Sid, Ombudsman of Hell

[joegoda]

Sid stepped forward and carefully stuck his own hand out. He wasn't sure if he wanted to shake the filthy hand offered him, but then again, he wasn't sure if he wanted to do any of the things he was doing.

"I'm Sid," he said, pulling his hand back and reaching for the handkerchief in his pocket. "You're Virgil?" He set about wiping... whatever off his fingers.

Virgil nodded. "Technically, I'm 'a' Virgil. It just so happens that my name is also Virgil, so it's all good. Sorry bout the stink. I was in the middle of a hog pen when I got the call."

Sid started to put his handkerchief back into his pocket, stopped, thought better of it and instead dropped it into a green trashcan next to the vending machines.

"What do you mean you're 'a' Virgil?" he asked. "I didn't know there were any hog pens in hell." He looked around, hoping that there might be someone else here by the name Virgil. There was nobody else here but him and the smelly, improbable man before him.

The shabby figure on the bench stood up, reached a hand around behind him and stretched. "Yeah, I know. I'm not what you expected. You probably expected some wild-eyed lotus eater or somebody like that, huh?" An audible crack could be heard from Virgil's spine. "Man, I gotta get that back looked at. It's been killing me since I fell off that roof." Another cloud of sour smoke rose from his head.

"I'm called 'a' Virgil because that is what this job is." Virgil pulled the cigar from between his lips and spit a brown string onto the sidewalk. "The guy who does it, who gets to show people like you through the levels of Heaven and Hell has always been called a Virgil. It's in the contract." He shoved the cigar back between his lips. "We gonna roll, or what?"

Sid sighed. Why was my life so much harder than everyone else's? "What contract? I'm sorry; I don't have any idea what you're talking about."

Virgil turned a dark eye to Sid and sighed. "Okay." He paused while he rolled his eyes up to look at the top of his head. "It's like this. One day I got tired of scrapin' for a living. My life sucked, let me tell you. So, in a moment of total non-creative stupidity, I said 'Man, I would sell my soul to...' Well, doesn't really matter, does it? Next thing I know, a guy named Bezel shows up with a contract and a pen. Hell, I was so drunk; I just signed it, laughing my butt off the whole time."

Sid shifted uncomfortably. "Uh. Okay."

"Yeah... it was what you're thinking it was. I would get what I wanted, as long as I held to the letter of the contract." Another glob of brown spit hit the sidewalk. "The letter of the contract said that if I failed, then I would become a slave of the Big Bad One when I died, and if I failed before I died then I would have to come when required." He chewed his cigar a bit before he said, "And I ain't dead yet."

"So..." Sid wasn't exactly sure what to ask. "You're the guide to the Underworld?"

"Yeah. Ain't that a hoot." Virgil started walking past Sid, across the road. "It's this way, right?" He pointed in the direction Sid had come from, where the pedicab met the tumbleweed.

Sid had to hurry to catch up. "Is what that way?" Virgil was on the other side of the road and tramping into the desert before Sid had gotten halfway across the road.

"The other folk." Virgil tossed at Sid that carried the unspoken word 'moron'. "There's a couple more coming, right?"

Sid's foot caught as he left the blacktop and he stumbled. He caught himself before splatting on the grimy dirt and quickly gained his composure. "Yes... well, one more anyway."

Virgil stopped in his tracks, turned and said, "That's not what I'm sent to do. Says I'm supposed to take three folks to wherever they need to go."

He reached into a pocket in his coat and pulled out a greasy looking bit of paper. He unfolded it carefully, since it looked like it was about to disintegrate. From the same pocket, he produced a pair of glasses which he perched on his nose. Holding the paper at arm's length, he peered through squinted eyes at what was written.

"There's you...," he said, uncertain, "and I'm guessing you're Sid."

"I already said that," Sid said. This guy was the guide?

"...And there's two others. A guy named Justice? No, that can't be right... Justin... yeah... and some woman. Barbie? Brenda? It's all smeared here." He shook the paper at Sid as if he had something to do with it.

"Betty?" Sid offered, hopeful he could eventually make some sense of this person.

"No, that's not it." Virgil took his top hat off and smoothed his dark brown comb-over with the paper in his hand, which might go a way to explaining its appearance. He carefully folded his instructions and shoved it back into his pocket along with his reading glasses.

"It's... umm... I'll remember it sooner or later." He turned back to the path he was taking and started off again with long strides, the smoke from his cigar giving the impression that Virgil was some sort of steam powered man-engine.

Sid double-timed to catch up to him, and kept pace as best as he could. Being next to him was so much better than being behind him, the downwind side of Virgil.

"You're not dead?" Sid asked.

"That's what I said, bud." Virgil's eyes were focused somewhere on the horizon, looking left and right, scanning for something. "Not dead. One of the living, in the service of the Damned. Hell, if he asked me to make him an elephant egg omelet, I'd have to." He shrugged and chuckled. "That would be a trick, let me tell you."

"What do you do, up there?" Sid pointed upwards, indicating something other than the dusty and constant sky of Hell. "You know... for a living?"

Virgil chomped down on his cigar hard enough that Sid thought he heard it scream. "I'm a circus clown, if you gotta know." He turned his eyes to Sid briefly, seeing if his admission caused any reaction. "What are you? An accountant or something?"

"I used to be," Sid said, "When I was still up there."

The two marched in silence through the desert, lighting flashing around them and thunder rolling like a bass drum concert. Tumbleweeds the size of Volkswagens and city busses tossed and whirled in the near distance. Occasionally, the wind would howl up and throw dark cinders and dust in their faces.

"What's it like being a circus clown?" Sid broke the silence first.

"Pretty damn sad, buddy," Virgil grumbled. "There's not that many circuses any more. At least those that travel, you know. Used to be all sorts when I was a kid. Big ol' tents tossed up, smell of animals and sweat everywhere. Sure, they weren't much, but they were there." He growled low and said something Sid didn't hear. "Now all there is are those stupid in-house circuses... like you find in Vegas. Oh, sure... there's little bitty carnivals, county fairs and stuff. But it's not the same." He spat on the desert floor, where the cigar juice just smoldered and smoked. "It just ain't the same."

Virgil stopped suddenly and reached into his coat pocket again. He pulled out a pair of binoculars and stood, peering at the horizon.

"What are you looking for?" Sid asked. He shaded his brow with his hand and peered into the distance too.

Virgil removed his binoculars and turned to look at Sid with another of those 'what are you, stupid?' looks. "You don't get out much, do you, Bud?" He pulled the binoculars back to his eyes. "See, when you move from one place to another, there's no promise that the place you just left will be in the same spot where you left it. Things move around."

"So I've been told." Sid turned around to look back where the bus stop had been. Sure enough, it had faded away to nothing. All that could be seen were dustdevils and desert. "I don't get out much, yeah. I've been stuck in my office for the last... however long it's been."

Virgil pulled his binoculars back down and stuck them in his pocket. He pointed in a direction, nodded and took off that way in his distance eating stride. "Found 'em... I think. Hard to tell, sometimes." A minute or two of silence drifted between the two before Virgil said, "So, tell me the story. Why're you out here, why'm I out here, and where're we going?"

Sid shrugged. "It... Well, it's kind of hard to explain. I have a client who says he's innocent..."

"Client?" Virgil snorted. "What are you? A lawyer? Bet there's tons of 'em down here."

"I'm not a lawyer," Sid said defensively. "I'm an ombudsman."

"A what?" Virgil stopped, pulled his binoculars from his pocket and used them to scan again. "What the hell is an ombudsman?"

Sid sighed. "An ombudsman is a person that speaks for someone else. An advocate. I stand up before the Powers That Be and explain my client's position."

"Still there," Virgil grunted before starting off again. "So... what? These clients can't talk for themselves?"

Sid shrugged. "It's not like that... it's just that, sometimes, to get what you want you need to have the right words. I'm really good at finding the right words."

"Oh." Virgil nodded while he absorbed this. "So... you're a mouthpiece. Like a lawyer, but not even close."

"Something like that," Sid said.

"And you really go before the big guys? You know, God and the Devil?"

"Well, to be honest, I haven't had to see God," Sid admitted. "I'm not sure I want to."

"Why?" Virgil challenged. "You afraid of him?"

"Because of the idea that I would have to explain how I ended up here, yeah, I am. A little." Sid tried to give the impression that he didn't really want to talk about it.

Virgil snorted. "Come on! Don't you think that God knows why you're here?" He chomped a bit around his cigar. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"It's complicated," Sid said. He always hated this question.

"Kill someone?"

"No."

"Cheat someone?" Virgil pushed. "I mean, come on... accountant and all that, you know?"

Sid's face turned a bit red. "I never cheated anyone in twenty years I was active! Never!"

"Okay, okay!" Virgil held up his hands, giving up. "Sheesh, no need to get hot."

Sid took a couple of deep breaths to calm down. "It's okay. Just never mind, all right? It's just kind of stupid."

Minutes of crashing lightning and thunder rolls passed before Virgil tried again. "Lie to get out of the service? I mean, that's kind of two sided... lying to keep from killing someone. Sort of makes the lying justified...."

"NO!" Sid yelled. "No, no, no!" He stopped, and clenched his bony hands into fists. "Look, I got sent to hell for wearing silk and polyester! Okay? Satisfied?" He dropped his hands and marched ahead of Virgil, not looking at the man, not looking at anything.

"Hey!" Virgil jogged to catch up to Sid, who patently ignored the man's approach. "Hey! I'm sorry, okay? You're right, it was a stupid reason. Those must have been some really old rules you broke."

Sid clenched and unclenched his jaw. "Yeah," he muttered. "They are."

"I mean," Virgil went on, "being sent to Hell for wearing silk and polyester. Go figure." He paused in thought and then said, "You're from the seventies, right?"

Sid gave one curt nod. "Yeah. So?"

"So...," Virgil stretched it out, gathering his thoughts. "If you were sent to Hell for wearing silk and polyester, where's all the other guys that were doing the same thing? I mean, come on, the seventies, man! Silk shirts? Polyester Suits? Like you were the only one?"

Sid stopped, dead in his tracks. In a thousand subjective years, he had never thought of that, had never wondered about that. "I don't know," he said finally. "I never thought about it."

"Maybe you should, Buddy." Virgil shrugged. "I mean, what good is being an mouthpiece if you can't speak for yourself?"

Virgil trudged on, impervious to the lightning that had struck the earth twenty feet to his left. Sid jumped a bit, and he was mildly surprised when he only jumped that much. Maybe he was getting used to this place after all. Maybe he was becoming immune to it all.

Maybe Justin was right. Sid looked around and found that the desolation, though frightening with it's killer tumbleweeds, lightning and constant blowing wind and dust really wasn't that bad. There was even a sort of... beauty. No longer scary, the scenery was more... sudden and shifting and startling. Cracks in the ground would open without warning. Lightning would flash from above to strike wherever they wanted to. In a very Dali-esk sort of sense of artistry and symmetry, the desert outside Limbo was very beautiful.

Sid shook his head to clear it. "What am I thinking? This is nuts... I need a drink."

"Ha." Virgil snorted again. "No chance in Hell of that!" He reached over one grimy hand and clapped it on Sid's shoulder, which, to Sid's amazement didn't hurt any more. "I know what you mean though, buddy." He raised his left hand and pointed to a heap of red and white just in eyesight. "Is that it?"

Sid adjusted his glasses and squinted. The shape and colors seemed right. "Yes, I think so." He wasn't sure, though. It was pretty far off and he was still stuck on what Virgil had said about the other guys who had worn polyester suits in the seventies. Surely there were others in the same sort of place as he was.

Of course, in order to find out about them, he would have had to get out of his office, wouldn't he? And he never, ever had. Ever. His mind whirled with the thought that maybe he was stuck in his office for a reason. Maybe it was a conspiracy against him.

He tossed that idea away. Paranoid much, Sid? Still the thought crawled back on its own and coupled with the concept of a bus-sized Tumbleweed being aimed for him, and gave birth to some interesting suspicions. Then if you toss in a kid who was maybe framed for a killing of a priest... a priest no less! Maybe there was something conspiracy angle.

No, no, no! Hell doesn't work that way! It's orderly, organized and logical. Wait. Hold on there, Sid. This is HELL. Run by the biggest mamzer there was! Maybe there was something to this...

Sid's mind twisted and turned like a dog on a choke collar and his vision went red. Virgil must have noticed the looks passing over Sid's face and seeing Sid's hands clench and unclench, because he gripped Sid by both shoulders.

"Hey! Buddy! Calm down, okay?" Virgil's breath hit Sid full in the face, derailing his thoughts of potential cosmic conspiracy against him. "I'm sure that it's all got a perfectly logical explanation. Don't get all worked up over it, man. Once this job is over, work on your own thing. Don't let it kill you." Realizing what he had said, Virgil looked away. "Sorry bout that dead thing."

The look of remorse on Virgils face and the complexities of what had been running though Sid's mind struck just the right cord and he started laughing.

Virgil decided, right then and there, that it was a good time to go check out the crashed pedicab. He moved away from Sid, who was caught up in breath taking whoops of laughter so strong that tears were leaking from his eyes and falling to the dusty ground below, causing little wisps of steam rise.

"Great," Virgil muttered. "Crazy people." He looked under the canopy of the pedicab and straightened, groaning, his left hand against his back. "Hey! Buddy!"

Sid gave no reaction. He was laughing too hard to hear anything but the chorus in his head. The voices in his head were tabulating on a massive mental spreadsheet the concepts of eternal damnation, tumbleweeds, innocence and a conspiracy so large as to be unimaginable and placing them all on the debit side. On the credit side, there was him, Sid, Justin and Virgil... maybe. Oh yes, and Betty or Brenda or Billie or Barbie!

And let's not forget Satan, Sid. He definitely goes on the debit side. God? God is so indefinable at this point that we don't know where to put him? Credit? Debit? Who knows? Let's put him where that invisible penny goes, the one that hides until it's the last few moments of Q4. Answers to the other polyester suits? Let's put those in the same bit bucket as God... unknowable at this time, at this point. But findable! It's all findable, Sid, with enough patience and examination of the facts, the receipts and the balance sheet. It's solvable, Sid. Calm, calm, calm. Let's not go meshugeh over this, okay? Let's focus on the job at hand, get it done and who knows? Maybe we'll get a few of those pennies found.

Sid wiped the tears out of his eyes and straightened, slowly. Oh, it hurt, laughing this hard. Not like losing a leg, or having your face scraped off or even breaking your arm. No, this was a good hurt... the hurt of drinking something frozen too fast among friends, the hurt of a baby launching itself, laughing, through the air to land on your chest. The hurt of a broken heart mending.

After a few heavy cleansing breaths, Sid's ears and eyes started working again. The roar of confusion and the red of too much on the debit side cleared and he saw Virgil standing next to him, moving his mouth and saying something.

"I'm sorry," Sid said, still chuckling. "I'm okay... really. Really, I'm okay." He took another deep breath. "What were you saying?"

"Man, you really need to get out more." Virgil cast a concerned eye. "You sure you're okay?" He waited for Sid's nod, and then said, "Okay, then. Your friends aren't here."

Sid stopped cold and in fact, a cold ran from his feet up to his brain. His brain took the cold and drank it too fast. "What?" was all he could say.

"I said, your friends aren't here."

Virgil showed Sid a round dial he had in his hand. There were three hands on its face. One of the hands pointed directly at Sid, pointed directly at the word on the face that read 'here'.

The other two hands pointed to another word which read 'there'." Virgil shook the thing a bit and looked at it again. "The compass says they should be right here, or at least over there." He pointed to the ruined pedicab. His face carried the disgusted look of someone looking for their car keys when they know exactly where they were supposed to be.

Sid walked the short distance to the crash, calling out for Justin and Betty. He got no answer. He looked under the canopy, just as Virgil had done, and all he saw was the dim light that filtered from outside. Justin and Betty were, indeed, not there.

"Crap," he said. His mind started twisting again, and he struggled to keep his thoughts straight. "They have to be somewhere."

Virgil came to join him. "I'd say that's a true thing, Skippy. But here ain't where they are." He showed the compass to Sid and said, "This thing says they are."

"Can I see that?" Sid held out his hand.

Virgil shrugged. "I shouldn't. They're just given to Virgils, but I didn't see no rule against showing it off. Here." He passed the compass to Virgil.

"Tell me how it works," Sid asked.

"Who knows?" Virgil shrugged. "I get it on the bus on the way here along with my instructions on who I'm to guide. When I get off the bus, I look at it and follow it to where it points. I don't know how it works. I don't care how it works. It just works."

"Typical." Sid muttered. He looked at the round face and turned it until one of three hands swung toward him. The other two hands continued to point towards the canopy. "Does it always have three hands?" All three hands were pointing to words on the dial face that read 'here'.

"Nope," Virgil said. "It has as many hands as there are people to guide. Usually one or two, depending."

"Huh." Sid shook it, and watched the hands waver but not really move all that much. "There must be something here that the compass is pointing to."

"Yeah... that would be another duh, Sherlock. But what?"

"And that's the sixty-four thousand dollar question." Sid got down on his knees, ignoring the cinder-like ground biting into his skin, and crawled under the canopy.

"What'cha looking for, Bud?" Virgil's question was slightly muffled by the heavy cloth of the canopy.

"I don't know yet," Sid said. "A hidden penny." He visually scanned the cramped area while his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness.

"Crazy people." Virgil commented.

There! Sid's eyes finally focused enough to see two tiny, almost invisible points of light. Not quite white light, but definitely different from the rest of the dimness. He wasn't completely sure of what planted the idea in his head but he had a pretty good idea that the two pinpoints were Justin and Betty. Somehow, improbably, they had been stripped of their bodies and left here. Sid had trouble believing it, but his mind told him that the two specks were the bare essences of the two, condensed and left here to dissipate. It was darn lucky that Sid had found them. Yeah. Darn lucky.

He poked his head out from under the canopy.

"Virgil!" he called out.

Virgil was standing right there. "I'm right here, chief, no need to yell. What can I do you for?"

"Do you have a bottle or something like that? I need something to put... um... something in."

Virgil patted his pockets. "Lessee." He started pulling things out of his pocket. "I've got the binoculars. I got my instructions. I have the coins to pay the toll. Umm..." He dug deeper, reaching around to his back pockets. "I have this hanky that I got off'n a farmer woman in Idaho, who... You don't care 'bout that. Oh! I have this bottle of whiskey, but I can't let you have that. It's half full."

"Give it to me, please," Sid asked politely.

"Nope." Virgil shook his head negatively. "No friggin' way, bud. You can have my bottle when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers."

Wait a minute, Sid. Even though this is Hell, aren't you supposed to be able to create anything you want just by wanting it? Okay, so you can't have freedom and you can't wish for the perfect woman, but still... little things you should be able to get, right? Sid slammed the heal of his hand into his forehead in frustration.

"Never mind, Virgil. Forget I asked." He pulled his head back under the canopy, and waited for his eyes to adjust again. Sure enough, the two points of light were right where he had seen them, over in the corner.

Okay, Sid. This is something that you've never done before. I mean, you've always had everything given to you by Edra. Granted, you really wanted that Porkpie hat, but really, you didn't make it did you? Even that was something that Edra brought you. Still how hard can it be? You just picture what you want and bingo you got it, right?

Sid had no earthly idea how to even start. He considered all the stories of making wishes and genies and stuff, and threw them out as silly and stupid. So... how to do it? He scrunched his forehead, closed his eyes and tried to picture a bottle, like an old mason jar with a screw top lid, lying on the ground before him.

Try as he might, just couldn't get a clear picture of a mason jar in his head. He opened his eyes and, of course, there was no jar on the ground. He knew it wouldn't work.

Guess it's not as easy as just wishing for it, Sid. Nothing ever is. Figure something else out.

He had never asked anyone how they created what they wanted. He never had the need. There was always Edra to help, no matter how sour and begrudgingly she did it. She never really ever said no to anything he wanted, so he never had to do his own manifesting. At manifesting, he was as inexperienced as a five year old trying to drive a car.

He sighed. He closed his eyes again, took a deep breath and cleared his mind, trying to clear stray thoughts that passed through it about conspiracies and the comfort of doing crossword puzzles in the safety of his office.

Now, if only he had that bottle that had been on the counter at Harry's. He pictured it on the counter, cold and dripping with condensation. If only he had put it in his pocket. He certainly drank the contents of it. He remembered how it felt, cold and burning as it went down his throat, and the bottle, brown and glistening in the light of the bar, sat on the counter. He remembered asking Harry if he could take it with him. Harry nodded and said "Sure, chum! Any friend of Justin's can have whatever he wants."

He remembered taking the bottle in his hand and feeling the cold from the glass not quite biting his hand, and he placed the bottle in his pocket, hoping the dampness from the bottle didn't damage his suit.

Gently, almost fearful, Sid slid his hand into his suit jacket's pocket and almost yelped in surprise when it closed over the very familiar and remembered neck of the bottle his fingers found. Of course it was there. You put it there, remember, Sid?

He pulled the bottle from his pocket, wonderingly. Sure enough, solid and brown, there it sat, in Sid's bony hand. He placed the bottle next to the two light points and muttered to them.

"Okay, you two," he said. "I'm hoping you're what I think you are. If not, I'm gonna feel like such a putz. Get in the bottle, please."

And, amazingly, the two specks of light obeyed him. They drifted from the corner to the mouth of the bottle, and hovered there for a moment or two as if debating on entering.

"Come on." Sid murmured. "I'll take good care of you, I promise."

He watched the two specks bounce together, as if talking, and then one of them flew up at him and splashed gently on his cheek. He got the faint, very far away impression that a very feminine and blond voice had told him thank you.

Sid blushed, and said gruffly, "Yeah, okay. You're welcome, all right? Get into the bottle so I don't lose you."

Obediently, the one that had given him a light kiss flew into the bottle, followed by the second remaining one. Once the two specks were inside, Sid put the bottle back into his pocket. He had wished he could have put a lid on it, but was almost afraid that it would cut off the air or whatever that was keeping the two... well, not alive, but coherent.

Now, if he could just figure out how to get them back to their bodies. If he could find them. If their bodies still existed. If, if, if.

He crawled out from under then canopy and handed the compass back to Virgil.

"Okay," he said. "We can go now."

Virgil's bottle of whiskey disappeared into a coat pocket while he cast an unbelieving eye at Sid. "What about your friends? I don't see 'em."

"They're okay. They... umm." How to explain? Or should he even attempt to? "They're with me. They're okay. Let's go."

"Hold it, chief," Virgil said. "You wouldn't believe the trouble I'd get into if I didn't follow my instructions to the letter. Stand over there." Virgil pointed at a spot a distance away from the ruined pedicab.

Sid obeyed, standing where Virgil had pointed. Virgil lifted the compass and pointed it at the canopy, then swung it over to where Sid stood. After a few more repeated attempts to get a different reading, Virgil grunted and slipped the compass into his pocket.

"Good enough for me." He shrugged his shoulders. "The compass says the three of you are standing right there, so the three of you are. If it's good enough for the compass, it's good enough for government work."

Virgil walked over to where Sid stood and clapped a heavy hand on Sid's shoulder. Sid didn't even flinch. This Hell stuff was getting easier all the time.

"So, where're you guys going? Where ever it is, I'm your man. I've already seen your ticket, so I know you're legit."

"We're going to the sixth level, Virgil," Sid said.

"Sixth level?" Virgil said. "You sure? That's reserved for those who committed heresy."

"Yeah, I'm sure." Sid patted the pocket that held the bottle where his client waited. "There's a priest there I need to talk to."

"Well, okay," Virgil said. "It's kind of rough, though."

Thinking about the luck he had so far, which, contrary to all logic, was pretty good, Sid just smiled. "Yeah. I imagine it would be. I think we'll be okay, though." Suddenly he remembered something from Harry's Halfway Inn. "Tell me about the Aeneid, Virgil."

Virgil froze. His face stopped, his eyes stopped, even his smell stopped. Slowly, with great deliberation, he unstuck and turned to look piercingly at Sid. "The Aeneid is a story written by the first Virgil over two thousand years ago." He chuckled, deep and sincere. "You know, you're the first person in over four hundred years to bust me."

Virgil took off his top hat and tossed it onto the crumpled pedicab. "Okay. No more goofy guy. I know where to go, who to talk to and how to get you there safely and back. Oh, and just so's you know, I'm not the first Virgil. That guy passed on a very long time ago. I just picked up his shtick when he dropped it."

"So...," Sid considered this, surprised. "So, you're actually dead?"

"Oh hell no!" Virgil laughed. "I'm very much alive. I have a contract, remember. I won't die until I break it, and I'm not about to do that. I'm having too much fun upstairs. I'm a very successful investment broker."

"Investment?" Sid asked. "Investment broker?"

"Sure! Nobody understands money markets better'n me. I've had centuries to figure it out." He stretched and looked around. "Say, before we take off for the sixth level, would you mind if we got a bit to eat? I'm starving." He inhaled a deep breath. "And maybe a shower. Yeah. That would be good."

Sid nodded. Yeah, a shower would be just the thing. He was confused by Virgil's confession. Nothing in this place was what it seemed. He rubbed the side of his nose and nodded again. He recognized Virgil as another entry on his mental conspiracy spreadsheet, and he jotted it on the credit side. Why not? Virgil was, at this point at least, a positive thing, until proven otherwise.

"There's this little place in Limbo Town. Harry's Halfway Inn. Think you can find it?"

"Are you kidding?" Virgil started walking. "I was hoping you'd mention Harry's. I have friends there." He stopped and turned. "Come on, buddy. Daylight's burnin'"