The Grimoire

“Slap!”  Back pressed against the wall, Lucky Louie grabs the wrist of the man who has him by the throat.

“This is your final warning! If the Boss don’t get his money by the end of the week, let’s just say you won’t have to worry about it no more! Capito?”

Louie nods vigorously. “He’ll get it! Tell him I’ll do my best to raise what I owe him. I promise.”

“Never mind the friggin’ promise shit! Just get it!”  The henchman raises his meaty fist but turns Louie loose with a shove instead. “I hate you losers!” He storms out of the alley, leaving Louie quaking in his shoes.

Louie rubs his bruised face as he slides slowly down the brick wall.  “What am I gonna do?  he whimpers, mopping sweat from his brow. “Maybe if I can get my hands on a hundred bucks, I can hold him off for a little while. That should give me enough time to get outta town! Damn it! Why did I borrow money from him of all people?”

The truth is that Lucky Louie isn’t lucky at all. He’s got the gambling bug and knows how to play but, even when he’s ahead, he never quits until it’s all gone. He can’t help himself. It’s always the next hand that’s gonna make him rich. And so it was that night in the pool hall’s backroom that Louie figured this was the night.

Louie is playing Big Brows Bobby in a game of poker. Bobby keeps his brows bushy so opponents can’t see his eyes and read his expressions. Brows calmly asks Louie, “So, what are you gonna do?” The other three players have already folded, leaving considerable money on the table.

The ashtray beside Louie is overflowing, and his beer has gone flat. A bead of sweat lines his face as he stares at the cards in his hand- three aces, a jack, and the five of spades. “Surely, this is a winning hand! How can it not be?” Louie studies Brows’ face for tells and sees none. He runs his finger across his lips. “He’s got to be buffing.” Louie nervously pushes the rest of his chips into the pot. “I raise.” Brows chuckles.  “I’ll see that, whatever that is, and I’ll raise you five hundred more!” Louie’s jaw drops. “What!?! I’m all in.  I ain’t got no more!” Smiling, Big Brows leans forward to rake in the pot. “Looks like you lose.”

Louie cries, “No!  Wait!  Let me think!” He scans the room, hoping for a miracle, when he sees the bankroll king, Elio Esposito. His lieutenants surround him while he eats a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, sauce dripping off his chin. Louie tells Brows to wait a minute and cautiously approaches the loan shark’s table.

The closest thug jumps up. “What do you want?” he barks.

Louie swallows hard. “I just want to ask Mr. Esposito a favor, that’s all.”

“He don’t do favors for punks! Now, get lost!”

Esposito wipes his face with the checkered napkin tucked into his shirt.   “Is this a favor or a business transaction we’re talkin’ about?”

“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Esposito, my name is Louie…” Esposito interrupts,  “I know who you are! Just tell me what you want so I can get back to my meal before it gets cold!”

Louie states his case. “I’m in a poker game with Big Brows. I got a real sweet hand, three aces. I know the Brows is bluffin. He has to be, but he raised me five hundred bucks, and I ain’t got the call. All I need is five big ones, and I’ll win.  I can pay you back right away, I swear!”

Esposito sucks on his gums. “Look, I don’t care if you win or lose. I give you five hundred, and you’ll owe me five hundred plus fifty percent interest. You got two weeks to pay me back or I’ll break all your fingers. You understand?” Lucky Louie shakes his head and grins widely.

 That’s why Lucky Louie is in a back alley, fearing for his life. Because, once again, he lost a sure thing.

                                                       …

Louie goes back to his room and packs his satchel. He also slips a snub nose “38” into his pocket. He figures he’ll have to rob someone or someplace to get the travalin’ money to split town. 

Louie walks down to the wharf, looking for a store that’s not busy, and that is when he spots “The Bookstore of Curiosities.” Louie looks in all directions before pulling down his hat and turning up his collar. Sticking his hand into his coat pocket, Louie grabs the gun like a living thing that might try to escape.

The door creeks eerily as Louie enters the dimly lit store. Just as he hoped, the place is empty. Louie tucks in his chin so that the brim of his hat can help to hide his features and heads to the check-out counter.  Reaching the counter, he finds no one’s there.  Louie turns to the shop full of books and calls, “Hello!? Is there anyone in here who can help me?” A rich baritone voice responds close behind him, “May I help you?” Louie spins around, eyes wide, mouth open. Standing less than a foot away is a gaunt man dressed all in black and wearing a fez. The man’s skin is olive-toned, with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. His mouth is little more than a tight, thin line where lips should be. The proprietor smiles ever so slightly as his hooded eyes shine in the dim light. 

“I assume by the trembling hand in your coat pocket that you’ve come to rob me. I’ve just opened the store for business, and there isn’t any money in the cash drawer.  Louie’s eyes dart around as he stumbles back. The odd man steps closer. “Furthermore, I also perceive you are under the pressure of fear as if someone has threatened you with bodily harm or death, perhaps. I might have something far more valuable and helpful than money. Follow me.” Louie follows, amazed at how the man seemingly glides through the aisles.  Stopping in the Eastern Mysticism section, he removes a thin book and hands it to Louie. “It’s a volume of, shall I say, curses or spells that one may use in various situations. It’s called a grimoire.”

Louie stares at the book, and his brows knitted together. The book’s cover is made of leather and covered in complex patterns and signs. Opening the book, Louie sees a list of contents, and one of them catches his eye. He reads the title “Untold Wealth.”

Louie snaps the book closed. “What the hell is this? A book of magic?” He lifts his head and is shocked to find the man has vanished. “Hey! Where ya go?” A soft voice resonates in his ear, “Take the book.” Louie’s head starts spinning. He pinches the bridge of his nose and grabs the bookcase. When he opens his eyes, he is standing outside the shop on the sidewalk. Disoriented, Louie staggers to a bench. “What the hell? What’s all this crazy shit?” He finds he is still holding the grimoire. “A magic book, uh? Well, let’s see about that.”

Louie opens the book to its table of contents and looks up “Untold Wealth.” It turns out to be a short paragraph describing how to perform the spell. Louie follows the instructions as he reads. “To gain untold wealth, repeat the words in order while pressing the forefinger of each hand to their corresponding thumbs.” Louie closes his eyes and presses his fingers together, chanting,” Oanim, Perales, Rasonsslos!” Louie felt the wind rise, and something hit him in his face. Cautiously opening his eyes, he sees a dollar bill on his lap.”Well, it ain’t exactly untold wealth, but maybe it’s a start.”

Louie spies a liquor store on the corner and uses the bill to buy a lottery scratch ticket. Taking a coin from the “take a penny, leave a penny’ dish, he scratches away. His eyes grow large, and he starts to giggle for he has won a hundred dollars!

Louie returns to the display and studies all the available tickets. Number seventeen is a twenty-dollar ticket that offers four million dollars if you win. Louie turns in his one-hundred-dollar ticket and brightly says, “I’ll take five number seventeens, please.”   He walks back to the bench and begins furiously scratching. The first ticket pays him his twenty.  The next is good for fifty dollars! Louie smiles and continues.  The third is another twenty, and the fourth is a whopping five hundred dollars!  Excited, Louie jumps to his feet, and scratches the fifth and final ticket. When he scratches the third box, his knees weaken, and he collapses onto the bench. His hands are trembling so badly he can barely read the little box showing that he has won the four million dollar prize.

Louie’s heart is booming as he wipes away tears of joy.   He rips off the winning ticket and slips it into his jacket, intending to bring it to the Lottery Center.   But first, he decides to cash in the five-hundred-dollar ticket. He emerges from the package store with a fistful of money and a bottle of Johnny Walker red, ready to celebrate. Still not convinced this isn’t all just a big fluke, he rifles through the book and looks for another spell. One that will prove the book is genuine. He finds one that will make people forget you have wronged them.

This requires more effort, so he stops at WalMart on returning to his flat. Once there, he rolls back the carpet on the wooden floor.  He draws a small circle on the floorboards using the chalk he bought and writes outside the circle,” Sader, Prostas, Solaster.” Next, he cuts the shape of a gingerbread man out of construction paper and places it in the center. Now, he is supposed to think of his target person and chant the written word three times, after which he must burn the paper figure.

The next morning, Louie waits across the street from the coffee shop beside the pool hall. When he sees the henchman who grabbed him in the alley, he hurries over and lightly bumps into him.

Louie gasps, “Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t spill your coffee, did you?” The thug looks Louie straight in the eyes and smiles. Ah, It’s okay, Pal.  It was just an accident. Have a nice day.”

Louie cocks his head and purses his lips. “Well, I’ll be damned. He don’t remember me at all! It works. The book really works! Now, I want to find one that will take care of the fat Italian lending tree! I’ll fix him for saying he was gonna break my fingers for being late!”

Louie pours over the book, trying to find the right one, but none seems to fit. Suddenly, a loose page floats from the book with a vanishing curse written on it. “Eureka! That’s the ticket!  It’s just what I’ve been looking for.” Louie eagerly reads the inscription and then frowns. “This ain’t gonna be easy. It says I’ve got to make the target say a magic word for it to work. It also comes with a caution that I’m not to say the word out loud, or it will work on me instead. “How am I supposed to get the slob to say that word?” Louie stares at the book and the word. Suddenly, he sits up straight. “I know! I’ll bring the fifteen g’s I owe him and challenge him to a game. I’ll tell him I’ll pay him double if he can say this word. Yeah!  That oughta work!”

Louie enters the pool hall with his hat pushed back and a smirk on his face. He struts to Esposito’s table, where the big man reads the morning paper. Louie places a thick stack of crisp one-hundred dollar bills on the table and waits.

The big man snaps his fingers and has one of his attendants place an attache case on the table. Esposito barely glances at the money. “So, you paid me. What are you waitin’ for, a medal?”

 Louie lightly laughs. “No, Mr. Esposito.” He places a second stack of bills next to the first. “I’d like to challenge you, double or nothing, and all you have to do is pronounce this word.” Louie takes a paper from the book and presents it to Esposito. Esposito takes a sip of coffee and returns to reading his newspaper. “I don’t gamble.”

Louie purses his lips and strokes his chin. “Then how about this?” Louie places a third stack. “That’s forty-five hundred dollars all for saying that word.” Louie nudges the paper closer.

Esposito looks at the word Hudjefa. “What the hell is this, pig Latin?”

No. It’s Arabic.”

“I ain’t no Arab! I’m Italian.’’

Louie huffs, “That don’t make no difference, just try to say it! Look, the first part of the word is hud, like Hudson. You can say hud, can’t ya?” Esposito nods his head. “Okay!” Louie says excitedly. “So the second half is like the guy’s name, Jeff, but instead of two f”s, it’s an A!” Esposito throws up his hands and shrugs, “And that spells- WHAT?”

 Louie rubs his face vigorously and shouts, “HUDJEFA!” Immediately, with terror in his eyes, Louie clasps his mouth with both hands as if trying to recapture the word, but it’s too late. Esposito smiles demonically as he watches Lucky Louie fade into nothingness.

Esposito’s henchman, Derk, shouts, “Holy Crap, Boss! Did you see that? Louie disappare!” Esposito raises his eyebrow. “Now you know why I sent you to follow Louie that day. After he had gone into that weird bookstore, he started hitting the lottery big time. Well, that ain’t like Lucky Louie to be so lucky, so I got curious about what he bought. It turns out it was a magic book, so I managed to find one of my own. I read that thing from cover to cover. I knew what Louie was trying to pull on me.  I pulled a fast one on him instead!”

Derk nods knowingly, “ You played him like a finely tuned violin, Boss.”

Esposito opens the case and places the money neatly on one side, then puts Louie’s grimoire beside his own. He chuckles, “What a mook. Didn’t he know magic wouldn’t keep a born loser like him from losing?” Esposito tries to keep a straight face but loses it and busts out in a huge belly laugh! Everyone joins him.