Alien Nation

Something of his old shopping center remained, the name “Peachwood Center on the big plastic sign out front, the choice location near the intersection of two freeways, and most importantly the buildings and his titles to them.  Everything else felt foreign to Tom Wilson.  Looking around at the teeming throng of shoppers, he noted with distaste how he was likely the only native born on the lot.

It was the smell of them that got to Wilson more than anything: the sharp tang of cooking oil and onions emanating from squalid eating places, the stink of exhaust from third hand jalopies jostling for parking spaces, and the belching fumes of buses that disgorged the ever growing horde of motley complexion.  It gave him a headache.

His tired reflection stared at him from the window of the Iranian travel agency.  Mr. Wilson hadn’t been in since signing the lease.  He’d been a regular when the place was “Harry’s Shoe Repair,” but these newcomers didn’t wear shoes worth repairing.  The old bakery just beyond had become a Korean run electronic shop.  One by one, Wilson had watched his old friends close up shop and leave.  It galled him that his kind couldn’t make a go of it here anymore.

The digital thermometer above the bank at the corner read 92 degrees.  Heat radiating from the sidewalks was welling up his baggy pants.  Coupled with the smoggy sunshine beating down on his blue suit, they were turning him into a soggy mess.  His foot skidded on a greasy orange gold paper wrapped around a half-eaten burrito.  Wilson’s bloated body did a grotesque arabesque to regain balance.

As he steadied himself, Wilson saw he was in front of “Rodriguez’ Taco Stand.”  No trees or living vegetation was in sight.  Peachwood Center had really gone to seed since the supermarket shut down.  Probably some Asian or Latino group of grocers would reopen it, Wilson figured.  He leaned against one of the metallic tables in front of the taco stand, ponderously lifted a leg, and peeled wrecked burrito off the sole of his fine leather shoe.  He stood a moment regarding the ooze of used food in his hand.

God, they don’t even use our colors,he thought.

He wouldn’t know what to call the strange orange gold tint of the wrapping paper or the equally odd grayish brown of refried beans other than tacky, like the artwork on the rugs, black velvet paintings, blouses and knickknacks that people hawked on the sidewalks, all without permits or paying taxes.  Wilson wished the INS would haul them all away.

Wiping sweat from his brow, he walked on regretting not driving to the restaurant, but it was only three blocks from his office, and his doctor had told him he’d better start exercising.  Besides, the deed on damn near everything inbetween was his.

He consoled himself by thinking of the meal that lay ahead.  As treasurer, he’d selected the menu for the Chamber of Commerce luncheon: green salad, prime rib, baked potato, peas and ice cream.  American food.  However, his ample belly was still trying to digest a breakfast of bacon, eggs, buttered toast and cottage fries, and the thought of another hearty meal increased the pressure mounting inside his head.

At least it would be cool inside the restaurant, and he could get a drink.  The doctor had warned him about that too, but the doctor wasn’t facing his kind of competition.  These Asians banded together in extended families.  They already owned the bank on the corner.  As an individual developer, Mr. Wilson worried he wouldn’t be able to compete.  Not when Orientals could borrow money from their own kind with the dead certainty that boatloads more of their brethren would rent out whatever they put up.

He was heading for the alley that cut the small string of shops off from the big empty market.  The only rent coming from the supermarket parcel was from the crummy beer bar tucked along one side.  That had been a fine Irish pub once, and the new Haitian owner had let it go all to hell.  From fifty feet away, mariachi music could be heard coming through the open door.  His headache ratcheted up another notch.

Looking down the alleyway towards the restaurant, the only decent restaurant left in town to his mind, Wilson debated whether to enter the shop on his right.  A crude hand lettered sign taped to the corner of the window read, “Herbs, Drugs and Notions.”   

Four ideographs pulsing in red neon flourish covered the width of the storefront.  Wilson wondered what the characters said.  All that kind of writing looked like chicken scratching to him.  It bugged him that the crummy little hand-lettered sign was the one in English, but that wasn’t why he hesitated to enter.

Wilson really did want to go in and get an aspirin, but this had been the first property he had ever owned, an inheritance from his father who’d run an insurance agency out of it.  He hated having to rent it out to a bunch of slant eyes.  In the six months the herb shop had been here, he’d never once stepped inside.  Oh well, at least they paid the rent on time, in cash, hand delivered to his office.

A little belt tinkled as he opened the door.  Wilson could almost imagine his father’s insurance agency was still here, for it had the same kind of bell.  That’s as far as the illusion went.  Inside nothing was the same.

Cheap steel shelving lined the walls where four agents once had their desks.  The center space was divided into three aisles by two more rows of the same gun-metal gray racks.  The configuration annoyed him.  It was just like these people to cram in two rows where only one belonged.  Made a fat man like Wilson have to worm his way along to reach the back counter.

The old Chinaman sitting in the rear hadn’t even looked up from the newspaper he was reading. Backwards!  Wilson refused to look at him either and made a point of scanning the shelves as he made his way towards the register.

Shallow cardboard boxes labeled with chicken scratches lined the rows.  They held an incredible assortment of organic matter that had been sliced, diced or ground beyond recognition and dried to the verge of dust.  When he bumped into a box jutting out, it emitted an almost gaseous cloud of powder with a sharp ammoniac odor leavened with the stench of compost.  Wilson sneezed.

    “Hey, how bout some service?”  He shouted while still ten feet from the counter.

The Chinaman finally looked up.  A real old geezer, maybe hadn’t even heard the bell.  He wore round wire rimmed glasses, and the lenses were coated with a fine film of dust that gave a dull look to his eyes.  When he smiled, his wrinkled cheeks creased open revealing an incomplete set of yellow teeth,

    “Oh, yes sir, right away.  Can I help you?  Anything you need, I take care of,” the old man said in a singsong voice.

If there was anything Wilson hated more than an inscrutable Oriental, it had to be an obsequious one.

    “Yeah, you can help me,” Wilson said resting his great bulk against the flimsy particle board counter.

He fantasized pushing it back along the wall, squashing the Chinaman like an insect.

    “You got aspirin I suppose, “ he said.

    “Ah, I got something better for your problem.”

The Chinaman ducked down and was rummaging under the counter.

    “Aspirin will be fine,” Wilson said.

He leaned across the counter.  Not too far, his stomach prevented that, but enough so he was looking straight down on the bald head of the Chinaman.

My God, are those stitches? Wilson said to himself.

Woven into the parchment like skin atop the old man’s head was a tracery of threaded knots, closing an angry red wound shaped like a pentagram that capped his skull.

Christ, and this guy wants to give me a headache remedy. Wilson thought.

The scar sickened him.  It seemed to be throbbing.  Wilson spun around and considered running, well, walking out.  Looking towards the sunlight streaming through  the filmy glass in front made the dust in the air much more evident.  The motes caught in the sunbeams were swirling not falling.  Wilson’s eyes felt dry and irritated.  He blinked rapidly to clear them, and a tearing of the iris made everything momentarily more vivid.  In that instant, little puffs, like breaths condensing in the cold, could be seen spouting from a dozen different boxes.

    “This guaranteed to end trouble,” the Chinaman said.

Wilson had a lurid vision the old man was perched on the countertop with a big curved needle and thread waiting to weave a pentagram into his skull.  Turning around, he saw the Chinaman was holding a tiny paper bag that looked as worn and wrinkled as the gnarled hand that held it.

    “I just want aspirin.  Don’t you have any?”  Wilson said not trying to hide the exasperation in his voice.

    “Two dollahs.” The Chinaman said.

    “Aspirin,” Wilson shouted.

    “Three dollahs,” the Chinaman said.

Wilson could see a thin patina of dust had settled on the man’s face making him look even more ancient.  He had one of those long wispy beards.  Wilson wanted nothing more than to reach out and give it a good tug.  Instead, he waved his hands in disgust and started side stepping down the aisle.  The dust in the air tickled his nose, and when he sneezed, his head banged against the edge of a shelf.

I’m going to clear these gooks out of here,Wilson thought wincing in pain.

At the door, he looked back to have the last word on the Chinaman.  He had trouble spotting him.  The store was now so full of dust the rear looked dark.  Had his mere walk down the aisle stirred up such a whirlwind?  Wilson stood transfixed watching dust erupt from hundreds of boxes.  He could barely make out the Chinaman in back reading his paper.

    “For your information, I’m the owner of this property.  Tell number one son I want his ass out of here by the end of the month,” Mr. Wilson shouted.

    “Ten dollahs,” the Chinaman said without looking up.

Wilson started out the door, but a car cutting down the alley stopped short in just the right spot to blind him with glare off the windshield.  He stared back into the store trying to focus.  A burning afterimage of a pentagram momentarily hung before his eyes.  The Chinaman was looking up.  The sunlight penetrating through the murk reflected off his glasses making them glow the same orange gold as the wrapper Wilson had slipped on.

    “Merchandise for sale today only,” the Chinaman said.

The old man raised a bony finger and pointed to a clock on the wall by the door.  It was noon exactly.

Christ, he was going to be late to his luncheon.

    “Don’s Steak House” was dark wooded and dimly lit with alcoves for business lunches or intimate meetings and a big room in back for larger groups.  Wilson wound up having to get aspirin from the barman there.  He downed it with a quick Scotch as Chamber members began entering the dining room.

Mr. Wilson had booked the speaker, City Councilman Edward Fermin who was running in a tough race for the State Assembly.  He should have been here earlier to introduce the Councilman all around.

With the hapless candidate in tow, Wilson tried to make up for being late by reintroducing Fermin to people while they seating themselves.  As the two made their way along the table, Wilson managed to refer to Mr. Fermin successively as Mr. Foreman, Mr. Freeman and Mr. Fireman.  By the time they reached the head of the table, both men were embarrassed as hell.

The Chamber president and vice-president were sitting to either side of the podium.  Wilson would sit to the president’s left with Fermin beside the vice-president.  As the president rose, Wilson shook his hand vigorously.

    “Good to see you, Frank,” he said.  The president’s name was Hank, Hank Ascar.  “Frank, I’d like you to meet Edward Foeman.”

In addition to getting the president’s first name wrong, Wilson was acutely aware of the unnatural accent he had placed on the “Foe” in Foeman, as if he’d been affecting some booming Amos and Andy imitation.  Hank Ascar was the Chamber’s first African American president.  Everyone knew Tom Wilson lusted after the position.  The whole room had gone silent.

    “Ed,” Wilson continued, his voice if anything growing even louder,” I’d like you to meet Hank Asshole.”

Wilson clapped his hand over his mouth.  The candidate however handled the situation adroitly.

   “Hank, don’t worry, he didn’t write my speech,” Fermin said shaking the president’s hand.

The three men laughed, Fermin heartily, Ascar mirthlessly, Wilson weakly.

How could I have said that? Wilson thought as he glumly took his seat.

He was afraid to look up at the president.  Mr. Ascar was now at the podium, calling the meeting to order and making the opening remarks.  Wilson didn’t hear a word he said.  He was lost in his thoughts and staring down at his dulled reflection in the empty plate before him.  His eyes felt dry again.  When he blinked, he saw his face as a skull back lit by the outline of a pentagram pulsing in red neon flourish.

Christ, who was that Chinaman, and what am I going to say to Hank? He wondered.

The president was sitting down beside him after having introduced the featured speaker.  Wilson took the carafe of wine reserved for the head of the table and filled Hank’s glass.

    “Geez, I’m sorry, Frank,” he said leaning towards the president.

Ascar made a head-hand motion to signify that it was quite all right, but Wilson knew it wasn’t all right, and once again he’d gotten the president’s first name wrong.

Councilman Fermin started his stump speech that focused on his support for the English Only Initiative on the upcoming ballot.  Wilson knew it was tailor made for this audience.  That’s why he’d booked him.  The Chamber was the last bastion of the old business elite who’d run this town for decades and were now trying to hang on in fast changing circumstances.  President Ascar was the only black man in the room that wasn’t a waiter, and he owed his position to a family fortune that went back generations.  As treasurer, Mr. Wilson was in charge of chartering new members, and so far he’d managed to keep out all the ethnics.

    “The English language is the single most important unifying force in our nation,” Councilman Fermin was saying.

Like hell, Wilson thought.  It’s blood.

He had poured himself a glass of red wine and was staring down into it.  The color reminded him of blood, of neon, of the pentagram.  The last association shook him.  He was trying desperately to remember who he’d rented that herb shop to, but Wilson owned over fifty business parcels and half a dozen apartment buildings.  A quarter or more of all his tenants were Asian, and they all looked alike to him.

His scalp had begun to itch.  Unconsciously, he reached his hand up to scratch his head, and then his eyes grew wide.  Little knobs had erupted all over his cranium.  As his fingers frantically explored, they traced out the pattern of a pentagram woven in throbbing knots through his thinning hair.

Everyone in the room was laughing.  Wilson suddenly realized they were laughing at him.

The man to his right was shaking his shoulder.  Wilson had dimly heard President Ascar tell the man to give him a poke, but what had been Ascar’s prior remark?  Obviously, it had been directed at him.  Everyone was waiting expectantly for him to respond.  When had Ascar even taken the podium?  Wilson had missed almost all of Councilman Fermin’s speech and the applause that surely followed.

    “I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”  He said or at least meant to say.

His speech sounded garbled, drunken.  His hand was still on top of his head as if to hide the bald spot in back.  Could others see his mark?  What had that Chinaman done to him?

    “Sure, Tom.  You do have the Councilman’s campaign contribution.  You didn’t spend the money, did you?”  Ascar said.

This produced another round of chuckles.  It finally dawned on Wilson that he was now supposed to make the presentation of the Chamber’s check to the candidate.  He could feel himself loosing complete control of his tongue and imagined it unrolling to the floor like a carpet as soon as he opened his mouth.  Simply rising from his chair was an effort.  He felt inside his coat for the envelope that contained the check and his remarks.  His shirt was sticking to his side from sweat.  The envelope was damp, and the glue had adhered.  He had to tear it open as he edged along the table.

At the podium, Wilson feared looking up, convinced Chamber members would be nodding and winking at his plight.  His hands were useless crab claws scuttling along the ledge atop the lectern.  He had to order them to straighten out his speech and lay it down flat.  This speech was going to be read verbatim.  There must be no more mistakes.

    “I wish to thank Councilman Fermin for coming here today,” he began.

Wilson breathed a sigh of relief that he’d finally gotten a name right and risked a glance at the crowd.  The audience was listening attentively.  The glare from the reading light attached to the podium made the type hard to see.  A layer of dust seemed to have settled onto the paper.

    “Price now one hundred dollahs, Wilson said.

That’s what it said on the paper.  At least it had a moment ago.  Just how long had he been staring dumbstruck at his speech?

    “I think what Tom means is that the chamber supports Councilman Fermin and is happy to give him this check.”  Ascar said.

President Ascar was standing beside him yanking the check from his sweaty palm and then proceeded to lead him back to his seat.

    “Come along, Tom,” he was saying in a conspiratorial whisper.  “I think you’ve had one too many.”

But I’ve only had a single Scotch and a sip of wine,Wilson thought.

    “I’m sorry,” was all he could think of saying, but it came out sounding like “more wine.”

    “No, I think you’ve had enough wine.  Are you all right?  Ascar asked.

Wilson was holding his tummy with one hand.  The other was clamped over his mouth like it was holding back a spew of vomit.  He was bent over slightly and took his hand off his gut to wave Ascar away then ungracefully fled the room.  His stomach was fine, but this was the only way he could think of to make an exit without speaking.  He knew if he tried talking, the words would come out all wrong, if what came out were words at all.

In the bathroom mirror, Wilson checked his scalp.  No blood, no stitches, no bumps, nothing, but he could feel a pentagram sinking into his bald spot like a five fingered cookie cutter slicing into his skull.  It wasn’t painful, more like plunging into a hot tub over and over, first a little shock then a numbing warmth.  Wilson understood this sort of head bath was akin to a tourniquet cutting off the blood flow to more and more of his brain.

    “That Chinaman did this to me, and that Chinaman’s got the cure too,” he said out loud.

He spun around to see if a dog had snuck into the men’s room.  No, it was him baying.  The door was opening.  Ascar was entering to check up on him.  Wilson bumped past him at the threshold,, rushed down a hallway, and lumbered through the kitchen and out the back door.

His run down the alley left him hyperventilating as he yanked open the door of the herb shop.  The interior was so thick with dust the shelving was barely visible.  A gorge rising stench of graves filled the air.  Wilson was certain dust from the boxes had destroyed his speaking ability.  He was also convinced the Chinaman held the cure in that little brown paper bag so he staggered down the aisle bent double, gasping.

Sitting behind the counter, the Chinaman looked like he’d been caught in a blizzard.  Heaps of dust had built up on the shoulders of his frock coat.  A conical mound topped his head.  As Wilson approached, the old man bowed and brushed his skull revealing the pentagram.

    “One thousand dollahs,” he said.

Wilson stared at the oozing wound on top of the Chinaman’s head.  The cuts edging the pentagram were steaming with sizzling droplets of blood.

I got to do it.  I got to do whatever he wants,Wilson thought.

He took out his checkbook and laid it on the counter.

    “No check, cash only,” the Chinaman said.

    “I never carry more than a few bucks.  The check’s good.  I swear it,” Wilson said.

The fluting warble made him sound like a funereal mourner in the Mid-East.  The Chinman stared like a white eyed zombie, his glasses opaque with dust.  A plume of pink steam hissed out the top of his head.

    “I’ll get the cash,” Wilson tried to say.   

He turned and entered the wall of a storm.  A volcanic flurry of dust blinded him.  He coughed and stumbled into the shelving pulling several cardboard boxes down with him onto the floor.  Mounds of dust covered his legs, and a box with big black printing on the front lay in his lap.  He stared at the writing balanced on his belly.  It was in English and read “Mr. Tom Wilson.”  The box was empty, waiting.  Mewing like a kitten, Wilson crawled on his hands and knees out of the store.

He was a long time getting to his feet and thankful no one was around to watch his whining struggle.  His coat was torn and his shirt stained with blood.  Checking his reflection in the window, Wilson saw his forehead was scratched.  He pressed a handkerchief to the wound and struggled to reason with his terror.

The money wasn’t a problem, a bit more than the limit he’d set for an ATM, but Wilson was well known at all the local banks.  They wouldn’t question him if he handed them a note saying, “laryngitis, can’t speak.”  It would work.  It had to.

He wondered whether he should pop into the office first.  It was nearby, and he always kept a fresh set of clothes there and badly needed to wash up.  On the other hand, he might run into clients, and his secretary was due back from lunch any minute.

Good God, it was hot!  The digital readout above the bank indicated 98 degrees.  First thing he was going to do was have a drink and cool off.  The mariachi music from the bar across the alley beckoned.

The long bar was all that remained from the old Irish pub he used to frequent, and it was scratched beyond repair.  People had whittled the sort of stylized lettering he was forever having to paint over on his properties into the mahogany.  The animals.

He sat down heavily on a stool.  The only customers were three men sitting in one of the dingy booths along the wall.  When the Haitian bartender came over, Wilson pointed to one of the beer taps.  As the foaming glass was set down before him, he laid a fiver on the bar, but the Haitian waved it away.

    “You gonna need it man,” the bartender said.

Wilson wanted to ask what that was supposed to mean, but couldn’t.  Besides, he had bigger worries.  He downed his drink in three great gulps and banged his glass for another.  He started sipping this one and could feel himself start to relax.

From the booth behind him, Wilson heard one of the men say, “Well I say we should let him get a grand and see how short he is of paying off.”

Hell,” another man said.  Looks to me like he’s just going to drink himself stupid.”

Were they talking about him?  Trying to look casual, Wilson glanced over his shoulder at the men in the booth.  They weren’t the kind of clientele he’d been expecting.  He’d always imagined the place full of Latino day laborers, but these guys were well dressed, and they looked oddly familiar.  The bartender walked over to the booth, talked softly to the men, and then came back around.  He spoke with grim authority.

    “Wilson, I be straight with you, man.  We tired of renting.  You see how the Chinaman keep raisen the price.  Now you gonna nead a heap a cash, and we got it.  You go get the deeds, and we deal.”

So it was a conspiracy.  Wilson felt oddly relieved.  Things were starting to clear.  He realized who the three men in the booth were: the Iranian who owned the travel agency, the Korean who ran the electronic shop, and the Mexican owner of the taco stand.

Forget the hocus pocus.  All that pentagram crap was just a ruse to keep him from dealing with what was really going on and reporting the crime.  These guys had somehow arranged for him to be poisoned as part of an elaborate extortion scheme.  Well they picked the wrong man to hustle.  His rising anger gave welcome relief from fear and a newfound sense of conviction.  The police would handle this.  A doctor would cure him, and his lawyers would have the last laugh.

Wilson shook his head, downed his drink and got up to go.  The Haitian leaned across the bar and grabbed his arm.

    “What you think, man?  You go to the cops?”  He hissed.  “How long you figure it take them to sample and test all them boxes?  You got till midnight to take the cure.  After that, organ failure, big organ failure.”

    “Like your liver.”

    “Kidneys.”

    “Balls.”

The three men in the booth made the responses in a round robin that ended in raucous laughter.  Mr. Wilson nodded to the Haitian and shuffled back out to the heat on the street.  He was a sweaty mess by the time he reached his office, but his small staff accepted the fact he couldn’t speak as soon as he wrote on a pad “laryngitis, can’t talk.”  He suspected they were glad.  After changing into the spare suit he always kept at work and gathering the property deeds requested, he headed back to the bar, driving this time.

Wilson was figuring his adversaries would force him to sell cheap, but that hardly mattered.  Once he was cured of this witchcraft, they’d be dealing with him in court, and his lawyers would eat them alive.  Mr. Wilson luxuriated in the thought.  He even sat listening to the car radio for a few minutes.

Let them sweat for a while, he thought.

When he entered the bar, he walked over to the booth, glared at the three men still sitting there, pulled a stool over from the bar, and sat at the head of the table.  The Haitian bartender came over and sat with the others.  Mr. Wilson wished he could make some cutting remark about what great business the bar was doing.  There wasn’t another soul in the place.

Patience, he counseled himself, your chance will come.

The bartender had brought over a bottle of rum and five shot glasses.  He poured a round for all.

    “Gentlemen, I propose a toast to Mister Wilson here who surely be feelin most generous,” he said.

The four men raised their glasses.  Mr. Wilson raised his in turn, and they all downed their drinks.

If only they knew what I was going to do to them,Mr. Wilson gloated.

The negotiations proceeded much as he expected.  Mr. Wilson didn’t haggle, he couldn’t.  Each time he finished signing over a property, the Haitian poured another round, and they drank a toast.  When It was all over, Mr. Wilson was feeling pretty good.  He;d had five drinks in addition to the beer earlier and even earlier Scotch and wine.  He was relishing the thousand dollars cash in his hand,  He’d collected two hundred and fifty dollars from each man.

The Haitian had brought over another bottle, and this time Mr. Wilson went so far as to pour the drinks himself.  He was the first to raise his glass.  After downing the shot, he rose to leave.  He even felt blotto enough to face the Chinamen.  In such a condition, it was pitifully easy for the Mexican taco stand owner to pull him back into his seat.

    “Not so fast, amigo.  You do not have enough there,” he said.

Mr. Wilson stared at his clenched fist that gripped twenty fifty dollar bills.  Now what was the problem?  The Korean electronics store owner explained.

    “You must have noticed the Chinaman keeps raising his price.  If you had returned promptly with the right papers, you might have needed only two thousand dollars, and we would have given you that in exchange for the supermarket.  But since you dawdled, you’d need maybe ten thousand now, and by the time you got back here with the rest of your deeds, you’d need well over twenty, maybe even a hundred thousand,” he said.

So that was their game, bleeding him dry.  Well Mr. Wilson had heard enough.  He was going to the police and tell them he’d been poisoned.  He didn’t care if he never spoke again and to hell with that nonsense about organ failure.  He would not be played for a fool.  Mr. Wilson grabbed the title out of the Korean’s hand and wrote on it, “I’ll see you in jail.”  When he looked at what he’d written though, all he saw was a meaningless series of doodles.

    “You see Mr. Wilson, it’s only right the price of your cure keeps going up.  You need an ever increasing amount of the antidote because your affliction keeps getting worse,” the Iranian said.

   “Believe me, man, them ingredients don’t come cheap,” the Haitian said and laughed raucously.

    “Have another drink, amigo,” the Mexican said.

Wilson downed a double shot.  Tough he tried to fight it, the room had started to spin, and he’d begun slumping forward.

When he awoke, it was nearly midnight, but Mr. Wilson had no idea what time it was.  Nothing seemed to have changed.  The four merchants were still sitting around him at the table sipping shots of rum.  No wait, there was a new document laying on the table.  Mr. Wilson picked it up and read the bold print at the top. “Last Will and Testament”  He knew whose will it was so he skipped down to the particulars.

My God, I’m leaving it all to them,he thought.

By them, Mr. Wilson wasn’t thinking of the four men at the table.  Oh they were scheduled to inherit the shopping center all right, but the rest of his properties were slated to be sold and the proceeds used to benefit every ethnic group he hated.  He was leaving money to the United Negro College Fund, La Raza, the Korean Friendship Society.  Every race was represented.  Mr. Wilson flung the paper down and violently shook his head.  The Haitian grabbed him by the arm, pulled him close, and spoke in a snarl.

    “What you think you be dealin with here, man?  I be Haitian.  I be voodoo.  Rodriguez here, he be brujo.  We talking Aztec, Olmec, and Toltec.  Khaziz be Persian dervish.  Got the power from Zoroaster in the sixth century B.C.  Song Rhee;s a Korean sorcerer, and man, them be the worst.  And the Chinaman, well he be something we donne import special just for you.  Believe me man, you don’t want to know what happens if you don’t sign.  Give him just a taste, Khaziz.”

The Mexican grabbed Mr. Wilson’s other arm and pulled him across the table.  The Korean then held Mr. Wilson’s head while the Iranian reached out and traced a pentogram across his skull.  Mr. Wilson let out a blood curdling scream.  His scalp felt like it was being branded.  Then the brand ate into his brain, and when it was finished there, it started down his throat.  At that point, the pain vanished because Mr. Wilson had signed the document.

    “The money’s by the door.  Take it all, you’ll need it,” Mr. Khaziz said dryly.

The money was in three mail sacks.  They were so heavy that Mr. Wilson had to drag them out the door.  The sheer volume of cash frightened Mr. Wilson as much as anything else that had happened.  Where could they have gotten it?

The bell of the herb shop tinkled as Mr. Wilson open4ed the door.  It was dim inside, but not from dust.  The air was clear, the only light came from two candles on the rear counter spaced as if in imitation of an altar.  The ceremonial atmosphere was enhanced by the big book the Chinaman was reading from.  Mr. Wilson started dragging the sacks down the aisle.

    “Too late, Misteh Wilson.  I said merchandise for sale one day only.  It after midnight,” the Chinaman said.

Leaving the sacks behind, Mr Wilson rushed up to the counter.

    “Please, I’ll give you anything,” he said surprised he could talk.

    “You give soul?”  The Chinaman asked.

He turned the book around so that it faced Mr. Wilson.  Beneath the rows of ideographs was a dotted line.  The Chinaman grabbed Mr. Wilson’s right hand, jabbed his index finger with a quill pen and offered him the blood stained implement.  Mr. Wilson started backing away shaking his head no.  He tripped over the sacks of money.  The last thing he saw was the stack of shelves toppling towards him.

Mrs. Wilson ended up contesting the will but acceded to the request that her husband be cremated.  The Chinaman had no trouble stealing the ashes.  The merchants were confident of eventual victory.  The ashes would soon reside  in a box with Mrs. Wilson’s name on it.

The end