A Secret Portal to Heaven [detective] 4,700

Sam Muscosolvo, a private detective, takes on a case with a fantasy ending.

This is an excerpt from a detective novel of mine.  The book follows Sam Muscosolvo’s life from being a mob bartender in 1930s Chicago until his retirement.  Later, I used the same character in several short stories.  This is one of them.  It’s a fantasy detective story.  About ten pages long.
------------------------

Leaving the Dinky Drinky Lounge on the ground floor of the Jablonski Building, I stagger slightly as I shovel my old bones into the single working elevator.  In silence, I ride my vertical steed to the sixth floor.  My destination is a dingy office with "Samuel Musscosolvo, Private Investigations" gleaming dully in fading letters on an old-fashioned wooden door.  These days, such entrances are mainly glass, along with shiny trimming.  

Screw it.  The place fits me -- old as the f*****g hills -- which is all that counts.  Except, of course, the cheap rent.

Once, I had owned a moderately successful detective agency with a dozen employees.  Now I live on Social Security and the little bit of money I make as a part-time PI.  I once harbored high hopes that one of my kids would take over, but that never happened.  My wife, Tamiko, has also lost interest in the business, preferring a second career as a Chicago City Councilwoman, which also pays s**t.  

In my mid-eighties, I have little energy left.  I like to think I need the money and am still the breadwinner in my family, but know better.  Hell, Tammy makes umpteen more than I do.  She pays while I play at my old game.  On the plus side, if we get in a bind I have a lawyer and a doctor in the family to take up the slack and bandage my bruises.  

At least the old place gives me an excuse to get out of a lonely house and behind a lonely desk where I can doze in a comfortable chair while daydreaming of past, better, days.

Absently I turn the key the wrong way �" locking it.  Some detective.  I didn't even notice the door was unlocked. Cussing under my breath, I turn it again.  Stepping into an outer office, I see a light on in the inner sanctum.  Damn, I shake my head, did I leave it on last night ... again?

Nope.  A small man sits in MY chair, behind MY desk, reading MY newspaper from yesterday.  But then, at 6' 4" and 280 lbs, most men are smaller than me.

"A hell'a a way to run a business, Sam."  It's an old sometimes pal, ex-Special Agent Allan Tompkins from the FBI.  "You better not have any current contracts with the Bureau or I'll report your a*s for inefficiency."

"The last one was twenty years ago, Al."  With no alternative, I plop my a*s down in an equally comfy chair across from him.  "And take your f*****g feet off my desk.  You're wearing down MY groove."

He puts down the paper.  Although the prick tries to glare, his myopic eyes give it more of a squinting effect -- not enough to scare a cat.  "Helen came to town to do some shopping.  I made an excuse and dodged over here.  When you gonna get a decent lock on that door?"

"No reason to.  Not when so damned many of my past clients are so proficient with a pick, and others prefer kicking it in.  A waste of money.  S**t.  Most of the time, like today, I don't need a key."

"Bullshit.  I heard you turning the lock.  You didn't even notice."

"What's the wife shopping for?  You need a detective to help her choose panties?"

"How the hell should I know?  I didn't ask."  He  shows a forced grin. "I was just glad to get out'a the house for awhile."  He glances around at the dingy office.  With only rare visitors, even rarer customers, I don't bother to dust.  It's merely my home away from home, a comfortable mancave packed with memories.  "I might have a job for you ... if you're not too busy?"

I stretch out, planting my own size-fourteens onto the opposite corner of the desk.  "I could probably fit it into my schedule."

"A pal of mine, into oil, has his eyes on a piece a rural real estate," Al starts.  Looking around again, somewhat guiltily, he offers me a smoke.  Tammy wouldn't like it, but f**k Tammy.  I accept.  He continues, "Trouble is, he can't find the owner.  He'll pay for help.  I figured you might be interested?"

"Rural?  I take it nobody lives there?  What about the tax rolls?"

"The county had a period of insolvency 'bout fifty years ago," Al said. "They offered a cut-rate on projected taxes if paid for long periods in advance.  The owner...." He took time to consult a notebook from his jacket pocket. "The owner, a Miss Agnes Jefferson, paid ninety-nine years in advance, with still over forty to go.  Now the house is abandoned, falling down, and old Aggie is nowhere to be found.  County records show nothing else on her."

"You were with the Bureau.  What about income tax records?  Social Security?  Medicare? That s**t."

"I asked a guy to check.  Nothing since about the time she bought the property.  Also no record of relatives.  It's as if she appeared one day, bought the place, and disappeared the next.  She never applied for a Social Security number and never paid any income taxes.  I couldn't even find a guy named Jefferson with her as a wife or dependent."  He stubbed out his smoke, lighting another.  "It isn't often I get away from Helen.  She made me promise to give up smoking.  Anyway, I thought of you."

"F*****g wimp."  Brave words, since Tammy did the same with me.  "I'll have to give it some thought.  You still living at the same number?"

"Where else would I be?  If we moved we'd have to take along an acre of f*****g landscaped flower garden.  Even I couldn't afford it."  I could hear him opening drawers on the other side of the desk.

"Bottom, right,"  I told him.  "Pour me one."

*** 

Way the f**k back in the early days of Roosevelt's dole, one hell of a lot of people were either never covered by their work or opted not to apply for Social Security.  Farm workers, waiters and waitresses, and many others didn't have the option and got to keep all their pay.  If this Agnes were married and didn't work, she may never have paid any taxes. If not a driver, no license on record. 

***

After rechecking some of Al's efforts, I take a flight to the Midwest and rent a snazzy foreign roller-skate of a vehicle.  My key works to wind it, but I need a shoehorn to get in and out.  Those f*****g Japs -- no offense meant, Tammy, honey.

It's the most ramshackle house I've ever seen.  Although only mid-October, the small island of trees where it stands are leafless ... dead looking.  I wonder whether the house holds the trees up or the other way around?  If the structure has ever been painted, it doesn't show.

The house and about a quarter-acre of ground is set, like a dry oasis, well back from the road and roughly in the center of a large extent of plowed land.  Although I search, there's no road or driveway leading to the isolated structure.  My guess is that a local farmer has plowed it under long ago.

Before trying to reach the house, I want to find who's working the land.  There might be a contract with a name and address on it.  To that end, I make a wide circle around the area, searching for farmhouses along the way.  It doesn't take long to find a nearby working farm.  

My lower back has ached ever since a terrorist in Frisco almost broke it fifteen years ago. 
I can feel it as I step up from the Tinkertoy vehicle.  A decent American make would have cost more per day and a f*****g fortune in fuel.  S**t.  A hard-boiled private dick like me can take it -- I hope.

The place appears to be a successful hardworking business, from what little I know about farms.  Although the house appears aged, a barn looks brand-new.  I stop at the entrance to a circular drive, seeing a man apparently working on a lawnmower, tools spread out on a large red rag.

"Excuse me, sir.  I'd like a little information, if you have it?"

"I ain't buying.  I either got it already or don't need it."

"No. I'm not selling anything."  I show him my ID.  On the other side of the leather case, I purposely keep my old Associate FBI ID card.  Although Al wouldn't have approved my having it in plain view, and I don't flaunt it, that card has more pull than the Illinois State PI ID. Especially, like now, working out of state.  Long ago, Al issued it to me for when I investigated prospective Bureau employees. 

"What you want?" the guy asks, putting down a wrench to wipe his brow.

"You know that old house?  The one way back from the road?  Looks about to collapse?"

"Yeah.  The Jefferson place, I think.  Anyway, that's what we call it."

"I'm looking for the owner."

"What for?"

"A guy that wants to buy it.  He can't find the owner."

"You check with the county?"

"Sure.  First thing.  They don't know."

"Sounds like them.  Old Jenkins has always had his head up his a*s, and been lazing about in that County Records chair forever.  Before that, his useless fath...."

I smile and nod, letting him run down.

"Do YOU know?"  I ask again.

"Jefferson, of course."

"Where can I find Jefferson."

"Beats me. I ain't never saw the guy."

"Guy?  I heard it was an Agnes Jefferson."

"Yeah?  I do remember a woman.  Figured she was married.  Ain't seen her for years, though.  A pretty woman, too.  Blond with hooters a mile long and hips I could hitch my plow to."

"I know the type.  Say, you wouldn't know who's working the field around it, would you?"

"That would be Tom. Tom Sylvester."

"Where could I find Tom?"

"You could try the Riverview.  He might still be there, lessen he's dead.  If dead, he's probably still there."

I can see getting information out of this guy will take patience.

"And where's this Riverview?"

"Everyone knows the Riverview.  We'll all get there sometime or t'other."

"I'm new here.  Can you give me directions?"

"The Riverview Retirement home and Mortuary," he says, laughing.  "Somewhere on Adams, downtown.  You can't miss it.  The only four-story building in town."

***  

I find the place on my second pass. The first time, I went right past the f****n' place.  Seeing a two-pump gas station and a small general store, I never figured it to be a town and didn't slow down.  It wasn't until I saw a sign in my rearview mirror that I realized I'd passed "Grove's Point."  Needless to say, finding the Riverview was easy as pie. Hell, at that time of day most of the town lay in its shadow.

*** 

Past the entrance, I notice the place teeming with old people, some in wheelchairs and many sitting stiffly while lost in private worlds of their own making.  It isn't until I pass a floor-length mirror that I recognize that many are younger than myself.  Preoccupied with the world of private investigation I've lost sight of my own age.  That's what concentration can do to a man.

"Can I help you, sir?"  It's a smiling young man in a gray suit.

"I'm looking for a Tom Sylvester.  Is he around?"

"Tom?  Yes. He's over there.  The guy with the white hair, playing cards," the man says, a look of curiosity on his face.  "I'm John, the director. Can I ask why you’re here?"

Again, I open my ID case. "Business."

"Well. Gollleeee.  We don't get you government guys here.  I don't think I've ever seen one before, in person."  He reminds me, at that moment, of Sheriff Taylor -- or was it Don Knotts?

"Uh.  They all have white hair.  Which one is Sylvester?"

"The one with all his hair."  

That narrows it down considerably.

I stumble through the same process with Sylvester.  Although more than willing to tell me his life story, he knows next to nothing of Agnes Jefferson.  

"When I asked, she said it was okay to farm her land, so's I been doing just that. I only saw her three times an talked to her that once't," he told me.  "She's got an account at the Farmer's Savings and Trust bank. Every year, I put her share in an at's all I know."

"What about the driveway?  She must have had one."

He blushes.  I can see a reddening slowly extend to the top of his head, detouring and moving around his hairline.  Although evenly dispersed, his hair is that sparse.  "Well.  I hope I'm not in trouble. I can have my son, Harry, put a new one in?  It's hard to plow around a driveway so, when I saw the place was abandoned I sorta ... well, uh, drove over it with my tractor."

"And how long ago was that?"

"Ten, twenty years ago, I guess.  My memory ain't so good no more."

"I'll let you know, Tom, but I wouldn't worry about it.  I don't think anyone's going to fix that place up.  It looks pretty worn down to me." I stand up to leave, then ask, "Have you seen anyone there, lately, in the last few years?  And do you mind if I go in?"

"Nope.  About ten years ago, abouts there, I had to call the sheriff to chase some kids out.  Hippies.  I put up some'a those 'keep out' signs and ain't see'd nobody since.  Sure.  Knock yourself out.  Ain't none'a my business." His eyes fall.  "My family ignores me, in here.  I haven't seen any of them for the last two years or abouts.  I guess," he said, tears forming, "it's the way of the world.  Us old people are useless, our time long past."

Getting permission from the director of the home, I ask around without any more luck than with Tom.  Then I drive over to the county seat and make another search of land and tax records for the property.  Whenever I see a senior citizen, the polite term for us old fuckers, I ask about Agnes.  Nobody knows her or even recognizes the name.  It is as though she never existed.

Before I leave for the house, I prudently buy a pair of rubber hip-boots.

***  

Parking on the shoulder of a narrow one-lane asphalt road, I put on my new boots and lock the car.  I hope a passing truck doesn't suck the f*****g thing into a ditch.  

Sighing, back hurting like hell, I test the water -- so to speak -- sinking in to my ankles.  Finding a dead limb by the road, I use it as a brace as I start across fifty-feet of plowed mud toward the house.  I'm stuck in my investigation, hoping there will be some sort of clue inside the structure.

Thank God for cellphones, I think, imagining the equipment the nearest fire department would need to pull me from the sticky morass.  As I proceed, the deeper I sink, soon nearly up to my knees in mud.  With every step, I can feel and hear the suction as I pull a foot free, only to plant it again. Near the island, as I think of it, the ground firms again, thank the Lord.  I hope the trip is worth it.

I fall to a wooden front porch, my back feeling on fire.  As I lay there, listening to crickets singing their own brand of operatic music, I feel long-unused muscles creaking as they stiffen. God help me, I pray -- actually pray.  Pulling myself up by both hands on a shaky porch support, I manage to get to my feet and stumble toward a door.

Before the prayer has time to ascend, I add a verse to the Supreme Being to please, please, not let the damned structure fall in on my head.

Inside is as to be expected.  The place has obviously been looted, more that once.  Only one table and a broken-backed couch remain among the clutter of trash in the living room -- including a pile of dusty fast-food containers and beer bottles.  I guess that was from the aforementioned teenagers.  At least the years have taken away the stink, leaving only a musty smell.

The entire downstairs is in that condition, with the exception of one door.  Seemingly out of place, it's metallic and locked tight.  I try my special keyring, using every skeleton key known to mankind.  Finally, I decide to leave it till later.  Written on a panel, in silvery script, are the words, "No Evil May Pass This Portal" along with some sort of mystic symbol.  From the hippies? I shrug, bringing a sharp pain to an already aching back.

Oddly, I notice no windows are broken out.  I would think most would be.  Maybe the farmer kept them intact for some reason?  Or, maybe it was simply too damned far from the road for kids to chuck horseshit.

Testing the stairs to the second floor, I edge my way upward, using only the extreme edges.  Upstairs is a little cleaner, with several stained mattresses lined up in one room, the one with an old-fashioned brick hearth.  Articles of clothing are strewn around, along with a peace symbol painted over the fireplace.  The police must have chased those hippies off in a hurry.

It isn't all idle exploration.  As I go, I keep an eye out for any papers that might help in my search for the missing and mysterious Agnes.  What missives and scraps thereof I do find are useless, no names or addresses I can use.  

One piece does have a few telephone numbers.   I call five of them from my cellphone.  Three are no answers or a "disconnected" message.  The other two are the families of missing kids, for which I have no reply to questions of their whereabouts.

Two of the rooms are completely useless to me.  They have holes in their ceilings and the contents decayed by leaking water.  Bats flee on my entrance to the second.

The only place left is that locked room downstairs.  On reattaining the first floor, I have to stop to sit on the steps, trying to ignore pain as I deliberately twist my shoulders and back to get rid of some of the stiffness.

The kitchen yields what appears to be a rusty machete.  I want something to try to pry that door open.  To my surprise, it has not only become unlocked, but is cracked open an inch or so.  

Going out quickly to both porches and checking from a few windows, I look into the plowed mud for foot or tire prints.  The only ones are my own.  How the hell, I wonder, did that door get open?  I know damned well it had been locked.  Was someone in the basement?  Hell, that is the way to a basement.  Grasping a shaky railing, I step down a flight of shifty rotten wooden stairs.

There's enough sunlight through several narrow cellar windows for me to see.  My eyes automatically focus on a bright light showing from what I think must be a storage room.  Is the illumination artificial?  Impossible.  There's no electricity.

As silently as possible, heart beating wildly and back aching tortuously, I brandish the dull machete in front of myself, trying hard to hold it in both sweaty hands.  Christ, I think, but I'm too old for this s**t.

Across yet another small room, I see a common door frame, sans door.  The space inside the frame ... well ... to put it simply, is not common.  

The space inside the doorway is filled to the brim with brightly-colored swirls.  Some of the colors are new to my eyes, and I'm an old man.  They fluoresce and are in constant motion, sorta inviting while relaxing at the same time.

Above the door, written in that same silvery script, are those same words, "No Evil May Pass This Portal."  Added are, "Such Evil Will Cease To Exist."

It takes a few moments to catch my breath.  Feeling at peace, and not knowing why, I put down the machete.  Next comes a couple of minutes investigating the edges of the doorway, looking for anything mechanical, such as wiring.  I find nothing to explain the swirling patterns, only rotted wood. Also, no sounds of a generator on the other side.

Bracing myself, I inch the fingers of my right hand toward, then into, the colorful barrier.  Except for a slight warm tingle, they go in without resistance.  Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and thrust my head inside.

On opening my eyes a crack, I come face to face with a large brown bear.  Before I can process that information and pull away, the bear stands on two legs, sticks out its tongue and licks my face.  Blinking saliva away, I see the animal back up, looking curiously at me.

What the hell!  From that angle, face a few inches inside and through a misting of bear spit, I see a motion to the side.  A deer stands a few yards away, soft round eyes staring and watching our brief contact, not paying any mind to the bear.

I have to withdraw. I can't help it.  You can imagine the confusion.

Finally, a few minutes into partial recovery, I try again.  That time, seeing I'm alone, I step through the "portal."  

There's no sign of the plowed field, though the house itself, fixed up and painted, stands over and behind me.  Obviously, it's an outside door, supposedly underground yet?

The area around the structure is, the only way to describe it is "lush."  It's mostly forest, though several paths are in sight along with other buildings scattered in the distance.  Feeling I should be doing something, and not wanting to immediately duck back inside, I tentatively start around the structure.

A nice-looking young woman sits on a porch-swing on the front porch.  It's the same porch as before ... but isn't.  This one is well-maintained and edged by potted plants.

"Come on up," she advises.  "You want some lemonade?  I made it myself.  We have a lemon tree out back, you know?"

What the hell, I think.  I've come this far.  Why not?  

Wordlessly, one eye on her and trying to watch the front door with the other, I cross over and take a seat on the porch railing.  She pours liquid into a glass and passes it to me.  

If that isn't enough, I notice something else.  Two things, really.  When I reach out to grasp the glass, I see the veins in my arm are recessed again. Gone are the overly familiar age spots I hate so much.  It looks twenty years younger.  Also, my back pain is gone for the first time in fifteen years.  In fact, I feel unaccustomed energy flowing through rejuvenated veins.

I look around, briefly wondering what can be causing the illusions.  It has to be an illusion, maybe from some drug in the air?  People can't change that quickly. Plowed ground can't change to forest.  No f*****g way.

"I know.  It's surprising, isn't it?" She gives me a bright smile.  "I don't miss the old world.  This one is much better.  No killing, no warfare, no ... evil is allowed.  Just as it says on the door.  If you were evil when entering, it's gone now."  

Her eyes drift up to mine, giving me a tingling feeling in my tummy.  Tummy?  What the f*****g hell.  I haven't used that word since I was a f*****g kid.

"Tummy," I say.

"Tummy?  Are you hungry?"

I shake my head.  "No.  I dunno.  Maybe?"  I shake it again, trying to get some feeling of feeling, if you know what I mean. Something familiar to hang on to ... to think ... to understand.

"Are you okay, mister?"

"Yeah.  Sure," I lie.  "Look.  I think I know the answer, but tell me.  Are you Agnes Jefferson?"

"I used to be."  She raises her head and gives a trilling sound like a bird would do.  A few seconds later, I can hear the same sounds coming back from a distant source.  "I used to be. Now, though, I answer to Twilla.  I left that name, along with the other world and old age behind me."  She leans closer, sweet breath preceding her, to whisper, "Here I can be whatever I want, and even what age I prefer.  Here, there is no death until I choose it ... and I will, when I'm ready.  It's my choice, rather than chance or Father Time's."

We talk for endless hours, it staying twilight for that entire time.  Agnes had bought the house, used, right after her husband died.  At that time, it had already been abandoned for a few years.  She'd seen the door, just as I had, but was afraid of the sudden change, not completely trusting.  

After switching back and forth to her current world for a few months, she feared someone -- the wrong person -- would find the portal.  To keep it safe, she returned and used the rest of her dead husband's bequest to pay taxes for ninety-nine years, then crossed over for the last time.

"I'll never go back to the old world," she tells me, "with its wars and strife."

"Listen, Agnes," I ask before I leave, "would you be willing to sell the house to me?"

"Why?  Why don't you just stay with me, Sammy?  There are other portals, all over the old world.  Some are in caves, some in basements, some in old houses or deep in forests.  The sadness is that most people can never seem to see or notice them.  People tend to move so fast on their way to nowhere that they pass them by ... unnoticed.

"I think it's God's way of giving us all an equal chance.  You can simply stay.  I ... we ... would be glad to have you."

"I can't, Agnes," I tell her. "Unlike you, I still have a spouse and kids to think about and support.  I'll take a free pass, though.  A rain-check.  If you sell me the place, I'll be back later ... for good."

In the end, she returns to reality long enough to sign over the house and land to me for one dollar.  Forcing myself, only the thought of losing Tamiko and the kids breaking the balance, I stay in the old reality -- at least for now.

I go back to the county seat, put through the paperwork and pay an additional twenty years on the taxes -- all I can legally do at the moment.  Next, I drive back to the Riverview Retirement Home and Mortuary.

"Pack a bag, Tom," I tell him.  "We're going on a trip. I want to show you something.  I guarantee you'll like it."  I think he would have gone anywhere at that point, if only to get away from that place for a few minutes.  

We manage to slip out a side door to where I've already parked my Suki-Mattel vehicle.

Needless to say, after a brief stop at his old farm to say goodbye to his family, I leave Tom in that other world.  That's the easy part. Getting the f****r across the field by pulling him behind me on a piece of plywood is the difficult part.  Actually, I still look and feel  twenty-years younger and with a good back it wasn't all that hard.  So I get something out of that trip.

I do, though, have to call Al.  I ask him to tell his friend that buying that land is a lost cause -- that I now own it and he doesn't have a chance in heaven.  That place is reserved for me and Tammy.

The End.
Charlie

Reviews

[wordman]

great story,lot of knowledge here