Good Omens

would be doing so because she was friends with the man who owned it. And had you told any islander a month before that war was coming, he would have laughed at you and tried to sell you a raffiawork wine holder or a picture of the bay done in seashells; that was then.
    This was now.
    Now a deep religio-political divide, concerning which of four small mainland countries they weren’t actually a part of, had split the country into three factions, destroyed the statue of Santa Maria in the town square, and done for the tourist trade.
    Red Zuigiber sat in the bar of the Hotel de Palomar del Sol, drinking what passed for a cocktail. In one corner a tired pianist played, and a waiter in a toupee crooned into a microphone:
    â€œAAAAAAAAAAAonce-pon-a-time-dere-was
    LITTLE WHITE BOOOL
    AAAAAAAAAAAvery-sad-because-e-was
    LITTLE WHITE BOOL … ”
    A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other.
    â€œI glaim gis oteg id der gaing og der—” he paused. He took the knife out of his mouth and began again. “I claim this hotel in the name of the pro-Turkish Liberation Faction!”
    The last two holidaymakers remaining on the island 19 climbed underneath their table. Red unconcernedly withdrew the maraschino cherry from her drink, put it to her scarlet lips, and sucked it slowly off its stick in a way that made several men in the room break into a cold sweat.
    The pianist stood up, reached into his piano, and pulled out a vintage sub-machine gun. “This hotel has already been claimed by the pro-Greek Territorial Brigade!” he screamed. “Make one false move, and I shoot out your living daylight!”
    There was a motion at the door. A huge, black-bearded individual with a golden smile and a genuine antique Gatling gun stood there, with a cohort of equally huge although less impressively armed men behind him.
    â€œThis strategically important hotel, for years a symbol of the fascist imperialist Turko-Greek running dog tourist trade, is now the property of the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters!” he boomed affably. “Now we kill everybody!”
    â€œRubbish!” said the pianist. “Is not strategically important. Just has extremely well-stocked wine cellar!”
    â€œHe’s right, Pedro,” said the man with the Kalashnikov, “That’s why my lot wanted it. Il General Ernesto de Montoya said to me, he said, Fernando, the war’ll be over by Saturday, and the lads’ll be wanting a good time. Pop down to the Hotel de Palomar del Sol and claim it as booty, will you?”
    The bearded man turned red. “Is bloddy important strategically, Fernando Chianti! I drew big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you.”
    â€œHa!” said Fernando. “You might as well say that just because Little Diego’s house has a view of the decadent capitalist topless private beach, that it’s strategically important!”
    The pianist blushed a deep red. “Our lot got that this morning,” he admitted.
    There was silence.
    In the silence was a faint, silken rasping. Red had uncrossed her legs.
    The pianist’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Well, it’s pretty strategically important,” he managed, trying to ignore the woman on the bar stool. “I mean, if someone landed a submarine on it, you’d want to be somewhere you could see it all.”
    Silence.
    â€œWell, it’s a lot more strategically important than this hotel anyway,” he finished.
    Pedro coughed, ominously. “The next person who says anything . Anything at all . Is dead.” He grinned. Hefted his gun. “Right. Now—everyone against far wall.”
    Nobody moved. They weren’t listening to him any more. They were listening to a low, indistinct murmuring from the hallway behind him, quiet and monotonous.
    There was some shuffling among the cohort in the doorway. They seemed to be doing their best to stand firm, but they were being inexorably edged out of the way by the muttering, which had begun to resolve itself into audible phrases. “Don’t mind me, gents, what a night, eh? Three times round the island, nearly didn’t find the place, someone doesn’t believe in signposts, eh? Still, found it in the end, had to stop and ask four times, finally asked at