James Grippando - Hear No Evil

“You a cop?”

“Cops take bills, dumbshit. They don’t dish ’em out.”

The owner smiled as he rolled up the cash and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “His name’s Eduardo Gonzalez. Goes by Eddy. Known him since high school.”

“Where do I find this Eddy?”

The guy made a cutesy face, as if he knew but wasn’t telling. Theo laid another fifty on the counter, which did the trick.

“He’s got his own welding shop or studio of some sort over on Flagler and Fifty-seventh. You’ll see it. Says ‘Eddy’s Palace’ on the door.”

Twenty minutes later Theo was headed down Flagler Street with the rear bumper of a ’67 Mustang convertible tied to his roof rack. He parked on a side street and walked up the block, past a liquor store, past a vacant theater, past one of those stores that sells everything you don’t need for just one dollar. He stopped at an old store front with a plate-glass window that bore the words EDDY’S PALACE.

He tried the door, but it was locked. The window looked as though it hadn’t been washed in years. Theo wiped away a little dirt and peered inside. Just enough lights were burning to let him see a few things here and there. At first it looked like nothing but heaps of scrap metal, all shapes and sizes. As he looked closer, however, he could see that the pieces all fit together. They had form. They were sculptures. Eddy’s Palace was an art studio.

Theo cupped his hands like blinders to cut down the glare. The forms came clearer. A huge, metal arm was reaching from the floor, like a hand from the grave. The man beside it was impaled on a lance, his gaping mouth exaggerated to emphasize his suffering. Several other figures seemed normal from the waist up, but the lower halves of their bodies were twisted and melted, overcome by metal tongues of fire. There were hundreds of other figures, some small, some larger than life, all with their mouths wide open, all with that same exaggerated expression of pain.

It looked like one man’s version of hell.

Theo stepped away from the window, and he was about to give the door another try when he noticed a little sign near the doorbell. It read: DOORBELL BROKEN, PLEASE ENTER AT BACK DOOR.

Dusk was turning to dark, and even Theo was having second thoughts about walking down an alley in search of the back door to hell. The neighborhood was at best questionable. The windows on nearby buildings were covered with burglar bars, and Theo recognized the cigar shop across the street from a newscast about a month earlier. The owner had been shot dead in a robbery. But he’d come too far to back down from some metal-worker-turned-artist who didn’t think twice about torching a true work of art, a classic Mustang convertible. Theo walked a few steps north and then turned down the alley.

It was a long, narrow alley, and with each step, Theo put the traffic noise from Flagler Street farther behind him. He was soon alone with the Dumpsters, deep into shadows so dark that he had to stop for a moment to let his eyes adjust. There was a street lamp overhead, and it should have clicked on by now. It had to be burned out. Theo took a few more steps, but then he stopped as he reached the end of the alley and rounded the corner to the back of the building. He heard something. It sounded like hissing.

A snake?

The thought made him shudder. Theo wasn’t afraid of much, but he was definitely not a snake guy.

The hissing continued, and then Theo spotted the source. The door at the studio’s rear entrance was open-wide open, not just unlocked. The hissing was coming from inside. Theo started toward the open door. It couldn’t be a snake. The hissing was continuous. No snake hissed nonstop. He stopped at the open doorway and looked inside.

The back of Eddy’s Palace was more like a metal shop than a studio. Eddy obviously created his sculptures right on the premises. A man-presumably Eddy-was busy at his welding table, his back to the door. He wore a metal visor over his head, the dark kind that protected the eyes from the intense glare of a welding iron. Theo could feel the heat escaping through the open door. Theo had done some welding himself, mostly on cars. He knew the arc could reach several thousand degrees. It was no wonder the door was open.

Theo watched for a minute or two. The artist was totally absorbed in his craft, shaping what appeared to be the all-important gaping mouth of another citizen from hell. Theo could have rolled through the back door in a tank and gone unnoticed.

Which gave him an idea.

Quietly, he stepped inside the studio. Eddy was still focused on work, oblivious to anything else. The gas tanks were near the door. Another torch was hanging on a hook beside the tanks. Theo opened the valve on the extra torch. He could feel the gas coursing through the tubing. He had firepower, which made him smile a little. Then he turned the valve off on the torch Eddy was working with, and he gently closed the door.

The flame on Eddy’s torch grew smaller and smaller until it finally went out. Eddy straightened up, as if ready to switch tanks. As he flipped up his visor and turned toward the tanks, Theo was on top of him like a T. rex on lunch. Eddy was facedown on the cement before he knew what had hit him. He squirmed for a moment, then a foot-long flame scorched the concrete floor just inches from his nose.

“Don’t move,” said Theo. He was sitting on Eddy’s kidneys, pressing him into the floor.

Eddy’s eyes were like silver dollars, his voice shaking. “Don’t hurt me, man.”

“Shut the fuck up, or I start cooking your nose from the inside out.”

Eddy was shaking, but he didn’t say a word.

“Good,” said Theo. “Nice and quiet, and nobody gets hurt. I’m a real lover of the arts, so it would be a shame to toast you. I mean that. I really dig your work. Highly unusual pieces. Very reminiscent of…Oh, what am I thinking of?”

Sweat was pouring down Eddy’s face. His breathing grew louder, but he didn’t answer.

Theo tapped the head of the torch on the concrete, giving Eddy a start. “You can talk when I ask you a question, moron.”

Eddy could barely keep his saliva in his mouth. “What was the question?”

“I said your work reminds me of something that I just can’t put my finger on.”

“ Salvador Dalí?”

“Hmmm. Actually, I was gonna say mindfarts of a serial killer. But we can go with Dalí, if that makes you feel better.”

“Just tell me what you want, man.”

“I want information. Can you give me information, Eddy?”

“Whatever you want. Just don’t hurt me, all right?”

“Sure. What I want to know is-” Theo stopped himself. This was too easy. Where was the fun? His gaze quickly swept the workshop, and a thin smile crept to his lips as he spotted the many half creations around him, all these suffering souls destined for hell. He was suddenly feeling spiritual. “You believe in God, Eddy?”

“I don’t know, man. Do you want me to?”

“You must believe. All this hell around you. Can’t be a hell if there’s no God, right?”

“Sure, sure. I believe.”

“Good. Because this is what I want to know. Hypothetically, let’s say I’m God. This is just pretend now, okay? Don’t be running to my momma’s grave and tellin’ her I think I’m God or something. So I’m God, and I’ve decided to grant my first interview. You got the scoop, Eddy, but you can ask only one question. Just one. So fire away. What do you want to ask God?”

“Huh?”

“There’s no right or wrong here, pal. Just spit it out. It’s just you and God in the back of your studio. For the moment, let’s ignore the fact that God’s packing a blowtorch that can melt your face into the concrete. Go ahead, ask your one question.”