and then lowered his voice.  “And there are some others.”

Whitford raised his eyebrows.

“Well, there’s the Antichrist.  You know—and I think there may be some others.”

“And which am I supposed to be?”

“Well, it’s not clear exactly.  They didn’t tell me which one you’re supposed to be.  They just—”

“Bull.  Shit.”

Cadmon’s reluctance to speak gave way at last, and the words came pouring out.  “The angel told me to find a leader.  A conqueror.  They wanted someone who would have no problem taking over a neighboring state.  Someone who could take control of Louisiana.  And then move on to other states.  Someone who would have no problem running things.  If it came to that.”

“Isn’t that—the Antichrist?  You’re saying that I’m the fucking Antichrist?  Goddamnit Bill!”

“I don’t know for sure!”

“You’re a goddamned moron, you know that?” said Whitford.  He looked down at the desk where his hands were spread out flat.  He almost seemed hurt.  Vulnerable.  “Why me?” he said.

“Because I didn’t know anyone else—”

“
You
chose me to be the goddamned, mother-fucking Antichrist?  Why do I have to be the bad guy?  I’m
always
the bad guy!”

“Well, it’s not as if—”

“Not as if what?!”

Whitford’s bulk, spread out as it was over the seat, made the man look a little like a volcano in a suit.  He seemed to tremble a little as he stewed in his anger, and Cadmon amused himself by imagining Whitford’s head exploding upward, on top of a column of lava.

“Look,” said Cadmon.  “It’s not like that.”

“No?  How is it then?”

“You’re not
actually
the antichrist.  You’re just playing a role.  You can’t really be a bad guy if an angel comes down and
asks
you to do it.”

Whitford’s eyes narrowed and a low grumbling noise seemed to emanate from somewhere deep within his bulk.  Cadmon wasn’t sure if the man was mulling something over or just experiencing an unpleasant gastrointestinal moment.

“Wait a minute,” said the Governor, “is that why asked me if I could get my hands on some sarin gas?”

Cadmon’s eyes went wide.  “So,” he said, “did you—?  Did you get it?”

Whitford started to speak, but was interrupted by an ear-splitting grinding, screeching, buzz-saw noise.  Like the sound of a giant electric hair clipper trying to break the sound barrier.

“Hello, Dick Whitford,” said the angel.  “I am the Angel Ezekiel.”

Chapter 22.
          
Bonus Taco!

There were a lot of reasons why Liam liked Festus.  He was intelligent (though he seemed to do his best not to show it), thoughtful (though the majority of his thoughts seemed to be very strange), and just generally a good guy to hang around with (if you like hanging around guys who are, more or less, completely nuts).  There was one trait, however, that, if he were asked, Liam would have refused to acknowledge, even to himself:  Festus’ batshit antics made Liam feel relatively normal, and helped to remind him to keep his own oddball tendencies in check.  It was like being in a grocery store and seeing a morbidly obese guy straining and sucking wind as he reaches up from the seat of his electric shopping cart to pull down a pack of “diet” cookies.  It makes you think twice about the package of Oreos you’re just about to drop into your own cart. 

Festus stopped making snarfing sounds and grunts and came up for air.  “Oh my God,” he said, wiping his face on the sleeve of his black T-shirt.  “I think this is the best breakfast taco I have ever had.  In my life.”

“You say that every time.”  Liam reached for more hot sauce.  He could hardly fault Festus for the repetitive comment though – they were damned good tacos. 

The two sat outside a small shack on the Drag, just north of the University, reveling in the manly camaraderie that only comes with the shared enjoyment of tacos.  The shack was not fancy – just a closet-sized building with a window and a sign that read, rather prosaically, “Taco Stand.”  They sat on a porch, which was really just a section of parking lot fenced in by an old, crumbling brick wall, with a couple of rusty, wire chairs and tables tossed in.  There were a few clouds off in the distance, but they were far away, and so Liam and Festus enjoyed the bright sunshine and the occasional breeze that came in and took the edge off the humid winter heat.

Liam finished his breakfast and sat back, stretching out his legs and placing his hands back behind his head.  Loading one’s arteries full of coma-inducing grease first thing in the morning wasn’t brilliant.  But it was awesome.

“So tell me about your new Hawaiian friend,” said Liam.

Festus glared at Liam.  “What you need to hear about is this other guy.  Dude was wasted.  Had some crazy stuff to say about the Governor.”

“Did you pump him for information?”

Festus made a face that said something along the lines of, “I’d kill you, if it didn’t mean I’d have to put down this taco.” 

Liam, however, didn’t notice Festus’ expression.  He was therefore blissfully unaware a taco was all that stood between him and a brutal, and probably very messy, death.  “What’d the drunk guy say?”

Festus leaned in conspiratorially.  “Well, he said that he’d been
working
for the Governor.”

“A drunk guy, who was in jail, had been working for the Governor?  Doing what?  Crafting legislation?”

“No, no,” said Festus.  “They hired him to find something or steal something.  I didn’t quite understand.”

“The word ‘quite’ seems inadequate here,” said Liam.  Festus smirked.  “So, what did he find?  Or steal?  Or whatever it was that he actually did?”

“I don’t think he found it, whatever it was.  But that’s not the point.”  He crumpled his spent taco wrapper and put it on the growing pile of grease-stained papers.  “Wait a minute,” said Festus.  “Is that yours?”  He pointed to a small, oblong object wrapped in yellow paper.  It sat in the exact center of the table.  Greasy, translucent spots on the wrapper revealed that it was, in fact, a taco.

“No, I ate two already.”

“Me too,” said Festus, his voice full of the kind of wonder that most people reserve for really special occasions, like meeting space aliens or discovering a lost continent.

“That means—”

“Must be an extra—”

“—bonus taco!” said Festus.  “Sweet Jesus!”  Liam pushed it toward Festus, who peeled back the wrapper and, shrugging off the anatomical constraints imposed by his standard-sized,
H. sapiens sapiens
dentition, tore off an impossibly large chunk.  They sat in silence while Festus, his head tilting this way and that, tried to chew half a taco all at once.  His facial expression slowly changed as he chewed and chewed and chewed, so that he began to look less like he was eating breakfast than taking care of some onerous chore, but eventually he got it down.

“He told me—” Festus paused for another bite, “some other stuff.”

Liam ignored Festus again.  He was now watching as a black-feathered bird repeatedly dive bombed a squirrel.  The squirrel had one of those little juice boxes that children drink from, and the bird appeared to be, for whatever reason, very upset by this fact.  The bird dove and missed, flapping his wings frantically as he turned around in midair for another attack.  He swooped downward again, but this time the squirrel was prepared, and he leapt up to mount a counterattack.  The two collided in midair, crashed to the ground (it was a tiny, bird-and-squirrel-sized crash), and rolled around a bit – a mass of fluffy tail and feathers locked in a manic, mortal battle.  The bird finally extricated himself from the squirrel’s clutches, fussing and flapping his way off a few yards.  He clawed at the gravel on the ground as the two creatures eyed each other. 

After a second, the bird launched himself into the air again, but this time he didn’t go straight for the squirrel.  Instead he hovered over the fuzzy rodent, holding what appeared to be smallish but not insubstantial stone in his claws.  The squirrel stared up at the bird, and the bird stared back for a couple of seconds before releasing the stone, which smacked the squirrel on the noggin.  The squirrel teetered a bit, shook his head, and ran off toward some bushes.

Festus, completely oblivious to the raptor-rodent death match that had just taken place, continued to regale Liam with his tales from the municipal jail.  “Whitford,” he said, “either has already obtained – or is attempting to obtain – some kind of biological weapon.  Or poison gas.  One of those.  I’m not sure which.”

Liam snapped his head around.  “What?” 

Festus nodded as he inhaled the last bite of taco.

“That’s insane.  Crazy talk.  Doesn’t make any sense at all.”  Liam leaned forward, suddenly the grand inquisitor.  “How do you know that the guy you talked to wasn’t just another crazy conspiracy theorist like you?”

“Wrrmmph?” said Festus, signaling indignance through a mouthful of taco.  “He’s not.  He said Whitford’s working with that TV preacher – Camdon?  Cadmon?  Condom?  I don’t know.  Sounds pretty wacky to me, but then, the guy was totally freaked out.  Completely freaked out.  Kept screaming, ‘We’re gonna die!  We’re all gonna die!’”  Festus, apparently in the interest of communicating the experience as fully and accurately as possible, half stood, rolled his eyes back in his head, drooled a bit, and flopped over backwards onto the table.  “We’re all gonna die!” 

The large and swarthy lady who manned the taco stand window (in both the selling-tacos sense and the “I’ve-got-a-hairy-mustache-and-big-arms” sense) poked her head out and gave Festus a look of matronly disapproval.  Festus very quietly returned his seat back and tray table to their normal positions.  “I don’t know,” he said, removing a greasy sheet of taco wrapper that had stuck to the side of his head.  “What do you think about it?”

“Um, I don’t.”  There was a slurping sound, and Liam turned to see that the bird, having bombed the squirrel into submission, now had a straw in his mouth and was draining the juice box.

“He also said that Whitford is the Devil,” said Festus, still oblivious to the bird’s antics.  “But I don’t think that’s true.  I think he’s the Antichrist.”

Liam stared for a longish while, his face full of squinty eyes and knitted eyebrows.  “Festus, you are an idiot.”  He looked back at the bird, but it had flown away.

Festus opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it again, and, with a slight, self-reflective nod, opted to take a sip of his beverage by way of rebuttal.  “So,” he said, taking a completely un-novel tack, “what do you think?  Could the Governor really be the Antichrist?”

“I don’t really think—”

“No, wait,” said Festus.  “Just hear me out.”

Liam sighed.  “You know I don’t believe in any of that crap.”

“So, what?  I don’t believe that you’re a giant asshole, but you generally do a great job of proving my non-belief to be pretty misguided.”

“Um... blow me?”

“So anyway, there’s a kind of Antichrist checklist in the Book of Daniel.  First thing on the list is that the Antichrist will do as he pleases; that he will answer to no Earthly authority.  That one’s easy.”

“It’d be really amazing,” said Liam, “if you had the capacity to remember things that were actually useful.”

Festus carried on, an ice-breaking ship plowing right through Liam’s unhelpful commentary.  “Second, he will have ‘no regard for the desire of women,’ which supposedly means that he will either be asexual or homosexual.  I’m not sure about that,” he said.  “Wait, you’ve met him.  Do you think he’s gay?  He doesn’t seem very gay.”