The Five Gates of Hell

by Rupert Thomson

  ‘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.

  ‘You been here before?’ Reid asked him.

  Nathan shook his head. ‘I’ve never even heard of it.’

  You approached the motel from above, along a road that snaked through a landscape of spindly palms and boulders. It was a pale-blue building, two storeys high. There were waves on the roof, sculpted out of poured concrete. It looked like a cross-section of the ocean.

  While Reid registered, Nathan looked round. There was a strong smell of seaweed in the lobby. This, he soon found out, was emanating from the motel restaurant where Today’s Special was Charbroiled Shark Steak with Hot Seaweed Salad. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble with the décor. There were racks of pink coral and treasure chests half buried in drifts of sand. There was dim, fathoms-down lighting. There were bits of ships lying about, rusting. The ocean bed. Replace the air with water and you’d be there.

  ‘What do you think?’ Reid asked him.

  But he couldn’t answer. The drug was beginning to rush through him now and he was finding it hard to distinguish reality and hallucination. For instance: he was seeing mermaids everywhere. Cascades of blonde hair, bodies sheathed in silver scales from the waist down. Mermaids. There was something he ought to be doing, but it was as if he had his ear to a shell: he could hear the sea and all his other thoughts escaped him.

  He saw the car that he’d left on the promenade. He saw it in detail – a city map on the dashboard, the groceries on the back seat. It had been there for at least twenty-four hours. The milk would be sour by now, he thought.

  They were following a mermaid down dark-blue corridors with dark-green doors. Her sequins chinked and glittered.

  She touched him on the shoulder. ‘Hear that?’

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Listen.’

  He listened. It sounded like doors being opened very slowly. Or the noise people make when they stretch. ‘What is it?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s whales,’ she said. ‘It’s for atmosphere.’

  Reid turned to him and smiled.

  He keeps doing that, Nathan thought. Turning and smiling at me. Running his eyes over me like hands.

  The mermaid stood by an open door, her nipples hidden in pale-pink shells. Smiling, she showed him into a room. One entire wall was an aquarium. The rest seemed plunged in darkness. But he could just make out a bed sunk in the floor. And there was a telephone beside the bed. It was made of clear plastic. There were goldfish swimming in the receiver. He bent down, watched the goldfish. Now he was smiling too. He could no longer remember what was so important about the telephone. All he knew was that Reid hadn’t lied to him. There was a telephone and it had fish in it. Reid had told the truth. That was the main thing.

  Reid turned the key in the door.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ he said.

  Nathan looked across at him. ‘What about you?’

  ‘You first. I want to watch.’

  Nathan began to undress. Soon he was naked except for a pair of white boxers. So white in the mauve light shed by the aquarium. He slipped his thumbs inside the elastic and was about to draw them down when Reid said, ‘Leave those on.’

  Reid moved across the room. He covered distance the way other people altered the angle of their heads. He accomplished it with such tact, such grace. There were only two positions: over there and here, now. Nathan felt Reid’s clothes, the fabric coarse against his bare skin, and he was glad that Reid had told him to undress first.

  ‘You’ve been here before, haven’t you?’ Nathan murmured.

  Reid nodded. ‘Many times.’

  ‘Always with boys?’

  ‘Always.’

  He could hear the whales again. It sounded like something familiar slowed down. It sounded like curiosity.

  The gloves lingered on his ribs, slid down his spine.

  Only the rush of waves now. They rolled towards a reef, ripped open, spilled their foam. And then a wall built out of water, and fish
trailing wakes of red and blue and gold.

  There was a click. So precise in the haze of everything else that he was almost startled. He looked round. Reid was shutting his briefcase.

  Reid handed him a mask. ‘I want you to wear this.’

  He took the mask.

  It was black leather, the shape of a head. Two holes to breathe through and a silver zipper for a mouth. No eyes.

  ‘I won’t be able to see,’ he said.

  ‘Just feel.’ Reid smiled. ‘Would you do that for me?’

  He pulled the mask over his head and found that he could breathe quite easily. He lay back on the bed. The sheets were satin, cool against his forearms. The bed began to tilt and rock.

  He reached out, found a body, touched it. Ran the tip of his finger all the way from the armpit to the anklebone. The same speed as a plane crossing the sky. He thought maybe you could learn to read a body blind. By touch. Like braille.

  A moment of clarity, and he said, ‘I don’t know your body at all.’ And then, when there was no reply, ‘Are you there?’

  ‘I’m here.’ A pause. ‘Your skin, it’s so soft.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ he said. ‘You’re wearing gloves.’

  ‘You’re forgetting something. There’s my mouth.’

  He felt his boxers being eased down, over his thighs, down to his ankles. His cock on a spring. This contact with the air was almost friction enough. Then the sudden warmth. A mouth.

  His head locked in darkness, his body twitching like one of those fish you place on the palm of your hand to tell your fortune, they curl, they arch, sometimes they flip right over, but they’re never still, not unless you’re very cold, not until your fortune’s told.

  He felt something push through the zipper and into his mouth.

  ‘Make it tighter.’

  He did as he was told. It was taking a long time.

  ‘Use your teeth.’

  And Reid’s body heaved and a sound was dragged out of him, it had notches, like a rack, and Nathan rolled on to his back and lay there, swallowing.

  Soon afterwards he took the mask off. The room, it was so bright, it was like being inside a jewel. Reid stood by the window, parted the curtains an inch. Outside it was dark. The room was wearing a mask. Reid began to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Nathan asked.

  ‘Private joke.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me?’

  ‘No.’ Reid had this way of standing so his face was always in shadow. When Reid turned to look at him, he could read nothing there. He just heard that soft laughter and felt a surprising lack of curiosity about its source.

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ he said, ‘I really don’t. I’m not interested.’

  Reid laughed again. ‘That’s my girl.’

  ‘If I was a girl,’ Nathan said, ‘you wouldn’t look twice.’

  Reid came towards the bed, both hands on the buckle of his belt. ‘Maybe not even once.’

  Nathan watched him approach. ‘I thought you’d finished.’

  ‘I’m starting again,’ Reid said.

  Afterwards he must’ve slept because everything went still, that stillness that seems sudden, that tells you time’s gone by.

  ‘We’ll need a boat.’ A silence. ‘Good.’

  Reid was talking on the phone again. Nathan watched through half-closed eyes.

  ‘Just make sure it’s there. The West Pier, midnight.’

  Nathan walked to the window. A flicker of silver on the ground outside. Like a thrown rope, a lasso. It took him a moment to realise that it was a reflection, that there was water out there. A pool.

  He slid the window open and crossed the patio. When he dived in he hardly felt the transition from air to water. It was as if he was moving from one kind of air that was warm into another that was cooler. He surfaced, lay on his back. The palm trees were black silhouettes against a bright brown sky. We’ll need a boat. The West Pier. Midnight. He saw Maxie Carlo’s face close up. Maybe you know him as Reid. That’s what he calls himself sometimes. Maxie’s top teeth showed as he smiled, one tooth edged in gold like a page from the Bible. But which page? Not the Ten Commandments, that was for sure. Something from Revelation, maybe. The sound of a plane in the sky like paper being torn slowly. The red light winking on its wing-tip. Know what I mean?

  He walked back through the sliding window just as Reid put the phone down.

  ‘How do you feel?’ Reid asked him.

  ‘Fine.’ Nathan sat down on the bed. ‘I ran into a friend of yours the other night.’

  ‘Really? Who?’

  ‘Maxie Carlo.’

  ‘Old Maxie. How is he?’

  ‘He said your name’s Neville.’

  ‘That’s my professional name.’

  ‘Professional name?’

  ‘I told you I was a hand model, didn’t I?’ Reid looked at Nathan, then he lit a cigarette. His face so smooth and still, the flame seemed nervous.

  Nathan remembered a grey day on South Beach. This was a few months back, before Dad died. A storm was on the way and the red flags were up. Nobody was swimming.

  Towards lunchtime a woman strode on to the beach with a towel and goggles. He hadn’t seen her before, but he knew the type. He knew she probably wouldn’t listen to him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but you can’t swim today.’

  She continued buckling the strap of her bathing cap under her chin. ‘Oh? Why not?’

  ‘The flags are up.’

  She smiled at him. ‘It’s all right, I’m a swimming instructor.’

  In a strange way she reminded him of Yvonne so he was patient with her. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it’s my lunchbreak. If anything happens to you while I’m away it’ll be my responsibility.’

  ‘You go and have your lunch,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Sometimes you have an instinct for what’ll happen next. He knew this woman was going to get into trouble. He knew that if he left the beach she might even drown. He also knew that she had to find out for herself.

  He waited at the top of the beach, under the awning of the kiosk that sold candy bars and soda. He watched her run towards the water. He saw the short arc her body made as she met the first wave.

  It took a while. But then he saw one arm reach up, pale against the charcoal waves, pale against the sky, like a child asking a question in class.

  When he brought her out of the water, she wouldn’t look at him. ‘I was wrong,’ she said. And then she said, ‘Thank you.’

  He gave her a smile. ‘It’s my job.’

  Almost every day after that she’d arrive with offerings at lunchtime, sandwiches or fruit or cold drinks, but that wasn’t the point of the story. The point was, he’d seen through something, and he’d been ready. He had the same feeling now. The feeling that he couldn’t go to lunch. Except there were too many people on the beach and he didn’t know which way to look.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Reid said. ‘Don’t you remember?’

  Nathan lay back on the bed. ‘I remember.’

  He drifted off to sleep. He woke suddenly and his mind had jumped tracks. Georgia. It was a whole day later and he still hadn’t got through to her. He glanced at his watch. 5.45 a.m.

  He reached out, picked up the phone. He dialled her apartment first. No reply. He dialled the house. He let it ring and ring. He was about to hang up when somebody answered.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said.

  ‘It’s Georgia.’

  ‘You sound strange, George. Did I wake you up?’

  ‘Nathan?’

  ‘George, what’s wrong?’

  ‘I took some pills.’ Her words were slurred. It was hard to understand her.

  ‘What pills?’

  ‘Dad’s pills,’ she said. ‘You know. He’s got lots. I took some green ones, then I took some red ones, then I think I had a blue one –’

  ‘Where are you, George?’

  ‘I’m in Dad’s bedroom. On the bed. Ther
e’s bottles everywhere. Tiny little bottles –’

  ‘How many did you take?’

  ‘Don’t know. Didn’t count.’

  ‘George, listen. Don’t go to sleep, all right?’

  ‘Yeah. OK.’

  ‘I mean it. Don’t go to sleep.’

  ‘OK.’

  He stood still for a few seconds, then he put the phone down and turned the light on. Reid’s eyes opened wide, as if he’d only been pretending to be asleep.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Nathan was already dressing. ‘I’ve got to leave.’

  ‘Is there a problem?’

  ‘It’s my sister. She’s taken some pills.’

  In five minutes they were walking out of the motel, the rising sun driving a thin wedge of orange light into the bank of dark cloud on the horizon.

  Mackerel Street

  That awful smell, it was his eyebrows. He touched one. It crumbled on the tips of his fingers like a kind of wiry dust. He could smell his own eyebrows, for Christ’s sake.

  He couldn’t think about it, what was in that car. The sheet, his back-up copy of the tape. The numberplate. He just couldn’t think about it. His top hat was on the thirteenth floor. His wallet too. But he wasn’t going back, not now. Not with those flames crackling in his ears like rain, not to that mass grave. Even now, maybe, he was being watched. That kid with the puffy eyes and the crewcut, he was everywhere you looked. Maybe he even worked for Creed. Creed had kids all over the city. A line of speed, a limo ride, a smile, and they were his. Sometimes he used them for sex, sometimes for information. Sometimes for both. Jed looked round. The kid was still standing on the balcony, his face turned in Jed’s direction. A pale blotch, no features. The kid was still watching. Where’s your hat, mister?

  He walked to the bus station in Mangrove East. He bought half a pound of Peanut Brittle on the way. It was how he felt. The wind moved past his ears and he thought of nothing. Rage filled him full, his skin felt tight with it. Instead of standing in line, he eased back against the wall, next to a fruit machine. Nobody came near him. Half a pound of Peanut Brittle and a head tight with rage. People know a force-field when they see one. He felt in all his pockets, pooled what money he had in the palm of one hand. Four dollar bills and some loose change. It would do. He waited till the Rialto bus pulled in, then he pushed through the crowd and climbed on board.