The Dirty Streets of Heaven

He turned toward the funhouse mirror, then paused, looking at me over his shoulder. I couldn’t read his expression. “Stay in touch, Bobby.”

“How?” I’d almost said “Why?” but although I still didn’t quite know how I felt about him and what he’d done, I knew I’d miss him.

“We’ll figure something out.” And then he stepped into the mirror. The hole closed behind him, so I didn’t get a chance to watch him go, but I’m guessing he walked up that long road like a man finally going home.

I started back toward the Kingsport Plunge. As I patted my pocket to make sure the feather was undetectable, I discovered something else nestled there already-Howlingfell’s phone. It had got very wet, as I had too, but like me it was still functioning, so I rang the last number Howlingfell had called. Someone picked up but didn’t speak. Still, I was pretty sure I knew who was listening on the other end.

“Guess what,” I said. “That whole ‘Mission Accomplished’ thing? A bit premature, as it turned out.” I looked up at the sky, which was beginning to cloud over, shrouding the moon. I was tired of being wet, so I walked a little faster. “But what I really wanted to tell you was that I do have the feather, and if you fuck with me or anyone I care about-anyone I care about, do you understand? — I’m going to use it as proof when I tell your Hell-buddies about the deals you’ve been making with Heaven. Is that clear? Oh, and tell the Countess that I’ll see her again. That’s a promise.”

I didn’t wait to see if Eligor would respond, I just threw the phone as far as I could, then listened until I heard it hit and shatter somewhere in the shadows. I knew that what I’d said was true: I was going to find Caz. I was going to find her even if I had to go to Hell and yank her out of Eligor’s arms to do it. I was going to free her so that someday she could stand in front of me and at least tell me honestly how much of what we’d had was real. I wasn’t going to rest until I knew the answer.

Clarence was sitting up when I got back to the pool, dabbing at his mouth with his sleeve. He’d obviously thrown up, but otherwise he didn’t look too bad. “What happened?”

“To Sam? He got away when you went down, I’m afraid.”

“No, what happened to me? What hit me?”

“The ghallu must have had a reflex twitch. Got you with its tail. Knocked you silly.”

Clarence squinted at the monster’s corpse, which was already beginning to turn into sludge, little rivers of gray and black trickling away into the cracks between the tiles. “That thing doesn’t have a tail.”

“Its leg, then. Doesn’t matter. Come on, let’s see if your ride is still waiting. I’m too tired to walk all the way back home.”

He asked for his dart gun, but I didn’t give it to him. He made a face at me like an angry third-grader. “You’d better start trusting me, Bobby. We’re on the same side.”

“Trust you?” I laughed. “Kid, you tried to arrest my best friend! And you hacked my phone.”

“It was nothing personal,” he protested. “I was doing my job.” He gave me a significant look. “I don’t have to tell them anything except what I learned about Sam and the Third Way. Everything else is your own business. Including your pal, the Countess.”

It was friendly blackmail, but it was still blackmail. “Where did you come from, anyway, kid?” I asked him. “Where did they find a piece of work like you?”

“Took me right out of Records because they knew you and Sam’d be too suspicious of anyone with a background more like yours.”

“A competent background, you mean? Yeah, well, they definitely fooled me, I’ll admit it. But I’ll decide for myself whether we’re on the same side. You’re still on probation with me.”

Clarence was outraged. “Probation? You’re the one who should have to prove yourself to me! You let Sam get away.”

I tucked his needle gun into my pocket. “Yeah, kid, but you’re the one who got your skinny ass kicked by something I’d already killed.”

thirty-nine

the dirty streets of heaven

One more nasty surprise awaited me. As Clarence and I made our way (in my case, my staggering, exhausted, stinking way) off the footbridge on the mainland side a car waited for us in the Garcia Park lot. But it wasn’t a Lincoln Continental or any other kind of old lady car, it was the ugliest, pimped-out red gangsta mobile imaginable.

I’d seen it before.

Garcia Windhover was wearing what I imagine was his idea of a stealth-mission suit-all black, including a do rag that made him look like L’il Wayne’s severely anemic nephew. The stealth aspect was undercut a bit by the immense words “FUCK ALLA Y’ALL!” written across the front of his baggy XXXL t-shirt in screaming white letters.

“Mr. D!” He spread his arms exactly like he was welcoming me back from a tour of combat duty. Although in some ways it was true-in fact I felt like I’d been dropped out of an airplane without a parachute-G-Man was not exactly the person I would have hoped to find waiting for me when I got back on home soil. I ducked his enthusiastic bro-hug like a weary matador.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I turned to Clarence, who at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Why is he here? How do you two even know each other?”

“I told you, I knew where you were, where you went,” Clarence said. “Because I didn’t know what you were doing-I didn’t know whether you were in cahoots with Sam. And so…well, I was kind of checking up after you.”

“Then he told me how he was your partner,” said Garcia with all the relish of a teenager confirming an urban legend he had heard from someone who had heard it from the guy it happened to. “So here I am, dude!”

I glared at Clarence, who shrugged and couldn’t quite meet my eye.

“I needed a ride,” he admitted. “I could tell something big was going down when you guys left the hotel, then I heard what had happened to the hotel on the television news.”

“You called him for a ride?” I said quietly as Garcia opened all four car doors, even though there were only three of us. “Shit, Clarence, you’re the worst undercover agent ever.”

“It takes about half an hour to get a cab up to Brittan Heights, Bobby. I was in a hurry, and he told me that he’d worked for you before.”

“Totally,” said Garcia, brushing some loose popcorn kernels out of the back seat. “I can be your wheel man.”

“No fucking way,” I said. “We are not ‘partners.’ I am not partners with you, Windhover, or you, Special Agent Treacherous Bastard.” I glared at Clarence.

Garcia looked intrigued. “Can I have a code name too, Mr. D?”

“Yes. ‘Idiot.’ And you may not call me ‘Mr. D.,’ either.”

“Then what should I call you?”

“Five minutes ago I would have said, ‘an ambulance.’” I dragged my weary bones into the back seat, then stretched out, dripping all over Garcia’s leather upholstery. My head was pressed uncomfortably against the door, but I didn’t care. “Now I just want to take three or four showers and sleep until August. So let’s go.”

“We could be your ‘associates,’” Garcia said cheerfully. “That sounds more bad-ass anyway.”

I groaned and closed my eyes and let the dizzy darkness climb back over me. I dimly felt the thump of Garcia backing over a concrete parking stop, the hydraulics in his stupid car setting the whole thing wobbling like a waterbed, then I surrendered to oblivion.

I finally made it to The Compasses about eleven the next evening, limping and bruised and burned but finally clean and at least partially rested. I waved to Kool Filter who was puffing furiously and talking into his Bluetooth, then I trudged up the stairs.