The Devil You Know (10 page)

Chapter Nine

The
sign in the window read “Hollywood Book Emporium” in large gold letters.
Beneath it were a phone number and smaller writing that said, “New and Used
Books—Libraries Bought at Excellent Prices.” The glass reflected the
passing traffic on Sunset Boulevard, and Marie passed in front of it without
paying attention to the sign. She had been here before—more times than
she would have cared to count—and the quaint sign no longer charmed her
as it had when she had first discovered the store during the war. Now she was
more interested in what was inside, and as she pushed the door open the smell
of old books greeted her immediately.

“Afternoon,”
said the man at the glass-topped counter as he looked up from his copy of the
Times
. “How’ve you been, Marie?”

She
smiled. “I’m good, Jasper. You?”

He
shrugged. “All right, I suppose.”

Marie
had answered his question automatically, not realizing she was lying. She was
hardly good. She had spent much of her time the last few days either terribly
angry or terribly worried, often both at the same time. She had gotten home
from the hospital well after midnight the night before, and when her alarm had
gone off this morning, it had seemed that she had hardly slept. Make-up hid the
circles under her eyes from Father Joe, and though she had wanted to go home
and take a nap right after work, the address she’d gotten from Colin weighed on
her too much. Instead, she had gotten coffee in a paper cup and nursed it as
she took Hollywood Boulevard to Ivar and followed the narrow street up a hill.
Parking across from the quaint little apartment building at 1817, she had
finished her coffee and tried to get up enough nerve to go tell a complete
stranger that she might be sleeping with a demon.

With
a deep breath, she had gone in and examined the mailboxes in the entryway to
see which occupant might be the woman in question. The boxes were labeled only
with first initials and last names, however, and she had gone back to her car
without knocking on any doors. Annoyed with herself, she had decided to drive
down to Jasper’s store, hoping that more information about incubi might offer
further insight into what had happened to Elise.

Marie had never asked his age, but she assumed that
Jasper Hollenbeck was somewhere in his late sixties. His hair was thinning on
top and fully gray, but he let it grow long over his ears and down his neck. He
shaved infrequently and usually cut himself when he did. Marie had noticed that
his hands had begun to shake just a bit when he made change or handed her a
book or magazine. He generally looked as disheveled as his store; books were
often stacked two deep on the shelves so that anyone browsing had to pull the
first row of books out to see the titles behind. Other books were piled at the
ends of the rows and on the stairs that led to the bathroom Jasper let his
regulars use.

“I’m
afraid I haven’t got anything for you today, my dear,” Jasper said, turning his
hands up to indicate emptiness. Along with the old issues of
Weird Tales
he set aside for Marie, he
also kept boxes of other pulp magazines and was one of the few used bookstore
owners Marie knew of who treated them like literature rather than as childish
drivel best thrown away.

“That’s
all right. I didn’t come for that.”

“Just
wanting a look around, then?”

“Well,
sort of.” She smiled at him and set her purse down on the counter. “I’m looking
for some non-fiction on the occult.”

He
raised an eyebrow. “Anything in particular?”

She
hesitated a moment, a bit embarrassed. “Yes, actually. Do you have anything on
incubi or succubi?”

“Oh
my,” Jasper said. When Marie only looked expectantly at him, he went on, “I’m
sure I’ve got something. Let’s see.”

“Actually,
there’s one book in particular I’m interested in.” She opened her purse and
took out a small piece of paper that she had written on once she had gotten
back to her car after her meeting with Colin Krebs. “It’s called
Gelamen Malum Lacuna
. It’s Latin for, I
think, ‘A Gathering--’

Jasper
cut her off. “‘Of Evil Words.’ Yes, yes.” Now he looked at Marie with some
surprise. “A very rare book, quite old.” He shook his head. “Don’t have it.
Never even seen a copy. Just heard of it. It’s one of those things that takes
on legendary proportion after a while.”

“So
what is it?” she asked.

“Supposedly
a bunch of spells gathered together by a medieval monk; I think it got him
branded a heretic, or worse. Only a couple of copies are known to exist, in
museums, as far as I know. That’s a priceless book…a bit out of my league I’m
afraid.” He brought a knee up in front of him on the stool and clasped it with
both hands. “A bit out of yours, too, I should say. I didn’t think it had
anything to do with incubi and such.”

“I
think it does. Some.” Marie was disappointed to hear that the book was so rare.
She had been hoping for a chance to see exactly what Colin Krebs had been
talking about, in part to help verify his story and in part to see if there was
anything in the book she could use to help Elise.

She
had gotten up enough nerve earlier that day to ask Father Joe what he knew
about incubi and succubi, and he had looked at her with surprise. “Old wives’
tales, Marie,” he had said. “Just myths made up to mask human frailty—impure
thoughts, dreams of a prurient nature, adultery, pregnancy out of wedlock.
Superstitious folk a thousand years ago were a lot more likely to accept that a
demon was responsible for all the shenanigans going on than they were to accept
that good people really did bad things. So…the incubus and succubus are born in
the human imagination. Simple as that.” He had peered at her searchingly. “Why
do you ask?” Disappointed at his dismissal, she had explained as vaguely as she
could that her sick friend had convinced herself an incubus was at the heart of
her illness. This prompted Father Joe to suggest the woman come in for
Confession as soon as possible. Marie had thanked him, acting as though she
agreed, but told herself she would not bring the subject up again with the
priest.

Jasper
was proving to be of little help as well; but at least he had not dismissed her
interest or consigned the whole subject to the realm of superstition. “Come
back here with me,” he said, getting off his stool and leading Marie down one
of the rows of shelves toward the back of the store. “I’ve got a few things
that might shed some light.”

They
stood together among the books for a quarter of an hour as Jasper pulled
volumes from the shelves and flipped through them briefly before either
returning them or handing them to Marie. He pointed out passages she should
consider and then turned his attention to the shelves again as she read. All
the while, not a single customer came into the store.

“General
information here, mostly,” Jasper said finally. “Probably not what you were
looking for.”

“It
looks that way,” Marie conceded. “Maybe I should have started with a library.
Do you think I’d have luck if I went down to USC?” The prospect of driving all
the way to the university did not please her, but she knew she would not sleep
well until she had some answers.

“Probably.”
Jasper nodded and looked searchingly at her for a moment. “Do you mind my
asking why the sudden interest? It seems like a pretty big jump from old
Weird Tales
to this.”

Marie
smiled back. She had known Jasper in a casual way for about three years, having
started her search for back issues of her favorite magazine not long after Ryan
had been drafted. It had given her something to focus on as well as a strange,
very personal sort of comfort and pleasure. Their relationship had always been
friendly, but professional; the only time Marie had mentioned anything personal
was after Ryan had been killed and she had stayed away from the bookstore—and
everything else—for a while. Then, Jasper had been terribly sympathetic,
offering her coffee and a place to talk if she needed it, but she had declined.
Now, trying to understand what had happened to Elise, Marie felt she was in as
much of a crisis as she had been after Ryan’s death. Only now, the feeling was
different, more intense in a way. When she had learned about Ryan, it had been
after the fact, the Japanese torpedo long exploded and Ryan’s body missing with
those of his shipmates in the Pacific. But with Elise, Marie was more involved,
had been there when the injury—for that was what it seemed like—had
taken place, and should have done more to keep her friend from harm.

So,
with a sigh, she told Jasper the story in brief, including the details of her
encounter with Colin outside the Chinese Theater and what he had told her about
the woman on Ivar Street. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do,” she
concluded, “but I feel like I have to do something. I feel like Elise is a lost
cause. I could let the doctors at Camarillo know what it might be, but they’d
probably try to lock me up, too, if I came to them with a story like this.”

As
she spoke, Jasper listened intently, his expression no different than one worn
by someone rapt by the power of a good storyteller. Now, he said, “You’re
right. The medical men, the scientists…they’re not going to have open minds
about a situation like this. A shame, really. It’s the artists and thinkers and
poets, maybe the philosophers, who’ll see the truth in this.”

“But
they haven’t the power to do anything about it.”

“Don’t
be so sure,” Jasper said, a little smile raising the corners of his mouth.

“What
do you mean?”

“I
mean, don’t bother going to USC, my dear. It’s a private collection you’re
after.”

Marie
raised an eyebrow. “You know of one that could help?”

“I
might.”

“Whose?”

Jasper’s
smile grew larger. “Mine,” he said.

* * * * * * * *

Jasper
lived in a small house on a hill not far from Griffith Park. He could see the
Griffith Observatory from his backyard, he explained to Marie as she drove him
home. His ramshackle house had been built in the early 1900s, before Cecil B.
DeMille and company had come to set up shop and the area southwest of Griffith
Park had come to be known as Los Feliz. Now his little place was an eyesore to
his neighbors. He had been offered ridiculous amounts of money for the
property, but had cheerfully declined. He knew that if he sold it, the house
would be bulldozed before he had even turned the key in the lock for the last
time, and he just couldn’t bear the thought. No, he told Marie as they drove,
the place was perfect for him—up a hill just steep enough for him to get
up and down on the bicycle he parked in back of the store everyday, which now
was in the back seat of Marie’s Chevrolet.

“I
should tell you,” he said after directing her off of Los Feliz and up a hill
that seemed plenty steep to Marie, “that you’ll most likely meet my grandson
Tom at my place.”

At
first, Marie pictured a little boy, but when Jasper continued, she realized she
should have done better math.

“He’s
been staying with me since the end of the war. Had a rough time in Europe. Saw
things, I think, best left unseen. His mother—my daughter—and her
husband were killed in a car wreck when he was over there, so I made sure he
came back here to me instead of languishing at the V.A. where they had him.”

“Was
he wounded?”

“Not
in the conventional way,” Jasper said, pointing to the left. Marie followed his
directions and turned the car onto a narrower road that reminded her of the
roads to Julian Piedmont’s estate. “In the Great War, they called it shell
shock. Now they call it battle fatigue. Same thing, really. A man sees too
much, does too many things to other human beings that he never dreamed he’d
have to do, finds himself expecting to be killed every day, all day. Then he comes
back to the world he used to know, and he can’t quite make himself connect to
what’s around him anymore.”

“Is
there any cure?”

“Rest.
That’s what they say, anyway. A lot of boys coming back don’t have the chance
to do it. Tom’s fortunate in the sense that I can just give him a chance to
come back to himself. He’s better now than when he got here; seems mostly back
to normal. But every now and then, he just goes away. You can see it in his
eyes that he’s back there. And the nightmares are still pretty awful.”

“I’m
sorry,” Marie said as she pulled the car to the side of the road in front of
Jasper’s house. At first, all she really saw was an old car covered with a
tarp. It sat on a short driveway, at the end of which was a padlocked garage—the
only part of the house visible from the narrow street. Overgrown bushes and
trees hid the rest. Creeping vines grew up the wooden sides of the house, its
roof obscured by the hanging branches of willow trees.

Jasper
could only shrug in response to Marie’s sympathy. “We’re getting along well
enough,” he said as he got out and opened the back door to retrieve his
bicycle. Marie came back and helped him. As he walked the bike up the driveway,
Marie asked him about the old car under the tarp. “My old Dodge,” Jasper said. “Tom
worked as a mechanic before the war. He’s been working on putting this old
thing back together for me. Got it running for a few minutes last week.” He
chuckled and then waved a hand dismissively toward the old car, as if to say
that he couldn’t care less if it ever moved again or not. “If he never gets
better, at least he’s still here. A lot gave more, you included.”