The Five Gates of Hell

by Rupert Thomson

  The glass panel slid open behind him.

  ‘I heard you were out at Dobson’s place last night.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. I was.’

  He’d known Creed would find out. He’d even wanted him to. He wanted Creed to be amused, impressed even. A chauffeur at the chairman’s dinner table!

  ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Carol asked me.’

  ‘Carol?’

  ‘His daughter. The receptionist.’

  Creed said nothing.

  ‘The one with the limp,’ Jed said.

  ‘I know the one.’

  Another silence. Wind pushed at the car.

  Then Creed said, ‘Dobson’s on his way out.’ The chairman? On his way out?

  But Creed didn’t give Jed time to think. ‘When a ship sinks,’ he said, ‘that’s when you see who the rats are. What interests me is, which rats leave which ship.’

  The glass panel slid shut.

  One week later Sir Charles Dobson resigned as chairman of the Paradise Corporation. The decision had been taken, the statement said, ‘for personal reasons’. The new chairman, elected unanimously by the members of the board, was Mr Neville Creed. Jed read the statement three times while he was eating breakfast that morning. It sounded calm and measured, utterly reasonable. But he couldn’t make any sense of it. He saw Dobson standing in the library. Nobody really retires from this business. It’s a way of life. He couldn’t make any sense of it at all. And then he saw Creed sitting in the back of a black car parked on the Crumbles. Dobson’s on his way out.

  From then on everything that happened seemed to jar. There were minor changes, subtle departures from routine. Creed called at seven. ‘Meet me in the parking-lot.’ Jed usually waited in the car outside the front of the hotel. Now it was the parking-lot. Underground. When Creed stepped out of the service elevator he wasn’t alone. Flack was with him. Flack was one of the corporation lawyers. It looked as if both men had been up all night. Except Flack didn’t have a technique. Flack’s skin glistened in the white, gritty light, his thin face tight with fatigue.

  Jed held out a hand as Creed approached. ‘I’d like to congratulate you, sir.’

  At close range Creed looked bright, jagged round the edges. As if he’d been cut out of tin. He was staring at Jed. He didn’t seem to know what Jed was talking about.

  ‘Your new appointment.’

  Oh that. A nod, a quick smile. And then Creed ushered Flack into the car. It was as if Creed had something more important on his mind. But what could be more important than his appointment as chairman of the largest and most prestigious funeral parlour in the city?

  Up the ramp and out into the light. That white winter sun, a magnesium flash. At the first intersection Jed snapped his dark lenses over his eyes. A calming green. He glanced at the two men in the back. Flack was crushed into a corner, gesticulating, a beetle turned on to its back. Creed leaned towards him, his hand palm-upwards in the air, the fingers curved and stiff like the setting for a precious stone, but no stone there. They were arguing – but what about? It was a question Jed had never allowed himself before. He saw old Garbett’s tape recorder, he saw the wheels turning. If only he could record what they were saying. He began to imagine how he would run the wires under the carpet, and had to stop before it became too real.

  Flack was dropped in the city at ten. McGowan and Maxie Carlo took his place. Carlo pared his thumbnails with his knife. McGowan spat bits of words through pointed teeth. Creed stared out of the window, as if it was the Crumbles he could see. The mood was wrong, all wrong. Creed had been appointed chairman, yet there was no sense of celebration. The day was filled with whispers, echoes, nerves.

  Towards midday they drove out to Dobson’s house on Pacific Drive. Carlo and McGowan waited on the steps while Creed went in. Creed was inside the house for almost an hour and when he emerged on the steps it wasn’t Sir Charles who was with him, but Sir Charles’s wife. At first Jed thought she was laughing. Maxie Carlo must’ve cracked a joke. But he saw her hand fly up and hold her mouth, he saw Creed slide an arm round her shoulder. It wasn’t laughter. She was crying.

  The next stop was Butterfield, where they picked up Morton the embalmer. This, too, was curious: Creed never had anything to do with embalmers. In fact, Jed had only seen Morton once before. He’d spent an afternoon with Morton when he first joined the company, as part of his induction. He remembered the white room. The tinkle of calipers and hacksaws in the sterilising bowl, the naughty smack of rubber gloves. And Morton talking, talking. ‘I lie beautifully, that’s my job. Or not lie, maybe. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.’ A hole had opened in the floor and the naked corpse of a white woman rose into view. Later Jed had lost all sense of time as the external heart slowly pumped a solution of formaldehyde into the dead woman’s body, as the dead woman’s body began to blush. He couldn’t help thinking of his radios, the way they warmed up, that slow suffusion of light behind the names. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.

  The four men had lunch in the Palm Court Motel on Highway 23. Jed waited in the car. Ate half a chicken salad sandwich, threw the rest away. Read the paper and couldn’t remember a word of it. He had no appetite. Couldn’t concentrate.

  At two-forty-seven the four men pushed through the glass doors and out into the motel parking-lot. They stood on the warm asphalt. Creed opened one hand like a fan, words spilling sideways from his lips. Morton dipped his head, his face pulled wide, excited. Carlo and McGowan stood on either side of the embalmer, he might’ve been in custody. They all wore suits. They all had clean shoes and neat hair. He watched them walk towards the car. They looked like evangelists, or politicians. When they were ten yards away they stopped talking, and they didn’t start again till they were safely behind glass.

  I need you closer.

  That was a laugh. He’d never felt further away.

  And then Sir Charles Dobson died. Just ten days after his resignation. Suddenly, at home. The papers bristled with tributes to ‘a man who stood for tradition and dignity in a business that has recently been rocked by scandal and corruption’. Creed received a good deal of spin-off publicity. The Herald called him ‘Dobson’s understudy’ and ‘one of the new entrepreneurs’. The Tribune said he exhibited ‘the cutting edge and thrust of an aggressive businessman on his way to the top’. It was clear from the cumulative weight of these reports that Creed had already arrived. Many of the papers carried photographs of Dobson and Creed side by side, Dobson’s arm around Creed’s shoulder, as if Creed was not only heir to the business, but also a son.

  On the morning of Dobson’s funeral a bellhop knocked on 3D and handed Jed a big square box. There was a card taped to the box: TO 3D. A GIFT FROM 1412. 1412 was Creed’s apartment. Jed smiled at the anonymity. All letters and numbers. Like convicts. Inside the box was a black satin top hat. He tried it on. It fitted to perfection, it even seemed to match his scarecrow face. He decided to wear it for the rest of his life.

  When he pulled up outside the Palace, Creed was already waiting by the entrance with McGowan, Trotter and Maxie Carlo (still no sign of Vasco). In their black top hats and tailcoats they looked more like vultures than ever. They studied him from their position high on the steps. Creed turned to Maxie Carlo.

  ‘What do you think of Spaghetti, Meatball?’

  Carlo scarcely had to look. ‘Dressed to kill.’

  Laughter jumped from face to face. Creed, Trotter; even McGowan. Then, just as suddenly, they seemed to remember that this was a serious occasion, they were on their way to a funeral, the funeral of a great man, the chairman, their founder and benefactor, and they fell silent again.

  The first two cars held the coffin (solid bronze with 24-carat gold-plated hardware) and several close members of the family. Creed rode in the third car, flanked by two of the Corporation’s top directors, with Jed at the wheel in his new top hat. The vultures travelled in the fourth car, packed tight into the back, like pieces of a game.
Creed had organised the funeral himself. The funeral to end all funerals. A motorcade through downtown Moon Beach, a twenty-one-gun salute, a memorial service in the cathedral. Creed had requisitioned an open car, and he stood for the entire procession, as a mark of his own personal respect for the deceased. From time to time Jed tipped the mirror to the sky to look at him. Hands clasped behind his back, face as grave as stone. Jed could sense a question running like a breeze through the rows of people who lined the streets: Who’s he? If they didn’t know now, Jed thought, they’d know soon enough.

  There was a clever piece of stage-management on the steps of the cathedral. The city’s funeral barons had turned out in an unprecedented expression of their admiration and their sympathy, and Creed took full advantage of the fact. He engineered it so that he was standing head and shoulders above his rivals when they filed past to shake his hand and offer their condolences. It was a symbolic moment, duly captured and enshrined by the massed bank of press photographers. In the papers the next day it looked as if the funeral parlour heads were sanctioning the transfer of power, as if they were acknowledging Creed’s pre-eminence, as if they were paying homage. The funeral had become a coronation.

  After the service Jed saw Carol walking across the lawn in front of the cathedral. He hadn’t spoken to her since the day before her father resigned. She’d left Mortlake suddenly, without saying goodbye. She wasn’t limping today, he noticed; she must be wearing those special shoes of hers. At that moment she caught a glimpse of him through the crowd and came over.

  ‘Jed,’ she said, ‘how are you?’

  He caught Creed looking at him, frowning.

  ‘I can’t talk now,’ he said.

  ‘Can I call you?’

  He gave her the number. ‘I’m not there much, though. Pretty busy these days.’

  ‘You’re doing well,’ she said, ‘aren’t you?’

  He shrugged.

  Her face bent close to his. To kiss him, he thought, and he shrank back.

  ‘This whole thing’s a sham,’ she hissed.

  He stared at her, not understanding.

  She nodded twice, almost to herself. ‘A sham.’ Then she was stumbling, legs of china, to her car.

  The left side of his head began to beat. What did she mean, a sham? He saw one of her heels sink into the soft grass, she almost fell. She seemed so exposed, so ridiculous, he wanted to point and laugh. What did she know? The loss of her father had opened her up like a can of something and tipped her out. There was nothing holding her together. He couldn’t deal with that.

  In the event he didn’t have to. She never called.

  Vasco called instead. At least he thought it was Vasco. The voice just said, ‘Watch the papers,’ then it hung up.

  He forgot about the call until the end of the week when the story broke. It broke in the tabloids first, where it would do the most damage. The Mirror’s headline was a classic:

  FUNERAL BOSS DIED TWICE

  According to sources that couldn’t be revealed, the Paradise Corporation had pretended that Sir Charles Dobson was alive for ten days after his death so that the leadership of the company could be handed over without shaking public confidence. In a move variously described as ‘ghoulish’, ‘Machiavellian’ and ‘sick’, Mr Creed, it was alleged, had orchestrated this posthumous resignation, instructing expert embalmers to preserve the corpse and even arranging a photo session two days after Sir Charles’s death (Sir Charles’s lifeless arm around Mr Creed’s shoulders) so a picture could be released to the press along with a transcript of the letter of resignation. Only once the transfer of power had been smoothly effected and accepted by the general public, the paper claimed, had Sir Charles Dobson been allowed to die.

  These were extraordinary allegations and they turned the city upside down. For the first few days after the story broke Creed lived in the car. He banished his vultures. In the present climate of opinion they could only damage him. Flack was his adviser now. As they drove from press conferences to radio stations, from radio stations to television studios, Creed and Flack huddled in the back of the car hatching strategies. Creed’s statement seldom varied: ‘This entire story is a monstrous fabrication, an attempt to smear the good name of the Paradise Corporation.’ In between the public appearances, they were hounded by the press. There were two or three car-chases a day, with Jed using every hidden fold and secret pocket of the city to lose some persistent journalist or camera crew. They ate in the outskirts, obscure highway diners, and cafés in bleak residential suburbs. They hid in the city’s petticoats. They stayed awake. One night they almost snapped an axle when Jed’s eyes fell shut and the car left the highway and began to lurch across dry yellow grass. A strange closeness developed, a shorthand, a kind of telepathy. Jed began to know where Creed wanted to go without a word being uttered. There was the afternoon when he drove out to the Crumbles and they slept for three hours, the wind pushing at the side of the car like a crowd. He woke suddenly and turned. Creed was sleeping with his eyes wide open. Jed saw Creed wake. The only difference was a subtle shift in breathing.

  ‘I dreamt we were made of gold,’ Creed said, ‘and there were people trying to melt us down.’ One of his eyebrows arched ironically. As if anyone could melt them down.

  Jed knew the story in the papers was true. He only had to remember the day after Dobson’s resignation. Creed’s distracted blankness in the parking-lot. Flack’s anxiety. The tension on the faces of McGowan and Carlo. Mrs Dobson’s tears. Morton’s jittery elation. I lie beautifully. All those ambiguous, jarring pieces fell into place. He remembered the picture in the paper. He remembered thinking that the smile on Dobson’s face looked false. And it had been, of course. Dead men didn’t smile. Not unless they fell into Morton’s hands. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth. No, he didn’t believe in Creed’s innocence, not for a moment, but then innocence and guilt had never been the parameters, had they? There was only one question in his mind when he read the papers: had they taken the story far enough? It occurred to him as a possibility, for instance, that, prior to being ‘kept alive’ for ten days, Dobson might first have been murdered. Was that what Carol had been trying to tell him?

  The days passed. Jed ate Liquorice Whirls, and virtually nothing else. He hardly slept. At times he felt himself departing into hallucination. The rumours were still flying, but the proof was lying low. Creed’s vultures were out there, Jed was sure of it, sealing lips and twisting thumbs. Sometimes Creed would turn his face to the window and smile. Just the flicker of a smile when he thought that nobody was looking (but Jed had practised the deft glance in the mirror and he didn’t miss much). Creed was like a gambler. Spin the wheel. If you lose, just spin again. There were always more chips. It was down to nerve. Who got chicken first. Which rats left which ship.

  Silence was descending all over the city. The hollow roar of nothing being said. The Dobson story had yet to be substantiated, and the family were still unavailable for comment. The Paradise Corporation was suing three of the city’s leading newspapers. Creed met McGowan and Trotter at Papa Jim’s Bone-A-Fide Rib Place on the South Coast Expressway. A chequered tablecloth and lighting like melted butter. Jed could see them from the car, drinking beers and swapping jokes. It was real mood-swing. They looked like three guys relaxing after a ball game. Once again he wished he could’ve listened in.

  Then, nine days after the story broke, the Tribune published a cartoon. It showed a coffin with the lid nailed down and two candles burning at the head. A voice-bubble rose from the inside of the coffin. It said, simply, ‘I resign.’

  The morning that the cartoon appeared, Jed overheard Creed talking to Maxie Carlo. He had the paper in his hand. ‘The press are beginning to have fun,’ he was saying. ‘The worst is over.’

  There was a new confidence. An air of leisure, recklessness, infallibility. McGowan was seen smiling. Maxie Carlo came to work in a yellow plaid suit. Creed gave Jed two nights off.

  Jed drove down to Rialto
to see Mitch.

  ‘Ask him,’ Mitch said as Jed walked in. ‘He works there.’

  Some friends of Mitch’s had come round. A couple of them had ridden in the Moon Beach chapter together. There was a black girl there too. Her name was Sharon. She wanted to know what Jed thought about the Dobson affair.

  Jed cracked a beer. ‘It’s all true,’ he said, ‘every word of it,’ and he sent Mitch a wink.

  ‘No, really.’

  And suddenly he felt a slippage, a letting go. His nerves had been on hold for days. No sleep and all that road unwinding before his eyes, inside his head. It only took this one slight pressure when he was least expecting it and he came loose.

  ‘How am I supposed to know?’ he snapped. ‘I’m only a fucking driver, all right?’

  The black girl shrank. ‘Christ. Sorry I asked.’

  Jed drank two more beers and a couple of shots of tequila. Suddenly the room smelt of dead flowers and stale smoke, and it was loud, even during silences, with the ticking of Mitch’s clocks. He went to the bathroom, hung his head over the toilet bowl. The ammonia helped. This hunchback darkness on his shoulder and the room behind him, high and narrow. It was all the liquor, he wasn’t used to it any more. In the old days he could’ve swallowed a six-pack in half an hour and then gone out and walked a tightrope. Not any more. He shut his mouth and hung his head. Waited for the darkness to lift.

  ‘How did you get to be a driver, Jed?’

  He slowly looked up. It was much later. He was back in the lounge. Mitch was rolling a cigarette, running the tip of his tongue along the shiny edge. ‘Somebody say something?’

  ‘How did you get to be a driver?’

  Jed shrugged. ‘I’m pretty good mechanically. I don’t mind working long hours –’

  The black girl cut in. ‘It’s his eyes.’

  ‘His eyes?’ one of the bikers said. ‘What d’you mean?’