The Devil Went Up to Queens

"OKAY," THE PALE, thin man said. "We'll go over it one last time. Here's the deal?"

It was 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. The five of them were sitting around a back table in an otherwise empty diner just down the block from Woolworth's. The thick stack of pages rested on the table between them.

"If you sign this contract, I will make you certain guarantees."

"Like what?" one of the young men asked. He asked that the first time they went over it, and the fifth.

"Well, I will guarantee," the thin man said patiently, "that you will all become very wealthy."

"That sounds good."

"Yeah," another one added.

"It also guarantees that you will be very, very famous all over the world. In fact you will be called 'legends,' and you will inspire a generation. You will be considered among the greatest who ever lived."

"Uh-huh? And?"

"That's it, actually. You'll be rich and famous legends. You'll inspire the multitudes. All for doing what you're doing right now."

"Oh wait-I get it," one of the young men jumped in. "Like, all this will happen a hundred years from now, right? After we're gone? It's like irony."

"Oh no," the thin man assured them. "This contract guarantees that you will all see these things within your lifetimes. Within the next 10, 15 years, even, all of these things will have come true. You'll be able to see and enjoy it all. You'll need to work hard, but I know you will. And think of it-you're young now. Ten years from now you'll be wealthy and famous. Imagine how long that could go on."

"Wow."

"So what's the catch?" one of the more savvy young men asked. "There's always a catch."

"Well," the thin man said, leaning back in his chair and smiling slightly. "Of course I get my cut, as we've discussed. Fifteen percent is industry standard, and that's all I ask. Arranging these things won't be easy. It'll take a little time. I'll need to work almost as hard as you to make it happen."

"Okay, fair enough. Is that it?"

The thin man paused, his eyes cutting to the left. "Not exactly. There are two other things. Little things."

"Oh, here we go."

"No, no, no-it's nothing terrible. Trust me. Let's just say that one of the clauses in the contract is to protect my investment-and the other one's there just to make things a little?shall we say, 'spicier'?"

The four young men stared at him, waiting.

"The first clause states that if you ever stop performing, if you ever decide to retire or break up, you are breaking the contract. And for that, I'm afraid you will all get sick. In the years following your breaking of the contract, you will all begin dying, one after the other."

They each stared at him, saying nothing.

His smile broadened and turned warm. "So easy enough, the way to avoid that is to simply never break up, right? As long as you keep playing, you'll keep getting richer and more famous. You could live forever if you play your cards right. You'll hardly age at all, as a matter of fact. So that clause should be of no real concern to you at this point."

Two of the young men smiled at that, and relaxed.

"The minute you stop, though?" he warned them.

"Yeah, we know. We die. So what's the other clause?"

"Ahh, the other clause," the thin and pale man said, his smile not fading. "That's to make things interesting. Because, while I'm in to profit a great deal from your success, as I said earlier it also requires a great deal of work on my part. This other clause makes it more of a challenge, see? A test of sorts, designed to prove just how much effort you're willing to put into it in exchange for these rewards."

"Would you just tell us what the hell it is?"

The man leaned across the table, clasping his hands in front of him. "The other clause, gentlemen, states that you will all hate each other. You will all get on each other's nerves. Every minute you're together will fill you with loathing and misery. You'll want to kill each other all the time."

"But we have to stay together, or we die?"

"Right."

"And we're rich and famous so long as we keep playing?"

"Right. And afterwards, too, certainly-but afterwards you'll be dead, so it won't really matter. Think of it as a kind of game."

The four young men whispered among themselves for no more than a minute. Then they looked at the thin man and nodded. He smiled again, pulled a pen the color of flame from his breast pocket, and clicked it twice.

"Joey, would you care to go first?"