Practical Demonkeeping (Pine Cove 1)

"I know you did," Slick said. "Looks like you were a little heavy on the English. My shot. "

The stranger seemed to be angry at someone, but it wasn't Slick. "How can you confuse the six with the three, you idiot?"

"You got me," said Slick. "Don't be so hard on yourself, pard. You're up one game already. "

Slick ran four balls, then missed a shot that was so obvious it made Robert wince. Slick's hustles were usually more subtle.

"Five in the side!" the stranger shouted. "Got that? Five!"

"I got it," Slick said. "And all these folks got it along with half the people out in the street. You don't need to yell, pard. This is just a friendly game. "

The stranger bent over the table and shot. The five ball careened off the cue ball, headed for the rail, then changed its path and curved into the side pocket. Robert was amazed, as were all the observers. It was an impossible shot, yet they all had seen it.

"Damn," Slick said to no one in particular, then to Mavis, "Mavis, when was the last time you leveled this table?"

"Yesterday, Slick. "

"Well, it sure as shit went catywumpus fast. Give me my cue, Mavis. "

Mavis waddled to the end of the bar and pulled out a three-foot-long black leather case. She handled it carefully and presented it to Slick with reverence, a decrepit Lady of the Lake presenting a hardwood Excaliber to the rightful king. Slick flipped the case open and screwed the cue together, never taking his eyes off the stranger.

At the sight of the cue the stranger smiled. Slick smiled back. The game was defined. Two hustlers recognized each other. A tacit agreement passed between them: Let's cut the bullshit and play.

Robert had become so engrossed in watching the tension between the two men and trying to figure out why the stranger angered him so, that he failed to notice that someone had slipped onto the stool next to him. Then she spoke.

"How are you, Robert?" Her voice was deep and throaty. She placed her hand on his arm and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. Robert turned and was taken aback by her appearance. She always affected him that way. She affected most men that way.

She was wearing a black body stocking, belted at the waist with wide leather in which she had tucked a multitude of chiffon scarves that danced around her hips when she walked like diaphanous ghosts of Salome. Her wrists were adorned with layers of silver bangles; her nails were sculptured long and lacquered black. Her eyes were wide and green, set far apart over a small, straight nose and full lips, glossed blood red. Her hair hung to her waist, blue-black. An inverted silver pentagram dangled between her breasts on a silver chain.

"I'm miserable," Robert said. "Thanks for asking, Ms. Henderson. "

"My friends call me Rachel. "

"Okay. I'm miserable, Ms. Henderson. "

Rachel was thirty-five but she could have passed for twenty if it weren't for the arrogant sensuality with which she moved and the mocking smile in her eyes that evinced experience, confidence, and guile beyond any twenty-year-old. Her body did not betray her age; it was her manner. She went through men like water.

Robert had known her for years, but her presence never failed to awaken in him a feeling that his marital fidelity was nothing more than an absurd notion. In retrospect, perhaps it was. Still, she made him feel uneasy.

"I'm not your enemy, Robert. No matter what you think. Jenny has been thinking about leaving you for a long time. We didn't have anything to do with it. "

"How are things with the coven?" Robert asked sarcastically.

"It's not a coven. The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace are dedicated to Earth consciousness, both spiritual and physical. "

Robert drained his fifth beer and slammed the mug down on the bar. "The Pagan Vegetarians for Peace are a group of bitter, ball-biting, man haters, dedicated to breaking up marriages and turning men into toads. "

"That's not true and you know it. "

"What I know," Robert said, "is that within a year of joining, every woman in your coven has divorced her husband. I was against Jenny getting into this mumbo jumbo from the beginning. I told her you would brainwash her and you have. "

Rachel reared back on the bar stool like a hissing cat. "You believe what you want to believe, Robert. I show women the Goddess within. I put them in touch with their own personal power; what they do with it is their own business. We aren't against men. Men just can't stand to see a woman discover herself. Maybe if you'd exalted Jenny's growth instead of criticizing, she'd still be around. "

Robert turned away from her and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar. He was overcome by a wave of self-loathing. She was right. He covered his face with his hands and leaned forward on the bar.

"Look, I didn't come here to fight with you," Rachel said. "I saw your truck outside and I thought you might be able to use a little money. I have some work for you. It might take your mind off the hurt. "

"What?" Robert said through his hands.

"We're sponsoring the annual tofu sculpture contest at the park this year. We need someone to take pictures for the poster and the press package. I know you're broke, Robert. "

"No," he said, without looking up.

"Fine. Suit yourself. " Rachel slid off the stood and started to leave.

Mavis sat another beer in front of Robert and counted his money on the bar. "Very smooth," she said. "You've got four bucks left to your name. "

Robert looked up. Rachel was almost to the door. "Rachel!"

She turned and waited, an elegant hand on an exquisite hip.

"I'm staying at The Breeze's trailer. " He told her the phone number. "Call me, okay?"

Rachel smiled. "Okay, Robert, I'll call. " She turned to walk out.

Robert called out to her again. "You haven't seen The Breeze, have you?"

Rachel grimaced. "Robert, just being in the same room with The Breeze makes me want to take a bath in bleach. "

"Come on, he's a fun guy. "

"He's a fun-gus," Rachel said.

"But have you seen him?"

"No. "

"Thanks," he said. "Call me. "

"I will. " She turned and walked out. When she opened the door, light spilling in blinded Robert. When his vision returned, a little man in a red stocking cap was sitting next to him. He hadn't seen him come in.

To Mavis the little man said, "Could I trouble you for a small quantity of salt?"

"How about a margarita with extra salt, handsome?" Mavis batted her spider-lashes.

"Yes, that will be good. Thank you. "

Robert looked the little man over for a moment, then turned away to watch the pool game while he contemplated his destiny. Maybe this job for

Rachel was his way out. Strange, though, things didn't seem to be bad enough yet. And the idea that Rachel could be his fairy godmother in disguise made him smile. No, the downward spiral to salvation was going quite nicely. The Breeze was missing. The rent was due. He had made enemies with a crazed Mexican drug dealer, and it was driving him nuts trying to figure out where he had seen the stranger at the pool table.

The game was still going strong. Slick was running the balls with machinelike precision. When he did miss, the stranger cleared the table with a series of impossible, erratic, curving shots, while the crowd watched with their jaws hanging, and Slick broke into a nervous sweat.

Slick McCall had been the undisputed king of eight ball at the Head of the Slug Saloon since before it had been called the Head of the Slug. The bar had been the Head of the Wolf for fifty years, until Mavis grew tired of the protests of drunken environmentalists, who insisted that timber wolves were an endangered species and that the saloon was somehow sanctioning their killing. One day she had taken the stuffed wolf head that hung over the bar to the Salvation Army and had a local artist render a giant slug head in fiberglass to replace it. Then she changed the sign and waited for some half-wit from the Save the Slugs Society to show up and protest. It never happened. In business, as in politics, the public is ever so tolerant of those who slime.

Years ago, Slick and Mavis had come to a mutually beneficial business agreement. Mavis allowed Slick to make his living on her pool table, and in return, Slick agreed to pay her twenty percent of his winnings and to excuse himself from the Slug's annual eight-ball tournament. Robert had been coming into the Slug for seven years and in that time he had never seen Slick rattled over a pool game. Slick was rattled now.

Occasionally some tourist who had won the Sheep's Penis Kansas Nine-Ball tournament would come into the Slug puffed up like the omnipotent god of the green felt, and Slick would return him to Earth, deflating his ego with gentle pokes from his custom-made, ivory-inlaid cue. But those fellows played within the known laws of physics. The dark stranger played as if Newton had been dropped on his head at birth.

To his credit, Slick played his usual methodical game, but Robert could tell that he was afraid. When the stranger sank the eight ball in a hundred-dollar game, Slick's fear turned to anger and he threw his custom cue across the room like a crazed Zulu.

"Goddammit, boy, I don't know how you're doing it, but no one can shoot like that. " Slick was screaming into the stranger's face, his fists were balled at his sides.

"Back off," the stranger said. All the boyishness drained from his face. He could have been a thousand years old, carved in stone. His eyes were locked on Slick's. "The game is over. " He might have been stating that "water is wet. " It was truth. It was deadly serious.

Slick reached into the pocket of his jeans, fished out a handful of crumpled twenties, and threw them on the table.

The stranger picked up the bills and walked out.

Slick retrieved his stick and began taking it apart. The daytime regulars remained silent, allowing Slick to gather his dignity.

"That was like a fucking bad dream," he said to the onlookers.

The comment hit Robert like a sock full of birdshot. He suddenly remembered where he had seen the stranger. The dream of the desert came back to him with crippling clarity. He turned back to his beer, stunned.

"You want a margarita?" Mavis asked him. She was holding a baseball bat she had pulled from under the bar when things had heated up at the pool table.

Robert looked to the stool next to him. The little man was gone.

"He saw that guy make one shot and ran out of here like his ass was on fire," Mavis said.

Robert picked up the margarita and downed its frozen contents in one gulp, giving himself an instant headache.

Outside on the street Travis and Catch headed toward the service station.

"Well, maybe you should learn to shoot pool if you're going to get money this way. "

"Maybe you could pay attention when I call a shot. "

"I didn't hear you. I don't understand why we just don't steal our money. "

"I don't like to steal. "

"You stole from the pimp in L. A. "

"That was okay. "

"What's the difference?"

"Stealing is immoral. "

"And cheating at pool isn't?"

"I didn't cheat. I just had an unfair advantage. He had a custom-made pool cue. I had you to push the balls in. "

"I don't understand morality. "

"That's not surprising. "

"I don't think you understand it either. "

"We have to pick up the car. "

"Where are we going?"

"To see an old friend. "

"You say that everywhere we go. "

"This is the last one. "

"Sure. "

"Be quiet. People are looking. "

"You're trying to be tricky. What's morality?"

"It's the difference between what is right and what you can rationalize. "

"Must be a human thing. "

"Exactly. "