FREE SHORT STORY —

Beat the Devil

   The Devilsat at Penman’s place at the bar. Forty-five feet of gleaming mahogany, a couple dozen empty barstools to choose from, not another drinker in the joint, and the sonofabitch had taken Penman’s favorite spot. The far corner where most of the light came from the exit sign above the back door.
   It was the only place in town Penman could write his thrice-weekly column for the Great Metropolitan Daily. Penman had written for newspapers for 30 years, up and down both coasts and in a lot of burgs in between. He’d worked for journals with circulations of more than a million and rags that were little better than shopping mall throwaways. He’d called them all the Great Metropolitan Daily.
   At the moment, his roller coaster was at the crest of another hill. Maybe his last view of the world from on high. Which was all right with him. For the first time in decades, he didn’t owe a cent of alimony, and a liver transplant had saved his life.
   He felt a little guilty about the transplant. His old liver had been done in by a Niagara of booze; he’d gone over the falls in barrels of scotch too many times to remember. His new organ came courtesy of a 29-year-old Sunday school teacher who’d made the mistake of stopping at a tollbooth in front of an 18-wheeler whose brakes failed. The bereaved widower had visited Penman in the hospital. He’d told him what a wonderful woman his wife had been, and how Penman should try to live up to having her liver.
   At almost any other time in his life, Penman would have told the guy to fuck off. Possession was 9/10ths of the law and the liver was his now. To do with as he damn well pleased. For some reason, though, he hadn’t spouted. He’d only mumbled, “Thanks. Do my best.” Adding a moment later, “Sorry for your loss.”
   He told himself that lapse was due to being dopey from the anesthesia.
   Now, six months later, he worried that the Sunday school teacher’s liver had infected him — with a regard for the future and other people’s feelings. He couldn’t bring himself to drink anything but water: club soda here at Rick’s on the River, straight out of the tap anywhere else. If this got out, he’d be ruined.
   Sobriety did have its benefits, however. He was saving a greater portion of his income than he ever would have believed possible. It looked like he might not wind up on a street corner holding a cup and a sign.
Help me. If I can take the big fall, so can you.
   His new sense of sweetness and light extended only so far. Penman stood behind the guy who’d usurped his rightful place at the bar. He was now close enough, and intentionally so, to breathe down the creep’s neck.
   He was ready for a confrontation, if need be. Penman, like William “The Refrigerator” Perry, had been big since he was little. And all the clean living had made him feel stronger than he had in years. So vital, in fact, he’d even rediscovered his sex drive. Sans Viagra. Which might be a mixed blessing.
   “Hey,” Penman said.
   “Just warming your seat, friend.”
   The guy slid one stool to his left, not even looking at Penman.
   Who still wasn’t satisfied. He liked his elbow room.
   As if the guy knew, he moved over one more place.
   Still hadn’t looked at Penman, though.
   Marty, the bartender who worked what Penman had dubbed “The Morning Midlife-Crisis Hour,” brought him his bottle of Calistoga and a glass with ice and a twist of lime. On his way back to reading his newspaper opposite the cash register at the center of the bar, Marty asked the guy who’d been “warming” Penman’s seat if he wanted another. The guy shook his head. He gave Marty a twenty and told him to keep the change.
   Big shot.
   Penman sat down and jumped right back up again.
   Felt like he’d plunked his ass onto a bed of white-hot coals.
He stared at the bar stool to see what kind of trick had been played on him. Damn thing looked perfectly normal. He extended his hand, keeping it several inches above the seat. Even so, he could still feel the heat. So how could ...
   He turned to look at the joker who’d been sitting there.
   The guy was looking back at him now. Wearing a hand-tailored suit. Jet black hair combed back. Eyes so dark Penman couldn’t distinguish pupil from iris. A red glow to his skin like he’d gotten too much sun. Clean shaven except for a spiky tuft of hair under his lower lip. A soul patch.
   The guy gave him a grin and said, “It’ll cool off in a bit.”
   “Yeah” Penman asked. “So what’s with you, your ass on fire?”
   The guy liked that one. Grinned wider. Penman caught a flash of teeth. Very white but — Jesus — had they all been filed to points?
   That was when the guy told him, “I like heat: I’m the devil.”
   Penman wanted to crack wise, but just like that time in the hospital with the widower, his natural instincts failed him. He couldn’t get a word out. Maybe because he believed the guy.
   “You can sit down now,” the devil told him.
Penman took him at his word. Sat right down. The seat was still warm but comfortably so. No, better than that. Pleasurably so. His ass startled to tingle. His balls, too.
   “A little heat’s nice, isn’t it?” the devil asked.
   Penman wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction.
   “What do you want?” he asked.
   “Come on. You know the answer to that.”
   “Maybe. But I like a direct answer.”
   “Going to make me work for it,” the devil said.
   Penman nodded.
   “Okay. I stopped by to see if you’d like to sell your soul.”
   Penman laughed.
   “No, really,” the devil said. “The usual deal: I get your soul; you get anything you want. Anything at all.”
   Penman poured his Calistoga into his glass, listened to the ice crack as the water hit it. He stirred his drink with a finger. He figured even with the new liver alcohol would continue to leach out of his body for years. If he recycled a bit of it into the sparkling water, he could honestly say he’d stepped into Rick’s for a mixed drink. He sucked his finger clean and looked at the devil.
   “I always figured you’d wind up with my soul anyway. The times I was ready to concede the existence of God and the devil.”
   “Oh, we’re very real,” the devil assured him.
   “I can see you are. But what’s your problem, you’re worried about losing me?”
   The devil shrugged. “Until recently, I figured you for a sure thing.”
   “I don’t doubt it,”Penman said. He remembered his first wife damning him to hell on a daily basis, but he thought he knew what the devil was getting at. “It’s the liver transplant, isn’t it? It’s having an effect.”
   “I’m afraid so. That particular organ donor is causing me no end of trouble. I hate to lose what I already consider mine.”
   Penman asked, “You don’t think I’ll backslide?”
   “Why take a chance?”
   Penman took a swig of his drink. When he’d first ordered a glass of water in a bar he’d felt emasculated. And the taste! Lord, W.C. Fields had it right. The stuff was fit only for bathing, and that just barely. But he soon found that his balls were not only still present and accounted for, but as mentioned they were making him friskier than he’d been in years. Not only that, he was actually starting to like the taste of the swill.
   “Well, the way I see it,” Penman told the devil, “you’ve got two problems.”
   “Anything you want,” the devil reminded him. “Nothing’s out of reach.”
   “That’s problem number one. I’ve already indulged every vice that used to interest me. To excess. Which, I’ll admit, is the way to indulge a vice. But now I look back on what I used to do and it bores the hell out of me, you should pardon the expression. But that’s not even the big problem.”
   “What is?”
   “Come on. You know the answer to that.”
   Penman enjoyed throwing the devil’s words back at him.
   “But you answered my question,” he continued, “so I’ll answer yours. The main reason I’d never make a deal with you is you’re a loser. The all-time loser. You were God’s right-hand man. Well, angel. And now look at you. Reduced to hustling souls in gin joints. If I let you sucker me, what kind of schmuck am I?”
   The devil didn’t take offense.
   Getting up to go, he said, “We’ll just have to see.”

   Penman finished his column: 450 words on why the public shouldn’t object to the mayor’s daughter marrying the son of the local crime boss, the gist being the two fathers had been in bed together for years, so why shouldn’t the kids have their fun, too?
   Marty brought Penman a corned beef sandwich as soon as he saw the scribe had stopped writing. Before Penman could take a bite, his editorial assistant, Kelly, sat down next to him and swiped his pickle. Looked him right in the eye, gave him her crooked grin, and dared him to object. When he didn’t, she opened wide and halved the pickle with a loud crunch.
   Penman observed her teeth as she chewed. Cosmetically white with perfect occlusion. The product of the latest high-tech dental polish and orthodontia paid for by many hours of paternal overtime.
   He was mildly relieved to see that Kelly’s teeth hadn’t all been filed to points.
   He was still debating with himself whether his encounter with the devil had been real or some kind of recovering-alcoholic delirium. Really now, why would the devil want to buy his soul? Penman couldn’t believe that six months of relative probity was enough to earn salvation after a lifetime of debauchery. He supposed that he could check the seat of his pants for scorch marks, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know that badly.
   Kelly finished the pickle and grabbed half of his sandwich. She gestured to him to hand over his handwritten column. Among her various talents was the ability to read Penman’s scribble. It was a necessary skill as Kelly was the one who transcribed his chicken-scratches into type and sent it along to his editor. Not that anyone actually edited Penman. There had been those who’d tried, of course, but they’d been the cretins who had caused all the fist fights in the newsroom, criminal hearings in the courtroom, and the inevitable dismissals or resignations that followed.
   Even Kelly, hard-charger that she was, knew better than to change so much as a punctuation mark in one of his pieces. Her complete acceptance of his work was one of her charms. As was the fact that she usually got what he had to say; not everybody did. Right now, for instance, she was smiling and bobbing her head as she read. She stopped long enough to give Marty a wink as he brought her a sandwich and a beer.
   Penman had never been much of a beer drinker. He’d always made enough dough to afford real alcohol, the hard stuff. But, post-transplant, he’d become fascinated by Kelly’s brews. The golden color, the creamy white head, the pleasingly bitter aroma. He could almost taste it.
   He stuck his finger back into his sparkling water.
   Kelly didn’t seem to have a drinking problem. She had just one beer with lunch, and one more after work. Never had another beer, or anything else, at one sitting. Even if she had a beer with breakfast, a meal he’d never shared with her, that’d make only three per day — separated by hours of abstinence. Which meant she never drank to get drunk, or even enjoy a mild buzz. He was glad she didn’t have his problem.
   You just couldn’t count on a Sunday school teacher being there to give up her liver for you.
   Still reading, Kelly put half of her sandwich on his plate. Compensation for what she’d filched. Only she’d stolen corned beef and repaid him with ... liverwurst. Rick’s hadn’t even offered that crap until Kelly browbeat them into making it specially for her. On pumpernickel yet. She knew that Penman would never eat the offering, and in a few minutes she’d take it back and wolf it down. She never offered him her pickle.
   Kelly reminded him of one of his wives. He couldn’t remember if it was number three or four. Anyway, the two of them were world-beaters. He was sure that Kelly would end up running, if not outright owning, some major publication. He could see himself in his dotage working for her, if only to bring her a sandwich and a beer.
   In the meantime, he could enjoy watching her climb to the top of the journalistic food-chain, devouring the slower, weaker animals on the savanna.
   Of course, he’d have to dwell on the professional aspects of their relationship, avoid focusing on her obvious physical charms: face and figure both. After all, she was young enough to be his daughter, and for the first time in his life that was actually starting to matter to him. Damn that transplant! It was probably for the best, though. Wife number three or four had reamed him for more alimony than any of the others, and he was sure Kelly could outclass her without breaking a sweat.
   Penman knocked back a slug of sparkling water and finger sludge.
   Kelly looked up from her reading and smiled at him.
   Then she downed her beer like a frat-boy in a chug-a-lug contest.
   “You can really write for an old man,” she told Penman. “When I grow up, I want to be just like you. Except for the hairy back and shoulders, the receding hairline, and ... Well, I’d like to write just like you.”
   She gave him a wink, grabbed the uneaten half of her liverwurst sandwich, and took the column with her for the walk back to the office.
   Penman watched her go, admiring her rear view as she left Rick’s and her profile as she passed by the front window. He thought maybe Kelly would be worth a boatload of alimony.
   That confounding thought was driven from his mind a moment later when he saw the devil follow close in Kelly’s footsteps.
   And the satanic SOB turned to look at Penman as he went by.
   Look and give him a wink.

   “Why didn’t you tell me?” Kelly demanded.
   Penman was writing his next column the next day and he was surprised that she’d interrupted him. Interrupting was the only sin worse than editing in Penman’s world.
   He glared at Kelly, trusting that would be enough to quiet her.
   Instead, she put her hand on his arm and said, “About the devil, I mean.”
   Penman would have told her to shut up ... except her hand was warm.
More than 98.6 degrees warm. Her hair was mussed, too. Penman was alert enough to fashion trends to know that some young women adopted an intentionally disheveled look, but Kelly was not one of them. Or hadn’t been. And now her eyes were different, too. The look in them was one he dimly remembered from his youth, when desire had nothing to do with money, power, or career climbing, only pure carnal need. The fact that she was directing such a look at him was more than a little distracting.
   He took her hand off his arm and said, “Gimme a minute, okay?”
   The irony here was the subject of that day’s column: a city vice cop had gone into business as a tour guide for visiting Asian businessmen who longed to experience the town’s finer fleshpots. The copper guaranteed a good time: clean girls and nobody pulling any scams or rip-offs on them. He’d been knocking down a quarter-mil a year when —
   Kelly ran her fingernails up the inside of Penman’s thigh.
   He almost yelped. But biting his tongue, he jotted down the final sentence of his column. After being arrested, the vice cop jumped bail and disappeared, but undoubtedly his inspired idea lived on and horny business travelers could sleep easy when they came to town, even when their sleeping companions charged a small fortune for their affections.
   Penman put his pen down and looked Kelly in the eye.
   She seemed ready to jump him right there. Marty was gentleman enough to look the other way, but there was no telling if someone else might stop in for an early belt.
   Besides that, Penman had a concern even more serious than being caught with his pants down. He said to Kelly, “Please tell me you didn’t ...”
   She laughed. About an octave lower than she used to.
   Penman didn’t like that at all.
   “Sell my soul? Am I that dumb? You should know better.”
   Penman asked for a direct answer.
   “No, I didn’t sell my soul,” Kelly told him. “I’m just messing with his head.”
   “You’re messing with the devil’s head?”
   “Uh-huh.”
   He didn’t smell any booze on her, but she had to be drunk.
   “He’s giving me freebies. Little tastes of what he can do. No obligation.”
   Marty brought sandwiches for both of them, caught the vibe, and didn’t linger.
   “I ever tell you how I paid for college?” Penman asked her.
   “Writing term papers?”
Penman grinned. “I thought of that but it was too much work. I played cards. Poker. Draw, stud, hold’em: I didn’t care. I won at all of them. I made enough to pay my tuition, buy a car, get loaded every weekend, even rent a pretty nice apartment.”
   “So why go into the news racket? Why not just play cards?”
   “I tried. I went to Vegas and lost every cent. I was hell on college boys, but the pros were hell on me. You get what I’m saying?”
   Kelly laughed her new scary laugh again.
   “I can take care of myself, old man.” She leaned close and whispered, “I could take care of you, too. Right now if you want to sneak into the men’s room with me.”
   She wasn’t going to listen, he thought. She’d get conned. Lose her soul. Seeing that would break his heart. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
   Well, there was one thing.
   Penman said, “Kelly, you’re fired.”

   Kelly did it. Sold her soul. Only thing was, Penman should have known what she’d get from the devil in return. He should have, but he didn’t see it coming. Even after she’d told him she wanted to be just like him.
   She went across the street to the number two paper in town, the Not-So-Great Metropolitan Daily. The punk paper was a tabloid. Sleazeball foreign ownership. Half the circulation of Penman’s journal. Hired scribes who couldn’t write their way out of a freshman composition course.
   Within a month, Kelly’s new column cut the tabloid’s circulation deficit by two-thirds. Her initial employment contract was torn up and her new salary was reported by the tabloid’s celebrity columnist. It was twice the money Penman had made in his best year. Beyond that, Kelly had signed to do monthly pieces for a TV news show.
   This meteoric ascent was propelled by what Penman had to admit was some very sharp writing. Five days a week. But it made Penman think of ball players who hit a ton of home runs and then refused to undergo steroid testing. Still, what could he do? Insist Kelly pee in a cup and test her specimen for brimstone?
   Penman was facing tough competition but he didn’t give in. He reported with more energy and ingenuity than at any time since his first liver was fresh and young. Every time Kelly unearthed a scandal, Penman topped it. When Kelly reported that the head of the city council was taking bribes from real estate developers for zoning variances, Penman revealed that the middle-aged pol’s mommy still spanked his bare bottom, at sonny-boy’s request.
   But Penman knew that he couldn’t compete over the long haul. He was only a man, not the Prince of Darkness. It broke his heart what Kelly had done to herself. He’d been wrong about not having to witness the whole sad show, too. She made a point of writing her column at Rick’s just the way he did, taking the stool at the opposite end of the bar.
   Her posse came along with her, of course. A gaggle of sycophants hanging on her every word, keeping all the horny guys away. Most of the time. Every once in a while, Kelly would pick one out of the pack, let him draw near, exchange a few salacious words, and even swap a little spit. The first time it had happened, Penman had actually witnessed the disgusting exchange. After which Kelly had favored him with a wink. Just like the devil had. From then on, he made a point of keeping his head down, trying to concentrate on his work. He still had to listen to the titters and wolf howls coming from the other end of the bar, though.
   It was enough to drive a man back to the bottle.
   Only Penman refused to give in.
   He took strength from his Sunday-school-teacher liver.
   Maybe she was even the one who inspired him, gave him the courage, to try the craziest idea of his life. He raised his hand and gestured to Marty, now one of the two bartenders who worked the new morning crowd.
   “Another Calistoga?” Marty asked.
   Penman shook his head.
   “How long you been working here, Marty?”
   “Not very long.”
   “Yeah, that occurred to me just now. I don’t remember you being here before I got my transplant. So who you working for?”
   “Sir?”
   “Oh, I know you work for Rick, but that’s just moonlighting. I was told not too long ago that God and the devil are both very real. I figure you’re with one of them. So what kind of angel are you? Exalted or fallen?”
   Marty grinned. He had the same dentist the devil did.
   Penman said, “Tell your boss I’d like to see him.”

   Penman thought the devil would be there in the wink of an eye, but the bastard kept him waiting longer than a tech-support phone call. Maybe he had taken offense when Penman had rebuffed him. Probably hadn’t liked being called a loser.
   Kelly and her crowd had cleared out. So had the back-up bartender. Only Marty lingered on the far side of the room. Penman was about to leave, too, when a hot hand fell upon his shoulder. Penman hadn’t seen the devil make his entrance, but being sneaky was the guy’s stock in trade.
   Penman gave the devil a look and he removed his hand.
   “Something I can do for you?” the devil asked.
   He took the stool next to Penman’s, their faces inches apart.
   “What do you call that silly little hairball on your chin?” Penman asked. “A lost soul patch?”
   The devil no longer found Penman amusing. He got up to go.
   “Hold on,” Penman said.
   The devil remained standing. Waited for Penman to speak.
   “I want to review something with you. You told me I can get anything I want for my soul.    Anything at all. Is that right?”
   The devil nodded.
   “No exceptions?” Penman asked.
   “None.”
   “Okay. I’m ready to deal.”
   The devil sat down. He took a contract out of an inside pocket. Put it on the bar in front of Penman, who saw that his name was already on it. Cocky bastard, he thought. That was only going to make things even sweeter.
   As a legal instrument, the contract was simplicity itself. In consideration for relinquishing his immortal soul to the perpetual custody of the devil, Penman would receive ... There was a blank space for him to fill in whatever he desired. There was also a line for his signature.
   “Do I have to sign in blood?” Penman asked.
   The devil took out a pen. “Ink is just as binding.”
   Penman took the pen and completed the form.
   The devil snatched the executed contract off the bar — and frowned.
   “I can’t read your writing,” he said.
   Penman told him, “What I want is for you to release all claim to Kelly’s soul, now and forever, amen. I’m swapping my soul for hers.”
   He felt that the Sunday school teacher who’d given him her liver would be proud.
   The devil was not so pleased.
   “I can’t do that,” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Once I have a soul, it’s mine. Abandon all hope. Even you must have heard of that.”
   “I have,” Penman agreed. “But you told me just now I could have anything I want. No exceptions. You have to live up to that agreement for our contract to be valid.”
   The devil’s complexion got a good deal redder.
   “It’s a pickle,” Penman said. “Possibly beyond your ability to resolve. But I believe you told me there’s a higher power who might settle the issue.”
   Penman grinned.
   The devil said, “You bastard.”
   The back door to Rick’s flew open and was filled with a celestial light.

   God was far too luminous to look at; easier to try staring at the sun. His light fell most brightly on Penman, as if trying to reveal some new trick the newsman might have in mind. Penman squeezed his eyes shut but did not avert his face.
   The devil, on the other hand, had to whip on a pair of Ray-Bans and, more gallingly, bow his head to his old boss. After an indeterminate period of time, the light got dialed back to a tolerable level. Penman dared to take a peek.
   He saw a guy dressed in a blue work shirt, jeans, and construction boots. No hardhat. But he looked like the original guy you’d never wanted to mess with.
   “Michael,” the devil said, removing his sunglasses.
   “Long time, Lou,” Michael answered. “Never expected to see you back here.”
   The devil looked around. To Penman, the place was a featureless white plane. Clearly, though, the devil could see more. Then Penman noticed the devil’s eyes. They were no longer featureless dark orbs. They were golden and reflected in them was a landscape only hinted at by the most beautiful places on earth.
   What a fool, Penman thought of the devil, to give up such a place.
   Then he thought: Uh-oh. He’d just given it up, too.
   Before Penman could get bummed out, Michael asked him, “Are you really that gutsy or just plain stupid?”
   Penman knew what he meant: giving up his soul for Kelly’s.
   “Mostly stupid; maybe a little gutsy. But at least it was a sober decision.”
   The tough guy grinned.
   “Are you Michael the Archangel?” Penman asked.
   “Yeah. I do the heavy lifting around here.”
   “Used to be my friend,” the devil said bitterly.
   Michael looked at the devil and then back to Penman.
   “You ever have friends who made truly awful mistakes?” Michael asked.
   “Plenty,” Penman said. “Though that was usually the part I played.”
   “You cut ‘em loose if you couldn’t reach them?”
   Penman remembered firing Kelly.
   “Yeah.”
   Penman had the uneasy feeling Michael knew just what he was thinking.
   “But this time,” the archangel said, “you gave away your soul for her.”
   “Yeah, I did. Don’t know why.”
   Michael shook his head. He wasn’t buying that.
   He told Penman, “We’ve got a saying around here. The ‘No Greater Love’ maxim. Used to be: no greater love hath one man than he lay down his life for another. Now, you’ve upped the ante big-time. You say you’re willing to lay down your soul for another. Which, I have to say, takes some big brass cojones.”
   Penman suddenly felt very uneasy.
   “Want to see what’s waiting for you?” Michael asked.
   Penman didn’t have a choice. Michael waved a hand like someone wiping steam off a bathroom mirror and Penman got a glimpse of hell. Holy shit! Dante hadn’t covered the half of it. Penman’s knees began to wobble.
   “Still want to go through with it?” Michael asked.
   Penman stared at his future.
   “It’s really not that bad,” the devil told him. “It’s a dry heat.”
   “You lying bastard,” Penman said. He was equally upset with himself. He’d made some dumb moves in the past but this one had to take the cake. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to try to weasel out. He’d had a long run; Kelly was just getting started. If he could save her from what he’d just seen, he had to do it.
   Besides, as Michael had just said, he loved her. Enough to impress even heaven.
   “Yeah,” Penman said, “let’s do it. While I’m down there suffering, I’ll console myself that I finally did the right thing.”
   The devil looked disgusted.
   Even Michael wore a look of consternation.
   As if Penman’s answer hadn’t been what he’d expected.
   Or even wanted.
   “What?” Penman asked.
   “All right,” the archangel told him, “this is going to take a while to sort out. Maybe quite a while. It’s an unprecedented situation. What you should do is have a drink or two while we work on it.”
   “Here?” Penman asked. “You serve drinks in heaven?”
   He imagined it. Free scotch for eternity and it never ruined your liver. If so, he was really going to regret not getting in.
   “Not here,” Michael said. “Someplace more familiar.”

   Kelly quit her job at the Not-So-Great Metropolitan Daily.
   “They were going to fire me anyway,” she told Penman.
   She’d returned to Rick’s, minus her entourage.
   As a peace offering, she’d bought Penman a corned beef sandwich. Didn’t even swipe his pickle.
   “I started fast,” she explained, “but I ran out of ideas. And I got tired of all my sources trying to hit on me. Which was maybe my fault for stringing them along. But it got so even Listerine didn’t make my mouth feel fresh anymore. I had to give up the whole thing.”
   She paused. Worked up her nerve.
   “So I’m looking for a job. You know anyone who’s hiring?”
   Penman asked, “You have any outstanding obligations?”
   Kelly shook her head. “I’m free as a bird.”
   He saw she was sincere. Which meant she had no memory of selling her soul. Which implied that Kelly would be off the hook.
   He, himself, had no such assurances. But from a lifetime of covering bureaucracies he was sure a decision on his fate would be a long time coming. Difficult choices were avoided, postponed, and delayed again. In this case, maybe forever.
   “So you going to take me back?” Kelly asked.
   Penman nodded.
   She grinned and swiped his pickle.
   “You’re too good to me,”she said.
   “You have no idea,” Penman replied.
   But as long as there was still a chance he might one day wind up in hell, he was going to make sure Kelly provided him with a lot of good memories to take with him.
   Alimony was no longer his biggest worry.

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