Anthology.The.Mammoth.Book.of.Angels.And.Demons.2013.Paula.Guran by Anthology Read Free Book Online Page A

across a record.
    “Alan? What’s going on?”
    The answer came in Billy’s own voice, singing softly:
     
At midnight on that stormy night there came an awful wail –
Billy Lyons and a graveyard ghost outside the city jail.
“Jailer, jailer,” says Stack. “I can’t sleep.
For around my bedside poor Billy Lyons still creeps.
He comes in the shape of a lion with a blue steel in his hand.
For he knows I’ll stand and fight if he comes in shape of man.
     
    “Alan, don’t pull this shit.”
    “It’s not coming from my end, Billy.”
    Floorboards complained in an upstairs bedroom. The receiver squawked like a wounded bird and then went quiet. A single thought hit Billy, something he should have realized long before now: if the blood on the wall was fresh enough to drip down the fireplace, the painter couldn’t be far away.
    “Alan, I think someone’s in the house.”
    “Get out of there. Get the hell out. If you won’t go to the cops, come over here . . .”
    Billy dropped the receiver and ran for the door. He twisted the knob as his own voice roared at him from somewhere upstairs:
     
Red devil was sayin’, “You better hunt your hole;
I’ve hurried here from hell just to get your soul.”
     
    Billy hit the brakes and the Testarossa screeched to a stop just inches away from a Pinto’s rusty bumper. Music slammed at him from six speakers, and he stared at the red light and tried to stop thinking about the blood on his Fender Stratocaster. He popped the clutch when the light turned green and the Testarossa peeled out, whipped up an on-ramp, and roared onto the freeway.
     
Yes, Stackalee, the gambler, everybody knowed his name:
Made his livin’ hollerin’ high, low, jack and the game.
     
    Once more, Billy slapped at the tape deck controls, but his effort was useless. In the short time that he’d been in the house, someone had screwed with the deck. The knobs wouldn’t turn. The eject button wouldn’t work. The deck was caked with some kind of superglue, and the only song that Billy was going to hear tonight was his newest hit, his own version of “Stackalee” cranked up to full volume, over and over—
    A horn blared from the right. Billy jerked the wheel and brought the Testarossa back into the fast lane. He glanced at the rear-view mirror and spotted the car he’d nearly sideswiped. A big lemon-yellow Cadillac. The Caddy flipped its brights and pulled behind him.
    Shit. Billy eyed the pimpmobile’s smoked windows and angry lights, and then he eyed himself in the Testarossa’s rearview mirror. His long blond hair was stringy with sweat (the same hair that Tiger Beat always referred to as “Lyons’ mane”), and his eyes were swimming with fear.
    Billy looked away. He rolled down the window and gulped a deep breath of winter air as he hit the gas, leaving the Caddy behind.
     
It was on one cold and frosty night
When Stackalee and Billy Lyons had one awful fight.
All about an old Stetson hat.
     
    Billy stared at the tape deck, his lips curling in disgust. “It’ll be a great record, Billy,” he said, his voice a lisping imitation of his agent’s. “Folk music’s in. Ethnic music too. We can hire these Delta blues boys for next to nothing. It worked for Paul Simon, didn’t it? He gave those African singers a hit record, and you can do the same thing for these old boys.”
    Billy gripped the wheel and thought about that. The Delta bluesmen hadn’t even cared about having a hit. They’d only wanted the money. All through the session they’d treated Billy like a plantation overseer who was pushing for an extra bag of cotton. Oh, they’d been polite about it, but they’d never gone out of their way to influence the project. Until Alan said that they should record “Stackalee”, that is.
    The old men wouldn’t touch it. “You shouldn’t ought to sing that one,” said a guitar player called Iron Box Jack.
    “Why not?” Alan asked. “It’s too perfect to pass up. It’s