Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

The Central had pale-blue columns on either side of the entrance and big gilt doors. A white neon strip, like that above a cinema, announced the current attractions. Sometimes it was a famous person. A sports personality, say. Or a movie star. Other times it was an ordinary citizen whose family had paid for the honour. Once he’d imagined that his mother might be displayed here, smothered in make-up and bits of radios. Today it said simply IDENTIFY THE MYSTERY CORPSE. $100 REWARD. Jed peered through the toughened glass. It was a tiny, shrunken old woman. The hill her feet made in the sheet that covered her came only halfway down the coffin. Pathetic, really. Unknown corpses were put on display by the parlours in the hope that someone would recognise them and pay for the funeral. The parlours made a lot of money that way. If a corpse remained unidentified, companies often took pity and stepped in, paying for the funeral themselves. They could call it charity, and charity was tax-deductible. What seemed concerned and altruistic on the surface was in fact exploitative and shabby underneath. This is what we’re up against.

Jed tossed his empty can of soda in the bin. What Vasco had been up against, at any rate. After all, it had been Vasco’s private war. To the other members of the gang, it had been a flirtation with danger, an excuse for violence; it had given them a cause, the semblance of a purpose. Where were they now? Cramps Crenshaw worked in hotel management. PS had joined a record company. Tip had recovered from his overdose and, the last Jed heard, he’d been taken on as an attendant in the aquarium. The Womb Boys had been aborted long ago. The Womb Boys were dead. Long live Moon Beach.

‘Well, well. Ugly as ever.’

The man who’d spoken to Jed had broad shoulders and black, wavy hair. He wore a lightweight camel coat. The face seemed different. Wider. Heavier. The guitar had become a double bass.

The man gestured at the mystery corpse. ‘Thought it was going to be me, did you?’

Jed smiled. ‘How many tattoos’ve you got now, Vasco?’

Vasco unfastened his cuff link and pushed the cuff back up his wrist. Jed saw the base of a gravestone just where a watch would normally be.

‘All the way up?’

Vasco nodded. ‘Both arms.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Jed asked.

‘I’m in the business.’

‘That’s a bit of a turnaround.’

‘Yeah, well. Went to so many funerals, thought I might as well start getting paid for it.’

Jed just stared at him.

Vasco slapped Jed on the shoulder. ‘Joke.’

‘Ha ha.’ But something was making Jed uncomfortable. ‘So you’re in the business,’ he said.

‘Everybody who’s anybody. What about you?’

Jed shrugged. ‘This and that. Bit of work in a sound studio.’

‘Still recording people fucking or’ve you moved on?’ Vasco laughed for both of them. ‘Listen, you want a real job?’

‘What’ve you got in mind?’

Vasco pointed at the long black car idling by the curb. ‘There’s a body in there. Right now it’s nice and cold, but if I don’t get it back to the parlour, it’s going to start getting warm again. You like to come along? We can talk.’

‘Sure.’

Vasco climbed in. Jed followed. There was enough space for half a dozen people in that car. There was a bar. There was air-conditioning. A whisper up your spine. Give me a job this cold. Give me a job with air-conditioning.

He looked round. There was a man sitting in the corner. The man had a shaved head and the long, pale fingers of a surgeon. He wore mirror shades.

‘This is McGowan,’ Vasco said. ‘A colleague.’

McGowan tipped his head back an inch and bared a set of sharp, uneven teeth.

As they drove through midtown, Vasco described the set-up. He worked for one of the directors of the Paradise Corporation which, as Jed probably knew, was the most prestigious funeral parlour in the city. The director’s name was Neville Creed. ‘You may’ve heard of him.’

Jed hadn’t.

‘He’s chief administrator,’ Vasco said. ‘His field’s co-ordination. Efficiency. The way things run.’ He stared out of the window, shook his head. ‘He’s rising so fast, sometimes it seems like there’s no oxygen. He’s going to be the first man to live for ever.’

Jed remembered the word spelled out in silver studs on Vasco’s back: IMMORTAL. ‘I thought it was you who was going to live for ever.’

But Vasco didn’t seem to have heard. ‘He’s going to freeze himself,’ he said. ‘While he’s still alive. It’s the only way, apparently.’

‘You mean, if you want to live for ever, you’ve got to kill yourself first?’

‘You could put it like that.’

‘How will he know when to do it?’

Vasco smiled. ‘He’ll know.’

Jed looked over his shoulder at the rectangular box in the back. ‘Shame he didn’t think of that.’

‘He didn’t have time. It all happened a bit too fast —’

‘Vasco.’ It was McGowan. A warning.

Vasco studied the rings on his left hand. ‘Keep your hair on, McGowan.’ Then he glanced at the man in the corner. ‘Oh sorry. You haven’t got any.’ Vasco turned to Jed. ‘McGowan’s so tough he never uses more than two words —’

‘Shut up, Gorelli.’

‘Well, sometimes,’ Vasco said, ‘on very special occasions, he uses three.’

A hiss from the corner of the car. The sound of brakes being applied to fury.

Then silence.

Efficiency, Jed thought.

He had questions, but he decided to store them for the time being. Your memory’s tape. Record now, play back later.

He stared out of the window. Mangrove West merging with the gritty downtown streets. Pawn shops, sex bars, drugstores. Windows glittering with guns and watches. Cops dressed as dealers. Drunks hardly dressed at all. Kids.

Suddenly he realised what had been making him uncomfortable. He shifted on his seat. ‘Vasco,’ he said, ‘about your brother —’

Vasco cut him off. ‘That’s all right. I know about that.’

‘You know?’

‘She didn’t let you see him. I know that. I checked it out.’ His eyes were soft, a strange contrast with the hand that gripped Jed’s shoulder. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

Another silence. The car floated across a canal bridge. Its engine sounded like air.

‘Can you drive?’ Vasco asked Jed finally.

Jed said he could.

‘Creed’s looking for a chauffeur. I think I could get him to see you. You be interested in that?’

‘I’d be interested.’

‘You’d be on the outside,’ Vasco said, ‘but who knows? Maybe you could work your way in. It’d be that kind of job.’

A glimmer from McGowan, a fractional tilt of the head. It was one of those looks. Over my dead body.

‘I’ll take it,’ Jed said.

‘You didn’t ask about money,’ Vasco said.

Jed fingered the sleeve of Vasco’s coat. ‘You look as if you’re doing all right.’

A grin split Vasco’s mouth open like water melon. ‘Fucking old Jed,’ he said. ‘Who would’ve thought it?’

Vasco talked some more about Creed. The facts, the rumours. The future. He gave Jed some advice on how to interview. Then they drew up outside a tall building of black glass. The Paradise Corporation. Vasco said they’d have to drop him here. He told Jed to expect a call. Sometime in the next two days.

‘Someone’ll be in touch.’ Vasco shook Jed’s hand through the window and the car moved down a ramp and into the darkness of an underground parking-lot.

From the little he’d heard about Creed and the little he’d seen of Vasco, Jed imagined that the interview would take place on the top floor of some high-rise office block downtown. Instead he was given the address of a funeral parlour in Mortlake, a suburb on the bleak northern edge of the city. When he first saw the place he felt conned. From the street it looked like a fast-food restaurant. White stucco walls, bright red-tile roof. All it needed was a giant Paradise Corporation logo on the sidewalk and a sign underneath that said 63 BILLION BURIED.