Mr. W. L. Death

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One

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Walter found a piece of paper when he arrived at his apartment; it fluttered smugly to rest at his feet almost immediately after he opened the door. He stepped on it deliberately when he turned to lock the door. He then drew all the blinds, casually checked underneath his bed for intruders, fixed himself a bowl of canned soup and ate it, slowly, without once glancing into the front room.

When half an hour or so had elapsed, Walter returned to the paper. Its crisp air of self-satisfaction had been drowned in a gravelly puddle of smutty ice water, and when Walter shook it more-or-less clean, he saw that it had been nothing more than drugstore loose-leaf even in its halcyon days of yore. An unfamiliar hand, however, still crawled across the pulpy sheet in curls of burnished gold. It read:

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A haiku:

You found the Way

And sent it packing

But to prove that balls you are not lacking

Come to our office, 9 Felicity Place

To pick up some papers and things

Mapquest it, dipshit

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Walter grew annoyed. The paper he threw away. The address stayed in his mind; he thought for a minute, and then he reassumed his winter coat and walked to the street. Pacing up and down in front of his apartment building, he tossed the cellphone he had been given from hand to hand – it was an apparently ordinary phone, inconveniently large, slightly outdated, with black casing and buttons designed for sausages to push. Then, impulsively, he threw it aside.

He moved a few yards away and waited. Seconds later, as a businesswoman drew abreast with Walter, her phone rang. She stopped short to excavate it from her purse. “Him?” Walter heard the woman say, after a moment passed; her eyes swiveled round to Walter’s face. Then, “Are you serious?” A dead pause. “Excuse me?” the woman asked Walter helplessly. “Is your name Walter?”

“It is,” he admitted.

“Then…there’s a man here on the phone for you.” She extended her sleek, new cellphone, then hesitated. “How do I know this isn’t some sort of con?”

“I assure you, ma’am, that it is not.” Still, the businesswoman made no move to relinquish her grip on the phone, and sighing, Walter stepped up to it. “Hello?” he said stiffly.

“Get back there this instant, asshole,” the now-familiar voice of his breakfast companion hissed.

Click.

Walter stood still for a breath or two, his shoulders hunched around his ears. Then he nodded his thanks to the businesswoman, whose mouth was open in a perfect circle and who had something green lodged in her front bottom teeth, and retraced his steps. His cellphone had landed in a gritty, semi-crystallized mound of snow against the curb; he pried it free and wiped it clean and dry with the cuff of his coatsleeve.

“Wait a second,” the businesswoman called, “How did you get my number?”

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Walter hastily retreated into his apartment. He had barely locked his door before, much as he had expected, the phone rang. He allowed it to do so six full times before answering.

“Cute stunt, fuckwad!” the man who had been across the table said angrily.

Walter grinned. “I have a question, motherfucker.”

“Oh, now he has a question!” the stranger sneered. “Now he has a burning desire to know! Now he wishes to drink deep from the bottomless cup of knowledge!”

“Well?”

“Do you know how much trouble I would have been in if God called your phone and no one answered?”

“I quit right now if I don’t get a straight answer.”

Sulkily, the man demanded, “Well, what?”

“How do I get to Felicity Place?”

“Mapquest it, dipshit,” the stranger quoted. “I wrote that myself.”

Walter had trouble reconciling the curly golden script with his image of the man, but he pushed those thoughts aside. “Just tell me already,” he insisted.

There was a deep sigh on the line. “You know what? Call the office. The number – you got a pen? – the number is five, six, four, six, eight, six, two. They’ll take care of you. You got that?”

“Five, six, four, six, eight, six, two,” Walter repeated.

“Good,” the stranger snarled. There was a rustling, as if he was preparing to hang up.

Walter shouted, “Wait!”

The rustling stopped. “What now?”

“What’s your name?” Walter asked.

After a brief pause, the man said, “Nemamiah. And no, I will not go to prom with you.” The line abruptly went dead.

Walter allowed himself a small smile. He dialed the number he had been given. An automated recording asked if he knew his extension number, and Walter affirmed he did not. The answering service politely informed him that he would be momentarily redirected to the main office, where he could speak to an employee.

The hold music was Abba’s Waterloo, and Walter knew it would be stuck in his head all day.

“Hello?” an efficient female voice answered before the second verse was complete. Walter moved half-unconsciously to tuck in his shirt.

“Hello,” he said. “Could I please have directions to your office?”

The cool voice dictated precise but uncomplicated instructions, and Walter dutifully copied them down. Within the hour, he stood in front of 9 Felicity Place.

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He did not allow himself to pause before passing through the rotating doors. No one else seemed to be glancing at the building, and indeed it was exactly like any other privately owned officespace. The lobby Walter entered was uncarpeted but warm, and there was an elevator reaching the bottom floor with a cheerful ding in perfect time to carry him upwards. The doors opened upon an old-fashioned elevator operator, dressed in a red uniform with gold tassels and a small cap. Walter hurried to board the car.

“Top floor, I think,” Walter said. “I’d like to see God.”

The elevator operator smiled at him companionably and nodded, slowly, once.

They completed the ride in the comfortable near-silence of well-oiled mechanisms, and Walter dismounted at the eleventh floor. The operator raised his hand in farewell or possibly benediction; then he pulled the door lever and disappeared from sight.

Walter followed a short, well-lit hallway to the only door, and through it he came to an office. The spacious, windowless front room was empty except for a secretary working at her desk, the hum of an elaborate fish tank, three insufficiently padded chairs and a potted plant. “Excuse me,” Walter muttered, almost shyly.

The receptionist looked up. There was the same quality in her eyes as there was in Nemamiah’s; Walter had initially called it dead, but it would be more accurate to say it was utterly remote, the same way a human’s eyes might look to an amoeba with powerful long-range binoculars. She had fair hair and an impersonal smile that did not touch her strange grey eyes.

She was eerily familiar. Laura, Walter thought, and felt a frisson run down his spine. That was the only possible word to describe her: classy, cold, and foreign. Still, when you have spent nine months with a woman resembling the secretary before you, and knew of that woman that really good sex gave her spastic hiccups, even the most intimidating secretary loses some of her inaccessibility.

Her nameplate read Ms. Metatron.

“I’m here to see God,” he said, a little too loudly. The fish seemed to look at him reproachfully.

Ms. Metatron frowned frostily. “Do you have an appointment?” The voice was that he had heard on the phone.

“I think so. I’m Walter. Walter Lambert? God’s Chosen?”

A heartbeat passed. “Ah.” Ms. Metatron drew a piece of paper towards herself and made a single brief mark upon it; Walter craned, unsuccessfully, to see what it said. He drew back at her cautioning glance. “You may go right in.”

Walter nodded shortly and followed her smooth, controlled gesture towards a disappointingly ordinary door. He placed his hand upon the knob, then, accompanied by the music of a fax machine, opened the door.

He entered.

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The office was tasteful and ordinary. It contained solid, functional furniture, leather seats, a wall of filing cabinets and a single, four foot by six foot, very expensive-looking painting. Against the far wall was a desk; both before and behind it was placed a large, comfortable swivel chair.

There was a figure in the further chair. Walter’s stomach tensed. Slowly, the chair began to rotate; it had completed perhaps one-third of its prescribed turn before Walter recognized its contents and snorted in disgust. “Oh, it’s you,” he said.

Nemamiah swiveled around fully. “That’s right!” he cooed. He spread his arms wide. “Or did you expect someone taller?”

Walter felt rather disappointed. Nemamiah was a poor substitute for the Creator of the Universe. “Ms. Metatron said to come right in.”

“Ah, the lovely Miz Metatron! So fair and so cold! Sweet ass, yes?”

“She was sitting down,” Walter said.

Nemamiah shrugged and stood. His huge coat had been removed, revealing a somewhat eclectic outfit underneath. His pants and shoes were normal, upscale, business clothes, but he was also wearing a ratty, old-fashioned waistcoat over a World Series T-Shirt. “Hey, your loss,” he sighed. “I’ll go find God, I guess. Wait here, will you?”

Walter nodded and waited for him to disappear around the corner before easing himself behind God’s desk. God apparently used a Mac, which Walter supposed showed that He had a sense of humor. He had a picture of chesty twins in bikinis set as his background.

Walter opened the Documents folder and searched the list for his own name or Nemamiah’s; every file, however, was tagged cryptically, and eventually he decided to accept defeat and play Solitaire. Walter did, and lost, and resumed his seat with seconds to spare before Nemamiah returned, lugging a nondescript black attaché case.

He slung the briefcase beside Walter’s chair. “Money,” he said shortly. “Small bills, mostly. Anyhow, Metatron said that God was going out to dinner with some people and won’t be back until late, so I’ll have to give you the file.”

“The file?” Walter said blankly, feeling momentarily panicked that Nemamiah knew what he had been up to.

“Sure.” Nemamiah seated himself and started pulling out drawers, scattering papers with little regard for neatness or order. “Of your first victim, or target, or whatever you want to call it. I love going through people’s desks. I always hope that I’m going to find hardcore porn – ah!” He smiled, his lips tight over his pointed teeth. “Here we are. Lucy Poirier. She’s a native of Boston, so you won’t have to travel far. Everything else is in the file.”

He slid the slim folder across the desk, and Walter opened it. To the first page was clipped a school picture of a girl in a collared shirt and blazer. She had a fairly ordinary face with intelligent eyes, freckles, and two shorts braids; a crucifix was hung about her throat. Walter unclipped the photograph and peered at it more closely. “A Catholic schoolgirl. This is evil incarnate?” he asked skeptically.

“Heck, I don’t know. You’re God’s Chosen. Check her out to see if she’s alright, and if she isn’t…well, invite her over for a bottle of wine.”

Walter gaped. “What is she, fifteen? You want me to kill a little kid?” He tossed the photograph aside.

“God, I hate seeing grown men cry,” Nemamiah sniffed. “I’m always afraid some of their gayness will rub off on me.”

“I won’t do it,” Walter said angrily.

Nemamiah gave him a look of sage serenity. “Sure you will,” he said lazily, “Because if you don’t, I’ll find your mom and shoot her in the face.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Sure I would. I’m going for the Employee Who Shot the Most People’s Moms in Their Faces of the Year award.”

“I’ll call the cops,” Walter said dully, but he sank back into the seat.

He was rewarded with another fanged grin. “Call the frickin’ FBI while you’re at it, and, heck, the entire cast of CSI: Miami. Believe it or not, you’re out of the scope of the mortal world now. You should learn to suck it up.”

Walter, frustrated and defeated, accepted the photograph and the paper clip that were placed before him. “Just so you know,” he bit out, “I’m starting to believe that angels are a bunch of pricks.”

“Lucifer Was An Angel Once,” Nemamiah said blandly. “That’s our Mission Statement.”

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Walter used the dirty money to pay all his bills and renew his subway pass. Then he tore the photograph to little pieces, went to bed, had a nightmare, and arose bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to murder little Lucy Poirier.

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