again. The black car’s tires hit roadside gravel and Alex swung closer, preventing it from returning to the highway. He rammed yet another time, and the car went into the grass alongside the road, skidded and went sailing down an embankment and into a tree.
Alex braked carefully, backed off the road and got out of the wrecker. He reached a small pipe wrench and a big crescent wrench out from under the seat, slipped the pipe wrench into his coat pocket for insurance, then went charging down the embankment waving the crescent.
Death opened his door and stepped out. The rain had subsided and the moon was peeking through the clouds like a shy child through gossamer curtains. Its light hit Death’s round pink face and made it look like a waxed pomegranate. His cigar hung from his mouth by a tobacco strand.
Glancing up the embankment, he saw an old but strong-looking black man brandishing a wrench and wearing bunny slippers, charging down at him.
Spitting out the ruined cigar, Death stepped forward, grabbed Alex’s wrist and forearm, twisted. The old man went up and over, the wrench went flying from his hand. Alex came down hard on his back, the breath bursting out of him in spurts.
Death leaned over Alex. Up close, Alex could see that the pink face was slightly pocked and that some of the pinkness was due to makeup. That was rich. Death was vain about his appearance. He was wearing a black T-shirt, pants and sneakers, and of course his derby, which had neither been stirred by the wreck nor by the ju-jitsu maneuver.
“What’s with you, man?” Death asked.
Alex wheezed, tried to catch his breath. “You can’t…have…her.”
“Who? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play…dumb with me.” Alex raised up on one elbow, his wind returning. “You’re Death and you took my Margie’s soul.”
Death straightened. “So you know who I am. All right. But what of it? I’m only doing my job.”
“It ain’t her time.”
“My list says it is, and my list is never wrong.”
Alex felt something hard pressing against his hip, realized what it was. The pipe wrench. Even the throw Death had put on him had not hurled it from his coat pocket. It had lodged there and the pocket had shifted beneath his hip, making his old bones hurt all the worse.
Alex made as to roll over, freed the pocket beneath him, shot his hand inside and produced the pipe wrench. He hurled it at Death, struck him just below the brim of the bowler and sent him stumbling back. This time the bowler fell off. Death’s forehead was bleeding.
Before Death could collect himself, Alex was up and rushing. He used his head as a battering ram and struck Death in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. He put both knees on Death’s arms, pinning them, clenched his throat with his strong, old hands.
“I ain’t never hurt nobody before,” Alex said. “Don’t want to now. I didn’t want to hit you with that wrench, but you give Margie back.”
Death’s eyes showed no expression at first, but slowly a light seemed to go on behind them. He easily pulled his arms out from under Alex’s knees,
reached up, took hold of the old man’s wrists and pulled the hands away from his throat.
“You old rascal,” Death said. “You outsmarted me.”
Death flopped Alex over on his side, then stood up. Grinning, he turned, stooped to recover his bowler, but he never laid a hand on it.
Alex moved like a crab, scissoring his legs, and caught Death from above and behind his knees, twisted, brought him down on his face.
Death raised up on his palms and crawled from behind Alex’s legs like a snake, effortlessly. This time he grabbed the hat and put it on his head and stood up. He watched Alex carefully.
“I don’t frighten you much, do I?” Death asked.
Alex noted that the wound on Death’s forehead had vanished. There wasn’t even a drop of blood. “No,” Alex said. “You don’t frighten me much. I just want my Margie back.”
“All right,” Death said.
Alex sat bolt upright.
“What?”
“I said, all right. For a time. Not many have outsmarted me, pinned me to the ground. I give you credit, and you’ve got courage. I like that. I’ll give her back. For a time. Come here.”
Death walked over to the car that was not from Detroit. Alex got to his feet and followed. Death took the keys out of the ignition, moved to the trunk, worked the key in the lock. It popped up with a hiss.
Inside were stacks and stacks of matchboxes. Death moved his hand over them, like a careful man selecting a special vegetable at the supermarket. His fingers came to rest on a matchbox that looked to Alex no different than the others.
Death handed Alex the matchbox. “Her soul’s in here, old man. You stand over her bed, open the box. Okay?”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Now get out of here before I change my mind. And remember, I’m giving her back to you. But just for a while.”
Alex started away, holding the matchbox carefully. As he walked past Death’s car, he saw the dents he had knocked in the side with his wrecker were popping out. He turned to look at Death, who was closing the trunk.
“Don’t suppose you’ll need a tow out of here?”
Death smiled thinly. “Not hardly.”
Alex stood over their bed; the bed where they had loved, slept, talked and dreamed. He stood there with the matchbox in his hand, his eyes on Margie’s cold face. He ever so gently eased the box open. A small flash of blue light, like Peter Pan’s friend Tinkerbell, rushed out of it and hit Margie’s lips. She made a sharp inhaling sound and her chest rose. Her eyes came open. She turned and looked at Alex and smiled.
“My lands, Alex. What are you doing there, and half-dressed? What have you been up to…is that a matchbox?”
Alex tried to speak, but he found that he could not. All he could do was grin.
“Have you gone nuts?” she asked.
“Maybe a little.” He sat down on the bed and took her hand. “I love you, Margie.”
“And I love you…you been drinking?”
“No.”
Then came the overwhelming sound of Death’s horn. One harsh blast that shook the house, and the headbeams shone brightly through the window and the cracks lit up the shack like a cheap nightclub act.
“Who in the world?” Margie asked.
“Him. But he said…stay here.”
Alex got his shotgun out of the closet. He went out on the porch. Death’s car was pointed toward the house, and the headbeams seemed to hold Alex, like a fly in butter.
Death was standing on the bottom step, waiting.
Alex pointed the shotgun at him. “You git. You gave her back. You gave your word.”
“And I kept it. But I said for a while.”
“That wasn’t any time at all.”
“It was all I could give. My present.”
“Short time like that’s worse than no time at all.”
“Be good about it, Alex. Let her go. I got records and they have to be kept. I’m going to take her anyway, you understand that?”
“Not tonight, you ain’t.” Alex pulled back the hammers on the shotgun. “Not tomorrow night neither. Not anytime soon.”
“That gun won’t do you any good, Alex. You know that. You can’t stop Death. I can stand here and snap my fingers three times, or click my tongue, or go back to the car and honk my horn, and she’s as good as mine. But I’m trying to reason with you, Alex. You’re a brave man. I did you a favor because you bested me. I didn’t want to just
