Jazz Hell, page 17
“All this,” Minnie burst, energy overtaking her feet like a ghost. She waved her arms in the air, “All that at the Wall. That was just a kid, wasn't it?”
“'S what everyone seemed to think,” Nigel said, not entirely without sympathy. He regarded her from behind the layer of smoke afforded by his zipped-up cigarette. “Not the first of his kind. Not by a long shot.”
“That doesn't make it right,” Minnie snapped. She pulled her cardigan closer around her, chilled by her own thoughts. “How did he get down here? And why?”
Nigel shrugged, “There's plenty of ways down to Hell, Miss Minnie. Not all of 'em involve dying. Portals and the like. Rituals to be done, and spirits to be invoked.”
“Overzealous teenagers on All Hallows' Eve,” Marty added, with all due gravity. His round eyes followed Minnie as she paced. “And on Todos los Santos and Día de los Muertos. Our busiest three days altogether. People of all types, but mostly kids, always seem to find a way down.”
“And instead of leading them back to earthside—back to life and family and friends—you take their zip,” Minnie's voice was rife with disgust, “and let them dissipate.”
Nigel shrugged, “Orders, Miss Minnie.”
She let out a long sigh, and removed her glasses. “I know,” she rubbed her temples. “I know. I just want to know why you have those orders,” she replaced her spectacles, “and who gave them.”
“I don't think it takes a genius to figure that one out,” Marty intoned. His gaze was fixated on the Devil's Eye, still shining electric blue so far away. But distance made no difference. Its light touched them even out here, on the fringes of the Upper Levels of Hell. “Joe's reputation is deserved.”
“Marty,” Nigel warned, his voice was taut.
Marty rolled his eyes, but, facing away from Nigel, the other man couldn't see. “It's true cariño. Don't act like I'm spilling secrets. It's the first rule of Hell remember? Don't. Cross. Joe. And why shouldn't it be?”
Nigel's expression tightened, and he dropped his cigarette to be crushed under his boot. “He's not worth crossing.”
“Ay but he's no less scary for it, cariño,” Marty countered. “He's a piece of shit but he didn't get that reputation by sitting around and playing nice with the other kids. He's the Devil-in-Absentia. He's got the whole of Hell in the palm of his hand.”
“He's got the Ups in the palm of his hand,” Nigel corrected darkly.
“I'm not so sure it is just the Ups,” Marty answered, pivoting his chair to face him. His expression was perturbed, but sincere. “I mean that, Nigel. I don't think it's just the Ups at his feet. The Lows—”
“Belong to the Devil,” Nigel interrupted.
“But who does the Devil belong to?” Marty argued, growing emphatic. “Who's to say the Devil even exists? Have you ever seen him? Known anybody that has? You've been here fifteen years, Nigel—you ever even smelled so much as a whiff of the hide of the Great Bringer of Light?”
“No,” Nigel said squarely. “Because I've never been to the Lows and I pray to God that I never will. What's the great mystery, Marty? What's so hard to know? Joe runs the Ups, the Devil runs the Lows. It's that simple.”
“It's not that simple,” Minnie murmured.
Both men turned to her with surprise. She wondered if they'd forgotten her existence.
“If it were that simple, then what you folks do at the Wall would make no sense for anyone at all,” she continued. “It's the zip I don't get. And the contracts. They're related of course,” she was speaking now more to herself, pacing again. “One-third, one-half, one-whole. Who pledges so much of their own life-force? Who can afford to? And how can they afford it?”
“Now you're asking the right questions, Min,” Marty said, his gaze approving. Nigel, meanwhile, had one hand over his mouth, rigid and nervous. “And what about the no-shifters?” Marty continued. “And the houses? Who gets to stay in that diabolical high-rise while we spend our time working and eking out an existence beneath abandoned overpasses and filthy alleyways?”
“And where does Penelope fit in to all this? What about her contract?” Minnie said, only too late realizing that she should've kept her mouth shut.
“Her contract?” Marty frowned. “What about it?”
“Oh, Pete's sake, Minerva,” Minnie scolded herself the same way that her mother used to scold her. She turned back to Marty and Nigel, hands on her hips, and gave a great sigh. “I suppose it's no good keeping it from you now. I'm already losing the support of my other friends. I'd sure appreciate some new advice on the subject.”
“Whatever you have to say, we'll listen,” Marty said.
Nigel nodded, hand still drumming the side of his cheek. “Go on, Minnie.”
She brought them up to speed—about her secret outing with Penelope, about her contract, about Bonnie and Anne's help.
Nigel was shaking by the time she was done.
“It ain't right,” he choked. He still had one hand over his mouth, elbows tight to his sides. “Minnie what you're doing ain't right.”
Minnie frowned, surprised at his lack of support. “I know it's foolish to go against Joe, but if it's to help Miss Gaber—”
“It's to help nobody,” Nigel snapped. He let out a heated breath and turned from them, arms clenched at his sides.
Marty was looking at him with almost as much surprise as Minnie. “Cálmate cariño it's not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Nigel rounded. His voice quivered, his hands shook. “She's goin' up against Big Joe! Against the Devil-in-Absentia! And it's about his girl, Marty, his girl!” He turned to Minnie now, his words a plea, “You know what'll happen don't you? You'll get Slammed! Like that poor fiddler at the Promenade. Only it'll be Joe himself dragging you away. You know what it's like to get Slammed?”
Minnie shook her head.
“It's called the Slammer because it crushes you,” Nigel said, impassioned. “Between two giant cylinders of solid cold steel, your spectral body is crushed over and over and over again until they squeeze every last bit of zip outta you and you're nothin' more than an empty husk of goo. Splat. A stain on the floor. Dissipation is kinder. What we do on the Wall is kinder.”
Minnie's skin crawled. She could almost feel her own zip oozing out of her at the thought. Her breath came fast, her fingers twitched. She looked away from Nigel's earnest gaze, and fixed her eyes on the marigolds growing beneath the cracks.
“How do you know this, Nigel?” it was Marty who spoke, breathy. He wheeled up to them, his eyes locked with his beau's. “You speak as if you've seen it.”
Nigel broke his gaze, “I knew a man, once.”
Marty only shook his head, mouth open as if with awe, “No, no you couldn't have. You've seen it, haven't you?”
Nigel's shoulders slumped, and he scratched the back of his hair with one large hand. “Yeah, I've seen it. But God help me I wish I never did.”
“I don't understand,” Minnie frowned. “You couldn't survive a Slamming. No one could.”
“Zone 0 wasn't my first assignment,” the soldier said heavily. He sat down on the arm of Marty's chair. He was quiet a moment, his arms resting on top of his knees as he hunched over. “The Slammer was. I was an operator.”
“Cariño,” Marty placed a hand on his shoulder, but Nigel shrunk away.
“I don't need your sympathy, Marty,” he said. His gaze hardened, “It was only a year. But I'll never forget it. Once, twice, sometimes three times a day,” he shook his head, and didn't go on. “I never can forget it. Sold two-thirds of my zip just to get away.”
Minnie expected anger on Marty's part. She expected bickering for the lies that Nigel must have told and the truths he must have concealed to keep such a thing from him all these years, but the man in the chair was strangely silent. He put his hand in his as they waited for the bus to arrive, and when it finally did, it was as if the entire incident had never happened. They made short conversation as the bus brought them back into the city, and by the time they neared the underpass art studio, the Devil's Eye had changed from blue to red.
They shuffled down to the recessed area next to the boiling river. Marty went without word to release the tarp over his canvas, while Minnie and Nigel came with slow gait to sit beside him.
“So you won't help me,” Minnie at last resumed the subject. She'd done a lot of thinking on that bus. A great scale weighed the options in her mind. On the one side, there was cowardice and fear, safety and the comfort of knowing exactly what each day in Hell in would bring—shift in and shift out, round after round, always the same. It wasn't so bad, and it was a hefty weight of its own. But opposite that slow death of predictability sat another kind of fear, a terror of a different sort. It was the kind of fear that made Minnie want to run fast and swift into danger, the kind that made her want to take Penelope's hand in hers and never let it go. That kind of fear did not paralyze her; it propelled her. It made her legs strong and her heart race and her mind clear—but only if she let it. Only if she opened herself up to the possibility that she was running headlong into an untimely doom. But maybe she wasn't. Maybe she could leap over that pit and land safely with Miss Gaber on the other side.
Nigel looked at her, weary, “I'm not too sure how I can help.”
Pleased that he hadn't flat-out refused, Minnie reached out and squeezed the back of his hand, “Answer one more question for me,” she said. “About the Slammer. And then I promise, I won't come bothering you about it ever again.”
Nigel's smile was bittersweet, “I can only beg you so many times to let sleeping dogs lie, Miss Minnie.”
Minnie shook her head. She felt more confident now than ever before. Something about his opposition made her stronger. He was trying to warn her from a danger that Minnie just couldn't turn herself away from. And then there was Marty, watching their exchange with an unreadable expression. He seemed to be on Minnie's side, although he was reluctant to say as much in front of his beau.
“I can't do that, Nigel,” she said. “I need to know. For Penelope's sake. And for mine.”
The soldier sat back and gave a sigh of defeat, “Alright then. But don't say I didn't warn you. What is it you wanted to know?”
“Just this,” Minnie hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “When they bring somebody to the Slammer, and they,” she gulped, “slam the zip out of them. What do they do with it afterwards?”
“The zip?” Nigel said.
She nodded.
Nigel shook his head, “I couldn't tell you. A man would come and sweep it up and take it away.”
“Take it away how?” It was Marty who asked this time, looking over from his chair with a frown.
Nigel turned to him, “In a container. Like the vats on our rifles.”
Marty's frown grew, “Then I'm sure they're taken to the same place.” He locked eyes with him. “You know where Schmidt and the others take the vats of zip from from the Wall, don't you?”
He shook his head.
“To the Scraper,” Marty said. “To Big Joe.”
Nigel blanched, his skin going ashen, but he soon recovered. “How do you know that?” he asked, then continued darkly. “And why shouldn't it?”
“How I know is my own business,” Marty answered, “and why should it go to Joe?” There was passion in his voice now, and he regarded Nigel in anger. “Zip from the contracts I understand, but why does he get the zip from the kids who try to cross the Desert of the Dying before their time?”
“Because he owns the Ups,” Nigel replied, heated now himself. “Why does it need to be anything more than that?”
“Because it's not right,” Marty cried. He rolled up to him and looked Nigel square in the face. “It's not right, cariño,” he repeated. “And you know it.”
“Knowing is enough,” Nigel countered. “For me at least.”
“Then speak for yourself, and don't try to stop me—or Minnie—from getting to the bottom of this,” Marty snapped.
“I wasn't gonna stop either one of you!” Nigel cried.
“Like hell you weren't—”
“Gentlemen,” Minnie forced her way between them, arms held out. Marty rolled back, and both men looked at her, mouths still open as if to argue. Summoning the stern look she reserved for her students, Minnie stared them down, undaunted. “I'll have no more rowdy behavior tonight, understood? Fighting amongst ourselves won't do us any good besides. We all have a lot on our minds,” she continued, easing her arms down, “and I'm sure we'd all benefit from a little peace and quiet.”
Marty looked between her and Nigel for a moment before wheeling back to his painting with a snap. “Fine,” he said, gruff. He grabbed his pallet, “I need some time to think,” and he began to mix his paint, knife thwacking loud and harsh against the wood as he worked.
Minnie turned to Nigel, who looked both sad and relieved that their argument had come to an end. He looked up at her from where he sat.
“Thanks, Min,” he mumbled.
“Don't thank me just yet,” she frowned. “I'm afraid you'll only have to eat your words. I feel like a cat with a ball of yarn. I just have to tear the whole thing apart until I find the string in the middle. And Lord help me when I do.”
Nigel nodded, “And far be it from me to stop you. Just remember what I said, Min,” his eyes were large and imploring, almost tender. “You're a nice girl. Don't let this place change you.”
Minnie returned his gaze sadly, “It's too late for that, Nigel. I think it already has.”
Nigel looked at her, stunned, for a moment, then shook his head, and gave her a floundering smile, “Well golly what a shame.”
“Not for me,” she said quietly. “But it will be for someone else.”
And with that, she gave the soldier a pat on the arm and stalked off into the night, heart heavy, and mind alive with the electric whir of sudden purpose.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Finding Penelope's contract was more pertinent now than ever before. It was her only lead in the mystery that Minnie had been itching to unravel, and her only means of following the trail of zip that seemed to stretch from the runners at the Wall to the strung-out hellions in the Slammer, all the way up to Big Joe himself. Who better to rat him out than Penelope? But the Bewitchin' Egyptian's lips were sealed behind the unknown words of the contract she'd signed over a decade ago, and the only way to let her sing like a canary was to find the thing and find herself a way out of it. There was no telling what Penelope would reveal once she was free to do and say as she pleased, not to mention, how grateful she would be. Minnie could save her idol from Joe's grip and rid the Upper Levels of Hell from all its injustices in one fell swoop.
She just needed to find that contract first.
Lady Anne continued her halfhearted attempts to occupy Gesh, keeping the demon busy while Minnie searched the GA contracts at her desk. Bonnie tried to join in, but her wiles were now completely wasted on the demon, who'd lost all interest in her after her post-drunken stupor had spoiled his fun. Undeterred, Minnie grew bolder in her search. She grabbed armfuls of GA contracts from the towering cabinets at the back, only hiding them from Gesh and her coworkers when absolutely necessary. This caused no small amount of anxiety for Minnie, but the thought of success spurred her on. She sped through the contracts, barely making quota for the work she was supposed to be doing in addition to the work she was sneaking-in, check-marking files with her pen at a rapid pace that would surely be impossible to maintain.
Shifts passed. The Devil's Eye rotated and shuttered, and at the end of the eleventh shift after her visit to the Wall, Minnie had reviewed each and every contract for participants whose last name started with GA.
And Miss Penelope Gaber's was not one of them.
“Maybe you made some sorta mistake,” Bonnie consoled her after their shift. Minnie trudged down the avenue between her and Anne, spirits low.
“Perhaps you missed it,” Anne supplied.
Minnie shook her head, “I spent the last thirteen years of my life scanning newspapers and magazine articles for any mention of the name Gaber. I wouldn't have just missed it.” Her mind was racing. Her fingers twitched. What had she done wrong? And what in the world would she do now? She'd failed her. She'd failed Penelope.
“Well I'm sure we'll think of something,” Bonnie said as they rounded the corner to the six-road intersection. “But it'll have to be another time.”
Minnie frowned, “Why, where are you off to?”
“To see a man about a tennis racket,” she explained, adjusting her hat and the hem of her dress. She turned and gave a lovely grin. “How do I look?”
“Swell,” Minnie answered, unsure at first how her appearance had any bearing on this man and his tennis racket.
Anne glowered. “Unable to restrain your use of zip, you turn to abstracting favors from the well-endowed gentlemen who would humor your tiresome presence,” she tutted. “Miss Yi that is most unbecoming.”
“Aiyah, lighten up, Annie,” Bonnie replied. “System's rigged anyway. Tennis rackets go for three-fourths at the cheapest and I'm dyin' to play a set.” She giggled at her own joke, then set off into the crowd. “Don't have too much fun without me!”
Minnie and Anne watched as she disappeared down the southernmost road. Anne shook her head, “I don't know where she gets these notions from.”
“I didn't know she played,” Minnie returned. She preferred to reserve her judgment for someone who might actually deserve it. Bonnie reminded Minnie too much of her own sister to share in Lady Anne's distaste.
“Tennis? Oh yes, she was quite the rage at the San Francisco Women's Tennis Club,” Lady Anne sniffed, as if such a thing were beneath her. “Her family shared my opinion of the matter, however, and they made her enthusiasm for the sport ever more difficult to maintain. They found it unseemly and, well, it is unseemly, isn't it, Miss McCloud?”
Minnie didn't miss a beat, “No more unseemly than when the men play it, to my mind.”
Lady Anne blushed, and she cleared her throat. “You may have a point,” her tone was contrite. She seemed to contemplate the flow of the crowd into which their friend had disappeared. “Perhaps if Miss Yi is successful in obtaining her racket, we may go and watch her play. I hear there are courts in Zone 21.”
