by James Palmer
“Whaddyawant?” Caprisi barked.
“It’s Eldritch. I found your boy Georgie. He’s livin’ the high life out on Flatbush.”
“Flatbush? What’s the address?”
Eldritch glanced out the phone booth at the building. It was big and marble. “I don’t think it has one. You’ll know it when you see it.” He hung up. He had to work fast before Caprisi and his goons arrived. If Caprisi got hold of the ring, Eldritch didn’t want to think about what might happen. At least for now, the djinn’s powers were limited by Georgie’s shortsighted imagination.
Sam Eldritch strolled nonchalantly up to the building’s entrance, humming a little tune that was designed to ward off evil spirits. It didn’t work.
Two enormous goons in dark suits came out of nowhere to block his path.
“I’m here to see Georgie,” said Eldritch calmly.
“No one gets in to see Mr. George,” they both said in unison with voices like cracking ice.
Eldritch shrugged. “OK. Wanna see a magic trick?”
The two shadow men looked at each other, then back at Eldritch. That obviously wasn’t one of the questions they were conjured into the world to answer.
Eldritch pulled a cigarette from his nose and put it in his mouth. The tip was lit.
Georgie’s magical goons looked at each other, their tight, lipless mouths curled in what Eldritch hoped was mild amusement.
He pulled a deck of cards from his coat pocket and made a show of shuffling the deck, shooting them from one hand into the other, then back again. Then he fanned them out and showed the men both sides of nearly every card. “Watch closely, because you’re only gonna see this once.”
He deftly launched the cards at the men, who stepped back as they pelted them. Before the last card fell to the ground Eldritch had his gun in his hand, the special .38 whose blessed bullets were reserved for just such an occasion.
He got one in the head, and the other high in the chest. They both went down and stayed there, slowly reverting back into the formless muck from whence they had been called.
Eldritch stepped over them as he holstered his revolver, hoping Georgie hadn’t picked up a few additional regular cronies from the Henchman Emporium. He entered the glimmering lobby and took the elevator all the way to the top, fifth floor.
The entire floor was one enormous room. Every square inch of it was plated with gold and encrusted with giant, gaudy-looking jewels. A huge stone fountain stood off to Eldritch’s left, spraying water from a cherub’s mouth.
Georgie was hunkered behind a gigantic black slate desk, a look of cruel stupidity permanently scrawled across his face. He was alone, except for a woman, who was sitting on a corner of the desk, eyeing Eldritch suspiciously.
“Nice place you got here, Georgie,” said Eldritch. “I love the fountain.”
“It makes me have to pee,” Georgie said. “Hell you want, Eldritch? I’m busy.”
“Yes. I noticed. I’ve been following your work all over town.”
“What?” Georgie’s brow furrowed, trying to make the connection, like a rabbit trying to do long division.
Finally, realization dawned. “Aw, I used one of my wishes, didn’t I?” To the woman he said, “I wanted money to grow on trees, and you wasted one of my wishes to make it happen, didn’t you?”
The woman shrugged. “You said ‘I wish,’ and I made it so. That’s how it works, Master.”
Eldritch looked keenly at the woman now. So you’re a djinni, he thought. She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She certainly left Vivian in the dust. Long, raven dark hair spilled down her shoulders, and a long, diaphanous gown—little more than gauze—covered her slender, olive-complexioned frame.
“You can’t have my djinni, Eldritch,” said Georgie. “I don’t know how you got past my boys outside, but if you don’t get the hell outta here real quick, you’re leaving through the window.”
“Georgie, Georgie,” said Eldritch pleadingly. “I come here to make nice, let you know your old boss is coming down here to straighten you out, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Boss Caprisi is coming here?”
“Oh yeah. He’s got a score to settle, you see. Boy, you stuck it to him good too, from what I heard.”
“I sure did,” said Georgie, pointing a fat finger at Eldritch. “An what the hell’s it to you, anyways? You’re not even a cop no more.”
“True, true. And I got no love for Caprisi either. I just wanted a ringside seat for when that dirtball gets his. Now what I mean?”
“He’ll get his all right,” said Georgie, warming to the subject. “If he comes in here he’s getting’ greased!”
Eldritch smiled. “Right. Because this is your place.”
“Damn right!”
“And nobody comes into your place and tells you what to do.”
“Right again.”
“How many wishes you got left?”
Georgie laughed. “Shows what you know. I get all the wishes I want!” He looked at the djinni proudly. “Don’t I, sweetheart?”
“Yes, Master,” she said flatly.
Eldritch finished his cigarette and stamped it out on the floor.
“Hey!” said Georgie. “This ain’t no ashtray.”
“What’s it to you?” said Eldritch. “You can just wish for a cleaning lady.”
“Damn straight. But I don’t need no djinni to take care of you, Eldritch”
Georgie reached into a desk drawer and pulled a gold plated, pearl-handled .45. “I’m sick of you, Eldritch. I’m sick of people trying to trick me. I’m gonna grease you, and when Caprisi gets here, I’m gonna grease him too!”
Georgie stood and fired, but the bullets went wild. Eldritch dived for the floor and slid along the marble tiles to a thick stone column and crouched behind it.
“Why do I always get the idiots?” the djinni mumbled, inspecting her well manicured nails.
“What did you say?” Georgie demanded.
“Nothing, Georgie dear. You know, I can always take care of him for you.”
“No! Eldritch is mine! I’ll get him the old fashioned way.”
“Suit yourself,” said the woman.
“Give me the ring, Georgie,” said Eldritch from behind the column, his regular gun drawn. He didn’t want to waste his special bullets on a regular thug like Georgie, and he doubted they would have much effect on the djinni. “Before someone gets hurt.”
“The only person gettin’ hurt around here is you, Eldritch,” Georgie said, sending more lead flying into the column at Eldritch’s back. “Come out here so I can ventilate you! I still gotta deal with Caprisi. Unless you were lyin’ about that too.”
“Oh no. He’s coming all right. Gonna plug you full of holes.”
“I don't think so, Eldritch. Hey, djinni!”
“What do you desire, Master?”
“I wish to never die,” said Georgie.
“Your wish is my command.”
A breath of cold wind blew through the place, then died. Eldritch frowned. He had expected something a bit more dramatic.
Just then the double doors to Georgie’s suite burst open and four large, heavily armed thugs in expensive Italian suites entered. Their tommy guns barked, and Eldritch dived for a low sitting area and cowered behind the couch as half the room was sprayed with hot lead. Eldritch twisted around and watched Georgie twitch as bullets flew into him. Georgie spun around once, then landed on his back on his giant desk. The djinni, like most women in Sam’s life, had vanished just as things started to get hot.
Caprisi entered the room now that the shooting had stopped. Sam emerged from his hiding place.
“Thanks, Eldritch,” he said. “I won’t forget this.”
“Your money’s enough for me, Caprisi,” said Eldritch. “Besides, I don’t think this is over yet.”
“Ouch!” Georgie groaned as he lifted himself from the desk. His suit, the desk, and much of the floor around him was
covered in his blood, dark and thick. He pointed a bloody finger at Caprisi. “You did this to me.”
Caprisi gasped. “What the hell?”
Eldritch could hear a loud whistle coming from Georgie’s chest. A few bullets had pierced his lungs, and probably his heart as well. Eldritch knew that Georgie shouldn’t be walking, let alone talking.
“What’s…wrong…with me?” Georgie said, clutching at his chest. He had dropped his gun in the attack. “That…bitch!”
“Gave you exactly what you wished for,” said Eldritch softly. To Caprisi he said, “Georgie is immortal.”
“What? You mean he can’t die?”
“Exactly. No matter what you do to him, no matter how much time has passed. It's what Georgie wished for, though he should've included a clause about self-healing from his injuries.”
The smell of death hung thick around him, and Eldritch knew there would be no stitching him up good as new. Georgie Boy Falcone was one of the undead now, a poor, miserable soul consigned to walk that twilight path between the living and the dead. And he didn’t even get to wear a cape and turn into a bat.
“The worst thing you can do to him now is lock him away somewhere you won’t smell him rotting.”
“Jesus,” said Caprisi, holding a silk handkerchief to his nose.
“Not even close,” said Eldritch.
As if testing Eldritch’s theory, Caprisi plugged Georgie in the head with his .45. The gangster’s head flew back so fast Eldritch heard his vertebrae snap, but the would-be crime boss simply howled in pain.
“Jesus!” Caprisi said again, stepping back. “How did this happen to him?”
“This,” said Eldritch, stepping over to the thing that had been Georgie Falcone and reaching into its jacket pocket. He pulled out the ring and quickly slipped it on his finger.
“What’s that?” said Caprisi.
“A magic ring,” said the detective, rubbing the bloody jewel that sat atop the piece of jewelry.
A tendril of smoke rose from the ring and coalesced into a beautiful woman.
“What do you desire of me, my Master?” the djinni said to him sweetly.
Eldritch looked at Caprisi and his goons. “I wish to be somewhere a little more private.”
Caprisi and his thugs rushed toward him, then vanished, replaced by a vast expanse of white that stretched on forever.
“That’s better,” said Eldritch. “Thank you."
The djinni smiled. “No need to thank me, my Master. I live to serve you.”
Eldritch grinned. “Cut the crap, sweetheart. The last time a beautiful woman told me that I woke up with a bump on my head and no wallet. Where the hell are we, anyway?”
The djinni scowled. “You are displeased?”
“Not at all. You gave me what I wanted, privacy. I just realize now I should have been more specific. Like Georgie.”
“It doesn't have a name,” said the djinni. “It exists between realities. You're the first mortal to see it.”
“I'm flattered. Now take us back to Maraud's. He’s your real master, isn’t he?”
“He who possesses the ring is my Master,” the woman corrected. “Right now that’s you.”
“A mercenary,” said Eldritch. “I like that. But you want to go back to Maraud.”
“Oh?”
“Come on, Doll,” said Eldritch. “Don’t shine me on. You planned this from the beginning, as soon as Georgie kidnapped your little ring here.” He tapped the bauble on his finger. “The money trees were brilliant."
“He wished that money grew on trees,” said the djinni. “I granted his wish.”
“You also helped me track Georgie down, and by extension, you.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I change hands all the time. Masters die. The ring gets shoved in a drawer, or a jewelry box, or a chest, or goes down with a ship. I’ve been around a very long time, Sam Eldritch. I’ve seen ‘em come and go. Men with greed in their eyes and larceny in their hearts as soon as they see me. They all want power, wealth, fame, glory. They all know exactly what they want, but lack the wisdom to correctly ask for what they need. The only question right now is what do you want?”
The detective regarded the djinni. He was hoping she wouldn’t ask that question.
“Go home to your boyfriend,” said Sam. “You don’t owe me anything.” He took off the ring, tried to give it to her. She waved it away.
“I do owe you. You rescued me from that idiot.”
Eldritch regarded the beautiful woman, and noticed something about her. In spite of all her power, and everything she had seen and done, there was something missing from her. She was sad.
“What is your name?”
“Allah, the Great and Merciful, in his infinite wisdom, did not burden us with names,” she said. There was something else too, something in her dark eyes. A flicker of hatred. Hatred of mankind. She hated having such enormous power and only being able to use it on the petty and selfish whims of others, of being a slave to lesser beings with even lesser minds.
“What is your next wish, my Master?”
“I want to go home and get drunk. Right after I return this ring to its rightful owner.”
“No one has ever given up the ring without using a wish!” She sounded hurt, insulted.
“So I can end up like Georgie Boy? No thanks.”
“Wait,” said the djinni. “I know what you desire, Master.”
Eldritch waited.
“You want to not be one of the touched anymore. You want your partner back, your badge, your whole life back the way it was.”
Eldritch clenched his jaw. Could he? More importantly, should he? He had seen how bad things had turned out for Georgie. He didn’t want to be next. Even if she could pull it off, he would have to word it very carefully. A contract with the universe that big would need a whole lot of fine print. Still…how long had Maraud possessed the ring? He seemed OK. He was probably a criminal, but he was wealthy and successful. What harm could it do?
“I wish I had my old life back,” he said.
The djinni flashed a smile and snapped her fingers. “Done.”
The white void filled with sound and color, and Sam Eldritch found himself on a busy street. It took him a moment to figure out where he was, and he almost slammed into an elderly Chinese lady as she exited a little shop. That was when he realized was in Chinatown. It was sometime during the afternoon, when earlier it had been almost dusk. He started walking, frantic to find some frame of reference that would tell him what was going on. Up ahead he saw a familiar face. It was his partner, Jim Malone, alive and well and entering their favorite Chinese restaurant.
“Jim!”
Eldritch ran, trying to catch up, his mind attempting to piece together how the djinni had done this. When he finally reached the door he felt as if an icy wave had crashed over him. There, inside the restaurant, his alive and well partner was sitting with someone who looked exactly like him!
Eldritch yanked the door open, stepped inside. The place was almost empty but for a few wait staff and an old woman sitting at a smaller table to his left next to the large front window. His memory came rushing back, and he remembered all the sights and smells of that fateful afternoon. Everything here was identical to the conditions of that day. He started to say something, but no words would come out.
“They can’t see you or hear you,” said the woman sitting off to Eldritch’s left. The detective looked in her direction and blinked. She wasn’t there anymore. Sitting in her place was the djinni, looking up at him over a grease-stained menu. “From their perspective, you don’t exist yet.”
“Right,” said Eldritch darkly. “So I’m the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Is that it?”
The djinni smiled. “I suppose.”
“So what the hell kinda wish-granting is this? I should’ve known this would come with strings.”
“You should have been more specific,” said the woman, setting the menu down on the table. “Yours i
s a big wish. It requires mucking about with Time, and that, my dear detective, is heavily frowned upon.”
“By who?”
The djinni pointed her index finger above her head. “And it’s ‘whom’, dear."
"So how’s this supposed to go?”
The djinni shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess you could try to warn them somehow, but if no one in here can see or hear you, that probably won’t work.”
Sam walked over to the table where he and his partner were sitting. He banged on it. Nothing. The silverware didn’t even rattle. He yelled in his ear. He waived his hand in front of Jim’s face. Still nothing.
He watched as the Ghost of Eldritch Past picked up a fortune cookie and snapped it open, taking the little slip of paper from inside and looking at it.
Eldritch Yet to Come read it over his shoulder. It said:
Remembering is Understanding
“Wait a minute,” said Eldritch Yet to Come, snapping his fingers. “Chen read my tarot before starting this case. He said something about remembering being the key to understanding, or something like that. I wonder if that’s what I’m supposed to do here. Observe and remember.”
He looked to the djinni for confirmation, but she said nothing.
He glanced about the room, his keen senses kicking in, his nerves taut as piano wire. A demon was about to appear, and he was going to be ready for it this time. He was going to relive the worst day of his life and take notes.
Then he saw it. It seemed to ooze out of the wall behind where his past self was sitting with Malone. It looked like a stylized Chinese dragon, and it came purposefully for Past Eldritch, writhing through the air. The woman bringing them their pot stickers screamed as she emerged from the kitchen, dropping the tray.
“Jethuth!” said Jim around a mouthful of eggroll.
Past Eldritch spun around in his chair and made an audible gulp.
Jim Malone was out of his seat with his pistol in his hand, firing into the writhing snake thing that hovered in the air just inches from them. It was like shooting smoke. The demon whipped its tail around in a flash, impaling Sam’s partner on a long spike. The fiend removed its tail, and Jim fell to the floor.
