The Devil You Know
Read The Devil You Know Online
Authors: Richard Levesque
The Devil You
Know
By
Richard Levesque
This
is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely
coincidental. Any reference to historical settings or individuals is a product
of the author’s imagination and is not intended to be an accurate description
of people or events.
Copyright © 2014 Richard Levesque
All rights reserved.
Kindle Edition
Cover Art and Design Copyright © 2015 Duncan
Eagleson
Used by Permission
All rights reserved
I am grateful to Brandi Bowles for her support and editorial input on
this book.
Special thanks also to my wife, Kari, who read several versions of
the book with her usual eye for detail. Her support at every stage of the
project has been invaluable.
With a tumbler in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the
other, Julian Piedmont pushed through the oaken doors and led the way into the
high-ceilinged room. Bookcases lined the walls, and a larger than life portrait
of his father hung above the ornate mantle. Julian stood for a moment below the
painting, swaying slightly as the others gathered around him, and then poured
himself yet another whiskey. The old man seemed to stare down at him, but his
disarming smile failed to fool Julian, who knew the truth behind it and how it
concealed the ruthlessness that had helped his father build an empire.
A
dozen drunken young men in disheveled tuxedoes had gathered around Julian,
their hair mussed and their faces flushed. They stood as though in formation,
making a horseshoe with Julian at the open end, his back to his friends. The
way they formed a barrier between him and the open doors to his father’s
library, an outsider might have mistaken them for bodyguards. And as rich as
Julian was now with his father in the ground, a cadre of protectors might have
been appropriate, but the loyalty these young men felt toward him ran deeper
than anything felt between hired guardians and their employer.
“There
he is, boys,” Julian said, unaware of how loudly he spoke. He raised his glass,
not turning to see if anyone else toasted the painting with him. “Man of the
hour. 1875 to 1946. Meanest son of a bitch this side of . . .” The toast
trailed off as Julian tried to think of something clever to say. Nothing came
to him, so he drank.
His
friends carried glasses, bottles, and flasks of their own, and now they drank
as if on cue. None of them seemed to know what to say, but a hesitant chorus of
“Hear, hear!” and other grunts of approval echoed Julian’s toast to his father.
Their voices blended with the sounds coming into the room from the rest of the
mansion—loud music and the buzz of the revelers who filled the house. If
Hedda Hopper ever got wind of the debauchery taking place in the mansion,
Julian knew, the ink she’d need to tell the story would fill an entire issue of
the
Times
. It didn’t matter, though.
Nothing that happened in the house tonight would make it into the papers
tomorrow. Anyone who spoke to gossip columnists would be out of a job at best,
but what they all dreaded more was being tossed out of Julian’s circle of
friends.
“Hell
with him, then,” Julian muttered. He flung the empty glass into the fireplace
and turned his back on the portrait as the tumbler exploded among the ashes and
soot. He regarded his friends as he swayed before them. Nowhere in Hollywood or
Beverly Hills could there be found a more impressive group of men tonight, not
one of whom had ever stood in front of a camera. All sons of rich men, boys who
had grown up free of want and need with fathers who pulled the strings at one
studio or another. And every one of them, Julian knew, practically worshipped
the ground he walked on. They stood before him now, some smiling foolishly,
waiting for the next outlandish thing to come out of his mouth while others
nodded at him, enthralled.
“I
am looking,” he slurred, “at the next generation of geniuses. Fox, Mayer,
Laemmle, the Warners . . . they’ll be nothing compared to what we’ll do in this
town now it’s ours. Nothing. And all this.” He waved the whiskey bottle in the
air, taking in the whole room with it. “All this doesn’t mean a goddamned
thing. All the money . . . all the fucking money he spent on this . . .” Before
he could finish his sentence, he reeled and would have gone to the floor, the
Persian rug he stood on seeming to rise up to meet him as his knees turned to
rubber. The young man closest to him was Colin Krebs; sandy haired and slight
of build, when Colin tried to catch Julian, he lost his balance under the other
man’s weight, and the two of them ended up sitting on the floor, their legs
entangled.
Julian
laughed. It took a few seconds for the others to join in, but once they saw
that their leader had found amusement at his own expense, they followed suit,
some of them sitting down on the rug to join them. Only Colin appeared uneasy,
and Julian looked at him with mock reproach. “Don’t be such a sourpuss, Colin,”
he said. “Or you won’t be invited to the next funeral.” He laughed again. “You
thought I was going to say ‘party,’ didn’t you? I knew it! Oh, Christ.” He
slapped Colin on the back, a bit too hard. “I was going to say before you fell
down that we should burn these damned books. My father loved them so. What’s
the most valuable book in the place you think?”
“The
oldest one probably,” Dick Sheridan said.
“Anything
by Shakespeare,” Mike Lowell managed to slur.
“Anything
with pussy in it,” Eddie Teagarden added with a chuckle and an elbow to Colin
Krebs’ ribs.
Julian
listened and nodded, smiling absently. He noticed that Bill Templeton and Jack Durant
were no longer paying attention to him, the pattern on the rug having captured
their drunken minds. Normally, Julian would have called them out like a
schoolmaster hovering over incorrigible boys, and they would have forced
themselves to listen to what he was saying, but now he paid them no mind. The
idea of spiting his dead father by destroying some of his prized possessions
suddenly interested him far more than keeping the troops in line. He pulled
himself away from Colin and crawled toward the nearest bookcase, the bottle
still in hand and splashes of whiskey spilling onto the rug as he went. Using a
shelf to pull himself up, he fingered the rows before him and pulled out a
leather bound copy of
Paradise Lost
. He
considered it for a moment before tossing it to the floor.
Then he selected again, bringing forth a book whose spine had
faded completely, its red leather binding cracked and chipped. Taller than the
other books near it, though not nearly as thick, the book looked like it should
be light in Julian’s hands, but he was surprised at the weight of it. He stared
at it for a moment and ran a finger over the embossed cover; it bore the image
of a single eye that seemed to look out at him through the ancient cracks of
the aged leather.
“Ha!”
he said loudly. “This is the one!” He affected the accent of an erudite
professor and added, “Quite antique, I’d say, gentlemen. Quite. Would make the
old man tumble in his freshly dug grave if he even saw me touching it.”
When
he turned around, most of his friends were still seated on the floor, and
Julian stood above them like a priest before a congregation. Eddie and Colin
seemed to be arguing over whose flask was whose.
Fools
, Julian thought. Still swaying and holding his whiskey bottle
by the neck, he opened the book, not mindful of how roughly he treated it.
“Read
something, Julian,” Dick said.
“Something
juicy,” Mike added.
Julian
smiled, ready to oblige. He cleared his throat, but quickly the bemused
expression that drink and anger and some form of grief had put on his face
transformed into one of confusion, and then disgust. “Damn thing’s in Latin,”
he shouted, and was about to drop it carelessly to the floor when his eyes
caught Colin’s. “Colin, you still a goddamned Catholic?” he shouted, prompting
laughter from the group.
Like
most of the other men in the room, Colin Krebs had known Julian Piedmont since
boarding school. At the time, the film industry had been young enough that its
executives were new to being rich, and many of them had sent their sons off to
learn how the other half lived. Though no wealthier or more special than the
others, Julian had quickly risen above the rest, his cavalier attitude,
irreverence, and quick wit making him attractive to the other boys; he had held
court ever since. Colin gave no reply to Julian’s insult, nodding in response. Struggling
to get to his feet, Colin approached their undisputed leader while the others
gathered around them. Some looked genuinely interested in the drama unfolding;
others feigned interest to appease Julian.
“Now
read,” Julian said, shoving the book into Colin’s hands.
The
book felt fragile, as though the heavy leaves would slip free of the binding if
Colin turned the pages. Julian had opened the book to the title page, and Colin
looked at it with some confusion, trying to remember the Latin his parents had
forced upon him years before. “It’s not like it’s the Mass or anything,” he
said in a hushed voice, speaking to Julian alone.
“Oh
for goodness…Just read it.”
After
a few seconds’ hesitation, he said, “It’s called
Gelamen Malum Lacuna
. A gathering of evil words.”
“What?”
Julian said, stunned. “Dirty words, in Latin?”
Colin
smiled. “I don’t think so. Evil words, it says. Spells. Curses. See, here it
says ‘
maledictus
’ and ‘
diabolis
.’”
“Witchcraft?”
Colin
shrugged. “Not sure. Something like that.”
“Witchcraft!”
Julian repeated with some glee. “In my father’s library! Oh, that is a hoot.
Well, go on then.”
Colin
turned the fragile pages and studied them for a moment, reading what he could
translate. “A curse to blight thine enemies’... crops. And this one’s on
harnessing the power of ... goats. No, that can’t be right.”
“Well
pick one,” said Julian. “Cast a spell. Turn Jimmy into a cat or something.” The
circle of drunken young men laughed on cue.
“On
conjuring…” Colin read and stopped. He raised an eyebrow for a moment and then
turned the page.
“Conjuring
what?” Julian demanded.
Trying
not to look resigned, Colin turned the page back. “On conjuring a demon lover.”
As
soon as the words were out of his mouth, the other men began cheering and
making catcalls.
“Oh,
Jesus. You’re kidding,” Julian said.
“No.”
Colin read further down the page. “It’s an incantation.”
“Well
do it, then. There’s not a girl in the house who’s not taken yet. The best
looking bunch of us, and probably the richest, too...all stuck with each other.
A little love slave’s just what we need. Right boys?” Julian laughed as Mike
and Eddie started arguing about first dibs.
“And
if that doesn’t work, we can drive down to Tijuana. Be there by sunrise,” Jack Durant
offered.
Colin
laughed with the men and moved to close the book, but Julian stayed his hand.
He took another sloppy pull from the whiskey bottle and said, “Do it. Read the
witchcraft.” It was half dare and half order.
Quietly,
but nervously, Colin opened the book again and with another glance at his eager
audience began to read. “
Diabolus quod
adnihilo audite mihi. Ego inflecto
.” He looked at Julian doubtfully.
“Louder!”
his friend shouted, a cruel smile on his face. The spell went on for almost a page,
and Colin read it haltingly, unsure of some of the words, and became more and
more frightened by all of them. And as he read, he felt along with the fear a
real desire to please Julian, a desire that made no sense to him but which
drove him nonetheless, as it had for years. It drove him to make more of a
performance of the last several lines, his voice gaining even more volume and
his expression echoing the meaning of the words he read.
When
he finished, no one spoke or even moved for several seconds. Colin stood with
the open book still in his hands, his breathing a bit rapid from the adrenaline
that had begun to course through his system as he neared the end. Nothing had
happened.
“So
where is she?” Julian asked. “Oh lover girl?” he called, swaying his hips.
Along with Colin and the others, he was looking around the room, expecting the
chandeliers to sway or the lights to flicker; anything that would be a
precursor to having a willing woman appear before them, ready to do devilish
things. Only the distant laughter from the rest of the house suggested anything
sinful. Julian laughed a bit nervously and then said, “D’you get it wrong,
Colin? Leave out a word?”
“No,”
Colin said, shaking his head. “I read it all.”
“Well,
then?”
He
shrugged. “It...it’s just bunk, I suppose. Just a bunch of mumbo jumbo.”
Julian
took a step toward him, a menacing look on his face. “You’re saying my father
spent a good deal of my inheritance on hokum?”
Colin
could think of no response.
Then
Julian laughed loudly at him, making him jump. “Of course he did!” he brayed
and then looked to the others to share in the joke. They all laughed, and Colin
joined in, a bit relieved. But then Julian turned back to him, a fading smile
on his lips. “Still. Maybe you made a little mistake. Let’s try that again,
shall we?”
Colin
swallowed once and saw that Julian wasn’t joking. Then he started over, not
looking up once as he read.
* * * * * * * *
Julian
was still getting the giggles over the whole thing by the time he made his way
to his bedroom. Dawn was breaking, a spreading glow of red and orange against
the clouds that rose up from the eastern horizon, and he pulled his curtains
shut after giving the sunrise a cursory glance. The music had finally stopped
and most of the partygoers had gone. It would be up to the servants now to put
the place back in order, and even then he figured there would still be a
handful of hangers on who wouldn’t or couldn’t be chased out for a few more
days. It didn’t matter to him. If they were the right types, he would just
start the party again this evening, the servants and his father’s memory be
damned.