Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘Let’s have two drinks,’ she said, ‘or maybe three.’

He smiled. She was making light of a moment that had been a risk for her. He took her arm and lowered his voice. ‘You forgot. I don’t drink.’

‘I never knew.’

He told her about the Towers of Remembrance. Thirteen floors up, misty plastic tacked over broken glass. Flap, flap, flap in the wind all night. Dreams where the skin was lifting off your bones. Ghosts above and ghosts below. He told her how he’d lost his seventeenth year completely. How the Towers of Remembrance became the Towers of Oblivion. A mixture of vodka, speed and glue. He’d been down and through and out the other side. He wasn’t interested in losing control any more. He wanted a mind that was sharp the way a diamond cuts glass. He drank soda now and ate candy, and that was it.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Your pockets crackle when you move.’

He laughed.

‘Coca-Cola,’ she said. ‘You can drink Coca-Cola.’ There was a power-surge behind her eyes, as if the voltage had increased. ‘It’s supposed to be very good here.’

They walked into the brash red and chrome of the Starlite Bar. Someone was playing an electric organ, and old couples twirled on a horseshoe of polished wood. He ordered a gin and tonic for her and a Coke for himself. They sat in a booth.

‘How come I never noticed before?’ he asked her. ‘That you’ve got a limp.’

She grinned. ‘Special shoes.’

‘So how come you’re not wearing them now?’

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged, sipped at her drink. ‘I don’t see why I should hide it all the time.’

Halfway through the second drink she said, ‘Do you want to look at my leg?’

A wave of heat rose through him. He glanced round.

‘You want to, don’t you? I can tell.’ And, lifting an inch off the seat, she eased her black tights down, so her legs were bare. Her right knee was ringed with scar tissue. It looked like a piece of red barbed wire.

‘Can I touch it?’

She nodded, her lips tight.

It felt like dried glue. Taking his finger away again, but still looking, he said, ‘They really fucked it up, didn’t they?’ but the way he said it, he might’ve been paying the surgeons a compliment.

She looked at it dispassionately, as if it was a ring on her finger, a ring she was trying on, a ring she might or might not buy. ‘I think it’s because they always cut in the same place.’ She emptied her glass. Ice-cubes knocked against her teeth.

‘They’ve tried to fix it three times,’ she said, ‘but I think they’ve pretty much given up now.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘You told me.’

During the third drink she cried.

He dropped her at the taxi-stand outside Belgrano’s. She lived on the west shore, over the harbour bridge, and he had to drive east. She stood on the sidewalk, her wrists pressed tight against her thighs. She looked like a child, lost or shy.

He leaned across the passenger seat and looked up at her. ‘You going to be all right?’

A sniff, a nod.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He watched her limp towards a taxi, then he shifted into DRIVE and pulled away.

On his way home he had to stop for gas. As he was paying he noticed someone wheeling a Harley into the yellow light of the pumps. The owner of the bike had a pigtail and a black leather jacket with a death’s-head on the back. He couldn’t see the face, but he thought he recognised the jacket. He pocketed his change and walked over.

‘Mitch. That you?’

Mitch stared at him.

‘I came into your tattoo place once. With Vasco. It was years ago.’

Now Mitch’s face tipped back. ‘Fuck me, the blackmailer.’ His eyes travelled the length of Jed. First down, then up. ‘What’s the fancy dress?’

Jed grinned. ‘I’m driving for the Paradise Corporation.’

‘Same place Vasco works, isn’t it?’

‘He got me the job.’

Mitch had this way of squinting at you, as if he was looking directly into bright sunlight, as if he was having his picture taken. It was hard to tell exactly what it meant.

‘This is a bit out of your way, isn’t it?’ Jed said.

Mitch scowled. ‘Bike’s fucked.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Leave it here.’

‘You want a ride home?’

Mitch looked at his boots. They were smeared in grease and spilt gas. A breeze shuffled through the nearby palms. ‘You could do that?’

‘Sure.’

Mitch wheeled his bike to the back of the gas station and chained it to some railings. When he came back, Jed said, ‘You still living in the same place?’

‘I moved.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Rialto.’

Rialto was out by the river. North of Mangrove, west too. It would have taken anyone else half an hour, but Jed knew the shortcuts. He drove it in fifteen minutes. If Mitch was impressed, he didn’t let on.

As they turned on to Rialto Parkway, Mitch pointed through the windshield. ‘There it is.’

Mitch was still using the sign he’d used on Central Avenue all those years ago, the old gold sign that made Jed think of circuses. He pulled up outside, left the engine running.

Mitch shook his hand and opened the door. ‘Come round for a beer sometime. You know where I am.’

When Jed drove into the parking-lot behind the Mortlake office the next morning, Vasco was standing on the asphalt, hands in his pockets, black hair shiny as a polished shoe, the beginning of a wide grin on his face.

Jed leaned out of the window. ‘What’s so funny, Vasco?’

‘I hear you’ve been out with Carol.’

‘So?’

‘Cunning son of a bitch.’

Jed stared at him.

‘The chairman’s daughter,’ Vasco said.

‘What?’

‘Carol. She’s the chairman’s daughter.’

‘The chairman of what?’

‘The chairman of what. The chairman of the whole fucking corporation. That’s what.’

‘I didn’t know.’

But Vasco wasn’t being taken in so easily. ‘Of course you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t.’

Vasco didn’t believe him. ‘You cunning son of a bitch.’

So he was a cunning son of a bitch. Well, all right. That was what he was then. ‘If you know so much,’ Jed said, ‘maybe you can tell me who else I saw.’

Vasco frowned.

‘Come on,’ Jed said, ‘who else did I see?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘They’re not that good then, are they?’

‘Who aren’t that good?’

‘Your spies. Your vultures. Are they?’

Vasco shrugged.

‘Mitch,’ Jed said. ‘You remember Mitch.’

‘Mitch?’ Vasco looked round. ‘Listen, Jed. How about you come for dinner tonight? You could see my house, meet the wife. We could drop in at Mitch’s on the way. I haven’t seen him for ages.’

‘What if Creed flies back early?’

‘I’ll take responsibility for that.’

It was like the old Vasco talking. Jed agreed, out of a strange sense of nostalgia.

They left the limousine in the parking-lot and took Jed’s car. After the Mercedes his Chrysler always felt so sloppy, it was like wearing shoes that were too big for you.

Vasco scanned the worn interior. ‘Some car.’

‘You don’t like it,’ Jed said, ‘you can always get out.’

‘I like it, I like it. I just said some car, that’s all. Jesus.’ Vasco looked across at Jed. ‘You’re too sensitive, you know that?’

And you’re not, I suppose, Jed thought.

He drove fast. In less than twenty minutes they were in Rialto.

‘This is unhealthy, this part of town,’ Vasco said. ‘This is very unhealthy.’

True enough. Rialto was a no-go area. Half black, half Hispanic. A pattern to the blocks: church club bar; church club bar; church club flophouse bar. A shooting every night. The signs on N.E. 139th Street told you everything: HOUSE OF JOY. Y-TEL MOTEL. LOU’S GUN HUT. EL FLAMBOYAN BAR. JESUS LOVE CHURCH. THE OASIS LIQUOR LOUNGE. BIG MAC’S SHOWGIRL REVIEW — TOTALLY NUDE — PROVOCATIVE. Mitch’s sign looked quaint among the stale neon. Jed reached the 11000 block and slowed. He couldn’t stop outside the tattoo parlour, so he took the next left, an alleyway, and parked in among a cluster of dustbins. This was where the Chrysler came into its own, in areas like this. Just another piece of scrap metal. Blend.