As I scanned the room, I saw Wallace at a corner table. He’d come earlier with three other agents in plain clothes to set up shop. White had refused to let me go in blind. I’d never been happier to not be on my own. White made sure we rolled deep everywhere we went.
Wallace was wearing a thick black leather jacket and sipping a ridiculously small white mug, which I knew had to be espresso. Everyone on the team except me seemed to be a horrible coffee snob. I was pretty sure that they were all full of shit and just brown-nosing the boss.
I found an empty table with a good view of the exits and plopped down. A waitress came and asked if I wanted a drink. I ordered a club soda with lime. It could have used some vodka, but I was on the clock, and besides, Carl still had me trying to kick the habit. She brought my drink a couple minutes later and I settled in, opening up the paper someone had left on the table and scanning the news. It was all garbage. I skipped the articles and pulled out the crossword.
I had just inked in Talia Shire’s name into seventeen down when I got a heads up over the radio from Wallace.
“Two men entering at your one o’clock.” He said, holding his stupid white mug in front of his face to hide his mouth.
I glanced up, getting ready to move the paper in front of my face. I didn’t have the opportunity. When I saw who it was, I let out a string of profanities that caused the waitress to do a double take as she walked by my table.
Prufrock had on his standard black suit, silk shirt, and tanned chest. His mountainous bodyguard waddled along behind him. The guy made Wallace look average by comparison. His legs were so massive that his thighs rubbed against each other as he moved.
“You’re the informant?”
Prufrock flashed his perfect pearly whites, unbuttoning his top jacket button and sitting down. “Pleasure to see you again, Mr. Cain.”
“No, it’s not,” I said. “I’m an asshole. Everyone thinks so.”
“On that, we agree.” He said, holding a hand up for the waitress. She walked over, looking at me like she expected me to yell more obscenities in her general direction. “Scotch, the oldest single malt you have, please. Neat.”
The woman nodded and trotted off to fill his order.
“This is our guy,” Wallace said over the comms.
Prufrock sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. “You look well.” He said. “I had feared that your run-in with Mr. McQuillen would have left you more scarred.”
“It wasn’t from lack of trying,” I said, sipping my soda water.
Prufrock’s eyes flicked to the glass. “Still trying to kick the habit are we?”
I had choice words for him, but the waitress came back with his scotch before I got the chance to say any of them. Prufrock took the glass, setting it down on the table. He reached into his coat pocket. He came out with two hundreds and handed them to the woman.
“That should do us for the time being, my dear. We’ll signal should we need anything else.”
“Of course.” She said.
I had a feeling she took offense to being patronizingly called ‘my dear, ’ but she didn’t hesitate to take the cash and make it disappear.
Prufrock’s eyes lingered on her ass as she walked away. I gave it a second glance as well, curious to see what he was admiring. It was good, not great if I'm honest. Her black uniform pants were tight so what was there was accentuated well. Still, I’m more attracted to strength.
“I always pegged you as more of a guy on guy type,” I said, trying to be an asshole.
Prufrock broke off his gaze and sipped his scotch. “I don’t discriminate, Mr. Cain. Pleasure is pleasure.”
“Free country,” I said, taking another drink myself. “You do you.”
“I’ve been known to do that a time or two as well.” He said. “Now, pleasantries aside, we have business to conduct. I must confess, I’m on a bit of a tight schedule.”
“The location of the Warlock.”
He nodded. “Yes yes, I did promise information on that.” He signaled to his bodyguard.
The big man stepped forward. I noticed that he had a black duffel back with him. It was so small in his hands I’d looked right over it. He set it down on the ground next to me and stepped back in place, scanning the room behind dark sunglasses.
“Inside you’ll find the head of your warlock as well as the Namahage.” He said, nonchalantly taking another sip after he did.
I looked down at the duffle and back up at him, mouth opening but not making sound.
White’s voice came on over the comms. “What did he just say? Did he just say there are heads in that bag?”
Wallace answered as I continued to look at Prufrock. “That’s correct sir.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I hissed, looking at the duffle again. “You’re just walking around with someone’s head in a bag?”
Prufrock shrugged.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. “Son of a bitch.”
White’s voice came back on. “That’s it. I’m calling this off. Alpha, take the target.”
“Would you kindly tell Mr. White not to attempt anything he’ll regret,” Prufrock said.
“What?” I asked.
“There are three agents in this room with us.” He said, openly pointing to all three. “You have another two in the lobby and an agent down the street in a black SUV. Mr. White has no doubt heard my confession of what is in the bag and ordered that my associate and I be brought in for questioning. I’m afraid that I cannot allow that. If the go order is given, I will be forced to kill all of you.”
Well shit. So much for discretion and element of surprise.
“How does he know that?” White asked in my ear. “Who is this guy? How does he know about us?”
“I know a great many things,” Prufrock said. He smiled again, drinking the last of his scotch.
He could hear our comms. It was the only explanation. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had an earpiece in and was listening in, or if his hearing was good enough to be able to pick up the voices in my earpiece. From what little I did know about him, neither would have surprised me. Not wanting to take any chances, I turned my comms off, killing the voices in my ear.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I asked you to do something for me.” He said. “You were supposed to kill Mr. McQuillen. I told you not to hesitate. You did, and now he is still at large, out of my grasp for the time being and well outside of yours as well.”
“I didn’t think anything was out of your reach.”
He spread his hands. “Alas, I am not the Father. Though I can tell you, it’s not from lack of trying.”
“So that’s what all of this is about?” I asked. “You call me over here, bring me a couple heads and tell me that I still owe you one?”
“More or less.” He said. “I also wanted to see for myself. I’d been told you’d cleaned up your act, gone straight, as it were, and working with Mr. White’s team. I didn’t believe it at first. Deckland Cain, working with the government, impossible. I lost fifty thousand betting it was not true.”
“Suppose you want me to add that onto my IOU?”
“No, that was my decision. I can’t imagine it would be fair to hold you accountable for my poor judgment.”
I took another drink. The last of the liquid slurped up the straw. “So are we done then?”
“For now. I wanted to leave you with an open-ended way to repay me.” He said. “I will accept repayment in one of three methods.
“The first is our original agreement, with the death of Mr. McQuillen. Generous man that I am, I will even keep the hundred thousand dollars on the table that you no doubt did not receive from Mr. McQuillen.
The second is the return of a piece of property that Mr. McQuillen stole from me. A book, approximately fifteen inches by twelve inches, bound in black leather and inscribed with gold leaf on the cover. The runes are quite unreadable to most.”
“Book?” I asked. “What book?
”
Prufrock waved a hand. “It’s of no consequence. It was mine, and I do wish it returned to me. I would warn against attempting to open it should you come into contact with it. I dare say that if anyone other than you attempted to gaze upon its pages, they would go quite mad.”
Something about a book brought back a memory. “When Al took me, he used me in a ritual. He summoned an Archangel and used some spell, magic like I’ve never seen or heard of to bind an Angel of the Lord and overpower him. He happened to mention a book, that it gave him power beyond imagination. I don’t suppose this is the same book?”
“There is a chance, yes.”
“I thought you said looking at it would make someone go insane.”
“I did.”
“How did Al manage it then?” I asked.
“I wish I knew.”
I grabbed my drink and started slurping it again, just to be annoying. “You said there were three ways. What’s the third?”
“There may come a time before either of the first two options have been fulfilled in which I need something you are uniquely able to provide. If that time comes, and you fulfill that need, I will consider your debt repaid, nullifying any outstanding arrangements between us.”
“You know, I’m really starting to regret having you save my life,” I said.
Prufrock stood up, buttoning his top jacket button as he did. “Oh, I’ve never been happier about any other business arrangement that I am with yours, Mr. Cain.”
“Sure.”
Straightening the sleeves of his blazer he nodded to his bodyguard. “Good day, Mr. Cain.”
He turned and walked out. As he did, I turned my comms back on. Wallace’s voice popped into my ear. “Target is leaving the north entrance, headed toward the lobby.”
“Got him,” Sara said.
“Do not lose him,” White said.
I cut in. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Cain, is that you?” White asked. “How nice of you to decide to join us again.”
“I had to go silent,” I said. “He was listening in somehow. I didn’t want him to be able to hear you guys if I could stop it.”
“Cain, who the hell is this guy?” White asked. “And how in the hell does he know who I am?”
“Not sure,” I said. “Only name he’s ever given me is Prufrock.”
“Prufrock?” White asked. “Like J. Alfred?”
“Sure,” I said, not actually sure what he was talking about.
Wallace disappeared into the lobby. “Target has entered the north elevators.”
White came screaming back over the radio. “I don’t care what you have to do. I want him taken in! You hear me?”
“Affirmative,” Wallace said.
I leaned over, grabbing the duffle that Prufrock had left.
“Cain, where are you?” White asked.
“Bar,” I said, unzipping the bag. A wall of stench hit me full in the face.
“What are you doing? Get out there and help your team.” He said.
I flipped open the flap, gagging a little as I did. “Little busy with something,” I said.
I looked in. The leathery blue and red face of a Namahage looked up at me. Its black hair was coarse and sticky with blood. A smaller head, a guy in his thirties or forties maybe, slicked back hair and done up in a ponytail that was now coated with filth. He looked like he’d been a real prick.
“Elevator stopped on the thirteenth floor,” Wallace said.
Sara came on the radio, sounding out of breath. “I’m on ten now.”
“On my way up,” Wallace said.
Unzipping my fanny, I pulled out a latex glove, snapping it on my right hand. I reached in the duffle and started rooting around, shifting the Namahage head to see if anything else had been put at the bottom of the bag. I saw a plastic lining, apparently meant to keep the blood from leaking out.
“Whelp, I can confirm our Namahage is down, and if the head in here doesn’t belong to our dead warlock, it’s a random douchebag with a ponytail.”
“Tell me you aren’t opening that bag in a public bar,” White said. “You know the rules.”
“Relax,” I said. “I didn’t take it out and set on the table or anything.”
There wasn’t anything else in the main compartment. I noticed another small pocket on the front of the bag. I took off my bloody glove and tossed it on top of the Namahage, zipping up the duffle again. I hoped zipping it back up would block some of the awful odor from the Hellion blood.
“This is Frost. Building is locked down. In with hotel security now. They aren’t getting out.”
I opened the small front pocket and reached in. I pulled out a cellphone. I checked it. There was one number saved in it, just like the last burner Prufrock had given me. I put it in my fanny pack.
“I want a floor by floor search,” White said. “You go room by room until you find them. Is that understood?”
“Affirmative,” Wallace said, sounding like he’d just finished running up thirteen flights of stairs.
It took ten hours for White to finally throw in the towel. Prufrock and his ginormous bodyguard were nowhere to be found. I’d known they wouldn’t find anything. When I got back to the staging area, White had ripped me a new asshole for another four hours, wanting to know everything Carl and I knew about Prufrock. We didn’t know a lot, so I spent four hours basically saying I didn’t know anything. I’m usually lying when I say I don’t know something. I wasn’t when it came to Prufrock.
Later that night, I was in my room, on the verge of falling to sleep when I heard something vibrating. I pulled my fanny out of the bedside table and fished out the phone Prufrock had left for me. The screen was glowing.
Mr. Cain. I appreciate you not handing over the phone to the proper authorities. They’ve no doubt been asking questions about our affiliations. Keep your head down and remember to be on watch for Mr. McQuillen.
“How did he know?” I asked, unsure how he knew that I hadn’t turned the phone over. Maybe he figured White would have called already if I had. I read the message again a few times and was about to the put the phone down again when another message came through.
Oh and Mr. Cain. Be wary of Mr. White as well. The Devil can quote scripture for his own purposes as well as any Angel.
“You think,” I muttered. I opened up a message and sent him back the shit emoji. I smirked, laughing at myself as I sent it to him twelve more times. I figured that would let him know I was getting tired of his inter-dimensional man of mystery routine.
I’m Deckland Cain.
Come at me, bro.
About the Author
David was born in California. He is the author of Double-Barreled Devilry, husband, father, and dog dad. His stories are inspired by long afternoons waging war with GI Joes and Power Rangers action figures as a child.
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