Rupert Thomson - The Five Gates of Hell

‘I dreamt we were made of gold,’ Creed said, ‘and there were people trying to melt us down.’ One of his eyebrows arched ironically. As if anyone could melt them down.

Jed knew the story in the papers was true. He only had to remember the day after Dobson’s resignation. Creed’s distracted blankness in the parking-lot. Flack’s anxiety. The tension on the faces of McGowan and Carlo. Mrs Dobson’s tears. Morton’s jittery elation. I lie beautifully. All those ambiguous, jarring pieces fell into place. He remembered the picture in the paper. He remembered thinking that the smile on Dobson’s face looked false. And it had been, of course. Dead men didn’t smile. Not unless they fell into Morton’s hands. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth. No, he didn’t believe in Creed’s innocence, not for a moment, but then innocence and guilt had never been the parameters, had they? There was only one question in his mind when he read the papers: had they taken the story far enough? It occurred to him as a possibility, for instance, that, prior to being ‘kept alive’ for ten days, Dobson might first have been murdered. Was that what Carol had been trying to tell him?

The days passed. Jed ate Liquorice Whirls, and virtually nothing else. He hardly slept. At times he felt himself departing into hallucination. The rumours were still flying, but the proof was lying low. Creed’s vultures were out there, Jed was sure of it, sealing lips and twisting thumbs. Sometimes Creed would turn his face to the window and smile. Just the flicker of a smile when he thought that nobody was looking (but Jed had practised the deft glance in the mirror and he didn’t miss much). Creed was like a gambler. Spin the wheel. If you lose, just spin again. There were always more chips. It was down to nerve. Who got chicken first. Which rats left which ship.

Silence was descending all over the city. The hollow roar of nothing being said. The Dobson story had yet to be substantiated, and the family were still unavailable for comment. The Paradise Corporation was suing three of the city’s leading newspapers. Creed met McGowan and Trotter at Papa Jim’s Bone-A-Fide Rib Place on the South Coast Expressway. A chequered tablecloth and lighting like melted butter. Jed could see them from the car, drinking beers and swapping jokes. It was real mood-swing. They looked like three guys relaxing after a ball game. Once again he wished he could’ve listened in.

Then, nine days after the story broke, the Tribune published a cartoon. It showed a coffin with the lid nailed down and two candles burning at the head. A voice-bubble rose from the inside of the coffin. It said, simply, ‘I resign.’

The morning that the cartoon appeared, Jed overheard Creed talking to Maxie Carlo. He had the paper in his hand. ‘The press are beginning to have fun,’ he was saying. ‘The worst is over.’

There was a new confidence. An air of leisure, recklessness, infallibility. McGowan was seen smiling. Maxie Carlo came to work in a yellow plaid suit. Creed gave Jed two nights off.

Jed drove down to Rialto to see Mitch.

‘Ask him,’ Mitch said as Jed walked in. ‘He works there.’

Some friends of Mitch’s had come round. A couple of them had ridden in the Moon Beach chapter together. There was a black girl there too. Her name was Sharon. She wanted to know what Jed thought about the Dobson affair.

Jed cracked a beer. ‘It’s all true,’ he said, ‘every word of it,’ and he sent Mitch a wink.

‘No, really.’

And suddenly he felt a slippage, a letting go. His nerves had been on hold for days. No sleep and all that road unwinding before his eyes, inside his head. It only took this one slight pressure when he was least expecting it and he came loose.

‘How am I supposed to know?’ he snapped. ‘I’m only a fucking driver, all right?’

The black girl shrank. ‘Christ. Sorry I asked.’

Jed drank two more beers and a couple of shots of tequila. Suddenly the room smelt of dead flowers and stale smoke, and it was loud, even during silences, with the ticking of Mitch’s clocks. He went to the bathroom, hung his head over the toilet bowl. The ammonia helped. This hunchback darkness on his shoulder and the room behind him, high and narrow. It was all the liquor, he wasn’t used to it any more. In the old days he could’ve swallowed a six-pack in half an hour and then gone out and walked a tightrope. Not any more. He shut his mouth and hung his head. Waited for the darkness to lift.

‘How did you get to be a driver, Jed?’

He slowly looked up. It was much later. He was back in the lounge. Mitch was rolling a cigarette, running the tip of his tongue along the shiny edge. ‘Somebody say something?’

‘How did you get to be a driver?’

Jed shrugged. ‘I’m pretty good mechanically. I don’t mind working long hours —’

The black girl cut in. ‘It’s his eyes.’

‘His eyes?’ one of the bikers said. ‘What d’you mean?’

She leaned forwards. ‘I’ve seen eyes like his in jails. Eyes that’ve killed. Or look as if they could.’ And she shuddered.

Jed stood up. He stared into the mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. He’d often asked himself the same queston. What had Creed seen in him? He thought he had it now. It was what that girl had said. It was what he looked like.

‘He never blinks,’ he heard her say. ‘It’s like those lizards.’

He was still looking at himself. His qualifications, so to speak. They were all there, in the mirror. A tall thin body built almost entirely out of angles. A body which, cramped in the black livery he wore, became still thinner, still more angular. His face was flaky in some places, the texture of dried glue, while in others it bore the pin-prick traces of acne. His glasses with their steel frames made his eyes look chilly, merciless. He was ugly, there was no denying it. He was verging on the grotesque. And yet, looking at himself now, he couldn’t help taking a kind of pride in his appearance. For as long as he could remember, people had stared at him. His ugliness set him apart; his ugliness had made him vain. He was smiling now. His lips didn’t curve or pucker when he smiled. They just lengthened. His smile seemed to prove the point.

Later the black girl came and sat beside him on the sofa.

‘I want to apologise,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to be personal or anything.’

‘What’s your name?’ he said. ‘I’ve forgotten.’

‘Sharon.’

‘I’m Jed.’

‘I know.’ She was staring at him intently. ‘Tell me something. Are you a virgin?’

She was close to him now. Her pink shirt blurred. Her breath smelt of damp hay, hay that had been stored too long.

‘You are, aren’t you?’

He admitted it.

‘You want to do something about it?’

He began to shiver.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said. ‘You cold?’

‘Yes.’

Her voice softened. ‘Well, you’re the driver. Why don’t you drive me home?’

They left in his Chrysler. At the first stoplight she leaned over and kissed him. Something flashed pale-mauve in the side of her teeth.

‘It’s amethyst,’ she said. ‘It’s my lucky stone.’

He was too drunk to be driving, he thought, angling a glance at her wide, sloping thighs on the seat beside him. Her breasts slopped like water under that pink shirt of hers. Like the bags of water you buy goldfish in.

Then a room with blue lights, the whining of a child. A swirl of orange as he lurched to the window.

‘Baker Park,’ she said.

Her voice, the room, tonight. All gritty and distant now. Dregs in the bottom of a bottle. One week when he was fifteen he’d slept under the pier. Seaweed dangling from the metal struts like matted hair, wind so rough against his skin. You could’ve used that wind to scour pans. And the dragging of the waves all night. Water like slurred words. The bottom of the bottle.