As they waited for their drinks, Remy decided he’d been patient long enough. Back at the Boys Club, he’d tried to get Samson to fill him in, but the big man had refused, saying he had to eat before he dropped dead.
Their drinks arrived, and they put their dinner orders in. Soon after that, three servings of Chinese dumplings arrived, which were promptly pounced upon by the table’s residents.
“So, do you think you might be able to tell me what’s going on now?” Remy asked finally, taking a sip of his drink. It tasted strongly of Seagram’s, just the way Mulvehill and he liked a Seven and Seven. Remy was sure that if the China Lion were more in the neighborhood, Steven would be a regular, but Lynn was a little too far even for excellent Seven and Sevens.
Samson stabbed a dumpling with his fork, dipped it in the special soy sauce, and brought it to his mouth. The dark sauce dribbled from the corners of his mouth, down into his white beard.
“We thought you might know some stuff that would be helpful to us,” the big man said, noisily chewing on the dumpling.
“So I’m guessing your kids’ driving through the motel wall wasn’t an accident?”
“I told them to follow you.” Samson shrugged.
“And what’s this information I might have?” Remy asked. There was one dumpling left, and he stabbed it with his fork.
“Methuselah thought you might have something,” Samson said. He wiped the sauce from his beard, then picked up his bottle of beer.
“Methuselah?” Remy asked.
“You were at his place the other night, asking about the mark.” Samson set his beer down and rubbed the back of one of his large hands.
“Yeah, I was,” Remy said, breaking the dumpling in half with the side of his fork and popping the piece into his mouth. He chewed for a bit before continuing. “I was curious if anyone had ever seen something like it.”
Marko and Carla chuckled as they sipped their Chinese beers.
“All right, so I’m guessing you guys know something I don’t,” Remy said. “How about we all be big kids and share.”
Their dinners arrived. Carla got the Szechuan chicken, and Marko had ordered some sort of spicy shrimp dish served inside a half of a pineapple. Samson’s dinner had something to do with duck and Paradise, and Remy relied on his old standby, General Tsao.
They dug into their meals, Remy still waiting for his answers.
“It’s her mark,” Samson finally said, feeding the crunchy fried skin of the duck into his mouth.
“Excuse me?” Remy asked, his fork holding some of General Tsao’s chicken midway to his mouth.
“The kiss marks,” Samson stated in explanation. “They’re her mark. . Delilah’s.”
Remy dropped his fork. With the inclusion of Samson in the puzzle, he should have known.
“Really,” he said, taking another sip of his drink. “She’s still around too, is she?”
“Oh, she’s around all right,” Samson said with a nod, reaching into his mouth to pick a piece of duck from his teeth. “I’ve been trying to kill that bitch for years.”
He grabbed his beer and tipped it back, discovering with disgust that it was empty. “Hey, Kenny!” he bellowed toward the doorway. “Another round, you yellow bastard!”
“You can all go fuck yourselves,” the owner replied.
Samson got very serious, his large, sausage-sized fingers intertwining at his chin. “I was born to be the champion of the Israelites,” he said quietly. “To deliver my people from the tyranny of the Philistines. All I had to do was abstain from alcohol and not cut my hair.”
The waitress returned with their drinks.
“Guess that was supposed to prove I was totally dedicated to God,” the big man said as he brought the fresh beer to his lips. He drank nearly half of it before taking the bottle from his mouth again.
“Making up for lost time,” he said, and then belched.
The kids thought this was a riot.
“I killed a lot of Philistines in my time,” he said, flexing and unflexing his gigantic hands. “And had a lot of women, but nothing compared to her.”
“Here we go,” Marko said, rolling his eyes. “I’m going out for a smoke.” Carla said she would join him, and they both left the table.
“Fucking kids,” Samson growled. “No sense of history.” He took another pull from his beer.
“So I’m guessing the
“And you’d be correct,” the big man agreed. “I fell in love with her on first sight. She was from a little village in the valley of Sorek. I was passing through there on the run from some Philistine jerkwads trying to make a name for themselves by taking me down.”
He laughed, lifting his beer. “Yeah, good fucking luck with that.
“I hadn’t planned on hanging around, but she had this certain quality. Once I was with her, I couldn’t imagine being without her.”
Samson grew quiet. Remy could tell that the old man’s memory was still good enough to remember all the details, both the pleasant and the unpleasant.
“I shared everything with her,” he said, still ashamed at how he’d been taken. “Told her about God’s mission for me, and how I could be stopped only one way.”
“The hair?” Remy said.
Samson nodded.
“So, could you please explain to me what the fuck is up with that?” Marko asked as he and Carla returned to the table, stinking of cigarette smoke. “You cut your hair and lose your strength? I don’t get it.”
“It’s a God thing,” Remy said. “I swear He comes up with the stuff off the top of His head.”
“Exactly,” Samson said. “Those were His rules, and I was supposed to stick to them.”
“But Delilah betrayed you,” Remy said sympathetically.
The old man clutched his beer bottle in a tightening grip. “Oh yeah, she did that all right. It just goes to show how you never really know a person,” he said.
He finished his second beer before coming up for air.
“The Philistines had pulled her aside and made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. Eleven hundred silver coins for the secret of my strength.”
He shook his shaggy head, his white hair, in a ponytail now, swinging back and forth. He felt for his fork and picked it up, then began to work on one of his duck legs.
“She cut my hair while I was asleep, after a good schtuping—if you know what I mean.” He made a fist and brought it back and forth. Remy knew what he meant.
“With the hair gone, my deal with God was canceled.”
“God’s a dick,” Carla said, tipping back her beer.
“He is pretty anal about His rules,” Remy said in a weak attempt at defending the All-Father.
“The rest you probably know,” Samson said, feeding strips of duck meat into his mouth. “The Philistines captured me, blinded me, and used me as a slave to grind their grain.”
Samson tore what remained of the leg from the duck carcass and brought it to his mouth.
“I just bided my time, praying to God every moment I had, swearing to serve Him for as long as He wanted me. He must’ve seen that I still had some good years left, and He gave me a little gift. He let my hair grow back overnight.”
“Dad fucked up those Philistines good,” Marko said, doing the fist bump with his sister.
“I did at that,” the old man said wistfully. “Brought their whole friggin’ temple down around their pointy ears.”
The kids raised their beer bottles in salute to their father.
Remy finished his second drink, tipping the glass back so that some of the ice would fall into his mouth. “And what about Delilah?” he asked, crunching on the ice. “I’m pretty sure her story doesn’t end there.”
The large man shook his head again. He dropped the duck leg bone down onto his plate, wiping his greasy hands on his napkin.
“Not by a long shot,” Samson said. “She took off after I was captured, and nobody really knew what happened to her. Probably started a new identity elsewhere, but it didn’t change who she really was. . and whom she betrayed.”
Samson turned his blind eyes toward Remy.
“She didn’t just betray me; she betrayed God.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “And you know He hates to be fucked with.”
The cute waitress came into the room to clear the table. There wasn’t all that much remaining of the meals, but Marko asked for the leftovers.
“God cursed her,” Samson said in a voice softer than usual. “Cursed her to live eternally, always knowing that what she had. . always knowing that whatever she loved would die.”
“And the mark?” Remy asked.
“Now, that’s the interesting part,” Samson said. “It seems that after God cursed her, she went through a bit of a change. Delilah became less human and more demonic with each passing century. She changed physically. She had the ability to command the weak-willed, and to feed off the souls of her victims. She became a succubus.”
“She leaves her mark when she feeds on their souls,” Remy said, finally understanding.
“The ultimate hickey,” Marko said.
“So you’re still looking for her?” Remy asked.
The waitress came back into the room with the bagged leftovers, asking if anybody wanted coffee or dessert. Marko and Carla ordered the fried ice cream, while Samson ordered another beer and Remy asked for a cup of tea.
“I swore to God that I would serve Him for as long as He wanted,” Samson said. “And my job is to find that soul-sucking bitch and put her out of His misery.”
“All this time though, and you still haven’t found her?”
“The bitch goes dormant,” the strongman explained. “As if she’s ceased to exist. A hundred years have been known to go by until she starts to use her twisted gifts again. I can feel it in my bones; makes them ache something awful. And I’ve been feeling pretty awful of late.”
The waitress brought the desserts and drinks, and asked if they’d like anything else.
They all said no and thanked her. She told them she’d be back shortly with the check.
“She’s been active all right,” Remy said as he dunked the tea bag in his mug of hot water.
“And now you know why we picked you up,” Samson said, pointing at Remy with his beer bottle. “So, that case you’re working on, give me some details.”
“It’s a missing person’s case,” Remy said as he brought the mug of tea to his mouth. He took a sip of the hot liquid. “A six-year-old child. And it seems as though Delilah might be looking for her as well.”
“She’s been known to steal a few in her travels,” Samson explained. “Raises them as her own; they grow up to serve her and all that. Of course, she feeds on their souls to make them more obedient.”
Remy shook his head as he held on to his mug, warming his hands. “Seems a little more complicated than that. I think the child is gifted.”
“What, she can spell well or do math problems off the top of her head?”
“No, the I-think-she-can-see-the-future kind of gifted.”
