Stories (2011) (19 page)

But as he stood there, Margie's words of earlier that evening
came at him in a rush: "Seen Death once . . . buggy slowed down out front
. . . cracked his whip three times. . . man looked at the house, snapped his
fingers  three times . . . found dead a moment later . . ."

Alex's throat felt as if a pine knot had lodged there. The
bucket slipped from his fingers, clattered on the porch and rolled into the
flowerbed. He turned into the house and walked briskly toward the bedroom,

(Can't be, just a wives tale)

his hands vibrating with fear,

(Just a crazy coincidence)

his stomach churning.

Margie wasn't snoring.

Alex grabbed her shoulder, shook her.

Nothing.

He rolled her on her back and screamed her name.

Nothing.

"Oh, baby. No."

He felt for her pulse.

None.

He put an ear to her chest, listening for a heartbeat (the
other half of his life bongos), and there was none.

Quiet. Perfectly quiet.

"You can't. . ." Alex said. "You can't . . .
we're supposed to go together . . . got to be that way."

And then it came to him. He had  seen Death drive by, had  seen
him heading on down the highway.

He came to his feet, snatched his coat from the back of the
chair, raced toward the front door. "You won't have her," he said
aloud. "You won't."

Grabbing the wrecker keys from the nail beside the door, he
leaped to the porch and dashed out into the cold and the rain.

A moment later he was heading down the highway, driving fast
and crazy in pursuit of the strange car.

The wrecker was old and not built for speed, but since he
kept it well tuned and it had new tires, it ran well over the wet highway. Alex
kept pushing the pedal gradually until it met the floor. Faster and faster and
faster.

After an hour, he saw Death.

Not the man himself but the license plate. Personalized and
clear in his headlights.

It read:

DEATH/EXEMPT.

The wrecker and the strange black car were the only ones on
the road. Alex closed in on him, honked his horn. Death tootled back (not the
same horn sound he had given in front of Alex's house), stuck his arm out the
window and waved the wrecker around.

Alex went, and when he was alongside the car, he turned his
head to look at Death. He could still not see him clearly, but he could make
out the shape of his bowler, and when Death turned to look at him, he could see
the glowing tip of the cigar, like a bloody bullet wound.

Alex whipped hard right into the car, and Death swerved to
the right, then back onto the road. Alex rammed again. The black car's tires
hit roadside gravel and Alex swung closer, preventing it from returning to the
highway. He rammed yet another time, and the car went into the grass alongside
the road, skidded and went sailing down an embankment and into a tree.

Alex braked carefully, backed off the road and got out of
the wrecker. He reached a small pipe wrench and a big crescent wrench out from
under the seat, slipped the pipe wrench into his coat pocket for insurance,
then went charging down the embankment waving the crescent.

Death opened his door and stepped out. The rain had subsided
and the moon was peeking through the clouds like a shy child through gossamer
curtains. Its light hit Death's round, pink face and made it look like a waxed
pomegranate. His cigar hung from his mouth by a tobacco strand.

Glancing up the embankment, he saw an old, but
strong-looking black man brandishing a wrench and wearing bunny slippers,
charging down at him.

Spitting out the ruined cigar, Death stepped forward,
grabbed Alex's wrist and forearm, twisted. The old man went up and over, the
wrench went flying from his hand. Alex came down hard on his back, the breath
bursting out of him in spurts.

Death leaned over Alex. Up close, Alex could see that the
pink face was slightly pocked and that some of the pinkness was due to makeup.
That was rich. Death was vain about his appearance. He was wearing a black
T-shirt, pants and sneakers, and of course his derby, which had neither been
stirred by the wreck or by the ju-jitsu maneuver.

"What's with you, man?" Death asked.

Alex wheezed, tried to catch his breath. "You . . .
can't . . . have . . . her."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play . . . dumb with me." Alex raised up on
one elbow, his wind returning. "You're Death and you took my Margie's
soul."

Death straightened. "So you know who I am. All right.
But what of it? I'm only doing my job."

"It ain't her time."

"My list says it is, and my list is never wrong."

Alex felt something hard pressing against his hip, realized
what it was. The pipe wrench. Even the throw Death had put on him had not
hurled it from his coat pocket. It had lodged there and the pocket had shifted
beneath his hip, making his old bones hurt all the worse.

Alex made as to roll over, freed the pocket beneath him,
shot his hand inside and produced the pipe wrench. He hurled it at Death,
struck him just below the brim of the bowler and sent him stumbling back. This
time the bowler fell off. Death's forehead was bleeding.

Before Death could collect himself, Alex was up and rushing.
He used his head as a battering ram and struck Death in the stomach, knocking
him to the ground. He put both knees on Death's arms, pinning them, clenched
his throat with his strong, old hands.

"I ain't never hurt nobody before," Alex said.
"Don't want to now. I didn't want to hit you with that wrench, but you
give Margie back."

Death's eyes showed no expression at first, but slowly a
light seemed to go on behind them. He easily pulled his arms out from under
Alex's knees, reached up, took hold of the old man's wrist and pulled the hands
away from his throat.

"You old rascal," Death said. "You outsmarted
me."

Death flopped Alex over on his side, then stood up to once
more lord over the man. Grinning, he turned, stooped to recover his bowler, but
he never laid a hand on it.

Alex moved like a crab, scissored his legs and caught Death
above and behind the knees, twisted, brought him down on his face.

Death raised up on his palms and crawled from behind Alex's
legs like a snake, effortlessly. This time he grabbed the hat and put it on his
head and stood up. He watched Alex carefully.

"I don't frighten you much, do I?" Death asked.

Alex noted that the wound on Death's forehead had vanished.
There wasn't even a drop of blood. "No," Alex said. "You don't
frighten me much. I just want my Margie back."

"All right," Death said.

Alex sat bolt upright.

"What?"

"I said, all right. For a time. Not many have
outsmarted me, pinned me to the ground. I give you credit, and you've got
courage. I like that. I'll give her back. For a time. Come here."

Death walked over to the car that was not from Detroit. Alex
got to his feet and followed. Death took the keys out of the ignition, moved to
the trunk, worked the key in the lock. It popped up with a hiss.

Inside were stacks and stacks of match boxes. Death moved
his hand over them, like a careful man selecting a special vegetable at the
supermarket. His fingers came to rest on a matchbox that looked to Alex no
different than the others.

Death handed Alex the matchbox. "Her soul's in here,
old man. You stand over her bed, open the box. Okay?"

"That's it?"

"That's it. Now get out of here before I change my mind.
And remember, I'm giving her back to you. But just for a while."

Alex started away, holding the matchbox carefully. As he
walked past Death's car, he saw the dents he had knocked in the side with his
wrecker were popping out. He turned to look at Death, who was closing the
trunk.

"Don't suppose you'll need a tow out of here?"

Death smiled thinly. "Not hardly."

* * *

Alex stood over their bed; the bed where they had loved,
slept, talked and dreamed. He stood there with the matchbox in his hand, his
eyes on Margie's cold face. He ever so gently eased the box open. A small flash
of blue light, like Peter Pan's friend Tinker Bell, rushed out of it and hit
Margie's lips. She made a sharp inhaling sound and her chest rose. Her eyes
came open. She turned and looked at Alex and smiled.

"My lands, Alex. What are you doing there, and
half-dressed? What you been up to . . . is that a matchbox?"

Alex tried to speak, but he found he could not. All he could
do was grin.

"Have you gone nuts?" she asked.

"Maybe a little." He sat down on the bed and took
her hand. "I love you Margie."

"And I love you . . . you been drinking?"

"No."

Then came the overwhelming sound of Death's horn. One harsh
blast that shook the house, and the headbeams shone brightly through the window
and the cracks and lit up the shack like a cheap nightclub act.

"Who in the world?" Margie asked.

"Him. But he said . . . stay here."

Alex got his shotgun out of the closet. He went out on the
porch. Death's car was pointed toward the house, and the head-beams seemed to
hold Alex, like a fly in butter.

Death was standing on the bottom porch step, waiting.

Alex pointed the shotgun at him. "You git. You gave her
back. You gave your word."

"And I kept it. But I said for a while."

"That wasn't any time at all."

"It was all I could give. My present."

"Short time like that's worse than no time at
all."

"Be good about it, Alex. Let her go. I got records and
they have to be kept. I'm going to take her anyway, you understand that?"

"Not tonight, you ain't." Alex pulled back the
hammers on the shotgun. "Not tomorrow night neither. Not anytime
soon."

"That gun won't do you any good, Alex. You know that.
You can't stop Death. I can stand here and snap my fingers three times, or
click my tongue, or go back to the car and honk my horn, and she's as good as
mine. But I'm trying to reason with you, Alex. You're a brave man. I did you a
favor because you bested me. I didn't want to just take her back without
telling you. That's why I came here to talk. But she's got to go. Now."

Alex lowered the shotgun. "Can't. . . can't you take me
in her place? You can do that can't you?"

"I . . . I don't know. It's highly irregular."

"Yeah, you can do that. Take me. Leave Margie."

"Well, I suppose."

The screen door creaked open and Margie stood there in her
housecoat. "You're forgetting, Alex, I don't want to be left alone."

"Go in the house, Margie," Alex said.

"I know who this is. I heard you talking, Mr. Death, I
don't want you taking my Alex. I'm the one you came for, I ought to have the
right to go."

There was a pause, no one speaking. Then Alex said,
"Take both of us. You can do that, can't you? I know I'm on that list of
yours, and pretty high up. Man my age couldn't have too many years left. You
can take me a little before my time, can't you? Well, can't you?"

Margie and Alex sat in their rocking chairs, their shawls
over their knees. There was no fire in the fireplace. Behind them the bucket
collected water and outside the wind whistled. They held hands. Death stood in
front of them. He was holding a King Edward cigar box.

"You're sure of this?" Death asked. "You
don't both have to go."

Alex looked at Margie, then back at Death.

"We're sure," he said. "Do it."

Death nodded. He opened the cigar box and held it out on one
palm. He used his free hand to snap his fingers.

Once. (the wind picked up, howled)

Twice. (the rain beat like drumsticks on the roof)

Three times. (lightning ripped and thunder roared)

"And in you go," Death said.

A little blue light came out of the couple's mouths and jetted
into the cigar box with a thump, and Death closed the lid.

The bodies of Alex and Margie slumped and their heads fell
together between the rocking chairs. Their fingers were still entwined.

Death put the box under his arm and went out to the car. The
rain beat on his derby hat and the wind sawed at his bare arms and T-shirt. He
didn't seem to mind.

Opening the trunk, he started to put the box inside, then
hesitated.

He closed the trunk.

"Damn," he said, "if I'm not getting to be a
sentimental old fool."

He opened the box. Two blue lights rose out of it,
elongated, touched ground. They took on the shape of Alex and Margie. They
glowed against the night.

"Want to ride up front?" Death asked.

"That would be nice," Margie said.

"Yes, nice," Alex said.

Death opened the door and Alex and Margie slid inside. Death
climbed in behind the wheel. He checked the clipboard dangling from the dash.
There was a woman in a Tyler hospital, dying of brain damage. That would be his
next stop.

He put the clipboard down and started the car that was not
from Detroit.

"Sounds well-tuned," Alex said.

"I try to keep it that way," Death said.

They drove out of there then, and as they went, Death broke
into song. "Row, row row your boat, gently down the stream," and
Margie and Alex chimed in with, "Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a
dream."

Off they went down the highway, the taillights fading, the
song dying, the black metal of the car melting into the fabric of night, and
then there was only the whispery sound of good tires on wet cement and finally
not even that. Just the blowing sound of the wind and the rain.

"Where do you keep the sugar?" Mulroy said, as he
pulled open cabinet doors and scrounged about.