Chapter two: The customer's always right
If you aim to find something, or someone, in a city larger than your own apartment, you have to think big. You have to put yourself in a mental state where you can identify yourself with the person you're looking for. That is to say, you should think like this: Where does A usually hang out? (A in this example being the person you're looking for.) What does he normally do on a Saturday? And more, if not most importantly: Does he even want to be found?
If the answer to question number three is 'no', you've clearly got yourself a problem on your hands. Trying to find a person who doesn't want to be found isn't just hard, it's damned near impossible. Because you see, there are a million ways to hide oneself from someone, and I'm not just talking about behind your wonderful set of velvet curtains from IKEA with small tufts at the bottom.
If this person in addition to that is an occult being, like for example a demon, it's really best to give up the game.
Unless, of course, you are a demon yourself.
There were Places, Crowley told Aziraphale as they were walking down the street toward the mall. Places where you could get almost anything if you had the right amount of hard cash, including information. You could also, if you wanted to and had conveniently forgotten your chequebook, trade information, depending on how Big and Important the info in question was.
Crowley, however, had already used up all his info, so money was really the only alternative he had. That would have been great, except he had no money either.
Aziraphale knew where the demon was going by telling him this. He had heard it before.
"So you want to borrow money from me."
"No, no, no," said Crowley, in a less convincing way. "Not from you, not from your own pocket. From your bookshop money, of course. And I promise, I'll pay you back every last penny."
"I don't know," Aziraphale said doubtfully. "You still owe me the money from that bet we made in the 13th century."
"What...? Oh, right. What was that all about, anyway?"
"You said, 'I bet you these round pieces of glass that correct your vision won't become popular. People who wear them will be total outcasts. I wouldn't ever wear something like that.'."
"They still call people who wear glasses 'four-eyes', you know."
"Yes, but that's not the point. You're wearing them yourself."
"I'm most certainly not... oh." Crowley blushed. "That's not the same thing."
"But you still lost the bet."
"Okay, okay," Crowley retorted, waving his hands vaguely in the air as though he was trying to scare off a hoard of flies. "Angel, I promise, you'll get your money back. I'll even work at Victoria's Secret if I have to. Just... lend me the money. Please? This is important to me."
Aziraphale smiled at the thought of Crowley handling women's lingerie all day long. That possibility alone was worth the chance of never seeing that money ever again.
"Okay. I'll gamble. But I'll never again lend anything out to you if you break your promise this time. That's the interest I'm charging for any delay in payment. Do we have a deal?"
"Indeed we do." Crowley smirked in a self-confident way. "Let's bring this guy... err, demon... to our feet."
They were now approaching the mall, where they had been headed. The angel hadn't bothered much in what direction they were moving; just that fact that they were moving at all satisfied him fully. After spending twelve hours on the asphalt ground trying to comfort a demon had made him quite weary of waiting. He wanted this over, and fast. Not only was he getting tired of running demon errands when he could have been out by the pond feeding ducks – it was such a great day for doing that, too – he didn't much like the idea of a Crowley not having got his revenge. Aziraphale imagined that that would be like when a caffeine-addicted adult tries going a whole day without coffee. It wasn't a pretty sight, he knew that. Many of the crimes that shook the city up every day, in fact, were committed by people low on caffeine, or, in some cases, high on said legalised drug. He did not particularly want to be around when Crowley finally unleashed his rage.
Because he would. Aziraphale had known this demon for so long, he knew that Crowley would not be able to let this go without proper revenge.
"Uh... Crowley?"
"Yeah?"
"Err... where exactly are we headed now?"
"To that Place. You know. I told you about it before. Man, you have serious Alzheimer tendencies."
"Do you mean to tell me that that is such a Place?"
The pair had now got so close to the shop-window that he could see just what type of products they specialised in. The window was filled to the brim with dolls, teddy bears and video games named after various cartoons and card decks. The cartons where brightly coloured, in a way that would easily attract small kid's attention – which was, of course, the idea. It was pure genius. The kids saw the cartons, their minds filled up with Greed, and seconds later the process had begun. They'd do just about anything to get their parents to buy said video games, and the parents went mad in the process.
It was all so perfectly evil, so meticulously planned, that Aziraphale had to turn away in disgust.
"Well, what place could be more perfect, angel dear? Who would ever suspect a toy-store?"
Aziraphale had to admit it made perfect sense.
As they walked through the door, a bell rang furiously just above them, signalling their arrival. The noise was so shrill that the angel had to put his well-manicured hands over his sensitive ears. He had very good hearing.
It was good to have great hearing in his line of work.
Toys were lined up on big shelves, long aisles, as far as the eye could see, one fluffier and more diabolically entertaining than the other. Aziraphale tried to avoid looking at them.
Crowley, on the other hand, enjoyed it fully. Human inventiveness was intriguing. How to make good soldiers out of small boys? Put various kinds of weapons in their hands right from the beginning, of course. And although seemingly harmless – unless you consider squirting water in people's faces a danger to society – they encouraged the boys to upgrade them as they got bigger, and so, the weapons got more and more dangerous. Thus, the human race continued making a living through death. And they never saw it coming. The day the boys were fully educated killers, from watching too many Arnold Schwartzenegger movies and playing with weapons from birth, the whole society was one big question mark. They had no capacity of understanding that they were, in fact, the cause of this development from the beginning.
Intriguing, that's what it was.
A man came towards them from behind the counter. He had a funny way of walking, as though he was limping slightly. Aziraphale frowned.
"Welcome to our establishment! What can I do you for?"
Crowley gave him his best 'you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me' look. Then, he took off his sunglasses, and put them in his coat pocket.
"I'd like to speak to the Management."
The man's smile, which had been plastic and fake as could be, fainted considerably. "Well, I'm afraid I can't help you there, mister...?"
"Crowley. Anthony J Crowley."
"I see. I was told you might come by." The man dropped the unnecessary smile completely and moved towards the counter from where he'd come. "Well, as it turns out, the Management isn't available for any personal meetings right now, but if you leave them a message, I'll make sure they get it. Is that a reasonable agreement, mister Crowley?" He tuned his back on his 'customers', fiddling with some papers beneath the desk.
"No," Crowley said bluntly. He walked up to the counter, and swung the man around with a quick gesture of his hand. The man, apparently quite shaken up by this, stared at the demon's eyes, which were now glowing in a very unpleasant manner.
"Look here, you useless maggot. I haven't walked all the way here to be treated this way. I know for a fact that the Management, your bosses, are here somewhere. If they're in the basement, in the attic, or perhaps hiding behind your ugly, unfashionable counter here, I don't know. But I do know they're here."
Aziraphale noticed that Crowley was hissing noticeably. He felt a bit sorry for the man behind the counter. He had no idea what he was dealing with.
"Now you listen to me. I'm a paying customer, just like anybody else. If you don't treat me with respect, I'll take my business somewhere else, where they value my money better. But first, I'll rip out your filthy little tongue, slowly, so you can really feel the pain. And that's just the beginning. You should know what I could do to your tail if I wanted to."
Tail? Ah! That would explain the funny way of walking. Aziraphale liked it when things fell into place like that.
The man (or being; with everything said, the angel couldn't tell what he was, and he wasn't sure he wanted to, either) wiped the sweat off his forehead with a formerly white napkin.
"They said they didn't want to be disturbed. Apparently, they're having some sort of meeting down there."
"Down there. Now that's what I wanted to hear all along." Crowley grabbed hold of the creature's head and patted him condescendingly. "Good boy. By the way, I like what you're doing here. You and me, we're almost in the same business."
"What might that be?"
"The spreading of sins across the globe. You're doing a lot of my work for me, you know. Leading the youngsters into the right path in the early stages of their childhood, when they're the most... teachable. Congratulations, I couldn't have done it better myself."
"Th-thank you, mister Crowley." The man spun around and pointed eagerly towards the other end of the store. "The staircase is hidden behind the Pokémon shelf. It's in aisle seven."
"Okay." When they'd walked a couple of steps toward their goal, Crowley turned his head. "So what do we do to..." He gestured something the angel couldn't bring himself to understand the meaning of.
"You just have to press Pikachu's stomach. It'll make an annoying noise, and then you'll see what happens."
"Ah."
So the gesture hadn't been dirty, thought Aziraphale to himself. Well, at least it had been shady. You never could tell with demons.
If there was one thing the Management hated, it was conflicts being solved because of their sold information.
They were not some sort of 'peace-mongering' operation. They didn't support peace in the first place. In fact, the more conflicts remaining unsolved, followed up by revenge, revenge and more revenge, the better. It meant more money for them, and that was always, under all circumstances, a good thing.
So whenever a conflict, a fight concerning just about anything from borrowed loose change to real scandalous affairs, got solved, you could count on the fact that the Management were sitting somewhere in a very dark room, smoking very expensive cigars and talking about what had went wrong. The Management always grieved hopelessly when they knew they'd lost precious gold.
That's not to say, of course, that they tried to prevent peace between concerned parties. They just didn't do a single thing to help said parties get along.
The Management had occupied this specific cellar for so many years they'd lost count. The only thing they knew for sure was that there were mouldy pieces of pizza in the corners that had almost grown into a new life form. The fact that they seemed to be flesh-eaters didn't contribute to the place's general atmosphere of safety and calm.
The location of headquarters was strategically chosen. The bricks constituting the walls surrounding them were a bit loose from age, so that if you needed something temporarily hidden, all you had to do was poke on them and they would fall to the floor, revealing the perfect hiding place for thin documents or small amounts of money. In addition to that, it was close to an abandoned mine that not many beings, supernatural or not, knew of. If the Management ever needed to hide, that was their perfect spot. Who'd look inside a death trap to find what they were looking for, they figured.
Consisting of five variations of matter – out of which only some could be called men, and that was being overly optimistic– the Management 'held court' from a couple of desks, pulled together to create an entity. They sat on chairs that reminded the customers fairly acquainted with art and architecture of something out of Dracula's 12th century castle, adding a nice gothic touch to the room. Mr Jones had been a house decorator before he'd joined the Management, and took pride in creating the perfect working environment for him and his colleagues.
Along with Mr Jones, there was also mister Horowitz. He was a hybrid between a human and a lower class imp, which had resulted in him having not only having a human body, but also sported two nicely polished horns in his forehead. He had joined many years ago, or, as he liked to put it: "Before this establishment had even got a regular clientele!". He enjoyed dressing up in women's clothing on late afternoons, but his companions had no idea. He wasn't the type to share, or even the type people felt comfortable sharing with. Maybe it had something to do with the pitchfork he liked having around.
Representing the more obscure side of the group, a hat had its place on the second chair from the right, beside Mr Horowitz. It wasn't a normal hat (if it had been it would have had no business in this place, anyway) but a warlock, whom by mistake had turned himself into a hat. It was fashioned in dark red corduroy, which Mr Jones never seized to argue was totally wrong, and hat a pattern that seemed to be consisting of ambiguous Rorschach dots. His real name was too complex to spell out, and therefore his companions simply called him Mr Bowler.
The fourth member of the Management was a very anonymous individual. He was the type of bloke you might have known from your high-school, but when he comes up to you to ask how you're doing, you have no idea what so ever who it is standing before you and kissing your ass. If you'd seen him on the street, you would have looked right past him, and if he spoke to you, you would automatically sort his voice out, like the noise of an annoying flying bug circling 'round your ear. His name was Mr Connoly. He did most of the filing.
On a more interesting note, the most powerful and influential person in the whole Management group was the charismatic Mr Tennessee. No one knew why he was named after a state, they just knew it was better not to ask. They probably wouldn't like to know the answer anyway.
Mr Tennessee (who tended to quickly, but not without a sense of style, slay anyone who referred to him as 'Mr Tallahassee') was a man who radiated self-confidence, in a smug, self-centred way. He was always nicely groomed, even when he'd been out for a walk in a full-scale hurricane. His costume had obviously been ironed methodically, and thus, he gave the impression of being straightforward, precise and punctual.
He was the one who was in charge of the whole Operation. This was because he, as he himself put it, 'had enough authority to lead and command the others'.
He meant business.
The Management was discussing a very serious matter, when the two guests stumbled down the staircase and into the basement Office.
"My point is, this table – err, I mean these benches, they don't go with the rest of the interior."
"Oh, I just knew you were going to criticise my decision to have them repainted! You're always picking on me!"
Mr Bowler drew breath in a very violent and threatening way. "Look who's talking! You idiot, you can't tell the difference between magenta and scarlet!"
Mr Jones gasped. "How dare you! You stupid... hat! I was once the queen of England's personal decorator – I know this!"
"Well lah-dih-fucking-dah!"
"Shut up, the both of you!" roared Mr Horowitz. "I haven't had any sleep in three days, and if you insist on going on like this, I might as well give up the game entirely!"
Mr Connoly stuttered something under his breath. No one heard what he was saying, because at this point, everyone was screaming at the top of his lungs.
Everyone except Mr Tennessee. He was quietly reading through a couple of documents, whilst trying to fix his hairdo with his free hand. He knew that they'd stop the second he told them so, and he was content with them fouling the air with swearing for now. He wasn't the type of person who needed peace and quiet. In fact, chaos inspired him in his work.
Suddenly, he noticed to individuals standing at the foot of the stair, looking at the Management with a weird look on their faces. It was as if they didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
With an indication almost to small to be noticeable, Mr Tennessee quieted his co-workers down. They fell silent in a spooky symbiotic way – almost as if they'd been told of telepathically.
"Yes? You wanted to see us, gentlemen?"
The more prominent figure of the two – a man dressed in black, wearing a nice leather jacket – took a step forward. His friend kept a low profile behind him.
"Indeed we did. We would like some information."
"Nothing out of the ordinary, then. Will this be a trade or a buy?"
"Err, it'll be a buy. I have the money right here with me." The man pointed at his friend, who nodded eagerly.
Mr Tennessee frowned. The idea would take some time to get used to, but he was pretty sure Mr Jones at least would be interested. He shrugged.
"Well, we usually don't accept pretty boys as currency, but I guess we could make an exception."
The dark man looked at him in surprise. He didn't seem to comprehend fully. When he finally understood what Mr Tennessee was suggesting, he started laughing so hard the Management thought he was going to explode.
"You thought...? Heh... ehe... you thought he was... and... heh... this is just... too much!"
The fair-haired man glared at his companion, clearly insulted. "He meant that I have the money on me. In my wallet."
Mr Jones seemed disappointed. Tennessee just nodded. "It's a... human mistake, I suppose."
"Suppose so."
The leather-clad young man had stopped laughing now, and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I'm sorry for the interruption, gentlemen. It's just... the thought hadn't occurred to me that angels could be used as hard cash."
Mr Horowitz, who'd been sipping on a cup of hot tea (spiced with Innocent Blood™), choked on it. "A-angel? An angel? You've brought an angel to our establishment? Don't you know that's against the rules?"
The man looked at him in mock surprise. "What, don't angels get to have grudges? Is there anything wrong with their money? Because, like I said to your nitwit lizard upstairs, if you've got a problem with us, we'll take our business elsewhere!"
Mr Jones thought it best to prevent the customers from leaving. Plus, he wanted to look good in his boss's eyes.
"There's no problem at all. In fact, we welcome different species here. And you are...?"
"Demon. Crowley's the name."
"Crowley!" Jones smiled his slippery smile. "Wasn't there an occultist named Aleister Crowley a couple of years ago? Yes, I do seem to recall that. Is that where you got your nifty name?"
Crowley let a grimace of disgust wrinkle his face. "No," he said, "that's not it at all."
"Then where's it from? Does it mean anything special?"
The demon looked at him in contempt. "I don't suppose you'll be needing this information to close the deal, now will you?"
Jones shook his head. "No, I'm just interested."
"Big mistake, Jonesy," said Mr Bowler through invisible, gritted teeth. "Don't let the customer know you're interested. That decreases our chances of bargaining."
"Shut up," wheezed Jones through equally gritted teeth. Then, he turned to face Crowley again. "If you're not interested in making small talk, perhaps we should get to business. But first, give us the money."
"I don't trust anything with horns," said Crowley suspiciously, peering at Mr Horowitz. "First you give me the information. Then you get my money. I've worked hard for them, and I'm not about to let you scumbags steal 'em away without giving something for them."
"Well, technically, Crowley," began Aziraphale from behind him, "technically, the money's not..."
"Sssch, angel. Let me do the talking."
"Okay."
"So what do you need information regarding, mister Crowley?" mister Tennessee broke off in a friendly, yet threatening tone. The result resembled a line spoken by some TV-personality; Don't move, we'll be right back. Do not touch the remote.
"Someone's thrashed something very dear to me," said Crowley sternly. "It would be nice to know whom, so I could execure proper bloody payback."
"Let me guess. They killed your dog?" mister Bowler said excitedly. He'd always been great with guessing things in the old days when he was not made out of moth-eaten fabric. "No, wait. They raped and pillaged your woman and/or apartment?"
Aziraphale shuddered at the thought of some unknown evil raping Crowley's apartment.
"Worse," Crowley said in a glum tone of voice. "They vandalised my car."
A deep, heart-felt "oooooh" was heard from the Management table. Though they were a most curious mix of species, and although they didn't exactly lead a normal life, the pain of losing a car was somthing they could all relate to. After all, they were men.
"So now you need our services to make reality of this assumably well-planned revenge plot you've got worked out in your head?"
Crowley pondered for a moment. He hadn't really thought anything out – he'd figured he'd just improvise. He'd always been good with improvising. Perhaps now was the time to start figuring something out.
"Yes, that's it. Exactly."
Mr Tennessee smiled unpleasantly. He liked revenge. It always ended in so much pain, anguish and if you were even more lucky, blood. Quite amazing, because this revenge thing was entirely human to begin with. When demons fought in the old days, they'd normally just slay eachother, and that was the end of it. I'm sorry, but you invaded my territory and ravished my wife, and I shall therefore be forced to brutally kill you. No offense. Emotions had never been involved at all – except maybe pride and honour, that was it. Yet nowadays, when species fought, it was more of a vendetta than it had been before. Revenge got all mixed up with the meaningless impulses of the brain that were called 'feelings', and that's why it never ended simply anymore. In the good old days, the conflict had consisted of two acts.
One: the actual misdeed itself. Two: payback. Thereafter, all was finished.
But not anymore. Nowadays, it just never ended. All had spun out of control.
"Delightful," said mister Tennessee, like a predator who'd just swallowed a deer. In one piece. He made a sign toward mister Horowitz, who snapped his fingers quickly on his boss's command. In the air before Crowley, a document floated indecisively. It seemed very old, and spots of grease tainted it. Crowley didn't want to think of where the grease might've come from.
"Just sign on the dotted line," Tennessee grinned. "You don't want to read it all through, trust me – it's just formalities regarding responsability, etcetera etcetera. You can imagine."
"Unfortunately, I can," Crowley mumbled under his breath, and glared at the Management suspiciously.
"I don't think you should sign that, Crowley," whispered Aziraphale. "Read it through, then consider all possible ways this could go wrong, and then..."
"I don't have time for all this bureaucratic, legal nonsense," snapped Crowley back. "I need this information, badly, and these guys aren't giving me it for free; I have to play by their rules. Angel, I know what I'm doing, and I'd advice you not to doubt me."
Aziraphale pouted. It looked ridiculous. "I was just trying to help," he said in a hurt tone of voice.
"I've been through far worse than this, haven't I? Trust me, angel, I don't need you on this one. This I can handle. I can manage going down the rabbit hole – I don't need you pushing me." In a softer voice, he then added: "But it would be nice to have you with me when I get through."
The angel didn't respond. He felt no need to.
Upon grabbing the pencil also floating mid-air in hummingbee style, Crowley signed the contract without hesitation. Aziraphale couldn't read what it said; it was all a bunch of occult symbols. Appearantly, the demon had learnt his lesson well.
The pen bled letters onto the parchment, bloody red.
Crowley looked at it in disgust.
"Please don't tell me that's real blood. That's so cliché!"
"It's only Chardonnay wine," Bowler coughed. "Jones was bored one day and had read all too many magasines about inventiveness in every day life. About adding excitement to slentrian behaviour patterns, I believe."
"I can't help it if I'm unique!" Jones shouted, bewildered. "And what's wrong with adding a small personal touch to your workplace?"
Crowley looked around. "Small?" he hissed to himself, and noted especially the small silk bows in the 13th Century chandalier.
"Jonesy, darling, we're not the social services," bantered mister Horowitz.
"Shut. The hell. Up."
Mister Tennessee's voice was cold. In fact, it was so cold, Crowley wondered if he should move, maybe jump up and down, so that he wouldn't risk freezing on the floor.
"My apologies on behalf of my colleagues. They lack basic skills in behaving themselves."
"Oh, it's perfectly allright," Aziraphale said cheerfully. "Mind, I've been spending thousands of years alongside Crowley."
"I thought I told you to shut up," hissed Crowley to the angel. He then turned to the Management with a quizzical look on his face. "So. You give me what I came for. I go upstairs, and leave the money with your lizard clerc. He runs down to you with the cash. Everyone satisfied with that solution?"
The Management looked at eachother. Mister Connoly tried to say something important about ever trusting a demon, but of course, no one heard him.
Tennessee nodded. "We have a deal."
"Seems so."
"I will now tell you how to aquire what you came for." His voice changed into a hypnotic, soft tone. Crowley felt as though his mind, his very thoughts, were moving through something like thick syrup, or possibly gravy. Crowley thought of the exclusive pancakes you could get at the Ritz if you came in on a Tuesday. They had maple syrup. It always tasted devilishly good. Yes, when he thought about it... it was definitely like moving through syrup.
"There is a document waiting for you up on one of the shelves, hidden inside the same fluffy animal you pressed to get down here. You must rip it open, and then pull out the document. Then ask the lizard to replace it with a new toy. After you've opened the document, I'd advise you to destroy it, else it might self-combust.
Also, if you tap it twice with a spoon, you'll get a free bonus recipe for home-made applepie."
Crowley's mind tangeled free from the hypnotic grip.
"You said what now?"
"Guess who's idea it was to begin with," Bowler grunted.
Jones looked very proud of himself.
"Yes," Crowley spoke doubtfully, "that all seems good and well, possibly except for the applepie bit. I've never cared for that stuff. I suppose we'll take our leave. Come along, angel..."
"Wait!" The angel looked distraught. "Crowley, please don't tell me you're buying into this load of crap! What if it's a trick?"
"Look, angel, they know I'll report them if they con me. That would mean bye bye to business, and worse... bye bye to all the money. The customer's always right, you know."
Tennessee grinned. "You've played this game before, I take it."
Crowley smirked. "Some."