Page 5 of Creature
“Tell you what. Why don’tyou take a break? Go get yourself some coffee and a sandwich. Myboy Lowe and I will just be visiting for a while.”
O’Keefe turned his hard gaze to Harry andthen nodded. “Yes, sir. If you need anything—”
“We’ll be justfine.”
Limping heavily, O’Keefecrossed the room, unlocked the door, and left, pulling the doorclosed behind him. Townsend walked to the other side of the deskand collapsed into the chair, which creaked in protest. After a fewmoments of leafing through the tidy stack ofmagazines—Life,BoxingIllustrated,HomeCraftsman—he pulled out a cigarette andlighter. “O’Keefe could’ve taken retirement, you know. We take careof our men.” He blew a cloud of smoke. “But he wants to stay on. Alot of guys, they get used to this life. They have a hard timegiving it up.”
“What about the agent withthe demon?”
Townsend laughed. “Yeah, he was still youngwhen he left us. I thought we’d keep him longer. Being a Bureauagent, that’s what kept him on the right path. If he’d never signedon with us, well, let’s just say there’s a good chance we’d havemet up eventually anyway—with a far less positive outcome for him.Anyway, his demon does that for him now.”
“Does what?”
“Keeps him honest,”Townsend said with a wink and a chuckle. He tapped his cigaretteagainst a metal ashtray and leaned back in the chair. “Why am Ihere?” Harry asked. There was no place for him to sit, and he wastempted to pace the small room like a caged animal. Instead hestuffed his fists into his pockets.
“Death.”
“What?” Harry hoped hedidn’t look as spooked as he felt.
“You’re here because ofdeath. I guess we all are, in a way, the whole damn Bureau, but inthis case that theme is more apparent.”
“I don’t know what you’retalking about.”
“When you think about it,death is the master of every one of us. Doesn’t matter how strongwe are. You could be richer than Rockefeller, more famous thanJimmy Stewart, more powerful than Stalin, but in the end, deathbeats you. And none of us gets much say in how or when.” He grinnedas if he found this amusing. Then he leaned forward and pointed thetip of his cigarette at Harry. “So tell me, boy. If you wanted tobe the most formidable man in all of history, what would you try todo? And don’t say make money, because I told you already that isn’tit.”
Unsure whether this was a simpleconversation or a test of some kind, Harry chewed his lip inthought. He’d always hated it when his teachers called on him—hismind never worked fast enough, and the other kids laughed at hisbumbling responses. “You’d want to control death?” He couldn’t helpphrasing it as a question.
Townsend slapped the desk hard, making Harryjump. “That’s right! I thought you’d say something about creatinglife, but that isn’t it either. Every two-bit floozy who getsherself knocked up can create life. Nothing special about that. Butdeath!” He nodded. “That’s something else.”
Although Harry was relieved to have landedon the right answer, he still had no idea where the conversationwas going. He remained silent and looked around furtively asTownsend stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. The smoke hungheavy in the room, which had no windows or other sign ofventilation. Besides the steel door to the hallway, there was asmaller door, also of heavy steel. Although no sounds came frombehind the smaller door, Harry sensed that something lurkedthere.
How did O’Keefe manage to spend hours here,alone, without losing his mind?
“Have you ever been toPortland, Lowe?”
Harry blinked at the change in topic.“Oregon? No.”
“Rains all the time. Weirdthings grow in all that dampness.”
“Mold?”
“Weirdideas, boy. A man spends too muchtime cooped up inside, looking out at the gloom, he starts thinkingstrange things. Like maybe he starts thinking he’d like to get thebetter of death.”
Oh, so they were back to that again. “Howdoes someone do that?”
“Well, necromancy for one.Or vodou. A fellow who learns one of those can raise the dead.” Heshrugged. “It has appeal for some, I guess. The kind that wantslaves to do their bidding.”
Harry shuddered. “That’s… awful. Can peoplereally do that?”
“Sure. We took down abokor—a vodou sorcerer—last year, up in Bakersfield. The agents wesent after him had to burn their clothes afterward. They couldn’twash the stink of death out of ’em.”
“Jesus.”
Townsend laughed. “No,that’s a whole other kind of raising the dead, and no mortal I knowhas managed it. Anyway, here’s the thing. A necromancer or bokorisn’t really besting death—he’s only… well, partnering with it.Because those things he raises, they might be shuffling around, butthey’re still dead. Atrulypowerful man would do more than that. He’d takethe dead and bring ’em entirely back to life.”
Harry could have stayed in Missouri, maybewith a job at the grain elevator. He could have headed up north andfound employment in a Chicago factory or a Detroit car plant. Hecould have come here to LA and looked for something at the port. Orhe could have hidden that he was queer and joined the Army. Inshort, Harry’s life could have taken another path, a path thatdidn’t lead to this office, locked in a basement with a man who wastalking about raising the dead.
“That sounds fuckinghorrible,” Harry said.
