Oh, Crum, I said, turning. You know and I know, by now theyve burned him to ashes and burned the ashes. And how do we get in to shake down the clinkers in the backlot incinerator? Im on my way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
Is that safe?
Safer than Calvary. Stay there. Call me.
Youll hear me, across town, I said, without a phone.
But first, I stopped at Calvary. The three crosses were empty.
J. C., I whispered, touching his picture folded in my pocket, and realized suddenly that a rich presence had been following me for some time.
I looked around at Mannys mob of fog, his gray-shadow Chinese-funeral Rolls-Royce, crept up behind me. I heard the back door suck its rubber gums as the soundless door exhaled wide, letting out a cool burst of refrigerated air. Not much larger than an Eskimo Pie, Manny Leiber peered out from his elegant icebox. Hey, you, he said.
It was a hot day. I leaned into the refrigerated Rolls-Royce cubby and refreshed my face while I improved my mind.
I got news for you. I could see Mannys breath on the artificial winter air. Were shutting down the studio for two days. General cleanup. Repainting. Crash job.
How can you do that? The expense
Everyone will be paid full time. Shouldve been done years ago. So we shut down
For what? I thought. To get everyone off the lot. Because they know or suspect Roy is still alive, and someone has told them to find and kill him?
Thats the dumbest thing I ever heard, I said.
I had found that insult was the best answer. Nobody suspected you of anything if you, in turn, were dumb enough to insult.
Whose idea was this dumb idea? I said.
Whatta you mean? cried Manny, pulling back into his refrigerator. His breath steamed in jets of frost on the air. Mine!
Youre not that dumb, I pursued. You wouldnt do a thing like that. You care about money too much. Someone had to order you to do that. Someone above you?
Theres no one above me! But his eyes slid, while his mouth equivocated.
You take full credit for all this, thatll cost maybe half a million in one week?
Well, Manny flinched.
Its gotta be New York. I let him off. Those dwarfs on the telephone from Manhattan. Crazed monkeys. Youre only two days away from finishing Caesar and Christ. What if J. C. goes on another binge while youre repainting the stages?
That charcoal pit was his last scene. Were writing him out of our Bible. You are. And another thing, as soon as the studio reopens, you go back on The Dead Ride Fast.
His words breathed out to chill my face. The chill spread down my back. Cant be done without Roy Holdstrom. I decided to play it even more
blunt and naive. And Roys dead.
What? Manny leaned forward, fought for control, then squinted at me. Why do you say that?
He committed suicide, I said.
Manny was even more suspicious. I could imagine him hearing the report from Doc Phillips: Roy hanged on Stage 13, cut down, carted off, burned.
I continued as naively as possible: You still got all his animals locked in Stage 13?
Er, yes, Manny lied.
Roy cant live without his Beasts. And I went to his apartment the other
day. It was empty. Someone had stolen all of Roys other cameras and miniatures. Roy couldnt live without those, either. And he wouldnt just run off. Not without telling me, after twenty years of friendship. So, hell, Roys dead.
Manny examined my face to see if he could believe it. I worked up my saddest expression.
Find him, said Manny, at last, not blinking. I just said
Find him, said Manny, or youre out on your ass, and youll never work at any other studio the rest of your life. The stupid jerks not dead. He was seen in the studio yesterday, maybe hanging around to break in Stage 13 and get his damned monsters. Tell him all is forgiven. He comes back with a raise in salary. Its time we admit we were wrong and we need him. Find him, and your salary is raised, too. Okay?
Does that mean Roy gets to use that face, that head, he made out of clay?
Mannys color level sank. Christ, no! Therell be a new search. Well run ads.
I dont think Roy will come back if he cant create his Beast. Hell come, if he knows whats good for him.
And get himself killed an hour after he punches the time clock? I thought.
No, I said. Hes really deadforever.
I hammered all the nails into Roys coffin, hoping Manny would believe, and not close down the studio to finish the search. A dumb idea. But then insane people are always dumb.
Find him, said Manny and lay back, frosting the air with his silence. I shut the icebox door. The Rolls floated off on its own whispering
exhaust, like a cold smile vanishing.
Shivering, I made the Grand Tour. I crossed Green Town to New York City to Egyptian Sphinx to Roman Forum. Only flies buzzed on my grandparents front-door screen. Only dust blew between the Sphinxs paws.
I stood by the great rock that was rolled in front of Christs tomb. I went to the rock to hide my face.
Roy, I whispered.
The rock trembled at my touch.
And the rock cried out, No hiding place.
God, Roy, I thought. They need you, at last, for ten seconds anyway before they stomp you into paste.
The rock was silent. A dust-devil squirreled through a nearby Nevada false-front town, and laid itself out like a burning cat to sleep by an old horse trough.
A voice shouted across the sky: Wrong place! Here!
I glanced a hundred yards over to another hill, which blotted out the city skyline, a gentle rolling sward of fake grass that stood green through every season.
There, the wind blowing his white robes, was a man in a beard. J. C.! I stumbled up the hill, gasping.
How do you like this? J. C. pulled me the last few yards, reaching out with a grave, sad smile. The Mount of the Sermon. Want to hear?
Theres no time, J. C.
How come all those other people two thousand years back listened and were quiet?
They didnt have watches, J. C.
No. He studied the sky. Only the sun moving slow and all the days in the world to say the needful things.
I nodded. Clarences name was stuck in my throat.
Sit down, son. There was a big boulder nearby and J. C. sat and I crouched like a shepherd at his feet. Looking down at me, almost gently, he said, I havent had a drink today.
Great!
There are days like that. Lord, I been up here most of the day, enjoying the clouds, wanting to live forever, because of last night, the words, and you.
He must have sensed my swallowing hard for he looked down and touched my head.
Oh, oh, he said. You going to tell me something will make me drink again?
I hope not, J. C. Its about your friend Clarence. He snatched his hand away as if burned.
A cloud covered the sun and there was a surprising small spatter of rain, a total shock in the midst of a sunlit day. I let the rain touch me without moving, as did J. C., who lifted his face to get the coolness.
Clarence, he murmured. Ive known him forever. He was around when we had real Indians. Clarence was out front, a kid no more than nine, ten, with his big four-eyes and his blond hair and his bright face and his big book of drawings or photos to be signed. He was there at dawn the first day I arrived, at midnight when I left. I was one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!
Death?
Smartass. J. C. laughed. Death. High on my bony ass on my skeleton horse.
J. C. and I both looked at the sky to see if his Death was still galloping there.
The rain stopped. J. C. wiped his face and went on:
Clarence. Poor stupid, dependent, lonely, lifeless, wifeless son of a bitch. No wife, mistress, boy, man, dog, pig, no girlie pictures, no muscle monthlies. Zero! He doesnt even wear Jockey shorts! Long Johns, all summer! Clarence. God.
At last I felt my mouth move. You heard from Clarence lately? He telephoned yesterday
What time?
Four-thirty. Why?
Right after I knocked on his door, I thought.
He telephoned, out of control. Its over! he said. Theyre coming to get me. Dont lecture me! he screamed. It curdled my blood. Sounded like ten thousand extras fired, forty producer suicides, ninety-nine starlets raped, eyes shut, making do. His last words were Help me! save me! And there I was, Jesus on the end of a line, Christ at the end of his tether. How could I help when I was the cause, not the cure? I told Clarence to take two aspirins and call in the morning. I should have rushed over. Would you have rushed, if you were me?
I remembered Clarence lying in that huge wedding cake, layer upon layer of books, cards, photos, and hysterical sweat, glued in stacks.
J. C. saw my head shake.
Hes gone, isnt he? You, he added, did rush over? I nodded.
It was not a natural death? I shook my head. Clarence!
It was such a shout as would shake the field beasts and the shepherds asleep. It was the start of a sermon on darkness.
J. C. leaped up, head back. Tears spilled from his eyes. Clarence
And he began to walk, eyes shut, down the Mount, away from the lost sermons, toward the other hill, Calvary, where his cross waited. I pursued.
Striding, J. C. asked:
I dont suppose you got anything
