The Devil You Know

by Richard Levesque

  * * * * * * * *

  As soon as she was home, she phoned Tom to give him the news. When he didn’t answer, she tried again. By the time she dialed his number a third time, she was beginning to worry that he might have slipped into one of his episodes, so she was relieved when he picked up the phone on the second ring. He had been out working on Jasper’s old Dodge, he explained. “Not only does the old thing start, but it actually keeps running now,” he said with pride. “Gramps wouldn’t have believed it.”

  “I’m sure he’s looking down and smiling,” she said.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Tom,” she said after a moment’s pause. “Do you want to go out tonight? I mean, really out?”

  “An actual date?”

  She felt herself blush. “I’m sorry to be so forward. It’s just that, well, it looks like tomorrow everything’s going to start. I’d like a night to forget about it.”

  They agreed that she would come by to pick him up at 7:30. In the meantime, she had more to do. The next thing was to phone Colin Krebs.

  “I can’t talk to you,” he said when he heard who it was. He spoke slowly, as though he had to work to get his tongue around each word.

  “You have to, Colin. They have to be stopped, and I can’t do it without your help.”

  “Not on the phone!” he hissed.

  “I’ll come to you then.”

  “No! Not here. I’ll come to you,” he slurred.

  “Colin, are you drunk?”

  He let out a brief, sardonic chuckle before stifling it.

  “You shouldn’t drive.”

  “I can get a cab.”

  Reluctantly, she agreed.

  “You can meet me at the Chateau Marmont in an hour,” he said.

  “The Chateau Marmont?” she said with surprise.

  “I’ll be in Bungalow 3.” The receiver clicked.

  Holding the receiver in the middle of her kitchen, Marie stood and listened to her refrigerator hum for a moment before she hung up. Her cat was perched on the edge of the kitchen table, looking expectantly at her. She petted him around the ears for a moment and then said, “This is crazy, Murphy.” The cat purred contentedly.

  * * * * * * * *

  Parking her eight year old Chevrolet near all the Packards, Cords, and Rolls Royces behind the high white walls of the Chateau Marmont made Marie feel more like a fish out of water than had either of her trips to Julian Piedmont’s mansion. Though she had driven past the hotel countless times over the years, she had never had a reason to stop here or even think about what went on inside its walls. And while the touristy attractions in the heart of Hollywood had always struck her as commonplace areas to avoid, the Chateau Marmont exuded the elegance that the rest of Hollywood only aspired to.

  Nervously expecting someone to ask her what she was doing here, she left her car and began looking for Bungalow 3 amid the fern and palm bordered paths that spread out behind the main hotel building. After a few minutes, she saw a small cottage with the number 3 on its door, and she walked up the path to it. Around one side of it, she could glimpse a small private patio in front of immense glass doors. The curtains were drawn, and for a moment, she wondered if this could be another trap. After getting away from Laura Tremaine and her demon, Marie had promised herself that she would never be so easily taken in again; she froze in place as she imagined Colin having sold her out to Julian Piedmont and the two of them conspiring to get her here, alone and without any defenses. It could be a drunken Colin Krebs on the other side of the door, she told herself, or it could just as easily be some of Julian’s other followers—ones who were more adept and more dangerous—if not one of the incubi themselves. Adrenaline flowing, she told herself that Colin was still too fearful of the cost to his own soul for him to betray her to Julian, and so she knocked on the door, ready to run if she felt any sign of danger.

  “Who is it?” Colin called from inside.

  “It’s Marie,” she said, trying not to be too loud. It was eleven o’clock in the morning and some of the hotel staff still moved among the bungalows.

  Colin didn’t answer her, but opened the door with a click. Marie assumed it was Colin, at least. From where she stood, the bungalow’s interior was darkened, and she could not see anyone waiting for her inside.

  “Colin?” she asked tentatively.

  “Yes, of course,” came the voice from the other side of the door. It was clear that he did not want anyone to see him letting her in. “Hurry up, for heaven’s sake!”

  Looking quickly around to see if anyone might be lingering on the pathways outside, she took a deep breath and walked through the door. Colin quickly closed it behind her, and she found herself barely able to see.

  “Turn on the light,” she demanded, her body tense and ready to spring.

  Seconds later, a click started a small lamp burning, and she looked around to see Colin Krebs standing beside an elegant sofa. Her eyes adjusted, and she saw that they were in a beautifully appointed room with a full kitchen just behind Colin and other rooms branching off. All the curtains were drawn, including those that must have opened onto the patio Marie had seen from outside.

  “You don’t…live here, do you?” she asked after a moment of listening carefully for any sign that they were not alone. The longer she stayed in the room, the more sure she was that Colin had not brought her here as part of a trap. Regardless, she remained as vigilant as she could while trying not to appear suspicious or jumpy.

  Colin shook his head. “Julian keeps it. He lived here on and off before his father died. Gave me the keys.” He jingled the keys he kept in his pants pocket. Then, sharply, he added, “What do you want?” He still sounded drunk, and Marie saw a half full glass on an end table next to the sofa and a bottle of vodka beside it.

  “Information.”

  “I’ve told you all I can.” He sounded desperate, the way she would have imagined a hunted man to sound just short of being caught.

  “I’m going to stop them, Colin. With or without your help.”

  “I doubt it. They’ve gotten too strong.”

  “I think I know how to stop them regardless.” She swallowed hard and licked her lips nervously. “Tell me how I can find them.”

  “Can’t.”

  “You have to, Colin. Do you want more victims on your conscience? On your soul?”

  “Marie, I can’t. Julian—”

  “Will never know,” she said firmly. “There are still only five of them, right? You haven’t made any more?”

  Her question seemed to make him crumble, and he winced as though she had struck him. “He wants me to,” he said. “He says things are going to change. I think he’s been talking with someone outside our circle. He’s acting strangely.”

  “How?” Marie asked.

  “It’s hard to explain. Julian’s so…confident all the time. But now I get the feeling he’s not in control anymore. Says we’ll need more bodies soon and that it’s going to be glorious. He’s not well. He raves now. And the house. You wouldn’t recognize it. All the servants gone. He’s not paying attention to business. Rumor has it he’s put the whole studio up for sale.” He paused and reached down for the vodka. After taking a big drink, he sighed and wiped his mouth, then said, “It scares the life out of me just to be around him.”

  “But you still go?”

  “Yes. For now. Father Joe says I should leave.” He shook his head. “But I think Julian needs me now more than ever.”

  “Have you talked to Father Joe recently?” she asked. When Colin shook his head, she said, “And you haven’t told Julian anything about me?”

  “No,” he said weakly.

  Marie could easily imagine Colin crumbling under Julian’s scrutiny and telling him about her interest in the incubi. That was the last thing she wanted. After Jasper’s death, it had puzzled her that none of Piedmont’s cronies had harassed her as well. If they had followed her from Piedmont’s mansion and discovered that Jasper was no San Fr
ancisco book dealer, they could just as easily have followed her home after she’d left Jasper’s. But if they had, they had not seen fit to bother her, perhaps realizing that she was just a church secretary who could have no real interest in books on the occult. Now, though, if Colin did anything at all to suggest to Julian that she was also asking about the incubi, she could count on getting far worse treatment than poor Jasper had received.

  “I don’t think you should go back at all,” she said. “Take Father Joe’s advice. Get on the train for San Francisco. Leave tonight if you can. Find a church up there and go pray in it. The farther you get from Julian Piedmont and the things that go on in that house, the better you’ll feel, Colin. I’m sure of it.”

  He remained silent for several seconds before finally muttering, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I’m sure of it. You’ll see.” She took a breath and continued, trying hard not to let anything in her tone strike the least bit of alarm in Colin. “And in the meantime, if you’ll let me know where the incubi go to meet women, then I’ll do my best to get in their way. The women need a warning is all. That’s all I want, Colin. Just to help more women from ending up like my friend.”

  Again, he remained silent for several seconds. “All right,” he finally said. “They go different places every day, and at different times of day. Not always the same. But you can usually find them at Schwab’s drugstore, Grauman’s Chinese, Musso and Frank’s, or…or the Brown Derby. Sometimes they just hang around the corner at Sunset and Vine. Those are the places they start at. Then they start prowling the streets. I’ve watched them from my car. It never takes them long.”

  “And they still look the same as when I saw them at Julian’s?”

  “Mostly. They change a little every day.” He sounded frightened just thinking about them. “It’s hard to say how. They look…a little more…real, I guess.”

  Marie thought about what Jasper had read to her from the Chinese demonology book about the incubi getting stronger with each victim. Colin must be seeing the effects of this, she told herself.

  “Okay,” she said. “But they still look like movie stars, right? Gable, Cagney,…Cary Grant?”

  “And Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. Yeah, those are the ones,” he said with resignation. Then he laughed. “Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

  “It’s far worse than that, I’d say. But this helps. Thank you. Now look at train schedules, okay?”

  “I may.” He paused, then said, “Marie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you pray for me?”

  She hesitated a moment and then said, “I will, Colin. I will. But save yourself now, while you still you can.”

  Without waiting to say goodbye, she turned and opened the door, the bright sunlight outside blinding her for a moment, and making her feel completely vulnerable again. After a few seconds, her eyes adjusted and she retraced her steps through the lush grounds in the shadow of the big hotel. Leaving the bungalow behind her, she felt not at all guilty for having deceived Colin into giving up his secrets. She did, however, feel just a bit of guilt for the other lie she had told. She had no intention of praying for him.

  * * * * * * * *

  After pulling out of the parking lot and onto Sunset Boulevard, Marie drove a few blocks and then pulled over to the curb, letting the car idle for a few minutes while she took deep breaths and tried to collect herself. Then she took her wallet out of her purse and counted her money. It was time to go shopping.

  She had decided that she needed three complete outfits for what was to come, and that they should be significantly different from what she normally wore. She bought shoes and stockings, skirts and blouses, as well as hats and a new pair of sunglasses; visits to the make-up and perfume counters convinced her to make more purchases. She even went so far as to get new underwear, though she hoped no one would ever have the chance to see it.

  At home, she tried everything on again, looking at herself in her bedroom mirror, even standing on her bed to see how her legs looked in the reflection. Murphy watched the fashion show with some disdain until he began to make Marie nervous and she shooed him out of her room. When she was finished, she hung most of the new clothes in her closet and then slipped into the one dress she had bought. It was blue and shimmery and had a slit up the leg that made her feel rather daring. It made her think of Elise and the way they had dressed up to go to the party at Julian’s, but she tried to put the thought out of her mind. With her hair pulled back on one side and held with a tortoise shell comb, she put on the same lipstick and powder she always used. And before leaving her room she gave herself one spray of perfume from the atomizer she had purchased earlier. Then she left to meet Tom for dinner.

  Other than quick meals in burger joints, they had never eaten together outside of Jasper’s quaint dining room. With the Brown Derby and Musso and Frank’s both seeming like poor choices after Marie recounted her conversation with Colin, Tom suggested the Coconut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel. Marie had never been there and gladly agreed. Although it was a weeknight and they had arrived before seven, the club was still already crowded. Even so, they were able to get a table quickly and one not far from the dance floor while the band played “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief.” Couples on their way to dance passed their little table near one of the dozens of fake palm trees that were part of the room’s tropical motif.

  As long as she stayed focused on Tom, Marie felt fine—happy to be here with him, warmed by his smile and the feeling of his hand holding hers across the white tablecloth. After a while, though, thoughts of what she would be doing tomorrow carried her out of the room and away from the music, and she began to feel sad and apprehensive. The palm trees no longer seemed quaint but merely fake, and she thought of the dancers on the crowded floor as Julian Piedmont’s people, the type who went to his parties and worried about whom they were seen by and with. As she sipped her wine and smoked a cigarette after their meal, she shuddered as she watched people dancing to a Kay Kyser song. In the dim light it was easy to imagine them not as beautiful and well dressed, but rather as victims of Julian’s cadre of incubi, their faces drawn, their skin pale, their eyes dull and their jaws slack.

  When Tom squeezed her hand and said, “I think I’ve lost you,” she jumped in her seat and focused on him again. His smile was broad and sincere, and she smiled back without thinking about it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hard not to think about what’s to come.”

  Tom nodded his understanding. “You want to go somewhere we can talk?”

  She shook her head. “It’s fine.” She raised her glass to him and drained it. “I need a little fun tonight.”

  “You want to dance?”

  She smiled at him, not wanting to say what she had just been imagining about the dancers. “I don’t think so. Not right now anyway. More wine?”

  They had ordered a bottle, and Tom poured from it. Marie forced herself to focus on him, and before long she began to feel better again, eventually agreeing to dance. Once they were on the floor, and she felt his hand on the small of her back, everything felt natural. Tom led more gracefully than she had imagined he would, moving her across the dance floor with ease.

  She leaned in and said, “I get the feeling you’ve done this before.”

  With a warm smile, he said, “There were a lot of dances in England.” Then he added, “Before D-day.”

  She returned his smile, not sure of what to say.

  He held her tighter and said, “Not many dances after that.”

  Looking into his eyes, she felt like they belonged here—at this place and in this moment. And the other dancers against whom she brushed were just like her and Tom, people out for a good time and a chance to forget their troubles in a town where everything looked beautiful but sometimes wasn’t.

  At one point, there was commotion on the other side of the room; dancers and diners stopped what they were doing and moved hurriedly among the tables, all craning their ne
cks and looking in the same direction. The smiles on many of their faces told Marie there was nothing to be alarmed about, and a few seconds later she saw the source of the people’s excitement: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall had just walked into the club and taken a seat beneath one of the palm trees.

  Marie shook her head and smiled ironically as she and Tom went back to their table.

  “You find it funny?” he asked.

  “Amusing,” she said. “It never ceases to amaze.”

  “The hero worship?” He pulled her chair out for her, and they sat down.

  She nodded. “It’s like religion here,” she said. “But I guess it all makes sense in a sad sort of way.”

  “How so?”

  She shrugged. “You spend your Saturday afternoons in dark theaters in Laramie or Des Moines and you watch those faces up on the screen. And then you come here and see the real thing, and it’s almost a spiritual experience.”

  “And you’re immune?” Tom asked. She saw that he smiled at her as though he was trying to figure her out.

  She shrugged and smiled back. “The movie stars just never meant that much to me.”

  “You’re like the kid who grows up in the candy shop and doesn’t see the appeal of chocolate.”

  She laughed. “I guess. To me, a movie premiere just means the streets are going to be closed and I’ll have to find another way to get to the market for cat food. All the people who moved here from Iowa spill off of Hollywood or Sunset and down into the neighborhoods, craning their necks for a peek at Bob Hope and Bing Crosby just so they can write the folks back home and show ‘em that it’s all true.” She drained her glass, and Tom poured more wine for both of them as she continued. “You really do rub elbows with the stars out here. And meanwhile the Julian Piedmonts of the world are turning the rest into…zombies or something.” Thoughtful, she ran her finger around the rim of her glass and then looked in the direction where the commotion had been. “You know, Piedmont was really a genius when he chose those faces for his monsters to hide behind.”