Practical Demonkeeping

the curtain rods.”
    “He wanted to talk to the wife. I don’t know nothin ’ about any magic. Maybe you should have landed in
Washington
. They run things from there.”
    The monster picked Effrom up and shook him like a rag doll.
    “Where is your wife, old man?”
    Effrom could almost hear his brain rattling in his head. The monster’s hand squeezed the breath out of him. He tried to answer, but all he could produce was a pathetic croak.
    “Where?” The monster threw him on the bed.
    Effrom felt the air burn back into his lungs. “She’s in Monterey, visiting our daughter.”
    “When will she be back? Don’t lie. I’ll know if you are lying.”
    “How will you know?”
    “Try me. Your guts should go well with this decor.”
    “She’ll be home in the morning.”
    “That’s enough,” the monster said. He grabbed Effrom by the shoulder and dragged him through the door. Effrom felt his shoulder pop out of its socket and a grinding pain flashed across his chest and back. His last thought before passing out was, God help me, I’ve killed the wife .

21
AUGUSTUS BRINE
    “I found them. The car is parked in front of Jenny Masterson’s house.” Augustus Brine stormed into the house carrying a grocery bag in each arm.
    Gian Hen Gian was in the kitchen pouring salt from a round, blue box into a pitcher of Koolaid .
    Brine set the bags down on the hearth. “Help me bring some of this stuff in. There’s more bags in the truck.”
    The genie walked to the fireplace and looked in the bags. One was filled with dry-cell batteries and spools of wire. The other was full of brown cardboard cylinders about four inches long and an inch in diameter. Gian Hen Gian took one of the cylinders out of the bag and held it up. A green, waterproof fuse extended from one end.
    “What are these?”
    “Seal bombs,” Brine said. “The Department of Fish and Game distributes them to fishermen to scare seals away from their lines and nets. I had a bunch at the store.”
    “Explosives are useless against the demon.”
    “There are five more bags in the truck. Would you bring them in, please?” Brine began to lay the seal bombs out in a line on the hearth. “I don’t know how much time we have.”
    “What am I, some scrounging servant? Am I a beast of burden? Should I, Gian Hen Gian , king of the Djinn , be reduced to bearing loads for an ignorant mortal who would attack a demon from hell with firecrackers?”
    “O King,” Brine said, exasperated, “please bring in the goddamn bags so I can finish this before dawn.”
    “It is useless.”
    “I’m not going to try to blow him up. I just want to know where he is. Unless you can use your great power to restrain him, O King of the Djinn .”
    “You know I cannot.”
    “The bags!”
    “You are a stupid, mean-spirited man, Augustus Brine. I’ve seen more intelligence in the crotch lice of harem whores.”
    The genie walked out the door and his diatribe faded into the night. Brine was methodically wrapping the fuses of the seal bombs with thin monofilament silver wire designed to heat up when a current was applied. It was an inexact method of detonation, but Brine had no access to blasting caps at this hour of the morning.
    The genie returned in a moment carrying two grocery bags.
    “Put them on the chairs.” Brine gestured with his head.
    “These bags are filled with flour,” Gian Hen Gian said. “Are you going to bake bread, Augustus Brine?”

22
TRAVIS AND JENNY
    There was something about her that made Travis want to dump his life out on the coffee table like a pocket full of coins; let her sort through and keep what she wanted. If he was still here in the morning, he’d tell her about Catch, but not now.
    “Do you like traveling?” Jenny asked.
    “I’m getting tired of it. I could use a break.”
    She sipped from a glass of red wine and pulled her skirt down for the tenth time. There was still a neutral zone between them on the couch.
    She said, “You don’t seem like any insurance salesman I’ve ever known. I hope you don’t mind my saying, but usually insurance men dress in loud blazers and reek of cheap cologne. I’ve never met one that seemed sincere about anything.”
    “It’s a job.” Travis hoped she wouldn’t ask about the details of his job. He didn’t know a thing about insurance. He had decided on the career because Effrom Elliot had mistaken him for an insurance man that afternoon, so it was the first thing that came to