The Everything Box (34 page)

“Why not?”

Zavulon poured them each another round. He drained his glass and said, “Do mook people such as you, you get drunk?”

“Keep pouring and I'll let you know.”

Zavulon laughed. Salzman smiled. The guard on the end, he thought. The one who moved his rifle first. He's the one I'd kill. Or maybe Zavulon. Was that accent even real? Salzman wondered. He sighed. It wasn't fair. The annoying guard had gotten him all worked up, but he needed to make the call. There just wasn't time to stop off and strangle anyone on the way home. Salzman had another glass of champagne and thought of happier, deadlier times.

WHEN HE FINALLY REACHED LOS ANGELES, THE
stranger took out his guidebook and walked to Griffith Park. Once inside the park grounds, he headed for a particular sycamore tree. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he picked up a stick and wandered the trails, peeking and probing under the bushes. Nothing. He went up another trail, past the observatory and the tourists taking selfies with the hazy city in the background.

Redecorating,
he thought.
That's all this place needs.

Eventually, he reached the abandoned zoo. In a long-disused tiger cage, the stranger found an old sleeping bag, but nothing else. He couldn't even smell anything. All the familiar scents were masked by the smog, the musk of long-gone animals, and the sweat of everyone else who, over the years, had used the zoo as an open-air squat. The stranger took out the guidebook and scanned the park map looking for other likely sites.

As he trudged up a long trail that wound higher into the park, a young couple strolled past him coming the other way. They were radiant. The woman was in a light summer dress and the man was in a blue polo shirt and white designer slacks. L.A. elites. Graceful and glowing in their beauty and privilege. The stranger barely
glanced at them. His mind was somewhere else, rearranging buildings. That's why he started a little when the couple approached him.

“Hi. I'm Darla and this is my husband, Christopher,” said the woman. “I was wondering, do you know the way to the Hollywood Wax Museum?”

The stranger shook his head. “I'm afraid not. I'm not from around here.”

“Oh. I saw you had a guidebook and thought you might know,” said Darla.

The stranger held the book out to her. “You're welcome to look if you like.”

“That's the problem,” said Christopher. “We lost our bags and both of our sets of reading glasses were in them. If it's not too much trouble, could you look it up for us? Thanks.”

“I'm sorry to hear about your bags. Of course I can help. There's a wax museum around here? I might have to visit there myself before I'm done.”

Darla gave him a sunny smile. “Oh. Are you here on business?”

The stranger thumbed through the guidebook. “Very much,” he said.

“What kind?” said Christopher.

Darla leaned in. “The reason my husband asks is that you don't look much like a businessman. More like a fucking bum.”

The stranger looked up. “Do I really?”

“In that filthy coat and shitty shoes? What are you? A junkie? A dealer? Both?” said Christopher.

“I didn't think my coat was that dirty.”

“Filthy,” said Darla. She cocked her head and looked at him. “Nothing at all like what an actual businessman would wear.”

“Thank you. I'll have to do something about that,” said the stranger. He flipped to the guidebook's index. “Now, it was the wax museum you wanted . . .”

Christopher pulled a switchblade from his pocket, snicked it open, and took a step toward him. “Fuck the museum. I know a dirty dealer when I see one. How much are you carrying? Empty your pockets. I want all of it.”

“You don't need the knife,” said the stranger. He dropped the guidebook and put up his hands. “You can have all of it.” He closed them and when he opened his hands again, gold poured out onto the ground.

“Damn,” said Christopher dismally.

“Fuck me,” said Darla miserably.

The stranger took the knife from Christopher's hand, broke it in two, and threw the pieces into the bushes. “Is this how you spend your days? Show me your real faces.”

“We can't,” said Leviathan, his Christopher face turning red with embarrassment.

“We can change our bodies a little, but the only thing real we can show are our teeth bits. Because they scare mortals so much,” said Beelzebub. She grinned, showing hideous gray choppers.

“Wars. Murder. Famine. Cancer. And your contribution to Lucifer's cause is shaking down hobos?” said the stranger.

“And tourists,” said Leviathan.

“And priests,” said Beelzebub. “And librarians. And bus drivers. And that rude counterman at the tapas place on Fairfax. What was it called?”

“Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue,” said Leviathan.

“Hush,” said the stranger, and they both hushed very quickly.

Beelzebub looked at the ground, dragging her gorgeous white shoes through the debris on the trail. “We do diseases, too, sometimes. Leviathan has tuberculosis.”

“And I cough a lot in crowds.” He put a hand to his mouth and coughed violently a few times. When he was done he looked at the stranger like a mutt that had just learned to fetch.

“Do you really have tuberculosis?” said the stranger.

Leviathan shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “No.”

“I didn't think so.” An old couple went past them on the trail, heading up the hill. The stranger stopped talking to let them pass. The old woman smiled to him as they went by. He smiled back, curious where they were going.

The stranger turned his attention back to the miscreants. “The real
question I have is ‘What am I going to do with you?' Let you go to continue with your pathetic attempts at mayhem—”

“Yes. You should do that,” said Leviathan.

“Or do I drop the whole park into a fault line? Or just you two? I don't imagine those bodies you're stuck in would react well to magma.”

“Please don't,” said Beelzebub. “We'll be in so much trouble.”

“Plus, it would hurt a lot,” said Leviathan.

“Help me and I'll let you go,” said the stranger. “You know what I want.”

Leviathan and Beelzebub pointed in different directions and talked at the same time.

“We just saw him . . .”

“The other day . . .”

“He didn't look so good . . .”

“But Qaphsiel was closing in on the box.”

“Stop,” said the stranger. “The box?”

“Yes,” said Beelzebub. “He knew sort of where it was.”

“Sort of?”

“Yes. He was still looking, but was certain he was going to find it.”

“Finally,” said Leviathan, chuckling. “What a boob, right?” When the stranger didn't chuckle back he stopped abruptly.

“Did he say this to you directly?”

Leviathan and Beelzebub looked away.

“No,” said Beelzebub. “We more or less inferred.”

“Body language and all that,” said Leviathan.

“Psychology.”

“But he didn't actually tell you that he knew where the box was?”

“No,” said Leviathan. “But he had the map and was studying some buildings on it.”

“And he was more manic than usual,” said Beelzebub. “Believe me. We've been keeping an eye on him and he was excited about something.”

“Where is he now?”

“Um . . .” said Leviathan.

“Yeah,” said Beelzebub. “As the mortals say, we kind of dropped the ball on that.”

The stranger put his hand on Leviathan's shoulder and squeezed. Bones cracked. “You lost him?”

Leviathan spoke through very large, pointed, gritted teeth. “There was a Christian publishing convention in town. So many souls to tempt and corrupt.”

“What he's saying is that we got a little distracted,” said Beelzebub.

The stranger let go. Leviathan grimaced and shook the broken bones in his shoulder back into place. “Ow.”

“All right. Listen to me,” said the stranger. “You find Qaphsiel. If he has the box, let me know. If he's close to the box, let me know. But don't get involved with getting the box yourselves. That's his task. Let him do it.”

“Of course,” said Leviathan.

“We'd be delighted,” said Beelzebub.

“Now get out of my sight,” said the stranger.

Leviathan and Beelzebub transformed back into their attractive human forms and walked quickly down the hill.

“Thank you,” said Beelzebub.

“Yes. Thanks,” said Leviathan.

“We're ever so grateful.”

“Really. We really appreciate—”

“Go!” bellowed the stranger.

The fallen angels ran down the hill, slipping and sliding in their expensive shoes, grabbing each other to keep themselves from falling. The stranger couldn't deal with them anymore. With the stupidity of this world. He walked up the hill in the direction the old couple had taken.

Eventually, he reached a picnic area crowded with families. Parents. Children. Pets. The noise, smells, and messy clamor of humanity. The stranger stood off to the side, taking in the spectacle. Husbands staring at other men's wives. Wives staring daggers at their husbands. Children screaming, running wild. The stranger was delighted. He counted the sins, ran them through a mental calculator and shook his head.

Redecoration
.

Of course, it wasn't entirely their fault, he thought. They were mortals. Simpletons. But after his encounter with Leviathan and Beelzebub, the place was becoming all a bit much. His mood and expression curdled. He imagined fault lines. Wildfires. Freak tornadoes.

A young girl in a blue dress, about five, ran by chasing balloons. Her eyes were red and her face was streaked where tears had mingled with dirt. She picked up her balloons from the bushes where they'd blown and cried even harder. The stranger could see that they were knotted together, a rubbery tangle of colors and shapes. The little girl saw him staring and dragged her balloons to him.

The stranger heard a man's voice calling to the girl. “Carly. Come away from the strange man, honey.” The stranger looked over and saw a short man with thinning hair.
Sure. Let your children run wild,
he thought.
Run right to a stranger who could make it rain brimstone and ice down on all of you
.

The young girl held up her balloons.

“It popped,” she said. “See? Right in the middle.”

He knelt and looked at the knotted mess. The balloons were wound around each other to resemble some sort of dog, but the dog's torso had a hole in the side. The stranger looked at the father. The father started over.

“Carly. Come to Daddy, honey.”

The stranger took the balloons from the girl and held them up to his lips. Then he blew across them. The dog's body slowly inflated. The girl's red eyes grew wide. The stranger put the dog on the ground just as the father reached them. Before he could grab the child, the stranger let go of the balloon dog. It ran a few steps, turned, and barked at the little girl. When she went over to it, the dog jumped into her arms, barking excitedly.

“Thank you! Thank you!” the little girl shouted and waved to him.

The stranger nodded. “You're welcome.”

The girl set the dog on the ground. It bounded away and she laughed as she chased after it. When the stranger looked up, the
father was standing a few feet away, his hands balled into fists. But he didn't look the least bit dangerous. He watched his daughter running after her new pet.

“How did you do that?” said the father.

“Your daughter is very polite,” said the stranger. “But you don't spend enough time with her.”

The father turned to him. “Excuse me?”

“I can tell these things. Time flies. People grow old. Worlds end.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

The stranger went to the father and spoke very quietly. “It's not too late to stop being an asshole. Almost. But you have a little time left.”

The father stepped back and took out his phone. “If you don't leave right now I'm going to call a cop.”

“Time management. It's the key to the universe,” said the stranger. He laughed and went back down the hill listening to the happy sounds of the girl and her new dog.

At about ten in the morning, Coop awoke from weird dreams. The spiders were still there. Dozens of them. But now, some of them looked like Salzman and some like Nelson, Woolrich, and Mr. Lemmy. Others resembled the prison warden at Surf City, Mr. Babylon, the tentacled twins from the DOPS, the gill people from Jinx Town, the fanged Vin Mariani girl, and all the werewolves that had chased him and Giselle out of the bar. The spider people all had on little top hats and tap shoes, and carried tiny canes. They did a complicated dance routine on their web to the tune of “Singin' in the Rain.” The worst part was that they were pretty good. Yes, the spiders' voices were a little high and grating, but it was a lavish production number, with a band and lights and cannons shooting confetti at the end. In his dream, Coop couldn't help but applaud, and he woke up in bed clapping. So much for sleep. He got up and put on coffee.

There was a knock on the front door exactly at noon. When Coop opened it, Bayliss stood there, her expression a bit happy, a bit surprised, and a bit puzzled. “You're here,” she said.

“I said I would be.”

“I know. I just wasn't sure.”

Coop stepped out of the way so she could come in. “You want anything?” he said. “Coffee? A drink?”

Coop motioned to the sofa and she sat down. “I'm fine, thanks.” She looked around the apartment like she was a paleontologist trying to put a mammoth together from teeth and a couple of toe bones.

“Did you hear about the big earthquake?”

“Here?”

“No. San Francisco.”

“Fuck San Francisco. L.A. is where the world is going to end. Not up in kale country.”

“I guess you're right.”

When Coop looked over, he saw her examining the place with her eyes. “It's not my place. It's Morty's,” he said.

“That makes more sense. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting your place to look like.”

Coop poured himself a cup of coffee. “And what would my place look like?”

“I'm not sure,” said Bayliss, a look of distress creeping across her face. “A little . . . darker?”

“Why do people keep saying stuff like that? I'm a cheerful guy. Look, this mug says ‘World's Best Crook.' That's fun, right?”