Authors: Ian R. MacLeod
Otto!
It was Otto Frings from the paper thin roominghouse wall next to Peg’s. Otto, with his banging broom. Otto, who Clark had found that time staring up at Peg’s lit window. Otto, who Bogey had told him he last remembered seeing with his face covered in bandages. Otto, who was another of Hilly Feinstein’s clients. Otto, who for all his classical training, hadn’t had work in years. Only he had. He’d got the plumiest of all plum roles. He’d got to play Lars Bechmeir.
“It’s me, Otto! It’s Clark Gable—remember? Remember Hilly, remember Peg? Remember…“ But what the hell was there to remember? They’d never been close. “Thrasis. Remember fucking Thrasis, Otto. And all the people who’ve died—”
The muscles must have thought they’d got him decently subdued, for they were surprisingly slow in reacting. But now they did. Now another well-placed fist knocked out what was left of his breath, but Otto was still staring back at Clark as he was dragged from view. Clark’s last glimpse was of naked eyes wide in surprise and a weak mouth—for all the things which had changed about him, that hadn’t—shaping the word
Thrasis
.
Clark was hauled on. Through another set of doors and across grubbier, shiner halls filled with the nearby sounds of kitchens, then out down a tumble of steps and into the night where stars reeled and the air stank of garbage. He waited for the next hit to come, but it didn’t, even though at least two of the muscles were still holding him. Meanwhile, another was rooting around amid the garbage cans and dumpsters as if he’d lost something. He drew out a yard length of iron reinforcing bar, thwacked it against his palm, then smashed it hard enough to put a big dent in the side of a garbage can. Everything went quieter than in the NBC studio. No one even seemed to be breathing. This, Clark realized, wasn’t some standard beating up. These guys were going to kill him. He supposed it had to end somehow, and somewhere. But he’d hoped for better than this.
Hefting the bar like Babe Ruth, the muscle took a few steps forward, settled his stance and began to swing.
“Hey, hey, fellas…” A voice came out of the darkness. It was followed by a plumply uniformed shape. “I know you got jobs to do, but I got things here need doing as well. Like making sure, fer instance, that no one gets murdered on my beat. ’Til I clock off, leastways…” Officer Doyle hooked his thumbs into his gunbelt. “You get my drift?”
Clark was dropped on concrete. The iron bar was tossed with a clang. The muscles were already moving away.
“I
GUESS I COULD ARREST YOU
—if you really want me to, I will, right?—and I guess I could have left you to those thugs. But I’ve been getting this feeling that something ain’t right in the time since we took you to City Hall to identify the body of the woman you said was your wife. An’ I’m getting that same feeling even more tonight.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Say?” Officer Doyle chuckled. He was helping Clark along a corridor back inside the Biltmore. “Not sure I want you to say anything. In fact, make that a definite, ’cos I’ve got a pretty strong feeling that whatever you tell me ain’t going to be what I want to hear. Few things I could tell
you
, though—watch that blood from your nose, pal, you’re dripping, an’ I’m sorry they trod on your glasses. Like we’ve just had a guy taken to hospital from that fire who swears his name’s Daniel Lamotte, and he has no idea about his wife dying. Doesn’t look much like you, either, and when I turn on NBC, they say this Daniel Lamotte’s about to be interviewed live over here at the Biltmore by Wallis Beekins. Oh, and did I mention what
else
we found at that old studio lot? But you were
there
, weren’t you? I’m sure I saw you and what looked like a broad from that cockroach academy scuttling off in a stolen taxi.”
“It wasn’t stolen. It was—”
“Just shut the fuck up, will you? There are times as a cop when you really don’t want to know. Like when you shine a flashlight on some whore in a car and find it’s your precinct major with this pants around his ankles, or there’s a really bad smell in a private dick’s office that someone’s only just gotten around to noticing. Life’s full of stones best left unturned, and I reckon this is one of them. Watch those steps. Real shame about the front of that nice shirt. There’s more steps now. Upsadaisy…” They were climbing the Biltmore’s service stairs. “So here I am as sole potential arresting officer, and the thought of all that paperwork just makes my head ache. There are at least a couple of people dead and several others in a bad way, and here we all are, right in the middle of vote-for-me-I’m-famous, and those thugs out there were fixing to do you something nasty, and the police RT’s going mad, and I can’t believe this is all coincidence.”
Clark was feeling steadier on his feet now. People were clustered ahead of them beyond a half-parted curtain. They glanced back at Clark and Officer Doyle, then quickly returned their gaze down from the balcony on which they were standing. They were all hotel staff, and none of them were white, and Clark guessed they should all have been working. From here, though, there was a fine view right down across the Biltmore Bowl. “So…” Officer Doyle murmured as they shuffled to find a space.
“Why don’t we just settle back and see what happens next?”
O
NE OF THOSE NIGHTS.
One of those
Were You There?
moments. The commotion caused by the arrival of a figure in a wheelchair went beyond applause. He looked so frail captured in that spotlight, yet so unmistakably
here
. The shock would have been less if Christ had arrived, or the Lindberg baby, or Father Christmas. Then everyone down in the Biltmore Bowl—apart, obviously, from Lars Bechmeir—stood up and put a hand across their hearts as the band played
God Bless America
. It was a spine-tingling moment, and most of the servants up on the balcony with Clark and Officer Doyle joined in as well, even though Irving Berlin was a Hebe and now lived in Canada. Images were thrown on a silver screen of golden America prairies, snow-white American mountains and white American families. As the audience subsided, a fresh spotlight chased teasingly over them to settle on Herbert Kisberg.
He was seated at one of the regular tables just like everyone else, but now he stood up, and once again the audience erupted at the sight of that blonde hair and Rushmore jaw. Herbert Kisberg waved, smiled. Herbert Kisberg touched his bow-tie and parting as if either might need straightening. He was pulling back his seat now, crossing the floor toward that other spotlit figure as the rest of the great space fell murmurosly dark. Then the spotlights merged, and there were happy gasps, for here they were, together—the genius who had discovered the Bechmeir field, and the kingly man who would soon be president. Kisberg was even standing, Clark noticed, in such a way that all the shots and the newsreels would clearly show the Liberty League flag which had been unfurled across the wall behind them. Something Penny Losovic had said about the futility of what he and Barbara had tried to do came back to him. What could it ever have amounted to? A few garbled words? Some smudged print on cheap newspaper? Kisberg seemed to be made of bronze or gold. He already looked like the statue which would surely be put up to him at the Washington Mall by a grateful nation twenty years on.
If Herbert Kisberg seemed a solid presence, Lars Bechmeir, slumped in that wheelchair with owlish glasses reapplied, looked so frail that you feared some final extra surge of light, noise or attention might blow him away. It looked as if it had already been too much for him, and he’d have to retire soon. But then something happened. Lars Bechmeir began to move. First, to raise his own trembling hand to touch the princely one Kisberg had laid upon his shoulder, and then to mutter something which caused Kisberg to furrow his brow. Then, both Lars Bechmeir’s hands settled on the arms of his wheelchair and made a series of straining motions which all the onlookers eventually understood to mean that he was attempting to stand.
A rush of puzzlement. But no, Lars Bechmeir was already half out of his seat and in danger of falling forward until one of the nurses who’d been hovering in the background like big-titted angels stepped up. A puzzled tableau followed amid gasps and shouts of encouragement, until Herbert Kisberg really had no option but to grab Lars Bechmeir firmly across the shoulders and help him the rest of the way to his feet.
The famous pair stood there, teetering, and the fate of the evening seemed to teeter with them. Was this just some antique spasm, or did the old man actually know what he was doing? Then, as Lars Bechmeir shuffled sideways and around, and it became apparent that, yes, the guy could move to some degree, the purpose of his efforts became clear. He wanted to get onstage.
Applause clattered like rain through the long moment that Herbert Kisberg helped Lars Bechmeir walk. Each rise in the steps to the stage was a struggle, and Bechmeir seemed to falter more when he reached the apron in front of the Fred Waring Orchestra beneath a Liberty League emblem. But there was a sense of determination as well. The will of the audience, and of everyone listening to Wallis Beekins’ soon-to-befamous, breathless commentary across the nation, and even the pull of the twinned spotlights, seemed to draw the old man on. The journey toward the central microphone was a drama in itself, and those who watched it on the newsreels after would often comment that you still wondered if he was going to make it.
He did. Lars Bechmeir stood, still half-supported by Herbert Kisberg, and with a microphone stand before him. He gripped hold of it with one hand, then gave a series of odd, shivery gestures with his free arm. Unmistakably, he was pushing his helper away, and Herbert Kisberg stepped back and the spotlight which was on him blinked out, leaving Lars Bechmeir standing alone.
The old man fumbled his glasses from his ears with what looked like impatience, or even anger. They clattered and bounced when he cast them across the boards. There was something sharper, and somehow redefined, about the gaze which now swept the crowd.
“I’m not…” He began. The microphone wobbled. He cleared his throat and gripped it tighter. “I’m not standing here to say the things you expect to hear. Nor am I the man you imagine me to be…”
A
PRIL LAMOTTE’S FUNERAL TOOK PLACE
a week later after the coroners had finished their second autopsy looking for signs of intravenously administered relaxant. Even though he wasn’t expecting a welcome Clark felt he should attend. He arrived early, and parked his rattly old Ford at the furthest end of Forest Lawns’ main car lot.
He lit a roll-up and took in the view, still relishing the sense of being within his own clothes, his own skin. With its trim pines, lozenge lakes and winding paths, this place was more like an upscale golf course than a cemetery. He wandered past the gift store and the Hall of Resurrection and the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather—a faithful reproduction of a village church in Glencain, Scotland, apparently. A scattering of confetti on the steps indicated how the Forest Lawns experience could also include weddings, along with a whole variety of other personal and corporate occasions.
More intriguing still was Forest Lawns’ latest feature, the Chapel of Eternity. Appropriately enough amid the graves of so many lost or forgotten greats, this strange mausoleum was designed to look like a state-of-the art feelie palace from the outside. All curves and swerves; the prow of the future pushing into the present. Inside the soundlessly revolving doors, the light was watery green. Beyond the postcard stands and receptionist’s desk and a rack of telephones that gave you a commentary, the air hissed and churned before a set of six huge Egyptian Baroque chapels enclosing six equally enormous wraiths.
You didn’t need to lift one of the telephones or read the pamphlets about payment plans on easy terms and home-visit pre-passing consultations to understand that this was the ultimate memorial for the modern deceased. A recording of your beloved’s aura would be played monthly, or weekly, or even by the hour, depending upon the kind of personalized portfolio which had been purchased. The atmosphere—at least, until you stepped within the transmission range of one of the field generators, was midways between a Buddhist temple and an ultramodern rail station. Every ten of so minutes, a large gong, presumably specially coated with antique verdigris, would solemnly clang, and the flip displays beneath a stained glass oriel would whisper up a changed set of names. This, in turn, would cause a quiet commotion amongst the dozens of other people—what
were
they? onlookers? mourners? celebrants?—with whom Clark was sharing this colossal space. They would then shuffle off to stand in smaller groups, or bow, or kneel, or even prostrate themselves, before their chosen altar.
After hanging back for a while, Clark finally wandered toward the chapel which was currently commemorating a Robin James Calhoon, whose aura no one else currently seemed to be interested in bathing in. There was a heady smell of bouquets, and the plinth which housed the electrics would have made a mausoleum in its own right. The swanneck which emerged from it in frolics of gilded cherubs rose to something approaching the height of a house, and the wraith which floated between the two charged plates dwarfed the muse he’d stood before that first morning he’d gone to Erewhon. Even if he hadn’t been a giant of a man, Mr Calhoon made a giant of an aura. Ill-tempered, as well. Vague flares of angry red and impatient orange shot through the coronal sheath. Clark was far more intimately touched by the guy’s presence than if they’d been sat on nearby barstools, and he had to smile to think of some grumpy businessman in a hot tweed jacket standing in front of an iconoscope with the same lets-get-this-done-and-move-on attitude he’d have displayed at family gatherings, or in the boardroom. Clark was standing, he knew, before the most awesome technological achievement of his time, but once more the whole business seemed tawdry.
They were still repeating the guy who everyone now knew wasn’t really
Lars Bechmeir’s speech on the radio like it was one of those new doo-wop songs. Only went for six minutes, and that was if you counted the many pauses and stumbles, but that was just fine, because it fitted nicely in between breaks for commercials.