The Great and Secret Show

  There was no answer forthcoming from any of them. Maybe the only way to get an exodus going was to start it, Howie reasoned.

  "It's now or never," he said to Jo-Beth.

  There was still resistance, both in her expression and in her body. He had to take firm hold of her hand and lead her down towards the waves.

  "Trust me," he said.

  She didn't answer him, but nor did she fight to stay on the beach. A distressing docility had come over her, its only virtue, he thought, that maybe Quiddity would leave her alone this time. He was not so sure it would treat him with such indifference. He was by no means as detached from high emotion as he'd been on the outward journey. There were all kinds of feelings running rife in him, any or all of which Quiddity might want to make play with. Fear for their lives ranked highest, of course. Close after, the confusion of repugnance at Jo-Beth's condition and his guilt at that repugnance. But the message in the air was urgent enough to keep him moving down the beach in spite of such anxieties. It was almost a physical sensation now, which reminded him of some other time in his life, and of course of some other place; a memory he couldn't quite grasp. It didn't matter. The message was unambiguous. Whatever the Iad were, they brought pain: relentless, unendurable. A holocaust in which every property of death would be explored and celebrated but the virtue of cessation, which would be postponed until the Cosm was a single human sob for release. Somewhere he'd known a hint of this before, in a little corner of Chicago. Perhaps his mind was doing him service, refusing to remember where.

  The waves were a yard ahead, rising in slow arcs and booming as they broke.

  "This is it," he said to Jo-Beth.

  Her only response—one he was mightily grateful for— was to tighten her hold on his hand, and together they stepped back into the transforming sea.

  IV

  THE door of the Nguyen house was answered to Grillo, not by Ellen, but by her son.

  "Is your mom in?" he asked.

  The boy still looked far from well, though he was no longer dressed for bed, but in grubby jeans and a grubbier T-shirt.

  "I thought you'd gone away," he said to Grillo.

  "Why?"

  "Everybody else has."

  "That's right."

  "You want to come in?"

  "I'd like to see your mom."

  "She's busy," Philip said, but opened the door anyway. The house was even more of a shambles than it had been before, the remains of several ad hoc meals spread around. The creations of a child gourmet, Grillo guessed: hot dogs and ice cream.

  "Where is your mom?" Grillo asked Philip.

  He pointed in the direction of the bedroom, picked up a plate of half-devoured food, and wandered away.

  "Wait," Grillo said. "Is she ill?"

  "Nope," said the boy. He looked as though he hadn't slept a full eight hours in weeks, Grillo thought. "She doesn't come out any more," he went on. "Except at night."

  He waited for Grillo to answer with a nod, then headed to his room, having supplied all the information he felt obliged to offer. Grillo heard the boy's door close, leaving him to ponder the problem alone. Recent events hadn't given him much time for erotic daydreams, but the hours he'd spent here, in the very room where Ellen had holed herself up, exercised a strong hold on his mind and groin. Despite the hour of the morning, his general fatigue, and the desperation of circumstances in the Grove, a part of him wanted to conclude the business left unfinished last time: to make proper love to Ellen just once before he took the trip underground.

  He crossed to Ellen's door, and knocked on it. The only sound from inside was a moan.

  "It's me," he said. "Grillo. Can I come in?"

  Without waiting for a reply he turned the handle. The door was not locked—it opened half an inch—but something prevented it from opening further. He pushed a little harder, and harder still. A chair, wedged under the handle on the far side, slid noisily to the floor. Grillo opened the door.

  At first he thought she was alone in the room. Sick, and alone. She lay on an unmade bed in her dressing gown, which was untied, and spread open. Beneath, she was naked. Only very slowly did she turn her face in his direction, and when she did—her eyes gleaming in the stale murk—it took her several seconds to rouse any reply to his appearance.

  "Is it really you?" she said.

  "Of course. Yes. Who else—?"

  She sat up a little way on the bed, and pulled the bottom of the gown across her body. She hadn't shaved since he'd been here, he saw. Indeed he doubted she had been out of the room very much. It smelled of prolonged occupation.

  "You shouldn't . . . see," she said.

  "I've seen you naked before," he murmured. "I wanted to see again."

  "I don't mean me," she replied.

  He didn't understand her remark until her eyes fell away from him and went to the furthest corner of the room. His gaze went with hers. At their destination, deep in the shadows, was a chair. In the chair was what he'd taken, on entering the room, to be a heap of clothes. It was not. The paleness wasn't linen but bare skin, the folds those of a man sitting naked in the chair, his body bent almost double, so that his forehead rested on his clasped hands. They were tied together at the wrists. The cord that bound them went on down to his ankles, which it also bound together.

  "This," Ellen said softly, "is Buddy."

  At the sound of his name the man raised his head. Grillo hadn't seen more than the last remnants of Fletcher's army, but it had been enough to recognize the look they'd had when their half-life began to run out. He saw that look now. This was not the real Buddy Vance, but a figment of Ellen's imagination, something her desires had summoned and shaped. The face was still very much intact: perhaps she'd imagined that with more precision than the rest of his anatomy. It was deeply lined—almost plowed—but undeniably charismatic. When he sat completely upright the second most detailed part of him came into view. Tesla's gossip had, as ever, been reliable. The hallucigenia was hung like a donkey. Grillo stared, only to be shaken from his envy when the man spoke.

  "Who are you to come in here?" he said.

  The fact that this artifact had sufficient self-will to speak shocked him.

  "Hush," Ellen told him.

  The man looked across at her, struggling against his bonds.

  "He wanted to leave last night," she told Grillo. "I don't know why."

  Grillo did, but said nothing.

  "I wouldn't let him, of course. He likes to be kept this way. We used to play this game a lot."

  "Who is this?" Vance said.

  "Grillo," Ellen replied. "I told you about Grillo." She pulled herself up on the bed, until her back was against the wall, her arms resting on her raised knees. She was presenting her cunt to Vance's gaze. He ogled it, gratefully, while she continued to speak. "I told you about Grillo," she said. "We made love, didn't we, Grillo?"

  "Why?" Vance said. "Why are you punishing me?"

  "Tell him, Grillo," Ellen said. "He wants to know."

  "Yes," Vance said, his tone suddenly tentative. "Tell me. Please tell me."

  Grillo didn't know whether to throw up or laugh. He thought the last scene he'd played out in this room had been perverse enough, but this was something else again. A dream of a dead man in bondage, begging to be castigated with a report of sex with his mistress.

  "Tell him," Ellen said again.

  The strange undertow in her demand gave Grillo voice.

  "This isn't the real Vance," he said, taking pleasure in the idea of stripping her of this dream. But she was there ahead of him.

  "I know that," she said, letting her head loll as she regarded her prisoner. "He's out of my mind." She kept staring at him. "And so am I."

  "No," Grillo said.

  "He's dead," she replied softly. "He's dead but he's still here. I know he isn't real but he's here. So I must be mad."

  "No, Ellen . . . this is just because of what happened at the Mall. You remember? The burning man? You're not the only
one."

  She nodded, her eyes half closing.

  "Philip . . ." she said.

  "What about him?"

  "He had dreams too."

  Grillo thought of the boy's face again. The pinched look; the loss in his eyes.

  "So if you know this . . . man isn't real, why the games?" he said.

  She let her eyes close completely.

  "I don't know . . ." she began, ". . . what's real or not any more." There was a sentiment that struck a chord, Grillo thought. "When he appeared I knew he wasn't here the way he used to be here. But maybe that doesn't matter."

  Grillo listened, not wanting to break Ellen's train of thought. He'd seen so much that confounded him of late— miracles and mysteries—and in his ambition to be a witness to these sights he'd held himself at a distance. Paradoxically, that made the telling of the story a problem. And it was his problem too. He was eternally the observer, keeping feelings at bay for fear they touched him too deeply and so drowned out his hard-earned disinterestedness. Was that why what had happened on this bed held such sway over his imagination? To be disconnected from the essential act; become a function of somebody else's desire, somebody else's heat and intention? Did he envy that more than Buddy Vance's twelve inches?

  "He was a great lover, Grillo," Ellen was saying. "Especially when he's burning up, because somebody else is where he wants to be. Rochelle didn't like to play that game."

  "Didn't see the joke," Vance said, his eyes still on what was out of sight to Grillo. "She never—"

  "My God!" Grillo said, suddenly realizing. "He was here, wasn't he? He was here when you and I . . ." The thought took the words away. All he could manage was ". . . outside the door."

  "I didn't know at the time," Ellen said softly. "It wasn't planned that way."

  "Christ!" Grillo said. "It was all a performance for him. You set me up. You set me up to get your fantasy heated up."

  "Maybe . . . I had a suspicion," she conceded. "Why are you so angry?"

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  "No, it isn't," she said, her tone all reason. "You don't love me. You don't even know me, or you wouldn't be so shocked. You just wanted something from me, and you got it."

  Her account was accurate; and hurt. It made Grillo mean.

  "You know this thing's not here forever," he said, jabbing his thumb at Ellen's prisoner; or more correctly, at the truncheon.

  "I know," she said, her tone betraying some little sadness at this fact. "But none of us are, right? Even you."

  Grillo stared at her, willing her to look around at him; see his pain. But she only had eyes for the fabrication. He gave up on the possibility, and delivered the message he'd come here with.

  "I advise you to leave the Grove," he said. "Take Philip and leave."

  "Why's that?" she said.

  "Just trust me. There's a good chance the Grove won't even be standing tomorrow."

  Now she deigned to look around at him.

  "I understand," she said. "Close the door, will you, when you leave?"

  "Grillo." It was Tesla who opened the door to Hotchkiss's house. "You meet some damn weird people."

  He'd never thought of Hotchkiss as weird. A man in mourning, yes. An occasional drunkard; who wasn't? But he wasn't prepared for the level of the man's obsession.

  At the back of the house was a room given over entirely to the subject of the Grove and the ground it was built on. Geological maps covered the walls, along with photographs, taken over a period of years, and neatly dated, of cracks in the streets and sidewalks. Tacked up alongside were newspaper cuttings. Their single subject: earthquakes.

  The obsessive himself sat unshaven in the midst of this information with a cup of coffee in his hand and a look of weary satisfaction on his face.

  "Didn't I say?" were his first words to Grillo. "Didn't I tell you? The real story's beneath our feet. Always was."

  "You want to do it?" Grillo asked him.

  "What? The climb? Sure." He shrugged. "What the fuck? It'll kill us all, but what the fuck? The question is: do you want to do it?"

  "Not much," Grillo said. "But I've got a vested interest. I want the whole story."

  "Hotchkiss has got an extra angle you don't know about," Tesla said.

  "What's that?"

  "Any more coffee?" Hotchkiss asked Witt. "I need to sober up."

  Witt dutifully went off to get refills.

  "Never liked that man," Hotchkiss remarked.

  "What was he, the town flasher?" Tesla said.

  "Shit, no. He was Mr. Clean. Everything I used to despise about the Grove."

  "He's coming back," Grillo said.

  "So what?" Hotchkiss went on, as Witt stepped into the room. "He knows. Don't you, William?"

  "Know what?" Witt said.

  "What a shithead you were."

  Witt took the insult without a flicker.

  "Never much liked me, right?"

  "Right."

  "And I never much liked you," Witt replied. "For what it's worth."

  Hotchkiss smiled. "Glad we got that sorted out," he said.

  "I want to know about this angle, " Grillo said.

  "Simple really," Hotchkiss said. "I got a call in the middle of the night, from New York. A guy I hired when my wife left, to find her. Or try at least. His name's D'Amour. He specializes—I guess—in supernatural stuff."

  "Why'd you hire him?"

  "My wife got involved with some very peculiar people after our daughter's death. She never really accepted that Carolyn was gone from us. She tried contacting her through spiritualists. Eventually joined a spiritualist church. Then she ran off."

  "Why look for her in New York?" Grillo asked.

  "She was born there. It seemed the likeliest place for her to go."

  "And did D'Amour find her?"

  "No. But he dug up a whole bunch of stuff about the church she'd joined. I mean . . . this guy knew what he was doing."

  "So why did he call you?"

  "He's coming to that," said Tesla.

  "I don't know who D'Amour's contacts are, but the call was a warning."

  "About what?"

  "About what's happening here in the Grove."

  "He knew?"

  "Oh he knew all right."

  "I think that maybe I should talk to him," Tesla said. "What time's it in New York?"

  "Just after noon," said Witt.

  "You two make whatever arrangements you need to make about the climb," she said. "Where's D'Amour's number?"

  "Here," Hotchkiss said, passing a pad over to Tesla. She pulled off the top sheet, with the digits and the name (Harry M. D'Amour, Hotchkiss had written) scrawled on it, and left the men to their deliberations. There was a phone in the kitchen. She sat down, and dialled the eleven numbers. It rang at the other end. An answering machine picked up.

  "There's nobody here to take your call at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep."

  She started to do so. "This is a friend of Jim Hotchkiss, in Palomo Grove. My name's—"

  A voice broke into her message.

  "Hotchkiss has friends?" it said.

  "Is this Harry D'Amour?"

  "Yeah. Who's this?"

  "Tesla Bombeck. And yeah, he does have friends."

  "Every day you learn something. What can I do for you?"

  "I'm calling from Palomo Grove. Hotchkiss says you know what's going on here."

  "I've got some idea, yeah."

  "How?"

  "I've got friends," D'Amour said. "People plugged in. They've been saying for months something was going to break out on the West Coast, so nobody's that surprised. Saying a lot of prayers, but not surprised. What about you? Are you one of the few?"

  "You mean psychic? No."

  "So what have you got to do with all this?"

  "It's a long story."

  "So cut to the chase," said D'Amour. "That's a movie expression."

  "I know," Tesla said. "I work in movies."

  "Oh
yeah. What as?"

  "I write them."

  "You written anything I'd know? I see a lot of movies. Keeps my mind off my work."

  "Maybe we'll meet sometime," Tesla said. "Talk about movies. Meanwhile, I need your take on a few things."

  "Like what?"

  "Well, for one: have you ever heard of the Iad Uroboros?"

  There was a long, long-distance silence.

  "D'Amour? Are you still there? D'Amour?"

  "Harry," he said.

  "Harry. So . . . have you heard of them or not?"

  "As it happens, yes."

  "Who from?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "As it happens, yes," Tesla returned. "There's sources and sources. You know that. People you trust and those you don't."

  "I work with a woman called Norma Paine," D'Amour said. "She's one of the people I was talking about before. She's plugged in."

  "What does she know about the Iad ?"

  "First," D'Amour said. "Around dawn something happened on the East Coast, in dreamland. Do you know why?"

  "I've got a good idea."

  "Norma keeps talking about a place called Oddity."

  "Quiddity," Tesla corrected him.

  "So you do know."

  "No need for the trick questions. Yes, I know. And I need to hear what she has to say about the Iad ."

  "That they're the things about to break out. She's not sure where. She gets mixed messages."

  "Do they have any weaknesses?" Tesla said.

  "Not from what I hear."

  "Just how much do you know about them? I mean, what will an Iad invasion be like? Are they going to bring an army through from Quiddity? Are we going to see machines, bombs, what? Shouldn't somebody be trying to tell the Pentagon?"

  "The Pentagon already knows," D'Amour said.

  "It does?"

  "We're not the only people who've heard of the Iad , lady. People all over the world have got images of it built into their culture. They're the enemy. "

  "You mean like the Devil? Is that what's coming through? Satan?"

  "I doubt it. I think we Christians have always been a little naive," D'Amour said. "I've met demons, and they never look the way you think they're going to look."

  "Are you kidding me? Demons? In the flesh? In New York?"