Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “You mean . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “War.” I savored the word as it blew past my lips.

  “War, Lucifer. Another American Civil War, only this one won’t be nearly so civil as the last one. We’re talkin’ Uzis and nines, not muskets and bayonets.”

  “Shit. Let me buy you another drink.” I motioned to the waiter.

  “It’s what the white man has feared for years, black men putting down their crack pipes, picking up their guns, and getting the revenge they’ve deserved for centuries. We’ll make Selma, Alabama, look like fucking Woodstock.”

  “There’s just one problem,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I look white.”

  “What are you worried about? You’re immortal.”

  “I know, but it still hurts when I get shot.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mephistopheles said. “You’ll be protected. So will most of the white power establishment, though there will be selected assassinations. You see, Lou, the final chapter is what makes this truly evil. The Man’s still got the police, the National Guard, and if necessary, the entire military-industrial complex on his side. They’ll crush this rebellion within days, weeks at the most, and once the violence is stopped, the oppression will be worse than ever.”

  He paused while the waiter delivered our new beers, then continued: “Forget affirmative action, forget friendly dialogues on race relations. Membership in the KKK will skyrocket.”

  “And all the latent racism inside civilized people will bubble to the surface again,” I said. “People of all colors will feel justified in their hatred. Brilliant.” I lifted my glass to him, and he tapped his own against it.

  “This country will never be the same,” he said.

  I set my beer down suddenly without drinking it.

  “Do you realize, this could even destabilize the world economy,” I said. “If America approached something like martial law, even if only for a short time, businesses around the world would take a hit.” I gripped his arm. “To have this kind of effect, your rebellion has to be enormous, and organized down to the last detail.”

  “Exactly. It needs a leader with a brilliant strategic mind, someone with enough looks and charisma to make them stop their squabbling and keep their eyes on the big prize. Someone who can make millions of men want to kill and die for him.”

  “You, for instance?”

  “Got somebody better in mind?”

  “I can’t think of a more perfect candidate,” I said. “What will you call yourself—Malcolm Y?”

  “Very funny. I’ve been developing this project for years. Finish your beer, and I’ll show you.”

  Mephistopheles occupied the basement floor of a former hotel near Woodley Park. His home was a series of mazes, each leading to another segment of his life. We walked past a row of cubicles containing graveyards of computer parts to a large wooden door in the corner. He punched a long series of codes onto the keypad. The door clicked open, and we entered.

  The office was windowless, with white cinder-block walls. Mephistopheles turned on the desktop computer. After further elaborate security clearances, he shifted the monitor to face me.

  “Check it out,” he said.

  Displayed on the screen was the introduction to what looked like a war strategy simulation package. His logo, a red M with a long pitchforked third tail, sat in the center.

  The scenarios he showed me made my skin crawl with anticipation. No one would be safe, even in the gated communities that had become so popular among the frightened rich.

  Mephistopheles pushed his chair back from the desk. “Would you like to play?”

  My fingertips tingled. For the next two hours I explored his scheme’s possibilities and even made a few improvements on it. He explained to me his intricate system of networked backups, in case this office ever met with an unfortunate fate.

  “You need a theme song,” I said. “I’ll work on that this weekend. When can you get this plan rolling?”

  “The sooner the better. Churches are starting to bring hope to the inner cities, making these people think that You-Know-Who is somehow gonna save them.”

  “How cruel.”

  “Speaking of churches,” Mephistopheles said, “that’s where your awesome pyrokinetic powers come in.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I figure if you torch a few strategic places of worship, a couple of black churches one day, a couple of white ones the next day, it might help stir the frenzy a little more.”

  “I don’t know, Mephistopheles. Burning churches is pretty in-his-face. I don’t want to do anything stupid.”

  “You won’t get in trouble. It’ll just be a few here and there.”

  The image did please me. “All right. Just a few.” I exited the program and turned to him. “I want a project time line Monday morning.”

  “No problem.” His grin widened. “You look excited.”

  “I am. This is genius, Mephistopheles, absolute profound evil. If I could, I’d promote you, but if you were any higher, you’d be me.”

  “And there’s only one you.”

  “Seriously, though . . . don’t ever tell Beelzebub this, but if anything were to happen to me, I’d want you in charge.”

  “Nothing will ever happen to you,” Mephistopheles said. “But thanks.”

  “No . . . thank you.”

  I returned home later to find a message from Gianna on my voice mail. She had left her number at her parents’ house, so I fixed myself a drink, reclined on the sofa, and called her back. She answered on the first ring.

  “O’Keefe’s Discount House of Kitsch. May I have your order, please?”

  “Hi, I’d like fourteen of those windup unicorn carousels. The ones that play ‘Mack the Knife.’”

  “Damn, you’re quick, Lou.”

  “How was your day?”

  “Ugh. My mom dragged me out shopping on Black Friday. We spent two whole hours looking at curtains, goddammit, curtains! The guys got to go to the football game with Dad. It’s the worst example of gender discrimination I’ve seen in this family since they wouldn’t let me wear pants to First Communion.”

  “Poor thing.”

  “There were some pretty good sales, though.” There was a crunching noise. “Sorry. We’re having a party tonight, and I’m cutting up carrots for the veggie plate. One of them accidentally got in my mouth.”

  My phone beeped to signal a call on the other line.

  “Do you have to get that?” she asked.

  “No, the voice mail will pick up the message.” I propped my feet up on the back of the couch. “So when are you coming home?”

  “I’m leaving early Sunday morning to beat the train crush. Would you be a hero and pick me up at Union Station at noon?”

  “Sure. I was thinking—” The phone beeped again.

  “You sure you don’t want to get that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” I said.

  “Okay. So you were thinking what?” she said with her mouth full.

  “Mmm. I was thinking I was wishing I was one of those carrots.”

  “Oh, wow.” Her voice lowered. “I’ve got several of them right here in front of me.”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Uh-huh. Ooh, here’s a really big one.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got it in my hand right now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And you’ll never guess where I’m putting it,” she said.

  I swallowed. “Where?”

  “Right underneath my . . . chef’s knife.” A loud chop came through the phone.

  “Ow! Gianna, you have no idea how much that hurts.”

  “The power of your imagination is maybe a little too strong, then. Sorry.” She giggled. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you all frustrated on my account. Trust me, it’s better this way.”

  “I disagree.”

  “I miss you.”

 
; “I miss you, too,” I heard myself say.

  “I better go get ready for the party. See you Sunday?”

  “See you then.” I hung up and retrieved my two messages. The first one contained Beelzebub’s frantic voice.

  “Lou, it’s me. Call me on my cell phone right away. As in now!”

  I sat up. The second message was also from him.

  “Lou, for fuck’s sake, pick up! I know you’re on the other line. This is an emergency. Call me!”

  I hung up the phone, but it rang again before I could dial.

  “Lou, it’s me,” Mephistopheles said. “Something’s happened to Belial.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Beelzebub just called and said something about the shopping mall and setting people on fire and Belial becoming somebody else.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m telling you all I know. Bub’s on his way over to pick me up, then we’re coming to your place.” A car horn honked several times in the background. “That’s him. See you in a few minutes.” He hung up.

  I stared at the phone in my hands and felt like I’d just seen the first pebble in a landslide bounce past me.

  11

  Confutatis Maledictis

  Ten minutes later, my front door slammed open. Mephistopheles led a quaking Beelzebub into my living room.

  “What happened?” I said.

  Beelzebub paced back and forth, his head twitching. “Aw, fuck, man, I don’t know. One minute we were just playin’ around with the food people, next thing I know he’s crying and goin’ off on how he’s a demon from Hell and shit . . .” He clutched his hair in his fists. “This is crazy, this is so incredibly, royally fucked up.”

  “Here.” I handed him a shot of whiskey, which he downed, then let the glass fall on the floor. It bounced once on the Oriental rug before rolling under the sofa.

  “Sit down and tell me what happened,” I said.

  “I can’t. I can’t sit down, I—I think I’m gonna be sick.” He dashed into the hallway bathroom.

  “I could use a drink.” Mephistopheles headed for the bar.

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  “No, he was like this the whole drive over. I couldn’t hear a word under all his howling. He just kept rambling on about shopping and killing and the truth.”

  “The truth? What do you mean, the truth?”

  Beelzebub coughed behind us. He leaned against the wall in the doorway, his face gray. “Belial told them the truth.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Here, sit down and start from the beginning.”

  Beelzebub obeyed. He sat in silence for a moment on the couch’s middle cushion, then pulled his knees up to his chest. Mephistopheles and I stood on either side of him behind the sofa and waited for him to begin.

  “We were in the department store, in the electronics section, trying to do that trick you showed us.” Beelzebub clutched the toes of his sneakers. “We were watching the local news. They were broadcasting live from one of the other malls, doing a Christmas shopping story, I guess. We knew where they were coming from, so we figured we could nail it pretty easy.” He stopped a moment to chew his thumb, then continued.

  “First he tried . . . tried to set this doll display behind the reporter on fire. It didn’t work, but I think he might have just missed by a little, because a fire alarm started going off in the background. So I decided to give it a shot.” He closed his eyes. “I blew up the television.”

  Mephistopheles clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Geez, Bub—” I held up my hand to silence him.

  “Go on,” I said to Beelzebub.

  “We got out of the store and went to the food court. I was pretty pissed off that I couldn’t do it right, and pissed that he got closer than I did. So I’m lookin’ around for things to set on fire.”

  “In the mall?” Mephistopheles said. “While you were standing right there?”

  “I just wanted to see something burn, you know? Anyway, I’m not that dumb, I figured out a way to make it look like an accident.”

  “How?”

  “There was a cheese-steak place with a guy frying up stuff on this big griddle. I decided to flame the poor bastard and make it look like a grease fire. I told Belial what I was gonna do, and he laughed. But then he . . . he . . .” Beelzebub cringed and wrapped his arms around his knees.

  I slid around the sofa to sit beside him. “He what, Bub? What did he do?”

  “He stopped laughing. He stopped laughing, and his face got all loose, and he told me not to do it. I laughed at him, ’cuz I thought he was joking. But he said it again, ‘Don’t do it, Bub,’ he said, and I said, ‘Fuck off. I don’t take orders from you,’ and I did it.

  “It was . . . so cool. The flames just leapt up from the grill right into the guy’s face. His hair caught on fire, and he started screaming. Then Belial starts screaming, too. He rips off his jacket, you know, that awesome leather one, and get this—he jumps over the counter and grabs the guy, who’s running around like an idiot. He throws him on the ground and puts the fire out with his jacket.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mephistopheles said. “Are you saying Belial saved this guy’s life?”

  Beelzebub nodded slowly, still not looking at us. “He even called the ambulance. There was a woman there who was an off-duty paramedic, and she gave the guy first aid. Everyone was gathering around Belial, patting him on the back for doing such a . . . such a . . . good deed.”

  The three of us hung our heads at these words.

  I headed for the bar. “That’s bizarre.”

  “It gets worse,” Beelzebub said.

  I stopped and turned to him. “Worse?”

  “Much worse.” Beelzebub took a deep breath. “Someone mentioned to Belial how fast he reacted, as if he knew it was going to happen. So Belial says, ‘I did know it was going to happen.’ At this point I got ready to run. But he says, ‘I knew because I did it.’”

  “Oh, shit,” Mephistopheles said.

  “Yeah. And it got real quiet all of a sudden. All you could hear was the lame music playing over the speakers. I remember that part, ’cuz it was a crappy version of a song I used to like back in the seventies.”

  “Anyway . . .”

  “Anyway, he yells, ‘My name is Belial, duke of Hell, and I could incinerate you all if I wanted to.’ Some people kinda laughed a little, but everyone got real nervous. Then he goes, ‘But not anymore. A few moments ago, I saw a new light, and it illuminated my . . . my . . .’ wrongdoings? No, that’s not the word he used. ‘It illuminated my . . .’”

  “Sins?”

  “No, that wasn’t it.”

  “Transgressions?” Mephistopheles said.

  “No, not that either. ‘It illuminated my . . .’ Shit, what was the word? It sounded really good.”

  “Iniquities?” I said.

  “That’s it! ‘It illuminated my iniquities.’” Beelzebub stood and faced us. “Then he gets up on the counter, waves his finger towards me and says, ‘I renounce you, every one of you.’ Of course, everyone thinks he’s crazy, so I just play along and look around like, ‘Who’s he talking to?’ Then he looks at the crowd, and he says . . . he says . . .” Beelzebub glanced at me, then turned his face away.

  “What?” I grabbed his shoulders. “What did he say?”

  “I . . . I can’t repeat it.”

  “Tell me, dammit!” I shook Beelzebub and forced him to look at me. “Tell me what he said!”

  “He said . . .” Beelzebub stared at my face, then lowered his eyes. “He said, ‘I renounce Satan and all his works.’”

  My fingers went numb. “He called me . . . that name?” I dropped my hands from Beelzebub’s shoulders and turned away.

  “Yeah. Sorry. And then he said—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “He said, ‘I hereby repent and throw myself on the mercy of . . .’—well, you kn
ow who.”

  “On the mercy of—”

  “Did he actually say the name?” Mephistopheles asked.

  “Yeah,” Beelzebub said in a voice breathy with what sounded like admiration. “He said it, all right.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing. I mean, nothing like what you’d expect. Everyone started backing away real slow. Someone must have called security, because these three mall cops came running and dragged him off the counter. He didn’t even resist. They took him to an office and locked the door, locked him inside while they called the police. That was when I . . . I got the hell out of there.” Beelzebub collapsed in the chair and ran his fingers through his hair. “I should have stayed, I know. But I panicked. I didn’t want to get dragged into it. And Belial’s always been able to talk his way out of anything. I figured he’d be okay.”

  “This has got to be a joke,” Mephistopheles said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Like the time he became a priest and did all those exorcisms just to disprove the gospel.”

  “Yeah, or the time he delivered all that food to those famine victims, and it turned out to be rancid.”

  “I’m telling you guys,” Beelzebub said, “this was no joke. You should have seen his face. He looked like one of those, what do you call them, born-again Christians. He looked—he looked happy.”

  The phone rang. I picked it up. “Hello?”

  “Hello, may I please speak to Louis Carvalho?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Carvalho. This is Sergeant Russert down at the Tenth Precinct. Sorry to bother you, but there’s someone here who says he works for you. His driver’s license identifies him as William Hearst, but he says he’s . . . what did you say your name was?”

  “Belial!” said a voice in the background. “Duke and governor of the southern quadrant of Hell. I’ll write it down for you if you like.”

  “Yes, uh, anyway,” Russert said, “we’re taking him to the local hospital for an emergency psychiatric evaluation. He hasn’t done anything wrong—on the contrary, he saved someone’s life.” He lowered his voice. “But he’s raving like a maniac, and frankly we’re afraid he’ll hurt himself or someone else.”