7. Falling in with the Fallen in the Fall

There was a lot of Santana: too much of it was the later stuff. I waited to see if some Merengue would get played or maybe even some old fashioned Mambo, but the only other choice on offer was Reggaeton. The skinny runt on the mike got ‘Puta’ out six times before the guitar player touched the wah-wah and I took a pass. Besides, it had started to rain.

I like flowers as much as the next wingéd messenger, but sometimes I think rain is too high a price to pay. Of course, it never rains in 3rd or any of the other six heavens, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain. Maybe the Fallen are used to it, they must have acclimatized since the beginning of time, huh? I wondered when it would be time to eat again. It wasn’t exactly hunger, of course. I was bored. Maybe it would have been better to put the hurry up on Senator Buckfast, but what was done was done.

After walking a few miles back towards the Capitol area, I flagged down a cab and told the guy to get me to Arlington Boulevard, Falls Church. Azazael was going to take a drink with me and he was going to talk. He owed me some information, like how the CBI had found me in the hotel across the boulevard from his bar. The cab dropped me off at Mr Deeds and I gave the driver a ten-dollar tip. He didn’t even say ‘shukhran’. I wished I could pull off Mr D’s trick with the doubloons. The driver would only have got himself arrested, trying to move them on and it would have served him right.

Mr Deeds is a long open room. The bar itself is an island surrounded by a sea of empty tables waiting for guys who think a lobster dinner or a steak is enough to get a girl to put out. Said bar is rectangular, with a top-shelf display of liquor and liqueurs that has four sides: two short and two long. Azazael’s speciality is a Four Corners; a shot from whatever bottle is on each corner. Since the other staff are itinerant women from South Carolina or guys whose tips pay the insurance on the Corvette or Mustang their older lady friends gave them, any old hooch could turn up at the four corners and, of course, in your drink.

The clock showed a quarter after six, so I guessed it was sometime between five and seven. Two or three truck drivers stood at one long side of the bar; they’d enough stools between them to discourage conversation about driving string beans to Utah. On the opposite side two women were losing the battle with their stools over how much leg their skirts ought to show. I walked to the short side furthest into the bar, where the light was dimmer and Azazael was polishing glasses that hadn’t been more than dusty in a long time.

‘Gabe,’ he stopped polishing and waited.

‘A Four Corners.’

He shouted over his left shoulder and one of the South Carolinians shouted back,

‘Clown’s Cocktail, coming up.’

Azazael smiled like a goat with indigestion.

‘I didn’t know you called it that,’ I said.

He started polishing again,

‘Neither did I.

The glass rattled on the copper of the counter.

‘What else?’

‘CBI. Over the road. Kind of unexpected, since I didn’t know I was going there myself until you showed me the door.’

‘Big Brother is watching you.’

The fallen angel draped the dish towel over his shoulder. He stretched his back and neck as though he still had wings to furl.

‘No, he isnt, and neither is the Almighty. Maybe he can know everything, but why would anybody want to?’

Azazael let out a sigh, I caught a whiff of sulphur.

‘Word came down to look out for you.’

‘Came down?’

I watched his eyes shift to the side.

‘Yeah, down.’

The drink arrived, it was the colour of mud. Carrie from Carolina was chewing gum with her mouth open and I could see right to the back of her empty head. I took a sip.

Why was Heaven contacting the Fallen for help to find me? Maybe I’d have to ask the Devil for his opinion. Meanwhile I ordered another Clown’s Cocktail because I liked the new name.