Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys Part 9

Sliding the crowbar back up the sleeve of his coat, he lowered his head and started crossing the street-there were a lot of spectators tonight, the streets were lined with lawn chairs-and was just turning the corner onto West Church when a little boy sitting a few feet away from a foot-patrol officer shouted: "That guy's all b.l.o.o.d.y!"

The officer turned in Martin's direction, saw the way he looked, and began approaching him while simultaneously talking into the microphone of his portable communications unit.

Martin shook his arm, letting the crowbar drop back into his grip.

Only if I have to . . .

Then turned and continued walking away.

After a few yards, he turned and looked behind him.

The officer was at the corner, finishing speaking into his mike, looking right at him.

Martin tightened his grip on the crowbar.

And then a grotesquely wonderful thing happened: someone in a souped-up '67 Chevy hit the gas to beat a yellow light, didn't make, and broadsided a Bentley that in turn spun around and slammed into the front end of a '74 Ford Mustang. The collision wasn't bad enough to seriously injure any of the drivers or pa.s.sengers, but it created one h.e.l.l of snarl.

The officer following Martin spun around to see what had happened, then ran out into the street and started directing traffic around and away from the accident.

Martin wasted no time; he sprinted down West Church, crossed at the deserted intersection, and ran to the front of the Tae Kwon Do studio. To the left of the display window (used to be so many books there) was a dilapidated-looking puke-green door. Martin put his shoulder against it, worked the curved edge of the crowbar between the door and jamb, and forced it open.

Could have a whole new career as a burglar waiting for you.

He all but threw himself into the small area at the bottom of the stairs, yanking the door closed and whispering a silent hallelujah when it stayed in place.

He took a few seconds to catch his breath-I'm gonna quit smoking I swear to G.o.d I'm gonna quit-then realized that by closing the door he'd plunged himself into near-total darkness.

He fumbled the flashlight from his coat pocket and turned it on; the beam came alive with churning dust motes, wriggling a bright path up the two dozen or so stairs that led to the second floor.

Martin began to climb, the stair boards creaking and groaning under his weight. He seemed to be making a habit of climbing up noisy stairs.

Halfway up, something scuttled away from the wide beam of light.

G.o.d I hope it's not some wino waking up from a binge.

Then: Or Gash testing the exit once again.

He stood shivering in the silence, listening for the sound of any further movement.

Nothing.

He ascended the rest of the stairs without incident.

He reached the landing of the second floor and turned left into a long corridor, stopping at the first door.

It opened with a low, deep moan, loosing a cloud of dust.

Martin swung the flashlight beam around the room, illuminating an old sofa, its springs and stuffing bursting forth and spilling to the floor, crawling with insects. The room was littered with old newspapers, broken boards, and pieces of shattered gla.s.s. The walls glistened from both the broken pipes behind them and the leaking roof; the wallpaper curled downward like strips of flayed skin, and much of the plaster had fallen out in large chunks to reveal the disintegrating plumbing and electrical wiring that ran in sloppy, tangled patterns.

The largest of the windows in this room was broken, sections of sharp gla.s.s jutting upward like crooked teeth. A steady, chill October wind whistled softly through, ruffling sections of newspaper that drifted along the floor with dry, rasping sounds before pressing against the wall, torn corners rustling like the wings of a moth. Martin cast the flashlight beam down onto the floor and saw the desiccated corpses of several flies and beetles buried under layers of dust and grime.

He entered, the flies and beetles crunching under his shoes. Somewhere in a back room, water was dripping steadily, pinging against metal. He caught his foot on a large piece of cardboard, kicking it aside to reveal a nest of spiders.

Sidestepping the nest, he moved toward the nearest door-what he a.s.sumed to be the bedroom. A mildew-stained mattress lay on the floor in the corner, a third of its surface burned away some time ago by a careless cigarette; the stink of the old fire still lingered in the air.

He looked through the room for the painting and, not finding it or anything that might be a key, moved to the only other room, deciding the kitchen was right out and not wanting to risk seeing the condition of the bathroom.

At first he thought he'd struck out here, as well; nothing but more newspapers, cardboard boxes stuffed with old magazines and painting supplies, and more broken gla.s.s. He shone the flashlight on the walls to his left and right, then the one in front of him.

I misunderstood something, he thought. I must have misread it.

He set down the crowbar and began to look through his pockets for the letter-he had brought it with him, hadn't he?-but then dropped the flashlight, which rolled to the side and then around, shining right into his face.

Instinctively, he turned away to shield his eyes from the glare, keeping them closed for a moment until the bright explosions behind his lids lessened, then opening them again- -his breath caught in his throat- -you really are a dips.h.i.t, sometimes- -because he'd been looking for a canvas, for something stretched or matted, maybe setting on an easel or hanging on the wall in a frame . . .

. . . but Bob had used the wall itself.

Martin knelt down and fumbled the flashlight into his hand, then stepped back so as to allow the beam to reveal the work in its entirety.

Its sheer size was overwhelming; it reached from one side of the room to the other-easily twelve feet-and rose from floor level to the ceiling-at least seven feet.

Even though he knew time was slipping away, Martin was so stunned by the sight he couldn't move for several moments.

The painting possessed a dark edginess echoing movements of the past-social realism, German expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism, even a touch of the more recent imagists-yet no one style conflicted with the others; its ident.i.ty came from an effortless fusion into something that, Martin thought-if it could be labeled at all-might be called "c.u.mulativism". It beckoned to him, demanded his awe, his closeness, but as he neared it, at the moment of communion, the faces within seemed to withdraw, distancing themselves from him. Soft shadows of sadness bled from each corner into the center of the painting, creating a disquieting rippling effect, the emotional residue of a broken and embittered heart, searching for a place of healing in a universe that ultimately had no use for either sadness or redemption.

It was the most astonishing thing he had ever seen.

He couldn't make out the landscape for the crowd of near-life-sized people in the foreground; instead, their shapes seemed to almost be the landscape, with heads in place of hills. Forty faces-he counted them-stared out, their expressions ranging from benevolent acceptance to fury so white-hot you could feel it radiating outward to sear the skin. The faces in front were the most detailed, yet their expressions were the most placid. The faces behind grew less developed the farther back they appeared-many were little more than a few splotches-yet their expressions were instantly recognizable. These faces were thoughtful, their eyes alive: there was a man dressed in an old leather coat, his darkly l.u.s.trous face accented by an even darker beard as he stared downward and a little to the right, a shepherd's cap held in his wind-burnt hands, a man of hushed, gentle resignation, his dignity whispering of well-earned rest, a warm fire waiting at home, and the rich scent of bread baking in the kitchen; behind him stood an exquisite woman in a golden dress that fluttered gently in the breeze, and though her back was turned forward and you saw her face only in profile, it was easy to see the care she took before presenting herself to the world, her delicate hands the ghost of an errant wish-that a woman might never grow old, never lose the radiance that kissed her face when a suitor came to call, never see her beauty dissolve little by little in the unflattering sunlight of each morning, and never know a day when the scent of fresh roses from an admirer did not fill her rooms; next to her stood a bittersweet girl with long dark hair tumbling about her shoulders, her face seemingly held in a velvet cradle, a hand covering her mouth, eyes with sad dark places around them that told you she often hid behind a scrim of gaiety to conceal a lonely heart; she was every night you sat isolated and alone, wishing for the warm hand of a lover to hold in your own as autumn dimmed into winter and youth turned to look at you over its shoulder and smile farewell.

A single, hard, unnoticed tear spilled from Martin's eye, trailing down his cheek.

"'To take into the air my quiet breath . . .'" he whispered. "'To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . . .'"

Above all these face was an agate sky that warned of the coming storm; a cold veil of rain approached from the upper right side, a sprinkle becoming mist becoming a terrible cloud formation that erupted across the top of the scene to cover nearly one-fifth of the entire painting: swirling black tinged with grey and purple, its ma.s.s thinning somewhat as it spread outward to form the shadow of a great, winged creature.

Martin shook himself from a sudden chill, stepped back once more, then gave the painting one last look.

"Okay," he whispered to the emptiness. "I found the painting. Now where's the G.o.dd.a.m.n key?"

A voice behind him said, "'The world is a stone, soldier . . .'"

Martin whirled around to find himself once again face to face with the six-year-old boy he'd once been. "Jesus Christ, scare me to death, why don't you?"

"Sorry."

"What are you doing here, any-?"

You'll know the key when you find it-or when it finds you.

Martin smiled. "It's you, isn't it? You're the key!"

The little boy shook his head.

Martin's heart sank. "Then why are you here?"

"'The world is a stone, soldier . . .'"

"You already said that; repeating it doesn't help me."

"You have to remember."

"Remember what?"

The little boy shook his head and released one those deeply dramatic sighs of which only children are capable, then said: "When you bought him that hot dog and soda that day, you said that you'd once been a writer. He asked what kind of stuff you wrote and you told him stories and books and a few-"

". . . a few lousy poems," said Martin. "Yeah . . . I think I remember saying something like that."

"He said that there was no such thing as a lousy poem, only lousy poets."

Martin laughed. "That's right! I remember really liking that line."

The little boy nodded. "You said you might use that sometime, and he said you could have it . . . for the price of a poem."

Something in the back of Martin's mind was stirring beneath its covers. "Yeah . . . that's right . . . that's what he said."

"And you recited one for him, and he loved it. He loved it so much that it gave him an idea." The boy nodded toward the painting. "He painted that because of you, because of the poem you recited to him. You were the inspiration.

"You've forgotten too many of the good things, Martin. You only see your mistakes.

"The admission to the Midnight Museum is that poem. That's the key. It was one of the many good things about yourself that you've forgotten."

Martin knelt down in front of the boy. "Where did you come from? Did Bob or Jerry send you?"

The little boy shook his head.

"Then how did you get here?"

"With you. I've always been with you. You just forgot about me. I got out the other night, after you took the first bunch of pills. I didn't want to die just because you did. Dumb bunny."

"I'm . . . I'm sorry."

The little boy reached out and put his hand on Martin's shoulder. "You don't have to be sorry about anything, not anymore."

"Why?"

"Because Mom and Dad still love you, they always did and always will, and because . . .'The world is a stone, soldier . . .'"

The thing stirring in Martin's brain threw back the covers, reached out, and turned on the light.

Martin rose slowly to his feet and turned to face the painting.

"'The world is a stone, soldier,'" he said. "'It holds no thought of long brown girls, dead gulls, vanishing town.

The great clock with its golden face, face-down; Beneath these cloud-ribbed skies where stars would rot if stars were men. No alien G.o.ds remain along the boulevards . . .'"

In the painting, the sky began to brighten ever so slowly, allowing beams of broken sunlight to pierce the clouds and fall on the faces of the people gathered below, the faces, Martin now realized, of other Substruo.

He moved a little closer as the light glided across more faces, and a few of those faces closed their eyes and turned up toward the glow.

Martin continued reciting the next stanza, amazed that he was remembering any of this slight, forgettable bit of verse that he'd written a full decade before meeting Bob that day: "'In this bleak land Civic ghosts dissemble.

The street lamps stand, delinquent angels weeping in the rain.'"

The people in the painting began to move; some toward the back, some to the side, others merely turning to the left or right where they stood, creating an opening, revealing a path.

"'There are countries untroubled by the seas,'" whispered Martin.

The path was wider, clearer now. A few of the people were looking right at him, smiling; the man with the shepherd's cap even lifted his hand to wave Martin closer.

"'There are greener worlds, soldier, and other skies; music in the square, women under flowered trees, and summer slides into soft decay, leaf unto leaf . . .'"

The woman in the golden dress, who before had stood in profile, now directly faced Martin, and began to offer her hand.

Martin reached out and took hold; it was a delicate hand, satin-gloved, exquisitely feminine, and flooded his arm with warmth.

"'There are always tomorrows, soldier, and other battles done; this music in the square, these women under flowered trees, as summer slides into soft decay, leaf unto leaf; And larks into falcons rise from the yellow sleeves of eternal day.'"

Her sudden soft smile was a song his heart had forgotten, and now remembered, could no longer contain.

He stepped in among them.

The shepherd laughed; the girls smiled; the older ones, hunched and slow but not beaten, never beaten, grasped his arm and bid him welcome, bade him thanks.

"I would walk with you a ways," said the woman whose hand held his, "if you would like."

Martin could barely find his voice. "Yes . . . I'd like that very much."

He turned and looked down the path, back out into the cold ruined room where his six-year-old self was still standing.

The little boy lifted his hand and waved.

Martin said: "You're a fine little fellow."

"And you are a good and decent man," replied the boy. "Someday you'll know that. I'll keep the door open for you as long as I can.

"Now go stop that miserable f.u.c.ker in his tracks."

The woman laughed and pulled Martin away, leading him into a field of trees whose bright blue leaves formed upturned faces, and beneath whose shade deeper shadows danced.