“Okay,” I said, “you did a few things to make sure I had something to come back to. Did you work something special with the cab, too? Because it doesn’t seem to show up on the heavenly radar for some reason, so they have to follow me the old-fashioned way. I’m guessing that was something you arranged.”
Temuel nodded, almost shyly. “I was wondering if you’d noticed.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Thanks.” But, strangely, I wasn’t feeling very grateful at that exact moment. “So what do you want from me now? It’s all over, right? Anaita got taken down and you seem to be free and clear, but I’m still waiting to see if I get the inquisition treatment. Did you want to know if I’d go on keeping my mouth shut about you?” I tried to see the answer in his face, but Temuel was giving nothing away. “I guess I’ll do my best. But I spilled it all to the Angel of Conciliation already, so somebody in Heaven knows more than enough about both of us to drop us into the Pit for a term of forever-to-longer. It’s only a question of why they haven’t used any of it yet. In other words, if you’re worried about keeping your wings, I’m not your biggest concern.”
“No! That’s not why I’m here.” The archangel seemed a bit frustrated. “I can’t talk about any of it yet, but I wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you. You have no idea how complicated things are right now, how . . . delicate.” He patted my hand. It felt just like being patted by a human being.
“And that’s all? ‘Good luck, Bobby, I’d like to help you but it’s complicated’? Okay, leave me out of it for a minute, then—what about Kainos and all the human souls living there? Did they just get disappeared?” And my girlfriend along with them, I almost said, but even now my habit of secrecy was strong. “What about Sam Riley and the other Magians who were betrayed by Anaita? Do they just stay dead? Or do they get recycled into something more manageable, angels who don’t ask questions?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You know, I’ve heard that before, and it’s not really what you expect from friends.”
“I’ve never been your friend.” He didn’t bother to make a reassuring face, but I must admit he at least looked sad. “Heaven, Hell, Earth, it’s all too complicated for anything as simple as friendship, Bobby. But I’ve tried to do right by you, and I’ll keep trying.”
“So this whole visit was to tell me what? Not to give up?”
“I’m not worried about you giving up. I’m more worried about you pushing things too far when the time isn’t right.”
“What the split-level Hades does that mean? Time isn’t right? I just brought down an angel who was running the biggest anti-Heaven scam since Satan tried to invent upward mobility.”
“Funny you should mention that,” he said, and for a moment I thought I might actually hear something useful. Then Temuel stood, ran a hand over his balding head, adjusted his glasses, and gave me another one of his wise-old-uncle smiles. I was really getting sick of that particular facial expression. “I have to go.”
I couldn’t even think of anything cutting to say. Like I said, half helium, half regular old air, dragging my string along the floor. I watched him walk away across the park. A couple of pigeons too stupid to know the crumbs were gone kept me company until I finally got up and headed off in the opposite direction.
• • •
If it had been a day like the last few, I would have gone back home and saluted the passing of noon with a drink or two. But somewhere in my subconscious I’d been waiting for Temuel to check in, one way or another, and now that he had (and had given me a lot of nothing), I couldn’t turn off my unhappy thoughts. I wandered up and down the waterfront and the dark, narrow blocks around it—oh, sorry, the Pioneer District—and considered the differences between disappearing into a bottle and just doing the job properly by stepping off a dock and into the cold green waters of the bay. For a while I listened to a guy with a guitar playing an okay version of an old Slim Harpo song that people only remembered because the Stones recorded it. The guy wasn’t that good, but he wasn’t that bad either. Eventually the proprietor of the nearest souvenir shop came out and gave him five bucks to play somewhere else, a win-win for everyone.
Strangely, it was a message from Orban that pulled me away from the hypnotic green waters of the bay and my empty, uncaring mood. He called to say that he’d finished the sale on the Matador Machine to the guy in the Pacific Northwest and that he had the rest of my money.
So it was official. My car was gone.
I’d loved that car, had spent hours with it, searching for replacement trim and the right paint and upholstery, shoveling money into the pockets of mechanics to make it run like new, and now it was leaving my life. Lot of that going on. But where losing the Matador should have felt like a death, the actual news was more like a pinch, so much less than I’d expected that it hardly registered. Did I no longer give a damn about anything? Or had my priorities changed? Because as I walked along Parade through clusters of chilly tourists, I found I did still care about some things. I cared very much.
Caz had called me a wounded romantic, a self-destructive optimist, but I wasn’t feeling either very romantic or optimistic. Still, there’s a part of me that needs to get knocked down to remind myself of why I get up, and that part seemed to be awakening again. Heaven wasn’t going to tell me anything. Temuel couldn’t tell me anything, or at least that’s what he wanted me to believe. Sam was gone, Caz was gone, and even the ephors who should have been grilling me like a Junior Burger didn’t seem to give a damn.
But I still gave a damn. I still needed to know what had happened to me, and why.
I walked back to my place and climbed into that ugly-ass taxi, then headed west, over the hills and toward the ocean.
• • •
The surf was midwinter-impressive below the onetime nunnery. Half a dozen women in gray were dutifully hanging washing on a line outside the cabins down below the house, although I couldn’t imagine that bedclothes and nun’s habits were going to dry very fast in the biting breeze off the Pacific.
One of the nuns opened the front door and tried to tell me that Gustibus wasn’t at home. I didn’t care whether he was or wasn’t, to be honest, because I wasn’t going to leave that easily, and I didn’t really have anywhere else to go. I said I’d wait, and made my way down the hallway toward the big room, which really upset Sister Kremlin or Sister Igor or whichever one it was, but she was apparently too Christian to get into a wrestling match with me.
I had scarcely found myself a place to sit in the midst of all those tables littered with books and papers when Gustibus appeared through a side door, tying the rope on his weird Buddhist Warrior Pajamas like I’d got him out of the bath. I could see the nun hovering in the doorway behind him (she was now holding a broom) but Gustibus apparently didn’t think he’d need her help quelling the invasion; he closed the door gently but firmly behind him.
“Thought you weren’t here,” I said.
“Nice of you to drop by, Mr. Dollar. Perhaps next time you could call first?”
“Sorry. Old habit of mine. People who don’t want to see me find it easier to avoid me when I let them know I’m coming.”
“Perhaps. But I wasn’t trying to avoid you.”
“Didn’t say you were. You still interested in swapping information?”
He looked me over, then went to get two glasses from a tray and poured water into both of them. “Some refreshment?”
“Sure. You had the glasses ready. Were you expecting someone? Like me?”
He gave me a look that was a little amused, a little irritated. “Why would I be expecting you?”
“Never mind. I’m here because I want to know more about a particular angel.” I checked my notes. “Yep, that’s all. Just some info on one little angel. I’ll take hard evidence, interesting stories, completely dubious scuttlebutt—you name it.”