Sam looked up and down Main Street. “You know, I wasn’t making that up about being hungry. I’m starved. One thing about living in a pocket universe and not wearing a mortal body most of the time, you get really nostalgic for food. Is that Korean place on the edge of Spanishtown still open late?”
“Bee Bim Bop? Yeah, I think so.”
We got there and found a small line of hipsters blocking the door, but it didn’t take too long to get a table, even on a Friday night. I had rediscovered beer since I had returned from you-know-where—that was one of the things I had been thinking about the whole time, how good a cold beer would taste instead of one of the weird root-based drinks they served up in Hell. Hellbeer might get you shitfaced even quicker than the earthly stuff, but it was about as refreshing as drinking lukewarm bathwater after a fat guy’s gotten out of it.
I ordered a bowl of the stuff the restaurant’s named after, rice and shredded meat and fried egg. Sam had his usual order of inexplicable soup, followed by several kinds of hot, spicy stuff, and we mostly concentrated on eating and drinking—tea, in Sam’s case. By the time I was working on my second beer I finally felt ready to talk, so I started with my meeting at the Museum of Industry with Temuel, then gave him the rest of it—abridged, of course, or we would have been there for days.
“Well, B, I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ so I’ll just say, ‘What a dumbshit,’ instead.” He shook his head. “I did try to tell you not to go there, though.”
“Yeah. And I want a little credit for how hard I had to work to ignore you.” I leaned back and signaled for another Sapporo. We were close to the only patrons left in the place now, the hands of the clock reaching for midnight like a stick-up victim’s, but I leaned forward and lowered my voice anyway. “I’m gonna tell you something, Sammy-boy.” I was definitely feeling all those beers. My body had gotten out of practice while I had been filtering Inferno-booze through demonic kidneys. “Yeah, it was probably stupid, but that’s not what’s bugging me. It’s the whole setup. Hell. Heaven. I mean, you should have seen it. It was horrible, but they were alive, Sam. They were doing things, making plans, struggling to get by. Shit, in some ways it wasn’t that different from San Judas.”
“I could have told you that, and I’ve only been to Jude.”
“I’m not joking.”
Sam smiled. “I know you’re not. And I know tomorrow morning you’ll think you were telling me really important stuff, BD. But just remember this when you’ve pissed all that beer out of your system: I already figured this shit out.”
“Huh?”
“Why do you think I parted company with our original corporate sponsors? Why do you think I’m living in exile in a hole in reality that both Heaven and Hell will be happy to disintegrate back into the ether as soon as they find out where it is? Because I can’t put up with this shit anymore. Who knows, maybe our bosses are right.” He frowned. “Maybe they’re telling the truth about everything, and maybe sheer nastiness really is the only way that Good will ever defeat Evil. Maybe by bowing out of the Cold War I’ve just doomed you and the rest of my friends when the Last Trump starts blowing and the dead get up and salute.” He looked flushed, as if he’d been drinking something other than rice tea, but after a moment I realized it was something else, a deep, deep anger. “But you know what? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just keep pushing an agenda I didn’t believe in. And if you ever get to feeling the same way, Bobby . . . well, just let me know.”
I stared at him. It was strange, seeing this Sam. I knew about his change of heart, his decision to act on his principles and join the Third Way—hell, I’d had it rubbed in my face on that night at Shoreline Park—but somewhere deep down I’d never quite let myself believe it, as if all this political stuff was just a lark for him, like a pop musician who suddenly wanted to play real roots music. It wasn’t just a lark, though. And if I thought about it long enough, it began to make sense.
I couldn’t afford to think about it that long.
“Yeah, but what I need from you now is something a bit more specific, pal.” I picked up the check and looked it over, then put a couple of twenties and a ten on top of it and set it back down on the little tray. “Yes, I’m buying. That’s why you’re going to earn your meal. I need a place to make the exchange. Any suggestions?”
“With Eligor?” He shook his head. “Of course with Eligor. Right.” He drew circles with rice tea on the tabletop as he considered. “I’d say you have to pick a public place, for safety’s sake, but the more I think about that the less certain I am.”
“Why?”
“Because someone might recognize you. You’re already walking a tightrope with the Big House folk. All they’d need is a report that you’ve been meeting up with Eligor the Horseman, and you’d be headed for a Deep Audit.” Which was a way of saying I’d have my soul taken apart by Fixers, fleck by fleck, and everything I’d ever felt, thought, said, or done would be delivered to people like the Ephorate, at least one of whom was probably my sworn and deadly enemy. From the rumors I’ve heard, Heaven’s interrogators are as thorough as the torturers of Hell, just a bit more subtle. “Well, where then?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out and call you. I’ve got a few things to take care of while I’m here in town, but I’ll be thinking about it.”
“Things?”
“Jeez, Dollar, you’re not the only friend I have in the real world, you know.” He picked a toothpick out of the bowl on the front counter. “You might be the only one who’ll go out to Korean at eleven o’clock at night, though, so I’ll do my best to come up with a location that will improve your chances of surviving. Fact is, I think I better come with you on this little mission.”
I finished the last of the beer in the bottle, then caught up to him as he went through the door. “Last couple of times you’ve come along to help me we almost died. Almost died ugly, too. Let’s try to do better next time.”
He saluted me with an imaginary glass. “Confusion to our enemies, sport!”
“Yeah.” I walked out beside him, but he held up his hand.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Like I said, I’ve got some other stuff to do tonight. I’ll call you. Tomorrow at the latest.”
I watched him saunter off, hands in his pockets and big shoulders rounded. It had gone cold, especially for a July night, and I was just considering whether I wanted to stop back in at the Compasses or head home when someone softly cleared her throat just behind me.
I spun around. Standing in the garish light of the Korean restaurant’s window was an old Hispanic-looking woman, a stranger. She extended a hand toward me, and I saw she was holding a slightly ratty bunch of carnations with a rubber band around them.
“No thanks,” I said out of reflex, but even as I did so I realized I had done a dangerous thing, walking out into the night with my guard down. And just as I realized this, I realized I had seen this woman before, but not as a woman. Something in the face was familiar, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“You’re not going to buy a flower from a nice old lady, Bobby?” She smiled, showing me some authentic-looking, small-town Mexican dentistry. “How about taking a stroll with me, then?”
I had my hand inside my coat, groping for the butt of my FN, before I realized who it was. “Temuel?” I whispered. “Is that you?”
The archangel nodded and rearranged her headscarf. “And I really would like to take a little walk.”
forty-six:
the funniest racist i know
IT WAS about midnight, but the Camino Real was still pretty busy. We walked south, past the clubs and liquor stores of the mixed-up neighborhood that had grown between Spanishtown and the rich, might-as-well-be-private streets of the Atherton District. We walked more than a few blocks, and Temuel didn’t seem in any hurry to start talking.