HEAVEN AND HELL (2025 Edit)

Mystery/horror story of fake feds, a feral nurse, a murderous priest and an awful truth(?)

PART ONE
Valerie and Anthony Camerota were window shopping for baby clothing in the Westernfeld Shopping Mall when the old man ran into them.

Or to be precise, the running man collided with Val.

“Hey, watch out,” said Tony. He reached across to push away the man who had Val pressed up against a rack of pink and blue baby jump-suits.

“Sorry,” said the man, panting, clearly on the brink of exhaustion. He pressed Val’s hand for a moment, as though in apology, then turned and raced out into the crowd.

“What was that all about?” asked Tony. He helped his young wife out of the wrack of baby clothes.

“I … I’m not sure,” said Val. She looked down at her right hand, where the running man had slipped something. A piece of note paper! she thought, looking at the white square.

Val started to raise the page to show Tony, but stopped at the sound of gunfire behind them.

“What the …?” asked Tony. They looked around as three men in dress suits raced through the crowd, pushing people aside rudely.

“Out of the way, damn it!” said a tall, thin, slightly grey-haired man, who, like his two companions, looked like an archetypal English businessman, except for the forty-five calibre revolver he held in his left hand.

“Stop, Michaels!” called a second businessman, carrying an assassin-style nine-millimetre pistol.

Behind the first two businessmen ran a short, dumpy man, almost as exhausted from the race through the mall as the man they pursued.

“What the hell …?” said Tony as the three gunmen ran up to them.

He started toward them, but Val gripped him tightly, saying, “Please, don’t!”

As the three men thundered after the old man, Michaels, Tony looked for a moment as though he intended to ignore his wife’s entreaty and attempt to help the man. Finally, reluctantly, he allowed her to pull him close and put his arms around her as the crowd screamed and scattered to allow the businessmen clear access to the runner.

“He’s getting away,” said the tall, dark-haired businessman.

“Relax, Izzi,” said the greying man, Alastor, barely raising a pant as he ran. As the fleeing man reached the base of the escalator to the next level, Alastor crouched in the classic firing position, raised his .45 and fired once.

“Aaaaah!” cried the runner, falling face down on the escalator, where he died.

“You got him, Alastor,” said Izzi, grinning like a child in an ice-cream factory.

“Do I ever miss, Izzi?” asked Alastor.

“Well … sometimes,” said the short, dumpy businessman as he finally caught up with the other two.

“Shut up, Alfonso!” said Alastor, turning to glare at him.

Alfonso backed away slightly, as for a moment it looked as though Alastor might shoot him too.

“I was just joking,” said Alfonso, petulantly.

“Shut up, and come on,” said Alastor racing up the escalator after Michaels’s corpse. After a moment Izzi and Alfonso followed him.

“What in God’s name?” said Tony as he and a hundred others peered up the escalator bay as the three gunmen ran up.

“Come on, let’s get home,” said Valerie, tugging on her husband’s left arm.

“But we haven’t got anything for Colleen’s baby shower,” protested Tony, looking back at her.

“It’ll wait. The baby shower isn't until next week,” said Val, unaware that for her and Tony next week would never come.

“Yeah, okay,” said Tony. And reluctantly he started backing toward the escalator to the downstairs car park.


On the next level Alastor, Izzi, and Alfonso found sporting goods, men swear, Sanity Records, and the body of Nathaniel Michaels at the feet of two uniformed cops.

Seeing the three men had their guns drawn, the two state cops quickly drew their own weapons.

“All right, hold it right there,” called a white cop, whose uniform identified him as Ed Quince.

“Hold it!” ordered the black cop, Andrew Peters, holding up his .38.

“We’re Feds,” explained Alastor, as though that somehow allowed them to shoot a man dead without even calling a warning. Let alone calling in the state police. “This man was wanted for acts of international terrorism.”

The two state cops looked down at the dead man for a second, and then looked back at the three so-called Feds.

“Old Mr. Michaels, here?” asked Andrew Peters in disbelief. “Why I’ve known Nate Michaels all my life. He’s no more a terrorist that Ed or me.”

“I think you’d better show us some kind of identification,” said Ed Quince.

Alastor and the other two Feds exchanged a look for a moment. Then, shrugging, they reached into their coats for their ID cards which they handed to Ed Quince.

Quince looked at the ID cards in increasing puzzlement for a moment, before showing them to his partner.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” asked Quince. “Those IDs are obviously fakes.”

“Shit, I’ve seen more convincing looking ID cards on CSI, Miami,” said Andrew Peters.

“I think you’d better all come with us,” said Quince reaching for a pair of handcuffs at his belt.

“You boys are in deep shit,” said Peters.

“Well, you see … the thing is …” said Alastor sounding apologetic. He suddenly raised his .45 and shot dead Andrew Peters.

“Shit!” cried Ed Quince. Dropping the cuffs, he tried to raise his own gun .…

Too late as Alastor shot him dead also.

“Nice shootin’ Tex,” said Izzi, grinning like a fairground geek.

“Do I ever miss?” demanded Alastor.

“Never,” agreed Alfonso to get back into Alastor's good books.

Hearing screaming, the three fake federal police looked round to where the crowd of onlookers were stampeding in all directions.

“Relax folks!” shouted Alastor. “We’re Feds, they weren’t real cops.”

“The three of them were terrorists in the same cell,” added Alfonso.

“Good thinking,” whispered Izzi.

Despite their assurances, however, the crowd continued backing away, until reluctantly starting to become convinced that the three men had finished shooting.

As the crowd started to calm down a bit Alastor took out a palm-sized mobile phone and pressed button three.

“Yes,” said a female voice on the other end.

“Three for the meat wagon.”

“To pick up from where?”

“Westernfeld Shopping Mall, second level.”

“Near the Nike shop,” added Izzi.

Alastor glared at Izzi for a moment, and then added, “Near the Nike shop.”

“Yeah, I heard,” said the woman hanging up.


“Come on,” said Valerie. She reached into her brown vinyl handbag for the keys to their car as they went through the glass doors at the bottom of the escalator.

Clearly still reluctant to leave the mall without knowing what the shooting had been about, Tony Camerota looked back toward the escalator for a moment. Then sensing Valerie was waiting for him, he looked round to where she was standing near their red Cortina.

“Honey,” she said, smiling, in the hope of encouraging him to go with her.

Finally, reluctantly, Tony abandoned any thoughts of returning to the second floor and strode across the car park toward his wife as she pip-pipped the keys to open the doors of the car.

“Why do you always walk behind me, honey?” asked Val.

“So I can watch your magnificent arse in motion,” teased Tony.

“Naughty, naughty,” said Val waving a cautionary finger at him. “That’s not the proper spirit of political correctness. Don’t you know that all heterosexual sex is just a man raping a woman?”

“Wait till I get you home, woman,” Tony teased; “you’ll soon find out whether that’s true or not.”

Val waved a finger at him again, laughing as she climbed in behind the steering wheel of the Cortina.


Ten minutes later six paramedics arrived at the second level of the mall, leading three wheeled stretchers between them.

“You took your sweet time, Ralph,” said Alastor, aware of the crowd starting to mill around them again.

“No one said it was a rush pick-up,” said the chief collector defensively.

“Well, now you know,” said Izzi.

“Shut up, Iz, I’ll do the jokes,” said Alastor. Then to Ralph and the collectors, “Load them up quickly and let’s get the hell out of here before more cops arrive.”

“Or the real Feds,” said Alfonso.

“Or the real Feds,” agreed Alastor.

“Relax, the Big Guy can take care of any number of nosy Feds or cops,” said Ralph.

“Maybe so,” said Alastor, “but he’d rather we took care of the day-to-day dirty work.”

“Whatever you say,” said Ralph, sounding bored stupid as they heave-hoed the three corpses onto the stretchers then strapped them down. “All right, let’s get out of here.”

“Go! Go! Go!” encouraged Alastor as though about to break out into a rockabilly song.


As she sat behind the wheel of the red Cortina, Valerie realised that she still had the small slip of paper in her hand. She started to show it to Tony, but as he leant away to do up his seat belt, she changed her mind and hurriedly slipped the paper into her handbag before starting up the car.

“Hold up, Jack Brabham,” teased Tony, “let me get my belt done up first.”

“Hurry up, slow coach,” replied Val, “I take less time with my belt when I’m getting dressed than you do with your seat belt.”

“I’ve told you before; we need to get this passenger seat belt replaced.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s your excuse for everything,” teased Val.

“Oh, is that right, woman?” said Tony in mock anger.

“Yes, that’s right, man,” said Val. She watched him belt up before finally turning the ignition key.


Outside the Westernfeld Mall, people were milling about as the collectors, dressed as paramedics, hurriedly loaded the corpse-laden stretchers into the rear of three vans disguised as ambulances.

As Alastor, Izzi, and Alfonso climbed into the rear of the lead van, three squad cars roared up, sirens blaring and pulled up in front of them.

Six police officers climbed from the cars and raced into the Mall.

“Hurry up,” called Alastor. “Get us out of here before those cops get back.”

“Got you,” said Ralph and the three vehicles started up.


Racing through the mall, the six cops ran over to take the escalator up to the second floor, then stopped and looked about.

“Where the hell are they?” asked a middle-aged cop, whose uniform identified him as Sgt. Danny Walters.

“Who?” asked a brunette standing outside the Nike store.

“We were told there had been shootings outside this store,” said a young blond cop, Hank Guynes.

“Yeah, three federal agents shot dead some terrorists,” said the brunette. Who did not stop looking through a rack of shoes designed more for show than for jogging.

“Then where are they now?” asked Danny.

“You just missed them,” explained the brunette. “Some paramedics took the corpses away on stretchers.”

“Shit,” said Danny.

“There were some ambulances out front when we pulled up,” said a young cop, Timothy Wyatt.

“Jesus!” said Danny, and the six cops reversed direction. They almost ran down the up escalator before running across to the down escalator instead.


The three white vans drove for nearly ten kilometres before coming to an abandoned roadway, behind an ancient-looking steel wire fence.

“Your turn, Izzi,” said Alastor, opening the rear doors of the lead van.

“It always seems to be my turn,” moaned Izzi. But he climbed down from the van and walked across to unlock the gates of the wire fence.

He held the gates wide long enough for the three vans to drive through. He then locked the gates again before racing across to climb into the back of the lead vehicle, with a hand from Ralph.

“Thanks, buddy,” said Izzi as the van started again.

They drove for a few hundred metres more until reaching a small mountain with a large cave in the side.

Without hesitation, they drove into the cave.

“All right, close it up,” said Alastor. And as though obeying his word, there was a sudden rock slide, which entombed them in the side of the mountain.

Inside the cave, it was now pitch black.

“What does the Good Book say, Brother Izzi?” asked Alastor in the lead vehicle.

“And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”

As he was speaking, the cave mysteriously became brightly lit, although there was no sign of any light fixtures.

“God saw that the light was good …” continued Izzi.

“All right, Iz, no need to quote the whole sixty-six books, the Talmud, and the Qur'an,” teased Alastor, making Alfonso and the collectors snigger.

“I wasn’t going to,” protested Izzi.

To the chief collector, Alastor said, “Okay, let’s get it done.”

“No sweat,” said Ralph. He opened the rear doors for Alastor, Izzi, and Alfonso to alight, and then called for the other collectors to help him unload the stretchers.

Quickly, in an oft-repeated procedure, they unloaded the stretchers, unstrapped the corpses, and lifted the first corpse off its stretcher, ready for disposal.

Looking toward the roof as though to pray, Alastor said, “Three to go.”

They were standing inside a stone-walled cave, seemingly with no doors, windows, or fixtures. But at Alastor's words, there came from the wall before them a hideous, metallic squealing, like a million school kids scraping their fingernails along a million old-fashioned blackboards.

“Ah, the music of the damned,” said Izzi, receiving a glare from Alastor and Alfonso, but making Ralph and the collectors laugh.

As the screeching continued, a metallic chute, large enough to accommodate a large human carcase, began to fade into existence on the stone cave wall, perhaps a metre above the ground.

“All right, stand back,” said Alastor as he pulled the metal handle. With a deathly screeching, the door opened downward to reveal what appeared to be an industrial-sized furnace.

“How do you want them?” asked Ralph.

“Dump the two cops in as they are, but we’ll search Michaels first. We have to get back that sheet of paper.”

“Okay,” said the chief collector. He signalled to the other collectors, who hefted the corpse of the black cop and started toward the chute.

As Alastor stood back to allow the collectors to dispose of Andrew Peters’s corpse, Izzi knelt beside the body of Nathaniel Michaels and started hunting through the old man’s clothing.

Two collectors almost casually tossed the black cop’s corpse into the furnace chute.

There was a great roaring of blue and yellow flames as a hundred kilos of fat and muscle descended into the flames.

“You know they say that the body fat of an average-sized male human being will generate so much heat that a furnace will superheat and explode upwards in ten minutes or so with enough force to implode a hundred-storey building,” said Ralph.

Grinning like a Megamouth shark, Alastor said, “Don’t worry, that won’t happen here.”

Grinning back at him, Ralph said, “No, I guess not.”

As they hefted the corpse of Ed Quince, ready to dispose of it, Izzi looked up and said, “No sign of the note.”

“What?” demanded Alastor.

“He doesn’t have it,” insisted Izzi, still kneeling beside the old man’s corpse.

“Shit!” said the chief executioner. Then to the collectors, “Hold off with the cop’s corpse until we check it.”

“Whatever you say,” said Ralph. He signalled for his men to drop the white cop’s corpse to the cave floor, and then he followed Alastor across towards the corpse of Nate Michaels.”

“Okay, let’s strip him to be sure,” instructed Alastor. And Izzi and Ralph proceeded to do just that.

When the old man was naked, they carefully checked through his clothing.

“Nothing,” said Alastor.

“Nothing,” agreed Ralph and Izzi, as though it had been a question.

“Let’s be certain,” instructed Alastor. He began ripping the lining out of the old man’s coat to search through it.


The three squad cars roared from the Westernfeld Shopping Mall in the direction that the crowd out front had indicated.

“Shit, they’re long gone,” said young Hank Guynes, driving the lead car.

“Not necessarily,” insisted his supervisor, Danny Walters. “With sirens blaring, we can run lights and make up time.”

“So can they,” said Tim Wyatt from the backseat.

“Not without their sirens blaring, and the crowd swore they did not have their sirens on when they took off.”

Hank Guynes turned to look at him in surprise.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Hank!” ordered Danny, and Hank looked forward again.

“Why wouldn’t they have their sirens on?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“If they were real ambulances, because the three men were already dead, so there was no rush and no reason to risk crashing.”

“And if they were fake ambulances?” asked Hank. He was careful not to take his eyes from the road this time.

“So as not to draw attention to themselves,” said Danny Walters. “My guess is the latter.”

“That they’re fakes?” asked Tim.

“You got it.”

After barely ten minutes, they reached the abandoned roadway crossed by a steel-wire fence.

“Could they have gone through there?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“I don’t see how,” said Danny. “The lock on the gate looks rusted solid. But to be on the safe side, we’d better check it out.”

So saying, he got out of the car with Tim in pursuit.

“Stay behind the wheel, Hank, in case we need to take off fast,” instructed the sergeant.

Hank, who had started to climb out of the squad car, pulled his leg back in and slammed the door shut.

Danny bent the door to examine the lock, then straightened and said, “I thought so, this lock hasn’t been opened in years.”

“They couldn’t open the gate without breaking off the lock anyway,” said Tim.

“No,” agreed Danny.

Looking about, Tim said, “So where the hell did they get to?”

“Damned if I know,” said Danny, looking as puzzled as Tim felt. “They must have turned off somewhere.”


Inside the cave, they had also stripped Ed Quince’s corpse and had torn his uniform to pieces without finding the sheet of paper.

“Nothing,” said Izzi.

“Shit!” said Alastor, standing again. To Ralph, “All right, dispose of them.”

The chief collector nodded and signalled for two of his men to go over to grab the cop’s corpse to heave-hoe it into the furnace, followed immediately by Nate Michaels’s carcase, then both men’s clothing.

“Do you think he could have given the note to the black cop?” asked Izzi.

The three assassins turned to look toward the furnace.

“Possibly. No, I …” began Alastor as an alarm suddenly started blaring overhead.

Looking toward the roof again, Alastor asked, “What’s up?”

“Intruders trying to get in,” said a female voice from above them.

From the roof, a long, white screen suddenly lowered. Upon the screen, they could see the image of Danny Walters and Tim Wyatt rattling the gate outside.

“Shit, they’re coming inside,” said Alfonso.

“Relax,” said Izzi. “I left the gate rusted, so they won’t come in.”

“And if they did, they can’t get into the cave until it’s unsealed,” pointed out Alastor.

“Oh, right,” said Alfonso.

After a moment, Danny Walters and Tim Wyatt returned to the lead squad car, and the three cars took off back the way they had come.

“See, I told you,” said Alastor, as the white screen ascended back into the roof, without being touched. “Good work, Izzi.”

“Thanks.”

Looking at the roof again, Alastor said, “Okay, we’re finished. You can close it up again.”

With a hideous metallic screeching, the chute slid closed untouched, and then slowly the chute began to flicker “on and off” until it ceased to exist, leaving the stone wall unbroken.

“So what if the black cop had the note on him?” Izzi asked again.

“Too bad if he did,” said Alastor. “He’s been fried.”

“Frying to … night,” said Izzi in his best imitation of Kenneth Williams’s Carry-On Movie voice.”

“I’ve told you before, Izzi, leave the jokes to me.”

“Yeah,” agreed Alfonso, “your jokes are positively excruciating, Iz.”

“How dare you,” protested Izzi, “and don’t call me Iz.”

“No, no,” said Alastor, “Michaels was dead before the escalator reached the second level.”

“What if he dropped it and the cop picked it up?” asked Alfonso.

“Possibly,” said Alastor. Then his face lit up as he had an epiphany. Looking up again, he said, “We need the security video of the chase through the mall.”

“All of it?” asked the female voice.

“No, just from a minute or two before Michaels reached the base of the escalator.”

“Okay,” said the female voice, “but it’ll take a few minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah, take your time, but hurry it up a bit,” said Alastor, making the collectors snigger.

They waited for two or three minutes, then finally the white screen slid down from the roof again.

“Come on, come on,” said Alastor impatiently. And as though in answer to his entreaty, an image of the chase appeared on the screen.

They watch for a few moments until Nathaniel Michaels ran up to where Valerie and Anthony Camerota were window shopping for baby clothing.

Panting loudly, the old man collided with Val.

“Hey, watch out,” said Tony, reaching to push away the man who had pressed Val up against a rack of baby clothes.

“Sorry,” said the man, pressing Val’s hand for a moment, before turning to run toward the up escalator.

“What was that all about?” asked Tony, helping his young wife out of the wrack of baby clothes.

“I … I’m not sure,” said Val. She looked down at her right hand, where the old man had slipped something.

Val started to raise the page to show Tony, but stopped at the sound of gunfire behind them.

“Freeze frame,” said Alastor and the video stopped, clearly showing the slip of paper in Valerie Camerota’s hand.

“There it is,” said Izzi.

“Thank you, eagle-eyes, I wouldn’t have seen it without your help,” teased Alastor.

“Shut up,” said Izzi, as the others laughed at him.

Looking toward the roof again, Alastor asked, “Do we have video of them leaving the mall?”

“Hold on,” said the female voice from overhead.

After a few minutes, they started to watch a video of Anthony and Valerie Camerota heading toward the down escalator, which they took to the glass-walled car park.

“Come on,” said Valerie, reaching into her handbag for the keys to their car as they went through the doors at the bottom of the escalator.

Reluctant to leave the mall without knowing what the shooting had been about, Tony Camerota looked back toward the escalator for a moment. Then sensing Valerie was waiting for him, he looked around to where she was standing near their red Cortina.

“Honey,” Val said, smiling toward Tony.

“She’s not bad,” said Alfonso.

“I’d do her,” agreed Izzi.

“Shut up, you two lecherous idiots,” said Alastor as they continued to watch the overhead screen.

Finally, Tony strode across the car park toward his wife as she pip-pipped the keys to open the electric doors of the car.

“Why do you always walk behind me, honey?” asked Val.

“So I can watch your magnificent arse in motion,” teased Tony.

“He’s not wrong there,” said Izzi; “it’s sheer poetry in motion.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” said Alastor, as Val waved a cautionary finger at her husband, saying:

“That’s not the proper spirit of political correctness. Don’t you know that all heterosexual sex is just a man raping a woman?”

“Wait till I get you home, woman,” Tony teased; “you’ll soon find out whether that’s true or not.”

“Jesus, I’d settle for sloppy seconds with her,” said Alfonso.

“You’re not wrong there,” second Izzi.

“Shut up, both of you,” said Alastor as, laughing, Val climbed in behind the steering wheel of the Cortina.

As Tony passed behind the rear of the car, Alastor called, “Freeze frame.”

They could clearly see the number plate, “GZY 729”.

“It’s not as cool as our plate,” said Alastor, making the collectors smirk.

“You always say that,” said Izzi, although he smiled also.

“Can we get an address from that number plate?” asked Alastor.

“I’m already checking,” said the female voice.

“Come on! Come on!” said Alastor impatiently, nearly five minutes later.

“You ought to learn more patience,” said the overhead voice.

“She’s right, you know,” agreed Izzi.

“Shut up,” said Alastor. Then to the voice, “It’s all right for you; you don’t have Rodrigo to answer to.”

At the mention of Rodrigo, Alfonso and Izzi, both looked ill.

“Yes, sorry,” said the voice. She then went on to give them Valerie and Tony Camerota’s address.

“Okay, let’s go get them,” said Alastor as the screen rose back into the roof. Followed by Izzi and Alfonso, he strode across to a pale blue Fairlane in the cave.

“Will you need us?” asked Ralph.

“For sure,” said Alastor, and the collectors started back toward their vans.

Looking back at the roof before getting into the Fairlane, Alastor said, “Okay, open-sez-a-me.”

At his words, there came a loud rumbling followed by a reverse landslide as the rocks and gravel covering the cave face rolled back up the mountainside, clearing the exit for them.

As the collectors walked across to the vans disguised as ambulances, Alastor said to Izzi, “All right, Brother Izzi, what else does it say in the Good Book?”

Closing his eyes to concentrate, Izzi said, “He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘day’ and the darkness he called ‘night’.

As he completed the quote, the overhead lighting went off, leaving them in darkness, except for the light from the cave opening.

“Okay, let’s go get that bloody note,” said Alastor as Alfonso backed the Fairlane out of the cave.


Getting out of the red Cortina at a two-bedroom, brown brick villa house, Tony and Valerie Camerota headed across toward the unpainted front door.

Val unlocked the door and then placed the keys on a nail on the wall just inside the front door as she entered the small T-shaped hallway.

“We’d better watch the news tonight,” said Tony, following his wife inside. “To see if they mention the shootings.”

Stopping just outside the kitchen door, Val said, “It’s strange them shooting like that … in a crowded mall!”

“They had no choice; they were terrorists.”

“We only have their word for that,” insisted Val. “‘Terrorist’ is a convenient label to try to justify brutalising any non-conformist these days.”

“Non-conformists are terrorists,” said Tony.

“Abe Lincoln was a non-conformist; was he a terrorist?” asked Val. “He went to war against his countrymen to break the evil status quo of slavery.”

Tony laughed, shaking his head, and teased, “You’ve been reading George Orwell again.”

Refusing to be baited, Val said, “Jesus was a non-conformist. So were Moses and Aaron when they led the Israelites out of Egypt. Buddha was a non-conformist. So was Mahomet. Were they all terrorists?”

Tony started to laugh again, but then he became serious instead. “And those two cops had patrolled around that mall since it opened twelve years ago. They can’t have been terrorist plants in such an unimportant location for so long, can they?”

“No, they can’t have. And they didn’t fire a warning shot before shooting that old man dead,” said Val. “Or even call for him to stop, for that matter!”

Watching her well-rounded backside sway side-to-side as she walked into the kitchen, Tony asked, “Want to join me in the shower so we can get dirty together?”

Val laughed and then said, “You go ahead. I’ve got to go down to Maccas. We forgot to buy anything for dinner with all the goings on at the mall.”

“Okay, I’ll have a MacSlop Burger, heavy on the slop,” said Tony. “Hurry back so you can join me for some hot, steamy sex … Or I might have to start without you.”

Laughing as she headed out the front door, Val said, “Then start without me … you wanker.”

“Ouch, that hurts,” said Tony.

“Then don’t pull it so hard,” said Val before pulling the front door closed behind her.

“Ouch, she’s a mean woman,” said Tony with a laugh.

Fortunately, Val and Tony lived only a block and a half from the nearest Maccas store, so in a few minutes, Val was already there.

She had started to walk up the brick-clad path toward the glass doors when a blue Fairlane zoomed past, followed by three ambulances, heading back the way that she had just come.

“What the hell?” asked Val. Momentarily forgetting her hunger, she reversed direction as the four vehicles pulled up across the road from her house.

“Oh my God!” cried Val, covering her mouth with her hands as Alastor and Izzi stepped out of the Fairlane.


“Keep the motor running, in case we need to make a hasty getaway,” Alastor said to Alfonso.

“Got it,” said the driver.

“Come on,” said Alastor, striding purposefully across the road toward the Camerota house.


Doing her best to be inconspicuous, Val started to edge toward the villa house as the two fake federal agents strode across to her house, closely followed by Ralph and two other white-coated collectors.

“I’m singing in the rain,” came Tony’s high baritone voice from inside the house.

Usually, Val laughed at this choice of song when he showered. But for some reason, it now only added to her unease as the five men walked up the path to the side door.


“I’ll give him singing in the rain,” said Alastor, for some reason angered by the choice of song.

“Calm down,” advised Izzi, “he’ll be dead in a minute, and then he won’t be singing at all.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” agreed Alastor, unaware that Val had stopped just one house back to watch them.

“Of course I am.”

“Trust you to know just the right thing to say,” said Alastor, patting him playfully on the face.

“Stop that,” said Izzi, but with a laugh.


After a second’s hesitation, Val started to follow the five men. Then, realising that the drivers were still in the four vehicles across the road, she turned toward the cast-iron gates of the house before hers. Ringed by a two-metre tall hedge, the yard would provide her with perfect cover from the street while she watched Alastor and the others.

Opening the gates as quietly as possible, Val stepped into the yard and started across the lawn toward her own house.


Inside the blue Fairlane, Alfonso watched the tall brunette for a moment, half wondering whether it could be the Camerota woman.

Is it her? he thought, opening the driver’s door to start to step out if she headed toward the house.

Then, when she stopped one house short and walked into the yard, he lost interest in her and went back to watching Alastor and the others.


Unaware that Alfonso had been watching her from the Ford, Val started across the lawn and was soon hidden from view by the hedge ringing the Arthurtons' yard.

Protected from view by the hedge, she pressed up hard against the plant, using both hands to force apart the foliage until she could see the five men at the front door of her house.

As she watched, Alastor reached out to grab the door handle as though intent upon ripping the door off its hinges with his bare hands.


“Uh-uh,” said Izzi, as though sensing his intention. “We mustn’t do things like that. Remember what Rodrigo always says, ‘We must maintain the illusion at all costs.’”

“Fuck Rodrigo,” said Alastor.

“Izzi’s right. How’s it gonna look to the cops if you rip the door off with your bare hands?” asked Ralph.

“Fuck you too,” said Alastor. For a moment, he hung onto the handle as though still intent upon ripping the door off its hinges with his hands.

“No thanks, you’re not my type,” said the chief collector. Alastor scowled at him, while Izzi and the others laughed.

Finally, however, to Izzi’s relief, Alastor let go of the door handle and reached into a pocket of his suit coat.

After a moment, he pulled out a device that looked like the back half of a revolver, with metallic blades sticking out of the front.

“I thought only the C.I.A. was allowed to own key-guns?” teased Izzi.

“Yeah,” agreed Alastor. His good humour returned as he looked through the different ‘keys’ projecting from the key-gun. “But I don’t think they’re going to arrest me, do you?”

Izzi and the three collectors sniggered as Alastor selected an appropriate key and inserted it into the lock.

He pressed the trigger and held it in, and the key began whirring furiously for a few seconds, and then suddenly locked into position. Still holding the trigger, Alastor effortlessly turned the gun like a key and swung the door inward.

“Open sez-a-me,” joked Alastor as the five men stepped into the small corridor and started to look around.

On the left-hand side were two sliding glass doors leading to the generous lounge room.

“I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain,” Tony bellowed out from the shower. To the right of where the men stood, as they looked into the unoccupied lounge room.

“Look out for the woman, Valerie,” whispered Alastor, putting away the key-gun to take out his .45.

“I’m singing …” began Tony Camerota, stopping to listen as he thought he heard footsteps in the house. “Val? Is that you? What happened? Did you forget your purse?”

He started from the shower stall as the door swung inward to reveal Alastor and the others standing in the cramped corridor outside the bathroom.

“No, it’s us,” said Alastor.

“The Feds from Westernfeld Mall,” said Tony, staring at their drawn guns.

“That’s right, except we aren’t really Feds,” said Alastor, firing twice.

Tony screamed and fell forward into the bathroom, with his feet still in the shower stall.

“You the man,” said Izzi.

“Not really,” said Alastor, and they all laughed.

Stepping over the corpse, Alastor reached into the shower stall to turn off the taps.

“Mustn’t waste water, must we?” he said, making the others snigger.

“No, water’s scarce,” said Izzi, “especially down here.”

The collectors sniggered again.

“All right, look around for the woman. It’s only a small villa house; there aren’t many places she could be hiding.”

“No sweat,” said Izzi. And they all turned and started looking through the house for Valerie Camerota.

For the next few minutes, they searched the two bedrooms, looking into the walk-in wardrobes and under the beds, before heading out into the large kitchen.

Beyond the kitchen were a small washhouse and a toilet cubicle.

“Where is the bitch!” said Alastor in frustration. He walked through the kitchen to push open the toilet door, and then opened the back door to look out into the tiny backyard free of outbuildings.

“Nowhere for her to hide out there,” said Izzi, looking over his shoulder.

“Thank you, Professor Know-It-All,” said Alastor caustically, “I couldn’t have seen that for myself.”

“I was just saying,” said Izzi churlishly.

“Well, don’t,” said Alastor. Looking back into the house, he considered for a moment, then said, “Tear the house apart; she may have hidden the note in here somewhere.”

“Gotcha,” said Ralph.

Ralph, Izzi, and the collectors started ripping doors off cupboards, dumping the contents of drawers onto the floors, tearing up the carpets, pulling down blinds, and ripping open mattresses, chairs, and cushions.

“Come on, damn you,” said Alastor, looking round. Seeing a new-looking kitchen clock in the shape of the sun with wooden sunbeams radiating off, he grabbed the clock from the wall and, almost laughing in glee, smashed the clock onto the kitchen floor.

By the time that they had finished, almost nothing remained intact. Yet they had found no sign of the slip of paper.

“The woman must have it with her,” suggested Izzi.

“Of course, the woman has it with her,” said Alastor, sounding ready to explode.

“Hey, man, calm down,” said Ralph, regretting it as soon as the chief executioner turned round to glare at him. Then, to change the subject, he asked, “What do we do now? Wait for her?”

Alastor considered for a moment before saying, “No, you three wait for her.”

“Us three?” asked Ralph.

“Yes. Izzi, Alfonso, and I must keep looking for the bitch.”

“Maybe she was outside somewhere and saw us arrive,” suggested Izzi.

“In which case she’ll see us leave again, and think it’s safe to come home.”

“Good thinking. I see why they made you the chief executioner!” said Izzi in admiration.

“Do we kill her if she comes back?” asked Ralph.

“No, hold her till we get back. We’ve got to get that note back, no matter what. Nothing else matters.”

“Check,” said the chief collector as Alastor and Izzi headed toward the front door.


Outside, peering through the Arthurtons' hedge, Valerie Camerota watched as Alastor and the others entered the house.

“Oh God!” she cried as she heard two shots, knowing that they meant that the love of her life had just died. ‘I just want us to grow old together,’ Tony had said on their wedding day two years earlier. ‘Not me,” she had teased, ‘I plan to stay young forever.’ ‘Oh, is that right?’ he had said in mock anger before kissing her. As tears streamed from her eyes, she said, “Now we can’t grow old together.” Almost adding, ‘And only you will stay young forever.’ “I’ll have to grow old alone … if I live that long!”

She was still crying as she heard the sound of furniture being broken inside the house.

Reaching into her purse, she took out a small mobile phone, wondering if she dared ring the state police. Then, she decided that she couldn’t trust them. They might be in league with that lot in there. Then she thought: But the two cops at Westernfeld weren’t. That’s why they murdered them!

She hesitated a moment longer, then dialled three numbers. “Hello, the police,” she said.

It seemed to take forever to get put through, but finally Val related what had happened, without giving them her name. She was about to break off when she suddenly thought to say, “The men got out of three ambulances that are parked across the road from the house.”

“Ambulances?” asked the dispatcher in a silky Nina Simone voice. She had been informed by Danny Walters to keep an ear out for anything to do with three ambulances.

“That’s what they look like,” said Val. “But they can’t be real ambulances, since the men who got out were all carrying handguns.”

“Got you, ma’am,” said the silky-voiced dispatcher, sounding excited. “We’ll get a squad car over there post haste.”


As Val broke off, Alastor and Izzi stepped outside the Villa house and strode across to the four vehicles.

“Notify central to put everyone on alert for the bitch,” said Alastor.

“You got it,” said Izzi. He strode across to where Alfonso sat behind the wheel of the blue Fairlane.

Alastor walked across to the first ambulance and told the driver, “Take off back to base.”

“You got it,” said the driver, doing as instructed as Alastor walked across to the second ambulance to repeat the instructions.

At the third ambulance, he said, “They’re leaving. You stay to pick up Ralph and the others. But you’d better change – the cops will be looking for ambulances now.”

“Change to what?” asked the driver.

Alastor thought for a moment, then, seeing the Sold sign outside a house, said, “A removalist van.”

“Gotcha,” said the driver.

As Alastor started back toward the Fairlane, which Alfonso was backing up toward him, the ambulance began to shimmer and fade in and out of existence, as though about to teleport away like in a science fiction TV show. Instead, it began to stretch and change, altering colour, until it resembled a moving van.

Getting into the front passenger seat of the car, Alastor said, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”

“No sweat,” said Alfonso. Pulling the steering wheel, he did a U-turn and started back the way they had come.

They had reached the Maccas store when Alastor suddenly said, “Pull in here.”

“You hungry?” said Alfonso, doing as instructed.

“No!” said Alastor pointedly. “I could never be hungry enough to eat this slop.”

Turning round to look at Izzi, he said, “What did the guy say before we killed him in the shower stall?”

“Is this a riddle?” asked Alfonso.

“Shut up,” said Alastor.

Izzi thought for a moment, then said, “You mean before we kicked the door in?”

“Yes.”

“Something about, ‘Did you forget your purse?’”

“That’s right,” agreed Alastor.

“So what?” asked Alfonso.

“So that means she went out to buy something. Possibly their dinner.”

Gape-mouthed, Izzi pointed a thumb at the Maccas store.

“Seems reasonable,” said Alastor, alighting from the car. “It’s within easy walking distance of their house. And it’s the sort of slop they’d probably eat.”

“Let’s go then,” said Izzi as all three of them got out of the car.

“Izzi, check around the back.”

“Got it,” said Izzi, striding around the rear of the store.

“Alfonso, come with me,” said Alastor, and the two men strode across to the glass doors and pushed their way inside.

Holding up a picture of Valerie, Alastor asked one of the attendants, “Do you know this woman?”

Looking at the picture, he said, “Mrs. Camerota, sure. She comes in here two or three times a week to buy dinner. Has something happened to her?”

Holding up his ID card, Alastor said, “No, she was a witness to some shootings at the Westernfeld Mall. We need to interview her, but she’s not home.”

Shaking his head, the young man said, “I’m sorry, she hasn’t been in for a couple of days.” Turning back to the cooking area, he called, “Todd, Mrs. Camerota hasn’t been in today, has she?”

“Nah,” called back Todd. “Not since the day before yesterday.”

“Sorry,” said the counter attendant.

“Okay,” said Alastor, cursing under his breath as he put away the photo.

“Would you like to buy something for tea, while you’re here?” asked the attendant.

Looking back, Alastor said, “I wouldn’t eat the shit you serve up if you paid me.”

Then, as the attendant stared after him, he headed back toward the exit.

“So much for that,” said Alfonso as they headed back outside. “It was a good idea, but it didn’t pan out.”

Ignoring the urge to glare at him, Alastor strode across to the car, saying, “Let’s go get Izzi.”


Val watched as the three vehicles started off, then sneaking out into the street, started off down the footpath toward the Maccas store.

Then, seeing the blue Fairlane parked out front, Val turned left into a side street, doing her best not to draw attention to herself by running.


PART TWO
Sergeant Danny Walters and constables Hank Guynes and Tim Wyatt were patrolling near the local shopping centre when the police radio began to crackle.

“Urgent call for car forty-five,” said a sultry female voice.

“Talk to me, Maur,” said Danny, picking up the handset.

“We have received a call about gunshots at the house of Anthony and Valerie Camerota,” said Maureen, the dispatcher, going on to provide the address. “Of particular interest, the caller said there were three ambulances parked across the road from the house.”

“Three ambulances, are you sure, Maur?” asked Danny, almost dropping the handset in excitement.

“That’s right. But the men alighting from the ambulances were carrying guns; so they are not real paramedics.”

“Got it, we’re on the way,” said Danny. Then to Hank Guynes, “Get this crate moving, Hank, we might catch them yet.”

“No sweat,” said Hank. He flipped the siren on and planted his foot on the accelerator.


Val strode increasingly slowly down the back street for fifteen minutes before finding herself outside the Christ the Redeemer Church. Tony and Val had attended the church for a few months, but, finding Father Alex a bit strange, they had stopped attending.

“Still, any port in a storm,” said Val to herself as she started up the thirty concrete steps. “I wonder if he’ll remember me after nearly a year.”

She stopped in the arched doorway to allow her eyes to adjust to the light, and then started slowly down the aisle between the pews.


As Danny Walters and his young constables roared toward the Camerota house, they overtook two other speeding squad cars, which parked just behind them as they pulled up outside.


Inside the villa house Ralph and the other collectors were still waiting for Valerie to return when they got a call from the driver of the van outside.

“Get the hell out the back way, the cops are here. Come dressed as removalists.”

“Got it,” said Ralph and the three men began shimmering for a moment, fading in and out of existence, until changing to removalists, and then Ralph raced toward the back door, saying, “Come on.”

As effortlessly as Olympians, they vaulted the deal wood fence into the yard next door.


“Well, there’s a removalist van, but no sign of any ambulances,” said Tim Wyatt as they climbed out of the squad car.

“So I see,” said Danny Walters, leading the way toward the side doorway.

The sergeant knocked loudly for twenty seconds or more. Then he stood aside, saying, “All right, kick it in.”

“Don’t we need a warrant or something?” asked Hank.

“Not when shots have been heard inside,” said Danny.

So Hank and Tim proceeded to kick in the door as instructed.


As the cops broke down the side door, Ralph and the other collectors casually stepped out the gate of the next house and strode across to the removalist van.

“Slowly, slowly,” whispered Ralph, “we’re innocent removal men with no reason to be wary of the cops.”

“No sweat,” said one of the collectors.

Smiling at the cops across the street, the three collectors walked across to climb into the rear of the removalist van.

Tapping the side of the van with his hand, Ralph said, “Okay, take us out of here … slowly; don’t draw attention to us.”

“Gotcha,” said the driver, starting the van.


“Shit, what a mess!” said Hank Guynes as they looked into the lounge room of the small villa house.

“Last time I saw this big a mess I was at a wrecker’s yard,” said Danny Walters.

“Serg, in here,” called Tim Wyatt, from further down the T-shaped corridor.

“What is it?” asked Danny, striding down the small hallway.

Turning right, he stopped behind Tim to look at the naked body of Tony Camerota lying half in and half out of the shower cubicle.

Seeing young Tim looking pale-faced, Danny said, “Go to the squad car and report shots confirmed. And one body was found. Believed to be that of Anthony Camerota.”

“Check,” said Tim. He raced to the front door to avoid throwing up inside and fouling the crime scene.


Walking down the aisle between the pews, Val could see the black-clad figure of Father Alex bending over the cathedral’s expensive sound system.

“Yeah, yeah, I know her; she used to be in my parish,” said the priest. Then, hearing footsteps behind him, “Gotta go, I’ve got someone here.”

Turning off the sound equipment, the corpulent priest turned around, initially smiling, until recognising Valerie Camerota.

“Father, I need your help desperately,” pleaded Val. “I know this will be hard to believe, but there are some men disguised as federal police trying to kill me.”

She stopped, almost crying again, as she added, “I think they did kill Tony.”

“Holy shit, it’s her!” said the priest, turning back toward the sound console.

“Father … I,” began Val, stopping as the priest pulled a revolver from a drawer in the cabinet holding the sound equipment.

Flipping a switch on the sound console, the priest said, “The cunt is here right now.”

“Okay, I’ll notify Alastor,” said a female voice over the console. “For God’s sake, keep the bitch there till they arrive.”

“No sweat,” said the priest.

Staring at the handgun, Val said, “Father … what …?”

“We need that slip of paper, cunt!”

Blushing at the insult, Val asked, “What slip of paper?”

“The one I suspect that you have in your handbag,” said the priest, seeing how tightly she was gripping the bag to herself, like it was a winning lotto ticket.

“Father … I …” began Val, starting to look around desperately for a way to escape.

“Stand still, cunt,” said the Father.

From behind Val suddenly came the sound of footsteps, causing them both to look round that way.

“Father Alex?” called a male voice from near the arched doorway.

Peering into the sun, Val could see the figure of the young verger, Tom Chapman, at the rear of the church.

“Shit!” said the priest, recognising his verger, who was not one of their people.

“Father Alex?” called the young verger again.

At the sound of his voice, Val took a couple of tentative steps back down the aisle.

“Stay where you are, cunt,” said the priest as she risked another step backwards.

“Father … I …?” began Val, unable to take her eyes away from the handgun, even as she took another small step backwards.

“Stand still, you cunt!”

From behind them, the footsteps grew louder as the verger, Tom, approached down the aisle.

“Father Alex?” called the verger as he walked.

“I’m busy now, Tom,” said the priest, without taking his eyes away from Valerie.

“Stopping, Tom said, “All right, I’ll call back later.”

The verger turned to walk away again.

“Help! Help! Help!” called Val. “Father Alex has gone mad. He’s got a gun.”

“What …?” asked Tom, wondering if he had heard correctly. Turning back, he started toward them again, stopping as he saw the gun in the priest’s right hand. “Father Alex …? What …?”

“Help! Help! Help!” called Val again.

“Shut up, you dumb cunt!” cried Father Alex to Val. Then to the verger, “This woman is a terrorist, Tom.”

“Mrs. Camerota?” asked Tom. “That’s ridiculous, Father.”

Glaring at the young verger, the priest shouted, “Shut the fuck up, you young faggot!”

Val finally shut up and stared at the priest, and then turned to look at the young verger, who was blushing deep pink.

Father Alex laughed, then said, “That’s right, I know that you like to suck off young boys after choir practice. I’ve seen you.”

“That’s a horrible lie,” said Tom. Then to Val, “I swear it isn’t true, Mrs. Camerota.”

“Don’t worry,” said Val, “I don’t believe a thing he says. He’s mad.”

“Is that so, you dumb cunt!” shouted the priest. Taking a step toward Val, he fired a shot in anger, but missed her by metres.

Shrieking, Val spun around and raced down the aisle toward the verger.

“Lord above!” cried Tom. He forced himself to start toward the priest despite his own terror, mumbling a prayer as he walked.

“Shut the fuck up, you bible-thumping idiot!” said Father Alex, firing again as Val drew level with Tom Chapman.

Just missing Val, the bullet instead hit the young verger, who screamed and fell face down in the aisle.

“Shit in a hand basket!” cried the priest, firing twice more as Val reached the arched doorway.

Suddenly, a burst of light streamed in through a stained-glass window, blinding him, and the priest covered his eyes, just hoping that one of the shots had hit Val.

When he looked up again, though, there was no sign of Val in the church.

“Shit it!” said the priest as he started down the aisle toward the street. Stopping at the corpse of the young verger, he looked down and laughed. “Your God can’t help you now, Tom.”


Val raced outside into the street, where people had stopped at the sound of gunshots inside the church.

“Run for your lives!” shouted Val as she ran down the concrete steps to street level. “Father Alex has gone mad and has a gun.”

Screaming, the onlookers scattered in all directions as Father Alex emerged from the church with the revolver in his right hand.

Val was almost at street level when the priest fired twice more.

“Oh, God!” cried Val, clutching at her left arm.

As the brunette raced out into the road, the priest took careful aim and fired again.

But the handgun was empty.

“Shit in a hand basket!” cried the priest, throwing the gun down in anger. He started down the steps after Val, but she had already vanished up a cross street, and the corpulent priest realised that he was not suited to running after her.

“Shit!” he said in rage. He started back to pick up the handgun, for fear of it being found with his fingerprints on it.

Sighing in frustration, the priest headed back into the church, wondering, “What the hell am I going to say when Alastor and the others turn up?”


Ten minutes later, as darkfall arrived, Valerie reached the emergency entrance to the Western Mercy Hospital.

“Oh God!” she cried at the pain in her arm. Despite not knowing who she could trust anymore, Val headed in through the automatic doors.

“Yes?” asked the triage nurse without even looking up from her computer screen as the doors whooshed open.

“I … I’ve been shot in the arm,” said Val, almost collapsing to the lino-clad floor.

Looking up, the triage nurse looked startled to see Valerie, but quickly recovered her composure.

“Okay, honey, take a seat, and I’ll see you right away.”

As Val wandered over to a hard plastic seat, the nurse clicked a button on her electronic console and whispered, “The bitch is here with me. At the Western Mercy.”

“Keep her there at all costs,” said the same female voice as before.

Grabbing some gauze and a first aid kit, the nurse headed out into the patient area to attend to Valerie’s wound.

She swabbed the wound with saline, then Savlon cream, before starting to bandage it. “Don’t worry, honey, it’s only a flesh wound. But I’ll call one of the doctors to check it out properly as soon as possible.”

“Thank you,” said Val, smiling at the triage nurse, Shirley, grateful to have at last found a friendly face.

Just stay here, you dumb bitch! thought the nurse smiling back at Val, before heading back to the triage area. “They shouldn’t be too long.”

“Thank you,” said Val. Then to an elderly blue-rinsed lady beside her, “Have you been waiting long?”

“About a century,” said the old lady’s husband. “People had died in this emergency room waiting to be seen.”

“It’s not that bad,” said Shirley, glaring at the old man, who refused to look away first.

“Well, not for a couple of weeks maybe,” admitted the old man, “but they do die from time to time. I wouldn’t mind if it meant we moved up in the line. But you still wait forever.”

“Oh, don’t exaggerate, Clive,” said his wife with a half-hearted laugh. Pointing at the overhead television, the old lady said to Val, “There’s a TV to watch while you wait.”

“If you don’t mind watching it with the sound at two Percent,” grumbled Clive. “I just wish I knew what had happened to my old granny’s ear trumpet.”

“Oh, don’t fuss so,” said the blue-rinse lady; “why must you always complain about everything?”

“Because if I don’t, who else will, Alma?” asked Clive, unrepentant.

Trying her best to tune out the elderly couple, Val tried to concentrate upon the news on TV.

“What the …?” Val said as a picture of her husband Tony suddenly appeared on the TV. At first she strained to hear what was being said; then the volume mysteriously shot up as the newsreader announced,

“Anthony Camerota is believed to have been shot dead by his wife, Valerie.”

As Val watched, a wedding picture of her and Tony was displayed on the TV screen.

“Valerie Camerota, nee Davis, is believed to have shot dead three others, Nathaniel Michaels --,” a picture of the old man, obviously dead at the mall, filled the TV screen --, “a harmless old man without any enemies. Mrs. Camerota allegedly also murdered two policemen trying to arrest her.” Pictures of the two police officers came onto the screen as the newsreader named them, “Officers Ed Quince and Andrew Peters. Both men were newly married.

“Mrs. Camerota,” Val’s picture filled the screen again; “is suspected of being part of a terrorist cell and is regarded as highly dangerous. Police are being advised to shoot on sight.”

“No, it’s not true!” shouted Val, making the other patients stare at her.

“Are you all right, honey?” asked Alma, the blue-rinse lady.

Val started to stand, then, with a groan, she collapsed in a heap on the emergency room floor.

“The dumb cunt has fainted,” said the triage nurse loud enough for Clive and Alma to hear and stare at her in amazement. “Well, that ought to keep her here until Alastor and the others arrive.”

“Good,” said the female voice over the radio.


“Okay, let’s go get her,” said Alastor as they pulled up in front of the Christ the Redeemer church.

The three men raced up the concrete steps, with Alfonso lagging behind the other two, expecting to find Father Alex holding Valerie Camerota. Instead, they saw him, gun in hand, standing over the corpse of his verger, Tom Chapman.

“Did you get her?” demanded Alastor.

“No,” said the priest, cowering a little.

“Why the hell not!”

“I had her lined up when my stupid faggot of a verger got in my line of fire. I shot him, and she ran into the alley across the road.”

“You stupid shit!” snarled Alastor, looking fit to murder the priest.

“But I wounded her in the upper arm.”

“Are you sure?” asked Alastor as they headed over to the arched doorway to look out into the street.

“No doubt about it, she clutched her arm and cried out,” said the priest. Pointing across the street, he said, “She ran down that street.”

“The Western Mercy is down that way,” said Alfonso. “If she’s wounded, she must have headed that way.”

“Good thinking,” said Alastor as they headed down the steps again.

Looking relieved that they were no longer angry at him, Father Alex called after them, “Don’t forget to send some collectors for the faggot.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Alastor as they raced back down the steps. Then, as they got into the Fairlane, he said to Alfonso, “All right, let’s go get her.”

Izzi pulled out a mobile phone, saying, “I’ll notify them to stall her. The emergency staff at the Mercy are all ours.”

“If it’s like most hospital emergency rooms, you won’t need to,” said Alfonso as he started the car. “A gunshot wound, they’ll probably keep her waiting eleven hours before anyone sees her.”

They all laughed as they started to pull slowly away from the kerb.

“Good one,” said Izzi.

The car radio beeped, and Alastor picked up the handset and said, “Tell me.”

“The triage nurse at the Western Mercy is stalling the cunt,” said the female voice.

“We’re already on the way,” said Alastor, hanging up. Then to Alfonso, “Good guess; that’s just where the bitch is.”

“Hey, don’t forget the faggot,” called Father Alex as they started to pull away.

“Yeah, okay,” said Alastor. Picking up the handset again, he pushed a button, and the voice asked,

“Yes?”

“Send a meat wagon to the Christ the Redeemer Church for one carcase. Have them go as removalists again. The cops must be onto the ambulance bit by now.”

“Got you,” said the female voice.

“Satisfied?” asked Alastor.

“No sweat,” said the priest.

“If anyone sees him before that, just tell them the Camerota woman shot him, then tried to kill you,” said Izzi. “We’ll get them to upgrade her on the news to complete psycho.”

“Gotcha,” said the priest, turning to start slowly up the steps as the Fairlane finally drove away.

Panting, out of breath, Father Alex was almost up to the cathedral when a woman’s scream rang out from inside the church.

“Christ, what now?” said the portly priest, doing his best to run into the church.

Inside the church, he saw the corpulent figure of his housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy, standing over the corpse of the young verger. Her eyes looked as though they were about to leap out of their sockets.

“Father Alex, someone has killed Tom,” said the old woman. She stopped as she saw the gun in the priest’s right hand.

“He was murdered by Valerie Camerota; she’s gone on a killing spree.”

“Mrs. Camerota?” said Mrs. Murphy, sounding unconvinced. “But you’ve got the gun.”

He looked down, surprised, having forgotten that he was still carrying it.

“Oh, what the fuck,” said Father Alex. Raising the gun, he shot the old woman in the forehead. “I guess they can take two bodies instead of one.”


Val awakened on the lino floor, with the elderly couple, Alma and Clive, crouching over her.

“Are you okay, honey?” asked the blue-rinse lady, as she and her husband helped Val back into one of the hard plastic seats.

“What … what happened?” asked Val, unsure where she was at first.

“You fainted while watching the news, honey,” said Alma. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Looking down at her stomach in wonder, Val said, “I don’t think so.”

“Will you be all right now?” asked Clive.

“Yes, yes, thank you, you’re both very kind,” said Val, looking pale as she suddenly remembered why she had fainted.

Looking up at the clock above the counter, Val saw that she had been unconscious for at least fifteen minutes. With only six other patients in the emergency ward, she wondered, Why am I still waiting to be seen, with a gunshot wound? Even a flesh wound!

She started to look up again, then, fearing the news might still be on, she looked down at her feet instead.

Looking about the emergency ward, she asked Alma and Clive, “Has anyone been attended to while I’ve been here?”

“No, honey,” said Alma. “They’re very, very slow in here.”

“They’re incompetent, you mean,” corrected Clive. “You wait forever to be seen in here.”

Hearing the old man, the triage nurse looked up, no longer smiling, and tried to wither him with a glare; however, the old man refused to be stared down.”

“How much longer do we have to wait?” he demanded. “This lady has a bullet wound in her arm, for God’s sake. Don’t you people give a damn?”

“No, no, it’s only a flesh wound,” said Val, embarrassed to be the centre of attention.

“Nonsense, any bullet wound is serious,” insisted Clive.

“I have bandaged the wound for her,” reminded the triage nurse, Shirley.

“And I’m sure you did your best, honey,” said Alma, “but you’re only a nurse, not a proper doctor.” As Shirley flushed crimson in anger, Alma added, “And even if it’s a flesh wound, a gunshot wound isn’t to be taken lightly.”

“Of course it isn’t,” agreed her husband. “Shift your backside, woman, and get a doctor to see this woman. She’s already fainted once.”

“She’s all right now,” pointed out Shirley.

“Thanks to us helping her,” pointed out Clive. “You didn’t do squat when she collapsed. She could still be lying there on the floor for all you care.”

“Yeah,” agreed an elderly black man, Morgan. “You didn’t do squat.”

“There was no point lifting her when she was unconscious,” protested Shirley; “she might have fallen again. She was safer on the floor until she came around.”

“She could have struck her head on the ground,” said Morgan, who bore a striking resemblance to Bo Diddley. “You should have at least examined her.”

“Yes,” agreed blue-rinsed Alma.

“You don’t care if we live or die, do you?” demanded her husband, Clive.

“Look, she’ll be attended to as soon as possible,” insisted Shirley. “There are others ahead of her.”

“Who?” demanded Morgan. “There are only seven of us here.”

“And you haven’t seen anyone in the two hours we’ve been here,” pointed out Alma.

“That’s right!” agreed her husband, standing. Pointing at Val, to her embarrassment, he ordered, “Get someone out here to see this lady immediately.”

“Yes,” chorused the others.

“We don’t have anyone to see her at the moment.”

Standing, Val said, “In that case, I think I’d better come back tomorrow.”

“No, no, you mustn’t take a chance with a gunshot wound!” protested Shirley.

“Don’t worry, I’ll come back in the morning,” said Val as she started toward the automatic doors.

“No, no, you mustn’t leave,” said the triage nurse, running to the small door to the patient area. “They said to keep you here at all costs.”

Val and the others stared at Shirley as she started into the patient area.

“Who said to keep her here?” demanded Clive started toward the front desk.

“No one,” said Shirley unconvincingly.

Val stared at her for a moment, then turned and raced toward the automatic doors, almost colliding with the doors as they opened too slowly.

“No, no,” shouted Shirley, the triage nurse, “you’re not allowed to leave.”

As Val started into the car park, Shirley raced after her and grabbed her by her injured left arm.

“Aaaaah!” cried out Val, trying to break away from the nurse.

“No, come back, damn you!” cried Shirley as the other patients raced across toward the automatic doors and started outside.

“Leave her alone,” said the elderly black man, Morgan striding across toward the two women. “If you won’t treat her, she has the right to leave.”

“Fuck off, you dumb nigger!” cried the triage nurse, making the onlookers all gasp.

“I’ll give you, dumb nigger,” said Morgan. Grabbing Shirley, he span her around and gave her a resounding slap across the face.

Stunned for a second, Shirley released Val and glared daggers at the old man.

“You black bastard!” she hissed at him.

Then, before the old man could react, she pushed him in the chest hard, sending him flying backwards onto the concrete path.

“What the hell kind of a nurse are you?” demanded blue-rise Alma.

“You’re supposed to help the sick, not kill them,” said her husband, Clive.

“Fuck off, you geriatric arseholes!” hissed the triage nurse. Her eyes seemed to narrow snakelike for a moment as she glared at the elderly patients, who backed away into the emergency room; the automatic doors hissing shut behind them.

Standing a pace away from the nurse, Val stared in horror at the old man lying broken on the concrete, blood streaming from a small hole in his head.

“You evil witch!” she shrieked at the triage nurse.

“What?” demanded Shirley, used to hurling abuse at people, but not used to receiving it.

She turned back to attack Val. But instead, ignoring the shooting pain in her left arm, Val grabbed the nurse and started shaking her wildly, shouting,

“You evil, evil bitch!”

Then, in rage, she hurled the startled triage nurse backwards onto the concrete path.

Shirley screamed, hitting her head, and passed out.

Raising her hands to her mouth, shocked at what she had done, Val stared at the crumpled nurse for a moment. Then, turning, she started toward the elderly man lying on the concrete path.

From the doorway, Clive reappeared and called out, “You’d better get out of here if there are people like her coming after you. We’ll take care of old Morgan.”

“Don’t worry,” called blue-rinse Alma from the emergency ward doorway as Val hesitated. “Head wounds always bleed a lot. But they usually aren’t that serious.”

Val hesitated a moment longer, watching as the elderly patients went into the triage area for bandages. She was reluctant to abandon the old man after he had come to her aid.

“Go on, honey,” said Alma as she walked toward the prone man to kneel with her husband’s help to start bandaging his bloody head.

“Thank you,” said Val. Then, after a second, she turned and raced through the car park to cross the road and start down a side street.


At the Christ the Redeemer Church, Father Alex was standing over the corpses of his verger and housekeeper when Ralph and the other collectors arrived, disguised as removalists.

“Hi, man,” said Ralph, suddenly stopping as he saw the housekeeper’s corpse lying beside the young verger’s. “What the Hell’s going on? We were told just one to collect!”

“The old bag was my housekeeper, Mrs. Murphy,” said Father Alex. “She found me standing over the faggot’s corpse with the gun in my hand, and put two and two together. Besides, she was a terrible nag, so I decided to off-her too.”

Ralph stared at the old lady’s corpse uncertainly for a moment. “Well, I don’t know …?”

“Come on, you can take her too, to help me out, can’t you?”

Ralph considered a moment longer, then said, “Sure, why not, but you owe me one, buddy.”

“Good man,” said the priest with a Cheshire grin. Handing his revolver to Ralph, he added, “You’d better take that too, so no one else can see it.”

“No sweat, buddy,” said Ralph as two collectors dumped the old housekeeper’s corpse onto the trolley.

“Heave, heave-ho,” joked Ralph as they hefted the verger’s corpse to toss it straight on top of the old lady. Then, taking the gun, Ralph used masking tape to affix it to the verger’s cassock.

“You’d better not go out like that,” advised the priest. “In case someone is watching. Some gawking Orthos saw me shooting at the fleeing cunt earlier.”

“No sweat,” said Ralph. He stared hard at the two corpses on the trolley for a few seconds. They began to shimmer as though fading out of existence, but instead they changed shape to look like two large cardboard boxes with the lids already taped down.

“That glimmer thing is so cool,” said the elderly priest as the collectors started to wheel the trolley toward the arched doorway.

“Hang it in, like Gunga Din,” said Ralph in imitation of Jerry Lee Lewis from his country music days.

Laughing, Father Alex waved as they started onto the concrete steps.

“Watch out,” warned Ralph, “I don’t know if the glimmer will hold if the boxes fall off the trolley going down the steps.”


The elderly patients had finished bandaging the head of the old man, Morgan, who was now sitting up on the concrete outside the hospital emergency ward.

“Can you help me up?” asked Morgan, holding out his arms.

“Can you stand with our help?” asked an elderly Vietnamese lady, Tilda.

“I think so. I’d rather try than just sit here on the cold concrete. My backside is freezing.”

“Okay, but take it slowly,” said blue-rinse Alma.

“Lean on me, old timer,” teased Clive.

“Ain’t none of us getting any younger,” said Morgan with a toothy grin.

“Sad, but true,” agreed Clive, helping him up.

“What about the wicked witch?” asked Tilda. She pointed at the triage nurse, Shirley, who was still unconscious on the concrete.

“Leave her there,” said Clive. “I don’t care if she lives or dies. She didn’t care if Morgan was hurt.”

“We can’t just leave her there,” protested his wife.

“Well … okay … but let’s just get Morgan seated inside first. Then we can worry about the evil bitch later,” said Clive.

“Okay,” agreed Alma, as they started slowly toward the automatic glass doors.

The procession had reached the doors and had started inside when the blue Fairlane pulled into the car park and stopped just before hitting the prone triage nurse.

“Look out,” warned Alastor, and Alfonso just managed to brake the Ford in time.

“What the fuck!” said Izzi as he got out of the car and started across toward Shirley.

Alastor and Izzi raised the upper half of the nurse from the footpath and started shaking her roughly.

“Wake up, you stupid cunt!” said Alastor, slapping her roughly across the face.

As he slapped her a second time, the triage nurse started to murmur and slowly awaken.

“Come on! Come on!” said Alastor impatiently, slapping her a third time.

“Careful, don’t knock her head off,” warned Alfonso.

“I’ll tear her head right off her shoulders if she let the bitch escape,” said Alastor.

Finally opening her eyes, the triage nurse looked perplexed by her surroundings.

“What am I doing sitting here …?” she began. Then, seeing Alastor, Izzi, and Alfonso, her memories came flooding back.

“Well! What are you doing sitting in the car park?” demanded Alastor.

“She ran out into the car park to get away, and I ran after her. Then she knocked me out and must have run off.”

“You incompetent cunt, you just had to keep her here,” said Alastor. “I wish I’d let Alfonso run over you now.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his .45.

Eyes wide with terror, Shirley said, “She only left a minute or two ago. She can’t have got far.”

“You had better be right,” hissed Alastor, still looking as though he intended to shoot her.

Grabbing his gun hand, Alfonso said, “Not here, too many people will see.” He nodded to where the elderly patients stood in the doorway to the emergency ward, watching them avidly.

Pocketing his gun, Alastor said, “Figure yourself lucky, cunt.”

“Come on,” said Izzi, heading back toward the Fairlane. “We can still catch the bitch.”

Alastor continued to glare daggers at Shirley, his eyes squinting snakelike for a moment longer. Then, reluctantly, he turned to race after Izzi and Alfonso.


Sergeant Danny Walters and the two constables were cruising, waiting for the end of the afternoon shift, when the police radio squawked.

“Talk to me, Maur,” said Danny, picking up the handset.

“We are notifying all squad cars that all leaves are now cancelled and everyone will have to do double shifts for the next few days at least.”

“What?” asked Hank, behind the steering wheel. “Does that mean we’ve got another eight hours to go on our shift?”

“Afraid so,” said Danny, then to Maureen, “How come?”

“The news services are running reports that Valerie Camerota is in a terrorist cell and murdered the old man and the two cops in the Westernfeld Mall, as well as her husband, Tony.”

“What?” demanded Danny. “Who the hell told them that?”

“We don’t have a clue. No one here has told them anything; we were trying to downplay it, and they refuse to reveal their sources. Fifth Amendment rights and all that crap.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Danny thought aloud.

“That’s what we need you to find out,” said Maureen. “We’ve found witnesses who can put Valerie Camerota at the mall at the time of the shootings, but they all swear she had nothing to do with it. They claim it was three men in smart suits claiming to be Feds.”

“What?” demanded Danny.

“Some of the witnesses say the cops demanded to see the Feds' ID cards and then said they were phoney. That’s when the Feds, if they were Feds, shot the two cops.”

“What the hell?” said Danny. “Fake federal agents going around killing people.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Possibly including Anthony Camerota.”

“That’s what we thought,” said Maureen. “Soon after the shooting at the Camerota house, three men in suits claiming to be Feds stopped at a nearby Maccas to ask about Valerie Camerota.”

“Shit!” said Danny. “Fake Feds have murdered four people.”

“Maybe more,” said Maureen, the dispatcher. “Shots have been reported inside the Christ the Redeemer Church. So far, we haven’t had a car available to send there.”

“You have now,” said Danny, hanging up the handset. Then to Hank, “The Christ the Redeemer Church, and step on it.”

“You got it,” said Hank. Flipping on the alarm, he quickly accelerated into fourth gear and did a flying U-turn to roar back the way they had just come.


Ralph and the collectors were placing the trolley with two big cardboard boxes into the rear of the removalist van as the squad car screeched to a halt across the road.

Ralph looked across the road as the three cops climbed out and said to the other collectors, “Slowly … don’t panic, and they won’t give us a second glance.”


Across the road, Danny Walters stopped for a second to stare at the removalist van with a touch of déjà vu.

“What’s up, Serg?” asked Hank Guynes.

Danny looked at him, brow furled, on the brink of a flash an epiphany. Then it had flown from his head.

“Nothing,” said Danny, starting up the concrete steps; “come on.”

The three cops raced up the steps to the arched doorway of the Christ the Redeemer Church.

Inside, they found Father Alex sitting on a round stool at the sound console.

“What’s going on here?” demanded Danny.

The priest looked round, startled, then relaxed and smiled as he heard the roar of the removalist van driving off.

“Oh, Sergeant Walters, it’s good to see you,” lied the priest. “Did you hear about Mrs. Camerota?”

“What about her?”

“She turned up earlier with a handgun and started shooting up the place,” he said, pointing to where bullet holes pocked the walls near the door. “Thankfully, she missed the stained-glass windows, which are two thousand … er, two hundred years old.”

“She did that?” asked Danny, looking at the bullet marks.

“Of course. Fortunately, she left without shooting anyone. Took the gun with her, so she’s still dangerous. You’d better shoot her on sight. Can’t take risks with psychos.”

“That’s strange, we had reports that you did the shooting,” said Danny.

“Me?” asked the priest, sounding genuinely shocked. “I wouldn’t know how to fire a gun. I’ve been a confirmed peacenik since my days as a conscientious objector to the first Gulf War.”

“That’s strange,” said Hank Guynes, “we’ve had reports from over a dozen people that you were shooting at Mrs. Camerota. Not the other way around.”

“I don’t know what stupid cunts told you that,” said the priests, surprising the three policemen. “But she was the one doing the shooting, not me.”

Looking about the church, Danny said, “You’re all alone here, Father?”

“That’s right; oh, lonesome me,” he said, quoting a Hank Williams song.

“Are Tom Chapman and Mrs. Murphy about anywhere? So they can corroborate your story about Mrs. Camerota doing the shooting?” asked Danny.

“Afraid not,” said the priest, still tinkering with the sound console. “They were already gone by then.”

“Gone?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“Yes, they ran off together this morning. It seems they’d been having a sexual liaison behind my back for years.”

“Tom?” asked Danny Walters.

“With old Mrs. Murphy?” asked Tim. “She’s old enough to be his mother!”

“Yes, I was shocked too,” said Father Alex. “Personally, I always thought he was a faggot, the way he used to eye off the older choir boys. Frankly, I didn’t dare leave him alone with them.”

“What?” demanded Danny in disbelief.

“It’s true,” insisted the priest. “Maybe he was … is only a semi-faggot. What do they call them in politically correct English …?” He considered a moment, and then said, “Bisexuals, that’s right. Personally, I call them all faggots.”

“Tom Chapman is bisexual?” said Danny in amazement. “I don’t believe a word you’ve said since we came in here.”

“Maybe we ought to apply for a warrant to search this place?” suggested Hank Guynes.

“No need for that,” said the priest with a sanctimonious smirk. “Feel free to search with my full blessings. If you find a gun anywhere, I’ll come quietly, as they say on TV.”

Danny considered a moment, then said, “If you’re willing to let us search without a warrant, there’s no point searching, is there?”

“None at all,” agreed the priest, flashing a broad shit-eater grin at them.

Somehow resisting the urge to punch the smug priest in the face, Danny spun around and started back down the aisle.

“Maybe we should search anyway?” suggested Hank Guynes as they started back toward the arched doorway.

“Yeah,” said Tim, “no way did Tom Chapman and old Mrs. Murphy run off together.”

“No, he’s probably killed them,” said Danny as they started down the steps to the squad car. “But if he’s disposed of the gun, without any bodies or witnesses, we’ve got nothing.”

“We’ve got plenty of witnesses,” said Tim Wyatt.

“Claiming that he shot at and missed Valerie Camerota. But no witnesses to him killing Tom or Mrs. Murphy.”

“Maybe there were witnesses?” suggested Hank.

“I’m guessing there was only one.”

“One witness?” asked Tim as they reached street level.

“Valerie Camerota. Who probably also witnessed her husband’s murder.”

“Which explains why she’s running,” said Hank, as they walked toward the squad car. “She’s probably too terrified to even trust us.”

“Well, after she’s had a priest try to murder her, why should she trust the cops?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“Exactly,” agreed Danny. “It also explains why three fake Feds are looking for her.”

“They’re the assassins!” exclaimed Tim.

“I’d bet my ever-dwindling pension on it,” said Danny as Hank Guynes sat behind the steering wheel.

“Hey, the removalist van has gone,” said Hank, making Danny look across the road.

“There was a removalist van outside the Camerota house when we found Anthony Camerota’s corpse,” reminded Tim Wyatt.

“Holy shit!” said Danny Walters. And the epiphany that had almost hit him earlier suddenly struck him like a sledgehammer. “They were removing the bodies of Tom Chapman and Mrs. Murphy even as we went inside to grill Father Alex.”

“That’s why he was so smug,” said Hank. “He knew that there was nothing left in the church for us to find. It had just been taken away.”

“Including the gun he used, I’ll bet,” said Danny as he and Tim ran across to the squad car.

“Come on, we might still be able to catch them,” enthused Tim, almost leaping into the backseat of the car.

“I doubt it,” said Danny. “It’s probably something else by now.”

“What do you mean?” asked Hank as he started the car.

“At the mall we chased after three white ambulances, which were also reported at the Camerota’s house … presumably by Valerie Camerota,” explained Danny. “But when we reached the house, we saw a removal van, just as there was outside the church.”

“So?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“So, it seems they’re too smart to use the same disguise more than twice,” said Danny. “Even if we did catch up with them, we wouldn’t know it, since it’s probably disguised as a baker’s van or a laundry truck or something by now.”

“Shit,” said young Hank, “just who are we dealing with here?”

“Someone very cunning, and very evil,” said Danny. He reached for the radio to contact the dispatcher.


Still clutching her bandaged left arm, Val was running down a dark alleyway when she suddenly heard a car roaring up behind her.

“Oh God, no!” she cried, ducking into a gateway at the back of a house, as the blue Fairlane pulled up only metres from her.


“Why are we stopping here?” demanded Alastor.

“I thought I saw movement near that gate,” said Alfonso, pointing almost straight at Valerie Camerota.

“You’re imagining it,” said Izzi.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” agreed Alfonso, starting the car again.

Crouching behind a dense shrub not far from the gate, Val held a hand over her mouth to avoid crying out until the car sped off again.

Val continued hiding for a moment longer, then emerged and started in the opposite direction from the car.


“Hello, car forty-five here,” said Danny Walters into the handset of the police radio.

“What is it?” asked Maureen.

Danny quickly went on to relate their suspicions about Father Alex, the fake federal agents, and the ambulances and removalist van.

“Sounds like a big operation,” said Maureen.

“It seems they never use the same disguise more than twice,” continued Danny. “So put the word out to keep an eye out for any vans or trucks close by any crime scene … especially shooting scenes.”

“We’ve got news too,” said Maureen. “The mayor got in touch with the Bureau and the Agency to tell them about the fake Feds, to see what, if anything, they could tell her.”

“And?” asked Danny.

“And they told her to butt out and let them take care of it.”

“Shit! She’s not going to is she?”

“No way! She told them to eff-off, that this is our case. And she’s made it plain that she wants us to solve it.”

“Thank God for that!” said Danny with feeling.


Val had just started down the cobbled alleyway when there was a loud snap.

“Aaaaah!” she cried as she was suddenly pitched face down onto the cobblestones.

She looked back, “What now?”

At first, in the dark, she couldn’t see what was wrong. Then she realised that the heel had snapped off her left shoe.

“Oh Lord,” she said, climbing to her feet again. She tried to keep walking, but the different height of the shoes meant she was only able to hobble.

“Damn!” she said, almost falling again. After a moment, she took off her right shoe and began whacking it upon the cobblestones until she had broken the other heel off.

“At least now they’re level,” she said, putting the shoe back on. Although uncomfortable, she was now able to walk much more naturally and a little faster.


PART THREE
The blue Fairlane sped along for eight minutes before squealing to a stop again.

“Why are we stopping now?” demanded Alastor.

“We’ve gone too far; we should have seen her by now,” insisted Alfonso.

“We can’t have passed her without seeing her,” said Izzi.

“Unless she was hiding back near the gate where I thought I saw movement before.”

“Possibly,” said Alastor, unconvinced. “Shit, okay, take us back there.”

“Gotcha,” said Alfonso, doing a U-turn with some difficulty in the laneway.

Then they sped back the way they had come.

“This is it,” called Izzi, and the car pulled up with a squealing of tyres as they reached the gateway.

“Okay, let’s have a look,” said Alastor as they climbed from the blue Ford. “You two hunt out here, I’ll look inside the backyard.”

A minute or two later, Alastor was crouching to look at what could have been a woman’s footprint. When Alfonso called from outside, “I’ve found something.”

“What have you found?” asked Alastor, straightening.

“The heel from a woman’s shoe,” said Alfonso, holding it up.

“I can see that,” said Alastor. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s hers.”

“It’s gotta be,” said Izzi.

“Why does it gotta be?” taunted Alastor.

“Because we drove too far without seeing her, before coming back,” said Alfonso.

“He’s right,” insisted Izzi as Alastor started back out into the alleyway.

“Maybe, maybe not,” said the chief executioner, sounding unconvinced.


The squad car was barrelling along when the radio squawked again. Danny picked up the handset and said,

“Talk to me, Maur?”

“Just got word, Valerie Camerota may have been involved in a skirmish at the Western Mercy Hospital.”

“Okay, we’re on the way,” said Danny.

“And the real Feds are still pressuring the mayor to let them investigate the fake Feds without our help.”

“Shit!” said Danny and Tim as one.

“Don’t worry, she’s a stubborn bitch. The more they pressure her, the more she digs her heels in. They’ll have to kill her to get her to drop this case.”

“Shit, don’t say that, they just might do it,” said Danny, hanging up the handset. Then to Hank, “Western Mercy Hospital.”

“Gotcha, Serg,” said the constable, putting the squad car into a sharp U-turn.


“Well, where could she have gone to?” asked Alastor fifteen minutes later, when they still had not tracked down Valerie.

“She could be hiding out in a hotel,” suggested Izzi. “There are plenty of them in this area.”

“Good idea,” said Alastor, “why don’t we get a phone book and ring around them all?”

“Do you think there are many in this place?” asked Izzi, taking the bait.

“There can’t be more than eleven-, or twelve hundred of them in this state. If we start ringing round now, we could track her down in a year or two at most.”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic!” said Izzi.

“Assuming she doesn’t move during that time,” added Alastor.

“Shut up already!” said Izzi petulantly, to the amusement of Alastor and Alfonso.


Racing down the alley as fast as her heelless shoes allowed, Val turned left into a main street and almost hobbled past the Shady Rest Hotel before noticing the Vacancy sign was lit up.

Panting from a mixture of fear and exhaustion, she staggered into the foyer and almost collapsed against the front desk.

“Lady, you don’t look so good,” said the weasel-faced desk clerk.

“Man, I don’t feel so good,” said Val between gasps. “Have you got a room for the night?”

“Sure, ten bucks. No luggage means you pay in advance.”

Reaching into her handbag, Val extracted a $10 note from her purse and gave the money to the desk clerk in exchange for a room key.

“Is there anywhere around here I can get a bite to eat?”

Pointing toward a small doorway to Val’s left, he said, “Mrs. Chung can do you fried rice for a five spot.”

Val took the money from her purse and gave the $5 to the clerk.

“Can you bring it up to my room?”

Shrugging, he said, “I guess so.”

“Thanks,” said Val. She walked across to the elevator, but seeing the Out of Order sign, changed direction and started up the three flights of stairs instead.

“Oh, God,” gasped Valerie as she finally reached the third landing. She started slowly toward her room, then stopped and stared at a red pair of women’s shoes outside the room opposite hers.

Tip-toeing across the carpet, she checked the size, which was half a size larger than her own.

“They ought to fit,” she said. Removing her broken shoes, she left them on the carpet instead of the red shoes, which she had put on before going across to open the door of her room to step inside.


Shirley, the triage nurse, was still on duty at the Western Mercy Hospital when, with a screeching of tyres, sirens blaring, the squad car pulled up outside the emergency ward.

“Fuck, what now!” said Shirley.

“Young lady, you have a bad attitude and a dirty mouth,” said blue-rinse Alma. Who, along with her husband and the Vietnamese lady, Tilda, was still waiting to be seen.

“Fuck off, you old skank,” said Shirley, still angry at having been threatened with death by Alastor, having temporarily forgotten the maxim, ‘Maintain the illusion at all costs.’

“How dare you talk to my good lady wife like that?” said Clive, climbing unsteadily to his feet.

“Shut up and sit down, you stupid old fart,” said Shirley as the glass doors suddenly whooshed open to admit Danny Walters and his two constables.

“Who’s in charge here?” demanded Danny.

“I am,” said Shirley, smiling sweetly again, having been reminded of the need to maintain the illusion at all costs by the sight of the three police uniforms.

“We’ve received a report that Valerie Camerota, who is wanted for questioning, was in here earlier,” said Danny, stating a fact, not asking a question.

Thinking quickly, Shirley decided not to deny it, instead saying, “That’s right, I tried to detain her here till the police could get here, but I think she panicked after seeing herself on TV.”

I bet the poor cow did! thought Danny, “What was wrong with her?”

“A flesh wound in her left shoulder,” said Shirley, considering lying, but deciding against it.

“She’d been shot?” questioned Danny.

“Yes, but the bullet only grazed her. We were treating her when she suddenly got violent; beat up an elderly patient, then attacked me.”

“That is a damn lie!” said Clive, refusing to be shushed by his wife. “Mrs. Camerota, if that’s who she was, was a gentle lady. It was that slag who attacked her --,” pointing at the triage nurse. “And when Morgan went to her aid, the nurse pushed him over and he hit his head.”

“Well?” asked Danny, staring at the nurse.

Smiling broadly, Shirley said, “Don’t listen to Mr. Westlake. I’m afraid he’s more than a little senile, and he imagines all kinds of things.”

“How dare you? I am not!” protested Clive Westlake.

“He’ll be telling you next that the Martians have invaded,” said Shirley. “He did recently. Had all the poor old dears in a tizzy.”

“That’s a damn lie!” protested Clive.

“My husband does not imagine things!” said Alma.

“No, he’s as sane as I am,” said Tilda. “That bitch attacked Mrs. Camerota and poor Morgan, just like Mr. Westlake said.”

“I suppose she’s imagining things too?” asked Danny.

“Yes, we call her Silly Tilly,” said Shirley, her smile almost slipping. “They’re all old and senile. You can’t believe any of them.”

“How dare you! Silly Tilly indeed!” said Tilda.

Taking handcuffs from his belt, Danny said, “I think you’d better come with us, so we can get this sorted out at the station.”

As he cuffed her, Danny instructed the two constables, “Get the names and contact details of everyone here; we’ll need to get in touch with them all tomorrow to get official statements.”

“Got you,” said Hank Guynes.

The two young officers took out their notepads and did as instructed.

“No, no, you can’t arrest me,” protested Shirley. “They’ll kill us all if you do!”

“Who will kill us all?” demanded Danny Walters. And everyone in the emergency ward turned round to stare at the triage nurse.

When she refused to answer, he said, “The fake Feds who murdered Anthony Camerota and the three people at the Westernfeld Mall?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” hissed Shirley, looking as though she thought that they were all already dead.

“Book her, Danno,” called Clive as Danny led her across to the automatic doors.

“Shut up, you old shit!” hissed Shirley, almost head-butting the glass doors as they opened too slowly.


Valerie was on the brink of falling asleep, fully clothed on the hotel bed, when she was startled awake by the sound of knocking on the front door.

“What …? Who …?” said Val, sitting up, startled. She looked around, not knowing where she was at first. Then, as the knocking continued, she looked up slowly, her memory finally starting to return.

“Oh God!” she said, covering her eyes, having almost started to believe that it was all a nightmare. But the sight of the sleazy hotel brought the brutal truth back to her – including the murder only hours earlier of her beloved husband, Tony.

Looking around, as the tapping came again, she asked, “Yes, who is it?”

“Lorelei Chung,” said a female voice. “I’ve brought your fried rice.”

“Oh, good, come in,” said Val. Feeling ravenous, she hurriedly sat up on the side of the bed.

“Hello,” said a pleasant-faced elderly Asian lady as she entered carrying a tray with fried rice and a pot of coffee. “I didn’t know if you liked China or Ceylon tea, so I brought coffee instead.”

“Coffee will be fine,” said Val as Mrs. Chung placed the tray on a small wooden bedside cabinet.

“Eat hearty,” said Mrs. Chung, turning to leave.

“I will. I’m starving.”

Suddenly stopping, Mrs. Chung looked back and pointed at the red shoes, and said, “Ooh, nice shoes. Miss Piedersen across the hallway has a pair just like them.”

“Oh … really?” said Val guiltily, almost choking on a mouthful of rice and peas.

“Just like them,” enthused Mrs. Chung. Then, to Val’s relief, she waved goodbye and turned and walked out into the corridor. “I’ll come back later to collect the plates.”

“That’s all right, I’ll bring them down,” said Val, thinking: It’ll give me a chance to get acclimatised to Miss Piedersen’s shoes!

“As you like, honey,” said Mrs. Chung, closing the door as Valerie began devouring the rice ravenously.


The desk clerk, Fred Larkins, was watching the news on TV as Mrs. Chung returned.

“How’d it go, Lorelei?” asked Fred.

“She’s a very nice lady,” said Mrs. Chung. “And she’s got a pair of red shoes just like Miss Piedersen’s.”

“They’re probably common enough if you can afford them.”

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Chung. She looked down at her dowdy loafers for a moment before heading through to the kitchen.

“Shoes are shoes as far as I’m concerned,” said Fred to himself. “Why women have to treat them like works of art is beyond me!”

He suddenly stopped and stared at the television screen as they flashed a photograph of someone he recognised.

“We repeat,” said the newsreader, “police have asked people to notify them on the number at the bottom of your screen if you see this woman. Valerie Camerota is wanted for questioning in the murders of her husband, Tony, an elderly man, and two policemen at the Westernfeld Mall.”

“Jesus wept!” said Fred hurriedly writing down the number, before muting the TV set, and reaching for the telephone.


“How are they hanging?” asked Maureen Nunn, a plumpish brunette dispatcher with a silky, sexy voice like Nina Simone, as Danny Walters, Hank Guynes, and Tim Wyatt returned from booking the triage nurse, Shirley.

“Very low at the moment. Almost touching the ground,” said Danny, making Tim Wyatt laugh.

“Don’t listen to that,” teased Maureen, “you’re too young.”

Tim blushed like a schoolboy, although he was twenty-two.

“I’ll be glad when this double shift ends,” said Danny.

“Well, it ain’t over yet,” said Maureen.

“What’s up now?” asked Danny, somehow resisting the urge to sigh from frustration.

“They want you to go to a house on Godless Avenue.

“Sounds appropriate after everything that has happened tonight,” said Danny. “How come, Maur?”

“Valerie Camerota’s sister-in-law, Roberta Robinson, lives there. She has agreed to allow us to bug her house, in case Valerie turns up there.”

“Seems logical,” said Danny, taking a slip of paper with the full address from the dispatcher. Winking at the plump brunette, he said, “See you in my dreams, gorgeous.”

“You wish!” said Maureen in her silky, Nina Simone voice.


Valerie carried the dinner tray down the three flights of steps, careful not to trip in the unaccustomed shoes.

She had reached the now vacant front desk when, with a squealing of tyres, the blue Fairlane stopped outside the front door.

“Shit!” said Valerie, dropping the tray onto the counter. She hurried around to hide behind the front desk, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable.


“Come on!” Come on!” shouted Alastor, ding-dinging the reception bell hard enough to almost break it.

“Hold on,” called a voice from the kitchen. Then Fred Larkins appeared from the back room, devouring a large slab of cheese. “Can I help you?”

“You phoned us,” said Alastor impatiently. “About the Camerota woman.”

“Oh, yeah,” said the clerk, “she’s on the third floor.”

The three assassins raced across toward the small elevator, only to find it out of order.

“Elevator’s broke,” said Fred Larkin.

“Elevator’s broke,” mimicked Alfonso.

“Shit, don’t the elevators ever work in these 1-star hotels?” cursed Alastor.

“How dare you?” said Fred. “This is a 2-star hotel.”

“This is a 2-star hotel,” mimicked Alfonso, making Izzi snigger.

“Shut up,” said Alastor, unamused.

As they turned to start up the stairs, Fred called, “Don’t you want the pass key?”

“We’ll make do,” said Alastor as they raced up the first flight. To Izzi and Alfonso, he added, “If necessary, I’ll rip the bloody door off its hinges.”

“Ah-ah mustn’t do things like that,” said Alfonso. He was already panting from the effort of running up the stairs.

“Remember, we must maintain the illusion at all costs,” teased Izzi.

“Shut up! Both of you!” said Alastor, who barely seemed to slow as they reached the second floor. Unlike Izzi and Alfonso, who were starting to lag behind the chief executioner.


Fred Larkin watched the three men sprint up the stairs for a moment, then turned to leave. Seeing the plates on the counter, he stared at them.

“When the hell did she put them there?” he wondered aloud.

After a second, he shrugged and picked up the tray and walked across to the door to the kitchen.

“Lady upstairs has finished, Lorelei,” he called to Mrs. Chung.

“Fine, bring the plates in. I’ve washed everything else,” said the old lady. “I’ll be relieved to be able to slip off to bed for a few hours' rest.”


Crouching behind the front desk, Val listened to the goings on in terror. As Fred Larkins walked across to the kitchen, she could see him past the end of the front desk and feared he would look around and see her.

As Fred walked into the kitchen, Val leapt up, raced around the front counter, and out toward the front door of the hotel.


Reaching the third floor, Alastor and the others started looking around.

“What’s the room number?” asked Izzi.

“Shit, I forgot to ask!” said Alastor. “I guess we’ll just have to try them all.”

As Alastor went across to knock on the front door, Alfonso looked around and called between panting breaths, “Hang on, I might have just found her.”

“What?” asked Alastor, looking around.

Alfonso walked down two doors to where there were a pair of dirty brown women’s shoes outside the door. Holding up one of the shoes which had lost its heel, he said, “Look!”

“Good man,” said Alastor, walking across to kneel beside him.

Alfonso took the broken heel from his pocket and tried it. However, it did not fit. So he threw down the shoe and picked up the second shoe. This time, the heel clicked into place like a jigsaw piece.”

“Bingo,” said Alfonso.

“We have a winner,” said Izzi, grinning like a retarded Cheshire cat.

“Okay, kick it in,” said Alastor, standing again.

Alfonso straightened, and the three men drew their handguns. Then Alfonso and Izzi both kicked the thin door, which flew inwards to reveal a tall blonde standing in her panties and bra beside a floor-length mirror.

The woman screamed as Alastor, Alfonso, and Izzi all opened fire on her.

Alastor walked across to where the blonde had fallen backwards onto the carpet. Kneeling beside her, he put away his revolver and took a folded picture of Val from his coat pocket. Opening the picture, he held up the blonde’s head with his left hand to compare her features to those in the photo.

The blonde, Rosie Piedersen, looked nothing remotely like Valerie Camerota.

“Shit, it’s the wrong woman,” said Izzi.

Dropping the woman’s head, Alastor looked up at him and said, “You’re a master of the understatement, Izzi.”

“What’ll we do now?” asked Alfonso as Alastor stood again and put away the picture.

“Maybe she switched shoes,” suggested Izzi.

Sighing from frustration, Alastor said, “Sometimes your genius confounds me, Iz.”

“You mean astounds,” corrected Izzi.

“I know what I said,” said Alastor. Alfonso laughed, but Izzi glared at him.

As the three assassins headed back to the corridor, Alastor said, “We’d better check all the rooms on this floor to be on the safe side.”

“Okay,” agreed Alfonso and Izzi.


Sophie Martin was sitting at her dressing cabinet, trying to work out what to do with her brassy red hair, which made her look like a fifty-year-old Little Orphan Annie. “More like Little Orphan Granny,” she said, laughing at her own joke.

Outside, she heard men talking, but thought nothing of it. The 2-star hotel was not above renting rooms by the hour to ladies of the night and their customers, so men came and went at all hours.

She started, however, at the sound of a nearby door being kicked in.

Probably someone being thrown out for not paying their rent, she thought. Looking at her watch, she said, “That Piedersen whore has been there for over two days now. At five bucks an hour, she would owe them a fortune if it were her.” She was still trying to work out what $5 times forty-eight hours was when she heard the gunshots.

“What …?” said Sophie, starting to stand, then she decided, Must be a car backfiring outside! Although as she sat again, she had a vague memory of having read somewhere that cars had not backfired since the 1980s when they had improved their engines somehow. Or changed the formula of the gasoline or something! she thought.

She considered for a moment, then shrugged, thinking, None of my beeswax. If I go out there, I could get shot, too!

So, she went about trying desperately to beautify her brassy, unattractive face for a few minutes, until she heard knocking at the door to one of the neighbouring rooms. After a moment, she heard men talking and thought, They’re probably looking for the room of that Piedersen whore so they can buy an hour or two of her services!

She was still looking dissatisfied with her blotchy complexion, which seemed to stay blotchy, no matter how much powder and rouge she applied to her cheeks, when she was startled by the sound of knocking at her door.

Getting up impatiently, she strode across to tell them that they were in the wrong room, that she was not that kind of woman. But opening the door, she stopped at the sight of Alastor, who was tall and quite handsome, and asked,

“Yes, what can I do for you, Sweetie?”

Holding up a picture of Valerie Camerota and his fake federal police ID card, he said, “I wonder if you have seen this lady tonight, madam.”

Without even looking at the picture, she said, “Lady? She looks more like a whore. Like that Piedersen tramp.”

“Yes, indeed she is,” said Alastor, smiling. He thought, A woman of my own heart, not afraid to call a whore a whore. “But we want her in connection with some murders, including those of two policemen at Westernfeld Mall yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh my God!” said Sophie. “Yes, I heard about that on the TV news earlier.” This time, she took the picture to look at it closely for a moment before saying, “No, I’ve never seen her around here, Sweetie.”

“That’s all right, madam,” said Alastor, giving her a broad smile. Immediately regretting it as the brassy redhead leered back at him.

Shrugging back over her shoulder, she asked, “Would you like to come inside for a moment, Sweetie?”

“Er, thank you, but no, I cannot stop until we have found this lady,” said Alastor, hurriedly backing away from the room. “She can be very dangerous.”

“So can I, Sweetie,” said Sophie with her sexiest pout, she hoped. “Why don’t you come inside and find out?”

“Sorry, but my insurance doesn’t cover being mauled by a middle-aged Orphan Annie clone,” said Alastor as he hurried across to knock on the next door.

“Oh, pooh!” said Sophie Martin, watching Alastor for a moment. Then, reluctantly, she closed the door to head back to her beauty cabinet.


Seeing Izzi heading across to the door that he had just checked, Alastor warned, “I’ve just checked that one. And watch out, there’s a middle-aged barracuda in there, ready to lure any man she can get into her room.”

“Thanks for the warning,” said Izzi, hastening across to knock on, then kick in the door across the hallway. He looked inside, then said, “No one here.”

“Nor here,” said Alastor, who had kicked in the door to the room after Sophie Martin’s. He went across to the next door, but found that Alfonso had already kicked it in.

“No one in that one,” said Alfonso. “And, I think this is the last of them.”

He knocked on the door and then raised his left foot to kick it in as the door was opened by a pink-rinsed old lady.

“Yes?” asked the lady.

Holding up his fake ID and a picture of Valerie, Alfonso asked, “I wonder if you have seen this woman in the hotel in the last few days.”

The old lady looked at the picture, shook her head, and then said, “Sorry! I don’t get out much. Mrs. Chung kindly brings me up my meals, since I can’t manage the stairs when the elevator is out of order. As it usually is.”

“Yes, I can sympathise,” said Alfonso. He still recalled his exhaustion after struggling up three flights of steps in the futile search to find Valerie Camerota.

“Sorry,” said the old lady, closing the door again.

“So much for that,” said Alfonso, heading back toward Izzi and Alastor.

“So what do we do now?” asked Izzi. He narrowly avoided the door to Sophie Martin’s room, where the brassy redhead was standing again, giving him the glad eye.

“Sure, you don’t have time to come in for a moment?” asked Sophie in what she hoped was a Marilyn Monroe pouty voice.

“Thank you, but I’d rather die,’ said Izzi.

Glaring at the assassin, Sophie said, “Come in here, and at least you’ll die happy.”

“Now --,” said Alastor, glaring at the brassy redhead until she reluctantly backed into her room again --, “go downstairs and call Ralph to collect the blonde. Maybe they could come this time as a baker’s van.”

“Or as a butcher’s van,” said Izzi. “Then they could carry her out as a side of beef.”

Sighing from frustration, Alastor said, “I’ve told you before, Iz, leave the jokes to me.”

“How do we explain the disappearance of the blonde to the two downstairs?” asked Alfonso as they started toward the staircase.

“We make them disappear, too.”

“Fair enough,” said Alfonso, grinning Cheshire-like, as the three of them started down the stairs.

Downstairs, they found the front desk abandoned.

“Where the hell are they?” said Izzi. And as though in answer to his question, they heard voices coming from the small kitchen.

“Izzi, call Ralph and the collectors. Alfonso, come with me,” said Alastor, pulling his revolver from his coat.

“Got you,” said Izzi. He walked across to the phone on the front counter.


“She can’t be a murderess,” protested Mrs. Chung as they put away the last of the dishes in the overhead cupboards. “She seemed like such a nice lady.”

“I’m telling you, Lorelei, she’s wanted for half a dozen murders at least,” insisted Fred Larkin. “Your problem is that you always want to believe the best of people.”

“There’s nothing wrong with giving people the benefit of the doubt,” insisted Lorelei Chung.

“Even murderesses?” asked Fred.

“‘Forgive them for they know not what they do,’ the Good Book says,” pointed out Mrs. Chung.

“Lorelei, that was Jesus talking about his oppressors.”

“It doesn’t matter, it’s in the Good Book,” she insisted. “And I say Mrs. Camerota, if that’s who she was, is a very nice young lady.”

“Lorelei!” protested Fred Larkin. Then, hearing the door open behind them, they turned and saw Alastor and Alfonso standing, grinning in the doorway.

“Sorry, guests aren’t allowed in the kitchen,” said Mrs. Chung, smiling at them.

Ignoring her, Fred said to Alastor, “Finished?”

“Finished,” agreed Alastor.

“I hope you haven’t forgotten my reward for calling you?”

“Of course not,” said Alastor, “I’ll give you your reward right now.”

Grinning broadly, Fred Larkin started forward as Alastor raised his left arm and shot him twice.

“Shit!” cried Fred, dying before he hit the floor.

As Mrs. Chung screamed, Alastor turned to Alfonso and said, “Why don’t you give the old battleaxe her reward, Alfonso?”

“No sweat,” said Alfonso, shooting the old lady.

“Nice shootin’, Tex,” said Alastor, and the two men laughed as they turned to start back into the lobby of the sleazy hotel.


Seeing an ATM, Val hurried over to it and searched through her handbag until she found her Visa card.

“Hopefully they won’t be able to track me from this,” said Val, “but I must have more money.”

When she placed her card into the slot, though, a message appeared on the screen: “Card reported stolen!”

With a rattle of machinery, the ATM confiscated the Visa card.

“Stupid thing! It is not stolen!” shouted Val.

She kicked the front of the machine, and alarms started pip-pipping.

“Damn it!” cried Val. Turning, she raced over to the nearest cross street.


In the lobby of the Shady Rest Hotel, Izzi had just asked Ralph to collect three corpses from the hotel when, suddenly, with a clicking sound, Ralph was cut off, and a new voice appeared over the receiver,

“What the hell are you all up to, Izzi?”

“Mr. Rodrigo?” asked Izzi, sounding terrified.

“What the hell is going on there?”

“We almost got her this time,” said Izzi, realising how lame it sounded as soon as he said it.

“Almost?” asked Rodrigo, sounding unimpressed. “I told you to recover a single sheet of A4 paper … Not to start a massacre!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rodrigo, but we’ve only killed those we had to.”

“You’ve killed seven so far! Seven!”

“Yessir,” agreed Izzi.

“And that dumb priest has killed two also.”

“Two?” asked Izzi. “Who was the second one?”

“His housekeeper. He says that because she found him standing over the body of his verger. But I suspect it was because the old witch nagged him too much!”

“Oh, I see,” said Izzi, somehow resisting the temptation to snigger.

“Well, don’t kill anyone else, except in self-defence or if they’ve read the paper,” ordered Rodrigo. “We must maintain the illusion at all costs!”

“Yessir,” said Izzi.

“And to make matters worse, that dumb bitch of a mayor, Marla Goldenberg, refuses to let the C.I.A. take over this case.”

“How would the C.I.A. taking over help us?” asked Izzi, regretting the question as soon as he had uttered it.

“Because, you idiot, they aren’t the C.I.A. The dumb bitch has been dealing with our other team, Dad, Rae, and Hannibal. Who she thinks are the C.I.A.”

“How did you manage that?” asked Izzi, trying his best to sound impressed.

“Let’s just say she was convinced to go to the wrong address when she went to speak to the Agency.”

“Well done, sir,” Izzi said in his most grovelling voice. However, the phone had already gone dead.

Hearing footsteps, Izzi turned as Alastor and Alfonso reappeared from the kitchen doorway.

“Did you arrange it, Izzi?” asked Alastor.

“Yes,” said Izzi, looking very pale.

“What’s up, Iz?” asked Alfonso.

“Mr. Rodrigo cut in and said we mustn’t kill anyone else, except in self-defence or if they’ve read the paper. We must maintain the illusion at all costs.”

Looking pale, Alastor pointed back to the kitchen and asked, “Does he know about those two?”

“I think so. He cut in after I told Ralph we had three to go.”

“Perhaps we’d better wait here to talk to Ralph, before we go after the bitch again?” suggested Alfonso.

Alastor looked at the clock on the wall behind the front counter and then said, “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”


A blue Fairlane pulled up outside the historic bluestone building in Exhibition Street.

Most of the building was in darkness, but a single office had the light on, on the top storey.

“The dumb bitch is a hard worker, I’ll give her that,” said Dad.

Rae and Hannibal both brayed like donkeys.

“Come on, let’s go wait for her.”

“Okay,” said Hannibal, and the three men climbed out. In business suits like Alastor’s team, the second team could also have passed for accountants, wearing smart, pale blue suits as though to match their Ford.

“She normally comes out the front door,” said Hannibal, the self-appointed leader of this team, “but walk around the back and wait, just in case, Rae.”

“Got you,” said Rae, a tall black man who was built like an Olympic runner. He turned and started at a run around the building, without even panting.

“All right, Dad,” go across to the other side of the doorway,” instructed Hannibal. “I’ll wait this side, and we’re bound to get her in a crossfire.”

“No sweat,” said Dad, braying like a donkey at the thought of putting the smart bitch into her place.


Inside the cream-walled office, Marla Goldenberg sat slouched over some papers, seemingly doing a double shift like the police. She was just rubbing at a crick in her neck when two hands encircled her throat.

“What?” she said, startled, looking around to where one of her assistants, George, stood behind her.

“Lie back and let me ease the tension for you,” advised George, a trained masseur as well as a marksman.

“Oh God, that’s good,” said Marla as George carefully rubbed the aches from her neck and shoulders.

“What’s going on here?” asked a teasing voice behind them.

Looking around, they saw a tall Asian man doing his best not to laugh as he tried to look shocked, as though he had caught George and Marla in some compromising situation.

“I can come back later, or not at all, if you’re doing anything private.”

“It might end up not at all, if you don’t watch yourself, Aaron,” teased Marla, trying her best to sound miffed. “Don’t think you can be sarky at my expense, just because you’ve been my assistant and friend for fifteen years now.”

“Sorry, Madam Mayor,” said Aaron, doing a low, Japanese-style bow.

“This, after you’ve just told him not to be sarky,” said George.

“Yes,” agreed Marla. “Maybe it’s time I gave up for the night and went home, rather than stay here and be derided by my assistants.”

“Ah, so, so sorry,” said Aaron in his best Charlie Chan voice.

“Now he’s taking off Charlie Chan,” said George.

“Oh, that’s it, I’m going home for the night,” said Marla. As she stood up, George reached for her mock ermine coat to help her into it.

Heading toward the office door, Marla teased, “Well, Number One Son, are you coming too? You are supposed to be one of my bodyguards.”

“Ah so,” said Aaron, doing a low bow as he followed Marla and George out into the corridor.


Outside the city hall building, Hannibal and Dad waited on either side of the doorway, ready to catch Marla Goldenberg in a crossfire, when an off-white Lexus suddenly pulled up in the doorway.

A tall, athletic-looking black man in a chauffeur's uniform got out of the front of the car and walked around to open the passenger door for the mayor.

Seeing the tall man climb from the car, Dad and Hannibal stepped a little further back into the shadows.

From beyond the front door, they heard a voice say, “Ah so, Number One Son only here to do Lady Mayor’s bidding.”

The two assassins looked puzzled, but the tall chauffeur grinned broadly.

“Shut up,” said Marla Goldenberg as the door opened.

George stepped out and looked about, then looked at the chauffeur, who nodded at him.

“Oh God, can I just get to the car, so I can get home?” asked Marla.

“We have to make certain it’s safe,” insisted Aaron. He was no longer doing his Number One Son act as he stepped out onto the concrete landing and started down the steps toward the Lexus. “Any problems, Derek?”

“No,” said the chauffeur, “but I’ve just got here.”

“Perhaps we’d better look around before she comes down,” suggested Aaron.

“Got it,” agreed Derek. He reached into his coat for a handgun, while Aaron did the same.

They looked about for a moment, then, hearing rustling from some bushes on the left side of the council building, Aaron signalled for Derek to follow him.

“Shit!” said Dad as they started straight toward him. Stepping out from cover, he opened fire on Aaron.

“Jesus!” cried Aaron, dying before he reached the gravel.

Squatting, Derek rapid-fired six shots at Dad from point-blank range, knocking the assassin over onto his backside.


“Jesus,” hissed Hannibal, seeing his confederate screw up badly. Abandoning the fallen assassin, he carefully avoided some metal garbage cans as he backed away to the blue Fairlane, to start around to collect Rae from the rear of the building.

“Did you get the bitch?” asked Rae as the Ford pulled up for him.

“No, that idiot, Dad, screwed up, and they gunned him down.”

“No loss,” said the tall, athletic black man climbing into the front passenger seat.

“I’m not sure if he’ll see it like that.”

“Or Rodrigo,” said Rae. His psychic powers had gone into overdrive just before the car radio buzzed.

Looking down at it in fear, neither man touched the handset for a moment, then, reluctantly, Hannibal picked up the set and asked, “Yes?”

“Well!” demanded Rodrigo.

“Well, that idiot, Dad got himself gunned down,” said Hannibal.

“I know that!” said Rodrigo, who had stronger psychic powers than either Izzi or Rae. “I meant what the hell went wrong?”

“Just bad luck.”

“Bad luck!” demanded Rodrigo, almost snake-hissing the words out in anger.

“Yes, they just happened to check in his direction, and the idiot panicked and opened fire. He killed one of her bodyguards, but another one got him.”

“Second-rate idiots,” cursed Rodrigo. “I wish I could spare Alastor and his team to take over from you idiots.”

“In fairness, Mr. Rodrigo, they’ve done no better than us,” said Hannibal, regretting it as soon as he spoke.

“Yeah, they haven’t caught the Camerota woman yet.”

“Shit, idiots!” cursed Rodrigo. “I don’t want alibis, I want results. Now follow that bitch mayor home and finish the job.”

“Yessir,” said Hannibal and Rae as one.

“And just hope I don’t decide to send the three of you all up a level or two.”

“Yessir,” they both said as Rodrigo rang off.

Hanging up the handset, Hannibal gave Rae a worried look and then started the car.

“Thankfully, they can’t find anything from Dad’s body,” said Hannibal.

“And they won’t have it for long before we get it back,” said Rae, giving him a half-hearted grin.


Derek quickly checked the other side of the building, then, finding no one, signalled for George, who hurried Marla Goldenberg down the concrete steps toward the off-white Lexus.

“Oh God,” said Marla. She stopped for a second as she saw the corpse of her friend and assistant, Aaron, lying face-up on the gravel.

“Come on! Come on, Marla!” cried George, almost throwing her into the rear of the Lexus. “Go! Go! Go!”

Derek had already leapt into the driver’s seat, and the car was roaring off into the darkness as George went over to examine Aaron’s corpse for a second, closing his staring eyes with his fingers.

Then he strode across to the assassin’s corpse, kneeling to start checking for identification, when something caught his attention.

“What the …?” said George, picking up the assassin’s right hand to stare at his fingers. “Shit, no fingerprints. But that’s impossible without reducing the fingers to stumps.”

However, Dad’s long, piano-player thin fingers were anything but stumps, despite having no fingerprints.


Val was still running down the side street when a yellow cab drove past her.

“Hey! Hey!” called Val, signalling the cab. For a moment, it looked as though he had not heard her. Then the taxi did a high-speed U-turn and stopped at the Kerb before her.

“Where to, lady?” asked the cabby, Marvin, as she got into the backseat.

“Number forty-seven Godless Avenue,” said Val.

“That doesn’t sound like a nice place for a lady like you to be visiting at this hour,” teased Marvin, making Val start.

For a moment, she considered leaping out of the cab again and had a hand on the door handle when the driver laughed at his own joke.

“Whatever you say, lady,” said Marvin, starting the cab and doing another tight U-turn.


Alastor and company waited by the front counter for eight minutes before hearing a truck pull up outside.

Walking across to the front doors of the hotel, they looked out to where there was a large yellow van with the words, “Meatlands Meats, Satisfaction Or Your Money Back!” printed on the side in red.

Grimacing, Alastor looked at Izzi and said, “You didn’t tell them to come as a butcher’s van, did you?”

“Izzi, how could you?” demanded Alfonso.

“Sorry,” said Izzi. “I thought it was funny at the time. But I realise now my attempt at humour was misguided.”

“To say the least, Izzi,” said Alastor.

Ralph and the other collectors emerged from the rear of the truck, pulling three steel trolleys.

“Meatlands Meats, three large carcases to return. Satisfaction guaranteed on all products, or your money will be cheerfully refunded,” said Ralph, grinning cheesily.

“Shut up,” said Alastor, “you’re as bad as Izzi.”

“How can you say that, sir?” said Ralph. “You haven’t tried our tasty meats and deli products yet.”

“Can it!” ordered Alastor.

“Canned hams are one of our specialities,” said Ralph, making the collectors laugh, and Alastor and Alfonso grimace. “Canned ham with jelly, or without. Your preference, sir.”

Seeing Izzi doing his best not to laugh, Alastor said, “Show them where the two in the kitchen are, Iz, and then take them upstairs for the blonde.”

“You got it,” said Izzi. He led them across the lobby to collect the corpses of Fred Larkin and Lorelei Chung.


When the taxi reached forty-seven Godless Avenue, three squad cars were parked outside the house.

“Wonder what’s going on here?” said the cab driver, Marvin.

“Don’t ask me,” said Val. Looking in through the window, she could see Roberta Robinson in the lounge room talking to Sergeant Danny Walters. “Maybe you’d better take me up another block.”

Looking puzzled, Marvin said, “You’re the boss,” as he started the cab again.


As Ralph wheeled a trolley into the third-floor corridor, Izzi warned, “Watch out for that doorway, there’s a brassy-haired barracuda in there, who eats men for breakfast.

Wheeling well wide of the door as it opened, Ralph said, “Thanks for the warning.”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Sweetie,” said Sophie Martin. She stood in the doorway, wearing a nearly transparent blue nightie.

“Holy, Jesus!” cried Ralph, racing in through the door to Rosie Piedersen’s room.

“Damn, why does she get all the good-looking men!” cried Sophie.

Izzi and Alfonso hurried after Ralph and closed the door as best they could behind them.


“What’s that?” asked Danny Walters, turning round in time to see a yellow cab drive past the house.

“Just a taxi,” said Roberta Robinson. She half wondered if the brunette in the back seat could have been her sister-in-law. But was careful not to suggest that to Danny.

Looking into the house again, Danny said, “Okay, so we’ve got listening devices in your two phones, and all the downstairs rooms. She’s hardly likely to scale the trellis outside to reach the second-storey bedrooms.”

“Quite,” said Roberta, thinking, I wouldn’t put it past her. She’s one feisty broad when she’s cornered!


Alastor and the others waited till Ralph and the collectors wheeled away the blonde’s corpse, which now looked like a side of beef, then stepped outside. Only to hear an alarm pip-pipping a few blocks away.

“What the hell is that?” asked Izzi.

“Don’t ask me,” said Ralph, helping to load the last corpse into the rear of the butcher’s van. Slapping the side of the truck, he said, “Now this is what I call a meat wagon.”

Groaning, Alastor said, “Hit the road, you reject from vaudeville, while we go check out the alarm.”

“There’s no need to be like that, just because I try to lighten the atmosphere a little,” said Ralph. He climbed into the rear of the van as the assassins walked across to their blue Fairlane.

As the van drove away, Izzi pointed down a side street, “Down that way!”

“Thanks, Iz, I couldn’t have worked that out for myself,” said Alastor as they climbed into the car. With Alfonso still the driver.

“Don’t call me Iz. You know I hate that.”

“Don’t pout, Iz,” said Alastor as the car took off in the direction of the ATM.”


After paying off the taxi, Val waited for the cab to drive away, and then slowly started back toward her sister-in-law’s house.

At the cross street, she turned left and started down a small lane leading past the rear of the yellow weatherboard house.

“Well, here I am,” she said, stopping at the gate marked ‘47’ in white paint.

She hesitated for almost a minute, then slowly pushed the gate open, and then stuck her head around it, in case someone was hiding behind the gate.

“Thank God,” she said in relief. Although she had not expected anyone to be hiding behind the grey, deal wood fence.

She stayed where she was for a few seconds more, then, hearing a car coming down the alleyway, she hurried inside and shut the gate behind her. She lay with her back against the fence until the car had driven past.

Then, trying to keep her breathing even, Val finally stepped away from the gate.

“Here goes everything,” she said, as she started slowly toward the rear of the house.


Pulling up beside the ATM, Alastor and Izzi stepped out of the Fairlane and walked across to the machine.

“Stay there,” Alastor said to Alfonso. “In case we need to make a fast getaway.”

“Gotcha,” said Alfonso. Having started to climb from the car, he climbed back in and restarted the engine.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Alastor took out a black vinyl wallet full of varicoloured credit cards. He took a golden card from his wallet and placed the card into the machine.

“Well, here goes,” said Alastor, pressing a series of buttons on the ATM.

The machine whirred for a few seconds and then ejected a dark blue Visa card from the cash slot.

“Valerie Camerota,” Alastor read off the card.

“That’s her,” said Izzi.

“Let’s make sure,” said Alastor. He pressed half a dozen more buttons, and a video started to play on the ATM screen. The video showed Val putting her card into the machine and cursing when it told her the card was stolen.

“Stupid thing! It is not stolen!” cried Val, kicking the machine, which immediately started pip-pipping.

“She’s a feisty bitch, I’ll give her that,” said Alastor.

“Yeah,” agreed Izzi. “Seems a shame we have to kill her.”

“Still, business is business,” said Alastor, and both men laughed.


“That’s it?” demanded Marla Goldenberg, glaring at the white coated forensics experts.

“Yes,” said Thelma, a middle-aged black woman, trying her best not to be stared down by the ballsy mayor. “It should not be possible to remove your prints without mutilating or amputating your finger tips. But somehow he has.”

“So it’s not possible, but it’s happened?” demanded Marla, glaring at the black woman.

“Yes!” said Thelma, refusing to be put upon by a county official.

“Oh Christ,” said Marla. Turning, she stormed out of the office, followed closely by George and a new bodyguard, Pedro.


Looking around, Roberta Robinson was startled to see her sister-in-law peering in through a small side window.

Trying not to be too obvious, Roberta placed a finger to her lips and shook her head ever so slightly.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Robinson?” asked Danny Walters. The sergeant started toward her when the telephone rang.

Roberta walked across to lift the receiver and listen for a moment. Then, holding out the receiver, she said, “It’s for you, sergeant.”

“For me?” asked Danny, puzzled.

Roberta nodded, so he walked over and took the receiver.

“Talk to me,” he said.

“Guess who?” asked Maureen in her sultry Nina Simone voice.

“Santa Claus,” teased Danny.

“You’re two months and one gender out,” said Maureen.

“What’s up, Maur?”

“We’ve received reports about gunshots at a sleazy hotel, the Shady Rest, not far from the Western Mercy. Do you want to handle it, or will we send someone else?”

“We’ll handle it,” said Danny emphatically.

“Oh, and there’s been an assassination attempt on the mayor … as you predicted.”

“Shit, is that meant to be a joke?”

“No, it’s for real. But don’t worry, the mayor’s bodyguards shot dead the perp.”

“Any idea who he was?”

“No, he had no ID on him.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“None of those either.”

“What?” demanded Danny, loud enough to make Tim Wyatt and Roberta Robinson both stare at him. “How is that possible?”

“That’s the sixty-five million dollar question around here at the moment. The lab guys are frantic to work out how he could have removed his fingerprints completely without mutilating his fingers.”

“And?” Danny Demanded.

“And so far, Thelma and her team are unanimous that they don’t have a clue how you can completely remove your prints without carbonising the tips of each finger. This guy had no scarring on his fingers … just no prints either.”

“Tell them from me that they’re geniuses … as morons go!”

“I don’t think that’ll worry them too much. The mayor has already called them a hell of a lot worse.

“I bet she has,” said Danny, then as an idea hit him. “Wait a minute, wasn’t there a suspect brought in about twelve years ago who had no fingerprints, but after a few days they returned for some reason?”

“Yes, but he worked in a steam laundry, and the steam had removed his prints temporarily. After three days in a holding cell, his prints returned, and they were able to clear him and release him. Trust me, the guy they shot dead today never worked in a laundry. He just doesn’t have any prints.”

“And the lab boys cannot explain it?”

“Well, they have this theory that it’s not possible not to have fingerprints without working in a steam laundry, or cutting off the last digit of each finger on your hands. But when the mayor asked them in four-letter language, then how come her would-be killer had no prints, they just stared at her.”

“And what did she do then?”

“She used some more four-letter language on them, and then stormed out.”

“Frankly, I don’t blame her,” said Danny. “Okay, Maur, gimme the address of the Sleazy Rest Hotel and we’ll go there.”

“Officially, it’s Shady Rest,” said Maureen, giving him the address. “But I’m told your description fits it better.”

“No fingerprints at all?” puzzled Danny as he hung up.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Roberta, staring at him.

“Er, nothing, Mrs. Robinson. We have to go out on a call. But you’ve got our precinct number if your sister-in-law turns up.”

“Yes, of course,” agreed Roberta. Although she had no intention of ringing them.


As they reached the doorway, Pedro called, “Lady Mayor, please?”

“What is it now?” demanded the mayor. She stopped to stare at him, giving George a chance to sneak past her to say:

“He’s just reminding you that we need to go outside first, in case there is another assassination attempt.”

Sighing in frustration, Marla said, “They’d never try it again so soon after the first one.”

“You never know,” said Pedro, whose father had been running alongside the car the day John F. Kennedy had been gunned down. Knowing how JFK’s death had haunted his old man for the rest of his days, Pedro was determined not to let the same thing happen to Marla Goldenberg.


Sitting in the blue Fairlane in the car park outside the municipal building, Rae was looking decidedly uncomfortable.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” demanded Hannibal. “You’re as jumpy as a wombat with a didgeridoo up its arse.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Having a didgeridoo up your arse?”

“Making another attempt on that bitch mayor so soon after the first attempt,” insisted Rae.

“Rodrigo’s orders,” reminded Hannibal. “Besides, it’s perfect. No one will expect a second attempt so soon after the first. They won’t be ready this time.”

“Maybe,” said Rae, sounding unconvinced.


Stepping out of the municipal building, George signalled to Derek, who immediately drove the Lexus across to the doorway, unknowingly placing it between the blue Fairlane and the doors.

This time, doing as she was told, Marla Goldenberg waited inside the doors as George and Pedro carefully checked around both sides of the doorway for a couple of minutes.


“They’re being careful, this time,” said Rae, unhappy.

“Not careful enough,” insisted Hannibal.

“The damn Lexus is shielding the bitch; we have no hope of getting her.”

“Of course, we do,” said Hannibal, leaning over to whisper his plan to Rae, who, despite himself, smiled insanely at the simple, but effective-sounding idea.


“Okay,” said George, signalling to Pedro, who started toward the doorway to carefully shield Marla Goldenberg with his own body.

They were a metre from the Lexus when a blue Fairlane roared up beside it.

“Now!” shouted Hannibal.

The two assassins opened fire on Derek, killing the chauffeur before he could get the Lexus moving.

Then, leaping from the Fairlane, the assassins raced across to the Lexus to shoot at Marla Goldenberg through the car’s windows, using the mayor’s car as a shield to fire at her.

“Jesus!” cried Pedro, falling dead to the bitumen.

Marla Goldenberg hesitated for a second, then jumped to the tar also.

“Bastards!” shouted George, opening fire upon the two assassins, who, however, were protected by the Lexus.

This allowed them to effortlessly gun down the last of the mayor’s bodyguards.

“Now she’s defenceless,” said Hannibal, grinning like a Cheshire cat on dope.

“Great plan, boss,” said Rae. He was grinning also as they started around the off-white Toyota Lexus toward the prostrate mayor. “Bitch is a sitting duck now.”

“Please?” begged Marla Goldenberg as the two men walked toward her.

“That’s right, grovel bitch!” said Hannibal, making Rae laugh.

“Show us your tits, bitch, and maybe we’ll let you live,” said Rae, and the two assassins cackled like clucky hens.

“Go to Hell!” cursed Marla as they levelled their guns toward her.

“Bitch must be psychic like me and Rodrigo,” said Rae, making Hannibal laugh.

“Screw you!” said Marla, backing up as best she could on the bitumen.

“Lady Mayor!” called a voice from the municipal building doorway, making Hannibal and Rae curse.

The two assassins spun around as three armed security guards raced from the building and started to fire toward them.

“Shit in a hand basket!” cried Hannibal. He managed to fire off a single shot at Marla Goldenberg before the two assassins raced back around the Lexus to leap into their car to roar away into the night.

Marla screamed and covered her head as the bullet struck her left shoulder.

“Stay down, Lady Mayor,” called one of the security guards. Then they raced out to fire after the accelerating Fairlane in the unlikely hope of stopping it.

“Come on,” said a second security guard, and they returned to look after Marla Goldenberg.

“Lady Mayor, are you all right?” asked the first security guard, helping her up.

“Yes, Evan,” she said, then crying out as rockets of pain fired through her left shoulder.

“You’ve been shot,” said Evan.

“It’s just a flesh wound. How are the others -- Derek, Pedro, George?”

The other security guards had already gone to check the mayor’s guards.

“Well?” asked Evan as they returned.

By way of answer, a security guard standing behind the mayor ran a hand across his throat in a slashing motion.

“I’m sorry,” said Evan, and Marla’s façade of toughness finally gave way as she started to cry.


On the ATM screen, Valerie kicked the machine. Then, as it started pipping, she raced across the road toward a side street.

“She went down there,” said Izzi, pointing down the side street.

“Thanks, Iz, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” said Alastor as a squad car pulled up behind the Fairlane. “Your powers of observation are remarkable. Sherlock Holmes could take lessons from you.”

“Shut up, and don’t call me Iz.”

Alastor punched three or four buttons, and the ATM stopped pinging. Then he removed his golden cards, and the ATM went dead.

“What’s going on here?” demanded a black cop walking up behind them.

Alastor hurriedly pocketed the golden card before turning round to say, “Nothing, officer, the damn machine just ate my card. I can never recall my PIN.”

“Yeah, well, kicking the machine won’t help. You’ll have to apply to the bank for your card in the morning.”

“Of course, officer, sorry,” said Alastor contritely.

“All right, move along then.”

Nodding, Izzi and Alastor walked back to the Fairlane and climbed inside.

As Alfonso drove away from the Kerb, Alastor said, “I was so close to burning that smart pig, I could almost taste roast ham.”

“Good thing you didn’t off him,” said Izzi. “Remember what Rodrigo said, no more massacres! We mustn’t kill anyone else except in self-defence or if they have read the sheet of paper.”

“That’s right,” said Alfonso. “We must maintain the illusion at all costs. We mustn’t even kill the Camerota woman unless she’s read the note.”

“She must have done by now, she’s had it for more than twelve hours,” insisted Alastor.

“Still, we have to be sure. He says he’s happy to let her get arrested for all the killings so far. He’s unhappy about some of the killings we’ve already done. Such as the blonde, the cook, the hotel clerk, and the old housekeeper.”

“What old housekeeper?” asked Alastor, as they started down the side street.

“It seems that after we left the Church, Father Alex offered his housekeeper.”

Looking around at Izzi, Alastor asked, “Why?”

“I think she nagged him too much or something,” said Izzi.

“Oh well, that’s as good a reason as any.”

“Except Rodrigo doesn’t think so. He’s threatening to send him up one level. He says, ‘The illusion must be maintained at all costs!’”

“It’s a good thing that I didn’t off that fifty-year-old nympho at the hotel, then,” said Alastor.

“The barracuda?” asked Izzi.

“Yeah,” said Alastor, shuddering at the memory of blousy Sophie Martin. “But if we kill the Camerota bitch how’s he to know otherwise, if we say she read the note?”

“He’ll know!” insisted Alfonso. “He’s got the touch … like Izzi.”

“Yeah,” agreed Izzi.

“So what’s he gonna do?” demanded Alastor. “He can hardly kill us, can he?”

“That’s true,” said Izzi with a laugh. Then more solemnly, “Still, it pays not to risk finding out what he can do to us.”

“He’s right,” agreed Alfonso. “Rodrigo can’t kill us, but God alone knows what he can do to us. He might send us all up a level, like Father Alex.”

“Not you and me,” joked Alastor. “We’ll just blame Izzi and he’ll get sent up and we’ll be okay.”

While Alastor and Alfonso laughed, Izzi said, “That isn’t funny!”

“Don’t worry, Iz, we’ll let him ball out the priest and that’ll cheer him up a bit. Rodrigo always feels better after balling out someone.”


In Godless Avenue, Val watched through the small window as Danny Walters spoke on the phone to Maureen, then waited until the three policemen strode out the front door.

She watched from the side of the house as Danny spoke to two cops in a second squad car. The third car had left after the news of the first attempt on the mayor’s life.

“Do you want us to stay?” asked a young Hispanic cop behind the wheel of the second squad car.

“No, we don’t know if she’ll even come here, and all hell’s breaking out since the assassination attempt.”

“By the guy with no prints?” asked the young cop, his smirk saying he did not believe it for one minute.

“That’s right, by the guy with no fingerprints,” said Danny. Although still puzzled, he knew that Maureen never got her facts wrong. “Anyway, you’d better head back to base. We’ll return here after checking out the hotel.”

“No sweat,” said the young cop, starting the squad car and roaring away.

Danny walked across to the other car, where Tim Wyatt now sat behind the steering wheel. Climbing into the front passenger seat, he said, “Okay, take us to the Sleazy Rest Hotel.”

“Shady Rest,” corrected Hanky Guynes.

“That’s not what Maureen tells me,” teased Danny as they drove off.


Valerie watched until both squad cars had driven off, then went around to the back porch of the yellow weatherboard house.

Opening the back door, Val stepped into the house and then started looking through it for her sister-in-law.

“Val?” said Roberta, when they came face-to-face in the lounge room.

Tapping a finger to her lips, Val signalled for Roberta to follow her out onto the back porch.

On the porch, Roberts said, “They said you murdered Tony, two cops, a priest, and some old woman.”

“No, they did. They killed them.”

“The police?”

“Not exactly. They claim to be federal cops, but their IDs are fake. That’s why they killed the two cops.”

“But why? Who are they?”

“I don’t know … but I’m exhausted. I need a hot bath, then a good long sleep.”

“The whole ground floor is bugged.”

“I know,” said Val. “But as long as you remember not to use my name, we should be okay until morning. But I’ll have to leave by then.”

“Okay, honey, come inside,” said Roberta, leading the way. “While you’re having a bath, I’ll pack a small case and get you fresh clothes. We’re about the same size, so my clothes ought to fit you.”


At the Shady Rest Hotel, Danny Walters, Tim Wyatt and Hank Guynes stepped into the unattended reception area.

“Shady rest?” asked Tim. “Looks more like the Sleazy Wreck.”

Danny ding-dinged the reception bell, which fell apart in his hand.

“Have you been taking protein energy pills again, Serg?” asked Hank.

“No, the damn thing just fell apart in my hand,” said Danny, examining the ruined reception bell. “Looks like a ten-tonne weight has been dropped on it.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” said Hank, looking at the shattered bell.

“Thank you, Alex in Blunderland,” teased Danny. Then, looking about, “Why the hell hasn’t anyone come to investigate yet?”

“Maybe there is no night staff,” suggested Tim.

“Even a 1-star dump like this must have somebody on night shift. In case someone tries to run out without paying or somebody wants a room,” insisted the sergeant.

“Then where is everybody?” echoed Tim. “It’s like the Mary Celeste, but on dry land.

“The Mary Celeste in dry dock, you mean,” corrected Hank.

Danny and Tim Wyatt were still checking out the lifeless foyer of the Shady Rest Hotel when Hank Guynes called from the small kitchen, “In here, Serg.”

“What is it?” asked Danny Walters, striding across to the side door.

Pointing, Hank said, “Blood stains on the linoleum.”

Danny crouched to examine it and said, “They’ve tried to scrub it away, but blood is almost impossible to scrub off lino.”

Looking at Hank, he said, “Call in to the station from the phone at the front desk and get a forensic team out here.”

“Got you, Serg,” said Hank, striding out into the foyer.

Danny and Tim returned to the foyer area as Sophie Martin, still dressed in a near-transparent blue nightgown, flounced across from the staircase.

“Hello, there,” said Sophie. Her green eyes almost popped out in excitement at the sight of the three good-looking policemen. “What’s going on here, Sweetie?”

“We were hoping that you could tell us that,” said Danny. He backed up instinctively as the blousy redhead almost pressed up against him. “For instance, doesn’t this hotel have any night staff?”

“Sure, Fred is behind the front counter,” she said. She pointed at the front counter as she followed after Danny, determined not to let the slightly greying sergeant get too far away from her.

“Then where is he?” asked Danny, hoping to distract her.

Looking surprised that Fred wasn’t there, she said, “I don’t know.”

“Anyone else?” asked Hank Guynes. He immediately regretted it as she flounced across to him, abandoning a very relieved-looking Danny.

“Yes, Sweetie,” she said, running a gnarled hand through his longish black hair. “Mrs. Chung should be in the kitchen.”

“Mrs. Chung?” asked Tim Wyatt. He backed away a little as she looked in his direction.

“Yes, she does wonderful fried rice with peas,” said Sophie. She started across toward blond Tim, allowing Hank to strategically step across to stand behind Danny Walters.

“Ooh, you’re a handsome fellow, aren’t you?” she said, running her fingers through his longish yellow hair.

“Help, Serg, I’ve got a middle-aged barracuda after me,” said Tim.

“Sorry, son, you’re on your own,” teased Danny.

“Oh, don’t be like that, Sweetie,” said Sophie, “I’m very nice when you get to know me. Besides, the modern term is cougar, not barracuda.”

“Help, Serg, I’ve got a middle-aged cougar after me,” said Tim.

“Just lie back and think of England,” advised Hank Wyatt.

“I’m not English,” said Tim, trying to back away from Sophie. But he found himself trapped between the blousy redhead and the reception counter.

“Then lie back and think how much you wish you were in England right now,” said Danny. He looked around at the sound of a car squealing to a stop outside the hotel.

“You ain’t wrong there, Serg,” said Tim. He had finally managed to wangle his way out from between the two immovable objects to walk across toward the stairs.

Deciding to bail his young constable out, Danny asked, “We’ve been told that there were gunshots in this hotel earlier.”

“No gunshots, sweetie,” said Sophie, shaking her head as she advanced upon the sergeant of police. Then, she stopped and considered for a moment before saying, “But there was a sound like a car backfiring.”

“When was that?” asked Hank. He backed up in case she started in his direction, as they saw three plainclothed cops they knew racing into the reception area.

“Around the time that that slut Rosie Piedersen vanished. Just before the three federal agents turned up looking for that Cameroon broad.”

“Camerota,” corrected Hank. Immediately regretting speaking, as Danny went over to the three forensic cops, leaving him to fight off the fifty-year-old cougar.

“Thelma,” said Danny by way of greeting as a beautiful black woman, nearly sixty years of age, approached.

“We heard you’ve found blood stains?”

“On the linoleum in the kitchen,” said Danny. “They tried wiping it off, but …”

“But blood doesn’t wipe off lino,” she finished for him. Then, as he started after them, “You stay here, you’ve probably fouled the crime scene already.”

“How dare you?” teased Danny. “We all ran outside first before throwing up.”

“Is that so?” said Thelma, laughing. “Well, stay out here anyway.”

As the three forensic cops went into the kitchen, Danny said to Sophie Martin, “You were saying about three federal cops turning up looking for Valerie Camerota?”

“That’s right, Sweetie,” said Sophie. Abandoning a relieved-looking Hank Guynes, she walked across to press up hard against Danny Walters with her hands doing small circles on his shirt. “My, you’re a big, strong one, aren’t you?”

“Er, ma’am,” said Danny, almost falling over in his haste to back away from her, “about the federal agents?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, suddenly remembering. “They turned up on the third floor straight after the sound of cars backfiring, and checked all the rooms up there for the Cameroon woman .…”

“Camerota,” corrected Danny, immediately regretting it as she pressed up against him again.

“That’s right,” she said, making him lean his head backwards as it looked as though she was about to kiss him. “They checked all the rooms on the third floor.”

“In that case, we’d better check them too,” said Hank, deciding to bail his sergeant out.

“Good idea, Hank,” said Danny. He almost pushed Sophie off him in his frantic desire to escape the redheaded cougar’s advances, to race toward the staircase. “Come on.”

“Right behind you, Serg,” said Hank Guynes. Turning, he raced like a jet-propelled rabbit as the blousy fifty-year-old started after him.

“Me too,” said Tim Wyatt. Taking no chances, he charged after the other two.

“Sweeties, wait for me,” called Sophie. She started after them, but was too corpulent to be able to walk more than slowly up the stairs.

On the third floor, the three cops were panting from exhaustion, but relieved to escape Sophie Martin’s clutches.

“Serg, you don’t know when you’re onto a good thing,” teased Tim, “she fancied you.”

“Yeah, you were in there for sure,” teased Hank. “You just had to sweet-talk her.”

Glaring at them in mock anger, Danny said, “I hope you two jokers know that your continued employment with the force is largely dependent upon the quarterly reports I have to write on you soon.”

“Uh-oh,” said Hank, laughing.

“Things aren’t looking too rosy for you both at the moment,” said Danny. He went over to knock on the first door, which had already been kicked in. “So I hope you’ve both got good second jobs lined up?”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Serg,” said Hank, still laughing.

“Yoo hoo, Sweeties,” called Sophie, having stopped to catch her breath on the first-floor landing.

“Let’s get through this quickly,” said Danny. He moved across to the next room, which was also empty and had the door almost pulled off the hinges.

They had just reached the last door, which was opened by a pink-rinsed old lady, when they heard Sophie’s voice, much closer, “You hoo, Sweeties, wait for me.”

“Excuse me, madam,” said Danny. The three uniformed cops pushed their way into her room and closed the door.

“What’s the matter, is that redheaded barracuda after you?” asked the pink-rinsed old lady.

“Yes,” said Danny in a whisper. He raised a finger to his lips to silence them all.

“Sweeties!” called Sophie Martin from the corridor outside. She sounded puzzled that there was no sign of the three handsome policemen. “Why do men always run away from me?”

“I could tell the old slag,” said the pink-rinsed old lady, getting shushed by Hank Guynes.


Almost fainting from delight, Val lowered herself into the piping hot bath water and nearly fell asleep from the relief it provided to her aching joints.

“A girl could get used to this,” she said, trying her best not to think of her husband, Tony, who had been murdered twelve hours earlier.

“Just bringing you some towels,” said Roberta. Tapping on the door, she entered without waiting to be invited.

“I won’t need them for about two hours,” said Val.

Putting the towels on a small stool, Roberta said, “You look comfortable.”

“I feel comfortable … for the first time in twelve hours,” said Val. “I could easily spend the rest of my life in here.”

“Yes, well, don’t forget that if you stay in water too long, you get all wrinkly.”

“That’s a chance I’m prepared to take,” said Val, and the two women laughed.

They continued to talk for twenty minutes or so, then Roberta said, “Come on, lazy cheeks, it’s time to get out.”

“Leave me alone,” protested Val.

“You’ll get all wrinkly.”

“Trust you to spoil my pleasure,” said Val. Reluctantly, she allowed Roberta to help her out of the tub so that she could dry off as they headed toward the spare room.

Roberta had already laid out some clean underwear and three dresses upon the bed.

“You’ve got your choice,” she said.

“Thanks,” said Val, hurriedly putting on the underwear, then holding up a dress to try for size.

“I hope you’re not going to sleep with my clothes on?”

“Why not?” asked Val.

“My dresses will get all wrinkly.”

”You’re obsessed with wrinkliness, you know that, Rob?”

“Am not,” said Roberta, helping her sister-in-law toward the bed.

Putting the dress down, Val said, “Yes, diesel fitter.”

“I’ve already heard that old joke,” said Roberta. “I was about two the first time I heard it ... and I didn't laugh then.”


Danny Walters and his two constables waited in the old ladies' room until Sophie Martin’s door slammed shut.

“We’ve been told that a Miss Peterson has vanished,” said Hank Guynes.

“Piedersen,” corrected the old lady. “Rosie Piedersen. About the same time as the gunshots.”

“Gunshots?” asked Tim Wyatt. “The barracuda insisted that they were a car backfiring.”

Staring at the young constable, the old lady said, “Cars haven’t backfired in more than forty years. I think it was ‘cause they no longer put lead into the petrol.”

“Oh, of course,” said Tim, blushing in embarrassment.

“Which room is Rosie Piedersen’s?” asked Danny.

“Third door from the stairs, on this side of the corridor.”

“Thanks,” said the sergeant.

The three officers went outside, careful to creep past Sophie Martin’s door to examine Rosie Piedersen’s empty room.

They looked around for a few minutes, locating blood stains on the threadbare carpet.

“The old lady was right,” said Hank, “it certainly wasn’t a car backfiring.”

“But it must’ve been,” said the familiar voice of Sophie Martin from the hallway behind them.

“I’m afraid Miss Piedersen was shot dead in here,” said Danny.

“What?” asked Sophie, covering her mouth with both chubby hands.

“You didn’t see her corpse being taken out of here? Perhaps on a stretcher?” asked Danny.

“The only thing they took out of this room tonight was a carcase of beef,” said Sophie.

“A carcase of beef?” asked Danny, staring at her.

“Yes, Meatlands Meats. Three butchers came a little while back and collected a large carcase of beef, saying, ‘Satisfaction guaranteed or your money smilingly refunded’.”

“Why would they collect a side of beef from one of the third-storey rooms?” asked Tim Wyatt.

“Yes, wouldn’t that be stored in a pantry in the kitchen?” asked Danny Walters.

“Oh, yeah,” said Sophie, obviously puzzled. “I never thought of that!”

Leaving Sophie puzzling over that, Danny, Tim, and Hank hurried past her toward the stairs.

“Sweeties, come back,” she called.

“Sorry, we’ve got to report what you’ve told us to the station.”

“There’s a phone in my room,” offered Sophie, desperately.

“Not a chance in Hell!” said Danny as the three policemen raced down the stairs again. “Unless Hank would like to stay to help you back to your room.”

“To quote my sergeant, ‘Not a hope in Hell!’” said Hank, overtaking Danny on the staircase.


Alastor and the others were still driving down the side street from the ATM when Alastor’s mobile phone pipped.

Taking out the phone, he snapped, “Yes?”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me,” snapped back Rodrigo.

“Sorry, sir,” said Alastor, almost dropping the mobile in surprise. “What’s up, sir?”

“The state cops have bugged the house of Valerie Camerota’s sister-in-law. We’ve managed to cut into their transmissions, and we think the sister-in-law, Roberta Robinson, said ‘Val’.”

The three assassins looked at each other.

“Get over there as fast as you can, and don’t kill anyone who hasn’t read the sheet of paper.”

“Of course not,” said Alastor.

“If only it were ‘of course not’,” said Rodrigo.

Resisting the urge to take the bait, Alastor asked for Roberta’s address.

“47 Godless Avenue. And remember, we must maintain the illusion at all costs. Or the Big Guy will send us all up a level or three.”

“Sir,” said Alastor, as Rodrigo rang off. Shutting the mobile phone, he said to Alfonso, “I wonder how he knew we were talking about being sent up a level.”

“I told you,” said Alfonso, “Rodrigo knows everything we say and think. So let’s just do whatever he orders.”

“Godless Avenue,” said Izzi as they changed direction, “there’s cruel irony in that.”

“Let me do the jokes, Iz,” said Alastor.

“Don’t call me Iz; you know I don’t like that.”

“You’re so cute when you pout,” teased Alastor.

Alfonso laughed, and Izzi glared at both of them.


“How’d it go?” asked Thelma. Her two young male assistants followed her toward the staircase as the three policemen descended.

“Someone, we think a blonde prostitute named Rosie Piedersen, has definitely been killed in room 306,” said Danny.

“We’d better go right up then,” said Thelma.

“Yeah, well, be ready to guard your two lads from a rather brassy, middle-aged barracuda in room 303,” said Danny.

“We only just got away unmolested,” said Tim Wyatt.

“Okay, thanks for the warning,” said Thelma as the three cops sped out toward their squad car. Then to her now rather reluctant assistants come on guys … are you men or mice.”

“Squeak, squeak, squeak!” said a black youth of eighteen.

“Very funny, Leon, but I’ve heard that one years ago,” said Thelma.

She stopped at the first landing where they encountered Sophie Martin coming down.

“Hello, Sweeties,” said the brassy redhead to the two youths, who raced past her to the second landing.

“Just watch yourself, Barracuda,” said Thelma, pointing a long, thin finger at her. “Danny warned us about you. And let me tell you that when I was a little girl on the bayou, my pappy taught me how to net and skin bigger barracudas than you.”

“Oh, pooh,” said Sophie, flouncing down to the ground floor.

Racing up the stairs after her assistants, Thelma called out, “Come back here, you two cowards. If you foul the crime scene, I’ll kill you both.”

“If that barracuda comes after us again, we’ll foul much more than just the crime scene,” said young Leon.

“You cowards, I warned you both on your first day in this job that you’d see some shocking sights. Well, you’ve just seen your first one.”


After reporting the bloodstains in the third-floor room to Thelma and the forensic team, the three policemen returned to their squad car to hear Maureen trying to raise them on the radio.

Lifting the handset, Danny said, “Talk to me, gorgeous.”

“We think Roberta Robinson is talking to her sister-in-law, Valerie Camerota.”

“Have you sent a car yet?”

“Haven’t got a one to spare ... there’s just been another attempt on the mayor’s life, and she’s spitting chips, demanding that we solve this case quickly.”

“Don’t worry, we’re on it,” said Danny, hanging up. “A second attempt on the mayor’s life?” he mused.

“Let’s hope it’s not a case of third time lucky,” said Hank Guynes prophetically.

“Yeah,” said Danny. Then to Tim, “Back to the Robinson house.”

“Back and forth! Back and forth!” said Tim Wyatt as they took off, siren blaring.

“That’s police work for you, Tim,” teased Danny. “You’d better get used to it, you’ve got a lot of years ahead of you on the force.”

“So you’re not putting in a negative quarterly report on him?” teased Hank.

“Oh, yeah,” said Danny. “Well, in that case, maybe you don’t!”


Picking up Val’s clothing from the floor, Roberta stopped as she saw the shiny red shoes.

“Hey, nice shoes, Val,” she said, picking them up. “Where’d you buy them?”

“I didn’t, I borrowed them from a lady … when she wasn’t looking,” said Val.

Roberta looked up, surprised, and then the two women started laughing.


Alastor and company were in sight of the Robinson house in Godless Avenue when they heard a siren blaring, and Danny Walter’s squad car roared past them to screech to a stop outside the yellow weatherboard house.

Alastor reached into his coat for his revolver, but Izzi said,

“Uh-uh, remember, we have to maintain the illusion at all costs.”

“And cop killing is hardly maintaining the illusion,” added Alfonso. “And we don’t want Rodrigo getting any madder at us.”

“Shit!” said Alastor, reluctantly leaving his gun in its holster. He thought for a moment and then said, “Drive around to the back lane. The cops have got the front boxed up, so if she’s there, she’ll flee out the back door.”

“Good thinking,” said Alfonso. He restarted the Fairlane to drive toward the back lane.


“Godless Avenue,” said Hank Guynes as the three cops alighted from the squad car. “I wonder why they called it that?”

“According to Maureen, they meant to call it Goodness Avenue,” said Tim Wyatt, “but the sign writer they sent around was dyslexic.”

Opening the gate to start toward the front door, Danny said, “Tim, once you’ve been on the force a little longer, you’ll learn never to believe anything that Maureen tells you.”


Val had barely lain down to sleep when there was a hammering upon the front door.

“Who is it?” asked Rob, loud enough to awaken Val.

“The police. Open up.”

“What do you want?”

“Don’t play games, Mrs. Robinson,” said Danny Walters, hammering upon the door again. “Open up or we’ll have to kick the door in.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” said Roberta, walking as slowly and as loudly as she thought she could get away with.


“Sounds like she’s crushing grapes in there,” said Tim.

“Do we have authority to kick her front door in?” asked Hank. “Without a warrant or anything?”

“Technically no,” admitted Danny. “But she doesn’t know that. And it might help her to get her skates on.”

“Or at least to crush a few more barrels of grapes,” said Tim, as Roberta continued to stomp her way as slowly as possible toward the front door.


Upstairs, Val jumped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on one of Roberta’s dresses, then hunted around under the bed for her red shoes, which no longer seemed to fit her.

“Come on, you bastards!” she said, almost breaking a finger as she forced the left show on.

Crying out, she sucked on the finger for a moment, then eased the right shoe on with less difficulty. Then, grabbing the small suitcase Roberta had packed for her, but forgetting her handbag, Val raced across to the door to the landing.

“Just keep them outside a moment longer, Roberta,” said Val. She eased the door open to look out into the corridor.

After a moment, she snuck into the corridor and tiptoed to the top of the stairs and started slowly down, wondering if she could make it out the back door before whoever it was outside the front door could get inside.


“I think Big Foot is almost here,” said Hank Guynes with his ear against the door, startled as Danny knocked again.

“Sorry,” said Danny as his constable started. Then to Roberta, “Open up, Mrs. Robinson.”

“I’m coming,” said Roberta.

Reluctantly, she opened the front door a few inches.

With memories of the barracuda at the Shady Rest Hotel, Tim Wyatt wondered if they were going to have to squeeze past Roberta. But finally, reluctantly, she opened the door wider and stood back to let them inside the house.


Val heard the front door swing open. She looked toward the back of the house for a moment, wondering if she could still make it to the back door without being seen. Then, hearing footsteps in the front hallway, Val reversed direction and raced back upstairs.

“Where can I hide?” she wondered aloud, looking about the corridor. Looking into the spare bedroom, she saw the bedroom window open.

“I wonder,” said Val, racing into the room.

Looking out the window, she saw an ivy-covered trellis ending about a metre below the windowsill.

“Oh Lord,” said Valerie, not keen on heights. But after a moment’s indecision, she dropped the small suitcase out of the window.

“Well, here goes everything,” she said. Turning round, she started backing cautiously out of the window.


Downstairs, Roberta was trying to stall the three policemen as they pushed past her into the house.

“You can’t just barge into my house without a warrant.”

“Why the change of heart, Mrs. Robinson. You let us bug the ground floor earlier. Now you don’t want us here.”

“It’s late, I want to get to bed,” protested Roberta.

“We’ll only be ten minutes, just checking something out.”

“What?”

“One of the bugs caught you saying your sister-in-law's name,” said Hank.

“Why did you say, ‘Val’, Mrs. Robinson?” asked Danny.

“I was thinking about her. Wondering why she would kill Tony and all of those others.”

The three cops exchanged looks, and then Danny said, “To tell you the truth, Mrs. Robinson, we don’t think that she did.”

“What?” asked Roberta, not sure if she could trust them.

“We’ve received numerous reports of three men in business suits posing as federal cops. We think that they’ve been doing all of the murders over the last twelve hours or so.”

“What?” asked Rob, staring at them. “But that’s just what Val says.”

The three policemen stared at Roberta Robinson, who blushed as she realised what she had said.

“Mrs. Robinson, where is your sister-in-law? We only want to put her into protective custody, while we work out what the Hell is going on,” insisted Danny.

“The men chasing her have killed at least four people,” said Tim Wyatt.

“And possibly as many as ten,” added Danny. “As well as possibly being involved in two assassination attempts upon the mayor so far tonight.”

“Two?” asked Roberta, genuinely shocked. “I had only heard of one.”

“Well, it’s up to two now,” said Hank Guynes, “and counting.”

“Mrs. Robinson, you aren’t helping Valerie if you let her run off again,” said Danny. “So where is she?”

“Upstairs in the spare bedroom,” said Roberta. Only hoping that she was doing the right thing by trusting the three policemen.


Upstairs, Valerie was struggling to find the top of the trellis with her feet. Looking down into the dark, she was unable to see where it was.

“Come on, damn it, where are you?” cried Val. And as though hearing her, her left foot finally located the top of the trellis.

“Thank God,” said Val as she started to lower her weight onto the trellis.

She had started to crouch down the wall to reach the wooden trellis, when with a loud snap the trellis broke in half beneath Val’s weight, pitching Valerie screaming into the overgrown backyard.


Danny Walters and the others had already started toward the staircase when they heard a woman’s screams from upstairs.

“Come on,” cried Danny, racing up the stairs with the others in tow.


The blue Fairlane had just pulled up outside the rear of the Robinson house when they saw Val climbing backwards out of the upstairs window.

“Here she comes,” said Izzi.

“Thank you, Iz, you are now the world champion at stating the bloody obvious,” said Alastor, making Alfonso laugh.

“There’s no need to be like that,” said Izzi.

They climbed out of the car and headed across toward the back fence.

“What is she doing?” asked Izzi, as Val tried to reach the wooden trellis with her left foot.

“It looks like the wah-wahtusi,” said Alfonso, making Izzi laugh.

“You’re as bad as him,” said Alastor. “Just leave the jokes to me.”

“Should we go in and get her?” asked Izzi as Val finally found the trellis.

“No, let her come to us,” said Alastor. “In the yard, she has a dozen ways to elude us. But coming out the back gate, there’s only one way .…”

“Straight into our hands,” said Alfonso.

“Exactly,” said Alastor with a Cheshire grin.

Izzi and Alfonso sniggered like schoolboys as the three assassins ducked down behind the grey, deal wood fence.

Then, as they ducked, the trellis snapped, pitching Valerie shrieking to the long grass.

Looking up, the three men saw her lying in the backyard.

“Is she dead?” asked Alfonso.

“I don’t think so,” said Alastor.

After a moment, Val started to climb slowly back to her feet.

“Christ,” cried Val as rockets of pain blitzed through her left ankle.

“Should we help her?” asked Izzi.

Looking astonished, Alastor said, “Izzi, we’re not here to help her. Only to abduct her and possibly kill her. No, let her get to the gate by herself. If she’s injured, that’ll hurt her more and make her easier to manage.”

“You’re all heart, Alastor,” said Alfonso, and the three assassins laughed.


Groping around the yard, Val managed to locate the suitcase, and then she started looking around for her handbag, before realising, “Shit, I left my handbag in the bedroom.”

She looked up at the bedroom to see Roberta and Danny Walters looking out the window toward her.

“Mrs. Camerota?” called Danny. “Please stop, we only want to help you.”

“Sure you do,” she said under her breath. Gripping the suitcase like it was gold, she hobbled across the small backyard toward the deal wood gate.

“Shit!” cried Val as she staggered out through the back gate.

“Shit indeed,” said Alastor as Izzi and Alfonso grabbed her by the arms. “Going somewhere, Mrs. Camerota.”


Upstairs, Roberta and the three cops crowded round the window, peering out into the blackened yard.

“Can you see her?” asked Danny.

Peering into the dark, Roberta said, “I think she’s hobbling toward the back gate.”

The three cops peered out into the darkness, uncertain of what, if anything, they were seeing.

“How the hell did she get down from the second floor anyway?” asked Hank Guynes.

“She must have climbed down the trellis,” guessed Roberta correctly. “There’s a wooden trellis work below the window for the ivy to grow up.”

“Help me out, then,” suggested Tim Wyatt.

“What?” asked Danny.

“If she can climb down the trellis, I certainly can.”

“Okay,” said Danny as Tim reversed direction. “But be careful. Too many people have died tonight already.”

With Hank and Danny helping, Tim backed out the window and began feeling around for the lattice work with his feet.

“How far below the window is it?” Tim asked.

“Less than a metre,” said Roberta, as he continued to feel around for it with his feet.

After a moment, he called, “Pull me back up.”

Without hesitation, Hank and Danny yanked him back in through the window.

“What’s up?” asked Danny.

“There’s no trellis beneath the window.”

“There must be,” insisted Roberta.

“Well, there isn’t.”

“That’s why she screamed,” said Danny Walters. “She must have been climbing down the latticework when it broke away beneath her.”

“Oh God, she can’t be lying broken in the backyard?” asked Roberta.

“I don’t think so,” said Danny, peering out the window. Then to Tim and Hank, “Come on, let’s get downstairs.”

The three policemen raced out into the corridor toward the stairs, with Roberta just behind them.

They raced downstairs and then suddenly stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Roberta.

“Where’s the back door, Mrs. Robinson?”

“Straight through the kitchen.”

“Which is where?” demanded Danny.

“Straight through there,” said Roberta, pointing to the middle door.


Alastor and Izzi were dragging Valerie to the blue Fairlane when they heard people running from the back door of the house.

“Let me go! Let me go, damn you!” cried Val. She almost managed to struggle out of their grip.

“Come on,” said Alastor. He and Izzi picked up Valerie and carried her across to the Fairlane and then threw her into the backseat.

Val screamed as she was tossed into the back of the Ford.

“Yeah, he’s strong, isn’t he?” said Izzi, getting into the left side of the car, as Alastor climbed into the right. “I once saw him throw a guy right across a baseball pitch.”

Staring at Izzi, Val thought, My God, he’s completely mad!

Laughing, Alastor said, “Okay, let’s get out of here.”


“Shit me dead,” said Hank Guynes, falling in the dark backyard.

“Are you all right?” asked Roberta. She raced across to help him as Tim and Danny ran over to the back gate.

As the cops reached the alleyway, the Fairlane was already racing away.

“Damn!” said Danny.

Then, as the Ford reached the corner, for a moment its licence plate was lit up by a street light.

“ALASTOR-1,” read Tim Wyatt.

“Write that down,” instructed Danny. Although Tim was already reaching into his shirt pocket for his notepad.

“Got you,” said Tim as he wrote it down.

“Okay, let’s return to the house,” said Danny.


In the backyard, they found Hank Guynes hobbling along with the help of Roberta.

“Come on, you old warhorse,” teased Danny, taking Hank under one shoulder. With the help of Tim Wyatt, he almost carried Hank back into the house.

After seating Hank in an armchair in the lounge room, Danny instructed Tim, “Go check that vanity plate with Maureen, while I check upstairs.”

“What for?” asked Roberta as Tim strode across to the front door.

“In the hope of finding some clue as to why those guys have taken your sister-in-law,” said Danny. Then he and Roberta headed toward the staircase.


In the car, Alastor was holding Val, while Izzi ripped apart the clothing in her suitcase.

“It’s not here,” said Izzi.

“Where is it, Mrs. Camerota?” demanded Alastor.

“Where is what?”

“The sheet of paper you were given by Mr. Michaels in the mall yesterday?”

Val’s eyes lit up as she understood at last, but lying, she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Izzi placed a hand flat against her forehead.

“She’s lying,” said Izzi.

“Of course, she’s lying,” said Alastor. “Where is it, Mrs. Camerota?”

“It’s in my handbag.”

“You haven’t got one with you.”

“I left it back at …” she said, stopping.

“At your sister-in-law’s?” asked Alastor.

“No,” said Val, too quickly.

“She’s lying,” said Izzi.

“Did you have a chance to read the sheet of paper?”

“No, I’ve been too busy running from you three.”

“She’s telling the truth,” said Izzi, taking his palm away from her forehead.

Alastor smiled broadly.

“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No, Mrs. Camerota, we’re going to let you go … after we get that sheet of paper.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Val.

“Let her go?” asked Izzi.

“Right. Rodrigo said no more unnecessary killing, and she hasn’t read the paper. So if we let her go, we ought to get back into his good books?”

“Good thinking,” said Izzi with a lunatic grin.

Val looked from Izzi to Alastor and was unable to suppress a shudder.


In the second-storey bedroom of the Robinson house, Danny Walters picked up the brown vinyl handbag from the bed and started hunting through it, while Roberta looked through Val’s clothing for any possible clues.

“Valerie Camerota,” he confirmed from her credit cards. “It’s definitely hers.”

“Whose did you think it was?” asked Roberta, looking up from examining her sister-in-law’s bra.

“With everything that’s been going on lately, including fake Feds, fake ambulances, feral triage nurses, and murderous priests, Mrs. Robinson, I’m taking nothing for granted,” explained Danny.

Hearing footsteps in the hallway, they looked up as Tim Wyatt returned, helping Hank Guynes.

“How’d you go, Tim?” asked Danny.

“No luck.”

“What?” They all looked at the blond youth.

“There’s no such number plate, according to Maureen.”

Danny stared at the young cop.

“What’s going on here? Fake Feds, now with fake number plates?” said Danny, thinking aloud. “Unless they’re British Royals or foreign diplomats, they’re in big trouble when we get them. No one else is allowed to have unregistered plates in this country.”

“What about the president?” asked Hank Guynes.

“Well, yeah, but I doubt if the president is driving around assassinating people,” said Danny, in the hope of lightening the atmosphere a little. “Well, not personally … He’d get his aides to do it.”

“What’s that?” asked Tim Wyatt. He walked across to pick up the sheet of paper, which had fallen on the carpet near Danny’s feet.

“What’s what?” asked Danny, looking around.

“‘This is not Earth,’” Tim read out as Danny and Roberta started reading over his shoulders. He turned to look at them, “Reads like a page from a script from Doctor Who or the old Twilight Zone show.”

Looking back at the page, he read out, “‘This is not Earth. We are in a sub-basement of Hell, cunningly disguised as Earth .…’”

“My brother, Tony, wrote some science fiction in his teens,” explained Roberta. “But I didn’t know he still wrote it.”

She took the sheet of paper from Tim and read aloud, “‘This is not Earth. We are in a sub-basement of Hell, cunningly disguised as Earth and the universe.

“‘That is why there is so much evil and injustice in the world today. Because Heaven and the universe are the Lord’s domain, where he has absolute power. But he has no power over what goes on in Hell!”

“Wow, it’s a creepy one,” said Danny. “I think Rod Serling would have accepted this one for sure.”


Alastor, Izzi, Alfonso, and Valerie were getting out of the car in front of Roberta’s house when Val suddenly raced off down the street.

Izzi grabbed his gun from his coat, but Alastor stopped him, “No, no, she’s not important unless she tries to warn them inside.” To Alfonso, he said, “Follow her in the car. But unless she returns here, let her go.”

“Got you,” said Alfonso, getting back behind the wheel. He started the Fairlane and followed after Val.

“All right, let’s go inside,” said Alastor, looking back toward Roberta’s house.

“The cops are still inside,” reminded Izzi.

“The cops can’t hurt us.”

“Yes, but remember what Rodrigo said. We have to maintain the illusion at all costs.”

“It’s too late for that crap. We have to get that note back at all costs.”

So saying, he started across the footpath toward the house. After a moment’s hesitation, Izzi started after him.


Val ran down the street until she saw a railway station. She started to run past the station, and then noticed a small gate stood open.

After a second’s hesitation, Val raced in through the gateway as Alfonso pulled up outside the railway station.

“Oh God,” said Val. Although relaxed a little by the hot bath, she desperately needed to find somewhere that she could have a few hours’ sleep.

She raced across to the ticket booth, only to find it locked up.

“Damn you!” she said, going to kick the wooden door. But remembering what had happened when she had kicked the ATM, she stopped and staggered across to another small room. Which was also locked.

Besides that, though, there was an open-air waiting room, which at least would keep the rain out.

“And most of the wind, I hope,” said Val as she wandered across toward it. “Thank God,” said Val, almost collapsing from fatigue as she walked in through the redbrick archway.

Slinking across to where she hoped the wooden bench would be, Val sat down.

“Ah!” she cried, leaping up again as she sat on an old man in the dark.

Lighting a match, the old derelict said, “Don’t be afraid, honey. Come and snuggle up to me for body heat.”

“How dare you?” demanded Val.

“Don’t worry about him, Luvie,” said a blousy blonde Val could just make out in the light of the long match. “His talk is much worse than his bite. He hasn’t been a threat to any woman for twenty years now.”

“How dare you, Molly!” protested the old man.

“S … sorry,” said Val, “I’m exhausted and desperately need a place to sleep.”

“Well, you won’t find anywhere in here,” said Molly. “All the bench space is taken. I’ve slept here for twenty years. Old Ted there --,” pointing at the old man --, “for nigh on thirty years. Brodie lived across the way for nearly forty years. And young Beth for about ten years … maybe twelve.”

“Twelve,” agreed Beth.

“But I’ve been running for hours,” protested Val.

Cursing as he burnt his fingers, old Ted dropped the match, and they were back in darkness.

“Who are you running from?” asked Brodie.

“You running from the law?” demanded Molly. “We don’t need no crims bunking down here with us.”

“Not the law exactly,” said Val. She narrowly avoided a patch of vomit as she sat on the cold brick floor. “They’re fake federal agents called ….”

“Shit in a hand basket!” said Molly. “Not Alastor, Iscaron, and Alfonso?”

“Y … yes, I think so.”

“Then you’re already dead, honey,” said Brodie.

“What do you mean?”

“You a Christian?” asked Brodie, surprising Val.

“Well … yes.”

“But, like most Christians nowadays, not up on your mythology, I see,” said Molly.

“I guess not,” agreed Val. Puzzled, she wondered if the four railway people were all senile.

“Alastor,” explained Brodie, “is the chief executioner in Hell. Iscaron, or Izzi, his second in charge, is the Avenging Angel of Death!”

“What?” demanded Val, putting her hand in the vomit as she stood again.

“Alfonso used to be a pope centuries ago.”

“A pope?” asked Val, wondering if she had heard correctly.

“Aha. Alfonso de Borja. Pope Callistus III. One of the two evil Borgia Popes.”

“What about Rodrigo?” asked Val. “I’ve heard them talk of him as someone they have to take orders from. They … they seem to even be afraid of him.”

“Rodrigo was the other infamous Borgia Pope. Rodrigo Borgia, also known as Pope Alexander VI. He was famous for sexually abusing every nun in the Vatican. And some say every young priest as well.

“He was also notorious for poisoning his enemies.”

“Some say that he did the poisoning that his famous half-sister and mistress, Lucretia Borgia, went down in history for,” added Ted. “After his death, like his ancestor, Alfonso, he became a devil and executioner in Hell.”

“If Alastor, Iscaron, Alfonso de Borja and Rodrigo Borgia want you … you’re as good as dead already,” insisted Molly.

“But if they’re devils, how can they spend so much time up on Earth?” demanded Val. “And how can they have any power on Earth?”

“On Earth?” said Brodie.

“She still thinks we’re on Earth?” said Beth, sounding horrified.

“Well … aren’t we?” asked Val. Again, she wondered if the railway people were all senile.

“Of course not, Luvie,” said Molly. “This is Hell.”

“Hell?” asked Val, staring into the darkened waiting room.

“We thought you had to know that if Alastor, Iscaron, and Alfonso are trying to kill you.”


Reaching the front door of Roberta Robinson’s house, Alastor reached into his coat for the key-gun again.

This time, Iscaron (Izzi) did not tease him about the C.I.A. arresting them, as Alastor selected a key, inserted it into the front door and pressed the trigger.

The gun whir-whir-whirred for a moment before locking into place. And effortlessly, Alastor opened the front door, and he and Iscaron stepped inside the yellow weatherboard house.

“I see you’re still got the Midas touch,” teased Iscaron.

“Thank you,” said Alastor. He closed the front door carefully behind them.

Putting away the key-gun, Alastor removed his .45 revolver from his coat as Iscaron removed his nine-millimetre pistol.

They looked about the front of the house for a moment before hearing voices upstairs.

Starting toward the stairs, Alastor signalled Iscaron to follow, and they slowly started up the carpeted stairs toward the first floor.


Danny Walters reached across to take the sheet of paper from Roberta and read, “‘This is not Earth. We are in a sub-basement of Hell, cunningly disguised as Earth and the universe.

“‘That is why there is so much evil and injustice in the world today. Because Heaven and the universe are the Lord’s domain, where he has absolute power. But he has no power over what goes on in Hell!

“‘Hell is the Devil’s dominion. And only Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer and their executioners, Rodrigo Borgia, Alfonso de Borja, Alastor, Iscaron, Adad, Azrael, and Hannibal, have any authority there.

“Everyone here has already lived his or her life up on Earth and has failed to qualify to enter the Kingdom of God upon death. Some lusted too much after women. Some lusted too much after gold, silver, or palladium and lived here as street people.

“‘Some were murderers, rapists, child-abusers, and so on. They are here as policemen.’”

“What?” demanded Danny, looking round at Tim Wyatt, then Hank Guynes. Like the two young constables, Danny Walters had wanted to be a cop and help people ever since he had been a kid, and could not imagine having been a murderer or rapist (or worse) in an earlier lifetime.

Looking at the sheet he read, “‘They will endlessly repeat their so-called lives in Hell, throughout eternity unless they manage to redeem themselves.’”

“Redeem themselves?” asked Roberta. “How do they do that?”

Tim and Hank shrugged, but Danny didn’t seem to even hear the question.

Looking back at the sheet of paper, Danny said, “Alastor and Iscaron. If I remember my teaching from my Catholic School days, they’re the Chief Executioner in Hell, and the Avenging Angel of Death.”

“That’s us,” said Alastor, startling the four people in the bedroom. “It’s nice to be famous.”

Spinning round, Danny, Tim, Hank, and Roberta saw Alastor and Iscaron standing behind them with guns in their hands.

“What the Hell?” said Danny, starting to reach for his sidearm.

Too late … as the two demons in human guise opened fire, killing Roberta Robinson and the three policemen.

“That’s one way to redeem yourself,” explained Alastor, to no one in particular, “getting killed in the line of duty, or to protect your sister-in-law.”

“Rodrigo will be shitting bricks when he hears about this,” said Iscaron.

“I don’t think so,” said Alastor. He walked over and picked up the sheet of note paper, which he folded up carefully, then put into his suit coat breast pocket.

“He said no more massacres. We have to maintain the illusion at all costs.”

“They had all read the sheet. They all knew the truth about Heaven and Hell. They had to die. Even Rodrigo will see that,” said Alastor.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Iscaron.

Tapping his breast pocket, Alastor said, “And when we give him back the sheet of paper, he’ll forget all about being angry.”

“Oh, yeah!” said Iscaron, grinning demonically.


Hannibal, Adad, and Azrael stood in the dark lounge room of the two-storey brick house in Hunter Street waiting for their prey to arrive.

“Remember, no cock-ups this time,” demanded Hannibal, “or Rodrigo really will send us all up one level.”

“Yeah! Yeah!” said Adad, still a little out of sorts after returning from the dead.

“Just don’t get yourself killed again, or this time Rodrigo won’t intervene to get you resurrected!” said Hannibal.

“Okay,” said Adad. He was starting to adjust to life again, so that his resentments and angers were easing away at last.

“Cut him some slack,” said Azrael; “it always takes a little while to get used to dying and being resurrected.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” agreed Hannibal. Then, as they heard a car pull up outside. “All right, be quiet and stay concealed until the bitch gets right into the sitting room, so there’s nowhere for her to go this time.”

“Got it,” said Azrael and Adad as one.


“Oh Lord, just let this awful night end,” said Marla Goldenberg as the security car pulled up outside her house.

“Don’t worry, Lady Mayor, you’ll soon be safe inside,” said Evan. Then to the other security guards, “Keifer, Willem, go check out the grounds right around the house, to make certain that there’s no sign of them, or any break-in.”

“That’ll leave us sitting ducks here,” said Marla as the two guards climbed out of the car.

“No, I’ll drive around the block again while they’re checking your house,” said Evan, starting the car again.


Inside the house, they heard the car start up again.

“They’re leaving again?” said Adad, surprised.

“No, no, he’s just driving her round the block again while two guards check the outside of the house,” said Azrael, using his psychic powers again.

“No sweat,” said Hannibal, “we parked the Fairlane a kilometre away, and we used a key-gun to get inside, so there’s no trace of breaking and entering.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Adad, and the three fiends laughed like idiots.


Arriving back at the house, Evan saw Willem and Keifer waiting for him.

“Well?” he called.

“No sign of anyone,” called Keifer.

“I’d bet my life there’s no one here,” said Willem, unaware that he was about to do just that.

“Oh God, can we go inside now?” asked Marla.

“Yes, of course,” said Evan. He signalled, and the other two guards walked over, so that the three men could try to shield the mayor with their bodies as they led her over to the front door.

“Come on,” said Evan and they raced over to the front door.

Marla fumbled her front door key from her purse. Then Evan took the key from her and unlocked the door, and they quickly stepped inside, still shielding Marla with their bodies.

“I should be all right now,” said Marla. She felt a little uncomfortable as the three men pressed up against her.

“Sorry,” said Evan and they stepped away a little. “But remember, paranoiacs on average live ten years longer than happy-go-lucky people.”

“That’s true,” said Marla with a laugh. She started down the hallway toward the stairs to her upstairs bedroom, unaware at first that the three men were still following her. “Are you three planning to spend the night here?”

“We have to escort you upstairs, and then check your house room by room, before we leave,” explained Evan. He was careful not to remind her that she had already had four assistants killed that awful night.

“Oh, all right,’ said Marla, starting up the stairs.

As they started up the stairs, the door to the lounge room opened behind them and out stepped Hannibal, Adad, and Azrael.

“Surprise,” said Hannibal.

“Shit!” said Evan, grabbing for his handgun.

Too late, as the three assassins carefully gunned down Evan, Keifer, and Willem, leaving a shocked Marla Goldenberg standing alone on the bottom step of the staircase.

“Please?” she said in terror.

“Show us your tits, and we’ll give you a ten-second head start,” teased Hannibal.

“How dare you …?” said Marla. Her eyes almost leapt from their sockets as she recognised Adad, who she had seen less than an hour ago, lying dead on a metal table in the municipal building's forensic room. “You’re dead.”

“He was, but he’s been resurrected,” said Azrael.

“Hurts a little, resurrection,” said Adad. “Still, it’s better than staying dead.”

“That’s true,” said Hannibal, and the three fiends laughed like the maniacs that they were.

Turning, Marla tried to run up the stairs, but only got three steps before they gunned her down.

Going over to check that she was dead, Hannibal said, “Third time lucky.”

The three assassins laughed manically again as they turned to head toward the front door.


Backing out of the redbrick waiting room at the railway station, Val strode across to the ladies' toilets to wash the vomit off her hands.


Having sneaked into the railway station, Alfonso heard Molly and the others talking, “Imagine still thinking this is Earth?”

“Yeah,” agreed Brodie. “Didn’t it ever occur to her that God would never let the inequalities that go on every day happen, if he had the power to stop them …?”

“And the only way God could not have the power to stop them would be if this is a sub-basement of Hell disguised as Earth and the universe,” Alfonso finished for her.

“Who … who are you?” asked Ted.

Ted lit another match so that Alfonso and the waiting room were half-lit.

“Don’t you know?” asked Alfonso, screwing a silencer onto his revolver.

“You’re Alfonso de Borja, the most evil of the two Borgia Popes,” Brodie mouse-squeaked.

“I like to think so,” said Alfonso, grinning idiotically as he opened fire upon the four railway people. “But that young upstart Rodrigo seems to think he’s more evil than me.”

He unscrewed the silencer and pocketed the gun and silencer, before turning to start back to the blue Fairlane.


Val stood in the doorway of the Ladies’ toilet, watching fish-eyed for a moment, as Alfonso walked over to get into the car and drove away.

Once he was gone, Valerie raced across to the redbrick waiting room, where she found the four railway people dead, and started to scream.


Pulling up outside Roberta Robinson’s house, Alfonso found Alastor and Iscaron waiting for him.

“How’d you go?” asked Alastor.

“No sweat, I let her go,” he said as Izzi climbed into the car. “But I had to kill four derelicts who knew who and where we are.”

“You killed four people?” demanded Iscaron as Alastor started into the Ford. “Shit, so did we!”

“What?” demanded Alfonso.

“Rodrigo will shit bricks when he hears we killed eight more people, despite his instructions not to go on a killing spree.”

“Yeah,” agreed Alfonso, nervously. “But he also said to maintain the illusion at all costs. They all knew we’re in Hell and had to die to maintain the illusion.”

“The same with ours,” said Iscaron.

“I just hope that Rodrigo sees it that way,” said Alastor, starting to close the car door, when the radio in the squad car in front of them started to squawk.

“Hang on a minute,” said Alastor, climbing back into the street.

“What the hell is he doing?” demanded Alfonso.

Iscaron could only shrug as Alastor walked across to reach into the squad car and lift the handset.

“Hello! Hello!” called Maureen tearfully from the police radio.

Alastor signalled for the others to be quiet. Pressing the button on the handset, in a perfect imitation of Danny Walters’s voice, he said, “What’s up, Maureen?”

Almost crying out the words, Maureen said, “The mayor’s just been assassinated on the third attempt. And the deputy mayor has suspended all inquiries into the Valerie Camerota murders until the mayor’s killers are caught.”

“Got you,” said Alastor, hanging up the handset. Walking back to the blue Fairlane, he said, “Good news.”

“Oh?” asked Alfonso.

“The second team’s finally done something right. They’ve finally managed to kill that interfering bitch Mayoress.”

He climbed into the front passenger seat as Alfonso started the Ford, saying, “Good news indeed.”

The three demons laughed as they drove away.


This is not Earth. We are in a sub-basement of Hell, cunningly disguised as Earth and the universe.

That is why there is so much evil and injustice in the world today. Because Heaven and the universe are the Lord’s domain, where he has absolute power. But he has no power over what goes on in Hell!

Hell is the Devil’s dominion. And only Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer and their executioners, Rodrigo Borgia, Alfonso de Borja, Alastor, Iscaron, Adad, Azrael, and Hannibal, have any authority there.

Everyone here has already lived his or her life up on Earth and has failed to qualify to enter the Kingdom of God upon death. Some lusted too much after women. Some lusted too much after gold, silver, or palladium and lived here as street people. Some were murderers, rapists, child abusers, and so on. They are here as policemen.

They will endlessly repeat their so-called lives in hell, throughout eternity, unless they manage to redeem themselves.

People are redeemed – called up to Heaven by God -- after succeeding at a second or subsequent attempt at life, after dying to help others, or after being murdered.

The following people in this account were redeemed and called up to Heaven, Nathaniel “Old Man” Michaels; Sergeant Ed Quince; Sergeant Andrew Peters; Anthony “Tony” Camerota; Roberta Robinson (nee Camerota); Clive Westlake; Alma Westlake; Morgan, old man; Tilda, old lady; Tom Chapman, verger; Mrs. Murphy; Lorelei Chung, cook; Fred Larkins hotel clerk; Rosie Piedersen prostitute; George, bodyguard; Aaron, bodyguard; Pedro, bodyguard; Derek, chauffeur; Marla Goldenberg, Mayoress; Evan, security guard; Keifer, security guard; Willem, security guard; Molly, railway person; Brodie, railway person; Ted, railway person; Beth, railway person; Sergeant Danny Walters; Constable Henry “Hank” Guynes, and Constable Timothy “Tim” Wyatt.

[The above is my explanation for all the injustice and suffering in the world. Take it or leave it! -- Philip Roberts August 2025]

THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia