The Devil Delivered and Other Tales Read online

  “No ‘almost’ about it, Blotto,” Joey said. “Those punks have hopped their last free ride.”

  Jeremy Under’s eyes bugged out. “What did you call me?” he squeaked.

  “What’s the matter? Got a thin skin? Get outa the business if you do. Ain’t no room for beached whales who can’t even sit up straight. Now, I got nothing against being fat. Mack’s turned into a walrus since he got his legs cut off. Just carry it right, will ya? That’s all it takes. Some pride in yourself. You got the mass, but you ain’t got the moxy, if you know what I mean. Takes a little practice, that’s all. Now, what’s all this about a bunch of homeless scrubs squatting on railroad property? Sounds like a minor infestation, I’d think you prairie boys could’ve handled it—not that it matters anymore. I work alone. I’ll scrape your lands clean, or I’m not Joey ‘Rip’ Sanger.” He stood, reached up and traced a blunt, stained finger along the scar running diagonally over his eyebrows. “Now, if you can lever that disgusting bulk outa the chair, show me your track maps. What the hell you waiting for, ten redcaps with crowbars?”

  Joey walked out of the office and collected his trench coat. As he put it on, he turned to the gaping, wide-eyed secretary. “Better call an ambulance, honey. Your boss ain’t looking too good. Burst blood vessel, I’d guess. Only a matter of time when you let yourself go like that, of course. Let me know when’s the funeral, I’ll send a card. Now, where’s the survey maps of the company yards? I’ve got work to do.”

  TWO

  The Peers

  1.

  in which the diagnosis is revealed

  The cheerful nurse led Arthur to an alcove at one end of the Recovery Room. It was opposite the nurse’s station and had a love seat sofa and a recliner. Behind the sofa was a large window with all its seams and joins painted over, a window never meant to be opened, but the spring sun’s midday light was welcome all the same.

  “Dr. Payne will be with you shortly,” the nurse said. Under her lab coat she wore a blouse with a surprisingly low neckline. She’d been taking her coffee breaks outside, Arthur concluded, since her chest was bright pink. The curiously alluring blush above her deep cleavage made Arthur think of sunny dispositions. He smiled down at her, then slowly sat in the recliner, reaching for a magazine from the stack on the end table.

  He began reading an article randomly chosen from the magazine, and within moments was engrossed in a theoretical battle between two camps of economists as they advanced fiscal projections into the next decade. He felt a twist or two of envy reading about business executives and investment portfolios—the same kind of vague yearning he sometimes experienced when walking down a street and seeing all the brand-new cars rolling past. It baffled him how so many people could have so much money … especially given the dire economic forecasts and the shapeless, invisible, but terribly heavy cloud of national debt under which he and everyone else in the country labored—the very debt the article in the magazine was going on and on about.

  “Ah, Mr. Revell.”

  Arthur looked up to find Dr. Payne standing in front of him. “My goodness,” Arthur said, “you look very tired, Doctor. Please, sit down.” He indicated the love seat as he returned the magazine to the stack on the end table.

  “Tired?” Dr. Payne’s eyebrows rose, then dropped. “Indeed, I suppose I am.” He sat down. “Of course, aren’t we all these days, hmm?”

  “I feel quite well rested, actually,” Arthur said. “If not for the national debt, I might well consider my life worry-free. Tell me, Doctor, is it possible I have a national ulcer? What I mean is, could I be suffering the stress of the citizen, you know, something representational of high unemployment, declining social services, hiring inequities, escalating prices, and so on? Or is it the plight of youngish folk in modern society? Are these things even possible, Doctor?”

  “Assuming a massive neurosis on your part, Mr. Revell, anything is possible.” The doctor cleared his throat, glanced out the window. “Mind you, I found no ulcer.” He looked back at Arthur and smiled. “Are you a collector, by any chance? I’ve been for a long time. Porcelain figures from England. Very therapeutic. My hedgehog collection is insured by Lloyd’s, which in some circles doesn’t mean as much as it used to, given the declining reputation of insurance industries the world over. In any case, what were we talking about?”

  “This is my follow-up to the internal examination,” Arthur said. “Even so, do you concur that the decline of the insurance industry is simply a symptom of an overall loss of faith in the market system?”

  “I certainly hope not!” Dr. Payne said, laughing. “What would be the point of my owning a BMW and a Jaguar if all distinctions should suddenly vanish? In such a world, Mr. Revell, I envision the nightmare where I am the patient and you the doctor, if you see what I mean.”

  “No.”

  “Well, never mind that. Our biopsies indicate that, indeed, you are infected with a nasty, very pervasive bug. It will require treatment, beginning immediately.”

  “A bug?”

  “Hundreds of millions of them, in fact. Of the family Aphidae, having a soft, pear-shaped body and a tube-shaped mouth. Even at this moment, as we speak, they devour at your insides. This is why it is paramount we begin treatment immediately. You are, Mr. Revell, being quietly ingested.”

  “What a distressing thought,” Arthur said.

  “No doubt.” Dr. Payne reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a cellular phone. “Excuse me while I take this call.”

  Arthur blinked. He’d heard no ring. He watched as Dr. Payne activated the phone and held it to his ear, his frown deepening as the seconds ticked by.

  “You want me in Entomology,” the doctor said, nodding. “Third floor, yes, of course. Containment Room B, yes.” He sat up straight. “My God, not Room B! I’ll be right there!” The doctor rose, looking momentarily lost.

  “My treatment,” Arthur prompted.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes.” Dr. Payne pulled out a pill bottle. “Take three of these every four hours. See the nurse for more details. I must be off. Excuse me, Mr. Revell. And do let me know if you see any hedgehogs, hmm? Good-bye.”

  Arthur watched him leave. He glanced down at the bottle in his hand, hesitating as a part of him wanted to return to the article in the magazine. Of course, that wasn’t proper form. He climbed to his feet and approached the nurse’s station.

  The cheerful nurse had gone to look at one of the patients in the beds in the Recovery Room, leaving the older nurse, Margaret, behind the desk. Arthur leaned on the counter. “Excuse me, ma’am. Dr. Payne directed me here to get details of the medication he’s putting me on.”

  Margaret coughed, then held out her hand. “Let’s see the bottle, Mr. Revell.”

  He passed it over.

  She read the label, “One hundred twenty-five milligrams, Coccinellidae, hmmm, not one I’m familiar with.” She jotted the name down on a notepad. “Well, take three at a time every four hours. You have three refills on this prescription, to be dispensed by Dr. Payne’s clinic. There are three hundred pills inside. Anything else you want to know, Mr. Revell?”

  “I’m to take twelve hundred pills?”

  Margaret frowned slightly and reread the label. “Yes, Mr. Revell, that’s correct.”

  “Well,” Arthur said, “he is the doctor, isn’t he?”

  “Correct, Mr. Revell. Now, if you haven’t any more questions, I’m about to go on my coffee break.”

  “By all means,” Arthur said. “Enjoy your cigarette.”

  “Each one more than the last, Mr. Revell. Thank you. You can find your own way out?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Arthur continued smiling as he watched Margaret leave the room. After a moment he glanced down at himself, making sure his fly was zipped and nothing was out of place. He ran both hands through his reddish brown hair, rubbed a finger over his teeth, then turned to watch the cheerful nurse.

  She was still busy, arguing with an enormous, balding man occupying a
bed halfway down the aisle. The man looked very angry, the color of his face alarmingly red as he bellowed incomprehensible orders into his cellular phone. The cheerful nurse was still smiling, but it was clear to Arthur that even she was losing her patience as she tried to calm the patient down.

  Arthur walked over. “Do you require assistance, ma’am?” he asked.

  “Mr. Revell!” The nurse’s own face was now flushed, almost the same tone as her chest. “Thank you for asking, but I’m afraid it’s against hospital policy to enlist the aid of patients when restraining other patients. Insurance, you understand.”

  Arthur smiled, his head bobbing. “I understand perfectly. Of course, in some circles, the insurance industry has a very poor reputation. I therefore suggest we ignore such concerns for the time being.” He walked over to stand beside the patient’s bed, gently guiding the nurse to one side. “Sir?” he asked the man, who made a point of ignoring Arthur. “Sir, I suggest you calm down immediately. Please end your phone call and comply with the nurse’s instructions.”

  The man laid a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and glared up at Arthur. “Get outa my goddamned face,” he snapped in a high, quavering voice. “I’ll sue the lot of you, I swear. I’m cardiac, you idiots. Not gastrointestinal! Cardiac! What the hell’s wrong with all of you, anyway? Get me outa here!”

  Arthur’s smile tightened slightly. “Sir, kindly look at this patient here beside you. Is he raving at the top of his lungs? No, he isn’t. In fact, he’s trying to get some sleep—”

  “Of course he’s not screaming his head off,” the balding man yelped. “Someone stuck a spear into his belly! Wouldn’t you be lying low, too?”

  “Please, Mr. Revell,” the nurse said, moving close and making an effort to guide him away from the bedside. She smelled of peaches. “I will be calling for assistance—”

  “Nonsense,” Arthur said. He leaned over the bed and looked down at the balding man. “I’m about to throw up. Stress induces vomiting, you see, and I’m finding you very stressful, sir. My concern is that I have in my stomach a hundred million Aphidae, voracious little bugs that can only be treated with twelve hundred pills. Now, I wouldn’t want you to contract this terrible affliction, but your constant screaming at that poor beleaguered secretary on the other end of the phone line has my stomach rumbling in a most ominous fashion.”

  The balding man cringed. “Get away from me,” he said in a tiny voice.

  “I’m afraid it may be too late,” Arthur said, still looming over the man. “Unless you hang up immediately.”

  The man switched off his phone and shoved it into the nurse’s hands.

  “Ahh,” Arthur said, stifling a burp. “That’s much better.”

  “You’re insane,” the man said.

  “Possibly I am,” Arthur replied. “I hadn’t considered that. Of course, I have received my diagnosis, thank goodness, and medication to remedy my condition. Additional ills are, of course, possible.” He turned to the nurse. “What do you think, ma’am? Might I also be insane as well as gastrointestinally infected?”

  She smiled, taking his arm by the elbow and guiding him away. “Not likely, Mr. Revell. Thank you for helping—you certainly have a presence, don’t you?”

  “My robustness hasn’t always served me as well,” Arthur said. “And lately I seem to be gaining weight without accumulating any extra fat—is this possible? Is my flesh becoming denser?”

  “I have no idea, Mr. Revell.”

  They were standing at the nurse’s station. The nurse’s blue eyes were searching his, as if seeing him for the first time.

  “I wonder,” Arthur began tremulously, “uhm, a certain thought has occurred to me—”

  “Oh?” Her eyes had widened.

  “Well, I wonder if you might not consider it too forward of me to ask you out on a date, as it were. Dinner, perhaps?”

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good—”

  “Strictly speaking, I’m not your patient, am I?”

  “True. Oh, why not? Yes, I’d like that.”

  “Uh, may I ask your name, ma’am?”

  “Faye.”

  “How charming, Faye. Tomorrow night, then?”

  “I get off at seven,” she said.

  “I’ll be here.”

  Down on the main floor, Arthur went into the bathroom and shook out three of the pills. He squinted down at the black-spotted red objects. Each pill seemed to be cut in a half—hemispherical. He shrugged, popped them into his mouth, and swallowed. It was a great relief that his treatment had begun. Smiling, Arthur left the hospital.

  2.

  “You’re our man, Max!”

  Outre Space, the hub of the city’s art establishment, was a beautiful old building designed and constructed in the Chicago style of the early 1900s. It had been gutted and refurbished to become a kind of self-contained focal point, housing arts associations, studios, a cinema, and countless other arts-related … stuff.

  As with every time he entered Outre Space, Maxwell Nacht paused in the foyer, his skin prickling, the hairs erect on the back of his neck, and fighting the sudden urge to vacate his bowels. The reaction was triggered by the building itself, rather than the lofty organizations it housed. In truth, he was anticipating the scene to come, knowing he would be taking a massive risk, but confident in his choice of tactics.

  Four ceiling-mounted security cameras swiveled in their brackets to focus on him. He’d already stepped through the infrared sensor beam at the doors, and the foyer still echoed from the Door Open chime.

  I don’t belong here yet.

  Heavy boots echoed, approached with the rustle of cloth and the clink and soft jangle of metal.

  I’m an intruder at this moment, shifty, potentially loitering, a shabby beggar in student-budget clothes, my hair misaligned by the endless wind outside and now slowly settling at the front, above my sweat-beaded brow, but rising distinct and erect at the back—charged by the oven-dry air. An intruder. Desperate. Psychotic. An artist.

  The security guard arrived. Max read the name tag on the man’s flak vest: MONK. With the black, face-shielded helmet, only the name tag distinguished one from the others—and there were at least two more. Max had encountered Stubble yesterday, and Nick the day before. They all wore the helmets, the fatigues, the web belt with gas grenades, and the M16s slung over their shoulders, one gloved hand on the butt of the Service .45 at their hips. They were all big, blockish, silent.

  Max smiled. “How’s Stubble and Nick? Doing well, are they?”

  Monk stared at him.

  “Uh,” Max continued, “I have an appointment with Annie Trollop, CAPSs. Uh, Cultural Assessment Promotional Support services. Fifth floor, room 500. One P.M. I know, I’m six minutes early, but—”

  Monk gestured him toward the elevator. Its doors opened as soon as they arrived and they didn’t pause in their step until they entered and the doors closed behind them.

  A corner-mounted ceiling camera swiveled its eye in his direction. A speaker grille beside the floor button panel buzzed, then a voice said, “The elevator will take you directly to the required floor. Speak clearly in stating your floor.”

  “Uh, five,” Max said.

  “The elevator will take you directly to floor five. There is no reason to panic.”

  Panic?

  “I, uh, I need to go to the bathroom.” He checked his watch as the elevator began climbing. “I have four minutes.…”

  There was silence, then, “Use of bathrooms is discouraged.”

  “Oh.”

  “Unless accompanied by security.”

  The elevator stopped, presumably at the fifth floor, but the doors remained closed.

  “Okay…” Max said slowly.

  “Proceed then.”

  The doors opened. Max stepped into a hallway. Monk trundled after him, one step behind his left shoulder. The elevator said, “The guard will accompany you.”

  “Okay. Got it.”

  �
�Do not deviate from the route.”

  “Right.”

  Monk gesturing the direction, they began walking. They turned right, then right again, passing unmarked, unnumbered, and closed doors on either side of the hallway, and finally came to a stop outside yet another featureless, steel gray door. As Maxwell stared at it, the doorknob buzzed and clicked open.

  Monk followed him into the bathroom and into the stall. Max hesitated, wondering if he could manage to poo with Monk standing beside him. He jumped as the toilet said, “You may now sit. This is stall Alpha Charlie. This is your stall for the duration of your stay. If questioned, you are in Alpha-Charlie-5. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You may now sit.”

  “Sit?”

  “Shit.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  brief interlude

  * * *

  The damp from Annie’s limp hand still cooling on Maxwell’s palm, he sat down in the chair indicated and smiled at the pretty-but-too-thin woman on the other side of the desk.

  “Boy,” Maxwell said, “the security here in Outre Space is state-of-the-art stuff. I’m, uh, very impressed.”

  Annie Trollop smiled without showing her teeth. “Yes, very impressive, I’m sure. Are you new to the city? I see you’ve but recently joined CAPSs, Mr. Nacht.”

  “Max, please. Yes. I’m from … out of town. A rural upbringing.” He raised his hands in a slightly-helpless-but-restrained-by-decorum gesture, which he’d worked on all morning in his small apartment, to an audience of cockroaches on the kitchen counter. “I admit to experiencing … culture shock. What most excites me,” he continued, “is this notion—ably described in your information pamphlet—of a true, vibrant, thriving arts community. Does such a community exist?”

  A brief frown flickered on Annie’s brow. “Which one?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Which information pamphlet?”

  “Uhm, uh, I’m not sure—you have more than one?”