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
The residents of the Compasses lined up to say goodbye like Sam was visiting royalty. They made him promise not to be a stranger and reminded him of several upcoming events that, in other times, he would have been part of. Sam laughed and promised he’d do his best to make each and every one. That part was a lie too, but I think most of the angels knew that. They might not have had any idea of the true reason, but Sam’s return had the distinct air of someone who had moved on—who was only back for a visit.
As soon as we got outside, I was up in his face. “What are you doing here, man? Really? You’re just going to waltz in like nothing’s wrong? What if Clarence had been there? He would have tried to arrest you again.”
“I knew he wasn’t there. As for me showing up at all, well, think of it as my plan to keep our bosses guessing.”
“What do you mean, ‘our bosses’? You’re on the Enemies List, remember?”
Sam looked up and down Main Street. “You know, I wasn’t making that up about being hungry. I’m starved. One thing about living in a pocket universe and not wearing a mortal body most of the time, you get really nostalgic for food. Is that Korean place on the edge of Spanishtown still open late?”
“Bee Bim Bop? Yeah, I think so.”
We got there and found a small line of hipsters blocking the door, but it didn’t take too long to get a table, even on a Friday night. I had rediscovered beer since I had returned from you-know-where—that was one of the things I had been thinking about the whole time, how good a cold beer would taste instead of one of the weird root-based drinks they served up in Hell. Hellbeer might get you shitfaced even quicker than the earthly stuff, but it was about as refreshing as drinking lukewarm bathwater after a fat guy’s gotten out of it.
I ordered a bowl of the stuff the restaurant’s named after, rice and shredded meat and fried egg. Sam had his usual order of inexplicable soup, followed by several kinds of hot, spicy stuff, and we mostly concentrated on eating and drinking—tea, in Sam’s case. By the time I was working on my second beer I finally felt ready to talk, so I started with my meeting at the Museum of Industry with Temuel, then gave him the rest of it—abridged, of course, or we would have been there for days.
“Well, B, I don’t want to say ‘I told you so,’ so I’ll just say, ‘What a dumbshit,’ instead.” He shook his head. “I did try to tell you not to go there, though.”