Tad Williams - The Dirty Streets of Heaven

The Water Hole was one of these student hang-outs, nestled between the Camino Real and the university turnoff, only yards away from huge and forbidding Branner Gate, a monstrosity of black granite whose polished sheen made it look perpetually wet. At least, I had always thought of The Water Hole as a student hang-out, which was one of the reasons I’d never been inside. I once had a client who got run over in the parking lot by a drunken university professor, and helping him off to Heaven afterward was the closest to the property I’d ever been.

If Fatback’s information was correct, though, there was a bit more to the place than that. In fact, if one of Hell’s big hitters hung out here, that automatically made it pretty damn dangerous and the last place someone in my position should be, but here I was casing the joint like a private dick setting up a motel sting for an unhappy spouse.

I was doing it because a lot of things still didn’t make sense with this whole Walker/Grasswax affair. For one thing, I wondered why my own team had so quickly and casually offered me up to the Opposition for questioning. Didn’t make me feel very protected if you know what I mean, which was why I wanted a different perspective on the matter. The fact that the perspective in question belonged to a devastatingly attractive woman-creature was simply how things had worked out. That was what I was doing my best to believe, anyway, but I had to admit that despite our only momentary acquaintance, I’d had trouble keeping the glamorous Countess out of my thoughts.

Because she’s made that way , I reminded myself. On purpose, just like the wiggly little fake worm growing on one of those toothy deep-water fish.

I’d seen the outside of the bar a zillion times, with its famously broken sign reading “The Wate Hole.” The rest of the place was about what you’d expect of a mid-century student dive, a long, low wooden building with tiny windows that had been almost completely plastered over with old band flyers and Happy Hour two-for-the-price-of-one ads. My first surprise when I stepped through the scratched and many-times-repainted door was how big the place really was. The main room stretched back into what I had thought must be the building behind it, and though the ceiling was low and the lights were lower, it was possible to see that it was pretty crowded, especially for a weekday afternoon.

It was an odd setup for a college bar, that was clear right away. In some ways The Water Hole looked more like a nightclub, including a scarred dance floor and a small stage at one end of the room, but it was the patrons who really confused me. Usually student joints are low on ambience and even lower on mystery but big on picnic tables and pitchers of cheap beer. The Water Hole had more of the feel of your sleazy lounge rendezvous, the kind of place where businessmen in town for the weekend went looking for drunk and lonely hausfraus. Not that there weren’t any students in the place, but they weren’t acting very student-y, if you know what I mean. Instead of the groups of three or four or more I would have expected, the patrons were mostly huddled in pairs, but plenty of drinkers, both at the bar and in the dark narrow booths, were obviously on their own and drinking pretty seriously as well-the unsocial kind of drinking that I’d done a few times myself and which left no cheerful memories.

To be honest, I couldn’t quite get a handle on anything about the place, and that was beginning to bug me. I contemplated ordering a beer from the sour, tattooed, and shaven-headed bartender, then checking out the exits and the restrooms in a conscientious manner so I’d know the layout when I came back in the evening, but for some reason I didn’t relish the idea of becoming one of those solitary afternoon drinkers, even in the service of proper reconnaissance. Instead I turned around and slipped back out to the parking lot.

I still hadn’t received any work calls, and I didn’t want to have to deal with the questions that seeing Monica would raise, so I decided to avoid The Compasses. I stopped instead at my other place of business, the second-floor office on Arch Street that we local advocates share, a place we use to prop up our real-world identities as insurance adjusters, reporters, or whatever other guises help us to snoop around effectively as we perform our angelic chores. The only person who works there is our secretary, the angelic functionary named Alice. Like me, most of the rest of the advocates look like they’re in their twenties or thirties. I’m not sure how Alice pulled duty that had her looking like she was fifty-five and lived on fast food (unless she really did live on fast food and had done this to herself) but it didn’t seem like she could be very happy about it. And in fact, she never gave any indication that she was happy.

“Hi, Alice,” I said. “Anything happening I should know about?”

She barely looked up from her computer. “Other than you screwing the pooch with that Walker thing?”

“Thanks, nice to see you too. You’re the one who sent me that, right?”

She raised a penciled-on eyebrow. “Do you see anyone else here? Your big stupid buddy was offline, so I gave it to you. Then you messed it up all on your own.”

All of which I already knew. “You’re a treasure, Alice. Sam said he lost connection. Is that usual? Was there anything else strange about the call?”

“It happens occasionally. It’s because of the weather Outside-well, it’s not weather , exactly…” She shook her head, opened a drawer, and took out a bag of M amp;Ms. She poured herself a generous handful and put the bag away without offering me any. “As far as the call, Mr. Detective Guy Full of Questions,” she said through a clicking mouthful, “it came right down from Central Dispatch, same as usual.”

I left Alice typing and crunching and headed back to my place, planning to settle in with a cup of coffee and the files Fatback had sent me. It was late afternoon, and Stambaugh Street was bustling with people on their way home. Every tenant in my building seemed have entered the lobby at the same time, so I waited for another elevator instead of crushing myself into the first with everyone else.

As I walked down the fourth-floor hallway I noticed something strange-a sour, slightly alarming odor that made my eyes and nostrils itch. Before I figured it out by scent alone I reached my door and saw the source. A handprint roughly the size of a car’s steering wheel had been scorched into the door, the wood blackened and charred and the paint bubbled round it-a handprint distorted by what looked like trailing scars made by long claws. My heart bumped and stuttered in my chest just like a real, terrified living person’s heart, and my skin went icy cold with shock. I darted a look around, but I was alone in the corridor.

The Burning Hand. Somebody had marked my own personal door with the Burning Hand, Hell’s way of letting you know that you were living on borrowed time. I’d been taught that the only people who received this sign of infernal displeasure were poor, doomed fools who’d tried to cheat the Devil himself.

Apparently someone thought yours truly was just that kind of fool.

The inside of my apartment was as hot as an oven, sticky-hot, and pretty much a continuation of the obvious message left on the front door. Furniture was upside down, small stuff had been smashed, drawers had been pulled out and dumped, and what few papers and books I had were strewn all across the floor. Even my CDs-no, I haven’t gone all-MP3 yet-had been dragged out, opened, and scattered. I looked down at the faces on the floor, Monk, Buddy Guy, Cannonball Adderley, staring up at me like a frozen crowd scene. What had the visitors been looking for?