Lawyers in Hell (44 page)

What the hell,
he thought. 
The old guy looks Greek.  Don’t ask, don’t tell.  Unless I’m supposed to defend one of them, it’s not my problem.

“My name is Demetrius.  I’m the Chief Librarian of hell’s Law Library.  And, you are late,” the figure scolded.  “Foreman and Belli are about to introduce the guest speaker.  For you to come in afterwards would be a horrible insult.  I ought to make you wait for the next group.”

Monty blinked and looked around.

“Over there.”  Demetrius pointed to where a number of men and women sat watching two others standing before them.  One looked to be the embodiment of every successful litigant who ever lived.  The other, not quite as impressive.  “Get moving or I
will
hold you back.”

*

This was
not
what Monty expected.  This was
not
how a lawyer of his stature and standing was supposed to be treated.  He listened to the speech and the pep talk from Justice Cardozo.  Yes, he, too, was a big deal in his day.  He handed down many important decisions in landmark cases; wrote dozens of scholarly reviews; yadda, yadda, yadda.  So, what?  He died in 1938.  That was almost a century before Monty had … died.  The world – and the law – had moved on.  In the modern world, Cardozo’s only value was as a precedent and resource material.

Afterwards he had to go with Belli to receive his assignment.  What was with that? Monty had been a very successful (and, well-paid) defense attorney.  What was with this tort crap?  That was for schmucks with no balls.  Yeah, insurance lawyers and corporate geeks made decent bread, but criminal law was where the stars came out to shine.  And, Monty was one of the brightest.

Then Belli gave him that slip of paper with his assignment on it and, before you could say “Goodbye, Porsche!” he was standing in a linoleum-tiled foyer.  In the center of the room, four couches had been arranged in a square.  A low table stood in the middle.  A wide vase rose from the table’s center, its glass throat filled with fake flowers on plastic stems.  Dusty, tattered leaves adorned the stems and flowers in lackluster and uncaring disarray.  Faded framed watercolors and bleached photographs hung crookedly on the walls.

He glanced at the slip of paper.

Golgotha Gardens Retirement Home

And Assisted Living Center

What the … a goddamn nursing home?

Monty looked up.  Men and women shuffled toward him like a scene from Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead.
  Some had canes; others,  crutches.  Walkers squeak-thumped along the floor as the dead advanced.  Wheelchairs screeched their worn rubber tires as decrepit hands propelled them forward.  Uniformed demons moved here and there among the creeping tide, intent on their errands and oblivious to the human detritus around them despite the crisp nurse’s hats and starched uniforms each one wore.

The omnipresent rotten egg odor of sulfur was gone, replaced by the stomach-turning stench of old urine, feces, vomit, sweat, and decay.

Monty backed up until his butt hit a hard, unyielding surface.  He reached behind him; his hand brushed a metallic lever shape – a door handle.  Frantically he worked it until the door opened.  A clawed hand gripped his right shoulder and pulled him through the doorway and into a lighted office and then slammed the door.

“Aaron Montgomery?”

The voice was feminine, sultry, and so seductive that Monty felt himself rising in response despite the intense pain of his previous encounter.  With the pain and erection came the memory.  He spun and placed his back against the closed door.

“Ooo.  Are we jumpy?”

The source of the voice was the most beautiful woman Monty had ever seen this close. The top of her upturned head came to just below his nose.  Her shimmering blue-black hair was parted in the middle and cascaded down each side of her round face.  The tips of her pointed ears only added to her sex kitten charms.  Dainty, pointed little white teeth peeked from behind full, scarlet lips.  Her tiny bifurcated tongue darted ever so coyly – now peeking, now hiding.  He decided that her delicate green scales only heightened her beauty.  Her big, round, yellow eyes with their catlike, vertical slits captured his heart completely.

She took a deep breath revealing a cleavage that mortal women vainly paid thousands and tens of thousands of dollars to acquire, only to fall short of this creature’s magnificence.  Pain filled his brain from his already tortured penis.  Even as he clutched himself in agony he knew he had to have her at any cost.

“Cool it, Mac,” the succubus said, pitching her voice into a less seductive register.  “You don’t want this.  You ain’t getting this.  That ain’t my assignment.”

After several very long moments (for Monty), the room’s pheromone saturation dropped enough for him to think clearly and for his painful erection to subside.  He looked around the office.  Dark wood panels glistened below the wainscoting.  Pale green patterned paper – possibly flowers but most likely leering demon faces – covered the walls above.  A dark brown leather chair stood behind the mahogany desk.  It took Monty a moment to realize that there was no computer – no office equipment of any kind – on top of the desk.  All that was there were a leather-cornered blotter, ‘in’ and ‘out’ trays (the ‘in’ stuffed to overflowing, the ‘out’ bare and dusty), a pen holder, and a black, rotary dial telephone.

“Whose desk is this,” he asked.

“Yours, of course.  I hope you didn’t think
I
was going to sit here for hours on end listening to them whine and bitch and moan, did you?”

Outside the office the lesser demons and imps gathered the residents.  The line started at Monty’s office door and extended down an infinite (literally) corridor as people shuffled papers, looked through valises and briefcases, and otherwise prepared for their meeting with the home’s new administrator.

Monty lifted one of the slats from the mini-blind that covered his office window and looked out at the waiting people.

“Who are those people?” he asked.  “And, why is there a rest home in hell?”

The succubus smiled.  “These people weren’t patients when they were alive.  Oh, no.  Far from it.  These were the other ones – the nurses, the orderlies, the administrators, the inspectors, and the families of those unfortunates left to finish out their existence in squalor, indifference, and neglect.”

Monty shuddered as he dropped the slat and turned around.  “So, what is my role?”

“Your role is to sit here and listen to each and every one of them.  You are to help them with their estate planning, trusts, and wills.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Not at all.  You will find that almost every one of them is absolutely certain that they brought it with them.”  She paused and licked her lips.  “And, you have one other duty.”

Monty groaned inwardly.  “And, that is?”

“You are their intermediary, their ombudsman.  It is your job to listen to their complaints, fill out the proper forms, and present those complaints to HSM for proper resolution.”

“HSM?”

“His Satanic Majesty, of course.”

“Of course.  So, when does this farce begin?”

“It’s not a farce, and it begins now.  Take your seat.  I’m about to open the door and let you meet your first client.”

*

“This is all a mistake,” the middle-aged woman in the nurse’s uniform whined.  Her fat rolls wiggled like Jell-O as she daubed at her eyes with a mascara streaked tissue.  “I took great care of my patients.  I treated them like family.  I washed them and dressed them.  I made sure they had clean sheets.”

Monty looked at the file on his desk.

Johanssen, Maureen.  Age at death: forty-three.  There followed all of the expected data about school, training, experience, family, et cetera.  What caught his eye was the notation regarding her reason for assignment to the home.  Whenever her patients developed life-threatening conditions, she waited until the last possible moment to call the ambulance so that the institution where she worked would collect every possible penny from Medicare and Medicaid.

Glad I didn’t have to depend on her for my care,
he thought as he scribbled a note on the Infernal Action Request Form.

“Exactly what sort of remedial action are you requesting, Mrs. Johanssen?”

Before she could reply, Monty felt suddenly dizzy.  A sensation of vertigo washed over him.  The office shimmered before his eyes and then vanished.

The dizziness vanished along with his office.

Monty rubbed his eyes and looked around.  He stood in a massive room.  Red, polished sandstone formed graceful Moorish arches creating walls open on all four sides.  Muslin sheets – bleached white and gauzy – billowed on the dry desert wind blowing in from one side.  Persian rugs decorated the smooth stone floor.  A low, square table covered in marble and supported by curved, intricately-carved leg stood in the center of the room.  A silver coffee pitcher and two dainty demitasse cups in wrought silver holders sat on top.  Thick, tasseled cushions lay on the floor on all sides of the table.  A hookah-bottle of green glass trimmed in brass and sporting two tubes tipped with ivory mouthpieces stood near one corner of the table.  Small silver cream and sugar pitchers rested on an ornate oval service platter.  A silver ewer with droplets of condensation on its sides was positioned close.  Elegant gold-rimmed crystal goblets decorated with gold filigree surrounded the vessel.

Through the arches came the distant sounds of voices, of vendors calling out their wares, the bleating of sheep and the braying camels and donkeys.  He heard the clatter of hooves as horses walked on stone streets.  Bells tinkled and music drifted on the wind.  Although he spoke none of the Arabic tongues, the picture was clear enough to Monty.  Somewhere beyond the arches was a market.  It was exactly as he imagined Marrakesh or Tunis or even Cairo might sound.

“Please be seated, noble sir.”

He turned.  A beautiful black-haired woman (odalisque?) had slipped silently into the room.  Standing less than five feet tall, she was quite a bit shorter than he.  Her figure was petite, yet deliciously rounded.  She wore a loose-fitting harem outfit.  The diaphanous fabric revealed as much as it showed.  The lavender blouse and aqua trousers were so pale they were more hints of color than actual hues.  She pointed a graceful arm at the table and cushions.

“My master will join you shortly,” she smiled, her cheeks dimpling and her dark eyes downcast.  A kind of circlet of brass wire with tiny brass bells hanging from it circled her head just at the top of her forehead.  “I am instructed to see to your comfort until then.  If you wish, I will serve you coffee at the table.  Or, if coffee is not to your liking, I can bring you juice or water or tea.”

“T-thank you,” Monty stammered as he turned and walked toward the table.  Before he had taken two steps she had somehow slipped his suit jacket from his shoulders in a deft and mostly invisible motion.  One moment he was wearing it; the next she had it draped over one arm.

“I will have one of the household slaves take care of your garment while you and my master converse.  It shall be as new when you are ready to depart.”

So, Hell has a one-hour dry cleaning service,
he thought.  He sat down, cross-legged, on a cushion and looked around again.  He felt like a backwoods bumpkin visiting a well-to-do city cousin for the first time.  He thought for a moment and then shook his head.  No, that wasn’t quite right.  There was none of the rub-your-face-in-it garishness of the nouveau riche.  This was the simple elegance of a palace – the more impressive because of its understated presence.  He felt it more than he saw it.

“Coffee?”

He looked to his left.  She knelt on the cushion beside him holding the silver vessel in both hands.  The position pulled the fabric taut across her right breast revealing a slightly oval silver dollar-sized aureole.  His breath caught in anticipation of a painful response, yet the stirring in his groin was surprisingly pleasant.  He slowly, carefully relaxed.

“Please,” he smiled as he reached for one of the dainty cups and held it toward the curved spout.  The aroma from the thick dark liquid filled his nostrils and he suddenly realized that it was the first pleasant, appetizing thing he’d smelled since his passing over.  He took a deeper breath.  The girl’s perfume – heady and intoxicating – washed over his senses like a tsunami.  Riding the aromatic wave were notes of coffee, of course, but also notes of fruity essences and a dry spiciness he couldn’t quite identify.  Saffron?  Sesame oil?  Clove?  Frankincense?  All of them and more besides.  He swayed, nearly reeled from the olfactory onslaught.

One thing was missing: the noxious stench of brimstone.

“So, how do you like the torture, damnation, and deprivation over there in New Hell?”  A tall, dark-complexioned man asked.  The newcomer walked toward the table.  Monty started to rise but the man gestured for him to remain seated.

“Please forgive the disconcerting method I had to employ to bring you to me.  I imagine you are – or were in life, anyway – more accustomed to having someone send a car and driver.”  The man spread his arms in a “what can we do” expression as he folded his long legs and sat opposite.  His white linen suit was impeccably pressed.  The white silk shirt fairly glowed against his dark skin showing above the open collar.  His smile and open demeanor put Monty in mind of Omar Sharif, a former movie star.  “The Goetic faction likes to control the comings and goings within their realm.  Of course, we do, too.”

“This isn’t New Hell?”

“Take a deep breath, my friend.”  His host closed his eyes and inhaled expanding his chest fully, then slowly breathed out.  “Does every breath you take here smell like flatulence?”

“No,” Monty conceded.  “It doesn’t.  In fact, it smells fantastic after breathing the daily sewer for – for however long I’ve been breathing it.  I’ve wondered about that.  I’m supposed to be dead.  Why am I breathing?”