What Would Satan Do? Page 3

  “Shit,” said Satan. “Not again.” He wedged the doors open and climbed out of the elevator to go find the stairs.

  Chapter 4. Holy Land Coffee

  Liam McEwen’s path was similar to Satan’s. Except that he didn’t start out as an archangel. Or lead legions of other angels in a direct, militant uprising against God. Or bring about the fall of man by manifesting as a reptile and passing out fruit. Or, you know, rule Hell. So saying that they were “similar” might be putting it a little strongly. But their careers were precisely the same in one important respect: Both had simply walked away one day.

  Liam had left his job with the CIA’s Special Activities Division five years before. He’d done well there – worked his way up the ranks, shot some bad guys, snuck in and out of foreign countries – just normal stuff. But the stress and the politics had ultimately gotten to be too much. At least, that was what he told people. In fact, he’d actually quite liked it. A lot. After all, not everybody gets paid to kick the crap out of bad guys. Most folks have to develop hobbies or drinking problems to help them cope with the daily grind, but Liam got to exorcise his demons while he was on the clock. All good things, however, either have to end or start sucking eventually.

  Liam’s departure from the CIA had been precipitated by an unfortunate incident involving former Vice President Dick Whitford, a hot-rodded golf cart, and fourteen gallons of lemon pudding. This, of course, had come on the heels of a series strange of episodes that, in that rarified, secret-agent air, might otherwise have merited little more than an entry in some top secret report and an endearing nickname among the other sociopaths he called co-workers. But that was not to be. Instead, the episode with the VP bumped him up from a necessary evil to a full-fledged problem, and so Liam had been encouraged to fuck off.

  He’d left that life behind, and today a much less lethal Liam stood in line for coffee, just like he did pretty much every morning. Ahead of him, a queue of students waited to order beverages of absurd complexity. They wore Gucci and Prada and jaded expressions, and they made waiting in line look cool. In his old khaki shorts and tattered T-shirt, Liam actually looked more like a student than pretty much anyone else there in the coffee house.

  Holy Land Coffee was located just a couple of blocks from the campus of the 50,000-student University of Texas. It was also next door to the guitar shop Liam had started when he’d returned home. He loved his guitar shop, if only because running it meant that he tended to encounter far fewer smelly, unfriendly terrorists who were up to no good and needed to be shot. Or vice presidents, for that matter.

  He sighed. His life these days was relaxed, comfortable, and mostly fire-arm free – and so he should have felt pretty good. But something was not right – something he couldn’t put his finger on. It nagged at him. He felt like something was missing; like he was waiting for something to happen. Liam had no idea what, though, because like most men, he was unable to wrap his head around tricky things like “feelings.” And so, as usual, he just dismissed the whole thing.

  A few spots ahead in line, a young woman who was either a coed or a Hollywood starlet stepped up to the counter. Her expensive-looking sunglasses had gaudy, gold lettering on the sides and giant, bug-eye lenses that made her look a little like a platinum-haired insect – an insect who probably would’ve looked spectacular in a bikini. She was on the phone, and didn’t pause to place her order so much as redirect the stream of her conversation from her handset to the barista.

  “Um, hi, yes, I’d like grande half-caff, extra hot, soy latte with extra foam, half a squirt of sugar-free vanilla and half a squirt of sugar-free cinnamon, two packets of Splenda, and please put it in a venti cup, ‘kay? And,” she tilted her head and clasped her hands together in faux prayer, “can I please get a teensy bit of sugar-free caramel sauce drizzled on top? ‘Kay, thanks.” Her order placed, she snapped her phone back to her ear and picked up right where she left off without slowing down or even, apparently, breathing in. “And oh my god she was like, so drunk. I know, right? What a bitch. Yeah, I know, the whole night, and did you see those shoes she was wearing? So last summer, right? Oh. My. God!” She shoved past Liam and wandered off to take up space down at the end of the counter.

  Liam was, generally speaking, an unflappable guy, partly because he’d seen and done stuff that would have flapped most people. He’d shot guys and been shot at. He’d visited the homes and hideouts of notorious terrorists at hours when polite folks wouldn’t dream of calling. He’d flown in helicopters while failing to keep his arms and legs in the vehicle at all times. He’d even been bitten by a lemur. Twice. And so he usually confronted the would-be Paris Hilton acolytes of his favorite coffee house with the oblivious looseness and the ever-present, lightly-ironic smile of a man who has seen and done horrible stuff and therefore refuses to get worked up about the everyday bullshit of life. Usually, anyway. He stared after the coed for a second, shrugged, and then returned his attention to the business of standing in line.

  That was when he noticed the weirdo staring at him. The man was, as Liam’s Irish grandma would have said, “a wee bit husky” – not all the way fat, but definitely well-endowed in the man-breast department. He was also short, and had a largish nose and brilliantly-hued, electric blue hair, which he wore in a severe bowl cut, making him look kind of like a Smurfy Beatle.

  Maybe, thought Liam, the guy recognized him from television. That was probably it. He’d been on the news a bunch lately. It was completely random, but then it just kept happening. It would start raining blood or a bunch of frogs would come out of nowhere, and television crews would show up, see him, and suddenly he’d be on camera, giving his account of whatever weird shit had gone down. He didn’t particularly care about being on TV, and he certainly didn’t know any more about the frogs and locusts than anyone else. He just seemed to have a knack for being around whenever weird stuff happened. So that was probably why the dude was looking at him.

  Liam caught himself staring at the guy’s haircut, and looked away quickly. He glanced here and there, trying to act naturally as he fixed his gaze on a series of random spots in the coffee shop. When he looked back, Ringo Smurf was still staring. And then the man winked.

  This sent Liam into a bit of a panic. Like most straight guys, he professed to being cool with homosexuality. In fact, he was generally able to resist the typical hetero male urge to offer an unsolicited clarification of the fact that he would never, ever, under any circumstances, touch another man’s penis – or that, if such an extraordinary thing were to happen, he wouldn’t enjoy it. But here? Now? With this blue-haired weirdo actually making eyes at him? Liam lost his cool.

  Weren’t gay guys usually pretty good at figuring out whether other guys were gay? And weren’t they usually pretty weight conscious? He tried to avoid the gaze of the world’s only non-manorexic homosexual with broken gaydar by looking around immediately for a chick to ogle conspicuously. But all of the hot coeds seemed to have disappeared to that alternate dimension where keys and matching socks get off to, and all Liam saw were two grandmas and what looked like a dugong in a floral dress. It was no use. He was stuck, and ended up giving the guy kind of a half-smile, half-constipated look.

  Of course, all of this took place in a matter of just a few seconds, but, as Einstein proved, time is relative, varying inversely with the awkwardness or uncomfortableness of a particular social situation. For Liam, time had slowed almost to a dead stop.

  Fortunately, time hadn’t actually stopped, and it was finally his turn to order. He turned to address the barista – Mr. Dao Tiêntri Duong – the craggy, weather-beaten Vietnamese proprietor of Holy Land Coffee, who looked as if he should be off guarding the ancient secrets of the Wu Lan Mountain, and whose sparkly, black eyes barely peered over the counter.

  “I’d like,” Liam started, but before he could finish, he realized that he was already holding a hot beverage.

  The tiny barista had already swiped Liam’s credit card and was complet
ing the sale. “Freeoooww!” he said.

  Mr. Duong often did weird shit like this. The soundtrack was a new addition, however.

  “What’s with the sound effects?” Liam took his credit card and receipt. “And what if I had wanted to pay with cash?”

  “You,” said the barista, “need to figure out who you are and what you want.”

  Liam glanced at the coffee in his one hand and the credit card receipt in the other. “I think you already did that.”

  “You’re lacking in focus, my friend,” said the little man. He squinted at Liam with hard, wizened eyes. “You don’t want to run out of time.”

  “What?”

  Mr. Duong, however, had moved on to the next customer.

  Liam took his coffee and turned to leave, only to find himself face-to-face with His Smurfiness.

  “Hi,” said Ringo.

  Liam stared, wide eyed. “Oh…” he said. The rest of the words dallied in his parietal lobe, but then he was granted a second reprieve.

  “Uh ... excuse me!” said the insectoid hottie.

  Liam glanced around for a second before realizing that she was talking to him. He was apparently blocking her path to the shop’s supply of straws, napkins, and pre-packaged petroleum by-product sweeteners. He reveled for a moment in the mild irony of a plasticky, bitchy young woman yatching her way over to a rack of artificial sweeteners, but then she stamped her foot to show she meant business.

  “Uh!” she said, shooing him with her phone. “Get out of the way!” He stepped back, and she strode past him, muttering a not-at-all-quiet and very distinct, “Freak!” as she passed.

  There was a popping sound, and the woman yelped and jumped back as she tossed her now-flaming phone to the ground. She did not drop her beverage, however, opting instead to demonstrate why it is inadvisable to engage in acrobatic activities or otherwise leap about with hot coffee in hand. Most of the contents of her cup slopped down the front of her tank top. This might have elicited a few murmurs of appreciation from the members of the young male demographic present in the coffee shop, but there wasn’t time. The young woman had hardly finished spilling coffee all over herself when she slipped on the small amount of liquid she hadn’t actually managed to pour on her shirt, and toppled over backward on to the floor.

  “Huh,” said Liam, regarding the woman with a kind of distant, academic interest.

  He and the rest of the patrons watched as she tried a couple of times to stand, but slipped repeatedly, unable to find any solid footing among the puddles of expensive and complex beverage. Nobody moved to help her, and it seemed like a week passed before she finally stopped flopping all over the place and was finally able to pick her coffee- and dust-bunny-covered self up off the floor.

  She stood for a moment, fuming, her fists balled. “Hmmph!” she said, and stormed out of the coffee shop.

  “Huh,” said Liam again, leaning over to pick up the phone, which was still flaming merrily to itself. He held it up and looked at it, and the flame went out. “Huh,” he said, one more time – for good measure. He glanced around to demonstrate that he was just as surprised by this as everyone else. Nobody seemed very interested though, so he tossed the phone into a waste bin.

  He glanced around a final time, took his coffee, and left.

  Chapter 5. Where You Can Stick that Parking Permit

  The Devil ranted and muttered to himself as he stomped his way down the stairs, cursing the stupid, indecisive lady for making him shoot her into space.

  There it was. His car. A breathtaking jewel that glittered among the exposed pipes, the steamy underground air, and the dank smells of the garage. He clicked the little beeper thingy to unlock it, slithered into the seat, and stabbed a finger at the button labeled, “Start.”

  Ordinary engines start up by turning over once or twice, and come to life with a little bit of a wheeze that turns into a throat-clearing that eventually settles into a quiet hum. The engine of a Lamborghini, however, is not ordinary. It’s more like an enraged bull – an enraged bull who’s been poked, prodded, and generally tormented by a matador, and then fed amphetamines and stuffed into a small box. Even the Devil felt a little shiver as the car came to life.

  Satan backed out of the spot, put the car in gear, and mashed the accelerator. He cackled as he struggled to control the car – or at least, to keep it pointed generally in the direction he hoped to go – as he tore up the ramps that led to the exit with the sort of artistic flair and panache that would have humbled and shamed Olympic ice dancers. He worked his way up the ramps at speeds well in excess of the posted five-miles-per-hour limit, never managing to align the front of the car and his intended direction for more than a second or two at a time. The tires squealed and smoked and the car lurched and slid as rubber and concrete came to terms about how best to apply 500 horsepower and 400 lb-ft of torque in the face of the wholly-inadequate friction coefficient of slimy, underground concrete. The fun, however, came to an abrupt halt as he approached the garage exit.

  There in the middle of the exit lane, like a speed bump turned on end, stood a short man in a green, FunParc shirt – Satan’s parking garage nemesis. This wasn’t his first run in with the parking guy. He remembered thinking that Jesus was a gigantic pain in the ass, but this guy? He was on his way to earning his very own circle of Hell.

  Satan eased the raging bull forward, goosing the throttle to make the engine emit a demonic snort, and rolled down the window. He stared straight ahead, ignoring the man until the window finished gliding all the way down into the door. Then, slowly, he turned a disdainful eye on the FunParc man.

  The garage attendant did not react to the Devil’s television-worthy greeting. Instead, he waddled up, and with a sigh, squatted awkwardly beside the car. He squinted as he peered in at Satan.

  “You must have parking pass,” he said in a foreign accent that revealed little about his origins other than that he should probably try to get back to them. “You don’t park here without pass.”

  The Prince of Darkness tried to remain calm as he pointed to where he’d duct-taped his parking pass to his windshield earlier – the result of his last run in with this extraordinarily dense asshat. “It’s right there, on the windshield, exactly where you told me to put it.”

  “No, very sorry sir. You must hang pass from mirror. It must hang from mirror.” He made a twisting gesture with his hand, as if the problem had maybe just been that the Dark Lord of the Underworld hadn’t been able to figure out how to attach his parking pass to his mirror.

  “You moronic twit, you are the one who told me that you couldn’t see it when I hung it from the mirror.” He paused to take a deep breath. “Tell me, please, are we going to have to do this every time I come through?”

  “The parking pass must hang from mirror to show you have contract to park here. If we can’t see pass, we think you don’t have contract. We have you towed.”

  Satan decided to try another tack. “Listen, how many other $250,000 Italian sports cars do you see here?”

  “I’m sorry, sir?” The attendant made a face as if he’d just been told his mother and his favorite goat were having an affair.

  “Look around, you knob. Do you now see – or have you ever seen – any other cars that look anything like this one? At some point, shouldn’t you start to think, ‘Ah yes, here comes that odd-looking white car!’” The Dark Lord omitted to point out the red “go faster” stripe he’d had painted down the center of the car, making it unique, even among Italian exotics.

  This argument appeared to confuse the attendant, who simply returned to what he knew. “Eh ... your parking pass ... it must be in visible spot.” The pronouncement thus pronounced, the attendant stood back on his heels, folded his arms, and raised his eyebrows with finality. “Or we tow car.”

  “It’s taped to the fucking windshield! How is that not a ... ?” Satan stopped, deflated. There was no point trying to convince this moron. “You don’t have any idea what I’m saying, do yo
u?” he said. “Okay, then.” He put his car in gear and drove off.

  The parking attendant spent the next two and a half hours on fire.

  The fire department showed up and tried to put him out, but the firefighters found that their usual tools were completely ineffective. They started with water, but the flames actually seemed to get bigger. So they sprayed him with fire extinguishers, and while they found that mildly entertaining, it really wasn’t any better. They tried smothering him in flame-retardant blankets, but that just made it impossible for the man to breathe – oddly the blaze itself hadn’t given him any trouble – and then the blankets themselves started to burn.

  Ultimately, they weren’t really sure what to do with the fiery parking attendant, and since the guy didn’t seem to be about to die or anything, the firemen pronounced it to be, in their professional opinions, “some kind of Goddamn, fucked-up, super fire,” and just let him burn.

  * * *

  A late-model Ford careened across an athletic field, bumped and lurched over a sidewalk, and skidded to a halt in front of Georgetown’s main parking garage, scattering the crowd of students who’d managed to wrench themselves away from watching the conflagration at Healy Hall. The driver misjudged the distance though, and the car didn’t actually come to a stop until one wheel bounced up on top of the curb.

  Agent Bob Robertson stepped out onto the sidewalk and scanned his environment over the top of his car door, taking in every detail, every mote of dust. It was a while though, before his eyes finally settled on the group of firefighters who stood in a circle, talking to the guy who was on fire. That kind of crap just didn’t surprise him anymore. He tweaked the lapels of his jacket, rolled his neck, and strode over to the newest group of weirdos.