The Hanging Hill

21

Bleary-eyed, Reginald Grimes sat at the desk in his office, devouring the curling pages of the thick book.

“I have a table meeting at ten,” he mumbled. “Shouldn’t miss it.” He kept speed-reading.

He had been up all night with the ancient text and was nearing the end of The Book of Ba’al, which was filled with astonishingly incredible spells and incantations, amazingly powerful rituals and rites.

In the first pages of the book, he had found his family tree, something every orphan dreams of one day discovering. He learned that not only did he have a father and a grandfather, he had two thousand years of history and could trace his roots all the way back to Carthage and the supreme high priests of Ba’al Hammon.

He felt as if he were in a hypnotic trance. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or all the coffee he had been guzzling. Grimes remembered the time when the orphanage doctors had attempted to surgically repair his withered arm years after the incident with the wringer washer. They had put him under with ether, an anesthetic that had sent him swimming through a murky pool of sleep and dreams. He felt the same way now, under the spell of this intoxicating book.

“The children have arrived,” said Hakeem, standing guard at the office door. Two Tunisian musclemen had accompanied Hakeem to the theater this morning: One was named Badir, the other Jamal.

“Hmmm?”

“The chosen children. They are here. Young Miss McKenna and Master Stone.”

Grimes looked up from the book. “Master who?”

“Stone,” said Hakeem. “Derek Stone.”

“Who in blazes is he?”

“The young boy who will be playing the leading juvenile in your next production.”

“Charlie?”

Hakeem nodded.

“Bah! I cast Brad Doyle for that part!”

“Have you not heard? Young Master Doyle has taken ill. It came over him quite suddenly.”

Grimes thought he heard one of the burly thugs guarding the door chuckle.

“Besides,” Hakeem continued, “Master Stone is better suited for the role. He has—how shall I put this?—the same qualifications as Miss McKenna.”

“Really? Says who?”

“The financial backers of Curiosity Cat.”

“Oh. You’ve spoken to my producers? Because I never have. I am given to understand that they are very wealthy, very busy men.”

Hakeem smiled. “Indeed. We are. Very, very busy.”