You've Been Warned

“Hello, Kristin,” he says. “I know, I know, you’re innocent. You didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“This is impossible,” I blurt out. “You’re dead.”

“So they say. I’ve been sent to look after you anyway. To talk to you. Kind of an interview. What do they call them in the business world—exit interviews?” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

I hear the music continue.And go round and round and round,

In the circle game.

Delmonico lights up. He winks at me before blowing out the match. Except there is no match, just the flame. How did he do that?

I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s all a dream, I tell myself. It has to be.

“No,” says Delmonico. “It was never a dream, Kristin.”

“Then there’s been a mistake. I’m not like you. You killed people.”

“You killed too. Don’t you remember?”

“That was different.”

“You’re right. That’s the thing about life; it’s not always so black and white.” He takes a long drag off his cigarette.

I feel something on my leg. It’s moving up my thigh, across my stomach.

“Get it off of me!”

Whatever it is, it climbs up my neck, onto my face. It crawls right past my mouth, over my eyes. Now I can see it! I’m screaming, terrified. It’s the biggest cockroach ever.

Delmonico raises his foot high. The heel of his shoe comes crashing down next to my head.

Crunch!

“As I said, Kristin, this is an interview.”

“An interview for what?” I ask.

“Well, to see where you fit in. You say you’re innocent, and yet you had that terrible affair with a married man. You’ve been self-centered for most of your life. And then there’s your poor little baby boy. Dead. Your fault. Yours and Matthew’s. Right here at the Falcon. How could you?”

I stare at him, horrified that he knows everything. “What is this place, anyway?”

He sighs. “It’s where I died, for one thing, so that gets me a little sentimental, y’know. It’s a portal, Kristin, a gateway. To you-know-where. There are several of them in this big, bad city of New York. But listen to me rattle on. I’m doing all the talking here—and this is your day, Kristin.”

Chapter 109

I’M STARTING TO FEEL very afraid now, and I’m nauseated as well. I smell something burning again. Hives all over my body? Who knows? I have so many questions, I don’t know where to start.

I hear this slap, slap, slap—and I see that Delmonico is tapping his foot beside my head.

“I don’t have all day for this, missy. I should say, you don’t have a lot of time left.”

“For my interview?”

“Exactly. So talk to me. It’s almost time to go. We have to leave these hallowed halls.”

“Go where? Where am I going?”

“Oh, you know as well as I do. What is this you’re trying—the stupidity defense? ‘I’m not accountable because I’m dense?’ You’re not so dumb, Kristin. Boston College. Prelaw. Well, that wasn’t such a great choice, was it?”

“So the Falcon Hotel is the portal, one of the gates—to my destination?”

Delmonico isn’t pleased. “I believe we’ve covered that ground already. But yes. ”

I can barely speak. “Because?... I’ve made some terrible mistakes?”

“To put it mildly, yes. You’ve been a bad, bad girl. Like so many of your kind.”

My throat feels as if it’s closing up on me, but I still manage the next few words.

“Am I... a devil?”

At this, Delmonico has a hearty laugh. “Oh, you wish,” he says.

He sighs out loud, then starts to talk again.

“Here’s a way that might help you understand what’s going to happen to you. Growing up, in Brooklyn this was—near where you met up with the guy with the ponytail, actually—I went to Catholic grade school. I’ll never forget this one. Parish priest gives an inspirational talk to our class. Sixth grade, I think it was. The talk is all about eternity, eternal damnation, and how to comprehend it, as if that’s possible. The priest says, ‘Imagine there’s this tiny little blackbird, lives on a huge mountain in upstate New York or some other godforsaken place. And every thousand years, that little bird fills its beak with whatever it can carry and flies down to Brooklyn and deposits its mouthful in our school parking lot. Now, imagine that the blackbird does this until the entire mountain has been transported there. And that, ladies and gentlemen, would be just the beginning of eternity.’

“Here’s another thought for you. This whole nightmare, all of it, it’s been going on for about thirteen seconds. Start to finish, thirteen seconds. Count ’em—thirteen. So do you see how horrible an eternity of this would be?”

All of what has happened so far... it’s taken thirteen seconds? My God!

Delmonico flicks the ash of his cigarette, and some of it drifts down onto me.

“But what’s going to happen to me for eternity?” I ask.

“The dumb defense again. I love it,” Delmonico says and laughs. “Oh, you’ll see. You’ll find out soon enough. That’s a good one, missy. What happens next. How’s this for a sneak preview?”

Delmonico opens his mouth wider than I’ve ever seen a human mouth open. And then a rat sticks its furry head out the opening. The vermin looks at me, then it disappears back inside Delmonico. “Yum,” he says.

He laughs and laughs, and a smoke ring he blows floats over my head as he turns and walks back into the room, and the darkness.

“Is that the portal to hell in there?” I call to him. “Is it? Delmonico?”

Just then, though, a policewoman leans in very close to me, and I wonder if she’s going to move me somewhere.

But then—don’t think, just shoot—she takes my picture.