Devil Said Bang ss-4

by Richard Kadrey

  “I think I can squeeze you in. Don’t eat before you come over. I have enough food to feed the Crusades.”

  “Later, Bruce Wayne.”

  “Later, Major Kusanagi.”

  Teddy Osterberg’s place is a rolling green estate at the highest point of the Malibu hills. This area likes to dry out in the summer and burn even when it doesn’t go brown. You can tell Teddy’s place hasn’t had so much as a campfire in a century. It takes a lot of money and manpower to keep a spread this big green all year. A lot of company for a recluse.

  The house is a turn-of-the-century Gothic hulk. More like a bank than a house but with a view to West L.A. one way and practically to Japan the other. There’s a white Rolls-Royce Phantom convertible in the circular driveway. I knock on the door. A few seconds later, I hear footsteps and the door swings opens.

  I recognize him immediately. Teddy is the civilian at the synod with the nice suit and the Michelangelo manicure. He’s dark with sin signs but he comes from old money, so he was probably born prestained and has been piling it on ever since.

  I turn and point up.

  “Mr. Osterberg, does that sky look green to you?”

  “Hmm,” he says like a guy who’s seen much stranger things. “It certainly does. You must be Mr. Macheath. Please call me Teddy.”

  He puts out his hand and I shake it. The door is only open wide enough for him to stand in, so I push past him and go inside. I’ve gone from annoyed to pissed that Traven sent me up here instead of going after King Cairo and I’m prepared to take it out on Teddy.

  He doesn’t say anything as I go in. Just stands by the door for a minute and then closes it, locking us in a big foyer as silent as a tomb and as clean as an operating room.

  “I was surprised to see you open your own door. Malibu people usually have out-of-work B-actors standing at attention all day hoping someone comes up the drive.”

  “I’m sure some do but I don’t keep a staff. It’s just me up here, so door opening is a skill I’ve had to master all on my own.”

  The foyer is dark but there are dim lights on in the other rooms. I’m going to need night-vision goggles if I want to see anything interesting without starting a bonfire. What I can see in the dimness is an unlit chandelier over an oval space. A sweeping staircase to the second floor. A slice of a dining room and living room off to my left. Tables around the edges of the foyer are dotted with sculptures made from bones. Birds. Dogs. Flowers. Teddy is sort of an abattoir Tick Tock Man. It’s good to see he has something to while away the long days and nights all by his lonesome.

  Teddy says, “I don’t usually have guests in the house.”

  “So I hear.”

  “What I mean is, it’s a bit rude of you to barge in, even if you are one of Amanda’s friends.”

  “I’m not Amanda’s friend. She’s way too low on the totem pole for that. This isn’t where I want to be today, so I really don’t care if you’re put out. I also don’t see any tributes or signs that you’re part of Amanda’s world. Where are the sacrificial virgins and inverted pentagrams?”

  I caught Teddy off guard. He laughs nervously and keeps his hand on the doorknob.

  “You won’t find any virgins around here, and as for tribute to Lord Lucifer, I keep those in my private rooms. They sometimes upset the few guests I have over.”

  “Any I can see?”

  “Nary a one.”

  “Nary? And you called me rude.”

  I walk around the room taking a closer look at the sculptures. They’re strange little things. Intricate and crude at the same time. I think some of the bones might be human.

  “Who maintains the grounds if you don’t have a staff?”

  “People come and go. I find if you keep any crew around too long, they get bored and the work gets sloppy. A steady flow of new faces coming through keeps everyone on their toes.”

  That’s the first thing he’s said that sounds like the rich asshole I was expecting. He doesn’t like me inside his castle. It’s more than me being rude. His heartbeat is up and his pupils are constricting under the strain of maintaining his calm.

  He says, “The truth is, I value my privacy more than I value a pristine lawn. Now, how can I help you, Mr. Macheath? Amanda said you were visiting temples around California and had some questions about my collection.”

  Good work, Amanda. Maybe I’ll keep your kid out of the fire after all.

  “I do. First off, what exactly is it?”

  “Ah, definitions. Always a good place to start. Most people who know about the estate say I—meaning the family—collect cemeteries. That is wrong. In fact, it’s backward. We collect ghosts. We’re a ghost sanctuary in much the same way that there are sanctuaries for wolves, tigers, and other endangered creatures. The cemeteries are the outward part of the work. Ghosts need someplace to live and most enjoy familiar places.”

  “They don’t haunt the house?”

  “A few try. I have a service for that. A team of Guatemalan witches comes by once a month and touches up the spirit barriers. They’ve been dealing with Mayan ghosts for five hundred years, so I think they know what they’re doing. I love my ghosts, but like the family cats, they’re outside, not inside friends.”

  “How many dead friends live here with you?”

  “I have no idea. Would you like a tour?”

  “Why not?”

  He looks relieved that he can finally get me back outside.

  We walk around the front of the house to where a pristine golf cart is parked in the shade. I slide in next to Teddy and we head out into the wilds of his estate. I’m wearing the same shirt I had on when Amanda was over. I hope it’s dark enough to keep light from glinting off the armor. I don’t want to have to explain it to Teddy. Though I shouldn’t have to explain anything to a guy who uses skeletons like model kits. It’s a funny hobby for someone who comes off so reverential when talking about the dead.

  “Amanda tells me you’re a high roller in the local temple. How’s that working out for you?”

  Teddy shakes his head.

  “Dear Amanda. She has all these fantasies about getting my little clan involved in the day-to-day drudgery of it all again.”

  He turns to me quickly.

  “I hope I’m not being offensive, you being from a temple yourself.”

  “No. God’s a drag. The Devil’s a bore. The only people worse are the ones who run the temples. They think everyone should be on their hands and knees scrubbing the floors right along with them.”

  “Well put,” says Teddy.

  I wonder how Deumos is doing. Has anyone murdered her yet? I don’t know how long it will take Buer to design and build her temple but I bet it won’t be fast. Merihim and his crew will sabotage the project. Someone might blow the whole thing up the day it opens. That’s all Hell needs. Another martyr. I wonder if Deumos is counting on her fairy goddess godmother to protect her. That’s not a bet I’d take but then I’m surprised she and her church have lasted this long. Maybe they’ve got some angels on their side that don’t have horns and tails.

  There’s a crowded subdivision of stone minimansions up ahead. A metal gate out front just says PARISH. Which parish it is fell off a long time ago. It’s an old New Orleans cemetery with its aboveground tombs hauled all the way up this hill like Fitzcarraldo hauled his boat.

  “So you didn’t spend your summers at Satan sleepaway camp burning Bibles and pissing on crucifixes?”

  Now that we’re on his turf, Teddy seems more relaxed. He takes out a black Sobranie cigarette, puts it in his mouth, then takes it out again without lighting it.
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br />   “I spent my summers here or with my father or grandfather scouting new haunted places in need of protecting. I’m polite to Amanda and her crowd but I haven’t been to one of their meetings in years. No one in the family has taken them all that seriously since Grandfather.”

  Teddy gestures toward graveyards in the distance, using the cigarette like a pointer.

  “He collected our first cemeteries around the same time he struck it rich in silver mining. He believed these two events were inextricably linked, so he saw it as his duty to create a haven for ghosts. He joined Lucifer’s temple because the political connections made it easier for him to shave the taxes on the silver income and to bring in foreign graves.”

  “A lot of ghosts seem to stay here. You don’t try to keep them earthbound?”

  Teddy shakes his head.

  “My charges stay or go as they please. Perhaps if God presented Himself more readily, they wouldn’t be so afraid of what awaited them when they finally crossed over.”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  Teddy’s unlit cigarette is driving me crazy. I still don’t have any Maledictions.

  “Mind if I have one of those?”

  “Not at all.”

  He holds out the pack to me. I take one, break off the filter, and toss it on his lawn. Teddy doesn’t flinch but he saw the butt fall and knows exactly where it is. He’ll be out here with tweezers and bleach later to clean up my mess.

  I light the cigarette with Mason’s lighter. Without the filter, the smoke is rough and rich, like a three-hundred-pound nurse giving me CPR.

  There are acres of land below us carved up and divided between several graveyards. It’s a whole housing development for the dead.

  “Speak of the Devil, to your right is a foreign sanctuary. A small one from the Cannes region of France.”

  It’s a pretty collection of stone monuments and phone-booth-size tombs filled with cats. Cats seem to love dead Frenchmen. I’ll have to ask Vidocq about that sometime.

  “Over here is our first import from Asia.”

  Miniature candy-colored pagodas and ornate stone barges fill a very old, very crowded Thai graveyard. Beyond it is a re-creation of an improvised Civil War graveyard, complete with crumbling wooden markers.

  “How the hell do you do all this?”

  Teddy beams, delighted that I’m impressed.

  “We keep a group of necromantic engineers on retainer. They survey the cemetery proper, caskets, tombs, and bodies. Whatever’s appropriate. Then chart the exact depth and position of each burial against the stars. The cemetery is then dismantled and rebuilt here, reproducing the original alignments down to the millimeter.”

  Teddy bats away a fly, the first I’ve seen here. Maybe an ungrateful jabber left a hole open nearby like an oversize groundhog.

  “If need be, we can transport native soil back with the disinterred remains.”

  What’s funny is that Teddy is as unimpressive as the estate is impressive. I’m even forgetting to treat him like shit. For all his eccentricity, Teddy is one of the beige people. They want to fade into the woodwork and disappear. It’s not depression. It’s more like a desperate desire to become invisible. He’s only tolerating me because he doesn’t want to piss off the other Devil freaks enough to shun him. Plus, it’s a chance to show off. If I sat next to him at the synod, I guarantee he wouldn’t have said a word to me all night. He’s cold oatmeal in thousand-dollar loafers. Dad and Granddad must have done some serious damage before leaving him alone on a hill with nothing but dead playmates.

  “Have you heard about the little girl?”

  He finally lights the damn cigarette and takes a puff.

  “Everyone’s heard about her. If you’re implying that she’s one of mine, she’s not. Like most ghosts, mine are completely nonaggressive.”

  “You’ve never had any trouble with any ghosts?”

  He shrugs. Turns the wheel and runs alongside a long stone burial mound.

  “They have their moods just like anyone but they don’t go around stabbing people.”

  I keep thinking about Amanda’s story about the Imp of Madrid. She’d be right at home here.

  “Pull over.”

  Teddy stops the cart under a towering stone angel.

  “I don’t buy any of what you’re selling, Teddy. This funfair for ghosts and they’re all tame little bunnies? I don’t believe it. You’re connected to the girl. I don’t know how but you are. And, you see, she went after Saint James.”

  “Who?”

  “Shut up. Coming after him means she came after me.”

  I take out the .45 and push it into his ribs.

  “Do you know what happens to people who try to kill me or mine?”

  Teddy has gone as white as his Rolls. He tries to swallow but chokes on his spit.

  “Please. I don’t know what you want. The girl isn’t one of mine.”

  I say, “Liar,” to double-check, but the moment has passed. I can read it in his heartbeat and his breath. The microtremors in his voice. The fucker is telling the truth. I keep the gun out anyway.

  “Who could do that? Summon and control a spirit that powerful?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someone from the temple. For all I know, it could be Amanda.”

  “Please. She can’t even keep her kid in line. What’s she going to do with a little Lizzie Borden?”

  “Please don’t shoot me.”

  “Are you sure? You can stay here forever with your drinking buddies.”

  “What can I say to make you believe me?”

  I lower the gun, resting it in my lap.

  “Nothing. You already have.”

  There’s no way the girl is one of his. At least if she is, he doesn’t know.

  If she isn’t connected to Osterberg, then I’m back to nothing and this whole trip has been pointless. Traven ought to appreciate that. At least one of us will be happy. I should shoot Teddy just for getting in the way of me getting King Cairo.

  “Let’s head back to the homestead, Teddy. All this fresh air is giving me hives.”

  On the way back, we pass what looks like a pretty ordinary cemetery. There’s only one thing wrong.

  “What’s the story with that patch of graves?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “American tombstones point east at the rising sun. Those face west. I think your necro-Teamsters blew the gig.”

  He shakes his head.

  “You have a good eye for someone so . . . excitable.”

  “I’m an asshole. I’m not blind.”

  “To answer your question, it’s an English Gnostic plot. They were contrarians to their very core, rejecting the reality of this world. When they died they were buried and marked in the wrong direction to display their disdain for this world for all time.”

  “You’d make a billion dollars on Jeopardy! if all the categories were ‘creepy facts about the dead.’ ”

  “Would you mind putting your gun away, Mr. Macheath? I think you can see that I’m no threat.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a nervous passenger and it’s kind of like my security blanket.”

  Teddy brings us back to the front of the house. He parks the cart back in the shade. Gets out and waits for me like an obedient kid.

  “I hope there’s no hard feelings, Ted. After the ghost went after Saint James, you understand I had to check you out.”

  “Of course. May I go now?”

  “Sure. Run along, you scamp.”

  He doesn’t move until I put the gun back in my waistband.

  “Thank you for stopping by.”

  “My pleasure.
See you around the afterlife.”

  Teddy heads for the house fast. He doesn’t run even though he wants to. Yeah, someone did a real number on him if he thanked me after what I put him through.

  I take it all back, everything I’ve ever said about the rich. I love the loud rich. I want the rich to be coked up, ugly, flashy, and decked in blood diamonds. Teddy’s kind of mousy Emily Dickinson rich is so much worse. Trying to hate Teddy is like trying to hate wallpaper paste. When I get home, I’m going to write a love letter to the loathsome rich letting them know how much I appreciate them. Their glorious excess gives me something substantial to despise and I love them for it.

  It takes twenty minutes to get down the hill. The sky is blue again when I climb on the bike but the clouds have turned a dull gray. I swear I can see rivets along their sides like they’re floating islands of steel.

  I’m about to kick-start the bike when my phone rings. Candy is as bad at patience as I am. But it’s not her.

  “Are you settling into your new home all right? Good water pressure? Is it clean under the bed? I hear the Chateau is close to all the hot spots.”

  It’s a different voice this time. A woman’s voice but I know who it really is. This isn’t going to stop.

  “You again. I know you’re speaking through a mortal. Why don’t you come over to the Chateau and we’ll talk things over like a couple of friendly, reasonable monsters?”

  “What would Alice say about you settling into Satan’s residence so quickly and easily? Good thing she went back to Heaven when she did. Who knows what would have happened to her if she’d stayed with you.”

  “Don’t talk about Alice, you Hellion puke. I know what you’re trying to do. You want me back down there.”

  “Can you see her now? Her pretty face on the wall with all the other dead you have to account for.”

  “You think you want me back but trust me, you don’t.”

  “Speaking of the dead, we’re knee-deep in them down here. No one thinks you’re coming back. Least of all me. Every burble and bubble in every sinkhole sounds like doom to the rabble.”