Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight

by Randall Boyll

  Irene appeared out of nowhere in time to witness this. She aimed her eyes at Jeryline. “Didn’t I tell you to put the cat out? Didn’t I?”

  Jeryline snapped right back at her: “I did. I don’t know how she keeps getting back in. Besides, she’s your stupid cat, not mine.”

  “Just get her out of here.” Irene turned to Brayker and attached a smile to her mouth. “No harm done, Mr. Brayker? I’m sorry about the cat.”

  He set the chair back on its feet and sat down. His hands were visibly shaking. Jeryline wondered why. Allergic to cats? Or just afraid of his own shadow?

  The doorbell chimed and Brayker leapt to his feet again, shoving his hand into his pocket where, no doubt, a small pistol was housed. Irene eyed him momentarily, then went to the door. It burst open before she could touch it. Wind and fog marched in along with a man wearing a yellow rain slicker. He had a wet paper bag in one hand with the top of a bottle sticking up. “She here?” he brayed. “Still up?”

  Cordelia grinned. “Roach?” She jumped up from the couch and scurried to the door. “Roachie!” she wailed, and dumped herself into his arms. “You kept me waiting,” she chided him after a couple of soupy kisses.

  He handed the bag to her. “The meter ain’t running already, is it? Asides, this champagne ought to make it up.”

  She winked at him and pulled the bottle out. Jeryline smirked. A four-dollar bottle of off-brand rotgut. Cordelia unscrewed the top and sniffed. “I get all bubbly,” she twittered.

  “That’s just how I like you,” Roach said, and kissed her again. “Anyhows, the reason I’m late is a’cause somebody tried stealing Homer’s Bronco down at the cafe.”

  Cordelia frowned, capping the bottle. “That old pile of shit?”

  “Right from the parking lot. The sheriff is there right now, swear to God.”

  “Mercy.” Jeryline saw Cordelia’s eyes shift over to Brayker and back. He had recovered and was going at supper again with his eyes cast down, watching nothing. Cordelia twitched her eyebrows at Roach and nodded slightly.

  “Oh,” Roach said softly. He took her hand and urged her toward the stairway. “Let’s get us some privacy.”

  Wally Enfield trudged in from the basement door toting a basket of folded sheets. He opened his mouth to say something to Cordelia, then saw that she was headed to the stairway with Roach. His face fell so fast Jeryline was afraid it might drop to the floor. Oh, the scourge of unrequited love.

  “Well, come on, Wally,” Cordelia said, motioning to him. “Get those sheets on the bed like a dear boy.”

  Wally uttered a great sigh and followed them up. Only a moment later Roach came down alone. “Hey, Irene?” he said, doing funny things with his eyes. “I gots to make a phone call.”

  “Phone’s behind the desk,” she said.

  “Not that one. This is personal business.”

  Irene snorted. “As if walking up the stairs with the town hooker ain’t personal?”

  Roach gritted his teeth and rolled his eyes.

  “All right, use the one in the office.”

  “Swell.” He headed away.

  “Just don’t go getting it all smelled up with your booze breath,” she called after him, and plopped down on the sofa beside Jeryline. “Ever notice,” she said conversationally, “that everybody who meets the fugitive winds up helping him hide out?”

  Jeryline looked again to Brayker. Hunched and silent, he seemed oblivious to everything but his Jeryline Special. He was, she knew now with fair certainty, a fugitive himself. But it would be a cold day in hell before she ever helped him more than to just drive him to the city limits, say goodbye, and boot his rude ass out of the car.

  5

  It was only ten minutes later that the doorbell chimed again. In the kitchen, on her knees, wearing a pair of orange rubber gloves with her hair falling across her eyes, Jeryline was performing step one of the oven-cleaning task Irene had demanded earlier. She had hauled the racks out and hosed down the insides of the old Kenmore four-burner with oven cleaner, which smelled, she supposed, no different than the goop at the bottom of a toxic waste dump. Now, with the fumes making her blink and squint, she was scraping off the hideous yellow foam with a broad putty knife. Fun? She was ecstatic.

  The Mission Inn’s doorbell donged out a bit of clangy Beethoven music. Glad for any diversion, Jeryline used it as an excuse to leave the kitchen, as well as to give her lungs a reprieve from the chemical mix that was frying them. Irene was at the door already, and standing out under the awning with their clothes getting whipped into crazy shapes by the wind were County Sheriff Tupper, a deputy she did not know, and a cowboy wearing an ankle-length yellow duster that flapped in the storm.

  Irene ushered them in and pressed the door shut. Brayker was already on his feet with his hand in his pocket. It was then that Jeryline got the whole picture: Roach had called the cops, for this Brayker man was the would-be car thief. It softened her opinion of him somewhat; she wasn’t the only one here with a record. She stepped closer to the table to pick up the bowl and glass before a fight could break out, because if Brayker was anything like herself, he would not be taken easily. Sheriff Tupper said his hi’s and howdy’s to Irene and Uncle Willie and little Wally, included Jeryline at the end, and wiped the congenial smile off his pudgy face. He frowned and looked at the ceiling. So did everyone else. Overhead, Cordelia’s bed was bouncing and squeaking at a steady pace, interspersed by an occasional, breathy moan.

  “Sounds like Cordelia’s hard at work,” he grunted.

  The cowboy took off his big hat and dropped it on the empty flowerpot by the door. His face was hard and wooden as he locked eyes with Brayker. In his eyes Jeryline saw contempt and hatred that had probably festered there for a long, long time. Brayker matched his stare, but a tinge of uncertainty colored his expression. She guessed a federal marshall and a big-time crook.

  “Would you be Mr. Brayker?” Tupper asked, hooking his thumbs under his Sam Browne belt.

  The cowboy nodded. “He would most definitely be Mr. Brayker.”

  Brayker whipped his hand out of his jacket. Something clicked metallically. Presto, he had an open butterfly knife in his hand, and another presto, he had jumped at Jeryline and hooked an arm around her neck. God he moves fast, she thought dazedly, and felt the tip of his knife press against the soft area under her chin. The bowl and glass fell from her hands and shattered on the floor like two small bombs. Irene let out a shriek and backed into a corner with her fists mashed against her mouth.

  “No guns or she dies,” he barked in Jeryline’s ear. “Get them out of your belts. Now!”

  “Now you looky here,” Tupper said calmly, “nobody needs to be doing any shooting. Brayker, let Jeryline go and it won’t be mentioned anymore. You’re in enough trouble already, if what we’ve heard is true.”

  “No way,” Brayker said. He was sweating and shaking as he gripped Jeryline tighter. He had, she noticed, a mild case of BO. And no wonder, wearing dirty clothes around. He lowered the knife enough to press it hard against her throat. “Drop those guns or I kill her. Simple as that.”

  The cowboy stepped forward. “Sheriff, this man does not have the guts to kill anyone.”

  “Hold it!” Tupper shouted at him. “I’m the negotiator here!”

  “But there are no negotiations needed, can’t you understand? I can simply walk up and take the knife from him.”

  “Freeze, Mister! Nobody said you had any authority here. And leaving the scene of an accident is a breech of the law in this state, so both of you have things to worry about.”

  The Salesman groaned aloud. He stepped back. “Fine, good, whatever. Do your duty. I just want my merchandise back.”

  Tupper turned his attention back to Brayker. Jeryline was aware of a strange sense of calm, or perhaps a sense of doom, wafting through her mind. Life had kicked her around a lot, and to die with her throat cut would be a fine capper for a miserable, hopeless existence. She had, for a while as a teena
ger, dabbled around with the idea of reincarnation, of dying and being born again as someone else. But with her luck, she had decided long ago, she would come back as her own unlucky self and have to wind up in prison again. Imagine that, endlessly repeating your own life. That would be a real, eternal, and inescapable Hell.

  “Now, Mr. Brayker,” Tupper said evenly, “I want you to put the knife down. There is no need to spill blood over an attempted theft of a beat-up old Bronco. Do as I say, and let the girl go.”

  Bob Martel, who had remained mute since arriving, perked up. “Asshole,” he growled, “are you deaf or just stupid? Drop it!”

  Tupper made a motion: shut up. “Brayker, put down the goddamn knife!”

  Jeryline felt every muscle in Brayker’s chest and arm become so taut that they were nearly humming like high-powered electric wires. “Her blood is on your head,” he grunted at Tupper, and raked the knife across her throat. She heard herself, to her own surprise, scream. Over in the corner by the stairway, Irene screamed as well. Brayker dropped Jeryline and she thudded heavily to her hands and knees, choking on . . .

  on . . .

  air.

  She put her hands to her throat. Nothing. She raised herself up on her knees and saw that Brayker had lowered his head. She reached up and easily pulled the butterfly knife out of his hand.

  “I got him,” Tupper shouted and thundered over, with the old floorboards squeaking and groaning under his weight. Jeryline rose up and staggered to the table, still clutching her throat with one hand, unable to believe that any of this had happened, unable to believe that she was not dead on the floor.

  Sheriff Tupper jerked Brayker’s arms behind his back and rapidly snapped a set of handcuffs over his wrists. “S’cuse me, honey,” he said to Jeryline, and pushed her out of the way. He took a handful of the back of Brayker’s head and mashed his face to the table, simultaneously kicking his feet apart. He patted him down from top to bottom, jerked out his roll of money, then worked his way back up.

  “Missed it the first time,” he said to himself, got Brayker upright again, and jerked something out of his shirt. Jeryline saw that it was a small and tattered leather pouch on a cord around his neck.

  The cowboy—Jeryline remembered that Tupper had been calling him the Salesman—nodded at Tupper. “I believe you’ll find the stolen item in there, Sheriff.” He took a step, but Brayker immediately squalled a protest.

  “You keep that bastard away from me!”

  “Get yourself calm,” Tupper snapped, breathing hard. He pawed through the pouch. “Nothing. It’s empty.”

  “Can’t be,” the Salesman said.

  Tupper let the pouch drop. He laid the roll of money on the table, shaking his head. “Salesman, who in the hell are you exactly?”

  “I work for a collection agency. I repossess stolen artifacts. Antiques, like I told you.”

  “So you both buy and sell antiques, and chase down people who rob your store. Couldn’t the police back east do that, so’s you don’t have to spend half your life on the road?”

  The Salesman formed his hands into fists and began knocking his knuckles against each other. “The antique is somewhere in this building. It is made of bone and iron, is studded with silver rivets and mystic symbols, and was cast in the shape of a large key that is as big as your hand, an old skeleton-style key. It’s value is inestimable, Sheriff. For your benefit, that means expensive.”

  “Thank you,” Tupper said coldly.

  The Salesman reached into one of the huge pockets of his duster coat and withdrew a battered leather case about the size of a lunchbox. He flipped the latches and levered it open. The inside, Jeryline saw, was made of darkly ancient wood, where an indentation shaped like a huge key had been carved out. Formed into the head of it was an odd bulge, as if a gigantic pearl should be part of the ensemble.

  “A piece of antiquity,” the Salesman said, snapping it shut. “Brayker has hidden it nearby. I guarantee it.”

  Tupper nodded. “Bob,” he called. “Yo, Bob!”

  The deputy had wandered to a window and was standing there like a mannequin, watching the storm. He turned. “What?”

  “Get those damned sunglasses off for a change,” Tupper snapped at him. “Go upstairs and check the room for that key thing.”

  “Key thing?” He peeled his glasses slowly off and stood befuddled. Though Jeryline had never met him before, it seemed that the man was into drugs of some sort. Shots, pills, nose candy, whatever. He looked at the Salesman and blinked a few times. “The key,” he said, and snapped his fingers. “Sure thing, boss.”

  He charged up the stairs. “It’s Number Five,” Irene called to him. Somewhere along the line she had gotten herself behind the desk and was still crouched there. As Jeryline watched, she slowly rose up, a head, a pair of shoulders, a set of breasts, a waistline, all of it hidden from the neck down behind cheap green fabric cut in a style long since abandoned. “You asshole,” she hissed suddenly. She was looking at Brayker. “And to think I let you stay.”

  The Salesman strode up to Tupper. “I must have the key,” he demanded.

  “And you must get your breath out of my face,” Tupper snapped back. He moved his attention to Brayker. “Tell me where it is, Brayker.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he answered.

  Tupper mashed his face to the table once more. “Speak, Brayker, or I’ll see you in prison for taking Jeryline hostage. It’s a very big crime nowadays, even out here in the sticks and boonies.”

  Brayker struggled, but not much. “I don’t know,” he pushed out. “None of this.”

  Tupper looked up. “Jeryline? You all right?”

  She had been wandering around in small circles, and stopped now. “Huh?”

  “Call Mavis Dornberry at headquarters in Junction City, could you? I want everything she can find on a—”

  He raised Brayker erect again. “Got a first name? Middle initial?”

  Brayker remained silent. The jaw muscles in his temples bulged in and out as he worked his teeth against each other. Tupper patted a hand against his back pockets, left, right, left. “Still no wallet. Just give Mavis the name Brayker, have her run it through. Odd enough name, she might find something. It’s B-R-A-Y-K-E-R.”

  “No problem,” Jeryline said, and went to the desk.

  The Salesman, who seemed perfectly happy not to have a name at all, took off his duster coat and stalked over to where Wally Enfield and Uncle Willie were sitting in front of the television, which was now persuading them to buy a new type of soap called Fresh Splash, not that they were interested in it at all. Wally was mesmerized by the police activity; Uncle Willie, perhaps remembering one or two of his dozens of run-ins with the local constabulary, was shrunken into the sofa à la Wally and was watching the commercial with all the intensity of a medical student witnessing his first brain surgery.

  The Salesman tossed his coat across the empty sofa. “Idiots,” he muttered. When he turned Uncle Willie let his gaze creep up to watch him: something across the room had just caught the Salesman’s attention. The Salesman hurried over to where Tupper was allowing Brayker to sit at the table.

  “Under there,” the Salesman announced, pointing. “I’ve figured it out by now.”

  Tupper touched a finger to his forehead. “Say what?”

  “There. A little ledge under the perimeter of the table. He hid the key there when we came in.”

  “Zat so?” Tupper looked tired of the whole affair. “Give me a second.” He bent over and felt under the lower edge of the table, grunting against the pressure of his ample stomach as his belt cut into it. His face turned a definite red.

  “Whoa-oh,” he blurted suddenly. “We’ve got something here.”

  Faintly, something clunked. Tupper backed up and rose to his feet. “Bingo,” he wheezed, and held it up.

  An ornamental key. Uncle Willie, looking at it, had one distinct thought: Big fucking deal. It was made out of some
kind of pounded metal and looked to be worth about twenty-two cents at a recycling place, if you were lucky.

  The guy they were calling Salesman clicked open his little leather case. “Sheriff,” he said, “be so kind as to put it in here, would you?”

  Tupper eyeballed the key, shook it in his hand while he recovered his breath. “There’s some kind of glass ball toward the top,” he said. “About half full of dark stuff.” He swished it around, holding it to the light. “Looks like maple syrup.”

  Feet clopped on the stairs. “Didn’t find nothing in Room Five,” Martel blared, and grinned his famous monkey-grin. “Caught me a whore and her john in the act, though. It’s a three-way bust tonight.”

  Behind him were Cordelia and Roach, their clothes ruffled and off-kilter, Roach’s face smeary with red lipstick, his shoes untied. Cordelia’s extensive makeup had been smeared around and she was barefoot. And as mad, Uncle Willie could see as he watched them descend, as a hornet stuck on hot flypaper.

  “Sheriff Tupper,” Cordelia brayed as she reached the landing, “I will not tolerate this kind of treatment from your deputy! You and I have known each other since the git-go. We have been more than friends on occasion. Kindly inform your storm trooper that we have an agreement!”

  “Ah, jeez, Bob,” Tupper groaned. “Leave these good folk alone.”

  The Salesman cleared his throat. “Sheriff, dump that crap out of the orb and put the key in this case, won’t you now? And I’ll be on my way.”

  Tupper glanced at him. “Orb? Oh yeah, you’re a hotshot antique dealer from back east. And you’ll be on your way, on foot in a thunderstorm, no car, no map or nothing to guide you back to New York or wherever the hell you came from. Mister, you are as strange a man as Brayker ever will be, and you are not going anywhere until this whole damned mess is figured out. Jeryline!”

  She was gone. A length of curly telephone wire led from the front desk, over the top of the nearest door, and into the kitchen. She appeared and waved a hand meaning Hold your horses, Sheriff, I’ll be done in a minute—at least to Uncle Willie’s way of deciphering things.