Costume Not Included

by Matthew Hughes

  "Even when you're framing people who actually did the thing you're framing them for?" she said.

  "Xaphan's right," said Chesney. "When I got into crimefighting, I always intended that anybody I caught I would turn over to the police and let the law take it from there. I'm not going to be a vigilante."

  "But this time," Melda said, "the police are working for the bad guys. That was the chief of police digging the grave." A thought occurred and she turned to Xaphan. "Who was the other guy with the shovel?"

  "Patrick Tooley. He was Hoople's old partner when he was a working cop."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Also in the smoke," said the fiend, accompanying the sentence with a puff of pure blue Havana that resolved itself into a scene of a bent-backed figure shoveling something indistinct. "Shit brigade."

  "What happened to him?" Melda said.

  Xaphan shrugged. "Like old Alphonse used to say, he developed a bad case of inconvenience. In fact, it was fatal."

  "Inconvenient to whom?"

  The demon blew another cloud of cigar smoke. This one looked just like J. Edgar Hoople.

  The demon gestured with the cigar and a screen appeared in the air. "And, fore you ask, here's Turk Borghese." A street scene came to life: a heavy-set man in slacks, a polo shirt and sports jacket coming out of a drugstore, pausing to light a cigarette. A Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the curb, its stereo blasting rap, and the driver said something to the man who laughed in response then went around the front of the SUV and climbed into the passenger seat.

  The vehicle pulled away, and Xaphan's screen tracked it, the point of view swinging around to look through the passenger window just in time to see a hand holding a small-caliber pistol come from the back seat and press the muzzle against the back of Turk Borghese's head. The double crack! of two shots was almost inaudible over the stereo.

  "When did that happen?" Chesney said.

  "That's right now," Xaphan said.

  "Who's behind it? Tresidder?"

  The demon blew smoke. "Can't tell you. Rule number one. What I can tell you is, the Twenty are tidyin' up the loose ends, now that your flatfooted friend is stirrin' up trouble."

  "So Denby does need our help," Chesney said.

  "Yeah, but not to get a conviction," said the fiend, "just to get out of this alive."

  "Does he know that?"

  Xaphan waved at the screen. "I think he's got a pretty good idea." The image changed. Chesney saw an office, with Hoople seated behind a big desk and Denby leaning against the wall. The chief's hand was in an open drawer. The demon had framed the scene from an angle that allowed them to see the old-fashioned .38 Police Special around which Hoople's fingers were curling.

  "He'll never get away with it," Melda said.

  "He's the chief of police," said Xaphan, "and he got away with it before."

  Chesney saw it all in a pool of light. "Costume," he said. "Strength of ten." A second later, as he tugged a glove tighter on his hand, he said to Melda, "We'll be right back."

  Then he disappeared. But the screen stayed where it was, and in a moment the young woman saw the Actionary appear in the chief's office, saw him place his hand on the older man's shoulder and say, "You're coming with me." An instant later, they both winked out of sight, leaving Denby staring at the old-fashioned .38 caliber police special that fell from the air, from just the height the chief's hand had been at when the Actionary yanked him to his feet.

  Chesney didn't take Hoople to the warm, cozy room with thick stone walls to keep out the biting cold and bitter winds of Hell's outer circle. He had Xaphan put them down out in the open. The chief's uniform was no match for the temperature. He hugged his arms around his shivering torso. Two tiny crusts of ice were already forming on his eyelashes.

  The demon was at hand but out of the policeman's sight. Chesney said to him, "Give me a Wizard of Oz kind of voice. Not the little man behind the curtain but the full roar."

  "You got it."

  The chief flinched as Chesney seized the back of his collar and lifted him well off his feet. "Take a good look around," he said. "Anything happens to Denby, you end up here."

  "Where are we?" The man's teeth chattered.

  Chesney put him down. "A bad place. How do you like it?"

  "Don't."

  "Worse than jail?"

  "Worse."

  "Leave him alone?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we're done."

  A moment later, they were back in the chief's office. The gun was still falling to the floor. Chesney picked it up and put it back in the drawer, closed it. Hoople was still shivering.

  "What'd you do to him?" Denby said.

  "Showed him his future," Chesney said. "Speaking of that," he tapped Hoople's shoulder, "are you listening?"

  "Y-y-es." Hoople had to be listening. Chesney was still using the Wizard of Oz voice. The young man spoke privately to Xaphan and his normal voice reasserted itself.

  "Here's how it is," Chesney said. He was in a pool of light. "We know you helped bury Cathy Bannister. We know who was in on it with you. But there's not enough evidence to go to court. Am I right, captain?"

  Denby shrugged. "Yeah," he said.

  "So you don't have to worry about that. Now, what you're going to do is promote Captain Denby again. Give him a medal or something."

  "Wait a minute," Denby said.

  "No," Chesney said, "I got this." He turned back to Hoople. "Then a month goes by and you retire as chief of police. You go somewhere and we never hear from you again. But before you go, you nominate Denby to be your successor."

  "Hey!" Denby and Hoople both spoke at the same time.

  Chesney's pool of light was still very clear and bright. "No arguments," he said. "I want a police chief I can work with. You," he addressed himself to Denby, "want to be the best cop you can be." He turned to Hoople. "And you want to keep warm."

  The chief shivered again. He thought about it, but not for long. "Okay, but I might not be the only problem you've got with this," he said.

  "You mean the Twenty?" Chesney said. "That's why I want Denby in your job. We're going to bust them wide open."

  The captain's eyebrows drew together, then went up. "You've been planning this?" he said.

  "More of an inspiration," Chesney said.

  Denby turned to Hoople. "I know you got files – who did what and when. Make sure you leave them for me."

  The chief lifted his hands in a gesture that was both surrender and the action of a man gladly letting go of a hot potato. "You want to be crazy, I'm not stopping you."

  "He's right, you know," the captain said to Chesney. "Those old bulls won't go without a fight."

  Chesney summoned his inner Malc Turner. He blew air over his lower lip. "They won't know what hit them."

  Janet Morrissey and her camera operator touched down at a private airfield too late to make it to Hardacre's broadcast center. But Hall Bruster had already sent a man to watch for their exit and he was now following the reverend's Mercedes. It was clearly heading back to the mansion and the watcher reported in every five minutes.

  When the producer stepped onto the tarmac, she found a light helicopter with its rotors already turning. Twenty minutes later, the copter put down in a field less than two hundred yards from Hardacre's front gate. By the time the preacher and prophet arrived, Morrissey and her cameraman were blocking the entrance.

  "No comment!" Hardacre shouted through the one inch he rolled down his window.

  "We work for Hall Bruster," said the woman. "Got a few questions we'd like to ask your friend here."

  "Get lost!" Hardacre said, before he noticed that Joshua had opened the passenger door and was standing outside the car, looking over its roof at the producer. The camera operator was dodging around the front of the car to get a better shot of him.

  "Yes?" Joshua said.

  Hardacre was getting out of the car, but the producer had already left his window and hurried around to where th
e story was. "You're Joshua Josephson?" she said.

  "I am."

  She looked at her Blackberry. "The Joshua Josephson? AKA Jesus Christ?"

  "I don't know what AKA means."

  "'Also known as.'"

  "That's a complicated issue," Joshua said. "I am, or rather, I was. But I'm also… not."

  "But you are Jesus of Nazareth, the son of the carpenter?"

  Joshua shook his head. "My father raised sheep. He had a local reputation as a good builder, though. If someone was putting up a house or a shed, they would ask his advice. So he had this nickname, Tekton – it means the builder. You see, there were a lot of people with the same name so nicknames were how we told each other apart."

  The producer was favoring him with the kind of smile she was accustomed to give to her sister's youngest child, who was officially designated as "special." She said, "But you lived two thousand years ago, were crucified and rose from the dead?"

  "Oh, yes," said the prophet, "that was me."

  "Well, there's someone here who'd like to talk to you." She held out the Blackberry.

  "Is that one of those telephone things?" Joshua said. "I haven't used one yet." He reached for the instrument.

  Hardacre thrust himself between the prophet and the producer. "Don't!" he said. "She's not here to help you!"

  But the woman stretched her arm over Hardacre's shoulder and passed Joshua the Blackberry. His fingers touched hers as he took the phone and he said, "Do you know you've been in contact with demonic forces?"

  "I'm sure you're right," she said, giving him another of her smiles for "special" people.

  Hardacre was reaching for the phone, but Joshua turned his shoulder and said, "Can you hear me?"

  "Very clearly," said Hall Bruster. "Is this the prophet?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd like to talk to you."

  "Go ahead."

  "What I'd really like," said the pundit, "is for you to come and visit me so that we can talk face to face."

  "Ah," said Joshua. "Are you by any chance connected with the government?"

  "Do you have a problem with the government?" said Bruster.

  "I did, the last time I had to deal with one."

  Bruster chuckled. "Of course. No, I have some friends in government, but I myself have no official power."

  "Joshua!" Hardacre said. The woman and the man with the camera had put themselves between him and the prophet. "Don't listen to him! He's not your friend!"

  The bearded man looked over at him and said, "I never confined myself to talking only to friends." Into the phone he said, "Where are you? How do I come to you?"

  "The people I sent will bring you to me. Just tell them you want to come."

  "All right," said the prophet. He handed the phone back to the woman. "He says you will take me to him."

  "No problem. We have a helicopter right over there, and a private jet standing by."

  "Some of those words don't mean anything to me," said the prophet, "but I'm sure I'll catch on."

  Hardacre had pushed through the two who had been blocking his way. He took hold of Joshua's arm and said, "This is a mistake."

  A smile split the black beard. "That's just what Judas said." He patted Billy Lee's arm. "It will all work out." To the woman, he said, "Will you bring me back here again?"

  She consulted with Bruster over the phone, said, "Yes, right afterwards, if that's what you want. Or anywhere else you want."

  "Then let's go."

  Settling the future of Captain Denby raised a tide of confidence in Chesney. Never before had a pool of light seemed so large and so clear. When he returned to the apartment and doffed the Actionary costume, he felt more energized than he could remember on any Sunday afternoon. His betrothed recognized the change in him and suggested they skip lunch and put his newfound energy to immediate and mutually beneficial use. He dismissed the demon and they were just on the brink of being full engaged when the phone beside the bed rang. The caller ID said it was from Billy Lee's Hardacre's place.

  Chesney exercised his newly confident judgment by reaching down and pulling the phone jack from the wall, then returned to his other most favorite pool of light. An hour later, he and Melda were basking in its afterglow when she remembered the phone call. She sprawled over the side of the bed, presenting him with a view that at once began to re-elevate his inclination, and plugged the jack back into the wall socket. Immediately, the phone rang. She hauled herself back onto the bed, glanced at the ID, and answered.

  Chesney could hear his mother's voice clearly from across the bed, aided by the fact that Melda did not hold the instrument to her ear. "What is it?" he said.

  The young woman made a face. "Hardacre," she said. "I think he's drunk." Chesney heard a crash followed by a tinkle. "And throwing things."

  "I'd better talk to her," he said. A moment later, his mother's voice was loud in his ear, the sounds of the reverend's tantrum even louder in the background.

  "It's all your fault," she told him, "bringing that horrible little man here and passing him off as our Lord and Savior!"

  "He is who he is, Mother," Chesney said, which he realized at once was not the right kind of remark to be making to his mother when she was in full fulmination. Melda had told him on a number of occasions that most people dealt not in facts but in emotion. Especially in times of stress. He decided to use the same mother-handling strategy that had served him well in his youth: he sat in silence, holding the phone a distance from his ear, only half listening; he knew that she would eventually run all the way across the land of rage and settle over the border in her more accustomed territory of bitter disappointment.

  But then he heard something that caused him concern. He brought the phone back to his lips and said, "He went where?"

  "I don't know," Letitia said. "They sent a helicopter and a jet."

  "Who did?"

  "You haven't been listening, have you? You never listen! I can't count the number of times–"

  A crash and an inarticulate bellow broke her train of denunciation and Chesney used the break to say, "I've got to go." He hung up, said, "Xa–" and was mindful enough of the circumstances to warn Melda that he was going to summon the demon.

  She pulled the sheet around herself and said, "Aw, he can probably see through brick walls if he wants to, but thanks for the thought." She leaned over and kissed him. "You're getting better."

  A moment later, the demon appeared on command, rum glass in its hand and cigar in its saber-fanged mouth. "What?"

  "Joshua," Chesney said, "where is he and who's he with?"

  "You wanna stay away from that mug," Xaphan said. "He's trouble, and that's straight from the horse's mouth."

  "I didn't ask for an opinion. Now–" Chesney checked himself. "Wait a minute. When he asked you if he'd ever cast you out, you said no."

  The fiend shrugged. "No need to make a federal case out of it."

  "That was a lie, wasn't it? And you're not supposed to lie."

  The fiend took on the look of an indignant weasel, gesturing with the Churchill. "To you," he said. "Just you. You don't mind me lying to Denby about you bein' a time traveler, do you?"

  "Never mind," said the young man, "just tell me now about you and Josh."

  "Awright, awright!" Xaphan shot its cuffs, drank half the rum and got the Havana well stoked. Then it said, "Back in those days, I was in the possession racket, see? Some guy would slip up on his prayers and sacrifices, we'd move in, take the place over, have some laughs.

  "So, we're workin' this one guy, got him dancin' around on the road, lotsa roarin and blasphemin', and along comes this bird with a bunch of mugs followin' him, and they're all sayin', 'Ooh, look, here comes a prophet!' Didn't look like much to me, I'll tell you, so me and the boys, we gave him the business, the old horse laugh."

  The fiend paused to reload on rum and nicotine. Melda was listening closely, the sheet tucked tightly around her. "So then what?" she said.

  "So then he
points the finger and, wham! I'm outta the bozo – so are the rest of the boys – and next thing I know we're stuck in a bunch of pigs! And when I say stuck, I mean stuck! He'd not only cast us out, he'd jammed us in tight!

  "So we're all jumpin' around, tryin' to get loose, and the crowd starts throwin' stones. So the pigs run, and we go right over a cliff into the sea! There's no way to get outta the water, so the pigs drown!"