Theodicy by Jon Wesick

“I want you to find Jehovah, Mr. Pillbottle.”

The winter light from my office window deepened the shadows on Reverend Gunnar Bergman’s craggy face, making him look more haggard than he would on a summer night. He was tall and thin with hair the color of salt-stained pavement after the snow had turned to slush.

“Jehovah as in …?”

“Yahweh, Adonai, or the plural Elohim.” His voice reminded me of the Swedish chef on the Muppets only I wouldn’t be eating any of his lingonberry pancakes, especially after he blew his nose on a soggy handkerchief. “Last time anyone heard from him was two thousand years ago.”

“What else can you tell me?” The case was colder than liquid helium in the shade on Pluto.

“My problem is called theodicy…”

I’d read The Odyssey in high school but kept my mouth shut. The first thing they taught at Art Stealth’s Private Detective Correspondence School was not to interrupt a witness once you got him talking.

“…or the problem of evil. Why does an all-powerful God let humans suffer?” Reverend Bergman sneezed on my desk. “How can I preach about God if I no longer think He exists?”

“Sounds like a rotten cold. You ought to see a doctor.” I would have backed my chair away as far as the next county, but the wall stopped me, so I poured a slug of rye whiskey into my coffee as a disinfectant.

“Read about Him in here.” Bergman tossed a dog-eared Bible on my desk.

“About me fee,” I said.

“I’ll pay you a tidy sum of a hundred krona a day.” Bergman took out his wallet.

The money wasn’t even tidy enough to decontaminate my desk, but I felt sorry for the guy.

“Throw in expenses and we’ve got a deal.” I reached for the sanitizing cloths as Bergman left.

A quick phone call to the Jehovah’s Witnesses confirmed that they hadn’t seen Him, so I picked up the Bible. I got as far as Adam and Eve eating the apple in Genesis and noted that Jehovah said humans had become “like one of us.” I concluded He had some pals who might help track him down.

A church service wasn’t much help either. The minister discussed Jehovah boasting to Job after putting him through agony. I didn’t know what lesson this was supposed to convey, but I decided Jehovah wasn’t a nice guy.

When you’ve been in the private-eye game as long as I have, you develop an instinct. Mine said sea monsters. Jehovah mentioned defeating the Leviathan, and since I’m a fan of Jaws and Creature from the Black Lagoon, I visited my favorite librarian.

***

“How you doing, angel?”

“Morris, it’s been a while.” Paige Turner’s face turned the color of a glass of rosé at a bachelorette party.

“Can you help me with a case?”

“What do you need me to do, go undercover to record a politician taking a bribe, kneecap a few bodyguards, convince a reluctant witness to spill the beans?”

“Nothing like that. I need some info on the Leviathan in the Bible.”

“This way.” She led me by the hand to a private office in the rear of the building. After we examined the finer points of D. H. Lawrence, she searched the library’s internal network. “Ugarit was a Canaanite city that fell during the Bronze Age Collapse around 1200 BCE. The cuneiform tablets left behind describe a pantheon of gods like El, Asherah, Baal, and Mot that the ancient Hebrews worshipped before Jehovah dominated. Yam was a deity of water and chaos related to the Leviathan.”

“Thanks, angel.”

***

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. Miss Tiamat doesn’t get many visitors.” The receptionist led me into a common area where residents in pajamas played cards, watched game shows, or simply sat and drooled.

I’d learned Yam was using the alias Elmira Tiamat and tracked her down to an Arizona nursing home. The winter temperature was mild, but despite the open windows, the air stank of disinfectant and urine.

“Her dementia’s advanced, but family connections are always important.” The receptionist pointed to a gray-haired woman who had the complexion of a jellyfish that had washed up in the Atacama Desert. “You say you’re her nephew?”

“That’s right.”

“Elmira, your nephew Morris is here to see you.” The receptionist touched Yam’s shoulder to get her attention. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“Hi, Aunt Elmira. It’s your nephew Morris.”

“Did you bring some Stan Hugill albums? They played his sea shanties over the intercom until Norma complained. Now, all I do is watch Million Dollar Ziggurat on TV. Don’t you just love that Chip Novack?” Yam turned to the screen.

“Aunt Elmira, I was wondering where our friend Jehovah is.”

“Can you get me some water? They don’t let me have enough water.”

I brought her a cup from the cooler.

“They film Million Dollar Ziggurat in Studio 6B in Los Angeles.” She swallowed the water in one gulp. “I tried to join the studio audience and got a rejection letter from Chip Novack himself.”

“Are you sure you don’t know where Jehovah is? I found His lost dog, Nipsy, and would like to give him back.”

 “I watch the Million Dollar Ziggurat every day and know all the answers.”

“That’s right, Elmira. Chip wants you to join our studio audience, but you have to answer a few questions to qualify. Want to try?”

She nodded.

“Who is the president?”

“What’s his name. That guy who lost to Kennedy.”

“What color is a blueberry?”

“Purple.”

“Very good. Where is Jehovah?”

“Can you get me some water? They never give me enough water.”

“Thank you, Elmira. We’ll send a limousine to take you to the studio.” It was hopeless, but at least I could leave her feeling happy. “I’m sure Chip would love to meet you.”

“Jehovah’s ex-wife lives in Manhattan,” Yam blurted.

I entered the parking lot and spotted a griffin with the wings of an eagle, the body of a lion, and the head of a human sitting on my rental car’s hood. He wore some sort of pillbox hat, had a rectangular beard that hung to his chest, and might have been scary if he’d been bigger than a dachshund.

“Mind sitting somewhere else?” I asked.

“A word to the wise,” the griffin said. “Don’t meddle in things that don’t concern you.”

“Who’s going to stop me?”

The griffin hopped off my car and kicked me in the shin.

“Owe, you little bastard!”

He took a running start and flew away.

***

“Pre-cuneiform, five thousand years old. It’s a tally of how much beer the king had.” Asherah looked up from the clay tablet on her desk, and her eyes peered over her reading glasses. I’d found her in the restoration workshop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Ancient Near Eastern exhibit in New York City. The old girl was pretty spry for a fertility goddess from the Bronze Age, but she hid her figure well with a baggy, woolen sweater that had seen better days.

“I’m looking for your ex-husband, Jehovah.” I showed my ID. “The name’s Pillbottle. I’m a private detective.”

“I haven’t seen Him in millennia.” She took off her glasses and let them dangle on their chain. “When Jehovah took over from his father, El, I knew He was going places. For a while, we did things together, but the more famous He got, the less time He had for me. Wish I hadn’t signed that prenup.”

“Could something have happened to Him?”

“He had a rival named Baal, who’s been holding a grudge for three thousand years.” Asherah filled me in on the details.

I spotted the griffin perched on the steps when I exited the Met. As I walked past a group of shawarma carts on 5^th Avenue, a flock of his buddies gathered overhead. One by one, they dive-bombed me. The first flew off with my fedora. The others clawed off hunks of my thinning hair as I ran.

“This way!” A priest motioned me toward a limousine’s open door.

When I dashed inside, someone put a chloroform-soaked rag over my mouth, and everything went black.

***

I woke bound to a chair in a basement illuminated by a naked forty-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling. The pope emerged from the shadows and stood before me.

“Sorry to bring you here this way, but we had to act quickly.” Worry had wrinkled his forehead, and his shoulders bent as if under the weight of heavy responsibilities. “You’re meddling with dangerous forces but have the opportunity to rid the world of Beelzebub, or Baal as you call him.” He removed a squirt gun from under his white cassock. “It’s filled with holy water. One drop will destroy him.”

“I’m a detective, not an assassin.” 

“If ancient gods return to power, their worshippers will sacrifice children just like the Phoenicians.” He scribbled a note on a piece of paper. “Here’s my personal number. If you help us track down Beelzebub, I’ll make it worth your while.” He set the squirt gun on a table. “You’d better take this along just in case.”

***

“Looks like you need a five iron,” I told Baal.

I’d caught up with him on a fairway at the Seven Palms golf course in Florida. He didn’t have the devil horns the pope had led me to expect. Instead, he was lean and fit with hair the color of a thunder cloud. He wore polyester pants, a yellow golf shirt, and tasseled shoes.

“Iron? Never use the stuff.” He motioned to his caddy for a bronze club and hit his ball onto the green. “Hah! Take that, Utnapishtim!”

 A gust of wind sent his opponent’s ball into a water trap. As usual, the god won and the human lost. Afterwards, Utnapishtim begged off when I joined Baal for a beer.

“Things were getting played out in Babylon three thousand years ago, so I changed my name from Marduk to Baal and moved west. Those were good times. None of the political correctness we have today.”

“You mind telling me about your beef with Jehovah?” I asked.

“Back then, every kingdom had a head god, kind of like sports teams today. Each king would praise his god, not only to give himself status but to protect his kingdom, too. I had Ugarit. Jehovah had Israel and Judah. Moloch, Dagon, and Eshmun were in the mix. Chemosh had Moab, Qos had Edom, Melqart had Tyre, and so on. We all had worshipers in each other’s kingdoms, too. It was live and let live until Jehovah made his move. He and I had that showdown in Ahab’s court. I could have won if Elijah hadn’t spiked my drink with a laxative. After that, Jehovah squeezed us out. He gave us a choice. Either get demoted to angels and take a pay cut, or retire. I took the latter.”

“What was your deal with child sacrifice?” I asked.

“What’s worse, tossing a few kids in a furnace or sacrificing millions in war? I would have protected humanity if you hadn’t stopped worshipping me. Did you like that COVID pandemic? It was my divine punishment. There will be more to come unless you repent.”

“Thanks for your time.” I paid the check and hoped the lamb koftas order I sent to Baal’s table would appease him.

Convinced the rich and powerful were all the same, I decided not to ask about Jehovah’s whereabouts. The powerful only care about us when we stroke their egos or when we’re pawns in one of their schemes. The best policy is to stay away from them. After leaving the clubhouse, I found a familiar figure sitting on my rental car’s hood.

“Get off,” I told the griffin.

“What are you going to do about it? Huh?” The griffin hopped off and danced around on his hind legs with his fists in a guard position. “What are you going to do, big man?”

“Look, I’ve had a long day.”

“Yeah? Well, too bad.” The griffin punched me in the thigh.

“Knock it off!” I took the squirt gun full of holy water out of my pocket. “I’m warning you.”

“Oh, I’m scared.” He threw a few more punches. “What are you going to do?”

“That’s it.” I squirted him.

“Hey!” He looked at the spot on his shoulder. “I just got this dry cleaned.”

“Yeah? Well, what about the fedora your friends ruined? Now I have to wear this stupid trucker cap. You ever hear of a private eye in a trucker cap?” I pocketed the squirt gun. “Anyway, I’m off the case.”

“What do you mean you’re off the case?”

“I don’t like you guys. It’s not worth it. I quit.”

“Don’t you want to try a little? I mean, where’s the challenge if you just quit?” the griffin asked as I got into the car. “How about if I get you an interview with Mot?” He chased after me as I drove away. “What about Jehovah’s father, El? Don’t you want to meet him?”

***

When I got back to my hotel, I placed a phone call, not to the Vatican but to Sweden.

“Reverend Bergman, it’s Pillbottle. I found Him. He’s real busy with the famine in Sudan. Anyway, He said you were doing a great job and to keep up the good work.”