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

I listen to it and try to hear the world. Behind me in the farmhouse I can hear Saul clumping around with weights on his arms and legs. He says is practicing for the JIM equipment. Everyone else is asleep.

Except me.

I look up at the place we are going to rob.

Somewhere up there Hans Eiger has a little apartment and when I think of it I think of Frank Lloyd Wright and a sunken firepit in the middle of the room and a yellow ’60s majolica vase as high as a man with bulrushes in it. There’s a classic leather recliner and a deep shag circle rug and a picture window which looks down into the valley—

And right on the balcony by the wind chimes there’s a sniper’s nest with a vintage anemometer and I can see him lifting his rifle and—

I dream about the Demons and the whole thing of being their boss is a giant monster that loves me and it picks me up and puts me in a hole so I will grow and the rain comes down and water comes up over my head and I still cannot get up because this huge Demon hand is holding me under and I start to drown and I wake up choking because there is Swiss goose-feather-pillow funk in my throat.

Doc turns very precisely on the bed and puts out one hand until it touches my shoulder and that is all.

But it is enough.

Always remember that Evil Hansel and Agent Hannah are a sideshow.

It’s all about Volodya.

Do the job.

And submit the bill to the client.

…

…

The Client.

—

“CHARLIE! WAKE UP!”

“I am awake why are you shouting—”

“WAKE FROM HOGGISH SLUMBER MINION AND GREET THE DAY—”

“O shit you are perky. It is the middle of the night—”

“This is not PERKY. That is surrender talk. I am JACK and I am filled with joy to all mankind I bring horrors—”

“I do not think that—”

“SILENCE I require your measly intelligence because I cannot do this thing.”

“What thing can you not do that is so fucking—”

“Find Mr. Client.”

“What?”

“Find Mr. Client Charlie do it now.”

“Mr. Client was Eiger you said.”

“I said Eiger was the client. He was not MISTER CLIENT obviously because I met him and when we looked at the nice pictures of Mr. Eiger I would have said: O SHIT THAT IS OUR CLIENT. Do you see how I did not say that and please do not say maybe he was wearing a cunning disguise that is not a thing that can really happen.”

“You wear disguises all the time you wore one this evening—”

“My disguises are TERRIBLE they only work because people are not paying attention. Did you notice an ACTUAL CHILD saw through my disguise today and tried to kill me? That is how well disguises work in the real world Charlie. I am a master of not being a fucking idiot. I would have noticed that Eiger was Mr. Client so who was Mr. Client? WHO?”

“I do not know.”

“You are a digital wizard find out.”

“Find out?”

“Find out.”

“Just like that?”

“What I said.”

“Like go into the marina restaurant computer system, which is likely not even online and then find an image on their shitty horrible CCTV, which they do not clean and somehow feed that into a giant sky computer and get a name from it and say Oh Boss lookee I have magicked you this?”

“Yes like that.”

“It does not work like that at all anyway anyway most likely Eiger just hired some guy.”

“Just hired some guy?”

“Just hired some guy.”

“That is stupid.”

“THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU WOULD DO BOSS—”

I would do that. I would call an agency and pay a guy to be Mr. Client. Like: Hi Sharona I am Bobby DeLindt from Highdown Casting in Santa Monica hi hi hi it’s good to talk to you hi. Yeah okay so we are doing a thing here. Stay with me Sharona. I know it’s outré but we’re doing a VERY bespoke reality game for a high-level client it is not our USUAL thing at all but you know money talks and we need a guy and he has to look legitimately top-drawer is what I’m saying because he is like the face for the game—

And so on.

And that would work fine.

It would be okay.

You’d maybe have to kill the guy right after.

You would not want him backtraced in a situation where you were assassinating the fuck out of a person with friends.

But still.

But that guy that I met—he was not that person. There was nothing in that guy that was for hire. There was nothing in him that said he was part of a plan. Any plan he was into would be part of him not the other way around. He was a boss. Not necessarily The Boss like no one is ever entirely The Boss.

But that guy…he was not anyone’s sock puppet and if you tried to make him that well that would be on you.

I tell Charlie to find Mr. Client and I go back to bed.

In fact I do not go back to bed because as I walk down the corridor toward the bedroom I hear a strange sound from outside. It is sort of conversational and gentle but it is also very very lonely and sad.

It is Rex talking to the pigs.

“Hi Rex.”

“O hi Colonel hi.”

“Just Jack is fine Rex.”

“Sometimes it feels wrong to me sir.”

“Sure man if that’s what you want.”

“Yes sir.”

“You having a little quiet time I guess?”

“Yes sir.”

“Okay then.”

“Yes sir.”

“You know Rex sometimes I come out here—well I guess you don’t need to know that.”

“No go on sir.”

“I don’t want to interrupt you man we all got our thing.”

“No sir I would appreciate it.”

“Well okay sure but you are not to laugh even though it is kinda funny. I mean it’s not funny but it is kinda. Yeah anyway anyway…Sometimes I come out here and I you know I sit down or I lean on this rail and I talk. Not to myself that is cray cray so I talk to the pigs.”

“You do?”

“Yes Rex