The Dirty Streets of Heaven: Volume One of Bobby Dollar (63 page)

“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.

The place looked pretty good considering that the end facing the street had been reduced to rubble only a short time earlier. The floor had been swept, the worst damage hauled away or covered with plastic tarps, and Chico had a makeshift bar going, a big slab of one-and-a-quarter-inch plywood on trestles with boxes of booze stacked behind it. He had also salvaged enough chairs and tables from the wreckage that, if you squinted, it didn’t look all that different from an ordinary weekday night. Monica was sitting with Sweetheart, but she trotted over when she saw me and gave me a hug. The mere fact of her being kind and female was enough to make me mist up, but I didn’t want to mist up, and I certainly didn’t want to confuse Monica with all my weird emotions, so after just a few seconds I broke free. She let go only reluctantly.

“When we heard about the Ralston we thought you were dead or worse!” she said. “I was so worried about you, Bobby. Where’s Sam? Is he okay?”

Obviously the real news had not got out yet—Clarence had actually kept his word. I wondered how hard my bosses were going to try to hush everything up. “He’s okay, yeah. But I think he may be taking a long leave of absence.”

While Monica and Sweetheart pondered this, I asked Chico for one of his pricier iced vodkas and some orange juice—in two separate glasses; discovering how out of shape I was had made me consider adopting a healthier lifestyle. Drinking the orange juice separately seemed like it might fit the bill.

For about an hour I chatted amiably (and in large part untruthfully) with the Whole Sick Choir in ones and twos, but Monica and the rest could see I mostly wanted to be on my own in a room full of people, and so they didn’t stay long at my table. We’ve all been there, all had something go so bad that it clung to your mind for weeks. That’s one of the best things about The Compasses—everybody gets it. Besides, I knew I’d have to go to Mecca the next morning and make my official report, and since I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say, I didn’t want to box myself in too much now—a lot of people were going to be looking over my version of what went down at the Ralston and afterward. And of course, my bosses must already have been wondering if I’d been contaminated by my friendship with Sam—which was, of course, quite true. I’d let him go, hadn’t I?

While everybody else talked and laughed, I sat and rehearsed a few possibilities of how I could play it with my bosses. I was feeling flimsy and weightless, but not in an entirely bad way. Like a feather, maybe. Like the invisible feather I’d been carrying with me without even knowing it, and which I still carried. It was strange to think I was sitting here surrounded by the old familiar while I had something in my pocket that could blow everything familiar sky high. I had to hope that Heaven really
was
Heaven, or at least a good copy, because otherwise I knew way too much about too many things to be left walking around.

Thoughts like these kept swirling round and round until at last I gave up thinking for the evening. You can overthink until you get paralyzed. I’d decided I’d come up with some useful half-truth for the bosses, and then I’d hang onto those half-truths no matter what anyone said. At least I’d find out once and for all if anyone can lie to Heaven.

It wasn’t that different from what I’d been doing for years, anyway, I told myself—just a more straightforward approach to deception. Another day at the office, really. The streets of Heaven might be paved with bullshit and paperwork, but I’d been walking those dirty streets for a good long time now. I felt pretty sure I knew what to say and what not to say. After that, it would all be in His hands.

Eventually Young Elvis started a stupid discussion about the hotel fire, yammering on and on about how he was certain it was one of the demon-lords trying to off a rival (which was partly true, but his list of suspects had no relationship to the real events). I stopped listening when Walter Sanders suggested that Young Elvis had blown up the building himself because they wouldn’t let him into the conference.

Mostly I just watched. Mostly I just waited for Sam to walk in, even though I knew he wouldn’t. And I thought about Caz, of course. I thought about Caz a lot. Thinking about someone you can’t have is a special kind of Hell you can summon without drawing a single pentagram.

It was a bit after midnight when Clarence entered. No Garcia Windhover tagging along this time, all praises to the Highest. The kid said hello to Monica and the others, hesitated, then got himself a beer and slid into the chair across from me.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Why did you do it, Junior? Really?”

He looked surprised. “Because I had to, Bobby. They chose me, and it was my job. I’m…I’m sorry about Sam.”

“Yeah. I am too. So now what? Back to Cloud Nine to get a medal pinned on your robe? Did you finally earn your wings?”

“Actually, I think I’d like to stay here. I mean, I like this job. The real job, not…not what they sent me here to do.”

I wasn’t sure I was ready to believe that. “Sam said you made up all that bullshit you kept asking him about. All that ‘Why are we here, what’s really going on?’ Pretending to doubt the status quo.”

A strange look flitted across his face. “Yeah. Made it all up to see if I could shake something loose. Why? Don’t you ever ask those kind of questions anymore, Bobby?”

I tried to hate him, but I couldn’t. He was just an eager young officer trying to do his job. Just another righteous angel of the Lord. “I told you once, kid, I only ask questions I can hope to get answered.”

He nodded. “Sensible. Keep your sights set low. That way you won’t get into trouble.”

Now it was my turn to give him the strange look. Was the kid trying to get me to say something incriminating, or was he warning me not to? Or was something else going on with him—something more complicated?

No. Not biting. I pushed myself away from the table and stood up, which in my condition was harder than it sounds. I’d spent too much time already getting dragged around by questions like that, and I badly needed to sleep again. I needed other things, too, but sleep was the only one I was likely to get. Anyway, it had to beat sitting here listening to Jimmy the Table and Sweetheart laughing over the old story of the guy who fell through a skylight and died burglarizing a house and then tried to convince his heavenly advocate that he’d only been checking the neighborhood rooftops for endangered birds.

Not that it wasn’t a good story.

I nodded to Clarence and then headed to the door. Monica was looking the other way, which saved me having to say goodbye.

My car was still in the parking lot at the Ralston Hotel, so I was walking, which suited my mood. It was a decent late-spring night, and a few folks were coming out of the bars on Main Street. I let myself drift with them, listening to the conversations, marveling at the bubble these mortals lived in, the things that went on all around them that they couldn’t and wouldn’t want to see. I could have walked back to my own apartment, but I hadn’t slept there in a long time. It would be
cold, and the bed would need making, which made the whole thing seem like work when all I wanted was to take a long shower and collapse. Instead, I headed back for one last night at the motel where I’d made Garcia and Clarence drop me off after Shoreline Park. After all, I was getting used to motels.

I limped up Jefferson as the clubbers and bar patrons gradually split off to find their cars or a bus stop, until I was the only person still walking. The apartment buildings on either side of the street had gone quiet, with lights on in less than half of the windows, the patterns of illumination as abstract as modernist paintings. I stopped in a corner bodega and bought myself a bottle of something to drink. The guy behind the counter barely looked up from the Punjabi soap opera on his little television.

When I finally reached my room at the Mission Rancho Motor Lodge, I found I wasn’t that sleepy anymore. I dumped my coat, turned off my phone, turned on some music, and carried my drink out onto the balcony. Across the park the old mission was dark but for that single bulb over the door. Lights burned in some of the other motel rooms, but for once the guests were pretty quiet. A guy went by whistling on the street down below, walking an old dog who stopped every few steps to sniff something.

After a day like I’d had, I decided against using a glass. Instead I drank my orange juice straight out of the bottle as I watched the bugs circle the little light in front of God’s first house in San Judas, and I kept company with all my ghosts, the old ones and the new.