Sympathy for the Devil

Chapter 2-2

“Nice,” I said, sliding carefully onto the diamond-upholstered leather seat. “Being the Devil must pay well.”

“It has its perks.” He shut the door after I seated myself; it closed with the sort of soft, solid thunk that only a very, very expensive car can make.

I sat there, taking in the scent of finely burnished leather upholstery, as he made his way back over to the driver’s side and buckled himself in. Then I said, “So you do get around like a normal person.” Pausing, I took in the opulent interior and added, “At least like a normal oil sheik or something.”

He chuckled, then put the car in drive. The only reason I could tell we were moving was that I saw the manicured front yard slipping past us as he pulled out of the driveway. “Although people do tend to be notoriously unobservant, after a while, too much inexplicable appearing and disappearing can get one noticed.” He leaned over and touched a knob on the dashboard, and the delicate sound of a string quartet began to play in the background. “Besides, I like to drive.”

Who wouldn’t, with a car like that? I thought that even being stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway could be made bearable by sitting in a mobile Ritz like this mammoth piece of machinery. The gas mileage must suck, I thought, then, As if that makes a difference for anyone who can afford a car like this.

“I thought we’d go to The Little Door,” he went on, pulling out of the exclusive subdivision where his home was located and onto Beverly Boulevard. “If that’s all right with you.”

It was more than a little all right. Although the restaurant wasn’t that far from where I lived, it certainly wasn’t the sort of place where I could afford to eat on a whim, and none of the guys I’d dated had the means — or the taste, I had to admit — to take me someplace like that. “Sounds great,” I managed.

He nodded, then pulled into the left lane so he could turn south on La Brea. Everything in his manner suggested that he’d done this a hundred times before, and maybe he had. Who knew how long he’d been loitering in the Los Angeles area, driving around in his luxo-mobile and observing the doings of lesser mortals?

That led me to wonder exactly what he was doing here and, more importantly, what on earth he wanted with me. I wasn’t anyone special, that was for sure. The fate of the planet didn’t rest on my shoulders; I wasn’t an activist or a politician or anyone with any real influence. There were probably a hundred thousand other young women of my age and basic physical type in Southern California, so what had led him to hone in on me?

I shot a quick sideways glance at him as he expertly maneuvered the enormous car through the intersection just as the light turned all the way to red. One of the things that irritated me the most about Los Angeles was its complete lack of dedicated left-hand turn signals; you invariably had to wait until the last few seconds of the yellow, and then floor it and hope no one who was waiting for the green light in the other direction had a trigger foot. But the Bentley obviously had an engine to match its impressive sheet metal, and I barely felt the acceleration as the car turned south, heading toward the intersection with Third Street and the restaurant itself.

He didn’t look like the Devil. Then again, who knew what the Devil was supposed to look like? No horns, no tail, no pitchfork here. Even though one part of my brain kept protesting this must be either an elaborate hoax or some sort of drug-induced hallucination, that interior voice was growing fainter and fainter. For one thing, I’d experienced those unbelievable jumps in scene, and there hadn’t been any “lost moments” or breaks in continuity. One minute I was at The Grove, and the next I was standing in that flying saucer of a house in the Hollywood Hills. That didn’t meet my approval, and bam! I was planted in the living room of a gracious Mediterranean-style mansion miles away.

So I decided to go with it. Okay, he was the Devil, or at least some sort of being with powers so advanced, they might as well be supernatural. He hadn’t given me one word of explanation as to why he’d sought me out in particular. I knew he had to be after me for some reason, or else why would I recall seeing him at various points in my life? That if nothing else clinched it; the first time I’d seen him had been more than twenty years ago, and yet he still looked to be the same age, late thirties, maybe forty at the most. The best plastic surgeons on the planet couldn’t accomplish such a dramatic preservation. Besides, people who’d had a lot of work done tended to have a particular look about them. I lived in Los Angeles, cosmetic procedure capital of the planet, and I’d seen more than my share of facelifts and Botox injections. No matter how good the plastic surgeon was, you generally could see some sign of the work that had been done if you knew where to look.

I didn’t see any of those tells in this man’s face, however. Oh, he was good-looking, no doubt about that. Not picture-perfect — his nose was too long, his mouth on the thin side, and you could even quibble that his eyes might have been set a little too close together. He had a good set of laugh lines around those deep blue eyes, and his skin looked lightly browned from the sun. It didn’t have that smooth, almost burnished look you get when you’ve been dermabraded and injected to within an inch of your life.

Eternal youth, or at least eternal prime of life? It didn’t exist, no matter what the cosmetics and pharmaceutical companies wanted you to believe. The man who sat next to me was the only person I’d ever seen who had achieved it…which meant he probably wasn’t a man at all.

I shivered. He must have noticed, because he asked, “Are you cold? Do you want me to turn on the heater?”

Shaking my head, I replied, “No, I’m fine. Besides, we’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” He pulled the car into the suicide lane and waited for an opening in traffic, then turned into the driveway to the restaurant’s parking lot. A valet hurried over, looking a little wide-eyed. I supposed that even at an upscale place like The Little Door, they didn’t see a lot of Bentleys.

The Devil tossed the keys to the valet as if he was handing over a Chevy, then came around the back of the car to help me out. I wasn’t used to such gallantry; Danny invariably pulled his truck into a space, got out, and was halfway to our destination before checking to see whether I was following or not. A little awkwardly, I put my hand in the Devil’s, wondering if I was going to notice a spark or an odd rush of heat. Nothing like that, though — his hand felt human enough, although warm compared to my cold fingers.

And then he let go of my hand and led me out of the parking lot and into the restaurant proper. It was an amazing space, hidden behind an unobtrusive set of doors that opened onto Third Street, with several different rooms, each decorated in its own individual style. Even on a Tuesday night the place was crowded, but no waiting for the Devil and his companion — we were whisked away almost immediately to a table off in a corner where we could be safely shielded from the noisier, more bustling parts of the building.

The hostess handed us our menus and departed, and I opened mine, forcing myself not to look at the prices.

“Wine?” the Devil asked me.

“Oh…sure,” I said. I wasn’t sure what wine would do on top of the Cosmo I’d hastily gulped down a few minutes earlier, but what the heck.

“I’m partial to reds, but that depends on what you’re ordering — ”

“I’m going to get the filet mignon,” I said hastily before I lost my nerve. Normally, I would scan a menu and then pick one of the two least expensive entrées so I wouldn’t be overburdening my date, but I didn’t think that sort of discretion was necessary here.

“Excellent.” He folded his menu shut; as if in answer, a waiter appeared from nowhere, notepad in hand. Without looking up, the Devil said, “A bottle of the Chateauneuf-de-Pape. I’ll have the rib eye, and she’ll have the filet mignon.” He smiled slightly. “Medium rare, correct, Christa?”

I could only nod mutely.

“And rare for me,” the Devil added.

“Very good.” The waiter — who had to be an out-of-work actor, considering the perfection of his hair and teeth — jotted a few things down on his pad. “I’ll be back with your wine shortly.”

“Thank you,” my companion said. He handed the waiter his menu, and I did the same.

Then one of those awkward little silences fell, the type that inevitably cropped up on a first date after you’d gotten the business of ordering out of the way and weren’t sure where to go next. Of course, was this really a first date, or a date at all? Calling something a first date seemed to imply there would be more to follow at some point, and that concept was a little too strange for me to deal with at such an early stage of the game.

We were saved from making conversation by the return of the waiter, who set a pair of oversized wine glasses on the table and then struggled a bit with the cork before finally extracting it intact. After this procedure, he had a look of triumph on his face that led me to wonder exactly how long he’d been working as a waiter.

But finally the wine was poured, and the Devil and I were left to sit there and look at one another. I didn’t know what he saw in my face — I was just glad that I’d had the presence of mind to touch up my makeup before leaving the office that afternoon.

After clearing my throat, I asked, “So, did you have this all planned? Or do you just keep a standing reservation here in case you find some random female you want to take out to dinner?”

“Oh, I didn’t have a reservation.” He lifted his wine glass and held it under his nose for a few seconds, eyes half-shut as if he was concentrating on analyzing the bouquet or whatever it was that people tried to detect when they sniffed at their wine before drinking it.

“But we walked right in — ”

His eyes opened all the way then, and again I was startled by their blueness under the straight dark brows. “I have a way of opening doors.”

“Apparently,” I remarked, and lifted my own wine glass and took a sip without bothering to inhale it or breathe it first. I didn’t know much about wine, except that I either liked it or I didn’t. This particular one tasted interesting, with a strong earthy underlay to it that was unfamiliar to me. Then again, I didn’t drink much French wine. The cheaper house pours were invariably from California.

Statements like the one he had just made didn’t do much to put me at ease. If he was up to no good, you would have thought that he’d be doing everything in his power to conceal his true identity. Yet he’d told me he was the Devil the same way another guy might have told me he was a stockbroker or a lawyer. Maybe to him it was just a matter of degree.