“Mm,” the cop agreed with the wince. “So what do you do for a living, Mr. Carmichael?”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“I help out Saul from time to time. I give surf lessons some.”
“So you’re a bum.”
“Right now?
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, I’m a bum.”
The cop took out a cigarette and asked as he lit it, “So overseas, what?”
“I flew.”
“No kiddin’.” The cop raised his eyebrows.
“Absolutely, Sergeant. You?”
“Pacific, infantry.”
“Hell of a thing.”
“No shit.” The cop looked at his hands and then out a window that wasn’t there. “It’s just—this is a Hell of a thing right here. There’s something we’re missing. It’s all weird, you know? And I gotta say if I could lock you up I would, because I know there’s more going on. And I’m curious what that is.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Sergeant.” Hooky said.
###
Across the desert, just west of the Santa Ana Strip, an observer might see a box that had been left behind at the edge of the strip. The box moved along now at a steady pace, making its way deeper into the desert. A little clay man bore the box on his back. He was running, loping, his arms raised over its head.
Emmett the golem stopped behind a large stone and looked to the heavens to judge the direction back towards the unimpressive hovel his master Saul called his place of business.
The indignity of his burden stung his pride, but he was used to the indignities that life among the mortals brought. He turned east and kept running, moving steadily towards the ocean.
He could hear voices inside the box, sometimes whispering, sometimes catching a powerful wind of energy and shouting at him. He ignored them.
Set us free, they demanded. Of course he would do no such thing. He reached a highway.
Now, this would be a trial, the golem realized as he judged the impossible distance between two curbs and the passing of cars, one every second or so, and two rows of them. Too many cars. He foresaw the smashing of the box, crushed with him underneath it. He spent some time using his gifted golem brain to work out the likelihood that he could pass safely.
He decided he would wait for sundown and hide behind a tumbleweed.
A police car passed, paying no heed to the tendril of black smoke coming from the golem’s mouth, which in the wind was hardly visible.
The car was speeding to the police station with news.
“Okay,” the cop said to Saul as he came back in. “You’re free to go.”
“That’s it?” Saul rose as the cop bade him.
“Toot suite, my friend,” the cop said.
They entered the hallway where Frannie waited. Saul patted her shoulder and asked the cop, “So, what…”
“They went to Callie Stevens’ house.” The cop leaned in, trying to keep this away from Frannie. “You know how we got her skin at your wreck? Well, they found the rest of her. And get this: they found another skin.”
Saul grimaced. “I got no comment.”
“Yeah, getoutahere.”
###
Just outside the police station, Saul turned to Hooky. “We need to get our box back.”
“And put back the Blank, too,” Frannie said, tapping his coat where he still held the Blank that he’d used to bait the demon. “I hate for them to be separated.”
“Oh, they’ll be separated for a while yet,” Saul said as they reached his car and Hooky lingered before going back to his own.
“What do you mean?” Frannie looked at him.
“The blank here, it’s the only one I know of on the west coast. The rest are safe for now. A precaution while we make sure the demon’s secure.”
“Where?” she demanded.
Saul smiled. “The whole rest of the collection went with your pop in a duffel bag.”
Chapter 38
Five hours before one ritual, Frannie was determined to see another one through.
The night of the luau began at the Riviera just as the sun was dipping beyond the sea. Upstairs in the apartment over the café, Frannie put on a flower print and took a moment to assess her own reflection in a long mirror that leaned against the wall as though left there accidentally.
Still Frannie, all right, still essentially breastless and hipless, though she noticed as she swiveled that her legs were thick and muscular, her shoulders were broad and well-defined, and even her non-breasts stuck out a bit more thanks to the definition surfing had brought to her pectoral muscles. She heard the padding of Emmett’s little feet behind her and said, “Well?”
Emmett had made it back to the café hauling the dybbuk box by four in the morning and now he divided his time between guarding the box and wandering the upstairs rooms of the café. “The prophets tell us that all is vanity.”
“They sure do, Em,” Frannie said, turning sideways to check out the line of her dress. “So am I vain enough or not?”
“You are as vain as you might be expected to be,” said the golem, as he crawled up and sat on the vanity dresser, black smoke pouring from his mouth and mercifully floating up and away immediately. For some reason Emmett’s smoke never lingered.
Uncle Saul called up from below. “Frannie!”
She lifted her head. “Yes?”
“Date’s here.”
“Vanity,” intoned the golem as Frannie touched up her lipstick.
“See ya at witching hour, ya mook.” She patted the golem on the head and left him sitting there on the edge of her dresser.
Penamue, the Book Man, was locked up. She felt a tingle of anticipation at the thought of the circle they would draw to banish him. She had never banished a demon before, but she was certain it would not be the last.
Stopped for a moment at the door. Smelled the sea air wafting from beyond the Riviera and down to the beach, mixing with the motor oil from the highway at dusk just as the first signs of Hawaiian music filtered over and mixed with the roar of cars. She went back and shut her window, struck for a moment that she didn’t want Emmett to get cold, realizing immediately that this was absurd.
It was 7 o’clock. At midnight she would be doing her duty to God and Uncle Saul and even her father. Her pop was no religious man, but he was part of her story, nonetheless. She pulled the door to the stairs open and started down. Her uncle stood smiling at the bottom, wearing a suit even. And then he moved aside and there was Newp.
“Newp!” she called, clomping down the stairs. She wanted to explain her inelegance, wanted to say, I’m sorry, I borrowed these heels from your sister which is hilarious really because she never wears them herself because of her slippers you know? But wait. “I thought it was going to be…”
“Go-Go couldn’t make it,” Newp said as she reached the bottom step. Behind him, the café was ablaze with flaring red glass candle holders, and he seemed to glow in a yellow-and-red halo of chunky glass. “Did I hear this right; did you actually hire him as a chaperone?” Newp laughed, dressed absurdly in Bermuda shorts and a white shirt with jacket and tie. And sandals.