The Wrong Goodbye

“I didn’t know.”

“Cut the bullshit,” I spat. “I know all about your arrangement with Danny Young. I know he’s been funneling you souls in return for skim. And I for damn sure know that Danny stole Varela’s soul. Now, I’ve seen enough of your operation tonight to know that business is booming. So what happened? The souls Danny was assigned to collect couldn’t keep up with demand? Or was Varela some kind of special order?”

Dumas scowled, his face flushed with anger. “Boy, if I were you, I’d watch your tongue. You don’t understand half as much as you think you do.”

“Then by all means, enlighten me.”

He downed his drink and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “First off,” he said, gesturing around the room with his empty glass before setting it on the table, “we ain’t in the business of taking special orders —the product we got is the product we got. Partly ’cause we gotta keep a low profile if we wanna keep this operation running, and snatching souls to fill requests would attract all kinds of unwanted attention. Also partly ’cause it’s not necessary. A skim-trip ain’t so much about the specific experience being relived; it’s about the feeling, the sense that the Maker’s in His heaven and all is right with the world. All you need for that’s a soul that ain’t been all the way corrupted, and believe me, we got scads of ’em just stacking up, Danny Young or no.”

I nodded toward the empty glass beside him, my face a mask of disbelief. “So you’re telling me the nun-soul you traded for that you came by honestly?”

Dumas chuckled. “I’m not sure honestly is the right word, but yeah, she arrived via the usual channels. Guess a pious life’s no guarantee you’ll get measured for your wings and harp once your final bell has tolled.” He saw the doubt in my eyes and continued. “Don’t look so surprised, Sammy! Hell’s fulla decent people who couldn’t hack it without a little assistance from the likes of me —you of all people should know that. And believe me, you’re better off not knowing what she bargained for; the whole affair would turn your stomach.”

I thought a moment about what he’d said, but the math still didn’t add up. “The fact remains that Danny works for you, and that he stole the soul I’m looking for. I’m supposed to believe those two things are unconnected?”

“Believe what you want, Sammy —and someday, you’ll have to fill me in on how you’ve come to know so much about who I do and don’t associate with —but the truth is, Danny doesn’t work here anymore.”

“He doesn’t.” Skeptical.

“No, he doesn’t. Fact is, the boy got sloppy —unreliable. Became a liability to the organization. So I had to let him go.”

“If that’s the case, then what the fuck would Danny want with the soul of some drug kingpin that wasn’t even his to take?”

“Wait —don’t tell me this Varela you’re looking for is Pablo Varela? As in head of the Varela drug cartel?”

For the life of me, I couldn’t tell if he was shining me on, or if his surprise was as genuine as it seemed. “So you do know of him,” I said.

“Of course I know of him,” he replied. “I’m a big fan of his work! That bastard is as nasty as they come; well, was, I suppose. A shame that someone of his talent would be struck down in his prime…”

“Yeah, I’m all broken up about it. Only now that I know you’re such a fan and all, I’m forced to wonder if maybe you had Danny take his soul as a little keepsake —you know, so you could stick it in a glass case beside the ball from McGwire’s go-ahead run or whatever.”

“Are you nuts? Leaving aside for a moment the fact that Danny no longer works for me, you know the kind of attention it’d attract to my operation, snagging the soul of a rising talent like Varela? And anyways, if any of the Fallen has McGwire’s go-ahead run, it’d be Mammon; he’s the one who cut McGwire’s deal.”

“OK, so assuming for a second you’re telling the truth–”

“Why, Sam, that hurts.”

“–and Danny wasn’t working for you when he stole Varela’s soul, what could he possibly want with it? You think he might be trying to score a skim-fix on his own?”

“Doubt it. Even if he’s desperate, the kid ain’t stupid, and to try and process a soul all by his lonesome with those pathetic monkey reflexes of his, he’d hafta be. Besides, Varela was as twisted as they come —there’s not much point skimming off a soul as corrupted as his. No, what Danny’d want if he were jonesin’ is a soul with a little decent left in it. So either he took Varela just to fuck with you, or…”

Dumas’s eyes got a faraway look in them, and he fell silent for a moment. Then he shook his head and muttered, “Well, I’ll be damned,” more to himself than to me.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“I do believe I figured out what ol’ Danny Boy might be up to. And if I’m right, you’re not the only one that crazy fucker played.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s all right,” he said, a rueful grin gracing his face. “I’m beginning to.”

Dumas got to his feet, clapped me on the shoulder.

“Come with me,” he said. “There’s something I think you need to see.”

24.

The rain beat down on my face and neck, and made treacherous the stone steps that we descended. These steps were narrower than the ones I’d followed up to the main building, and they hugged the craggy canyon wall, making their path unpredictable and the going slow. The warmth and light of Dumas’s fireplace were but a distant memory, three stories and a world of wet away. Dumas led me downward through the darkness, looking dry as ever, as though the rain didn’t dare to dampen him. It was an illusion, of course; Dumas looked dry for the same reason Dumas looked human —because that’s how he chose to look.

Me, I looked like a drowned rat, my one shoe-clad foot squishing with every step, and my bare sock soaked clean through and caked thick with mud. Figures I’d wind up coming to the desert on the one fucking night it rains. Next time, I’m bringing a slicker and some rubber boots —provided I survive long enough for there to be a next time.

“Where exactly are we going?”

“Servants’ quarters,” Dumas replied.

“Yeah, I can see why you’d want to tuck ’em out of sight,” I said, glancing back toward the main building behind us —its crumbling facade barely visible through the pounding rain. “You’d hate to ruin the lovely ambience you’ve got going on back there.”

“What, you didn’t like the rug? I thought it really tied the room together.”

At the base of the slope up to the main building, Dumas jagged right, disappearing from view. I’d been figuring on a left-hand turn toward the constellation of outbuildings I’d seen on my way in. Visibility being what it was, I had no idea where Dumas had gotten off to, so for a moment, I just stood there like an idiot in the rain.

“Hey, Sammy —you comin’ or what?”

Turned out Dumas was standing in a natural alcove in the rock maybe eight feet high, and barely wide enough for two men to stand side-by-side. At first, the alcove didn’t seem to be that deep, and then I realized that what I’d taken to be the inside wall was in fact a heavy iron door, so thoroughly corroded by the elements that it looked as natural as the rock walls that surrounded it.

At the center of the door was a wheel —a wheel as rust-caked as the door itself. It would’ve taken a dozen Strong Man competitors and a can of WD-40 to move that thing an inch. Dumas spun it like a pinwheel in a stiff wind. And with a shriek like the cries of the tormented, the door swung inward.

Stepping inside, it was apparent this wasn’t so much an alcove as a cave. A well-trodden dirt floor led inward from where we stood, pocked here and there with strange stone outcroppings the color of sun-bleached bone.