Jim Morrison's Adventures in the Afterlife (14 page)

Jim slowly nodded. “It’s the Gun That Belonged to Elvis, isn’t it?”

Doc’s expression was uncompromising. “Wholly correct, my unfortunate friend.”

Weapons in the Afterlife, particularly firearms, were mainly props to image or vanity, or leftover habits. In the normal run of things, they presented little more than a momentary threat to anyone but the created creatures of fantasy. The Gun That Belonged to Elvis was a little different, however. Like the Flaming Sword of the Red Angel, the Slingshot of David, Hitler’s Revolver, the Knife Prince Yussupov Used to Kill and Castrate Rasputin, or the Great Siege Cannon of Don Carlos O’Neal, the Gun That Belonged to Elvis was a significant figment of celestial mythology and postmortem folklore. As such, its effect was totally unpredictable. A gold bullet from its barrel might well blast Jim all the way back to the Great Double Helix, or even rearrange him into some totally new, unknown, and probably unacceptable form. Jim had seen the very same pistol used against Moses, and the self-designed prophet had appeared to suffer nothing more than brief pain, but Jim Morrison wasn’t going to take any chances. Now that his memory was slowly returning, he recalled too many of the legends concerning the Colt of Elvis. That Doc Holliday should even threaten him with it meant the situation was grave; no negotiation or debate.

Jim deflated with a shrug. “So I guess that’s it. Come with the dust and be gone with the wind.”

Without anyone noticing his approach, Long Time Robert Moore was standing beside the three men. The lone diamond in the gold tooth twinkled as he spoke. “I’ll give you a ride as far as the Crossroads, if you want it, boy.”

Jim frowned. “A ride?”

The old bluesman grinned. “In my Cadillac.”

“You got a Cadillac?”

“Sure do. Long and black and fully loaded.”

“As far as the Crossroads?”

“All the way to the Crossroads.”

“What happens at the Crossroads?”

“You go your way and I go mine.”

Jim hesitated. The other three looked at him intently. Finally Jim laughed. “Sure, I’ll take a ride to the Crossroads in your Cadillac.”

Robert Moore nodded. “Then I’ll go and get the car. You all just wait right here.”

As Moore walked away, a pair of more staccato, higher-pitched bangs cracked from the cantina. Jim, Doc, and Saladeen half ducked, but Long Time Robert Moore just kept on walking.

When he returned with his Cadillac a few minutes later, the first thing Jim knew was that Robert Moore’s car couldn’t be faulted for magnificence. It was a black Coupe de Ville, probably a ’56 or ’57, but so majestically customized that its true origins were obscured. It sported six headlights and four military spots. It had been lengthened to forty feet long, and the oversized fins looked designed for a V2 rocket. The black gloss of the Cadillac’s paintwork was so perfect, so opulent and deep, that it threatened to drown anyone looking too closely. Instead of the standard lavish chrome bumpers, the ones on Long Time Robert’s car were in the form of two relief figures of naked women, sculpted in the style of Erté.

The huge juggernaut of a car pulled up beside Jim. The passenger door swung open and Long Time Robert Moore waved for him to get in. Jim looked at Doc. “So I guess I’m out of here?”

“Like I said, it isn’t personal.”

“I never did get to visit Sun Yat.”

“Maybe next time.”

“Next time?”

“Infinity is a very long time, my friend.”

Jim sighed. “Ain’t it just.”

He lowered himself into the leopardskin interior of Robert
Moore’s Cadillac. It smelled of incense, old leather, Chanel No. 5, and high-test marijuana. Robert Moore sat behind the wheel; to Jim’s surprise, a Marilyn Monroe blonde, complete with white dress, was sitting in back. She smiled at him as he got in, but said nothing. Long Time Robert Moore put the car in gear and glanced at Jim. “Ready to go, rock and roll boy?”

Jim nodded. “Ready to go.”

Although the outside light could hardly be described as bright, it took Semple’s eyes a few moments to adjust to the red gloom inside. As soon as she was able to see, she was pleased to discover that her supposition had been correct. The decor might be Egyptienne, but it was a saloon as she knew and recognized one, complete with bar, stools, and booths to one side. All it lacked was a jukebox playing Patsy Cline or Frank Sinatra, but they probably didn’t have such things in Necropolis. The dim interior made it hard to see every detail, but the place reminded her of a run-down version of some upmarket deco joints she had seen on Earth.

She had half expected something weird and exotic, like reclining couches and a sunken bar, or perhaps oiled slaves wielding peacock fans and pouring odd-colored wine from stone jars, but what she’d found was all disconcertingly normal. Maybe the standard barroom setup from the twentieth century was simply the most practical design for serving alcohol, or maybe Anubis’s imagination had failed on this detail. About the only radically different element was a flat, triangular, wall-mounted screen behind the bar. Semple had to assume it was a Necropolis television set, but, coming as she did from the age of radio, she had little experience of TV. All she gathered was that, at least at the moment, Necropolis TV wasn’t showing any actual programs. Just the jackal head of Anubis, slowly and regally revolving against a dramatic sky filled with threatening storm clouds.

Semple selected a barstool and seated herself. She experienced a certain dismay when she saw no other women customers; she’d been hoping to borrow a makeup kit in the ladies’ room with which to fake a makeshift barcode. On the other hand, she hadn’t been instantly ejected, so she seemed to have made it this far without violating any local custom. The only other customer was an overweight
man, his unattractive stomach sagging over his skirt. He and the bartender, a slimmer but balder individual, were at the far end of the bar, discussing the up-and-coming public punishment of runaway slaves. Apparently such events were a popular spectator sport. But the revelation that Necropolis was a slave culture could hardly be good news for anyone who was unable, as she was, to prove her free citizen status.

The bartender broke off his conversation and moved toward her. As he sidled the length of the bar, he made a long and undisguised appraisal of her bare breasts. If the bartender was representative, and bartenders usually were, regular exposure to naked tits apparently did nothing to diminish or reduce the average male fascination with them. “So what’s it to be, lady?”

Semple rejoiced. At least she understood the local language. Either the bartender was speaking English or her brain was now rigged for instant translation. She looked around quickly and then indicated the drink the overweight customer had in front of him. “Give me one of those.”

“I ain’t so sure that I should serve you.”

Semple inwardly groaned but readied herself to bluff it out. “Why not?”

The bartender gestured to her forehead as though it were self-evident. “You know why not. No mark. You’re an outlander.”

“Is that a crime?”

Semple immediately realized that she had said the wrong thing. The bartender laughed nastily and called out to the overweight customer, “Little lady here wants to know if it’s a crime to be an outlander.”

As Semple’s heart was sinking without trace, the overweight customer climbed down from his stool and wheezed toward her. “So let’s have a look what we’ve got here.”

Seeing the man standing, Semple had to revise her first impression. He was more than overweight, he was downright fat. He waddled up to her and peered into her face. A chubby thumb and forefinger grasped her chin and he turned her head first one way and then the other. For the moment, Semple didn’t resist, even though, when he spoke, his breath was rank with garlic and something that smelled like cheap gin. “No mark.”

The bartender nodded. “No mark.”

“So give her a drink anyway.”

“How’s she gonna pay for it?”

The fat customer grinned. “I’ll pay for it.”

The bartender looked doubtful. “You could get me into trouble.”

The fat customer was dismissive. “Who’s to know?”

“You could get yourself into trouble.”

“Don’t be so chickenshit. It’s a perfect opportunity.”

The bartender. “It is?”

The fat customer’s eyes were beady and unpleasant. “Sure it is. Have some fun with her before we turn her in.”

As far as Semple was concerned, this had gone far enough. “Hey, boys, don’t I have a say in any of this?”

Both men looked at her in surprise. “You?”

Semple was not only frightened but angry. “Yes, me.”

“You don’t have nothing to say, bitch. You’re an outlander. You better be nice to us.”

“And if I’m not?”

“You think we care? I mean, who you gonna complain to, huh? You can’t exactly go running to the guards, now, can you? You just make nice, and maybe we’ll let you slip away when we get finished.”

Semple tried playing for pity. “I know I’m an outlander, but it was all just a mistake. It was a total accident that I wound up here. You don’t have to turn me in, do you?”

The fatso’s face was wreathed in an oily smile. “That depends on you.”

Now she played dumb. “I don’t understand.”

The fat man waved a finger at the bartender. “Give her a drink.” “It’s your funeral.”

The bartender set a shallow blue glass bowl on the bar and filled it from a bottle with a hieroglyphic label and a metal pourer. He added a dash of something from another, smaller bottle and finally dropped in two things that looked like dried peppers. For a moment, Semple wondered if he was finally going to set fire to the whole concoction, but he didn’t. He simply scanned the fat man’s forehead with something resembling a flashlight. Something else under the bar whistled asthmatically as the data downloaded. Semple recognized the sound of a pneumatic computer. Something was usually amiss with Afterlife cultures that included pneumatic or steam-driven computers.

With the drink concocted and charged, the bartender moved back to a neutral position. The fat man smiled nastily and slid Semple’s dish along the bar so it was closer to her. “Here, girlie, drink up.”

Semple hesitated, if for no other reason than that she wasn’t exactly sure how she was supposed to handle the odd, shallow container. Most of Semple’s experience had been with drinks in tall glasses that came with ice. For all she knew, in Necropolis they lapped their drinks from the saucer like pussycats. She decided, however, that this was a little unlikely. With as much gentility as she could muster, and using both hands, she lifted the dish with her fingertips.

The fat man hissed in her ear, “Down in one, now. Show us you’re a big girl.”

Semple tilted the dish. The stuff tasted like curried creosote, but she didn’t show her distaste and went right on tilting until the liquid was all gone. Anything to defer the inevitable flashpoint. She replaced the dish on the bar. The dried peppers still lay in the bottom. She didn’t know if she was supposed to eat them, like the worm in the bottle of mescal, but she thought probably not. If that had been the case, the fat man would certainly have insisted that she do it right then. He was the kind that wouldn’t miss any chance to humiliate the supposedly helpless. He again gestured to the bartender. “Do her one more time.”

It was about then that the drink hit her. Her throat burned, her stomach cramped, and she gasped for breath as the room made a couple of fast three-sixty circuits. Semple’s eyes watered, her vision blurred, and her head spun. She felt like throwing up and she didn’t quite understand why. In the Afterlife, one didn’t have to automatically respond to stimulants. One was supposed to have a choice. She would have liked to control and even abort the swimming, queasy feeling that currently gripped her, but she couldn’t. Had the rules been somehow changed in Necropolis? All she could do was look quickly at the bartender. “No, not yet. Give me a minute to get over the last one.”

The fat man ignored her. He glared at the bartender. “I said give her another.”

The bartender started the pouring routine, but with an attitude that made it clear the fat man was on his own. When it was done, the fat man leaned close to Semple. “Drink it up, girlie.”

Semple shook her head. “I told you already. I need a moment.”