The Five Gates of Hell (20 page)

‘And these are only Liquorice Whirls,' he said. ‘In those days I was eating Almond Toffee Creams and they came in much cracklier paper.'

Either Sir Charles had forgotten what Jed did, or else nobody had bothered to tell him, because he now leaned forwards and, impressed, it seemed, by Jed's ingenuity and verve, said, ‘Perhaps, young man, you should come and work for me.'

All eyes locked on Jed.

He waited three seconds. You have to time things.

‘But Sir Charles,' he said, ‘I already do.'

He looked round. People were weeping with laughter. He caught Carol's eye, and winked. His skin had picked up a glow from the lilies
on the table. The candlelight had taken his cheap suit and made it over in some priceless fabric. The vintage wine had anointed his tongue with new and seductive language. He could do no wrong. When the meal was over, Sir Charles escorted him into the library.

He watched Sir Charles cut the tip off his cigar. Being old had done something to Sir Charles's face, something that being poor sometimes did. It had sucked the colour out. Eyes, hair, skin: all different shades of grey and white. Distinguished, yes. But colourless. And cheeks with folds in them, like old wallets. He wondered how much Sir Charles was worth.

But now the cigar was lit and, turning to Jed, Sir Charles spoke through billowing smoke. ‘So who exactly do you work for?'

‘I work for Mr Creed. I'm his driver.'

Maybe it was only a coincidence but, as soon as Jed pronounced the name of his employer, the cigar fell from Sir Charles's fingers. It bounced on the carpet, shedding chunks of red-hot ash.

‘God-DAMN.' Sir Charles spread his legs and stooped. He flicked the ash towards the fireplace with the back of his hand. Then he stuck the cigar between his teeth and slowly sucked the life back into it.

‘Let me ask you something, Jed,' he said, when the smoke was billowing once more. ‘Have you ever been to head office?'

‘I have, yes.'

‘What did you think of it?'

The head office of the Paradise Corporation, as Sir Charles knew perfectly well, was just about the most famous building in the city. Built entirely of black glass, it marked the beginning of what was known as Death Row, a stretch of downtown First Avenue where most of the big funeral parlours had their offices. All night long lights burned in the central elevator shaft and in the windows of the twenty-fifth floor. The result was a white cross that stood out among the familiar neon logos of airlines and oil companies. The cross was a landmark. You could even buy postcards of it. Jed had only been inside the building once, and all he could remember was the angel. She was part sculpture, part fountain. Her head and body were metal and her wings were water, water that was forced through holes in her back and lit from beneath so it looked solid, like glass. He remembered the hiss of those wings, the lick and swish of revolving doors, the warble of phones. All tricks a hypnotist might use. Forget your loss. Forget your grief. He remembered drifting, drifting close to sleep.

‘You walk into that building,' Sir Charles said, ‘and you know you're in capable hands.' Clouds of smoke trailed over his shoulder
as he paced. ‘You've got to win people's trust. Trust is very important. Without trust,' and he came to a standstill and tipped his chin into the air, the thought still forming.

‘Without trust,' Jed said, ‘we wouldn't be standing here now.'

Sir Charles swung round. ‘Precisely.' For a moment he was rendered motionless by surprise, a kind of respect. But only for a moment. ‘What I'm trying to say to you is, this is a hard business. A cutthroat business at times. But you should always remember one thing. It's people that you're dealing with. People.' He thrust both hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. ‘I'm sixty-nine and I'm still working. Nobody really retires from this business. It's a way of life.'

He showed Jed to the door of the library. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, my boy?'

‘Not that I can think of.'

Then his face moved close to Jed's, and he said, ‘Are you interested in my daughter?'

‘I'll let you into a secret, Sir Charles,' Jed said. ‘I'm not interested in your daughter at all. I'm just pretending to be. It's your money I'm really after.'

Sir Charles stared at Jed, and Jed stared back; he wasn't going to help Dobson out with this one. At last a smile began to pull at the folds in Sir Charles's face, as if his cheeks really were wallets and his smile was going through them, looking for cash, then the smile turned to laughter, it pushed between his teeth, it was dry and rhythmic, it sounded uncannily like someone counting a stack of dollar bills. Jed saw Carol at the end of the corridor and began to walk towards her.

‘You remember what I said,' Sir Charles called after him.

The next day Creed asked Jed to drive him out to the Crumbles. The Crumbles lay to the east of the city. All the land out there had been under water once. It was flat for miles. There were a few wooden beach huts down by the shoreline. Some old mine buildings in the distance, some gravel pits. Otherwise just shingle, grey and orange, and a soft wind tugging at the heads of weeds.

He followed Creed's directions, leaving the road for an unpaved track that seemed to lead towards the ocean. The track widened and then vanished. Then they were driving over rough ground, loose stones popping under the tyres. He parked close to where the land sloped downwards to a narrow pebble beach, and switched the engine off.

Creed stared out of the window, his chin cushioned on one hand,
his eyes doubly concealed, first by the tinted windows of the car, then by his sunglasses. Jed thought he understood. It was like Vasco and the mudbanks of the river. It was where Creed came to do his thinking. Where was Vasco? Jed wondered. He'd scarcely set eyes on him since the night they'd had dinner together at the house in Westwood. Nobody had mentioned him either, and Jed didn't feel he should ask. He poured himself a cup of coffee from his private flask and watched the white gulls lift and scatter against the dull grey sky.

The glass panel slid open behind him.

‘I heard you were out at Dobson's place last night.'

‘That's right, sir. I was.'

He'd known Creed would find out. He'd even wanted him to. He wanted Creed to be amused, impressed even. A chauffeur at the chairman's dinner table!

‘Any particular reason?'

‘Carol asked me.'

‘Carol?'

‘His daughter. The receptionist.'

Creed said nothing.

‘The one with the limp,' Jed said.

‘I know the one.'

Another silence. Wind pushed at the car.

Then Creed said, ‘Dobson's on his way out.' The chairman? On his way out?

But Creed didn't give Jed time to think. ‘When a ship sinks,' he said, ‘that's when you see who the rats are. What interests me is, which rats leave which ship.'

The glass panel slid shut.

One week later Sir Charles Dobson resigned as chairman of the Paradise Corporation. The decision had been taken, the statement said, ‘for personal reasons'. The new chairman, elected unanimously by the members of the board, was Mr Neville Creed. Jed read the statement three times while he was eating breakfast that morning. It sounded calm and measured, utterly reasonable. But he couldn't make any sense of it. He saw Dobson standing in the library. Nobody really retires from this business. It's a way of life. He couldn't make any sense of it at all. And then he saw Creed sitting in the back of a black car parked on the Crumbles. Dobson's on his way out.

From then on everything that happened seemed to jar. There were minor changes, subtle departures from routine. Creed called at seven. ‘Meet me in the parking-lot.' Jed usually waited in the car outside the
front of the hotel. Now it was the parking-lot. Underground. When Creed stepped out of the service elevator he wasn't alone. Flack was with him. Flack was one of the corporation lawyers. It looked as if both men had been up all night. Except Flack didn't have a technique. Flack's skin glistened in the white, gritty light, his thin face tight with fatigue.

Jed held out a hand as Creed approached. ‘I'd like to congratulate you, sir.'

At close range Creed looked bright, jagged round the edges. As if he'd been cut out of tin. He was staring at Jed. He didn't seem to know what Jed was talking about.

‘Your new appointment.'

Oh that. A nod, a quick smile. And then Creed ushered Flack into the car. It was as if Creed had something more important on his mind. But what could be more important than his appointment as chairman of the largest and most prestigious funeral parlour in the city?

Up the ramp and out into the light. That white winter sun, a magnesium flash. At the first intersection Jed snapped his dark lenses over his eyes. A calming green. He glanced at the two men in the back. Flack was crushed into a corner, gesticulating, a beetle turned on to its back. Creed leaned towards him, his hand palm-upwards in the air, the fingers curved and stiff like the setting for a precious stone, but no stone there. They were arguing – but what about? It was a question Jed had never allowed himself before. He saw old Garbett's tape recorder, he saw the wheels turning. If only he could record what they were saying. He began to imagine how he would run the wires under the carpet, and had to stop before it became too real.

Flack was dropped in the city at ten. McGowan and Maxie Carlo took his place. Carlo pared his thumbnails with his knife. McGowan spat bits of words through pointed teeth. Creed stared out of the window, as if it was the Crumbles he could see. The mood was wrong, all wrong. Creed had been appointed chairman, yet there was no sense of celebration. The day was filled with whispers, echoes, nerves.

Towards midday they drove out to Dobson's house on Pacific Drive. Carlo and McGowan waited on the steps while Creed went in. Creed was inside the house for almost an hour and when he emerged on the steps it wasn't Sir Charles who was with him, but Sir Charles's wife. At first Jed thought she was laughing. Maxie Carlo must've cracked a joke. But he saw her hand fly up and hold her mouth, he
saw Creed slide an arm round her shoulder. It wasn't laughter. She was crying.

The next stop was Butterfield, where they picked up Morton the embalmer. This, too, was curious: Creed never had anything to do with embalmers. In fact, Jed had only seen Morton once before. He'd spent an afternoon with Morton when he first joined the company, as part of his induction. He remembered the white room. The tinkle of calipers and hacksaws in the sterilising bowl, the naughty smack of rubber gloves. And Morton talking, talking. ‘I lie beautifully, that's my job. Or not lie, maybe. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.' A hole had opened in the floor and the naked corpse of a white woman rose into view. Later Jed had lost all sense of time as the external heart slowly pumped a solution of formaldehyde into the dead woman's body, as the dead woman's body began to blush. He couldn't help thinking of his radios, the way they warmed up, that slow suffusion of light behind the names. Turn the clock back. Tell an old truth.

The four men had lunch in the Palm Court Motel on Highway 23. Jed waited in the car. Ate half a chicken salad sandwich, threw the rest away. Read the paper and couldn't remember a word of it. He had no appetite. Couldn't concentrate.

At two-forty-seven the four men pushed through the glass doors and out into the motel parking-lot. They stood on the warm asphalt. Creed opened one hand like a fan, words spilling sideways from his lips. Morton dipped his head, his face pulled wide, excited. Carlo and McGowan stood on either side of the embalmer, he might've been in custody. They all wore suits. They all had clean shoes and neat hair. He watched them walk towards the car. They looked like evangelists, or politicians. When they were ten yards away they stopped talking, and they didn't start again till they were safely behind glass.

I need you closer.

That was a laugh. He'd never felt further away.

And then Sir Charles Dobson died. Just ten days after his resignation. Suddenly, at home. The papers bristled with tributes to ‘a man who stood for tradition and dignity in a business that has recently been rocked by scandal and corruption'. Creed received a good deal of spin-off publicity. The
Herald
called him ‘Dobson's understudy' and ‘one of the new entrepreneurs'. The
Tribune
said he exhibited ‘the cutting edge and thrust of an aggressive businessman on his way to the top'. It was clear from the cumulative weight of these reports that Creed had already arrived. Many of the papers carried photographs
of Dobson and Creed side by side, Dobson's arm around Creed's shoulder, as if Creed was not only heir to the business, but also a son.

On the morning of Dobson's funeral a bellhop knocked on 3D and handed Jed a big square box. There was a card taped to the box: TO 3D. A GIFT FROM 1412. 1412 was Creed's apartment. Jed smiled at the anonymity. All letters and numbers. Like convicts. Inside the box was a black satin top hat. He tried it on. It fitted to perfection, it even seemed to match his scarecrow face. He decided to wear it for the rest of his life.

When he pulled up outside the Palace, Creed was already waiting by the entrance with McGowan, Trotter and Maxie Carlo (still no sign of Vasco). In their black top hats and tailcoats they looked more like vultures than ever. They studied him from their position high on the steps. Creed turned to Maxie Carlo.

‘What do you think of Spaghetti, Meatball?'

Carlo scarcely had to look. ‘Dressed to kill.'

Laughter jumped from face to face. Creed, Trotter; even McGowan. Then, just as suddenly, they seemed to remember that this was a serious occasion, they were on their way to a funeral, the funeral of a great man, the chairman, their founder and benefactor, and they fell silent again.

The first two cars held the coffin (solid bronze with 24-carat gold-plated hardware) and several close members of the family. Creed rode in the third car, flanked by two of the Corporation's top directors, with Jed at the wheel in his new top hat. The vultures travelled in the fourth car, packed tight into the back, like pieces of a game. Creed had organised the funeral himself. The funeral to end all funerals. A motorcade through downtown Moon Beach, a twenty-one-gun salute, a memorial service in the cathedral. Creed had requisitioned an open car, and he stood for the entire procession, as a mark of his own personal respect for the deceased. From time to time Jed tipped the mirror to the sky to look at him. Hands clasped behind his back, face as grave as stone. Jed could sense a question running like a breeze through the rows of people who lined the streets:
Who's he?
If they didn't know now, Jed thought, they'd know soon enough.