Page 49 of Lost Souls

“I know I’m going against the critical consensus,” I tell him, “but I quite enjoyedShowgirls.” Industry talk – helps to break the ice. “How goes it, Arnie?”

Arnie is not so far gone he can’t figure that folks might find it strange him talking pretty animatedly to an empty space at the side of the stage, but he is certainly way past the stage of giving a damn.

“As bad as it gets, Ambrose,” he replies, although, to be honest, this is not entirely new information. I may not be one hundred per cent omnipresent, but I’ve been around. “Noreen knows I’m a big erotica producer –and,by the way, a major Triple-Dick award winner yet again – so now she’s been and had a gangbuster makeover and gone off with some show-offy black dude. So, it’s goodnight and good luck.”

“Hey, well, win her back.”

“It ain’t that easy, mister! This guy, he’s handsome… charismatic…magnetic. I personally think he’s kind of stunning, in a completely non-homosexual way.”

Now I’ll level with you, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from the Dead Poets Society – and Idomean dead – it’s that a writer has to respect his or her readers. Another thing I know is you probably do have to be a little bit afraid of Virginia Woolf, but that’s another story. See, since I discovered the rather large fly recently dropping unannounced into the ointment (Fly? Ascorpion!), I haven’t been entirely sure how to play this. Because I know that now, with these new and completely unforeseen circumstances – hey, total omniscience is also above my pay grade – I have to impart a clear and present sense of urgency into my man. Not that the whole thing isn’t pretty damn urgent anyway. But, well, you know me and my sense of drama.

“Oh, God!” I gasp dramatically. “What was his name?Quick, Arnie – what was his name?”

“How the hell would— Miles or Niles or…”

“Say it isn’t Lyle.”

“That’s it! Lyle!”

“Jesus Christ!” I say into his face. And I mean it. But I also admit that letting my entire body be enveloped in a crackling blue light is a bit Spielberg, bless him.

“Jesus Christ?” repeats Arnie, thinking anything’s possible.

“It’s an expression!”

I grab the trembling man by both shoulders, which of course he doesn’t feel, because I’m totally weightless and also on a very strict diet, but it does help to make the point (and, ethereal or not, I can still smell his boozy breath, which, trust me, could wake the dead).

“Well congratulations, Arnie. Know who you just met? The name Satan ring any bells? Beelzebub? Diablo? Lucifer? Old Nick? Jack Nicholson in that movie with the pretty witches?”

“He definitely said his name was Lyle.”

“That’s just another aka! To the world, he’s Lyle. To us, he’sformally known as Prince of Darkness!”

Arnie just stares at me. “Shit!” he says, in horror. “Now I’ve gothimon my case too?”

By this time, my guy is completely freaked out. If he had enough hair, it would be turning white.Wouldn’t yours?To discover that the girl of your dreams has gone straight over to the Devil! Okay, Noreen probably isn’t the stuff that Arnie’s dreams are usually made of, but she has certainly been on his waking and sleeping mind since at least Tuesday. And if Lyle isn’t quite the Devil yet – I’mnot the world expert on Satanic pecking orders, so sue me – he is certainly one of the Devil’s disciples. Which reminds me of a play by George Bernard Shaw, but don’t get me started on late Irish playwrights. Not if you want to know what happens with Arnie and Noreen and Lyle by Sunday. Which I’m pretty damn interested in myself, by the way, especially as to how this Lyle guy knew about the whole soul-misplacement mishigas forty-five years ago. You think there’s a mole in heaven? Call for George Smiley!

Anyway, I’m so busy mulling over all these new complications, I almost don’t notice that someone else is on the opposite side of the stage from yours truly, her thickly mascaraed eyes glued onto an agitated husband talking feverishly into thin air.

And she has a far smaller gentleman watching right along with her.

Lucky, I can lipread.

“That him?” exclaims Big Louie, who can’t quite believe what he is looking at and would rather look at what’s taking off on the stage just above him.

“Yeah. That’s my Arnie. Talking to himself again. They tell me he did that at the hospital. How did you track him down?”

“I got my sources.”

One of the dancers winks at him from the stage. He gives her a flip of his ponytail.

“And pretty much everyone in this burg owes Big Louie a favor.”

Despite herself, Melisande is clearly impressed.

“Any idea what the hell he’s doing here?” asks BigLouie.

“Who knows?” screeches Melisande, but quietly. “He’s finally flipped. Danger to himself and others. That’s why I want him… you know.”