The Five Gates of Hell

by Rupert Thomson

Dark suit, white shirt, neat hair. Everything was ordinary, predictable, even slightly disappointing. Until he noticed the gloves.

  Nobody had mentioned anything about gloves. They’d told him that Creed was going to live for ever. They’d told him that Creed cast a shadow, even when there wasn’t any sun. They’d told him that Creed was Latin for ‘I believe’. But they hadn’t told him about the gloves.

  Bad circulation? A skin disease? Some fingers missing?

  Then Jed remembered the advice that Vasco had given him, and he moved his eyes somewhere else. Somewhere safe. The window? There wasn’t one. The photograph would do. You didn’t act too curious, and you didn’t ask any questions. A driver was deaf and dumb. That’s what Vasco had told him. Did he want the job or didn’t he?

  Creed hung up. He pressed a button and said, ‘No more calls for ten minutes.’ Then he looked at Jed and said, ‘I’m told you’re a good driver.’

  ‘I can drive.’

  ‘I need a chauffeur. It’s a twenty-four-hour job. Right round the clock. Not many people could do it.’ Creed’s eyes wandered across Jed’s face. ‘You can think about it if you like. You can have a couple of days to think about it.’

  ‘I don’t need to think about it.’

  Creed smiled. ‘How do you know you’ll like working for me?’

  Jed suddenly had the curious feeling that Creed was behind him, even though he could see Creed in front of him. The air in the small office seemed glassy, hallucinogenic. Breathing was like a pill on your tongue. Just breathing.

  ‘Don’t you think you should ask around?’ Creed was saying. ‘Find out what I’m like as an employer?’

  Now Jed was looking into Creed’s eyes. He noticed how dark they were. You couldn’t tell where the pupils ended and the irises began. He stared at Creed, trying for a few long seconds to separate the two, then he became aware that he was staring, and he looked away, looked down.

  Creed’s voice again. ‘You sure you don’t want to think about it?’

  Jed nodded. ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘See my secretary on your way out. She’ll take care of the details.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘When do I start?’

  ‘Monday.’

  Jed moved towards the door.

  ‘Before you go,’ Creed said.

  Jed paused. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I expect loyalty from my employees. Do you understand what loyalty means?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to define it for me.’

  ‘Loyalty.’ Jed faltered.

  His thoughts spilled in all directions like the beads of a necklace when it breaks. For some reason he thought of old Mr Garbett bending to gather the beads and suddenly he had the answer.

  ‘It’s silence. That’s what loyalty is. Silence.’

  And, looking back across the office, he was sure that he was right.

  ‘Monday,’ Creed said, and turned back to his papers.

  The secretary showed Jed round the office and introduced him to the staff. He was fitted for a chauffeur’s uniform: a dark suit, a pair of black shoes, a peaked cap with the Paradise Corporation logo printed on the front in red. He was taken through a familiarisation procedure for the car: the type of performance to expect, the kind of maintenance required. When he returned to the office two hours later he found Vasco lounging in a chair, one leg dangling over the arm.

  ‘Get the job?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  They walked back down the corridor together, Vasco’s arm round Jed’s shoulder. ‘You must come and have dinner sometime,’ Vasco said. ‘Meet the wife.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  Vasco laughed. ‘Been married three years. Got a kid too.’

  They reached reception. ‘This is Jed,’ Vasco told the girl at the desk. ‘He’s Creed’s new driver.’

  ‘I’m Carol,’ the girl said, and her small mouth stretched as wide as it would go.

  Vasco showed Jed outside.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you’re one of us now.’

  They stood on the neat green lawn in the sunlight.

  ‘Just like old times,’ Jed said.

  Vasco smiled. ‘Just like old times.’ The same words, but they seemed spoken from a long way off. The same words, with distance added.

  It was nothing like old times. Vasco worked for Creed. That in itself was something new. Creed existed inside a kind of magnetic field. It had a pull that most people, even Vasco, it seemed, found irresistible. But it was hard for Jed to adjust to the idea that Vasco had cut a deal, that he was no longer in control. And if it was hard for Jed, might it not also be hard, at times, for Vasco?

  Jed wondered.

  But he didn’t have the time to do much wondering. When Creed said it was a twenty-four-hour job, it had been no exaggeration. He only slept about three hours a night, usually between three and six. He must have some kind of technique, Jed decided. He’d read about it: you dropped down six or seven levels at once, you dropped straight into the deepest sleep, it was pure and concentrated, you didn’t need as much of it, and then you rose again, six or seven levels, it was like going up in an elevator, and you stepped out at the top, rested, immaculate, alert. Jed didn’t have a technique. He had to learn to sleep in snatches, ten minutes here, forty-five there, often sitting at the wheel of the car. At the same time he was trying to study. He’d bought the most detailed map he could find, and he was learning the city street by street, route by route. He was rewarded during his third week when Creed slid the glass panel open and said, ‘You seem to know the city pretty well.’ He felt this need to prove himself to Creed. He wanted to become indispensable.

  The weeks passed and he began to make the job his own. Not just performing it to the best of his ability, but re-inventing it as well. There was a taxi-driver in Mangrove, Joshua, who’d warned him about piles and haemorrhoids and fissures of the anus. Jed’s first purchase was a scarlet velvet cushion. It protected him against discomforts of the kind that Joshua had mentioned; it also made him feel like royalty when he lowered himself into position behind the wheel. His eyes would suffer too, Joshua had told him. The constant sunlight, the glare. Jed found a pair of dark lenses in a run-down optician’s on Second Avenue. All he had to do was clip them over his glasses and the streets were instantly bathed in a deep and soothing green. It was during this time that he switched to a new brand of candy. He’d discovered Liquorice Whirls. Long-lasting, fresh-tasting, they were the ideal candy for a round-the-clock chauffeur.

  Slowly he learned Creed’s ways. Slowly the patterns emerged. Creed used the limousine as a mobile office, and he was invariably accompanied by one or other of his personal executives, as they were called, sometimes by all four. These people didn’t work for the Paradise Corporation, at least not on paper. They were Creed’s inner circle. His bodyguards, his confidants. His eyes and ears. They protected him, they supplied his entertainment, they seemed bound to him, as if by some unpaid debt or hidden leash. Vasco was one. McGowan was another. Fred Trotter and Maxie Carlo made up the number. Trotter had been a docker, a mercenary, a security guard. He had one twisted arm, the result of a fall from the roof of a brothel when he was seventeen. He was fifty now, and hard as marble; his jacket always seemed to stretch too tight across his shoulderblades. Maxie Carlo was a court jester, a vicious clown, the Mortlake mascot. He wore a silk suit and kept a flick-knife up the sleeve. His small round head sat on his shoulders like a ball that might, at any moment, roll off and bounce around on the floor. He drank from Creed’s glass, he sang and danced on restaurant tables, he gave people names. McGowan was Skull. Trotter was Pig. And he’d dug deep into Vasco’s past and surfaced with Gorilla. He even had a name for himself. He called himself Meatball, on account of his oily complexion and his no neck. With the possible exception of Vasco, they’d all worked, at one time or another, as vultures. Now they ran teams of vultures, smooth-faced men in grey suits,
men who didn’t balk at crime, not so long as there was some good commission in it. Jed began to understand the significance of Creed’s gloves. Probably he didn’t want to get his hands dirty.

  For the first few months Jed was ignored. The only words he heard were the names of destinations. He was just ‘Morgan’ or ‘you’. Vasco’s words echoed like a sentence: You’ll be on the outside, but maybe you’ll work your way in.

  And the look on McGowan’s face. Over my dead body.

  And then it was a Saturday morning. Jed had rolled the car out of the garage and into the parking-lot; he was checking the fluids. It was still early, just after eight, and the sun hadn’t found its way round the edge of the building. The smell of hot dough and sweet syrup drifted through the wire-mesh fence from the YUM YUM DONUT place on the other side of the street. He heard a door slam and turned to see Creed walking towards him, flanked by all four of his personal executives. Their impeccable dark suits, their circus faces.

  ‘But what about Morgan?’ Creed was saying as he walked up. He stopped in front of Jed and stared.

  Jed lowered the hood and wiped his hands.

  ‘We need a name for Morgan.’ Creed turned to Carlo. ‘But remember, no more animals. We’ve already got two animals.’

  ‘Only two?’ Vasco said. ‘I thought we had more than two.’

  ‘Jesus,’ McGowan said, ‘his old woman must’ve fucking threw his brains out with the garbage this morning.’

  ‘I mean, there’s Trotter, there’s me,’ Vasco said, and he turned to face McGowan, ‘and then there’s you. Isn’t there?’

  McGowan took one step forwards. His teeth looked filed down. His eyes were mirrors. Watch yourself. Watch yourself die.

  Carlo stepped between them, chuckling. ‘Maybe I should think up some new names.’ He lifted his dainty hands into the air, palms up. ‘Maybe we should all be animals.’

  Vasco and McGowan were still staring at each other over Carlo’s head.

  ‘Over here, Meatball,’ Creed said.

  Carlo went and stood beside Creed. They both studied Jed.

  ‘What do you think?’ Creed said.

  Carlo’s head rolled sideways on his shoulders. ‘He’s so long and thin. Kind of looks like a bit of spaghetti.’

  ‘Spaghetti Morgan.’ Creed smiled. ‘I like that.’ He turned to the others. ‘You two. Skull, Gorilla. Spaghetti Morgan. What do you think?’

  Vasco and McGowan turned to look at Jed.

  ‘Spaghetti?’ Vasco said. ‘That’s perfect.’

  ‘Goes pretty well with Meatball, anyway,’ Jed said in a dry voice.

  That joke kept them going all day. They even had it for lunch, at a small Italian place on the east side. They all asked for Spaghetti with Meatball. Jed read their lips through the restaurant window.

  ‘Hey,’ Trotter said as they climbed back into the car afterwards, ‘that’s two foods we got now, isn’t it?’

  ‘You only just realised that?’ Carlo said. ‘You’re real quick, aren’t you, Pig?’

  ‘Don’t call me Pig,’ Trotter growled.

  ‘You’re growling,’ Carlo said.

  ‘Maybe I got the animal wrong.’ Maybe Vasco was right, Jed thought, as he drove them back into town that day. Maybe they were all animals. Trained animals, though. They snarled at each other, they scratched and bit, but one word from Creed and they were back on their tubs and ready to jump through hoops of fire.

  Even with his new name Jed was still cut off. He was the driver, sealed behind a sliding sheet of glass. He was deaf and dumb.

  But he didn’t lose heart. Inside him there was patience like a wide field. Inside him he could feel the slow, green pushing of the future.

  The only person he was close to at all was Carol. His clip-on lenses made her laugh. So did his Liquorice Whirls. His scarlet cushion had her in hysterics. He liked to make her laugh because it meant that he could watch her mouth.

  The first time he saw her mouth, that morning of the interview, he thought she must’ve had some kind of operation. It looked as if two people had been sewing it up from either end and then they’d both run out of thread. Every time he made her laugh he thought her mouth was going to tear at the edges. It was almost too painful to watch.

  He didn’t realise she had a limp until they went out after work one day. Creed was out of town. He’d flown north for an international convention. Jed had a free night and no plans. Carol suggested a walk on the pier.

  At first he thought her heel had snapped or something. Then she looked up into his eyes and told him that one of her legs was shorter than the other, and she was sorry if it embarrassed him. She’d had three operations, she said, all without success. Her father had taken her to specialists, physiotherapists, even a hypnotist once, but there was nothing anyone could do. Jed’s eyes scanned the faces of passing lovers, scanned the dark ocean beyond, but he was listening. He was definitely listening. It was like hearing a story about himself. Like looking at himself in one of those distorting mirrors. It was like some strange form of vanity. He recognised exactly what she was talking about. She mistook his silence for compassion, and tightened her grip on his upper arm.

  They reached the end of the pier. It was a clear night. He could just make out a few faint lights in the distance. Those lights had names: Angel Meadows, Coral Pastures, Heaven Sound. The ocean graveyards, twelve miles out.

  Carol shivered. ‘How do you like working for Creed?’

  ‘I like it,’ Jed said.

  ‘He scares me.’ She saw Jed’s face. ‘I know. I’m stupid.’ She shook herself, and turned her back on the ocean. ‘What about a drink?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Here.’ She pointed to the sign they were standing under. ‘The Starlite Bar.’

  She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, so she was leaning away from him, and her lips tipped upwards, they were so red and stitched in the white light of the naked bulbs that looped above their heads, they were the only colour in her face, but he looked away, it wasn’t embarrassment he felt, it was a kind of tortured fascination, but he didn’t want to kiss her, or even touch her, it would’ve felt like incest.

  ‘Let’s have two drinks,’ she said, ‘or maybe three.’

  He smiled. She was making light of a moment that had been a risk for her. He took her arm and lowered his voice. ‘You forgot. I don’t drink.’

  ‘I never knew.’

  He told her about the Towers of Remembrance. Thirteen floors up, misty plastic tacked over broken glass. Flap, flap, flap in the wind all night. Dreams where the skin was lifting off your bones. Ghosts above and ghosts below. He told her how he’d lost his seventeenth year completely. How the Towers of Remembrance became the Towers of Oblivion. A mixture of vodka, speed and glue. He’d been down and through and out the other side. He wasn’t interested in losing control any more. He wanted a mind that was sharp the way a diamond cuts glass. He drank soda now and ate candy, and that was it.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Your pockets crackle when you move.’

  He laughed.

  ‘Coca-Cola,’ she said. ‘You can drink Coca-Cola.’ There was a power-surge behind her eyes, as if the voltage had increased. ‘It’s supposed to be very good here.’

  They walked into the brash red and chrome of the Starlite Bar. Someone was playing an electric organ, and old couples twirled on a horseshoe of polished wood. He ordered a gin and tonic for her and a Coke for himself. They sat in a booth.

  ‘How come I never noticed before?’ he asked her. ‘That you’ve got a limp.’

  She grinned. ‘Special shoes.’

  ‘So how come you’re not wearing them now?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged, sipped at her drink. ‘I don’t see why I should hide it all the time.’

  Halfway through the second drink she said, ‘Do you want to look at my leg?’

  A wave of heat rose through him. He glanced round.

  ‘You want to, don’t you? I can tell.’ And,
lifting an inch off the seat, she eased her black tights down, so her legs were bare. Her right knee was ringed with scar tissue. It looked like a piece of red barbed wire.

  ‘Can I touch it?’

  She nodded, her lips tight.

  It felt like dried glue. Taking his finger away again, but still looking, he said, ‘They really fucked it up, didn’t they?’ but the way he said it, he might’ve been paying the surgeons a compliment.

  She looked at it dispassionately, as if it was a ring on her finger, a ring she was trying on, a ring she might or might not buy. ‘I think it’s because they always cut in the same place.’ She emptied her glass. Ice-cubes knocked against her teeth.

  ‘They’ve tried to fix it three times,’ she said, ‘but I think they’ve pretty much given up now.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘You told me.’

  During the third drink she cried.

  He dropped her at the taxi-stand outside Belgrano’s. She lived on the west shore, over the harbour bridge, and he had to drive east. She stood on the sidewalk, her wrists pressed tight against her thighs. She looked like a child, lost or shy.

  He leaned across the passenger seat and looked up at her. ‘You going to be all right?’

  A sniff, a nod.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He watched her limp towards a taxi, then he shifted into DRIVE and pulled away.

  On his way home he had to stop for gas. As he was paying he noticed someone wheeling a Harley into the yellow light of the pumps. The owner of the bike had a pigtail and a black leather jacket with a death’s-head on the back. He couldn’t see the face, but he thought he recognised the jacket. He pocketed his change and walked over.

  ‘Mitch. That you?’

  Mitch stared at him.

  ‘I came into your tattoo place once. With Vasco. It was years ago.’

  Now Mitch’s face tipped back. ‘Fuck me, the blackmailer.’ His eyes travelled the length of Jed. First down, then up. ‘What’s the fancy dress?’

  Jed grinned. ‘I’m driving for the Paradise Corporation.’

  ‘Same place Vasco works, isn’t it?’

  ‘He got me the job.’

  Mitch had this way of squinting at you, as if he was looking directly into bright sunlight, as if he was having his picture taken. It was hard to tell exactly what it meant.