The Devil Stood Up (19 page)

Now on to her next one.

That whore receptionist.

* * *

“Where was it you wanted me to let you off, Mark?”

The Devil looked left and right as they rode slowly down Nassau Street. The driver, Bill, had told the Devil that Nassau was more or less the main drag through Princeton. Now the Devil was hoping some instinct would push him in the right direction. But it didn’t seem as though that was going to be the case. Unease bit at him like swarming piranha, nibbling away at his equilibrium. He felt pushed and it was making him angry.

“Here,” he said, and resigned himself to more walking, more searching.

“Right here?” Bill asked. His voice was startled. “But, this is…are you sure this is where you wanted to go?”

“Yes.”

“Cause it sounds sort of…well…random. Sounds like you just now decided.”

“I did.”

“Well listen, Mark, you can get out here or I can take you further, it’s all the same to me! But I thought you knew where you were going.”

“Yes, here. This is where I was going. Now, stop the car.” A growl of irritation slipped into his voice and he turned his flat gaze on the driver.

The skin on Bill’s neck tightened.

“Uh, sure, sure thing. You got it, Mark. No problem.”

Bill Bixby drove away with a sharp sense of relief. He liked most people and that’s why he picked up the occasional hitchhiker, but something about that guy…he had seemed off. Bill couldn’t put his finger on how, exactly, but he did feel as though–right at the end there–he’d stumbled into a big pile of sleeping snakes. He was just as glad to get the guy (and his cat) behind him.

It was better than six months before he picked up another hitcher.

The Devil stood with Sitri sitting at his feet. Becoming a cat had done wonders for Sitri’s attitude, actually. He hadn’t complained once in the past two hours.

The Devil flipped open his phone to check the time. 6:25 A.M. Traffic was very light. Dawn was coming on, but most people still had their headlights lit. He glanced behind him. Alden Brother’s Brewery. A sliver of unease whispered into his mind. He squinted up at the sign and then back to the front door, the windows. He shook his head. He did not know this place.

A hiss from his left caught his attention. A mangy orange cat stood at the edge of the alley with its ears back and body close to the ground. Its green eyes were fixed on Sitri. Sitri hissed back and then looked at the Devil, eyes wide and startled, almost as if asking why he’d done that. The orange cat hissed again and now Sitri charged, yowling, a line of fur raised down his back.

“Sitri, control yourself!” the Devil said, but to no avail. Sitri’s tail was disappearing around the corner. The devil followed him into the alley.

“Sitri,” the Devil said, his own voice now a hiss. He was too aware of the early hour and the many, many windows in the building next to him. He was halfway down the alley, trying to see Sitri in the first light. “Sitri! Come back or I’ll be forced to–”

The orange cat burst from behind a row of trashcans and ran past the Devil, headed to the street. The Devil turned and followed him with his eyes. The cat hit the sidewalk at the end of the alley and darted left and out of his sight.

At that moment, Kelly drove past.

The Devil stood in shock and then pounded up the alley, stumbling twice in his urgency. He skidded out onto the sidewalk, already turned in the direction she’d been going. She was gone. He closed his hands into fists.

A driver coming the opposite direction saw a man with hotly glowing orange eyes and he braked hard, spilling his coffee and yelping at the painful heat as it soaked his crotch. He looked up from the mess in his lap and now the man was just a man standing on the sidewalk, hands rolled into fists. Guy looked pissed, but not fire from your eyes pissed. Must have been the sun. The driver shuddered and drove on. He wouldn’t admit to himself that the sun wasn’t that far up yet. Not high enough to make someone’s eyes look like the burning pits of Hell. He laughed a little, but it was shaky. He’d have to go back home and change. Maybe he just wouldn’t go in at all today. In fact, he suddenly felt like spending some extra time with his wife.

Sitri walked low and shame-faced from the mouth of the alley. The Devil controlled an urge to kick his scrawny body into the brick wall behind them.

“She can’t be far. She must have turned at the next light. Let’s go.”

The Devil trotted in the direction Kelly had gone, Sitri running gracefully beside him.

* * *

Carrie had gone back to the offices of Thomas Evigan after…well, after she’d taken care of the waitress. She’d tried the windows and doors, but everything was locked up tight. Although this office might still resemble the charming old house it had once been, the small, pulsing red lights in the corners alerted Carrie to the sophisticated alarm system that protected it.

She could wait.

She was good at biding her time.

She called a cab company advertised on a bus bench and when the cab arrived, she asked him to take her to the nearest hotel.

“Not one of those hoity-toity Bed and Bread places, either. I mean a regular hotel.”

“No Bed and Bread for you, huh?” the cabbie said and grinned at her in the rearview mirror, thinking she’d laugh at her own mistake once she’d heard it repeated back to her.

He met her eyes in the mirror and she stared at him blankly. Her eyes glittered coldly with each passing streetlight.

“No, no Bed and Bread. Like I just told you. Just a regular hotel.” She didn’t like his grin, his teasing tone.

“Yeah, I heard you,” the Cabbie said. “It’s just that…it’s called a Bed and Breakfast…not Bread; Breakfast. It was just funny.” His tone was light and friendly, inviting her to laugh.

Carrie didn’t laugh.

She leaned forward abruptly, her face nearly pressed to the dividing glass.

“How about you shut the fuck up and go fuck yourself. Is that funny, too?”

She sat back, looking out the side window.

The cabbie felt as though ice water had been dumped over his head. He said no more and drove her to a run-down dive of a motel at the edge of the township–the Red Devil Motor Court. It advertised ‘CABEL IN EVRY ROOM’ and  ‘POOL’ ‘POOL CLOSED’ and ‘TRUKERS WELCOME!!’

He’d had to go farther to get to this particular one, but he figured when she saw it and got upset, then he could tell her to go fuck herself. He’d only taken her where she’d wanted to go. And if she gave him shit about the fare then he’d call the cops. He wouldn’t hesitate.

But she exited the cab without a word. He told her the fare and she passed it through the window, unconcernedly. Along with a tip. She didn’t even spare him a glance. It was almost as though the entire incident hadn’t happened.

He leaned over as she was walking to the office. Contrarily, he said:

“Hey, lady, you sure you want to stay here? This one’s kind of…kind of rough.”

She stopped and turned.

“Honey, they ain’t even seen rough till they seen me.” Her tone was flirtatious and bawdy and somehow older, like a forty-five-year-old dance hall girl ready to take over as the Madam. She pursed her lips in a kiss.

The cabbie nodded and shot her a half grin, but his stomach turned in disgust. He sat back and powered the window up, glad to have her out of his cab. What a weird little bitch, he thought.

Carrie was not troubled by the flickering neon, the bug encrusted lightbulbs over each door, the dirt lot, the grunts coming from the half open door to one of the rooms, or the ape behind the counter with the crawling eyes.

“Sooooo, pig!” he said, admiration lighting up his features. If his eyes could have detached themselves, they’d already be rolling across the dusty floor to try and climb into her blouse. “Yer a dolly, there, little gal!” He nodded, seemingly in agreement with himself.

Carrie smiled briefly.

“Got a room for me, stud?”

The clerk’s hands went to his chest, unconsciously massaging his own hanging boobs. He flushed bright red.

“You know I do, little gal, you know I got something for you!” He honked out a laugh. In his excitement, he pulled one of his boobs right out the arm of his wife-beater t-shirt. It hung, hairy and pendulous and quivering at his manipulations.

“Just the room would be fine.” Carrie said.

The clerk sat down, deflated.

“Sure, uh…license, and…I need your license, and…” He rubbed his greasy black hair, trying to massage his thoughts into place. His lips were full, too full, and slick with spit. He looked like a drooler, for sure. “And sixty bucks.” He finished in triumph and smiled at her. He raised his arm behind him to grab a key from the rack and a waft of body odor, both oniony and vinegary, assailed her.

She blinked. Then she smiled again.

“I don’t have a license, sweetheart, we’ll have to do without that. Would forty be good for the room?”

“Uuuh.” He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. Then he shook his head. “Uh…no…I always gotta get a license. Got to. It’s, uh, it’s policy.” He continued to shake his head. One hand snuck back to his boob and massaged meditatively.

Carrie smiled and leaned on the counter, pushing her boobs into the v of her vest.

“Maybe we can work something out.” She said. She smiled at the clerk.

“Uh, sure. Sure thing. Course we can! What did you have in mind?”

She reached over the counter and put her hand flat in his lap. His chinos were somewhat damp. He tensed and honked out his laugh again. She pressed down. She could feel the outline of his dick. It was small, but growing. She pressed harder and twisted her hand. She was about to offer a blowjob when suddenly the area under her hand got much, much hotter. He had come.

His eyes fluttered and he grunted.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay, no license.” His gargled the words. “I still gotta charge you the sixty, though; this ain’t my place and the owner, he’s really–”

“No problem,” she said. “There’s just one more little thing…” she leaned over and whispered in his ear. His eyelids fluttered again as if fanned by her breath. Then she dropped a hundred and sixty dollars on the counter and grabbed the key. She disappeared through the door.

It took him a while to recover. He slid the three twenties into the safe box and the rest into his pocket. Then he shuffled to the small bathroom at the back. He stuffed a wad of toilet paper down the front of his chinos. He didn’t want to have to wash these pants; they were his work ones and he had another shift here tomorrow.

Carrie lay on the bed, on her back, on top of the covers. She lay in the dark, her eyes glittering coldly, though there was no light in the room. She didn’t think; her brain merely droned along in a blank neutral. She knew the clerk would leave her ‘gift’ some time during the night, after his shift had ended. She didn’t have to worry about staying awake to greet him; he had a key, after all. She felt very much at home here, as a matter of fact.

After a while she closed her eyes and slept.

* * *

The Devil turned the corner at the light but saw no sign of Kelly’s car. He trotted three more blocks, looking left and right, but something just felt off. The trail felt cold this way. He stopped and stood still, hands on his hips. He considered his options.

If she had come down this road, then she could easily be long gone by now. There were too many streets to search. He should just pick up where he’d left off, focusing his thoughts on the lawyer. He needed to find Thomas Evigan before God, Himself put an end to this quest. And the longer he was here on Earth, the more strongly the Devil felt that God, Himself would be ending it. And soon.

But he couldn’t turn his thoughts from Kelly. He could not shake the feeling that he needed to be near her, to protect her, but from what? Even seeing her go past, it had to have been a sign. Didn’t it? He had seen her…hadn’t he?

Sitri twined around his ankles and the Devil shoved him away with one foot.

“Not now, Sitri, I have to concentrate.”

Sitri sat in front of the Devil and stared at him intently, yellow eyes glowing almost as if with internal fire. He raised one paw up, indicating the direction they’d come from.

The Devil shook his head.

“You can’t know that, Sitri. She could be anywhere.”

Sitri stood and turned in an impatient circle and then sat again. He raised his paw.

The Devil stared at Sitri, his anger and impatience mounting. Either way, he was wasting time; he felt it like carelessly spent money from the pockets of a miser.

He sighed sharply and looked over his shoulder at the mostly empty road, in the direction he assumed she’d gone. Then he looked back they way they’d come; the way Sitri wanted to go. He shook his head with frustration and looked at Sitri.

“Okay, let’s go.”

* * *

Thomas Evigan pulled into his usual spot. He smiled his customary, self-satisfied smile as he gazed at his building, but the smile faded quickly, leaving an unsure blankness on his features. He should have felt great, and he tried to tell himself that he did feel great…but he didn’t.

The truth was, he still felt shaken from last night.

Kelly’s car was in the lot. That helped set his mind at ease. Everything in its place, after all. He chuckled, but that died, too.

He exited his car and leaned against it, allowing the unease to run its course. That little bitch and her ridiculous, psychopathic nature had ruined his equilibrium. Thomas had been around long enough to know that this, too, would pass; that he’d get to work and get to feeling better, but what if she came back? She had seemed cowed last night, but she hadn’t seemed…genuine. Had he really intimidated her or was it merely part of her repertoire?

And how could he ever know the difference?

He shook his head and pushed himself away from the car. Maybe he wouldn’t know unless she showed up again. Like a mold stain through cheap paint.

He entered the office, looking to his right, to where Kelly would be. A manufactured smile was spreading across his features.