I knew if I didnt stop Id be carted off to a madhouse-dairy to be milked for paranoia. That, and the Beast dying, pleading for one last go with the priest and the bells and candles and confessionals and: forgive. I had to give him back his studio so he could give it back to you.
Roy slowed, licked his dreadful lips, and was silent. Theres one thing, several things, not clear I said. Name them.
How many people did Arbuthnot kill in the past few days. And how many people did I had to stop, for I could not say it.
Roy said it for me: How many did Roy Holdstrom, Beast Number Two, spoil?
I nodded.
I didnt kill Clarence, if thats what youre afraid of. Thank God.
I swallowed hard and at last said: At what pointoh, God when? When what?
At what hour on what day did Arbuthnot stop and you take over? Now it was Roys turn, behind the murdered face, to swallow. It was Clarence, of course. In the catacombs, I heard voices on the phone systems, at every tomb intersection. Voices in the tunnels themselves. One way or another lifting the receivers, or hiding alert, I pulled back or followed the shadows moving to bury. I knew Clarence was due for burial, five minutes after the Beasts rampage at his apartment.
I saw and heard, at a distance, Doc hustling through the tunnels, taking Clarence to some damned lost crypt. I knew then theyd soon find I was alive, if they didnt suspect already. I wonder, did they ever check the incinerator to find not my real bones but my mock-up skeleton? And next: you! You knew Clarence. They might have seen you at his place, or at my apartment. If they added it up theyd have buried you alive. So, you see, I had to take over. I had to become the Beast.
Not only that, I shut down the studio, to test my power, to see if they jumped at my voice, did what I said. With the studio emptying out it made it easier to kill the villains, take care of my possible assassins.
Stanislau Groc? I said.
Groc ? Yeah. He got us into this in the first place. Hired me for starters, because I could freshen up creatures, just as he tarted up old dead Lenin. Put a bug in Arbuthnots ear to hire you, maybe. Then made the body that was propped on the wall to scare the studio folks and Arbuthnot, then invited us to the Brown Derby for the bestial revelation. Then when I made the clay Beast and frightened everyone, shook them down for cash.
You killed Groc, then?
Not quite. I had him arrested at the gate. When they brought him to Mannys empty office and left him alone and the mirror swung back, he just up and died when he saw me there. Doc Phillips now, ask me about him.
Doc Phillips?
After all, he cleared away my so-called body, right? Him and his eternal pooper-scoopers. I met up with him in Notre Dame. Didnt even try to run. I pulled him up with the bells. I just wanted to scare him. Get him up high and shake until, like Groc, his heart stopped. Manslaughter, not murder. But, being pulled up, he got tangled, got frantic, all but hung himself. Did I do it? Am I guilty?
Yes, I thought. And then: no.
J. C. ? I asked, and held my breath.
No, no. He climbed up on the cross two nights ago and his wounds just didnt shut. His life ran out of his wrists. He died on the cross, poor man, poor drunken old J. C. God rest him. I found him and gave him a proper resting place.
Where are they all? Groc and Doc Phillips and J. C.
Somewhere. Anywhere. Does it matter? Its all bodies out there, a million of em. Im glad one of them isnt he hesitatedyou.
Me?
Thats what finally made me cease and desist. About twelve hours ago. I found I had you on my list.
What!?
I found myself thinking, If he gets in the way, he dies. That put an end to it.
Christ, I should hope so!
I thought, Wait, he had nothing to do with this whole dumb show. He didnt put the crazy horses on the carousel. Hes your pal, your friend, your buddy. Hes all thats left of life. That was the turnaround. The road back from madness is knowing youre mad. The road back means no more highway, and you can only turn. I loved you. I love you. So I came back. And opened the tomb and let the true Beast out.
Roy turned his head and looked at me. His gaze said: Am I on report? Will you hurt me for what I have hurt? Are we still friends? What made me do whatever I did? Must the police know? And who will tell them? Must I be punished? Do the insane have to pay? Isnt it all a madness? Mad sets, mad lines, mad actors? Is the play over? Or has it just begun? Do we laugh now or weep? For what?
His face said, Not long from now the sun will be up, the two cities will start, one more alive than the other. The dead will stay dead, yes, but the living will repeat the lines they were still saying just yesterday. Do we let them speak? Or do we rewrite them together? Do I make the Death that rides fast, and when he opens his mouth will your words be there?
What?
Roy waited.
Are you really back with me? I said.
I took a breath, and went on. Are you Roy Holdstrom again and will you just stay that way and not be anything else but my friend, from now on, yes? Roy?
Roys head was down. At last he put out his hand.
I seized it as if I might sway and fall to the streets of the Beasts Paris, below.
We held tight.
With his free hand, Roy worked at the rest of his mask. He balled the substance, the torn-away wax and powder and celadon scar in his fist and hurled it from Notre Dame. We did not hear it land. But a voice, startled, shot up.
God damnl Hey! We stared down.
It was Crumley, a simple peasant on the Notre Dame porch below. I ran out of gas, he called. I kept going around the block. And then: no gas.
What, he shielded his eyes, in hells going on up there?
Arbuthnot was buried two days later.
Or rather reburied. Or rather, placed in the tomb, carried there before dawn by some friends of the church who didnt know who they carried or why or what for.
Father Kelly officiated at the funeral of a stillborn child, nameless and so not recently baptized.
I was there with Crumley and Constance and Henry and Fritz and Maggie. Roy stood far back from us all.
Whatre we doing here? I muttered.
Just making sure hes buried forever, observed Crumley. Forgiving the poor son-of-a-bitch,. Constance said, quietly.
Oh, if people out beyond knew what was going on here today, I said, think of the crowds that might come to see that its over at last. Napoleons farewell.
He was no Napoleon, said Constance. No?
I looked across the graveyard wall where the cities of the world lay strewn-flat, and no place for Kong to grab at biplanes, and no dust-blown white sepulcher for the tomb-lost Christ, and no cross to hang some faith or future on, and no
No, I thought, maybe not Napoleon, but Barnum, Gandhi, and Jesus. Herod, Edison, and Griffith. Mussolini, Genghis Khan, and Tom Mix. Bertrand Russell, The Man Who Could Work Miracles, and The Invisible Man. Frankenstein, Tiny Tim, and Drac
I must have said some of this aloud.
Quiet, said Crumley, sotto voce.
And Arbuthnots tomb door, with flowers inside, and the body of the Beast, slammed shut.
I went to see Manny Leiber.
He was still sitting, like a miniature gargoyle, on the rim of his desk. I looked from him to the big chair behind him.
Well, he said. Caesar and Christ is done. Maggies editing the damn thing.
He looked as if he wanted to shake hands, but didnt know how. So I went around, collected the sofa cushions, like in the old days, piled them, and sat on them.
Manny Leiber had to laugh. Dont you ever give up? If I did, youd eat me alive.
I looked beyond him to the wall. Is the passage shut?
Manny slid off the desk, walked over, and lifted the mirror off its hooks. Behind it, where once the door had been, was fresh plaster and a new coat of paint.
Hard to believe a monster came through there every day for years, I said. He was no monster, said Manny. And he ran this place. It would have
sunk long ago without him. It was only at the end he went mad. The rest of the time he was God behind the glass.
He never got used to people staring at him?
Would you? Whats so unusual about him hiding out, coming up the tunnel late at night, sitting in that chair? No more stupid or brilliant than the idea of films falling off theatre screens to run the world. Every damn
