“I’ll take him and Runmere,” I shouted.
“I am greatly tempted,” Black Talon said.
Aimee sat back on her motorcycle. “Oscar, be ready to turn and run,” she said in a low voice. “Soon as I lead off, follow, fast.”
Black Talon was still boasting. “But not this one, Carpentier. He is a prize. You knew this one, Pink Talon! Your boss, he was. I believe you could have sent him to prison. Wasn’t that your job?”
“It was my duty to keep the nation safe,” Pink Talon — Hoover — said. “And to do that I had to keep my position. What good would it do to replace one crooked politician with another? Look who followed him when he did leave office! Barrators, the lot of them. I did my duty! I left this one in his place so long as he left me in mine!”
“So that’s how you got here,” I said. “You were only doing your duty —”
Pink Talon looked at me suspiciously. “Sire! They’re planning something! There are too many of us here, we’ve left places unguarded!”
Aimee’s motorcycle roared to life. “Now, Oscar,” she shouted. “And fast!”
She made a powered skid turn and was away back over the bridge. Oscar had to turn hard, then back up, but he wasn’t far behind her. Carl desperately clutched the right fender, Eloise on the left. I looked in the rearview mirror. The demons behind us were shouting curses. Ernesto and Phyllis were hanging on to the luggage carrier. “We’re all aboard,” I said.
Oscar slowed as he came off the bridge, then turned hard right to follow Aimee. She was well ahead of us. “What do you think she has in mind?” Oscar’s radio asked. “Do we trust her?”
“She is worthy!” Eloise shouted.
“And how would you know that?” Carl asked.
Eloise laughed insanely. “How did you know anything? How do you know that you know anything?”
“I had good reasons.”
“I have better,” Eloise laughed.
“Besides, we don’t have a lot of choice,” Sylvia said.
“She sure can ride that bike,” Oscar said. “I’m having trouble keeping up! Ground’s too rough.”
Father Ernesto turned to look back and across the Fourth Bolgia. “To the best I can see, we are well ahead of our pursuit,” he said.
“Nobody falls off!” Oscar said. “Anybody falls off gets left behind!” He put on more speed, and the bumps got rougher. We drove for what seemed to be miles.
“There’s Aimee,” Sylvia announced. “She’s stopped up by that bridge.”
“Bridge,” Oscar said. “Right, I see it.”
As soon as Aimee was sure we’d seen her, she darted over the bridge to cross the Fourth Bolgia. Oscar followed, slowing on the downslope. Now we were in demon territory. Heads rose from the pitch on our right.
“Help us!” someone shouted. Others cried in other languages.
“We’re full up,” Oscar said. “I ain’t stopping.”
“All right with me,” I said. “Downhill! Flee downhill, to the bottom! Avoid the demons!” I shouted. We were moving fast, but some heard me. I saw a tar–encrusted figure emerge from the pitch and dash across to fling itself into the Sixth Bolgia.
There was a bridge across the pitch ahead. Aimee waved and pointed, then went over it, fast. Oscar followed. Pitch bubbled below.
“Demons coming,” Father Ernesto said. “They do not look happy.”
Aimee turned hard left and led us along the downhill bank of the pitch. She gunned hard, and left us behind to follow as best we could. Oscar throttled back. “Tell me, Father, if they’re getting close,” he said. “Don’t want to risk breaking anything here.”
“Bridge ahead on the right,” Sylvia announced. “Don’t see Aimee — there she is. She’s doing something at the bridge base. So is Sammy — Oscar, they’re piling rocks. She’s building a ramp to make it easier to get on the bridge. Two ramps.”
“She only needed one,” Oscar said. “Nice of her.”
Aimee and Sammy were nearly done when we pulled up to her. We could see the bridge now. It was broken in the middle.
Chapter 26
Eighth Circle, Sixth Bolgia
Hypocrites
* * *
A painted people there below we found,
Who went about with footsteps very slow,
Weeping and in their semblance tired and vanquished.
They had on mantles with the hoods low down
Before their eyes and fashioned of the cut
That in Cologne they for the monks are made.
Aimee waved and drove a distance from the bridge. She patted Sammy and drew his arms around her so that he had a secure grip, then gunned the motorcycle, roared up the ramp they’d built, and dashed toward the gap at full speed.
“Holy shit!” Oscar said.
She sailed gracefully across the gap and came down hard on the other side. Then she turned and shouted.
“I couldn’t make that out,” I said.
“Me, either, but we can guess,” Oscar said. “Jeez, I don’t know if I can do that!”
“You don’t have to,” Sylvia said. “Well, you have to if you want out. The rest of us can just pile down into the Sixth Bolgia there. It’s safe enough.”
“It is that,” Father Ernesto said. He pointed. A group of specks were growing fast as they came nearer. “I suggest haste, whatever we intend.”
“Pile off, then,” Oscar said. “Not you, Allen. I may need help. Rest of you, off and down into the pit. Meet you on the other side.”
I wondered why he wanted me, but this was no time to argue. “Move out then,” I said.
Sylvia led the way. She looked over the edge. “There’s no path,” she shouted. “We’d have to jump.” She ran back to the car. “We may as well stay together!”
“Don’t know about the weight,” Oscar said. “What the Hell, let’s do it! One for all!”
Everyone scrambled aboard, Carl and Eloise on the fenders, Ernesto and Phyllis on the baggage carrier on the trunk lid.
“Ready,” Ernesto announced.
“Now or never, Oscar,” I said.
“Right.” He backed off as far from the bridge as he could get. “No time to test those ramps she built. Hope they hold. Allen, if I don’t make it —”
“You’ll be trapped down in that Bolgia,” I told him. “Not an appropriate place for you. We’ll find you a way out.”
“Yeah, but — look, if I don’t make it, open the trunk. Okay, here goes.”
Demons were coming hard.
Oscar backed to the edge of the Fifth Bolgia, above the bubbling black pitch. Tires squealed as he shot forward, directly toward the bridge, motor roaring, gears screaming as he shifted. He hit the ramps dead on, and they held. We were climbing up at a steep angle.
Maybe Oscar and I were the only ones who had seen movies like this. James Bond revs his engine and charges the bridge. It’s broken, or lifting in the middle to let a ship through, and maybe it’s twisted, too. The car roars up the arch and sails through the air, toward the far arch —
We had a fine view into the Sixth Bolgia, and a stream of golden robes moving very slowly. Father Ernesto’s eyes were clenched like tiny fists.
Tires exploded as Oscar landed. He braked, we slid, we hit the bottom and rolled.
The car was on me, on its side. I couldn’t pull myself out from under.
There were bodies all around me. I waited, and presently they began to stir. Eloise had broken something. Carl lay like one dead. Phyllis, Sylvia, Ernesto helped each other to their feet; found me; argued. Aimee’s motorcycle rolled up and she joined the argument. After a while they set themselves and rolled Oscar onto his wheels.
I still couldn’t stand. Bones were crushed. Presently I could lift my head enough to look around.
Oscar didn’t look good, either. The windshield was gone again. Panels were dented. A wheel was bent far outward. The radio hummed with static.
We waited.
Sylvia took the key out of the
car’s ignition. She walked around to the back and inserted the key to open the trunk. Then she stared.
Father Ernesto joined her. I got up, curled over and, limping some, went to see what they were staring at.
There was a body in the trunk.
It was a tanned white man in his forties, not very big. It barely fit that tiny space. Ernesto started to reach in to him.
“Father, wait a moment,” Sylvia said.
“Yes?”
“I think he might prefer to stay as he is. At least we can wait to ask him.”
“What do you mean — Oh! That is Oscar?”
“We’re guessing,” I said. I told them what Oscar had said when we were planning the jump over the broken bridge.
“But he is a man,” Father Ernesto said. “His body is the gift of God! He cannot simply reject it.”
“Why not?” Carl asked. “My friend Stephen would have gladly changed his ruined body to be a car!”
Sylvia closed the trunk lid and handed me the keys. “It’s his body, let him decide.” She went back to her seat and fiddled with the radio dials.
“Anything?”
“Nothing yet.”
“How long do we wait?” I asked.
“We have plenty of time,” Sylvia said. “Father, isn’t that your starting place back there?”
“It is. I know of many souls worthy of rescue in there. I should attend to them. Does anyone wish to accompany me?”
“I’ll stay with Oscar,” I said. Sylvia moved closer to me.
“You can watch my bike, then,” Aimee said. “Reverend, I’ll come with you a spell.”
“Aren’t you a little afraid of that pit?” Carl asked.
Aimee stopped dead in her tracks to stare at him. “Are you saying that the place of the hypocrites is especially dangerous to me?” she demanded.
“From what I have heard, you did very well out of it,” Carl said. “Clothes, cars, radio station, big house, travel —”
Aimee was laughing. “You think I did the Lord’s work for lucre! I thought you were supposed to be smart. Lord love you, Carl, I worked all the time. I wrote three sermons a day! When I wasn’t alone working I was in front of crowds. Travel! Wherever I went there were the reporters, all trying to write something scandalous about me. Nobody worked harder than me.”
“But you did very well,” Carl insisted.
“You think I couldn’t have made more money some other way? My friend Charlie Chaplin offered me shares in United Artists if I’d go into show business! There are places I might be afraid of, but this isn’t one of them.”
She turned to follow Father Ernesto. Sammy was just behind her. After a moment, Phyllis and Eloise fell in with them. They walked uphill toward the pit.
“I must have sounded like an ingrate,” Carl said.
“Or worse,” Sylvia said.
“I should have thought about it,” Carl said, “but everything I ever heard —”
“Was from her enemies,” Sylvia said. “I know, I thought the same thing until we met her. But we did meet her!”
Carl looked sheepish. “Yeah. Look, I’m just getting used to the idea that all this is real.”
“Me, too,” I said.
Sylvia chuckled. “Well, if you have to offend someone, make it Aimee. Easier to get forgiven that way.” She listened for a moment. “Oscar?”
The static from the radio increased, but we still couldn’t make out words.
“Where to next?” Carl asked. “It’s a long time since I read the Inferno, and I wasn’t studying it as a geography lesson!”
“Hypocrites back there,” I said, pointing to the pit behind us. “The Seventh Bolgia is ahead. That’s thieves. It’s a dangerous place.”
“Need we go down into it, then?” Carl asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Oscar’s looking better,” Sylvia said. “Oscar?”
There were faint squawks from the radio.
“He’s healing,” Sylvia said. “I thought he would. Oscar, we looked in your trunk, we know what’s there. Do you want us to wake up your human body?”
More static, then a few unintelligible words.
“What?”
“Rather be a car. Carry you. Maybe take up Black Talon’s offer.”
“You wouldn’t!” Sylvia said.
“Why not? Didn’t see you too anxious to help anyone out of there.”
“I’m still getting used to this,” Carl said. “Allen, you must have thought about this a lot. How can you justify keeping people in Hell? What gives God the right to demand we worship Him?”
“Come now,” Sylvia protested. “Where does right come from? You’re going to judge God? By whose standards? You say yours, but what makes yours any better than anyone else’s?”
“Sylvia —”
“I mean it, Allen. You two are smarter than almost anyone I ever met, but you sure have awful educations! People have been arguing about this for thousands of years! And you act like you’ve just thought of the questions.”
“I notice you never answered my question,” Carl said. “What gives God the right to demand we worship Him?”
“I haven’t heard any such demand,” Sylvia said. “Maybe we just need Him, and we’re miserable if we don’t have Him.”
“Benito said something like that to the pagans,” I said. “But there’s a lot of difference between not having God and being stuck in boiling pitch!”
“Leaving us all back where we started,” Carl said. “Oscar, are you all right?”
“Getting there,” the radio said. “What’s the hurry?”
“He’s right,” Sylvia said. “We can’t leave until Aimee gets back. Can’t leave her bike for someone to steal.”
“I doubt she will take long,” Carl said. “She seems the impatient type.”
“You can hardly object to that,” Sylvia said.
“Mmm. No.”
“Why did she pick you?” I asked. “She let a dozen go past before she chose you to talk to.”
“I winked at her.”
“Whaaat?”
Carl laughed. “Why not? I thought I should be dead, and I’m not, I’m in this ghastly place that makes no sense at all. Why should I be alive? I keep thinking I’m not really alive, but I think, I feel — anyway, I’m shuffling along looking backward when I see this group of people watching me. People with their heads on straight. An attractive woman is looking at me, not staring as if I’m a freak, but interested. Maybe she was choosing people to rescue. Not likely, but it seemed worth a try to get her attention.”
“Worked, too,” Sylvia said. “Interesting.”
“Hey!” We looked around to see Aimee. She had Phyllis and Eloise in tow.
“That didn’t take long,” I said. “No one new?”
Aimee shrugged. “The Reverend Ernesto has his ways, and I have mine.”
“Ernesto’s picky. Where’s Sammy?” Sylvia asked.
“I left him with Ernesto,” Aimee said. “He’ll be safe there. Phyllis wants out of this place bad, so I’m taking her down to the grotto. There’s no room for three on here. Eloise wanted to come with you, if that’s all right.” She fixed me with a hard stare. “You pulled her out. Up to you to take care of her.”
“All right.”
“When I get back we need to talk.”
“About —”
“I’ve spent all my time in Lower Hell. I’ve a mind to see what’s up above. I’ve a mind to see if there aren’t sinners in the Winds who need rescue.” She mounted her bike and invited Phyllis to climb on behind her. “We’ll talk more. Next bridge is a little narrow for Oscar,” Aimee said. “Well, be seeing you!”
She roared off.
Chapter 27
Eighth Circle, Seventh Bolgia
Thieves
* * *
At the conclusion of his words, the thief
Lifted his hands aloft with both the figs,
Crying “Take that, God, for at thee I aim them
.”
From that time forth the serpents were my friends;
For one entwined itself about his neck
As if it said: “I will not thou speak more”;
And round his arms another, and rebound him.
Clinching itself together so in front,
That with them he could not a motion make.
It was a footbridge, entirely too narrow for Oscar. We drove around to the next one. And the next. It was the same at each bridge: a narrow stone bridge, just wide enough for two on foot abreast if they liked each other. There was a waist–high guard wall on either side of the bridge, and it might have been barely possible to build ramps and let Oscar climb up to straddle the footpath —
“I’m good,” Oscar said. “But I was never a trick driver. I know my limits, Allen, and I think that’s beyond them.”
“That leaves you stuck here,” Sylvia said. “Unless you want to try jumping the gap over the pitch again.”
“And if I end up on my back again?” Oscar said. “Will you be there to roll me over while Black Talon’s people come running? Sooner than that, I’ll go ask for Black Talon’s help.”
“Joining the enemy,” Carl said.
“Humph. Maybe he’s your enemy,” Oscar said. “I see him as a possible employer.”
Sylvia had been scouting along the rim of the Seventh Bolgia. She came back to say, “There’s a ramp down.”
“I’ll go look,” Oscar said. He drove slowly in the direction Sylvia had come from. We followed on foot.
“A ramp,” I said. “I’m always suspicious of places it’s easy to get into down here.”
“Pit of thieves,” Sylvia said. “Are any of us thieves?”
“We probably all are,” Carl said. “Shoplifting —”
“When I was a kid,” Eloise said. “Not since then. The people I was with, they’d break your fingers. Carl, what did you steal?”
“Nothing recent,” he said. He looked apprehensive.
I didn’t want to call him on it. “Is plagiarism theft?” I asked.
“Plagiarism? You?” Sylvia said. She was shocked.
“Not intentional,” I said. “But yeah, science fiction writers trade ideas, play with them. I found a wonderful notion in a fanzine once … and I think I stole some good lines from other people’s work. It’s hard not to!”