The Exorcee

Chapter Six

Whoever Dill may have been, his Boardinghouse was now run by an old Armenian woman called Greta. The first time I stayed there, the very first thing she said to me was—and I swear this is true—“Don’t poop in the bed.” Clearly, not all denizens of Dill’s have been as classy as the lowly scion of the Belmont line. Just the same, the place had an ambience that called out to the inmost heart of a man whose mother started reading him The Hobbit when he was three years old. It was a four-story house built right into the hard, icy soil: the bottom floor literally gazed out from beneath the hillside, and the third floor gave its tenants an ethereal view of Lake Champlain and the cloud-shrouded mountains beyond. But the best (and, natch, most expensive) room was an actual medieval-style turret jutting up from the roof like a—well, like an actual turret. When I strode into the main office of Dill’s Boardinghouse on that dim and wintry eventide, the very first thing I said to Greta was, “Gimme the turret.”

She pushed the dusty silver bangs out of her wrinkled face and squinted at me. “You stay here before.”

“Yes ma’am. Long ago, when the valleys and the mountainsides were young.”

“Eh? Turret is cost more than other rooms.”

“I acknowledge and accept the inevitability. I happen to have more money than I need right now, and frugality forms no part of my task here. Gimme the turret at once, please, madam, and I’ll be about my business and out of your lovely Armenian hair.”

“I remember you. You talk funny.”

“I have a singular idiom, it’s true. What I don’t have is all night to stand here haggling, Greta, so give me a room right now or I’ll take my business to the Best Western which, if memory serves, is less than a mile from here at the corner of Main Street and—”

“Ah! Turret is open. How many days?”

“Let’s start with a week. And before you squander your breath, I assure you I’m familiar with the subtle distinction between a toilet and a bed.”

She accepted the bundle of bills I pushed across the counter, scrounged for a moment, and handed me a silver key on an azure chain. “Now show me driver license and sign here.” I did so. “Check-out is Thursday, 11:00 a.m. Don’t forget.”

“If there’s one thing this mighty and incisive brain of mine has never forgotten, it’s a check-out time. Thank you very much, my dear lady.”

She peered owlishly at me. “You still talk funny.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” I swept out of the office, grabbed the bag out of my shotgun seat, and headed up the steps to my lofty perch. It was the same as any motel room really, with a nondescript bathroom, bed, and TV, but perfectly round with a conical ceiling and a matchless view of the distant waters. I couldn’t be bothered to unpack, so I tossed the bag on the bed and added a heavy blue jacket to the tight black sweat-clothes in which I do my best work. Before departing, however, I did need one thing, and I found it right at the top of my bag: a creamy yellow brace of Twinkies, wisely packed. “Thank you, past self.”

My adrenals were pretty cranked. The powers of perdition weren’t going to vanquish themselves, and I had a hard and dangerous night ahead of me. Once I scarfed the Twinkies, I took a moment to breathe and remind myself that obscure and aggressive speed-talking might amuse and relieve me but would not win friends or influence people, and that this mission was about Norman Grey, not Thomas Belmont. I can be reasonably persuasive and likeable when I put my mind to it, and this situation definitely called for the under-used likeable side of my personality. See, I knew the GOB had a cell in Burlington—but that’s like saying I knew there was a magical wish-granting serpent in the lake somewhere. It still left me with a lot of square footage to work through. I already had one contact in this town, of course, but—no. No. Things would have to be a great deal more desperate before I’d willingly add Violence Jones to the equation. Might as well start blowing up random buildings on the off-chance that the bad guys happened to be inside one of them.

No, my strategy—insofar as I had one—revolved upon the strange combination of doggedness and destiny from which my whole career—insofar as I have one—has been forged. Burlington’s a lively college town thanks to UVM, the University of Vermont, that stands high atop the giant hill surmounting all; and this was Thirsty Thursday of finals week. The bars should be jam-packed with garrulous drunks. I glanced out the window of my little raven’s loft: the dying rays of blood and fire were sinking in the violet west, and a frosty mist creeping up the shores. Time to work.

One of the profound beauties of Burlington is that it combines the amenities of a metropolitan center with the ability to walk twenty minutes in any direction and be alone in the woods. Indeed, it’s almost unique—outside of Colorado, at least—in its encouragement of pedestrianism. I had a solid parking spot at Dill’s, and the idea of eking out another one in the heart of downtown was enough to make me want to throttle kittens. Accordingly, I pulled on some warm gloves and a hat and headed back up Shelburne Road on foot. It was well under a mile to the fabled Church Street, home of a dozen bars. Would any of these drunk-assed college kids have useful information about a terrible demon-cult in their peaceful city of pinkos and aging hippies? Only one way to find out.

A couple of years earlier, I’d gotten a lead that a guy I wanted was hiding in a certain neighborhood. I couldn’t narrow it down any further, so I simply started canvassing the whole place: literally going to each of the five thousand doors in that neighborhood one at a time and interviewing the occupants until I got an angle on my prey. It took me whole month—and when I ultimately found the unholy son of a bitch, it wasn’t through process of elimination but through a fortuitous glimpse of him lurking in an alley when I went to get a hot dog. I bagged him on the spot, and Fr. Joe fried the demon inside him; he still sends us both a thank-you card every year on the anniversary. Like I said before, even fate needs room to work; so on this particular occasion, I walked into the first bar I came to and started asking about poor old Ron Campbell. Ronnie, of course, does not exist. But you can’t just go around asking people if they know stuff about an evil cult. They’ll call the cops on you. Instead you ask them if they know stuff about your missing buddy Ron, that kind-hearted but impressionable schmendrick, who’s gotten himself mixed up with some kind of—I dunno, some kind of cult, or something? Then you get, “Gee, I don’t know any Ron, but maybe you could try talking to. . .” and eventually something worthwhile tends to emerge.

Over the next several hours, I worked my way methodically up the street, starting with bartenders, circulating through older regulars, and then hobnobbing with the UVM crowd in the frenzy of friendliness. Nobody gave me any trouble in the bars (there’s usually a firm police presence on Church Street anyway), and I took the opportunity to consume a couple of Switchbacks—local brew, you still can’t find it outside of Vermont. By eleven I’d collected promising tips on three or four places that were rumored to host mysterious and possibly sinister goings-on. Hardly enough for a search warrant, of course, but luckily I had no intention of doing anything legal tonight. At any rate, you’ve gotta start somewhere—so I ate a quick cheeseburger for protein, consulted my phone for directions, and headed for the nearest house of ill repute.

The snow had stopped, and a few pale stars were out, but there was still a cloud cover and the night felt warm. I walked fast, breathing steam, passing migratory drinkers in pairs or larger groups until I left the hub of bars behind me. The first two stops on my little Torquemada Tour lay within easy walking distance, and I figured there was no sense giving the enemy a chance to identify my ride if I didn’t have to. Besides, the walk was doing me good; I already felt nearly back at my peak again. So I followed my phone away from the lights and the crowds and went treading through the dust of snow to the ugly side of town.

A crooked old man with three coats was shuffling along in the other direction. “Buddy,” he wheezed. “Got’ny change?”

Well, I’ve been homeless myself, and there’s no way I’d turn a man away empty. Unfortunately, I also know first-hand that a lot of the time a giving of alms is a giving of booze or drugs. I solved the ethical dilemma a few years back by carrying McDonald’s coupons with me wherever I go; so I dug out a handful and offered them to my grizzled supplicant. “Here, man. Merry Christmas.”

He glared at me. “Fuck’m I s’posed to do with them things? Fucker.”

“You sure? The McRib’s back.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled away, still mumbling imprecations. As I’d suspected, I had left the nice parts of Burlington behind me. It’s always startling how quickly that can happen. I gathered my resolve and pressed onwards into the deepening dark.