Bats in the Belfry

The first drink burned. It was vodka, a brand with a name that Devin couldn’t pronounce. It had the rich flavor and texture of gasoline. After promising himself he’d never drink fuel again, he ordered a beer.

“I thought you were made of sterner stuff.” Lola said teasingly.

“Guess not.” Devin said with a frown. The barkeeper was capable of switching from comfortable familiarity to open contempt in an instant. He’d never gotten used to it.

“Franco’s Bar used to be a church, you know.” Lola said authoritatively. Devin nodded dutifully. It was the barkeeper’s favorite story, and he welcomed the change in subject.

“The original owner ran nightly poker games. This was before the mall, so there wasn’t much else to do around here.  Just church, school, and cards. One local pastor was better at preaching than cards.”

Devin drained the rest of his glass as she spoke. He listened half-heartedly. It wasn’t a bad story, and Lola wasn’t a dull speaker. But few stories stood past their fifth telling. He felt for the phone in his right pocket. He had to make the call tonight. Preferably soon. Every night that he waited would just make it worse.

“Everyone told the guy to slow down. But it flew in one ear and out the other. He always responded with a proverb and went right back to the table.”

“Huh.” Devin said in rote acknowledgement.

“In a decade, Father Michaels ran up two lifetimes of debt. In the end, he had to choose between keeping his own house and the house of worship. He chose home. The flock wasn’t amused.”

“Churches belong to the community. My stepmom always said that.” Devin replied.

“Don’t interrupt. Here’s the twist: twenty years later, that old bat Franco built up his own debt. He sold the bar to my Dad, along with a few choice war bonds and an old Ford.”

“Did your Dad owe you money too? Or are you just lucky?”

Lola’s expression soured. “Do you have to make the same lame joke every time you come here?”

“As long as you tell the same story.”

“It’s a good one.”

Devin shrugged. There was something to be taken from the story, somewhere. But he wasn’t in the mood to look too deeply for anything. Except another drink.

“Can I get a Guinness?” Devin asked. He needed something stout and dark, to make sure he wouldn’t just tear through it. A bit of flavor was a good enough control on depressed drinking.

“We’ve got Corona.”

“How about-“

“Just Corona.” Lola interrupted. “Same as last week. And you’d better not ask me for Pabst again. You’re not a teenage hipster or a factory worker.”

“I’ve tried both.”

“Well, now you sue people.”

“Most of my clients are defendants.” Devin corrected. “With the right approach, beating a frivolous suit just takes a bit of sleight of hand. What you do-“

“I didn’t ask.” Lola interrupted again. She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “Some University kids just walked in. Good tippers. Entertain yourself for a while.”

Entertaining himself consisted of looking uneasily at his phone. It probably wasn’t great for his eyes, but he didn’t feel compelled to do anything else. Devin’s unwanted Corona showed up after five minutes of blank staring. He watched a thin line of foam run off the head of the glass onto the counter. It was a welcome distraction.

He didn’t have a bad marriage. They never fought. They were both in shape. They laughed at each other’s jokes at the polite intervals. They both pulled their weight economically, and pitched in for the housework. There had been talk of children.

But nothing ever happened. He couldn’t remember the last angry or passionate thought he’d had about her. Devin wouldn’t be miserable with Violet. But he would go insane.

“I’ve got a different story.” said an unfamiliar, raspy voice. Devin turned to his left. The comment had come from a disheveled looking white man in a faded grey suit. His right hand was wrapped around an empty shot glass, and decorated with what looked like an old class ring.  His grin overshadowed most of his facial features. The old man’s face seemed stuck on the verge of laughter. “If you’re tired of the bartender’s.”

“Go on.”

“I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you.”

Devin turned back to his drink. Friday night had brought out the cranks.

“I’m kidding. I don’t think I’m some kind of man in black. From what I just saw, your jokes aren’t much better.”

Devin turned back to the old man. His interest was muted at best, but the conversation would put more time between him and the call to his wife.

“I am, however, running from the men in black.” the stranger said casually. He held for a response.

“Really?” Devin mumbled.

“Yup.” the old man said jovially. Devin noted that sarcasm wasn’t a universal language. “I’ve been doing it for six years, two months, twelve days, and fourteen minutes. Give or take a few years.”

“Why are they after you?”

“The magic, I imagine.” the old man said matter-of factly. “Or is sorcery the politically correct term? I never know how to talk to you California types.”

“Magic is fine.” Devin said with a smile. This could be interesting after all. If he had to be diverted by a nut, it might as well be an interesting one. He glimpsed a disapproving glare from Lola, but that was alright. She disapproved of most things he did. “What kind?”

The old man cleared his throat and brushed off his sleeves before speaking. The gesture read ‘this is the important part’ in the least subtle manner possible. “I made people disappear.”

Devin sipped his drink and kept his thoughts to himself.

“I’m a government man. Like my father, his father, and his…mother, actually. Or uncle. My point is it’s in the family. A tradition.” the old man continued. As he spoke, he alternated between wide hand gestures and running his fingers together. It had a distracting effect that made keeping eye contact difficult.

“I understand that.” Devin lied. His father had stopped talking to his grandparents before he was even born. Devin had never gotten the whole story, but he was dimly aware of a five-digit sum of money and a pickup truck being involved. He liked to fill in his own details.

“There’s glamour to being a spy. Slightly less for being an assassin. But no one gives a thought to the man that cleans up the aftermath. Dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s of espionage.”

“Shame.” said Devin. Correcting the expression would be rude.

“If you ask me, it’s the most exciting desk job in the world. I wired money to militias and journalists around the world. I censored every name and location on a mission report until it looked more like modern art then a hit order. I’d probably do it all again, if they weren’t trying to bump me off now.”

“Really?”

“I believed in what I did. I cleaned up after wetwork for twenty years. Now, they want to make me disappear too.”

It made sense to end the conversation there. But Devin’s distant disdain had melted into a pang of guilt. He had led the old man on, and now the poor crazy bastard didn’t think Devin knew he was a poor crazy bastard. He suppressed  a sigh. He was in it for the long haul.

“Why would they do that?”

The old man stroked his chin with his left hand, grasping at the echo of recently-shaven facial hair. “It’s simple. Those Illuminati brats kicked out the Knights Templar.”

“That…is not simple.”

“A conspiracy ages a bit like a person.” the old man said in a tone that reminded Devin of a high school lecture. “You start out looking for excitement. A coup here, a Great War there, anything to keep the excitement going. But as you get older, you calm down. Start to appreciate the more stable things in life. You can only knock over so many South American governments without making your own problems. These new Illuminati yuppies don’t get that. First, they replaced the furniture and made us start going to newfangled trust exercises. Then they put a burn out on half of us.”

Devin smiled. This was getting fun again.

“I should have seen it coming. I knew the pension was too good to be true. No government employee sees six legitimate figures in his life.”

“Wait. How can you work for both a conspiracy and the government?”

The old man looked at him like a dunce student.

“Wouldn’t it conflict?”

The old man looked at him like a dunce student bombing on a game show.

“I’m just saying, it’d get out.”

The old man looked at him like a dunce student bombing on a game show designed for kindergarteners.

“I’ll stop talking.”

“As I was saying, the deep pockets behind the agency changed. Shame. I can’t say we did good work, but we were a bit more discreet than the new kids. The worst thing is that I saw it coming.”

“How?”

“In a dream.”

Devin wondered why he bothered asking. “Oh.”

“I better get moving. Thanks for listening.”

“Good luck.”

“I don’t need it. The agency’s new boys aren’t worth the ink on their badges. No character at all.”

The old man hopped off his chair with surprising speed. He brushed off his gray pants, ran a tiny comb through his thinning hair. After rummaging through his pockets, he left a handful of crumpled singles on the bar counter. As he strode through the door, Lola came to claim her fare.

“That was messed up.” Lola said with a glare.

“We were just having a conversation.”

“He was having a conversation. You were using him as a diversion.

“Don’t tell me that wasn’t interesting. I felt like I was running an asylum.”

“That’s your problem. You don’t really hear anything when someone else talks. We’re here to entertain you.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Fine. Try and prove me wrong. What’s his name?”

“Pardon?”

“The old guy with the bent story. Can you remember his name?”

Devin racked his brain. Saying it hadn’t come up wouldn’t win him the argument. Telling her it didn’t matter wouldn’t exactly score him any points either.

“Larry Williams.” Devin volunteered.

“Bull.” Lola replied. “You’d think a lawyer could come up with a better fake name than that. That’s the kind of half-assed lie that gets people in witness protection killed.”

As he fumbled for a comeback, a man two heads taller than him stepped between the pair.

“Excuse me. Have you seen an elderly gentleman about yea high?” the tall man said, raising one hand up to his shoulder. He wore an expression of wafer-thin concern that Devin was used to seeing in his clients. He also wore the kind of expensive black suit Devin associated with work. It had an unnerving effect.

“Yeah.” Devin mumbled. “Are you a friend of his?”

“I take care of him. His kids aren’t around to watch him anymore, so I keep an eye on the guy. I try to keep him out of, well, places like this. But he wanders.”

“Oh.” Devin said nervously. He felt Lola’s eyes drilling into the back of his skull. “He just left. You can catch him if you move quickly.”

“Thanks.”

“Um, one last thing. What’s your name?”

“Jackson.”

“Nice meeting you, Jackson.”

Devin watched Jackson make his way to the exit. When he looked back at Lola, she’d moved on to another group of college students. He was on his own.

Devin returned to his cell phone and found “Her” in the contacts list. For a moment, he paused. Pressing the little green button would be swinging the executioner’s axe. A marriage of five years would end, and a legal tug-of-war would begin.

“Into the breach.” Devin mumbled. He stood up, pressed send and waited.

“Hey babe.” Violet said in the sing-song voice that heralded her good moods. Devin’s stomach sank. It’d be easier if she was bitchy.

“How was today?” Devin asked. He was earning the gold medal in stalling.

“Pretty interesting.” Violet responded. Devin doubted it.

“What happened?”

“I watched this great new reality show…” she began, and Devin retreated into grunts of acknowledgement. He’d gone through three stories already, he wasn’t in the mood to listen to the secondhand version of a trash tv plot. He paced around the bar as his wife spoke.

“The best part was the baboon.” Violet said in conclusion. Devin tuned back in.

“That’s great. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

“What?”

His words tripped over his tongue. Devin mumbled an incomprehensible reply.

“Could you repeat that?” Violet said politely.

Devin walked to the bar window. The old man was relieving himself against the wall of the gas station across the street. He zipped up and looked back towards Franco’s with a wide, self-satisfied grin. After adjusting his belt, he slipped into the alley between the gas station and crafts store. Soon after, Jackson walked in front of the same gas station. He moved with a slow, even stride full of purpose. Before turning into the same alley, he reached into his coat pocket with his left hand. A handgun emerged.

“Give me a minute.”

Devin ran out of Franco’s Bar. He dashed across the road without thinking, pushing aside common sense and a handful of traffic laws. A speeding sedan narrowly missed him, and the driver gave a pointed opinion about Devin’s mother.

“Leave him alone!” he shouted as he rounded the corner of the alley. He was embarrassed to find nobody there.

Devin shook his head. When he reopened his eyes, he was still alone. The space between the three brick walls was still and silent.

Devin paced around the alleyway, collecting his thoughts. At a glance, he was alone with the dumpsters. The smell of twice-reheated fast food filled the alleyway, murdering his appetite. On his third orbit around the alley, he glimpsed a hand underneath a pair of trash bags.

Whatever was in the two bags, its weight was only matched by its reek. After tossing the second of the bags into the corner, he found a disarmed Jackson lying in the refuse with a fresh bruise on his forehead.

Devin put a finger on his wrist. Jackson was unconscious. The pistol he’d brought into the alley was gone, and the wound on his face was starting to swell. Devin imagined being disarmed and recycled by an old man wasn’t the highlight of the guy’s life. Finally, he noticed the emblem on Jackson’s cufflinks. A silver pyramid with a floating eye.

It was probably easier to leave him there.

As he walked away, Devin’s first thought wasn’t about insanity, murder, conspiracies, or even his marriage. Devin simply wondered why he hadn’t called the cops. Running into an alley unarmed and tipsy wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done.

His second thought was about the old man. Nutcase or not, he was wandering alone.

His third was that his phone was still on.

“Never mind. I’ll be home in an hour.” Devin said before hanging up. He decided he might watch her show later. It’d keep the rest of the night simple, stupid, and safe.