When Jack awoke it was from the deepest sleep he had had in longer than he could remember. He breathed slowly, concentrated on keeping his heartbeat steady, listened. Then the sound came again, the one that had roused him, this time punctuated by a distinct ‘click’. It took him a couple of seconds to realize what that sound was and when he did he instinctively reached to his nightstand and found the comforting weight of the .44 that lay next to his alarm clock. One hand holding the pistol, the other carefully pulling the sheet aside, he moved silently as he swung his legs around and over the edge of the bed. His bare feet on the shag carpet, he rose cautiously, hoping that his knees would not pop as they sometimes did when his legs were not accustomed to moving.
He stood up, thankful that his joints were willing to cooperate this time. He moved quietly to the doorway of his room. Another sound. Footsteps. Slow. Shuffling. Out beyond the hall, in the living room. It sounded like only one person and, whoever it was, didn’t seem to be too overly concerned about whether or not they were quiet. This burglar was in for a surprise.
He pulled the hammer back, rested the tip of his finger on the switch to the laser sight, and moved into the hallway.
The hallway was not long. Two doors halfway down, one to the other bedroom, the other to the guest bath, both stood closed. He had a clear view of the hallway and a good portion of the living room beyond. He could see, as he made his way slowly down the hall, sneaking through his own apartment like a thief himself, the drapes that hid his private life from the outside world moving ever so slightly. Then he saw footprints, muddy and smudged, across his white carpet.
Fucking moron, he thought, a smile spreading across his thin lips. It'll be a pleasure to ace this jackass, even if it's just for ruining my carpet.
He stepped forward slowly. He could see the table next to the sofa, a wonderfully expensive marble and steel affair he had seen while doing some work in Venice, its multiple legs, each as thick as a man’s arm, twisted as they went up to support the weight of the stone atop it. On the table was a lamp of equal value. Jack had always prided himself on his good taste and it reflected in his apartment. Everything in it was immaculate. And expensive. He made good money.
He could see the sofa now, white leather gleaming gray in the meager moonlight. The footprints led from the sliding glass door to the sofa and ended there. Now he was sure. That had been the sound that had awakened him. The back door opening and then closing again. The click: the lock. That explained the curtains moving. But the back door led out to the balcony. Then it was about a hundred-foot drop to the sidewalk. This was some kind of ballsy burglar alright. Crazy. Coming through somebody’s balcony door like that a hundred feet up.
He came to a halt when he saw a leg. Apparently, the intruder had just plopped himself down on Jack’s couch. Whoever it was, was sitting there, just sitting there being rude. First the mud all over the floor and now this? Jack was considering how difficult it would be to remove blood from white leather when a voice came from the darkness beyond.
“So this is the house that Jack built.”
It sounded vaguely familiar but not so much that Jack could immediately match it with a face. Didn’t matter anyway, Jack preferred not to know personally those he killed. It made his job just that much easier.
Jack lowered his weapon and angled his body so that the wall would mostly cover him if this little surprise visit happened to turn into a firefight. He doubted it would. Most second-story men didn’t bother to carry weapons, especially guns. He had a clear shot as he could see the intruder now, a silhouette against the pale glow of the sofa. Just like a paper target.
The man sat on the couch with a casual air. It seemed to Jack as though the intruder didn’t realize just how deep the shit was he was in at that moment. He also didn’t seem to notice the little red dot that sat steadily between his eyes.
“You’ve just made the last mistake you’ll ever make, friend.”
“Oh, Jack, you do love theatrics, don’t you?”
That voice. Where had he heard that voice before? He was sure he didn’t know this guy but he knew that he had talked to him before. Maybe over the phone. That must have been it. He always dealt with people over the phone, clients anyway. Targets he dealt with personally and they didn’t talk much. Sometimes they begged. Sometimes they cried. Sometimes they prayed. And then some just took it silently, knowing they deserved exactly what they were about to get.
But this voice Jack couldn’t remember, still couldn’t place. Confusion was not something he was accustomed to but it began to swell in his brain like a leech sucking on his memory, leaving big empty nothingness. He didn’t much like the feeling.
“You can come out now,” the man said. “It seems you’ve lost the element of surprise.”
“Who are you?” was the only thing Jack could think to say.
He stayed put. He still couldn’t tell whether the other man was armed or not.
“Who am I,” the man echoed, his voice a mix of sarcasm and levity. “Who am I, indeed?”
Jack remembered. A feeling of absurdity began to creep ever so slowly into his head, as if he were asleep and suddenly realized he was dreaming.
But that’s impossible…
“How’s my wife, Jack?”
“You’re what?” he stuttered. He could feel his nerves begin to fray, to undo themselves. His hand began to shake ever so slightly and the gun suddenly felt heavier in his grip. If what he was thinking was true then either he was crazy or he was still in his bed asleep and dreaming.
“Mrs. Davis, Jack. Certainly you remember. It was only a week ago when she called you.”
Jack’s gut flopped over once in one huge tumult: a gush of adrenaline that surely should have killed a horse. His grip on the gun began to slip. He fought his legs as they threatened to give way beneath him. He had broken out in a cold sweat and his skin felt like that of a recently dead corpse, clammy inside his silk pajamas. He swallowed hard. A trickle of sweat snuck out from beneath his hairline and crept, cold and slow, down his forehead.
“This is some kind of a joke, right?”
“No joke, I assure you.” Indeed, the other man’s voice was entirely without any humor.
“Who are you?”
“I’m the real thing, friend.”
“You’re dead.”
“Are you sure?”
A short, tense laugh escaped him despite his attempt to hold onto his resolve. But the fear he felt, the fear that had swept over him in the past few moments like a slow wave of tangible darkness, threatened to steal what was left of his sanity and replace it with something else, something unspeakable. It was as if some nightmare creature had stepped out of the turbid air around him and enveloped him, holding him a helpless prisoner in its icy, unyielding arms. He could feel his heartbeat, a wild animal throwing itself against the bars of its cage.
"When you kill someone, you really should make sure you finish the job."
"I had you dumped in the Hudson."
“Apparently that wasn’t enough.”
“You had a hole in the back of your head the size of the Lincoln Tunnel.”
“I admit that should have done the job.”
It was then that Jack decided to pull the trigger. Or maybe it wasn’t his decision. Maybe it was the monstrous fear that held him hostage... that took control of his trigger finger... that whispered into his ear that if he just went ahead and blew this nightmare away...
The shot rang out, a booming cannon in his ears. The flash of the muzzle lit the room just enough for Jack to glimpse his target but not enough to make out any detail. The man sitting on the couch didn’t move save for a slight, backward jerk of the head. Jack was sure he’d hit the bastard. He waited a second, taking in as much as his light-deprived eyes would allow, waiting for the body to slump forward... sideways... any-fucking-way. Slowly he lowered the gun, his heart trip-hammering in his chest, his breathing ragged. He felt cold and the utter strangeness of the situation maintained its icy grip on him. He almost felt foolish, firing into the darkness at something he knew had to be a nightmare - a waking dream - a living dead man.
He couldn’t see it anymore. The silhouette was gone.
No. Not gone. It was still there. His eyes -- his night vision -- had been blinded by the flash of the muzzle. He saw the man there, just sitting there. Not slumped over.
“Jesus…”
The man rose from the sofa and stood before him.
“You’d think you’d have learned…”
Jack took a step back, blinking in the darkness, knowing that his mind had completely gone now. This wasn’t a dream. This was real. He fired again, this time hitting the man in the shoulder. The bullet hit the wall beyond with enough force to shatter the area into a thousand tiny shards of drywall.
“…from your first mistake.”
Another round fired. This one went wild as Jack tripped backward, apparently over nothing at all, and landed squarely on his ass. Like some crazed blind crab, he scampered backward on all fours and soon felt the wall at his back. Now there was nowhere to go as the other man came slowly toward him, dragging his feet slightly as he went. The smell of murky water and rancid meat suddenly hit Jack and a wave of nausea swept over him. His stomach lurched and he felt his bowels loosen as the dead-man-thing approached him. His eyes felt huge in their sockets as he strained to see the interloper’s face. His mind was in a flurry of confusion. The thing standing over him stupefied him. He had dropped his gun when he fell and now he was paralyzed with fear. He didn’t even realize that he was holding his breath.
“You were careless, Jack. You made a mistake - you tried to kill the wrong man - and now you're suffering the consequences. Who was it that wrote ... what was it now? 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'?”
Jack shook his head, short, jerky movements, a trembling that was a mere echo of the chaos that churned within him. His mind refused to respond rationally to all this. How could this be? Was he crazy? Had all these years of killing finally gotten to him? Is this what lunatics see right before the end, before they jump from the window or put a bullet in their brains? His eyes darted back and forth frantically, searching for the gun. Where was it? Where the fuck was it?!
“Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced… Oh… You looking for this?” The other man knelt down and picked up the pistol, half its rounds spent, as it lie at his feet.
Jack watched as the man, still kneeling before him like a penitent too late for salvation, began to spin the cylinder of the gun. He held it in his dead, decaying grip, pointing the barrel at Jack as he spoke.
“It’s kinda like Russian Roulette, isn’t it? What you do?”
Surprisingly, Jack suddenly found the capacity to speak, albeit somewhat laboriously, as his mind struggled to maintain its increasingly tenuous grasp of reality.
“What I do?” he said. His voice was little more than a dying man’s croak.
“Killing and all,” the man said. “I’m sure that when you pull the trigger, sometimes you’re probably not sure exactly who it is you’re executing.”
“W-w-what do you mean?”
“You’re probably not sure whether the person you’re killing is them… or you.”
“I don’t…” Jack began, shaking his head, his mouth trembling.
“What? You don’t understand?” The dead man stood then on legs wobbling in the inclination of the newly deceased. “Then let me show you.”
The man held the gun to Jack’s head and, grinning in the darkness, pulled the trigger.
Jack was sitting at a desk. The office was not his own; it couldn’t have been because he didn’t have one. He worked out of his home, his apartment on West 40th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, nineteen blocks south of Central Park. He dealt with his clients exclusively over throwaway prepaid cell phones. None of them knew what he looked like and vice versa. He liked it that way. Anonymity was always best.
Nevertheless, here he was. He looked around. The desk was mahogany -- he always liked mahogany -- as was the floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind him. On the desk was a green glass secretary’s lamp, its brass fixtures glinting of the light. Pictures in brushed pewter frames adorned one corner of the desk. There was a man and a woman in one photo, obviously in love, hugging each other on the deck of a cruise ship. The man looked vaguely familiar, like someone you remember seeing at the grocery store on occasion. There was another photo, a family portrait with the same couple and three children, obviously taken years later. The oldest of the three being an attractive young woman of probably sixteen or so, straight blonde hair with water-blue eyes that sparkled with all the vitality and innocence of someone so young. Jack’s heart searched for a time when he was that naïve. He shook his head. He just couldn’t remember that far back. There were too many dead people standing in the way.
Sitting in the luxury of the black leather executive chair, he continued to peruse the office. The walls were made of thick panes of glass; the one to his left displayed a panoramic view of Central Park beyond. It was nighttime and the darkness enveloped the city like the blanket of a restless child not yet ready for sleep. The lights of the bustling city below gave proof to that and the windows in the adjacent office buildings showed evidence of those who were not happy until the day’s work had been completed, regardless of the late hour.
The wall to his right was frosted, its vertical blinds open, and what little light spilled through from beyond showed him a workplace filled with cubicles as generic and banal as this office was distinctive and austere. The wall before him boasted a single glass door. There were words written there, a mirror image, which he began to try to read as the phone on the desk rang.
He looked at it. It rang again. He removed the receiver from its cradle and pressed the phone tentatively to his ear.
“Hello?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. It sounded strange to him, like it wasn’t his own somehow. There was no reply. Just a click and then a dial tone. He hung up. He looked up from the phone just in time to see the door open.
Dressed in his usual black London Fog trench, the one he always wore when he was on the clock, Jack Travis stood in the doorway, one hand tucked into his pocket, the other flipping a cell phone closed.
“Mr. Davis?”
“What?”
“You are Mr. Richard Davis, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Richard Davis, attorney at law?”
“No,” he shook his head. My name is Jack, he wanted to say but didn’t.
“Well, I’ve got news for you. This time, you are.”
Suddenly, he realized who the man in the picture was. He looked at the window to his left and focused not on the panorama beyond but on the reflection on its surface. The face staring back at him was that of the man in the photograph on the desk. Richard Davis. Him. He was Richard Davis!
His mind reeled. He looked back at the man standing in the doorway in time to see him reach into his coat and pull a pistol from its depths. He, Jack, the man raised the weapon and leveled it at his head.
“Seems you’ve been a bad boy, Dick,” the man said. “Been dipping your wick in the company inkwell.”
“What?”
“Come now,” the man smiled through his words. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
If there was any such thing as an out-of-body experience, he was in the midst of one now and it was almost too much for his brain to handle. He felt alienated from everything, like he was watching a movie. He stared at the gun. His mind seized. He felt like an animal, hypnotized by oncoming headlights. His heart pounded, feral in its cage of bone and gristle.
“Got a call from your wife, Dick,” the man said. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he didn’t like being called Dick. Why would he think that? His name was Jack. Jack Travis. Or was it? He looked at the man’s face now. It looked so familiar, like someone you remember seeing at the post office every now and then. He knew he always wanted a trench coat like that one. Wearing one always gave him such a sense of machismo, like Bogie in all those old black-and-white movies.
“My wife?” he said.
“Yeah. And do you know what she said? She said that she knew about your late nights at work, Dick. And about how one of your paralegals sometimes stays late with you. Kinda cute, I hear. And how you work together…”
A feeling of dread washed over him, starting in his throat and working its way down to his balls where they shrank up into his body like turtles hiding in their shells. His face felt hot and his heart beat even faster.
“…or should I say ‘each other’?”
How could she know?
What was he thinking? Who’s she? Denise? Denise was her name. How could he know that? How could he know her name when, at the outset, he had insisted that she not tell him?
“Yes, Denise,” he said, glancing at the photo of him and his wife on their honeymoon. The Sea Princess. That was the name of the ship.
He’d forgotten until now. How could he have forgotten?
The man with the gun stepped through the doorway and into the office. He looked around appreciatively at the room, seeming to take everything in at the same time.
“Always liked mahogany.”
“What did you say?”
“I was saying that your wife… Denise? Well, she’s not too happy about what kind of overtime you’ve been pulling lately.”
He looked at the other photo, the one of himself and Denise and the kids. They had decided, in the capriciousness of their young marriage, that they would name their children with given names that started with the letter “J”. For him it was personal, being an attorney. To him, and he knew it sounded silly, but “J” would always stand for Justice, a notion that he would always accredit as being his main motivation, the impetus behind everything he ever wanted to do in life. And there they were, smiling back at him from beyond the glare-proof glass of the brushed pewter frames they had picked up in Puerto Rico one summer. Jennifer, James and John. Jennifer, so beautiful, so pristine. She had been his “Baby Princess” since the day of her birth and would remain daddy’s little girl until the day he stood by her side and gave her away at her wedding. He had it all planned out. It would be perfect…
He was pulled from this strange reverie by the sound of a weapon being cocked.
“Are you with me, Dick?” the man with the trench coat said. “I don’t have a whole lot of time here.” He shrugged. “Busy. ‘Sides, the clean-up crew will be here soon.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. You want me to draw you a flow-chart? Jealous wives are my staple source of income, Dick ol’ buddy, ol’ pal. Plain and simple. You’re about to become a statistic.”
“You can’t kill me.”
“I've heard that one.”
“I can't die yet.”
“I've heard that one, too. Look, it’ll make it a lot easier for you if you just come up with some kind of, well, more original last words so I can get on with this and get out of here. Unless, of course, you're enjoying this...”
“I've got too much to live for.”
“... as much as I am. You’re wife loves you, otherwise she wouldn’t want to have you killed for what you’ve done to her. I know it sounds twisted but that’s the kind of business I’m in. I hear it all the time: If I can’t have him all to myself, I don’t want him at all. I know it’s sick but, hey, it’s a living. Beats a messy divorce.”
“I’ve got too much to live for!” There was something just beyond his ability to grasp lurking at the fringes of his consciousness. He reached out for it and it came to him.
“Is that it?”
He looked at the photos again and felt hot tears well up in his eyes. How could he have been so stupid? He was a man of success, a man of virtue who stood up for people in the name of justice. He had so much.
And now he was faced with the possibility of losing it all, including his own life, over a single indiscretion. Throwing his whole life away over a piece of ass. Maybe he deserved to die. No. Not death. Maybe he deserved something, some punishment, but certainly not death. Especially at the hands of some scumball hired gun. Justice meant that the punishment fit the crime. No, he’d find a way out of this. There was a loophole to be found in anything. Twenty-two years as an attorney had taught him at least that much. And he was sure he had found a way out.
“Time’s up, Dick.”
“How much did she pay you?”
“Enough.”
“I'll double it.” He knew his words were wasted. He didn't care.
“No deal.”
“Why not?” He knew. It no longer mattered.
He had found his loophole.
“Not my style. Extermination is one thing, betrayal of a client’s trust is another. I may be a lot of things but I’m not a double-crosser. I have a reputation to uphold. Besides, all my advertisement is strictly by word-of-mouth.” The man cocked his head to one side. His tone became one of someone speaking to the truly retarded. “You understand.”
He said this last, Richard noticed, with some degree of humor.
“Ready or not...”
In the last second or so from the time the stranger’s finger began to squeeze the trigger to the time he saw the muzzle spit forth a cone-shaped blast of fire toward him he had an overwhelming sense of peace, a peace of mind that he hadn’t ever remembered feeling before, not even in the best of times. For some reason, he suddenly remembered a line from a poem he’d studied once in college. It had something to do with death. Something about death and how, despite it seemed like the end of all things, it could be a new beginning. And then it all came clear to him.
He didn’t have time to think of anything else before something hit him, something invisible that hit him squarely between the eyes. It felt like a ten-pound sledge hammer had struck him in the head. Before he realized what happened next, before he heard or felt or saw anything else, his whole world went gray and Richard Davis, Attorney at Law, almost but not quite ceased to exist.
It was 7:38 a.m. when he awoke to the sound of a phone ringing. He felt rumpled but more refreshed than he had felt in a long time. He reached for the cell phone and hit the talk button as he pressed it to his ear.
“Speak.”
“Mr. Travis?” the voice on the other end sounded timid, almost scared. It was a woman’s voice. Late thirties, he guessed.
“What do you want?”
“I would ... like to hire you,” she said. She sounded as if perhaps she’d been crying.
“Sorry, ma’am,’ he said, a smile warming on his thin lips. “You must have the wrong number.”
He hung up and put the phone back on the nightstand.
She won’t call back, he thought. That much he knew.
He laid back in the bed, feeling the softness of the satin sheets, the sleek sensuality of the silk pajamas he wore. Life was indeed good. He had so much to live for. Especially now. The promise of something different, a new challenge. A blessing and a punishment all in one. Atonement for a sin and a second lease on life. One with a slightly unusual twist.
Poetry had only been a passing interest for him when he was in college. He had majored in history only to earn his law degree. His true passion had been philosophy. And religion. And the occult. And in his studies he had come across something called the Theurgia Goetia, one of the writings of the king named Solomon. And within its pages was written a technique, ancient and all but forgotten, to call upon a Prince named Bydial, a decidedly evil being. But one who would not disagree with being helpful to those worthy in their time of greatest need. And one of the privileges of this Prince's station was the ability to save ones soul -- to help it to survive the death of its physical body. To possess the body of the one who had caused its death. Especially a wrongful death. Especially a premature death. So that the disincarnated one may continue in life and be given its rightful chance to survive.
He had almost forgotten all about it.
Almost.
And with that thought Richard Davis got out of bed to start a brand new day.
<end>
