by Mick Farren
Semple grabbed him by the arm. “Jim!”
Jim shook his head. He wasn’t going be silenced or deflected. “I may have let Hoover slide, but I’m going to have my say with this bastard.”
Doc looked up and recognized Jim. “Hello there, young Morrison.”
“Hi, Doc.”
Lucifer looked at Doc. “You know this guy?”
Doc nodded. “Sure, I know this guy. It’s Jim Morrison. A little confused and headstrong, but basically he’s all right.”
Two large men in back of Lucifer moved forward. They looked to be at least kissing cousins to the sumo wrestler outside, with very much the same taste in clothes. They waited on Lucifer for the word to remove Jim and Semple. Lucifer frowned at Doc and pointed to Semple. “And the broad?”
“Semple McPherson.”
“As in Aimee Semple McPherson?”
Doc nodded again. “The very same—at least, half of her. She’s going to be the love of young Morrison’s life.”
Semple started to protest. “Who says I’m going to be the love of his life?”
Everyone ignored her. Lucifer was studying Jim. “And what do you want here, Jim Morrison?”
“I came here to get Doc out of this game . . . ”
Lucifer shook his head. “Doc can’t leave this game. He’s still ahead. It’d be more than his reputation is worth.”
Jim gestured to Nixon. “ . . . but now that I find him here, I may have to change my plans.”
Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “You have a beef with Tricky Dick?”
“My whole generation has a beef with Tricky Dick.”
Nixon’s face twisted into a familiar sour scowl. “Are we here to play poker or listen to this hippie bum run off at the mouth?”
Lucifer smoothed his pencil mustache while he considered the situation. Kali and the Korean carefully placed their hands flat on the table. Their faces showed no easily read expression, but later Jim would swear that Kali was amused. Finally Lucifer made up his mind. “Let him say his piece. We’ve got free speech here in Hell.”
Nixon looked outraged. “I’m sorry. I really have to protest. Since when was there free speech in Hell? I never heard that. Where is that written? Particularly for long-haired troublemakers who come barging into a private card game.”
Lucifer grinned, apparently enjoying baiting the onetime president. “There’s been free speech in Hell since I said there was free speech in Hell. And besides, my boys are probably going to beat the shit out of him afterward for his temerity.”
Nixon quickly picked up on the nearest available red-herring detail. “Extreme. That’s the word. On the lifeside, I was forced to deal with these kinds of extremists all through my career.”
“You mean like your goddamned enemies list?”
“I did what was needed to protect the national security and the office of the president.”
“You had Groucho fucking Marx on your list.”
Doc leaned back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. “Groucho has already moved to the higher level. One of the fastest move-ups on record. Nearly as fast as Einstein.”
“He advocated my assassination.”
“He said you were the only dope worth shooting.”
“Is that your problem, young man? You didn’t like the way I treated Groucho Marx?”
Jim leaned angrily forward. “Yeah, I didn’t like the way you treated Groucho Marx, or the Black Panthers, or John Lennon, or the people of Cambodia, or the fact that you let tens of thousand of poor bastards like me go on dying and getting maimed so you could look good in the history books.”
“I presume you’re talking about Southeast Asia?”
“Can’t you even say Vietnam, you bastard?”
“That war is history.”
“I recently visited a kid called Chuck who’s still living it over and over.”
“You can hardly blame me if some unfortunates are unable to move on.”
“I’m not talking about blame. I’d just like to see you sharing a piece of their suffering instead of sitting here playing fat-cat five-card stud with Lucifer.”
The entire room was silent as Nixon looked coldly back at Jim. “And how exactly do you intend to do that? I would remind you that I more than earned my place here.”
“I can believe that.”
“So this is just hot air, isn’t it, Morrison? There’s really nothing you can do.”
Jim looked around the table. Everyone seemed to be waiting to hear his response. “Maybe, maybe not.” He looked at Doc “Do you still have that piece of Elvis Presley’s former property?”
Doc nodded. “I certainly do.”
“Could I take a look at it?”
Doc nodded again. “I don’t see why not.”
Nixon shook his head as though he considered Jim completely out of his mind. “Elvis Presley? My God, he was another one. A drugged-out, pill-swallowing maniac.” He turned to Kali and the Korean. “I met him, you know. He was completely insane. He actually tried to hug me, just like that crazy coon Sammy Davis.”
Kali spoke for the fist time. Her voice was a steely purr of death and seduction. “You had your photograph taken with him, though, didn’t you?”
Nixon gestured impatiently. “It was that fool Haldeman. He thought it would raise my standing with the country’s youth. But let me make it perfectly clear, I was against it. I was against the whole thing. I kid you not.”
Lucifer lit a fresh cigar. “Elvis was what he was, but the blue lights were there when he was born. No blue lights in Yorba Linda, Dick. That’s why you’re here and he moved on a long time ago, just like Groucho and Einstein.”
Nixon was about to respond to Lucifer when Doc casually pulled the Gun That Belonged to Elvis from where his coat was draped over the chair and handed it to Jim. At the sight of the pistol, the entire room froze. The Korean’s hand started to edge toward a bulge under his own uniform coat, and Kali’s extra arms rematerialized. Lucifer merely exhaled, a stream of blue smoke aimed directly at Jim. “And what do you intend to do with that?”
Nixon was now sweating profusely, his eyes fixed on the gun. “You’re being ridiculous, Morrison. You can’t kill me. I’m already dead, damn it.”
“Like Doc once told me, a golden bullet from the Gun That Belonged to Elvis might not kill you, but it’ll sure fuck you up.”
Lucifer seemed highly amused by the situation. He gestured to Jim with his cigar. “You know what would happen if you fired that thing in here?”
Jim smiled wryly. He was starting to like Lucifer, although he knew that liking the Devil was no reason to underestimate him. “No pun intended, but I figure all hell would break loose.”
“And there will also be hell to pay.”
“I don’t have any beef with you.”
“I know that.”
Jim turned to Kali and the Korean. “I also have no problem with either of you.”
Lucifer took another drag on his cigar. “I still can’t allow you to put a bullet in Dick here.”
“You can’t stop me from pulling the trigger.”
“I can make you wish that you hadn’t.”
“Suppose I were to take his money?”
“You want to rob Lucifer’s poker game? You’ve got a lot of gall, kid.”
“I don’t want to rob you, or Kali, or the Korean gentleman.”
Nixon looked at Lucifer. “You’re going to let this happen?”
Lucifer nodded. “You’re on your own from here on out.”
“I thought we had a deal.”
“We had a deal when you were alive to make you president, and you’ve got a deal now to rebuild your place in history, but I sure as shit don’t recall guaranteeing to protect you from any hothead who wants to rip off your poker stake.”
Jim pointed the Gun That Belonged to Elvis at Nixon’s head. “Fork over the cash, you sorry son of a bitch.”
After a short reluctant pause, Nixon pushed the coins across the table. J
im gestured with the gun. “And the rest.”
“What rest?”
“Are you telling me you don’t have a little slush fund stashed away?”
With sullen reluctance, Nixon reached under his blue suit coat, pulled out a small leather bag, and tossed it on the table. “You’ll pay for this. You know that, don’t you?”
Jim’s lip curled. “Sure, I don’t doubt it. I’ll be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my days.” He gestured to Doc. “You’re coming with us, right?”
Doc smiled. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
Jim shook his head and Doc looked around at the other players. “I hate to leave you all while I’m still ahead, but I’ve always made a point of never arguing with a man with a gun.”
“That was a pretty spectacular diversion.”
“Actually a lot of it was strictly personal. I didn’t know Nixon was going to be there. Did he really make a deal with Lucifer to be president?”
“More deals are made with Lucifer than you might ever suspect.”
“Did you ever make one?”
Doc coughed. “Believe me, if I’d cut a deal with the devil, I’d be a lot better off than I am now.”
Jim, Doc, and Semple rode down in the elevator. The two men seemed pumped, almost as if they were enjoying this adventure, but Semple wasn’t quite able to share their excitement. “Having made your big grandstand play, have either of you considered what we’re going to do next?”
Doc looked at Jim. “You don’t have a plan?”
“What do you mean, a plan? This has all been played strictly by ear.”
“Are you telling me you don’t have a way out of here set up?”
Jim started to look angry. “Wait a damned minute—”
Semple interrupted before Jim and Doc could embark on some absurd male argument. “All Danbhala La Flambeau told us was to get you out of that suicidal poker game.”
“La Flambeau? Where the fuck did she come into all this?”
As briefly as she could, Semple explained her and Jim’s encounters with the Voodoo gods and what had transpired on the island. When she’d finished, Doc slowly shook his head. “I can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”
Jim was still looking marginally belligerent. “Listen, if Hypodermic gives me the full softening-up treatment, and then La Flambeau and Marie-Louise say jump, I just ask how high.”
Doc’s mouth slowly opened. “Marie-Louise is involved in this?”
Jim nodded. Doc shook his head. “Do you know how deep you’ve got us in?” He sighed. “And do you know how long I’ve waited to get back in a poker game with Lucifer? And now I’m almost certainly persona non grata in all the casinos of Hell.”
Semple never could figure men’s lack of logic, and she certainly couldn’t believe that Doc was complaining about being rescued. “You would have come out of the game a brainless cabbage and you know it.”
“That’s hardly the point.”
Before Doc could explain what the point actually was, the elevator doors opened and the three of them stepped out.
Aimee could hear the breakaway nuns chanting somewhere behind the large cloister. Bemadette’s voice rose above the general chorus in a strange wailing counterpoint. The language was one that Aimee didn’t recognize. A weird glossalia, a unison speaking-intongues, as though some dangerous spirit were upon them. Aimee knew that they had to be psyching themselves up, building up a head of righteous rage before they finally came to finish her. The handful of sisters and angels who had remained loyal looked on as she knelt in the Sacristy. She pretended to be praying, but all she was really doing was sobbing to herself.
“Oh my God, Semple, what have I done? If you were here, you’d know what to do. Except you’re not here. You’re fragmented in Limbo and very soon they’re going to come for me. They’re going to come for me and take me to Golgotha. I didn’t mean to do what I did. I was just angry. You can’t blame me for being angry, after all the terrible things that happened. I’d make it just like it was before if I knew how, but I don’t. Since I destroyed you, I haven’t been able to make anything.”
Aimee would have prayed, had there been any point, and had there been anyone to listen to her prayers, but she knew there was no one. God had deserted her—or had never existed in the first place—and Jesus, after the briefest of honeymoons, had turned out to be a homicidal pervert. Never, either in life or Afterlife, had she felt so powerless and alone. As she knelt and sobbed, one of the loyal nuns tentatively approached her. “Sister Aimee?”
Aimee took a deep breath and got exhaustedly to her feet. “What is it, my dear?”
“Do Bernadette and her women intend to hurt us?”
Aimee didn’t answer right away. She knew that if Bernadette and her mutineers could break into the area of Heaven where she and the loyalists were holed up, they would almost certainly drag all of them out and crucify them. Bernadette had started calling herself the Hammer of God, and anyone who adopted such a title was unlikely to be interested in any kind of truce or accommodation. Whether the few nuns that had remained loyal needed to know the worst was a moot point. Aimee didn’t want to deceive them, but at the same time, if they knew how hopeless their situation was, they, too, would probably desert her. Aimee closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I really don’t think they mean us any good. They are very angry women.”
“It wasn’t your fault that Jesus did what he did.”
“They don’t seem to see it that way.”
Another nun joined the first one. “If there was a way for us to get some weapons, perhaps we could drive them off. Show them we mean business.”
Nuns talking about weapons came as something of a surprise to Aimee. “But this is Heaven. We never had a need for weapons.”
Now a third nun came into the discussion. “We heard that Bernadette and her people have a lot of weapons. We heard that she managed to conjure them.”
Perhaps the idea of these nuns wanting weapons wasn’t so farfetched as it seemed. They might have taken holy orders, but, prior to that at least three of them had flat-backed it in Doc Holliday’s disgusting brothel. Perhaps they still had a fighting core at the center of their being. The trouble was Aimee had no experience in conjuring things like weapons. In fact, since she’d destroyed Semple, she was finding it nearly impossible to hold Heaven itself together. Large circular Swiss-cheese holes had appeared in some of the buildings, giving the landscape the air of a surrealist painting.
“Couldn’t you conjure us some weapons? Maybe some light machine guns? We wouldn’t want to hurt anyone, just scare them off.”
Aimee looked at the nuns with an expression of terminal sadness. “I don’t know if I’m able to do anything like that. I have no experience. I’ve always been a pacifist.”
“What about Semple? Maybe she could help us.”
Aimee hadn’t exactly explained to the nuns and angels what had become of Semple. All they knew was that she’d left after Jesus was crucified. They certainly didn’t know that Aimee had blasted her into Limbo, and she wasn’t about to reveal that now. Aside from the fact that it would blow her image as the Princess of Peace and the helpless victim of Bernadette and her renegades, some of the loyalists might start asking why she couldn’t set up a similar vibration and blow Bernadette and her cohorts way into the back of beyond. “I don’t think Semple’s going to be coming back here for a very long time. She feels very guilty about bringing the false Jesus here.”
One of the angels rustled his wings. “Maybe if we went to Semple’s domain? She could have weapons there. And there are those strange guards that she invented. Perhaps they might protect us.”
Aimee was about to explain why retreating to Semple’s horrible environment was out of the question, but then it occurred to her that the angel might actually have had an inspired idea.
As Jim, Doc, and Semple emerged from the elevator, the woman in the elaborate buckled boots was coming out of the coffee shop. Sempl
e nodded to her but received only a blank stare in response. The two men were still debating the best way to get out of Hell, and neither of them noticed the woman at all as they headed for the revolving doors of the Mephisto Hotel’s main entrance. The entrance led out into a broad tunnel that in turn would take them to the concourse at the foot of the elevators. Directly outside the doors, a small knot of Virgils were plying for hire. Jim glanced at Doc. “Do you think we should get one?”
Doc thought about this. “I don’t know Hell well enough to get around without some sort of guide, but it’s taking a chance. Word could go straight back to Lucifer.”
Semple looked around cautiously. “You think Lucifer will be coming after us?”
“Indeed I do. Kali, too, for that matter. Young Morrison here may not have actually taken their money, but he did rob the game, and that’s something neither of them can allow to be seen to happen.”
“So it’s really just my ass that’s on the line ?”
Doc shook his head. “I fear Lucifer and Kali don’t go in for such precise apportionment of blame. We were all there, we all left together—we’re all tarred with the same brush.”
“So it wouldn’t help if we separated?”
Doc half-smiled. “A noble thought, my boy, but it wouldn’t do any good.” He glanced slyly at Semple. “Besides, I thought you two were in the throes of lewd acquaintance.”
Jim glanced at Semple and then turned back to Doc. “What’s the point in getting acquainted if I’ll only end up dragging her down with me ?”
Semple stiffened. “Listen, darling, before you start trying to do any far, far better thing, let me decide when and where I want to be dragged down.”
Before the subject of Jim taking the rap could continue, a Virgil came up to them and bowed with studied if importunate courtesy. “Lady and gentlemen, you seem a little lost. Can I be of any service?”
Before either Jim or Doc could respond, Semple took the bull by the horns. “We have to find the fastest way out of here without anyone knowing about it.”
“We Virgils act only in the strictest confidence.”