The Rest Is Silence Part 3

"Marty's done a fine job," I admitted. "And if you don't mind me asking, where in G.o.d's name did you get that costume? You could have been born in it."

"I've often wished I had, Eddie."

"Surely not as Caesar," Val said. "Your life would have been shortened considerably."

Jolliet smiled wickedly. "Not mine."

All I could say was, "Oh." Then, "Did you ever find out who's been playing those jokes?"

Immediately he stiffened. "I'm sorry, Ed, but I'm afraid I cannot call that a joke, especially when I discovered the severed head of an owl in my automobile this evening. No, not a joke. Some misbegotten prankster, perhaps. More likely someone deathly afraid of facing me himself, and therefore he uses less direct, less committed means of expressing his displeasure. You, possibly?"

"Not me," I said, laughing. "That's too original for me."

"Hardly original, Ed. The disemboweled chicken, the owls, are straight out of the so-called occult literature available in any shoddy paperback. The child obviously has problems and has decided to use me as a focus of his aberration."

"That so, " I muttered into my gla.s.s, not bothering to note that the "old man" himself was not above employing the so-called occult. The conversation, continuing with Val while I sulked, might have been funny to someone unused to his instant a.n.a.lyses, but having been subjected to them several times myself, I was definitely not amused. And during a pause, I said, "How do you figure it's a kid? One of your students?"

He waved an arm and a yard of cloth, gathering both Val and me into a circle of apparent great confidence. "My students? Absolutely not, Eddie. They know better. I've taught them better. They all have come to realize the value of reason, and this is hardly the act of a reasonable man. No, I rather think it's the result of an over imaginative mind that somehow feels I've wronged it. As much as I dislike those things, however, I must admit I'm intrigued. I can't wait for the next manifestation. "

"Oh?" I said. "Very interesting, really, I'll hope you let us know what happens next. I really hadn't looked at it your way before. "

Jolliet nodded, smiling too much like a shark to please me. "Of course I will. Glad to see your interest. We should talk about this sometime. I'd like to hear what you think about these occult things. Rosemary's Baby, and such."

"Great," I said. "It's a date."

Someone called his name, then, and when he looked up, it was Marty, beckoning from the doorway. "Ah, excuse me, Eddie, Val, Marty has a surprise for me. A contest or something, I imagine. I'll talk to you later."

When he disappeared through the rear door, Val s.n.a.t.c.hed away my empty gla.s.s and slammed it onto the table. "I hope you'll let us know what happens next," she mimicked. "I really hadn't seen it that way. Oh, brother, Eddie. " And she rolled her eyes skyward.

Doing my best to imitate her slinking walk, I sidled up to her and grabbed her hand. "Oh, Caesar, baby, " I said as huskily as I could. "Oh, Caesar, darling."

We stared at each other for a long second, and we didn't laugh.

The music grew, then, as did the voices, the laughter and not a few high-pitched shrieks. People were moving as if in a quiet panic from garden to garden. I looked for Wendy and Dan and saw only sequined masks and faces like racc.o.o.ns. I found myself staring at mouths, since eyes were forbidden to me, and their grotesque writhings made me dizzy. I started to curse the whiskey and looked feebly around for a chair. The room had become perceptibly colder, the snow fell more heavily and seemed now to be freezing on the gla.s.s roof despite the warmth beneath. I shook off an impression that the house was beginning to move, ignored another ghostly display of thunder, and watched as the people began to leave, with none replacing them. Val, unaware of my gathering nightmare, hugged my arm and whispered something about Wendy and Dan. I nodded mutely and, when she left, renewed my friendship with Miniver Cheevy, cursing the fates and drinking.

Through a slowly descending curtain, then, I lost vision of the rest of the evening. I wandered. I drank. I shook off a woman in a harem costume who wanted to see what my codpiece was hiding. I tried to vomit, and couldn't.

I do remember standing at a window and watching the snow fall.

I do remember standing by a speaker and listening to muted trombones.

And when next I opened my 'eyes and could see without falling, I was in a bed in a hideously dark-blue bedroom. A single light burned on a wrought-iron night table. I struggled to sit up, then waited for dizziness to pa.s.s. There was a constant pounding at the back of my head, and my mouth was dry to rasping.

And still the house was silent.

In a foolish moment, I searched the bed for my hat, realized what I was doing and laughed, stopping immediately when my throat burned.

Carefully, I pushed myself off the bed onto my feet and, using the walls for support until I was sure I wouldn't fall, I made my way to a dimly lighted hallway. Ruefully remembering Marty's warning about too much unguided wandering I left the door open and walked to the nearest comer. I could hear s.n.a.t.c.hes of mournful music, and I tried to locate its direction. When it became obvious I was losing it, I headed back the other way,

staring without seeing the paintings on the dark-papered walls. None of them were striking enough to recall individually, except for their color: night. 'I cannot even now remember seeing one brush stroked sun or noon-drenched meadow. I'm sure there were no people, no animals, no houses. Just . . . night.

I've since tried to locate that hallway again to verify these vague impressions. But I'm unable to.

Maybe later.

But I doubt it.

And then, quite by accident, I found a corridor I knew led to the gardens. Immediately I began to hurry, uneasily imagining some humiliating scene when Marty and Jollier discovered I'd missed a fair portion of the party. It was all I needed to end a perfect evening.

But the gardens were empty, the tables, refreshments, folding chairs gone. The balloons were broken, the streamers shredded and hanging loosely. I called out for Val, half expecting my voice to echo. Then I called for Marry. Wendy. Even Dan. But when there was no response, I went into the front room where I'd met the harem girl. It was a small room, heavily paneled in walnut with an ugly moose's head perched over the front window. After a quick look around, I opened the door, shuddered at the shock of the cold and looked out. There was snow yet, and an oddly gathering fog. I could see, just this side of that wall-like mist, a couple of cars, including my own, still in the drive; so at least I wasn't alone. Under the circ.u.mstances, that was the greatest comfort I'd known in ages.

But when Marry snuck up behind me and whispered, "Beware the Ides of winter," I immediately lost everything I'd drunk onto the front stoop. Marry became solicitous at once and helped me back into the house.

"Now that was a stupid thing to do," I snapped, yanking my arm from his grip. "What the h.e.l.l are you trying to do?"

"Shut up," he said, glaring. "We're waiting for you in the back garden."

"Oh, now wait a minute," I said, one hand to the wall to aid my abruptly uncooperative legs. "As soon as I can, I'm leaving, fella. This bulls.h.i.t has gone on long enough."

Marry only stood there. I shook my head in a vain effort to clear it, then rubbed my face vigorously.

"If Val is still here," I said, "tell her to come out if she still needs a ride."

Marty shook his head. "The back garden. Come on, Eddie, you're holding up the works. "

"What the h.e.l.l are you babbling about?" I demanded, but he had already turned to leave. At the door he switched off the lights and looked back at me. Right then I was tempted to leave, even without my coat, but curiosity more than his heavy-handed manner made me follow him.

Through the first, still-empty garden. And the second.

"All right, all right, Mr. Barrymore, where is everyone?"

"I said the back garden, " Marty said without turning around. "The back garden."

I was too frustrated and confused to be apprehensive about the way Marty spoke to me, and I had to hurry to catch up with him as he made a sharp left through the rear exit and strode rapidly along a corridor that felt as if it had been carpeted in velvet. Another turn, and yet another before we stood in front of a gla.s.s wall streaked with dust and through which I could see what at first I refused to believe.

Here the house was two stories high, and in the courtyard framed by walls of stone were Val, Wendy and Dan, Jollier and a man I'd never seen before. They were sitting on the spa.r.s.e gra.s.s, but far from comfortably. As soon as Val spotted me, she ran into my arms before I realized they were open to receive her. Dan was dazed, his plaster a.s.s's head broken on the ground beside him, his wife huddled in the protection of his arm.

And Jollie. I saw then that he wasn't sitting at all. He was propped up against a white stone bench, and there was more than purple on his toga. There was blood, drying like rust, pooling at his twisted legs. In his left hand he clutched the laurel wreath.

Before reason returned and all the scene's implications penetrated my own daze, I said, "I'm ashamed of you, Marry. That's hardly original. "

Val, not understanding, gave a cry like a struck bird and backed away to stare at me, horrified. And while she did, I admitted to myself that I wasn't sorry. That he was dead, it grieved me because he was human and deserved better, but because he was Jollier, I felt nothing but morbid curiosity.

Marry, meanwhile, had come around to face me, grinning.

Beneath the beard his teeth seemed yellow-aged, and his eyes only echoed his grin. That look, more than anything else, snapped something I didn't quite catch, and the old man placed himself in front of the door. He was shorter than I, and easily forty years beyond me, but I checked myself and stared at him. Val, who had slumped wearily to the ground where she'd been standing, said, "That's the uncle, Eddie."

I nodded; he nodded back. And suddenly I began to laugh. Ludicrous: a murdered man, five teachers and an eccentric. And still I laughed. The hero's image I'd had of myself in fantasies that had lifted me from my more than prosaic life shattered like a twisted mirror with all the pieces shredding my eyes. I fumed back to Marry, gagging now at the sight of Jollie's blood. He gestured and I sat, heavily. Val crawled slowly over to me, and we huddled, reflections of Wendy and Dan. I think I said "It's going to be all right" a few times, but neither Val nor I were listening or believing. One of us was shivering.

At last Marty seemed to tire of watching us and dragged a folding chair from behind a bush. The old man stayed where he was.