The Great And Secret Show Part 35

"Nope. I never dream now."

"Everybody dreams."

"Then I don't allow myself to remember them," Hotchkiss said. "So...are you with me?"

"With you on what?"

"The descent."

"You really want to do it? I thought it was virtually impossible to get down there."

"So, we die trying," Hotchkiss said.

"I've got a story to write."

"Let me tell you, my friend," Hotchkiss said. "That's where the story is. The only story. Right beneath our feet."

"I should warn you...I'm claustrophobic."

"We'll soon sweat that out of you," Hotchkiss replied, with a smile Grillo thought might have been a jot more rea.s.suring.

II.

Though Howie had valiantly fought off sleep through most of the afternoon, by early evening he could barely keep his eyes open. When he told Jo-Beth he wanted to return to the hotel Momma intervened, telling him she'd feel much comforted if he remained in the house. She made up the spare room (he'd spent the previous night on the sofa) and he retired to it. His body had taken a considerable beating in the last few days. His hand was still badly bruised, and his back, though the punctures- inflicted by the terata were not deep, still ached. None of which kept him from sleep for more than a few moments.

Jo-Beth prepared food for Momma-salad for Momma, as ever-and herself, going through the familiar domestic processes as though nothing in the world had changed since a week ago, and for short s.p.a.ces of time, involved in her labors, forgetting the horrors. Then a look on her mother's face, or the sight of the s.h.i.+ny new lock on the back door, brought the memories back. She could no longer put them into any kind of order: there was just humiliation and pain upon further humiliation and further pain. Leering through it all the Jaff; near to her, too near to her, coming so close on occasion to persuading her to his vision the way he'd persuaded Tommy-Ray. Of all her fears the one that distressed her the most was that she might actually have been capable of joining the enemy. When he'd explained to her how he wanted reasons rather than feelings, she'd understood. Even been moved to sympathy. And that teasing talk of the Art, and the island he wanted to show her...

"Jo-Beth?"

"Momma?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Of course. Yes."

"What were you thinking of? The expression on your face..."

"Just...about last night."

"You should put it out of your head."

"Maybe I'll drive over to see Lois; talk with her for a while? Would you mind?"

"No. I'll be fine here. Howard's with me."

"Then I'll go."

Of all her friends in the Grove none represented the normality from which her life had departed as perfectly as Lois. For all her moral strictures she had a strong and simple faith in what was good. In essence, she wanted the world a peaceful place, where children raised in love could in their turn raise children. She knew evil too. It was any force mounted against that vision. The terrorist, the anarchist, the lunatic. Now Jo-Beth knew that such human forces had allies on a more rarefied plane of being. One of those was her father. It was never more important that she sought the company of those whose definition of good was unshakable.

She heard noise and laughter from Lois's house as she got out of the car; which was welcome after the hours of fear and unease she'd spent. She knocked on the door. The raucousness continued unabated. It sounded to be quite a crowd.

"Lois? " she called, but such was the level of hilarity from within both calls and knocks went unheard, so she rapped on the window, again calling. The drapes were drawn aside and Lois's quizzical face appeared, mouthing Jo-Beth's name. The room behind her was full of people. She was at the door ten seconds later, with an expression on her face so unusual Jo-Beth almost failed to recognize her: a smile of welcome. Behind her every light in the house seemed to be burning; a dazzling wash of light that spilled on to the step.

"Surprise," said Lois.

"Yes, I just thought I'd call round. But you've...got company."

"Sort of," Lois replied. "It's a little difficult just at the moment."

She cast a glance back into the house. It seemed to be a costume party she was flinging. A man dressed in a full cowboy outfit sauntered up the stairs, spurs glinting, past another in full military garb. Crossing the hall, arm in arm with a woman in black, was a guest who'd come as a surgeon, of all things, his face masked. That Lois should have planned such a jamboree without mentioning it to Jo-Beth was odd enough; Lord knows they had spare time enough at the store to chat. But that she was throwing it at all-staid, reliable Lois-was doubly odd.

"I don't suppose it matters," Lois was saying. "You're a friend after all. You should be a part of it, right?"

A part of what was the question on Jo-Beth's lips, but she had no time to ask it before she was drawn inside by Lois, who took her arm with proprietorial force, and the door was shut hard behind her.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Lois said. She was positively glowing. "Have you had the people come to see you?"

"People."

"The Visitors."

Jo-Beth merely nodded, which was sufficient to set Lois bubbling in a new direction. "Next door, the Kritzlers had Visitors from Masquerade-you know, that series about the sisters?"

"The TV show?"

"Of course the TV show. And my Mel...well, you know how much he loves the old westerns .

None of this made much, if any, sense but Jo-Beth let Lois race on, for fear that asking a question out of turn might mark her as uninitiated, and she'd be denied any further confessions.

"Me? I'm the luckiest one," Lois burbled. "So, so lucky. All the people from Day by Day came over. The whole family. Alan, Virginia, Benny, Jayne. They even brought Morgan. Imagine."

"Where did they come from, Lois?"

"They just appeared in the kitchen," came the answer. "And of course they've been telling me all the gossip about the family-"

Only the store obsessed Lois as much as Day by Day, the story of America's favorite family. She would regularly sit and tell Jo-Beth every detail of the previous night's episode as though it were part of her own life. Now it seemed the delusion had taken hold of her. She was talking about the Pattersons as though they were actually guests in her house.

"They're every bit as sweet as I knew they'd be," she was saying, "though I didn't think they'd mix with the people from Masquerade. You know, with the Pattersons being so ordinary; that's what I love about them. They're so..."

"Lois. Stop this."

"What's wrong?" she said.

"You tell me."

"Nothing's wrong. Everything's wonderful. The Visitors are here and I couldn't be happier."

She smiled at a man in a pale blue jacket who waved a welcome.

"That's Todd, from The Last Laugh-" she said.

Late-night satire was no more to Jo-Beth's taste than Day by Day but the man did look vaguely familiar. As did the girl he'd been showing card-tricks to; and the man who was clearly competing with him for her affections, who might have pa.s.sed-even at this range-for the host of Momma's favorite game show, Hideaway.

"What's going on here?" Jo-Beth said. "Is it a look-alike party or something?"

Lois's smile, which had been a permanent fixture since her greeting Jo-Beth at the door, slipped a little.

"You don't believe me," she said.

"Believe you?"

"About the Pattersons."

"No. Of course not."

"But they came, Jo-Beth," she said, now, suddenly, in deadly earnest. "I suppose I'd always wanted to meet them, and they came. " She took hold of Jo-Beth's hand, her smile igniting again. "You'll see," she said. "And don't worry, you'll have somebody come to you if you want them badly enough. It's happening all over town. Not just TV people. People from billboards and magazines. Beautiful people; wonderful people. There's no need to be frightened. They belong to us." She drew a little closer. "I never really understood that, until last night. Only they need us just as much, don't they? Maybe more. So they won't do us any harm..."

She pushed open the door from which much of the laughter was coming. Jo-Beth followed Lois in. The lights that had first dazzled her in the hallway were brighter here, though there was no source apparent. It was as if the people in the room came already lit, their hair gleaming, their eyes and teeth the same. Mel was standing at the mantelpiece, portly, bald and proud, surveying a room filled with famous faces.

Just as Lois had promised, the stars had come to Palomo Grove. The Patterson family-Alan and Virginia, Benny and Jayne-even their mutt, Morgan-were holding court in the center of the room, with several other characters from the series-Mrs. Kline from next door, the bane of Virginia's life; the Haywards, who owned the corner store-also in attendance. Alan Patterson was engaged in an animated discussion with Hester D'Arcy, much abused heroine of Masquerade. Her overs.e.xed sister, who had poisoned half the family to gain control of incalculable wealth, was in the corner making eyes at a man from an ad for briefs, who'd come as he was best known: almost naked.

"Everybody!" Lois said, raising her voice above the hub-Dub. "Everybody please, I want you all to meet a friend of mine. One of my very best friends-"

The familiar faces all turned to look, like the covers of a dozen TV Guides all staring Jo-Beth's way. She wanted to get out of this insanity before it touched her, but Lois had a firm grip of her hand. Besides, this was part of the whole insanity. If she was to understand it she had to stay put.

"-this is Jo-Beth McGuire," Lois said.

Everybody smiled; even the cowboy.

"You look as though you need a drink," Mel said, when Lois had taken Jo-Beth on one complete circuit of the room.

"I don't drink liquor, Mr. Knapp."

"Doesn't mean you don't look as though you need it," came the reply. "I think we've all got to change our ways after tonight, don't you? Or maybe last night." He glanced over at Lois, whose laughter was rising in peals. "I've never seen her so happy," he said. "And that makes me happy."

"But do you know where all these people come from?" Jo-Beth said.

Mel shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Come through, will you? I need a drink if you don't. Lois has always denied herself these little pleasures. I always said: G.o.d isn't looking. And if He is, He doesn't care."

They pressed their way through the guests to the hallway. Numbers of people had gathered there to escape the crush in the lounge, among them several church members: Maeline Mallett; Al Grigsby; Ruby Sheppherd. They smiled at Jo-Beth, no sign on their faces that they found this gathering untoward. Had they perhaps brought Visitors of their own?

"Did you go down to the Mall last night?" Jo-Beth asked Mel as she watched him pour her orange juice.

"I did indeed," he said.

"And Maeline? And Lois? And the Kritzlers?"

"I think so. I forget who was there exactly, but yes, I'm sure most of them...are you sure you wouldn't like something in the juice?"

"Maybe I will," she said vaguely, her mind putting the~ pieces of this mystery together.

"Good for you," said Mel. "The Lord isn't looking, and even if He is..."

"...He doesn't care."

She took the drink.

"That's right. He doesn't care."

She sipped it; then gulped.

"What's in it?" she said.

"Vodka."

"Is the world going mad, Mr. Knapp?"

"I think it is," came the reply. "What's more, I like it that way."

Howie woke at a little after ten, not because he was sufficiently rested but because he'd rolled over in sleep and trapped his wounded hand under his body. Pain soon slapped him conscious. He sat up and studied his throbbing knuckles in the moonlight. The cuts had opened again. He dressed and went to the bathroom to wash them of blood, then went in search of a bandage. Jo-Beth's mother provided one, along with the expertise to bind his hand properly, plus the information that Jo-Beth had gone to Lois Knapp's house.

"She's late now," Momma said.

"It's not ten-thirty yet."

"Even so."

"You want me to go look for her?"

"Would you? You can take Tommy-Ray's car."

"Is it far?"

"No."

"Then I think I'll walk."

The warmth of the night and his being out in it without hounds on his heels put him in mind of his first night here in the Grove: seeing Jo-Beth in Butrick's Steak House; speaking with her; falling, in a matter of seconds, in love. The calamities that had come upon the Grove since were a direct result of that meeting. But significant as his feelings for Jo-Beth were, he couldn't quite bring himself to believe they'd brought such vast consequence. Was it possible that beyond the enmity between the Jaff and Fletcher-beyond Quiddity and the struggle for its possession-lay an even vaster plot? He'd always vexed himself with such imponderables; like trying to imagine infinity, or what it would feel like to touch the sun. The pleasure lay not in a solution, but in the stretch it took to tackle the question. The difference, in this case, lay with his place in the problem. Suns and infinities vexed far greater minds than his. But what he felt for Jo-Beth vexed only him, and if-as some buried instinct in him (Fletcher's echo, perhaps?) suggested-the fact of their meeting was a tiny but vital part of some ma.s.sive tale, then he could not leave the thinking to those greater minds. The responsibility, at least in part, devolved upon him; upon them both. How much he wished it didn't. How much he longed to have time to court Jo-Beth like any small-town suitor. To lay plans for the future without the weight of an inexplicable past pressing upon them. But that couldn't be, any more than a written thing could be unwritten, or a wished-for thing unwished.

If he'd wanted any more concrete proof of that, none could have been had but the scene that awaited him beyond the door of Lois Knapp's house.

"There's someone here to see you, Jo-Beth."

She turned and met the same expression that must have been on her face when, two hours and more before, she'd stepped into the lounge.

"Howie," she said.