“No. I admit I don’t.”
“Then how,” the demon asked plausibly, “can you possibly blaspheme? No, that kind of sin is out for you. So is sacrilege. You’ve got to believe, consciously or subconsciously, that what you do is a sin.”
“Just a minute,” lies objected. “How about these egocentrics who think whatever they do must be right? Can’t they ever sin?”
“They know all right. Down underneath. But this atheism makes you hard to find sins for. Now if you were a Catholic, you’d have it easy every Friday; you’d just eat meat. Or if you were a Jew, you could eat pork every day and let it go at that. But for you atheists—”
“Hold on. Isn’t atheism itself a sin?”
“Not if it’s honest and if it lets other people alone. If a man comes to the knowledge of God and then denies Him; or if he denies the right of other people to believe in Him— How about that? Want to start some religious persecution? That’s a good one.”
“I— Damn it, I couldn’t do that.”
“Well, let’s see. You can’t sin against your God. You can sin against yourself or against your fellow man. That leaves you lots of scope: abduction, adultery, arson, barratry, bigamy, burglary—”
“That’s a start. Adultery and bigamy are out.”
“If you really—” Linda tried to say.
“Out, I said. Barratry might do.”
“What’s that? It sounds dreadful.”
“Inciting unnecessary litigation. Very bad legal ethics. But this demon, hang it all, has gone and aroused my professional conscience. I don’t know— Burglary—”
“What was the first?” Linda demanded of the demon.
Sriberdegibit was beginning to look bored with the whole thing. “Abduction.” Twang.
“Abduction! That’s it. You could do that, couldn’t you?”
“Abduction? But what would I do with what I abducted?”
“That doesn’t matter. Just abduct.”
“But it’s a serious infringement of the rights of the individual. I don’t know that I could—”
“Gil darling, don’t be a prig! Think what’ll become of me if he . . . if that tail— Please, dear. You can do a little thing like that for me, can’t you?”
No man can resist a pleading wife. “Very well,” said Gilbert Iles. “I’ll abduct for you.”
“Is that all?” said Sriberdegibit wearily.
“I think so, unless—” Suddenly lies whirled, in the manner of one tearing away the last shreds of a witness’s mask of hypocrisy. “Breaking an oath would be a sin, wouldn’t it? Even for an atheist?”
“Atheists don’t make oaths. They affirm.”
“Then breaking an affirmation?”
“Very well.” lies raised his right hand. “I hereby solemnly affirm that I shall commit a sin every day of my life.” He dropped his hand to point straight at the demon. “Now every day that passes without a sin I shall have broken my solemn affirmation.”
“Gilbert!” Linda gasped. “You’re wonderful.”
Sriberdegibit shook his head. “Uh-uh. It’s like what you said about contracts. Unenforceable because contrary to good ends. That’s a vow more honored in the breach than the observance. No go. Can I go now? Thanks.”
lies stared at the empty dresser. “Demons,” he murmured, “are amazing. I never heard that quotation correctly used by a mortal. Do you suppose that Shakespeare— But I hope not.”
“It was a brilliant try,” said Linda consolingly.
“And now I start on a career of abduction—”
“Uh-uh. Lirst we’ll go ride on the merry-go-round and then you take me to dinner at a nice fish place and then home, then you go out and abduct.”
“It’s early for dinner,” lies said. “Even a little early for merry-go-rounds.”
“It never is,” Linda asserted.
“But as long as we have us a hotel room and the room clerk did give us that look . . .”
Linda laughed. “And you all tattered and torn, poor darling! Why, you’re just like a private eye!”
“Only,” she said later, “they never get three and a half years’ practice, do they? Poor things . . .”
Gilbert Iles kissed his wife good night and watched her go into the house. It had been a perfect day. Aside from interviewing a tusk-twanging demon, it had been an ideal, quiet, happy, marital day at the beach. He sighed, started up the car, and set off on an abduction prowl.
There was no use trying anything until night had really fallen. Meanwhile he drove around at random, surveying people. Casing the job, as a client had once called it. The ideal victim for an abduction should be alone and helpless. If not helpless, certainly not capable of battering Iles’s picturesque face any further. He forced himself to look professionally upon possible victims—small children, old ladies.
He shuddered at himself. His mind, which should be devoted to the humane practice of his profession, twisting itself into these devious and stupid byways of sin. He was glad when the night grew dark. Now he could get it over with.
He turned the car onto an ill-lit side road. “The first person I see,” he muttered, “after I count a hundred. One—two—three—” He narrowed his eyes so that they saw only the road ahead. “Fifty-five—fifty-six—” Nothing to it. Simply a snatch. And then? “Ninety-nine—one hundred” He widened his eyes and fixed them on the first person along the all but deserted street.
It was a policeman.
“May I be—” lies began, but stopped. Once was enough; he had sworn off that oath ever since the night in the bar. But a cop was too much. Not even practical. Make it two hundred. “One oh one—one oh two—” Where on earth do you— “ One ninety-nine—two hundred.”
This time it was an old woman in a shabby gray coat, carrying a string bag that clinked. Gilbert Iles set his teeth and pulled the car up to the curb. He flung the door open and tried to remember every gangster picture he had ever seen.
“Get in the car!” he snarled.
The old lady got in. “That’s awfully nice of you,” she said. “Of course I’m only going to my daughter’s, the one that’s married to the fireman, and it’s just a ways up the hill but I’m not so young
