A Handicap of the Devil? (17 page)

It was a strange figure indeed. Tall and wiry, dark and furry, with the same characteristics Jones P. senior had so recently come to display, only more so, much more so.

"What are you doing here again?” the Devil roared at Jones P. senior. “And get that damned elevator off my fairway. If that ball had hit it, it would have cost me an extra shot."

"There are developments on Earth that I thought you should know about."

"I'm not interested, and if I was interested you'd have to tell me later. I'm half way through this eighteen holes, and I've a good chance of breaking a hundred."

"I apologise for the inconvenience, sire, but if you will do me the courtesy of listening now, it could be well worth your while."

Satan snorted a ball of flame and smoke from his nostrils as he pulled a seven iron from his bag. He began to sway and adjust his stance as he prepared for his next shot. “Piss off, Jones. I've got a game to finish."

"I won't piss off until you hear me out."

The Devil went through with his shot and watched as the ball arched up and began its descent. “Keep going, keep going. Aaaaargh! No, no, no, not that fucking bunker again. It's your fault. It's your fault. You put me off."

Satan wrapped the seven iron around the nearest tree and slammed his fist into the tree in frustration, as he let out a stream of oaths, some of which no one there had ever heard before.

"Why, why, why do I play this stupid fucking game?” The Devil howled, as he threw himself face down onto the ground and drummed his fists and his feet into the grass.

"If you agree to listen to what I have to say,” said Jones P. senior. “I reckon I can pinpoint a problem with your swing."

"What the fuck do you think they're here for?” howled Satan.

The Jones P.'s became aware of shadowy figures loitering and looking concerned in the background. Each one was a now-dead former champion golfer.

"If you listen to me I'll tell you how to take over the world. Isn't that what you've always wanted?"

The Devil sat up and rubbed the fist he had slammed into the tree. “Once it was all that I wanted,” he said petulantly. “Now all I want is to break a hundred.” He threw himself down onto the ground once again and resumed his tantrum. Jones P. senior waited until the tantrum had subsided.

Eventually the Devil ran out of steam. He sat up and looked at the two visitors. “Are you still here? I told you to piss off."

"We're staying until we tell you what's going on up there."

"Can someone tell me what's going on down here?” Jones P. junior couldn't believe what was happening. “My father takes me for a weird ride in an elevator, and I arrive at a golf course in what appears to be hell, and we meet someone who appears to be the Devil. Is this a nightmare or am I really here?"

"Of course you're here you stupid arsehole.” The Devil kicked the broken seven iron into the bushes. “He's been one of my cohorts on Earth since he was a boy at school. He formed The Legal Rulers Society, the secret society that is charged with doing evil and resisting good on Earth. The members are all lawyers. It's a miracle no one on Earth has found out. Look at the way most of them carry on. You'll become an automatic member as soon as you study law."

"I'm an accountant. I don't want to study law."

The Devil pointed a finger at a nearby former golf champion. A jet of flame shot from the finger and vaporised him..” Satan blew on the end of his finger to cool it and looked at the horrified Jones P. junior. “There is one other place to go from here and that is into the great darkness. If I consign you to the great darkness, you remain in blackness, buried in steaming hot excrement and listening to rap music forever."

"Okay. Okay, I'll join. I'll enrol in law school as soon as I get back. Except, I don't have the grades."

"Just mention my name. I have influence."

Jones P. senior chuckled. “Oh yeah, in law schools he has influence."

"I'll tell you one more time, Jones, I'm having nothing further to do with that stupid world of yours up there. Take it and shove it."

"Why?’ What's the matter?” asked junior.

"What's the matter? I'm supposed to be the evil one, but I can't outdo the human beings up there and especially the lawyers. Not even I could have thought of trench warfare in the First World War. Thirty million dead. And what about the Holocaust? Excuse me, but that little number made everything I'd tried up until then pale into insignificance. And later on? Uganda? Ethiopia? The Balkans? Ethnic cleansing? Land mines? Bombs in kindergartens and schools? Massacres? Genocide? You lot are so evil that I can't keep pace. I've given it a miss and all I want is to break a hundred.
And
I am going to do it."
The Devil's voice broke with a sob at the end of the sentence.
"I am going to do it. Do you understand?"

"Have you been trying long?” ventured Jones P. junior.

"For about twenty fucking years, ever since I got hooked on this cursed game.” Satan took a deep breath and tried to compose himself. “I put the idea into those idiotic kilt wearing Geordies heads in the first place. The game is so puerile, so silly, so frustrating. Grown men and women walking miles to try to hit a little white ball into a hole. It's even more stupid than cricket or baseball. It was supposed to drive people mad and cause them to do really horrible things to themselves and to each other, and it was working really well. But now I've gone and got hooked on the stupid game myself
and I can't break a fucking hundred
even with the help of these former so called champions."

He pointed his finger and vaporised two more former British Open champions and one ex-U.S. Masters champ. The rest of his advisers ducked for cover. “You can run, you bastards, but you can't hide. If I don't break a hundred soon, you'll all be little puddles of grease like your friends.

"I understand your frustration, sire, but I am offering you the world."

"Offer me a ninety-nine scorecard and I'll give
you
the world. What do I want with the world when I'm trying to break a hundred and get myself a handicap?"

"You could play all those wonderful courses we have up there."

"I'm going to do it here before I move anywhere. Besides, you're all too evil for me. I want nothing more to do with any of you. Except former golf champions who might improve my swing or my putting. Do you know I eleven putted the thirteenth yesterday? I vaporised half my putting staff for that. Eleven putted! And I took fourteen on the fifth, and that's a par three."

"I am awfully sorry to hear that, sire. You won't reconsider and take over the world? We have the messenger from God to deal with. You did ring me about him. I thought you were interested."

"I let you know as a matter of courtesy because my spies let me know. You can do what you like with the information. Win or lose, I don't care."

Jones P. senior was more patient than his son had ever seen him. He continued to try to convince the Devil to come onside. “He's vested this wimp named Jonathan Goodfellow with a mission to save the world. If they recognise him as God's messenger and reform their evil ways, God will take them on again, rule for good, and rid the world of evil."

"God said that? He's losing it. Does he really think human beings will believe that? Or even if they did, does he really believe that there aren't enough vested interests to annihilate anyone claiming to be on such a mission? Don't make me laugh. Who wins on Earth without evil? The arms manufacturers? The drug pushers? The Mafia? Bookmakers? The generals? The religious maniacs and despots that are always killing people? The so-called patriots that do it for a piece of ground? The businessmen who make fortunes from the misery of others? How can one lot of people stay filthy rich and over-fed if another, greater number of people doesn't starve and suffer? The whole set-up is better than anything I could ever have thought of, although I do take credit for encouraging greed and avarice, especially in lawyers. No, that world is full of such fucked-up people it's impossible for a mere Devil to consider making it more evil than it is. I always wanted to see God go down there himself on a donkey and make an ass of himself. Can you imagine what would happen if he pulled the same trick he had Jesus pull two thousand years ago? They'd skin him alive. For that matter, they didn't do a bad job last time. No one wants to know about truth, light, beauty, all that crap. They just want to get on and break a hundred, score a ton, score a goal, score a touchdown, score, make that million, lay that babe or stud, drink, snort or inject, play the pokies, back that winner, do unto your fellow man, but do it first. Why bathe in the pool at Bethesda when you can apply lineament to your tennis elbow? Do you think people would be interested in the second coming or in listening to a messenger from God if the thing wasn't carried by CNN? Even I've got cable, and I watch the golf all the time.
Those bastards always break a hundred.
Tiger Woods shot a sixty-two the other day.
Sixty-fucking-two? How does he do it? How do any of them do it?"

"So I take it you're not interested in taking over when Jonathan does fail?"

"Take over? No! You can stick the place. It's all too black for me."

"So you won't mind if, perhaps, I take over—with the help of my son here—when we subvert this Goodfellow fool and the bevy of cohorts he's picked up along the way?"

The Devil was silent as he eyed the Jones P.'s. He was silent for so long that both men began to squirm. When he spoke, it was in a more reflective manner than before.

"I see. That's what this visit of yours is about. You want the world? Well you can have it. You and your lawyer friends can rule. You just about do now, so why not go the whole hog, hey? Here's the deal. I'll stay out of it on condition that when I break a hundred down here, I get the right to play any course I want up there at any time I want to play. Deal?"

"It's a done deal.” Senior shook the Devil's hand.

"And now I will play that last shot again, because you put me off."

One of the advisers, who had won three grand slams in his time, stuck his head up from where he had been hiding in a clump of bushes. “That's against the rules..."

The Devil's finger rose and pointed straight at him.

"Except on Saturdays after three p.m.,” hurriedly advised the adviser.

Satan looked at his watch. It was five past three. He nodded and took a ball from his pocket and dropped it on the ground as he took another seven-iron from his bag. Smoke poured from his nostrils, as he swayed his hips and adjusted his stance. He swung and watched as the ball soared.

"Go, go, get up there,” roared the Devil, as he once again watched the arc of his shot. “No, no, not the water. Not the fucking water."

The Jones P.'s tried to hide their smirks as they entered the elevator. As the doors closed, they could see the second seven iron wrapped around the same tree the first seven iron had been wrapped around. Satan was throwing another tantrum, drumming his fists and feet into the turf as he lay on the grass on his belly. The hiss of the elevator's doors cut off the sounds of the Devil's screams and sobs. The elevator soared upwards true to its path, unlike the golf balls struck by the black master of Hades.

Celine Dion burst once again into her greatest hits. Jones P. junior felt vaguely ill and wondered if this were the product of the stomach lurching lift ride, his brush with the invisible world, or the quality of the muzak.

The van sped down to the end of the main street and took the corner on two wheels with a screech of tyres. There was a babble of excited voices from the people and rabbits crammed into the van.

"Thank you, you saved our lives."

"You stink."

"Slow down man, no-one's following."

"There was, but I lost him."

"Bullshit."

"Can we go home now?"

The van slowed down as Sampson eased back on the accelerator.

"You always drive too fast, fast,” said Old Crone.

"Force of habit, sorry.” He grinned engagingly, and Jonathan wondered why Sampson often drove at high speed and why he worried that people were following him. He decided it was probably best that he didn't know.

"You saved our lives.” Marcie's voice was full of gratitude. “How did you happen to be there?"

"We was down the back, the back. We heard what you was sayin', sayin’ and saw all those creeps chasin’ you, chasin’ you."

"So we come out and grabbed the van Sampson stole last week and, hey man, we mounted a rescue.” The dwarf looked extremely pleased with himself.

"What were you doing at the meeting?” Jonathan was aware of the warmth and feel of Marcie's body as she pressed against him when the van rounded corners.

"We saw what you was doin’ and sayin’ in the paper, paper. So we come to see what you had to say for yourself, yourself."

"Where are we going?” Marcie sounded a little worried.

"Back to where we're living now.” The dwarf flashed her a smile. “It's okay, we're not kidnapping you. We want your help."

"We don't know what to do.” Cowley sounded close to tears. “We've got ourselves mixed up in something, and we don't know how to get out."

"You want our help? The last time I saw you, the dwarf hit me from behind and knocked me unconscious. Why did you do that?"

"You had the gun. I didn't know what you were going to do."

"I was firing through the door. Couldn't you see that I was on your side?"

"Yeah, sorry, I just panicked a bit."

"You say you found God?” Cowley was interested.

Jonathan explained matters in more detail than he had earlier in the night from the stage of the Blofield West Town Hall. The others listened in silence until he finished.

The dwarf flashed his engaging grin once again. “So where's the sting?"

"Sting?” Jonathan was puzzled.

"Yeah, I mean how you gonna make dough out of this? Who's the suckers you're going to con the bread out of?"

"Excuse me, this is real. Thank you."

"You mean dinky di, Ridgey dij, no foolin'?” The dwarf was sending him up.