The Great And Secret Show Part 19

"I want something from you," the Jaff said.

"What's going on, Tommy-Ray? This is my house. You can't just come in here and take stuff."

"This is something you don't want," the Jaff said, reaching towards Ted, "something you 'II be much happier without."

Tommy-Ray watched, amazed and impressed, as Ted's eyes began to roll up beneath his lids, and he started to make noises that suggested he was about to throw up. But nothing came; at least from his throat. It was out of his pores the prize appeared, the juices of his body bubbling up and thickening, paling, and rising off his skin, soaking through his shirt, through his trousers.

Tommy-Ray danced from side to side, enthralled. It was like some grotesque magic act. The drops of moisture were defying gravity, hanging in the air in front of Ted, touching each other and forming larger drops, those drops in turn meeting and joining, until pieces of solid matter, like a sickly gray cheese, were floating in front of his chest. And still the waters came at the Jaff's call, each mote adding bulk to the body. It had form now, too: the first rough sketches of Ted's private horror. Tommy-Ray grinned to see it: its twitching legs, its mismatched eyes. Poor Ted, to have had this baby inside him and been unable to let it go. Like the Jaff had said, he'd be better off without it.

That was the first of several visits that night, and each time there was some new beast out of the lost soul. All pale, all vaguely reptilian, but in every other regard a personal creation. The Jaff put it best, when the night's adventures were drawing to a close: "It's an art," he said. "This drawing forth. Don't you think?"

"Yeah. I like it."

"Not the Art, of course. But an echo of it. As, I suppose, is every art."

"Where are we going now?"

"I need to rest. Find somewhere shady, and cool."

"I know some places."

"No. You've got to go home."

"Why?"

"Because I want the Grove to wake up tomorrow morning and believe the world is just as it was."

"What do I tell Jo-Beth?"

"Tell her you remember nothing. If she presses you, apologize."

"I don't want to go," Tommy-Ray said.

"I know," the Jaff said, reaching out to put his hand on Tommy-Ray's shoulder. He ma.s.saged the muscle as he spoke. "But we don't want a search party out looking for you. They could discover things we only intend to reveal in our time!"

Tommy-Ray grinned at this.

"How long will that be?"

"You want to see the Grove turned upside down, don't you?"

"I'm counting the hours."

The Jaff laughed.

"Like father, like son," he said. "Hang loose, boy. I'll be back."

And laughing, he led his beasts off into the dark.

IV.

The girl of his dreams had been wrong, Howie thought when he woke: the sun doesn't shine in the state of California every day. The dawn was sluggish when he opened the blinds; the sky showing no hint of blue. He dutifully ran through his exercises-the barest minimum his conscience would allow him. They did little or nothing to enliven his system; they simply made him sweat. Having showered and shaved, he dressed and went down to the Mall. He didn't yet have the words of reclamation he was going to need when he saw Jo-Beth. He knew from past experience that any attempt on his part to plan a speech would only result in a hopeless, stammering tangle when he opened his mouth. It would be better to respond to the moment as it came. If she was dismissive, he'd be forceful. If she was contrite, he'd be forgiving. All that mattered was that he mend the breach of the previous day.

If there was some explanation for whatever had happened to them at the motel, hours of soul-searching on his part hadn't unearthed it. All he could conclude was that somehow their shared dream-the idea of which, given the strength of feeling between them, didn't seem so difficult to understand-had been rerouted by an inept telepathic switchboard towards a nightmare which they neither understood nor deserved. It was an astral error of some kind. Nothing to do with them; best forgotten. With a little will on both sides they could pick up their relationship where they'd left it outside Butrick's Steak House, when there'd still been so much promise in the air.

He went straight to the book store. Lois-Mrs. Knapp- was at the counter. Otherwise, the store was empty. He offered a smile, and a h.e.l.lo, then asked if Jo-Beth had yet arrived. Mrs. Knapp consulted her watch before frostily informing him that no, she hadn't, and that she was late.

"I'll wait then," he said, not about to be dissuaded from his purpose by the woman's lack of geniality. He wandered over to the bookstack closest to the window, where he could browse and watch for Jo-Beth's arrival at the same time.

The books before him were all religious. One in particular caught his eye: The Story of the Savior. Its cover carried a painting of a man on his knees before a blinding light and the p.r.o.nouncement that its pages contained the Greatest Message of the Age. He thumbed through it. The slim volume-it was scarcely more than a pamphlet-was published by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and presented in easily a.s.similated paragraphs and paintings the story of the Great White G.o.d of ancient America. To judge by the pictures whatever incarnation this Lord appeared in- Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Tonga-Loa G.o.d of the ocean sun in Polynesia, Illa-Tici, Kukulean or half a dozen other guises- he always looked like the perfect whitebread hero: tall, aquiline, pale-skinned, blue-eyed. Now, the pamphlet claimed, he was back in America to celebrate the millennium. This time he'd be called by his true name: Jesus Christ.

Howie moved on to another shelf, looking for a book more suited to his mood. Love poetry perhaps; or a s.e.x-manual. But as he scanned the rows of volumes it became apparent that every single book in the store was published by the same press or one of its subsidiaries. There were books of prayers, of inspirational songs for the family, heavy duty tomes on the building of Zim, the city of G.o.d on earth, or on the significance of baptism. Among them, a picture book on the life of Joseph Smith, with photographs of his homestead, and the sacred grove where he'd apparently seen a vision. The text beside it caught Howie's eye.

I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said- "I called Jo-Beth's house. There's no answer there. Something must have called them away."

Howie looked up from the text. "That's a pity," he said, not entirely believing the woman. If she'd made the call, she'd made it very quietly.

"She's probably not going to come in today," Mrs. Knapp went on, avoiding meeting Howie's gaze as she spoke. "I've got a very informal arrangement with her. She works whatever hours suit her best."

He knew this to be a lie. Only the morning before he'd heard her chide Jo-Beth for being unpunctual; there was nothing informal about her working hours. But Mrs. Knapp, good Christian that she was, seemed determined to have him out of the shop. Perhaps she'd caught him smirking as he browsed.

"It's not the least use you waiting," she told him. "You could be here all day."

"I'm not scaring off the customers, am I?" Howie said, defying her to make her objections to him plain.

"No," she said, with a joyless little smile. "I'm not trying to say you are."

He approached the counter. She took an involuntary step backwards, almost as though she was in fear of him.

"Then what exactly are you saying?" he asked, barely able to preserve his civility. "What is it about me you don't like? My deodorant? My haircut?"

Again, she tried the little smile, but this time, despite her versing in hypocrisy, she couldn't make it. Instead, her face twitched.

"I'm not the Devil," Howie said. "I haven't come here to do anybody any harm."

She made no answer to this.

"I was...b...b...I was born here," he went on. "In Palomo Grove."

"I know," she said.

Well, well, he thought, here's a revelation.

"What else do you know?" he asked her, gently enough.

Her eyes went to the door, and he knew she was reciting a silent prayer to her Great White G.o.d that somebody open it and save her from this d.a.m.n boy and his questions. Neither G.o.d nor customer obliged.

"What do you know about me?" Howie asked again. "It can't be that bad...can it?"

Lois Knapp made a small shrug. "I suppose not," she said.

"Well then."

"I knew your mother," she said, stopping there as though that might satisfy him. He didn't reply, but left her to fill the charged silence with further information. "I didn't know her well of course," she continued. "She was slightly younger than me. But everybody-knew everybody back then. It's a long time ago. Then of course when the accident happened-"

"You can s...s...say it," Howie told her.

"Say what?"

"You call it an accident but it was...was...was rape, right?"

By the look on her face she'd thought never to hear that word (or anything remotely so obscene) voiced in her shop.

"I don't remember," she replied, with a kind of defiance. "And even if I could-" She stopped, took a breath, then started on a fresh tack. "Why don't you just go back where you came from?" she said.

"But I am back," he told her. "This is my home town."

"That's not what I meant," she said, finally allowing her exasperation to show. "Don't you know how things look? You come back here, just at the same time Mr. Vance is killed."

"What the h.e.l.l's that got to do with it?" Howie wanted to know. He hadn't taken all that much notice of the news in the last twenty-four hours, but he knew that the retrieval of the comedian's corpse he'd seen in progress the previous day had turned into a major tragedy. What he didn't understand was the connection.

"I didn't kill Buddy Vance. And my mother certainly didn't."

Apparently resigned to her function as messenger, Lois gave up on innuendo and told the rest plainly, and quickly, so as to get the business done with.

"The place where your mother was raped," she said, "is the same place Mr. Vance fell to his death."

"The very same?" Howie said.

"Yes," came the reply, "I'm told the very same. I'm not about to go and look for myself. There's enough evil in the world without going out to find it."

"And you think I'm part of this somehow?"

"I didn't say that."

"No. But th...th...that's what you think."

"As you ask me: yes it is."

"And you'd like me out of your shop so I'll stop spreading my influence around."

"Yes," she said plainly, "I would."

He nodded. "OK," he said, "I'll go. Just as long as you promise me you'll tell To-Beth I was here."

Mrs. Knapp's face was all reluctance. But her fear of him gave him a power over her he couldn't help but relish.

"Not much to ask is it?" he said. "You won't be telling any lies."

"No."

"So you'll tell her?"

"Yes."

"On the Great White G.o.d of America?" he said. "What's his name...Quetzalcoatl?" She looked confounded. "Never mind," he said, "I'll leave. I'm sorry if I've crippled the morning's trade."

Leaving her looking panicky, he stepped out into the open air. In the twenty minutes he'd spent in the shop the cloud layer had broken, and the sun was coming through, shining on the Hill. In a few minutes it would break through on the mortals in the Mall, like himself. The girl of his dreams had spoken the truth after all.

V.

Grillo woke to the sound of the telephone, lashed out, knocked over a half-filled gla.s.s of champagne- his last drunken toast of the previous night: To Buddy, gone but not forgotten-cursed, claimed the receiver and put it to his ear.

"h.e.l.lo?" he growled.

"Did I wake you?"

"Tesla?"

"I love a man who remembers my name," she said.

"What time is it?"

"Late. You should be up and working. I want you to be free of your labors for Abernethy by the time I arrive."

"What are you saying? You're coming here?"

"You owe me dinner, for all the gossip on Vance," she said. "So find somewhere expensive."

"What time are you planning to be here?" he asked her.

"Oh I don't know. About-" With her in mid-sentence he put down the receiver, and grinned at the telephone, thinking of her cursing herself at the other end. The smile dropped from his face when he stood up, however. His head throbbed to beat the band: if he'd emptied that last half-gla.s.s he doubted he could have even stood up. He punched Suite Service and ordered up coffee.

"Any juice with that, sir?" came the voice in the kitchen.

"No. Just coffee."

"Eggs, croissant-"

"Oh Jesus, no. No eggs. No nothing. Just coffee."