Seven Demons by Aidan Truhen (best motivational books for students TXT) 📕

There’s a problem.

There’s a limited number of people could have made the call to get someone in place. There’s us and a limited number.

This wasn’t one of us.

In the general run of things you work with criminals you assume some measure of betrayal as kind of ambient. There is ambient treason. But look: Charlie straight up liked the old guy and Lucille is so batshit crazy that it’s hard to say if he actually deals with the world in a sufficiently parallel fashion that there’s anything he could want that he could get this way. Doc doesn’t need to betray anyone because she is totally fucking terrifying and if she wanted us dead we would all die full stop no discussion. And then there’s Rex and if you had to say one thing for Rex you would say he is true to his friends.

That and he really likes blowing shit up.

It’s true that as a group we are variously and ambiguously involved in the sad death of Rex’s brother Big Billy but that was mostly Fred and Fred is now resident on the end of a stick. If Rex wants to get even with Fred he could have the stick. I have offered it to him and Rex says no that is fine he just likes to look at it from time to time and laugh.

—

Normally I would look at Saul because Saul is the new guy like the temp hire and although correlation is not causation you can always kill it and burn it with fire and just see what happens. But Saul does not know what we are doing here.

I would look at Calvanese but ditto and plus also if it was Calvanese we’d know by now because something else awful would have happened most likely Saul. While I do not know Saul well I believe it would be pretty awful to have him happen to you.

So there’s a limited number.

A limited number and that number is three. In no particular order—

There’s Mr. Client. There’s Sharkey.

And there is the lawyer.

—

VoIP outgoing ring ringaling—

“Grüß Gott Herr Reinhard.”

“Hi Mr. Reinhard it is me Jack.”

“Oh hallo Jack what can I do for you?”

—

Wow you know what that is—wow. Did not see that coming at all. Reinhard has absolutely no notion I am supposed to be dead and tragically Lucille is in his house right now with you know something of a brief like an instruction and the worst thing is that I can’t really change that. I mean I can change that but—

“Mr. Reinhard I—gosh I am just so sorry. I should really have had Doc or Charlie make this call.”

“They are very charming Jack but—”

—

There is a noise that Lucille makes when he hugs. Nothing else makes the noise that that makes. I hear it now and I wish I hadn’t. It is not a noise you ever want to hear but somehow I never quite manage to not listen.

Reinhard says something. I hope it was a really amazing thing. Reinhard was kind of chipper but you know he was a professional but once he heard my voice he knew I was alive—well you know, operationally speaking, that can’t be allowed at this time.

I mean we could have kidnapped him I guess that would actually have been—

I am so off my game I should really have considered the possibility that it was not him. That is totally on me. Waste of resources but you know I am sad right now.

Well okay what’s done is done.

That leaves two.

THREE

LEAVE BEFORE DAWN. SAUL COMES TOO. I like Saul he is like having a really huge scary support animal. We talk about old-time TV, which is to say I talk about old-time TV and Saul says he prefers old-time radio, like apparently Richard Diamond is his jam. I say Peter Gunn is better and he says no it is not better it is the same stories on TV but with Craig Stevens.

Train to the west and south. Guard has a nose piercing and sits down to talk about Spanish politics. His mother is Spanish Catalan. She is conflicted. Madrid is wrong but so are the separatists. None of it is what matters. What matters is that his brothers cannot find work and people are saluting Franco’s bones. I say that only a total asshole would have an ongoing dialogue with the skeleton of a dead monster and the guard says yes I have a clear understanding and Europe right now is full of such assholes.

I say that is very bad and I do not say that Saul has a sawed-off shotgun in his luggage because that sort of thing often offends. Sawed-off like at both ends like pistol short. It’s a murder stick not a marksman’s tool and it would be a huge disappointment in any sort of gunfight but as a discussion piece like face-to-face it is super persuasive.

When the guard has gone I tell Saul that I one time made a cannon out of pipe and a gas cylinder and Saul says he doesn’t have much time for improvised weaponry generally. Saul says that of course all weaponry is improvised in one way or another but he makes yogurt at home and is familiar with the variations of flavor and intensity and texture that come with fluctuations in climate and he does not look for that kind of variation in his professional tool kit. I say that Saul is hooked on the gun crack of the military industrial combine and toxic masculinity and Saul says that we are not in a competition about our genitals so it is okay for me to have a homemade cannon and for him to have a room full of specialized mercenary stuff.

For the record anyone who is male and alive is in a competition about genitals with Saul. The only reason I am not actually destroyed by the mere existence of