The Wrong Goodbye

11.

“So,” Gio said, “you gonna tell me what the hell happened back there?”

He twisted in the Fiesta’s passenger seat to look at me, his worried frown rendered sickly green by the pale dashboard light. Our tires clattered against the blacktop as we barreled west on 20, the speedometer pushing eighty as I chased the sunset that had long since dipped beneath the horizon before us. The lights of Shreveport were fast receding in the rearview, which meant that there were damn near two states between me and my meeting with Ana. In my opinion, that was still a couple states too few. I pressed the pedal to the floor mat and felt the whole car shudder as the needle climbed to ninety.

I guess I couldn’t fault Gio for his concern —I looked a wreck after my tussle with Ana. My suit was a rumpled mess. My hair was mussed from when she’d yanked back my head. Dried blood crusted around the pinprick in my neck. Besides, I’d barely said five words since we’d left the rest home —I’d been so rattled by what Ana had told me, I didn’t trust myself to speak. And even if I did, I sure as shit wasn’t going to spill my guts to Gio. Not when it was that touchy-feely sharing bullshit that left me feeling like this in the first place.

I guess Ana’s betrayal shouldn’t have taken me by surprise; after all, as far as she was concerned, I’d betrayed her long ago. And God knows Danny’s screwed me over more times than I can count. But I’d always thought of Ana as being better than that.

Turns out, I thought wrong.

See, most demons have themselves a nasty sense of humor, which means when you cut yourself a deal with one, you’d best be careful what you wish for. Ana knows that better than anyone. She thought when she cut her deal to avenge her family that she was exacting justice. But there’s no justice in the slaughter of innocents —there’s only pain and remorse. Ana didn’t realize that until it was too late, but you can be damn sure her demon knew. Now, that bastard already had her soul by way of payment regardless of what she wished for, but still he couldn’t help but twist the knife by turning her into the very thing she most despised —by convincing her to kill. And since twisting the knife is what hell is all about, the powers that be used the same sadistic logic in determining her punishment. Having been unable to live with the fact that her revenge had driven her to become a vicious killer, Ana was condemned to kill for all eternity as a Collector.

My story isn’t so far off from her own. In life, I was a decent man —or so I thought. But then my wife fell ill, and I was offered a deal: essentially, my wife’s life for my own. What I didn’t know was that, before the demon took my life as payment, he would strip me of everything I held dear: my decency, my compassion, my respect for human life. Much like Ana’s did to her, my demon turned me into a killer —a heartless bastard —and the kicker is, he did it with such ease that for years after my death, I wondered if maybe that was who I’d always been. It took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t —that I’d simply been so desperate, so focused on saving Elizabeth, that I hadn’t spared a thought about what that goal might cost me. In the end, her health returned, but she couldn’t live with the person I’d become. She left, and took our unborn child with her. Looking back, I couldn’t even blame her. By the time that evil son of a bitch was done with me, I was but an echo of the man Elizabeth had married —hollow, empty, cold. And when finally, I lay broken and alone, that fucker delighted in my misery, laughing at the ruined man that I’d become.

That demon —that fucking monster —was named Dumas.

Ana knew my story, of course, as I’d known hers. Which means she knew how much she and Danny getting into bed with Dumas would hurt me. Maybe in her mind, I deserved it. Hell, maybe I even did. Either way, it didn’t make it hurt any less.

But like I said, I wasn’t going to say any of that to Gio. And since I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I said nothing —a nothing that, so far, had stretched on for going on eight hours.

“OK, if you don’t wanna talk about it, could you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“Las Cruces,” I said.

“Las Cruces? As in New Mexico?”

“That’s right.”

“Is that where we’re gonna find our guy?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.”

“Then why the hell are we going there?”

“Because it turns out Danny’s involved in some pretty nasty shit —sort of the undead equivalent of drug running, I suppose. Las Cruces is where his employer’s at.”

“Ah, I gotcha —you think maybe we can shake him down, make him tell us where this Danny guy’s been hiding.”

“Something like that,” I lied. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth: that it wasn’t Danny I was really after. That as much as I’d like to see Danny pay for what he’d done, recovering the Varela soul was my only real priority. That there was a chance Danny wasn’t in Las Cruces at all —that he’d simply left the soul there and moved on —and this errand I was dragging Gio on would bring him no closure, no justice, no peace of any kind.

Only even that was a lie —it isn’t that I didn’t have the heart. I didn’t tell him because I didn’t yet know whether or not I’d need him, and so I had to keep him motivated —invested in a common goal. I didn’t tell him the truth because if I did, I couldn’t use him anymore.

I guess Ana was right about me after all: I really am a bastard.

“So this boss-man we’re going to see,” Gio said, “he a reaper-type like you?”

“Dumas? No, Dumas is nothing like me —he’s a demon.”

Gio looked impressed. “A demon, huh? He got, like, horns and shit?”

“No,” I said. “The monster shtick is strictly for the foot-soldiers. The higher-ups, they’ve got the juju to alter their appearance —to change the way your eye perceives them. They all look pretty much like you or me. But then, I thought you would’ve known that.”

“Why the hell would I have known that? It ain’t like I’ve ever met a demon before.”

“Of course you have.”

“The fuck’re you talking about?”

“Gio, how do you think you ended up here?”

“I dunno —I mean, I guess I done some shit I shouldn’ta done. Ain’t that sorta how this works?”

“Sure, for some. But that alone isn’t enough to get you collected. No, to get collected, you’ve either got to be full-on Hitler bad, or you’ve got to make yourself a deal with a demon. And you, my friend, are the latter.”

“But that don’t make no sense! If I’da made a deal with a demon, wouldn’t I remember it? If I’da made a deal with a demon, wouldn’t I at least have gotten something out of it?”

I shook my head in disbelief. “You think you didn’t?"

“What —you’re saying that I did?”

“Gio, before you wound up working for the Outfit, what kind of shit were you pulling?”

Gio hedged. “Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that.”

“Yeah, my guess is emphasis on little. The way I hear it, you were nothing but a two-bit thug. I’m guessing some mugging, a hold-up or two, maybe a little smash-and-grab, right?”

Dude was frowning something fierce, now. When he spoke, his tone was sullen, petulant. “I did all right.”

“Sure you did,” I said, “but you’ve got to admit, that sort of stuff doesn’t exactly make you Outfit material, now does it?”

“I… I guess not.”

“Only one day, a guy comes along, says he’ll make your dreams come true —all you’ve got to do is come work for him, and he’ll take care of the rest. Next thing you know, you’re living large, and you can’t believe your luck —but you aren’t about to question it, because you’re afraid that if you do, it’s all going to go away. Am I close?”

“A little too,” he admitted.

“That guy you met —he make you shake on it?”

He thought on that a sec. “Yeah.”

“Demon.”

Gio fell silent for a while, mulling over what I’d just told him. Then he heaved a sigh and shook his head. “Shit,” he said, “it ain’t like I was ever in line for the pearly gates anyway —not after all I done. The way I see it, I still came out ahead.”

“Yeah, only now hell’s got all of eternity to try to change your mind.”

We spent the next mile or so in silence. When Gio finally broke it, his tone was absent its usual bravado. He sounded small, fragile, afraid. “What’s gonna happen to me? When this is all over, I mean.”

“You’re asking what hell is like?”

“Yeah.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“You mean you’re like forbidden?”

“No, I mean I couldn’t say. Hell is sort of like a tailored suit of bad. Everybody’s is a little different, and everybody’s is designed to deliver the punishment that best fits them. For me, hell is right here, right now —it’s this world, this life, this thankless task. For you, I couldn’t say.”

“That don’t give me much to help prepare for it.”

“Sorry, but that’s all I’ve got. And even if I had more to tell you, it wouldn’t help. There’s just no preparing for what you’ve got coming.”

“Jesus, dude —your bedside manner sucks. You trying to scare the shit outta me?”

“I’m trying to tell you the truth,” I said. It came out harsher than I intended. I took a breath and tried again. “Look, if you want to know what hell is really like, you’ve got to look inside yourself. Hell is your worst fear, your deepest insecurity, laid bare for all the world to see —again and again, for all eternity. You think you can psych yourself up for that, then be my guest. But if you want my advice, I suggest you enjoy what little time you’ve got left.”

“Speaking of,” he said, “I got myself a special lady in Vegas I wouldn’t mind seeing one last time before I’m dead for good. You think once we finish with this demon guy, we could maybe swing on by?”

“No,” I said.

“Right. Figures.”

And then, for a while, we said nothing.

For a while, we both had nothing left to say.