He saw me coming and ran toward me. He had a thick mustache and dark skin, but all I could really focus on were the terrified whites of his eyes. “Help me!” he shouted. “I have had an accident!”
“Gurdeep Malhotra,” I said. “God loves you.”
“Who are you?” he asked, stumbling to a stop.
“I’m Doloriel, your angelic advocate.” I gave him a moment for that to sink in. “I’m afraid you didn’t survive your accident.”
He stared. If blood had still been flowing in his veins, I’d have said he went pale. As it was, he seemed to lose resolution for a moment as the shock washed through him. “But . . . but I can’t! My son! It’s his . . .” He shook his head slowly. “My wife! Will I never see her again?”
“There’s a lot I can’t tell you,” I said as kindly as I could. In fact, there’s a whole lot I don’t know myself. “But first we have to prepare you for judgement. That’s my job. I will do everything I can to defend you. I know you were a good man.” (I didn’t really know that yet, but it never hurts to calm a client down so you can work with them.)
He was still staring at me. “But you . . . you are an angel? How can this be? I am not a Christian!”
“That’s okay, Mr. Malhotra. I’m not a Christian angel. I’m just an angel.”
• • •
The judgement didn’t go as fast as I would have liked. The prosecuting demon was a little upstart named Ratpiddle, the sort who thinks he’s going to win every case with some amazing Perry Mason move. He dragged out every transgression the poor dead guy had ever made—a reckless driving where the officer hadn’t even ticketed him!—and tried to create a picture of a life of unconcern for others, despite the fact that this morning Gurdeep had only been hurrying because he wanted to wrap his son’s birthday presents before the kid got up for school. That got to me, and I’m afraid I referred to the prosecutor as, “scum scraped from the restroom floors of Hell,” which, although reasonably accurate, was not strictly collegial. Anyway, luckily for me and Mr. Malhotra, the judge was a stolid ball of radiance named Sashimiel whom I’d argued in front of dozens of times; she wasn’t prone to getting excited because some prosecutor was trying to make a reputation. After a decent interval she simply cut Ratpiddle off in the middle of some new detour and declared judgement in favor of my client. Whoosh! Gurdeep Malhotra was off to whatever happens next. (Despite the fact that the same thing must have happened to me, too, I don’t remember any of it, so I’m afraid I can’t fill in the blanks.) The judge poofed back to wherever Powers and Principalities go between judgements, Ratpiddle disappeared in a smoking snit, and I was free to get on with my day.
two:
old friends, new fiends
WHEN I got back to the so-called real world from the timelessness of Outside, it was a bit before nine in the morning. See, just because we step outside it doesn’t mean Time actually stops. I think it’s something to do with us earthbound angels wearing mortal bodies. As soon as we step back through the Zipper we catch up with the difference between Outside and the real world—in this case, a couple of hours or so. I’m not really a morning guy, but the thought of crawling back into bed to dream about Caz again depressed me, so I headed across the waterfront to Oyster Bill’s, a bar that serves food, sort of. I have a soft spot for the place, and I’ve been going there as long as I can remember, which I suppose proves I have more loyalty than sense. In fact, if I weren’t already dead, that could be my epitaph.
• • •
I was polishing off the last of the starch-and-grease melange Bill mischievously refers to as “breakfast” when an old rummy wandered in from the street and started making his way down the counter, discreetly panhandling (because Bill doesn’t like begging in his bar—he thinks it lowers the tone of the joint, which is about the cutest thing I’ve ever heard). Most of the other customers didn’t talk to the guy or even acknowledge him, waiting until he got the point and walked away, but when he reached me I fished in my pocket for some loose bills. The old fellow had rheumy eyes and hair that stood up like it had been fashion-moussed back in the 80s and never touched since. He also smelled like he’d been drinking something you aren’t supposed to drink—Aqua Velva, perhaps, strained through an old shirt.
I put the money in his hand and said, “Good luck. God loves you.” I didn’t say it very loudly, because being polite in Oyster Bill’s is a bit like visibly limping past a pride of hungry lions, but he seemed to hear. He smiled toothlessly and patted my shoulder.
“Thank you, friend,” he said, slurring less than I would have expected. “I’d like to give you something for your kindness.”
“No, really, you don’t need to . . .”
He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a creased, once-white sheet of paper that had been folded like a letter. He handed it to me like it was worth something, which was another kind of sad. “Promise you’ll read it. Promise you’ll think about it. God knows you and wants you for His great plan.” Then he shuffled off and out onto the esplanade.
Okay, yes, it was a tiny bit ironic for a wino to be assuring an angel that he’s wanted for God’s great plan. I glanced at the piece of paper, but it seemed to be more political than religious. The headline was something about “Someone in the White House wants you destroyed!” I almost left it on the counter, but for all I knew the old duffer was watching me through the window from outside, thrilled someone had actually accepted one of his crumpled handbills, so I stuck it in my pocket before I headed out.
I still didn’t want to go home, but ten in the morning was way too early to go over to the Compasses and get blotto in the company of sympathetic co-workers, so I decided I’d try my buddy and co-angel Sam, who I hadn’t heard from in the last couple of days. (Sam had inadvertently got me into most of the shit I was currently wading through, so it speaks volumes that I still considered him my bestie.)
I hate walking and talking on the phone almost as much as I hate people who walk and talk on the phone, so when I saw an empty bus bench on Parade Street—usually full of brown-bagging office workers, tourists, or those ubiquitous, slightly ratty-looking, downtown young people whose dogs always wear bandanas—I grabbed it and got out my phone. In the process the rummy’s screed (which really sounds like a horror movie now that I think of it—The Rummy’s Screed! Return of the Rummy’s Screed! Curse of the . . . okay, you get it) fell out of my pocket, so as I listened to Sam’s phone ringing on the other end I looked it over again.
There wasn’t actually a whole lot on it. At the top, in big blocky handwritten letters it said, “Someone in the White House wants to destroy you!” with a picture of the building in question floating in the clouds. Then it said, “You have enemies. Don’t you want to know about them? THEY know about YOU!” Beneath that was the mandatory bible quote found in so much of your finest crazy-person literature:
Ecclesiastes 9:12
For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
Down at the bottom a group of slightly odd things had been cut out of magazines and taped to the original before it was photocopied. The first two were a picture of an angel and another of a donkey. The angel bit was an interesting coincidence. I glanced at the donkey, wondering if that was meant to indicate the Democrats, the current White House occupants. Sam’s phone kept ringing. At last I hung up, but something else was bothering me now.