The Five Gates of Hell (43 page)

‘Is something wrong?'

Nathan had almost forgotten he wasn't alone. He turned, saw Reid standing ten yards away, one hand fitted casually into his jacket pocket, a man in a clothing catalogue. ‘No,' and he smiled, ‘nothing's wrong.'

It was a long walk to Reid's apartment. Every time they turned a corner they were faced with the same view, the same silence; each new length of corridor was like an echo of the last. They stopped outside apartment 1412. He waited as Reid unlocked the door. Inside, the air smelt warm, slightly acrid, a smell that was like new dollar bills. Lamps bloomed in the corners, showed him the room. Sofas of dark velvet and walls papered to resemble marble and mirrors with no frames. There were windows on two sides. One looked down on the promenade: car headlamps, lights looping through the palms, a white line where the waves broke. The other faced west: the harbour bridge spanning the narrow stretch of water that separated the western suburbs from the city; a golden clasp on a head of smooth black hair.

‘Some champagne?'

Nathan took the offered glass. ‘Thanks.' He moved back to the centre of the room. It seemed to contain nothing that was personal. No books, no pictures, no flowers. It was an expensive hotel suite, somewhere you passed through, somewhere you never actually changed or even touched. It went with the gloves. This man leaves no trace of himself behind, he thought, not even fingerprints. If he was a criminal, he'd never be caught.

Reid leaned over and placed a white capsule beside Nathan's champagne glass. ‘That's for you.'

‘What is it?' Nathan asked.

‘It'll make you feel good.'

Nathan hesitated.

‘What's the matter?' Reid said. ‘Don't you trust me?'

Nathan smiled. ‘I don't know you. Why should I trust you?'

‘You're here. You might as well.' Reid leaned forwards, opened his capsule and tipped the contents into his champagne. He raised his glass to Nathan and drank the champagne down. He poured a little more champagne into his glass, swirled it round. He drank that too.

Nathan nodded. ‘You're right.' He did exactly what Reid had done. ‘Where's the bathroom?'

Reid showed him.

When he switched the light on, it multiplied. There were mirrors everywhere. He could see himself from every side at once. If he stood in a certain position he could see clones of himself vanishing into misty green infinity. He felt an excitement building in him now. He'd been in this situation before, in the water. Sometimes you got taken by a current, a rip that ran at an angle to the beach. You didn't fight the current, you went with it. You went with it, waited for a wave and
then, when the wave came, you took it. You rode that wave right out. Out of the current, back to the shore. He'd done this kind of thing before. He could relax.

When he walked back into the room he was smiling. Reid was smiling too, his head resting against the back of the sofa, his face almost parallel with the ceiling. Smiling with lips that even now, somehow, Nathan knew he'd kiss. He sat down. The champagne had risen in his glass. He drank some.

‘You all right?' Reid asked him.

Nathan sat down. ‘I'm better than all right.'

‘Is there anything you want to know?'

It was a strange question. Nathan couldn't think. He looked at the man on the sofa instead. His hair, his tie, his smile, his suit, his gloves. ‘Those gloves,' he said. ‘Are you trying to hide something?'

‘Not hide,' Reid said, ‘protect.'

‘Protect?'

Reid rose to his feet, moved towards the drinks cabinet. ‘I'm a hand model. I have to protect my hands. And also,' and he smiled, ‘I like the way things feel when they're on.'

‘Things?'

‘Yes,' Reid said, ‘things.'

He opened another bottle of champagne and brought it to the table. ‘You've probably seen my hands a hundred times without even knowing it. Holding an electric razor, lighting a cigarette, slipping a diamond ring on to a woman's finger.' His smile widened. ‘Nobody sees my hands,' he said, ‘except the general public.'

Nathan was about to return the smile when something happened to the wall. It bulged as if it was only paper-thin and there was a great weight of water behind it. Or not water, maybe, but a heart. Because the wall was moving in and out. Some kind of massive heart sluggishly beating. Then darkness poured inwards from the corners of the room, until only he was lit, nothing else. ‘It's dark,' he said, ‘it's getting dark.'

‘Don't worry,' came a voice, ‘it'll soon be light again.'

And instantly the darkness began to lift. He could see the sofa again, his glass on the table, the man across the room. It was as if the voice had worked a miracle.

‘That was really strange,' he said.

‘What was?'

‘The way you said that, and then it happened. That's what I do when I save lives. Someone's drowning and I swim out to them and
I say, “Don't worry, I'm here, you might drink a bit of water, but you're going to be all right.” That's sort of what you just did to me.'

‘I'm surprised the parlours haven't made that illegal,' Reid said.

‘What, lifesaving?'

Reid smiled. ‘It's not exactly in their interests, is it?'

‘That's one way of looking at it,' Nathan said.

‘The last time I saw you down there, on the beach,' Reid said, ‘you were with a guy in a top hat.'

Nathan laughed. ‘Oh, that's Jed.'

‘Kind of strange-looking.'

‘Yeah.' Nathan had a sudden vision of Jed driving over the bridge at night. A dark-purple car, its pale driver wearing a top hat and a radiator smile, its back seat heaped with dead skin.

‘He a friend of yours?'

‘No, not exactly. I knew him years ago, when I was about twelve. I didn't see him again till last week. Ran into him in a bar on Second Avenue.'

‘Small world.'

‘He acted so weird that night. He kept saying he'd got plans.'

‘To do what?'

Nathan shrugged. ‘He's after someone's blood or something. He came out with all kinds of stuff. Seemed like most of it was bullshit.'

‘He sounds like a pretty desperate character.'

‘You should've heard him. He stayed over last weekend. Told some big story about how he'd killed someone. He had this tattoo on his wrist. Said it was the date he did it. The hand he did it with.'

‘He's not still staying, I hope?'

Nathan smiled at Reid's concern. ‘No. We threw him out. Same day I met you. I expect he'll be in touch, though. He owes me eight dollars.'

‘Maybe he won't be in touch,' Reid said.

Nathan grinned. ‘Maybe you're right.'

‘It's strange,' Reid said, ‘some people just fasten on and you don't feel a thing.'

Nathan leaned forwards, reaching for his drink. That feeling had returned. His head moving much slower than his body. He sat back again, without his drink. He felt dizzy, as if he'd stood up too suddenly. It was just another rush, he told himself. It would pass. He stared at the sofa. It was some dark colour, there were no patterns, it couldn't play any tricks on him.

‘You know something else I noticed when I looked through the binoculars?' came Reid's voice.

He couldn't look. He could manage only one word. ‘No.'

‘I noticed how beautiful you were –'

He could look away from the sofa now, back into the room. The blood was sprinting through his veins, it was like a relay race, he saw a runner kick off a curve, hand the baton to another runner, who kicked again, a relay race all round the tight circuit of his blood.

‘Your body–'

The room ballooned away from him, the walls were sails filled with wind.

‘– and your face –'

His skin beneath his clothes, so comfortable. And Reid standing over him. Hair like a cloud. Dark like a storm coming. The ceiling above him concave, domed, and one gloved hand reaching down.

And down again, on to a bed. He lay back, passive. Cool sheets under him. A gloved hand moved to his fly, he felt the metal button give, he heard the rasp as the zipper threads split open. He held his breath. Felt his cock lift and the caress of leather. And then, almost as if he had passed out, maybe he had, he was naked. He shut his eyes and listened to the passage of those gloves across his skin. It was so hot. He looked down. The gloves, their palms were dark, it must be the sweat from his body. He whispered it, and Reid said he'd never noticed that before; he liked it. Nathan lay back again, saw an open window with a surf beach beyond, it was somewhere that he'd been, it was the same sound. He saw the tops of trees hurled by the wind and didn't remember this. And now Reid's mouth closed over him, a tightness, slow and tight. A flickering, like leaves, on the soles of his feet.

Reid rolled him gently over, on to his belly, and he felt Reid slide between his buttocks.

He lifted his head, said, ‘No,' and then louder, ‘No.'

Reid murmured something.

He turned on to his side, moved down the bed. He thought he heard music somewhere, asked what it was, but Reid said it was nothing. He took Reid between his fingers, between his lips, he did what he liked people doing to him. It was so strange being on the other side of things, he'd forgotten the salty taste of it, the power of those final moments just before it came, when the muscles arched and sang, the lick and snap of railway tracks when a train's approaching.

Then only the darkness pressing against his ears and the pumping of his heart.

Later he woke, it was still dark, he saw his dreams. His dreams were red and gold. He lay without moving, almost without breathing. The milky oblong of a window. And light from the window catching something that was hanging on the door. A silk gown, a kind of kimono. A vulture embroidered on the back. Feathers of metal, breath flaring from its open beak, breath that was red like fire or blood. Eyes like stones in the white bowls of their sockets, dead grey stones. He lay without moving, almost without breathing.

This was the wave he had to take. This wave.

He slid out of bed and tiptoed to the window. He stared out at the black uneven trees and the dark grey sky. Was that the ocean, between the two, a shiver of silver, the blade of a knife seen sideways on?

It must be. Hundreds of miles of darkness and one pale strip where the moonlight fell. He turned back into the room, felt around the bed for his clothes. Reid's breathing surfaced, sank again. He had to be so quiet. Or Reid would wake. Or the vulture would come screeching off the back of that kimono. Red Indian feet. Now more than ever. Now.

He couldn't find his socks. His feet still bare, his arms stretched in front of him, he felt his way through the apartment. It was bigger than he remembered, but then he didn't really remember, did he? Or maybe it just seemed put together in a different way. Like a puzzle there are two answers to.

He got the wrong door. Thought it was the front door, but it wasn't. A cupboard. With a skeleton hanging inside. No head, just all the bones from a body. Sewn on to black fabric. A suit of bones. His heart slammed against his ribs, it seemed for a moment they might crack. He closed the cupboard, pretended he'd seen nothing. He found the front door. This time he knew he was right because of the locks. There were four different locks and it was minutes before he could align them correctly. Each time he turned a knob, it clicked and, sooner or later, he felt sure, one of these clicks would reach the bedroom. That kind priest's voice behind him. That gentle hand on his shoulder. He didn't know why he was frightened. Yes, he did. That kimono, that suit of bones. Why? They were the first personal things he'd seen, that was why. The first things he'd seen that belonged to Reid. A vulture and a suit of bones.

He saw himself in a mirror outside the elevator. His hair in his eyes, his shirt ripped. He looked as if he'd been attacked. The night
porter was dozing. He crept past on bare feet, his shoes in his hand. One last wisp of steam drifted up from the cooling cup of coffee at the porter's elbow. The clock behind his head said ten to five.

He walked down to the promenade and caught a cab at the all-night taxi-stand outside Belgrano's. The driver wore a cap and a leather jacket. He wanted to talk. He tried a couple of subjects, but Nathan didn't say much. He eyed Nathan once or twice in the mirror.

‘You've been fucking,' the driver said, ‘haven't you?'

Nathan turned and looked at him. ‘What?'

‘You heard me. Listen, I've been driving cabs for twenty-four years. I know who's been fucking and who hasn't. Know how I know?'

‘How do you know?'

‘It's five in the fucking morning, that's how I know. Right? And another thing. You've got the look of fucking about you. You've got that look people have when they've been fucking, know what I mean?'

Nathan smiled faintly.

‘She all right, was she?' The driver was rubbing his lips.

‘She nice?'

‘Yeah,' Nathan said, ‘she was great.'

The Towers of Remembrance dated from a time when many of the city's graveyards were full. A time of panic: suddenly there was nowhere for the dead to go. And then somebody said, ‘Let people be buried high above the ground, not six feet under it; let people be buried closer to heaven.' It seemed like the perfect solution. The first high-rise cemetery in history. Original, dramatic, space-conscious. And also, unfortunately, doomed.

There had been a sudden reaction against the whole notion of burial on land. It was unhealthy, people said. It slowed the natural decay of the body. Hindered the soul's transition. Sins collected, fouled the earth. Result? Psychic unrest, evil spirits, disease. And so, after an initial rush of enthusiasm, the Towers were left to rot. Windows were smashed. Graffiti blossomed. Ever since Jed could remember, the place had been a sanctuary for runaways, vultures, junkies. A lost generation. Not gone, but forgotten. He climbed out of his car and locked the door. The South Tower had been his home for three years. His own ghosts were here, among all the others.