Molly didn’t want to talk or even think about that. She was the only human to continue after death, inevitably isolated from other people by the simple fact of death. The afterlife was a vacuum. A burst balloon. Thinking about it made her dizzy, so she didn’t. Not right now.
Anne said, “How did you…” Her question trailed off into a shrug.
“Got run over by a train.”
Now it was Anne who flinched. “Yowch. Did it hurt?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Did you jump?”
“No. It was an accident—”
According to Bayliss.
Bayliss, who claimed that a lesbian tried to jump his bones.
Oh, no.
Molly reeled from a sudden wave of sick dread. Something cold and oily sloshed through her gut. She dropped into a kitchen chair. It took a few steadying breaths before she could dodge the curling edge of panic.
“Anne, who is Philip Marlowe?”
* * *
“Let me tell you a story,” said Molly. “And as I go along, you tell me if it sounds familiar. Okay?”
Anne gave a confused shrug. “Sure, I guess.”
Molly gathered her thoughts. The story begins where?
“Okay. So, there’s this guy. He wears a fedora, he drinks rye whiskey, he lives on the edges. Not much connection to other people. But he’s scraping by. One day, he gets a telephone call—”
“And the person on the other end offers him a job,” said Anne. “He doesn’t like the caller, and doesn’t necessarily like the job, but he needs the work so he takes it anyway.”
Molly took a steadying breath. Please let this be a coincidence, she thought. “You’ve heard this before?”
“I’ve read a few books that start this way.”
“Huh. Does the job lead him to a woman?”
“Dame,” Anne suggested. “But yeah. It either starts with a woman or leads to a woman.”
“He becomes fascinated with her. But he senses that she’s more than she seems. That she’s harboring a big secret.”
“Of course she is. These old stories aren’t particularly enlightened, you know. Women are frequently a source of problems.”
Molly said, “Against his better judgment, he gets involved in her life—”
Anne continued in a bored monotone, “And discovers that she’s in deep trouble. In over her head.”
A tingly sense of alarm raised goose pimples on the back of Molly’s neck. This was not good.
She asked, “What kind of trouble?”
“Oh, it could be several things.” Anne counted them off on her fingers. “The detective was hired to find her because she knows something dangerous. Or she might be on the run from a gangster ex-boyfriend. Or maybe she stole something.”
“What if somebody was murdered, and something valuable went missing? And some very serious and determined people think she took it?”
Anne thought for a moment. “That works, too.”
“They want it so badly that they ransack her place.”
“Well, of course they do,” said Anne. Then she anticipated the next beat, which sent cold sweat to pool in the small of Molly’s back and trickle between her breasts. “And the detective, moved by his tarnished sense of chivalry, can’t stand the sight of a damsel in distress. So he tries to intervene.”
Molly remembered how Bayliss had looked after his encounter with the Cherubim. “They beat him up.”
“They don’t kill the detective, though,” Anne said. “Just knock him around a bit.”
Molly said, “But he isn’t intimidated so easily. So he keeps at it. While investigating the murder victim, he finds some evidence connecting the dead guy to the woman.”
“Sure he does. But he knows it’s all just circumstantial, so he hides it away.”
Yeah. At an old folks’ home …
“Even though he has a sinking feeling she’s more than she seems?” Molly shook her head, flailing for straws. Hoping this wasn’t going where it appeared to be. “That seems like a dumb thing to do.”
But Anne dashed that hope, too. “Nah, it’s part of the formula. See, by this point he’s starting to see her as a client, too. And the detective’s personal code of honor demands that until things are resolved—either she’s out of danger, or her duplicity and guilt are conclusively established—his loyalty is to his client. Even if he doesn’t trust her.”
Molly continued, “Okay. Anyway. So the detective investigates further. But when he goes to question somebody connected to the case, he finds—”
“A dead body. Duh.”
In this case, Father Santorelli. Son of a bitch.
“Geez. Don’t look so surprised,” said Anne. “Philip Marlowe practically can’t walk down the street without tripping over a stiff.” This was a pointless conversation to her. Meanwhile, though, she was demolishing the bedrock of all Molly’s experiences since she died. But what lay beneath it all?
Molly asked, dreading the answer, “What happens next?”
“Well, at some point he has a run-in with the cops. Often more than once.”
“Why the cops?”
“They’re interested in the woman, too. And they know he’s working for her.”
Molly thought about how Bayliss had described his encounter with the Thrones. “But the detective refuses to tell them anything. Why?”
“Again, that’s the sense of honor at work. To share what he knows, or suspects, would be to betray his client. So he clams up. And anyway, he’s hidden the evidence—”
“Or destroyed it?”
“—yeah, so there’s nothing solid to connect her to whatever crime they’re investigating.”
What else had Bayliss told her? Uriel.
“Does he ever get warned off a case?”
“Often. For one, the cops almost always want him to drop it. They don’t like him meddling in their affairs.”
“Anybody else?”
“Sometimes the story involves another faction, sure. Like a club owner or something like that. Who makes a few threats to try to get the noble detective to drop the case.”
“Let me guess. Because he’s asking questions they don’t want asked?”
“Pretty much.” Anne was getting annoyed. “You know, I’ve been really patient. I’m still waiting for my turn to ask questions.”
But it was terrifying, the way things fit the pattern Anne described. So Molly pressed on, desperate to find a contradiction.
“You have been incredibly patient. But please. Just a little more.” The problem with these parallels, Molly realized, was that she hadn’t done anything according to a script. “Tell me more about the women in these stories.”
Anne sighed. “It’s like I said. They’re rife with the sexism of their day. The women fall into a small number of categories.” Once again she ticked the points off on her fingers. “Let’s see. You’ve got your sexy dame with a mysterious past. Then you’ve got your crazy, murderous sexpot. The former often turns out to be the latter, by the way. And then you’ve got your puppyish, virginal sylph.” After a moment she counted one more finger. “Oh, almost forgot the acid-tongued harridan, too. She’s more rare.”
“And does he always get it on with one of them?”
“Sometimes, but not always. He has a complicated sense of honor. But there’s always flirtation, sexual tension. Sometimes even a subtle invitation. Or unsubtle.”
He didn’t get that from me. But the story demanded it. So when the next woman came along, he pigeonholed her role in the tale to fit that demand.
That was his mistake. If he hadn’t adhered so rigidly to the traditional story, Molly might never have caught on.
The raging migraine returned. It brought friends. Molly hugged herself, fought a rising tide of nausea.
If Anne was right—and the woman knew her detective stories—everything Bayliss had told Molly since the very beginning fit the elements of a noir detective novel too closely to be anything other than delibera
te. This wasn’t a coincidence. And it explained everything: his wardrobe … his sexism … the ancient diner in his Magisterium … even why Bayliss spoke like a character in an old movie.
Or, more correctly, book.
He’d cobbled together a storyline and a persona from a bunch of different detective stories. The affectations were just a side effect of that. Bayliss had absorbed the tropes of noir fiction and turned them into a framework for the tale he presented to Molly. To the extent that he held to the outline even when it blatantly contradicted the facts.
But why go to all this trouble? What did it achieve, turning himself into a hard-boiled detective pastiche in an archetypal story? Hell. Why adopt any persona at all?
What if … Another chilling thought. She’d never stopped to wonder why the angels were as relatable as they were. Why did some of them have any human characteristics at all? She suspected part of it had to do with cultural imprinting, or perhaps perceptual expectations carrying over from her human days. But what if the angels were far more alien, more inexplicable, than she had blindly accepted? Maybe Bayliss didn’t know how to be even remotely human, much less how to interact with somebody like Molly. Perhaps he’d had to work from a template merely to have a basis for interaction. Maybe they all did. But Bayliss also needed a model for the evolving situation he wanted to convey. And for some arcane reason, the travails of an old-time gumshoe fit the bill.
And she had bought into it. She had accepted everything he told her, not realizing that he was reading from a playbook written before she was born. Bayliss had been lying to her since day one. And not just overlooking or omitting certain details, the stuff she’d called him on several times, but flat-out lying.
She didn’t dare believe a single thing he had ever told her. She had to throw out everything he’d ever said.
Which meant she didn’t know anything.
20
A FOOL (ALMOST) RUSHES IN
Not since Jericho had I seen a worse case of the jitters. When I walked the mean streets of the Pleroma, it seemed every joe and jane I passed had a raging case of floating anxiety disorder. If Gabby’s death had put the Choir on edge, the popcorn proliferation of Nephilim had been the final shove. Things were tightest close to the mortal realm, where the weakest members of the Choir slid down the ontological gradient of METATRON’s binding to rattle the floor with their nervous tics like a concert in the subbasement of the Pleroma. But that overarching sense of anxiety cast a long shadow. Even farther out, in the metaphysical suburbs where the sensible cars and respectable glamours could be found, it wasn’t all canasta games and dinner parties. There was a strong front blowing in; we felt it in our guts. In weather like this, even the Seraphim lock their doors. Smart eggs hunker down to ride out the storm.
Not me, though. I needed words with two dumb onions.
The first of the defeated Cherubim was a blurry fractured thing. I couldn’t see it well without a lot of squinting. Molly’s ambush had yanked the goon apart—no mean feat, that—and now it was too busy feeling sorry for itself to zip its two halves together correctly. They didn’t quite fit together, like the reflection in an imperfectly fixed mirror. What a drip. Just looking in its direction gave me a headache, so I opted to talk to its partner instead.
I thought I’d seen it all. But I’d never seen a Cherub with a black eye. That must have taken some doing because they don’t even have eyes, the dumb lugs. Just flames. Chalk up another point in the twist’s column. The poor sap held a steak to its battered face. It made the joint smell like a Fourth of July cookout. All we needed was some potato salad and tub of coleslaw.
After all, the fireworks were coming soon enough.
“One monkey,” I said. “The two of you working together couldn’t croak one lousy monkey.”
“She was supposed to be alone.”
“It wasn’t supposed to matter. What a sorry wrecking crew you turned out to be.”
“Sorry, boss.”
“How’d she do it? How’d she get the drop on you cream puffs?”
They told me how flametop clobbered them using sleight of hand and sheer moxie. I whistled. What an item. I knew how to pick them. She was perfect.
Steak-face said, “If you wanted us to fight you shouldn’t’ve made us wear those monkey suits. You didn’t hobble us when you sent us into her Magisterium.”
“Yeah,” said steak-face’s blurry pal. “She was no problem then.”
“We should go find her, do it right this time,” said the first Cherub.
The dopes. With friends like these, who needs enemies?
I said, “Listen, you thickheaded palookas. What do you think would happen if you went down to Earth for a spot of redemptive violence? If you started traipsing around the mortal realm, bumping off monkeys, letting everyone see you in your true forms?”
“She’d get what she had coming?”
“She’d be sorry? Real sorry?”
Oh, brother. I reminded myself that I hadn’t hired these goons for their brains. Maybe it’s the constant heat of holy fire from their faces making them feverish. Slow.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And how’s about METATRON?”
There was a pause while that sank in. “Oh,” said steak-face. “That.”
“Yeah. That.”
“You want we should go back and finish off the monkey now?”
“Nah,” I said. “I’ll handle it. You two lick your wounds. They must be medium rare by now.”
I’d been ready to rub out Molly’s girlfriend then and there when I had the chance. But as much as flametop liked to question everything I said and did, she still wasn’t getting the big picture. If that cluck didn’t start doing the math sooner than later, I’d have to hire a skywriter. So it was a golden opportunity when she practically pushed that dish of a librarian into my open arms.
And besides, we could spare a stiff or two. I’d worked a little slop into the system. I wasn’t born yesterday.
* * *
On my way to count the Nephilim, to verify the other PI recipients had been pinked, I ran into an old acquaintance. Can’t say it was a happy reunion.
“Bayliss,” it said. “ssilyaB,” it said.
“Think you’ve got me confused with somebody else.” I pushed past, but not without tipping my hat. “Sorry, guy. Sorry, doll.”
The Virtue raised two arms to block my passage. One lead, one gold. I sighed and, keeping one peeper on that bobbing scorpion tail, plastered a happy grin on my kisser.
“Hey, now I recognize you. Lose some weight, did you? Long time no see. You’ve been a stranger, eh?”
“We seek you,” said its feminine aspect.
“You avoid us,” said its masculine aspect.
“Seek me? Don’t you kids have better things to do with your time? You should get a hobby.”
“We did as you asked.” “.deksa uoy sa did eW”
“Can’t say I remember that.” I danced out of the Virtue’s reach, making for my apartment. “I’d love to stick around while you flap your gums about it, but I have a hot date with a lulu of a chess problem.”
“We hold your promise. Payment is owed.”
“Nuts to both of you. I’m no chiseler. Just quit squawking until I get back on my feet, how about?”
“Payment is owed.” “.dewo si tnemyaP”
“Yeah, yeah. Payment. Enough with the broken record.”
You’d think that given everything else I was doing, this penny-pinching sourpuss would give me a break on the tab. That’s gratitude for you. But I let it slide. I’m a generous soul.
And besides. The way I figured it, all the old tabs and debts would get erased soon enough.
* * *
I returned from my errands to find an angel making coffee in my kitchen. So much for that second lock I put on the door. I couldn’t wait to get out of this neighborhood. It had seen better days. So had we all.
“Please,” I said, flinging my hat over the hilt of the sword in my umbrel
la stand, “make yourself at home.”
Uriel said, “In this dive? Not likely.”
She had coffee grounds and soul fragments strewn all across the counter. If I hadn’t known better I might have thought she’d been struck with a recurrence of the quotidian ague while filling the percolator. But then Michael and Raguel always were the tidy ones. I decided against sharing my trick with the comb; a lousy cup of coffee was the least she deserved for breaking in to my digs again.
“Not that it ain’t a pleasure, but what can I blame for this visit?”
“There’s some concern,” said Uriel, “over an apparent lack of progress, Bayliss.”
The percolator gurgled its assent. What a sad little toady it was. It didn’t even have a dog in this fight. But they had a point, the Seraph and the machine.
“Yeah, yeah. The monkey’s taking it nice and slow.”
“Too slow. And we’ve been patient.”
“You’ve been patient? What am I, chopped liver?”
Uriel rummaged my cabinets for a cup. I pointed. She snagged one. “Nevertheless,” she said. “We’re eager to see the end of this.”
As if I wasn’t. That was rich. What a joker. She knew how to make a gag. I told her so.
“Cool your jets, sister. What’s a few more days on top of a million millennia?”
“Every extra attosecond runs the risk METATRON will take an interest.” She poured herself a cup, took one sip, made a face, dumped the coffee down the sink. I wondered how many souls went down the drain just then. “The Thrones are getting suspicious.”
She had a point. The bulls were zeroing in. It had been a little uncomfortable under the bright lights. Good thing Uriel had come riding to the rescue when she did. But things were too far along now for anybody to stop it.
“They can turn blue, the lot of ’em, for all I care.”
“We’ve already staged another attempted eviction.”
“Bread and circuses. Works every time.”
“We can’t keep it up forever.”
“Oh, brother. Like you’ve got it tough. I don’t recall you raising so much as a pinfeather when we were rounding up a volunteer for this job.”
“It was always your baby.”
Well. I don’t like to brag. I’m the humble type. But trust a wicked bird like Uriel to appeal to my pride. Pride was a sin, after all.
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