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  He set down the tray. Melda left off talking to smile at him, and indicate with her eyes that he should sit between them. Then she took her glass of wine and held it up in preparation for making a toast. "To good beginnings," she said.

  Chesney lifted his glass of Chianti and looked to his right. His mother had not moved, nor had she acknowledged the bone china cup of steaming amber liquid he had set before her. She sat erect, her head held slightly back and to the side, regarding the young woman opposite her as if Melda were an object of unknown, though possibly dangerous, characteristics that might without warning explode or exude unpleasant substances.

  "A toast, Mother," Chesney said.

  Letitia's eyes moved sideways but her gaze did not rest warmly upon her son. Her hands remained below the table. And now Melda was looking at him, too. Chesney realized that the frozen moment had become some kind of test. He even knew what he was being tested on. He touched his glass to Melda's and said, "And happy endings."

  Letitia's lips became thin and pressed hard against each other. Chesney had seen the expression on many occasions, and in those bygone times the set of his mother's jaw would have made him anxious – would have set his mind hunting for the soft words that scripture said were supposed to turn away wrath, though experience had taught him that armor plate would not suffice to turn away the kind of wrath Letitia Arnstruther could generate.

  But, curiously, the sight of his mother's face armed for battle caused him no distress. He realized that he was not affected because he had already made his choice – had made it long before he had touched his glass to Melda's – and that whatever might come after was of no consequence. The tension went out of his spine and he sat back to watch what was about to happen.

  "You said that Chesney has told you little about me?" said Letitia. Without waiting for confirmation, she added, "He has told me nothing about you."

  Melda put down her wine glass and said, "What would you like to know?"

  Now the older woman took up her cup and sipped the tea. "To start with," she said, "who are your people?"

  "My people?" Melda smiled. "Well, they're the Irish on my father's side, and the Italian on my mother's"

  Chesney watched his mother try out two different facial expressions at the same time: one was contempt that the young woman opposite was too ignorant even to know what the question, "Who are your people?" meant; the other was suspicion that Melda knew all too well and was mocking her. She settled on the first option and said, "I meant, dear, where do they live, what do they do?"

  Melda smiled sweetly. "I know what you meant," she said. "I was trying to save you the embarrassment of going there."

  "Going there?" said Letitia, as if the phrase was new to her.

  "Starting a conversation that would leave you, you might say, at a disadvantage." Melda took another mouthful of wine, rolled it around a little, then swallowed. "Or, like my kind of people might say, holding the shit end of the stick."

  Chesney's mother had been holding her half-filled teacup midway between mouth and saucer. It now descended to the latter with an unquestionable finality. She turned to her son and said, "She will not do."

  The young man met her gaze, and was pleased to find that he did not tremble inside; facing down Hell had apparently been good practice for this moment. Then he looked at Melda as he said, "Yes, Mother, she will."

  "You have obligations," Letitia said, rising from her chair and turning her eyes toward the ceiling as she added, "high obligations." Though they were seated across from each other, she looked down at Melda from a great height and said, "There are matters at stake, young woman, that are beyond your competence. Matters I cannot divulge, that–"

  Melda let Chesney answer. "She knows, Mother."

  The older woman stopped in mid-condescension. "She knows? What does she know?"

  "Everything."

  Though the foundations of Letitia Arnstruther's world clearly rocked beneath her feet, Chesney thought she handled it well. "You foolish boy. So she inveigled you into telling–"

  Chesney had never interrupted his mother before a moment ago, and here he was doing again. "She went to Hell for me, Mother," he said. "Literally. She was ready to fight the Devil for me." He put his hand over Melda's. "She loves me. I love her. That's all there is to it."

  There was a great deal more to it as far as his mother was concerned, but before she could utter more than the first few syllables of his badly needed re-education, Letitia was interrupted for an unparalleled third time. A weasel-headed, sabertooth-fanged apparition in spats and a wide-lapeled suit shimmered into view at the unoccupied side of the table.

  "Boss," Xaphan said, "we gotta go."

  Chesney was no less surprised than the two women. He noted that his demonic assistant also lacked a cigar and a glass of rum. "I didn't summon you," he said.

  "No, boss," said the demon. "You been sent for."

  "By whom?"

  "By the boss, boss. My boss. The big boss."

  "Satan?" said Chesney. "What does he want?"

  "Better he should tell you himself."

  "My son," said Letitia Arnstruther, "is not at the beck and call of Hell. He is a prophet of–"

  Fourth time, thought Chesney, world record, then he said, "If he's asking nicely…" He turned to Xaphan and said, "It is a request, right?"

  The demon looked uncomfortable. "He can't command you, so it has to be he's askin'."

  Chesney told his mother, "Then I think I should find out what he wants."

  "He can't come here?" Melda said. "It's a better atmosphere than his place."

  "It's complicated," said the demon. "Let's just say he feels more comfortable with you comin' over to his side of town."

  "Do I need my costume?" Chesney said.

  The weasel head went from side to side. "Better not."

  "Okay, then, let's–" Chesney's apartment disappeared and he was instantly somewhere else, saying, "go."

  THREE

  The somewhere else was enveloped in some kind of mist. The young man was relieved to find that it wasn't any of the parts of Hell he had already visited; their climates did not agree with mortal flesh. Nor did it fit any description of the internal regions he had ever come across. "Where is this?" he said.

  A voice behind him said, "Limbo."

  He turned. Lucifer was standing in the mist. Chesney studied the severe features and deduced that behind the anger that the Devil usually showed when they met he was seeing something else – he thought it might be worry. "I thought they'd done away with Limbo," he said. "Theologically, I mean."

  "Yet here we are," said the Devil. "How do you account for that?"

  Chesney shrugged. "I don't think it's up to me to account for it. You're the one who brought me here."

  Satan regarded him with a cold anger. "The last time we spoke," he said, "there was talk about a book."

  "I remember. You didn't care for the idea."

  "I still don't."

  Chesney waited. He couldn't imagine the Devil being stuck for words, but that was the impression he was receiving. Lucifer seemed to be wrestling with something he wanted, and didn't want, to say.

  Eventually, the Devil said, "You thought that all this," he gestured in a way that included more than the mist they stood in, "was part of a book that…" Satan couldn't bring himself to say the name, "that's being written."

  "Actually," said Chesney, "it was the Reverend Billy Lee Hardacre's idea."

  One tapered-fingered hand made a gesture of irritation. "But you know about it."

  "As much as he's told me about it," said the young man. "It's not something I'm particularly interested in."

  "Not one of your 'pools of light.'"

  "So you know about that, too?"

  Satan fixed him with a hard look. Chesney was glad he'd worked his way up to a point where he could bear such a stare from his mother; it made meeting the Devil's gaze less of a challenge. "Oh," said Lucifer, "I've made a point of getting to know
you."

  "Why's that?" Chesney said.

  "We'll come to that, in due course. First, tell me what you know about the… book."

  "You're probably not used to this kind of question," said the young man, "but why should I?"

  He had the impression that Satan had thought out their conversation in advance. That was a technique his mother had applied to the interrogations she used to inflict upon him before he left home; policemen did it, too. Even so, his question caused the satanic jaw to tighten and the satanic eyes to narrow. It was a moment before the Devil answered. "Is this," he said, "a negotiation?"

  Chesney shook his head. "I thought we'd established that I have no interest in any of the kinds of contracts you make."

  "We have."

  "Then what am I doing here?" When there was no immediate answer, he said, "You're not trying to ask me for help?"

  Pride was the Devil's everything, Chesney knew, and he also knew he had just trodden upon it. He again waited while the jaw and eyes went through their permutations.

  "I am trying to discover," Satan said at last, "if you and I have a common interest."

  "I fight crime. You inspire criminals. Where in that would you look for a common interest?"

  "Nowhere. But, still, we may have a common problem."

  Chesney thought of his mother, then felt guilty for having done so. "Speak plainly," he said.

  "Someone is trying to make you do things you don't want to do," said Lucifer. "That was always the nub of my problem, too."

  Chesney made a show of thinking about it, but after a moment it wasn't just a show. The Devil seemed to know what he was thinking and weighed in with the next brick in the wall. "And it may be that we're talking about the same 'someone.'"

  "You're not allowed to tempt me," Chesney said.

  "I'm not trying to. Your soul is not in play."

  "So what do you want, and what are you offering?"

  "A partnership," Satan said. "Or call it an alliance."

  "To what end?"

  "To find out what this book business is all about. After that, we can reassess our positions."

  "But you were there," Chesney said, "when Hardacre explained it."

  "I know." Lucifer's face took on an expression that Chesney was now sure could only be described as worried. "That's what bothers me. I can't recall exactly what was said." The thin black brows drew down to form a perfect vee. "And I recall everything."

  "You don't recall the meeting?"

  "I do, and I don't. It's…" – the jaw clenched and unclenched – "vague."

  Chesney could see no reason not to tell Lucifer something the Devil ought to know already. "The reverend has this theory," he said, "that the universe, including Heaven and Hell, you and me and everybody, are all part of a book that…" He hesitated, until Satan waved a hand to signal that he would hear the next syllable. "That God is writing. He's supposed to be writing it to learn about morality."

  The Devil grunted and rolled a hand in a gesture that said go on.

  "That's about all there is to it," the young man said, "except that the book keeps getting rewritten, and elements of previous drafts pop up in sacred scripture. So that's why you have the story about Noah's Ark or the Tower of Babel, even though these things didn't really happen. I mean, they did really happen, but only in a previous draft of the universe."

  The Devil pinched his lower lip and looked down and to one side. "I remember those events," he said. "But you're saying they didn't happen?"

  "Well, they did," Chesney spread his hands, "but then they didn't. The thing is, you were in both drafts. Or, probably, there have been a lot more than two, and you've been in all of them." He paused to think. "Although it seems as if your character has been rewritten."

  Satan's head snapped around. "What do you mean?"

  Chesney held up both palms. "Well," he said, "do you remember being a talking snake? With legs?"

  Thunderheads formed on the Devil's brow – quite literally: small, turbulent clouds through which flashed tiny bolts of lightning – until he brushed them away. Then his face took on the aspect of a man recovering a wisp of memory.

  "And did you," said Chesney, "used to make bets with you-know-who? Cause there's a story about that, too."

  "Why would I make bets with him? He knows everything that's going to happen."

  Chesney took that as a rhetorical question. "Anyway," he said, "that was Billy Lee Hardacre's theory. There's a book, we're all in it, it keeps getting rewritten, and here and there we come across traces of the previous drafts. Like fossils."

  "Like Limbo," Satan said, looking into the mists that surrounded them.

  "Maybe," said Chesney. "It's not in the current draft, but it must have been in a previous one."

  "Because," said Lucifer, "here it is." He paused. "And here we are."

  "Why show it to me?"

  "Because I like people to be knowledgeable."

  It took Chesney a moment to follow the Devil's train of thought. "I still don't see grounds for a partnership or an alliance," he said.

  "You don't?" Now the hard-featured face produced a knowing smile. "Let me point them out to you. You and I are characters in a book, a book written by someone else. We play roles prepared for us by someone else. The meaning of our existence is that we serve another's will." Lucifer fixed Chesney again with his serpentine gaze. "And that sits well with you?"

  "According to Hardacre's theory, I have free will. So do you."

  "Unless the… someone we're talking about decides to revise the draft. Then maybe I'm a snake again." Chesney shrugged in a way that he hoped showed a certain sympathy; the Devil did not appreciate the sentiment. "And maybe you're your momma's boy again, doing what she wants you to!"

  "No!" The shout could not echo in Limbo, but still it came out loud and with force.

  Another satanic smile, this one to savor a point scored. "What I hear," the Devil said, "is that there is a new draft being written. The Book of Chesney. In which you perform wondrous deeds and generally prance about like a latter-day prophet."

  "It's nothing to do with me!"

  The smile widened. "Not now," said Lucifer. "But what if it is the first cut at a new draft of the big book? Then everything changes again. And this time, maybe it's your legs that get taken away."

  "I am not a prophet!"

  "You would not be the first prophet to respond to the initial offer with, 'Who, me?' I believe those were Moses's very words."

  "I will not do it," said Chesney.

  "Not even if your mother says?"

  "Not even then. Especially not even then."

  Satan smiled upon another victory. "And thus it seems we do have something in common." He waited while the young man worked it through. "So," he said, when the thinking was done, "do we have an alliance?"

  Chesney did not answer right away. "What would be my part in it?" he said.

  "First, read the Book of Chesney, and see what you think of it."

  "I don't need to read it. I glanced through it once, and that was enough. It is full of things that never happened, and never will."

  "Know thine enemy's mind," said Lucifer, "always seemed part of a good strategy to me."

  Chesney had to agree. "All right," he said, "I'll read it. Then what?"

  "Then we'll see."

  "You don't get my soul."

  Lucifer snorted. "I wouldn't let your soul anywhere near my realm," he said. "You, young man, are trouble."

  And then he was gone.

  "Xaphan!" Chesney called.

  "Here, boss." The demon emerged from the mist.

  "What do you think?"

  "I don't think, boss. Way I see it, it just leads to trouble."

  "As the sparks fly up," Chesney quoted.

  "Say what?"

  "Never mind. Are Melda and my mother still going at it?"

  "Nah," said Xaphan. "In this place, we're out of time. I can put you back right when we left."

  The prosp
ect of stepping back into the middle of a fight between the two women in his life did not entice Chesney. He thought for a moment, then said, "If I was called away to fight crime, I could just leave them to get on with it, couldn't I?"