“On your way to St. Louis? Lovely city! I know it well.”
I shook my head.
She said, “But you’re going somewhere—home to some city—in the morning aren’t you? And you’ve got a car. There are cars parked outside. The black Plymouth?”
My vehicle is a gray Honda Civic, and I told her so.
“If I—you know.”
“Stay in my room tonight.”
“Will you give me a ride in the morning? Just a ride? Let me off downtown; that’s all I ask.”
I do not live in St. Louis and had not intended to go there, but I said I would.
She turned to the demon. “He says this’s close to Hell and the souls of people going there stop off here, sometimes. Is that where you’re going?”
His booming laugh shook the kitchen. “Not me! Davenport. Going to do a little business in feed corn if I can.”
Eira looked at me as if to say, There, you see?
The demon popped the largest piece of chicken into his mouth like an hors d’oeuvre; I have never met one who did not prefer his food smoking hot. “He’s giving you the straight scoop though, Eira. It is.”
“How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Talk around that chicken like that.”
He grinned, which made him look like a portly crocodile. “Swallowed it, that’s all. I’m hungry. I haven’t eaten since lunch.”
“Do you mind if I take the others? I was warming them up for myself, and there’s more in the refrigerator.”
He stood aside with a mock bow.
“You’re in this together—this thing about Hell. You and him.” Eira indicated me as she took the frying pan from the stove.
“We met before?” he boomed at me. I said that we had not, to the best of my memory.
“Devils—demons are what he calls them. He says there are probably demons sleeping here right now, up on the second floor.”
I put in, “I implied that, I suppose. I did not state it.”
“Very likely true,” the demon boomed, adding, “I’m going to make coffee, if anybody wants some.”
“And the . . . the damned. They’re going to Hell, but they stop off here.”
He gave me a searching glance. “I’ve been wondering about you, to tell the truth. You seem like the type.”
I declared that I was alive for the time being.
“That’s the best anybody can say.”
“But the cars—” Eira began.
“Some drive; some fly.” He had discovered slices of ham in the refrigerator, and he slapped them into the frying pan as though he were dealing blackjack. “I used to wonder what they did with all the cars down there.”
“But you don’t anymore.” Eira was going along now once more willing to play what she thought (or wished me to believe she thought) a rather silly game. “So you found out. What is it?”
“Nope.” He pulled out one of the wooden yellow-enameled kitchen chairs and sat down with such force I was surprised it did not break. “I quit wondering, that’s all. I’ll find out soon enough, or I won’t. But in places this close—I guess there’s others—you get four kinds of folks.” He displayed thick fingers, each with a ring that looked as if it had cost a great deal more than Eira’s. “There’s guys that’s still alive, like our friend here.” He clenched one finger. “Then there’s staff. You know what I mean?”
Eira looked puzzled. “Devils?”
“J. Gunderson Foulweather”—the demon jerked his thumb at his vest— “doesn’t call anybody racial names unless they hurt him or his, especially when there’s liable to be a few eating breakfast in the morning. Staff, okay? Free angels. Some of them are business contacts of mine. They told me about this place; that’s why I came the first time.”
He clenched a second finger and touched the third with the index finger of his free hand. “Then there’s future inmates. You used a word J. Gunderson Foul-weather himself wouldn’t say in the presence of a lady, but since you’re the only lady here, no harm done. Colonists, okay?”
“Wait a minute.” Eira looked from him to me. “You both claim they stop off here.”
We nodded.
“On their way to Hell. So why do they go? Why don’t they just go off,” she hesitated, searching for the right word, and finished weakly, “back home or something?”
The demon boomed, “You want to field this one?”
I shook my head. “Your information is superior to mine, I feel certain.”
“Okay, a friend of mine was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey. You ever been to Newark?”
“No,” Eira said.
“Some parts are pretty nice, but it’s not, like, the hub of Creation, see? He went to France when he was twenty-two and stayed twenty years, doing jobs for American magazines around Paris. Learned to speak the language better than the natives. He’s a photographer, a good one.”
The demon’s coffee had begun to perk. He glanced around at it, sniffed appreciatively, and turned back to us, still holding up his ring and little fingers. “Twenty years, then he goes back to Newark. J. Gunderson Foulweather doesn’t stick his nose into other people’s business, but I asked him the same thing you did me: how come? He said he felt like he belonged there.”
Eira nodded slowly.
I said, “The staff, as you call them, might hasten the process, I imagine.”
The demon appeared thoughtful. “Could be. Sometimes, anyhow.” He touched the fourth and final finger. “All the first three’s pretty common from what I hear. Only there’s another kind you don’t hardly ever see. The runaways.”
Eira chewed and swallowed. “You mean people escape?”
“That’s what I hear. Down at the bottom, Hell’s pretty rough, you know? Higher up it’s not so bad.”
I put in, “That’s what Dante reported too.”
“You know him? Nice guy. I never been there myself, but that’s what they say. Up at the top it’s not so bad, sort of like one of those country-club jails for politicians. The guys up there could jump the fence and walk out. Only they don’t, because they know they’d get caught and sent down where things aren’t so nice. Only every so often somebody does. So you got them too, headed out. Anybody want coffee? I made plenty.”
Long before he had reached his point, I had realized what it was; I found it difficult to speak, but managed to say that I was going up to bed and coffee would keep me awake.
“You, Eira?”
She shook her head. It was at that moment that I at last concluded that she was truly beautiful, not merely attractive in an unconventional way. “I’ve had all I want, really. You can have my toast for your ham.”
I confess that I heaved a sigh of relief when the kitchen door swung shut behind us. As we mounted the steep, carpeted stairs, the house seemed so silent that I supposed for a moment that the demon had dematerialized, or whatever it is they do. He began to whistle a hymn in the kitchen, and I looked around sharply.
She said, “He scares you, doesn’t he? He scares me too. I don’t know why.”
I did, or believed I did, though I forbore.
“You probably thought I was going to switch—spend the night with him instead of you—but I’d rather sleep outside in your car.”
I said, “Thank you,” or something of the kind, and Eira took my hand; it was the first physical intimacy of any sort between us.
When we reached the top of the stair, she said, “Maybe you’d like it if I waited out here in the hall till you get undressed? I won’t run away.”
I shook my head. “I told you I take precautions. As long as you’re in my company, those precautions protect you as well to a considerable extent. Out here alone, you’d be completely vulnerable.”
I unlocked the door of my room, opened it, and switched on the light. “Come in, please. There are things in here, enough protection to keep us both safe tonight, I believe. Just don’t touch them. Don’t touch anything you don’t understand.”