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
And that was the problem: I didn’t know. As far as I could tell, Grand Duke Eligor had just decided he didn’t want to wait until I made it to Hell the usual way—he was sending me an express invitation. “It’s got to be Eligor trying to get me, right? You and I saw the bagmen take Smyler. Leo burned him! How else could he be after me now?”
“Yeah, somebody powerful does seem to have it in for you. What happened to Walter Sanders, by the way?”
“He’s still not back yet. No news. Which now that you mention it is pretty strange.”
Sam had a last paratha, ladling up the curry sauce like a canal dredger, then polished off his ginger ale. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
We walked to Peers Park, then settled on a bench. The lights were on and the park was full of parents and kids enjoying the spring evening, which made me feel slightly less vulnerable to being attacked by a twice-dead guy with a bayonet, but Sam himself was on Heaven’s Most Wanted List, so I wasn’t exactly relaxed.
“Okay, first off,” Sam said as we watched a guy trying to get his obviously brain-damaged dog to fetch a tennis ball, “only a butt-hat says, ‘my enemies are trying to kill me, so I’d better make it easier for them by going over to their place.’ Trying to sneak into Hell is the dumbest thing you’ve ever thought of in a career of pretty amazingly stupid things, Bobby. You know that, right?”
“I don’t know what else I can do, Sam. I can’t just leave her there. And it’s not like Eligor’s willing to leave me alone either. Obviously.”
He grunted, the Sam Riley version of a long-suffering sigh. “Knew you’d say that. But how would you get in there? Or get her out of there? Shit, even if a whole pile of miracles sort of happened one on top of the other, and you actually got away with it, where would you hide her from Eligor once she’s out?”
“Yeah, I admit there’s a ton of questions. I was kind of hoping you might help out with some of them.”
He grunted again. It was like sitting next to a hippo wallow. “Man, you’re way out of my area of expertise here. But we agree that Bobby Dollar walking into Hell is a stupid idea, don’t we? Good. Because you wouldn’t last ten seconds.”
“What about the bodies you have access to? You Third Way guys?”