that, though faster, isn’t that different from a stroke victim’s. Of course, after Leo’s death on what I thought of as the Heavenly operating table, I have a deeper distrust of the process than most of my peers.
“What about me?” Chico asked as I was trying to wrap up the call. “No, ‘How’s it going, buddy?’ No, thanks for saving your scrawny
“Sorry, man. What can I say? I’m in your debt. I didn’t know you were that badass.”
“Only when I need to be.” He sounded mollified. “Anyway, it’s tough out there. You take care, BD.”
“Trying my best,
I parked around the block in case Eligor’s men were staking out our office, then slipped in over the fence from the courtyard of the office building next door. Alice’s desk was next to a window. She watched me climb, cling, then awkwardly drop as if I were a very unimpressive clown performing at a child’s party. “Not getting enough exercise, Dollar?” she asked after I mounted the stairs and stumbled in.
I was still puffing a little as I dropped into a chair to examine the hole I’d just torn in my pants. I was running out of jeans, and I was going to have to start wearing something sturdier, like those ugly tactical khakis. “No, it’s just that visiting you always brings out the swashbuckling romantic in me, Alice.”
She shook her head. “Save the bullshit. I got a lousy chimichanga from GoGo Burrito and it’s backing up on me. I’m going home early. What do you want?”
“I need to send a p-mail. Private, too. I have to do it myself.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Ooh, you really
“I’m not homeless!”
“You will be if you keep gouging your expense account for fancy motels.”
“Fancy? These are the kind of places that make you use the last guest’s soap.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to whatever she had to finish before she gave herself the rest of the day off.
Sam always calls sending a private prayer-mail “going to Mecca,” not because you’re surrounded by other pilgrims but because the process itself is less like one of those baroque churches full of golden clouds and plaster cherubs and more like that big block of stone that all the Islamic faithful go to see. The room is small and has no windows. The only thing in it is a standard wooden desk, and the only chair in the room is facing it instead of behind it. On top of the desk is a big black blotter like you’d see in an insurance office, and sitting unceremoniously on top of that is a cube of clear crystal about a foot and a half square. At least I always assumed it’s crystal-maybe it’s some cheap glass thing they bought in one of those home decorator stores. It wouldn’t shock me. One thing about my bosses, at least in their operations here on Earth: they’re more into making things work than making things look good.
I sat in front of the cube and composed myself. I had my eyes shut, because if they were open when the light of Heaven came I’d have been seeing a shiny green cube in front of everything for the next half hour. I mean, it really scorches your optic nerves. So I waited. I saw the first great flash against my eyelids and then the light dimmed down to a healthier level, and I opened up.
What’s the light of Heaven look like on earth? Like sunlight streaming through the clouds in the tackiest garage sale painting you ever saw. Really, it’s so beautiful it’s embarrassing. No subtlety whatsoever.
A voice spoke. As far as I know it was only in my head, one of those sweet, indefinable angel voices that could be either male or female.
I spoke the formula for a secure report, then described what I had just found and read. When I was finished, I took the envelope out of my pocket and showed it to the cube, then held the pages up one after another in front of that giant paperweight full of clouds and bright sunlight. When I’d finished the sweetly androgynous voice said,
I was just getting up to go when the voice came again.
Which was a weird thing to say. Because the summit conference was going to be as stuffed with angels as a clown car full of guys in big shoes. Did Temuel mean he wanted me to be his own private source? I could understand that, I guess-anybody who’s ever worked in a bureaucracy could-but coupled with his remark about my misremembering his Clarence comment, it unsettled me a bit.
I didn’t reveal that, of course. “Just give me the details.”
I probably looked a little surprised. I don’t know if they can actually see us through the heaven box, but I explained my reaction anyway. “Right here in Jude? Not in, I don’t know, Vatican City or something? Vegas? I know those Hell guys love to convention in Vegas.”
The Bobby Dollar credo: When speaking with management, answer anything that could have more than one meaning as though the obvious one is the only one you noticed. “Of course, Archangel. Thank you for your confidence in me.”
And with those even more ambiguous words he was gone. The cube mellowed to a faint golden glow, then even that vanished, but not before something about the unearthly quality of the flaring light caught my attention. I couldn’t help thinking about Habari’s astonishing display of power, of how Edward Walker had talked about the reverend doctor’s hand glowing like a magnesium flare when he opened a Zipper in that hospital. Had it been the same brilliant, ineffable light I had just closed my eyes against? Could Habari somehow be connected to Heaven after all? Or could Hell mimic that very, very recognizable radiance? I supposed it was possible-after all, that was the Devil’s traditional schtick, to seem fair but be foul, or something like that. But then again, it was a living mortal who had been tricked, so maybe they hadn’t needed to work all that hard. I suddenly wondered if someone like me could perform that trick, too-if any angel could do it.
I left the office doors locked behind me and clambered back over the fence into the courtyard of the little office complex next door. When my feet hit the ground, I turned and found myself about a foot away from a grinning, corpselike face. I had my new automatic from Orban out and my finger on the trigger before I realized it was my dancing acquaintance, Mr. Fox.
“Jesus!” I said, taking a step back and putting the gun in my pocket. I hate to take religious names in vain-it’s frowned on for guys in my line of work-but sometimes it just jumps out. “What are you doing sneaking up on me? I almost shot you!”
“No sneaking, Dollar man! Saw you climbing over the fence and thought we must have a chitter-chat.” He laughed and did a quick time step. Only then did it occur to me to look around the offices facing the courtyard. Only one employee sat at a window desk, a young black woman, but she was staring at me and the paper-white Asian guy with alarm. She was also fumbling blindly for her phone.
“Come on.” I headed for the way out. “Tell your story walking. I think that lady’s calling the cops.”