The Great and Secret Show

  "Sam!" Eve said, hurrying to him. "Sam!" Panic, and the speed of her descent, had made her breathless. Her description of the horrors she'd seen in the room above came in a series of gasps and non sequiturs.

  " . . . You have to stop him . . . you never saw anything . . . terrible things . . . Sam, look at me . . . Sam, look! . . ."

  Sam didn't oblige. His whole posture was one of complete passivity.

  "For Christ's sake, Sam, what are you on?"

  Giving up on him she turned and sought help elsewhere among the loiterers. There were perhaps twenty guests gathered around. None of them had moved since she'd appeared, either to help or hinder her. None, now she looked at them, was even looking in her direction. Like Sagansky and his wife they all had their eyes turned ceilingward, as if in expectation. Panic hadn't taken Eve's wits from her. She needed no more than a scanning of this crowd to realize that they'd be of no use to her. They knew perfectly well what was going on a floor above them: that was why they turned their eyes up like dogs awaiting judgment. The Jaff had them on a leash.

  She started down to the ground floor, clinging to the banister, her pace slowing as breathlessness and stiff joints took their toll. The band had finished playing but somebody was still at the piano, which comforted her. Rather than waste energy shouting from the stairs she waited until she was at the bottom to buttonhole somebody. The front door was open. Rochelle was standing on the step. A party of half a dozen, Merv Turner and his wife, Gilbert Kind and his girlfriend of the moment, plus two women she didn't recognize, were making their farewells. Turner saw her coming, and a look of distaste came over his fat face. He returned his gaze to Rochelle, speeding up his departure speech.

  ". . . so sad," Eve caught him saying. "But very moving. Thank you so much for sharing this with us."

  "Yes—" his wife began, but was cut off before she could offer platitudes of her own by Turner, who, glancing back at Eve, hurried away into the open air.

  "Merv—" his wife said, clearly irritated.

  "No time!" Turner replied. "It's been wonderful, Rochelle. Hurry up, Gil. The limos are waiting. We're going on ahead."

  "No, wait," said the girlfriend. "Oh, shit, Gilbert, he's going without us."

  "Please excuse us," Kind said to Rochelle.

  "Wait!" Eve called after him. "Gilbert, wait!"

  Her call was too loud to be ignored, though to judge by the look on Kind's face when he turned back to her he'd have preferred it that way. He put a less than radiant smile over his feelings and opened his arms, not in welcome but in a shrug.

  "Isn't it always the way?" he called to her. "We didn't get to talk, Eve. So sorry. So sorry. Next time." He took hold of the girlfriend's arm. "We'll call you," he said. "Won't we, hon?" He blew her a kiss. "You look wonderful!" he said, and hurried after Turner.

  The two women followed, not even concerning themselves to make their goodbyes to Rochelle. She didn't seem to care. If common sense hadn't already told Eve that Rochelle was in league with the monster on the upper floor, she saw evidence of it now. As soon as the guests had gone from the door she rolled her eyes up in an all too recognizable fashion, her muscles relaxing so that she lay against the door jamb as though barely able to stand upright. No help to be had there, Eve thought, and headed through to the lounge.

  Again, the only illumination came from outside the house, the garish colors of the Carnivalia. The light was bright enough for Eve to see that in the half hour she'd been detained by Lamar the party had wound down almost to a dead stop. Fully half of the guests had gone, sensing perhaps the change that had come over the gathering as more and more people had been touched by the evil on the upper floor. Another group was in the act of departing as she got to the door, bustle and loud talk covering their anxiety. She knew none of them, but wasn't about to let that stop her. She took hold of a young man's arm.

  "You've got to help me," she said.

  She knew the face from the billboards on Sunset. The boy was Rick Lobo. His prettiness had made him a sudden star, though his love scenes looked like lesbianism.

  "What's wrong?" he said.

  "There's something upstairs," she said. "It's got a friend of mine—"

  The face was only capable of a smile and a sultry pout; with those responses inappropriate, all it could do was look blankly back at her.

  "Please come," she said.

  "She's drunk," somebody in Lobo's party said, not caring to conceal the accusation.

  Eve looked the way of the speaker. The whole pack of brats was young. None of them over twenty-five. And most, she guessed, well high. But untouched by the Jaff.

  "I'm not drunk," Eve said. "Please listen—"

  "Come on, Rick," a girl in the party said.

  "Do you want to come with us?" Lobo asked.

  "Rick!" the girl said.

  "No. I want you to come upstairs—"

  The girl laughed. "Bet you do," she said. "Come on, Ricky."

  "I have to go. Sorry," Lobo said. "You should go too. This party's a bummer."

  The boy's incomprehension was solid as a brick wall, but Eve wasn't about to let go.

  "Trust me," she said. "I'm not drunk. There's something horrible happening here." She threw a glance towards the rest of them. "You all feel it," she said, feeling like a cut-rate Cassandra but knowing no other way to put it. "There's something going on here—"

  "Yeah," said the girl. "There is. We're leaving."

  Her words had touched a nerve in Lobo, however.

  "You should come with us," he said, "it's getting weird in here."

  "She doesn't want to go," said a voice on the stairs. Sam Sagansky made the descent. "I'll look after her, Ricky, don't you worry."

  Lobo was clearly happy to be relieved of the responsibility. He let Eve's arm go.

  "Mr. Sagansky'll look after you," he said.

  "No—" Eve insisted, but the group was already heading towards the door, the same anxiety fuelling their hurried exit as had fuelled that of the Turner party. Eve saw Rochelle lift herself up from her languor to accept the proffered thanks. Any attempt to follow after them was blocked by Sam. All Eve could do was seek some help in the room behind her.

  The pickings looked slim. Of the remaining thirty or so guests most seemed beyond helping themselves, never mind her. The pianist was providing a soporific medley of songs for dancing in the dark, and four couples were doing just that, draped about each other as they shuffled around on the same spot. The rest of the room's occupants seemed to be drugged or drunk or touched with the Jaff's torpor, some sitting, many lying on the furniture, barely aware of their surroundings. The anorexic Belinda Kristol was among them, her wasted frame no possible use in this jeopardy. On the sofa beside her, his head in her lap, was the son of Buddy's agent, equally wasted.

  Eve glanced back towards the door. Sagansky was following her. She scanned the room in desperation, looking for the best hope of a bad hand and decided upon the pianist. She wove between the dancers, her panic getting the better of her again.

  "Stop playing," she said when she reached him.

  "Want something different?" he said, looking around at her. His gaze was blurred by drink but at least his eyes didn't roll up.

  "Yeah, something loud. Really loud," she said. "And fast. Let's get the party going, shall we?"

  "Little late for that," he said.

  "What's your name?"

  "Doug Frankl."

  "OK, Doug. You keep playing . . ." She looked back towards Sagansky, who was standing beyond the dancers, watching her. " . . . I need your help, Doug."

  "And I need a drink," he slurred. "Any chance of getting one for me?"

  "In a moment. First, you see that man on the other side of the room?"

  "Yeah, I know him. Everyone knows him. He's a fuck-head."

  "He just tried to assault me."

  "He did?" Doug said, frowning up at Eve. "That's disgusting."

  "And my partner . . . Mr. Grillo . . . is at the top of the
house . . ."

  "That's really disgusting," Doug said again. "You're old enough to be his mother."

  "Thanks, Doug."

  "That's really disgusting."

  Eve leaned in towards her unlikely knight. "I need your help," she whispered. "And I need it now. "

  "Got to keep playing," Doug said.

  "You can come back and play when we've got a drink for you and Mr. Grillo for me."

  "I really need a drink."

  "You do. I can see that. And you deserve one. Playing like this. You deserve a drink."

  "I do. I really do."

  She reached over, put her hands around Frankl's wrists, and lifted his hands from the keys. He didn't protest. Though the music stopped the dancers continued to shuffle

  "Get up, Doug," she whispered.

  He struggled to his feet, kicking over the piano stool as he did so.

  "Which way for the drinks?" he said. He was further gone than she'd thought. His playing must have been on remote control because he could barely take a step ahead of him. But he was company at least. She took his arm, hoping Sagansky would interpret Doug as the supporting strength rather than the other way about. "This way," she murmured to him, and led them both around the perimeter of the dance floor towards the door. From the corner of her eye she saw Sagansky moving in their direction, and attempted to pick up their pace, but he came between them and the door.

  "No more music, Doug?" he said.

  The pianist tried hard to focus on Sagansky's face.

  "Who the fuck are you?" he said.

  "It's Sam," Eve told him.

  "Get the music going, Doug. I want to dance with Eve."

  Sagansky reached to claim Eve, but Frankl had ideas of his own.

  "I know what you think," he said to Sagansky. "I heard the things you say and you know what? I don't give a fuck. If I want to suck cock, I'll fucking suck cock and if you won't employ me Fox will! So fuck you!"

  A small thrill of hope touched Eve. There was a psycho-drama here she hadn't counted on. Sagansky was notoriously homophobic. He'd obviously offended Doug somewhere down the line.

  "I want the lady," Sagansky said.

  "Well you're not going to have her," came the response, Doug pushing Sagansky's arm away. "She's got better things to do."

  Sagansky wasn't about to give up so easily. He reached for Eve a second time, was slapped away, and instead put his hands on Doug, dragging the man from Eve's grip.

  Eve took her chance while it was offered, slipping away towards the door. Behind her she heard both men's voices raised in rage, and glanced back to see that they were scattering the dancers as they staggered around each other, fists flailing. Sagansky landed the first blow, sending Frankl reeling back against the piano. The glasses he'd lined up there went west, smashing noisily. He came after Eve with a lunge.

  "You're wanted," he said, snatching her. She stepped back to avoid him, her legs giving out as she did so. Before she hit the floor two arms were there to catch her, and she heard Lobo say: "You should come with us."

  She tried to protest, but her mouth wouldn't make the words between gasps. She was half-carried to the door, trying to explain that she couldn't go, couldn't leave Grillo, but unable to make her point clear. She saw Rochelle's face swim past her, then the night air was cold on her face, its shock merely worsening her disorientation.

  "Help her. . . help her. . ." she heard Lobo saying, and before she knew it she was inside his limo, stretched out on the fake fur seat. He followed her in.

  "Grillo—" she managed to say as the door was slammed. Her pursuer was at the step, but the limo was already moving off, down towards the gate.

  "Weirdest fucking party I ever went to," Lobo said. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

  Sorry, Grillo, she thought as she passed out. Be well.

  At the gate Clark waved Lobo's limo off, and turned to look back at the house.

  "How many more to go?" he asked Rab.

  "Another forty maybe," Rab replied, scanning the list. "We won't be here all night."

  The cars that were waiting for the remaining guests had no room to park on the Hill, so were in the Grove below, circling, awaiting radio orders to come back up and collect their passengers. It was a routine they were well used to, its boredom usually broken by a stream of banter between cars. But tonight there was no gossip about the sex-lives of the passengers, or horny talk about what the drivers were going to do when the job was finished. Most of the time the airwaves were silent, as if the drivers didn't want to advertise their locations. When it was broken, it was by someone making a would-be casual remark about the town.

  "Deadwood Gulch," one of them called it. "It's like a fucking cemetery."

  It was Rab who silenced the man. "If you've got nothing worth saying, don't say it," he remarked.

  "What's your problem?" the man said. "Getting spooked?"

  The reply was interrupted by a call from another car.

  "You there, Clark?"

  "Yeah. Who is this?"

  "Are you there?"

  Contact was bad, and worsening, the voice from the car breaking up into static.

  "There's a fucking dust storm blowing up down here—" the driver was saying. "I don't know if you can hear me, but it's just come out of nowhere."

  "Tell him to get out of there," Rab said. "Clark! Tell him!"

  "I hear you! Driver? Back off! Back off!"

  "Can anybody hear me?" the man yelled, the message almost drowned out by a spiralling howl of wind.

  "Driver! Get the fuck out of there!"

  "Can anybody—"

  In place of the question the sound of the car coming to grief, the driver's voice cut off in the din of wreckage.

  "Shit!" Clark said. "Any of you out there know who that was? Or where he was?"

  There was silence from the other cars. Even if any of them knew, nobody was volunteering to go help. Rab stared through the trees lining the road, down towards the town.

  "That's it," he said. "Enough of this shit. I'm out of here."

  "There's only us left," Clark reminded him.

  "If you've got any sense you'll get out too," Rab said, pulling on his tie to unknot it. "I don't know what's going on here, but let the rich folks sort it out."

  "We're on duty."

  "I just came off!" Rab said. "I ain't being paid enough to take this shit! Catch!" He tossed his radio to Clark. It spat white noise. "Hear that?" he said. "Chaos. That's what's coming."

  In the town below Tommy-Ray slowed his car to get a look at the wrecked limo. The ghosts had simply picked it up, and thrown it over. Now they were dragging the driver from his seat. If he wasn't already primed to be one of their number they were quick to put that right, their violence reducing his uniform to tatters and the body beneath it the same.

  He'd led the ghost-train away from the Hill to give himself space to plot his way into the house. He didn't want a repeat of the humiliation at the bar, with the guards bruising him then all hell breaking loose. When his father saw him in his new incarnation as the Death-Boy, he wanted to be in control. But that hope was fading fast. The longer he delayed his return the more unruly they became. They'd already demolished the Lutheran Prince of Peace Church, proving, as if any proof were needed, that stone was as ripe for undoing as flesh. A part of him, the part that hated Palomo Grove to its foundations, wanted to let them rampage. Let them level the whole town. But if he gave in to that urge he knew he'd lose power over them completely. Besides, somewhere in the Grove was the one human being he wanted to preserve from harm: Jo-Beth. Once loosed the storm would make no distinctions. Her life would be forfeit, along with every other.

  Knowing he had only a short time left before their impatience got the better of them, and they destroyed the Grove anyway, he drove to his mother's house. If Jo-Beth was in town, she'd be here; and if worst came to worst he'd snatch her, and take her back up to the Jaff, who would know how best to subdue the storm.

  Momma's h
ouse, like most of the houses in the street, indeed in the Grove, was in darkness. He parked and got out of the car. The storm, no longer content to tag along behind, came to meet him, buffeting him.

  "Back off," he told the gaping faces that flew in front of him. "You'll get what you want. Everything you want. But you leave this house, and everyone in it, alone. Understand me?"

  They sensed the force of his feelings. He heard their laughter, mocking such pitiful sensibilities. But he was still the Death-Boy. They owed him a dwindling devotion. The storm receded down the street a little way, and waited.

  He slammed the car door and went up to the house, glancing back down the street to be certain his army was not going to cheat him. It stayed at bay. He knocked at the door.

  "Momma?" he shouted. "It's Tommy-Ray, Momma. I got my key but I'm not coming in 'less you ask me. Can you hear me, Momma? Nothing to be afraid of. I'm not going to hurt you." He heard a sound on the other side of the door. "Is that you, Momma? Please answer me."

  "What do you want?"

  "Just let me see you, please. Let me see you."

  The door was unbolted, and opened. Momma was dressed in black, her hair unbraided. "I was praying," she said.

  "For me?" said Tommy-Ray.

  Momma didn't answer.

  "You weren't, were you?" he said.

  "You shouldn't have come back, Tommy-Ray."

  "This is home," he said. The sight of her hurt him more than he'd thought possible. After the revelations of the trip to the Mission (the dog and the woman), then events at the Mission and the horrors of his return trip, he'd thought himself beyond what he was feeling now: a choking sorrow.

  "I want to come in," he said, knowing even as he said it that there was no way back. The family bosom had never been a place he'd much wanted to lay his head. Jo-Beth's had. It was her his thoughts went to now. "Where is she?" he said. "Who?"

  "Jo-Beth?"

  "She's not here," Momma replied.

  "Where then?"

  "I don't know where."