There was the heavy underwater breathing like someone drowning in his own terrible flesh.
“Tonight,”the voice faded. “Seven o’clock. You know where?”
I nodded. Stupid! I nodded!
“Well …”drawled the lost deep voice, “it’s been a long time, a long way … around … so …”The voice mourned. “Before I quit forever, we must, oh we must … talk …. ”
The voice sucked air and was gone.
I sat gripping the phone, eyes tight.
“What the hell was that?” said Crumley, behind me.
“I didn’t call him,” I felt my mouth move. “He called me!”
“Gimme that!”
Crumley dialed.
“About that sick leave …” he said.
70
The studio was shut stone-cold, stripped down dark and dead.
For the first time in thirty-five years, there was only one guard at the gate. There were no lights in any of the buildings. There were only a few lonely lights at the alley intersections leading toward Notre Dame, if it was still there, past Calvary, which was gone forever, and leading toward the graveyard wall.
Dear Jesus, I thought, my two cities. But now, both dark, both cold, no difference between. Side by side, twin cities, one ruled by grass and cold marble, the other, here, run by a man as dark, as ruthless, as scornful as Death himself. Holding dominion over mayors and sheriffs, police and their night dogs, and telephone networks to the banking East.
I would be the only warm and moving thing on my way, afraid, from one city of the dead to the other.
I touched the gate.
“For God’s sake,” said Crumley, behind me, “don’t!”
“I’ve got to,” I said. “Now the Beast knows where everyone is. He could come smash your place, or Constance’s, or Henry’s. Now, I don’t think he will. Someone’s made the final trackdown for him. And there’s no way to stop him, is there? No proof. No law to arrest. No court to listen. And no jail to accept. But I don’t want to be trashed in the street, or hammered in my bed. God, Crumley, I’d hate the waiting and waiting. And anyway, you should have heard his voice. I don’t think he’s going anywhere except dead. Something awful has caught up with him and he needs to talk.”
“Talk!” Crumley shouted. “Like: hold still while I bash you!?”
“Talk,” I said.
I stood inside the gate, staring at the long street ahead.
The Stations of the Cross:
The wall I had run from on All Hallows Eve.
Green Town, where Roy and I had truly lived.
Stage 13, where the Beast was modeled and destroyed.
The carpenters’ shop, where the coffin was hid to be burned.
Maggie Botwin’s, where Arbuthnot’s shadows touched the wall.
The commissary, where the cinema apostles broke stale bread and drank J. C.’s wine.
Calvary Hill, vanished, and the stars wheeling over, and Christ long since gone to a second tomb, and no possible miracle of fish.