I was holding my hand up to my ear. “I think it’s the phone.”
Her face creased up. “I can’t hear anything.”
“It’s all right, I’ll get it.” I made a lunge for the door handle. She screamed and tried to block me, but she wasn’t fast enough. I brushed her aside, flung open the door, and leapt into the house.
I ran down a short entrance hall and turned right. My initial course was set towards the room I had observed the previous night, but a faint sound made me change my course. It was footsteps, no doubt about it, heading deep into the interior of the house. I chased them through cavernous rooms and down corridors that never seemed to end. Gradually, the footsteps grew clearer. I was gaining on whomever it might be. Eventually, I rounded a corner, just in time to see a tall male figure in a dark suit disappearing through a door.
I raced across the room and opened the door, to be greeted by blackness. I took out my lighter and flicked it on. I was in a stairwell. The stairs only went one way, and in this case the only way was definitely not up. Down they spiralled, disappearing into the depths of who-knew-where. The sound of those footsteps echoed up from below, then quickly receded into nothing. I stood, debating with myself over whether or not I should follow them into the darkness. In the end, I didn’t make a decision either way. I didn’t need to.
A broad, heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I spun around and looked into two pairs of beady eyes. Funny thing about policemen. They say they’re never around when you need them.
“Well, well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” said Lizard Neck.
“Must be some sort of little crawling insect,” sneered Frying Pan.
“Well, I think this little insect has crawled into the spider’s web, and he can’t say we didn’t warn him.” Lizard Neck grabbed my arms and pulled them behind my back, where Frying Pan rather clumsily cuffed them. At that moment, Sally came into the room. The smile was back on the crocodile’s face.
“Well, Mr Clarenden,” she said. “You wanted to find out more about our wonderful police force. Now you’ve got your chance.”
“A bit well dressed for a plumber, don’t you think?” I said as the two cops dragged me out of the room.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was walking beside me, her hips swinging like a jazz band on a hot summer night.
“Sure you do. He was tall, dark, and handsome, but I didn’t see a plunger in his hand.”
The music stopped. She stood, stationary, her eyes blazing.
“You’re scum, Clarenden,” she hissed. “There’s no room in Heaven for people like you, and I’m going to make damn sure you get sent down to the place where you really belong.”
I turned to my two captors.
“Nice girl,” I said. “So, do you come here often?”
* * *
The cops walked me out of the house and down the hill to a low building that stood away from the other houses, right where the ground began to rise. On top of this building, a sign declared HPD Headquarters. I didn’t put up any resistance as they pushed me through the door. I was actually quite eager to get inside. I wanted to see exactly what went on at this Heavenly Police Department.
I’d been in plenty of police stations during my misspent youth and my even more misspent adulthood, so I had a pretty good idea of how they were supposed to look. They were working buildings, full of dirt and sweat and blood. They carried the threat of violence like a butcher carried a cleaver. In short, a police station had as much to do with an interior designer as a water buffalo had to do with a Savile Row tailor.
As soon as I walked into this police station, though, I could tell it was different. Maybe it was the thick carpet on the floor. Maybe it was the gleaming new furniture. Or perhaps it was the fresh pastel colour scheme on the walls and the ceiling. Whatever it was, it was clear that this was not a functioning police station. The whole place was a complete sham.
We walked over to an empty desk. Lizard Neck tried to throw me onto a chair, but as it was padded with a large, soft cushion, the effect was lost. Frying Pan bent down behind me and tried to undo the handcuffs. It took him a while. He obviously hadn’t had much practice.
While Frying Pan fumbled with his keys, Lizard Neck went and sat behind the desk. He spent a while rummaging through the desk drawers, and eventually he removed a number of sheets of paper. Then he sat back, affecting an expression that he must have thought was tough, but that actually looked more like he’d just ruptured a hernia.
“All right, name,” he barked.
“You know my name,” I said.
“Just give me your name, wise guy.”
“All right. My name is Robin Hood.”
Lizard Neck leaned forward and brought his eyes close to mine. “You better tell me your name, Jimmy Clarenden, or I’ll—”
“Don’t tell me. You’ll huff and you’ll puff and you’ll blow my house down.”
“Just listen to me, Clarenden,” roared Lizard Neck. “I’ve got jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, he’s got jurisdiction,” echoed Frying Pan from behind me.
I laughed. “You’ve got jurisdiction? You two wouldn’t know your jurisdiction if it showed up here with a big, shiny name badge. You wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it if it came with a step-by-step instruction manual.”
“We don’t have to take that from garbage like you,” growled Lizard Neck.
“You’ll take that and more,” I snapped. “Just what is it you’re supposed to be doing?”
“We are the official department in charge of law enforcement in all of Heaven,” huffed Lizard Neck, trying to sit up tall in his chair.
“Yeah, all of Heaven,” puffed Frying Pan.
“Must be a pretty dramatic, life-or-death sort of occupation, this law enforcement in Heaven. Must keep you both right on your toes. All that violence out on the mean streets. The shoot-outs. The car chases. You boys are a couple of real heroes.”
The two cops looked at each other. Conducting interviews had clearly not been part of their officer training. Seeing as how they had no idea what to say next, I decided to help them out by continuing.
“Don’t try to pretend that either of you has any real purpose. Heaven needs a police force like a giraffe needs a pogo stick. You’re here for some other reason. It’s a reason that has very little to do with law enforcement and very much to do with keeping whatever secrets are hidden inside that mansion on the hill. If I had any doubts about that, the speed with which you arrived just now put them to rest. So what’s the real story? What do you really do?”
“What we really do is this,” said Lizard Neck, standing up and walking towards me. “We take nosy punks that should know better and keep them closely looked after so they can’t go causing trouble for other people.”
Both cops then grabbed me again and threw me into a holding cell. As Frying Pan struggled to figure out how to lock it, Lizard Neck looked at me contemptuously.
“Because, despite what you might think, we actually do have plenty of stuff to do,” he said. “And we can’t go wasting our time with worthless trash like you.”
“I bet you’ve got plenty of stuff to do. Is there a holdup at the First National Bank of Heaven? Or perhaps you’ve got a kidnapping to investigate?” I said the last bit especially loudly, but I didn’t get a chance to see a reaction. Frying Pan finally figured out how the lock worked, and at that exact moment, the door slammed with a clang.
* * *
I don’t know how long I spent in the cell. To be honest, it wasn’t that uncomfortable. There was even a bed made up with soft sheets and plush pillows. I felt pretty certain I was the first person to have taken advantage of these lodgings. So I lay back, relaxed, and considered my surroundings.
The whole thing was highly peculiar. It was one thing for Sally to set up a police force just to help her keep her secrets to herself, but what was the point of this place? Why construct such an elaborately detailed police headquarters? Even in this cell, the walls were lined with wood paneling, while the floor was an intricate arrangement of parquetry. Surely the decor wasn’t for the benefit of the current occupants. A couple of goons like Lizard Neck and Frying Pan could have been easily housed in a stable.