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BRIMSTONE P.I. by BEVERLE GRAVES MYERS
When Earl poked the soles of my feet with his pitchfork, I was lying on a bed of nails and dreaming of cool, blue water.
The poke of a pitchfork punctured my dream bubble of floating on cool, blue water. Suddenly, my back remembered it was lying on a bed of ten-inch nails, and my throat gagged on fumes wafting off the mountain of flaming bitumen.
"Get up, Heckler.” The pitchfork found the one tender spot that remained on the soles of my feet. “Boss wants to see you."
I squinted through gummy eyes and ran a hand over my stubbled chin. “Earl,” I croaked, looking down the length of my scarred, naked body at the winged imp hovering at my feet. “What time is it? Did I miss breakfast?"
"Ha, good one, Heckler. At least you haven't lost your sense of humor. Not like some people in this crummy joint.” He rolled his bulging eyes. “Come on, Master's waiting."
It didn't take long to get ready. Clothing was on the list of forbidden items, along with about a million other things. And personal hygiene was definitely frowned on. So in no time flat, I was trotting down the red clay path, with Earl giving me a sharp poke in the tush every time I slowed to ponder what I'd done to merit a personal interview with He Who Must Not Be Named. By the time we reached his palace of columned basalt and were admitted by a pair of bored-looking djinn, I'd worked myself up into a real stew.
We found the master of our domain in his reception chamber, reclining on a raised bed of soft cushions. Today he appeared as an Assyrian god, all popping eyes, bulbous nose, and corkscrew-curly beard. He could change on a whim, often taking on the guise of one of his suffering subjects to walk among us unnoticed, but I'd learned to spot him. He was the only inhabitant of Hell who ever looked even remotely comfortable.
He was talking to me now, smiling even. “Greetings, Raymond S. Heckler, gambler from Paramus, New Jersey.” Ah, the ceremonial approach. Maybe I wasn't in trouble after all. Maybe he just wanted something.
Earl's pitchfork reminded me to drop to my knees. I decided to cower as well. You couldn't lay it on too thick with this guy. With him, more was always more.
"Greetings, O Personification of Evil,” I intoned through chattering teeth. “Your adoring subject is panting to obey your every command."
"Excellent, I just happen to have a job for you,” he replied, picking at his teeth with a four-inch fingernail. Not his own. “A problem has arisen. Something right up your alley. Up top, you were one of those detecting busybodies—oh, what do you call ‘em?” He waved the fingernail airily.
"A private eye, O Blighter of Tender Green Shoots."
"Yes, just so. You were quite good as I recall. Tough guy, dogged as a bloodhound. Ha! Dogged—hound—get it?” His muscular belly began to quiver, and he chortled over that pathetic joke for five minutes. I snuck a glance at Earl, hovering near my shoulder. He gave me a pointed look, and we both found it wise to yuk it up until the big boss had recovered himself and continued. “So, Heckler, I've decided you're the perfect person to look into this current ... unpleasantness."
I wrinkled my forehead. What could he be talking about? Cruelty and mayhem were rampant. Everybody was miserable. He should be thrilled.
With a puff of smoke, the Assyrian morphed into a Mandarin princess complete with daintily bound feet and the neatest set of knockers I'd seen since my arrival. He, er, she lisped in awed tones, “Someone is doing good deeds."
"Good deeds?” I repeated stupidly.
She narrowed her almond eyes. “Have you strolled through the Wood of Suicides lately?"
I shook my head.
"The black leaves have been painted green and the twisted branches decorated with plastic flowers. Pink ones.” She shivered delicately. “And that's not all. Show him, Earl."
I sat back on my heels and watched the imp flutter to an enameled cabinet painted with scenes of war and destruction. He returned bearing a familiar object at arm's length. I could barely believe my eyes.
"Air freshener, O Swallower of Souls?"
"Discovered hanging over the sulfur pit yesterday morning."
"By who?"
"Why? What does that matter?” Her smooth yellow skin smoldered to a dangerous brick red.
"O Maven of Malevolence, questions are part of my job. I need facts, details to point my investigation down the right path."
"I see. Well, that appallingly fragrant item was reported by Lena DiMarco, wanton adulteress from Flushing, Queens. You can find her at the dragon stables. She's on cleanup detail. Your own duties in the salt mine are on hold until this matter is brought to a satisfactory conclusion.” She rose from her satin cushions and paced the dais on tiny feet. “You will spare no effort in your detections, Raymond Heckler. Am I making myself clear?"
I tried to grin, gulp, and nod, all at the same time.
She waved her hand toward the winged imp who was inching toward the door. “Earl here will assist you and provide you with everything you need."
The pitchfork hit the floor with a clank. “Me?” squawked Earl. “No way. I'm off duty in an hour. I'm scheduled for a long weekend."
Her black eyes flashed miniature lightning bolts. Her voice was steel slicing silk. “Then consider the schedule changed."
"But I'm due some time off,” he whined. “I've been covering imp detail all week. All the other imps have been away at the convention. Their bus just pulled in."
I knew I ought to keep my mouth shut, but self-restraint had never been my strong suit. “You have a convention?” I asked wonderingly.
"Sure. Wings and Stings, the International Jamboree for Diabolical Flying Creatures. It's an annual event."
His boss streaked off the dais in a blur, nearly knocking me flat with the heat and smell of a burning tire dump. She grabbed Earl's leathery wings. “You see this?” From somewhere, she produced a greeting card that she smashed in the imp's face, then flung to the floor. “Can your pea-sized brain grasp the enormity?"
While Earl was getting a vigorous attitude adjustment, I crawled over to retrieve the card. It was serious, all right. The front pictured a teddy bear wearing a ballet tutu and holding a pink candy heart. Its motto: You're beary sweet.
Suddenly the boss's mouth was at my ear, hot whispers scalding what was left of my brain. “That filth was nailed to the palace gate this morning. How or why, no one can say. You must stop this madness, Heckler, stop it now, or I'll find you a job that will make the salt mine seem like hitting a trifecta at the Meadowlands. Capisce?"
I understood perfectly. Earl and I beat it as fast as legs and wings could move.
The dragon stables lay beyond the River of Fire, almost a mile west of the palace. I followed Earl down the path in thoughtful silence, keeping an eye out for the rabid dogs and poisonous hornets that patrolled for sinners playing hooky from their assigned jobs. When we reached the red-hot iron bridge, I was ready with some questions.
"Earl,” I asked, stopping to mop my forehead with the back of my arm. “Where could the air freshener and the greeting card and those other things have come from? I've never seen any stores around here."
The imp smirked. “Of course you haven't. You never earn any horny bucks. Your smart mouth always gets in the way."
He had a point there, but I wasn't alone. While I'd heard about the boss's piddly little reward system, I'd never actually met anyone who'd earned so much as one horny buck. “So what do these bucks get a guy?"
Earl shot me a withering look “Not what you think, Heckler. Most people use ‘em at the Wal-Mart."
"Wall mart? Some kind of shop?"
Earl chuckled. “Sometimes I forget how long you've been here. Yeah, Wal-Mart's a store, they built a new megacenter a couple of miles down this very river. Right next to the Starbucks."
I shook my head. Megacenter? Starbucks? Earl might as well have been spouting Impish. “Is this Wal-Mart the only place to get stuff?” I asked.
"
Not exactly.” Earl's wings twitched, and he sailed close to my ear. “If you know the right people, you can get practically anything from up top.” He winked. “But remember, you never heard that from me."
Ah, a black market. I nodded slowly, testing the glowing bridge in front of me with a quick touch of my big toe. To put off the inevitable, I asked another question.
"There's something else I just don't get."
Earl arched a hairless brow ridge. “What?"
"The boss holds absolute sway in Hell. He can read every sinner like a book. What does he need a P.I. for?"
"That's easy. If you were really so smart, you would've figured that out already."
All right, be that way, I thought.
Bellowing, I hopped across the hot grid of the bridge like a jack rabbit on speed. Earl flapped his wings to gain some height and soared across on air currents. While I was frantically blowing on the soles of my feet, the imp landed and leaned on his pitchfork.
"It's like this, Heckler. The boss is an expert on every vice and depravity. Heaven! He invented most of ‘em. But these good deeds have him stumped. Kindness isn't exactly his department."
"And he thinks it's mine?"
"I checked your personnel file. In the third grade, you saved a kitten from drowning. In the seventh, you refused to cheat in a baseball game. And then, of course, there was the beauteous Betty, true love and all..."
That did it. I hadn't allowed myself to think of Betty since the old man at the Pearly Gates had toted up my marital shortcomings. I certainly wasn't going to let this devil spawn toss her name around. Hurling a handy chunk of coal at the smirking imp, I trotted on, not caring whether Earl followed or not.
I smelled the stables before I saw them. The dense, rank stench attracted a legion of flies that darkened the already sooty air. I sprinted the last few yards and was admitted by a muscular demon with glistening scales in place of skin. Once I'd stated my business, he directed me to a bay of empty stalls.
Lena DiMarco was shoveling dragon poop. Your average two-headed beast produces a ton of solid excrement per day, so Lena didn't complain much about the interruption. She was a shapely, plump woman of about thirty-five who'd managed to arrange her tangled brown hair into a decorative topknot. The smear of dragon poop on her upturned nose did nothing to diminish her voluptuous allure.
"I found it when I came out of our hovel yesterday morning. I knew something was different the minute I stepped outside. There was just the tiniest hint of roses in the air.” She smiled—not a leer or a smirk, but a sweet smile of the type you wouldn't expect from a damned soul. “I saw the air freshener hanging from a branch of a tree that grows on the edge of the pit. I waited by the hovel as long as I could, just drinking it in. But I finally had to tell one of the guards. I didn't want to get in trouble,” she finished with a sigh.
"Would you have noticed if the item had been there the night before?"
"Oh yes. We pass near the tree on our way to our bunks. There's no way I could've missed it. The smell is just like some cologne my third husband gave me. Or was it my fifth husband?” She scratched her chin with a faraway look in her eyes.
"Did you hear anything during the night?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the bubbling of boiling sulfur, the hiss of steam. And the screams of the newly damned, I guess.” She gave me a pointed look. You know how it is, it said.
I knew. Those screams never stopped, but once you'd been here awhile, you didn't really hear them anymore.
We were silent for a moment, lost in our own thoughts as the dragons in the neighboring stalls stamped and snorted. Then she grabbed a shovel, all traces of the smile erased. “If you're done, I have to get back to work."
"Hang on,” I said. “The big boss is pretty upset. He wants this air freshener dingbat trussed up and delivered on a silver platter. Any idea who would have the moxie to pull off a stunt like that?"
For the first time, her pretty face turned cunning. “Well, I don't like to carry tales, but one of my bunkmates has been acting pretty suspicious."
"Suspicious how?"
Lena leaned toward me and whispered, “Take a peek across the way. Go on, I'm talking about the blonde by the wheelbarrow over there."
She gestured to a tall, slender woman bending under the weight of a load of dragon kibble. Her blond hair retained a certain gleam, and if she'd been wearing clothes, they would have been designer duds. Society dame, classy. Definitely not my type. I'd always strayed to the trashy side of the street.
"What'd she do to land in here?” I asked. “Stack the deck at the ladies’ bridge club? Shave some points off her golf score at the country club?"
Lena snorted. “Hardly. Her name's Whitney. She was a lawyer."
I had to mull that over. Lawyers in Hell were hardly surprising; they might as well pick up certificates of damnation along with their diplomas. But a good-looking lady mouthpiece? I had to remind myself that things had changed since I was up top.
"So, what's her deal?"
"She's just too darned happy. She eats her slop without complaining, never moans in her sleep. And sometimes...” Lena raised her eyebrows. “She hums little ditties while she works."
"Did she leave your hovel during the night before last? For the latrine, maybe?"
With a dismissive shrug, Lena admitted that she didn't know and didn't hesitate to add that she couldn't care less.
* * * *
The two ladies occupied my mind as I descended the rocky path to the sulfur pit. Earl had caught up with me, but I ignored his whiny chatter to assess the possibilities.
Despite Lena's obvious shortcomings, there was a sweetness about the woman. I sensed a generous spirit beneath her tarnished exterior, but why would she risk our master's wrath for a few futile gestures? Lena was no dummy. She knew what horrific torments the Dark Lord could impose. Still, she'd been on the scene. She'd actually discovered the air freshener, and the path outside her hovel gave direct access to both the Wood of Suicides and the palace gate.
Then there was Whitney. She was obviously sharp, and she'd had as much opportunity as Lena. Maybe the blonde thought she could outsmart the boss and get away with committing niceties. But what was her motivation? Earl told me that Whitney had been a corporate lawyer who'd helped some greedy bigshot make off with millions of dollars that should have gone into his workers’ pension funds. Was she trying to atone in some small way?
The path rounded a boulder, and the ladies’ hovel came into view. I caught my breath as a wave of corrosive fumes rolled over me. Fifty yards beyond the hovel, the sulfur pit lay in a hollow at the bottom of a rock cliff notched with sharp outcrops. Syrupy thick, greenish-gold liquid roiled and bubbled, lapping at a curved shoreline of smooth, steaming mud.
Lena and Whitney's hovel was pretty much like others I'd seen. Bare wooden planks sheltered four bunks with scratchy straw mattresses crawling with bedbugs. Nameplates identified trunks at the foot of the bunks. Not really expecting to find anything, I searched the ladies’ few pitiful possessions. Lena's trunk contained a ragged blanket and a hairbrush with most of the bristles gone. Whitney's yielded up some shampoo and lotions, an autographed photo of some guy named Saddam Hussein (much smudged by lipstick kisses), and a bottle of nail polish in a blistering shade called Red Hot Mama. Whitney apparently spent her horny bucks on cosmetics.
I went back out, Earl close behind. A mammoth djinn was stationed by the yellow crime-scene tape encircling the tree where Lena had found the air freshener. He was nowhere near as cooperative as the demon at the stables. I tried a few questions, but he shook his turbaned head, stamped his bejeweled foot, and jabbered away in a vaguely Arabic tongue.
Earl translated. Yes, the air freshener had been attached to the tallest branch of the twisted tree that overhung the pit. No, no one had been allowed to disturb the ground around the tree. It was just as it was. The tape had been up and guarded since yesterday morning. What did I think they were, idiots?
"Okay,” I said. “Let's get back to the palace."
"Why? You surely haven't finished with the investigation,” Earl shot back.
"I'm finished enough. I know who's been doing the good deeds. I can tell our master in his reception chamber, or..."
I bowed before the djinn, who seemed to be enjoying his act just a bit too much. “If you'd rather, Sire, we can discuss the matter right here."
* * * *
Everybody knows his traditional guise: cloven hooves, pointy tail, curving horns. Add skin as pale as a corpse and dotted with tumors, shaggy brown fur around the nether regions, and a gaping mouth stuffed with spiky teeth and an obscenely long tongue. That's the creature that took the place of the surly djinn. He planted himself two feet from me, ready for the goods.
"Well, Heckler?” he snarled. Really. He could talk and snarl at the same time.
I bowed my head, suddenly terrified. “You're not going to like this, O Prince of Woe."
"Try me.” The ground rumbled like a New York Central express was passing ten feet from us.
"Well, it's the mud,” I answered, still stalling. “It's totally smooth."
"So?"
"There aren't any footprints. None of the damned humans could have crossed the mud to climb the tree without leaving tracks."
"Go on."
I snuck a look at his face but quickly dropped my eyes.
"Only a winged creature could have placed the air freshener in the topmost branch,” I continued. “Two nights ago, only one possible suspect was available. All the imps were away at their convention.” I took a breath and stared into the Master's fiery eyes. “Except Earl, of course."
"Liar! Fool!” Earl screeched and fluttered around my head, making vicious stabs with his pitchfork until his master pinched his leathery wings shut.
The imp panted and stuttered in the Dark Lord's grasp. “The dragons have wings,” Earl screamed. “What about them, Mr. Smart-ass Heckler? Guess they didn't even occur to you."
AHMM, May 2007 Page 13
