“This—is—an—emergency,” he said. “My name is Croyd Crenson, and there is probably a file. Better find it. I get violent.”
She squawked again, leaped and departed, leaving two pinfeathers to drift in the air before him. He put out a hand and leaned upon her desk, then mopped his brow again. His gaze fell upon a half-filled coffee cup beside her newspaper. He picked it up and chugged it.
Moments later there came a clattering sound from the hallway beyond the desk. A blond, blue-eyed young man halted at the threshold and stared at him. He had on a green and white polo shirt, a stethoscope and a beach-boy smile. From the waist down he was a palomino pony, his tail beautifully braided. Madeleine appeared behind him and fluttered.
“He’s the one,” she told the centaur. “He said, ‘violent.’”
Still smiling, the quadripedal youth entered the room and extended his hand. “I’m Dr. Finn,” he said. “I’ve sent for your file, Mr. Crenson. Come on back to an examination room, and you can tell me what’s bothering you while we wait for it.”
Croyd took his hand and nodded.
“Any coffee back there?”
“I think so. We’ll get you a cup.”
* * *
Croyd paced the small room, swilling coffee, as Dr. Finn read over his case history, snorting on several occasions and at one point making a noise amazingly like a whinny.
“I didn’t realize you were the Sleeper,” he said finally, closing the file and looking at his patient. “Some of this material has made the textbooks.” He tapped the folder with a well-manicured finger.
“So I’ve heard,” Croyd replied.
“Obviously you have a problem you just can’t wait for your next cycle to clear up,” Dr. Finn observed. “What is it?”
Croyd managed a bleak smile. “It’s the matter of getting on with the crapshoot, of actually going to sleep.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I don’t know how much of this is in the file,” Croyd told him, “but I’ve a terrible fear of going to sleep—”
“Yes, there is something about your paranoia. Perhaps some counseling—”
Croyd punched a hole in the wall.
“It’s not paranoia,” he said, “not if the danger is real. I could die during my next hibernation. I could wake up as the most disgusting joker you can imagine, with a normal sleep-cycle. Then I’d be stuck that way. It’s only paranoia if the fear is groundless, isn’t it?”
“Well,” Dr. Finn said, “I suppose we could call it that if the fear is a really big thing, even if it is justified. I don’t know. I’m not a psychiatrist. But I also saw in the file that you tend to take amphetamines to keep from falling asleep for as long as you can. You must know that that’s going to add a big chemical boost to whatever paranoia is already present.”
Croyd was running his finger around the inside of the hole he had punched in the wall, rubbing away loose pieces of plaster.
“But of course a part of this is semantics,” Dr. Finn went on. “It doesn’t matter what we call it. Basically you’re afraid to go to sleep. This time, though, you feel that you should?”
Croyd began cracking his knuckles as he paced. Fascinated, Dr. Finn counted each cracking noise. When the seventh popping sound occurred, he began to wonder what Croyd would do when he was out of knuckles.
“Eight, nine, ten…” he subvocalized.
Croyd punched another hole in the wall.
“Uh, would you like some more coffee?” Dr. Finn asked him.
“Yes, about a gallon.”
Dr. Finn was gone, as if a starting gate had opened.
* * *
Later, not telling Croyd it was decaf he was guzzling, Dr. Finn continued, “I’m afraid to give you any more drugs on top of all the amphetamines you’ve taken.”
“I’ve made two promises,” Croyd said, “that I’d try sleeping this time, that I wouldn’t resist. But if you can’t knock me out fast, I’ll probably leave rather than put up with all this anxiety. If that happens, I know I’ll be back on bennies and dexes fast. So hit me with a narcotic. I’m willing to take my chances.”
Dr. Finn shook his mane. “I’d rather try something simpler and a lot safer first. What say we do a little brain wave entrainment and suggestion?”
“I’m not familiar with the procedure,” Croyd said.
“It’s not traumatic. The Russians have been experimenting it for years. I’ll just clip these little soft pads to yours,” he said, swabbing the lobes with something moist, “and we’ll pulse a low amp current through your head—say, four hertz. You won’t even feel it.”
He adjusted a control on the box from which the leads emerged.
“Now what?” Croyd asked.
“Close your eyes and rest for just a minure. You may notice a kind of drifting feeling.”
“Yeah.”
“But there’s heaviness, too, within it. Your arms are heavy and your legs are heavy.”
“They’re heavy,” Croyd acknowledged.
“It will be hard to think of anything in particular. Your mind will just go on drifting.”
“I’m drifting,” Croyd agreed.
“And it should feel very good. Probably better than you’ve felt all day, finally getting a chance to rest. Breathe slowly and let go in all the tight places. You’re almost there already. This is great.”
Croyd said something, but it was muttered, indistinguishable.
“You are doing very well. You’re quite good at this. Usually I count backward from ten. For you, though, we can start at eight, since you’re almost asleep already. Eight. You are far away and it feels fine. Nine. You are already asleep, but now you are going into it even more deeply. Ten. You will sleep soundly, without fear or pain. Sleep.”
Croyd began to snore.
There were no spare beds, but since Croyd had stiffened to mannequinlike rigidity before turning bright green, his respiration and heartbeat slowing to something between that of a hibernating bear and a dead one, Dr. Finn had had him placed, erect, at the rear of a broom closet, where he did not take up much space, and he drove a nail into the door and hung the chart on it, after having entered, “Patient extremely suggestible.”
W
hen Croyd awoke, he pushed aside mop handles, stepped into a bucket, and fell forward. The closet’s door offered small resistance to the wild, forward thrust of his hands. As it sprang open and he sprawled, the light stabbing painfully into his eyes, he began to recall the circumstances preceding his repose: the centaur-doctor—Finn—and that funny sleep-machine, yes… And another little death would mean another sleep-change.
Lying in the hallway, he counted his fingers. There were ten of them all right, but his skin was dead white. He shook off the bucket, climbed to his feet, and stumbled again. His left arm shot downward, touched the floor, and pushed against it. This impelled him to his feet and over backward. He executed an aerial somersault to his rear, landed on his feet, and toppled rearward again. His hands dropped toward the floor to catch himself, then he withdrew them without making contact and simply let himself fall. Years of experience had already given him a suspicion as to what new factor had entered his life-situation. His overcompensations were telling him something abour his reflexes.
When he rose again, his movements were very slow, but they grew more and more normal as he explored. By the time he located a washroom all traces of excessive speed or slowness had vanished. When he studied himself in the mirror, he discovered that, in addition to having grown taller and thinner, it was now a pink-eyed countenance that he regarded, a shock of white hair above the high, glacial brow. He massaged his temples, licked his lips, and shrugged. He was familiar with albinism. It was not the first time he had come up short in the pigment department.
He sought his mirrorshades then recalled that Demise had kicked them off. No matter. He’d pick up another pair along with some sun block. Perhaps he’d better dye the hair too, he decided. Less conspicuous that way.
Whatever, his stomach was signaling its emptiness in a frantic fashion. No time for paperwork, for checking out properly—if, indeed, he’d been checked in properly. He was not at all certain that was the case. Best simply to avoid everyone if he didn’t want to be delayed on the road to food. He could stop by and thank Finn another time.
Moving as Bentley had taught him long ago, all of his senses extended fully, he began his exit.
* * *
“Hi, Jube. One of each, as usual.”
Jube studied the tall, cadaverous figure before him, meeting diminished images of his own tusked, blubbery countenance in the mirrorshades that masked the man’s eyes.
“Croyd? That you, fella?”
“Yep. Just up and around. I crashed at Tachyon’s clinic this time.”
“That must be why I hadn’t heard any Croyd Crenson disaster stories lately. You actually went gentle into your last good night?”
Croyd nodded, studying headlines. “You might put it that way,” he said. “Unusual circumstances. Funny feeling. Hey! What’s this?” He raised a newspaper and studied it. “‘Bloodbath at Werewolf Clubhouse.’ What’s going on, a fucking gang war?”
“A fucking gang war,” Jube acknowledged.
“Damn! I’ve got to get back on the stick fast.”
“What stick?”
“Metaphorical stick,” Croyd replied. “If this is Friday, it must be Dead Nicholas.”
“You okay, boy?”
“No, but twenty or thirty thousand calories will be a step in the right direction.”
“Ought to take the edge off,” Jube agreed. “Hear who won the Miss Jokertown Beauty Pageant last week?”
“Who?” Croyd asked.
“Nobody.”
* * *
Croyd entered Club Dead Nicholas to the notes of an organ playing “Wolverine Blues.” The windows were draped in black, the tables were coffins, the waiters wore shrouds. The wall to the crematorium had been removed; it was now an open grill tended by demonic jokers. As Croyd moved into the lounge, he saw that the casket-tables were open beneath sheets of heavy glass; ghoulish figures—presumably of wax—were laid out within them in various states of unrest.
A lipless, noseless, earless joker as pale as himself approached Croyd immediately, laying a bony hand upon his arm.
“Pardon me, sir. May I see your membership card?” he asked.
Croyd handed him a fifty-dollar bill.
“Yes, of course,” said the grim waiter. “I’ll bring the card to your table. Along with a complimentary drink. I take it you will be dining here?”
“Yes. And I’ve heard you have some good card games.”
“Back room. It’s customary to get another player to introduce you.”
“Sure. Actually, I’m waiting for someone who should be stopping by this evening to play. Fellow name of Eye. Is he here yet?”
“No. Mr. Eye was eaten. Partly, that is. By an alligator. Last September. In the sewers. Sorry.”
“Ouch,” Croyd said. “I didn’t see him often. But when I did he usually had a little business for me.”
The waiter studied him. “What did you say your name was?”
“Whiteout.”
“I don’t want to know your business,” the man said. “But there is a fellow named Melt, who Eye used to hang around with. Maybe he can help you, maybe he can’t. You want to wait and talk to him, I’ll send him over when he comes in.”
“All right. I’ll eat while I’m waiting.”
Sipping his comp beer, waiting for a pair of steaks, Croyd withdrew a deck of Bicycle playing cards from his side pocket, shuffled it, dealt one facedown and another faceup beside it. The ten of diamonds faced him on the clear tabletop, above the agonized grimace of the fanged lady, a wooden stake through her heart, a few drops of red beside the grimace. Croyd turned over the hole card, which proved a seven of clubs. He flipped it back over, glanced about him, turned it again. Now it was a jack of spades keeping the ten company. The flicker-frequency-switch was a trick he’d practiced for laughs the last time his reflexes had been hyped-up. It had come back almost immediately when he’d tried to recall it, leading him to speculate as to what other actions lay buried in his prefrontal gyrus. Wing-flapping reflexes? Throat contractions for ultrasonic wails? Coordination patterns for extra appendages?
He shrugged and dealt himself poker hands just good enough to beat those he gave the staked lady till his food came.
Along about his third dessert the pallid waiter approached, escorting a tall, bald individual whose flesh seemed to flow like wax down a candlestick. His features were constantly distorted as tumorlike lumps passed beneath his skin.
“You told me, sir, that you wanted to meet Melt,” the waiter said.
Croyd rose and extended his hand.
“Call me Whiteout,” he said. “Have a seat. Let me buy you a drink.”
“If you’re selling something, forget it,” Melt told him.
Croyd shook his head as the waiter drifted away.
“I’ve heard they have good card games here, but I’ve got nobody to introduce me,” Croyd stated.
Melt narrowed his eyes.
“Oh, you play cards.”
Croyd smiled. “I sometimes get lucky.”
“Really? And you knew Eye?”
“Well enough to play cards with him.”
“That all?”
“You might check with Demise,” Croyd said. “We’re in a similar line of work. We’re both ex-accountants who moved on to bigger things. My name says it all.”
Melt glanced hastily about, then seated himself. “Let’s keep that kind of noise down, okay? You looking for work now?”
“Not really, not now. I just want to playa little cards.”
Melt licked his lips as a bulge ran down his left cheek, passed over his jawline, distended his neck.
“You got a lot of green to throw around?”
“Enough.”
“Okay, I’ll get you into the game,” Melt said. “I’d like to take some of it away from you.”
Croyd smiled, paid his check, and followed Melt into the back room, where the casket gaming table was closed and had a nonteflective surface. There were seven of them in the game to begin with, and three went broke before midnight. Croyd and Melt and Bug Pimp and Runner saw piles of cash grow and shrink before them till three in the A.M. Then Runner yawned, stretched, and turned out a small bottle of pills from an inside pocket.
“Anybody need something to keep awake?” he asked.
“I’ll stick with coffee,” Melt said.
“Gimme,” said Bug Pimp.