Free Seven Deadly Pleasures by Michael Aronovitz Page A

he asked.
    "Something with a kick. Meet me by the west wall and don't tread dirt on the foyer carpet." He was usually careful, but it never hurt to remind him after his morning chores. I took long strides toward the main staircase and had just rested my hand on the banister.
    "Hey there," he said.
    "What!"
    The old coot stood under the archway and stroked his beard.
    "Whatcha want the heavy iron for? There ain't nothing in the west wing but breakables."
    "The glass," I said. "I am going to shoot the stained glass."
    He sunk his hand into his deep pocket and scratched the back of his right calf with the left boot tip.
    "The whole wall is gonna be rough there, fella. That there glass is thick as a swamp and stands ninety foot high by seventy across. Took them artists six months of hard labor to install and it won't come down easy."
    I flexed my jaw.
    "Bring extra rounds."

    ***

    The madness began yesterday on my private six-hole golf course. I was ten feet off the green and chipping for par when the gun went off.
    That cocky old swine. He brought a .44 Magnum today instead of the starter pistol.
    With a slight frown, I stroked through the ball and landed it in the cup. Touch of backspin. I turned.
    "You fired late." He did not respond. He just sat there in the golf cart, feet up, toothless grin, firearm aimed to high north with gray wisps of smoke floating around the mouth of the barrel. My voice was patience. "I told you that the most sensitive point of concentration is needed an inch before contact with the ball. You shot on the follow-through."
    "Well of course I did," he said. "By now, you've come to expect it like an old hog waiting on a slop-bell."
    "Then we need a new game," I said.
    "Looks like it."
    I set my seven iron in its holder and crossed my arms. He scratched his temple with the muzzle of the .44.
    "Can we think of nothing else?" I said. He leaned over the coffee can he always brought with him and spit a long brown runner into it. He wiped his mouth with a sweaty flannel sleeve and smiled.
    "Let's play Antichrist," he said.
    "What?"
    He nodded at me slowly. The smile stayed.
    "You know."
    "No, I don't. Explain. You're no Antichrist."
    "'Tain't about me," he said. "Every dime-store book of prophecy says the Antichrist comes to glory by age thirty-three. Seems time for y'all to be doing the thinking."
    My thirty-third birthday was in two days, and the glint in his eye was constructed of things other than jest.
    "You are permanently dismissed," I said. "Be off the grounds by five or I will have you bodily removed. Start packing."
    He did not stir.
    "I'll call the police right now," I said.
    I went nowhere.
    He tossed the pistol to me. It cartwheeled through the air and I caught it by the handle.
    "Go ahead," he said. "Aim and pull the trigger. Put a slug right between my eyebrows."
    I did nothing. He stretched out his legs, crossed them at the ankles, and clasped his hands behind his head.
    "Now you must ask yourself why," he said. "Why do you choose not to fire the weapon? Is it because you give a damn about your fellow man? I don't think so. Y'all got more money than God and don't feel nothing for no one. Only way you keep ties with a man is by owning him and you won't pull the trigger 'cause it makes no sense to toss away your property."
    "That's ridiculous," I said. "You are my employee, not my property."
    "That so? Did you hire me or buy me with purpose? How much does it take to purchase a soul? What's your definition of slavery?"
    I had no answer for that. He had been a patient in one of the retirement homes I had sold off. He seemed good with machines so I offered to take him in. His response was,
    "Give me back a life and a pair of work pants and I'll do it for free."
    I viewed it as a gesture of charity, the start of a strong bond of trust between a pillar of wealth and the salt of the earth. Now I was being forced to view it as something else. I studied him closely, my butler, my handyman, my lone