The Five Gates of Hell

by Rupert Thomson

  Now, as the train swayed up the coast, there were tears in his own eyes too. He didn’t want anyone to see so he cupped his hand to the window and looked out. The tracks ran alongside the ocean here. He saw a pale strip of sand. The ocean heaving, unlit. No moon tonight. Tight in his hand he held the silver coin that Dad had given him at the front door. It was the same coin that Dad always gave him, every time he went away. It was just a small coin, worth practically nothing.

  Worth everything.

  You, Me, and the Chairman

  It had been a normal day. In the morning Creed had a meeting with a city bank. He lunched with the police commissioner at a fish restaurant in Torch Bay. After lunch he spent half an hour with McGowan in an outdoor café by the river. Then, during the afternoon he put in a personal appearance at three of the funeral parlours that he’d recently acquired for the company as part of his new expansion programme. By late afternoon the sky was grey and the air seemed hard to breathe. As they left the northern suburbs, the car began to tremble in Jed’s hands. He touched his foot to the brake and slowed to about thirty.

  Creed slid the window open. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jed said.

  Then the streetlights began to sway. Dreamily, like charmed snakes.

  ‘Earthquake,’ Creed said.

  They were on a raised section of the Ring, the road that acted as the circumference of downtown, and all Jed could see was freeway, sky, and rows of swaying grey poles. He wanted to get back down to ground-level.

  Then it was over. Less than six on the Richter scale, he found out later, only a tremor, really, but it was enough to change Creed’s mind about returning to the office. He asked to be driven home instead.

  Creed stood on the sidewalk outside the Palace Hotel. Jed watched him in the wing mirror, watched him without seeming to. Creed was looking into the sky as if scanning for omens.

  Jed shivered. He couldn’t get that earthquake out of his blood. He kept seeing the streetlights again, those streetlights trembling, as if the whole world was scared. ‘Do you need me again today?’ he said. He hoped the answer was no. He wanted to go home and lie down.

  Creed’s head turned slowly on his neck. Every movement seemed to be performed in a trance that day. Death had been and gone, but it was still in the air, like static. ‘I want you back here at ten. There’s something we’ve got to discuss.’

  McGowan opened the apartment door that night when Jed buzzed. ‘Weird day,’ he said. He was gloating. It was going to get weirder, that was what he meant.

  Jed’s eyes flicked round the lounge. He half expected to see some naked tourist in the corner, bound and gagged. McGowan closed the door and slipped a small glass vial into Jed’s hand. ‘It’s going to be a long night,’ he said, and he turned to Creed, who had just walked into the room, and smiled.

  Jed glanced round the room again. Zebra walls, curtains drawn across the windows like a second night sky, carpet the colour of fresh blood. None of this was strange to him, and yet he sensed something different. A heightened atmosphere, an air of ceremony. The skin seemed looser on Creed’s face. Some kind of decision had been reached.

  He’d known he was going to be tested, and he’d prepared himself. Mitch had given him the number of a guy called Turner. Turner worked in a security systems retail outlet on Rocket Boulevard. Jed had dropped into the store late one Saturday afternoon.

  ‘I’m doing a bit of surveillance,’ he told Turner. ‘Mitch said you might be able to help.’

  Turner listened to Jed’s requirements, then he led Jed to a glass display case. ‘This is what you need.’ He unlocked the case and lifted out what looked like a Walkman with a small black box attached. A ballpoint pen slid into a hole in the box. ‘We call it the pen recorder,’ Turner said. ‘You take the pen out and it automatically activates the recording mechanism.’ He demonstrated. ‘Put it back again, and it deactivates the mechanism. It’s simple.’

  ‘How much?’ Jed asked.

  ‘Fifteen hundred,’ Turner said, ‘but since you’re a friend of Mitch’s.’ He scratched the back of his neck. ‘I could do it for thirteen.’

  Jed nodded. It was still expensive, but he couldn’t afford not to take it. Turner showed him how to wire himself up. The recorder slotted neatly into his jacket pocket. The mike clipped to the inside of his cuff. When Jed walked into Creed’s apartment that night he was, in Turner’s language, ‘live’.

  He wanted to stay straight, but that small glass vial was always being pressed into his hand, it seemed bottomless, the hours passed and they never reached the end. They were everywhere that night. The Bar Necropolis. The Jupiter casino. A private party in some high-rise apartment block; looking down into the city from the forty-second floor, it was like being inside a radio, one of those old valve radios, and Jed almost told Creed what he thought, he almost blurted something Creed wouldn’t even have understood, You must’ve had radios thrown away some time, didn’t you? but the rush blew over and he was still staring down into the forest of lit buildings and he still hadn’t spoken. Another bar, further west, in Omega. It was like that game where you were blindfolded and spun round, and then you had to try and touch someone, Creed and the Skull, they were close one moment, then they were dancing out of reach, and nothing would sound like anything when he played it back, it would sound like interference, nonsense, silence, but he stayed with it, trips to the bathroom to sluice his nose and throat, more trips to replace the tapes, because he sensed they were leading up to something, there was something at the end of this rainbow of places, not gold but something.

  At three in the morning everything suddenly moved back. A clearing in his head, a sudden loss of sound. It was a club. They were sitting at a round table. A candle in a red glass. Drinks. The faces of devils, all empty eyes and bright teeth. Creed was drinking water. He always drank the same brand. Drained from a glacier. Sodium-free. McGowan was talking. His words emerged from silence, as if they were the first words of the evening. Jed stared at McGowan’s face as it tilted and leered, all blocks of colour and deep shadows. Jed listened hard.

  ‘We pick them up,’ the Skull was saying, ‘they’re guys with no links, like on the pier or down in the meat streets, they’re always suckers for a few lines and a limousine. We pick them up, we take them somewhere, then we turn them blue. There’s a guy we know, works in the morgue, he gets the delivery. Few hours later he calls, we’re the funeral parlour, right? he’s recommended us, we do the honours, bury them,’ and his mouth opened like a grave, you could fall into that mouth for ever and ever, amen, and all those crooked grey teeth of his, no names that you could see, no names or dates, just blank, so nobody could find you, nobody could visit, nobody could leave flowers. ‘I mean, if you’re going to die you want a decent burial, stands to reason, doesn’t it, and who better to give you a decent burial,’ he said, ‘than the Paradise Corporation. You, me,’ and he levelled a hand at Creed, ‘and the chairman.’

  Creed put his glass of water down. ‘Skull,’ he said, ‘just shut up, will you?’

  That vial again. Some amyl too, which blew Jed’s head up like a mushroom cloud. In the distance, in a big gilt cage, he could see nude bodies gluing and ungluing, the sticky rhythmic contact of flesh. Male or female, he couldn’t tell. Did it matter? Flesh of some kind. Tourists, maybe. Kill them later. His vision shrank. Their table again. McGowan was running on about his gun collection.

  It was after four when they reached the Palace. McGowan vanished with a couple they’d brought home in the car. A buzzing started up. Some kind of aid. That psychopath. Jed looked across at Creed and saw that Creed was already staring at him. Jed didn’t flinch. He remembered what Sharon had said about him, remembered the chill in his eyes. Eyes that’ve killed. He never blinks. It’s like those lizards.

  ‘You remember what you said about loyalty?’

  Jed snapped back at the sound of Creed’s voice. ‘About it being silence?’

  Creed nodded.
>
  ‘I remember.’

  ‘It’s kind of passive, silence,’ Creed said, ‘isn’t it?’

  ‘Well,’ Jed said, ‘you don’t do anything.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. So would you go further? Do something?’

  There could be no hesitation here. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, Jed. Take your jacket off.’

  Jed’s stomach lurched. Had Creed suspected? ‘No, it’s all right. I think I’ll keep it on.’

  ‘What’s wrong? You cold?’

  Sharon’s words. In Creed’s mouth. Did he have another virginity to lose? ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Just a bit.’

  Imagine if he had to take his jacket off. All his insurance would be gone. But Creed had turned away and Jed breathed easier.

  ‘Do you know who talked to the papers?’ Creed said.

  Jed shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘It was your friend,’ Creed said. ‘Your old buddy.’

  Jed felt a trap closing. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Vasco Gorelli,’ Creed said. ‘It was Vasco Gorelli talked to the papers.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Creed traced the outline of his drink with one finger. ‘I put a couple of new vultures on it. You know what those new vultures are like. Keen isn’t the word. They get right down to the bones of things. They tear out the truth. Blood, guts, organs, the lot.’ He paused. ‘Gorelli said he was loyal,’ and he looked across at Jed and his eyes glittered.

  Curiously it was Vasco’s advice that Jed remembered now. Be single-pointed. No grey areas. ‘He sold you out.’

  ‘He lost his nerve,’ Creed said. ‘But you,’ again that glitter in his eyes, ‘you’d do anything for me.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘You’d lie.’

  Jed thought of that night at Mitch’s and what he’d said to Sharon. ‘I already have.’

  ‘You’d steal.’

  ‘No problem.’ He knew what was coming now. It was like counting down to an explosion. He waited for the blast. He braced himself.

  Creed’s hand reached carelessly for his glass of water. ‘You’d kill someone.’

  This had to sound right. First a chuckle, then the words, ‘Why? You got someone in mind?’

  Creed didn’t lift his eyes from his drink. He was watching that pure water the way you’d watch a fire.

  The dread rose through Jed’s body. He had to speak before he drowned in it. But he remembered to use names. He was taping this. He needed names. ‘It’s Vasco,’ he said, ‘isn’t it?’

  Still Creed watched his drink. ‘Too obvious.’

  Jed tried to think. His mind kept curving away, the way a golf ball curves when it’s sliced or hooked. That beautiful, lazy parabola into somewhere you don’t want to be.

  ‘Think sideways,’ Creed said. ‘I don’t want to kill Vasco, I just want him,’ and finally he raised his eyes and smiled, and the smile was almost benign. ‘I just want him to pay.’

  Jed got it. ‘Vasco’s brother.’

  Creed lifted his glass. ‘Congratulations.’

  But Jed had to make sure. ‘You want me to kill Vasco’s brother?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that. It’s taken care of. It’s nice. Yes,’ and Creed leaned back in his chair, ‘we’re going to send Gorilla a little Christmas present.’

  ‘You’re going to send him his brother,’ Jed said, ‘dead.’

  Creed smirked. ‘Something like that.’

  Jed left the apartment at ten to six, the wheels still turning next to his heart. He couldn’t sleep now. He took the service elevator down to the parking-lot and got into his car. As he drove across Moon River Bridge, the day rose over the estuary, the colours you find in the skin of fish: brown and pink and palest blue. He stopped the car at the Baker Park end. Leaving the engine running, he went and leaned on the railings. The metal cool against his palms, his heart still pummelling, he drew the fresh dawn air into his lungs. The wind had blown the surface of the river into streaky lines, stretchmarks on the water’s tired skin. Gulls picked at the mudbanks where once he’d searched for jewellery. He heard a voice call Vasco’s name. It was Vasco’s brother, Francis. The boy behind the door. He turned to face the ocean.

  Just before he left, Creed had given him the date. Next Wednesday. Exactly a week from now. And as he leaned against the railings he suddenly tasted it, the moment Creed had planned for him, the moment he’d always longed for, dreaded now, still longed for, and it was burnt sugar, sweet and caustic, on his tongue, it was like the flight of a bird across a window, it was there and it was gone, he couldn’t dwell on it, he couldn’t let the terror in, all he knew was what it would do for him, he knew that it would give him membership, he’d be past the sliding sheet of glass, he’d finally belong.

  During the next week he concentrated on his job to the exclusion of all else. He was silent, deferential, precise – the perfect chauffeur. He didn’t need to wire himself. There was nothing being said, nothing to record. This was empty time. He felt close to Creed. Superimposed on him, somehow. Bound. He thought he recognised in Creed qualities that he had himself: the ability to wait and to charge the act of waiting with the current of anticipation, to check and double-check, so that when the waiting was over everything would go like clockwork. He knew that, if he ever told Creed the story of the radios, Creed would understand. It might even be something that Creed already understood, that he’d divined on their first meeting in the Mortlake office. It was something they recognised in each other and shared. It made them, Jed thought with satisfaction, extremely dangerous enemies.

  Wednesday came around. When Creed called, Jed was watching a news report about a vulture who’d just been arrested on a murder charge. Apparently he’d brought the corpse in and then tried to claim commission on it.

  ‘It’s the big night,’ Creed said.

  Jed waited.

  ‘There’s a warehouse in Mangrove. United Paper Products.’ He gave Jed the address. ‘Leave the limousine there. Be back here at nine-thirty. Under the building. We’ll be using your car.’

  Jed wondered why Creed was dispensing with the limousine. Too conspicuous, he supposed. And, now he thought about it, he was glad. Using the Chrysler would be to his advantage. No glass partition, much less chance of Creed noticing anything unusual. Jed spent most of the afternoon in the parking-lot, wiring up the back seat.

  At nine o’clock he drove to the gas station two blocks south of the hotel. He checked the tyres and the oil, and filled the tank. When he returned to the parking-lot, it was nine-twenty-five. Creed and McGowan were already waiting in front of the elevator doors. McGowan wore the faded blue overalls of a city sanitation man. He was holding a long canvas bag and a cardboard box.

  Jed opened the door as usual, even though it was his own car. Habit. He watched McGowan lay the bag flat on the floor.

  ‘What’s in there?’ he asked.

  McGowan grinned. ‘Tools.’

  In the car Creed leaned forwards. ‘Gorelli’s brother lives in Los Ilusiones. Housing project on North East 27th. Lives with his girlfriend. You’re going to knock on his door and you’re going to bring him outside and you’re going to put him in the car.’

  McGowan handed him a gun. ‘You might need this,’ he said, ‘to persuade him with.’

  Jed put the gun in his jacket pocket. Though he hadn’t really looked at it, he was sure it was the same one that had been forced into the tourist’s mouth.

  ‘Then what happens?’ he said.

  ‘Then what happens is, we take him for a little ride out to the Crumbles.’ Creed paused. ‘You got that?’

  Jed nodded.

  He moved off. Past the security guard, up the ramp, out on to the dim street. It was 89 degrees. Clouds hung over the city. There were more of them than there used to be, he was sure of it. It was all the burning that was going on. Sea burials were as popula
r as ever, but they weren’t cheap. The poor were still being burned. And some of the crematoria were cutting corners. There’d been a thing about it in the paper. They were burning at temperatures of less than 1300 degrees, which meant that dioxyns were being released into the air. Sometimes he looked at the clouds and wondered what percentage ashes they were. Sometimes he wondered how many dead people there were to a cloud. How many dead people came down with the rain.

  He was driving at a steady thirty-five. Down First, left along G, right into Central. They passed the viewing theatre. Another mystery corpse: YOUR LAST CHANCE TO IDENTIFY! $100 COULD BE YOURS! Someone’s forgotten Grandma. Some runaway. Some drunk. More smoke for the chimneys. More clouds for the sky.

  His throat was dry and he’d forgotten to buy any candy.

  It was the big night.

  They reached Los Ilusiones in less than half an hour. Creed directed him to a narrow sidestreet. He killed the engine and the lights. Latin music took over. Somebody’s radio.

  Los Ilusiones was 99 per cent ghetto. It was bounded by Moon River in the east, and the suburbs of Mortlake and Rialto in the west and south respectively. It had pretty much the same kind of reputation as Rialto, only more so. A high-octane mix of racial minorities, a flair for riots and looting. Taxi-drivers wouldn’t take you there. The only whites in the area were winos and dealers, and they mostly ended up in the river. Jed wanted this part over with, and quick.

  Creed leaned forwards and pointed through the windshield. ‘That’s the building.’

  It was a five-storey apartment block built in a C-shape. The gap in the C faced the street. Concrete balconies ran the length of each floor. There was a courtyard below, lit by spotlights.

  ‘Looks like a fucking jail,’ came McGowan’s voice from the back.

  ‘It’s number 22,’ Creed said. ‘Second floor.’

  ‘You know which side?’ Jed asked him.

  ‘Take the stairs on the left.’

  Jed stepped out of the car. He was only aware of two things now. The weight of the gun in his jacket pocket and the night air, thicker here than in the city centre, it was further from the ocean, you sometimes felt you couldn’t breathe until you found your way to the end of the land. He crossed the street. It was bright in the courtyard. Five cars. A burned-out motorbike. A drain. He turned left, walked close to the edge of the building. He sensed he was being watched, one of the balconies above, but he didn’t look up. He noticed the cars. A Mercedes. A Cadillac. This was cheap city housing, and cars like that could only mean one thing. Two things. Armed robbery and drugs. He suddenly felt he was facing impossible odds.