The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar (50 page)

Again the doughy smile, and this time it was big enough for me to see the teeth behind it, each one filed into a perfect little point. If you ever crossed a piranha and a giant salamander and bombarded it with Gamma rays, Prince Sitri would probably be your first result. And your last. “Grasswax…gambling. Yes, I seem to remember he had a weakness for a flutter. He may even have lost to me a few times at the races. Are you suggesting that I would have him killed over such small change?” Again that titanic, stony chuckle; his chins didn’t stop moving for several seconds afterward. “Oh, my dear fellow, what an idea!” Then the smile vanished. The voice still sounded like a tank idling, but suddenly I could hear the full depth of the hatred his kind feel for my
kind. It wasn’t a good feeling—just meeting his eyes made my stomach squirm. Sitri was a very, very old and very powerful demon. “And even if I had, little angel,” he said, the rumbling a notch louder than before, “what business of yours could it possibly be?”

For the first time, I really felt the breadth and depth of my own impulsive stupidity. Even though we were a little way from the main lobby down a hall, there was still plenty of traffic, most of the folk looking as though they belonged to one side in the great struggle or another. Every single one of them was now staring at us, most with the kind of expression zoo-goers wear when some crazy sonofabitch climbs over the rail into the grizzly bear enclosure. Still, it was too late to pretend I’d fallen in by accident.

“I heard that Grasswax had something of Eligor’s. Something special. You know Eligor, right? Tall fellow? Owns about three-quarters of this city?”

“Our host, you mean? Mr. Vald?” Fat Boy was suddenly smiling again. “Of course I know him. He owns this hotel, too.” My expression must have amused him, because he laughed again. “Oh, did you not know that?”

Eligor, the guy who wanted to murder me—if I was lucky—owned the Ralston? Now I felt like the grizzly bear was putting on his Kiss the Cook apron and firing up the barbecue, but I soldiered on. “Yeah, that guy. I wondered if you might be able to tell me whether Grasswax might have stolen that something from Eligor with the hope of paying his debt to you.”

“Ah.” He nodded, or at least compressed some of his chins. “So you’re not asking me whether
I
killed that punk Grasswax, you’re asking me whether my dear friend and colleague Grand Duke Eligor might have killed him?”

The manager was looking at his watch. He’d arranged the bejesus out of those flowers, and now he was getting nervously impatient again. I decided I’d already drawn enough potentially fatal attention to myself for one afternoon. “Yeah. I guess so. And?”

Sitri’s lips writhed in distaste like a pair of mating eels. “Grasswax was a fool who didn’t know his limitations.” A large gray-blue tongue crawled out from between the sharp little white pickets and moistened those lips, making the long, rubbery things look even more like sea
creatures. “Anything that happened to him was richly deserved. He is not mourned or missed. And neither will you be, little angel.”

“Come along, your Highness.” It was the manager, bustling back into the midst of things as if invisibly signaled.

I couldn’t think of any way to dig myself in deeper so I gave him my best jaunty salute. “Right, then. Enjoy your stay.” As I turned away I could hear the freight elevator groan, indicating they had finally managed to maneuver Sitri into it.

So now I had a few more pieces to play with. Sitri knew Grasswax and I was sure he knew damn well why Grasswax had been so thoroughly dispatched, that was obvious. Now, demons lie constantly, but they also speak the truth if it suits them. His Flabbiness hadn’t minded talking about Grasswax, which meant he either enjoyed the fact that Eligor’s troubles were so well known, even if they reflected ever so slightly on himself, or he was as innocent of wrongdoing as a demon prince can ever be—at least, in the case of Grasswax’s messy and extremely painful death.

Or he might have felt certain he was talking to a dead man, so he didn’t need to be too coy. I couldn’t find much to cheer about in any of those possibilities, and the whole thing hadn’t got me closer to anything important, just guaranteed that yet one more of the nastiest bastards in this or any other universe was now thinking about me and my nosy nature.

Good one, Bobby.

I
HADN’T EVEN made it back across the lobby to the guest elevators when a hand full of steely fingers closed on my arm. Startled, I clawed in my pocket for my concealed automatic even as I turned. Reflexes aside, I knew nobody was likely to attack me in the middle of the biggest summit for decades, but I was still relieved (slightly) to see that the person who’d stopped me was from my side. At least as far as I knew.

The angel holding my arm had the tanned, fit look of a mid-career military aviator. In fact, everything about him looked military, the creases in his expensive charcoal gray suit so sharp that it might as well have been a dress uniform.

“Slow down, son,” he said, and the iron grasp of his fingers made certain I did what he suggested.

I had never seen him wearing flesh and, in fact, had only seen him once in any form, but I hazarded a guess. “Karael?”

He didn’t bother to acknowledge it. “I saw your report. You’re testifying tomorrow, but I want a chat with you ahead of time.” The way he said “chat” made me think of rubber truncheons and other painful methods of ensuring team play, but I think that was just his style. “Now you’ve seen how hard these bastards will work to cover their tracks, to make it look like the breakdown is on our side.”

I looked around, worried about eavesdroppers, but if Karael wasn’t worried I decided I shouldn’t be either. This guy had been fighting the
Opposition since before the Seventh Day; he must know what he was doing. In fact, that was what was worrying me more than any demons listening in. Still, I lowered my voice. “Hold on. You’re saying that this whole Third Way thing is a front? That the other side have been pilfering the souls, and that’s their cover?”

He frowned like I was a school kid who’d just spelled
C-A-T-T.
“I’m saying that we give them
nothing
for free, and that includes this conference. Tell the truth about what you saw when the first soul went missing, but don’t go overboard. Don’t give them anything else. Unless you have to.”

Nothing like directions from the top so vague that no matter what happened, it was still going to be my fault. I’m not an idiot, though, at least not most of the time, and I wasn’t going to argue with him about it in the middle of the Ralston lobby. In fact, I wasn’t going to argue with him at all. That’s one of the more pointless ways to spend your time with a higher angel. “Of course,” was what I said. “Can we go over it before I have to stand up in front of everybody?”

He nodded. “Excellent. Breakfast at 0800 local time. In that restaurant there. Are you paying attention, son?”

I had to tear my eyes away from his shoes, which were so shiny and deep black I thought I could actually see gravity bending inward around them. “0800.” I checked the sign. “Café Belmont.”

He looked my civilian clothes up and down. After the week I’d had, there might have been a few stains. “You’re not going to wear that, are you? We represent Heaven, son. The Highest.”

“I have a suit.”

“Good.” He paused as if considering what to say next. After the sniper-like efficiency and speed of his previous conversation it almost seemed out of character. “I’ve been checking up on you, Angel Doloriel.”

How many ways could I dislike that? Several, just off the top of my head. “Oh?”

“I hear that you were trained by Archangel Leo Lochagos. Out at Camp Zion. If you’re one of Leo’s boys, that’s a heck of a pedigree.”

“Uh…yes.” This paragon, this uber-leader of the angelic hosts, had known Leo? My Leo?

“He was a good one.” Significant pause. “I worked with him more than once.” Karael made
work
, which in his case almost certainly meant
war
, sound like the most glorious thing an angel could do—which, I suppose for him, it was. “We should never have lost him that way.” He finally let go of my arm. “See you at 0800. Remember, you’re not just an angel, you were a Harp. That
means
something. Don’t let me see you wearing that piece of shit.”

I stared after him as he walked away, measured and straight as an architect’s tools. He was by no means one of the biggest bodies in the room, and certainly there were quite a few who were way uglier, but I wouldn’t have wanted him angry with me for any money. But what the hell had that been about Leo, long dead now and beyond resurrection? A hint? A warning? In either case, my arm still tingled where Karael, Master of Demons, had no doubt crushed several thousand capillaries beneath his righteous fingers.

Although Karael’s mortal body had looked pretty much like I’d have guessed it would, it was still a strange sensation to see him and so many other important angels wearing flesh. They don’t show up down here very often—almost never. The lords of Hell love to spend time on Earth, of course. If your home decor prominently featured rivers of lava, pits of molten human feces, and the constant shrieks of the tormented, you’d probably spend most of your time at the office, too. But the big angels were usually, excuse the pun, above such things. You saw them on the other side of the Zippers, of course, but they didn’t have to embody themselves there.

I glanced around the lobby as I hurried to the elevator, anxious to avoid any more meetings, but I didn’t recognize any of the faces around me. This did not break my heart.

My room was reasonably nice, although someone seemed to have gone out of their way to push the walls closer together than in a normal hotel room. It was hard to squeeze between the end of the bed and the cabinet that the television sat on without turning sideways, but I was so happy I was going to be in the same place for two nights in a row that it didn’t bother me. The Ralston’s decor was Gilded Age: molded ceilings, ornate, overstuffed furniture, and a headboard on the bed so lumpy with carved roses that I had to pile all the pillows against it just so I could sit up comfortably.

I wanted to go back down to that lobby about as much as Dante probably wanted to go back to the Inferno, but it was almost dinner time and I was beginning to get hungry. I ordered some nachos from
room service, then turned on the television and watched the news. Sometimes it’s oddly relaxing to watch shit happening to other people, not to mention that when you know there’s life after death, you don’t feel like such a jerk about doing it.

About the time the nachos should have arrived somebody knocked on the door. Your friend Bobby Dollar is no fool. I put it on the chain before I opened. It was Sam. I was actually a bit surprised to see him.

“I was hoping to come in and get out of the decor,” he said, “but I see you’ve got it in here, too.”

“How did you find my room? I would have thought the security would be pretty fierce around here, considering what’s going on this weekend.”

He gave me a look. “Suspicious much? Don’t moisten your pants. Alice told me.”

“Great. She’d probably do the same if Hell’s Horned Avenger asked, too.” But I was at least a little relieved. Obviously if I was in Eligor’s hotel I wasn’t going to be able to hide from him, but I was hoping any casual acquaintances with a grudge might have to work a little to find out where exactly I was. “I should have hung a soap on a rope over the doorway to keep creatures like you at bay.” I was joking, of course, but I also couldn’t help noticing that Sam looked a little rough. His suit was badly wrinkled, his bruises and scars were still painfully apparent, and his shoulders had a slumped angle I wasn’t used to seeing.

He made his way in and rifled the minibar, coming away with a can of ginger ale. He took the room’s one chair and put his feet up on the desk. “So what’s the good word, B? Did you clock all the horns down in the lobby? It’s like a metal band’s wet dream down there.”

My nachos came and Sam helped me eat some of them, but without his usual gusto. We talked about my conversation with Sitri and the unwelcome news that the hotel belonged to Eligor the Horseman, Grand Duke of Hell, a name not exactly synonymous with hospitality.

“The big guys have to know that the hotel belongs to him,” Sam said, sucking the guacamole off a chip before putting it in his mouth. “Maybe they rotate—this conference at Eligor’s place, next one at the Vatican or Dollywood.”

I wasn’t going to be distracted by jokes. “No offense, Sam, but you look like shit. I’m worried about you.” I almost asked him if he’d fallen off the wagon, ginger ale notwithstanding, but that’s not the kind of
thing I’d feel comfortable asking even Sam. Still, he had an air of defeat about him that I hadn’t seen lately, maybe ever, and at a time like this it really worried me. “Anything you want to talk about? Seriously?”

I could see him halfway to brushing me off, but then he stopped and gave me a long look. “What do you mean, worried about me?”

“You haven’t been your old self since they saddled you with Clarence. Like something’s bugging you.” It was hard to confront him. I was basically accusing my best friend of lying to me. “We’re deep into some scary shit, Sam—worse than in the old days. If you know something that I don’t, it’s time to tell me.”