The Devil's Beat (The Devil's Mark) Read online

  Once in the room, Max wasted no time in unwrapping his new present.

  He knelt in front of her, took in her full glory, and looked briefly at her face. “You are a goddess!”

  Christy squealed in delight and then tackled Max and took him down to the floor and proceeded to rip off his clothes.

  After a short but passionate performance, she lay on the floor next to him, cradling him in her bosom, and stroking his hair.

  The emptiness in Max threatened to consume him.

  “I love you, Max.”

  His emptiness burst out of him in tears and sobs. He didn’t notice the stricken look on Christy’s face, quickly replaced by a smile of delight as if her wildest dreams were coming true. As he clutched her tighter, she stroked his hair and whispered to him that everything would be alright.

  When Lucian woke Max late the next morning, Max looked at him with bleary eyed confusion and then looked around the room.

  “Where’d she go?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl, um, Christine? No, Christy. Her name was Christy.”

  “She left in a hurry last night. She seemed quite upset.”

  Max’s eyes grew wide and stricken. “She was?”

  Lucian’s lips curled into a smile. “Yes, I had Jens take her home. She said something about how she had to get home and her parents were going to kill her.”

  “Her parents?”

  “Yes Max, she was only seventeen after all.”

  Max sat straight up in the bed. “Seventeen! You were supposed to screen—”

  “Relax, relax Max, the age of consent in Iowa is sixteen.”

  A wave of relief washed over him and he flopped back down on the bed. That wave was followed by an even bigger wave of shame. He was now turning to seventeen year old girls for comfort. How pathetic could you get?

  ***

  The memory carried that shame to him as if it had happened yesterday. No wonder he’d forgotten it. How did it all go so wrong?

  His mind wandered farther back in the corridors of memory. For most of his life, Max had sung in choirs and played one instrument or the other. After years of piano, he had a short love affair with the violin. The expressiveness of the violin had enthralled him, there was subtly and beauty in the piano, but the violin’s voice could sing or cry, it could warble or croon. He soon found that he wanted something with a deeper voice and moved to the cello. The fluid power and depth of the cello was compelling, but ultimately he felt it was an instrument designed to accompany other instruments.

  When he was thirteen and in the throes of puberty, he heard “Teenage Wasteland” by The Who at a friend’s house. Up until then he had looked down his nose at ‘pop’ and ‘rock and roll’, but the sheer power of it swept him away. In the next month, he badgered his parents into replacing his cello with a guitar.

  He was a looser and a fraud. He deserved to be alone. His loneliness was as much an act of penance as the abandoning of his music.

  For as long as he could remember, music had been a part of his life. He was always singing, or whistling, or off in some corner playing one instrument or other. For two years now, he had been silent. He didn't deserve even the companionship of music, though he yearned for it. Its absence left him feeling hollow.

  As they had so many nights, these thoughts carried him off to a night of melancholy dreams.

  The next day, Max returned to his mansion, hoping fervently that crazy Josh had sobered up during the night and just left or spontaneously combusted from all the chemicals in his bloodstream. Max figured he would be lucky if the raggedy man hadn't died where Max left him and crapped all over his floor. He opened the door and was half-relieved not to see Josh's body cooling on the floor. He walked into the hall and heard the strains of Molly Hatchet’s “Dreams I’ll Never See” pounding out of the music room. It was a great song, but it hit too close to Max’s heart for him to enjoy it. Over the music he heard voices. Reluctantly, he headed that way. The sight that greeted him was like something out of a psychedelic pipe dream.

  The television was on a satellite classic rock channel. Josh sat on the couch and held Old Bone to his upturned face. Josh's cheeks puffed out, and he blew right into the trachea of the severed head like he was playing the world's most macabre tuba. A stream of thin white smoke came out of Old Bone's nose and mouth to drift up past the head. Max watched the smoke rise to join a heavy cloud near the ceiling with stunned and horrified fascination. The pungent smell of pot assailed Max's nose. He shook off his daze and roared, “What the hell are you doing to my head!” Old Josh didn't even flinch. He just turned his own head to regard Max with blood-reddened eyes and a lopsided smile. “Oh, hey, dude. Didn't know this was your head. I'm just spreading the love around, man.” He held out a giant, hand rolled joint to Max. “Want a bang?”

  “No, and put Old Bone down!”

  Josh's eyebrows pinched with the effort needed to think through whatever medical cocktail was percolating through his brain.

  Max stomped into the room, around the couch, and grabbed Old Bone from Old Josh and put the head back down in his nest of towels and Christy’s DD-cups. As he set Old Bone down, Max looked at his face for the first time. There was still a trickle of smoke coming out of his nostrils, and his eyes were shot through with red. Old Bone had a weird half smile on his face. His dilated pupils seemed to be vibrating, and his mouth was twitching and moving almost like he was mumbling.

  Max spun on the stoned old man sitting on his couch with loathing in his heart. “Just what the hell were you thinking? Why would you do something like this you perverted... you perverted... jerk!”

  Josh squeezed his eyes shut a couple times, trying to bring Max back into focus. He said, “Dude! Your negativity is freaking me out and bustin' my high. I'm no pusher, man. God damn the pusher man! I'm givin' him the sweet dreams. Ol' Vlad here wanted to try some of my Purple Haze. I only give the love grass to those who ask for it, man.”

  “You piece of...” started Max. “Vlad?”

  “Yeah dude, old Vlad and me are dudes! We're tight, ya know?”

  This announcement totally derailed Max's anger. “Why do you call him Vlad?”

  “Well, like, he told me, dude.”

  “That is not possible. He can't talk, he doesn't have any lungs.”

  “I let him use mine, dig? Here...” He reached over and grabbed Old Bone again. He addressed the head, “Vlad, say hi to my good bud Max!” He brought the head's trachea up to his mouth, ignored the ragged bits of flesh dangling from it, pointed the head's face towards Max, pushed his swinging jaw closed, took a deep breath, and blew.

  As Josh blew, Old Bone's mouth and tongue started working. Out came something that sounded like a breathy whisper, “hehehe, hehehe, hehehe.”

  Max whirled on Joe. “That's not just marijuana. What else did you give him?”

  Josh smiled. “He looked awfully uptight, so I gave him a couple magic 'shrooms.”

  “Get out. Get the fuck out of my house!”

  “Whoa dude, I don't think this is your house man, I think it’s his.” He pointed up to the cloud of smoke on the ceiling. In spite of himself, Max looked up at the cloud of smoke roiling above him. It wasn't moving like a regular cloud. As he watched, a face formed from the smoke sporting wide eyes and an even wider grin. A phantom arm and hand of smoke gave Max a finger twiddling salute before the whole specter seemed to drift out of focus.

  When Max saw that, he knew he had left all semblance of normality behind—dead on the road. The final nail in that coffin was pounding out behind him on the television, Hendrix's “Purple Haze.”

  Suddenly, even Hendrix’s guitar couldn't keep Max in the house any longer. He turned woodenly and walked out the front door leaving it wide open behind him. He got in his car and drove away while echoes of “Purple Haze” drifted through his mind.

  Merciful Aid

  Max didn't actually know where he was going till he pulled into the hospital parking lot. He
found a parking spot easily in the sparsely used lot. He pulled in, turned off the car, and just sat there with his mind blank. He looked out at the trees and houses his car faced without actually seeing them.

  After about fifteen minutes of zombieing out, Max was startled by a rapping on his driver side window. He jumped in his seat, and looked out to see Alice's pretty face staring at him with concern. He fumbled with the window controls. When he finally got it down, he and gave her a weak, “Hi.”

  “Max, what's going on? You looked like you were a million miles away. Are you okay? Did something else happen?”

  Max shook his head helplessly. “I don't know what's happening any more Alice. My life has slipped into never-never land.”

  Alice's look of concern deepened. “You poor dear, what's going on?”

  He fell silent a moment. He didn't want Alice to think he was utterly insane. The picture of Josh blowing into the base of Old Bone's (he just couldn't think of him as Vlad) neck kept coming back unbidden into his mind. He took a deep, calming breath and then said, “What I would really like right now would be to take you to lunch. Are you available?”

  Alice arched her eyes at Max. “Why Mr. Faust, I hardly know you. How can I be sure your intentions are honorable?”

  Max smiled weakly. “How can you say that? You've bandaged me up more times than my mother. That hardly qualifies us as strangers.”

  “Well sir, I never saw anything more than skin deep. If I dig a little deeper, I might find a wolf.” He laughed. “Please have lunch with me, Alice. I promise I won't bite and I don't have any desire to know where your grandmother lives.”

  “Oh, I shouldn't, but okay.”

  Max smiled his virgin-melting smile (a father's nightmare) and told her to hop in.

  ***

  Max and Alice sat in a small booth at Bayou Bob's Crab Shack, a small and slightly dingy place Alice had recommended for its gumbo and crawfish etoufee. Max worked on a bowl of their excellent gumbo with gusto while Alice watched and drank from her unsweetened ice tea. She seemed to enjoy watching his appreciation for the food.

  When he put his spoon down, she looked at him speculatively and asked, “So, what got you so riled up today?”

  That ruined the afterglow of the gumbo for Max. His face fell.

  “You look like a lost boy, Max.”

  It was ironically apropos considering his earlier reference to never-never land. Max shook his head, met her eyes. “I'm either going insane, or the world is. Right now, it's an even toss which is who. I don't think I can even talk about it.”

  Alice smiled kindly. “Give it a try. Sometimes I can believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

  By the tone of her voice, Max knew she must have been quoting something. He said hesitantly, “Shakespeare?”

  Alice laughed. “I think your northern education was a little lacking, Mr. Faust. It was the White Queen in Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll.”

  Max looked at her blankly.

  “You know, Alice in Wonderland...” He shook his head in confusion. “The Cheshire Cat?” He raised one eyebrow. Alice's own eyes were wide in astonishment.

  “How can you not know about Alice?”

  Max then pushed his eyebrows down in concentration. “Cheshire...” He snapped his fingers, leaving his index finger pointed at her. “Right! Cheshire. Like the Cheshire sauce I put on my steak. I love that stuff! Never tried it on a cat before.”

  Alice gaped at him again and then it was her turn to scowl, “Oh, you are an evil, rotten man Mr. Faust! You sure had me going!”

  Max laughed and smiled. “I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist. Please forgive me? Please?”

  Alice flapped her hand at him. “Okay, Okay, I hate to see a boy beg. You're forgiven.”

  Max smiled some more while making a note to himself that he needed to pick up a copy of Through the Looking Glass.

  His smile disappeared when she added, “On the condition that you tell me what's happened that has you so flustered.”

  He looked at her, truly afraid of what she would think, but he couldn't ignore the pressure in her gaze. He hesitated and then said in a low voice as she leaned forward to hear him, “My house is haunted.”

  She sat back and flapped her hand at him again. “Oh, pshaw! Just about everyone around these parts has a ghost in their house.”

  “No, I mean really haunted. Haunted by actual ghosts!”

  “Of course you're haunted by ghosts, silly man, what else would you be haunted with?”

  Max looked at her as if he had just bitten down on a lemon. “Oh, everything is so clear now. Thank you for making that so easy, Alice.”

  Alice gave a lighthearted laugh and a little bow of her head, acknowledging her cheap shot. She said, “Okay, so maybe not everyone has a ghost, but most of the people I know would love to have a real ghost in their house. It's terribly exciting and romantic.”

  Max perked back in surprise. “Romantic, how is a ghost romantic?”

  “Well, here in the south, we are terribly in love with our history, and a ghost is a connection to that history. Maybe it's some poor girl who lost her true love in the war. Maybe a runaway slave who died of heartbreak because he left his family in slavery...”

  Max looked skeptical. “That's romantic is it?”

  Alice laughed a little self-consciously. “Yes it is. Ghosts are always victims of terrible or wondrous passions.” She stirred her tea and watched the ice cubes swirl around for a moment. “It's just that, for most of our lives, we live without any passion. We go through the motions, doing what we have to do. Those ghosts, their lives were larger than ours. They remind us that our little everyday trials and tribulations are not what life is truly about.”

  “I don't know about that, Alice. I've gone through a lot of that recently, and I think I would enjoy just having little problems for a change. I sure wouldn't want to do it again.”

  That pulled her out of whatever place she had just gone to. She looked at Max sympathetically. “I guess I can understand that. Every time I saw you on television, you just looked so lost.”

  That startled Max. He sat a little straighter. “You know who I am?”

  Alice laughed again. “Of course I do, silly man. ‘Sarah's Song’ got me through some tough times. There is no one on the planet who hasn't heard you sing. You were only the talk of the entire town for close to six months. You were on television more than the President.”

  Max frantically trash-canned the mention of “Sarah's Song” and then deflated. “Oh, I guess that makes sense. It's just that no one has made a big deal over me here. I had hoped that I could start over again here without dragging my past with me.”

  Alice put her hand on Max's. “You poor dear. You know we all drag our past mistakes around. No matter where we go, it comes along with us. I don't think there's any place in Heaven or on Earth where people haven't heard you sing or cried over what those vultures put you through.”

  “Oh,” said Max, eyes clouding and threatening rain. “I guess I was just fooling myself. I just want...”

  Alice wrapped Max's hand with both of her. “Sometimes you just have to be strong enough to carry the weight of your mistakes, hon. It's not easy, but the alternative is just to give up. Remember, God never will give you a burden so heavy that you cannot carry it...” She changed the topic when she saw Max's stricken look. “Dear man, you are right where you need to be. A lot of us injured souls find rest and acceptance in this town.”

  Max was too wrapped up in his own problems to notice that the sadness in Alice's eyes was not just for him. She sat back, pulled her hands away, and studied the miserable man in front of her.

  “So, where did you grow up, Max?”

  He immediately missed the warmth of her hands, but he was grateful for the change in subject. “I grew up in the little town of Lakeville Minnesota, just south of Minneapolis-St. Paul.”

  “Minnesota?” She giggled. “Hardly the hotbed of musical creati
vity that I’d have expected. I would have bet on Nashville or Austin, or at least LA.”

  He smiled.

  “Well, I have to admit my dad was a bit at a loss on how to deal with my obsession with music. He was more a real man who lived for beer and hunting on the weekends.”

  “How about your mother?”

  “I guess she’s the one I connected with more. She was always singing or humming something and she was the one who made sure music was always available to me. She’d also kick my butt if I didn’t practice. Her dream was for me to be a concert pianist.”

  “A pianist? I didn’t know you played the piano.”

  Max smiled at her and said, “Hey, I’m not just one trick pony. We had an old out-of-tune upright piano and when she caught me trying to teach myself how to play when I was four, she signed me up for lessons.”

  “Four? Could you even reach the keys?”

  “I was tall for my age, even then. I don’t remember, but my mom told me the teacher didn’t want to take me so young until she saw me play. I don’t actually remember much about her, but I do remember that old piano of ours.” His mind wandered through the corridors of memory, and he barked out a laugh.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking about the time I broke it.”

  Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of her eyes, and she leaned eagerly forward. “The piano? What did you do to it?”

  “Heh, as I said, the thing was out of tune. When I was just starting, my mom browbeat my dad into paying to get it tuned, but after a few years, it started going sour again. He absolutely refused to ‘send good money after bad’ and it drove me crazy. So, one night, I got into the back and figured out which keys went to which strings and took it upon myself to tune it.”

  Alice put her hand to her mouth. “Oh no! You didn’t!”

  “Oh yes I did. Even before I was playing piano, my dad had me helping him fix his old truck. I couldn’t say I was mechanically inclined, but I knew which tools did what. So, one day, I opened that piano up and took wrench to it.”

  “Oh no.”

  “I had no idea how the thing worked, but I could tell that the little square pegs that held the strings were meant to be turned with a wrench, so I tightened them all down.”