Hell's Detective Read online

  In Lost Angeles, books were at a premium. Sure, people created their own—either handwritten or typed out on shoddily bound newsprint run off the sole printing press in town, rented out by the Lost Angeles Chronicle, a newspaper so named because it was chronically bad. But the quality of the books was variable, to put it kindly. I could guess why books—alongside music and art—were one of the few things the Administrators didn’t lay on in plentiful supply. They let you leap into somebody else’s head and escape the reality of your dismal life for a few hours. They made you want to be a better person. They gave you succor, hope, and respite—none of which the damned deserved. Books from the real world were so rare as to be largely out of my price range.

  As Laureen swept through the living room and mounted a broad staircase illuminated by an atrium, I cast a last longing glance at the shelves, which were too distant for me to read individual titles. Biting back my resentment at her flaunting of this unattainable wealth of words, I followed. Into the bedroom she went and sat down on the edge of a luxurious four-poster. She slid a fingernail under a catch on one of the posts, pulled open a disguised panel, and pressed a button. A hatch popped out of the polished floor at her feet. She bent over and dialed in a combination on the concealed safe, blocking my view with her legs.

  “That was where I kept it,” she said, moving away to allow me access.

  “Mind telling me what ‘it’ is?”

  “An Earth-shaped box carved out of mahogany. It’s very old and very valuable.”

  I hauled open the safe. The hatch was six inches of steel, which was standard. The addition of a lead lining wasn’t. Inside sat a carved globe about the size of a large grapefruit mounted on a wooden plinth. It could have been mahogany. It could have been plywood. I wasn’t an expert on wood. Since Laureen had referred to the item as a box, I assumed there had to be a way to open the thing. However, there appeared to be no lid and no obvious catch. All in all, it didn’t look impressive or valuable. Even the carving of the continents looked rough. In fact, the box looked exactly like the kind of overpriced tat rich idiots brought back after they’d swanned off to Africa on safari. What was most surprising was that it was there.

  “It’s still here,” I said. “Case solved.”

  “That’s a replica. I had it made after the real one went walkies.”

  “And why would you do that?”

  Laureen came to stand beside me. She smelled of lavender, which wasn’t the most demonic of fragrances.

  “Do you always ask so many questions?” she said.

  “Call me old-fashioned, but it’s part of my method for getting to the truth. Did anybody else know the code to the safe?”

  “No.”

  “Was anything else stolen? In the safe or out?”

  “No.”

  “Seems to me you’ve got a whole lot of expensive stuff lying around the place. I’m wondering why they only took the box. Care to tell me why it’s so important?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Care to tell me anything useful at all?”

  “There was a note. I received it yesterday morning, two days after the burglary. An unknown personage rode up on a motorbike, threw the envelope at the guard, and disappeared again.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. It’s ransom. Why don’t you pay up? Seems to me you’ve got the cash.”

  Laureen rummaged around in a writing desk and handed me a piece of paper bearing two sentences: All sins forgiven. You will be informed of who and when.

  “I don’t have the power to forgive sins,” she said. “So I can’t pay up. And given that everyone in Lost Angeles is a sinner, the thief could be anybody.”

  I handed the note back. “Not that I want to talk myself out of a job, but why come to me? Can’t you sic your pets on the city to find it?”

  “I could send the Torments out to disassemble this city brick by brick, particle by particle until I found it, yes. But that would cause a fuss.”

  “Wait it out, then. If this person wants their sins forgiven, they’ll have to reveal themselves at some point. I expect they’re busy racking their brains trying to figure out how to make sure you keep to the deal before giving themselves away. Once you have the name, you could at least focus your operation, apply some leverage.”

  “That would still be too visible.”

  “So you need this theft to be kept quiet, which is why you’ve gone off the books. Let me take a stab in the dark here: this box isn’t yours. It belongs to what, for the lack of a better word, I’ll call your company. Your boss doesn’t know you’ve lost it and wouldn’t be all smiles when he found out, right? That’s why you had a replica made, so you can try to fool him if he pops around for cocktails and asks to see it.”

  As I spoke, I realized who her boss was. Satan. No wonder she wanted to keep the loss under wraps. If he was anything like your typical evil mastermind, he probably didn’t have much patience for incompetent underlings and boasted many more ways to make them pay for their failings. Laureen needed me as much as I needed her. Maybe more.

  “If you’re trying to convince me of your powers of perception, save it,” she snapped, proving I’d hit the nail on the head. “The job’s yours already, unless you enjoy spending every night reliving your squalid sins.” I said nothing. “Thought not. So let’s get on with the business at hand, shall we? Give me your analysis.”

  I scratched my nose, staring into the open safe. Once you peeled away all the demonic trimmings, I’d done this kind of gig dozens of times. “They knew exactly what they were looking for, where to find it, and how much leverage it would buy them. Sounds like an inside job.”

  Laureen nodded, her face grim. “That’s what I’m afraid of. Only a select handful of Administrators know about this object. Somebody in here helped a third party steal it.”

  “How do you know one of your pals didn’t take it themselves?”

  “An Administrator would know I can’t forgive sins. So the ransom note would make no sense.”

  “Maybe the note’s a smokescreen. Whoever took the box might be trying to get you the chop so he or she can take your job. She’s asking for something that can’t be delivered and has no intention of returning the box.”

  “That doesn’t make sense either. If it were about shunting me out of the way, the thief would have tipped off my boss by now.”

  “So what’s the motivation?”

  “I am floundering in the dark in that regard, which is why I came to you. All I know is that we, by which I mean all the Administrators, were in a meeting when the box was stolen. That means the thief had inside knowledge of when the compound would be deserted. And said sneaky worm wriggled past the extra layer of security we lay on for such moments, quite unmolested. That shouldn’t be possible unless an Administrator made sure the coast was clear.”

  “You mean your guard dog? I saw its kennel.”

  She frowned, her nose crinkling. “So you had a poke around before you came to see me?”

  “What can I say? I have a compulsion. What is it?”

  “Something you should be very afraid of.”

  “I’m afraid of everything. I live in Lost Angeles, remember?”

  She put her hand on my arm. “I know you think you’ve had it rough. But there are worse horrors than those you’ve encountered. This is one of them. Take my advice: save your powers of curiosity for the investigation and pray you never meet it.”

  Maybe I was being paranoid, but I could sense an implicit threat: get too smart or blab about the box being lost, and you’ll meet the beast. I remembered the feeling I’d had when I stood by the small tower, the way my body had screamed at me to run and never look back. I was never one for taking advice or caving in to threats, but on this occasion, I had the feeling that doing so would be the wisest course of action.

  “Does God listen to the prayers of the damned?” I asked.

  She released my arm and smiled. “Don’t you know God loves sinners?”

/>   “Doesn’t feel like it from where I’m standing.”

  “Try kneeling. I hear he likes that.”

  “Very funny. So, do you have any names for me? Workmates you’ve had arguments with? Anybody who seemed jealous?”

  “No, and I don’t want you interviewing any of the other Administrators. That would tip them off something was up.”

  “Fine, what about the guard? It’s always the guard.”

  “The guards are Administrators too, low level. They know nothing about the box.”

  “So basically you can’t tell me what the box is, you can’t tell me who might be involved from your end, and you can’t give me any clue as to why they may have helped the thief.”

  “That’s about the size of it. Oh, and I need the box back within ten days. Don’t bother asking why, because I won’t tell you. Are you up to the job?”

  I suppressed a sigh. Demons, or at least Laureen, weren’t so different from people. Her behavior was typical of clients. They often had something unsavory to hide and tried to tie your hands in the hope you could get them what they wanted without stumbling over their nasty secret. Fat chance. When you let a bloodhound follow a scent around your house, the first thing it always did was snuffle around in the dirty laundry.

  “Can I trust you to keep your end of the deal?” I said.

  “You want a contract signed in blood? You have my word. Starting tonight, no more torment for you.”

  Her word was going to have to do. Even if she welched once I found the box, I would have enjoyed a week or so of blessed relief and an eye-opening whiff of Lost Angeles’s stained underwear. That was more than I could have dreamed possible the morning before. And despite the fact that she’d been almost entirely useless as a source of information, I knew where to start looking. Only a specialized thief could have cracked the safe, and I knew a man who could point me in the direction of that thief. If I was lucky, the trail would end there. If not, I’d do whatever it took to get my hands on the thing.

  “I can find it,” I said.

  7

  Noon had yet to arrive when I left Laureen’s armed with the popgun’s worth of information she’d divulged. She had me operating on a need-to-know basis. She didn’t realize I did need to know. Everything. It was a character flaw of mine. I’d suppressed my curiosity as best as I could in Lost Angeles for the sake of my sanity. Now the itch was coming back. There was more to this than she was letting on. Boxes themselves tended not to have any value; it was what people squirreled away inside them that counted. I was keen to know what a demon kept in a sealed box in a hidden lead-lined safe. Clearly something very important. Perhaps something very dangerous.

  I motored down the hill, away from the tranquility of Avici Rise. A sandstorm had kicked up, driven by searing gusts that made the Santa Ana winds feel like the gentle waft of a lover’s breath. From above, I could see the red cloud swirling into the city’s every nook and cranny. It was strange. Even though the haze enveloped the city, my mind felt clearer than ever. Avici was at my back, but the memory of the place no longer squirmed away. Meeting Laureen had lifted the blinkers that kept me focused on my plodding feet. It was time to start unpicking the city’s secrets.

  I hit the cloud halfway down. The dust devils danced and writhed in the corners of my vision. You grew used to them, knowing they could do no more than gum up your eyes and clog your nostrils, but it was still unnerving and murder to drive in; I’d nearly run over half a dozen people by the time I swung into Diyu.

  You could buy drugs anywhere in the city through handy street-corner dealers. Yama, who ran the drug trade, paid a slice of the proceeds to the other Trustees—this was the standard deal, each paying the others to allow them to sell their wares in areas outside their control. Diyu, however, was the go-to district for the hardcore junkies, those who were trying to medicate themselves out of their misery and didn’t mind lying around in their own and other people’s filth while they did so.

  Yama wasn’t the kingpin’s real name, but his chosen moniker reflected his rampant megalomania. Yama was the ruler of Hell in Chinese mythology, and while the drug lord certainly didn’t control the city, he harbored ambitions to do so. There had been several wars, the last of which had ended in an uneasy truce. I, for one, was grateful. The fighting had become so intense that you couldn’t go outside without dodging bullets, clubs, and swords as the rival gangs killed each other over and over in a monotonous and pointless cycle. The streets ran with blood, which at least meant the shoeshine boys did a roaring trade. Yama gave up the ghost when he finally got it into his skull that you couldn’t win a war in which nobody died. Besides, the constant fighting was bad for business. Everybody knew he was still plotting, though. If he could find a way to tip the odds in his favor, he would be back on the rampage.

  I drove down the main drag, past comatose smack heads lying facedown in the gutter or pillowing their lolling necks on piles of trash. Fat rats strolled openly, one of them pausing to nibble at the toes of a seminaked woman spread-eagled in the middle of the road. Even through the rolled-up windows, the stench of unwashed bodies and human detritus brought me to the verge of barfing. While the other Trustees made an effort to keep their districts clean, Yama didn’t bother—at least not on the streets where the junkies swarmed.

  The dealers worked out in the open, selling baggies and preprepared syringes from stalls set up along the sidewalk. Each stall had its own security: two impassive individuals dressed in T-shirts and trousers, each carrying a machine gun and a sword. The streets were for those who couldn’t afford to pay for access to one of the dens where you could hire a thin mattress and stretch out to enjoy your trip to la-la land in relative safety. As I crossed the old stone bridge over the River Styx, two emaciated guys finished emptying the pockets of a third equally pitiful-looking junkie and tipped him headfirst into the river.

  Diyu was second to Desert Heights as the most festering sore in Lost Angeles. Most non–drug users avoided the district unless they wanted to remind themselves they could be much worse off. Peeping on the misfortunes of others often perked people right up; I’d always wondered why more doctors didn’t prescribe a trip to Skid Row instead of a Mother’s Little Helper for dissatisfied and harassed housewives up in LA. Maybe that would have helped my mother. But I wasn’t here for a pick-me-up. Diyu was where Enitan George, the best fence in the city, had set up shop. Enitan was the man to see when you wanted to get your hands on something in particular or when you needed to offload hot goods. He served as a middleman, hooking up buyers with sellers and taking five percent off each for his trouble. While there were nicer places to base a business, Yama offered the best protection. His minions were ruthless, ferocious, and conversant in dozens of inventive means of torture. As a result, nobody messed with Enitan, even if they were sure their prized possession had passed through his hands. In return, Enitan never got involved with anything stolen from Yama. Missing property was a solid business for me, and I’d filled Enitan’s pockets in exchange for tip-offs on enough occasions to make his tongue loosen at the very sight of me. He was also my best friend.

  His shop butted up against the banks of the Styx on the southern edge of Diyu. I parked outside on the narrow potholed street, where I could see the car through the window—nobody in their right mind would steal my Chevy, but junkies weren’t renowned for their clarity of thought and would pinch the scabs off a leper’s back given half a chance.

  The bell tinkled as I opened the door into the cave of junk, rubbing the sand out of my hair. Enitan doubled up as a pawnbroker and bookseller. His shop brimmed with unsellable goods: guitars that never held a note; plastic jewelry that melted in the midday sun; copies of famous artworks; bits, bobs, and utter crap. Pretty much everything on sale was handmade by sinners dissatisfied with the lack of ways to uplift the human spirit. Enitan claimed he was fascinated by what people made, said it demonstrated that human ingenuity could survive even down here. I suspected he was simply a soft
touch and took pity on the desperate characters who sold him their trash. There were quality items out there—paintings and instruments crafted by real artists from salvaged materials—but they cost serious money. None of the good stuff made it to Enitan’s.

  The one market Enitan had cornered was literature. He’d built up a library of books, many of them written by literary sinners who, like me, were upset at the paucity of the written word in Lost Angeles. The majority were copied from memory, although there were books allegedly rewritten by the real authors—what with many artistic types being suckers for suicide—as well as new works set both in the city and in the world we’d left behind. Escape again, this time on the part of the author. I’d read nearly every book in his library, buying some and borrowing others. There were books from beyond my lifetime, which was how I knew the world upstairs had advanced rapidly. They were full of references to modern distractions: high-definition televisions, game consoles, phones that boasted the power of a 1970s supercomputer and allowed people to disappear into virtual worlds. I thought these inventions could be why Lost Angeles stopped developing when it did. So many human advances seemed to be in entertainment, which were diversions from the grind of life and therefore off-limits. Mind you, this theory didn’t fit when you considered that alcohol, drugs, and sex—three of the oldest distractions known to humanity—were freely available.

  I was able to read the post-1978 books because Enitan understood his market. He was aware of the exact date upstairs but also knew few people wanted to find out that information. He redacted the dates from more modern books so readers need never know how long they’d been trapped in Lost Angeles. Some of the books were good, a rare few excellent. Plenty were badly written and of suspect accuracy. For example, I was sure Of Mice and Men didn’t end with George and Lennie spit-roasting Curley’s wife in the barn and then driving off to raise rabbits and indulge in nightly threesomes. Not that I was complaining about that one. I always preferred a happy ending.