The Five Gates of Hell (48 page)

‘A bloody Christian,' he whispered. ‘A missionary.' And laughed to himself. Because, after all, he
was
on a mission, wasn't he? A mission of a kind.

He heaped his own clothes on the counter and explained that he wanted to trade them for the clothes he was now wearing. The woman who ran the place wore a cardigan draped over her shoulders. She shifted her arms inside the cardigan and looked at him sideways. Her jackdaw eye swooped on his most valuable possession. ‘What about the hat?'

He wedged the hat under his arm. ‘Not for sale.'

The woman shrugged. She began to sort one-handed through his clothes. Held a boot up between finger and thumb. ‘Don't suppose you ever heard of polish, did you?'

‘They're all black, the clothes,' he said. ‘You should be able to shift them pretty quick in a town like this.'

‘That may be so, but look at the state of them.' The woman lifted his frayed jacket and let it drop again. ‘All right,' she said, ‘you leave your clothes plus fifteen dollars, on account of that coat you got there's leather,' and her eye hovered, gleaming, above his hat once more, ‘unless of course –'

He paid the $15 and left. On his way back to the Towers he had to stop in a supermarket and a pharmacy. By the time he reached the thirteenth floor he was drenched in sweat. Silence let him in. He went straight to the kitchen. Silence followed him, stood in the doorway. He began to unpack the bags he was carrying. A block of ice-cream.
A tin of minestrone soup. A box of COLOR-U-BLONDE hair dye. A roll of silver foil. And two six-packs of yoghurt (one plain, one assorted-fruit flavours).

He turned. Silence was still watching from the doorway. Silence handed him a card: I WAS WORRIED FOR A MOMENT. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT'VE FORGOTTEN THE YOGHURT.

Jed had to grin.

WHAT'S WITH THE SOUP? Silence wrote.

‘It's my throat,' Jed explained. ‘Yoghurt, ice-cream, minestrone. They're the only things I can get down.'

Later that evening, when Silence had gone out, he locked himself in the bathroom. He took off his new blue turtleneck and wrapped a towel around his shoulders. He opened the COLOR-U-BLONDE, pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and slowly, meticulously, applied the peroxide solution to his hair. Afterwards he covered his head in silver foil. Almost immediately his scalp began to burn. This reassured him. No change is possible, he thought, without pain. No change is real unless it hurts.

He walked out on to the balcony as the sun set. The city lay in its own haze, buildings dipped in spun sugar, they could melt on your tongue. The sting of peroxide balanced the ache in his throat, almost cancelled it. Tomorrow, he decided. Tomorrow he would make the call.

The evening passed. He stood on the balcony eating fruit yoghurt and watching the planes. A calmness eased into his bones. His blood slowed down. That tortoise, Bob, he was smarter than he looked.

Towards midnight he heard Silence return. He left his bedroom and joined Silence in the lounge. Silence was smoking a joint and watching TV. He offered Jed the joint. Jed turned it down. Silence was staring at him now. Silence put the joint down in the ashtray so he could stare better. Then he wrote on a card and handed it to Jed. Jed read the card and smiled. There was only one word on it:

EERIE.

The next morning he walked into the bathroom and saw a blond stranger in the mirror. ‘Jesus,' he said. His voice didn't sound bad. A bit croaky, but OK. He undid the scarf. The ghosts had changed colour. They'd achieved a curious yellow-brown. It reminded him of crème caramel, old banana skins. Or the thin band of pollution that sometimes circled the horizon.

He borrowed one of Silence's cordless phones and stood on the
balcony. The city was making that sound that cities make. Like if you're told to breathe out slowly through your mouth. He sensed the first drop of rain on his shoulder, he felt it burn into his skin like acid, he heard it telling him that he was special, special. The sound of the rain in that word. The meaning of that word on his skin.

He dialled the Paradise Corporation.

The receptionist put him through to the chairman's office. A secretary answered. ‘Mr Creed's at home today. Can I take a message?'

‘No message,' Jed said, and cut her off.

He dialled the Palace Hotel. ‘Apartment 1412, please.'

‘One moment.'

He could hear the phone ringing in Creed's apartment now. Then it was picked up. ‘Yes?'

‘Mr Creed, please.'

‘Who's calling?'

Jed recognised the voice on the other end. It was the Skull. Michael The Skull McGowan. So they were still working together. If that wasn't loyalty.

‘Who's calling?' the Skull said again.

‘It's Jed Morgan.' There was a pause, then Creed was on the line. Jed could tell by the silence. He'd know that silence anywhere.

‘Creed?'

‘Spaghetti. How nice. I've been expecting your call.'

Jed's hand tightened round the phone. You could never tell whether Creed was bluffing. ‘What do you mean?'

But Creed just laughed. ‘Your voice sounds terrible.'

‘I've had a cold.'

‘It doesn't sound like a cold. It sounds more like someone tried to strangle you.'

His heart beat hard, the air thickened around him. He gripped the balcony with his free hand. How did Creed know all this? Did he know everything?

‘What do you want, Spaghetti?' Creed was saying. ‘I'm a busy man. I haven't got all day.'

He hadn't thought this out properly. He hadn't imagined the way it might go. He jumped at some words as they came into his mind. ‘I need some money.'

‘I didn't think you were interested in money.'

‘I want half a million.'

‘You'll only start throwing it around. Remember last time.'

‘Half a million. And I want it tomorrow night.'

‘What makes you think you deserve anything?'

‘I've got a tape. You want to hear it?'

‘What is it? Violins?'

Jed picked up his pen recorder and pressed PLAY. He held it over the phone. ‘You want me to kill Vasco's brother? … That's right … How? … Don't worry about that … It's taken care of … It's nice …' He pressed STOP. ‘There's your violins, Creed. Did you like them?'

‘Tape doesn't stand up in court, Spaghetti.'

‘How about the papers, Creed? Does tape stand up in the papers?'

A silence.

He had him. At last he had him.

‘How would it look on the front page, Creed? I can see the headline now. Funeral baron held on murder charge. Headline like that, you could sell a few papers, I reckon.'

Don't give him time to think.

‘Midnight tomorrow. The West Pier. Just you and me. You got that?'

Another silence.

‘Jed?'

‘What?'

‘You're still driving the same car.'

‘So?'

‘Bit risky, isn't it, driving the same car? I mean, it could be seen as evidence, couldn't it?' A pause. ‘You know what they say about evidence. They say destroy it.'

‘What are you talking about, Creed?'

‘I thought I'd do a friend a favour, that's all.'

‘What the
fuck
are you talking about?'

‘Why don't you look out the window?'

‘I am looking out the –'

His car exploded with a dull thump. One hand on the balcony, he felt the building shake. Bits of chrome and glass scattered over the parking-lot. Flames reached arms out of the windows, clawed their way across the roof. The flames sounded like rain, he thought. Like rain. Then a fire alarm jangled and a baby started crying.

He dropped the phone and ran inside. Silence was standing outside his bedroom door in his pyjamas. The explosion must've woken him.

‘It's my car,' Jed said. ‘They blew up my car.'

He ran down the stairs, all thirteen floors. By the time he reached the ground his car was surrounded by kids from the project. Some
were pointing, chattering. Others scoured the concrete, collecting bits of headlamp and mirror. He pushed to the front. You could no longer tell what colour the car had been. You could only just read the numberplate: CREAM 8. He'd had that numberplate since he was sixteen. He'd paid a fucking hundred dollars for that numberplate. He dashed towards it, hands outstretched, but a blast of heat threw him back with no eyebrows.

‘This your car?' one of the kids shouted.

He didn't answer. He could hear sirens whooping on Ocean Avenue. Weee-ooo Weee-ooo Weee-ooo. They'd be arriving any moment. He turned and made off in the direction of the project.

He ran up a flight of stairs and along a walkway, putting solid concrete between himself and his burning car. He glanced up once and saw the boy with the crewcut and the puffy eyes standing on a balcony above him.

The boy shouted something.

He didn't hear it the first time.

The boy shouted it again. ‘Where's your hat, mister?'

When Nathan woke in the morning, the bed was empty. Through the open door he could hear Reid talking.

‘You know what they say about evidence.' A pause. ‘They say destroy it.' Another pause. ‘I thought I'd do a friend a favour, that's all.'

He could hear no second voice. It must be a phone-call. He eased out of the bed and pulled on his jeans. In the lounge the sun pressed against the drawn blinds. A few bright ribs of light thrown on the floor.

‘Why don't you look out the window?' Reid said, and then he hung up.

Strange way to end a phone-call.

Reid put the phone down with a smile. When he looked up and saw Nathan standing in the doorway the smile remained. Or rather, the shape of the smile remained. The content had altered. Where the first smile had been poisonous, the second was benign. And the transition was so effortless, so deft. Nathan knew he was supposed to be smiling back, but found that he could only stare.

‘I'd almost forgotten you were here,' Reid said.

‘How could you forget?' Nathan murmured. He wasn't sure whether or not he was joking.

He watched as Reid rose from the sofa and moved towards him. He closed his eyes. He felt one gloved hand brush the hair back from his forehead.

‘You time things just right,' he said.

He felt one gloved finger trace the outline of his top lip.

‘Like when you called me,' he said. ‘Last night. On the street.'

Then he heard Reid's voice, close to his ear: ‘I'm going to take you somewhere.'

‘Where?'

‘Somewhere special.'

Nathan opened his eyes again. Part of the wall seemed to move behind Reid's shoulder and a second man moved across the room towards them. Nathan hadn't even noticed him. But he must have been there the whole time. Must have heard them talk. Seen them touch.

He had a shaved head and mirror shades. An M-shaped vein pulsed high up on the left side of his forehead. Nathan looked at the man and saw himself twice.

‘This is McGowan,' Reid said. ‘Otherwise known as the Skull.' He laughed. ‘You can probably see why.'

The Skull tipped his head back a fraction.

Nathan nodded. He could see.

Putting his hand on the Skull's shoulder, Reid steered him towards the door. Nathan went to the window. He picked up the binoculars and stared down at the promenade. He heard Reid say, ‘Me too,' and then he heard the word, ‘Eight,' then the door clicked shut. He watched a man and a boy playing football in the sunshine. The boy swung his leg and kicked the ball. The man trapped the ball and kicked it back again. The boy swung his leg again. This time he missed, the ball rolled past, he scampered after it. The man lay down on the bright grass. Nathan felt Reid behind him. Not a sound exactly. More like a displacement of the air.

‘Are you ready?'

Nathan put the binoculars down.

They took the elevator to the underground parking-lot. A black car crouched in the shadows on fat tyres. Nathan slid into the hard leather seat and pulled the door shut after him. It made that sound, he remembered it from before, somewhere between a crunch and a click. Such luxury in that sound.

But the unease was still with him. He felt robbed by that man's presence in the apartment, and he couldn't rid himself of the feeling. When he thought back he could sense the man gloating from the far side of the room. And then that supernatural moment when he detached himself from the wall and moved forwards.

‘Is something bothering you?' Reid asked.

‘I didn't see him,' Nathan said.

Reid eased the car up the ramp and out into the sunlight. ‘I don't follow you.'

‘That man,' Nathan said. ‘I didn't know he was there.'

‘Did it upset you?'

‘I just felt he saw everything.'

Reid reached for his dark glasses. ‘Well,' he said with a smile, ‘there's nobody to see us now.'

The knitting-needle click of the gears as he shifted into third for the slip-road that led to the expressway.

‘We'll be there soon. You should take this.' He passed Nathan a white capsule.

‘You really think I need it?'

Reid shrugged. ‘It's up to you. It might relax you.'

‘I don't know whether I want to relax.'

‘Please yourself.'

Nathan closed his hand around the capsule. He held it in his fist like a dice he might throw.

‘Where we're going,' he said, ‘is there a phone?'

Reid looked across at Nathan. ‘Where we're going,' he said, ‘there's a phone with fish inside it.'

This brought a smile to Nathan's face. He shook off his misapprehensions. Put the pill into his mouth and swallowed it.

The car skated across three lanes, one crisp diagonal at eighty miles an hour, fast lane to slow. Out through Exit 6: Moon Beach East. In five minutes they were passing under a pale-blue archway. White letters on the curving crossbar: THE OCEAN BED MOTEL.