A Handicap of the Devil? (25 page)

He took the fingers from his ears and instantly regretted it as Perry droned on. “Did you say something?"

"What if there's someone waiting for us when we return? Jones P. and company will realise the elevator is missing and be waiting for us."

"Good point,” shouted Jonathan over the top of Perry's chorus. “But what can we do?"

"More to the point, what will they do,” Marcie shouted back. “Is there any way to turn that damn muzak down?"

Sampson, who along with everyone else had by now taken his fingers out of his ears to listen to what was being said, shook his head. “No way. I been looking."

"I'd put someone at every floor to make sure we didn't get away.” The dwarf had the best criminal mind of them all.

"Look at the real lift buttons. There are five floors and a basement. If there's any door they might forget to cover it will be the basement.” Marcie pressed the basement button several times. The B button glowed with a light behind it.

"Let's hope you're right.” Cowley's voice was low and could only just be heard above Perry and his band. “We are real vulnerable here if there's anyone outside that door when it opens."

Once again they felt the sensation of a cushion of air in front of the elevator as it began to slow.

"I just hope we arrive back at the building this time and not in purgatory or somewhere,” said the dwarf.

The elevator slowed. There was a ding as the B for basement light lit up above their heads. The door slid open, as Perry was mercifully extinguished.

On the ground floor there was chaos.

"Bugger it, why didn't you think of the basement?” Jones P. senior cuffed his son and heir in the ear and punched at the lift button. The lawyers from the other floors were coming down the stairs and pouring into the lobby. One of them ran to the door guarding the stairs down to the basement.

"No use.” Jones P. senior was still punching the button. “There's only records down there, and we keep the stair door locked to keep out the deros."

The lift arrived with a ding and Jones P. senior and junior piled into it followed by the hefty, grunting and sweating band of lawyers. Someone hit the basement button, and the lift lurched downwards. The trip was so quick that none of them had time to appreciate the start of Abba's greatest hits. The door hissed open and they poured out into a deserted corridor.

First out was Jones P. senior. “They can't have gone far. They must be in one of the storage rooms. We'll search them one by one. Switch on the lights so we can see what we're doing."

Jones P. junior obliged, and they began their search from room to room.

"There's so many bloody doors, and most of them are locked. We'll never find them.” Jones P. senior was foaming at the mouth.

"Listen.... What is that?” I. Faarkham held up a hand and they all stood still. A faint sound of tuneless whistling was coming from the third door on the right from the lift.

The third door was barred from the inside, and inside it were the terrified Jonathan Goodfellow and his disciples. They had spilled out of the lift into the semi darkness and blundered around looking for a way out. The lift doors had closed just as Marcie ascertained that the door to the stairs was locked.

They heard the elevator begin to descend and the dwarf opened a door and called, “Quick, in here,” and they all went in like lambs to the slaughter. They now stood behind the barricaded door, regretting their action. There was no way out of the room, and they could hear the sounds of a number of nasty and angry people outside attempting to break down the door.

It was a wooden door, and it took very few blows from baseball bats before it cracked wide open. The lawyer's thereout were immediately able to push back the furniture therein that blocked their entrance.

Jones P. senior entered first and spread out his arms to keep the others back. “Stand back, I want to give you a demonstration of my prowess. I shall now burn these reprobates to a crisp.” He spied the dwarf among the terrified group of people huddled together. “Ah, don't I know you from somewhere?"

"No.” The dwarf managed to wriggle his way to the back of the group.

"Oh yes I do. Three Gums golf course some years ago. Remember?"

"No."

"You took twenty dollars off me and humiliated me. I will make you suffer most of all.” As he spoke, the awful transformation his son had witnessed once before began to take place. His ears became pointed. Fur sprouted in various places through his suit and on his face and hands. The eyes were tiny glowing coals in the forehead. A long and spiked tail grew through the suit, and smoke and fire began to pour from his extended nostrils.

"Cor, wish I could do that,” said the thick lawyer who wanted to golf on Hades course.

"You will. Oh yes, in time you will. And so will every lawyer on Earth,” snorted Jones P. senior, as the transformation completed itself.

His five intended victims cowered back in a corner of the room. Jonathan held his fingers up in the shape of a cross.

Jones P. senior roared with laughter. “That won't work. Nothing will work. I'm going to very slowly burn each one of you to a crisp, and I'll save you till last and burn you very slowly, Shorty."

A tongue of flame licked its way across the intervening distance. Jonathan felt the fire begin to scorch his clothes and his hands, which he held up in front of his face. Jonathan's legs turned to jelly. His tuneless whistling ceased, as a great wave of nausea rose up in his stomach. He prepared to die, but he wasn't happy about it.

"No.” The shout came from the younger Jones P. Junior pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall and with unerring aim shot a jet of water straight into the fiery mouth of his father. Jones P. senior spluttered and went out. He roared wetly with fury as his son turned the jet of water on the lawyers. The lawyers recoiled in horror:

"Ooo, Yuk!"

"Aaaaargh!"

"Erg, water?"

"Get orf!"

At the same time, the terrified dwarf scuttled between the legs of Jones P. senior and the lawyer directly behind him. These two gentlemen fell back into the people behind them. In the ensuing chaos, Jonathan, the disciples and Jones P. junior formed a scrum and crashed through the confused mass of lawyers into the clear in the corridor.

They all ran as fast as possible along the twisting and winding corridors following the green exit arrows on the walls and over doorways. They could hear the shouts and curses of the lawyers following close behind them. Eventually they came to a door that bore the legend:

Fire door. Emergency only.

"If this ain't an emergency, I don't know what is.” Sampson crashed the bar down and threw open the door. The shrill of the alarm was deafening, as they tumbled up the stairway and out into the street. The blue ex-pie van was still there—covered in parking tickets and sitting next to an expired meter.

"Quick, go for the van.” The dwarf grabbed a foam extinguisher off the wall and laid down a heavy covering fire of foam, as the pursuing lawyers came through the fire door and started up the stairs.

Jonathan's party leapt into the van, and Sampson gunned the motor and began to pull away, as the dwarf hurled the empty extinguisher at the foam-covered lawyers. He was pulled into the van as Sampson roared away from the kerb.

"You're a hero.” Jones P. junior clapped the dwarf on the back.

"Hey, man, you're not too bad yourself."

"We're just lucky you chose the path of truth and light and rejected the forces of darkness, even though they were personified by your father,” Marcie piously opined.

"It wasn't so much that.” Jones P. junior shuddered. “I just couldn't stand the thought of becoming a lawyer."

Jonathan sat on the deck of the houseboat and surveyed his disciples who were unloading boxes of pamphlets and bringing them onboard. They were a very unusual lot. Two heavy ex-gangsters, the four motley handicapped people, one female journalist and Jonathan's former superior in the accounts department.

Old Crone and the two gangsters had rejoined them after they were charged at the police watch house. They were bailed to appear in the magistrate's court on a number of charges relating to the disturbance in the mall.

Jonathan lay back on the deck and stared up at the unyielding cobalt blue sky. Not a speck of cloud anywhere and the winter sun high overhead. A gentle breeze came from the south and kept the temperature down, but it was still pleasant here on the deck of the houseboat.
Not much to start a revolution with. But we will grow in numbers and in strength as more people come to see the truth and the light. Thank you God for setting us on the path, and thank you for choosing me as your messenger.

The others had finished putting the cartons onboard and came to where Jonathan was laying.

"What's next, Boss?” Scarface Cecil was perspiring slightly.

"We need a council of war. Come, sit and we'll talk about what we do next."

The others found room to sit on the houseboat deck. There was barely enough room, but they managed it with the dwarf and Scarface standing down the back.

Jonathan addressed his motley band of disciples, “We must consider how we are going to take our message to the world. How do we move from here, with a few disciples, to take the entire world by storm?"

"Maybe we could tell everybody that they either do it our way or we send some of the boys around with baseball bats to operate on their knees."

"Something a bit more subtle, thank you, Cecil."

"Television,” said Cowley. Everyone turned to her. “Television. Everybody watches television. We need to get the big networks, C.N.N. and whoever."

"Right on.” The dwarf was excited. “Let's do it. Worldwide coverage."

Marcie seized on the idea, “What we need to do is to show the T.V. people another miracle. How about the loaves and fishes?"

"I don't know if I can do that one."

"Walking on water is better anyway,” said Cowley.

"Yeah,” agreed Sampson. “More spectacular."

"Umm ... yeah."

"What's up, boss? You don't sound convinced,” said Scarface.

A chorus of voices assured Jonathan that they all knew he could do it and that they had every confidence in him. Suggestions poured from the group.

"Let's do it on the Port River."

"No, no, Glenelg."

"West Beach off the Boat Harbour."

Everyone had a suggestion about where the deed should take place. Jonathan held up his hands to stop the chorus of voices. “We shall do it right here. Look, the grassy slope up there will hold thousands of people. The camera crews can set up in any number of places to film me. This is the perfect spot."

"All we got to do is convince the T.V. stations,” said Cowley.

"Leave that to me.” Marcie was already making notes in her notebook of people she had to call.

The meeting room in the State Administration Building was being prepared. Staff bustled around putting the whiteboard in place and placing jugs of water, pens, pads, mints, and place names on the long table. A sign on the wall urged people to turn off mobile phones and pagers. A staff member drew heavy, burgundy-coloured drapes across the windows, cutting out the glorious twenty third-floor view of the slightly smoggy city.

The guests began to arrive. First in was the Catholic archbishop closely followed by his Anglican counterpart. The two men nodded to one another and sat at the places designated for them. These were as far apart as possible.

Shortly after the prelates were seated, a number of people arrived together. They included Big Jim Pearce from the Bugle and Joanne Knight from the Daily Courier, Big Jim's rival. These two were friends and sat close together. Jim and Joanne went way back and had served their apprenticeships together at the Courier. Also present were a gaggle of leading businessmen, the Lord Mayor, the Leader of the Opposition, the Director of Tourism and a number of church leaders from other Christian denominations. In all cases the seating arrangements had been carefully worked out to take account of historical and current animosities. There were quite a few in the room.

As the senior staff member involved in the set-up observed, “If you were running the United Nations, you wouldn't put the Croats and the Serbs next to each other, now would you?"

"Or the delegates from Palestine and Israel,” opined a junior staff member. She was immediately frozen by a hard look from her superior. Such observations were the province of senior staff only.

When all of the invited guests had waited the obligatory ten minutes past the advertised starting time, the premier and his entourage swept in.

The premier began without preamble, “I've called you all here because we need to put our heads together in a non-partisan way to rid ourselves of this Goodfellow and his nonsense.” He looked sternly at the leader of the opposition as he said the words non partisan.

The premier hoped the leader of the opposition understood the term ‘non partisan'. He was little more than a country oaf who had ascended to the leadership of his party because there were so many divisions in its ranks, and there had to be a compromise. The premier and his party encouraged this situation. They did this by a sustained campaign of false information fed to various media outlets attacking one or the other factions. These attacks were made in such a way that they seemed to emanate from within the opposition party itself.

The two leaders of the major religious denominations attempted to stare one another down, something they constantly did in meetings when any kind of division or split was mentioned. Both gave up and dropped their eyes simultaneously when it became obvious that the other would not crack.

The premier moved right along, “This Marcie Mablegrove woman is sending out press releases again. I imagine you have all had communication from her of one kind or another?"

There was a general shuffling, grunting and nodding of heads in agreement.