Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

Slowly he learned Creed’s ways. Slowly the patterns emerged. Creed used the limousine as a mobile office, and he was invariably accompanied by one or other of his personal executives, as they were called, sometimes by all four. These people didn’t work for the Paradise Corporation, at least not on paper. They were Creed’s inner circle. His bodyguards, his confidants. His eyes and ears. They protected him, they supplied his entertainment, they seemed bound to him, as if by some unpaid debt or hidden leash. Vasco was one. McGowan was another. Fred Trotter and Maxie Carlo made up the number. Trotter had been a docker, a mercenary, a security guard. He had one twisted arm, the result of a fall from the roof of a brothel when he was seventeen. He was fifty now, and hard as marble; his jacket always seemed to stretch too tight across his shoulderblades. Maxie Carlo was a court jester, a vicious clown, the Mortlake mascot. He wore a silk suit and kept a flick-knife up the sleeve. His small round head sat on his shoulders like a ball that might, at any moment, roll off and bounce around on the floor. He drank from Creed’s glass, he sang and danced on restaurant tables, he gave people names. McGowan was Skull. Trotter was Pig. And he’d dug deep into Vasco’s past and surfaced with Gorilla. He even had a name for himself. He called himself Meatball, on account of his oily complexion and his no neck. With the possible exception of Vasco, they’d all worked, at one time or another, as vultures. Now they ran teams of vultures, smooth-faced men in grey suits, men who didn’t balk at crime, not so long as there was some good commission in it. Jed began to understand the significance of Creed’s gloves. Probably he didn’t want to get his hands dirty.

For the first few months Jed was ignored. The only words he heard were the names of destinations. He was just ‘Morgan’ or ‘you’. Vasco’s words echoed like a sentence: You’ll be on the outside, but maybe you’ll work your way in.

And the look on McGowan’s face. Over my dead body.

And then it was a Saturday morning. Jed had rolled the car out of the garage and into the parking-lot; he was checking the fluids. It was still early, just after eight, and the sun hadn’t found its way round the edge of the building. The smell of hot dough and sweet syrup drifted through the wire-mesh fence from the YUM YUM DONUT place on the other side of the street. He heard a door slam and turned to see Creed walking towards him, flanked by all four of his personal executives. Their impeccable dark suits, their circus faces.

‘But what about Morgan?’ Creed was saying as he walked up. He stopped in front of Jed and stared.

Jed lowered the hood and wiped his hands.

‘We need a name for Morgan.’ Creed turned to Carlo. ‘But remember, no more animals. We’ve already got two animals.’

‘Only two?’ Vasco said. ‘I thought we had more than two.’

‘Jesus,’ McGowan said, ‘his old woman must’ve fucking threw his brains out with the garbage this morning.’

‘I mean, there’s Trotter, there’s me,’ Vasco said, and he turned to face McGowan, ‘and then there’s you. Isn’t there?’

McGowan took one step forwards. His teeth looked filed down. His eyes were mirrors. Watch yourself. Watch yourself die.

Carlo stepped between them, chuckling. ‘Maybe I should think up some new names.’ He lifted his dainty hands into the air, palms up. ‘Maybe we should all be animals.’

Vasco and McGowan were still staring at each other over Carlo’s head.

‘Over here, Meatball,’ Creed said.

Carlo went and stood beside Creed. They both studied Jed.

‘What do you think?’ Creed said.

Carlo’s head rolled sideways on his shoulders. ‘He’s so long and thin. Kind of looks like a bit of spaghetti.’

‘Spaghetti Morgan.’ Creed smiled. ‘I like that.’ He turned to the others. ‘You two. Skull, Gorilla. Spaghetti Morgan. What do you think?’

Vasco and McGowan turned to look at Jed.

‘Spaghetti?’ Vasco said. ‘That’s perfect.’

‘Goes pretty well with Meatball, anyway,’ Jed said in a dry voice.

That joke kept them going all day. They even had it for lunch, at a small Italian place on the east side. They all asked for Spaghetti with Meatball. Jed read their lips through the restaurant window.

‘Hey,’ Trotter said as they climbed back into the car afterwards, ‘that’s two foods we got now, isn’t it?’

‘You only just realised that?’ Carlo said. ‘You’re real quick, aren’t you, Pig?’

‘Don’t call me Pig,’ Trotter growled.

‘You’re growling,’ Carlo said.

‘Maybe I got the animal wrong.’ Maybe Vasco was right, Jed thought, as he drove them back into town that day. Maybe they were all animals. Trained animals, though. They snarled at each other, they scratched and bit, but one word from Creed and they were back on their tubs and ready to jump through hoops of fire.

Even with his new name Jed was still cut off. He was the driver, sealed behind a sliding sheet of glass. He was deaf and dumb.

But he didn’t lose heart. Inside him there was patience like a wide field. Inside him he could feel the slow, green pushing of the future.

The only person he was close to at all was Carol. His clip-on lenses made her laugh. So did his Liquorice Whirls. His scarlet cushion had her in hysterics. He liked to make her laugh because it meant that he could watch her mouth.

The first time he saw her mouth, that morning of the interview, he thought she must’ve had some kind of operation. It looked as if two people had been sewing it up from either end and then they’d both run out of thread. Every time he made her laugh he thought her mouth was going to tear at the edges. It was almost too painful to watch.

He didn’t realise she had a limp until they went out after work one day. Creed was out of town. He’d flown north for an international convention. Jed had a free night and no plans. Carol suggested a walk on the pier.

At first he thought her heel had snapped or something. Then she looked up into his eyes and told him that one of her legs was shorter than the other, and she was sorry if it embarrassed him. She’d had three operations, she said, all without success. Her father had taken her to specialists, physiotherapists, even a hypnotist once, but there was nothing anyone could do. Jed’s eyes scanned the faces of passing lovers, scanned the dark ocean beyond, but he was listening. He was definitely listening. It was like hearing a story about himself. Like looking at himself in one of those distorting mirrors. It was like some strange form of vanity. He recognised exactly what she was talking about. She mistook his silence for compassion, and tightened her grip on his upper arm.

They reached the end of the pier. It was a clear night. He could just make out a few faint lights in the distance. Those lights had names: Angel Meadows, Coral Pastures, Heaven Sound. The ocean graveyards, twelve miles out.

Carol shivered. ‘How do you like working for Creed?’

‘I like it,’ Jed said.

‘He scares me.’ She saw Jed’s face. ‘I know. I’m stupid.’ She shook herself, and turned her back on the ocean. ‘What about a drink?’

‘Where?’

‘Here.’ She pointed to the sign they were standing under. ‘The Starlite Bar.’

She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, so she was leaning away from him, and her lips tipped upwards, they were so red and stitched in the white light of the naked bulbs that looped above their heads, they were the only colour in her face, but he looked away, it wasn’t embarrassment he felt, it was a kind of tortured fascination, but he didn’t want to kiss her, or even touch her, it would’ve felt like incest.