Westlake, Donald E - Novel 50 (24 page)

 
          
The
east parlor by night, in the glow of its table lamps, was a warm and gentle
room, cozy and comforting and good. Now, on the table where Dr. Ovoid had
spread his samples, there stood a large Limoges plate bearing two parallel
white lines of powder. Jack bent over this table, his back to the doorway,
where Buddy stood watching him. One end of a straw was stuck into Jack's
nostril. His head moved from left to right across the plate, using the straw to
vacuum up one of the two lines. Then he turned and looked at Buddy, his
expression dulled, but with terror showing through.

 
          
Buddy
smiled, with his new face. "Go ahead, Dad,” he said, still sounding like
Buddy. "Get it on.”

 
          
Still
sounding like Buddy. But not looking like Buddy. Looking like
Jack.
The doctors in Brazil had taken
that similarity of feature and bone structure, had combined that with their own
high skills and techniques, and had turned Buddy into a new Jack.

 
          
A better Jack.
A healthier Jack, thinner
and trimmer.
A Jack who might have come into existence in the normal way,
except that the original had led his body down other avenues. But here he was,
as he might have been.

 
          
Jack
turned away from that cold-eyed other self. He inhaled the second line, and
behind him Buddy stepped further into the room. Jack remained bent over the
table, staring at the bare plate, trying to see himself in it, trying to see
the real self reflected in the plate, but seeing nothing.

 
          
Buddy's
old voice said, "You know what this means, don't you?"

 
          
Jack
tried a quick grin at the plate, but the feeling of it on his face was so
terrible he stopped at once. He said, "It means I'm temporarily
insane."

 
          
"It
means, Dad," Buddy said, "you're permanently retired.”

 
          
Slowly
Jack turned, losing his balance briefly, pressing his hand to the smooth warm
surface of the table. Fearfully he looked at Buddy—that face!—and said,
"Buddy, what have you done?"

 
          
"You
can
see
what I've done,” Buddy said,
gesturing at his new face. "The question is
,
what
am I going to do now? Can you guess?"

 
          
"No,”
Jack said.

 
          
"Sure
you can," Buddy told him, grinning Jack's famous crooked grin. "You
just don't want to. Because you know what I'm going to do is take your
place."

 
          
"You're
crazy!" Jack yelled. "You can't take my place! You can't possibly
take my place!"

 
          
Buddy
shook his—Jack's—head. "An eight-by-ten glossy photograph could come damn
near taking your place," he said, "the way you've been recently.
Don't worry about me making it work, Dad, this has been very carefully thought
out."

 
          
"You'll
never get away with it!" Jack cried. "People will know!”

 
          
"People?"
Buddy asked. "What people?"

 
          
"Irwin!
My agent, Irwin! You think you can fool
him?”

 
          
"He's
in on it," Buddy told him. "Your accountant, Sol, is in on it."

           
Appalled, Jack staggered back
against the table. “I don't believe you."

 
          
Buddy
was inexorable. "A whole lot of people make their living off you,
Dad," he said, "and you're putting all of our livelihoods at risk.
Something had to be done."

 
          
With
a mad laugh, breaking into falsetto, Jack cried, "You don't
sound
like me!"

 
          
Buddy
smiled—Jack's smile! When he spoke, his sound and intonations were very like
Jack's; not perfect, but a very good imitation, about on a par with a nightclub
mimic. "I've been seeing a voice coach," said this new manner.
"We aren't there yet, but we'll make it." With his own original
voice, Buddy added, "And just to make things easier, next month you're
going into Cedars of Lebanon for an adenoid operation. We've already made the
reservation. Don't
worry,
you'll be on the celeb
eighth floor." Reverting to the Jack imitation, he said, "Somehow,
your voice will never be exactly the same again. But you'll carry on. The
public will be proud of you."

 
          
"I
don't believe this," Jack said, staring at the pattern in the carpet.
"A conspiracy."

 
          
"Too
much money involved, Dad," the new face said in the new voice. "This
was the only solution."

 
          
"But—"
Jack squinted at Buddy as though that new face were a glaring searchlight,
difficult to look at. "What happens to
me?”
he demanded, trying to sound tough but with the terror peeking through.

 
          
"You
become a bigger star than ever," the Buddy/Jack said.

 
          
"No,
dammit," the original Jack cried, fear so distorting his face that he
looked less like himself. "You know what I mean!" Slapping his chest,
he cried, "Me!
This
me!"

 
          
Buddy/Jack
chuckled. "Dr. Ovoid has a nice sanitarium up the coast—"

 
          
“He’s
in it, too?
My
doctor?”

 
          
"He'll
make you feel good every day for the rest of your life," Buddy/Jack said.
"You won't mind at all. It's the way you want to live anyway."

           
“You—" Jack moved from side to
side, his feet shuffling on the intricately designed carpet. “You've taken
everything/' he said. “
My lighter, my money, my sweaters, my
car.
My
wives.”

 
          
“I
never did get into Lorraine," Buddy/Jack said, with a little grin. “My one
great regret."

 
          
“And
now," Jack said, moving, shuffling, staring, “now you want my
life”

 
          
His
true contempt showing through fully at last, Buddy/Jack said, “I'm a much
better you than you could ever be."

 
          
A
stink of truth in that statement twisted Jack's features, made him turn away,
stagger across the room, toward the broad white mantelpiece. But then he
changed, he found his equilibrium and his selfhood, he fought back. Spinning
around, triumphant, aggressive, he pointed at the poor mannequin, the
second-rate Buddy/ Jack, and shouted, “You don't have my
talentl”

 
          
Buddy/Jack's
Jack-mouth twisted in scorn.
“You
don't have your talent," he said, “not anymore. You haven't had it for
five years. You
used
to be an actor,
one of the best, but now you're just a star turn. You go in front of the
camera,
you do your Jack Pine number, all the little
schticks and tics, the shoulder movements and the grins, all those bits of
business you developed over the years to take the place of working on the
character. You do all that shit, and you come off.
That
I can do."

 
          
Oscar
stood on the mantle.
The golden statuette, the highest award
an actor can receive, the acknowledgement of excellence from his peers.
Jack spun about, grabbed up Oscar, held him like a flaming torch aloft, and
cried, “Then why do I have
this?”

 
          
Buddy/Jack
chuckled; a Jack schtick. “In honor of your farewell performance," he
said.

 
          
“Nooo!!"
Jack screamed, and rushed forward, Oscar
raised high above his head.

 
          
I
stare in horror at O'Connor, seeing those fragmentary memories, disbelieving
them. "I couldn't!" I cry. "Not with Oscar!"

 
          
O'Connor
reaches behind him and brings out an object. "Do you recognize this, Mr.
Pine?" he asked.

 
          
It
is Oscar. He is beaten and battered and bloodstained. His head is bent down
onto his chest as though he's dead.

 
          
And
now the memory comes clear: myself, manic, laughing, striking downward over and
over at that creature in the middle of the carpet. And I can hear myself
screaming,
“My
face? Not
my
face, you don't take
my
face!" And beating and beating
at that face which will never be me, never, never.

 
          
And stopping.
Panting, gleefully grinning, staring down at
him, saying,
“Now
you don't look like
me." And it is true. He doesn't look like me anymore. In fact, he doesn't
look much like anybody anymore.

 
          
"Oh,
God," I say now, in the sunlight, and cover my eyes, not wanting to see
poor Oscar there. "I killed him," I say.

 
          
"Yes,"
O'Connor said. "Buddy Pal is dead."

           
"Oh, him," I say,
distracted. "I meant Oscar." I look at O'Connor, trying not to see
poor Oscar. "But Buddy really is dead, isn't he?"

 
          
"Yes,"
O'Connor says. "And after you killed him
. .

 
          
M
anic, wired, Jack emerged quietly from
the main front door of the house and walked around toward the garage. When he
was almost there, a security man approached him out of the darkness, saying,
"Everything all right, Mr. Pine?"

 
          
Jack
screamed in surprise and shock, then recovered, gabbled a second, and at last
said, "What?
All right?
Of course everything's
all right. Naturally everything's all right. Why wouldn't everything be all
right?"

 
          
"No
reason, sir," the security man said.

 
          
"I'm
just going for a little drive, that's all," Jack said, straining to act,
to
perform,
naturalness and calm.
"Be off with you now," he said, as though casually. "Go on to
bed."

 
          
"I'm
supposed to patrol down here, Mr. Pine," the security man said.

 
          
"I
don't
want
you to patrol!" Jack
snapped at him. "I'm the boss around here, and if I don't want you to
patrol you don't patrol!"

 
          
"Yes,
sir," the security man said.

 
          
"I
don't
need
patrols!" Jack
yelled. "Not tonight! Look how nice everything is! It's the full moon!”

           
“Yes, sir,” the security man said.

 
          
“Go
to bed, or you’re fired!”

 
          
“Good
night, sir,” the security man said.

 
          
The
security man went away. Jack went on to the garage, opened the first door, went
inside, and a minute later backed out the Mercedes. Giggling at the wheel, he
backed the Mercedes in a great loop, off the drive and over the lawn and
through the roses and right up to the wall of the house, stopping directly in
front of an east parlor window, the rear bumper of the car just touching the
wall of the house.

 
          
Jack
climbed out from behind the wheel, went to the rear of the car,
opened
the trunk. Then he went around the car, slipping at
one point, falling to his knees, recovering, using the front of the car to
brace himself so he could stand again, then hurrying on.

 
          
He
went back through the front door, down the long hall, and into the east parlor,
where the
thing
lay on the floor,
drying blood in random blobs and lines disrupting the intricate pattern of the
carpet. Jack stepped over the
thing
and opened the window and looked out at the rear of the Mercedes, the open
trunk just below him. “Good,” he muttered, grinning.
“Still
there.
Good.”

 
          
He
went back to the
thing
on the floor,
grabbed it by the wrists,
dragged
it across the floor.
The mess in the room he could take care of tomorrow. Every other problem could
be taken care of tomorrow. There was only one thing that absolutely and
positively had to be dealt with tonight.

 
          
And
Jack knew how to deal with it.