For a moment P.J. seemed stunned, but then he said, "What an odd thing to say, little brother."
"When did you make your bargain?" Joey asked, hoping that he was right about P.J.'s psychotic fantasy and was playing into it in a way that would shake him out of his smug complacency.
"Bargain?" P.J. asked.
"When did you sell your soul?"
Shifting his attention to Celeste, P.J. said, "You must have helped him puzzle it out. His mind doesn't have a dark bent that would let him see the truth on his own. Certainly not in the couple of hours since he opened my car trunk. You're an interesting young lady. Who are you?"
Celeste didn't answer him.
"The girl by the road," P.J. said. "I know that much. I would hat had you by now if Joey hadn't interfered. But who else are you?"
Secret identities. Dual identities. Conspiracies. P.J. was indeed operating in the complex and melodramatic world of a paranoid psychotic with religious delusions, and he evidently believed that he saw in Celeste some otherworldly presence.
She remained silent. Crouching by the balustrade. One hand on hey shotgun, which lay on the presbytery floor.
Joey hoped she wouldn't use the weapon. They needed either to lure P.J. farther into the church, within range — or they needed to convince him that they didn't need guns at all and felt confident about trusting in the power of the holy ground on which they stood.
"Know where the thirty bucks came from, Joey?" P.J. asked. "From Beverly Korshak's purse. Now I'll have to gather it up and put it its your pocket again later. Preserve the evidence."
At last Joey understood what role P.J. had in mind for him. was expected to take the fall for everything his brother had done — and would do — this night. No doubt his own murder would have been made to look like suicide: Priest-loving, rosary-kissing altar flips out, kills twelve in Satanic ceremony, takes own life, film al eleven.
He had escaped that fate twenty years ago when he had failed to follow P.J. onto Coal Valley Road — but he'd taken a turn into another destiny that had been nearly as bad. This time, he had to avoid both those options.
"You asked when I sold my soul," P.J. said, still lingering in the narthex archway. "I was thirteen, you were ten. I got hold of the books about Satanism, the Black Mass — neat stuff. I was ripe for them Joey. Held my funny little ceremonies in the woods. Small animals on my little altar in the woods. I was ready to slit your throat, kiddo, and cut your heart out if nothing else had worked. But it didn't come to that. It was so much easier than that. I'm not even sure the ceremonies were necessary, you know? I think all that was necessary was to want it badly enough. Wanting it with every fiber of my being, with all my heart, wanting it so badly that I hurt with wanting it — that's what opened the door and let him in."
"Him?" Joey said.
"Satan, Scratch, the devil, spooky old Beelzebub," said P.J. in a jokey and theatrical tone of voice. "Boy, he's not at all like that, Joey. He's actually a warm, fuzzy old beast — at least to those who embrace him."
Though Celeste remained crouched behind the balustrade, Joey rose to his full height.
"That's right, kiddo," P.J. encouraged. "Don't be afraid. Your big brother won't spout green fire out his nose or sprout leathery wings."
Desert-dry heat was still coming through the floor.
Like ectoplasmic faces pressed to the glass, condensation began to form on some of the windows.
"Why did you do it, P.J.?" Joey asked, pretending to believe in such things as souls and bargains with the devil.
"Oh, kiddo, even then I was sick to death of being poor, afraid of growing up to be a useless piece of shit like our old man. Wanted money in my pocket, cool cars when I got old enough for them, my pick of the girls. And there was no way that was ever going to happen to me like I was, not when I was just one of the Shannon boys, living in a room next to the furnace. But after I made the deal — well, look what happened. Football star. Top grades in my class. Most popular boy in school. Girls couldn't wait to spread their legs for me — and even after I'd dump one of them, she'd still love me, moon over me, never say a word against me. Then a full scholarship to a Catholic university, and how's that for irony"
Joey shook his head in denial. "You were always a good athlete, even as a kid. And real smart. And everyone always liked you. You always had those things, P.J."
"The hell I did," P.J. said, raising his voice for the first time. "God gave me nothing when I came into this world, nothing, nothing but crosses to bear. He's a great advocate of suffering, God is. A real sadist. I had nothing until I made a deal for it."
Reason and logic would have no effect on him, especially not if his psychosis had taken root when he'd been a child. He was a long time gone into madness. The only hope of manipulating him into a disadvantageous position was to play into his fantasy, encourage him.
P.J. said, "Why don't you try it, Joey? You won't have to learn a lot of chants, conduct ceremonies in the woods, none of that. Just want it, open your heart to it, and you can have your own companion."
"Companion?"
"Like I have Judas. A rider on the soul. I invited him into me. I let him out of Hell for a while, and in return he takes good care of me. He has big plans for me, Joey. Wealth, fame. He wants me to satisfy every desire I have, because he experiences everything through me — feels the girls through me, tastes the champagne, shares the sense of power, the glorious power, when it's time to kill. He wants only the very best for me, Joey, and he makes sure that I get it. You could have a companion of your own, kiddo. I can make it happen, I really, can."
Joey was rendered speechless by the astonishing complexity of P.J.'s twisted fantasy of Faustian bargains, negotiated damnation, and possession. If he had not spent twenty years reading the most exotic cases of aberrant psychology ever published, he could not have begun to grasp the nature of the human monster with whom he was dealing He could not possibly have understood P.J. the first time that he'd lived through this night, because then he had lacked the special knowledge that allowed him to comprehend.
P.J. said, "You just have to want it, Joey. Then we kill this bitch here. One of the Dolan boys is sixteen. Big kid. We can make it look like he did it all, then killed himself. You and me — we walk away, and from now on we're together, tighter than brothers, together like we've never been before."
"What do you really need me for, P.J.?"
"Hey, I don't need you, Joey. I'm not out to use you for any reason. I just love you. Don't you think I love you? I do. You're my baby: brother. Aren't you my one and only little baby brother? Why shouldn't I want to have you at my side, share my good fortune with you?"
Joey's mouth was dry, and not just from the sudden heat. For the first time since turning off the county route onto Coal Valley Road, he longed for a double shot of Jack Daniel's. "I think you just need me to take down the crucifix for you. Maybe hang it upside down instead of the way it is."
P.J. didn't respond.
"I think you're desperate to finish the little tableau that you started to set up here, but now you're afraid to come into the church since we've restored things."
"You haven't restored anything," P.J. said scornfully.
"I bet if I took down the crucifix, blew out the candles, tore up the altar, if I just made the place safe for you again — then you'd kill both of us, just like you planned all along."