Escape From Hell Read online

  Minos sat across the room. He didn’t look different at all. Approaching him was a group of five robed men. Not my followers, but they’d been part of the crowd around me when I found my shape again in the Vestibule. Rosemary waved to them. They ignored us and pushed past, going up to Minos in a group.

  Minos looked me in the eye and grinned. “Why do you not seek my judgment, Rosemary Bennett?”

  “Oh, God,” Rosemary said.

  Minos turned to the men in front of him. “Speak.”

  “I’m Armand Letrois!” He was tall, dark hair silver at the temples, distinguished. Like all of us he was wearing a shapeless robe, but it would have been easy to imagine him in a frock coat and string tie. “From New Orleans! I was a politician, I had connections, I got appointed to the Levee Board. It was my job to oversee inspections of the levees, be sure that the engineers were doing their jobs, that no one was taking bribes to do shoddy work. Without the levees the city would be underwater. Most of it, anyway. Not my house. But most of it.”

  “Leroy Thompkins!” the second man shouted. He was a black man. I pictured him in a dark suit and subdued tie. “New Orleans, Levee Board. My house was lower than Armand’s, my house was below sea level. I had good reason to make sure the levees were strong!”

  “Ben Reynolds! New Orleans Levee Board!”

  “Harry Passions!”

  I didn’t catch the fifth man’s name, but he was on the Levee Board, too.

  “We never did the inspections,” Armand Letrois shouted. “We’d go out on a motorboat and cruise through Lake Ponchartrain and the Industrial Canal, then go have lunch and talk about the weather. We did that for years. The engineers told us everything was all right! They did!”

  “The hurricane was coming,” Leroy Thompkins shouted. “We didn’t know the levees were in danger —”

  “But we didn’t know they were safe, either,” the fifth man shouted. “And we got scared. We took our families and ran —”

  “All but me,” Ben Reynolds said. “I was still trying to shore up my house, and I drowned.”

  “And the rest of us died in our time, and woke up in the Vestibule,” Armand Letrois said. “Found each other. Chased the banners. Then that man” — he turned to point at me — “said we could get out of Hell. We ran with him for a while, but he was turning circles. We’ve all done that. We never made any commitments in our lives, but we were committed now, we wanted out of Hell!”

  “So we’re here,” Harry Passions said.

  “The levees were in your care, but you did nothing. You lawyers have a phrase for it,” Minos said. “Depraved indifference. Was it not enough that you were spared punishment?”

  “We were — we were unhappy in the Vestibule,” Armand Letrois said.

  Minos chuckled. It was a horrible sound. “Many are. You have asked for judgment, and judgment you shall have.” His tail whipped out to wrap around all five of them.

  “Eight coils,” I said.

  “What does that mean?” Rosemary demanded.

  “Eighth Circle. Fraud. Into the pitch?” I didn’t want to watch this, and I pulled Rosemary away into another room.

  This room was smaller than the other two we’d been in. It had more rose color in the wall decorations. Minos was questioning a large dark woman in a wildly colored robe.

  “Into the pitch,” Minos said as we came in. “Astute of you, Carpenter. Frauds, grafters, every one of them. Where else should they go?”

  “Easy for you to say. I have to try to get them out!” I shouted.

  Again the horrid sound, half human laugh, half bellow. “I cannot prevent you from trying,” Minos said. “Good luck. Not you, Eloise, you’re for the Fourth Bolgia. I bet you saw that coming.” The large woman wailed.

  “Allen, I’m scared,” Rosemary said. “I — they were friends. As much friends as anyone could have here.”

  “You knew them in New Orleans? You don’t sound like you come from there.”

  “No, I came from Texas,” she said. “I moved to New Orleans with my husband. But I knew all five of them, they were nice people, good company. We’d have lunch with them sometimes. On Thursdays, the inspection day. We’d have lunch in the Pickwick Club, and then go play golf.”

  “Didn’t you know they weren’t inspecting the levees?”

  “Of course I knew. Everyone knew,” Rosemary said. “The kids in the schools knew. Allen, it was New Orleans, the Big Easy, let the good times roll.”

  “So you didn’t care?”

  “Oh, I guess I cared, I thought someone ought to be inspecting those levees. You looked up to see the ships in the canals. But Armand said the engineers would take care of it.”

  “So you didn’t care much.” There wasn’t any way out past Minos in this room. I knew there were rooms where you could just walk past him and I pulled Rosemary along looking for one.

  “I wanted to be a lawyer and a mother and a wife,” she babbled. “I was all of that, Allen, like in all the books and magazines, but I wasn’t quite good enough at any of it. Roy was unhappy. He had to spend too much time with the kids, covering for me. At work the paper kept piling up. I was good at my work, but I never quite caught up at anything.”

  I asked, seriously, “You want to tell Minos?”

  “He won’t let me out, will he?”

  “No.”

  Every room was different from the last one, but it was always the same Minos, usually grinning at me, looking like a cartoon of a man–like bull, but menacing.

  I remembered that Benito had commanded Minos. I wondered where he got the authority. Maybe he just made it up. It was something to try, anyway.

  “Roger,” Rosemary said. “Roger Hastings.”

  “Rosemary!” Thick New Orleans drawl. Middle–aged, a little dumpy but not really fat. Ordinary looking. Roger tried to grin, but he was too scared. “But you’ve been dead a long time! I just got here. Were you waiting for me?”

  “No, Roger, I was never waiting for you. I haven’t thought about you since — since I died.”

  “I thought you liked me.”

  “Roger, you were my supervisor in the prosecutor’s office. I had to pretend. It was that or file a sexual harassment suit against you. That’s what I should have done.”

  Roger looked crestfallen. Minos glared at him. “Speak.”

  It didn’t take long. Roger was a philanderer. He must have nailed every woman and girl in his office with the possible exception of Rosemary. I looked at her, she looked back at me and shrugged.

  “None of them complained,” Roger was protesting as Minos’s tail wound about him. Two turns, and Minos’s tail lifted and stretched and Roger was off down the hill. I thought I’d gone crazy, the first time I’d seen Minos’s tail stretch like that. Rosemary gaped, then ran, pulling me along.

  The next room only had three walls. The fourth was a line of the peculiar top–heavy pillars and a view down, down. Rosemary shrank back from a varied stepscape of desolation and smoke. Minos glanced up at us from a large family of possible gypsies.

  There was space between the throne and the steps down. I led Rosemary that way.

  “Will you not be judged, Rosemary Bennett?” Minos demanded.

  “No!”

  “And you, Allen Carpenter?”

  “I’ve already told you. No. You have no authority over either of us.”

  Minos chuckled. “So Benito told you. What else did you learn from him?”

  “I learned the way out!” I hesitated. “Don’t you want out of this place? Who are you? You’re not a fallen angel. Why do you serve God in Hell?”

  “It is service and a duty,” Minos said. “Not perhaps the duty I would have chosen, but I obey. Carpenter, I sent you forth unjudged once before. Is that again your wish?”

  “Yes. But first I have to know. Billy. You might not remember him. He was with Benito and me when we were trying to get over the ruined bridge, when you took him away.”

  “I remember every case that
has come before me,” Minos said petulantly. “It is not often that I must judge someone twice, but it happens. Your friend William Bonney was no longer a mere lover of violence. He had discovered a cause. Your cause, Allen Carpenter. And for that he would kill.”

  “So you scooped him up. Were you afraid I might cause a rebellion in Hell?”

  “Afraid? No. It would hardly be the first time, you know. There was once war in Heaven itself. No, Allen, I took your friend because he was not ready to complete his journey.”

  “And I was?”

  “You were not under my jurisdiction.”

  “Who decides that?”

  Minos ignored my question. “Your friend had earned his release from Phlegethon. He is now in a place appropriate to his present state.”

  “Where?”

  “You will learn when it is time for you to learn. I presume you intend to continue this folly.” Minos’s tail reached out suggestively. “I can place you anywhere you like.”

  “No. Thank you. We need to see all the circles.”

  “You have taken up a vast burden, Allen Carpenter. Do you know its extent?”

  “No. But I have to try.”

  “Try then. Once more, go. Thou art sent.”

  He’d said that the last time I set out down the marble steps into the bowl of Hell. But last time he’d been laughing.

  Chapter 7

  Second Circle

  The Winds

  * * *

  I came upon a place mute of all light,

  Which bellows as the sea does in a tempest;

  If by opposing winds ‘tis combated.

  The infernal hurricane that never rests

  Hurtles the spirits onward in its rapine

  Whirling them round, and smiting, it molests them.

  “The winds began almost as soon as we’d left the palace. First they were strong. Then it looked like a Kansas tornado that had picked up debris. Only it wasn’t debris. The winds were carrying people.”

  “Cleopatra,” Sylvia said.

  “Cleopatra?”

  “Did you see her? Dante put her there in the winds. And Dido, too!” Her voice got formal as she recited.

  The other is Dido; faithless to the ashes

  Of Sicheus, she killed herself for love.

  The next whom the eternal tempest lashes

  Is sense–drugged Cleopatra.

  “Allen, they were suicides! Why were they in the Winds, when I’m down here rooted like a tree?”

  “You said it yourself. She killed herself for love.”

  “And I didn’t? No, I guess I didn’t. More like hate. Or spite.”

  “Anyway, we didn’t see any Cleopatra. I kept looking for Corbett, but I didn’t find him.”

  “Corbett? Oh. The pilot of your glider.”

  “Yeah, that’s him. We lost him down by the Flatterers. He just wouldn’t go any further down.”

  “Why, Allen?”

  “Disgusted. And maybe he was sure the punishments were too much for the crimes. Sins. I didn’t really blame him. If I hadn’t promised Benito I’d go with him to the end, I’d probably have tried to get back uphill. Better to chase banners than what I was seeing. But if Corbett made it back to the Winds, I didn’t see him.”

  “Allen, if the Winds have all the philanderers since the beginning of time, how in the world would you expect to see any one of them?”

  “Well, I saw Elena Robinson.”

  “Um?”

  “I knew her. Dante saw mostly Italians,” I said. “Benito and I saw mostly Americans. I’ve seen a lot of people I knew, far too many for coincidence.”

  “You think someone is directing your travels? Arranging who you meet?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “That may explain something.”

  “Explain what?”

  “Allen, think about it. Who do you expect to see in Hell?”

  I was puzzled for a moment, but it came to me. “The great sinners? The famous ones?”

  “Dante certainly did,” Sylvia said. “But you don’t.”

  “Well, I saw some famous people!”

  “Among the Virtuous Pagans, but even there nowhere as many as Dante met.”

  “So someone is guiding my travels.”

  “Mmm–hmm. I think it’s likely,” Sylvia said. “After all, you’ve been chosen. You’re my Sign.”

  “Lot of good that does you.”

  “You’re here. I can talk to you. It’s better than being a dumb tree. Now tell me more about the Winds.”

  • • •

  The Winds were fierce, even near the ground. Rosemary and I crossed hugging the rocks, feeling for handholds and toeholds. Her long, dark hair whipped in the wind, torn loose from its neat braid. There was a musty smell, not entirely unpleasant but too much of it. A smell of bedrooms and sweat.

  The Winds got stronger. There was a whirlwind coming directly toward us. “Look out! Hold on!” I shouted.

  The whirlwind surrounded us, then we were in the eye and there was no wind at all. A stocky man in Edwardian clothes hovered in front of us. He had the kind of mustache you see on villains in a melodrama, black handlebar with twisted ends. He paid no attention to me at all.

  “Welcome to the Winds, pretty lady.”

  Rosemary looked up with a frown. “Do I know you?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Frank Harris, at your service.”

  “Frank Harris?” I asked.

  “The same. You have heard of me, of course.”

  “I am sorry, no,” Rosemary said.

  “I have,” I said.

  There was a young lady of Paris

  Whom nothing could ever embarrass

  Until one fine day

  In a sidewalk café

  She abruptly ran into Frank Harris.

  Rosemary looked puzzled.

  “He was well known,” I told her. “Oscar Wilde said he’d been invited to all the best houses in Europe. Once.”

  Frank laughed. “Indeed. Stay watchful, I am certain you will see Oscar,” he said. “If you’d care to join me, pretty lady, you must be quick about it. I can’t control this wind for long.”

  Four women, one teenage and the rest older, whirled around us in a furious circle. Frank moved slightly, moving the center of the eye, and a blast caught me, nearly tearing me loose from my rock.

  Frank was the tour guide. He kept pointing out people as they whipped past. One of them was Oscar Wilde, but he didn’t stop to talk. Another was Simon Raven. He had his own little whirlwind with maybe a dozen others, men and women both. Frank and Simon Raven exchanged courteous greetings before Raven was whisked away.

  “You can leave this place,” I shouted. “I know the way out of Hell.”

  “Do you, now?” Frank asked.

  “All the way down. Did you ever read Dante?”

  “I did.”

  “He had the geography right.” I stared at Frank. “How did you get to be a tour guide? And who are your customers?”

  “People like you,” Frank said. “There are more of you, lately. So there’s a way out. I might give that a try, if I can find a replacement.”

  I thought about that. “Hugh Hefner’s got years to go,” I said.

  Frank’s laugh was big and infectious. “I have heard of him. Many times. He must have wonderful stories. A worthy successor! Hang on!”

  The warning was just in time. When Frank moved on the Winds came back. We crawled downhill.

  The damned streamed above us in ribbons and clusters. Some of what I heard was certainly screams, but I heard laughter, too.

  “I was flighty in college,” Rosemary said. “I slept with a dozen boys, maybe more, once with two of them at once. I’m scared of this place.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “But it bothers me. If dalliance is sin enough to put you in this circle of Hell, why aren’t we here?”

  “Because we didn’t think it mattered that much?” Rosemary said. “Only now we know it does.”<
br />
  “Maybe you’ve got it,” I said. I wasn’t sure at all, but I had every reason to be afraid of the place where the carnal were punished. One commentator I’d read said it was the place for those who had betrayed reason to their appetites. That was a fair description of periods of my life. Why wasn’t I in the Winds? But then why wasn’t just about every man I’d ever known?

  “Were those homosexuals?” Rosemary demanded. She was pointing to a group, all male, of ages from adolescent to elderly, being whirled around in an odd dance that coupled them by twos and threes, then whipped them around to new partners.

  “Beats me.” I didn’t recognize any of them. “Stay low to the ground. If the wind gets under you, you’ll be up there with the rest of them. There goes Frank again!”

  We crawled downhill. The musty smells grew stronger. Fading oranges, used bedsheets. Sweat. A whorl of human shapes spun near us, and one reached out of the dozen and had both fists in my hair and ears. I heard a woman’s laughter. I turned with some effort and saw mouse–brown hair, brown eyes, sharp nose. Trim, athletic build. Flexible, as I had good reason to know. But nothing of the beauty about her. “Elena!”

  “Hi! I don’t remember —”

  “Allen Carpentier. Carpenter. Listen, if you’ll crawl down and get a grip on some rock —”

  She tried: hands gripping my face, shoulders, arm. Rosemary pulled her down by the foot, and she had a grip. I asked, “Where’s Cameron?”

  “Not dead yet, I guess. Breast cancer got me. How’re you wandering loose?”

  “You can, too. Rosemary, this is Elena Robinson. Elena, we’re on our way out. Come along?”

  “Out of Hell?”

  “Yup. I know the way.”

  “I’d better wait for Cam. Wup!” And the wind was under her and she was away.

  Rosemary asked, “Old girlfriend?”

  I was trying to find her in the storm pattern. “Sort of. We’d meet at conventions. She slept with a lot of men. I knew her through three marriages. Cam, he slept around, too. Then one day Cam just damn well demanded they stop, and she bought it, and they quit cold. There were friends who couldn’t believe it. ‘You can’t mean me!’ But they did.”