Chapters (60)
- DAW Books Presents
- HAPPY HOURINHELL
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- prologue
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- interlude
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- interlude
- thirteen
- fourteen
- interlude
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- interlude
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- epilogue
I had, and with Sam gone my choices were limited. I could have talked to Monica but, as I’ve said, that’s a little dodgy for me right now. I had settled on Clarence the Rookie Angel because I was thinking of tapping him for a favor, and he had connections in the Hall of Records upstairs. But now that I was sitting there peering over my omelette at his alert, scrubbed face, I wasn’t so sure. Talking to the kid about anything complicated usually felt like trying to discuss hangovers with a Mormon missionary: What you got was a combination of ignorance and disapproval. Plus, though the kid undoubtedly thought he was doing the right thing, I hadn’t forgiven him for working undercover for our bosses to bust my pal Sam. He might have thought he was doing the right thing, and he might be having second thoughts about it now, but I wasn’t certain I was ever going to shed that grudge.
He tried again. “Is it about Walter Sanders getting stabbed? Wow, that was crazy! Right in front of the Compasses! I heard you were there.”
“Oh, yeah. I was there.”
“Scary. But he’ll be okay. They’ll reprocess him, and he’ll be back good as new. You know that as well as anyone, Bobby.”
Because it had happened to me. And I also knew that reprocessing wasn’t the jaunt in the park he seemed to think it was. “To be honest, Clarence my man, I’m not worrying about Walter. I’m worrying about me.”
He frowned at the nickname, which he hated. His true name was Haraheliel, and our bosses had given him the Earth name “Harrison Ely,” but Sam had dubbed him Clarence after the movie angel, and now everybody at the Compasses called him that. “I don’t understand. Do you think the mugger meant to get you instead?”
“Oh, I can practically guarantee it. See, I recognized him.”
“Somebody with a grudge against you?”
“Maybe. But that’s not why I think he was after me.” I took another drink but the Bloody Mary tasted metallic now, and I put it down and suppressed a sigh. I was going to have to file a report on it anyway, but I felt a need to share it with someone or something other than the glaring, emotionless light of Heaven. My first choice would have been Sam, but Sam wasn’t available to me anymore—and, man, did I miss him.
“Okay,” I began, “so this started back in the ’70s—”
“Hold on.” Clarence gave me that serious junior angel look that always made me want to smack him. “You’ve only been an angel since the ’90s, Bobby. You told me.”
“Kid, shut up. Shut up and listen.”