The Devil You Know (7 page)

Colin
took a pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his coat. He offered one to
Marie, but she declined. She had smoked one on the way from the church, but
even if she hadn’t, she felt reluctant to accept anything from him. He lit one
and took a long drag before continuing. “Julian had the book out again, the
book of spells. He told me to read the name of every single spell—and
this time, to be damn sure of my translation. Most of them were silly sounding,
frivolous. But the ones that came before and after the first spell we used…those
were all of a sexual nature. There was one for calling a succubus, the female
version of the same demon. That’s the one I should have read the first night.
There was also a spell for giving the demons physical form. That’s the one
Julian wanted.”

“Why?”

“Because
even though he had some power over those things, they were still tormenting
him. What they had done to five of us there that afternoon, they had apparently
been doing to Julian since they were conjured. They’re insatiable.” He smiled,
apparently taking some joy from recounting Julian’s torment. “If they’d been
female, it would be one thing, but they’re male. And you can tell. Julian
couldn’t stand it. They had communicated with him somehow, got into his head,
and told him to get bodies for them. So that’s what we did.”

A
white Packard convertible pulled up to the curb in front of the theater. Its
wide white wall tires and gleaming chrome immediately drew the attention of
almost everyone in the courtyard, and a collective murmur rose up among the
tourists as they got their cameras ready. Colin stopped speaking and watched
the tourists for a moment. Marie turned in time to see a short, balding man in
an expensive suit climb out of the car with a briefcase in one hand. He was not
famous—-maybe an executive or someone connected with the theater, Marie
surmised. She watched as the tourists’ excitement immediately dissipated, the
disappointment on their faces verging on anger at having been cheated out of a
celebrity sighting.

She
turned back to Colin, who had been watching the car along with everyone else.
“Were you worried it was Piedmont?” she asked.

He
nodded. “Or someone who might know me. I’m taking an awful risk talking to you
here.”

Marie
raised an eyebrow. “It’s here or nowhere, Colin. You can head back to your car
anytime you want.” When Colin did not move, she said, “So you’re saying those
men at the party…the good-looking ones with Piedmont. You conjured their
bodies?” She thought about the electrifying touch of the James Cagney
look-alike as well as the sweaty brow and engorged penis of the one who had met
her at the bedroom door she’d opened. “They certainly looked real to me,” she
added.

“They’re
created.” Colin dropped his cigarette to the concrete and snuffed it out under
his heel. “The spell called for blood. So we each made a sacrifice.” He held up
his arm. The bandage he had worn on Friday was gone, and Marie saw a freshly
healed wound, a long scab that cut across the fleshy part of his forearm just
above the wrist. “Julian had a knife that we consecrated, and then we cut
ourselves, all of us except Julian. He just watched and collected the blood in
a bowl.” His voice trembling, he continued. “I had to make a cup of my hand and
scoop blood out of the bowl while I read from the book. Then I spilled it out
onto the floor, and it…congealed. It spread out and grew and took shape. In a
few minutes it was a man. Most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. I’m still
wondering if I’ve lost my mind.”

Marie
nodded. “That makes two of us.”

“You
have to believe me,” he pleaded now. “You have to.”

Marie
shook her head and took a step toward him, pointing a finger toward his chest.
Her anger was rising, but she managed to keep her voice as hushed as possible.
“You can seriously stand here and tell me that you took a few drops of blood
and read some…mumbo jumbo and created a man? Five of them? Who look better than
any matinee idol ever dreamed? You must think I’m a goddamn idiot.” She
suddenly felt like an idiot for even talking to him, and made a move to turn
away.

Colin
touched the sleeve of her coat, imploring her to stay. “Please,” he said.
“Please. Just let me finish. That’s all I ask.”

Marie’s
ire wanted her to move, but there was also a creeping element of curiosity that
wanted her to stay. Incredible as Colin’s story was, the events of Friday night
had also been incredible. The men on the stairs had somehow been too
good-looking, too irresistible. She had felt their pull. It would have been one
thing to find one man like that at a Hollywood party, but five? Trying hard not
to let Colin sense her line of thinking, she nodded, and he went on.

“I
did the same thing for all five of the incubi. They didn’t look like anyone at
first. Completely non-descript. But Julian knew what they could do. Like I
said, they’d been communicating with him somehow. Julian pointed at Bill
Travers, and one of the things all of a sudden had his face and his voice.
Julian thought it was terribly funny. Then he explained that they could take
whatever form they wanted. He had a movie magazine, flipped through it, and
assigned each of them faces. In a few minutes, we had the men you saw at the
party.”

“But
they don’t look exactly like movie stars,” Marie protested.

“Julian’s
idea. He didn’t want them to be exact duplicates, just close enough to draw
women’s attention.”

Marie
thought about how women had reacted to the men at the party, herself included.
“Well, he was right about that one,” she said.

“So
you believe me?” His expression was so hopeful that she found it pathetic.

“I
can’t say,” she said, her anger having abated some. “It doesn’t sound like
anything I’ve ever heard.” At least, like nothing she’d ever heard outside the
pages of
Weird Tales
, she thought.
“But if you’re lying, you’re damn good at it.”

“I’m
not lying. I promise.”

He
lit another cigarette, and this time Marie stayed his hand as he was about to
put the pack away. She needed a cigarette and didn’t want to dig in her purse
for one. “You still haven’t said what happened to Elise,” she said after
lighting up and squinting against the smoke that drifted into her eyes.

“The
incubi are insatiable,” Colin said. “Julian’s had us taking them out to places where
they could meet women and…seduce them. Places like this.” He looked around at
the courtyard of the Chinese Theater. “At first, Julian had us bring them
prostitutes, but that didn’t do the trick. It seems they prefer women who are a
bit more innocent. Julian would have them deflowering virgins if he could find
a way.” Again he considered the people drifting in and out of the courtyard and
stopping on the sidewalk to gawk at the building’s ornate façade. “In this
town, star struck women and aspiring actresses are the next best thing. And
there’s no shortage of them.” He puffed on his cigarette. “I can’t explain what
happens to the women afterwards, but almost all of them are like your friend.
Just dazed for a while and then back to normal. Until…”

“What?”
Marie said sharply. Without meaning to, she pointed her cigarette toward him,
making him flinch.

“I
don’t know if it happens every time, or with every woman.” He shook his head in
agitation. “But I know a lot of the time, the demons go back. Find them. Have
them again. The women they have down here in town, the incubi go back to where
they live. The ones who’ve been taken out of the mansion…we take them home when
the incubi are done with them. That’s what I was doing Friday night when you
saw me there—what I was going to do with your friend. I didn’t know you’d
be there with her.”

Marie
raised an eyebrow. She thought of Elise, a sense of alarm rising in her.
Immediately, though, she realized that Elise was safe. No one from the party
knew where she lived. “Why the same women over and over?”

“I
don’t know.”

“And
it does the same thing to them afterward?”

Colin
nodded.

“What
happens then?”

He
shrugged pathetically. “I don’t know. It hasn’t been going on long enough to
know. And Julian…doesn’t tell us everything.”

“Can’t
you ask?”

He
smiled sheepishly. “You don’t ask Julian. You just…wait till he tells you what
he needs you to know.”

Marie
shook her head in disgust. She could not understand the hold that Piedmont had
on his followers, but it had been clear on Friday that there was no shortage of
young men willing to hang on his every word. Surely a few would do his bidding
as well. “You’re disgusting!” she said with a sneer.

Colin
looked at her sharply. “I don’t want to do it!” he hissed. “Don’t you see? But
I can’t go against Julian. None of us can.”

“Why?
What kind of hold does he have on you?”

Colin
shook his head. “I can’t explain it. There’s just something…irresistible about
him.”

Marie
narrowed her eyes. “Are you…in love with him?”

“No!
It’s not like that. He just…takes care of us. None of us would be anything
without him. He’s helped every one of us make it in this town in one way or
another.”

She
thought about how Colin had initially described Julian’s followers. “I thought
you were all a bunch of frat boys from USC. Rich men’s sons. What do you need
him for?”

“Rich
men’s sons who couldn’t find their asses with both hands. Growing up with money
in Hollywood is something of a curse, you know. Everything’s handed to you. You
don’t have to work. You end up a rich idiot with other people telling you how
to spend your money. Except Julian. He was lucky enough to hate his father, and
for the feeling to be mutual. He had to figure it all out by himself. Now he’s
got everything.”

“More
than he wants?”

“Maybe.”

Marie
shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Okay,” she said. “So why now? If
you’re so damned loyal to Julian, why are you betraying him to me? What good
can I do you in all this?”

He
stared at her for a few seconds, his lower lip trembling. When he spoke again,
tears fell onto his cheeks. “It’s my soul, Marie. When I read from that book
and called those…things. When I cut my arm and helped create their bodies. I
committed sins I don’t know if I can be forgiven for. I don’t want to go to
hell.”

“That’s
why you were in the church.”

Colin
nodded. “I need to talk to a priest, and that place is so peaceful. But I was
scared.”

“And
I scared you more.”

He
shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it anyway. But then when I saw you the
same night—the woman from the church there at that party trying to help
your friend. I thought it was maybe a sign. God was opening one last door for
me through you.”

Marie
raised an eyebrow. She had never thought of herself as an instrument of God
before. “It couldn’t have been just a coincidence?”

“I
choose not to think so. I still have my faith, you see.” He smiled wanly, then
went on. “I was hoping that if I told you everything, maybe you could act as an
intermediary. Talk to the priest for me. See if he thinks there’s any hope for
me, if God will let me back into the fold.”

Marie
thought about it for a few seconds, then shook her head. “You’re telling me
that you’re helping these…monsters, that you don’t have the backbone to stand
up to Julian Piedmont and tell him you want out? But you want
me
to help you? Out of what? The
goodness of my heart? My sense of Christian duty? No. I’m not going to make it
that easy for you, Colin. That’s your problem, anyway; things have always been
too easy for you. Not this time. You want absolution? Go see Father Joe
yourself.” When she had started speaking, Colin had looked afraid but hopeful,
and she had watched his expression slowly become more pathetic and devoid of
hope. “He’s a good man,” she added. “He’ll listen. That’s the best you’ll get
from me.”

Colin
looked hurt, but nodded his understanding. “I see,” he said as he looked down
at the ground. “I don’t deserve any more than that. I’ll try to go see him.
But…” He looked up at her, making eye contact for the first time in several
minutes. Then he reached into the pocket of his coat and took out a business
card, saying, “If you change your mind?”

Against
her better judgment, she took the card. It had his name and a phone number, but
no business name or other indication of his profession. Without acknowledging
that she would call him, she turned to leave, but stopped short, looking back
at Colin once more. “I don’t know what Father Joe will tell you. But you want
to know what I believe?” Colin nodded meekly. “If you want to get right with
God, you won’t do another thing else to help them. Julian Piedmont won’t like
it, but it’s about time you told him to go to hell.” Then she strode away, not
looking back or paying any attention to the famous footprints she walked across
on her way to her car.

Chapter Six

Laura
Tremaine never had a problem juggling plates and trays of drinks as she worked
her way across the floor of the Brown Derby. Tall and blonde with a wide smile
and gentle eyes, she had waited tables at the restaurant for more than a year
and had never made a mistake more serious than the occasional switched order.
But as she carried two glasses of iced tea toward a table along the back wall,
she stumbled in the middle of the restaurant, and both glasses flew out of her
hands. The tea, the ice, and the glasses all fell across the back of a man
seated before her. She gasped as the man jumped from his chair and spun around
to face her. Mortified at what she had done, when she saw the man’s face, she
wished she could just disappear.

She
had just spilled tea all over Cary Grant. Apparently in shock, he simply stared
at her, tea dripping from his jacket and ice scattered around his shoes. Laura
could feel the eyes of everyone in the restaurant on her, and for several
seconds she could do nothing more than stand there, her hand covering her mouth
and tears welling up in her eyes. Though the Derby had been abuzz with
conversation and laughter moments ago, it was now completely silent with every
diner and employee taking in the spectacle.

“Oh
my God,” came her manager’s voice from behind her as he flew across the floor
with a towel in his hand. “Mr. Grant, I’m so sorry.” He handed the actor the
towel and then turned to Laura. “Out!” he barked. “Get your things and go!”

Shocked,
she turned away from Cary Grant and toward her boss. “But Jerry, I—”

“I
don’t want to hear it, Laura!” Jerry said. He waved a thumb toward the door.
“You’re through!”

“Now,
now, now,” the actor said in his distinctive accent. He held up a hand like a
cop stopping traffic. “The young lady made a mistake. It could happen to
anyone.”

“Not
at the Brown Derby, Mr. Grant,” Jerry said. “There’s a hundred other girls just
as good at what she does just waiting for this job.” He turned to Laura, a
venomous look on his face.

When
the actor had spoken in her defense, Laura had thought she was saved, and she
felt incredibly grateful for his generosity. But the look on Jerry’s face told
her there was no saving her, and she had to fight back tears as she started
turning away. Now she noticed that everyone in the restaurant stared at her,
and she wanted to run from the building.

“I
insist,” Grant said. “I don’t want her fired on my account.”

Laura
stopped, her gaze shifting from one man to the other.

“In
fact,” the actor said, “I’d like it very much if the young lady would join me
at my table.”

Jerry
looked dumbfounded, and Laura suddenly felt a buzzing in her ears.

“You
want…what?” Jerry stammered.

Grant
pulled his billfold from the inside pocket of his soaked jacket. He took out
two twenty-dollar bills and handed them to Jerry. “What do you think?” he
asked. “Will that cover the cost of getting someone else to fill in the rest of
her shift? And a little more for the trouble?”

“I…yes,
I suppose.” Jerry took the money and then turned to give Laura another
hate-filled glance that Cary Grant was unable to see.

The
actor met her stunned gaze and gallantly indicated the chair across from him. “Please,
Miss. It would be my pleasure.”

“Oh
Mr. Grant, I couldn’t,” she protested.

“Shush,”
he said. “I was just thinking before you spilled those drinks on me that eating
alone was going to be no fun at all. If you don’t sit down with me, you really
will have ruined my meal.”

“Well…”
She gave Jerry a questioning glance, and when he gave her a reluctant nod, she
moved forward and around Grant’s table. “Okay, I guess,” she said uncertainly.

“Wonderful,
Miss…?” he said as he pulled a chair out for her.

“Tremaine,”
she said, a tremor in her voice. “Laura.”

“Laura,”
he repeated. “Lovely.” Then, before Jerry could step away from the table, Grant
turned toward him. “Why don’t you send us over two porterhouse steaks, Jerry?” He
looked back to Laura. “Medium rare?” When she nodded with a smile, he turned
again to Jerry and repeated, “Medium rare with all the trimmings. And…” His
smiled broadened. “Two iced teas.”

“Yes,
sir,” Jerry said, sounding as though he would choke on the words.

The
handsome actor sat down beside Laura, and she felt her heart fluttering. It all
felt like a dream. He leaned across the little table to say, “He’s a bit angry,
I think.”

“I
think so,” she agreed.

She
was about to add that it wasn’t necessary for him to buy her dinner, but Grant
spoke instead, his voice just above a whisper. “He’d be even angrier if he knew
I wasn’t really Cary Grant.”

The
accent was gone, and Laura felt the blood drain from her face. Now she saw that
the man looked slightly different from Cary Grant, his nose a bit more angular,
his eyes a bit wider. He smiled broadly at her.

“Oh
my God,” Laura said. Again, she covered her mouth, but now it was to suppress a
giggle. At the thought of how this imposter had fooled Jerry and everyone else
in the restaurant—herself included—she wanted to laugh out loud.
“What in the world?” she was finally able to say.

He
reached a hand across the table, offering it for her to shake. “Taylor
Thompson,” he said. “At your service.” He spoke with an American accent, and
though he was not Cary Grant, he was still terribly handsome and looked
amazingly like the actor.

“Do
you do this often?” she asked quietly. Once she had sat down, the rest of the
diners in the restaurant had gone back to their conversations, so the buzz of
voices was now loud enough to allow Laura and Taylor to talk freely without
being overheard.

“Not
on purpose,” he said as a waiter brought their iced teas. When he left, Taylor
continued. “You’d be surprised at how often I get treated to free meals,
though.”

“And
you don’t say anything?”

He
shrugged. “Why should I? It’s not my idea, after all.”

Laura
smiled and shook her head. “It’s a bit risky, isn’t it? I mean, what if the
real…you-know-who was to be in the same place?”

He
threw his hands up. “It’s a big town. I don’t think he and I move in the same
circles.”

“But
the Brown Derby? We get a lot of actors in here.”

“Like
I said, it’s never my idea. If I ever get found out, I’ll just plead innocence
and pay my bill. You watch. Your friend Jerry won’t charge for the steaks.”

Laura
sipped her tea. When she had thought she was sitting across from Cary Grant,
she had felt giddy and almost speechless. But now that she knew the man was
just a good-looking rake with a quick wit and a sharp eye for opportunity, she
felt more confident. The man was flirting with her, and she didn’t mind.

“Now,”
he said, leaning forward and folding his hands in front of him. “I’ve told you
a secret. What’s one you can tell me?”

She
raised an eyebrow. “I hardly know you, Mr. Thompson.”

“Please,”
he said. “Taylor.”

“Taylor,
then,” she acquiesced. “I hardly think it’s proper of me to be sharing secrets
with you.”

“And
why not? I’m down forty dollars and a dry cleaning bill, aren’t I? I saved your
job. And I expect this’ll be a nicer steak than you’ve had in some time.”

She
smiled at his cockiness and looked down at her hands on the tablecloth. “All
right,” she said after a few more seconds. “I’ll tell you something no one else
here knows about me.” She paused and met his gaze again, pleased to see him
smiling in anticipation. “My name’s not really Laura Tremaine.”

He
leaned back against his chair, a look of enlightenment on his face. “Ahh, I
see. An aspiring actress?” She nodded in response. “And what, may I ask, is
your given name?”

She
smiled shyly. “It’s Esther. Esther Funderburke,” she said.

He
winced. “A wise choice, Laura Tremaine.”

They
both laughed, and soon their steaks arrived. As they ate, they traded stories,
and she found out that he worked in the accounting office at Piedmont Pictures,
that he had been in Hollywood for three years, and that he lived in a little
bungalow high in the hills. Working at the studio, he insisted, was hardly
glamorous.

“Oh,
I don’t know,” she said when the meal was about finished. “I think just being
on the other side of the gates would be better than being stuck on the outside
looking in.”

“And
you want to be on the inside looking out?”

“More
than anything.”

He
raised an eyebrow. “And no luck yet?”

She
shook her head. “I’ve been to some casting calls, but…nothing yet.”

“Why
not, do you think?”

She
shrugged. “I suppose it’s because I haven’t got an agent yet. But all the ones
who’re willing to give me the time of day are just in it for themselves.”

Taylor
nodded his understanding. “You know,” he said, clearly thinking through his
idea as the words formed on his lips, “I could talk to some people. I do have
the chance to rub elbows with a few actors in the commissary. Maybe I could
float your name around, see if I can’t get a connection to an agent who might
do you some good.”

Laura
grew flushed. “Do you really think?”

“All
I can do is try.”

“That
would be…I don’t know what to say.”

He
smiled, and she saw that it was the Cary Grant smile again—as though he
somehow looked more like the actor than he had a moment ago. For a while during
the meal, she had wondered how she and Jerry had been so easily fooled into
thinking he was the actor, but now she saw again that the resemblance was
uncanny. And when he said, “Say you’ll come dancing with me,” she felt herself
blush more deeply at the attention he heaped upon her.

Uncertain
of herself and feeling flustered at his flattery, she quietly said, “Sure.
Sometime.”

“How
about tonight? Now?”

She
shook her head, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. “I couldn’t,” she stammered,
looking down at her uniform. “I’m not dressed for dancing.”

“You
can change,” he said. “Surely you have more than uniforms in your closet. And
some dancing shoes.”

“I
do, but…why? I mean, we just met.”

“And
I’m mighty glad of it. Look, Laura,” he said, leaning forward. “I’m not trying
to suggest anything. If you say no, I’ll still talk to the people I know. I
just thought it might be nice.”

He
seemed completely natural and honest with her. And as he gazed at her, awaiting
her reply, she told herself she had nothing to worry about. Any other woman in
the room would give up a limb to be invited out by a man this good looking, she
knew. She would be an idiot to pass up the opportunity. “All right, then,” she
said.

“All
right, then,” he repeated, beaming.

* * * * * * * *

For
the first time since she had moved to Hollywood, Laura felt embarrassed by her
small apartment on the steep hill that was Ivar Street. The building itself, a
small Tudor revival, was charming enough from the street, but the apartments
themselves were small and shabby, accessorized with utility furniture like
murphy beds and sparse kitchenettes. She had had other people visit her,
including a few men, but they had always been people like herself—no one
rich or classy, but rather friends from the Derby or others whom she met at
casting calls. They all lived in similar places, or worse, and there was never
a reason to apologize for where she lived. With Taylor, though, it was very
different.

“I’m
not planning on being here long,” she lied once she had unlocked the door. She
turned to him with a smile, still captivated by his good looks.

“Shall
I wait here?” he asked.

For
a moment, she wanted to say yes to save herself the embarrassment of having him
see inside her apartment, but then she thought of how it would look to her
neighbors to have this man standing in the hallway waiting for her. “No, no,”
she said. “Come on in. I can run down to the bathroom to change.”

She
pushed the door open and led the way inside. The apartment had two small
windows, but they opened onto an alley and let very little light into the room,
something that had never pleased her about the place. Now she was grateful,
hoping the dim interior would keep him from thinking poorly about her. A
dressing screen divided the single room in half with her bed and dresser on the
other side and her little kitchenette and tiny dining table near the entrance.
Looking nervously around the room, she felt relieved that the place was not too
messy.

“Here,”
she said, pushing a few scraps of mail away from the edge of the table and
pointing toward a chair. “Go ahead and have a seat while I figure out what to
wear.”

“Delighted,”
he said and pulled the chair out.

She
gave him what she hoped was a playful look and then went behind the screen to
open her closet door. A pair of black shoes on the floor would do fine for
dancing, but she looked at the dresses that hung before her and wrinkled her
brow. None of them seemed right, not fancy enough, not pretty enough.