Epitaph in Rust

by Tim Powers

  “Uh, okay,” he said. “Here, I’ll carry her inside for you.” He bent down and picked up Jean, one arm under her knees and the other under her shoulders. Spencer led him inside and helped him lower the body onto a vinyl-covered couch.

  Thomas followed, pushing Gladhand’s wheelchair. “Thank you, Thomas,” Gladhand said.

  “Rufus,” Spencer corrected.

  “Now wait a minute,” Gladhand protested. “Last night you—”

  Spencer winked at him and shook his head; the theatre manager shrugged. “Thank you, Rufus.”

  “I’ll get brandy,” Spencer said, and bounded up a carpeted stairway.

  The man in overalls sat down on a wooden chair and rubbed his hands together nervously. “I’m Tom Straddle,” he said. “I grow stuff.”

  “I’m Nathan Gladhand, and this,” with a wave at Thomas, “is apparently Rufus.”

  Straddle’s head bobbed twice. “I come along after the cops was gone,” he said. “They was lots of people dead on the grass, but she was on the sidewalk, and movin’. So I picked her up and she said take her to the Bell’my Theatre, so I did.”

  Spencer returned with the brandy and glasses, and Gladhand poured it. When everybody had a glass, he raised his. “For Jean,” he said evenly.

  Thomas repeated it and took a long sip.

  “You two didn’t see her there?” Gladhand asked Spencer.

  “No,” he answered awkwardly. “It was a huge crowd. She told me she was going to paint the Arden set all day today.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought, too.”

  “Them cops must have gone crazy,” Straddle put in. “Shootin’ all them people.”

  “Yes,” said Gladhand. “Well, I see you’ve finished your brandy, Mr. Straddle, so I suppose we shouldn’t keep you any longer. Thank you again for bringing her back here. Let me—sir, I insist—give you something for going out of your way to help us.”

  Straddle accepted a handful of coins and shambled out.

  “Deal with the, uh … remains, will you?” Gladhand said, waving vaguely at the couch. His voice was, with evident effort, quite calm.

  “Sure,” Spencer answered quickly. He and Thomas lifted the body and carried it through the inner doors and down the center aisle to a narrow storeroom under the stage. They returned silently to the lobby, wiped off the couch with a number of paper towels, and sat down.

  “What happened at Pershing Square, Spencer?” Gladhand asked thoughtfully.

  Spencer described in detail the events of the morning, and shared with the manager his guess that the police had intended from the beginning to fire on the crowd.

  “It certainly is inexplicable,” Gladhand observed when he’d finished. “You’d think Tabasco would keep his androids quiet now, with old Joe Pelias in whatever kind of comatose state he’s in. Ever since Hancock killed himself six years ago, Pelias has been the main champion of the androids. Why are they running amuck the first time he’s not there to defend them?”

  “They liked him?” Thomas asked.

  “Oh, I suppose so, if androids like anybody,” Gladhand said. “Sure, they liked him.”

  “Well,” said Thomas slowly, “maybe it’s revenge.”

  No one spoke for a moment, then Spencer muttered, “Jesus. There’s a thought.”

  “Rehearsal is cancelled for tonight, Spencer,” Gladhand said briskly. “Post that fact where everyone will see it, will you? And Rufus, you can tell me what became of a young man named Thomas, who, as I recall, slept here last night.”

  CHAPTER 4

  A Night at the Blind Moon

  Later that afternoon Thomas was slouched comfortably in one of the sprung easy chairs on the alley-side balcony. He was leafing through his script of As You Like It, lazily underlining the Touchstone speeches, and sipping from time to time at a glass of cold vin rosé that stood on a table within easy reach.

  After a while he became aware of a voice from the alley below, getting nearer and louder. Soon he decided it was a song that the unseen person was trying to render, and he listened for words. “Bringing in the sheep; bringing in the sheep,” the cracked old voice rasped. “We all come re-joi-cing, bringing in the sheep.”

  Now clumping labored steps sounded on the stairs to the balcony, and Thomas laid the script aside and stood up. “Who is that?” he asked.

  A crazy-eyed, ragged-bearded face, shadowed under a cardboard hat, poked up over the top step and squinted suspiciously at Thomas. “Who,” it countered, “is that?”

  “I’m, uh, Rufus Pennick. I’m an actor here. Now—”

  “Oh, that’s all right, then.” The old man grinned reassuringly and lurched his way up the remaining stairs to the balcony. “I’m Ben Corwin,” he said, holding out a stained, claw-like hand which Thomas shook briefly. Ben Corwin, Thomas thought; where have I heard that name?

  The old man slumped into the other chair. After a moment he spied the glass of wine and drained it in one gulp. “Ah, good, good, good,” he sighed. He fished a little metal box out of his pocket and flipped open its lid. “Snoose?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I said, would you like a bit of snoose?”

  Thomas peered distastefully at the iridescent brown powder in the box. “No, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” Corwin put the box down and then lifted his feet in his hands and rested them on the wobbling table. He was wearing battered sandals, and Thomas noticed, on the left one, a bit of wire where the heel-strap should have been. My old sandals! he thought. This is the beggar they gave them to. Corwin picked up the snuffbox and took a liberal pinch of the brown dust, spread it on the back of his hand, and then inhaled it vigorously, giving both nostrils a turn.

  “Ahhh,” he sighed, sagging in the chair. His head fell back and his jaw dropped open, and a noise like snoring issued from his mouth. Thomas tried to go on with his script-marking, but found that the balcony had, for the moment, been robbed of its charm. He went inside.

  He wandered downstairs to the greenroom and found Spencer knotting a plaid scarf about his throat. “Rufus!” Spencer said. “I was looking for you. Me and a couple of the guys are going over to the Blind Moon to have a few beers. Come along.” His cheeriness had about it a quality of suppressed hysteria.

  Thomas considered the invitation, then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “What’s snoose? Snuff?”

  Spencer looked at him sharply. “Why? You haven’t bought any, have you?”

  “No. There’s a gentleman on the balcony, though, whom it has rendered unconscious.”

  “Ben Corwin? Sure. He takes it all the time. The stuff was invented by androids, and they’re the most common users of it. It’s real bad business—a mixture of snuff, opium and fine-ground glass.”

  “Glass? Why glass, for God’s sake?” Thomas shuddered, remembering the gusto with which Corwin had inhaled the stuff.

  “It makes tiny cuts in the skin so the opium goes right into the bloodstream. Trouble is the glass does too. It does incredible damage to the body, they say—blindness, insanity, heart trouble, even varicose veins. Snoose fans never live long.” He shook his head. “Most people just jam it up under their lip, but old Ben snorts it. Sometime he’s going to blow his nose and find his brain in his hankie.”

  “He didn’t look like that would upset him a whole lot.”

  Spencer grinned. “Yeah, it probably wouldn’t.” He pulled a black knitted cap over his red hair. “Get your coat and come on,” he said.

  In the lobby two young men were waiting for them. “Rufus, meet a couple of fellow-thespians,” Spencer said. “This,” an amiable-looking youth with lanky blond hair, “is Jeff Kyler, and that one,” a dark, short man in burgundy-colored pants, “is Robert Negri. Jeff, Robert—Rufus Pennick.”

  Thomas said hello to them and detected, he thought, a trace of reserve in their answering nods. Oh well, he said to himself; I’m a green newcomer, an intruder thrust into the intimacies of their craft. I’d probably be a
little stand-offish too, if I was in their place.

  “Shall we walk or drive?” Jeff asked.

  “Too many maniacs running around loose lately,” Negri growled. “Let’s drive.”

  “Right,” Spencer agreed. “I’ll bring the car around front.” He ducked down a hallway.

  Thomas remembered the machine that had rocketed past him on the Hollywood Freeway the day before. “A gas-car?” he asked, following the other two out of the building.

  “The body of one,” Jeff said. “It’s a derelict we found in the hills one day. Spencer put wooden wheels on it and took the old motor out. We all painted it and cleaned it up, and now it’s the neatest little wagon you ever saw.”

  Thomas nodded, tried and failed to think of something to say, and nodded again. “You, uh, heard about the business in Pershing Square this morning?” he asked.

  “Never discuss your casualties,” Negri snapped.

  “It’s too soon to talk about her,” Jeff explained more kindly.

  “Ah,” Thomas said softly, trying not to look disconcerted. A close-mouthed crew, these actors, he thought. The clopping of a horse’s hooves on pavement broke the awkward silence, and then the car rounded the corner onto Second from Broadway and pulled up to the curb.

  “Hop in, gentlemen,” Spencer called from the driver’s seat.

  Thomas stared at the vehicle. It was a streamlined, albeit dented here and there, metal body, painted gold. A burly old horse was harnessed to the front bumper, and the reins extended from his bit to Spencer’s hands through the space where a windshield must once have been. The wheels were sturdy oaken disks rimmed with battered bands of iron.

  “Quit gawking and come on,” Spencer said. Thomas got in beside him and the other two got in back. The seats were transplanted theatre chairs, upholstered in red velvet, with cast iron flourishes for arms.

  “An impressive vehicle,” Thomas commented.

  “Hell yes,” Spencer said, snapping the reins. “If you like, I’ll let you have a try behind the wheel.”

  “Behind the wheel?”

  “The steering wheel. This ring here. That’s how cars were meant to be steered, see, by turning it. Behind the wheel means, you know, in the driver’s seat.”

  “Oh,” said Thomas. “Sure. I’d like to, sometime.”

  “Not today, huh, Spencer?” Negri pleaded. “I don’t feel so good, and I sure don’t need any extra shaking up.”

  “You never feel so good,” Spencer told him as he turned the rig north on Spring Street.

  Thomas sat back in his seat and watched the passing pageant of the late afternoon sidewalk. Here a heavy-set man was selling day-glo velvet paintings of nudes; there a young man and his girlfriend sat against a wall, passing back and forth between them a bottle in a paper bag; a dog scampered past, hotly pursued by a gang of kids waving sticks; the city, in short, was relaxing into character again in spite of the undisclosed malady that had struck its mayor.

  The golden car attracted its share of attention, and by the time they mounted the buttressed bridge over the Hollywood Freeway they had acquired an escort of young boys who ran alongside and begged for rides. When they got too numerous or insistent Spencer would punch the rubber bulb of a curled brass horn mounted on the side of the car, and the boys would scatter.

  North of the freeway Spring was called New High Street; the buildings were older here, and the passersby tended to be Mexican or Oriental. The last street inside the city wall was Alpine, and Spencer pulled the car to a curb half a block short of it. “We’ve arrived,” he told Thomas.

  A sign dangling on a chain ten feet over the sidewalk was the place’s only distinguishing feature—its heavy, paneled door and small-paned windows might believably have hidden anything from a barber shop to a used book store. The sign bore a drawing, done in Doré-like detail, of a cratered moon with a mournful mouth and nose, but no eyes; below the picture were the words The Blind Moon of Los Angeles. Spencer opened the door with a courtly bow and his companions filed inside.

  The dark interior smelled of musty wood and tobacco smoke. Negri weaved his way around occupied tables to an empty one against the wall, and the four of them sat down. Spencer had just lit a cigarette when a girl sidled up to the table.

  “Hiya, Spence,” she said. “A pitcher for ya this evening?”

  “That’ll do for a start,” he answered. She made a got-it gesture and wandered off toward the bar. “Well,” Spencer said, turning to Jeff and Negri, “how did you boys spend the day?”

  “Who is this guy, anyway?” countered Negri, jerking a thumb at Thomas.

  “Rufus Pennick,” Spencer said evenly. “He’s a friend of mine, and of Gladhand’s—and he’s doing Touchstone in the play. And I, for one, don’t care how you spent your goddamned day.”

  “No offense meant,” Jeff told Thomas with a placating smile. “It’s just that some people might call what we’ve been doing illegal, and we don’t know you.”

  “It’s all right,” Thomas assured him hastily. “I certainly don’t want to … nose in on any secrets of yours.”

  “Well, it’s nothing dirty, or anything like that,” flared Negri.

  “I didn’t think it was,” protested Thomas.

  “Jesus, Negri,” snapped Spencer, “can’t you—”

  “I just didn’t like the look on his face. Like he thought we were fruits, or something.”

  “I don’t think you’re fruits,” Thomas asserted, wondering what in heaven’s name Negri meant by the term. “I swear.”

  “Well,” growled Negri grudgingly, “okay then.”

  The beer arrived, and the tension of the moment quickly dissolved as Spencer sluiced the foaming stuff into four glasses the girl had set on the table. They soon had to signal her to bring another pitcher, and by the time the second one was empty they were all taking a more tolerant view of the world. Spencer even smoked his cigarette all the way down, which Thomas had not yet seen him do.

  A girl passed through the room after a while, lighting miniature candles that sat in wire cages on the tables. Thomas looked around curiously at the smoke-dimmed pictures, posters and photos that were hung or tacked all over the walls.

  “What are all these pictures?” he asked, waving his sloshing beer glass in an all-inclusive circle.

  “Oh,” Spencer sighed, leaning back, “posters announcing old art openings, musical revues, plays. There’s a sketch of Ashbless, over the bar, done by Havreville in this very room, sixty years ago. Right over your head is—” he jerked his hand and overturned his glass, splashing beer across the table. “I’m sorry,” he said, whipping napkins out of a metal dispenser and throwing them on the spreading puddle. “I must have had more than I thought. Only cure for that is to have more still.” He waved to the waitress and pointed to their only half-emptied pitcher.

  “Dammit, Spence,” laughed Jeff, “wait’ll we finish one before you order another.”

  That’s odd, Thomas thought. I could almost swear he spilled that beer intentionally. What had he started to say when he did it? Oh yes: right over your head is—. Whatever he was going to say, he apparently thought better of it. Thomas waited for a few minutes, and then turned as casually as he could and looked over his shoulder.

  Framed on the wall behind him was a photograph of a young couple in outlandish clothes embracing passionately. Even on his brief acquaintance, Thomas recognized them—the man was Robert Negri and the woman was Jean, whose body he and Spencer had carried into a storeroom that afternoon. The photo’s caption was, She Stoops to Conquer; Gladhand, Bellamy Theatre.

  Thomas quickly turned back to the table and, had a long sip of beer, but when he raised his eyes Negri was scowling at him.

  “That was taken last year,” the dark-haired actor said. He drained his glass and refilled it sloppily. “I was in love with her.”

  “Oh, come on, Bob,” said Jeff. “We all were.”

  The new pitcher arrived, and Spencer began loudly reciting “The F
ace on the Barroom Floor” in an attempt to change the subject. When he’d rendered all the parts he knew, Thomas let go with “Gunga Din,” punctuating the ballad by pounding his fist on the wet table-top. There was scattered applause from the other tables when he finished, but Negri still stared moodily down at his hands.

  “When we finish this one, let’s head back,” Spencer said. “This must be the fifth or sixth—”

  “No,” said Negri, looking up with an odd light in his eyes. “It’s too early to head back.”

  “Oh?” asked Spencer cautiously. “What do you think we ought to do?”

  “What Jeff and I were doing this afternoon,” Negri said. “Blowing up blimps.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” muttered Spencer.

  “We were just doing it for laughs then, from the top of the fence,” Negri went on. “We didn’t know they’d killed her. Now we’ve got a reason to do it.”

  “Somebody fill me in,” Thomas said. “ ‘Blowing up blimps’ means … ?”

  “Well,” said Spencer wearily, “androids, as you know, are plant-eaters. And sometimes they swell up with methane gas, same as sheep do. They look just like balloons—or like they’re about to give birth to a small house. The healthy cops take ‘em to the infirmary when they begin to look like that, and a doctor pokes ‘em with a long needle and lets all the gas out. Then after a couple of days they’re all right again.”

  “Right,” agreed Negri almost cheerfully. “And what we do is climb the fence and shoot flaming arrows into the swelled-up ones.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Thomas flatly.

  “No sir. You hit them right, and spark all that gas, and they just go up like bombs.”

  “And that’s what you want to do tonight?” Thomas asked.

  “Yeah.” Negri sucked at his beer, “I don’t happen to think it’s right that a girl like Jean should get killed by a bunch of androids and not be avenged. Goofus here,” he said, pointing at Thomas, “didn’t know her, so I can’t expect him to give one measly damn about her murder. And maybe you two don’t happen to remember what she was like—how she was when you were in trouble, or depressed. Maybe you think it’s best that she be forgotten as quickly as possible. She’d like that, huh? Oh sure. She was never a fighter or anything when she was alive, was she? Nothing like that.