Hot Times in Magma City, 1990-95

  “Mr. Apostolides is very involved emotionally with Achilles, you know. I might even put it that he thinks of himself as a kind of modern-day Achilles, the invincible warrior, the all-conquering hero.”

  “He’ll love it, then,” said Beckerman. “I guarantee it.”

  Indeed he did. Apostolides paid Beckerman an unsolicited five-figure bonus, and gave the shield pride of place in what was apparently one of the finest private museums in the world. He flew his billionaire friends in from Majorca and the Grenadines and the Azores and Lanai to stand before it and admire it. He cherished that shield as though it were the Mona Lisa and the Apollo Belvedere and the David of Michelangelo all rolled into one. Which was the problem. In less than a year and a half it began to melt and sag, and then it was gone altogether, and suddenly Alvarez was on the phone to say, “He wants another one. He doesn’t care how much it costs, but he wants another shield just like that one.”

  The days went by. Had Alvarez been serious about that two-week deadline, or was it simply a bluff? In either case, there was nothing Beckerman could do about it. He had been telling Alvarez the simple truth when he said that he had no conscious control over the form of the dream-objects he produced. He could give himself little hints at bedtime, yes, and that was often helpful in guiding the basic direction in which his dreaming mind would go; but that was about as much control as he had. Dreaming up a specific object was something he had never succeeded in doing.

  He tried to go about the normal routines of his business. He set up appointments with the collectors to whom he intended to offer the three new pieces. He made arrangements to be interviewed by an important art magazine that had wanted for months to do a feature on his work. He met with his broker for the semiannual review of his stock portfolio.

  “I could retire,” he told the broker, after he had gone over the portfolio and been apprised of the surprisingly strong gains it had made in the past six months. “I could sell all these stocks and put the money into municipal bonds and never do a night’s work again in my life.”

  “Why would you want to do that?” the broker asked. “It isn’t as if the work takes up a lot of your time. Didn’t you once tell me that you actually produce your entire annual output in just six or seven nights?”

  “Six or seven very strenuous and difficult nights, yes.”

  “But you’re a great artist. Great artists don’t retire, no matter how wealthy they are. Did Picasso retire? Did Matisse? Monet was practically blind, and even richer than you are now, and he went on painting anyway, right to the end.”

  “I am not Monet,” said Beckerman. “I am certainly not Picasso. I am Max Beckerman and I find my work increasingly demanding, too demanding, and it is becoming a great temptation to give it up altogether.”

  “You don’t mean that, Max. You’ve just been working too hard lately, that’s all. Go to Hawaii again. Go to Majorca. You’ll feel better in a week or two.”

  “Majorca,” Beckerman said bitterly. “Yes, sure, absolutely. I could go to Majorca.” He said it as if the broker had recommended a holiday in one of the suburbs of hell. Apostolides had a house on Majorca, didn’t he? Everywhere he turned, something reminded him of Apostolides.

  He knew what was behind this sudden talk of retiring. It wasn’t fatigue. The broker was right: he really did work only six or seven nights a year, and, arduous as those nights were, he recovered quickly enough from each ordeal, and there were new masterpieces to show for it. If he gave up work entirely, his entire oeuvre would fade away in a few years, and then there would be nothing left to indicate that he had ever lived at all. He would be utterly forgotten, a wealthy nobody who once had been a great artist, a rich old man sitting quietly on some tropical beach waiting for the eventual end to arrive. The museums were full of Matisses, Picassos, Monets, and always would be; but the moment Max Beckerman stopped working was the moment he would begin his slide into oblivion. He couldn’t face that prospect. No, it was fear that had him thinking of retiring, of disappearing to some quiet and luxurious place where nobody would ever be able to find him again. Fear of Apostolides—of Alvarez, rather, because Apostolides was just a name to him, and Alvarez was a threatening voice on the telephone. The very rich, Beckerman knew, were utterly ruthless when they were thwarted. Run. Hide. Disappear. A villa in Monaco, an apartment in Zurich, a plantation in the Seychelles. He could afford to go anywhere.

  Beckerman went nowhere. He was surprised to find himself unexpectedly gliding into a work mode again, much too soon after the last episode of creativity. He dreamed a small dinosaur-shaped animal the size of a large cat, and a perpetual-motion machine that energetically moved a complex arrangements of pistons through an elaborate pattern without pause even though it had no power source, and something that even he couldn’t identify, an abstract bunch of metallic squiggles, that to his relief melted away within a couple of hours. Good work, lots of it. But not the shield, no. Not the shield.

  And then the two weeks were up.

  “Beckerman?”

  Alvarez, right on schedule. Beckerman hung up.

  The phone rang again.

  “Don’t do that,” Alvarez said. “Listen to me.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “What about the shield?”

  “Nothing. Nothing. I’m very sorry.”

  “You’ll be sorrier,” said Alvarez. “The client is getting extremely displeased now, extremely. Holding my feet to the fire, as a matter of fact. I was the one who brought you to his attention. Now he requires me to obtain a second shield from you for him. Dream him another shield, Beckerman.”

  “I’m trying to. Believe me, I’m trying. The Iliad is the last thing I read every night before I close my eyes. I fill my head with Homer. Heroes, swords, shields. But what comes out? Little dinosaurs. Perpetual-motion machines. You see the problem?”

  “I see the problem,” Alvarez said. “Do you?”

  “Tell Mr. Apostolides that if he likes he can have my entire output for the next three years, free of charge, every single thing I produce. Only he must leave me alone on this thing of the shield.”

  “What he really wants is the shield, Beckerman.”

  “I can’t give it to him.”

  “Nobody tells things like that to Pericles Apostolides.”

  “One day the angel of death is going to come for Mr. Apostolides, just like he comes for everybody else, and the angel is going to say, ‘All right, Pericles, come along with me’. Is he going to look the angel in the eye and say that nobody tells things like that to Pericles Apostolides?”

  “That’s not my problem, Beckerman. My problem is the shield. Your problem is the shield.”

  “I’m doing the best I can. I can’t do better than that.”

  “Two more weeks,” Alvarez said.

  “And then?”

  “Don’t ask. Just produce. Sweet dreams, Beckerman.”

  He tried desperately to generate the shield. He lay rigid in his bed with his eyes closed, envisioning the shield as though hoping it would spring fully formed from his forehead while he was still awake. But it didn’t. Eventually he would drop off to sleep, and when he awoke in the middle of the following morning he could tell at once from the way he was trembling and the ferocious hunger he felt and the stink of sweat in the bedroom that he had worked during the night, and he would look eagerly at the floor beside his bed, and there would be something there, yes, a grinning ebony face with Picasso eyes, or a five-sided pyramid with a brilliant point of ruby light at its summit, or a formidable Wagnerian horned helmet that might very well have belonged to Wotan himself; but the shield of Achilles, no, no, never that.

  He was exhausting himself in the effort, dreaming every night as though his life depended on it, which quite possibly it did, and accomplishing nothing. Beckerman was feverish all the time now, wild-eyed with weariness and fear. The effects of the energy drain were horrifyingly apparent—he had the Auschwitz look, he’d become a walking skeleton. He tried
every remedy he knew to keep his strength. Steroids, glucose injections, four meals a day, round-the-clock pizza deliveries. Nothing worked for long. He was wasting away.

  The telephone. Alvarez.

  “Well, Beckerman?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m going to have to visit you in person, right?”

  “What do you mean, visit me?”

  “What do you think I mean?”

  “Sit next to me while I sleep, and make me generate the shield?”

  “That isn’t what I mean, no.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Alvarez!”

  “Who’s threatening? I just said I would come visiting.”

  “Don’t even think of it. There was a contract that said the object I delivered was of its inherent nature impermanent, and that I could not be held responsible for its disappearance after a stipulated period of time. The stipulated minimum was twelve months. It’s in the contract, Alvarez. Which, as you know, Mr. Apostolides quite willingly signed.”

  “You fulfilled that contract, yes. Mr. Apostolides now wants to enter into a second contract with you for a similar work of art. I’ll be coming soon to get your signature on it.”

  “I never sign contracts that stipulate the design of a particular work.”

  “You will this time.”

  “Keep away from me, Alvarez!”

  “Unfortunately, I can’t. I’ll be seeing you soon. And don’t try to run away. I’ll find you wherever you may be, Beckerman. You know that I will.”

  Time was running out. Alvarez would be coming. The bell ringing downstairs, the voice on the intercom, and then the cold-eyed little man in the tight-fitting Armani suit, standing unsmilingly in the doorway, sadly shaking his head. And there would be no shield for Mr. Apostolides. Beckerman thought of a thousand different things he could do to protect himself, each one more implausible than the one before, and finally he thought of the thousand-and-first, which was not merely implausible but apparently impossible, and that was the one he resolved to try.

  Never in his life had he been able to dream something to order. But that was what he intended to try now, with one last wild attempt born of desperation. Not the shield, no, plainly that was beyond his power. Not only was he trying to dream something at somebody else’s command, but he was trying to dream a piece that he had already created once, and apparently his mind was unwilling to go back over a track that it had already traversed. Everything he had ever made had been one of a kind.

  But perhaps he could indeed by deliberate intent dream something to his own specifications that he had never dreamed before, something which would rescue him from his dilemma. It was worth a try, anyway.

  That night he ate until he thought he would burst. He slept, and he dreamed. And even as he dreamed he felt a flood of sudden strange optimism, and what he found beside his bed the next morning exceeded all his expectations. It was crude, it was badly proportioned, it was almost laughable. It would never fool Alvarez even for a moment. But it was a rough approximation of what he had set out to dream, and that was new, that was unique in his entire experience of the phenomenon about which he had built his life.

  He tried again the next night, and the next, ordering his dreaming mind to work with the material at hand and shape it toward perfection. The second night’s work brought no visible improvement over what he already had, but to his delight there was a distinct transformation a night later. When he awoke after one more night of work he realized that he had—in one paroxysm of despair over his dire predicament—produced precisely what he needed.

  If only I could have managed to do the second shield this way, he thought. Then I could have managed to keep my life intact.

  But this, at least, would give him a way of sidestepping the wrath of Apostolides and the vindictiveness of Alvarez.

  He looked down at the haggard figure lying on the floor next to his bed and said, “Stand up.”

  It shambled unsteadily to its feet.

  “Stand straight,” Beckerman said. “Hold yourself like a man, will you?”

  The figure attempted to improve its posture. It was, Beckerman saw, slightly lopsided, the left shoulder too narrow, the right leg a little short. Still, he was impressed with his own skill.

  “Can you speak?” he asked.

  “Yes. I can speak.”

  The voice sounded rusty, and it seemed too high. But the faint European accent was a familiar one.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “You are the artist Max Beckerman.”

  “Yes. And who are you?”

  A moment of silence.

  “I am the artist Max Beckerman,” it said.

  “Good. Good. We are both the artist Max Beckerman. Keep that in mind. Go to the closet, now. Find yourself some clothes, get yourself dressed.”

  “I am hungry. I am in particular need of a shower.”

  “Never mind any of that. Obey me. Get yourself dressed. And cover your body. Christ, you’re nothing but a skeleton with skin! I can’t stand looking at those ribs of yours. Cover yourself. Cover yourself!”

  “What shall I wear?”

  “Anything you like,” Beckerman said. “Whatever strikes your fancy.”

  He went into the bathroom, took a quick shower. Then, ravenous, he grabbed up a loaf of bread and gnawed at it. The other Beckerman was dressed when he returned to the bedroom. It had chosen gray gabardine slacks, one of the good London shirts, and Beckerman’s favorite black shoes, the John Lobbs. Too bad about the shoes, he thought. But he could always have another pair run up for him.

  What time was it right now, he wondered, in Zurich? Eight hours later, was it? Nine? Early evening, he figured. He picked up the phone and dialed Elise’s number.

  Another miracle! She was there!

  “Wer spricht, bitte?”

  “It’s me, Max. Listen, I’ll be coming to stay with you for a little while, is that all right?”

  “Max? Where are you, Max?”

  “California, still. But I’ll be getting the next plane out. I’ll be there in 24 hours, maybe less. Can you manage that, Elise?”

  “Of course! But why?”

  “I’ll explain everything when I get there. Listen, I’ll phone you again from the airport in an hour or two, when I know which flight I’m on. You can meet me when I land, can’t you?”

  “Natürlich, liebchen, natürlich! It’s just that it’s all such a surprise—”

  “I know,” he said. “I love you, Elise.” He blew her a kiss and hung up. He called the airport next and then phoned his usual taxi service to arrange for a cab in 30 minutes.

  The other Beckerman was still standing next to the bed.

  “I am very hungry,” it said.

  Beckerman gestured impatiently. “Eat. Eat all you like. You know where to find it.” He began to shovel things into his suitcase: a couple of shirts, some slacks, his shaver, a pair of shoes, a few pairs of socks, underwear, three neckties.

  The telephone rang. Beckerman went on packing. After eight or nine rings the phone fell silent; and then, in another moment, it began to ring again.

  He closed his suitcase. Took a last look around. He probably would never be coming back here, he knew.

  The telephone was still ringing.

  “Should I answer it?” the other Beckerman asked.

  “No,” Beckerman said. “Just let it ring.” He picked up the suitcase and walked toward the door. The cab would be here in another five or ten minutes. He would wait for it downstairs.

  He paused at the door. The dream-Beckerman, dull-eyed, simpering, lopsided, but his twin in all essential respects, gazed stupidly at him.

  “I’m expecting a visit shortly from a Mr. Alvarez,” Beckerman said. The other Beckerman nodded. “He’ll ring the bell downstairs. You press this buzzer to let him in. You got that?”

  “Yes. I have that.”

  “Good. Well, so long, my friend,” said Beckerman. “The place is yours now. Good luck.”

>   And be sure to tell Alvarez to give Mr. Apostolides my regards, he thought, as he headed downstairs to the waiting cab.

  HOT TIMES IN MAGMA CITY

  Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s I was a regular contributor to Omni, a magazine of science and science-fiction that made a considerable stir in its day. Each monthly issue brought science articles, interviews with people on the frontier of scientific research, pictorial supplements, and one or two science-fiction stories by top writers. Printed on glossy paper, lavishly illustrated, paying huge fees for its material, it attained a vast circulation, far beyond that of any magazine devoted only to science-fiction, and it was a pleasure for me to be one of its elite group of contributors.

  Something—I don’t know what—began going wrong with Omni in the 1990’s, though. Circulation fell and advertising (which greatly helped to pay its lofty production costs) dropped also, and by 1994 or thereabouts the publisher was beginning to think of abandoning the print edition of the magazine and moving it to on-line publication, which would save the huge expense of printing and distributing.

  The Internet was in its infancy then and the proposal to move the magazine to cyberspace struck me as the wildest folly, a sure sign of Omni’s impending doom. I was, I should note, prejudiced by the fact that I myself, as of the mid-1990’s, still was living a modem-free existence: I didn’t then use e-mail and had no idea at all of how to access the Internet. Even so, I was right about Omni: taking the magazine off the newsstands and making it Internet-only would succeed in killing it within another year or two.

  But the magazine was not yet on its deathbed in September, 1994, when Keith Ferrell, its ambitious and energetic editor, approached me with an invitation to write a novella for it. Chrysler Motors then was bringing out a new car called the Neon, and had hooked up somehow with Omni to sponsor something called the Chrysler Neon On-Line project. Omni would ask five or six leading s-f writers to do long stories depicting life in the near future, Chrysler would subsidize the cost of them, and they would be published exclusively on the Omni On-Line site; the writers would be free to sell the stories also for subsequent publication in the conventional s-f magazines.